Things They Don't Tell You About Being A First Time Wheelchair User In Highschool

what have we done?

dads!wolfstar + daughter!reader who is a player [878 words]

p1 | p2

CW: reader’s birthday is in the summer, has many admirers, fluff

Remus had to admit that he’d had an inkling. There were certain perks that came with being a well-liked professor, one such being that students didn’t often lower their voices when gossiping in the halls. 

It was, however, very different to have the evidence of his previous hunch sitting so glaringly obvious in the front parlour of their home, worst of all standing beside his semi-distraught husband who he hadn’t yet shared this inkling with. 

“What….the fuck?” Sirius whispered into his hands, staring at the various packages and letters and parcels and gift baskets - some of which still had (growingly agitated) owls attached to them waiting for their payment for a job well done. 

“Seems like her classmates remembered her birthday…” Remus offered noncommittally. “Even with it being summer holiday and all.” 

Sirius let out a disbelieving scoff at that as his hands finally fell, though they only made it to his hips where they rested as he continued scanning the pile of presents all in your name. 

“Did anyone in the sodding school happen to forget?” He asked incredulously. “Or am I really gonna find one from Mrs. Norris in here?”

“Our daughter is well-liked.” Remus said; a half truth. You were well-liked…

“Who in the sodding hell is Dennis Creevey?” Sirius spat as he glared at a card before shoving it back into its appropriate parcel. 

Remus snorted at that, nearly choking on his tea in the process. “That’s, erm, a first year, I believe.” 

Sirius spun to level Remus with a look that told his husband he had been caught. 

“Are these from admirers, Moony?!” 

Remus narrowed his eyes in thought, cautious in responding with “Define admirers?”

“Oh my Godric!” Sirius shrilled as you came down the stairs. 

“What’s all the shouting fo- oh! Wow, people really went all out this year, hm?” You commented, plucking a card from a basket and furrowing your brows at it. 

“Who in the sodding hell is Dennis Creevey?” You muttered before offering the owl a few scritches which it (thankfully) accepted as payment and vacated the parlour through an open window. 

“Are you just about ready to go, my love?” Remus asked you instead of waiting for Sirius to figure out how to ask you if you were - what he thought he heard kids these days call - a player.

“Where are you off to, birthday girl?” Lily asked as she stepped in the front door, offering you a beaming smile and pulling you into a fierce hug as she wished you a happy birthday. 

“Thanks, auntie Lil.” You replied into her hair before she finally released you. “‘Mione and I are meeting for breakfast and then we’re meeting up with the boys at the mall.” 

“I thought you were meeting up with Pansy?” Sirius blurted, causing the two witches to look at him bemusedly. 

“We’re not meeting up until later tonight; we’re getting ready for the party together.” You explained. 

“Finally got your dads to let you throw a rager, hm?” Lily laughed.

“This was dad’s idea!” You laughed in turn, and Remus thought Sirius might actually call the whole thing off in light of his recent discovery. That is, until you turned to look at him with so much love that Remus thought he could feel the ire seeping right out of his husband’s pores. “They’re the best, aren’t they?” 

You were quick to press a kiss to each of your father’s cheeks before grabbing your wand and waving goodbye, leaving your parents and your aunt with the various presents bestowed upon you. 

“Wow…Harry wasn’t kidding.” Lily murmured mostly to herself as she took a quick inventory of the room. “She really does have a lot of admirers.” 

“Merlin’s saggy fucking balls, Moony! Our daughter is a player!”

Remus hardly had a moment to wince before Lily was cackling; a full, belly aching, bending-over-at-the-waist and slapping-your-knee chortle that bounced off of the walls. It was a sound neither wizard thought they had heard from the fiery witch since their school day. 

“What, pray tell, is so funny?” Sirius muttered petulantly as he waited for Lily to collect herself. 

“I- oh godric; Merlin and Morgana both. This...this is priceless.” She managed to get out between fits of giggles. 

Remus sighed as he flicked his wand over his shoulder, charming a kettle on in preparation of offering Lily tea and sneaking in a calming draught for his soon-to-be catatonic husband. 

“I can’t believe you, ‘our daughter is a player, Moony’. Of course she is! This is Mr. Sirius flirts-with-anything-that-has-a-pulse Black and Remus Casanova-of-Gryffindor-tower Lupin’s daughter we’re talking about here!”

Lily shook her head in exasperation and showed herself to the kitchen, giggles ricocheting off the walls along her way. 

Remus hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath during the silence that followed until Sirius broke it. 

“What have we done?”

Remus tried his best to offer his husband a smile, though it felt more like a grimace. “Well…at least the party is being held here?” 

But Remus watched Sirius’ face fall when they realized that this meant they would be once again coming face-to-face, quite literally, with their daughter's popularity. 

“Oh my Godric,” Remus murmured, bringing his own hand up to his lips, “what have we done?”

DP x DC: The Dead Man at the Diner

Danny has a hard time maintaining regular jobs. At this point he’s pretty much nocturnal after years of being attacked at night, and possibly just part of his ghostly nature. He’s odd, and a basic google search brings up various news articles about him getting into fist fights with the mayor of a small town. He barely passed high school and college was out of the question, so who in their right mind would hire him?

What’s a job that would work with his odd hours, doesn’t require a college education, and a possible criminal record and a tendency to be ready to throw down is NOT an issue?

Danny is a cook at a 24hour Diner in Gotham

The man just needs to be able to flip a burger and make breakfast food and doesn’t mind a gun in the face because he’s well used to it. So what if the robber was dumb enough to pull that shit next to the fryer. If he didn’t want something to end up extra crispy he should have stayed out of Danny’s kitchen

Just think of all the folks he would meet.

Sure, the vigilantes of the city would be obvious and you can’t tell me spoiler isn’t dragging folks there to eat. Maybe they notice some weird things about the cook, like he doesn’t breath, his eyes reflect light like an animal’s, or the time he accidentally cut off a finger and it was fine the next day, or maybe the time a robber shot him and he just... didn’t react

Something is weird about that guy

And of course the person I think would love a jersey style diner breakfast at all hours: Harley Quinn

Technically she’s not supposed to bring the hyenas in, health code and all that, but everyone else is to freaked out to tell her and Danny doesn’t care. Frankly he spends his break petting them and they like him because he smells like food.

"Oh my god he’s dead- we killed a vigilante, OHMYGODOHMYGOD—" A hysterical voice screeched out, decidedly feminine and loud enough that the comn line picked it up.

"He broke in here for no reason first! We have probable cause as to why you brained him with our wok!" The second interjected, calmer than the first, but there was still a line of tension, like they were uncertain about what they were saying.

"Oh my god, oh god we’re literally so dead Batman’s literally going to murder me and you and us and—"

"We're already mostly dead, he can't kill us. Although I thought he had a no killing rule anyways, so maybe we’re safe? Ancients, that is a lot of blood. You think we should call an ambulance?" Static filtered through the comn line before stabilizing again and wow. The residents of the apartment were really just having a full conversation over an unconscious Nightwing- in earshot of a microphone recording every word- like this was a normal occurrence. Maybe it was a normal Friday night for them, Barbara couldn't exactly judge.

"I'm not calling an ambulance, they might arrest him. Hell, they're probably gonna arrest us! Danny, we're fucking unresgistered metas in Gotham, I’m a clone—"

"—Not metas and I won’t let anyone arrest you—"

"—It's the same thing to the government at the end of the day. You're right though. I think I hit him too hard, we're going to lose the deposit with the amount of blood getting everywhere. Head wounds bleed a lot right? Maybe he's not dead."

"He's not dead, we'd know if he was."

"Oh. Right. Man. That is a lot of blood, our IKEA rug is ruined. I liked that rug, you think we could ask him to buy a new one when he wakes up or is he on the normal vigilante salary of nothing?"

“Mhm. I'll go get the med kit, you handcuff him to the table so he doesn't jump us when he wakes up. Keep the mask on- I don’t want to piss off whatever buddies he’s got listening in.”

I’m going out to get a bite to drink

i'll show you good, restore your faith 🎥

(bradley bradshaw x reader)

Your relationship with Bradley is new. Really new. Like, 'haven't let him smell your morning breath yet' new. But when he gets a call telling him that his mom is dying, you find yourself driving him to San Diego in the middle of the night, preparing to meet his entire extended family during the worst period of their lives. Nick and Carole live AU.

Warnings: discussions of cancer, parental death, it's very sad but also quite sweet

This fic is for the @elixirfromthestars cinema challenge! I've taken inspiration mainly from About Time (2013) - but also Elizabethtown (2005). I think they both have such beautiful depictions of grief and love persevering, so I've tried to channel that a little! Songs that offered some inspiration: Hold My Hand by Lady Gaga, Orpheus by Sara Bareilles, Rainbow by Kacey Musgraves + 🍟 for realising they're in love!

Come by the fire // Lay down your head // My love I see you're growing tired // So set the bad day by the bed // And rest a while

You consider yourself an expert on looks. First looks, last looks, and all the ones in between. They made up a relationship. Stolen glances full of longing when the other isn’t looking, anger burning during a fight when you don’t recognise the person across from you.

Whoever said the eyes were a window into the soul had it right.

First looks were easy. Almost all of them were entirely inconsequential, not meant to be remembered. The very act of remembering the first moment you lock eyes with someone was special. A sign, that for better or worse, they were going to become an important part of your life.

Your first look with Bradley had been outside a church, when your friend Hannah had married Bob Floyd. You'd been fixing your heel, having twisted the strap as you got out of the car, and looked up to find his eyes locked on you. His lips had been parted ever so slightly, shoulders broad as he stands in a perfectly tailored suit. You'd known Bob was in the Navy - you just hadn't realised his friends would look like that.

Polite smiles and introductions are exchanged before you find yourself walking down the aisle, arm laced through his.

He was a retired pilot, you learned at the party afterwards. He'd retired and moved to Los Angeles with the intention of settling down and having kids, before his girlfriend had left him for her boss. He was an instructor now, teaching the next generation to fly.

“God, I'm so sorry, you definitely don't want to be hearing about this right now-”

“No, no don't worry, it's totally okay - my last boyfriend left me for his highschool sweetheart. So I guess neither of us are really good at this.”

You don't know why you're telling him that. It was something you were normally embarrassed about, instead opting to just shrug and go ‘it wasn't meant to be’. But something about Bradley made you think he'd understand.

"He's an idiot," Bradley replies.

"Maybe I'm a complete and utter nightmare. Maybe it was totally deserved."

"I find that hard to believe." He's leaning in, and the scent of his cologne fills your atmosphere.

You smile, resting your chin on the palm of your hand. "You don't even know me."

"I'm hoping that's going to change."

You'd danced and laughed, trading stories and swapping anecdotes as the night went on, totally oblivious to the knowing looks passed between Hannah and Bob. It was no mistake that the two of you had been paired up to walk together. Everything was working out exactly as they expected it to.

The night had ended out on the patio, his jacket draped over your shoulders and his lips on yours.

Most of the sex you'd had in your life wasn't as personal as that single kiss.

Last looks were trickier. Harder to predict and pin down. There were last looks you were grateful to get - ex-friends and boyfriends who’d long overstayed their welcome in your life. Others were more painful, and left you longing for a ‘what-if’ that was never meant to be. Some, much like firsts, went by totally unnoticed, with neither of you realising that this was the end.

It was a strange understanding, the knowledge shared between two people that they would never see the other again.

You hoped your last look with Bradley wouldn't come for decades.

It’s midnight when he gets the call. You’re curled into him, arm draped over his stomach, his nose nestled in your hair. Only in his late thirties has Bradley been able to admit that often he much prefers quiet nights in with wine and a book to bustling bars and crowds.

You're more than happy to oblige, finding yourself spending more nights than not in his arms. It felt right, and natural, even though you'd only been together for a few months. A couple of your friends were less convinced.

“You’re moving too fast-”

“You’ll be sick of him before the year’s out-”

But things were good. You didn't believe in following a set schedule just because other people thought they knew how your relationship should work. You were happy, and you assumed Bradley felt the same. He’d never given any indication otherwise, even being the one to initiate a lot of the evolution of the relationship.

You’re in that sweet spot of being near enough sleep to be totally and utterly relaxed, while also still being able to enjoy the feeling of Bradley pressed up against you.

The staying over had been a new development, within the last week, when he’d make the excellent point that if you stayed over instead of driving home, you’d be doing your part to save the planet. You'd lower your carbon emissions, his place was closer to your work, and he'd already cleared out some closet space for you. The logic was unflappable.

“Mav? What’s wrong?” His voice is raspy, and he sits up, duvet pooling at his waist. “No, you didn’t wake me, it’s okay.”

The voice on the other end of the line speaks for a couple of seconds, and Bradley’s shoulders tense. It’s bad news. The kind that often precedes last looks. Your heart sinks slightly.

“How is she now?” Bradley replies, glancing over at you.

“Yeah, I can come. No, it's okay, I'll come now - should be there in a couple of hours.” A second. “I will. See you soon.”

“What's wrong?” You sit up, hand resting on his forearm.

“My mom. The cancer's spread. She was in the hospital today, just got home. Dad didn't want to worry me… but Mav thinks I should go home. Be there. He thinks it'll be a few weeks now. If we're lucky.” His voice wavers ever so slightly, but does not break.

“Oh Bradley,” You whisper. “I'm so sorry.” You'd known his mom had cancer, but you hadn't realised how severe it was. How little time she had.

“I-I need to go to San Diego,” He says, getting to his feet unsteadily. His hands are shaking, and he’s three shades paler than usual. “I’ll leave a key for you. Stay as long as you want.”

“Baby, it’s a three hour drive. You can’t do that in this state,” You murmur softly, moving to your knees as you watch him start to throw clothes into a duffel bag. “Let me take you.”

“I can’t ask you to do that-” He begins, but you cut him off.

“You aren’t. I’m offering. Just focus on packing, I'll grab some food and get the car ready.”

You can tell he wants to protest, tell you to go back to bed, but the worry wins out, and he just nods. Wordlessly, you get dressed, and head out to the car. When Bradley emerges ten minutes later, his eyes are red-rimmed and puffy. You don’t know what to say, don’t know if there’s anything to say, so you just reach out, hand cupping his cheek gently. He lets out a shaky breath, eyes closing as he leans into your touch.

He’d known this would come eventually. He just hadn’t thought it would be so sudden. At her last check-up the doctors had said she was doing as well as could be expected. They thought she might have a couple of years left, if she continued on like the way she was going.

A couple of years was good. Bradley could make that work. Maybe settle down, give her a grandchild, and show her that he was happy. That it was okay for her to go. That he’d be alright without her.

He couldn’t do any of that in a few weeks.

The drive is made in near silence. Bradley stares out the window, wringing his hands together nervously as he occasionally offers commentary on the places you pass. The roads are desolate, and you’re turning onto Bradley’s parent’s road just before three.

You hadn’t thought this far ahead. Pulling up to your boyfriend’s childhood home in the middle of the night to see his dying mom wasn’t exactly how you imagined the first meeting going. The last thing they need right now is to meet a new girlfriend, a total stranger. Bradley potentially hasn’t even told them about you yet.

“I-I should probably get going-”

“You’re not staying?” His head snaps to yours, deep brown eyes furrowed as he frowns. “It's 3am, you can't drive back on no sleep.”

“I don’t want to impose,” You reply, twisting a ring round your finger. The last thing you want to do is make this about you. “Or add any stress, or anything. Your parents probably only want family around.”

“Honey, if my mom knew I let you drive me all the way here, and then let you turn around and head straight back in the middle of the night, she’d murder me before I even got my coat off.” Despite your nerves, despite everything, you let out a small laugh. “I’d really like you to stay. Please.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Whatever’s waiting for him inside, he’d rather face it with you.

“I didn't bring anything.”

“We can make do. I’ll buy whatever you need. Are you okay for work?”

You wave him off. “I have time off I can use. Don't worry.”

He nods, and grabs his bag from the back as you get out. He laces his fingers through yours, and takes a look up at the house that had been his home for eighteen years. There’s a light on downstairs, someone’s still awake.

Squeezing your hand, he begins the walk up the path, knocking lightly. It takes a second before it swings open, before revealing who you assume is Bradley’s dad.

They look so alike it’s almost uncanny. The man standing before you is like looking at Bradley in twenty-five years. Hair slightly thinner, a few more wrinkles, they could almost be brothers.

“Bradley,” Nick murmurs, pulling him in for a tight hug. “You should’ve waited until the morning.”

“Wanted to be with you guys,” Bradley mumbles, before pulling back slightly. “How is she?”

“Alright, all things considered. It’s spread to her lymph nodes. There’s nothing more they can do, therapy-wise. She’s sleeping now. You can go up in the morning.” He finally registers your presence behind Bradley, and straightens up. “You must be the girlfriend.” His eyes are soft, and he reaches out to pull you in for your own hug.

You tell him your name, as Bradley ushers you both inside, shutting the door behind you. “I’m so sorry about your wife, Mr Bradshaw.”

“Please, call me Nick,” He insists. He leads you both inside to the living room, where another man sits.

“Mav,” Bradley greets, as he stands. He introduces you to his godfather, and the two of you take a seat.

“How was the drive?” Maverick asks you.

“It was fine - roads were quiet.” You fight off a yawn, turning your head to look out the window.

“You’re tired,” Bradley says, voice quiet. “We can go to bed.”

You shake your head. “I’m okay,” You insist. Seeing the unconvinced expression on his face, you smile. “Promise.”

Bradley returns to his conversation with Nick and Maverick, and you try your best to stay awake, offering comments occasionally. You learn that Maverick and his wife live next door, and that Carole’s family all live nearby. Bradley has two cousins, Grace and John, who he grew up with. Grace has a toddler named Sophia, while John is getting married next year. Soon, you find your head leaning against Bradley’s shoulder, and he just feels so warm, and your eyes are so heavy-

“Your girl’s exhausted, Bradley,” Nick says softly. “Get some sleep.”

“I’m fine,” You mumble, but you know you’re not fooling anyone. It’s almost four now. You considered two a late night.

“It might be a little tight, but you can stay in your old room,” Nick says, and Bradley nods as he guides you to your feet. Maverick says his goodbyes, before heading next door.

“You’ll wake me when she’s up?”

Nick nods. “Yeah, of course. Now, go before she passes out.” You send him a tired smile, and follow Bradley down the hall.

Bradley’s childhood bedroom is exactly what you would’ve expected from him. Covered head to toe in plane posters, with sporting trophies lining every surface.

Football, baseball, basketball, track, he was apparently good at everything.

“My god, you were a try-hard,” You murmur, gesturing at the pile of medals hanging from the back of the door.

“I liked to win,” He shrugs, dropping his bag by the wardrobe. “You want a shirt to sleep in?”

You nod, and he tosses you an old Top Gun one. He pulls on a pair of sweatpants, and you both crawl into bed.

He insists the bed’s a double, but with the way you’re lying chest to chest just to stay on, you’re not convinced. It doesn’t really matter. You could be sleeping on the world’s largest bed, and would still find a way to be as close to Bradley as possible.

Don't stop // Trying to find me here amidst the chaos // Though I know it's blinding // There's a way out // Say out loud // We will not give up on love now

The next morning you meet Maverick's wife Penny, and his stepdaughter Amelia. Bradley and Nick are up in the master bedroom catching up - it had been a while since Bradley had been home.

They’re up for about an hour, while you get to know the Mitchells, before Bradley appears in the living room. “She wants to meet you.”

“Are you- are you sure?”

“Very sure. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.” As if he can sense the nerves, he holds out a hand for you to take. He knows this must be weird for you. Going from meeting no one to his entire family in the span of twenty-four hours. But he’s glad you’re here. He has a feeling he’s going to be with you for a long time, and if now is the only time that he gets to be with you and his mom, he’ll take what he can get.

If you hadn’t known Carole Bradshaw was sick, you’re not sure you would’ve guessed. Yes, she looks tired, and yes, the bags under her eyes are probably bigger than usual, but her smile is wide and her eyes bright.

“You’re even prettier than he said you were.”

You’re positive this isn’t true. You’re wearing the jeans you had on yesterday, with one of Bradley’s shirts, and you must’ve gotten a maximum of five hours sleep last night. Pretty is not the word you’d use. Heat rises to your cheeks, as Bradley guides you to the chair beside her bed.

“It’s really lovely to meet you, Mrs Bradshaw-”

“Carole! Call me Carole, please.”

“Carole,” You repeat. You’re desperate for her to like you. The idea that you could be with Bradley for the rest of your life, and the only impression his mother has of you is when you’re running on little sleep with greasy hair is not appealing. “I really like your son.”

She laughs. “I really like him too. And he likes you. Wouldn’t shut up about you the last time he called.”

You glance at Bradley, who’s begun to look very embarrassed. “That’s an exaggeration-”

“It is not! He’s very enamoured with you, sweetheart.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“So, what do you do? He got so carried away on the phone, he didn’t tell me the basics. Just how pretty you were, and how he can't believe you'd go out with him-”

"Okay, mom, that's enough," Bradley interjects, as Carole grins.

"Just letting the girl know what she's in for!"

“I work in publishing.”

“You’re a reader?”

“As much as I can.”

“You’ll need to give me some recommendations then. I’ve been getting more reading done recently than the rest of my life combined.”

“I think I can do that.”

***

That afternoon, the extended family come round. You take it all in your stride, diligently answering questions and re-filling drinks. Sophia, his cousin’s daughter, takes a particular liking to you, opting to sit on your knee while the grownups chat.

“What do you think?” Bradley asks Nick, eyes trained on you as you crouch down to chat to little Sophia, smiling widely as she shows off her teddy bear.

“I like her more than you already,” Nick quips, throwing him a grin. Seeing Bradley’s obvious relief, he claps a hand on his son’s shoulder. “She’s great. Really. Way out of your league.”

Bradley snorts. “Believe me, I know.”

“Your mom likes her too. Spent more time talking about her to Mary this afternoon than anything else.”

“Yeah?”

Nick drops his voice to a near-whisper. “I know the circumstances aren’t ideal, but you bringing her here has really made your mother so happy. All she’s ever wanted was for you to find someone - and she won’t get to meet her grandkids, but I think meeting their mother will let her go with a bit of clarity.”

Bradley almost chokes on his drink. Sure, these might have been three of the best months of his life. But it was still far too early to even consider marriage and kids. The last thing he wanted to do was scare you off. Not when things had been going so well. “It’s only been three months-”

“So? Who cares if you met her yesterday, or ten years ago? She wouldn't have driven you a hundred and fifty miles in the middle of the night if she wasn't committed to this thing. Your mother and I were engaged by six months, married by eight.”

He looks back at you. In such a short space of time, you'd become his whole life. On the occasions you had to sleep at your own place, due to early meetings or that time you were dog-sitting, he felt your absence like a gaping hole in his chest. You were the last thing he thought about every night, and his first thought in the morning. “I really like her,” He admits finally.

Nick Bradshaw just smiles. “We can tell.”

Don't you turn like Orpheus // Just stay here // Hold me in the dark and when the day appears // We'll say // We did not give up on love today

You manage a couple of hours of downtime before trying to make yourself useful again. You weren’t the world’s best cook - you certainly weren’t better than Bradley, but you could make a mean lasagna. And you figure the last thing the Bradshaws needed to be thinking about right now was food. So, you enlist Penny, and send Maverick out to get the extra ingredients you need.

“We can just order in, it’s no big deal,” Bradley insists, watching as you and Penny bustle about the kitchen.

“That’ll cost an absolute fortune. We’ve got it covered, right Penny?”

Penny nods, and ushers Bradley towards the door. “We’ll be done in an hour. Set the table for us, will you?”

Spirits are cheerful, despite the overhang of dread. Cousins are playing, Bradley’s serving drinks, Carole and Penny are gossiping, and you’ve found yourself beside Nick. He’s easy to talk to, and is like Bradley in so many ways it’s almost scary. He’s already broken into the baby pictures, showing you various embarrassing Bradley phases over the years.

His cowboy phase at three. His emo phase at eleven. His surfer dude phase at sixteen.

“Later on, I may tell you about Bradley's many failings as a man and as a table tennis player. But, firstly I'd like to say the one big thing - that I've only loved three men in my life. My dad was a frosty prick so that only leaves dear Maverick, Elvis Presley- obviously - and that man there.”

Across the room, Bradley’s giving Sophia a piggy-back, while simultaneously juggling four empty glasses that need cleaned up.

“He’s a good guy,” You agree, eyes soft as you watch him. “I’m really lucky.”

“I’m glad you two found each other. He struggles to let people in sometimes.”

You’d never experienced that with Bradley. From the very first meeting, it felt like you both just understood each other, in a way you’d never felt before. You told him things at Bob’s wedding that it would take you months to work up to with other people. Upon seeing your confusion, Nick laughs softly.

“Good to see he isn’t like that with you.”

Eventually, Carole begins to get tired, and everyone starts to filter out, leaving just Nick, Bradley, and you. You try to start cleaning up, but Nick and Bradley manage to distract you with a game of Monopoly at Carole’s bedside. She dominates, getting hotels on Park Lane and Mayfair that bankrup the rest of you, before you and Bradley give her some peace to get some sleep.

When Bradley emerges from his shower, you aren’t in his room. Frowning, he combs the upstairs. Nothing. Then he hears humming from the kitchen. Inside, you’re tackling the mountain of plates from lunch earlier, having barely made a dent.

“Honey, you don’t have to do that,” Bradley says, and you jump at the disturbance.

“You scared me,” You breathe, before turning back to the dishes. “And it’s fine - I just want to help.”

“I can do it in the morning,” He insists, moving behind you to rest his chin on your shoulder and wrap his arms around your waist. “You already made dinner. It’s too much.”

“You shouldn’t have to worry about dishes, or washing, or cooking right now. Let me take care of you.”

“At least let me help.”

You think for a second, before conceding. “Fine. You can dry.”

It takes another hour, but the by the end, you’re giggling like children as you flick suds of soap at him, before trying to duck out of his arms as he tickles you mercilessly.

Upstairs, Carole and Nick smile to themselves when they hear the “Bradley don’t!” mere seconds before another fit of laughter erupts.

"He's going to be okay," Carole murmurs, resting her head on her husband's shoulder, eyes misty.

By the time you’re ready to go to bed, Bradley’s in need of another shower, hair sticking to his forehead as his shorts drip water onto the floor.

***

“I’ll be back tonight,” You promise, leaning up to kiss his cheek. “But I really need my laptop to work from home.”

Bradley understood. He did. You were already doing far too much, arranging your work so that you could stay in San Diego with him for the time being. And yet, the idea of you being gone for even a day created a pit at the very bottom of his stomach. “Drive safe, okay? And call me when you get home. And then call me again before you leave.”

“I will.” In normal circumstances you’d laugh at his over-protectiveness, but you know he’s just worried. It’s been a hard two weeks.

Carole has had a string of bad days - bad days that are slowly beginning to outnumber the good. It won’t be too long now. Carole knows this, you know it, Nick knows it. You’re not sure Bradley’s come to terms with it yet.

You’re sitting with her that night, while the guys make dinner. You’d been covering it, but Carole had insisted they stop letting you do all the work around the house. So you’re cross-legged on a chair beside her bed, looking at some more pictures from Bradley’s childhood.

“You know, he’s never brought a girl home before,” Carole tells you, as soon as the door clicks shut behind Bradley. He’d popped up with drinks. “Not even Taylor. They were together four years, and we met her once at a wedding.”

“It’s just because I drove him here,” You reason, but Carole shakes her head.

“It’s different with you.” She goes to speak again, before breaking off in a coughing fit. You grab the glass on her bedside, passing it over. “Thanks, sweetheart. And thank you for being here.”

“It’s no problem, really. I’d do anything for him.”

“I know. And I’m glad it’s you. I was so worried about leaving him. He’s always been sensitive. I think you’ll make it a little easier on him.”

You don't know what to say, voice catching in your throat. Instead, you reach out and take her hand.

***

“Please Nick, I'm not dead yet. Penny can come. It’ll be fine.” Carole rolls her eyes, and you know Nick isn't winning this one.

It was the latest argument. Nick and Carole had decided to renew their vows at the Hard Deck, just for closest friends and family. The guys had their suits, but you, Carole and Penny didn't have a dress. Carole wanted to go shopping, Nick thought it was a bad idea. The final compromise was going to one shop, and making Carole stay off her feet as much as possible.

You knew despite Carole's insistence that she was happy with whatever, that you didn’t want to make her walk far. So you set up shop in a local store, Carole and Penny each picking their own dress first.

You try a couple on, eventually landing on a pale yellow maxi dress, patterned with flowers. Just as you’re about to get changed back into your clothes, Carole appears in the dressing room.

“If this is weird and inappropriate, please tell me,” Carole insists, as she steps towards you with a dress bag. “But uh- I never got to have a daughter. Nick and I, we tried for a while to give Bradley a sibling, but it never worked out.” She clears her throat, voice thick as she continues. “And I always hoped that I’d be able to go dress-shopping with whoever Bradley chose to marry. I know that the two of you haven’t been together long, but-but…”

She trails off, and you nod, eyes shining. “I would really love to have you as a mother-in-law,” You whisper.

You step out of the dressing room, breath bated as you look in the mirror. The dress is gorgeous, hugging your curves in all the right places, the cut making you look taller than you are. You’ve never worn a wedding dress before. You're not sure if it's bad luck to wear one without being engaged, but this feels right. It's a moment you'll never get to share with Carole, even if you do marry Bradley one day.

She’s wiping her eyes before she even sees you. “Oh honey, you look stunning,” She breathes. "You'll make a beautiful bride someday."

The tears are streaming freely now, and you hug her tightly. "I wish I'd met him earlier."

"Me too," She whispers. "But it's okay. When it happens, it'll be wonderful. Because you both love each other, and that's all that matters."

I'll show you good // Restore your faith // I'll try and somehow make a meaning of the poison in this place // Convince you love, don't breathe it in // You were written in the stars that we are swimming in

The ceremony's beautiful. If you and Bradley can have half the relationship his parents share, you'll be doing a whole lot better than most people.

Maverick officiates, and Bradley is designated ring-bearer, despite his protests.

"Why can't Amelia do it? Or Sophia? The literal child?"

"It's funnier making you do it-"

“Time for pictures!” Penny announces, grabbing her camera from the counter. “Bradshaw family up first!”

You smile as Bradley fakes a dramatic sigh, pressing a kiss to your hairline as he passes. Nick and Bradley stand on either side of Carole, arms wrapped round her waist as they lean in. You zone out slightly, snapping back to reality when you hear Carole calling your name. “Wait! That’s not everyone!”

If you weren’t already close to tears, this'll do it. “Oh, no-” You begin, but she’s already cutting you off.

“You’ll be family soon enough, sweetheart,” She calls, gesturing forwards. You glance at Bradley, nod wanting to overstep, and get to your feet when he nods. You know the rule for partners - unless it’s serious, they don’t get in the family photos.

Bradley reaches out, looping his arm round you to pull you in tightly.

Penny takes pictures of every possible configuration of people. You and Bradley, Nick and Maverick, Carole and Sophia, before getting one of the bartenders to get a group shot.

Nick captures one single photo the whole night. You and Carole in the corner of one of the booths, eyes crinkled as you laugh together. He saves it for later. Figures it could make a good wedding present down the line.

***

“Listen, if what my mom said was too much, I totally get that,” Bradley murmurs into your ear as you sway gently in time to Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire wafting from the jukebox. “She gets ahead of herself at the best of times, nevermind… nevermind now.”

Carole Bradshaw will never get to meet her grandchildren. If you and Bradley get married, she won’t be at the wedding. If, god forbid, you aren’t it for him, she’ll never know his wife. She won’t get to see him turn forty, or celebrate her fortieth wedding anniversary. It’s an awful finality that he can’t allow himself to think about too much.

“It wasn’t too much,” You reply, voice soft. “I love your family.”

“I love you.”

It slips out before he can even register what he's saying. Truthfully, he's known he loved you since you dropped everything to be with him here. But thinking and saying are very different things.

Your reply is instantaneous. “I love you too.” You don't need to think about it. Because you do. You love Bradley Bradshaw in a big and scary way.

You love how he spends his Saturdays giving free lessons to people who can't afford it, simply because he thinks everyone should have a chance to learn.

You love that when the anniversary of your grandma's death had come round last month, he'd turned up on your doorstep with flowers and chocolates before his shift, even though his work was at the opposite end of the city from your house.

You love the fact that he talks in his sleep - mostly about aircrafts and flying, a language you don't understand at all. Mumbling about F-18s and Mach numbers as his arms tighten around you.

You love that underneath the tough exterior, he’s the softest man you've ever met. That even though the idea terrifies him, you know he'll be a wonderful father one day.

You love him. You think that maybe you've loved him since the moment you saw him.

“You don't have to say it just because my mom's dying.”

“I'm not. I'd say it even if your dad was hideous and your mom hated me, and they were all massive Republicans. I love you.”

***

“They look like you guys,” Maverick muses, as you and Bradley move round the dance floor, totally engrossed in each other.

“I hope you mean that as a compliment,” Nick replies, raising an eyebrow as he takes his wife's hand.

“Of course it's a compliment,” Maverick scoffs. “You guys found your person younger than most, and still managed to make it work. Took me fifty years to get my act together.”

“Bradley’s nearly forty, he wasn’t far behind you,” Nick snorts, and Carole swats at him.

“That wasn’t his fault! He was ready to settle down, and Taylor pulled the rug out from under him.”

“It worked out for the best. He looks happier now than he ever did with Taylor.”

"You both better get absolutely hammered at their wedding for me."

"I think we can handle that," Maverick assures her, grinning. "The boys can do Great Balls of Fire in your honour."

"She'll be heading straight for a divorce if you do that," Carole laughs.

That was the last good day. It was like she'd said her goodbyes, made her peace with leaving. She knew that everyone would be okay, eventually. She's admitted to the hospital on Monday with chest pain, and dies on Thursday.

She goes holding Bradley's hand, while Nick sits on her other side. For all intents and purposes, it is a peaceful death.

It has no name // No guarantee // It's just the promise of a day // I know that some may never see // But that's enough // If the bottom drops out // I hope my love was someone else's solid ground

Nick Bradshaw stands alone at the entrance to the church, greeting every single guest by name. Even when they get well into the hundreds, he treats their grief with a delicacy you'd never expect from a new widower.

You don’t think you’d be able to harness that amount of grace if you were in his position. You stand with Bradley, hand clutched tightly in his. His eyes are fixed firmly on the coffin, only pulling them away to acknowledge the mourners who approach him.

It feels like the entire city of San Diego has come out to mourn Carole Bradshaw. The church is filled to the brim, with people spilling onto the street outside. You’re not sure you’ve ever seen such an outpouring of love for one person.

You manage to hold it together until the opening chords of Tom Petty’s I Won’t Back Down ring out. Bradley’s arm snakes round your waist, and a choked sob escapes as he buries his face in your hair.

“I know, baby, I’m sorry,” You cry, pulling him in tighter.

Nick knew his wife better than anybody in the world - she wouldn't have wanted everyone to be miserable. She wanted her funeral to be a celebration of life, not death.

So his eulogy is full of their best moments - from embarrassing to heartfelt. When she went into labour with Bradley while Nick was in the air, and Maverick had to be sent to get him down. Nick arrived at the hospital as Bradley was crowning. It had taken him a while to make it up to her for that one.

When she almost got them all arrested in Italy by driving on the wrong side of the road.

Their first wedding - when she'd been an hour late to her own reception because she overslept.

Her love for really awful karaoke. Her love for her family, friends, husband, son.

Carole Bradshaw lived a good life. And that was nothing to be sad about.

“How are you handling this so well?” Bradley asks his dad, as the three of you walk towards the car to head to the reception.

“I'm not - not really. I’m fucking furious, and so uninterested in a life without your mother. But I also know she'd punch me for even thinking that.”

For the first time in a long time, Bradley laughs. “She’d tell you to grow up and get on with it.”

“And so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m gonna mope for a couple of weeks, and then I’m getting a dog. And I’m gonna call it Goose.”

“You’re naming the dog after yourself?”

“Hey, your mother was the brains of the relationship, not me.”

***

“Can we- can we go for a drive?” Bradley asks the next day, and you nod.

“Of course.”

The drive doesn’t take long. A couple of miles up the coast, before he’s pulling into a lookout spot. It’s incredible, the view over the ocean. “My mom used to bring me here, to watch my dad fly,” Bradley murmurs, as he leads you over to the railing. He gestures out towards the island in the distance. “He was based there for a while. So was I, when I served.”

There aren’t any planes out today, but the sky is the bluest blue you’ve ever seen, not a cloud in sight. Bradley has to think that somehow, his mom is here, watching over you both.

“I think I've been asleep most of my life,” He admits.

“Me too.”

“I don't want that anymore. Being scared, of not taking any risks. I don't want to have any regrets."

"We've got time," You murmur. "We're still in our thirties. Basically teenagers. Your twenties are just a practice run, anyway. I've heard that being in your forties is where it's at."

"Yeah," He replies softly. "We've got time."

His mom's ring nearly burns a hole in his pocket.

“Not for today, not for tomorrow, but soon, okay?” She'd whispered, slipping it into his hand, smiling softly as her breathing grew laboured.

“Yeah, mom. Soon.”

a/n - thank you so much for reading!! I really love this one-shot, and I've never written Carole and Nick before. Thank you to Mel for hosting the challenge, I had a lot of fun taking inspiration from the movies!

cows

[ID: A 2-page comic and an illustration featuring Cassie Sandsmark, Tim Drake, Bart Allen, and Conner Kent from DC Comics.

Comic Page 1 Cassie, Tim, and Bart lay in a pile on the floor under a spotlight, expressions forlorn. Kon stands beside them; only his feet in fuzzy socks are visible.

Cassie: If I touched a cow… Life would be good. Tim: A cow could fix me. Bart: Oh… To bury my face in the fur of a fuzzy cow… Kon: Guys I literally live on a farm. There are so many cows. Come visit.

Comic Page 2 Zoom out: Cassie, Bart, and Tim continue to lay in a pile. Cassie raises an arm in question; Bart raises his limbs skyward in his outcry; Tim is motionless. Kon stands looking down at them.

Cassie: But alas… No cows… None to touch… None to hold… Tragedy upon my life… Bart: And for what! Tim: And for what! Kon: Guys come on.

Illustration

Cassie and Tim hug a cow with tearful expressions; Bart is on the same cow, face buried in its back. Kon looks at them fondly next to a smiling Ma Kent.

End ID.]

rapture // illumi zoldyck

tw ⇢ enemies to lovers, assassin!reader, possessive!illumi, love confessions, sexual tension, teasing, grinding, dry humping, mentions of violence and injuries, overstimulation, making out, public sex, unprotected sex, squirting, begging, dirty talk, pet names, mild breeding kink, biting, manhandling, anal sex, mentions of marriage and pregnancy

wc ⇢ 16.1k

The ritzy hotel loomed ahead, all glass and gleaming opulence. You triple checked the dossier's details as you approached, though you hardly needed to. The shady businessman's daily routines, rotation of private security, all of it was committed to memory. This was meant to be a quick, seamless job - tail the mark to his swanky penthouse suite, neutralize him while he was alone, then disappear like a whisper back into the night.

At least, that was the plan before you noticed the other set of footprints in the bathroom's plush carpeting.

You froze, senses accelerating as your fingertips grazed the slender blade tucked against your forearm. Someone else was here, possibly another hired gun with the same grisly orders. But those prints were too perfect, too controlled to be some amateur's clumsy work.

No...you knew that purposeful, predatory tread all too well.

The bathroom door's lock clicked open and you whirled, weapon drawn, as a tall figure slipped inside. Even in the dimness, those reflective dark eyes and long raven hair were achingly familiar...and dangerous.

"You..." you hissed lowly.

Illumi regarded you coolly, utterly unfazed by having a knife leveled inches from his chest. Of course he wouldn't flinch - you'd never seen this man throw an assassin so much as blink, let alone show fear.

"We seem to have been hired for the same contract," he said flatly, not a hint of inflection.

Your jaw clenched as the two of you stared each other down. Of all the elite assassins spanning the globe, you had to cross paths with Illumi Zoldyck on this job. The one killer whose skills, whose ruthless reputation, could potentially rival your own.

And the one man who, despite yourself, you could feel an electric, unsettling charge sizzling between...

Illumi's obsidian eyes remained carefully impassive as they raked over you. You couldn't tell if he sensed that same crackling tension or if he simply viewed you as another obstacle to circumvent on this assignment. Knowing Illumi's icy detachment, it was likely the latter.

"I don't share contracts," you stated firmly, keeping your blade leveled. "Especially not with you."

"How unfortunate," Illumi murmured in that maddeningly even tone. "Because I've no intention of walking away from this job. Or you."

A tremor ran through you at those last two words, quiet but weighted with Something you couldn't let yourself dwell on. You were the best at what you did, same as Illumi, and neither of you became so lethally elite by allowing distractions.

And yet...you couldn't ignore the way your breath grew shallower, how the air seemed to thicken and churn with that inscrutable energy passing between your bodies. This wasn't going to be as straightforward as you'd planned.

Desperate to regain your composure, you aimed for nonchalance - the only way to get under Illumi's perspicacious stare. Deliberately, you dragged your gaze over his lean frame in an appreciative once-over.

"My, my..." You tsked, allowing a teasing lilt to enter your tone. "No wonder you're so sought after in our line of work. That lithe form seems perfectly suited for stealth...among other intriguing applications."

You watched with no small amount of satisfaction as Illumi's jaw tightened near-imperceptibly at your suggestive words. Score one for actually getting a reaction.

"You're incorrigible," he stated flatly. "And severely lacking in professionalism on the job."

"Oh lighten up, you know how to have a little fun, don't you?" You took a deliberate step closer, watching Illumi tense ever-so-slightly as you invaded his personal space. "Unless cold...unfeeling...killer is simply your natural state?"

Your heated words seemed to spark something deep behind those unfathomable dark eyes. A fleeting glimmer of emotion - irritation, attraction, you couldn't tell. But it was there, buried under icy layers of ruthless control.

"Fun..." Illumi echoed the word like it tasted foreign on his tongue. His piercing stare remained locked on you. "I'm beginning to think your definition of that differs greatly from mine."

"Is that so?" You clicked your tongue in faux disappointment. "Well then, maybe you'll have to show me your version instead. Could be...enlightening."

The heated undercurrent between you was becoming unmistakable now, no matter how steadfastly Illumi tried to remain impassive. He was an impregnable fortress, to be sure. But you were an expert at cracking even the most stubborn defenses.

And you had a feeling once you wormed your way inside Illumi's walls, you'd find something exquisitely, savagely intriguing lying in wait.

Illumi's gaze remained inscrutable as it raked over you appraisingly. "Your attempts at seduction are transparently amateur at best. I expected more from someone of your...reputation."

You barked out a laugh at his cutting remark. "Is that a challenge I detect, Mr. Zoldyck? Because you're playing a very dangerous game, trying to provoke me like that."

"I don't do games," Illumi stated coolly. "I deal in absolutes, in realities. And the reality is that only one of us will be completing this contract tonight."

He closed the distance between you in a few measured strides, his imposing frame now looming mere inches away. From this proximity, you could make out the faintest ethereal scent of sandalwood and steel clinging to him. It was utterly intoxicating.

"So I'll ask you once more," Illumi's words were lethally soft. "Will you walk away willingly? Or am I forced to make you..."

The unspoken threat hung heavy in the charged air. You knew Illumi was utterly capable of neutralizing you here and now if he deemed it necessary. The fact that he seemed to be offering you an out, however slim, was...curious.

Unable to resist pushing further, you tilted your head in a studiously nonchalant manner. "You know...if you wanted me on my back, you could have simply asked nicely."

A heartbeat of loaded silence passed. Then another. Illumi's expression remained that maddening blank slate, not rising to your deliberately crass implication even as the tension thickened palpably.

Just when you were about to goad him again, the faintest of smirks played across those soft lips.

"There's that lack of professionalism again," he murmured. "Though I can't decide if it's merely incessant or...intriguing."

Your breath hitched slightly at the undercurrent beneath those words. Was the infamous Illumi Zoldyck, cold-blooded killer extraordinaire, actually flirting with you?

Recovering quickly, you leaned in until your lips were a hairsbreadth from his. Close enough to feel his exhales ghosting across your skin in tantalizing puffs.

"Why don't you get a little closer and find out?"

Illumi didn't so much as flinch at your brazen advance. His dark, fathomless gaze remained locked with yours as one corner of his mouth curved upwards in a maddening half-smirk. "Tempting...but I'll have to decline. At least for now."

Before you could process his words, he moved with blurring speed. One moment he was mere inches away, the next his muscular frame was pressed flush against yours, backing you up until your spine met the wall with a soft thump.

Illumi braced one hand beside your head, effectively caging you in with his body as he leaned down. Those slightly parted lips brushed a scorching path maddeningly close to your own before veering aside at the last moment. Instead, you felt the barest whisper of breath fanning along the heated skin of your neck.

"I do hope you'll make this interesting for me," he all but purred, voice dipped in something sinfully dark. "I'd hate to be...underwhelmed by your skills so early in our...partnership."

A tremor ran through you at the implication in that last word. Despite his impassive facade, there was no mistaking the molten undercurrent flickering behind Illumi's eyes now. You'd sparked something primal awake in the infamous assassin, something he clearly didn't experience often.

And a reckless part of you couldn't wait to stoke those smoldering embers into an inferno.

Regaining your composure, you arched a challenging brow. "Oh, don't you worry about me keeping things interesting," you practically purred. "In fact, I promise to take your breath away before the night is over."

Illumi regarded you with an inscrutable look for a heavy beat, as if weighing your brazen promise. Then, in one sinuous motion, he stepped back and put a calculated sliver of space between your bodies once more.

"We'll see about that," he stated evenly, though you didn't miss the faint huskiness edging his inflection now. "For the moment, I suggest we return our focus to the task at hand."

You fought not to visibly react as Illumi gestured towards the door leading to the mark's penthouse suite. As if either of you could so easily disengage from the potent tension still crackling between you like a livewire.

Nodding once, you forced yourself to slip back into professional mindset, sheathing your blade with a practiced flick of your wrist. "Lead the way then. I'll be right behind you."

The words carried a deliberate double meaning that wasn't lost on Illumi if his momentary side-eye was any indication. Still, he turned on his heel and started down the hallway without another word.

As you fell into step behind the assassin, you allowed your gaze to linger appreciatively on the powerful shoulders beneath his fitted suit, the lithely coiled muscles in his arms and back that you knew all too well could snap a man's neck with grotesque ease. There was an undeniable, unsettling allure to Illumi's lethal grace.

You couldn't quite put your finger on what had changed between the two of you in these past heated moments. The razor-edged chemistry had been lurking for months, years even, every time your jobs brought you into the other's orbit. but tonight that simmering tension had suddenly been stoked into roaring life, quickly spiraling out of control.

And despite the small, rational voice warning this was a reckless game to play with as elite a killer as Illumi Zoldyck...you couldn't shake the feeling that you were both helplessly, inexorably, caught up in the thrilling inferno.

Reaching the mark's private entrance, Illumi paused and slanted you a weighted look over one shoulder. A silent challenge glimmered in those midnight depths.

Game on then.

Lifting your chin boldly, you brushed past him and took the lead, making sure your body grazed his with deliberate suggestion as you did so. You heard his soft intake of breath behind you and hid a smile.

Let the games begin.

With Illumi trailing slightly behind, you took point and stealthily picked the lock to the penthouse entrance. Normally a task like this would require your full, focused concentration. But with your senses tantalizingly attuned to the silent predator shadowing your every move, you found your mind wandering.

What game was Illumi playing at? This wasn't his usual cold, detached modus operandi when handling contracted hits. No, there was an undeniable spark flickering behind that unreadable facade now. A banked sort of heat smoldering in those obsidian eyes whenever they raked over you with pointed intent.

You risked a glance over your shoulder. Sure enough, Illumi's piercing gaze was trained squarely on the curve of your backside as you bent over the lock mechanism. Not even attempting subtlety anymore, was he?

Unable to resist prodding that newfound fire, you made a show of slowly rising back to your full height and stretching your arms overhead with an exaggerated breath. Your shirt riding up just enough to expose a taunting strip of toned midriff.

The loaded moment stretched between you before Illumi finally spoke, voice raspier than usual. "If you're quite finished delaying..."

You turned with an innocent look. "Why, whatever do you mean? I'm simply preparing myself for the challenge ahead."

Holding his stare, you traced a deliberate fingertip down the valley between your breasts, letting it trail down your abdomen slowly before dropping your hand. "Gotta stay...limber."

Illumi's jaw tensed infinitesimally but he remained otherwise impassive as always. "Your attempts at distraction are obvious. And fruitless. I don't lose focus so easily."

"Is that so?" You arched one brow teasingly before spinning back towards the door and finall finishing your work on the lock tumblers. "We'll see about that."

The pneumatic hiss of the door unsealing echoed like a sly promise. Slipping inside the darkened penthouse, you felt the frisson of Illumi's tall frame entering behind you with predatory grace.

The game was most definitely afoot now. You couldn't wait to see who would be declared the winner once all the players' simmering desires were finally, deliciously sated.

The penthouse suite was cloaked in inky shadows, though both you and Illumi could navigate the darkness with preternatural ease. Silently, you swept through the grandiose living area, senses attuned to any potential security triggers or signs of the mark's whereabouts.

A slight shift of air current against your back alerted you to Illumi's stealthy approach from behind. You tensed instinctively as his presence materialized at your side, so close you could feel the subtle body heat rolling off him in waves.

"He's not here," Illumi murmured, low enough that his warm breath fanned along the sensitive skin of your neck. "The bedroom."

You refused to allow his intentional proximity to rattle you, squaring your shoulders. "After you then."

Illumi's lips quirked in a near-imperceptible smirk before he brushed past you purposefully. You had to resist the urge to shiver as the movement brought your bodies into fleeting alignment, front to back. Just for a moment, you could have sworn you felt the barest graze of his fingertips trailing along your hip.

Get a grip, you chided yourself. He's just trying to throw you off your game again.

Although...if that was indeed Illumi's aim, you had to grudgingly admit it was working. Being this close to the enigmatic assassin's raw, coiled power set your nerves pleasantly buzzing with a strange sort of static charge. Like you were a live wire just waiting to surge into blinding arc of current given the right spark.

Shaking off the tingling distraction, you followed Illumi down the hall towards the bedroom. You both moved with the same unhurried yet purposeful hunter's stride, bodies gliding in a strange tandem sync. Like two cosmic bodies pulled into an ever-tightening orbit, unable to resist the other's inescapable pull.

The smoldering tension thrummed steadily between you with each measured footfall. More heated and palpable by the second as your blood sang in rising anticipation.

Whatever happened once you reached your destination tonight, one thing was becoming undeniably clear - neither of your lives would be the same after.

To your surprise, the bedroom door was left slightly ajar and a thin slice of amber lamplight spilled out from within. Illumi slowed imperceptibly before easing up beside it, flattening himself to the wall as he angled his body to peer cautiously through the opening.

When his gaze cut sharply back in your direction a beat later, the fire glimmering there caused a shiver of awareness to lick straight down your spine.

Beckoning you over with one subtle hand gesture, Illumi then tilted his chin towards the bedroom in a silent directive for you to take a look as well.

You swallowed hard before moving to slip in behind his formidable frame. Despite yourself, your pulse kicked up several notches as you leaned past Illumi, basking in his masculine scent - a dizzying combination of adrenaline and some smoky spice that ignited liquid heat low in your belly...

Forcing your mind to focus, you peered through the gap and felt your breath catch in your throat at the scene within.

The mark was indeed present. And he most definitely was not alone.

The bedroom was awash in flickering amber light from the fireplace, casting the two figures tangled amidst the rumpled sheets in a sultry warm glow. The businessman you'd both been hired to eliminate was very much alive and obliviously preoccupied...thoroughly engaged in intimate activities with a scantily clad woman.

You felt Illumi shift minutely behind you as he too registered the unexpectedly compromising scene. The heat of his firm chest pressed fractionally closer along the line of your back until you could almost feel the measured cadence of his breaths ghosting the nape of your neck. The intimate proximity made your pulse spike deliciously.

"Well..." you murmured, keeping your voice a hushed whisper meant only for Illumi's ears. "This certainly complicates matters."

"Does it?" came his silken response, his mouth now so tantalizingly close that his lips very nearly grazed the sensitive shell of your ear with each syllable. "I was under the impression you...preferred things deliciously complicated, my dear."

A shiver traced your spine at the velvety endearment, at the way his inflection caressed those last two words. You risked a glance over your shoulder to find Illumi's gaze locked on you with banked intensity, those dark obsidian depths flickering like the flames in the other room.

Unable to resist a little prodding, you arched one brow at him teasingly. "Why Illumi...are you suggesting we take notes on their...technique?"

A loaded pause. Then finally, the barest ghost of a smirk curved those soft lips as Illumi leaned in fractionally closer until the two of you were sharing the same heated breath between parted mouths.

"Only if you think you can keep up," he murmured, rich voice dipping into a low, gravelly register that flooded your veins with liquid fire. "After all, I'd hate to...overwhelm you before we've even really gotten started."

Despite the bravado, his dark gaze remained trained intently on your face, watching, searching for any flicker of reaction to his boldly suggestive words. Seeking out that first fissure where he could apply calculated pressure and finally shatter your meticulously maintained control.

Well...two could most definitely play at that game.

With slow, exaggerated intent, you brushed back the silken lock of hair that had slipped over Illumi's forehead until your fingertips were cradling the strong angle of his jaw. Feeling his muscles twitch ever so slightly beneath your touch as his gaze morphed into smoky embers.

"I thought you'd never ask," you practically purred, allowing your lips to graze the barest whisper along the stubbled hinge of that chiseled jaw as you spoke. Close enough to taste the heated tang of his skin on your tongue. "Lead the way then, Mr. Zoldyck. And do try to keep up with me."

For one electric moment caught in crystal suspension, Illumi looked very much like he was considering simply slamming you back against the nearest surface and finally slaking the ravenous want blazing between you.

Then, like the steady click of a reloaded round sliding into chamber, his impenetrable mask of control descended once more. Not quite banked...but stoked into a raging, unholy inferno blazing behind those unfathomable dark eyes.

"Perhaps another time," he rasped in a tone that could have scored steel. "We have a job to complete."

With immense force of will, you managed to tear your eyes away from the molten promise simmering in Illumi's gaze. Turning your attention back towards the bedroom, you attempted to refocus on the mission at hand despite the thundering of your pulse.

The mark was still entangled with his female companion, utterly oblivious to the two elite assassins lurking just outside. Their breathless cries and the rhythmic creaking of the bedframe provided a perversely intimate soundtrack that only stoked the banked embers flickering between you and Illumi.

You were vividly aware of the assassin's powerful frame pressed along the line of your backside as you both watched the couple's wanton movements through the cracked doorway. So close, in fact, that you could feel the scorching path of his eyes boring into your body as he drank in every minute reaction.

Despite the fire simmering low in your belly, you couldn't resist one last heated provocation.

Keeping your voice a hushed whisper, you murmured just loudly enough for Illumi's ears alone, "You know...they don't seem to be lacking inspiration at the moment."

You felt the subtle hitch of his breath against your nape at the words, savoring your small victory with no small amount of satisfaction. The upper hand was yours again...for now at least.

"However," you continued, deliberately allowing your hips to cant back fractionally until they brushed against Illumi in suggestion. "If you feel you need more...hands-on education before we proceed, I'm certainly amenable to providing it."

This time there was no mistaking the rasping exhale that spilled from between Illumi's lips, hot and harsh against your sensitized skin. You fought not to shiver at the banked lust given voice in those airless syllables.

"Keep pushing me," he all but growled, the low timbre seeming to vibrate straight through your bones. "And you may get more of an...education than you bargained for, little assassin."

The heated endearment twisted like a brand straight to your core. Your back arched instinctively, pressing your body flush against Illumi's powerful frame before you regained control. But it was too late - the damage had already been wrought.

Illumi dipped his head until his mouth hovered a hairsbreadth from the juncture of your neck and shoulder, his warm breaths fanning torrid patterns of promise along your heated skin. When he spoke again, the words seemed to sear you to your very marrow.

"The real question is...are you finally ready to stop playing games and give in to this?" One calloused finger traced a scorching path down your bodice until it reached the lush swell of your breasts. " Because I promise you, once that line is crossed, there'll be no going back."

In that breathless moment of shared hunger, the rest of the world seemed to fall away until there was nothing else but the two of you. Adversaries, allies, would-be lovers hovering on the exquisite precipice of the inevitable. A yawning chasm of uncharted rapture beckoned just beyond that razor's thin line.

All it would take was one of you finally gathering the courage to let go and leap into the howling abyss. To see where these shuddering tremors of desire ultimately led when allowed to detonate their full, cataclysmic force.

Who would be the one to finally summon the will to take that first step over the edge?

The heated tension thrummed like a livewire between your bodies as you stared one another down through the cracked bedroom door. Illumi's piercing gaze seemed to burn straight through you, sparking liquid fire in your veins and stoking the deepening ache low in your belly.

This had gone far enough. If you didn't act soon, there was no telling how much further this delirious game of provocations could escalate before one of you inevitably combusted.

Squaring your shoulders, you forced your expression into one of taunting nonchalance despite your rabbiting pulse. "Well? Are we going to keep wasting time out here gawking? Or are you finally ready to make your move, assassin?"

A muscle ticked in Illumi's taut jaw as his stare remained unwaveringly intense. You could have sworn his pupils blew wider at your heated challenge. Then, so fast you barely registered the movement, he was on you.

One moment he was a hairsbreadth away, the next your back collided with the wall in a harsh thump. Illumi's powerful frame caged you in as he braced one forearm beside your head, effectively pinning you in place with the hard lines of his body.

"My move?" His voice was little more than a low, gravel-laced rasp against the heated hollow below your ear. "I'm waiting for you to stop playing coy and take what you really want..."

The taunt hung heavy between you, igniting sparks of liquid fire wherever Illumi's body brushed against yours with his slowly decreasing restraint. You could feel the restrained power thrumming through those coiled muscles, the barely leashed predator straining against the final tatters of its restraint.

This was it then. The tipping point where one of you would finally have to take that first, irrevocable plunge and allow the tenuous threads binding you to unravel.

Part of you thrilled at the inevitability of it, at the forbidden knowledge of how utterly incandescent that long-banked inferno would blaze once stoked into full, blinding life. While another part still whispered urgent warnings about the reckless road you were careening towards.

With Illumi pinning you in place and those dark eyes burning molten promise, it would be all too easy to let your resistance finally shatter. To reach out with both hands and pull that lithe, powerful frame against yours while giving in to the howling demands of your body.

To simply let go and allowed yourself to be consumed by the all-encompassing maelstrom.

But you were no helpless victim to your urges - you were a master of discipline, just like Illumi. Which meant you still had one final game to play.

Summoning every last vestrige of your rapidly deteriorating control, you slid your palms up the lacquered plane of Illumi's chest until they came to rest at the juncture of his throat. Letting your fingers brush torrid patterns along the thundering pulse you found there as you tilted your chin up in blatant defiance.

"What I want..." you breathed, allowing your lips to graze Illumi's with slow, searing intent. "Is for you to move out of my way so I can finish this job and collect my payment. All this delicious tension between us is doing nothing except distracting us both."

The barest fractional widening of Illumi's eyes indicated you'd scored a direct hit. Sensing your window of opportunity, you dropped one hand and allowed your fingertips to trace a scorching path down the taut ridges of his abdomen.

"Unless..." You punctuated the hushed whisper by pressing your palm firmly against the rapidly hardening bulge straining against Illumi's tailored slacks. "You'd like me to take care of this distraction for you first?"

For an electric seconds-lasted-eternity heartbeat, Illumi seemed to simply stop breathing altogether. His entire frame went terribly, utterly still apart from the subtle tic working his clenched jaw.

Then finally, after what felt like a small eternity had elapsed between you, he exhaled a single rough syllable. "...Vixen."

The word seemed to reverberate through you both with the distant promise of repercussions.

Your palm pressed firmly against the bulge in Illumi's slacks, allowing your fingers to brush tantalizingly as you murmured your heated challenge. For a suspended heartbeat, muscle ticked in the assassin's chiseled jaw as his obsidian gaze burned into you with molten intensity.

Then, so fast your lashes barely had time to part, Illumi's head dipped and his mouth crashed against yours in a searing, possessive kiss.

You gasped at the white-hot contact, allowing Illumi to deepen the liplock as one calloused hand fisted in your hair to angle your head. His other palm splayed scorchingly against the small of your back, pulling your bodies into rapturous alignment from chest to hip.

The world seemed to burn away until there was nothing but the exquisite friction of his firm planes melding with your softer curves. The dual infernos of your desire stoked higher and hotter with each harsh pants of shared breath and duel of roving tongues.

This was the precipice you'd been hovering over since first laying eyes on the enigmatic Illumi Zoldyck. The point of no return where control finally shredded and allowed your most vibrant urges to detonate into blinding supernova.

Except...you weren't quite ready to plunge over that edge into the abyss. Not yet.

Reaching deep for your last tattered remnants of focus, you allowed one hand to slink down Illumi's powerful backside. Your fingers brushed over the unmistakable shape of his concealed blade, causing the muscles there to twitch in anticipation.

Then, before he could process your gambit, you seized the hilt and wrenched the curved karambit free in one deft motion. Reversing your grip, you shoved hard against Illumi's chest and broke the heated clash of your bodies before whipping the blade up in alusty arc towards the bedroom.

His dark eyes blown wide in a mixture of disbelief and fiery approval as the weapon left a blurring contrail...straight towards the obliviously intertwined figures within.

There was a meaty thunk of impact followed by a truncated scream. But your focus had already shifted to the wide-eyed gape frozen on Illumi's patrician features, savoring every last micro-expression of his disarmed shock.

"Looks like I'll be the one collecting payment tonight after all," you murmured softly before turning on your heel and disappearing into the night.

After all, a girl had to keep her skills...polished for whatever came next.

In the weeks and months following your boldly audacious move against Illumi that night, your paths continued criss-crossing at an uncanny rate. Whether by design or some cruel twist of fate, it seemed the two of you were forever being hired to eliminate the same high-profile targets across the shadowy criminal underworld.

At first, your motivations for one-upping the other revolved solely around claiming the biggest payouts and cinching another notch on your respective body counts. The lucrative assassination contracts became an intense competition - a lethal game of one-upmanship between two masters vying for the same coveted prizes.

Your encounters started taking on an increasingly heated edge as the rivalry escalated. Cat-and-mouse games of sabotage, calculated attempts to undermine each other's efforts or eliminate the other from the playing field entirely. All bets were off when it came to claiming victory over your newfound nemesis.

And yet...you couldn't ignore the persistent, erotic tension that continued simmering like a banked fire no matter how viciously you clashed. The memory of Illumi's powerful frame pinning yours, the lingering phantom burn of his mouth branding your skin indelibly, remained burned into your psyche. Stoking the very embers that should have cooled after that first encounter.

Because despite the underhanded tactics, despite the barbed taunts and bristling antagonism, there was no mistaking the fire that flickered to lurid life in Illumi's lethal gaze whenever you were in proximity. You recognized the look, the molten promise that stormed behind those darkly impenetrable eyes.

This was more than just an intense competition between two elite assassins constantly trying to outmaneuver the other. No, this was a gauntlet thrown - a searing challenge issued between two all-too-willing players itching to dive back into the deliciously torrid inferno ignited that first explosive night.

A breathtaking game of carnal provocation and simmering want layered atop the dangerous, high-stakes duels to see who could claim the biggest prize. Who would ultimately emerge the victor didn't matter nearly as much as getting to sate the scorching need both of you were becoming hopelessly addicted to.

So the chase continued with escalating fervor, leading to increasingly bold displays of sabotage. Like the gala you infiltrated to take out a marks, only to have Illumi materialize like a specter in your periphery. One minute you were setting the kill stage, the next he was looming over you from behind, long fingers snaring your wrist to stay the killing blow as his lips brushed the brimming pulse at your throat.

"Going somewhere...little assassin?" came the dark purr laced with equal parts promise and provocation.

And just like that, the game was afoot once more. The renewed sparks of your heated rivalry fanned into a roaring blaze as you twisted in his steely grasp and lashed out in a vicious return strike. Driving Illumi back in a flurry of grappling limbs and hastily drawn blades as the sounds of the opulent party raged on in mocking ignorance just beyond the curtained alcove.

"I could ask you the same thing," you managed to grit out as the two of you traded blows. Each parry and riposte igniting fresh embers until it was impossible to tell whether your rapidly spiking pulses stemmed from the violence of battle...or something infinitely more primal drawing you both in like cosmic bodies caught in the other's irresistible orbit.

It was only a matter of time before one of your cataclysmic collisions saw that banked fire finally detonating into a conflagration that would consume you both utterly.

The real question was - would either of you have the strength of will to walk away from those searing ashes once the smoke finally cleared?

The intense game of one-upmanship and provocation continued escalating between you and Illumi over the next string of overlapping contracts. Cat-and-mouse games of sabotage and thwarting each other's efforts descended into something far more perilous - a high-stakes, high-adrenaline gauntlet fueled by simmering desire.

You couldn't deny the molten promise that flared white-hot in Illumi's obsidian stare every time your bodies moved through that dangerous danse macabre. The controlled violence of your clashing forms seeming to exist on some higher, erotically-charged plane with rules all its own.

One job saw the two of you grappling viciously in the shadows of an opulent wine cellar, blades whirring in feinting arcs. Heated breaths mingled as you strained against Illumi's powerful frame for dominance, chests heaving in exquisite exertion.

"Getting sloppy, little assassin?" he rasped against the sweat-slicked curve of your neck as one calloused palm pinned your wrist with bruising force. "How terribly...undisciplined."

You snarled wordlessly and managed to wrench partially free, whipping your knee up towards his abdomen. Illumi twisted fluidly at the last second, avoiding the blow but leaving himself fractionally overextended in your personal space.

Seizing your fleeting window, you hooked one leg around his thigh and heaved with all your strength. The world spun in a blur as you reversed positions, slamming Illumi's shoulder blades against the cellar's stone floor with enough force to stun even his preternatural reflexes momentarily.

"You were saying?" you couldn't resist taunting as you used your weight to pin his hips immobile beneath yours. Your palms bracketing Illumi's chiseled features and your faces now only scant inches apart.

His gaze flickered with something utterly incendiary at your bold move. One corner of those soft lips quirked in the barest ghost of a smirk before he arched his lower body with dizzying strength.

The powerful undulation sent shockwaves of forbidden friction lancing through you both. Your breath left in a harsh gasp at the illicit heat now searing your limbs and core from such fleeting contact. Illumi's eyes glittered twin points of unholy promise at breaking through your control.

"My, my...such forthrightness," he practically purred, somehow managing to infuse those innocuous words with carnal sin. "Although if my memory serves, weren't you the one always pressing me to stop toying around and give in fully to our...indulgences?"

Your entire body went taut as tressed steel cords at the blatant callback to that first explosive encounter. The memory of Illumi's searing lips and merciless hands branding your pliant flesh with rapturous possession seared through your mind like a lightning strike. Igniting phantom brushfires in all the secret places his touch had roamed so devastatingly.

You opened your mouth, desperate to hurl back a cutting retort and snuff those banked embers before they could conflagrate completely out of control. But then Illumi shifted minutely, rolling his hips in one subtle, sinuous motion that dragged the jacquard ridge of his slacks against your molten core in the most obscene caress.

The throaty whimper that spilled from your lips would have embarrassed you if not for the exultant gleam that lit Illumi's gaze at the sound. You'd pressed too far and now, finally, the beast was roused to wakefulness. Ready to pursue its ravenous hunger to the only conclusion possible when denied for too ling.

"Well?" His voice had roughened to gravel, dark and dangerous with Alpha promise. "What's it to be, little assassin? Fight..." He punctuated the heated murmur by undulating his hips again in devastatingly perfect alignment. "Or flight?"

Despite the heated altercation in the wine cellar, where you and Illumi had teetered on the very precipice of allowing your combative passions to detonate into something cataclysmic, neither of you actually crossed that line. Not yet.

There were still too many unspoken boundaries, too much history and distrust bred into your very bones as elite assassins to simply let go so recklessly. You were both masters of restraint and discipline, after all. No matter how scorching the embers flickered between you, some part of your formidable natures wouldn't allow that inferno to fully immolate.

Not without a fight, at least.

So the game continued with renewed, blistering fervor. A gauntlet of sabotage, undermining, and all-out attempts to eliminate one another from the face of the earth whenever your latest target's trails intertwined. And yet, underneath the professional violence and searing glares...the undercurrent of bone-deep, electrifying want only intensified.

You became hyper-attuned to even Illumi's slightest movements, the way his lithe form uncoiled with leonine grace whenever you crossed paths. The anticipation built with every measured look exchanged, every blistering brush of heated bodies through the chaos of battle.

It was as if you were both engaging in some intricate occult ritual - dancing ever closer to the brink of total immolation through escalating circles of seduction and provocation. Stoking those banked embers hotter and brighter until they threatened to detonate into a conflagration that would raze your very souls.

The next job saw the two of you prowling the dimly-lit lesser echelons of Yorknew's underground aurodium exchange. Bitter professional rivals once more in pursuit of taking out a wealthy nerodist and claiming their bounty. And yet, the moment you registered Illumi's presence slinking through the rafters high above, a delicious frisson lanced straight to your very core.

With the ease of long practice, you slipped into the calculated motions of your craft. Felling guards with surgical efficiency while angling your assault towards the prime vantage that would allow you to spotting and eliminating the mark.

Only this time, as you moved into final position with your weapon prepped and sights aligned...you tracked the steady grip of Illumi's drawn blade from your periphery. Following the clean lines of those flexing forearms and upwards to find the other assassin's flinty gaze locked on you from across the cavernous space.

A lightning-struck heartbeat of bristling eye contact passed between you and you knew, with absolute certainty, that he'd marked you as his real target for the evening. Not your intended victim, but something far more primal and insatiable.

The tiniest fractional tilt of those sculpted lips curved into the ghost of his maddening half-smirk. An unspoken challenge blazed in the turbulent depths watching you with utterly unbroken intensity. A molten invitation to tear the world asunder and finally give in to the searing waltz you'd been breathlessly pursuing for months...years...

With him, there would be no holding back this time. No final shreds of control leashing the wildfire about to detonate if you surrendered to the ultimate provocation. This was the gauntlet centuries in the making - the ultimate collision between two unstoppable forces of nature who refused to be denied their cataclysmic release.

All it would take was a single shot, a hairsbreadth turn of your wrist adjusting your aim towards...

The weighted look you shared with Illumi across the cavernous underground exchange stretched into an infinitely charged moment. For a suspended heartbeat, the world seemed to go utterly still apart from the twin points of banked fire flickering in the other assassin's gaze.

A unspoken ultimatum simmered between you, laced with the dark promise that whatever this delirious game between you had been escalating towards all along...the tipping point was finally, inexorably here.

One subtle twitch of your gun's muzzle was all it would take to reject the insistent pull towards complete ruination. To turn your sights back towards the original mark, reignite the familiar dance of brinksmanship between professional adversaries, and walk away from the inferno altogether.

Or...

You could finally indulge the scorching, increasingly inescapable urge that seemed to howl through your every atom whenever Illumi's electrifying presence manifested nearby. Embrace the irresistible gravity drawing your bodies into nearer and nearer orbits with each smoldering exchange until the inevitable cosmic collision.

There would be no returning from that eternal plunge into rapturous oblivion should you choose to allow these tensions to finally detonate. No scrap of restraint or control remaining once you surrendered utterly to this deliciously untenable heat steadily reducing you both to cinders.

Illumi seemed to read the warring impulses battering you in that loaded moment. His chin dipped near-infinitesimally in a minute nod of understanding...and challenge. The next calculated inhalation saw his broad chest expanding subtly, rolling those taut pectoral ridges forward in a deliberate display of the coiled power thrumming beneath his tailored clothing.

It was a patently blatant gesture of provocation, one final taunt issued by a supremely Alpha predator impatient to rouse their prey into taking flight or standing their heated ground.

Your fingers tightened fractionally on your weapon's grip as that undeniable spark of adrenaline - of primal, churning want - ignited low in your abdomen. With each subsequent measured breath you were acutely aware of Illumi's piercing stare watching your every microreaction, hungrily searching for the instant your carefully cultivated control finally reached its terminal breaking point.

When the simmering lava flow of need you had both been so desperately attempting to dam finally found its inevitable lahar vent.

The molten promise flickered in your blood like a wildfire about to conflagrate into raging inferno. But you refused to be goaded quite so easily this time. Not when so much...so much uncharted potential for absolute rapture hung trembling in the balance.

No, if Illumi was finally ready to truly start this ancient dance anew, you were going to make the insufferable bastard work for his catharsis. Every... torturously...delicious...inch of the way.

Drawing your lips into a small, taunting smirk of your own, you allowed your gun's aim to drift lazily away from the foolish target cowering across the hall. Let the momentary confusion play out in Illumi's eyes even as the twin flames of anticipation and heated approval kindled brighter in those endlessly deep pools.

Then, with exaggerated indolence, you blew out a soft breath and adjusted your stance into an exquisite stretch that saw every lush curve of your body pulling taut against your form-fitting garments. Your tongue peeked out to lave a slow, deliberate pass across your lower lip as you drank in the thunderstruck look now suffusing Illumi's chiseled features.

If this was to be the opening overture to your ultimate freefall from the heavens...you were going to make certain every soul-searing note rang clearly.

The air itself seemed to thicken and churn with a palpable static charge as you boldly held Illumi's molten stare from across the sprawling exchange floor. This was it - the pivotal moment when one of you would finally have to be the first to recklessly leap over the yawning abyss separating professionalism from total rapturous ruination.

You could practically taste the scorching inevitability gathering like stormheads as Illumi's eyes raked over every subtle undulation of your provocative stretch. Hungrily drinking in the blatant offering presented by your arched spine and the tantalizing swell of your figure pulled taut against restrictive fabrics.

Deciding to further stoke those banked embers into an inferno, you allowed your free hand to slowly, exaggeratedly trail up the contours of your body. Fingertips tracing patterns of liquid fire from the dip of your navel, over the generous curves of your breasts, until finally coming to rest with pointed emphasis at the hollow of your throat.

You heard - or perhaps imagined, given the heated maelstrom battering your senses - Illumi's sharp inhalation from across the space separating your bodies. Like a wolf sent into hyperfocus by the first tantalizing notes of a howl carried through the underbrush.

Throwing your head back with deliberate indolence, you exposed the long pale column of your neck in unspoken invitation. A primal offering encoded into the most ancient submissive posturing...and a blatant challenge to the virile apex predator watching your every move with undisguised, ravenous intent.

Illumi's blade still hung at his side, utterly disregarded and forgotten in the wake of your escalating provocations. His stare had turned utterly unblinking, shoulders rising and falling in an irregular cadence as he seemed to commit every detail of your taunting display to smoldering memory.

This was quickly becoming untenable for you both. You could feel that final fraying thread of restraint thinning to a mere filament despite all your training, all your carefully cultivated icy control. Soon...so very soon one of you was bound to be the first to snap and finally give in to the howling needs baying for release.

A part of you thrilled with dark, lurid delight at the thought of utter surrender. To give in fully to this feverish, churning rapture and be unmade then remade anew in the searing, primal crucible promised by becoming intimately entwined with Illumi Zoldyck at long last.

But another part, that iron kernel of stubbornness and pride hardwired into your every atom, refused to simply give quarter so easily after coming this far. Let the pretentious assassin be the first to lose his way...to expose the chinks in his oh-so-indomitable armor of control.

A game of chicken, then. Pushing your taunts and provocations until that final spool of resistance began to splinter and fray completely. Daring the other to finally reach out and wrench apart the remaining tatters keeping your mutual inferno tightly banked.

You quirked one shapely brow in heated challenge as your palm continued its torturously languid trail up your sternum. Rolling your shoulders back to accentuate the profound swell of your breasts rising and falling with each increasingly ragged breath. Taking your time to adjust your stance and position just enough to ensure Illumi's darkly turbulent gaze drifted helplessly to the riot of movement.

Then, punctuating the silence that had gone utterly static in the air between you, your fingertips grazed maddeningly light patterns over the achingly sensitized skin above the neckline of your top.

"So, handsome...." you all but purred, giving voice to the sinful endearment that seemed to resonate like a thunderclap in the tiny cosmos contained within this electrified moment. "Ready to ante up? Or should I stop...wasting your time?"

The loaded silence that fell between you and Illumi seemed to stretch into a small eternity as the unspoken challenge hung white-hot in the thickened air. You could practically see the twin firestorms raging behind those depthless obsidian pools as he drank in your taunting words and provocative display.

For one faltering heartbeat, his harsh features appeared to fracture ever-so-slightly - that impenetrable façade of control cracking under the impossible strain you were ruthlessly exerting. Calloused fingers visibly flexed against the hilt of his forgotten blade as if contemplating simply hurling the weapon aside entirely.

Then, just as you began to savor the first fissures in his meticulously cultivated restraint...Illumi inhaled one measured breath through flared nostrils. Committing what seemed like every atom of his formidable willpower into steadying that hairline fracture from shattering wide open.

When his gaze finally returned to yours, it burned with searing intensity - but also something altogether more potent and inexorable. A primordial acknowledgment of the seismic shift that had just occurred in this delirious match of provocation between you.

Lines had been indelibly drawn, boundaries obliterated in the wake of your combined rising tide of lust and dogged oneupmanship. There could be no more feints or strategic maneuvers, no further illusion of maintaining a last veneered pretense of professionalism.

This had irrevocably, irretrievably become the main Event - capital E - you had both been hurtling towards across uncounted nights of fleeting, charged intersections. A terminal collision rapidly approaching that would see one of your formidable natures bent past its tensile limit and finally shattered by the sheer cataclysmic force involved.

The only remaining variables were who would provide that final devastating overture...and what unholy havoc would be wrought in its smoldering, cinder-strewn aftermath.

Illumi shifted almost imperceptibly, squaring his shoulders as if bracing himself to withstand the oncoming onslaught. You watched the subtle flexing of his throat as he swallowed once, seeming to steel his resolve before replying in that maddeningly mild timbre that somehow made every syllable resonate like stroking hands over bared nerves.

"Why don't you come over here..." he murmured with quiet, lethally-coiled intensity, "...And find out for yourself whether either of us will be wasting each other's time tonight?"

The blatant heat laden into those softly issued words triggered an involuntary shiver from the base of your spine to the nape of your neck. For a single suspended breath, the very world itself seemed to teeter upon the precipice, awaiting your ultimate response.

Would you finally gather every last scrap of your mettle and call Illumi's brazenly provocative dare? Yielding fully to the siren call awaiting in that precipitous, looming abyss that had steadily been unraveling your tightly-bound controls for months now?

Or would some fragment of your rationale, of your assassin's creed to never allow distractions or entanglements, manage to sheath itself in composure one final time? Withdrawing from this rapidly deteriorating conflict before you both rent the very fabric of existence to burning threads?

The heady choice was suddenly, perilously, yours alone to make...

A dozen different impulses battled for control as you weighed Illumi's bold, heated challenge. Part of you thrilled at the dark, smoldering promise carried in those murmured words - an unspoken vow that should you dare meet his provocation, he would finally unleash the full, merciless force of his long-restrained desire upon you.

The thought sparked molten tendrils of liquid fire lancing straight to your core. You couldn't deny the feverish allure of being one of the rare few to pierce the Zoldyck assassin's impenetrable walls and expose the primal, savagely rapacious need lying in wake beneath.

To clasp the tiger's jaws and feel its searing exhalations scorch your very essence...it was undeniably, perversely intriguing in a way that stoked your own deepest, most untoward cravings.

And yet, another part of you - that kernel of flint-stubborn pride and discipline bred into your elite bone and marrow - balked at the thought of simply surrendering so easily. Of allowing Illumi the satisfaction of rattling you into compliance first, no matter how deliriously tempting the rewards promised on the other side.

No...if this scorching waltz was to reach its exquisite, world-rendering crescendo, you refused to acquiesce to being the first player to blink.

Dragging your heavy-lidded gaze up to meet Illumi's in a blatant display of haughty dismissal, you carved one side of your mouth into a slashing smirk. The expression didn't come close to reaching your eyes, which had turned to glittering metallic flints of challenge.

"Well well, Mr. Zoldyck..." You traced the very tip of your tongue along your lower lip with exaggerated indolence. "I have to admit, you've piqued my interest with that...spicy little invitation."

You punctuated the husked words by allowing your palms to glide sinuously down the lush terrain of your body. Over the generous flare of your hips, the taut feminine curves accentuated by your form-fitting garments, all the way until your fingertips tucked purposefully into your waistband.

Illumi's own fingertips audibly tightened against the hilt of his discarded blade as his stare raptly tracked your display. The smoldering promise in those endlessly deep pools had shifted into something rawer...more wantonly naked the longer you drew out toying with his composure.

Leaning forward slightly to emphasis the profound swell of your cleavage straining against your top's plunging neckline, you clicked your tongue in exaggerated disappointment.

"Unfortunately...I don't have time to waste entertaining your particular brand of gratuitous urges tonight."

Illumi's features seemed to fracture almost imperceptibly at your dismissive words. That molten veneer of restraint now paper-thin as those hooded, predatory eyes bored into yours with searing intensity. Silently demanding elaboration as to whether you were truly intending to withdraw from the brink after so relentlessly stoking the inferno between you both.

Unable to resist one final goad, you faked a theatrically disingenuous pout before slowly, sinuously hitching your hips in a subtle roll of exquisite provocation. "But don't worry, handsome...I'm sure we'll have the chance to pick this back up another time. When you've had the chance to...cool that notoriously intense ardor of yours."

The twitch that rippled across Illumi's chiseled jawline indicated your taunt scored a direct hit. You could practically see the sheer force of that pent-up ardor battering against the remaining brittle shards of his restraint like a maelstrom hurling itself against a rapidly crumbling dam's gatehouse.

"Until then..." You held his heated stare unflinchingly as you turned on one heel in a swirl of skirts. Already anticipating the seething inferno of denied hunger and frustrated need that would surely be etched across Illumi's expression over your shoulder.

"Try not to burn yourself up from the inside, Zoldyck."

Not giving the danger dance between you both so much as a parting glance, you slipped away into the abyss as silent and ethereal as death's whisper itself.

Leaving the other half of your exquisite struggle to contend with the roiling, savagely thunderous tempest clawing at his admittedly formidable composure in your swirling wake.

-

The dimly lit lounge pulsed with the sort of charged, illicit energy that draws hunters and their prey alike into its neon-hazed aura. Perfect for your current mission of luring the despicable mark into a strategic seduction before neutralizing him.

You'd coiled yourself sinuously onto one of the banquettes ringing the central bar, making sure to catch the sleazebag's rapt attention from across the room. A few carefully timed hair-tosses and coquettish glances over the rim of your cocktail glass were all it took before he began making his way over.

Straightening your spine, you allowed one sculpted leg to arc provocatively as you prepared to reel your next victim in completely. This was the part you truly excelled at - donning whatever irresistible lure was required to ensnare your targets before coldly reaping them for your employer's highest bid.

Except this time, your eyes barely had a chance to flutter open with feigned demureness before a presence materialized beside your banquette like a wraith coalescing from the lounge's smoky shadows.

"There you are, my dearest wife. You really shouldn't wander off from me like that in places like this."

The flat, eerily toneless baritone sliced through the throbbing bassline and caused you to stiffen in stunned recognition. Because of course the insufferable Illumi Zoldyck would materialize to undermine you again right when you were working.

As if the netherworld's cruelest cosmic joke, the assassin slid into the booth beside you uninvited and shifted until his tailored form was plastered uncaringly against your side. One long arm snaked around your waist to draw you in tighter against his body in a shockingly intimate embrace.

"I-Illumi, what the hell do you think you're—" you tried to spit out through gritted teeth, but he cut you off.

"Darling, is that any way to greet your beloved husband after being separated for so long?" His tone remained that same mild, laconic drawl even as one corner of those soft lips curved slightly in a mockery of a fond smile.

The effect was undeniably unsettling...and also indescribably simmering in the most unfurly way your rational mind refused to dwell on right now.

You opened your mouth to angrily protest his absurd charade further, but Illumi made a clicking tutting sound before leaning in close enough for his fiery exhales to ghost your cheek.

"Play along nicely," he murmured in a tone that somehow made the innocuous endearment sound purgatorially hot against your skin. "Unless you'd like me to blow your cover over there and ruin all your hard work seducing that pathetic mark?"

The subtle tip of his chin indicated where your actual intended target had frozen halfway across the lounge floor. One beefy hand still outstretched from where he'd been rudely interrupted while on his prowl by this insane scene.

Jaw clenched in seething frustration, you nevertheless recognized the fact that Illumi had effortlessly gained the upper hand here as per usual. If you tried to slip away now, he'd no doubt make good on derailing your entire operation out of pure petty vindictiveness.

Which meant you had no choice except to allow the other assassin his little heterosexual homelife play, at least for the moment. Whatever deranged game of wits Illumi thought he was playing at, you'd find a way to subtly regain control sooner than later.

Favoring him with your sweetest, most vapid smile, you leaned in until your cheeks brushed provocatively together under the guise of issuing a fond greeting kiss between "lovers."

"There's my wonderfully overbearing darling," you practically purred with dripping saccharine against Illumi's jaw. "And here I was beginning to worry you'd never show up after keeping me waiting all this time..."

One elegant brow arched a hairsbreadth as Illumi allowed his palm to slip south and settle overtly possessive against your hip. The heat singeing the patterns his merciless fingertips traced there made it impossible to suppress a subtle shiver.

"Now now, pet..." The molten whisper vibrated straight through your sternum and pooled heavy in your abdomen. "We both know I'd never abandon such a deliciously...obedient wife for long."

He punctuated the provocative words by slanting you a weighted look rife with dark, unspoken promise. In that heated moment, it was impossible to tell if you were playing the part of wanton newlyweds or something...else entirely more intimate and primal.

One thing was certain - your night had irrevocably been knocked off its already unsteady axis courtesy of your most infuriatingly persistent rival.

And you had a sinking suspicion this was Illumi's idea of well-earned payback for all the delicious torment you'd put him through as of late.

Illumi's grip tightened infinitesimally against your hip as his gaze remained locked in that same simmering, unblinking stare. The two of you were rapidly spiraling into hazy, uncharted territory where realities seemed to blur and distort like a mirage's shimmering heatwaves.

Was this truly just some absurd, inexplicable attempt at sabotaging your mission objectives? Or had the circuitous game of provocations and heated oneupmanship between you progressed to the point of this being Illumi's next daring gambit to unravel you completely?

You found yourself momentarily adrift, unsure whether you should be playing along with the farce of his imposed "loving spouse" charade...or abandoning the pretense altogether in favor of something far more visceral. After all, didn't a situation like this technically represent yet another incendiary gauntlet offered between two willing combatants spoiling for their next pyric clash?

Just as you were weighing how to finally shatter the tension electrifying the air between your bodies, Illumi took the decision out of your hands. In one lithe, unsettlingly sensuous motion, he turned and swung one leg over your lap until he was straddling you brazenly.

"You have no idea how long I've been dreaming about getting you all to myself like this," he murmured in that same lethally mild cadence that somehow made every syllable drip with sinful intent. "Since our last...indulgence, the thought of tasting that pretty, defiant little mouth of yours again has been an agonizing craving, my dear, wicked wife."

The seemingly innocuous terms of endearment landed like smoldering brands against your already feverish skin. This was beyond even his usual provocations, beyond the taunting flirtations and increasingly blurred lines you'd been toying with together for months now.

No, this felt deeper...more primal. Like Illumi was showing his teeth at last in a truly unrestrained display of the blistering, unholy need both of you had been stoking to roaring life.

Still, you refused to surrender the upper hand - or what shredded composure remained - quite so easily. Arching one challenging brow, you shifted deliberately against his weight settled over your thighs and feigned an indolent stretch.

"Oh my, you certainly have a way with pretty words, don't you handsome?" you lilted with exaggerated nonchalance. "But we both know you'd never have the patience to indulge in all this unnecessary foreplay first."

Punctuating your veiled dare, you allowed one hand to drift upwards and cup the taut swell of Illumi's pectoral beneath the sleek tailoring of his suit. Tracing scorchingly deliberate lines along the defined ridges and valleys there in an utterly unambiguous caress.

"Why don't you get around to showing this supposedly wicked wife of yours just how thorough your...appetites truly are instead of wasting both of our time?"

The resounding crash of glass shattering against the far side of the lounge barely even registered over the sudden, leaden weight of tension surging like a riptide between you at your provocative words. Every atom of the known universe seemed to grind to a screeching halt, awaiting Illumi's reaction with bated finality.

Then, like ignition finding an oxyacetylene mix, every last thread of that fabled Zoldyck restraint appeared to unspool in one fell immolation behind those blazing dark eyes. His entire frame stilled to such dead raptorial focus that you nearly missed the hairline fractures of composed control now webbing across his chiseled features.

When he spoke at last, the words emerged in a rough, gravel-laced rasp so devastatingly virile your core clenched in reflexive response.

"Game...bloody...on, then."

And with that softly intoned vow laced with portent, Illumi's hips rolled forward in one lethally precise undulation tailored to grind his hardening cock against your molten center. Stoking the smoldering embers now blazing between you anew as you surrendered to this latest, most brutal round of chicken.

A harsh gasp punched from your lungs before you could strangle it at the shockwaves of searing friction radiating from Illumi's calculated grind against your sensitized flesh. He felt it too - the infinitesimal tremor racing through your joined bodies - if the way his piercing stare sharpened into dark, unholy approval was any indication.

"I-Illumi..." you managed to rasp out in what was meant as an admonition. But the breathy quaver twisting your tone transformed the utterance into something far more akin to pleading persuasion.

Damn him for always managing to unravel you so utterly with even the subtlest of calculated provocations. This entire scenario was quickly spiraling beyond the boundaries of playful oneupmanship and into territories unexplored...and highly dangerous for ones of your ilk to tread.

Summoning the tattered remnants of your restraint, you settled both palms firmly against the assassin's powerful chest with the intent of forcibly creating space. Of regaining whatever tenuous grasp on rational control one of you still possessed before--

The scorching words that spilled like sin from Illumi's lips shattered that feeble line of defense before you could even draw your next strained inhalation.

"Yes..." he husked, each consonant seeming to etch itself into your very marrow. "Say my name like that again, wife. Let me hear that honeyed desperation dripping from your lips just once more."

Punctuating the dark command, he shifted subtly, rearranging his weight so that those merciless hips ground down in another searing, lushly undulating roll that dragged deliciously against your scorched center.

A strangled, mewling sound you didn't recognize as your own punched from your core at the rapturous assault. Every atom of your existence suddenly seemed to white out into pure electrified nerves pulsing in exquisite, delirious rapture at Illumi's continued calculated onslaught.

Some distant, fraying part of your consciousness registered that you were rapidly losing whatever strategic foothold remained in regaining control of this rapidly devolving situation. Illumi was a grand master at subjugation through the sheer merciless application of exquisitely unleashed desire.

And with your restraints being whittled to shreds beneath that implacable storm of his relentlessly stoked passions, it was only a matter of agonizing moments before you succumbed to the lancing siren call and surrendered everything to its searing raptures...

Clawing for one final, flimsy lifeline of composure, you rasped out a desperate deflection laced with as much hauteur as you could desperately muster through the fractures in your mask.

"Y-You arrogant...ingrate," you managed to grit out with a defiant curl of your lips. "Did you really think this pathetic attempt at mind games would be enough to make me buckle to your vile appetites?"

As if dealing the deathblow to any delusion you wielded the upper hand, Illumi arched one eloquent brow and delivered a punishingly precise hip roll that sent galaxies of white-hot exquisite rapture blazing through your shuddering form.

"We'll just have to see about that now, won't we...pet?"

And with one last salacious grind of his weight settled fully over your now trembling thighs, Illumi suddenly disengaged. His formidable frame rising from your tangled forms in one effortlessly sinuous motion, leaving you utterly disoriented and bereft in the smoldering wake of his denial.

"Wait--" The pleading syllable wrenched itself free before you could mercifully strangle it. But by then Illumi was already turning on his heel to melt back into the dizzying lounge's shadows with that same inscrutable half-smile ghosting the firm line of his mouth.

When your lust-addled brain finally reconnected with reality, the jacquard evidence of your unwound state remained prominently displayed in your lap as a dark, taunting promise. One Illumi clearly had no compunctions leaving you to wrestle with as the ultimate testament to your loss of control in this latest round.

The silken flogger's tails slipped through your uncoordinated fingers as you attempted to rise unsteadily to your feet, every fiber of your being strung taut and vibrating like a live wire brought to the searing edge of rapturous obliteration without release.

When next you and your incessantly provoking rival crossed paths, this latest slight would not go unanswered.

One way...or literally another.

The dingy back-alley reeked of stale city grit and burnt adrenaline as you slipped through the shadows towards your target's ramshackle hideout. This was meant to be a clean, straightforward operation - tail the mark, neutralize him while he was unaware, collect payment, ghost away into the night once more.

At least, that's what should have transpired if the universe hadn't seen fit to thoroughly upend your best-laid calculations yet again.

You sensed his disquieting presence a split-second before the shadows themselves seemed to coalesce that lithe, unsettlingly familiar form beside you. Of course the insufferable Illumi Zoldyck would materialize to undermine your objective, just like every other infuriating time your paths intersected.

"You again..." you hissed lowly, muscles instinctively coiling as your free hand strayed towards the concealed blade at your hip. "What are you doing here, Zoldyck?"

One dark brow arched fractionally as Illumi regarded you with that same unshakable, vaguely reptilian calm he always exuded on the job. As if you weren't even worth the trouble of being rattled, let alone engaged with directly.

"Isn't it obvious?" came his flat response after a loaded pause. "We've been hired for the same mark again. Although at this rate, I have to start questioning whether you're simply stalking me on purpose."

You scoffed harshly at the barb, fighting to ignore the familiar flutter of that delicious, precarious tension now crackling between your bodies with the ease of long practice. As if the sight of this particular rival alone wasn't enough to set your pulse thundering precipitously these days.

"You're delusional as always if you think I have any interest in your company beyond putting a dagger in your back," you growled, squaring off into an unmistakably confrontational stance. "Either get out of my way, or--"

"Or what?" Illumi cut you off smoothly, somehow managing to loom over you despite the scant inches separating your heights. "You'll attempt to make a show of seducing me as usual? We've been down this fruitless road before, pet. Many times now."

His piercing stare somehow seemed to undress you down to your thrumming marrow despite every stitch of clothing firmly in place. Daring you with those banked embers searing behind hooded lids to finally be the first to ignite the maelstrom openly raging between you beyond the point of control.

You opened your mouth to hurl back a cutting retort...and in that infinitesimal window of distraction, a harsh clatter sounded from the abandoned building.

Both your heads whipped around in unison as the mark burst through the rear egress with a startled cry, clearly spooked by your presences lurking nearby. He didn't so much as register your outstretched forms before wheeling and bolting towards the narrow alley's mouth with startling swiftness.

"You imbecile!" Illumi snarled in a rare show of true anger as he exploded into pursuit. "Don't let him—"

But you were already moving, fury propelling your strides into a flat sprint as you flung yourself into the chase with wild abandon. This contract was yours, damn his interference, and you'd carved out your grisly reputation bathed in the sorts of stunts that would see lesser assassins martyred without quarter.

The world compressed into a howling vortex of thundering adrenaline as you rapidly closed the scant distance separating you and the panicking mark. Some distant, rational part of you registered Illumi's pounding strides tight on your heels like a mercilessly inexorable shadow about to swallow the both of you whole.

You were almost close enough to reach out and seize your quarry's flailing coattails...when he veered sharply towards a narrow side street and hurled a discarded plank of scrap lumber directly into your hurtling path.

The unexpected projectile caught you squarely in the midsection with crushing force, punching the air from your lungs in a devastated rush.

You doubled over, gasping for escaped breath as Illumi predictably shouldered past you without a shred of hesitation or concern for your well-being. Even as you flailed, temporarily winded on the verge of blacking out, his tenacious footfalls rapidly faded up the side alley as he relentlessly pursued the mark alone.

That insufferable, ruthless, single-minded--

The blistering haze of fury galvanized your senses back into razor-sharp clarity just in time to steady your strides. Honing every atom of your being into a fine, piercing point of lethal focus as you rounded the corner after them with scarcely a moment's delay.

The sight that awaited you, however, was one you could never have anticipated in a thousand lifetimes of assassination.

The narrow side street was utterly deserted apart from Illumi standing frozen in the center, body taut as a bowstring yet somehow radiating palpable waves of disbelief and restrained fury.

You felt your own volcanic anger briefly stunted as you took in the bizarre scene, gaze hastily tracking for any sign of the mark. There was nothing - no cowering form stuffed in a nook, no telltale scuffs indicating his path of escape. It was as if the wretched target had simply...vanished into thin air.

"What the hell happened?" you bit out once close enough for Illumi to inevitably sense your presence beside him. "Don't tell me that after all your bravado, the sniveling coward actually managed to evade the great Illumi Zoldyck too."

His jaw tightened infinitesimally at your barbed taunt, shoulders squaring like a panther preparing to leap as he finally pivoted to face you head-on. Up close, you could make out the scorching embers flickering to lurid life behind those onyx depths.

"On the contrary," he gritted out in that terribly mild tone that somehow laced every syllable with simmering menace. "Your blundering ineptitude is what allowed this failure to transpire."

You scoffed harshly at the accusation, rigor returning to your muscles as you matched Illumi's defensive stance in an instinctive mirror. "That's rich coming from a self-aggrandizing fool who couldn't neutralize a sedated invalid without making an operatic spectacle of it!"

"I had the situation well in hand," he fired back without missing a beat, somehow managing to loom inches from your face despite the negligible difference separating your statures. So close, in fact, that you were forced to tip your chin upwards as his heated breaths fanned scorching patterns across your cheekbones. "It was your delayed involvement that provided our mark with the opening to flee in the first place."

Some distant part of your consciousness recognized the perilous territory you were both veering towards - the razor-thin tightrope separating this heated confrontation and the sort of unfettered conflagration destined to consume you if either slipped. Every muscle quivered with rigorous discipline as you fought against the molten urge to simply surge forward and unleash the full tempest howling between your strained bodies.

But Illumi's uncanny gaze glittered with something darker, more primal than usual professional antagonism. Like he recognized the churning cusp you stood balanced upon just as acutely...and was silently daring you to make the first calamitous leap over the edge into oblivion.

"Just admit you're in over your inferior skull and stand down before you truly become a liability," he murmured in a soft, smoke-laced rasp that somehow brooked no compromise. "This assignment requires a defter hand than your usual heavy-handed antics can provide."

The patronizing undercurrent sliced straight through whatever tattered self-restraint you'd been clinging to like a man overboard clutching driftwood. Something inside you finally snapped with an almost audible reverberation as every ounce of pent-up tension detonated in searing release.

The next thing you registered was your fist impacting Illumi's chiseled jaw with a resounding thunk of impact, snapping his head aside with enough force to splinter bone on a lesser assassin. A bloom of crimson erupted from his nostril, trailing garnet rivulets down towards those merciless lips.

You staggered backwards, chest heaving rapid breaths that didn't come close to slaking the bonfire ignited in your veins. Illumi simply remained rooted where he stood, expression inscrutable as he slowly turned that penetrating obsidian stare back towards you.

Measuring every scintilla of your disheveled, furiously wound state with those hooded lids brimming embers of primal promise...and incendiary approval at what he found blazing there.

In that infinite breath, the entire universe ground to a standstill around you - awaiting one minuscule push to send it all spiraling gloriously, unstoppably, into rapturous cataclysm.

"Well then..." Illumi husked at last as his lips curved into an unholy grin of salacious satisfaction. "I suppose we're finally going to see which of us breaks first after all these heated dalliances, little assassin..."

A heartbeat of leaden suspension stretched between you, trembling on that ultimate precipice as the decision hovered suspended on a wisp of fate.

Then, as if tasting release on the arid desert wind for the first time, the flood walls fractured and the deluge came raging through.

Your second haymaker slammed into Illumi's jaw with enough brutal force to make even his preternatural reflexes falter. He absorbed the bone-rattling impact with an animalistic grunt, dark eyes blazing like newly stoked coals in the instant before he retaliated.

One calloused palm whipped up to snare your wrist mid-swing before you could unleash a third wild strike. With almost negligent ease, he wrenched your arm back across your body until your back collided with the alley's grungy brickwork. The breath punched from your lungs in a harsh wheeze as Illumi pinned you there, bodies aligned in searing alignment from crown to toe.

For one suspended eternity, you remained frozen in that tableau - potential combatants sizing each other up before mutually deciding to discard the final tottering remnants of restraint instead. The maelstrom neither of you had possessed the discipline to resist any longer.

Then, as if some cosmic switch had been thrown, you simultaneously surged forward to crash together like superheated bodies in an unstoppable fusion reaction.

Illumi's hands were everywhere, mercilessly possessive as they clamped around your waist and hips to haul your weight flush against his powerful frame. Your own fingers fisted into the starched lapels of his jacket with bruising intensity, relishing the harsh judder of muscle and bone you felt beneath fine linen.

His lips slanted over yours in a calculated brand of pure possession, tongue spearing past your parted defenses to stake its dominance with each scorching duel. You gasped shudderingly into the onslaught, giving as ravenously as you received while surrendering to the searing tidal wave of need crashing through your veins.

Somewhere distantly, the night sky above shuddered with the banshee wail of sirens and the cacophonous thunder of the city's lifeblood roiling all around you. But the rest of the world may as well have ceased revolving entirely for how little you registered outside this infinitesimal maelstrom of sensation and primal, unholy rapture.

You were the sole wellspring and terminus, the stratonic forces converging in an explosive lambda implosion that would render everything beyond to smoldering ash within its transfigurative wake.

Illumi broke the liplock only to trail his merciless ministrations along the vulnerable curve of your neck, teeth and tongue staking out lush patterns of possession as he went. Each harsh scrape and searing exhalation sent fresh shockwaves of electrified need straight to your thrumming core. You arched shamelessly into his frame, silently pleading for more of his exquisite ruination through the spiral of rapidly deteriorating control.

Any last vestige of proprietary fled as your wandering hands sought out the hard, flexing ridges of Illumi's body sheathed beneath perfectly tailored fabric. Stroking, teasing, peeling layers back to uncover more and more of his predatory brutality clawing vindictively to the surface now. You were utterly intoxicated on it - the raw, uninhibited power radiating from Illumi's very essence as all the tangled threads of restraint frayed into oblivion between your devouring bodies.

This was the long-overdue precipice you'd been balancing upon since that very first, fateful clash between professional talents. An inevitability distilled and condensed down to its purest molecular essence until only one irrefutable terminus remained - searing raptures and utter, irrevocable ruination for whatever dared linger on after.

The sharp snap of fabric being rent from its seam jolted your senses back to the moment just as Illumi's hands slipped beneath the hem of your top. He tore his mouth from the bruised hollow of your throat with a harsh gasp, chest heaving with the same ragged respirations racking your own form.

His pupils were blown wide, black as the void behind the glittering, unfettered flames licking across their surface. As if the sight of you, already thoroughly undone beneath his hands, was the most beautiful, rapturous vision he'd ever witnessed in his lifetime.

You barely had a chance to catch your breath before his hands were at your waist, lifting you with preternatural ease until your thighs locked instinctively around his hips and your back hit the unforgiving brickwork. His palms slid up to settle beneath the supple curves of your ass, gripping so fiercely you suspected the prints would be tattooed there for weeks to come.

Illumi rolled his pelvis in a slow, languorous undulation that made your head drop back with a desperate mewl. The rigid heat straining against his slacks dragged tortuously across the soaked front of your leggings, the friction sending molten shivers ricocheting through every atom of your body.

He repeated the motion with that same agonizing rhythm, savoring every strangled cry and breathless plea that spilled from your lips at his leisurely torment. Until the only words remaining in your vocabulary were a garbled litany of his name and a fevered begging for more.

You'd never felt such unbridled, visceral need before, a tempestuous vortex of pure fire and electricity threatening to devour you from the inside out if he didn't satiate it right here and now.

Illumi's teeth were suddenly at your neck again, dragging along the delicate pulse fluttering beneath your jaw with a growl that seemed to originate from the very pits of hell. "So impatient," he chastised against the delicate shell of your ear, the gravel-laced baritone dripping with pure sin. "My impatient, wanton little wife."

Before you could protest, his hips snapped forward with a force that stole the air from your lungs and rattled your very bones. Every nerve ignited, the white-hot pleasure-pain so exquisite it nearly sent you spiraling over the edge right then and there.

You clung to his broad shoulders for dear life, the seams of your leggings stretching thin as Illumi's relentless pistoning threatened to shred the fabric altogether. Each ruthless thrust of his hips drove his cock against the molten seam of your center, grinding his thick, straining ridge over your clit with unerring precision.

Your climax was rapidly coiling to the bursting point, every atom of your being strung to fever pitch as you careened towards the inevitable, obliterating oblivion. Illumi's mouth had resumed its merciless assault on the sensitive hollow of your neck, sucking and biting with punishing intent until you were certain there'd be no mistaking the marks left behind.

As if every inch of your body wasn't already branded indelibly by his touch, the thought of being left with tangible, lingering proof of his claiming stoked the inferno inside you to a roaring frenzy.

The seams of your leggings finally gave way just as Illumi tugged his own pants down, the fabric tearing beneath the relentless friction of Illumi's assault. You felt the unmistakable drag of bare flesh against slick flesh and moaned shamelessly. The thought of him rutting you bare and open, fully exposed and vulnerable to his whims, should have been a blistering red flag. Instead, it was all that was needed to catapult you over the edge into the abyss.

Illumi's fingers tightened punishingly on your ass as your body shattered around him, the ecstasy so intense it sent every atom of your consciousness whiting out. His own ragged groan against your throat was the only warning before the scalding heat of his release pulsed across your skin, the liquid heat seeping down the back of your thighs in searing rivulets.

Without warning, your entire reality tilted and shifted. In the next instant, you registered the rough stone of a different wall digging into your spine as Illumi slammed you bodily into the adjacent building. His weight pressed you there, pinning your writhing form into place while he continued rutting against your slick, aching folds with a newfound frenzy.

The overstimulation was so overwhelming, the sensation verging on the edge of pain, yet you couldn't summon the willpower to make him stop. Instead, you clung to his powerful shoulders and rode out the delirious storm as another, even more brutal climax crested like a tsunami over the horizon.

The next thing you registered was Illumi's scorching mouth sealed over yours, devouring your strangled cry as a second wave of mind-numbing rapture detonated through your form. Some distant corner of your consciousness registered him pulsing another hot, scalding flood of cum against the small of your back before his weight slumped bonelessly into your heaving body.

Illumi didn’t bother breaking the kiss, the languid slide of his tongue and lips against yours so unhurried and thorough it seemed like he was attempting to brand himself onto every last molecule of your being. You responded in kind, relishing the salty musk and iron tang still clinging to his lips and the rough scrape of stubble along his jawline.

Your fingers had drifted into his silken locks, combing through the soft tresses that spilled freely down his shoulders and tickled your collarbone. Illumi hummed approvingly against your mouth, his own hands sliding up the planes of your sides until they cupped the weight of your breasts.

The dexterous pads of his fingers traced teasing, spiraling patterns around the peaks of your nipples until they tightened and throbbed beneath the attention. Then he pinched them between his thumb and forefingers, rolling and tugging the engorged tips in time with his plundering tongue until you were writhing anew beneath him.

Illumi had somehow managed to hitch your thighs higher, hooking your knees over his elbows and spreading you wider, allowing the new position to press his half-hardened length even more deeply against your molten core.

The sudden friction had your head falling back against the stone with a thunk and a moan, the overstimulation too much yet somehow not nearly enough all at once.

He didn’t seem to be in any hurry, taking his time to trace the delicate line of your collarbones with his lips before sinking his teeth into the juncture of your neck and shoulder. A guttural sound wrenched itself free from the depths of your chest, your fingernails raking punishing lines down his shoulder blades as his mouth sucked a livid bruise into your skin.

You couldn’t take it anymore, the unrelenting onslaught of his sensual attack too much for your overwrought nerves to endure. Twining your fingers into his hair, you dragged Illumi up until your lips were hovering scant inches apart.

Your voice emerged a rough, rasping wreck when you finally managed to force the words out. "Illumi...fuck, please, I need--"

His fingers tightened fractionally around your throat, the pressure just light enough to stifle the flow of air without restricting it entirely. "You will learn to beg properly for my affections, wife," he husked in that devastatingly lethal tenor that sent another wave of molten heat spiraling through your core.

"Please," you breathed, no longer caring about the shameful, desperate edge threading your voice. "Illumi, I need you. Need you inside me. Now."

Something in his impossibly dark eyes seemed to shift at that, the banked embers smoldering behind his hooded gaze suddenly flickering to raging conflagrations. With a low snarl, he claimed your mouth in a bruising, devouring kiss as he finally, mercifully lined his now-aching cock up with your weeping entrance.

The first searing, aching stretch was almost enough to make you come apart again right then and there. The delicious burn of his girth and the delicious friction as he slowly bottomed out had you reeling, nails digging furrows into the flesh of his shoulders as you arched up against him.

Illumi's pace was relentless, hips snapping with brutal, punishing thrusts that rocked you deeper into the brickwork with each punishing stroke. Your world narrowed to nothing but the overwhelming heat and fullness, the unhinged pleasure-pain that threatened to consume you whole.

Your third release slammed into you with all the force of a tidal wave, the sheer intensity so overwhelming that you couldn't even muster a cry as the rapture consumed your senses. Illumi followed shortly after, burying his face into the crook of your neck and groaning a curse that would have made a sailor blush as his cock pulsed a scorching flood into your spasming core.

He didn't move to disengage right away, continuing to pin you against the wall with his weight and nuzzling soft kisses along your collarbone while you both caught your breaths. The tender ministrations were at such odds with the wild, uninhibited fucking you'd just been subjected to that you found yourself wondering if this was the real Illumi Zoldyck. The assassin stripped down to the most human, vulnerable part of his psyche...the part that had been hidden from the rest of the world for so long.

The thought made your heart do something dangerous and complicated that you chose to ignore for the moment. Instead, you let him continue lavishing affection on your skin, the featherlight kisses gradually growing less languid and more insistent.

When his hips rolled forward with a newfound urgency, you let him guide one leg to curl around his waist and moaned as his cock sank even more deeply into you. He was already fully hard again, his thrusts gradually gaining momentum as the familiar, electric tension coiled and built between your joined bodies once more.

Just as you felt yourself careening towards the edge of oblivion, Illumi suddenly pulled out. The loss was so shocking and abrupt that a ragged gasp punched from your throat as you reflexively reached out for his broad shoulders. But Illumi was already moving, turning you so that your palms hit the cool stone and your hips jutted back at a sharp angle.

He guided your legs further apart and nudged his cock against the puffy, dripping seam of your center once more. When you bucked backwards and keened with desperation, he finally granted mercy and buried himself to the hilt with a single, powerful thrust.

Illumi's palm settled at the base of your neck, pressing just enough to tilt your head backwards as he leaned down to rasp hotly against the shell of your ear. "You'll come undone with me this time, little wife. So be a good girl and take it."

And then, without warning, his other hand snaked down to circle the aching, throbbing bundle of nerves above where you were stretched impossibly wide around him. Illumi's thrusts grew more punishing, fingers dancing an infuriating, featherlight pattern over your clit in counterpoint.

Within moments, the dual assault had you shuddering and moaning his name shamelessly, pleading for the sweet release that was just out of reach. You were so close - almost, almost, almost--

Then Illumi pinched your clit between his forefinger and thumb and you fell apart with a ragged scream, vision whiting out into pure, unending oblivion as he continued fucking you through the climax. He only allowed you a few precious moments to recover before he was pulling out once more, turning you roughly in his arms until he could hoist you up and pin your back against the wall.

Illumi didn't even bother waiting for your legs to hook around his hips, simply hitching you up by the thighs until your dripping slit was level with his cock and slid back inside with one smooth motion. The new angle had him hitting even deeper than before, every thrust of his hips slamming home until the breath was driven from your lungs and you could do nothing but cling to his powerful shoulders and surrender to his unrelenting domination.

Your fifth release left you a limp, shaking mess in his arms, the only thing holding you aloft being the strength of his powerful arms and the unyielding hardness buried to the hilt inside you. As if sensing the limits of your endurance, Illumi's pace quickened, his thrusts growing more frantic and erratic.

The moment his lips crashed into yours and he began to pulse hot, wet streaks against your fluttering walls, a sixth climax exploded through you out of nowhere. You were well aware of the embarrassingly intense gush of juices spraying between your bodies, the lewd sound so wet and obscene you felt yourself blush furiously.

But Illumi simply growled his approval into your mouth, the sound rumbling all the way through your joined bodies as he kept fucking you through the climax. He was still rock-hard, the friction so delicious and the sensation of his cock stroking along every swollen, hypersensitive inch of you so overwhelming that it was almost enough to bring tears to your eyes.

Then his fingers were on your clit again, circling with a newfound precision that had the breath punched from your lungs and a sob ripped from your lips. Illumi didn't relent, continuing his ministrations while simultaneously slamming his cock against your abused, tender cervix until the overstimulation had you reeling and writhing desperately.

"One more, little wife," he commanded, voice hoarse and raw. "I know you have one more in you. Give it to me."

The sheer authority in his tone sent you crashing over the edge for the seventh time, the force of your orgasm so intense that you blacked out for a split-second. The only thing keeping you tethered to reality was Illumi's bruising grip and the relentless pounding of his cock into your spasming channel.

When his hips stuttered and his breath hissed out through his teeth, you braced yourself for the scalding flood that would follow. But he pulled out at the last instant, his thick release spraying across your bare breasts and stomach instead.

He pumped his cock vigorously, milking every last drop of the hot, pearly liquid until you were streaked with it from collarbone to navel. Then Illumi leaned forward and sealed his mouth over yours, his tongue sliding languidly through your parted lips as he pressed his still-rigid length against the slick, puffy seam of your center.

"One more, love," he murmured into your mouth, the tenderness in his tone so unexpected it sent a sharp pang echoing through your chest. "Don’t worry. I’ll give your pussy a break. I promise."

The sudden emptiness as Illumi's cock slipped from between your folds was almost unbearable. You whimpered softly, hips rocking instinctively as he shifted his grip on your thighs. Then the broad head of his shaft was nudging against a different opening, the blunt pressure so sudden and overwhelming that your breath locked in your lungs.

"Relax," Illumi coached gently, hands sliding soothingly up and down the backs of your thighs as he slowly, steadily inched his way inside. "Have you done this before?"

"No," you admitted in a shaky whisper, fingers flexing where they were still latched around his neck.

He paused in his gentle exploration, his obsidian gaze boring into yours with such intensity it seemed to strip every last ounce of restraint away. "Good," he rasped, his voice so gravelly and low you could practically feel the vibration of it against your very bones. "That's exactly how I want you, little wife. Just for me. My little, innocent, perfect little wife..."

Illumi's words were an erotic litany, a brand against your skin with every syllable and thrust. He was so deep inside you, deeper than he'd ever been, filling every inch and crevice so perfectly.

The ache was almost too much, the stretch bordering on painful yet so exquisite you could scarcely stand it. You couldn't think, couldn't speak, couldn't even form a coherent thought beyond the single, primal urge to hold onto him and never let go.

So that's exactly what you did.

"I love you."

The confession came from so far out of left field, it took you a moment to realize that you were the one who'd spoken the words. They were true, though - so true it was like the entire universe had suddenly crystallized around the simple, undeniable truth.

It was terrifying and liberating all at once, the sort of revelation that would change everything.

"Illumi, I--"

But he silenced you with a kiss that was almost chaste, a sweet, gentle brush of his lips that somehow carried more emotion than a thousand filthy promises could convey.

"I love you, too."

And when he began moving inside you again, the achingly tender strokes were so at odds with his earlier carnal savagery that the sensation was almost enough to shatter you into a million pieces all over again.

He held you throughout, whispering the softest, most tender confessions into your skin as the pleasure slowly built and crested. You came with a sob, a fresh rush of wetness soaking the place where you were joined as his name spilled from your lips over and over.

Illumi followed shortly after, his cock twitching and pulsing in time with each searing flood until you were completely, utterly spent. His seed leaked out in sticky rivulets as he pulled out at last, a combination of both your juices now trickling down the insides of your thighs.

For a long moment, neither of you spoke. Illumi simply continued to hold you, his forehead pressed against yours as his warm breath fanned across your cheekbones. You basked in the closeness, letting the silence cocoon around the both of you as the rest of the world ceased to exist beyond the circle of his arms.

At last, he spoke, his words so soft and low they nearly got lost in the night air. "My family is very traditional. There are...certain expectations they have for a first-born son."

A leaden weight settled in the pit of your stomach, dread coalescing into a cold, hard knot that threatened to steal the breath from your lungs. You already had a sneaking suspicion you knew where this was going, but you couldn't bring yourself to voice the question.

Illumi, however, seemed to understand your silent plea regardless. "You would make a lovely wife for me, little assassin," he whispered, his voice somehow managing to carry every ounce of warmth and reassurance you needed to hear. His hand drifted downward to stroke your belly, the lightest of pressures yet enough to convey the unspoken implication behind his words.

"And I’m pretty sure I just fucked a baby into you, so-"

Kenshi loves to take care of his plants. A little bonsai, red daisies, and when it's the right season, strawberries on the window of his kitchen.

He used to look at them every morning, caressing their leaves and pulling out any weed that could damage their growth. Kenshi also has a name for all of them, it's not like he greets them, but he likes to admire them.

Gardening for him is like meditating. An habit he picked up long ago. A way to run away from all the atrocities he executed for the yakuza. The screams of horror and pain trying to be silenced by nature. Tattooed and roughed hands that don't forget anything, calluses always there to remind him of his past, caressing the soft leaves of his bonsai. The same hands that took away so many lives now giving life back.

Now Kenshi is blind, but his ancestors guide his every step. They can be a times too overbearing, bickering on the best way to improve the soil quality, but it's nothing that can't be resolved by pulling Sento down.

And even if Kenshi is surrounded by darkness he can recognize the soft leaves of his bonsai and the velvet petals of his daisies. He still understands when his strawberries need a bit more of his attention and Kenshi, as a patient lover, listens to their needs.

In the silence of his house, enveloped by darkness Kenshi can hear them all. Heart is finally at peace.

Finally finding tranquillity

genshin sugar daddies

premise: you have seven sugar daddies: one for every day of the week. a bit overwhelming, right? however, you somehow find ways to make time for each and every one of them, no matter how emotionally and physically demanding they are. it's just that, now they don't seem too keen on sharing, and you don't know what to do. (modern au)

tw: nsfw, dark content - minors dni

mondays are always harder in more ways than one. mondays are diluc's days, and that means that you're spending a good portion of your nights at angel's share.

on mondays, it's happy hour. which means that you're sitting at a booth in the corner looking pretty while diluc is tending to his customers. you're more than happy to sit back and relax while you wait for him to finish with work. when the drinks are on the house, you're willing to wait as long as it'll take.

periodically, when he's not busy, however, he'll walk over to you and engage in conversation. you act as a taste-tester for new drinks so he's always asking you if you like them. you two will talk about your day, any interesting events, and so on until diluc is pulled back into work again.

then you're back to fiddling your fingers and watching him work. over time, you've learned that he preferred that you not do anything while you were supposed to be with him. that instead, you fixated your gaze on him while he moved about. sometimes you'll catch him looking at you to see if your eyes are still on him.

even while he's dealing with a certain tone-deaf bard, there's something about the way he looks at you so intently that reminds you of a predator.

when angel's share closes, you're there to keep him company while he cleans up. when he's done, he'll sweep you away back to his manor.

you'll fall onto the sheets as he grinds against you. his shallow breaths brush against your throat. the look he gives you is nothing short of intense.

"everyone at the tavern was looking at you, you know," he mutters, running his fingers down your chest, sinking into your pants. he pulls them down effortlessly along with your panties. "didn't you feel it, darling? their filthy eyes on you. they want to ruin you. everyone wants to ruin you."

he throws your legs over his shoulders, his fingers crawling up your thighs. you jump when he suddenly inserts two fingers into your cunt, scissoring you. his free arm wraps around your leg to keep you locked against him. his eyes are glued onto you as he presses a kiss against your calf.

"but your eyes were on me all night, weren't they. couldn't take your eyes off me, could you. you're mine, dear. do you hear me? you're mine."

you don't overlook how tight his grip is. tight enough to make you wonder if he'll ever let you go. in the morning, he does, but you're scared for the day he wakes up and decides that it's for the last time.

tuesdays aren't as bad. when you’re sore from the night before, childe is there to take you out to meals, shopping, and sightseeing. he's not always available to spend time with you on tuesdays, because of his equally-demanding job and whatnot, but when he is free, he never wastes a second.

or a dollar.

childe smirks smugly from his sea. his posture is lax, one hand lazily tracing circles on the chair's arm while the other comes up to rest under his chin.

"how about you twirl for me, girlie? you look so beautiful."

you giggle, observing yourself in the mirror. "why thank you."

you bask in the way the soft satin kisses your skin. the way your newly-own earrings sparkle under the dressing room's light. just a couple years ago, you could've only dreamed of being dressed so prettily.

"do your side-bitches ever treat you as well as me?"

"childe!" you chide.

he laughs, getting up from his seat. but you both know better than to believe his little chuckle is genuine.

he approaches you, sliding his hands around your waist. tucking your head under his chin, he stares at you through the mirror's reflection.

you don't say anything, and childe doesn't either. it appears he's more than happy to enjoy just standing there. his gaze is glossed over, far away.

the two of you sway side to side for what seems like forever until he decides to say something.

"do they buy you pretty things like i do?"

of course they do, you think. although you spend one-on-one time with each and every one of them, they are all aware of each other. it's only right that they did. it was the first thing you said when you brought the idea up to them, that it wasn't going to be exclusive.

but when you see the way he looks at you, you can't really tell him the truth. not when his focus is redirected from his thoughts to you.

"the things you buy me are a special kind of pretty," you reply.

it seems like that answer is enough for him, because he doesn't say anything else. instead he hums quietly, letting the vibration ripple in the back of your head. he slides his hands down your hips and before you can say anything else, he whips his head around.

"i'll buy these sets." he motions over to the closest clothes rack to an attendant you hadn't noticed. "and that one. and the dress she's wearing. how many colors does this come in, by the way?"

the attendant doesn't hesitate. "five colors, sir. they come in bla—"

"great." he shuffles through his pocket to pull out a black card. "pack them up, we won't be here any longer," he retorts.

the attendant looks ecstatic, quickly shuffling out of the dressing rooms towards the cash register with newfound glee.

"childe," you whine. "i don't think these will fit in my closet."

his hands crawl lower, his finger hovering over your clit. "then they'll fit in mine. come over any time of the week when you want to wear one of my special pretty things."

your breath hitches as he rubs slow circles on your clit. he pushes the two of you back into the dressing room and closes the curtains.

"what are you doing, she'll be back any second—"

he kisses the corner of your jaw, pressing his lips close to your ear. "no worries. if there's one thing i'm sure about, it's that no one undresses you faster than i do."

wednesday is when usually everything calms down. kazuha will typically invite you to a new park, scenic route, or gallery. together, you'll write haikus, sonnets, and limericks together. some hours you'll just sit in silence, putting pen to paper. and when the sun goes down you'll exchange poetry.

out of the seven men, kazuha probably scares you the most. he was the first person you decided to do this whole ordeal with, after all. and since he's known you the longest, he also knows about your circumstances more than others. maybe that's why he's so focused on treating you as if you were a fragile cherry blossom petal. his touches feel like ghosts, running down your forearm as he presses a kiss to the apple of your cheek.

in exchange for his protection, his money, and his care, you give him honeyed words. you act as his muse for when he's hit a creative block. you're there to listen to him read out verses when the wind can't bear the strength to carry them. you listen to his grief about his best friend, his loneliness when he was forced to leave his home country. as someone many of the locals looked to for wisdom, he too carried the emotional burdens of being someone's rock. emotional burdens that he let onto you (whether purposefully or not, you're unsure). but you listen anyway, hearing him talk about days of poverty, where sometimes he had to worry about things to eat, or how to get proper healthcare.

you can't lie and say you're always stable enough to hear some of the things he has to say, but you try.

even if you sometimes feel like you can't take it, you just smile and squeeze his hand tighter like you're supposed to. sometimes your mind will go on autopilot, and sometimes you'll stand up on the grounds of needing to go to the bathroom. but at the end of the day, this is what you signed up for. this. making men happy so that you yourself won't have to worry about your endless debt.

you peer over your notebook to see kazuha immersed in his own writing. but instead of his usual peaceful expression, he looks somber. his hands won't leave the paper, his eyes glued onto the words that he's drawn onto the pages.

"what's got you so worked up?" you ask curiously. "is it something new?"

it's like your voice snaps him out of his trance. he blinks, looking up at you. there's a smile you know all too well on his lips. "yeah, i suppose you could call it that."

"could i look at it? i want to see what's got you so focused like that."

his lips press into a straight line. "hmmm, maybe later."

his words catch you off-guard. usually he's the one who's eager to share his work, regardless of the quality. "oh? is it something you want to keep secret?"

he doesn't many any hint of an answer. instead, he puts down his pen and stares at the ground in contemplation. he's picking and choosing what words to say.

"i could protect you," he says, shuffling his papers to the side. you turn to him, curious. his expression slowly hardens. "by myself, i mean. i could take care of you."

"kazu—"

"i have the means to make a living for the both of us. i could sell more of my poetry, i know they'll sell well—"

"where is this coming from?" you move closer to him, brushing his hair aside. "kazu, are you worried about something?"

there's something that's stopping him from saying anything. his fingers intertwine with yours, his thumb caressing the back of your hand.

he purses his lips, before turning away and sighing. "no, not really."

after that, he doesn't say anything else. the two of you bask in silence once again. even though you're used to the quiet, there's something deep down in you that feels nervous. like something in the atmosphere changed. there's a sudden resolved glint in his eye as he get backs to writing so diligently on a piece of paper he won't let you read.

after all these days spent talking about himself, somehow you're scared for the day he suddenly decides to stop.

on thursdays you're usually at tighnari's greenhouse, watching him take notes of other plants while you twiddle your thumbs. once in a while, he'll begin rambling about the plants—what kind of species they are, how rare, their medicinal properties, and the like.

you're more of a companion, than anything. someone who can make his days a little less lonelier. and you appreciate it. it's much more tranquil with him. you can enjoy his sharp quips, especially when cyno comes to visit.

his sex-drive is relatively normal, if not a little below average. just like wednesday, you also expect thursday to be a typical rest day.

except when spring comes.

when spring comes, your routine get a little wonky. for one week, at least. because that's when tighnari's heat hits him like a fucking monsoon.

you can already tell when it's coming when he begins to hover closer to you. whenever you take your hand out to do anything, even the slightest gesture, he's already taking it and dragging it towards his sensitive ears.

the moment you've made your plans set to 'take the week off' and help him out, he's already on you, face pressed into your neck as if it's his oasis.

as you can tell, he takes this week very seriously.

"i bet—shit—those other fucks don't get to hold you as long as i do," he lets out as he fucks into you like there's no tomorrow. his hands hold onto your waist like he owns it, pressing sloppy kisses down your spine. "looking so pretty for me. i wonder what they'd say if you got pregnant with my babies. you'd be so much more beautiful plump with my kids. is that what you want huh? to make them angry with my cum stuffed in your gorgeous pussy?"

some days you almost can't believe how uncharacteristically aggressive he is. he dicks you down like he's trying to imprint his shape into the core of your body so that none of the others can fit inside.

and when he cums, he'll take whatever unfortunate portions slip out and smear it all over your chest. especially where your heart is.

then the process starts all over again.

when it's over, he'll spoon you. as if he didn't almost fuck you to death. his touch is tender, like a ghost's hovering over your skin.

"why won't you leave them all for me?"

you shift a little to look at him and kiss him softy, sweetly, on the line of his jaw. "oh, nari, you know i can't."

his ears droop at your words. "you can't, or you won't."

his words make you freeze a bit.

you think back to last week, and the week before, and the one before that. you think about why you started selling your services in the first place, the endless debt you used to be in, and the progression of the relationship between all seven of your...contacts. even if you wanted to, you don't think you could back out if you tried. you've dug a hole for yourself. one deep enough to cause some sort of disruption if you ever decided to stop digging.

so you just hum. "you know how much i love routine."

as some sort of apology, you give him and open-mouthed kiss, one he's almost desperate to return. he moans, hands cupping your face to bring you closer to him.

you're well unaware how much your words have an impact him.

at the end of the week, all al-haitham wants to do is unwind. it's the only logical thing to do. no late-night drinks with the colleagues, no stressful trips to some tourist trap. on fridays, al-haitham comes home to a meal made with love.

when al-haitham's at work during the day, you're usually running your actual errands. it's when you have time to make those one-in-a-blue-moon visits to your actual home, although it's getting harder to call it that.

when it gets to the late-afternoon, you'll usually head to al-haitham's place to start cooking. if you didn't know how to cook before, you do now. every ingredient is handled with care, measured meticulously just as you knew he preferred.

and when he gets home, tired and stressed out, you're there to welcome him with a chaste kiss on the cheek.

during dinner, sometimes he'll talk to you about work or the latest research he'd gotten himself immersed with. in return, you tell him about some of your childhood memories. your likes, your dislikes, what used to be your hobbies. you do your best to keep your personal matters out of the conversation, no matter how many times he tries to pry into your private life.

sometimes dinners feel like a full on investigation, the way he keeps greeding for more information about you. he watches you eat with calculating eyes. you pretend to pay no mind to it.

in the beginning, kaveh used to join you for dinners. you always liked the guy, the way he bickered with al-haitham and riled him up. but now you've begun to see less of him, as if he never comes home on fridays at all.

after dinner, there are two different outcomes depending on his mood:

outcome one is that you'll spend the rest of the night curling up on his couch, the both of you immersed in your own books. al-haitham leans on your shoulder as he flips through the pages as if they're nothing. you can't help but feel ticklish whenever his hair brushes against your jaw.

somewhere in the middle, he'll move one hand to start fidgeting with the end of your shirt, sometimes crawling underneath to caress your sides.

outcome two is less quiet. the moment he gets home with that solemn face, you know it's coming. his voice is huskier, his responses shorter. it's usually a result of an impending deadline, colleagues being more peskier than usual.

the moment you two are done with dishes, he gingerly takes your hand and leads you up to the bedroom.

his kisses tastes like green tea and dinner. his hands run up and down your torso, trying to imprint the feel of your skin into every inch of your brain. you whimper when his thumbs press softly into your nipples, rolling them around as they harden.

your hands find purchase on his collar, tugging him impossibly close. he groans at the contact.

you let out a yelp when your back suddenly falls onto the bed. your hands are pressed onto the sheets, al-haitham's fingers encircling your wrists. his knee nudges your legs further apart, rubbing at your clit.

"don't look at the ceiling, dear, look at me," he breathes out, his hands leaving your nipples to gently guide your face towards. "that's it. good girl. just me. just look at me. only me."

he smiles.

"now, let me do god's work on your divine body."

saturdays with ayato can sometimes get hectic. some saturdays you're out getting bubble tea together and enjoying the city, and other saturdays you're hurrying to some publicitiy event hosted by the kamisato clan.

on those type of days, you can expect to wear gowns layered with shiny nylon tulle fabric. it's not as revealing as what you'd try on in dressing rooms with childe. in fact, it's a bit more modest.

today you're wearing a light-blue gown to match with ayato. you turn around to get a good look at the cute bow attached at your waist, your diamond encrusted earrings swaying along with you.

it's as if you've put on another costume. another front to wear for the night.

ayato enters the room just shortly after. in his hands is a diamond necklace to match with your stunning earrings. small smile falls upon his lips when he clasps it on.

"you're beautiful," he mumbles. you giggle when he kisses you square on the lips, licking away the tinted color.

"ayato," you press in-between kisses. you place a hand on his chest to gently push him away. "you're going to ruin my lipstick."

he pulls away with a cheeky smile, taking your wrists to wrap around his neck. "you can always put on some more later."

you pout but kiss him regardless. he tightens his hold on you in reaction, moaning into your mouth.

at these kinds of events, you're there as his plus-one. just so that other officials could stop introducing girls to him when he clearly wasn't interested in them. it'd be arguable to say that you might even be there to make the events a little less intolerable.

somewhere along the lines, you'd sleep with him in addition to being his arm candy at parties. sometimes even before: you two rushing to put on your formal attires and fix your hair minutes before the event started.

but beyond that, you started to get to know him better. he'd whisper into your ear about funny stories relating to the guests as you meet them. sometimes you'd run away in the middle of the party to binge out on the food and talk about your other interests. surprisingly, he doesn't talk about the politics behind his duties as the head of the kamisato family. not as much as you expected, at least.

instead he talks about his dreams for a family. how many kids, what their names would be, how he'd raise them. and as he talked, he'd give you this heavy gaze that you're not sure what to do with. as if he was expecting something from you.

you're beginning to believe that ayato has somehow confused contractual girlfriend with actual girlfriend.

when you had met ayaka months ago, ayato introduced you as his girlfriend. you didn't attempt to correct him—that's ayato's business. not your's. but when you're expecting ayato to come clean to his dearest sister, you're sorely mistaken.

instead, while he kisses your lips so hungrily, he subtly slips a diamond ring onto your finger.

sundays are usually kaeya's days off. although the cavalry captain's duties are seemingly never endless, he takes the day off to take a breather.

in other words, he sees you.

at first, it was just candlelit dinners. he'd walk in with a bouquet of roses, complimenting your dress and staring at you as if he was undressing you with his eyes. he'd take you to somewhere fancy, pull out the chair for you and sweet-talk you all through the night.

conversations were fun with him. you didn't have to think much at all, not about how to pay the bills, the six men in your life who seemingly began to want yours to only revolve around theirs, or being someone your not.

kaeya was probably the only one who you felt you could be comfortable with. he made you laugh, he'd tell all sorts of interesting stories, and he never made the silence feel awkward.

at least, that's how you used to be.

you see, usually after these candlelit dinners you'd both go back to his place, with him ripping off your clothes the moment the door closed. but as of recently, he's been asking to come over to your place instead more often. almost too often.

and that's not the only thing that's changed.

the sex used to be rough. heated. almost as if he was consumed by all of his pent-up sexual frustration and was only focused on getting off. he'd slurp your cunt like a man starved but he'd still rail you as if that's the only thing he cared about.

but as time passed, he's been getting more and more...sensual. the sex is much more slower. personal, almost.

vulnerable.

after dinner, he slowly slips off your clothing. one article after another, until your left in your underwear. he first kisses you on the mouth, then your neck, then your chest, then your stomach. slowly, he makes a trail of them down your body, as if no skin deserved to be left untouched.

although you made a rule that no one could leave your marks on you, it doesn't mean he doesn't try. as he kisses your lower lips, sometimes he'll attempt to leave marks close to your clit. if you're not careful, diluc will find it tomorrow.

his thrusts were always deep, but now that he's much more purposeful about it. it's rhythmic, as if he's trying to reach a new spot inside you. somewhere no one's touched.

the pillow-talks are much more longer as well. he holds you tighter now, wrapping his arms around your hips as he tangles his legs with yours.

instead of ranting on about the silly incidents he witnessed on the job earlier in the week, he talks about his feelings. towards you. towards diluc. towards himself. some nights you can handle it, some nights are too much.

but you can't say anything. not when he's holding onto you like you’re his lifeline. not when he helps you pay off your debt. and so you let his raspy voice whisper in your ear as he combs his fingers through your hair. you listen to him mumble sweet-nothings.

you're not sure if you like the adoring look he gives you as you drift off to sleep.