Making My Cursed Return To The TragicLilB Cult As I Have Seen The Light Once Again

Making my cursed return to the TragicLilB cult as I have seen the light once again…

Praise Alex Turner my lord and savior

Just posted a oneshot on here for the first time in a while. Y’all bitches better be happy.

Shut your clit I should not be feeling things this early in the morning

୨⎯ 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐭. 𝐈𝐕 ⎯୧ 

𝘗𝘵. 𝘐 | 𝘗𝘵. 𝘐𝘐 | 𝘗𝘵.𝘐𝘐𝘐

｡･ﾟﾟ･𝘈𝘭𝘦𝘹 𝘛𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘳 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵･ﾟﾟ･｡

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

Your voice, now completely hoarse and shriveled from all the cheering, continued to push forward as Alex finished the song with a last stroke to his guitar.

You always made sure to be front and center at every show you were able to attend. Sometimes life would get in the way and you were unable to go, but Alex being the guy he was, was always understanding of your busy schedule.

He'd always send you a sly smile once in a while between songs during a guitar break; ever since the first show you'd seen him at, he made sure to make this a tradition. It reminded him of the day you entered his life and he surely didn't want to forget it.

Sure his band and music were great, but mostly, you'd look forward to his shows because of his gorgeous smile and occasional winks he'd give you. He enjoyed giving cunning ways to show you that you were special.

You two weren't together by any means. You hadn't even admitted to yourself that you liked him romantically yet. Mostly it was that you didn't want to, you enjoyed how things were between you currently.

Before every show, Alex would always have you backstage. Making sure you never felt left out, he'd always invite you to his conversations, whether that be making stupid jokes that make no sense with his bandmates or just simply asking you what you thought of his outfit as he got ready.

"Thank you for the amazing show, have a great night everyone!" Alex exclaimed through the cheer of the crowd.

He'd always point with his eyes to you at the backstage access doors after every show. Even though he knew you already were planning on heading there anyway. He just wanted an excuse to see your face once more from on the stage, he adored the way you looked from the pit.

He waited for you at the door, he had a routine of having two drinks in his hand for when you arrived; one for you of course.

You pushed open the door, a smile already planted on your face as you correctly expected Alex there, holding up two plastic cups in the air with the same smile on his face.

"Once again, thank you." you said reaching to grasp the red cup.

"No problem, I know how warm it is down there." He replied.

You huffed into the cup as you went to take a sip, consequently splashing the vibrant spiked juice onto your face. The unintended dirty joke caught you by surprise.

"What? What happened." Alex asked, the corner sofa his lips slightly curled from how ridiculous you now looked.

"Nothing nothing, just what you said," you laughed with your eyes closed,  "It sounded so wrong."

He took a moment before finally coming to the realization, then chuckling right along with you.

"You're so stupid, cmon let's go get you cleaned up." he laughed.

He grabbed hold of your hand, guiding you to the washroom.

Normally it would've been seen as weird, but your friendship had grown exponentially during the last few months and everyone knew how friendly you two were.

And you surely didn't mind, Alex had such an understanding and humble personality; so it wasn't a surprise when he gained your trust so quickly and easily.

Alex sat you on the counter, as your eyes were still closed from the drink coating your lashes. You knew that if you opened your eyes that it would surely leak into your eyes, and the thought of alcohol entering your eyes didn't seem too appealing.

He sat both your cups next to you before reaching for the paper towels beside the sink.

He sighed sarcastically before saying, "What would you do without me."

Though you couldn't see him, you knew that he had a grin on his face as he spoke.

"shut up" you snickered while playfully nudging his chest.

You felt as he softly blotted the towel on your face, making sure to not irritate your skin or maneuver the alcohol into your eyes.

You both stayed like that for what felt like the most intimate few minutes. The silence was comfortable but it didn't stop your stomach from doing continuous flips.

You took note of the careful attention he took, making you feel fuzzy inside. You could only imagine how concentrated his face must be, and how cute it would look.

Finally, you were able to open your eyes. You were met by Alex facing away from you, throwing away the soiled paper towels.

"Nice ass" you joked (partly).

"Thanks." he replied, turning back to you while rolling down his sleeves.

"Nice to have your pretty face back." He admitted, ruffling your hair playfully.

Jokingly, you spoke, "That sounds like you're flirting with me."

You were expecting another chuckle or a dumb remark.

To your shock, when you looked back up at him, his face was down and flushed. It took him a moment before he finally confirmed.

"I mean.. that's what I've been trying to do for like 3 months."

You didn't respond. Your brain wouldn't let you.

Your silence scared him. He wondered if he had made a mistake.

"Does that bother you..?" he inquired, taking a step towards you.

Just then, you finally let all your surprised feelings go. It was like those four words unlocked a part of your brain you hadn't known before. A part that let you know that you really did feel something for the man standing in front of you.

A part that let you know that all those late nights you spent thinking of Alex meant something.

"No.. not at all actually."

A few moments of awkward silence passed before either of you spoke.

"Do you wanna kiss?" he asked.

"yeah."

Literally in love with this

the ocean's daughter

victoria de angelis x fem!reader

synopsis: while on holiday in italy, an encounter derails your life enough to make you pack up on a whim and move to the very city in which you first saw her — the ocean's daughter.

warnings: swearing; alcohol consumption; drowning as a metaphor; my terrible attempts at roman dialect & italian; mild, fade-to-black smut (please dni if this makes you uncomfortable, or is not the kind of content you signed up for :))

word count: 5.7k

a/n: after a brief (okay, so, nine months) lapse in writing for måneskin, i am back!! i hope you can forgive my lack of interaction with you all, as my first year of university was a busy one. please take this fic as an apology and an attempt to wheedle my way back into your hearts <3

⭒

The problem with beautiful people in foreign countries is that there is absolutely no way you might ever run into them again, even by pure coincidence. 

But you couldn’t get her out of your head. 

Walking along the shoreline as the sun set over an unnamed beach on the Italian Riviera coastline, the light turning her skin and her hair to gold, the whole world forgotten as she reached out a hand to touch the waves which crested at her side, as though the ocean were walking with her. Everything was golden at this time of day, but nothing shone like her. 

And oh, how she delighted in the life about her, as though this day, and every day hence, were the best of her life. 

It was not an unnamed beach on the Italian Riviera coastline because you could not remember its name, or had never known it, but simply because it was so small a stretch between the colourful buildings hiking up the cliff face that no one had thought to name it. 

You thought of it now as her beach, the woman you’d seen, illuminated in sunlight like it loved her too much to let her go, if even for a moment. 

La sua spiaggia. 

You hadn’t spoken Italian, until you’d come back from Italy and enrolled in Elementary Italian at the public university close to where you lived. 

You couldn’t get her out of your head — the way she’d laughed, made her way along the shore and sung as though she was speaking to the water, its rush and flow, a tempest contained within each wave. 

Now you were in class every Wednesday night, repeating sentences and sounding as stupid as could be, but you forewent every shade of embarrassment for determination, and never had you been so fixated on anything in your life, to gain understanding of the language in which this woman had spoken. Because it seemed to you that the waves had composed their melody in the image of her voice, and you wanted to know how to speak like that, to be the waves beneath her fingertips. 

You knew you sounded crazy, and possibly were crazy, but for some unfathomable reason, you didn’t care. 

You couldn’t get her out of your head, and so be it. You were happier for it, the memory of her flirting with the sun, the sun blushing deep in the evening sky. And who could have blamed the sun? You would have blushed too.

When the night grew dark earlier in winter, you curled up on the sofa with a blanket wrapped around you, and watched Italian movies without subtitles. 

Most of the films were dramas, often romantic, because these were the most easily accessible in any language. 

In summer, you sat outside in the garden and drank wine, listening to a radio that played Italian music. 

Most of the music was mellow, but occasionally, the host announced some sort of rock band, and amidst the quiet calm of traditional ballads, you relished the uncomplicated anger and infatuation of the rock music. There was something accessible to that, too. Something universal and simple. 

It was the simplicity you appreciated, perhaps mostly because there was little of it in learning a new language. That which is sparse is precious, like the sunlight in her hair at the end of the day. Like the moments in which she had been in your life, so quickly gone, like a dream grasped at in waking. 

Had she ever been there at all?

She had. You held onto that memory like a lifeline. 

Every day, it got you up in the morning. Silly, for something so small to have an impact so great, and yet, it did. 

There she was, in your mind, every time you thought you could no longer take what the world threw at you. Smiling, the sun setting on the water. 

Dancing, the ocean’s daughter. 

⭒

A year down the line, and you were back aboard a plane. You’d bought your ticket and packed your bags and were heading back to Italy, this time for good. 

Each day, you’d spent hours learning, practising, perfecting, but one could only go so far in a classroom setting. All the people you knew who spoke more than one language had said the same thing, the same thing that your teachers had said: the best way to learn was through immersion. 

You’d spoken at length with your work superiors, and they had verified that it was no trouble for you to work remotely. Having nothing you would miss too much in your homeland, you’d decided it was time for a change, and a new start, at that. 

What better way to start anew than to cast yourself into the abyss of the unknown, off to a place you’d never lived, to speak a language you’d only just learnt to speak? 

To find a woman you didn’t know, for but her laughter and her golden hair.

At this thought, you laughed a little yourself. In part, you recognised the madness of your endeavour. But mostly, your vision was too foolishly rose-tinted, with dreams that dallied only just out of your reach, and you thought that if only you could reach them, all would be right. 

Such was the nature of a dreaming heart, a hopeful mind. Had you been a character of Greek myth, it would have been your Achilles’ heel. 

The city lights glittered outside of your window.

⭒

You collapsed on your bed with a heavy sigh. It was of tiredness, it was content. 

Beyond the window, the black sand beaches of Cinque Terre shimmered in the setting sun, the town alight with the fiery light of evening. The turquoise ocean turned tangerine in the fading day, and you thought almost that you could hear the water lapping against the rocky edges of the cliff face upon which the village was built.

Riomaggiore. 

Built up like biscuit tins in a hundred different colours, abundant in boats constructed for fishing and places meant for sitting and looking out over the wide world. There was a quiet age in the winding streets, lined with plants and people, buildings as old as time. 

It smelt of salt and bread, lemon and olives and basil, of the best pesto you’d ever tasted — at the bar tucked away beneath residential balconies, between stone-paved streets — of wine and sea air. It prickled on your lips.

 With those thoughts lingering in your head, you decided it was time for dinner, and got up from the bed to change. 

Afterall, it was almost nine o’clock, and therefore the perfect time to eat. 

⭒

You ended up at a quaint little place with wicker chairs and wooden tables, crowded beneath parasols that remained up in the evening as much as in the day. Amongst these parasols were strung warm paper lanterns which made all beneath them glow, continuing the endless sunshine of summer into the night. 

Having been shown to a little table in a corner, with a view of the darkening ocean, you ordered a glass of wine in Italian clearly more fluent than the waiter had expected. 

“Parli molto bene l'italiano,” he complimented you. He then proceeded to ask, in a conversational manner, where you were from and what brought you here, to which you answered with continued fluency, and he replied again how good the accent was with which you spoke. 

 You carried a companionable conversation with the waiter for a handful of minutes, until he apologised for not yet having brought you your wine, and also for having other tables to attend. 

He brought your wine after a short interval, along with a small decanter of water, and a basket of bread with oil and balsamico. 

With this acquired, you sat back in your chair and contemplated the menu. It was written entirely in Italian, indicative of a restaurant not much frequented by tourists. You were pleased to realise you had no trouble reading it. 

After a while, however, you began to struggle. Not because you didn’t understand the words on the card before you, but because you felt the tingling sensation of someone’s eyes on you. 

Tilting the booklet slowly, you peered over the top of it in what you hoped was a surreptitious manner. 

But when your eyes fell upon the other pair in question, you all but dropped the menu to the ground. 

Because leaned back in a wicker chair only two tables away, sunglasses perched atop her blonde hair beneath the cover of the table parasol, was the one person you’d come here hoping, beyond all reckless and silly hope, to see in the first place. 

The ocean’s daughter canted her head, and tipped a finger against her lips. 

“I know you,” she said, in careful English.

You sputtered, “Pardon?”

She smiled enigmatically, with a soft-curving mouth and gently crinkling eyes that were lit in a way that betrayed mischief, or some secret knowledge. 

“I know you,” she repeated. “You were on the beach, last time I was here.”

You blinked, searching for something to say. Anything, to respond vaguely in the affirmative, without giving away exactly how much you had thought about this golden stranger since you last had seen her. “You don’t live here?”

“Not in Riomaggiore, no.” She smiled again. “I’m from Rome. But you’re not from here, either.”

You laughed. “What gave it away?”

She was drinking Peroni from a bottle, and at your question, she picked this up, stood, and swept over to your table. She sat down in the chair across from you. 

“There,” she said. “Now we don’t have to shout at each other.”

Mildly surprised at her coming to sit down with you, and with your question still hanging in the air, you stared at her. 

“Just a good guess, is all,” she answered finally, lifting a shoulder. “And, you answered naturally in English.” She reached out her hand. “I’m Victoria.”

You shook her hand and gave her your name. Her skin was soft, a blushy pink. Her eyes churned with the colour of the waves that had danced beneath her fingertips a year ago.

“Well, Y/N, what brings you to Riomaggiore for the second summer in a row?”

“I could ask you the same,” you countered. 

Victoria leaned back again. She had a curious look in her eyes that you couldn’t place. 

“I asked you first,” she said wryly, folding her arms. The strength in her grace was not lost on you; doubtless, her arms were strong. 

Mirroring her action of earlier, you sipped your drink. So went the saying, ‘imitation is the highest form of flattery,’ but not only that: you knew that mirror neurons had a direct link to the brain chemistry involved in romance. 

You’d pushed the first pawn across the chess board. The next move was hers. 

“For the pesto,” you replied. 

She laughed succinctly. “And here I’d thought you’d come here for the same reason as me.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Which was?”

The corner of her mouth turned up slowly. “To find you, of course.” 

She lifted the glass bottle to her lips. Her eyes did not leave yours.

Oh she’d moved her piece all right. 

You looked out over the sea so as to not look at her, to not reveal how her words had affected you. But of course, in the sea, you saw her. 

Abruptly, the waiter returned, saving you from making a response. He seemed surprised that there were two patrons where before there had only been one, but he took it in stride and asked whether you’d had time to consider the menu. 

You nodded, but it was Victoria who spoke first. 

“Avremo la pasta al pesto, per favore.” 

The waiter looked between you, “Entrambi?” Were you ordering the same thing?

Victoria looked at you, in askance. 

You squared your shoulders. “Certo,” you told the waiter.

“Bene,” he said, and informed you that it would not be a long wait. Then he left. 

You turned to Victoria. “How did you recognise me? I was just sitting on the beach.”

“You were staring at me.”

Recalling that day, there had been many people staring at her. You told her as much. 

“Yes,” she agreed, “but none so beautiful as you. I would have noticed you anywhere.”

You baulked at this. Victoria was the kind of person people noticed. You were not. 

“You’re a little intimidating, you know,” she said, to which you frowned. “I think that’s why you think people don’t notice you.” 

Then, as though privy to your thoughts, she expanded upon her own. She seemed to have a knack for reading you. 

“You think people don’t notice you, because they don’t necessarily talk to you. But I think they don’t talk to you, because they are intimidated. I could not imagine not noticing you.”

You felt a little light-headed at her words, an unfathomable thrill washing over you like a tide. “Then you are the first person brave enough to speak.”

Victoria’s eyes glinted puckishly. “I take pride in that.”

The sun sank farther in the sky, turning the water red and rouging Victoria’s cheeks till tiny freckles stood out beneath her eyes, over her nose, upon her lower lip. She smiled coyly, and you realised you were staring again. 

“Sorry,” you mumbled with a half-laugh. 

“No,” she shook her head. “Look at me all you like.” A gentle breeze ruffled her hair, and she pushed the fringe from out her eyes. You nearly reached over to do it for her. 

“Makes me feel warm,” she said quietly, like a confession. 

Paradoxically, there were goose bumps raised along her arms.

“You look cold to me,” you responded. 

She wrinkled her nose. “Sea air, sun going down, no suffocating heat like Rome in the summer.”

Standing, you shrugged off your cardigan and side-stepped the table, reaching her side. She watched you move in silence.

“May I?” you asked, holding out the cardigan. 

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Nodded. 

You sank halfway into a crouch, and draped the garment over her shoulders, pulling the edges around her to meet at her throat. 

Suddenly, time had slowed to a dripping treacle, and you were hyper aware of her eyes tracking your movements, eyelashes low on her cheeks, of the rise and fall of her chest, breath suddenly shallow. There was a slight flush to her skin, though it was golden, touched by sunlight. Those faint freckles on her face traced a speckled path down her neck, over her collarbone and farther still, past where the open collar of her shirt fluttered over her breasts — only just hidden by the white cotton fabric. 

“My eyes are up here, cuore,” she said smugly, and the clichedness of the line shattered your trance as the fever of embarrassment rose beneath your skin.

“Yes, I — ”

“Pasta al pesto per due?”

You started at the voice of the waiter, practically falling into your chair as you stepped back to your side of the table. 

Victoria seemed unfazed. “Sì, grazie mille,” she smiled up at him. 

The waiter smiled tightly as he set down the plates. “Parmigiano?” 

“No, grazie,” you said, wanting him simply to leave as soon as possible and spare you further embarrassment. 

“Più vino? Birra?”

“No, no, grazie.” You did not want more wine. You wanted him to leave. Now.

Victoria was leaned back in her chair again, still beaming. “Prenderò un'altra birra, per favore.”

“Certo,” said the waiter, and left, equally as fast as you’d wished him to. 

You were leaning your forehead on the palm of your hand, still reeling from the embarrassment of the waiter witnessing your fawning over Victoria. 

But you took a breath and composed yourself, picking up your fork for something to do with your hands. 

“So, tell me about Rome,” you inquired of Victoria, without looking up from your food. 

But she gave a little laugh, and before you knew it, her hands were over yours. 

You looked up. 

“Not like that, cara.” She took your hand, and stabbed the trofie — pasta pieces wound into long, tight coils — properly. “And when it’s spaghetti or linguine, you twist, no spoon.”

She let go of your hands, but you felt the warmth of them still. You could scarcely remember how to breathe with the sound of your heartbeat in your ears. 

She picked up her own fork and speared the pasta. 

“You can call me Vic, if you like,” she said. Then, “Rome. Hot, this time of year. Lots of tourists.”

You laughed, partly because the way she had phrased it was amusing, and partly to diffuse the sudden tension which had come between you just before. “You dislike it that much?”

“No, I was just being realistic. But I suppose you want the sun-soaked boulevards and flowerpots and music.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

Victoria nodded. “And there is that too. Rome’s a little bit of both. Isn’t everything?”

“Both optimistic and pessimistic?”

She pointed her fork at you. “Exact.”

“Exactly?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Shut up, I know I’m not fluent in English.”

You swallowed your pasta, waving a hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to seem like I expected that of you. But I also didn’t want to assume that you weren’t fluent just because you’re Italian.”

A strange expression came across Victoria’s face, something between surprise and admiration. 

“Thank you,” she answered laconically, her voice soft as though her gratitude should have been secret. 

Once more lost for words, you could do nothing but nod, and push another pile of trofie onto the tines of your fork. 

The two of you ate quietly for a while — because Victoria suddenly could not look at you, and you still knew not what to say. The wind blew through the cobblestone corridors of Riomaggiore, and stars in the sky began to replace the sparkling of the ocean surface by sunset. You could smell mingled spirits and spices, hear laughter and chatter in a dozen different languages. The chatter was different; the laughter sounded the same in every language. 

Victoria’s fork clattered to her empty plate, momentarily startling you. 

She took a breath. “Do you want to do something crazy?”

You put the last piece of pasta into your mouth, chewed, swallowed, your heart beating fast at the unspoken promise held by her words. “Like what?”

“Like leave, now that we’ve finished eating.”

Your eyes widened, and you lowered your voice. “Victoria, if you saw me, a tourist, leaving a restaurant after finishing dinner, you’d be horrified. This is Italy. You don’t just leave after eating.”

The smile that twisted your insides graced her pink-red lips again. She leaned forward, and your eyes darted involuntarily to her mouth. Her eyes were a thousand different shades of blue.

“Told you it was crazy.”

Then she straightened up again, stuck a hand into her pocket, retrieved a bundle of plastic Euros, placed them on the table beneath a glass, and once more extended her hand to you. 

There was a command in the action, and you obeyed. 

When her hand was in yours again, it felt like sanctity, a warm flush spreading through your body at her innocent touch. 

She drew you up from your chair, and before you knew what was happening, she was holding your hand like the memory of her that had held you enraptured for a year, and you were running through the streets of a seaside village, your footsteps loud, your laughter resonant in your belly, in your chest and your lungs, upon your lips. 

You ran and ran, hand in hand, and if anybody had asked, you wouldn’t have known how to explain the energy which had suddenly made a rollercoaster of your veins. 

The streets wove and turned like a labyrinth, like a web, and all these strings ran in one direction: to the sea. 

It was only when there was sand in between your toes that you realised that you had reached the end of the road. You kicked your shoes off without a thought, as Victoria discarded her borrowed cardigan into the sandy dunes.

And then she was pulling you toward the rushing waves and the dying sun ever and ever closer to the horizon, and the water was sloshing up over your ankles, your calves. 

Another laugh burst forth from your chest, and you turned to splash Victoria. 

She shrieked, because the day had been hot, but the water was still cold, and the difference was jarring. 

When she looked at you, her hair was soaking wet, bangs dripping down her face like the water that had made her makeup run, and somehow, she was even more beautiful now, in what should have been ruin but instead was triumph, like every grain of sand on her hands was residual stardust from her soul, though still was nothing when compared to the light in her eyes. The laughter was still warm in your chest.

She shivered, and your moment of trance shattered like sugar glass. You took her hand this time. 

“Come on,” you said, leading out of the water like she was Venus born of a Botticelli vision. “Let’s go dance this cold away.”

Against your own, her pulse fluttered, and her clammy palm in yours, with its calloused fingertips and short-cut nails, was suddenly the most important thing ever entrusted to you. 

You swallowed, before letting go of her hand to put your shoes back on. She sat down beside you.

“Y-you like to dance?” Her wide eyes were wider beneath the smudged makeup. The devious glint in them was gone as she shivered, the sun nearly gone now. 

I could learn to love anything if I was with you, you thought. It was a dangerous thought, to be told. You dared not speak it aloud. 

You pulled on your cardigan, but only to drag the sleeve down over your wrist and press it carefully under her eyes, blotting away the remnants of mascara. 

Her eyes closed slowly, and you breathed in tandem to the sound of the breaking waves. 

You tugged off your cardigan again, and set it around her shoulders once more before she had the chance to protest. 

When she opened her eyes again, her lips parted too. She might have leaned in, if you hadn’t spoken then. 

“When in Riomaggiore…” you murmured, and were rewarded with her gentle laughter. 

Victoria stood and pulled you up. When you were fully on your feet, she nearly lost her balance, but you caught her arms before she fell to the sand, and instead she fell against your chest. 

Her breath was on your collarbone, laboured — presumably from the adrenaline rush of the ground disappearing from beneath her feet. Her fingers were against your back, curled to keep herself standing. 

Already your thoughts were gone from the beach, from the light still left on its shore, deep now in the midnight dark that would soon follow, fast-forwarded to a fantasy, of her body against yours, every part of her as soft as the skin of her palms, and flushed a pretty pink, her open mouth against your collarbone, your fingers in her hair, her fingers on your back drawing the visceral, unspeakable sounds from your mouth. 

The seaspray brought you back to reality. 

But apparently Victoria’s thoughts had been lost as well, because now it was not her breath on your collarbone, but her lips, and you weren’t dreaming that she was kissing you there. 

Your breath had gone shallow in the space of milliseconds, and her mouth moved up to linger on your neck, your jaw, your cheek. Her arms were wrapped around you, and that open-collared shirt was against your chest, warmth bleeding from her to you. 

Finally you could take it no longer. You took her face in your hands and pressed your mouth to her mouth.

When you kissed her, she tasted of salt and wheat and sugar. Her lips were soft and warm as the summer air, and when your fingers tangled in her hair, her hands were on your elbows and your heart was in your mouth. 

You were kissing a stranger in a foreign land, and you felt as though you’d known her forever, disintegrating in her arms like salt in the sun as her kiss came up to meet you like a wave, and you couldn’t remember the right way to breathe. There was nothing left to your identity for but the memory of what it was to kiss her, and else nothing mattered. You would not have cared, if this ocean’s daughter had drowned you. You would have gone willingly to that watery grave. And had she tried to leave you, you would have traded your soul to have even a moment more of hers.

Because here it was: your heart, exposed in how you held her, how desperately you kissed her. 

How much you adored her, after knowing her so little. 

She angled her head and her teeth bruised your lip as she deepened the kiss, eliciting a gasp from you. You thought she might have laughed — softly, behind your mouth — a quiet, secret laughter meant only for your ears, and new heat surged through you at the thought. 

She was only kissing you, and yet, she was tearing you asunder. Pulling you apart at the seams with only her touch. 

“Vic,” you breathed, and it was all you managed. 

You were staggering back, falling against the sand, and she was pressing evanescent kisses to every square centimetre of your skin, and you’d never felt so alive in your life, with the heat of her body against yours and her pulse against your own like a metronome gone rogue. 

“Fuck dancing,” she murmured, between kisses. “I want you.”

Her words were like an open flame to oxygen, burning inside of you. 

Her lips touched your earlobe. “Do you want me?” she whispered. 

“Yes,” you replied, heart thundering. 

And you had been trying to play down your attraction to her, to hide it so that she wouldn’t see how much everything she did affected you — when she bit her lip and you wished it was your teeth instead of hers, that coy smile she always turned to the ground like she knew exactly what it was doing to you, her long fingers drumming on the table, already in time with your pulse. 

And now there was nothing subtle about it. 

Her hand was in yours, and you were running again, up into the town, pushing her against an alleyway wall to steal a kiss as she asked, 

“Mine or yours?”

“Unless you’re one street over too, then mine is closer.”

Her laughter tickled your lips, seaspray in the wind. “That eager?”

“You kissed me first.”

“Touché,” she whispered, her breath coming sharp and short against your mouth, sticky with her lipstick, warm with her scent, her touch. 

The last of the climb to your rented rooms was a stumble, Victoria pressing messy kisses to your shoulder, into the crook of your elbow, as you fumbled for your keys and tried, impossibly, to keep quiet.

By the time the two of you stumbled through the door, she had unbuttoned your trousers, and had your blouse in her fist. You reached for her and found yourself bare for but your bra and underwear, while Victoria retained only her white shirt and panties. 

You paused. 

Slowly, as her chest rose and fell, she took your hands and guided them to the buttons at the ridge of her breasts, and slowly, you unbuttoned the few remaining, tantalising buttons of her white shirt, letting the garment fall to the ground like a flag. Like surrender.

You stared at her for heartbeats, in awe of how she breathed and obsessed with the way she moved. 

Then, as though she could wait no longer, she crushed you against her and kissed you, sucking your lower lip into your mouth and biting down, evoking from you a desperate whimper, for anything more of her that you could get — all of her, if she would give it to you. 

You drew back from her lips to kiss the rest of her, pushing her into the mattress to press your mouth to every bit of skin you could find. When her fingers found your hair and pulled, your kiss left a bruise on her neck, and then her shoulder, before she pushed you down on the mattress and your thighs apart. 

Her palm was already there for you when you groaned, and you felt her smile of satisfaction against your mouth when her fingers brushed over your clothed folds. 

“God,” she murmured, “you’re so pretty when you know what you want.” 

You managed only a hoarse whisper in return. “Then give it to me.”

She laughed and it tickled your skin, and then your bra was gone as well, and her fingers were curled around the elastic of your underwear. She took too long for your liking, and you pushed her hand, leaving yourself exposed to her mercy and the cool night air.

But she was merciful if nothing else, this ocean’s daughter, and her fingers were inside of you before you could utter another plea. 

Already she needed no guidance, played you like the strings of a harp with a flick of her wrist and those long, gently curling fingers. 

Her eyes never left yours, half-lidded in the same haze you felt cloud your mind when she touched you, when your back arched up from the already untidy sheets, when her other hand travelled up your thigh and your stomach, finding a resting place beneath your breasts as she pushed you into the bed, held you there as you writhed. 

When you came, you pulled her down with you until the moon sank into the sky as well, until the sun dawdled once more on the horizon. 

And perhaps, you thought, this was where the moon and sun went in those small hours of the night when neither could be seen by those still awake on Earth — they were together, entwined in a beautiful, impossible duality of silver and gold, at last unfettered by human imagination. 

⭒

You didn’t remember falling asleep, but you remembered Victoria. Remembered her breath as it whispered against your legs, her lips the inside of your thighs. Already, the memories were imprinted upon your mind like whorls of sand, and on your tongue the salt of her demise as she’d gasped beneath your touch with her head tipped back in ecstasy — and god, she had been so unfathomably pretty. Endlessly so.

Now, you reached out to touch her, to sweep the gold strands from the eyes of your very own gold dust woman. But the sheets were empty.

Fear gripped your heart in a sudden vice, that she should have left you with so little, so early, so soon. 

But the light trailed her still in the wake of morning, and as your eyes followed it, you found her outside, leaning against the railing of your balcony, summer-sunshine hair falling down her back, her legs still bare though her upper half was hidden by your cardigan — and oh, how good she looked in your clothes. You wanted to see her like that all the time. 

Slipping out of bed, you took a leaf from her book and tugged on her long white shirt, before pattering out onto the balcony. 

She turned at the sound of your approach, and smiled sleepily. Her hair floated atop her shoulders, over her back and her chest in waterfalling waves, blonde strands twining messily and yet perfectly in what could easily have been sunbeams, returning to her as though she were the very star they had awaited all along.

“Buongiorno,” she murmured. The wide blue sky arced above her head, and the streets below your balcony had begun to crescendo in the sounds of waking, the morning routines of a thousand strangers beneath your feet, the waves washing ever over the shores in their ethereal clockwork.

“Morning,” you replied. It appeared she was only wearing your cardigan and her underwear, and in her shirt and your own underwear, you were no better. Your heart filled with lightness at the thought that she should be so uninhibited in your presence. No one had ever been so easily open with you before. 

She held out a hand as you drew nearer, and you slid your fingers into hers. Before you could react, she pulled you flush against her, wrapping her arms around you and kissing you, ardently but achingly slow like the dawning day, lips tender but her hold on you fierce, as though she could not have let go had she tried. 

Her hand came to rest on your cheek, her thumb brushing over your lower lip. 

“I want you to know,” she said breathlessly, “that this is not all I wanted from you. I just couldn’t help myself.” Your pulse quickened, the strings of your heart tying themselves in knots. “I want everything of you, if you want that too.”

A smile found its way to your face, and you wound your fingers through hers. She looked down at your intertwined hands, and you fell apart a little at the fond look on her face. 

“I do.”

Her hands slid to your waist as she came to stand behind you, with her chin leaned on your shoulder and her gaze returned to the view beyond the balcony, though you felt her lips briefly touch the space between your neck and collarbone. 

The daughter of the ocean, in your arms at last.

You knew little about her, still. But summer held many days yet, and when she turned and smiled at you in the sunshine of the new day, you knew that she would give every day to you, if only you asked.

⭒

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Sometimes I just think about humbug Alex….

Also updates are coming I’m just being slow

Hehehe

You guys should send in Ryan ross oneshot requests cause I’m in the mood to write for my bby girl.

No smut pls xxx