Catharsis || ──────── S. Aizawa

Once again, I am calling upon the kind fanfic community for help. No problem if not, but does anyone remember an Eren Yeager x reader fanfic where it’s going to be Jean and Mikasa’s wedding and we are helping both of them plan (I think we are Mika’s maid of honor, and Eren might be a photographer/best man?). It’s either here or on AO3. I would be so very grateful if anyone remembers this fic, it was so lovely and I’ve been looking forever :(

call me baby

pairing: choso x reader

contains: fem reader, pussy rubbing, panty-fucking, cream pie, dirty talk, sensitive!Choso

note: someone sent an ask for this w/ gojo or geto… but i couldn’t stop thinking abt it w/ choso…

MDNI

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ

"What should I do?" You asked Choso quietly as he slid his large thighs under yours, gripping the fat of your thighs to pull you closer to him so his erect cock was pressed right against your clothed cunt, only clad in your panties, which had started to become sheer where your hole was pressed against it from how much you were leaking. 

"Just... lay there and don't move, let me do all the work," Choso said, a blush spread across his porcelain face as his eyes stayed trained on your cunt which pulsed and throbbed under his gaze. "The girl in the video sounded like this felt good for her, let me know otherwise please." He added, his eyes flitting up to yours so he could see you nod in acknowledgment at his words.

Once Choso saw you nod, he dropped his gaze back down to your cunt. He grabbed the base of his dripping cock in one hand and pressed it against your clothed cunt, rubbing the head of his leaky dick up and down your pussy. Your stomach clenched each time he rubbed the fat tip against your clit, the stimulation making your toes curl.

Choso kept looking up at your expression to gauge whether or not this was feeling good for you. He licked his lips as he watched you stare where the two of you were connected with a slack jaw, your lips making a pretty o shape as you stared at his thick cock rubbing against you.

"I can feel how wet you are through your panties, it's so cute," Choso mumbled, his voice coming out less confident than he would've liked. You swallowed hard, feeling your face suddenly grow hotter at his words. "You're dripping too y'know... that's not all me." You said, your face screwing in pleasure when he pressed his fat tip harder against you, pushing it right under your clit.

Choso blushed deeper, his cock twitching at your words. "You're right, I just like doing this with you so much." He said honestly, giving himself a couple of quick strokes along his shaft to calm himself down. You smiled at that, your hand reaching down to place itself over his, which gripped your upper thigh in support. "I like doing this with you too Cho." You replied, tilting your head at him.

Choso moved his hand down his cock so he was gripping his length about halfway. He pressed his cock against your clit and started thrusting against you, wetting the already wet spot there even more. He used his hand like a pocket pussy as he thrust into it, making sure each time he thrust forward against you that his head was pressing right against your clit.

"Does that feel good?" Choso asked, his eyes looking up to your face for approval. You gasped and whined quietly each time his bulbous head pressed against your clit, stimulating it just right. "Y-yeah, keep going, Cho." You nodded, retracting your hand from his to join the other and slide underneath your shirt to massage your tits.

Choso pouted at your blissful expression as he took in your words, all the while he kept rubbing his cock along your pussy, further wetting your panties and making them almost completely sheer. "Good." Choso nodded back, swallowing whatever saliva was in his dry mouth before he looked back down to your cunt. Choso then pulled your sticky panties away from your pussy, revealing a sliver of your bare folds to his greedy eyes before he slipped his cock against you and covered his tip with your panties.

He testingly rubbed his cock along your wet folds, the head of his cock brushing past your clit and poking through your panties right above it, the pink material of your panties that was covering his cock making it look so cute. "So warm..." Choso whispered, choked gasped and moans falling from his lips as he slowly thrust his cock back and forth along your pussy, letting the folds of your cunt hug the underside of his dick.

He placed both of his hands on your thighs and pelvis, his hands almost forming a triangle in the middle as he used his thumbs to press his cock against your pussy, letting him pick up his pace now that he had his cock secured by his thumbs to make sure the head of his cock would rub your stiff bud no matter how fast he went. 

"C-choso-" You gasped, a little louder now as he rubbed against you with more vigor. You squeezed your tits under your shirt, your lithe fingers playing with the stiff nipples for extra stimulation as your body shook and slid along the bed with each thrust. "Let me see." He said vaguely, his eyebrows furrowing as he fucked his cock against your pussy. You tilted your head at him, confused at what he was referring to.

"Y-you're playing with your chest. I want to see, can I?" Choso elaborated, his honest words making you feel hot all over. You nodded before releasing your breasts, your hand slipping out under the shirt to push it over your chest, the fabric bundling by your collarbones as your tits were revealed to his greedy eyes.

"So pretty, touch them again, I wanna watch you touch them," Choso begged, his words coming out more desperate the longer he rubbed his cock against your folds. This felt so much better than he expected. The man in the video was silent so he wasn't sure how good it would feel for him but now that he was actually doing it, he had no idea how he stayed so quiet. Choso was a gasping and groaning mess, much unlike the man in the video--his cock was always quite sensitive though. 

Obeying his wish, you grabbed your tits once more, massaging them in your hands as you alternated between pinching your nipples and squeezing the fat of them together. Choso's brain nearly short-circuited as he watched the fat of your tits squish between your fingers--he wished so badly he was the one touching them instead. "God, they're so pretty, I love your tits." Choso groaned, his thrusts against your cunt becoming more erratic, making your body jerk forward from the intense stimulation. 

"F-fuck, t-thank you, baby." You whined, your hips absentmindedly bucking against his. Choso felt all of the blood run to his cock at the nickname, he swore his heart skipped a beat. "B-baby?" Choso repeated, his eyes flitting between your cunt, which was now meeting his thrusts, and your face, which was screwed in pleasure from his doing. 

"Yeah, I called you baby, is that okay?" You asked, smiling at the way he pouted when you repeated the pet name. Choso nodded, his lips pressing together and folding in on themselves as his head tipped back, revealing the muscles in his neck. "I-I think it's going to make me cum." Choso groaned, his eyes rolling back in his head as his head was tipped back. 

"A-ah- what is?" You asked through a moan when the two of you fell into the perfect pace, your hips humping upwards each time he thrust against you, his leaky head rubbing your clit perfectly. "That name, I like when you call me that." He answered, his chin falling back down as his eyes locked onto your cunt and your hips that were eagerly meeting his thrusts as you worked yourselves towards your orgasms. 

"You're so cute Choso." You smiled, the expression quickly getting wiped off your face as he hit a particularly sensitive spot, your orgasm building steadily in your pelvis. "I-it's not just that. You're so warm, and wet, and your face is so cute when my dick touches you right here." Choso said, emphasizing his words with a stronger thrust against your clit. 

"And you sound s-so cute, y-you're gonna make me cum." He said, his thrusts losing their rhythm. You were whining at his words, your eyes fluttering back in your head as you let his wet cock work you over perfectly. Your hands squeezed your tits harder to stabilize yourself as you felt yourself right on the edge of your orgasm. Everything was so slippery, the wetness between the two of you had completely ruined your panties, and they were soaked through from your fluids.

"G-god Choso, I-i'm close." You whined, your eyes fluttering back in your head as your head tipped back against the sheets, rolling around as you braced yourself for such an intense orgasm. "M-me too, fuck me too." He chimed in as he forced his eyes to stay forward in their sockets so he wouldn't miss a thing, he needed to see your face when you came. 

"I-inside baby, cum inside please, I need it." You begged as something came over you last second. You think you might die if he didn't fill you up right now. Choso's dick twitched at the name, he wanted to ask if you were sure but the use of the pet name shortened the time before he was about to cum in half, so he trusted your words as he heard them.

"O-okay, shit, I'm gonna cum inside you." Choso groaned, his head nodding rapidly at your words. He pressed his thumbs down against his cock, the appendage sliding down your cunt and finding your entrance as it slipped in with ease, thanks to how wet the both of you were. Choso's thumb replaced his cock as he rubbed small circles over it as he quickly started a sloppy pace and fucked into your heat with reckless abandon, his tip hitting your g-spot with every thrust and effectively pushing you over the edge.

Your hand shot down to the sides of your body as your fingers gripped the sheets tightly. Choso watched as your eyes screwed shut and your mouth fell open in a silent scream before you were spasming all over his cock. "Shit- so tight-" he moaned as he felt your walls squeeze around him ten times tighter as you came.  

You looked so cute, your face screwed in pleasure, your body jerking uncontrollably, the feeling of your cum dripping out around his cock that was plugging you up. Your moans were like music to his ears, his cock pulsed with the need for his release before he was stilling inside you, his thumb still working sloppily over your clit as he continued to work you through your orgasm as he came.

"Cumming- fuck- c-cumming-" Choso groaned as he released rope after rope into your already sopping wet cunt. You whined in oversensitivity as he continued to roll his hips against yours, fucking you full of his cum. The veins in Choso's neck bulged out as he came with such intensity, his cock throbbing as he filled you to the brim with his seed. "Fuck, thank you, baby, thank you." You whined weakly, gasping against the sheets as Choso rode out the last waves of his orgasm inside your cunt, letting your walls milk him of all he was worth.

Choso flopped forward, keeping his softening cock inside you as he laid all of his body weight on top of you. You groaned dramatically as he semi-crushed you with the weight of his very muscly body, but the feeling of the warmth from his skin seeping into yours prevented you from saying anything. Your hands reached up to wrap around his back, your nails softly scratching along his soft skin as he groaned into your neck in appreciation, trying to recover after such an intense orgasm.

"Was that okay for you..." Choso had the audacity to ask as he buried his head in your neck, his warm breath tickling the skin of your neck when he spoke. "That was perfect Choso, you always make me feel so good," you said, holding back a giggle as you continued raking your nails over his skin. "We should probably clean up soon though." You added after a couple of seconds.

"Five more minutes... this feels good," Choso mumbled, his words almost coming out incoherent from the sleepiness in his voice. Choso's love for the simplicity of things like back scratching filled you with so much love you wanted to explode. You knew 5 minutes would turn into 2 hours, but you couldn't find yourself to care much when you heard him start to practically purr into your neck.

exboyfriend!Sukuna x f!reader.

cw: smut, outdoor sex, angst, controlling behavior.

Your date was a disappointment.

The guy wasn't an asshole or anything, but at some point he'd talked about cryptocurrency for ten minutes straight without you saying a word and there was no coming back from that.

"I had a great time," he tells you as you stand on the subway platform after finally escaping the restaurant. You nod noncommittally and wonder if this is the part where he asks for your number. You're calculating the risk/reward of giving him a fake number and having him potentially call it while you're still right in front of him when you hear a familiar laugh from behind you.

"I doubt it," the voice says and you close your eyes. Maybe if you wish hard enough you can develop teleportation and not have to deal with this.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" your date asks, his voice only wavering a little as he looks at your ex-boyfriend. Honestly, you admire him. The sight of the tall, heavily tattooed (alleged) criminal was usually enough to make people cross the street to avoid him but not this accountant? Investment baker? Dentist? Fuck, he'd talked about his job for thirty minutes and you had not been listening. You would have guilty if you weren't actively judging him for not even noticing your lack of engagement.

Whatever, he probably wasn't brave, he was probably just an idiot.

Sukuna seemed to agree as he laughed again and put his hand on your shoulder.

"I'm her boyfriend."

Your date looked at him, looked at you, and seemed to be weighing if this was worth one mediocre date. He seemed frozen for a second until Sukuna took a step forward and the guy's previously dormant survival instincts seemed to awaken and he booked it down the train platform.

Once he was out of sight, you took Sukuna's hand and dropped it off your shoulder like a fallen leaf that had got stuck on your jacket.

"Are you following me, now?" You wouldn't have put it past him. You turn to face your ex who looks not only unrepentant for his little routine but vindicated. Or maybe he just looks vindictive, you can never tell.

"Are you going on dates with any loser that asks?" He tosses back and you roll your eyes.

"You didn't even meet him."

"So, he wasn't a loser? And you weren't deciding if it was worth giving him a fake number and having him call you right then?"

You hated that he knew you so well.

"He seemed the type to call," you concede and Sukuna scoffs.

"Absolutely, that fucker is. Women have been giving that dumb fuck fake numbers since he was begging for them with his little Nokia flip phone."

"Is Nokia still a thing?" you ask and Sukuna glares at you.

"Do I look like Google to you? Hey, don't try to district me, princess. We were talking about how you seem to have gotten it into your mind that you can cheat on me with any guy with a pulse."

"I'm not cheating on, we're not together," you tell him as your train pulls up. You don't bother protesting as he follows you on it, even though you know the old apartment you used to share is in the other direction from your new place.

"The fuck we're not," he seethes. The other riders look at you and you see one or two guys deciding if it's worth trying to get involved but you're more concerned about the teenage girl who looks ready to fight this asshole for you. God, you loved women.

"You're making a scene," you tell him and he looks ready to make the scene Oscar worthy before you give him the look that used to make him not call your friends' babies ugly when you went to birthday parties.

"Where can we talk then?"

"I'm not taking you to my place," you say and he sucks his teeth.

"Then let's go home."

"You mean to your home."

Sukuna looks furious but you're not in the mood. You had just spent the past two hours on a terrible date, which made you think about how dating was just going to be like this until you found a new boyfriend or gave up, which then made you think about your break up and how up until a few months ago, you thought you would never go on a first date with anyone ever again.

You hated that Sukuna had put you here and you hated that you still loved him.

"I'm not leaving until we talk about this."

"There's nothing to talk about."

You're so tired, Sukuna is so close and it's been so long since you got to smell him or feel his warmth. Your apartment was still barely furnished but everything in it was new and it still didn't feel like home. The one sweatshirt of his you'd let yourself take had stopped carrying his scent weeks ago, and just being close to him now, it made something in you relax. Like you were finally home.

"There fucking is," he hisses and now he's so close you can make out the scar on his jaw and the fullness of his lips. You used to tease him that you'd never met a man whose lips were as soft as his. He may have looked like tough shit, but you would never catch him out of the house without lotion and chapstick.

You wondered if he was still using the cherry chapstick you had bought him at the grocery store the week before you'd broken up.

"Are you going to marry me? Are you going to give me a baby?"

"Princess-"

"Then there's nothing to talk about," you say and you thank whoever's watching that the train is pulling up to your stop. You get off and Sukuna is right on your heels.

"You don't even want those things right now, why the fuck does it even matter?"

"I want them eventually and if you're not willing to give them to me, then I just don't think I need to keep wasting my time."

You're roughly dragged into a nearby alley and tossed against a brick wall. Sukuna's hand cups the back of your head, taking the force of the slam and you hate that he watches out for you even when he's being a controlling jackass.

"Being with me is wasting your time? Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"Not your girlfriend," you snap back. "Let go, I want to go home."

"Fuck you," he tells you and you're about ready to fight him, grown scary man or not when he leans down and his lips are on yours.

They taste like cherry chapstick.

His hand on the back of your head tightens, his thumb pressing against your neck and making you shiver. His other hand is pressed tight to your jaw and when you gasp against his mouth, he presses down as if he can hold you open and consume you so you can't leave him again.

His muscled thigh is in between yours and you can feel the rough texture of his jeans, the same pair he wore to work, the same pair you'd put through the washing machine a thousand times, rub against where your legs are only covered in tights. The shorter than usual skirt meant to entice your date, and instead it was being taken advantage of by your ex-boyfriend.

Sukuna let go of your face so he could put his hand underneath the fabric of your skirt.

"New outfit?" He teases as his hand slides to the top of your tights.

"Got it for my date," you snap and he growls at you before he rips the seams of your tights. Before you can complain, he's dragging them down your thighs and diving into your panties so he can get to your cunt. The underwear is new too and a pained noise leaves you at the sensation of them snapping against your inner thigh, both at the pain and the thought of how much they cost.

"I still have those blue ones you like at home, the ones you wore for my birthday last year," he tells you as he slides his finger down the seam of your cunt. You're wet and it annoys you because orgasming has been a bitch to achieve since you had to start giving them to yourself again.

"You can keep them," you tell him and he bites your lower lip between his teeth, they'd always felt too sharp for a man and you know you're a twitch or a less than playful nibble away from a busted lip.

"They're not really up for wearing anymore anyway."

You want to ask him what he means by that as he kisses down your neck and thrusts one finger into you, the slide almost unholy.

"So fucking wet, your cunt was always better at talking than you were."

The sensation of being filled even though it's not enough it's not enough begins to itch at your need to be satisfied as your mind fills in the gaps of his previous words.

You can imagine Sukuna in the bed you used to share, the dark blue sheets and the comforter covered in a black pattern that had reminded you of the marks that covered his body. One hand holding your favorite pair of panties and the other his big cock, that sometimes you missed even more than him.

Did he use the panties to jerk off with, the fabric just an expensive tissue for his cum? Did he hold them to his nose and pretend he could still smell your pussy on them in the bed that used to smell like both of you? You had tried watching porn and reading smut, the stuff you had relied on before you were together, and nothing compared to what it felt like to come from his fingers, his tongue, his cock.

The only times you had touched yourself when you were together were when Sukuna had wanted to watch, his commentary pushing you to the edge. He had always known what to say.

Good girl, now try two fingers for me. Not enough? Do you need my cock? Fucking slutty princess, eh?

No matter how demeaning his words were, you had never felt true shame because his desire for you was always apparent. Sukuna never held back praise where he felt it was deserved, and he had always been quick to let you know that what you were doing was pleasing him.

"Pay attention to me, princess. I'd hate to think I was boring you." The words are laced with cruelty and the added pressure of a second figure is harsh, too soon, and still not enough.

The hand in your hair tightens, but the grip still careful not to mess it up beyond repair. Something you'd been adamant about in the beginning days of your relationship. The gentleness of it, of him, makes you cry out.

Since Sukuna was the only one who still seemed cognizant of how you were in an alley, only a right turn from being on a public sidewalk, he was quick to catch your moan in his mouth. Nearly purring in reply, a ridiculous thing for a ridiculous man to do.

"Fuck, that's it. No one else can make you feel like this, this cunt is fucking mine."

"Yes," you hiss out in agreement. Pleased with your concession, Sukuna's thumb swipes over your clit as he continues his punishing rhythm with his fingers. You can hear how wet you are as it echoes off the brick around you. Even though it's cold outside, you feel almost too hot between the warmth of his body shielding yours from the world around you and the heat that's continuing to build up in your core.

"So close, I know you are. Beg me, princess and I might let you come," he whispers in your ear and you would feel embarrassed of the whine you let out if you weren't so close.

"Please, Sukuna. Please, let me come!"

"I don't know. Not sure if I should reward you since you've apparently being going around giving this pussy to fucking anyone."

You shake your head. "No, I haven't slept with anyone since we broke up."

Sukuna kisses you so hard, you're grateful for the hand behind your head because you know his knuckles must be bruised from the force he kisses you with. Sukuna pulls back, a string of saliva connecting his lips to yours and you hate that you find that hot. That this whole thing is hot.

For a second, the softness in his eyes takes your breath away and you almost forget about where you are and what you're doing and why it's the worst idea you've ever had. He's just Sukuna, the love of your life and you miss him so much.

You think he might say something crazy like he loves you or even propose but then the softness is gone and he just grins at you.

"Alright, come then, you've earned it."

With permission granted, Sukuna focuses his attention on your clit in just that way you like in the way that only someone who's done this hundreds of times could do. He's definitely leaving hickies around your collarbone and neck, but for now they feel good and when you come, you bite your lip knowing it will be bruised. A reminder of how you're an idiot when you look at it in the mirror tomorrow.

Still soft with your orgasm, you reach down to return the favor but Sukuna grabs your hand.

"I'm not walking around with cum in my jeans," he tells you, kissing your palm. Typical of him, to end something crass with something sweet. You sigh as he puts you back down on the ground. You pull up what remains of your tights, the fabric uncomfortable on your quickly drying thighs. Your ripped panties lie on the ground and Sukuna looks at them forlornly before shaking his head, dirty alleyway panties apparently being too much even for him.

Sukuna grabs the bag you'd dropped when he'd kissed you and gestures for you to exit the alley. A few passersby give you strange looks but you figure if you were going to be arrested for public indecency, it would have happened already.

"I guess we're going to mine," you say. "I live like another two blocks this way."

"I know," Sukuna says already heading that way.

You blow a piece of hair out of your eye. "Of course you do."

When Sukuna actually types in the passcode to your building you almost lose it, but you're tired and honestly you had kind of expected to just come home to him already in your apartment at some point. Sukuna had never been great at respecting boundaries. Or the law.

You unlock the door to your apartment, it takes everything in you not to ask if he already has a key. You don't want to know. He follows you in and the two of you sit at the dingy two person table you have set up by one of the only windows.

"Cozy."

"Fuck you." He smirks in that way that has always made you want to punch him and you're reminded that you're currently wearing shredded tights.

"Sukuna, you wanted to talk. So talk."

The smirk leaves his face and he looks at his nails, pressing his thumb against the one on his pointer finger and then looking through the 'o' formed there. "You left."

"I did."

He looks at you. "Why?"

"You know why," you say, tired again.

"Sure, you want to get married at some point. You want a baby at some point. I don't see what that has to do with us, right now."

"Because right now leads to that some point. It doesn't just happen. There are things I want, that are important to me. If they're not important to you, then I need to find someone who has the same priorities as me."

"Because I'm not your priority," he says and this is the rehash of an argument you'd had a thousand times. Sukuna was selfish and possessiveness and while that had always granted you a certain security, it had also been a chain you'd constantly worn around your ankle. You weren't going to defend your time at work or with friends to your boyfriend. That belonged to a different time, to different women and it had been a nonnegotiable early in your relationship that he figure that shit out with himself.

"Sukuna, I love you but I'm not going to give up what I want for my future because you don't want it. You don't have to want it, in fact I appreciate that you've been honest about it-"

"So appreciative, you left me," the words are almost snarled and you sigh.

"That's not fair. You can't be mad I want something else, the same way I'm not mad that you want something else. It's not a character flaw to not want to get married, or to not what kids. It just means you have a person out there for you who shares that view. Because it's not me."

"Why can't it be enough to just have a life with the two of us?"

"It's not about whether or it's enough, it's about me wanting something else."

There's a pause. Sukuna claws at the dents already in your battered table and deepens the grooves as you try not to flinch at the sound of his nails bearing down on wood.

Finally, he responds. "You know, I spent my childhood, my teens and a lot of adulthood raising Yuuji because our piece of shit parents couldn't be bothered and let me tell you. It's fucking hard. It is constant and they need so much for you. I didn't do anything but work and watch him for almost two decades and I don't want to do that again. I want my own life."

"I understand," you tell him. "That was a lot, even if you did a great thing by taking him in."

"It wasn't because I was nice. You seem to be forgetting that I'm a murderer. And you want me to fucking watch Bluey with some brat."

"You may not be nice but you do right by the people you care about. I also don't think you've murdered a baby, it would probably be okay."

"That's more incidental than a conscience choice," he says and you know he has to hear how ridiculous he sounds.

"Alright. I respect your decision but for what it's worth, we're not kids anymore and you wouldn't be doing this alone. I think Yuuji turned out pretty great because he had you, and I think any kid of our would be lucky to have you as a dad."

"You would really do all that with me," he says and his voice is as close to wonderous as you've ever heard it. "You really are a lost cause."

You try not to react, remind yourself that this is always how Sukuna responds to affection. He'd laughed at you the first time you'd told him you loved him. You'd punched him and broken your hand on his chin. He'd told you he loved you in the ER as the attendant resetting your hand looked on in horror.

"I think that's enough for today. Thanks for stopping by and for the orgasm, appreciate it," you say, rising from the chair. You walk the short trip to your door and open it. "Hope you have a safe trip home."

Sukuna stays seated. "That's it?"

"Yeah, Sukuna, that's it."

"And if I said I could do this, I could give you those things."

You think about it and look him over. How his hands twitch as if only his ego is preventing them from clenching. The clear trauma that was informing his previous stance.

"I'd say take some time and maybe talk to someone. I don't want to do this with someone who can just bring themselves to bear it. I want them to be as excited as me."

"That's asking for a lot from a guy."

"But someone will do it." Sukuna looks angry again and when he steps in your space, you push him gently away with your hand. He goes to hold it and even the familiar scrape of his calluses against your skin can't make you waver.

"Bye, Sukuna."

Sukuna looks at you, waiting for you to give in you know but you won't.

He leaves without another word.

When the door to the stairwell slams shut, you finally let yourself cry.

----------

It's been a month since you've seen Sukuna and you're on another date.

The guy is unoffensive. He gave you a hug when you met up and he'd made a joke about the plethora of other couples at the restaurant. You two started playing a game where you tried to guess how many dates each couple had been on?

"Three, she's finally figured out she can't put up with how he chews no matter how nicely coiffed his hair is," your date says as you take another sip of your drink.

"That's a second date, his chewing is a commit or quit type of deal and she looks ready to go. Bet they didn't eat together on their first date."

"Is he telling the plot to Dune, he has not stopped talking since we sat down," he says and you giggle despite yourself.

You've just started on the couple both looking determinedly at their phones by the window when your phone rings.

"Sorry, I need to take this," you say and he smiles.

"No worries, I'll let you know how many times she misses her mouth while looking at her phone."

You wave as you go to stand outside. You take a deep breath and then answer.

"Hey."

"Hey, princess. Bad time?"

"No, just, what do you want?"

"Well, I'm planning this first date with this girl and I'm having trouble figuring out how to explain something."

You want to throw up, what kind of test is this?

"What do you want to say?"

"Well, I've heard that it's important to be straightforward with your intentions, so you don't waste anyone's time."

"And what are your intentions?" You manage to spit out and he laughs, his smugness almost seeping out the phone.

"Well not anytime soon, but eventually I think I'd like a little brat. You know, prove to Yuuji that he wasn't a fluke."

You heart is pounding and you hate him. You love him.

"Uh huh."

"And I guess it would probably be easier to do that if we just got married. You know, taxes, healthcare, I still don't have healthcare but my wife will and I've heard you can add people to that."

"This proposal is the fucking worst one I've ever heard," you say, trying to ignore the fact you are now crying in front of a restaurant. People walk by giving you pitying looks, probably think you got stood up.

"It's not a proposal, it's a framing of intent."

"Why do you talk like such an old man, we are almost the same age?"

"Why do you talk like such a brat?"

"You know-"

"Probably," he says and you laugh despite yourself.

"So when is this date?"

"Tonight," he says. "You can wear that dress you're wearing, it looks perfect on you."

"Are you fucking here, you creep?"

"That's no way to talk to your future husband and no. That place is a shithole, I'm at our usual."

"Good, I've missed it. No one makes my drink the way I like it," you tell him and he hums.

"Well, it will be waiting for you when you get here. So get here soon."

"Alright, I'll see you soon."

Sukuna hangs up and you stand there. There's a perfectly nice guy inside. One who makes you laugh and who maybe one day you could grow to love.

But there's another guy across town who is sitting at your favorite restaurant, ordering your favorite drink. His lips taste like the organic chapstick, he claims to be too tacky to be worth wearing but keeps it in his pocket anyway. He built all your furniture and let you paint your bathroom green even though you live in a rental. He's held your hair back when you were sick and cleaned it up even as he bitched at you for the mess and done a rather cruel impression of you retching.

There's another guy that you love.

So you go back into the restaurant to tell your perfectly nice date that something has come up.

Maybe you're a fool, but what else could you do?

Maybe this will be a series, idk. Being an adult is weird. This is def ooc but you know, let me work through things and call them fiction. That's what this account is for.

synopsis; how sukuna says "i love you".... ࣪𓏲ּ ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹

pairing ~ ryomen!sukuna x reader

"Say it."

He grunts, not turning to look at you as he continues to try and untie the golden jewelry in his hands - a necklace that was tangled to the point where your fingers struggled to get the charms and clasp free in order to wear it

"Idiot servants. I'll have them killed for tangling this - don't they understand it's worth more than all of their pathetic lives combined?" He seethes, his fingers struggling to free the thin chain as you put on a show of dramatically falling onto the bed with a sigh

"So you don't then." You whine, secretly smiling to yourself as Sukuna lets out a growl of annoyance

"You know I do." He bites back, tone sharp and final as he forces his mind to focus on the pendent in front of him and not your silly antics-

"Then why won't you say it?" You question, turning to lay on your stomach as you watch his brows furrow in adorable annoyance that had you biting the inside of your cheek

"Me saying it does not change the fact that I do." He says, lips pulled back in a snarl as the chain falls from his finger tips once again. He was the King of Curses, for heavens sake. So why is he struggling to untangle his womans necklace for her?

Your hands find his back - and he visibly stiffens when your feeble attempt to tickle him is fruitless - you laugh before pressing a single kiss to his cheek that has him rolling his eyes in annoyance

"I love you." you coo, smushing his cheeks together as he scowls and swats you away

"As do I. Now move and let me - "

"You what?" you ask, feigning innocent as you send him a smile that has him gritting his teeth together

"Woman, I will kill you."

His empty threats did nothing - and you merely let out a whine as you drop your head onto his shoulder

"My one and only love wants to kill me. Dare I say - he hates me?" You cry out, and he's finaly had enough - he tosses your necklace onto the bed before a single arm wraps around you and drops you onto his lap

"I love you. Your existence has brought me an odd sense of contentment - as unbelievable as it is. Is that what you wanted to hear?" He grits out, red eyes glaring at you as you blink in surprise from his response

"Hmm. Yes! That will do." You say, sliding effortlessly off of his lap before skipping out the door - he can feel your giddiness from his words radiating off of you like sun rays - and he shakes his head with a scoff

"Lovesick fool."

Even after he mutters the words, he grabs the necklace he was untangling for you once again, giving your small piece of jewerely his undivided attention as he works to untangle it. After an agonizing 10 minutes - it is done, and now he's the one practically skipping to find you and show off what a good job he did untangling your necklace - no doubt you'd give him a kiss and praise him a bit, right?

Well, that's what his lovesick heart hoped for.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nolancrow where everything is the same except he spends too much money on lingerie

JJK Men | Reactions to you saying “I love you” during sex

❧ Choso, Toji, & True Form Sukuna

❧ Warnings: fem bodied reader, rough sex, size difference, slight/hinted angst, dacryphilia

“I love you.”

Choso’s eyes are wide as he looks down at you, cock throbbing inside of you even as your words have left him frozen to the point that you’re not quite sure he’s breathing.

“Ch-Choso?”

The noise he makes is somewhere between a sob and a moan as his eyes get misty, and you brush a little of his hair behind his ears - both to see his face better and to stop it from tickling you as it hangs down. You tighten your thighs around him, hoping to get a more solid response from him, and when that doesn’t jolt him from whatever path his mind was taking him down, you clench his cock gently.

His arms give, as he lets his full body weight fall on top of you, suddenly giving you frenzied sloppy thrusts. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, moaning and panting until he can finally form his thoughts into words, even if they’re hot and slightly muffled against your skin.

“I’m that special? That you love me?”

You run your fingers through his hair, trying to stay coherent even as his thrusts get harder and harder, thick head of his cock outright battering your sweet spot as his emotion moves him to be much rougher than he usually was.

“Y-yes, Choso. I love y-“

“I love yoooou.” He can’t help interrupting, face still buried and arms pinned helplessly beneath you like all the strength left in him was only able to go straight to his hips in pursuit of rushing you into joining the orgasm that was now fast approaching him. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Toji is tricky. Soft when you need it, rough when you need that too, even if you don’t realise it. But then he’s not there when you need him, not all the way. Between the coy smiles and teasing words, plucking the very things you want to hear straight from your mind to present to you in a way that makes you second guess the nature of things between you two, he still has a gauzy slip of distance between you two. You know there are things about him you don’t understand, and you think he’ll never give you the opportunity to.

Still, when he’s fucking you like this it doesn’t just feel like fucking, it feels like more. With his hand on top of your head to keep you held firm beneath him as he rolls his hips into you in that way that has tears forming at the corners of your eyes. With his scarred lips kissing away the dew as it slips past your fluttering lashes and down your face. With his words low and sweet and filled with assurances that you were made for this, made for him.

He’s holding you so close and so tight, like you might just fly away if he didn’t, like you mightn’t let him take care of you like you needed if he doesn’t keep you wrapped up in him. It’s not all that different from how you treat him in a way: slow approach, soft words, but you haven’t quite gotten to the part where you pounce. Where you grasp him as tightly as he has you, wings flattened to writhing sides, because you don’t think you’re strong enough to hold him like that.

So you keep with the soft approach, slow and steady, this time adding sweet words as you let a breathy cry slip past your lips - half hoping he might not hear it.

He does, both hands holding your face now, brushing your hair back, beckoning you to open your eyes even as his hips keep moving you deeper into delirium. “Hm?”

You look at him, hoping he can see how much you meant it in your eyes, hoping to see the same in his, but he’s as unreadable as ever.

“C’mon, say it again.”

You don’t know if you can, but he pushes you the way he always does, like only he truly knows your limits.

“I wanna hear it again, sweetheart.”

“I love you.”

All sense slips away when Sukuna is pounding you like this, hips snapping viciously, cock finding depths you did not know were there each time he presses forward. You’ll say anything, do anything, while he fucks you until all you have are your basest instincts. He just always manages to turn you into something you don’t even recognize and loves every second of it.

He’s grinning, chuckling and panting all in one as he watches you - hips held in the air by his lower arms, shoulders sliding against the hard wood, feet planted on the floor beneath you like they were truly aiding in the balance you were long past having. His upper arms move between groping roughly at your breasts, or making sure you watch him as you drool and whine and beg for more even as your eyes are rolling and your body is on the verge of collapse.

He tells you this is the real you - pushed to the brink, hair matted, sweat clinging to your body until you’re unsure how he can keep such a firm grasp on your slippery skin. You make noises you didn’t know possible, noises that would embarrass you if you didn’t have that pride lodged in your chest at knowing Sukuna sounded just as feral when he fucks you.

The thoughts that come to you in moments like these, when you can form any thoughts at all, are so muddied that you can’t tell if they’ve truly come from you or if they’ve been picked up from the string of filthSukuna chants from all mouths.

“This is how it’s meant to be.”

“This is what I’m good for.”

“I need it.”

“I love it.”

“I love you.”

For once, you try to keep clear headed on the tip of his cock, trying to find the source of such an admission. Your eyes try to focus, only to be met with the same wicked gaze you’ve been performing under all along. So you repeat it, hoping to parse if it had been your voice in the first place, if it felt as jarring and fulfilling as it had before.

“I love you.”

He bends down, massive form covering you, obscuring everything but him as he bites down onto your shoulder, drawing weak cries from you as you clamp down harder on his cock - yet another orgasm approaching at his behest.

“I love you.”

Night owl vs early bird

landlocked

siren! rafayel x female reader

cw ▻ 18+, noncon, nsfw, smut, yandere and unhealthy behaviors, monster(?) on human, merman rafayel, minor violence, dark content beware

wc ▻ 11k, longform oneshot, buckle up

an ▻ HAPPY BIRTDAY RAF 🐬🐳🩵🎉🎂 i busted my ass on this one and its a day late but here we are :,) please heed the tags and do enjoy raf girlies :] eee his characterization is quite tricky but im getting there </3 (also please do forgive typos 🥲)

𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒔, 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔, + 𝒓𝒆𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 ♡

Waves crash against the rocks.

Sea salt shoots up and stings your cornea, your knuckles going white around the wooden ledge they grip onto for dear life. And to be perfectly accurate, that is what this is- life or death- something you’re not entirely certain you’ll make it to the other end of. With a frantic prayer, you plant your heels under the thwarts and try to find balance as the little canoe rocks violently.

Froth builds up around it; towering waves cresting over and leaving behind liquid dust, the air thick with it like a mist.

You squint your eyes to blot out the pelting rain; keeping them open for too long is a near impossible task anyway, what with the burn.

This was stupid, you know that. Whether or not it was a wise decision was never the question in your head.

No, the only one present- overarching all other thought, making it physically impossible to function in your day to day life- was if your fiancé was still alive. Or if what all the townsfolk gossiped about in whispering peels during brushes with them on the cobbled path was true—

If the waves got to him. If he was really lost at sea.

Stupid or naive or plain crazy (as one onlooker labeled you without so much as a care to just how worn-out this whole ordeal’s made you)- you don’t care. Truthfully, you think you’re a little beyond the point of it, of self doubt or second guessing.

The only room left is for action: the strong men at the tavern and the local fisherman you clumsily rallied together were helpful in some ways, but their help only lasted so long until exasperation kicked in and they called it quits.

The choice to do something is yours and only yours.

Look, girl. We combed the port front to back. Turned over the barrels and crates and all, found nothin’. And we’ve been hauling out them nets for weeks now— wouldn’t you be surprised-? nothin’ there, either. Your fiancé's gone. I’m sorry, but—

You didn’t stay to hear the rest, embittered by it.

They’d done you a kindness, carving time out of their strict schedules and afternoon, beer-induced naps. And you’ll always be thankful for that, that despite knowing deep in their hearts that you were a lost cause, they stepped up to bat regardless, but—

There’s no returning home for you. Wiping your brow of its sweat then throwing a towel over your shoulder, heading in for the night.

The spot beside you in bed is eerily empty and cold; you wake from nightmares in sheer darkness and swat a hand to feel him but you’re met with wrinkled sheets and a silence that sneers. Without him, this place is empty.

The town is beautiful- small- but beautiful- with its glittering fairy lights strung from shop to shop, worn paths branching off into pebbled ones that lead to the shore and the peer, the more developed side of it farther down the sand— and it used to feel comforting. Like home.

Now, there’s no lantern aglow on the porch banister to point you in the direction of home. You’re aimless and sad. Like a ship without a sail.

The first week afterward (the news that his crew never returned from their trip), you hid away in your room crying all day, the better part of you half expecting his footfalls to echo down the hall. Though, they never did. It’s fine, you’d reasoned with eyes clamped shut, splayed over his half of the mattress, he’ll be back tomorrow.

Tomorrow came. It went, too.

And he—

He’s still gone—

Worried neighbors flitted by and left steaming pastries by the door. You hardly had an appetite for them, though, delightful as they were sat outside your cracked window, the smell of pecan pie drifting under billowing, sheer curtains.

It’s encroaching on around a month now. A month of loneliness and denial and the cruel, pitying stares the locals level you in the times you seldom leave home.

Your fiancé's absence, as unexpected as it was devastating, has stretched on long enough to kindle a sort of determination in you. You pile your bones off the bed and set out for the shore with a small, leather bag at your waist and sandals that hang off your feet, nervous but hellbent.

That bag, now: floating off in the distance, whisked away by whirling winds and swallowed up by the sea. One valiant flipflop remains hanging off your big toe, but you question, albeit with little concern for it, for just how much longer it will last.

Your fingers shake as they peel hair from your temple. You can’t see, can’t see anything— the boat shakes and croaks as the bottom steadily fills, and you have the dreadful realization that you are slowly sinking and cannot stop it.

Through bleared eyes, you watch several, ringlet-like waves form on the horizon and disappear behind rolling, closer ones. You brace endlessly for impact, but another wave bulges and effortlessly lifts your canoe- a temporary respite from the others that come crashing over.

When it lets you down, you quickly squint to see what’s coming for you next and immediately pale.

It’s massive. Dark, cobalt, scraping the underbelly of the black sky. Another tall wave (but a small fish in comparison) interlopes into it and is swallowed within a blink. It only worsens it, feeds it.

You have no chance. None at all. It’s over. It’s over and despite it all- the pointed meddling of your neighbors and all the chatter meant to maim the stubborn belief you held that your to-be husband was still alive- a small hope flares to life in your chest.

It says maybe dying here wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe, if all of them were right after all, you’d be able to see him again.

As that unbeatable wave draws nigh, seemingly moving at a snail’s pace- casual in its approach but so terrifyingly powerful- it droops at the top and paints you in an opaque shadow.

You can’t see, can’t hear. The deafening roar of thunder and the foamy tide clapping against itself is tuned out. Your eyes see nothing but darting smears of lightning and the hurt of heartbreak and sea salt.

It’s happening. It’s over.

You give your fingers one last twitch to remind yourself that, for the moment, remarkably, you’re still alive. They feel fat with the cold, hardly budging.

Your last flip flop gusts over your shoulder and your ribcage rattles with a chill.

Your teeth chatter out one final prayer and perhaps a choked sob- although you can’t tell if it’s the brine gathering at your feet, rising with a gurgle- And you watch with wide, teary eyes as that tsunami finally descends—

A flash of color, indigo and bright, bobs above the slanted tide.

‘You. You shouldn’t be out here.’

Your eyes widen. Milliseconds before the boat is hit, a slosh from the side tips it and you’re catapulted into the open water.

It feels like an open flame.

Arctic temperatures freeze you to the bone. You’re reminded of hellfire as the cold licks away at your skin, limbs warping around you in violent currents.

You let out a scream of despair and watch as it turns to suds.

You know it was stupid, you know it was stupid, you know it was stupid— But you were hurting. And that life back at town- now devoid of the man you thought to be your veritable soulmate, who you were convinced you’d spend your final breaths with- is not the one you want to continue on with.

(But… you don’t wanna die.)

You dig to the surface with a sputter.

You manage to keep yourself afloat for all of two seconds before the ocean— or something that feels oddly like a fist— latches onto your ankle and pulls.

Consciousness is a slightly longer affair… but that, too, fades.

Teal blips across your spasming eyes. A vivid, long tail flicks along your arm, almost curiously, before curling behind you and disappearing.

Bubbles erupt from your jaw and shoot up, up, up.

Maybe, you think vaguely as the world blackens, quietens, you’ll find your missing fiancé lying at the seabed. The thought, surprisingly, isn’t as comforting as it is disturbing, but you suppose a reunion only in death would be better than none at all.

‘Silly human. Don’t worry, I got you.’

⊹⊹⊹

A voice breaks the quiet of night. Dulcet, lamenting.

The ocean whirs in his ears endlessly, his tail gliding below him in a dull swish. A school of fish passes by, and then another. A curious, blue one swims at his side and he biffs it dismissively.

“Not now, fishie.”

Rafayel isn’t concerned about the life swirling around him in colorful dots of assorted sizes, floating above the seabed, no- that’s all ubiquituous to him. It’s that song— that smooth sound drifting like a dirge from somewhere on the surface— that stirs something deep in his chest.

It was like that last night, too, and then a few nights before.

After over two decades of swimming in unbroken boredom- with each day bringing about the expectation of nothing more than waking up to see another- the siren feels a shift.

Something is breaking the monotony.

An excitement, existing deep in his chest but incipient, is invoked within him like an ancient god brought to wakefulness. Rafayel feels his bones rouse with the phantom aches of a slumber he never fell into- but the feeling is all the same. He rubs the disbelief from his eyes and pushes aside waving reeds before rocketing upwards.

When the waves kiss the morning foam,

From beneath the surface, the crescent moon is lopsided and shakes as Rafayel gets closer to breaching it.

The dainty shadow of a hand cuts in front of the white orb, as if wanting to capture it, before falling back to her side.

A gentle splash.

From up here, he can hear the things of land- the crickets and cicadas of summertime- purr from afar. That’s not what he came here for, though, what’s been stringing him in from the depths like fish in a trawl or moth to a flame.

And still, in the span of the last week, Rafayel has yet to get her name... (Something that definitely has to be remedied sooner or later, he quietly decides- despite the other half of him still holding onto the pride of coasting solo, the embarrassment at being led off by a mere voice. A land creature’s, at that.)

He latches onto the long, thick leg of the peer and props himself just under the overhang of it, laying his nose flat in the water but opening his eyes above it. It’s amplified now, that pretty noise, and the only thing separating the two- him and the human- is the planks of wood overhead.

Her feet rest on it. He hears her sandals squelch before she toes them off, sits down, and loops her legs over the edge.

Rafayel, with fluttering lashes and an interest so unexpected but strong it’s paralyzing- watches her heels make ripples just beside him, his heart thumping wildly. It could be out of the thrill of doing something this unusual, or the silent anticipation of maybe getting caught (although, he doubts he will, for the main reason that his kin don’t lack in cunning).

Maybe it’s just out of delight- the fibers of his being tingling with invisible sparks of… something. It makes him feel a little clumsy, innocent and fumbling like when he was a young merfolk just learning how to evade a rip current.

Similarly, she pulls him under. Drags him far out. Her voice is the tide and he’s all too willing to drown.

It’s… certainly not the first time he’s seen them- human legs- and he’ll be the first to admit that he wasn’t so sure about them initially- but he thinks he likes hers the best. It’s starting to grow on him, but just a little.

She’s soft. Smooth. At least, that’s how she appears- though he can’t say for certain because he’s never tested that theory, yet.

He’s extra careful to keep his hands to himself, intrigued as he is, lest his nails pierce through and break her. It’s a more common notion underwater, shared between much of the fishfolk, that humans are meant to be broken. Pieced apart in hungry hands or brought to the depths for a more extended, decadent death.

To be fair, he’s not a firm denier of that...

But this human, this girl who’s collided into his infinitely bleak life with all the grace of a ship wrecked hours off from shore, and whatever the hell she’s singing about— Rafayel’s not quite stupid enough to break her, no… He’s not quite willing to, either.

When the scent of roses pierces the lungs, The fish stranded at your fingertips…

For the rest of the moonlit evening, Rafayel floats beneath the peer at her (unwitting) side and listens to her languishing until she stands to her feet and retreats down the beach, disappearing into a cluster of warm, tiny lights in the distance.

Blood,

Blood,

Blood covers the sea.

Rafayel, with an inexplicable pang of sorrow- unable to fight the influence of her songs- can’t help but wonder what has made the girl so sad.

It’s not in their baser nature, the sirens, to commiserate, least of all with the humans. It’s a weakness, to cry, an open wound that his kind is all too susceptible to deepening- so they avoid it entirely. Call it preservation. But for as much as Rafayel loves the ocean- and yes, to an extent, his people- he was never all that interested in their society, and if showing a little bit of heart for the landfolk means escaping the bland shadows of the sea, then maybe right now is a good time to start.

…Before she swims away, anyway.

⊹⊹⊹

Silence sours the balmy air of your home, but you swear you hear something singing to you.

It was real.

It had to be, what happened just a number of days ago.

When you’d been retrieved from a bed of seaweed on the shore with little memory of what happened, you had retained just enough to know that something was… off.

That something having to do with the violent storm at sea and your lack of succumbing to it- the darting shadow that appeared by the boat and was there when you went under— wasn’t adding up.

You… shouldn’t be alive.

That thought was present even in the thick mist of early morning as boats began unmooring from the docks— stark epiphany, realer than the concerned hands of the fishermen as they helped you into town, your legs hardly capable of carrying you there on their own. Much less your frazzled mind; you didn’t quite miss the way they’d stared at you during the trek off shore, throwing frantic looks over your shoulder even as the sand gave to the reedy path leading into the village.

The rolling waves got flatter as you drew off from it, but something in you- like some inexplicable base instinct- was telling you to run. Away or back to it, you don’t know, but you feel the frigidity of the sea still in your chest, lapping away at your sanity as days pass.

The burn is surreal. Nothing makes sense.

You should be dead- scraping there at the bottom of the sea, drifting with your supposedly dead fiancé in a place where the light doesn’t dare reach—

But you’re not.

The earth feels shapeless beneath your feet. A perpetual dizziness in your skull that makes you feel like you’re swaying on a dock- but your toes are planted in dry land.

You’re alive. The scale tipped against you but it didn’t matter. The sea spat you out, didn’t want you.

Surprisingly, you take the whole ordeal in stride. The first days after being plucked from the shore are rocky and dreamy, but you find your footing and with it comes an unexpected hope.

If you survived, your fiancé must’ve as well. He’d always been the stronger of you two, anyway, more stout and determined.

The waves did not drag him under. Couldn’t have.

The canoe you took out to sea is gone, not to your surprise. It was more or less reduced to splinters. But you wonder if it was even real to begin with, if the canoe ever existed that day when you unroped it from its notch and embarked on the perilous journey. Down to the very point where you pattered off your porch steps and made the choice to look for your fiancé yourself- the whole sequence of events is wrapped in a forgetful fog.

But deep down, despite the whispers of doubt surrounding you and your own mental haze, you know it happened. All of it.

It was real, and something

Is singing to you—

(Wet hands descend the span of your belly. Sand feels like gravel beneath you, soaked and cold beneath a yellowed moon as night fades. Reverent, curious. Long nails carefully unravel algae from your fingers and thighs. The debris is tossed away, thrown down the shore without thought.

-…. in good shape, cutie. Is there anyone on land who’d sing for you if you disappeared? A gentle laugh- but even in your state of unconsciousness, you pick up on the note of disdain there. I guess if there was, you wouldn’t turn to the sea so much.)

Hands. Curious hands kneading into you like wet clay on a spinning wheel. Reshaping. Admiring. There’s painterly intent in every touch, every brush. Something between the cove of your legs gives a wanting throb and your tongue feels like cotton. Fire licks from your belly to your brain and makes it benumbed, pleasantly heavy as the gentle, rhythmic lull of the tide cools the tips of your toes.

Salt burns your throat.

You wake with it sore.

Rubbing it groggily, you come to before dawn fully does, the horizon flickering with a diluted, white-orange beneath a starry sky.

It gets to be too much. The emptiness of your bed, the suffocating drivel of the townsfolk and the lack of certainty in what happened to you.

Dubbed crazy or not by all around you, you’re past the point of caring. You have to leave. Worried neighbors advised you against it, adamant that you ward off on visiting the peer at least until your mind fog lessened; preferably, you’d wait an extra few months so the wound of heartbreak would seal over, but it seems they know better than to ask that of you.

He’s still out there, your to-be husband. He’s got to be.

You think something else might be, too. The thing that saved you. Although, the reasons it has for doing so are beyond you.

Go back, a lilting voice sings somewhere in the back of your head, a dull throb like a separate, beating heart. It thumps in your skull and sends a thrill through you. It speaks in urgency, like it’s warning you not to disobey— but all the sharpness of it is masked in dulcet chords.

Go back, back to the sea.

Crazy or not, you think it’s calling for you.

The lyrics lead you to the front door. Maybe you ought to think this over more, sleep on it (God knows you’re failing at that seemingly simple task). But something is driving you, picking up and physically moving your limbs for you as if your settings have been switched to autopilot.

You shrug on a thin cardigan to stave off the crisp air of early morning, not bothering to lock your door behind you.

A weird, eerie voice in your subconscious- hardly sounding like yours- says you won’t be coming back anyway.

Thankfully, you have half the mind to shoo it away and steel your nerves. Of course you’ll be coming back home. You’ll find your errant fiancé and burst through the little blue-painted door with celebration. All the village will cough up their sheepish apologies for the things they’d said- the faithless assumptions they made- and raise a mug to his return.

The key to finding him is finding that other thing, first. The thing with a watery fist and roaming nails, the glinting coral-red eyes that blurred beneath coiling waves and the tail that you’re sure swam you back to safety.

The locals can say all they want about you: The ruddy, fading ring of scratches wrapping around the bone of your ankle—

That’s all the proof you need to spur you onward.

Onward is the ocean.

⊹⊹⊹

Water gushes against the rocks at the seaside.

Dark and slate-grey, they dry up under the sun immediately. Seagulls caw overhead. The sand is warm- not cool as it was in your last visit- near scalding as you head towards the shore.

You hiss and don’t make it halfway until you start leaping, bare feet burning. You hurry into the water, standing only ankle-deep, and mentally scold yourself for forgoing shoes— but to your defense, your sandals had been lost to the abyss that was the sea just barely seven days ago.

The horizon is blinding. Sunlight bounces off the plane of the sea and glistens, just as bedazzled as a wealthy woman’s neck. It’s a far cry from what it was last week- all whorling ridges and roaring waters- and for that you’re thankful.

That storm, and being launched into the hellish currents of it, will remain in your dreams for a long time coming.

Even now, just looking at it from far out takes your breath a little.

It’s horrifying. It’s… beautiful.

…And it’s singing to you—

“I know you’re there,” you whisper.

Your voice is just a breath at first, hushed as you toss a squirrely look down the beach- where the fishermen drudge around as little specks- and straighten your spine.

You’re alone here, though. You’re allowed to be as crazy as you want.

You speak louder, forcing down the lump of embarrassment in your throat that says your voice is falling on deaf ears. And you know the ocean doesn’t have ears, or eyes; it hardly had the heart to spit you back out of it.

But that thing that snatched you into its arms and left you boneless on the sand does.

With hands bunched, shaking, you declare, “I know, you’re there.”

Nothing.

A short whitecap curls over the tips of your toes and stretches a few feet behind you before receding.

It melds seamlessly into the blue.

Nothing, and then-

Yards off, a colorful blur warbles. As it swims closer, you hold your ground, squint to assure it’s not a sea turtle or other creature (albeit, no typical marine animal is that shape or size), and let out a little gasp. Its head pops above the surface gracefully, and it’s full of hair, a vibrant shade of indigo that strikes a familiar chord in you instantly.

“It’s you,” you startle, almost out of breath. The fingers clutched tightly at your sides unfurl. Your heart picks up its speed, an abrupt surge of emotions- shock, relief, and confusion- leaving no different an effect than a stungun would.

“You’re real, I- I knew it—!”

“Shhh,” is his first word, coral-blue eyes narrowing with apathy as he palms himself closer, about knee-deep in the water now. And yet you step away, applying some distance as you stagger because for whatever reason, the knowledge that his creature- or fish-man- saved you doesn’t take the cake when it comes to self-preservation.

You don’t even have a name to put to his face (or tail), and up until now, you were certain mermaids and unicorns and fairies only existed between the pages of whimsical books or the imaginations of children.

Right then, you think, they also existed in the sage warnings of the Greeks before they sailed off to sea.

The quiet epiphany plays with your nerves.

“You don’t have to be so loud, you know. I can hear you just fine, thanks.”

Ear-length, wavy hair bobs with the movement as he tilts his head. You can’t help but feel estranged from the idea of caution, though, as he drifts a bit closer and gives you a petulant pout.

He gets as close as the sandbar will allow before pausing, broad shoulders jutting above the ripples.

And he’s childish still, the picture of harmlessness as he looks up at you, squinting in the sun, and murmurs, “buuuut, I admire your enthusiasm, cutie... Were you looking forward to our reunion that bad?”

You blink, lashes fluttering. A breath you’d been holding finally escapes you, a whit of that unease ebbing out just like the cool tide underfoot.

You’re… hardly a sailor, anyway. You’ve no ship to be wrecked; no, the man that served as the anchoring element in your life is missing. The boat in your life has gone AWOL. With it your warmth and love. It’s why you’ve even come out here in the first place, the flights of fancy belonging to a grieving woman or not.

The reminder of your lost fiancé steels you.

You lift a shaky hand to use as a visor against the sun, blotting it out so you can peruse the man-fish without obstruction.

“You saved me,” is all you really know to say. You’d had all sorts of lofty plans coming back out here, but you’d never fully considered what you’d do if your new friend (he is a friend, right?) did show.

He lets out an amused, dry sound. The ghost of a smile curls at his pink lips, though. He can’t quite hide that one from you.

“I did. Have you come to show me your gratitude?” He lowers his gaze then, glancing at your shins momentarily before peering behind you, at the grassland stopped just after the shore and right before the village.

He grumbles, “Or will humans with pitchforks show up any minute, intent on slaughtering me and my kind?”

For some reason, the most you take from that statement is the very end of it, quickly saying, “T-There’s more of you?”

He looks up at you. Makes a scoffing sound but it only holds half its bite.

“Well, of course there is. Silly girl,” he comments, that little grin returning with a vengeance as behind him, something teal shoots up from the water and pelts a small flurry of droplets your way. You close your eyes and turn, the gentle sound of his laughs ringing out.

When you look back at him, a long tail- gorgeous and as pigmented as turquoise paint- flicks under the sun and glitters no different than rhinestones.

“It was only me that was generous enough to save you, though. That’s the most important part.”

⊹⊹⊹

Trust is a big word, it is.

But there is no doubt in your mind that you would’ve succumbed to a watery death if not for the merman- Rafayel, he’d informed with a coy flap of his tail- intervening, and you’re grateful to him for that. His saving you— it means something. And you owe him.

You head for the shore each morning with a silent debt hanging over your head, but he never demands anything of you in return. During lazy afternoons by the cove trading pretty, swirled shells and at first tentatively getting in the water with him to swim at nightfall, you wait for the catch to come, for him to name his price.

You think it’s only fair. Rescuing something as valuable as a life is nothing to scoff at: you’d cough up the change.

He never holds out his hand.

If anything, Rafayel seems wholly uninterested in that.

You’re not entirely sure why you formulated your ideas of merfolk around blood-thirst and thievery (perhaps because of the myths), but the one you’re befriending is nothing like that. He’s playful and sassy and a little bit flirtatious but you suppose- if the legends of sirens luring sailors to the depths are really true- then it adds up. It’s only natural he’d be a whit on the provocative side, right?

Rafayel is friendly, clingy even when you convince him that you have no intentions of alerting the village any time soon of his presence. You tell him with a wry laugh that they’d hardly believe you anyway because everyone thinks you’ve lost it.

You see it in his pleasant face- the blip of interest that passes by- that he wants to ask why, but he holds off on it when you pour him with questions about what goes on in the deep blue and if his kind really eats fishermen.

He huffs, propping his elbow on the half-submerged rock he’d helped you onto, still in sight of the shore but more intimate a setting.

“What kind of question is that? Do you really think I could do something like that? Look at me,” he balloons out his cheeks and puffs. “I’m an innocent little fishie.”

You laugh, and drop the interrogation in favor of a more lighthearted one. You ask Rafayel what life off land is like.

With a mischevious twinkle in his marbled, red-blue eye, he tells you about what lurks in ocean trenches first, painting vivid imagery in your head of glowing bulbs in the dark and rows of jagged teeth that peer out of deep crevices.

You blanche and he can’t help but chuckle softly, a dash of something in his gaze that resembles ardor as it flits appreciatively along the curve of your face.

It’s not all horrifying, though, he eventually concedes.

He scoops shiny things up from the sand lining the ocean floor and gifts them to you in your following meetings. He tells you that the fish- sleek and chromatic- dance around him in schools where everything is crystalline. They sleep on beds of coral under-tail and stick close to the fins of whales, apparently having nothing better to do. Sometimes they get a little clingy, he admits, and he has to shoo them away, but the little creatures are friendly- and his underwater world is nothing short of beautiful.

Rafayel loves the sea. It’s his home.

“And what about you, cutie? What’s your home like?”

That gives you pause, but just for a moment.

You know what home is like; you’d only dwelled there, in the tiny village off the shoal, since you were a little girl.

And home is nice…. Or, it was. Now, it’s a husk of the warmth you once knew. Days drag by in drab monotony and the added, very much unwanted reminder that your fiancé has yet to return. Seagulls squawk outside and tricycle bells ring. Concerned neighbors knock on your door but this place feels dull. No more face to put to this snuggly seaside village.

With a small smile- one that Rafayal thinks is more wistfully sad than anything- you tell the merman about the things you cherish here, deliberately omitting what you desperately miss.

Memories of childhood circle back to you in fuzzy fragments: Despite the present, you can still at least cherish the past, right…?

Listening to you recount gems of your youth with a smile, it’s evident to Rafayel that you love it here.

Just… he understands that maybe it’s not as much as you used to.

His face takes on more of a sober look then, his cheeks, dappled with teal scales that break the surface in some spots, dusting a soft pink. You don’t really understand why- perhaps a mild case of sun burn- but he asks,

“And what about in it? Is there… Someone who’s special to you, who brings it warmth? Even underwater, in order to survive, we merfolk need a suitable temperature, you know.”

Ah. That.

You offer a hum of acknowledgment before glancing off, far out to where the flat whitecaps stretch into nothingness. Lounging around by the coast with your new, unlikely friend, the scenery is idyllic here.

You almost will yourself into forgetting what you’re really here for, what hurled you face-first into this predicament.

Sorrow hangs in your heart. The visage of your fiancé passes in your head rapidly, kaleidoscopic, his smiles and the tender moments spent with him, the sound of his laugh.

You are less and less certain of yourself. You are not sure if the gossipping townsfolk are correct or not to assume the worst, but what you do know is that it’s creeping up on two months and not one shiphand has returned. Not even an errant oar has washed ashore.

“Yes. But…” A pause. You swallow thickly and give your head a belated, uncertain shake. Tears form in the back of your throat and you pile them down, frustrated they’d showed up uninvited.

Perhaps you’re more weak to all the bleak murmurs than you’ve let on.

You laugh, but the sound lacks humor. “Everyone thinks he’s dead, all the people at the village.”

“…You wanna share?”

You shrug and draw one knee to your chest, the other still bent over the rocky ledge, dangling in the cool water. They’re still today, the waters, relatively level— but inwardly, you warn yourself against being so easily deceived by them: they looked more or less the same the day you rowed out.

The storm was nothing short of terrifying, yes, but you think the lack of expecting it somehow made it more devastating.

“Well, there’s not much to,” you respond, tongue in cheek. You don’t mean to sound uninterested in this conversation all of a sudden, but you suppose it’s a defense mechanism. Rafayel props his elbows on the rock and listens intently, giving his brow a little quirk at your tone.

“But my… fiancé,” why the words are suddenly hard to get out, you don’t know, “he went off to sea. Hasn’t come back yet.”

At your knees, Rafayel is noticeably quiet, but you get the inexplicable sense that he’s invested.

“I guess he’ll come back with lots of fish whenever he does,” you sigh. Your attempts to remain lighthearted just barely working.

Quickly, you try to breeze past the topic, but the merman chimes- “A fisherman? You were courting a fisherman?”

Courting. The word sounds a little funny, medieval almost, but you hum.

It’s his turn to make a tongue-in-cheek comment, lifting his scaly fist to support his chin. “He must’ve been a real prize to deserve all that singing... What do I get for saving you?” He says playfully, almost pettily, but you get the weird idea that this is more serious to him than he lets on.

You want to heave a laugh at his pouting words, but confusion stops you. You snap your head to him.

“You-?”

Quickly, Rafayel quips, “Yes, just about the whole sea can hear you at night. Why is that surprising?”

For some reason, a whit of hope warms your chest throughout. If Rafayel is cognizant of something as trivial as songs from above the surface, surely he must’ve been privy to a shipwreck or the hurried shouts of sailors as their boat went down.

Not that you believe it did, just—

You scramble upright, planting your palms on the rock in a kneel as you say- in a voice you’re not keen on sounding as desperate as it comes out-

“Have you ever heard anything else? A- A boat sinking? People drowning or- or—“ You stuff out an anxious breath, all the worries and doubts you’d been housing for weeks now bubbling to the surface. You suppose if anybody has garnered your confidence, though, it’s the merman that saved your veritable life.

Still, a lump of unease burns in your throat. Thick and acidic. It makes your voice shake but you ignore it, leaning over the edge. If you fall in, he’ll save you again anyway. If not a friendship (but you definitely treat it as such), there is still a mutual fondness between you two- a silent trust- and you’re sure, beside the marks on your ankle he left by accident in the heat of the moment, he would not let harm befall you.

“Because they say he’s gone— my lover— they say his crew got hit by something- like a plague or a storm- and succumbed out there. But maybe- maybe you heard something? Rafayel- did you hear or see any group of fishermen out there?” You bluster, before adding on like an afterthought, “two months ago?”

The longer your mouth moves, the wider Rafayel’s eyes get.

And then, you think it’s something like… recognition that skips across multihued eyes.

He’s quiet for a moment, mouth ajar. His bright turquoise tail, the tip jutting out from the tide as it sways idly, stops midway in the air and floats awkwardly.

Your brow furrows. You fear the worst. Your nails dig into the gritty surface, fingerpads whiting as you shake your head.

“Rafayel-? W-What’s wrong?”

Curtly, he shuts his mouth. An easy smile replaces his momentary surprise.

When he speaks, it’s in a familiar, somewhat sarcastic but harmless tone, and his tail sparks to life behind him, albeit quite unsteadily.

“Nothin’, cutie,” he lifts an arm to adjust his perch on the rock but it slips. His face dusts pink, his brows twitching together; all of it, the clearly disturbed signs of his composure, he ignores. Your heart thrums.

“I was just thinking how brave you were to venture off to sea after him. He’s lucky to have someone like you still waiting at home for him.” His compliment is overlooked. You’re too caught up in the rush of unease that sweeps through you- the niggling feeling that says there’s something more to this you’re not seeing- that you can hardly utter a bashful thanks.

“But- did you happen to hear anything, or-?”

Rafayel adds casually, “I’m sure the guy is fine wherever he is, though. And no, cutie. But I’ll let you know if that changes.”

Something like hesitance grips you as you watch, with silence, the friendly merman lose the better part of his mirth. You wonder if you’ve said something wrong as his exterior hardens cooly, if you’ve divulged too much of your emotions and quite possibly lost your final companion. Maybe you’re overthinking it- but if that’s the case, if even a fish-man from the sea has taken the same opinion as the land-living locals, then some drama seems warranted.

You don’t want to be alone again. And Rafayel- Rafayel was starting to really grow on you despite all your differences—

He strums his fingers against his jaw, painting the picture of boredom, and puffs out his lips, eyes drifting away almost flippantly as if he’s dead to the wounded look you send him.

A yawn. He unfolds his lean arms and ducks under the water.

“Wait- Rafayel-?”

“Sorry, princess, the fishies are calling me. They said it’s getting late now, and that I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“But—“

“Hop on my back, let me take you back to shore. Your little legs can only doggy paddle you so far,” he lets out a light laugh but you don’t miss the dash of mockery there, as if you’re some unfortunate soul cursed with four limbs and warm blood. Still, you bite your tongue- and the unbidden pang of unease in your chest- and slip off the rock.

You loop your arms around his middle, his muscles flexing in response, lean and tight, and keep your chin above the tide as he floats towards the sand bar.

“Rafayel, are you okay?”

“Of course, cutie. Why, aren’t you?”

“Y-Yeah. It’s just-“ you poorly stifle a sigh, still a bit taken aback by his sudden desire to truncate your meeting. That, and his odd behavior when you asked about any possible shipwreck.

You eventually settle on, “Please just keep it on your radar. If you hear or see any ships, call me, okay?”

“We don’t have shellphones under the water, you know. How am I supposed to alert you?” You can’t see the face he’s making, saddled on his back as his long tail gusts through the gentle currents, but you realize he’s teasing.

“I- I don’t know,” you admit clumsily. “Maybe I’ll just know if you say my name.”

I mean, it’s not too crazy an idea, is it? You felt a stirring towards the ocean- real and audible- would a creature living in it really be so different?

Perhaps the townsfolk are right in their claims made against you, that you’ve lost it.

There’s nothing left in you that cares, though.

Rafayel lets out a small chuckle but sounds oddly endeared. “How romantic.”

“Rafayel—“

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll let you know if anything’s up. Don’t worry!”

⊹⊹⊹

From the shipdeck, the water is beautiful, even as it takes you down under, swallowing up the thick hull in a lazy gulp.

A white moon pours down. The waves sparkle like sequins. It’s… hypnotizing, in a way. Your fist flies to your collar when the sails tear, the harsh rip of it reminding you of the breath still in your lungs, and you hold the locket there like it’s a lifering.

The crewhands scramble for them- and for the tiny boat hanging off the side. Another powerful slosh to the boat sends slippery hands in a fray; you hear the vague sound of wood cracking, planks you thought to be sturdy splintering. You’re no more than a raft drifting, victim to the elements.

The emergency lifeboat whistles as it drops, freefalling from the ropes and into the coiling sea.

It has no heart for mercy, the sea, but you’ve still one for home, a deep-seated urge within to return that has your nails digging bluntly into your palms, blood drawing in the paths of them.

…H-Home.

Sailors scream around you.

Someone, you realize with a flash of confusion, in the chaos- in the maelstrom of wind and shooting rain- is even singing.

The sound of it chills you to the bone.

Dazedly, you think they must’ve lost it. To be fair, there’s no blame there— men have drowned in waters far flatter: your crew is miles from the nearest chunk of land and the vessel can’t withstand this weather— you’re all gonna die and the crewmate must know. He knows and he’s singing.

Crashing waves silence heavy thunder. The sky glows endless white, one last fissure of lightning darting down before the deck lights bright gold.

Fire surges. It dances in your eyes and you swallow a scream.

She’s waiting at home, still. It can’t be over, it can’t be, it can’t be—

Fiery yellow, and then everything spins, your world going lopsided as the ship groans and you tip.

And then, it’s all blue.

Dark, vast cerulean interpolated only by flotsam that drifts away the moment you reach for it, fingers desperately clawing for the surface.

Up, or down— you’re not sure which way you’re swimming.

You do know, though, that you never find your buoyancy.

Hands. Hands on you and dragging you down, down, down, and then it’s clear the wrecked pieces of the ship are getting further away, not closer. A deepness surrounds you. Cold, quiet. The storm’s effects are mitigated the lower you sink— it’s counterintuitive, you think, because surely you’ll drown regardless, but a strange sense of calm washes over you as the air peters from your lungs. They spasm as you choke.

But you got to get home, you must get home to her—

The tips of your boots touch the sandy floor.

It’s tranquil, under the sea. The reefs are vivid, swaying with bubbling marine life. Navy blue swirls around you and is limned with muted fire light, displacing itself with every wild movement of your limbs. You flail them helplessly but something—

Something is holding you down and it’s singing—

From afar, and through bleared eyes, the coral looks like upright rods of colorful bone, yellow and blushing-orange. An opaque red smears over them— curling and wavering into smoke-like trails. It’s reminiscent of black and white marble. Beautiful, in a way.

A long, glittering tail scrapes across your leg.

You realize it’s blood- your blood- and then in a heartbeat, a pair of talons pierce through the veil and—

A gasp.

You come to wakefulness with a frightened noise.

That dream- you’d been having it for days now, each more fragmented and blurry than the last… But this time, it’s strikingly clear.

Horror frosts your eyes over, glossy and wide as you undo the covers bound tightly around you, standing to shaking feet.

That awful, awful dream— it’s not in your point of view, you realize, it’s in your fiancé’s, and that same claw that had been gracious enough to scoop you up and save you from stormful, roaring swells—

Dragged your lover down to the depths, burying him in liquid oblivion.

As you shrug on a thin cardigan and hurry outside, dashing under moonlit lawns with the single-minded focus to reach the beach, you vaguely wonder if you’re being unreasonable, if all these little dreams and visions and songs you’ve been experiencing are nothing short of delirium. But this is too coincidental— Rafayel had smoothly shirked all your questions days ago, and you realize now that the dull look in his eye wasn’t boredom but jealously, ugly and sudden, masquerading under disinterest.

Knowledge of that- and your naivety- comes to you in piecemeal.

You’ve been stupid. You’d been holding onto the feeble hope that your soon-to-be husband was somewhere out there, scraping together shellfish on an uncharted islet or lost at sea with his crew-mates but alive. Deep down, you always knew it was the dreams of a fool.

But damn it all if you’d just… stopped yourself for one fucking second to nudge aside your denial and take a good look at your marine friend, you’d have seen the lack of common sense in it. Your lover’s met no different and no more painless, as much as it horrifies you- a fate than the sailors depicted in all those whimsical tales of old.

You sing out to the sea. Anger warms your chest like a fleece, cardigan be damned, fists clenched so tight your palms swell as you cry out.

Panic, subtle but niggling, speaks to you from underneath thick layers of hate and pain, but you’re beyond the point of reason. No, you need to hear it from the siren himself just what the fuck happened to your other half— if he can hear your lamenting after dark without issue, surely he would’ve at least caught wind of some devastation off the coast or spotted the debris in his own waters—

But he’s been keeping something from you.

“Rafayel!” You cry again. It’s impossible to swallow the lump in your throat; it seeks to climb to the surface but for now, with a remnant of control that surprises yourself, you manage to keep from spitting it up.

Nausea turns in your belly, but you keep it at bay. Just barely.

Unshed tears burn your cornea. “Rafayel!” You don’t scream, no, your lungs are too wounded and overwhelmed by the simple task of drawing air to, but it’s a near thing.

Furious, beginning to think he’ll conveniently not show or he’s merely ignoring you, your feet splash into the water until you’re shin-deep.

You hiccup. “R-Rafayel! I know you’re there!”

Eventually, a head bobs above the tide, infuriatingly nonchalant, and a turqoise fluke appears not long after it, twinkling just barely under a clouded, night sky.

He doesn’t look as tired as you’re sure you do- and not by a long shot quite as disturbed. If anything, he looks a little pleased with himself.

Wet indigo waves give a little bounce as he lazily approaches, watchful eyes glimmering with something you’re both too enraged and emotional to name. Something like betrayal courses through you— distracting you from the very real fact that the siren is drawing closer.

He says nothing as you shake your hands emphatically, eyeballs practically bulging out your head. They might pop out and roll. “You-! You knew!” You accuse, momentarily stunned at the broken sound of your voice. “You knew all along b-because you did it, didn’t you? You’ve been lying to my face this whole time— You killed him! Y-You ripped him apart I fucking saw it—“

Your tirade is clipped short with a hiccuping gasp as you fully erupt into tears. You don’t bother to wipe them or even hang your head, brows furrowed as Rafayel regards you with a contemplative, almost curious look.

An undercurrent of desire, dark and intense, exists under it, though, and you can’t will yourself for any longer to view him as the same harmless, aquatic humanoid who’d rescued you.

You find yourself for both a lack of coherency and also gratitude; he could’ve left you to decay at the bottom of the ocean for all you care, or thrown you to the hands of Neptune or the feeding pit of sharks— it’s almost preferable to this.

Rafayel’s face, admittedly handsome, in a pretty way (albeit, you’ve no idea why your brain is suddenly forming opinions on his appearance, especially now of all times), is relaxed, devoid of emotion. You recognize the impatience there, though… like there’s been a string that you’ve pulled taut.

The silent truth that has been overarching your life for the past couple months- you don’t want to come to terms with it or you might break otherwise.

For the life of you, you can’t even understand what his goals were in all of this—

You hurl your anger at him and flail your arms and shout until your trachea feels like aggregate when you swallow, and he waits it all out with an ease that gets you impossibly riled up.

You suck in a sharp breath and shudder when you open your eyes again, color seeming to reenter your periphery, and measure the distance Rafayel has bridged.

Gasping, you go to take a step back, knees knocking together like newborn foal as a distinct sense of panic rips through you- not right, it screams, and, you messed up, you messed up, you stupid, stupid—

“Silly girl,”

A loud splash. A resistance.

Rafayel lurches his arm, belly almost brushing against the sandbar, and takes ahold of your ankle.

You let out a yelp, instantly reaching down to try to unlatch him from you, dismay robbing you of oxygen, but it’s too late for that. Each of your clumsy attempts is precluded. Faded scars line the knob of your ankle and Rafayel presses into them with the smooth pads of his fingers- forcefully, but he’s mindful not to use his nails. He’s learned since the last time.

He gives one good tug and you stand no chance, falling with a slosh.

Pulling you towards him, he’s fully confident now that you’re in his liquid domain, slowly dragging you away from the shallow end, from home- or at least, the shriveled, sad remains of it.

Mortified, and still very much resisting him— the merman surprisingly gentle, cognizant of your frailty despite the iron grasp he subdues you with— you throw a frantic glance up and watch as the shore shrinks.

“No!” He’s very careful to keep your head above the tide, but you’re choking still.

This is not the first time he’s helped you into the ocean and swam recreationally with you, usually with the addition of little trinkets and pretty shells you bring to swap, but it’s definitely the first time he’s trapped you in his arms, lean and impossible to swat away, and ignored your asks to return to land.

You remember your front door then, funnily enough, how you left in a tizzy and far too shaken to lock it, and burst into another sob.

You’ll not be returning, will you?

“Please!” You blubber with all the grace of a fish out of water. You squirm like one, too. “Please, don’t kill me, Rafayel, don’t- don’t eat me—!”

A laugh, breathy but humored- cruel in its softness- rings at your ear. Gorgeous tail folded in front of you, brushing against your rear and the underside of your thighs as they fruitlessly kick out, Rafayel uses it to propel you both backwards, treating your kidnapping like a pleasant stroll.

“Of course I won’t eat you, princess,” he coos, placing a painless but clearly posessive- like he’s marking his territory- nip to the juncture of your neck and shoulder. It makes you shiver. “Don’t you understand by now?” He frowns, “You’re mine. The ocean’d sooner dry up then watch me lay a fin on you.”

There’s exactly zero things funny about this situation, so with a pang of wrath, you don’t know why he’s laughing. Maybe at the irony, because in any case, he most certainly has laid a fin on you—

You feel angry at yourself next in the seconds that follow, managing to bite into the flesh of his scale-dotted forearm and slip out of his grip— thrashing away without ceremony before he hisses and curtly regathers you.

“You’re a slippery fishie, huh, cutie? You can’t seriously think I’ll just let you swim away though, right?” His tone darkens then, deepening with a quiet warning you can’t help but feel is incongruous to the generally mild, sassy but otherwise friendly merman you’d grown to know.

When you try to break free again, the exertion summoning a state of near dry-drowning, Rafayel drops all efforts at patience and seizes you by the throat.

His hand curling around your neck, almost playing at the idea of testing just how tragic your power dynamic really is, he lets out a frustrated noise behind you. He knocks his nose into the side of your face, tealy lamella spotting the surface of his cheek and scratching against yours.

Unfamiliarly low, he grumbles out, “You’d better stop fightin’, girl, because if you spin out of control, there’s no guarantee what’ll happen to you. You’re hurting yourself. Stop it, now, I said.”

That fully frightens you. The scream buried within your throat dies, withers into nothing.

Attenuated, pointed nails graze the soft flesh of your jugular, reminding you of all the horrific, brutal ways he could sunder you in two, but they don’t draw so much as a drop of blood.

“P-Please—“ You sputter, desperately digging at his forearms that make an X over your midriff and collarbone, your toes launching out of the water. Your fight, for as valiant as it is, is sapping you of an impressive amount of energy and at an alarmingly fast rate.

But you can’t stop. You refuse to buckle to him- because to bow your head and agree to give in would be like finally surrendering to the cold reality that has, as of a number of weeks ago, completely shrouded your life.

Y-You can’t admit he’s dead— that you’re entirely crazy, widowed, and in the strictest definition alone—

“Ah-ah, princess,” he murmurs as you heave wildly, “don’t you think that’s enough running away? It’s not fair if I can’t come on land at all, you know. Come and swim with me for a while.” Rafayel coaxes, resuming his more mild demeanor within a blink.

He releases a somewhat exasperated, yet thrilled sigh. It shakes as it leaves his damp lips, blue and fuschia-red eyes glittering with barely repressed delight as he lifts his chin from your shoulderblade.

Then, he leans in towards your ear, and he sings.

⊹⊹⊹

Everything is dream-like.

Birds soar overhead in a breezy circle. They offer a few, occasional squawks that help you to the conclusion of seagulls: paired with the rhythmic, wet purr enveloping you- and the warmth flushing your cheeks- you’d wager you’re at the ocean.

Perhaps a relaxing beach day with your fiancé. He’s laid out the cloth (albeit, it feels oddly… hard, smooth as if the sand beneath is without lumps), and you’ve just stirred from a long nap set to the backdrop of light, gusting sand and crashing whitecaps.

Something in your core throbs.

A particularly tall wave in comparison to the other relatively flat ones smacks against the black rock and cools your skin. Sweat beads at your forehead, the center of your thighs offering a sequence of dull aches that have you feeling weak, wanting nothing more than to let your eyes roll back and stay that way.

You make an incoherent noise as the metaphorical fog clears, buttery, white light warming you. Dawn, you realize hazily, lashes fluttering open gradually, it’s dawn.

…But when you’d last blinked, it was late into the night.

Memories pour back in, a potpourri of muddled events tracing back to this moment- uncertainty startling you upright as—

A hand, firm and a little slimy, presses your belly down.

It bars you from most movement, strong but gentle. A tongue- long and flat and fucking mind-numbing as it laps at your pussy- swirls experimentally against your clit and vibrates with a low, satisfied moan.

Not yours; but the next one that rings out, high and aroused and very, very afraid, is.

You can hardly recognize the sound of it. A thick beat of silence passes before you finally do, brain struggling to reconcile with this startling, admittedly idyllic panorama laid out before you.

A disoriented glance tossed down tells you all you need to know to confirm your fears, a sickness churning so deep in your gut you think it’s plausible you could puke up yesterday’s supper. What spills out from your slack jaw is another helpless, pleasured mewl instead.

Rafayel, mostly submerged in the water but with his upper half braced against the flat rock’s ledge, drapes your legs (trembling, you confusedly note, as if they’ve been positioned that way for a while now) over his broad shoulders to better present his prize and feasts on it like a man starved. One large hand serves as like an anchor on your abdomen, keeping you moored as you positively lose your mind, the other carefully thumbing apart your slick folds.

Somewhere between the span of late last night and very early this morning, he’s gotten them puffy and unbelievably wet, your tight hole clenching around absolutely nothing as his lips- just as swollen and needy- suckle on your tiny bump of nerves.

You rest your head back against the smooth surface of the rock, lukewarm but not quite scorching yet- the sun still moseying its way up the sky, clouds parting to reveal a diluted yellow canvas behind them. Resignation weighs you down better than any hand ever could.

You bite down another moan mixed with a sob and leave dents in the tender tissue of your bottom lip.

He parts with your pussy for just a moment, hesitating like he’s sad to step out from its warmth, knuckling over your labia with a reverence you feel is misplaced considering the circumstances.

He’s cruel when he lifts his eyes to yours, heavy-lidded and utterly transfixed.

The sincere, amorous glint in them is like a bucket of ice water dumped over your head, something you couldn’t prepare for or adapt to in time, his head dipping down briefly to pepper a lingering kiss to the gooey seam of you. Mine, everything about the way he gazes up at you says, and, if you don’t believe me then let me prove it.

“You’re gorgeous,” he groans, the dark sphere of his pupils spilling out like ink onto a multicolored canvas. He’s worshipful in nature, but curious- tentative to every little twitch your fatigued face gives, wondering how to push your buttons just right- perhaps above all, just desperate to know if your slick cunt will keep supplying him with that sweet, hot nectar- but it’s been so generous to him thus far, so he figures he’ll just keep on taking.

“It looks just like a seaflower,” he murmurs, breath ragged over the placid lull of the tide as he strokes your flesh, “Like the ones I’d grab from the ocean floor to give you, but so much prettier... Sweeter.”

Rafayel is careful not to hurt you- you can tell, somehow, that he’s fighting tooth and nail with his inner animal, his baser instincts, to keep the last modicum of his control. Hurting you, no matter how accidental or quick, would be detrimental. He knows that. He’s felt it. And to be perfectly honest, he’s quite enjoyed it— but you don’t fall under the category of food or paltry entertainment, no, you’re so much more than that to him.

The pretty, kind girl who kept the brainless town out of your unlikely relationship, who sang her way into his heart and stole it despite himself. His best friend, his sweet little playmate and—

…Mate. Yes, his mate.

“Have you been feeling me?” He asks suddenly. “At home, in bed? I’ve been trying to call out for you,” he relays in an affected pant you wish to unhear as he resumes suckling at your shamefully wet pussy.

You hate this, how worked up he’s managed to get you, how pliant your own body has become as it all but sells itself to him- guilt and confusion swelling in your chest. “I’ve been trying to get you to see how much I like you, princess. B-But it’s like you’ve been shooing me away or something—“

You hardly give any mind to what he’s muttering about, the point of his nose nudging against your sensitive nerves and expediting your release as he licks eagerly at your folds, your whole body trembling with delight. You don’t think you really want to know, anyway.

Sea salt shoots up against the rock, licking your limbs with a cool spritz. He muffles a low breath of amusement into you. “But you’re here now, I guess. Mngh- and you’re so delicious. You’re… fragile though,” he pants, prodding his long, hot tongue against your tiny clenching hole before delving inside it with a violent shudder, his cheeks bright red. “You might have to help me inside, cutie. I don’t exactly wanna break you.”

That stuns you. His words, single-minded and husky, remind you of just how fucked up this all is— and a panic crosses the involuntary fog of your head as you snap it down to get a good look at him.

You were sure merfolk had their own means of reproduction, but it’d never been more than a passing curiosity until now, your heart in your throat as you squint to make out just what he’s working with beneath the water.

Lazily, he looks up to you and smiles when he discovers what you’re doing. It’s a hungered, smitten one, sharp teeth peeking out and all. All your squirming is nothing more than an attempt at self-preservation, unsure of just what he’s endowed with but vaguely knowing- by the size of his tail and difference of species- you sure as hell won’t be compatible with it.

The need to escape is puissant and your limbs begin to move— but they feel oddly leaden, less like flesh and more like stone.

“You wanna see me, pretty girl, yeah? What’re you planning to do?” He coos, swilling away at your watering cunt, nursing from the endless stream of juices like a man possessed. Your fiancé's face flashes before your mind and you make a choked sound.

As if sensing your thoughts, Rafayel lets out a little contented noise and nuzzles against the soft inner portion of your shaking thighs.

“He screamed, just so you know,” a low chuckle rumbles from his chest and warps into a pretty moan. It’s too light and dulcet for comfort, and it feels disproportionate to the general sting of it all. You loathe the unbidden current of arousal that gushes through you at it, wetting his slender fingers as it trickles down the thigh he cuffs.

One final shlick of your throbbing pussy and the merman maneuvers with relative ease onto the rock, his thick tail flopping off at the edge and disappearing into the crystal water. And there’s nothing exactly large about Rafayel’s stature, but he feels heavy as he hovers over you, elbows flanking either side of your head, and the appendage that seems to summon itself between you, drooping with engorged need over your stuttering belly—

You don’t want to look. Too afraid to.

You suppose you don’t have to, anyway: Rafayel grabs your face and cradles your jaw in his smooth palm, hot, labored breaths warming your slack lips. The sun is lifting higher, now, a clementine-gold sky burning like blood low on the horizon. Soon, the temperatures- and his touch as it charts out the most intimate parts of you- will begin to bake your skin.

“He was all bubbly under the water,” he groans with a trace of humor, “but I saw the worry written all over his face. Back then, I’d always wondered why he looked so concerned... not afraid, concerned. But I guess… it was ‘cause he had you to get back home to, huh, cutie?”

Saccharine sweet, he dotes before wrenching your chin up in a desperate, heedless kiss- the action all too cathartic too him but world-stopping for you- and you feel the fat head of something foreign bob between your folds.

“Poor guy,” he moans, voice absolutely ruined as you lurch helplessly beneath him, back arching to accommodate the impossible stretch. You expect it to hurt- to be a searing pain as his massive, inhuman cock spears you apart- but a near blinding delight racks through your body instead as he worms his way inside your walls, wet and primed, your eyes fluttering back.

“But at least his death served a purpose. You’d never have sung for me otherwise. Would never have- went out looking,” he shudders, hanging his head against the sweaty column of your neck, his brilliant-blue tail sloshing in the water on its own accord.

“It’s all thanks to him,” he growls out, tone oozing possession- the innocent little merman you befriended dematerializing before your very eyes. “You’re mine now. Mine.”

And when it’s all said and done, strong, toned arms gathering you up with a low splash as the docks rupture with gradual life, the boots of fisherman croaking over waterlogged wood, and Rafayel takes you under the water- giving you breath with a deep, intimate kiss-

You’ve the feeling that your dreams of reuniting with your lover will fulfill themselves in their own roundabout, warped way.

But you know Rafayel’s not ever letting you go as he undresses your finger of its sparkling ring and tucks you away in his underwater cove— placing you in his nest with reverence before prying apart your numbed legs with rekindled hunger.

Curling across your face, a soaked lock of your hair drifts absently in the still waters and Rafayel thumbs it aside, clipping it back with a little clamshell fashioned as jewelry. He leans over you contentedly, whole body and fluke swallowing you up without difficulty or protest, and happily feeds you oxygen from his lips.

You cling to him helplessly and have no choice— several hundred feet below land level— but to hungrily nurse from him every few hours and pray he won’t make the sudden decision to deprive you of it.

Something in his rippling eyes tells you he won’t, though.

He dips down to paste a lingering peck into your temple, the pad of his thumb roving appreciatively under your eye.

“Don’t you think you’ve seen enough of the land, princess? The brainless humans up there don’t want you anymore, and that’s okay,” he whispers, tiny bubbles floating like balloons before popping. “You belong down here, with me. Who says you need a tail or fins to be one of us?” Mistily, you wonder just what exactly he’s trying to say and who he’s trying to convince of its veracity, a blip of frustration marring his pretty face before it retreats.

“I’ll give you life for as long as I live,” he vows, mouth brushing tenderly against yours as his cheeks puff out and he blows.

“See? Just like this, princess. Just keep holding onto me.”

“Good Boy”

Summary: Being in Veterinarian school has consumed all of Yoosung’s time. Feeling lonely, you hatch a plan to combine both school work and play by  implementing a “reward and punishment system”…and the results are better than expected.

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Spanking, light bondage, light mentions of praise kink, improper study techniques, handjob

Word Count: 2470

Going to school to become a veterinarian was not an easy task.

Upper-level courses, clinicals, job hunting…Yoosung had a full plate with his schooling, one that would be difficult to balance for most. Add to that RFA duties, and he was constantly walking a tightrope, barely hanging onto his GPA and his future. Most days he returned to your shared apartment exhausted, the dark circles under his eyes prominent, and would only spend a little time with you while eating before he had to go and work on assignments. Weekends were also spent mostly on studying and prepping for the upcoming week, meaning dates and the like were off the table.

This, of course, put a little strain on your relationship at times- because while you were happy he was pursuing his dream and satisfied with his life, you couldn’t help but feel a little lonely with the way things were currently.

However, you were intent upon making this work; you loved Yoosung and did not want your relationship to fizzle out over something like this. This meant you had to figure out a way to give you both some more quality time together while also not taking away time from his schooling.

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