Fade into You: Chapter 18 - Liege Lord of Lurktopia
Jareth bobbed back up to the surface, spluttering out a string of curses. "You're going to pay for that," he told her severely as he shook the water out of his eyes.
"What're you gonna do, Lanks?" Sarah taunted, holding her hand up to block the spray. "Get me wet?"
"On the first date?" His eyes locked with hers as a smirk crept across his face. "How profoundly deplorable."
She huffed with faux indignation. "Perv."
"Temptress," he volleyed, and dove for her.
Sarah was sure Jareth could catch her easily enough, but she still made it an impressive distance as she swam for the beach, nearly choking on salt water as she laughed. As soon as her feet touched the bottom, she risked a glance over her shoulder and frowned, scanning the surface of the frothy pink sea.
Jareth was nowhere to be seen as she warily stepped backward up the pearly sand. Her heart was pounding and it leaped to her throat as a hand clasped her ankle and sent her sprawling into the water.
He was on her then, crowding her as she crab-walked up the beach until his elbows bracketed her head. His moon necklace tickled between her bare breasts as he hovered over her, a victorious grin plastered across his features.
"I did warn you," he said, his breaths coming hard and fast.
The sun was beginning to set, framing a silver-gold halo around his head. Makeup streaked down his face and it made him look particularly feral as he leered down at her. Sarah was nearly breathless at the sight of him—wild with predatory triumph.
"You're exquisite," she told him, the words taking shape before the thought even touched her mind. There were more words she almost said, so many more, but they lodged behind her teeth.
Jareth smiled at her, the kind of smile that sent Sarah's heart fluttering like a caged hummingbird. His head dipped to kiss her, slow and searching, as if drawing the unspoken words from her lips.
Sarah was still breathless from his pursuit and capture. She felt like she could drown under the weight of him pinning her, and that suited her just fine. She didn't want to move—happily trapped in place by his bare legs, by his hands cupping either side of her face, by his mouth moving over hers.
He broke the kiss before she had time to collect herself, and his eyes were shining brightly when she opened hers. "Exquisite, am I?" he said as he pushed himself up and helped her to her feet.
She was suddenly hyper-aware of their nudity, the way her nipples pebbled with arousal, the hardening length of his cock that he did nothing to hide. Her cheeks warmed as she nodded, any words of affirmation she may have thought to express lost to the sea breeze.
Jareth grinned a knowing grin. "Come," he said, leading her up the shore to the outcropping of citrine where they'd discarded their clothes. "Let's do the date thing."
"The date thing?" she asked, giggling at how much he'd sounded like her. "Isn't that what we've been doing?"
"An appetizer," he told her, the words a promise that made her spine feel like a live wire.
When they reached the cluster of crystals, he took a quick inventory of her sopping hair and damp skin. His wrist flicked, his magic a warm caress as it dried them both.
"Show off," Sarah chided, laughing as she tugged on her clothes.
"Always," Jareth agreed with casual smugness before taking her hand in his. "Come, come," he repeated, towing her along the shore. "Much to see, much to do."
Sarah was nearing sensory overload as they walked along the shore. She felt sure she could never fully absorb the nearly unfathomable scenery—the milky rose-hued water. The brightly-colored shells that littered the beach of tiny pearls. The strange, scaly creatures soaring above them.
"I feel like I'm in a dream," she told him.
"In a way, you are," he said, and Sarah wanted to ask him to elaborate, but she was distracted by his pointing finger directing her attention to the sea.
"Look, Sarah." A smile warmed his voice. "We've made friends."
Her mind struggled momentarily to make sense of what she was looking at, and her breath snagged when her brain caught up with her eyes. A pod of dolphin-like cetaceans was following them in parallel, their teal bellies and pink bodies a stunning sight against the palette of shades the burgeoning sunset provided. Iridescent sails lined their backs, and they seemed to defy all rules of physics Sarah thought she'd understood as they glided above the surface of the water before diving back down.
"Wow," she murmured, not realizing she had stopped in her tracks to stare.
"Sailrens," Jareth told her. "It's always a relief to see them."
"A relief?" Sarah asked, glancing over at him.
"It typically means there are no mermaids lurking about," he explained, disdain clear in his expression.
"Threatened?" Sarah teased, bumping his shoulder with hers. "You're, like, the mayor of Lurkville."
"Mind your tongue," he admonished, his expression shadowed with faux indignation. "I am the Liege Lord of Lurktopia and I will not bear the disrespect of being addressed by a lesser title."
She laughed. "What's your grudge against mermaids, anyway? Do they steal children away, or something?"
"Hilarious," Jareth droned, flicking her in the center of the forehead. "They eat children, I'll have you know. Anything sentient, really. They consume culture and knowledge."
Sarah felt her smug smile slip. "Oh," she said numbly. "I wasn't expecting that."
"Neither do their victims," he told her with a satisfied smirk. "By the time they see the three rows of teeth, it's much too late."
Her eyes went wide as he tugged at her hand with fresh urgency. "Come along. There's something I want you to see while the tide is low."
Jareth kept her upright as she trailed behind him, tripping over her own feet as she watched the sailrens coast along the water's surface.
The terrain began to change, the slope of the beach gentling and giving way to a rocky shore with pockets of shallow pink pools. This new ecosystem was dazzling—teeming with life, color, and movement.
Anemone-like creatures clung to surfaces in shades she felt sure she'd never seen before. Tangerine-hued algae-coated citrine crystals and peacock-colored seaweed floated on the water's surface in cheerful clumps. A cephalopod that she hadn't initially noticed due to its impressive orangey-pink camouflage caught her eye as it scuttled away in a hurry. It had what looked like at least two dozen independently moving legs and left behind a cloud of inky silver-blue.
"Oh my God," Sarah breathed, crouching down to take a closer look at the nearest pool. "Jareth, this is incredible."
"It is, isn't it?" he said, watching her with an adoring smile. "I'm sure I don't need to warn you not to touch anything."
Sarah snatched her hand back after unconsciously reaching toward a nine-armed echinoderm that resembled the sea stars she'd seen in tide pools in the Above. Or, it did, until its core abruptly opened to reveal a many-toothed, decidedly unfriendly-looking maw.
"Um," she said, folding her hand over her knee and sending him a guilty half-smile. "No. I don't think that will be necessary."
She ignored his chuckle as her eyes fell back to the pool, making a study of the array of creatures there. "Look at that," she said, pointing to an absurd-looking turquoise crustacean with four large, googly eyes on stalks. It shuffled in place, its shell appearing awkwardly outgrown for its too-large body. "I think it's molting."
"Molting?" Jareth asked, his head tilting curiously as his gaze found what she was pointing at.
"Yeah, shedding its shell. It does sort of look like a lobster," she mused. "I wonder if it mates for life."
The creature's eyes swiveled toward her as if affronted. "Well, you could just ask instead of looming over me during a private moment."
"Oh, uh," Sarah said, stumbling over an apology as she rocked back on her heels in surprise. "I'm sorry, I—"
But the creature was already scurrying away in what could only be interpreted as a purposefully dismissive march.
"That was rude of you," Jareth commented, not bothering to hide his amusement.
Sarah rolled her eyes at him, but a laugh bubbled up her throat. Her heart felt so full, brimming with curiosity and awe.
"Thank you," she said, her gaze holding his. "For bringing me here. For sharing this with me."
It was a strange thing, to hardly recognize her own voice for all of the joy vibrating through it.
Jareth beamed at her. "You're welcome, Sarah Bear."
She pulled a face at the nickname, though it warmed her through to her bones.
"Oh, please," he scoffed, smirking a knowing smirk. "You love that moniker."
"I'll never tell," she told him, following his gaze up the shore where the beach met the backdrop of trees.
She could see a smooth surface glinting in the fading sun. Candles dotted the space—some buried in the sand surrounding the area, some hovering above it as if dangling from invisible wire. A canopy was set up nearby, but she couldn't make out much detail aside from the large bed inside from where she crouched.
"What is that?" she asked, rising to her feet.
"Our date," he said, and Sarah was beginning to think he was growing particularly fond of that word.
She followed him up the beach. "Is that-" She squinted. "Is that my boombox?"
It was. She could see it clearly now, set up on a table beside what looked like an array of desserts.
Jareth didn't answer, ostensibly satisfied to let her discover what he had waiting for her.
As they approached, the large, smooth surface Sarah had spotted gleamed with color. It appeared to be made of something similar to abalone shell, swirling with pearly greens, silvers, and purples.
A dance floor, she thought belatedly as she stepped onto it.
She watched as Jareth moved to the table where the stereo sat and thumbed through a selection of burned CDs she didn't recognize. He chose one with 'Date Music' scrawled across the cover in a script she realized must be his handwriting. It seemed fitting, that it would be both finely looped but also frenetically jagged.
"A selection of some of our favorites," Jareth told her as he popped the CD into the boombox and pressed 'play.' He offered his hand as Brian McKnight began crooning, '6, 8,12.'
Sarah ignored the hand, looping her arms around his neck instead. She sighed when his hands braced her lower back and pulled her into a swaying embrace. She wondered vaguely when his hold had started to feel like home, even in a place so far away.
Long ago, she admitted to herself as her cheek came to rest on his shoulder.
"Jareth," she began after a comfortable silence. Her head tipped up to look at him. "Is this a real place?"
"It is," he said. The smile he sent her was sad around the edges. "And it isn't."
"What does that mean?" Sarah asked. "Real but not real?"
"It is real because I made it so," he answered. "Flit would tell me stories of the ocean. It's what I imagined a real coastline would look like. To feel, hear, taste, and smell like." A salty breeze swept through as if on cue, picking up strands of their hair and coiling them together in a writhing dance before settling.
"Why did you need to imagine what an existing place looked like?" she urged, not liking the wistful sorrow in his expression. "Couldn't you see it for yourself?"
A small frown framed Jareth's mouth as he considered the question. "I was forbidden to leave the castle until I was an adult," he told her. "Old enough to attend court functions under the High King."
"Forbidden?" Sarah asked, leaning up to kiss the corner of his downturned mouth. "Why?"
"It is tradition for a young royal to remain in their kingdom until their magic fuses to the realm," he explained. "I understand it, but it made it no less stifling."
Her fingers carded through the hair at his nape as his words from days ago floated back into her mind.
'You're thinking, poor maybe-baby-Jareth, raised by a goblin and a cat alone in an upside-down castle. How drab.'
"You didn't have friends?" she asked, her stomach sinking at the thought of it. "No peers your own age to play with?"
"No," Jareth said. "Not until I was older."
"Was it-" She paused, scanning his face to look for any signs he didn't want her to question him further on the topic. When he inclined his head in consent to continue, she went on, "Was it difficult to socialize once you met other fae?"
A contemplative look passed over his features as if he had never considered it. "It wasn't hard to relate to other royal youths who had been sequestered their whole lives," he said. "But I can't say I was very interested in socializing. I enjoyed the fanfare of it all, dressing up and dancing, but the fae can be…" he trailed off for a beat as he searched for the right words. "Shallow. Predictable in their games."
"You wove locations to visit, all alone?" she asked. She thought of the other scenes she had glimpsed in the tapestry chamber, and it felt unimaginable that he'd never had company. The image of a solitary Jareth perched on the moon's surface gazing down at Earth put a lonely little pit in her belly.
"Flit lacked the ability to harness her intentions well enough to travel through them with me," he said with a shrug. "She says I had about eight years when I created this one. It was my first."
"Eight?!" Sarah's eyes went wide. "Most eight-year-olds just build forts, you know."
His chuckle was melancholy. "Most eight-year-olds pretend their forts are castles."
"And you were already trapped in one," she acknowledged sadly.
Jareth nodded. "I suppose the tapestries provided an escape."
"Do you use them often?" Sarah asked as the song came to a close. The opening notes to Mazzy Star's 'Fade into You' began to play.
"Not as of late," he said, catching her gaze and squeezing her close. "I haven't needed to."
"So, I'm an escape for you?" she said, laughing though her eyes accused.
He gave her a long, hard look that gave her plenty of time to own up to her hypocrisy.
She didn't.
Finally, Jareth sighed his most earnest sigh. Of all the sighs Jareth could sigh, this one promised a cold hard truth and a smooth delivery. "Am I not for you?" he asked as Mazzy began to sing.
I want to hold the hand inside you
I want to take the breath that's true
The question almost startled her, though she'd been expecting it. It stung a little, too, even though she'd just asked him the same thing. But when she'd asked, there hadn't been questions buried just beneath the surface.
Am I real to you yet? Are we?
"You're more than that," Sarah said, hating herself for not being able to tell him the full truth.
You're everything.
The corners of his eyes crinkled warmly in that way Sarah loved, but there was undeniable dissatisfaction in the set of his mouth. "I know," he told her so quietly, she almost didn't hear him.
Even if she hadn't, she would have felt the slight tremble of vulnerability in his voice. She wanted to soothe it away, to show him with action what she couldn't with words.
Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it's strange you never knew
Sarah crushed her lips to his, the kiss taking a different shape than what they'd shared on the beach earlier. What had been tender and slow quickly became a heated slide of tongues. A gloved hand moved to brace the back of her head. Her teeth snagged his bottom lip, and she swallowed his moan as he pulled her closer.
She wasn't sure when they had stopped dancing. Their bodies were flush, and she wanted to rock her hips into his, just a little pressure to ease the ache. Jareth seemed strung tight with barely contained restraint, and she wanted to ease that, too.
She pulled back, her fingers tightening in his hair until his eyes found hers. "I want you to fuck me," she told him, her cunt clenching at the feral look in his eyes she was sure matched her own. "Here. On the dance floor."
Jareth surged forward with a fierce kiss, growling against her lips—a desperate, needful sound. The rumbling thunder of it sent a thrumming rush of heat pooling between Sarah's legs. She hadn't bothered to put her panties back on earlier. She would have regretted it, had it not felt so intoxicating to rub her damp thighs together while he tugged at her bottom lip with his teeth.
His gloved hand had been grounding and supportive at the base of her neck, but his fingers tensed with a new possessiveness that set every nerve in her body aflame. Sarah moaned, letting it vibrate against the thumb curling over her throat to show him how, in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to be his.
Jareth's free hand stilled her wandering fingers as they slid beneath his open shirt to ghost over a nipple. He shivered and gave her hand a commiserative pulse as he broke the kiss. His forehead came to rest against hers, and his pupils were smoldering black coals when their gaze locked.
Smug lips curved. "Ballroom kink?"
"Understatement," Sarah admitted with a small laugh, though it was strained around the edges. She wanted his hands on her. Needed the friction. The feeling of leather on her bare skin.
He chuckled, though it sounded as weak as her laugh had. "A kink we share, perhaps," he said. Not for the first time.
Sarah captured his mouth in a kiss that was so full of fondness for him it made her chest tighten almost painfully. There was a tangled mess of feelings behind her ribs and she needed him to know how much she adored him. Their banter. The stupid inside jokes. And this intimacy they had found. An intimacy that, in truth, had always existed, but now was taking shape into something unlike anything Sarah could have imagined.
Jareth seemed to feel it. He relaxed into the kiss. Let her spill her affection into his mouth. Stroke it onto his tongue.
She broke the kiss and waited for his gaze. "You're not going to fuck me, are you?"
Dark pupils swirled with both amusement and deep regret. "Alas," he said, and Sarah thought she'd never heard a less sexy word in her life. "I am not."
She pouted, and though it was theatrically exaggerated, she was, in fact, devastated.
"Such a pity," she said, but what she thought was, Fuuuck this three-date thing.
Sarah's hand dropped from his chest to dip beneath her skirt. Her fingers came away glistening, and she let two of them web in the candlelight for him to see.
Jareth's eyes were bottomless pits as they tracked the movement. "Cruel thing," he scolded, though his voice came out breathy.
She scratched the nails of her other hand along the back of his neck teasingly. "I can be generous," she informed him before brushing a slick finger over his bottom lip.
His tongue darted out, tasting her there as he watched her hand fall back between her legs. "Why do I get the feeling your generosity will look a lot like punishment?"
Sarah shivered as her fingers slipped along her folds. "I'll let you watch me."
"You're skipping past punishment and going directly for torture," Jareth complained, though he sounded no less than thrilled at her promise. His hand lifted to cradle her face and he pulled it closer, brushing his lips over hers. "A torture I can live with."
"You're immortal," she reminded him before drawing his bottom lip into her mouth. Her tongue teased as her slick fingers slid over her clit. "Is this cheating?" Her voice trembled. "Against the rules?"
What she meant to say was, 'Is this okay?'
Maybe I should have just asked that, Sarah worried, suddenly fearful she had stepped over a boundary. That she was being dismissive of their agreement.
She broke the kiss to look at him, to check in, and the hunger in his waiting eyes had her breath catching.
Jareth looked absolutely feral as his gaze lowered to watch her wrist slipping in and out of view beneath her skirt. The hand in her hair twisted with tantalizing pressure, that possessiveness that had first soaked her thighs now had her cunt aching for her fingers.
"If it isn't cheating," Jareth said, his free hand sliding from her hip down the outside of her thigh. He leaned briefly to cup his hand behind her knee before hooking it over his hip. "I'm certain this is."
Sarah exhaled sharply at the feeling of the cool sea breeze on her damp, exposed flesh. She grasped his shoulder for stability, and his hand in her hair and the other holding her leg kept her steady. Her skirt had bunched up, and her working fingers slowed as she absorbed the heavy weight of his observation.
His intent gaze flared as she spread herself for him to see. She smiled as he groaned, the evidence of his arousal straining against his leggings only a roll of the hips away. She could feel the warmth of him across her knuckles as they nearly brushed along his length while she stroked herself in lazy circles.
Her mind flashed to the early morning in the tent when they'd woken up in a state of kiss-drunk arousal. How their clothed bodies had writhed, how delicious the friction had been, the waves of pressure that had built to a crescendo that had dragged them both under.
Sarah wanted that again, wanted more than that. Wanted his skin on hers. His cock buried deep. His come in her mouth, in her cunt, on her breasts—everywhere, because she was his already.
And she knew it then, the sharp realization compressing her chest with sudden emotion. The feelings she carried for him were threatening to burn her through with a fire she wasn't built to contain. It was terrifying, and yet, as she watched him admiring her stroking fingers with nothing short of love written all over his face, she knew she wasn't alone. He burned too.
I'm going to tell him, she vowed to herself. I'm going to tell him that I—
"Are you alright?" Jareth asked, the fingers in her hair tightening to guide her eyes to his. His voice was raspy and low, but the question was laced with concern as he scanned her face.
"Yes," she told him and meant it. She eased her leg out of his grasp before sinking to the floor, tugging him by the hand along with her. She sat back on her elbows with her knees bent and tightly together. "Take your cock out."
Jareth said nothing as he kneeled in front of her. His gaze was intense as his hands slipped obediently beneath the waistband of his leggings and tugged them down his hips.
Sarah licked her lips as his cock sprang free—rigid and swollen at the tip. He was a vision, kneeling on the iridescent dance floor with his hands on the tops of his thighs, hips jutted forward, almost supplicating. She wanted to crawl over to him and coax him off with her tongue.
"Good," she said instead, and felt a blush creep up her cheeks as she tasted the praise in her mouth.
She'd liked the warmth that had spread through her when Jareth had praised her at the pool. His constant verbal affirmations anchored her in her body, in the experience. It was something wholly new for her, somehow scary, but she wanted to keep that channel of communication open.
The smile Jareth sent her was playful but piercing. A smile that said, I see you, my brave Champion.
Sarah's knees had begun to shake from being forced together, and she let them drift apart—unfolded herself for him. Her breathing was shallow, barely breaths at all, as she sank beneath his stare. The way his gaze consumed her with such reverence had her heart slamming against her ribs.
She swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry. "I like to think about you touching yourself," she confessed. "Your long, beautiful fingers gliding along your cock."
Jareth hummed as he tugged his gloves off and crawled forward slightly, nudging her knees apart to kneel between them. He leaned over her and caressed her face. His palm lingered near her mouth.
"Spit," he ordered, and Sarah's eyes snapped to his before she obeyed. Something about performing an act so primal at his command sent a thrill through her.
His eyes fluttered closed for a moment as his fingers wrapped around his length, sliding to spread her saliva from base to tip. His mouth fell open slightly as he moaned.
"What else do you think about, Sarah?" he asked, his gaze finding hers and pinning her in place. "When you stroke yourself off with my name on your lips."
"I've already told you. I imagine my fingers are yours," she told him. "And sometimes..."
"And sometimes?" he asked as he squeezed a bead of precum from the tip of his cock, sliding his palm over the wetness to drag it back down over his shaft.
Sarah picked up a discarded glove and slipped it on her hand. "Sometimes you're wearing these."
"Fuck," Jareth groaned, pumping himself firmly in a way that had Sarah missing his needy hands in her hair.
The leather was smooth on the flesh of her thighs as she grazed them toward the apex, and the slight texture sent a frisson of desire through her. She cupped herself fully, gasping at the feeling of her leather-clad palm pressing into her clit, her fingertips teasing her entrance.
"You always hold me," Sarah told him, the words out of her mouth before she'd considered them. She rocked against her hand. "In some way. Big or small. Always holding me."
She had no idea whether any of that made sense to him. It hardly made sense to her. But she knew it to be true, regardless. Her hand eased off and she traced tight circles over her clit with the pads of her fingers. Her pleasure was jolted into sharper focus at the intense friction of the leather dragging over her nerves.
"Always," Jareth promised, his voice clear but barely above a whisper as his free hand cupped his balls.
Sarah watched as he rolled and tugged them gently, taking note of every breathy exhale. She leaned back to free her other arm, and her bare hand dipped to stroke her soaked entrance.
"What do you think about?" she asked, half because she wanted to know, and half to hear his voice, desperate and rough with pleasure. "When you touch yourself."
"You," he said brokenly as he matched her pace. "You buried deep inside me. Me buried deep inside you." His hand squeezed around his head and he groaned. "It's always you."
His words set her on fire, and she couldn't help herself but to beg for fuel. "Tell me more," she said, trailing a leather-tipped finger into her slickness before sliding it over her clit. The finger inside her curled the way she remembered his had, the pad massaging and coaxing as she added another.
She felt a hand clasp her foot and it was then she realized her eyes had drifted shut. When she met his waiting gaze, he looked wild and fierce and stunning.
"I think about the sounds that will spill from your lips when we make love," he said, thrusting into his hand.
Make love.
Sarah's stomach flipped with nerves even as passion swirled low in her belly—coiling and stretching as if to snap.
Jareth still held her foot in a grounding hold like she might think to escape from the intensity of the moment. "I think about the way my come will look dripping down your pretty thighs after I pull out of you."
She could almost feel the sticky heat of him pooling between her legs as she watched him stroke himself. The filth spilling from his mouth was somehow stunning. Reverent and worshipful. Her body cinched around her fingers, begging for the release she barely skirted, and she knew if he kept this up she was bound to combust.
His teeth glinted wickedly as if he could read her thoughts. "And how it will taste when I seal my mouth to your soaked cunt and suck," he hissed, and Sarah shattered, bucking against her hand.
Her vision burst with fractured light, and through the haze of her orgasm, she heard Jareth cry out her name in a sharp gasp. His breaths were rough and jagged as he milked himself over her, his warm come splattering her belly where her shirt had ridden up.
He was making a mess of her and she loved it.
She dabbed her leather-tipped fingers in his come and swirled them over her sensitive clit, rekindling the fire that had hardly dwindled. It burst into an inferno when Jareth crawled up to sprawl beside her, taking her face into his hands and kissing her so deeply she toppled right back over the edge.
Sarah's climax was as searing as his kiss. Her body jolted in near-violent convulsions as Jareth stroked her face, soothing her through it. She broke for air, and suddenly, words danced on her tongue and slipped past her lips.
"Jareth, I—" A moment of hesitation before the plunge. A moment to remember she was adored and held and safe. "I love you so fucking much."
A/N:Thank you Geliot99 for beta reading! 3
What a misleading chapter title, huh? :D I'm so sorry this chapter took so long to come out and I really hope it was worth the wait. I had the general idea of how this first date would go and it kind of got away from me a bit. It was supposed to be one chapter and now it's bleeding into a third. Oops! I should have known better than to assume I knew what would happen.
I'm going to tell you a secret: the google doc for this fic was initially titled, 'Pegging one-shot' - and it has taken on a life of it's own that I almost feel like I have zero control over. Their story took charge and it's been such a joy writing it for you all (I promise that tag WILL be fulfilled, don't worry). I know how this tale will end, but I am already grieving its closure. I promise it won't be a WIP forever, but sheesh, I'd be lying if I said I wanted it to end.
I don't know about you, but I am relieved and so proud of Sarah that she FINALLY said the thing! I hope you're as excited about it as I am.
The mermaid conversation stems from a conversation with Rantobi. I dedicate that little tidbit to them. 3
Please let me know what you think! Your feedback means the absolute universe to me. I'm just some dope sending my heart and soul out into the void hoping folks like it. I doubt I would be anywhere near as far along in this fic without your support and encouragement. If that sounds at all desperate, well, it totally is.