Fudge Ripple/Milk Chocolate/Blueberry Yogurt; Butter Pecan/Chocolate Chip Mint/Cherry Chocolate Chip
Potential trigger warnings! This canon deals heavily in themes that are common triggers. The following ficlets may allude to potentially triggering or otherwise distressing crimes and mental states.
Title: Surprised
Author: AFTanith
Story: Parabellum
Flavor(s): Fudge Ripple #27. (euphoria); Milk Chocolate #20 (surprise); Blueberry Yogurt #29 (the first time)
Toppings/Extras: Gummy Bunnies (otpprompts)
Rating: Explicit (contains explicit M/F sex)
Word Count: 1,093
Crossposted At: AO3
It was nights like this, when he had her on her back atop the silk green sheets and she let her impending ecstasy wash away the usual fret and fear, that made him think that there was a chance--however slight and unlikely it was--that she might love him some day. It was nights like this that gave him hope.
Sparrow was moaning beneath him, her fingers curling into the fabric beneath her as he fucked her, and the curls Gigi had spent so much time on that afternoon were getting closer to ruin with every thrust as Sparrow's hair fanned out beneath her. He knew she didn't care, knew she wouldn't have let Gigi do it at all if Frost had been a bit less insistent, but he'd wanted her to look her best tonight, wanted to show her off to Octavian and Idris and all the other idiots who'd so clearly thought he couldn't pull this off, and so she'd let Gigi dress her up the way he wanted--and she'd been more than happy to let him tear it all away afterward.
And Sparrow had been absolutely the only thing that had gone right tonight--and that was certainly a twist he hadn't been expecting. It wasn't that tonight had gone badly, of course, but it'd been far from what he'd hoped, a string of reminders that the people he worked with were only competent as a unit and downright imbecilic as individuals--or else so blinded by their own self-interests that it amounted to the same. All night, he'd been subject to simpering voices begging favors they weren't brave enough to voice directly, to sycophantic praise and shallow pleasantries and a chorus of "Stelian" this and "Stelian" that, and now that he was away from that nightmare and alone in the suite with Sparrow once again, he was sorely tempted never to leave.
She certainly wasn't about to let him go anywhere. Sparrow had that look on her face again, that downright angry expression she wore sometimes when they fucked, her hips moving against his in hard, pointed thrusts that he met eagerly, and he knew that if he tried to stop now, she'd give him hell for it. He doubted she'd try to force him--though he suspected he would rather enjoy that, even if he was sure he wouldn't enjoy her reaction to hearing him admit it--but she would be furious. And while there was certainly something satisfying in knowing that the thing infuriated her these days was being denied rather than being taken, he didn't need to see it. It was more than enough to see this.
He could tell she was getting close, her eyes unfocused and glazed with lust as she stared up at the canopy in a pointed attempt to avoid meeting his gaze, and there was a steady string of mumbled curses spilling from her lips. He knew by now that it was a jumbled mix of praise and gratitude and utter condemnation, a hate you for every more and a fucking bastard for every yes and please, and he loved every second of it; there was something so authentic about it, the frustrated paradox so purely and undeniably Sparrow, and somehow that made him crave the condemnation as much as the rest. He kissed her neck, running his hands over every inch of her that he could reach, and her spine arched against the mattress as she groaned her appreciation.
"More, Frost, please," she practically whined, squirming in his grasp as she lingered on the threshold between pleasure and bliss, and Frost grinned down at her. She sounded desperate, chasing her orgasm with the kind of wanton need he normally didn't get to see unless he pushed her into a third or a fourth orgasm or past it, and yet this would be her first tonight. It seemed his suffering earlier had been worth it after all, if this was his reward.
She hardly seemed aware of him--or perhaps aware of herself--as she trembled beneath him, begging him to push her past the brink of orgasm with a string of broken, hardly coherent words that he couldn't have said no to even if he'd wanted. "Please--Frost--please, baby, I need--I--fuck--fuck!--Stelian!"
There was a split second when he was so caught up in the look of ecstasy on her face as she arched her back, pressing her tits up against him and baring her throat, that he didn't even register exactly what she'd just said--and then the words sank in, leaving him not just surprised but euphoric.
He seized her, barely catching the bewildered expression on her face as he pulled her tight against him and slammed his lips to hers, thrusting hard and fast as he chased his own orgasm. He'd meant to wait, intended to wring another one out of her before seeking his own, even if it meant enduring another string of protests borne of her continued refusal to believe that he might actually enjoy making her come as much as, if not more than, coming himself--but hearing his name--his first name--on her lips was too much. Whatever earlier conviction he might have had went out the window the moment he heard his given name spoken like a prayer as it escaped her for the very first time.
Frost came shuddering, his face buried in the crook of her neck. He could feel her hands on his back, palms and fingertips sliding over perspiring skin, and the scent of her shampoo, locked into her hair by whatever Gigi had done to preserve the curls, filled him. She was mostly still beneath him, cautious and clearly confused by the sudden shift in his behavior as he rode out his orgasm, and yet he felt only the faintest hint of guilt at this show of uncertainty; she still feared him, he knew, still feared the hypothetical nightmare that they both knew he could make a reality if he actually wanted to--but this, if nothing else, proved that there was so much more than just fear hiding beneath the things she actually let him see. He hadn't yet been able to persuade her to love him--hadn't even been able to persuade her to call him by his real name--but it was possible, and he believed that wholeheartedly.
And if nothing else, she had at least proved to him that she actually did know his full name.
Title: Play Dead
Author: AFTanith
Story: Parabellum
Flavor(s): Butter Pecan #15 (silent); Chocolate Chip Mint #16 (superficial); Cherry Chocolate Chip #13 (wonder)
Toppings/Extras: Cherry (I'm honestly rather horrified that I wrote this.)
Rating: Explicit
Warning(s): This story contains consensual roleplay of necrophilic sex (as well as alluding to other disturbing and potentially triggering situations taking place off-screen).
Word Count: 1,237
Crossposted At: AO3
Izzy was painfully cold.
This was scene that took careful preparation and plenty of time. It was no easy task to get her body temperature down this low, at least not without the risk of causing her some permanent harm. And Octavian wouldn't do that to her even if the Circle didn't have their own rules against it; no matter what Simon, Nadia, and all the others said about him, Izzy truly believed that. Whatever his proclivities, he didn't wish her any harm; in fact, Izzy was sure that he cared for her, and quite deeply at that. It wasn't love, not exactly--even if there was a small part of her that wondered if perhaps what she felt for him was love at this point--but it was affection nonetheless.
She was, at the very least, the only one he trusted enough to share this scene with.
Izzy lay on the bed, limp and immobile atop the covers. There was only so much she could do to stop her body's natural impulses, but she'd gotten fairly good at suppressing her shivering. She wondered if he would be pleased to hear that she'd been practicing when she was alone, taking ice-cold showers and blocking off the heating vents in her room during the winter and pushing her limits against the cold whenever she found the opportunity... or if perhaps he might think she was trying a bit too hard. Was there such a thing as trying too hard?
She could hear Octavian moving in the room, but he wasn't talking. He didn't need to talk to her, not when she was in this role; it wasn't as if she could return the conversation anyway.
When she felt the bed dip as his weight moved on top of it, Izzy felt her first thrill of anticipation. This was always a challenge, something she always had to work extra hard to pull off for him and therefore something she was particularly proud of herself for achieving. And he was thankful for it, as he told her--both vocally and physically--after each time they did this. Since coming to the Circle, there had been nothing Izzy had wanted more than to please him, and there was nothing that satisfied him more than having someone rise to his challenge.
She always tried, even if she didn't always succeed.
Izzy kept very carefully silent when he finally touched her, his grip irreverent and far from gentle as he shoved her legs apart. It wasn't that he lacked respect for her--he had plenty of that--but that he had none for the character she had assumed for this scene. There was no need to be gentle with a dead woman, after all.
The illusion, of course, was superficial--so superficial, in fact, that there were times when she was surprised it satisfied him. She was such a pale imitation of what she meant to emulate; she flushed with blood and got wet when he touched her, and she struggled to suppress her shivering and the noises and the movements she normally would've made in response to what he was doing between her legs. But, perhaps more damning than anything else, Izzy was very clearly erect.
There was absolutely no denying, then, that she was very much alive. "Angel lust" jokes aside, there was no corpse on the planet who would respond to this stimulation--to any stimulation--with the kind of throbbing erection that was between her legs right now; and yet Octavian never seemed to mind it. It was, perhaps, the quality that she liked in him the most; no matter how demanding he was, no matter how hard he pushed her to rise to his challenges and pursue new goals as soon as the last was conquered, he always forgave her body its limitations.
That, she decided, was what the others didn't understand about him. She couldn't pretend that he wasn't harsh, but she liked to think he was fair, too.
Izzy struggled to keep quiet, tried to drown out the way he sounded and the way he felt as he used her; he made her achingly hard and soaking wet all at once, and she would have to thoroughly hydrate herself after this session was over. But for now she tried to distract herself, letting her mind wander where it chose while he did as he pleased with her pseudo corpse.
If the others were to find out about this, they would be far from pleased. They already looked at her like she was a monster or kind of alien creature they couldn't begin to understand, and that Nadia had called her disgusting so recently still hurts, even if she herself had been roleplaying at the time. It had been, or so she had claimed, Sparrow's genuine assessment of Izzy as a person, and while Nadia had gone out of her way to temper that reveal with a reminder that Sparrow was very far removed from the reality they were living in, trapped as she was upstairs with only Frost and occasionally Simon or Nadia for company, it did very little to lessen the blow. Izzy wasn't disgusting, and she had hoped that the woman who Frost of all people planned to marry would understand.
Oh, well. Sparrow would get it, eventually--or at least she would if they eased her into it. If the woman found out about this, though, Izzy didn't doubt that the judgment would be set in stone and that Frost would let her harbor this prejudice just so he could prove himself on her side, as if that was more important than broadening her horizons and teaching her to be less judgmental toward things she didn't understand.
It wasn't as if Octavian actually wanted to fuck her dead body, after all. It wasn't as if the Circle's rules were really the only thing keeping him from seeing this fantasy enacted; if he wanted to fuck a corpse, he didn't need Izzy in the first place. He had more than enough Roughs and the money to replace them; if he wanted to fuck someone's dead body, he had more options than her own pale imitation of one.
No, he was doing this because she was special. He was doing this because it was a fantasy he wanted to live out, and he was doing it with her because she was special to him--nearly as dear to his heart as Loretta herself.
Octavian Donahue, no matter what the others said of him, was not a monster. He couldn't be.
So in quiet moments like this, when she tried to breathe shallow and lie still so she didn't ruin his illusion, she always brushed the thought of his innumerable Roughs from her mind. In all the year's she'd been here, she hadn't been to his mansion once, and she was sure that was where she'd find them, each and every one of those young men and women who Octavian had introduced her to over the past three years and asked her to fuck--until once day she simply didn't see them again.
They were at his mansion or at his penthouse, or they had been given away to family and friends. She knew that because she knew him; he wasn't a monster, and this was just a fantasy.
She wasn't about to consider the alternative.