#And your brain which is used to cold counting | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

waynes-multiverse · 1 hour ago

Text

Time After Time – Chapter 13

Summary: Unable to control your abilities, you’re stuck in the present with Billy Butcher, his team, and America’s first asshole. At this point, you’ve become Soldier Boy’s personal punching bag. But when an accident leaves you stranded in 1942, you run into a familiar face and suddenly rely on your future tormentor’s help as your only hope.

Pairing: Soldier Boy x supe!Reader

Warnings: 18+ for language, violence & death, 2022 & season 3, SB being his charming self and everything that comes with it, drug use & drinking, PTSD, mentions of torture, physics, angst, one-sided pining & steamy thoughts, fluff if you squint

Word Count: 16.3k

Posted on Patreon May 23, 2025

A/N: So sorry, guys! Had a nasty cold the whole week and could barely move. Catching up with everyone over the next few days. Just wanted you to finally have this first 🩵 Oh, boy, don't know where to start with this one. My fingers slipped on the keys 😂 It's the reunion 2.0 (or 3.0?), Ben's hella confused and frustrated and possibly horny, and I played "fill in the gaps" with Season 3 aka his first thoughts when he woke up and found dear reader there and everything that came after 😉

✨ Chapter title comes from Frankenstein (1931)

Main Masterlist || Series Masterlist || Tag List

Chapter 13: It's Alive! It's Alive!

2022

Ben didn’t remember much from his escape.

The first thing he noticed when he woke up was the cold crawling through his blood and biting his skin. His skull buzzed with static, not a single clear thought coming through like the worst hangover of his life – and he used to have a lot of those.

Then came the sound.

Footsteps. Voices. English. American.

None of them sounded familiar. Not his old team. No one from Payback – not that he’d really expected them to come for him. Not after what they fucking did.

But then he heard the only voice that ever mattered – yours.

“Uh, Butcher, I don’t think this was a good idea…”

“Don’t worry 'bout it.”

British. Male.

And for a second, Ben thought it was another hallucination of you. It wasn’t uncommon for him to hear your voice in his head, after all. It had been the only constant for… well, however long it’d been. But then:

“No, I don’t think you understand. This pod’s got like three inches of lead, borated polyethylene, and some kind of heat sink. I can’t read most of this since it’s in Russian, but if I’m reading these charts right, the decay signatures are insane. There’s Americium-241 in the isotopic yields. You only see that as a byproduct in low-burnup plutonium fuel cycles. Alpha and gamma radiation is peaking simultaneously. I mean, this spike right here is equivalent to a 3 Gray dose in under four seconds.”

Yeah, Ben didn’t understand a single word of that. His hallucinations of you had always been realistic, but they’d never been as fucking smart as the real thing. There was only so much his brain could do. Which meant:

You weren’t a figment of his drug-induced imagination.

“English, sunshine,” the British guy prompted impatiently.

You sighed loudly. “The Russians turned him into a walking nuke.”

Great.

Ben’s eyes snapped open in that moment, blinked a couple of times to get rid of the blur in his vision and the dazed fog in his mind, and then, sure enough, there you were – live and in the flesh.

Not more than two feet away from him, staring wide-eyed and horrified between strange men in blue worker overalls and guns in their hands.

Your face was the same, hadn’t aged a day since ‘42. Your hair was a mess, your skin was smudged with dirt and sweat, and you were wearing the same overalls as the rest of them, holding a thick folder in your hands like you belonged with those fucking strangers.

You came. Freed him. Saved him.

But as Ben took a step closer, you took one back and hid halfway behind one of the men, clinging to the guy’s arm like you were fucking scared. Scared of him.

You didn’t run to him. Didn’t sling your arms around him. Didn’t seem happy in the slightest to see him again.

Just… terrified.

And then, Ben felt it – the pressure building behind his sternum, white-hot and untamable.

“Uh-oh…” You took another cautious step back.

“What now?” the British asshole huffed, voice louder over the low hum that began to rise in the room.

“His decay constants are collapsing. His metabolic feedback loop’s destabilizing,” you said.

Ben’s chest started to glow. Lights vibrated in their sockets. Dust lifted from the floor.

“English!”

“Right. He’s gonna fucking blow,” you clarified.

Yup.

Still fucking smarter than a room full of men.

And then, the bomb inside him went off, he blacked out for a few seconds, and when the disorienting haze lifted and he opened his eyes, you were gone. Vanished.

Again.

Ben didn’t think long and hard at that moment – he knew this was his chance to finally escape, so he took it. Staggered out through the hole he blew into the wall, past humans and bodies on the ground.

He found a locker room in the facility, broke one open, stole some godawful and grimy tracksuit and boots that were too tight in the toes. He grabbed a lonely duffel bag filled with a gun, a combat knife, a pack of smokes and a box of matches, a ration bar, some rubles, and a half-empty bottle of vodka.

Good enough.

Tunnels turned into roads. Chain-link fences and barbed wire turned into forests. He walked till he found train tracks, followed them to a station, and read the word “АЭРОПОРТ” on a screen there.

Airport? Good enough.

He took his chances and, sure enough, made it onto an airfield. Found a plane leaving for New York City and hid with the cargo like a goddamn stowaway. But it didn’t matter. He was nothing if not resourceful, and more importantly, he was going fucking home.

The most shocking thing, though, aside from your sudden reappearance in one of the most devastating places on Earth during one of his strangest times?

How much time had fucking passed.

Ben knew the fucking Reds had locked him into that box and kept him frozen for a little while. He didn’t have a sense of time in there, just weird dreams, but he judged from the length of his hair and beard that it had been at least a few months, maybe even a year or two. The last date he could remember was 1990 before they put him on ice.

Well, cut to the airport where he found a newspaper that said it was 2022.

Thirty-two fucking years?!

By the time he hopped over the perimeter fence at fuckin' JFK and disappeared into Queens, he suddenly realized how much had truly changed. It was a different world now, and he was fucking lost.

No identity. No money. No plan.

As he moved through the outer boroughs toward Manhattan, everything around him was wrong. Too fast. Too loud. Too bright. It wasn’t the New York he remembered.

Billboards weren’t paper anymore and cars were sleeker and quieter. A kid with blue hair and a nose ring, two gay dudes, and a guy who talked into the watch around his wrist walked by him. Storefronts had rainbow flags, and a bus passed him with a star-spangled caped cunt plastered on its side, advertising another Vought-produced movie.

Some things didn’t change, he supposed.

The smell of the city was the same – diesel fuel, pot smoke, piss, and hot dogs – but the city itself wasn’t. This wasn’t his America – not even close.

The only fucking thing he disturbingly recognized in this brave, new world was the small, rectangular slab everyone carried around in their hands and stared obsessively into like they were seeing God in church.

You’d had one of those as well, and eventually, he realized that the thing he’d kept safe in a box for forty years was a goddamn phone – cordless.

Ben then stole a cup full of quarters from a bum and found a payphone, dialing a number he remembered from forty years ago. It rang once and went dead.

So he went old school.

He started poking around pawn shops and old Vought haunts till someone finally whispered the name he was after.

The Legend.

Old bastard probably still had a Rolodex bigger than Fort Knox. He knew every back door in Vought and where bodies were buried because he helped bury half of them.

And then, a plan slowly formed in Ben’s mind: hole up at Legend’s, get cleaned up, find his old team, and kill their backstabbing asses – preferably as brutal and merciless as possible.

Permanent measures, Ben scoffed internally, remembering Stan Edgar’s words from a meeting back in ‘83.

Well, who was fucking laughing now?

And then, finally, when all of it was said and done, Ben would come for you.

After some roughing up of a man in a bar, he then got an address in Midtown, but somewhere between Sixth Avenue and 59th Street, he heard it.

Tinny, distant, but unmistakeable – the same melody and sharp vowels of a Russian pop song. It drowned into his ears from a small radio in a parked food truck.

Something inside him cracked then.

His vision blurred. His knees buckled. His mind flooded with images he tried to bury deep. But the hum in his chest, the pressure, the fire under his skin had already started, violent and unstoppable.

Then came the flash.

He didn’t remember much more. He woke up to car alarms, sirens, and people screaming. Thick smoke hung in the air like fog and rubble was everywhere. He stared at the scorched remnants of a building that looked like a hurricane of flames had blown through it.

And Ben felt bad. He really did. Because, sure, one could argue he’d killed a lot of people over the long span of his career, so what were a few more?

But this was different. He hadn’t meant to.

Getting tortured by the fucking Commies was one thing, but they turned him into one of those supe freaks he’d always despised. Strongest man alive turned walking, uncontrollable nuke.

He fucking hated what they made him into. If he could fucking nuke the entire upper part of the Asian continent, he would.

Ben then kept his head down, moved through the back alleys and side streets, avoiding ambulances, police cars, and cameras till he ducked into the lobby of a pre-war high-rise on West 55th, next to a cigar shop and a boutique vodka bar.

The elevator then creaked up to the penthouses – PH4.

Ben raised his fist and knocked – three hard pounds, each one echoing through the hallway. The paint on the doorframe cracked slightly.

Footsteps. Slippers shuffling. Then the clunk of a lock sliding back. The door swung open, and there he was.

Legend. Older. Softer. But still himself. Robe loose, silk pajamas, gold chain on bare chest, slippers that cost more than a car, and a whiskey tumbler in hand at 10 AM. Eyes like saucers. He looked like he was seeing a fucking ghost.

Maybe he was.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” the old man breathed. “Ben?”

Ben didn’t answer right away. He was tired – bone-tired, blood-tired. He’d walked out of a Russian grave, burned a street down in Midtown, and ridden the subway in a stolen tracksuit like some goddamn hobo. The whole journey had already taken him five days.

“You gonna let me in or just stare at me like I crawled outta your fuckin’ toilet?”

Legend stumbled backward with a stunned laugh. “Of course! Of course! Come on in, come on in, you beautiful bastard! I thought you were dead! I mean, you were dead! The whole world thinks you’re–… Oh, man, wait ‘til I tell Marge–”

“Start with a drink,” Ben grunted as he stepped inside, looking around.

Legend’s place hadn’t changed much. Just a new location and a better view. Crystal decanters. Too many mirrors. A leopard print robe draped over a $9,000 couch. It smelled like citrus cologne, stale cigars, and money that hadn’t been earned honestly. The walls were plastered with nostalgia: framed magazine covers, awards, posters, photos of stars long dead. And there were more pictures of Soldier Boy than any museum dared hang. It was like stepping into a shrine of himself.

He peeked at one photo and felt fucking nothing.

Legend closed the door behind him and scrambled to keep up. “You’re really here. You’re alive. What the hell happened to you?”

“Reds,” Ben muttered.

“Jesus Christ, I thought they buried you. I mourned you, man.”

“Yeah? Must’ve been a real touchin’ tribute,” Ben said dryly.

Legend blinked. “Hey. I liked you, alright? I didn’t sign up for whatever Vought pulled. I wasn’t in the room when they made that call.”

“You sure about that?” Ben said quieter. Dangerous. “You weren’t in on it?”

Legend looked wounded, but he always had a flair for theatrics. “Ben, listen to me. I had nothing to do with it. Swear on my mother’s grave, I didn’t know a goddamn thing. You were the crown jewel. The whole plan was to sell you forever. Why would they toss the best brand they had?”

Ben watched him closely. Legend still had that salesman gleam, but his hands were fidgeting. The man might be a rat for a living, but he wasn’t a traitor.

“I believe you,” Ben said finally.

Legend sagged, relieved. “Jesus. Thank God.”

“Don’t thank him. He didn’t help.”

Ben accepted the drink offered to him without blinking. Scotch. Strong. First thing he’d tasted that didn’t remind him of a basement in Russia. Legend never poured anything cheap.

The older man then refilled his own glass with shaking hands. “They said you died. Nuclear meltdown in Ohio in ‘84. You went in alone. They did the whole shtick – flag over the casket, moment of silence at Vought Tower, candles, parade. Even got you a statue. Beautiful PR, really. You didn’t know?”

Ben turned his head slowly. “Do I look like I fuckin’ knew?”

So this was what it had come to? This was what his life had amounted to? Buried like a hero, commemorated for a blink of an eye, and then fucking forgotten.

A fuckin’ statue?!

“No, no, I guess not,” Legend said, still rambling. “You look like shit, frankly. You wanna catch up first or take a shower? ‘Cause, no offense, you smell like Cold War ass.”

Ben quirked an eyebrow. “You offerin’ to join me?”

Legend raised both hands. “Hey, man, I don’t swing like that – anymore.”

Sure. Ben scoffed under his breath and rolled his eyes slightly. Not like Bogart was ever balls-deep inside the guy.

They stood in silence for a beat. Legend then gestured vaguely back at the liquor cart. “You want something else? Shrimp? Bump? You still do coke, right?”

Ben glanced at him and plopped down on the velvet couch with a grunt. “You offering or reminiscin'?”

The old man moved behind the bar and opened a drawer. “You’re not gonna believe what I saved for a rainy day.”

He pulled out a round mirror, the kind they didn’t bother hiding in the ‘80s, and set it gently down on the coffee table. From a thin glass vial, he tapped out two tight white lines.

“Peruvian flake. 1983. From that last gig in Cartagena, remember?”

Ben dipped his pinky first and tasted it on his tongue. Still burned just right. He stared at the neat, shimmering lines like they were a goddamn miracle.

It had been forty fucking years.

He hadn’t touched coke since Reagan’s first term. His heart rate picked up just looking at it. He leaned down over the mirror, one finger closing a nostril, and inhaled the line in one clean, practiced motion.

The burn climbed straight to his brain and lit up every nerve ending like someone flipped a breaker. His eyes watered. His spine straightened like he’d just been recharged with jumper cables.

“Still burns like it used to.” Ben sniffed, nose tingling.

Legend grinned like a man watching the resurrection of a god. “Atta boy.”

“Now that’s the America I remember.” Ben dragged a hand down his face, leaned back against the couch, and let out a dark, satisfied chuckle. “You always did age like a cockroach. I figured if anyone made it, it’d be you.”

Legend laughed too hard and raised his glass, sitting down in a leather arm chair across from him. “They don’t make ‘em like us anymore.”

The men drank. After a few more quiet sips and more bumps of coke, Legend stood, dusted off his robe, and disappeared into a back room. He returned with a garment bag slung over one arm.

“Knew this day might come,” he said, grinning. “Couldn’t throw it away.”

Ben unzipped the bag and stared.

His suit. His real one. Emerald green, armor-ribbed, the star still proud on the chest. He could almost smell the battles in it. Almost hear the roar of the crowd.

He stood. “Shower?”

“Guest bathroom’s down the hall. Still stocked with aftershave from ‘87. Towels are clean.”

The bathroom was as opulent as the rest of the penthouse. Marble floors, a gold-trimmed mirror, a steam shower the size of a phone booth. Ben finally dropped the sweat suit, stepped under the spray, and let the water scald his skin – first real shower in fucking decades.

The grime peeled off in waves – Russian chemicals, blood, dirt, something green and sticky he didn’t ask questions about. He washed his hair twice. The beard had gotten too long, too wild. And as he finally stepped out of the shower–

“There you are,” he said with an almost amused sigh. At some point, he’d just accepted the fact that you were haunting his conscious.

Can’t fight the universe.

You sat on the counter next to the sink, smirk on your face, bare legs dangling over the edge – like fucking clockwork. “Missed me?”

Ben only nodded with a hum as he stepped up to the mirror above the sink. He wiped a circle clear on the fogged surface and stared for a long moment.

“You look like shit,” you noted and crossed your arms, giving him a scrutinizing sideways glance.

And yeah, Jesus fuck, he looked like he’d just crawled out of fuckin’ hell. Forty years of Commie torture and dark basements were written on his skin. He’d only seen daylight two times during his stay there – when they’d field-test the fucking Little Boy in his chest. And it had rained both goddamn times.

His eyes were sunken, the green a little faded. The beard made him look like a mountain man who lost his fuckin' mountain. He picked up the clippers. Hovered over the switch. He’d never really been a beard kind of guy. Vought had always insisted on a clean-shaven image.

“Keep it,” you said. “Give it a trim. I think it looks good. Dangerous. Edgy. Perfect for puttin’ the fear of God into your enemies.”

Ben smacked his lips and got to work. He trimmed the beard, shaping it into something neater and harder. He then grabbed a pair of scissors and cut his own hair with slow, methodical snips. Piece by piece, the ghost peeled away, and underneath it, something familiar started to reemerge.

“This is your time, right?” he finally spoke and peered at you from his periphery. “That fuckin’ flashlight was a phone, wasn’t it?”

You grinned cheekily. “Well, I couldn’t give that away. Can’t fault me for that.”

“Guess not,” he huffed a strand of hair out his face.

Ben then dried off, suited up, adjusted the straps. The fabric settled against his skin like it remembered him. Tight in the right places. The weight of the shield in his hand felt like gravity returning. He finally felt anchored again.

Less like a ghost, more like a weapon.

“You really sure about this?” you asked and gave him a look that was half-concerned and half-judgy. “Killing your old team? Your ex?”

Ben exhaled a deep breath through his nose but didn’t look at you, green eyes focused on his mirror image. “They betrayed me. Left me to rot.”

“Not like you didn’t deserve it,” you muttered under your breath, then tilted your head. “Am I on your hit list?”

Ben licked his lips and clicked his tongue. “Depends.”

Your brows pinched. “On what?”

Ben met your eyes. “If you fuckin’ left me on purpose.”

When he finally emerged from the bathroom, Legend whistled.

“Still looks good. You could be on the cover of Time again.”

Ben ignored that. “What happened to Payback?”

Legend hesitated, swirling the ice in his drink. “Split up. Disbanded. Most of ‘em are ghosts now. Black Noir’s made it into the new group – The Seven. Crimson Countess does livestreams now. Weird stuff.”

Ben didn’t know what that meant and didn’t care.

“Where is she?”

Legend hesitated. “You sure?”

Ben’s expression didn’t change.

“Alright, she’s local. I’ve got an address. But Ben – don’t expect her to cry when she sees you.”

“I’m not going for tears,” Ben said coldly.

Legend handed over a scrap of paper with her address scrawled on it. “You’re not who you used to be.”

Ben paused mid-way to the door and turned his head slightly. “I know,” he said. “That guy’s dead.”

And with that, he left the penthouse.

The wooded clearing was dead quiet as Ben stepped into it like it was a battlefield – except his eyes weren’t on the war anymore. The old trailer lights flickered in the distance, his boots crunching the gravel with heavy thuds.

And apparently, the universe had a fucking sense of humor.

Because the last person he’d expected to find in front of his ex-girlfriend’s trailer was his other ex-girlfriend – you. But Ben heard your voice before he even saw your face.

“Jesus, Butcher, I told you not to drug him. He’s gonna have a concussion,” you bitched.

Ben then recognized the second voice that answered you as well. Still that same British asshole from the lab.

“It’s fine, sunshine. Focus on the task at hand, yeah? We’ve got bigger fish to fry now than MM’s moral compass.”

Ben stepped closer till figures came into view. The British asshole was standing and found his gaze immediately with a wide smirk. But Ben’s eyes slid past the man, landing squarely on you, crouched down and tending to an unconscious guy by the trailer steps.

A flicker of anger roared alive inside of him. Familiar. Old. He’d carried it around with him for eighty years already, and a part of him wanted to see you burn for it.

For fucking lying. For ever darling to leave him.

But something stirred underneath the anger and hurt – longing.

For your voice, your body, your heart.

But you only glanced at him briefly – unfocused, unbothered. You looked pissed and worried, but none of it was for him. You sent a glare to the asshole in front of Ben before your attention slipped back to the man on the ground, checking his pulse and muttering a few more curses under your breath.

Did you–

Did you not recognize him?

Ben couldn’t entirely fault you for the lab. He’d crawled out of that pod a complete fucking mess. But now he looked more like himself again. Sure, maybe not the ‘42 version of him, but he hadn’t changed that much. Still as handsome as ever. Was it the fucking beard? Should he have shaved it after all?

The Brit then mumbled something about good faith and a team up, but Ben didn’t really listen. Whatever the fuck was going on here, you seemed to be a part of it, and he wasn’t going to lose your trail again.

Not now. Not ever.

And maybe, just maybe, you’d walk out of it alive, depending on how this would go – once he’d figured out what the hell was going on.

“What about her?” Ben gestured with his chin toward you once the asshole had finished his pitch. “Who’s she?”

“She’s one of you. Supe. Chronokinetic,” the guy told him and smirked. “Bit of a wildcard, but bloody handy in a pinch.”

So Ben had been right. He was almost proud of himself for solving that one.

But what the fuck were you doing here? Why were you so fucking calm around men with guns? This shouldn’t be your fucking life.

“Oi, sunshine. C’mere. Introduce yourself,” the Brit called you over.

You stood slowly and dusted off your jean shorts, muscles tense as Ben’s eyes pinned you in place like a knife through a photograph. You weren’t wearing a band shirt, a ‘40s dress, or even an overall this time. Just a plain black hoodie with white lettering that read: ‘Without geometry, life is pointless.’

Yeah, definitely you.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Ben asked, a charming but feigned smirk tugging at his lips, eyes squinting and grazing over you. Observing. Studying.

Still not a trace of recognition in your eyes.

Did you really not know him? Were you lying again? Might as well give it a shot and see what poured out.

And then you just gave him your name. No muss, no fuss, no lies. Like it wasn’t a big deal to begin with. You weren’t guarding it like a state secret or nuclear codes. Just your name, plain and simple.

“You know who I am?” Ben asked next and watched your face contort – brow knitted, nose scrunched, lips pursed. You thought he was fucking crazy – but definitely not someone you once shared a goddamn bed with.

“I mean, yeah,” you said and snorted an amused laugh. “You’re Soldier Boy. You were in my high school history books. My grandpa liked to talk about you when I was a kid.“

Ben bit his lips, hummed. Nodded. And he wasn’t sure yet what, but something had died inside of him.

The fuck–

What the hell was he supposed to do with that?

You clearly had no fuckin’ clue. Did you forget? Did you really not know? What the fuck did that even mean?

This was fuckin’ absurd.

The first hint of disappointment then crashed over Ben. Anger gone. Hurt gone. Just disappointment that you couldn’t remember the real him, that you didn’t recognize him beyond what the world knew. You knew Soldier Boy, and for the first time in eighty years, he realized you’d be disappointed in him, too.

Sure, his hallucinations of you had been plenty opinionated over his actions, but they’d also been easy to ignore. But this was the real you, and he wasn’t the guy he used to be anymore.

Coming here to fry his ex probably didn’t help…

“Alright, Doc. Time to give the man his gift,” the asshole said and nodded toward the trailer.

You sighed, rolled your eyes slightly but didn’t argue. You looked fucking bored – like this was a goddamn chore. You dragged your feet back and held the trailer door open for him.

One thing the real you and his hallucination had in common, however: they were both fucking judgy.

Yeah, this first meeting wasn’t ideal. You were already looking at him like you’d decided you hated him the minute he opened his mouth.

He knew that look well.

But you’d done that back then, too. It didn’t mean anything. He could still turn it around.

Ben moved past you into the dim light of the trailer, cluttered with relics of a woman clinging to the scraps of fame. You followed, and then the two of you just stood there by the entrance. He narrowed his eyes past the beaded curtain, and sure enough, there was Countess, tied up on a chair and frozen mid-wail.

Jesus…

“So, how does it work? Your powers?” Ben asked, his voice rough like gravel as he tried to keep it steady.

He pretended to be unbothered, curious only for the sake of the reason why he was here, but on the inside, he was trembling and itching.

Because you were right fucking there – so close that if he stretched out his pinky right now, he could touch yours. He could feel your warmth radiate off your skin and brush his. He could fucking smell you – a scent he had never forgotten and chased for over eight decades trying to find it again.

He never could.

He’d forgotten so fucking much. Hadn’t even realized it till the temptation returned. The longing was fucking winning.

Over anger. Over pain. Over everything.

All he wanted to do now was grab you and kiss you like there was no fucking tomorrow because there truly never was a guarantee there’d be another one.

But how? To you, he was just a name in a book. A ghost on a screen.

Not Ben. Not yours. Not his.

His mind was goddamn racing, his heart pounding. He could already feel the hum in his chest.

This was all too goddamn much.

“It’s like a remote control. I can push Pause on a single object, a room full of people… Theoretically, even the whole world, but that’d take a lot of juice,” you explained.

“Can’t swing that much?”

You shook your head.

Ben gave a nod.

“She can’t feel anything right now. Not until you tell me to push Play,” you added.

“Like a VHS tape?” Ben quirked a brow.

Your lips rose to a faint smile. “Yeah, exactly like that.”

“This all you can do? Fuckin’ freeze people?” Ben tried to act goddamn normal, but every time he glanced at you, his heart almost exploded. “Can’t you hop through time as well? Chronokinetics can do that shit, right? Like the Terminator?”

You gave a soft chuckle. “I mean, yeah, I used to jump through time.”

Ben’s brow furrowed. “Used to?”

“It doesn’t work anymore. Long story,” you replied and didn’t elaborate further. “But hey, unless, you want me to drop off your ex during an Ice Age, this should be enough, right?”

Ben swiped his tongue over his lips, nodding slowly, still thinking. Still trying to make sense of it all.

Were you telling the truth or were you lying? Did you really not know him or just pretending you didn’t? Should he say something? Ask you flat out?

No, not yet…

His eyes fixed back on Countess, still frozen like a turkey before it was shoved into an oven.

“Why did you freeze her, anyway? She’s already tied up. Seems like overkill,” Ben said, glancing at you sideways.

Your gaze was on Countess too, head tilted, brows scrunched. Watching. Thinking. Judging. Ben could see the cogs turning in your head. He knew that look of yours well.

“She was annoying Butcher,” you replied with a hint of amusement. “And frankly me. She’s kinda a bitch.”

“Tell me about it.” He snorted a scoff, then nodded toward the door. “And Butcher? He’s the asshole outside?”

You simply nodded, a faint smirk twitching on your lips.

“What’s his deal?”

Your amusement didn’t fade when you replied, “Much like you, he’s clinging to revenge fantasies. He’s CIA.”

Ben’s brows shot up. “That asshole’s CIA?”

“Yeah,” you snorted. “Didn’t buy it either when he knocked on my door, but it’s true.”

“And you’re CIA, too?”

“Uh, no…” you said slowly at first and hesitated. “I mean, now I guess I am. I’ve only known the guy for a month. I don’t usually get involved with all this supe shit.”

Supe shit.

The way you said it made Ben think you didn’t count yourself as one of them. Like you were something better. Above it all – especially the theatrics that came with it.

But Ben didn’t like any of it. Didn’t like you being here. Didn’t like you working with these people. Didn’t like how that asshole out there used you to do his bidding like you were some goddamn pet.

Made him fuckin' angry.

Ben arched an eyebrow, gave you a little smile – harmless like a lamb. “And what did you do instead then, sweetheart? Before all this?”

“I was a physics professor at a small college in Canada,” you replied.

Huh. That fit. Fit with what you’d told him. And it made more sense to him than anything else in this world – more sense than seeing you here in the middle of this shit.

“You know, I can keep her like that, and you can just do your thing,” you noted carefully. “That way she won’t feel anything.”

Ben’s jaw tightened, his gaze swerving back to Countess. “No, I want her to fuckin’ feel it,” he said after a beat.

Your head bobbed thoughtfully. “You sure about that?”

Ben looked at you then, eyes finding yours. His heart stuttered. He almost smiled, thinking his hallucinations of you had never been far off.

But you were… real.

You might have lied to him about parts of your life – about who you truly were or where you came from – but underneath it all, you were still undeniably you. Still judging, still observing, still asking impossible question he never really had an answer to.

He swallowed once and kept his eyes on you as he spoke, “She lied to my face. Said she loved me but then fuckin’ left when I needed her the most.”

You didn’t flinch. Didn’t twitch a single muscle, like those words had no affect on you at all. You just listened and stared at him with a trace of sympathy in your eyes.

“Yeah, I saw what they did to you, you know?” you said. “Your old team. In Nicaragua.”

Ben’s brow furrowed. “How?”

“I can… glimpse into moments of time, too,” you explained. “Past, mostly. Future’s still fluctuating. Not as certain. Too many variables. But I can tell you who wins the next Super Bowl.”

You gave him a little grin. He matched it.

“Who?”

“Chiefs.”

Ben grunted, rolling his eyes back.

You giggled softly, the sound snaking into his heart. “You a Giants fan, huh?”

“Eagles.”

“Huh. Really?”

“I’m from Philly,” he found himself saying.

And then suddenly, it all became too much. Too fucking real. You had no idea who he was, who he’d been. You didn’t know him at all.

And what, was he supposed to pretend he didn’t know every part of you already, either? He wasn’t sure he could do that. How the fuck did he end up here?

Fuckin’ absurd…

His eyes landed back on his other ex tied to a chair. If he wanted a future with you, he had to clean up his past first. But he didn’t want you to see who he’d become. He just wanted you to see who he’d been.

“You’re gonna keep chattin’ or get the fuck out now? Don’t need a fuckin’ audience for this,” he said, colder now. He didn’t want you to watch. Maybe to protect you or maybe to protect himself. He wasn’t sure which one it was yet.

But he was determined to drag you out of this fucking mess with both hands.

‘Sides, what was he supposed to fucking do anyway? Walk back out there and say he’d changed his mind because the smartass with tits had a heart to heart with him?

No fuckin’ way.

He had to portray strength to his fucking enemies, or they’d come for him again. Sure, Ben hadn’t cared about shit, but if there was one thing he’d learned – no one else did fucking either.

But more importantly, a supe like you? The world would be coming for you.

To use you. To kill you.

You were too naive, too good, too fucking soft to see that. But he wasn’t – and he’d take fucking care of it.

Your brow scrunched at his harsher tone in that same miffed way of yours. It always had. It’s how he knew it’d work. You’d be fine.

“Gee, as you wish, asshole,” you huffed and then stomped your little feet back outside.

And as soon as the door swung shut behind you, Crimson Countess roared back to life – at least for the next ten minutes before it all went up in flames.

The asshole managed to pick the shittiest motel straight off the highway. It stank of mold, old cigarette smoke, and bleach. This was where someone came to murder fucking hookers – not have a goddamn reunion after eighty years with the love of their life.

But alas, here he was, in a bathroom with rusty red rims around the drains, as if people had already been dismembered by the fucking mob in here.

He’d washed of the grit and grime, the smoke and ash of earlier and found himself in a pair of gray sweats that fit a little too loose and a goddamn Giants jersey. You’d gotten it for him at a gas station. Gave it to him with a tiny smirk, like you were messing with him on purpose because he’d been unreasonably mean to you earlier.

And boy, had you fucking judged him once he’d walked out of that trailer – well, whatever had been left of it anyway. You didn’t say a word, not the whole car ride here, just glared at him every once in a while and let him feel it.

Luckily, that wasn’t entirely new. You’d done that to him in the past as well – the silent treatment, that fucking pout… Whenever he’d done something back then that irked you, you’d let him stew in it. Sometimes you’d even punished him for it – and not in the fucking fun way. Especially whenever he’d underestimated you, you’d hit him with a mental slap so hard his head was still spinning hours later. He’d secretly loved it, though. Turned him the fuck on.

But from experience he knew – your anger would pass. It always did.

For now, though, you were here, chatting outside this very bathroom with a British asshole and some scrawny kid that looked like he’d pissed himself after his girlfriend yelled a little at him.

But God, your fuckin’ voice…

He hadn’t heard that sound in decades – not the real thing at least. And the original was goddamn better than the stupid recording in his skull.

“Where are you guys off to?” your honeyed melody flowed through the thin wall – suspicious, pissed.

Those idiots out there thought he couldn’t hear them. But Ben could even hear the couple fucking three doors down.

“Supply run,” the asshole replied. “The patriotic princess in there gave us a ryder like he’s fuckin’ Mariah Carey. You’re on Cold War nuke duty, sunshine, while me and little Hughie go out there and shake down a cuppa dealers.”

Who the fuck is Mariah Carey?

“Wait, what?” String Bean threw in.

“Don’t worry 'bout it,” the asshole dismissed.

“Do I look like a fucking babysitter for a nuclear warhead to you?” you huffed. “I’m about to freeze both of you and walk out of here.”

Nuclear warhead? Babysitter?!

“Alright, alright,” the asshole soothed. “Look, sunshine, hate to break it to ya, but if grandpa in there goes nuclear again, you’re the only one who can cool down the bloody core, so to speak.”

Ah. So that was why they were leaving you with him – you were his goddamn fail-safe. Fuckin’ great…

“Oh, so you want me to freeze the Fat Man in there every time he’s about to fucking drop,” you realized dryly.

The fuck–

“Smart as always,” the asshole confirmed.

“Well, you know, there’s, like, a lot of people in this motel, and he’s not… stable,” String Bean said, voice weak and jittering, probably giving you a fucking puppy dog look on top of it. “You said so yourself.”

You have?

“Yeah, what he said, Doc.”

Ben could hear the asshole’s triumphant smirk through the goddamn door.

“‘Sides, would be nice if we could catch a couple hours of sleep. Maybe? Please?” The kid’s voice was pleading, and Ben knew you’d break at that whiny tone.

You exhaled a deep sigh, capitulated as expected. Ben waited a couple more minutes after they left, spritzed cold water on his face before feeling ready enough to face you.

When the bathroom door creaked open, you didn’t look up. He found you sitting on one of the beds, glowing rectangle in your hands, thumb gliding over the sleek surface like it was second nature. The phone flickered with light and colors like a handheld television from some alien planet, while you were all angles and distance, backlit by a blue hue.

Ben cleared his throat, but you didn’t even glance up.

“Bathroom didn’t explode. Guess that’s progress,” you commented wryly.

He pursed his lips, biting the insides of his cheeks. The room felt fucking suffocating. What was the goddamn plan here? Was he just supposed to talk to you and act like any of this was fucking normal?

He needed more goddamn answers. Drugs. Booze. Somethin’.

“So, they stuck you with babysittin’ duty, huh?” Ben asked with a small chuckle, trying to break the ice. Trying to bond. Talk to you like he used to.

“Yup,” you said and popped the p, still not looking up. “If you’re gonna be a good boy and not blow up, I’ll get you a juice box, some crayons, and a coloring book.”

Ben frowned, smacked his lips, and bobbed his head, sauntering over to the dresser where Butcher had put down the bottle of cheap whiskey.

Yeah, he needed some goddamn booze to survive this night…

“You know, I could hear you guys in there,” Ben noted lightly and flicked his chin toward the bathroom.

“I know.”

He then sighed a little and ran a hand through his hair. “You called me a nuclear warhead.”

“You are a nuclear warhead,” you replied unapologetically, eyes still focused on the screen.

“So…” Ben started, ignoring your little jab with a deep exhale. “You and that asshole?”

“What about it?” You still didn’t give him the time of day. Didn’t even flinch or shift.

And all Ben could think about was how you once looked at him like he hung the goddamn moon for you.

“You two a thing?” He tried to sound casual – not like a positive answer would cause him to torch this entire dump.

You snorted a loud laugh at that and finally looked at him. “What? No.”

Your nose scrunched, and Ben’s heart calmed slightly till the next thought crossed his mind.

“What about the twig? The one who looks like he’d snap in a stiff wind?”

You arched an eyebrow. “Who? Hughie?”

Ben hated how you said that name – caring, fond, familiar. You always had a soft spot for the weaklings.

“Yeah,” Ben grunted and gulped down a big sip of whiskey straight from the bottle.

Luckily, you chuckled in amusement. “No, nothing going on there. Hughie is like a little brother I have to keep from accidentally killing himself.”

Yeah, that makes sense, Ben thought with relief and felt his chest unclench. Just another kid playing soldier…

“Why are you asking about my love life?” you prompted with a suspicious smile, making his shoulders flinch subtly.

“‘M not,” Ben brushed it off casually with a sniff of his nose. “Just wondering how a smart girl like you ended up with that crew of fuckups.”

“It’s complicated,” you said simply and turned your focus back to your phone.

“Bet it is,” he muttered under his breath and took another gulp of whiskey. “Care to fuckin’ elaborate?”

“Not really…”

Ben rubbed his eyes, then his temples. Jesus fuck, you were harder to crack than the goddamn Zodiac Killer code. Had it been this hard the first time around, too? He couldn’t remember exactly, but he recalled he had to work for it back in ‘42 as well.

“Alright, just tell me what I’m gettin’ into here,” he said honestly, trying a new angle.

You looked up then, titled your head, and blew out a sigh between your lips. “Alright, fine. Butcher found me about a month ago. Wanted me to find a weapon.”

“Weapon?” Ben’s brow furrowed, keeping the whiskey bottle attached to his lips.

Your lips rose to a wry smile. “Yeah, you.”

Ben swallowed, drank more, and tried to ignore the tear in his gut. A weapon. So that was what you saw him as now – not someone to love, not a boyfriend. Just a walking nuke in need of round-the-clock supervision.

Great. That really put a dent into his romantic dinner plans.

“Well, technically, Butcher wanted me to find the weapon that killed you,” you clarified. “They discovered your death in Ohio was a cover-up by Vought. Frenchie has contacts in the Russian mob or something, I guess. He works for Butcher, too.” You shook your head, clearing your wandering mind. “Anyways, they found out about a botched operation in Nicaragua, so Butcher wanted me to look where the weapon is now.”

“With that little glimpsing thing of yours?”

“Yeah,” you confirmed, smiling in a way that made his heart ache. “Turned out the Russians didn’t kill you.”

“Damn straight they didn’t.” Ben nodded and downed more whiskey. He was already halfway through the bottle. Good thing the asshole went out on that supply run.

“But Butcher still wanted to find out how they knocked you out,” you said with a small grin. Teasing. “So he booked plane tickets to Russia.”

Ben nodded slowly, letting the information settle. “What does he need a weapon for?”

You let out a long breath, lips curling. “I’m sure he’s gonna tell you that himself. Can’t give away the big surprise. He kinda lives for that.”

Ben’s brow wrinkled, but he didn’t press. Frankly, he didn’t care enough to. He just wanted answers about you. “Why did you agree to help? You don’t seem like the type to get involved in all this… supe shit.”

You laughed a little, twitched your brows. “Yeah, I usually don’t. I honestly never had much contact with the others. And the few I’ve met so far were…” You licked your plush lips, trying to find the right words.

Ben found them for you.

“Psychotic little freaks?”

You snorted and nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“So, why are you helping that British twat?” Ben ventured a little further.

Your head bobbed thoughtfully for a moment, like you were deciding if you could trust him or not. Ben ignored the stabbing feeling in his ribcage.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” you said, then bit down on your lower lip – thinking. “In physics, we have something called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It describes how in a closed system, entropy always increases over time.”

Jesus fucking Christ, he’d forgotten about that part – the endless physics lectures. At least back then, he’d get rewarded for listening – with you taking his cock into your mouth.

Now he’d just get the words without the fucking.

“Meaning…?” he played along as his fucking migraine started.

“Things naturally fall apart. Systems tend toward chaos, not order. It means you have to expend energy to maintain structure,” you explained with a small smile.

Ben mirrored it, finally understanding why you’d always loved standing in front of a blackboard.

Professor. Yeah, that made fucking sense now. You’d always gotten so turned on by teaching him shit.

Were you turned on right now, too? Ben was sure he could probably get you to fuck him. If he just upped the charm and went fully in, he could make you writhe underneath him tonight.

But then what? He needed to figure this shit out first.

“If we apply that to the modern world, we’re watching a complex societal system steadily lose coherence,” you continued. “Institutions are eroding. Trust is decaying. Information systems are overloaded. We’re heading toward maximum disorder – fast.”

Ben scoffed a chuckle. “Is this your way of telling me the world’s ending, sweetheart?”

“No, Earth will be fine. Humanity won’t be,” you said matter-of-factly. Logically. “Look, I don’t… agree with all of Butcher’s methods, but without intentional energy, we’ll spiral into decay. Entropy loves apathy. It starts with ‘who cares,’ ends with ‘Heil whatever.’ And sure, I could’ve stayed home, not gotten involved, and told myself it wasn’t my fucking problem, but eventually, decay would’ve come for me, too. Fascism thrives on unconsciousness. History always fucking repeats itself.”

“Ain’t that right,” Ben huffed in agreement with another sip of his drink. But something else tugged at him.

It all struck a nerve deep inside him. He had seen a lot of shit over the decades, but he’d never cared about it. Played hero for the glory and the money, but you spoke with such conviction as if you actually believed in the product you were selling.

You scoffed, tilting your head at him. “Really? You agree?”

Ben remained calm, even though he could see the challenging gleam in your eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean, hm? I fought for my fuckin’ country.”

“Right.” You gave him a nod – sarcastic to the bone. Then you slowly leaned forward on your knees – collected, fearless, not backing the fuck down. “You killed my friend’s family back in the ‘80s. Called it collateral. You went after people till there was no one left when they came for you. You’re the fucking poster boy for decay. You talk like you’re fighting the rot, but you’re just part of the problem. You’re all manufactured patriotism, empty slogans, and fists over facts. Tell me – when’s the last time you actually cared about something that wasn’t your own goddamn ego?”

Well, fuck him. Brains won over brawn once again. He tried not to show how deep your words truly cut. His hallucination of you always called him fucking hollow. Seemed like real you did, too.

Ben nodded, clicked his tongue, and gave you a tight smile. “Not a fan, huh?”

“No.”

Simple, cold, and brutally honest. Just like you always had been. Made his heart swell for all the wrong reasons.

Ben’s face twitched. He could’ve argued. Said that the last time he cared about something, he’d cared about you. He could’ve even slipped on the mask like he would’ve done if anyone else had said that shit to him. Said some bullshit about how he wasn’t the rot, but the one that survived it. But instead, he went for something in between:

“You don’t know shit about me, sweetheart. Trust me.”

“I know enough,” you muttered just as quick and returned to your phone, not bothering to argue further.

Ben locked his jaw tight, clenched his fists subtly by his sides. So that was what you truly thought about him, huh? But the worst part was how fucking right you were in your assessment – and how much it fucking hurt.

Click, click, click.

Your eyes flicked to another strange device on the nightstand, brow furrowing as lights of green, yellow, and red flashed alive. Then your gaze landed on him.

“The fuck is that?” Ben gestured to the item in question.

“It’s a Geiger counter. Measures radiation. Tells me when you’re close to blowing a fuse,” you explained, narrowing your eyes at him, head tilting again. “Apparently, it’s tied to your emotions. Interesting. Is your pulse spiking?”

Fucking Christ on a cross…

“Turn it off,” he growled. He didn’t want a stupid little box to tell you when he was getting upset like some goddamn hall monitor.

“No,” you bit back with that fiery look in your eyes. “I’m trying to keep a block of civilians safe from you.”

“Just fuckin’ freeze me when I start glowing. That’s what you’re fuckin’ here for, right? How’s that?”

“Too risky,” you countered. Didn’t expand on your answer like you thought he was too stupid to understand it.

“Why?” Ben gritted through his teeth.

You let out an exhaustive sigh and contemplated something again. But after a beat, you seemed to cave. “It’s not that simple. Your powers–… the little nuclear reactor in your chest?”

“What about it?” Ben asked gruffly but slumped down on the second bed across from you, ready to listen nonetheless.

You licked your lips, surely weighing how much you could share without getting into trouble. Like he still couldn’t be fucking trusted.

“You don’t just go off like a regular bomb. As soon as you emit enough radiation, supes around you also lose their abilities. I think it’s because the nuclear energy reacted and bonded with the Compound V in your system in some way. Probably to help your body withstand that much energy. But back at the lab, you hit a friend of mine. You burnt the V right outta her. Made her human.”

Ben was quiet for a minute – a rarity. Good to know. And fucking bad for his enemies, which he had plenty of. But it also meant something else.

“So you can’t freeze me anymore when I’m too far gone. That what you’re sayin'?”

You nodded and smiled like he’d gotten an A on a test. “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.”

Ben sighed and ran a hand over his face, drumming his palms on his thighs. “Alright,” he said at last. “Keep the fuckin' thing on, I guess.”

Frankly, he didn’t care as much about the junkies, prostitutes, and other scum in this shithole that could potentially die from his fallout. But he fucking cared about your safety.

Also wouldn’t be in his interest if you lost your fucking powers. He’d fling himself off a building if he had to keep playing pretend with you forever. The last few hours had already scorched him from the inside out.

“As you wish,” you said, but he caught the little winning smirk twitching on your lips.

It almost made him goddamn smile.

Ben rubbed his jaw then, watching you for a moment. You were right fucking there. And still, he couldn’t just reach out. It seemed like some goddamn cosmic joke. The Reds might’ve been done torturing him, but the universe clearly wasn’t.

And you obviously weren’t, either.

“Look, uhm, maybe we got off on the wrong foot,” Ben said, clearing his throat a little. “I’m not the same guy anymore, alright? Maybe I changed. Isn’t there some physics law for that shit too that you could apply?”

You smiled – genuine this time. And fuck, did it make his heart burn alive like it hadn’t in decades.

He still knew how to talk to you – like riding a fucking bike. Like you’d never fucking left.

“Newton’s First Law,” you replied.

“See? Well, let’s go with that,” he agreed casually and leaned back against the headboard, feet up, satisfied.

You snorted slightly and cocked an eyebrow. “Do you even know what it means?”

“Do I need to?” Ben raised his brow, although he knew the answer already, but he let you talk anyway, listened to your voice in his ears like it was gospel.

Because to him, it fucking was.

You giggled softly, the sound like warm honey. “Kinda, yeah. Would probably help. It just means that a person in motion stays in motion in the same direction – unless something acts on them. You don’t change paths because you want to. You change because something hits you hard enough to knock you off your trajectory.”

Ben nodded, drank a little more, then gave you another tight-lipped smile. “Well, consider me fuckin’ hit, sweetheart.”

And he was – by you.

“Guess we’ll see,” you replied with a part-intrigued and part-challenging shimmer in your eyes, but for once you seemed happy with his answer.

And thank fucking God for that. He wasn’t sure how many rounds he could’ve still held up before you’d knocked out his fucking brain.

“But maybe you’re not wrong,” you added and bit your lip, surprising him. “I mean, Vought did you dirty, right? Maybe you can finally use all that energy and anger you have and aim it at something that deserves it.”

“You bet your ass I will,” he said. Smirked. And your lips even hiked up a little. “So that’s what this little dysfunctional group is about? You guys wanna bring down fuckin’ Vought?”

“In a way, yeah. It’s part of it,” you replied as mysterious and closed off as ever.

Some things really never fucking changed.

“Alright, tell me somethin’. I’m curious. What beef you got with Vought?” he asked slyly. Felt fucking smug for being so clever. “I mean, you’re a chronokinetic or whatever. Rare ability, right? Powerful, too. ‘M sure they had their greedy claws all over you. What, got tired of being their little puppet?”

“I never was their puppet,” you said. “And sure, chronokinesis can be a… powerful, messy, possibly disastrous ability, which is why they probably wanted to kill me in the first place.”

“They, what?” His head snapped toward you.

“Don’t look so shocked,” you said with an amused snort like it wasn’t a big deal. “Vought was scared I could mess up the timeline, fuck with their business too much... You think someone like Stan Edgar is gonna risk keeping that around? There’s powerful, and then there’s too powerful. One’s useful, one’s a threat. You know that better than anyone.”

Ben nodded slowly, the words sinking in. “Stan Edgar? That bastard’s still around?”

“Yeah, he’s the CEO of Vought now.”

That slimy fucking asshole. Of course he was. Legend wasn’t the only one that survived like a goddamn cockroach.

“He the one that threatened you?” Ben tried to sound fucking calm, but he was grinding his molars down to dust.

“Yeah, he thought I was gonna mess up… history, I guess,” you said. “I didn’t really use my abilities in that way, though.”

Ben’s brow knitted slightly, putting the bottle back to his lips. He squinted his eyes, watched you closely. “How did you use ‘em?”

You pursed your lips, so he clocked instantly that you’d done some shit. They all fucking had – supes, that is. Ben understood the temptation only too well. The only question was:

What was your goddamn poison?

“You know… fun stuff. Things that made life a little easier. Like more time on homework or pranking very… bitchy classmates. Sometimes used it to teach people a lesson.”

Well, shit. Looked like he’d gotten himself a little trickster on his hands. Adorable – and fuckin’ exhausting.

He gave you a little smirk. Charming. Coaxing. “That all, sweetheart? Skip the high school years.”

And there it was – a little twinkle in your eyes. He still got it, and you still fucking fell for it.

“Well…” Your lip looked almost swollen the way you’d been chewing that thing. Made him fuckin’ crazy. “You know, I went to see historical events I was curious about or talk to famous scientists and philosophers… Went to concerts of old bands. Like sixties, seventies…”

Sixties. Old. Ben snorted internally at the pain in his chest.

“So you partied a little and talked to a bunch of dead nerds,” he summarized wryly.

He could handle that. Shut that shit down, even. Keep you in line.

“Guess so.” You giggled, cheeks turning a little rosy. “But I was always careful not to screw anything up. Never shared too much. Never stayed anywhere longer than three days. Except the last time.”

Ben’s jaw moved a little. “What happened last time? Where d’you go?”

“Middle Ages – on accident. There was a… glitch. Got stuck there for a week.”

Ben stalked one, two steps closer to you. “Stuck, huh?”

“Yeah, but before that, it was pretty awesome,” you said, a little grin crossing your lips. “I even had this whole birthday tradition of working through my bucket list of the coolest things history had to offer.”

Well, well, look how far a little smirk’ll get’cha…

Had he been on your bucket list? Was that why you came there? He couldn’t really blame you if that was the case. He’d had groupies before.

But you weren’t a fan, were you?

So, did you get stuck in ‘42? Was that why you stayed? Why you left?

“And how did you get out? Vought had you in their sights, right? I know they don’t lose track of their assets, and you’re clearly not in a body bag,” Ben noted slyly, smirking even though the thought hurt. “So, who did you break, burn, or bribe?”

You gave him a raised look. “No one,” you replied. “I still had my full abilities back then. Little hard to catch me.”

Oh, he knows…

“I disappeared to 1925 Paris. I met Paul Langevin at one of Gertrude Stein’s parties there,” you said, and Ben nodded like he knew who those fucking people were. Probably physicists, so who the fuck really cared? “He told me about McGill University in Canada. Went there the next day – my present time – stole some dead person’s ID, and kept my head down for the next few years. Got my PhD in Quantum Gravity.”

Ben didn’t even pretend to understand any of that. He also knew asking you more questions about it would only lead to more complicated words.

He understood gravity. It made things fucking fall. What more was there to know?

And then, suddenly, a memory hit him like a goddamn backhand to the face.

1983. That stupid meeting he had with Edgar. He’d put you on Vought’s radar back then, running his mouth like a fucking dumbass. And Edgar, that smug piece of shit, filed it away and fucking waited for you. Waited for Ben not to be around and protect you.

Stan had always been ten fucking steps ahead, hadn’t he?

Ben swore in that moment he’d kill the guy. Not like Stan hadn’t already been on his list, but now he’d make sure he’d enjoy it too – tearing that asshole apart piece by fucking piece. Slowly.

His blood was boiling, but he wasn’t just mad at Edgar. He was mostly mad at himself – and he hated admitting that more than anything else. But it was all his fucking fault, wasn’t it?

Ben was the reason you were here. He was the reason why Vought had hunted you. He was the reason why no one had protected you. Why you worked with all these assholes and put yourself in danger.

Because he hadn’t been there when you’d needed him the most. Hadn’t been the man he was supposed to be – the one he’d promised you he’d be.

You shouldn’t fucking be here.

Click, click, click, CLIIICK…

The Geiger counter’s needle spiked dangerously into the red. Your eyes flicked to the device, then warily to him.

Ben hated that fucking thing.

“You good?”

“Peachy,” he grumbled.

“You sure?”

His glare slowly wandered to you. “I said I’m fine.”

You pursed your lips and raised your hands in surrender, letting it go. “Maybe we should talk about something else.”

Ben exhaled a frustrated breath and shook his head clear. “No, look, I’m good, alright? Promise,” he assured you, and your shoulders lost a little bit of their tension. “So you hauled up in Canada with the fucking leaf lickers for the past few years, huh?”

Your lips involuntarily curled into a smile. You tried to push it down – unsuccessfully. Ben felt like he won the goddamn Super Bowl. Fuck the Chiefs.

“Yep, lived in a cabin off the grid,” you said. “But it was kinda a blessing in disguise, you know?”

Ben’s brow pinched doubtfully. “How so? ‘Cause you got to date fuckin’ lumberjacks with moose breath?”

“Jesus,” you snorted, laughing. “What’s with the obsession over my dating life?”

“Nothin’,” he lied and shrugged it off. Gave you a lazy smirk. “Just making polite conversation.”

Phew. You bought that, right?

You quirked a brow. “That’s your idea of polite?”

“Shut up,” he grumbled. “What d’you know about it, huh? You’ve been living under a rock and buried in books for–… well, I don’t know how long, but I’m guessin’ it’s been a while since you can’t even hold a goddamn conversation like a normal fuckin’ person.”

“Says the guy who’s been frozen since the nineties,” you quipped. You then leaned your head softly back against the headboard and sighed almost theatrically – like you’d held that one in for hours already. “I can’t wait to get back to my old life. I miss my grad students.”

Ben watched you then for a long time. Didn’t even care to hide it. He’d seen that look in your eyes before – that… dread. You’d had it as well when he first met you. He understood it more now.

You’d been missing something, hadn't you?

“How old are you anyway?” he prompted, taking you by surprise. He cleared his throat more casually, got rid of the rasp in his voice and the awkwardness on his tongue. “I mean… you look a little young for a professor. You’re, what? Twenty? Twenty-… four, maybe?”

Luckily, you only laughed softly at his… well, whatever the fuck that was.

“Uh, flattering, but no. I’m twenty-nine.”

Twenty–… WHAT?!

His brain was fuckin’ hurtin'.

So, 2022 minus 29 was like… Nope. 42 plus 24… Nope, that didn’t sound right either. 2022 minus 24 plus 29… What the fuck was he missing?

You’d told him you were twenty-four in ‘42, but now you were twenty-nine, which meant… Well, what the hell did it mean?

Shit.

You should remember him, right? That was the whole goddamn point. He didn’t need fucking math for that answer.

So, what? Was it memory loss? Was he supposed to kiss you awake like you were some goddamn Disney princess?

No, he figured that wouldn’t go over well either just by looking at you right now. You still didn’t like him a whole lot.

What the hell did it mean?

Click, click, click, click…

Goddammit!

“Are you okay?” As expected, you cocked your head and looked at him like he was a toddler with a flamethrower. “You want some weed?”

His head lifted, eyes blinking. His brow raised. “You packin’?”

Well, there was something fun the two of you had never done together before.

“I bought some earlier at the gas station,” you replied, shrugging your shoulders.

“At the gas station?” His brow furrowed.

“Yeah, they had a shop there.”

“A shop?”

“What is this, Jeopardy?” you retorted before your eyes widened almost apologetically. “Oh, right! You don’t know. It’s legal now. You can just go in a store and buy it.”

“That shit’s legal now?”

You grinned, all teeth and sunshine. “Pretty cool, right?”

He huffed a sigh and let his head fall back, staring at the clattering AC in the ceiling. “First good news I’ve heard all week…”

And he meant it.

Ben then watched you pull a little vile from your jeans pocket and grab a small tin box from the nightstand. But as he tried to take it from you, you slapped his reaching hand away, which – bold fucking move.

But you didn’t seem to care. Didn’t twitch. Just carried on – like he couldn’t punch a hole into you.

It was sort of nice. You treated him like he was normal (well, sort of if he excluded the annoying clicking thing). But he couldn’t remember the last time anyone’s treated him like that.

And Ben didn’t know if it was the V in your blood and the fact you could just fuckin’ freeze people like they were some mere vegetables that made you so daring, or if it was just… you.

“Just trust me. I got this. This is your first time in a while, right?” you said, sounded excited even. He nodded slowly. “‘M gonna make it fucking hit.”

Did you ever fucking hear yourself sometimes?

“I’m not a virgin, y’know?” he retorted, smirking, but his eyes drifted to your skilled fingers as they rolled their little arts and crafts project.

“Oh, you are when it comes to this,” you said, tongue sticking out between your teeth in concentration. Drove him fuckin’ nuts. “You ever had a cross joint?”

He swayed his head from side to side, hummed. “Heard of it. Never had the pleasure.”

“Well, you’re about to be fucking pleasured.” You grinned all cheeky and smug, making his goddamn heart flip.

Seriously, did you not fucking hear yourself?!

“You know, there’s other ways to pleasure me, sweetheart.” He smirked. You didn’t say anything, just cocked your brow, waiting for him to talk circles around himself. And he did. “Just sayin’, it’s been forty years since I had some goddamn pussy.”

Your lips rose to a smile – amused. “And you’re going for a pity fuck?”

“Wouldn’t be pity, sweetheart. Trust me,” he replied smugly, gave you his most charming grin that always used to get your panties fucking wet.

The amusement grew on your face. “Trust me. It would be.”

He frowned. Sighed. “Whatever, suit yourself,” he huffed. “Your fuckin’ loss.”

Worth a shot.

Was this gonna take him fuckin’ months again? He’d already fucked you. What was the goddamn big deal? And now, you were right there. He could touch you. He could, couldn’t he?

Fucking absurd…

“And what a loss that is,” you retorted teasingly and went straight back to building your little weed airplane.

“You know what I don’t get–” he started, but you cut right in.

“I’m guessing a lot.”

Ben pursed his lips, swallowed another sigh down. “Careful.”

You looked up and blinked. “I didn’t mean it like that. Just–… you missed forty years of pop culture and technological advancement. Gotta be confusing. A lot happened since the ‘80s.”

“Yeah, no shit,” he muttered, his eyes drifting to the little sleek, black box next to you on the mattress. “So, that’s what counts as a phone these days, huh?”

Your gaze followed his. “Oh yeah, but it’s more than that. It’s a camera, a photo album, a TV, a shopping list, a… Walkmen.”

“Flashlight?”

“Yup.” You grabbed the phone and a light flared up with the tap of your finger. “Very handy when you need to pee at night.”

Fuck me.

Ben’s brow knitted more, eyes narrowing at the device. “Is that why everyone keeps staring at that thing like it’s a Sears catalogue and they just hit the lingerie section?”

“Something like that, yeah.” You snorted a laugh. “Guess it is a bad habit of the 21st century. Kinda guilty of doom scrolling myself. Pretty sure it’s part of our little entropy problem.”

“Didn’t understand a single word of that,” he said, chewing his bottom lip.

“Trust me. You’re lucky you don’t,” you said and then brought the half-finished joint to your lips, wet the paper with your pink tongue, and rolled it into a tight little stick between your delicate fingers.

God, he was fucking jealous of that thing.

“Is it done?”

“No. Now comes the best part. You’re gonna like this one,” you said and gave him a little smirk again. “Now, we make a small hole into the big one and thread the other one through it.”

And then you did just that, and Ben watched you make art out of junk again like he’d done so many times before, just spending endless afternoons sitting next to you in the shed, chatting your ear off and trying to poke holes into your walls while you performed brilliant little miracles.

“Look at this baby.” You grinned proudly and held up your creation. “It’s a marvel of combustion engineering.”

Fucking shoot him now.

“Christ, you’re even nerdy when it comes to fuckin’ drugs,” he muttered, sighing. And God, was he getting hard.

“How can you not be?” You smiled, unbothered, just happy in all your nerdy glory. “It’s a trifurcated burn front. You’re maximizing both surface area and burn velocity with this thing.”

Fuckin' cute.

“What that mean in fucking English?” he deadpanned.

“You get stupid high and it looks cool as hell,” you said, smirking wide, and handed the mother of all joints to him.

“How do I light this little science fair project?” Ben asked as he put the filtered tip between his lips and hauled out the Zippo from his pocket.

You grabbed not one but two more lighters from your little box, gave him a countdown like you were launching a fucking rocket to the moon, and then you lit the two ends on the sides while he did the middle one.

And Jesus fuck, did it hit.

He swallowed smoke and tried not to cough like a fucking pussy. He still huffed out a deep laugh with a cloud of weed. “Fuck me, you’re like the Cosby of fuckin’ joints, sweetheart.”

You gave him a look. “Uhm…”

“It’s a compliment.”

“Not sure about that one,” you mumbled in sing-song. “Does it help?”

Ben smirked lazily. “Best damn babysitter I ever had.”

“Well, as long as you don’t blow us all up now, I count it as a win,” you said and got up, plopping down on the old couch in the room, phone in hand.

“You want to?” Ben held out the reefer to you, but you shook your head.

“No, I’m good.”

He sighed a little again. So much for his plan to get you fucking high and crawl between your thighs. But he was a persistent motherfucker, and ‘giving up’ wasn’t really part of his vocabulary.

You used to steal his cigarettes and drinks. Now, look at you. What the fuck happened?

“So, tell me about me you,” he prompted, watching you from the corner of his eye.

“Why?”

Jesus fuck.

“Just answer the question,” he retorted with a huff and a thin thread of patience. “I’m tryna make conversation. Hadn’t had one in a while with someone who speaks fuckin’ English. Not that you count. You don’t speak fucking English either most times.”

You smiled a little at that, amused. “Fair enough,” you relented and gave him your full attention then, folding your hands over your knees and leaning forward. “What d’you wanna know? First grade basics? Favorite color? Do I like unicorns?”

Ben scowled. “You know, back in my day, women were a little different.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘oppressed,’” you quipped all fucking smug.

His frown deepened, but he decided to move past it, knowing better than to fucking argue with you about that one. Wasn’t the first time he heard it, either. But Ben knew you'd been fucking happy back then. He'd made you happy.

Now you were treating him like he was the goddamn enemy of the state.

How did he fucking end up here? That shit surely hadn’t been on his damn bingo card.

He was supposed to have a house and kids and maybe a dog if you wanted one. He was supposed to watch you tinker on little inventions, get fucking rich, and live happily next to you till he dropped dead at a reasonable age.

That had been the dream. Simple, really.

And now? Now, he sat in a shitty motel, 103-years-old and a nuclear bomb, with a 74-years-younger girlfriend (he finally did the math), who couldn’t even fucking remember him. Never married. Never had kids. Never even had a fucking gold fish. Technically homeless as of this moment. And poor. And fake dead.

Fucking absurd.

But still, he found the silver lining – he could finally receive answers to questions he’d been asking himself for fucking decades.

“How about you just cut the sarcasm back a little and tell me where you grew up, huh? Can’t be that hard to fuckin’ answer,” he muttered.

Oh, but it was, wasn’t it? You never could tell him that. Guarded it like you knew where fucking Jesus went after his resurrection.

“Jersey.”

“Huh.” Ben stumped. Well, that was fucking easy this time ‘round. Jersey girl. Who knew?

“Grew up in a trailer park,” you added.

“No shit.” Ben tried to seem unaffected, but something curled inside of him. “That why you became a supe? Hoping it’s your ticket out?”

He couldn’t really blame you. He fell for that stupid trap himself. Even his reasons had been the same – escape the life he had. It could happen to anyone, even to the fucking smartest on this planet – like him and you.

“Wasn’t really my decision,” you replied, somewhat bitter. He sat up straighter at that and found your eyes. “My parents signed up for that Vought program.”

“What Vought program?”

The sting in his chest grew more intense. Like someone punched a fist between his ribs and squeezed.

“Vought ran these programs – recruited parents,” you explained slowly like you didn’t really want to talk about it. “Mostly from low-income families. They told them if they had kids, they could get them into Compound V trials. Have their kid become a hero, make money off of them… Well, you know the story.”

He did.

“They made parents sign NDAs too,” you continued. “Tell kids their abilities were a ‘natural gift.’ Truth didn’t come out till a couple years ago. Mostly because of Butcher, so he’s at least got that going for him, I guess.”

Ben was quiet for a moment, took a long drag from his weird-ass doobie. Tried not to make the fucking clicking thing go off again.

He’d heard it all before – in whispers in the hallways, in secret notes passed in meetings. Words like “special” and “God’s chosen” getting tossed around like warm bread.

Hell, they did it to him. He just didn’t give a fuck. Because he’d always known Santa Claus wasn’t fucking real. He knew where the fucking presents came from, and it wasn’t elves.

But what did he care if Vought shoved another fucking marketing lie down the public’s throat? Coca-Cola did it – “sugar is good for you.” Doctors recommended fucking Camels back then. News flash, ladies – diamonds weren’t fucking forever.

Hadn’t been his fucking problem…

“You believed that?” he asked after a pause.

You gave a small shrug of your shoulders. “Not really. For a while, yeah,” you replied at first, then bit your lip. “But when I was seven or eight, my powers really manifested, and I guess I was too curious not to peek. I had these weird dreams about it.”

“Nightmares?” he asked, and maybe he shot a little too quick at that one, but you didn’t seem to notice. Why would you?

“Kinda. I guess labs are scary for some people,” you mused. Ben frowned. “But they were actually just visions. So, you know, kinda ruined the magic.”

“So you were never actually human?”

His own question made him halt. You had no clue what it felt like?

There were days when he still missed it – not waking up with the screaming in his veins. Maybe that was the real reason why most supes were such fuckups. They didn’t know any better. Didn’t know what it was like to be free of burning poison.

You didn’t know.

“Guess not.” You shrugged simply like the thought had never even occurred to you at all.

“Your parents seriously signed you up for that shit?”

Another shrug. “Yeah, I mean, they were addicts, you know? They just thought in terms of their next fix. Heroin, meth, opioids… Saw my dad once drink antifreeze. Almost died. Did it again the next day. I mean, the only reason why they had me was to sell me. They didn’t want a kid beyond that. I used to sleep outside on an old cou–”

Click, click, click, CLIIIIIICK!

Your eyes flicked from the blinking counter to him.

“Are you okay?” you asked so innocently.

“‘M fine.”

He fucking wasn’t. This should’ve never fucking happened. You didn’t–… You hadn’t–…

He should’ve said something. Done something. Instead he just smiled for fucking cameras and let it fucking happen. He let you down. He just never thought you’d be around again to care. He never thought it would affect you.

But that didn’t really justify it, right? ‘Cause you’d argue that he was supposed to care anyway. He’d had that conversation before with you – just not the real you.

It was all his fucking fault, wasn’t it?

CLIIIIIIIICK!

“Jesus fuck! Can you shut it off?!”

“Are you nuts? It went off like five times in the last ten minutes. This is the worst time to shut it off,” you argued fiercely. Annoyed. “Just-… calm the fuck down for maybe three hours, and I’ll think about it.”

How was he supposed to fucking think clearly like this? A man needed fucking peace and quiet.

“Would you–” Your mouth opened. Closed. You groaned and lifted your eyes to the ceiling for a second. “Just take another hit, alright? Why are you so tense, anyway? I mean, you’re free now. Just relax for a minute instead of going straight on–, I don’t know, a killing spree.”

Ben snorted a laugh and took a long drag from his joint, chuckled till tears stung his eyes. Was he fucking losing his mind? That had to be it, right?

Free. Yeah, he felt so fucking free right now.

Felt more like some cosmic fucking prison. Like the universe had finally granted him his biggest wish and plopped you down right in front of him – all perfect and warm and fucking soft. And then it fucking told him not to touch.

Look but don’t taste.

Biggest fucking torture on the planet. Enough to break a man.

Who was fucking laughing at him now? God?

Click, click, click, click…

Ben groaned, let his head fall into his hands, you jumped up from your seat, and then were suddenly right in front of him. Kneeling.

What were you–

It was like you wanted this whole goddamn motel to go up in flames.

You put the little paper plane back into his mouth like he was a fucking toddler, lit it, and told him to breathe deep.

Thank fucking God you hadn’t told him to “open up” as he breathed into his fucking blue balls.

“Why did you get so upset when I told you that story?”

You didn’t move back to your old spot. You lingered. Sat down on the floor cross-legged in front of him, wide-eyed and curious.

Distraction.

“You know–” he started and smacked his lips, cleared his throat subtly like that one acting class Vought made him attend had taught him to. “Just upsetting. Fuckin’ Vought…” He gave a shake of his head. “Outrageous, really. You should be more angry about this…”

Your lips pursed, so he knew he was on the right track.

“You know, I didn’t know about it,” he added and licked his lips. Swallowed the guilt. And maybe he should’ve stopped right there. “If I had, I would’ve–…. You know, I-… I would’ve killed these bastards. This shit wouldn’t have happened on my watch, alright?”

“Yeah, okay,” you said quietly, almost like you didn’t believe him. Then you were silent for a moment. “Wasn’t really your fault. But it’s the thought that counts, right?”

He gave you a small nod and forced a smile, swallowing. “Yeah.”

The thought counted for fuckin’ nothin’.

“‘Sides, not sure there’s anything you could’ve done,” you added, voice soft and gentle like you were trying to make him feel better. He didn’t fucking deserve it. “Unless your plan would’ve been to burn down a whole lab with a bunch of perverted scientist in it.”

He should’ve done that! Why hadn’t he fucking thought of that? Why hadn’t he done exactly that?

This was why he needed you. You’d always been fucking smarter than him. You always had the best ideas.

God, fuckin’ shit.

He couldn’t figure this out on his own. You were the one who understood all that science and time crap. You were the one with the chalkboard. You could tell him what to fucking do here.

He should just fucking tell you the truth about everything. You’d know what to do. You’d understand all this shit, right? You could fix it. You wouldn’t think he was fucking crazy.

Right?

Yeah, he was just gonna tell you and ask for help. Tell you to make it right. Ask you to go back to ‘42 and fall in love with him.

Ah, fuck. That did sound fucking crazy. You’d probably run. Never speak to him again. Vanish.

Why couldn’t you fucking remember him? How could he explain that he’d already been in love with the girl sitting right next to him over eight decades ago?

You don’t, his brain chimed in. You sit there and fucking take it like a man.

And you just sat there too and stared at him like he was a fucking stranger – all perfect and close and out of reach. You were here but also weren’t. Like a fucking paradox.

Paradox…

You’d once said something about that. About cause and effect. Or was it fucking Schrödinger again? No…

No, Ben remembered the two of you were in the shed and you talked about it. Something about how actions have consequences. Said something about impossible situations. Called it a brain glitch.

Well, that didn’t sound fucking good, right?

Goddammit! Why couldn’t he remember the full fucking conversation? Why did that little shit back then have to stare at your ass so goddamn much?

If he could change time, he’d go back and tell that idiot to fucking listen for once.

Click, click, click, click…

“Jesus! What now?” You frowned and threw your arms up in frustration.

Ben shook his head, tried to clear his mind again. “Nothin’.” He then took another long drag of his joint.

He just had to stay fucking calm and figure this out on his own. Slowly. Not make any rash decisions like trying to fuck you into the floor. Not say something crazy like being in love with you for over eighty years.

“Maybe you should lay off the weed now,” you said, brow scrunched. “You’re getting kind of… sad… and… weird.”

Sad and weird. Fuckin’ great. Add lethal to that. Exactly what he’d been going for when it came to first impressions.

“You grew up on the streets, right? Did your parents sell you out, too? Is that why you’re so upset?”

Ben snapped out of his trance then and looked at you. He scratched his jaw, hesitating. You really didn’t know shit.

“Uh, no… to both,” he replied, clearing his throat, palms rubbing together like he could still fucking sweat. “Volunteered when I was twenty-five. Grew up rich, actually. Mansion.”

“Oh.”

Nope, didn’t seem to ring any bells for you. No mansion. No recognition. No memories. Even worse, Ben could feel your disappointment – as if the only thing you’d liked about him so far was a piece of Vought propaganda.

Yeah, he was tapping out for the night. Maybe forever. He couldn’t solve this shit. Couldn’t do fucking anything.

With a deep sigh that sounded more like a groan and defeat, he rose from the bed and paced the room, green eyes looking anywhere but you because if he did, he didn’t know how much longer he could control himself.

He just wanted to be with you. Just wanted to drag you out of this dump and live the fucking life he was supposed to have. Why couldn’t it be that fucking easy?

His eyes then landed on the little laminated pay-per-view program. A smile rose. “Well, look at that. They have some of my movies. Still bringing in the views.”

“In sleazy motels across America, maybe,” you muttered under your breath.

Ben ignored you and glanced over his shoulder, switching on the TV. “You ever seen one of mine?”

“Uh, not entirely, no,” you said, curling your lips. “Caught glimpses of some in those classics specials.”

“Well, you’re in for a treat, sweetheart.” He smirked broadly. “Wanna watch?”

You took a deep breath, exhaled a sigh, then gave him a fake fucking smile. “Sure. Whatever you want. I’m just here to babysit you, remember?”

Like he could fucking forget. You said it like it was a goddamn chore. Like you were getting paid to sit here and keep him calm – which to be fair, you sort of were.

Containment with a side of pity. That’s what he fucking got. Not admiration. Not love. Not you.

Something to manage, not something to miss.

But Ben didn’t let your mood deter him from his plan. He picked out a movie while you dragged yourself back to your old spot on the bed, settled in with another sigh – like you were humoring a petulant child.

Still, he plopped down next to you with a satisfied grin. You gave him a disapproving sideways glance and groaned slightly, but he didn’t care. He was gonna sit right next to you and enjoy this. Your look might’ve said “fuck off”, but your mouth didn’t, so he was gonna stay.

Maybe it wasn’t about the past at all. Maybe it was about the here and now. Maybe the universe was rewarding him.

He just needed to accept it and grab it. Make you fucking his again. Maybe that’s all there was to it. He’d just been fucking overthinking.

After everything he’d been through, after everything he’d fucking done for this country, he deserved to have nice things.

As the movie started with some obnoxious synth music, you still sat next to him, stiff and guarded. You kept just enough space for your thigh not to touch his – but still enough to drive him fucking insane.

Your shoulder brushed his arm slightly. Then you kicked off your shoes, stretched out those bare legs. His gaze followed naked skin from your ankle all the way up to where the hem of your jean shorts hugged your thigh. He almost goddamn came in his pants.

Yeah, maybe this had been a fucking bad idea after all.

“Is that Phoebe Cates?” Your head tilted at the screen and ripped him from his stupor.

“Huh?” His eyes squinted at the television where Phoebe’s character cooed and giggled and clung to his bicep. “Oh, yeah. She played my love interest.”

Your brows scrunched again. He used to kiss that spot above your nose where they met.

“She looks twelve.”

Ben frowned. Sighed internally this time. “She was twenty-one,” he huffed. Little too upset, maybe. “This was after she’d done Fast Times. Not so innocent. Trust me.”

“Still young,” you mumbled. Shrugged. “How old were you in this?”

“Vought billed me at thirty,” Ben said and stared stubbornly at the screen till the picture blurred, clearing his throat.

Slowly, your legs slid up to your chest as you rose to a sitting position, leaning forward. Raised your brows. Gave him a look.

Very judging.

“And in reality…? C’mon, I wanna know how many felonies I’m watching.”

Ben bit the insides of his cheeks. Hard. Might’ve tasted blood, then sniffed like it wasn’t a big fucking deal. “Born in 1919.”

“Fuck. Really?” A laugh spluttered out of you. Almost crippled you in half and threw you off the bed. “I mean, I knew you were in World War II, right? So–… Wait, that means you’re a… hundred-and–”

“Don’t do the fucking math.”

“–three! Holy shit!”

Ben groaned. Didn’t even hide it. He could still remember all of it. Same fire. Same mouth. Same razor-sharp wit that used to make him flinch and ache in equal measure. Never held back. Never tried to impress him. That was probably why he’d fallen so damn hard.

Fucking smart, too. He used to get off on it – literally. There were nights where you’d calculate the square root of something with his cock in your mouth just to screw with him.

The memory of your skin touching his burned through every inch of him. He could still feel you under him – warm and reckless and so fucking soft. The sounds you used to make. The way you used to bite your lip when you were trying not to laugh, how you’d curl your fingers into his shirt when he kissed you too hard, how you clung to him when he–

Click, click, click…

Of fucking course! Would only take a few seconds till you ask–

“You good?” Your eyes studied him.

Ben hummed and hoped you wouldn’t notice the damn ache in his sweats. “Yeah. Just excited to relive the glory days.”

“Sure.” You frowned, unconvinced.

You leaned back against the headboard and shifted, keeping a few strategic inches between you and him like it was habit. Like you’d done this kind of thing before with dangerous men who didn’t know where the line was.

“So…” He cleared his throat once more, gave you a smile that said he was probably trying a little too hard. “When’s your birthday?”

“I already told you,” you said, eyes not lifting from the glow of the TV.

“You told me your age,” he pointed out with as much patience as he could. “Didn’t tell me your birthday. When is it?”

“Why d’you wanna know?” Still didn’t look at him. Just dismissed him in hopes he’d go away.

Hadn’t worked for you the first time, though, had it?

“Humor me. Movie date etiquette,” he replied dryly, sent you a deadpan look that made you groan and roll your eyes. “March? December? January?”

“June.”

Huh. Well, fuck him. He hadn’t seen that one coming.

June. 1993. Twenty-nine. The world tilted on its axis. The moon dropped from the sky. The sun came with it. Nothing made fucking sense anymore.

Was this even the real you? Maybe it was a fucking clone. Or something else. Maybe he was dead and this was some weird fucking afterlife vision, his corpse still fueled by blue poison.

How was this possible? Unless–

Unless you fucking lied.

Ben jerked his head, narrowed his eyes, and watched you closely now. You’d always had an edge to you. You weren’t a full-blooded good girl. You’d always been that sweet spot in between.

So, okay... If he assumed you lied, he had to find out why, right?

The age thing – women lied about it all the time. Wasn’t a big deal. Over the years, he’d even begun to automatically add three to five years to whatever age they’d given him. He figured you’d lied, too.

But the birthday thing? That was fucking weird. Why would you do that? To blur your traces? To hide who you were? What you were?

Ben tried to remember the exact conversation. It was in his room–… No, the study. First night. You’d worn one of his shirts. You were still fucking closed off and guarded and didn’t like or trust him a whole lot – kinda like now. But he’d asked you to tell him at least one true thing about you, and you’d told him that today, January 24, was your birthday.

You hadn’t lied about it then. He could tell.

But you hadn’t actually said the date, had you? You’d just said today. Which might’ve been true – for you.

A half-truth.

Ben grinned smugly. He’d figured something out – without your help. You hadn’t been of any fucking help at all, actually.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” you asked and furrowed your brow at him.

Oh shit. He’d still been staring.

“Would you ever, you know, lie about your age?”

The question threw you, but not as much anymore. Like you’d gotten used to the weirdness.

“Well, if you’re asking for yourself, I’d definitely lie next time you go on a date,” you replied wryly.

Good enough.

The two of you then went back to watching TV. He didn’t ask more weird questions and left you in peace. You looked tired. He was, too.

He tried not to get worked up whenever you accidentally touched him or he’d catch a whiff of your scent when the AC would graciously carry it to his nose. He didn’t know the shampoo or the perfume but recognized what was underneath it.

He wanted to touch you. Wanted to close the space, let his hand rest on your thigh, let his thumb brush over your skin, see if you’d still arch into him the way you used to when you were tangled up in his sheets.

Touch me, Ben thought, almost hoping his thoughts were loud enough for you to hear. Just once like you used to. Just look at me like I’m still that guy.

But you didn’t. You kept watching the screen. He followed your eyes and looked at Phoebe moaning his name under a fake rain machine – barely resisted the urge to shut it off.

You were younger than Phoebe. Smarter than all of them. You were the first woman who’d ever rolled her eyes at him – shocking, yes. The first one to tell him he was full of shit and then kiss him like she meant it. And when you’d kissed him, it hadn’t been about movies or hero worship or fear.

You’d kissed him because you wanted to.

Because even when he was just a rich asshole with nothing but a fast car and a faster mouth, you saw through all of it.

Now you didn’t see him at all.

And he was scared shitless that maybe you never would again.

If you didn’t remember him, it meant this you next to him hadn’t gone back and met the past version of him yet. But it’d also meant you must’ve known him then because you knew him now.

God, his head was startin’ to hurt again.

You hadn’t told him anything. Pretended you didn’t know him already – like he was doing now.

Ben figured you had your reasons, probably smart ones, so maybe he was actually onto something here, too. Maybe he had to just keep playing the game – like you had.

But for how fucking long?

You’d stayed in 1942 for five months? Six? It was fucking July now. Your next birthday was in eleven months – and that was best case fucking scenario. Could be five more years, could be fucking ten… And you’d told him your abilities didn’t even work in that way anymore. That was another fucking problem.

Shit.

“Hey, so, that time jumping thing, how does it–” But Ben stopped mid-question when he glanced down and noticed you’d dozed off.

You were out cold, curled up on your side, head tipped slightly toward him like it had just happened mid-eye roll. You’d made it a point to keep space between you the entire night, but now your head was resting against his arm.

Funny how that worked.

Ben didn’t dare move for a long moment. Just watched you while the credits rolled to that awfully cheesy ‘80s synth again. Watched your chest fall and rise, watched your eyelashes rest against your cheek.

He hadn’t seen you sleep in eighty years. Took everything in him not to reach out and pull you into his side.

“Missed you, sweetheart.”

He sighed softly under his breath, tipped his head back, eased into the mattress, and shut his eyes. And for the first time since 1942, he let himself fall asleep beside you again.

▶️ Chapter 14: I'm Going to Have a Lot of Drinks – JUNE 29

Poor guy, will he ever figure it out? The answer is yes – in the next part 😉 (aka the part where Ben realizes he needs to switch tactics and becomes a complete asshole). We'll see how it goes. It won't be a battle won by math skills for sure 😆

Coming Up:

Rough fuckin’ morning… And it had only been the first goddamn day of many.

At least, he had some Bennies to get over the pain above (and the ache below) – well… until you fucking ruined that, too.

Because you watched him. Sitting on the bed, cross-legged, sipping coffee and still working that damn straw. Eyes on him.

His back was half-turned, but he still caught it in his periphery as he was halfway through crushing pills to dust with his knife.

Judging.

“Problem, sweetheart?” His voice was a little too gruff, a little too deep, a little too defensive. Too confrontational.

“No,” you replied, bored. Almost deadpan. Then you casually opened the folder in your lap, directed your gaze there, took a slurp of coffee through the straw, and added: “My parents always snorted their breakfast, too.”

Then, you gave a shrug of your shoulders and started reading – innocent. Like you hadn’t just launched him into complete chaos.

You liked teaching people lessons, alright. You also liked fucking with them. On purpose.

This was the goddamn problem with smart women – especially if they fucking knew it, too. They knew exactly where to hit and make it stick.

But Ben couldn’t help the little smirk twitching on his lips – almost proud.

Back then, your brilliance and genius was cute – not threatening. Now, though? With all you could do? All that power wrapped inside one tiny girl? A little scary.

Dangerous.

And well, he was a little dangerous, too. You and him had always made a good team in the past. Now, the two of you couple be unstoppable.

🚀 Read up to 4 chapters ahead on Patreon now

Tag List Pt. 1:

@alwaystiredandconfused @xlynnbbyx @lyarr24 @deans-spinster-witch @blackcherrywhiskey

@deansbbyx @foxyjwls007 @ladysparkles78 @roseblue373 @zepskies

@agalliasi @yvonneeeee @hobby27 @iamsapphine @globetrotter28

@lori19 @lacilou @suckitands33 @onlyangel-444 @syrma-sensei

@perpetualabsurdity @yoobusgoobus @jessjad @dayhsdreaming @hunter-or-the-hunted

@k-slla @just-levyy @mrsjenniferwinchester @illicithallways @muhahaha303

@ultimatecin73 @nancymcl @leigh70 @brightlilith @nesnejwritings

@samslvrgirl @xx-spooky-little-vampire-xx @fromcaintodean @barewithme02 @impala67rollingthroughtown

@star-yawnznn @spnaquakindgdom @thej2report @americanvenom13 @lamentationsofalonelypotato

@supernotnatural2005 @stoneyggirl2 @kr804573 @m0e0v0v @youroldfashioned

#time after time #soldier boy #soldier boy x reader #soldier boy x you #soldier boy x female reader #soldier boy x supe!reader #the boys #the boys amazon #the boys season 3 #the boys s3 #the boys x reader #the boys fanfiction #soldier boy fanfiction #soldier boy angst #soldier boy smut #jensen ackles #jensen fucking ackles #jackles

15 notes · View notes

random-cockroach · 7 months ago

Text

#ehehheheheheeheh #mecha pilot jazz au #cockroachdoodles #jazz #prowl #jazzprowl #Imagine getting SUCH an affection like... first time in your life #And your brain which is used to cold counting #Now just stops thinking and accepts this affection since the one it gets from is the one you trusted enough to give your life on stake #That's how he got a cancer

2K notes · View notes

tonycries · 1 year ago

Text

Unmistakably Yours - G.S.

Synopsis. In which the strongest bends space and time - literally - after coming back from deatḣ, to do what he’s always wanted to do - you.

Pairing. Gojo Satoru x Reader

Content. MDNI, fem! reader, best friends to lovers, Satoru goes a little (very) INSANE, oral (fem receiving), fíngering, manga spoilers, use of jujutsu powers, unprotected, créampie, spitting, overstim, féral Satoru, heinous things, happy ending, pet names, swearing.

Word count. 4.5k

A/N. Yeahhh that poll was cooking up something devious heheh. Gege give me back my man.

Gojo Satoru was going to kill someone.

He was going to kill someone and it didn’t matter who. It didn’t matter how. It didn’t even matter if he had to haul his broken body - scarred and barely-healed - out of this stiff infirmary bed, because the great Gojo Satoru awoke and the world shook.

Because you weren’t here.

“Ah. The oh-so deadest one, I see you’re awake.” Satoru flinches at the sharp, exhausted drawl from his left.

Slowly, he blinks away the haze in his aching eyes, desperately trying to adjust to the cold room. Shoko’s voice was too loud. The lights too bright. His waiting arms too empty - where were you?

With a low hiss, Satoru’s body is moving before his mind, sitting up like a man possessed. Goosebumps prickle his skin as the thin blanket falls off his shoulders. Temples throbbing because the world was spinning and spinning and you-

“Calm down, Satoru.” Shoko sounds almost panicked now - as much as she could, anyway. Uselessly trying to push him back onto the mattress. “I don’t care if you’re the ‘strongest’. Sukuna did a number on you and you have to rest-”

“Where is she?”

---

It was the final nail on your coffin - that slight, steady rumble beneath your feet. So fleeting that you’d written it off as your weary brain, too goddamn tired from today. Heaving out a sigh, you rub your eyes in frustration, so fucking alone in this too-large penthouse.

Fingers jittery, you rifle through your best friend’s closet for his box of blindfolds, because you knew he’d be complaining about the sensory overload at the infirmary if- when he woke up. Though, you think that was more an excuse for Shoko to send your wrecked self away than anything.

Grabbing a few more than necessary, your heart lurches as you eye that dusty framed photo by his bedside. A much younger Satoru, Suguru, Shoko, and you - probably the last time any of you smiled so carelessly.

One dead and the other just on the cusp of it.

He’ll be okay. He’ll be okay. He’ll be okay. He’s the strongest, right?

Swallowing heavily, you try to put your mind to something - anything - other than the memory of that battlefield and the blood. So much blood. Everywhere.

God, you should’ve stayed. What if Satoru-

That was when you felt it.

The tight, uncomfortable feeling of atoms standing at attention all around you. The air was so stagnant and heavy that it was almost hard to breathe.

You don’t know how you realize what it is - but you don’t get the chance to wonder about it either. Because the thought has barely even crossed your mind before everything else is thrown at the window at those two words.

Hoarse, and whispered, voice ever-so-slightly cracking at the end. One you recognized, one you knew you always would.

“My love?”

Satoru.

It was a miracle that you didn’t get whiplash from how fast you whirled around to face the doorway - and it was an even bigger miracle that you didn’t trip at how your legs were carrying you to that tall, familiar flash of white hair without a second thought.

Hell, you don’t think you’ve ever run this fast in your life, and it still wasn’t quick enough when Satoru engulfed you in his arms. Letting out a soft sigh as he hugs you tight enough that it hurt, like he never wanted to let go.

All familiar warmth and a rapid heartbeat that matched your own.

A shiver runs down your spine at that scent of the infirmary, tinged with something so dangerously metallic, miles away from the usual hints of pine and candy. But you only pull Satoru closer - not even realizing the tears staining his snug t-shirt, nails digging into his sculpted back.

“S-Satoru?” you murmur wetly, as if you still couldn’t believe it - even when you were in his strong arms.

It killed you to pull away, and Satoru wasn’t any better, pulling you firmly to his heated body with a guttural grunt as soon as you showed any signs of shifting away. Grip almost bruising, fingers tight on your hips. But you didn’t mind, why would you?

Because the strongest was nothing under your will - he always was. And it’s only once you break the embrace just a fraction of an inch that you confirm that this actually was Satoru - your Satoru.

“You’re here.” you breathe out unsteadily, not knowing where to look first - his heaving chest, as if he’d run all the way here, or those faint scars along his exposed skin. Jagged, running down his pale skin like he was too impatient - too distracted - to let them heal properly. Satoru’s face was scarily blank, pretty lips set in a tight grimace like every second you weren’t locked in his arms killed him.

He doesn’t answer - like he didn’t know himself. Nervously, you raise your eyes to meet his and-

Oh, Satoru, he was here. Alive.

Looking like he was ready to make sure that no one else was.

You just wondered where they’d pile all the casualties. Too many to bury at Jujutsu High if those tiny blue flickers of lightning at the corners of Satoru’s eyes were anything to go by.

Gaze hooded, pupils blown, he didn’t look at you with that usual warmth. No, he looked at you like a man that had crawled back from death just to rip you apart. And you had half the mind to wonder whether this was some special grade curse that had just come disguised as your best friend.

“Are you okay?” you try again, raising a hand to cup his cheek. “Toru?”

Oh, you might as well have just signed your own will, because no sooner are the words out of your mouth before Satoru’s jolting. Like the mere sound of that stupid little nickname from high school was enough to shock him to his very core.

Electrify him just enough to finally look at you like it was the first time. Like he was seeing you after a thousand years. “My love.”

There it was again, that quiet, strained little mantra.

Followed very closely by the deafening slam! of the door behind him, so hard that you spy one of the hinges rattling off. Startled, you look over Satoru’s broad shoulders just to catch a glimpse of the single, large handprint charred into the wood, slight steam wafting from his hand.

Shit. He’s lost it.

Almost like the strongest has forgotten his restraint - or didn’t care about it either way. Heated, you wondered what this boded for you.

Will you be lucky number one on his kill list? You wonder, as Satoru presses his mouth right above your pulse. Racing. Dangerous. Feeling the rapid thump! thump! thump! under his lips.

Breathing you in, dragging his nose up, up, up- He mutters into your skin, “Y’can kill me if you don’t want this.” Will you go down - if there’s anyone left to remember, that is - as the casualty that surely and officially signaled the honored one’s descent into madness? Only the second best friend he had to kill?

Or, Satoru pulls away slowly from his little haven, breath ghosting your lips as he gasps out a shaky, “No God can take me away without doing this.” Will it be something else entirely?

And then he’s kissing you - and you’re kissing him.

Because fuck, how could you not? This is Satoru, and this is all you’ve ever wanted since those late night convenience store runs in high school, hand-in-hand and teleporting away from a furious Yaga.

The same Satoru that had cockily winked at you goodbye before facing Sukuna - leaving you crying with nothing to hold onto but those cold, cold hands and wishes that you’d have just fucking kissed him before. Maybe even put aside your pride to just tell him.

But none of that mattered now, because Satoru was so desperate - drinking you in like you were the last breath of air on Earth. Like it hurt more to part with your lips than it was to be cleaved in half.

Such a mess of teeth and saliva, and you were addicted. Drunk off his sweet taste - like candy, almost, and those cheap mochi he always got from downtown - and the electricity pricking at you each time your skin grazed against his.

It almost hurt - but it hurt so good.

Gasping, you pull away for air - impossible with the way Satoru was like a madman, kissing your swollen lips again and again and-

“Toru!” you squeal, muffled through his lips. “Aren’t you-” His mouth drops into a soft oh! at the delicate strings of saliva snapping in the non-existent space between you two. Surging forward like he couldn’t help himself. “Battlefield- mmpf- now?”

With a pained grunt, Satoru finally halts, just a hair’s breadth from your lips. And if you were in any better state of mind, maybe you’d have noticed the brief flicker of blue lightning all over his body. The way the lights flicker.

“Special curtain.” he pants against your open mouth, a muscled thigh shoving between your weakening legs. “Time barely passes in here.”

You don’t know what your head is reeling more from his words or his hands - hands that kill - caressing you like a lover everywhere. Unable to decide between your hips, to your ass, to your pretty pretty face. Kiss-bitten lips uttering, “Everyone’s waiting for you.”

“So?” Satoru lets out a humorless laugh. About an octave higher than usual, like he was at the end of his rope now. Eyes hazy and glowing, looking as if it took everything in him to not just tear off that uniform and take you right now.

“But-”

“Shut up and let me ruin you, my love.”

Your back is hitting the mattress before you can even start to wonder what the fuck is happening. One second standing at the doorway and the other all sprawled out on Satoru’s bed.

Besides yourself, you blurt out, trying to make sense of the situation to both of you two. “Did- did you just teleport us?”

“Don’t know.” he answers. And Satoru sounded like he genuinely didn’t know, as bewildered as you were. Powers acting before him - way, way before he can think - as he fists your shirt in his hands. “Don’t care.”

And you half wondered whether Satoru was even aware of what he was doing as he pulls, down, down down.

Rip!

It tears through the air - both the sound, and the way he’s just pulling your shirt to shreds. All depravity and no repentance as Satoru throws it behind God-knows-where. Buttons hitting the floor at a maddening little rhythm to which he was slowly losing his sanity.

He was kissing you like he was angry - taking it out on your poor clothes. Because before you know it, he’s pulling your bra off. Fingers searing on your skin, skirt just tatters on the floor.

“Waited too long.” he groans, leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses down your neck. “Always wanted to do this.” And once he started, it was like Satoru just couldn’t stop, rambling into the valley of your breasts, “Ever since I first saw you and oh-”

That was it - only one look at your panties, all flimsy and drenched - and you’re back to wondering what Satoru’s kill count would be. You shudder as his eyes widen, letting out a strangled gasp from some deep, primal part of himself. Voice so broken and starved as he muses, “-can’t believe I waited this long.”

Shit. You weren’t making it out alive.

Immediately, Satoru’s dropping further down the mattress, easily pushing your knees up all the way till they were at your breasts.

And it was so unfair.

Unhair how he was still fully clothed, while you were spread so shamefully. Unfair how he was sliding his underneath your panties up and down, grazing your swollen folds. Up and down, up and down up and- Pooling your sweet sweet juices on his fingertips before pulling, marveling at how sinfully soaked they were.

And it was like something snapped - maybe his whatever restraint he had left, probably you by the end of this. Because just a split-second later, Satoru’s tearing right through your panties. Not even taking a second to breathe before burying his pretty face into your dripping cunt.

Unfair how you were liking it so dangerously. Being so used.

And Satoru knows - he thinks, with whatever rationality he has left intact - that he wants to admire your pretty lil’ cunt. To finally drink in what he’s been dreaming about for years all these lonely nights. But, no, that’s for later - for a different Satoru, one that didn’t feel like he was going to fucking die if he didn’t taste you right now.

“Ah! Hngh- T-Toru-” you arch into his hot tongue, as he licks erratically up your folds, long, sloppy movements of his tongue all the way from your base to your swollen clit. Lapping at your juices like he couldn’t stop.

“Tha’s right.” words muffled into your cunt. Throwing your legs over his sculpted shoulders. “Gimme more, use me. Use me- fuck fuck fuck- yeah.”

He sounded as delirious as you were already, flinching with each word spat into your sensitive cunt. Drunk off your pussy and so messy, like he was well and fully intent on ruining you.

And it’s all you can do to sob so needily as he swirls his tongue around your sensitive clit. Seemingly unable to decide between sucking on it harshly and dipping into your sloppy hole. In and out. Wanting everything. Anything.

“Fuck. S’too deep. Sh-shit.”

“Oh yeah?” he’s grinning, a cruel, cold little grin. You can feel it as he rolls his tongue against your clit over and over. “S’not deep enough.”

You pathetically try to close your legs around his head in shock, as the tips of his long fingers spread open your pussy further, teasing your entrance.

But who were you against the strongest? The one that got everything handed to him on a silver platter since birth? Except you - until now, that is.

Because Satoru’s swatting thighs back open like it was a mere inconvenience, and feel your cunt clench in- fear? Anticipation? as you realize how gently he was throwing you around like a ragdoll, in comparison to that door from earlier.

“No.” he sounds absolutely wrecked, babbling around your throbbing clit. “Need this- need you.”

And then he’s plunging knuckle-deep in your plushy pussy, so greedily that your slick is trailing down his wrist. Drinking in your pretty gasps of his name as he roams for that one spot he knows will have you seeing stars - only the best for his girl, right? The only thing on his mind right now, like a predator starved.

You can only tug on his hair and buck wildly underneath him, inching Satoru closer to where he was desperately searching for. Close - so close.

“Toru-” you moan, like a prayer.

But it wasn’t fast enough.

Not for Satoru, at least.

Even through the haze in your eyes, you could make out that brief flash of electric blue in-between your legs, eyes widening as ah-

That cheat.

You wondered if he even knew he was using his powers right now. Or whether Satoru was too far gone at this point. Way too smug with the way he hits that one spot. Hard.

Ah, you quiver as something so dark sparks in his eyes. Looking like a man starved, that had finally come across his favorite meal. Moving with frightening accuracy as he pumps his fingers in and out, hitting it each and every time.

“Shit, ngh-” you let out a shrill moan, “It’s too good. You’re so fucking-”

One hand was so messy toying with your dripping entrance - the other digging into your hips. Dragging your sloppy pussy senselessly all over his mouth.

Hard enough that you were sure it’d leave marks for tomorrow. If you even made it that long, that is, if the tiny shocks of electricity at his fingertips told you anything.

Desperate. Violent, even.

So it only makes sense that your orgasm was the same. “Fuck- m’cumming m’cumming, fuck fuck fuck-” You’re shaking as you cum, crying out Satoru’s name and delirious little moans that you’d otherwise be embarrassed of.

And he doesn’t stop. Not when you’re blinking your vision back. Not when you’re shying away from his tongue, the stars behind your eyes too much with each flick of his tongue.

“S’too much- too- fuck, sensitive, Toru.” you whine, big fat tears clinging to your lashes.

Ah, there it was again. Just when Satoru was beginning to think that he might just be veering into a state of mind that could be considered sane - you have to call him that goddamn nickname again. And it’s only driving him wild.

Well, he muses, fumbling with the hem of his t-shirt, it’s really on you then.

You let out a fucked-out little whine as Satoru finally takes his shirt off, revealing such milky, toned skin. All sharp curves and dips like he was sculpted so meticulously, going down, down, down and- Your breath hitches at the large, pink scar standing out of his torso, so uneven and fresh that you feel a fresh wave of tears - different ones, this time.

You take a steadying breath, eyes unmoving from the injury. “Satoru-”

“No.” Satoru’s tone is firm, so different from the metallic tinkling of his belt. He was moving now, shifting in between your legs to kiss those tears away. “Need this. Need you. Need you need you need you so bad-”

“But your…” you trail off. The words catch in your throat as he finally unbuckles his belt, pulling down his pants just enough that his throbbing cock springs out, hitting his sculpted abdomen. Red, and so so angry, soaked in precum.

He was so…massive. Now, you expected your best friend to have a big dick, but this was ridiculous. He was so intimidatingly long, thick enough that you could feel the slick beading out of your sloppy hole already.

Yeah, you definitely weren’t making it out alive.

Satoru sees it too, of course, because his cock twitches furiously. A low hiss leaving those pretty pink lips before he’s spitting on your quivering cunt. Once. Twice.

And you know that if this shameless bastard could use six eyes to find your g-spot, then he could’ve done the same for this. But, no, he lets some of it miss, splattering against your inner thigh, smearing all over as Satoru thumbs in his saliva with your slick.

God, he was treating you like some object. Wordlessly throwing your legs over his shoulders, dragging his weeping tip down your swollen folds. So fucking filthy.

And then you feel like you’re been split apart - because Gojo Satoru was unforgiving. As was his aching cock. He’s barely even pressing through the first ring of muscle, and you already feel like he’s pushing all the way into your lungs.

“T-Toru.” you yelp, glancing down at the way your pussy was stretched so lewdly around his thick cock. Quivering as he keeps pushing and pushing and- no mercy. Absolutely none at all. “Can feel you so deep inside ngh- I don’t think I can…”

“No no no no no-” he’s panting into your open mouth. Fucking into your heavenly cunt in mindless, shallow little thrusts just to squeeze deeper inside. “Need this. Want this. Always did. God, fuck fuck fuck, you can do it-”

“But-”

God, Satoru can’t help but kiss you - to shut those cute lil’ whines up more than anything, he’s sure he’ll cum right there and right now if he didn’t.

Because Satoru wasn’t any better. Body bowing into yours, eyes rolling to the back of his head, mouth falling into a delirious oh! as he finally bottoms out. Balls smacking your ass too hard, your pussy too tight, you too beautiful underneath him.

Blindly, he reaches for the headboard - white-knuckling it so hard that it’s a wonder it doesn’t break.

It does - and later you’ll find a pile of splinters behind the bed. It’s just that neither of you notice. Too high off the feeling of Satoru’s cock pushing inside you. You’re clawing at his back now, gasping for air. Letting him fold you in half to filthily lick away the tears pooling at your cheeks.

“Shit- y’got this, my love. You gotta- ah- Breathe-” he can’t even speak properly, sharp tongue so heavy. Eyes glowing with such insanity as he rocks his hips harder into yours.

He was right - you needed to breathe. To finally wrap your head around the fact that this was Satoru - your best friend - the same one that binge-watches sappy rom-coms with you after every breakup. Every. Single. One. Somehow, you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Both of you were barely-lucid at this point. And he was out of control now.

Funny, how in all his dreams when you were screaming his name - Satoru was always suave, methodical, playing with your pretty pussy like a fine instrument. Right now, he was anything but. Sloppy - like he didn’t have enough time, never would, even in this room where time slowed.

“Don’t you run away.” he grunts at the way you’re so adorably torn between running away from his cock and bucking for more more more- “Waited twelve fucking years for this. N’ m’gonna take it.”

You almost sob at the pressure as he laces his fingers on top of your head to slide you impossibly deeper. Down, down, down. “S’too good, Toru. Wan’ more-”

“More.” Satoru breathes, more to himself than anything. Eyes widening almost comically, a fucked-out smile spreading all over his face. “Y’want more even when you’re filled to-” He traces an invisible line halfway down your tummy. “Here?”

“Yes.” you gasp as he reaches down to toy with your throbbing clit, drawing tight, frenzied little circles. Balls smacking your ass so painfully, thumb pressing down right where his tip was hitting your cervix - as if he used six eyes to see. “Always wanted more. Always have, Toru.”

And you swear you could see something physically snap inside Satoru. Because his eyes glaze over, grin dropping instantly from his face.

If you weren’t so cockdrunk maybe you’d have caught the way the bedroom lights flicker, the one down the hallway bursting.

“Always, huh?” he’s muttering, grip on your body tightening like a vice. “Wanted more like me?” Rocking into you so sloppily, cock twitching so painfully as he speeds up. Fingers just as desperate - as depraved as his hips.

And this time, he doesn’t even have to use six eyes to find that one spot. Knowing your body well enough to hit it over and over until you were sobbing. “More more more more- fuckin’ take it then.”

At this point you didn’t know whether Satoru was always this ruthless in bed or you’d just broken him. It felt so good that it was almost scary. And your delirious mind wandered into the thought that maybe the bed would break - and your bones to follow.

Well, they would have if Satoru hadn’t been using reversed cursed technique. But you didn’t need to know that just yet.

“Satoru-” you squeal as he only gets more erratic. “I’m…”

“Close?” Satoru’s grunting, smacking his lips against your own.

It’s laughable, really, that muffled question - because Satoru knew you were close. Losing his fucking mind, actually, at how you were squeezing so hard around him. Balls squeezing so painfully right now, but he wanted you to cum first - needed you to cum first.

“Yeah, so close. Wan’ cum- Ah! Please-”

“Then cum. Fucking cum, wan’ed this so bad.” he’s babbling deliriously. Little sparks of lightning visible even to your glassy eyes, fingers humming with a dangerous little energy that stimulated you so good. “Yeah, yeah yeah yeah fucking cum, wanna hngh-”

And then you are. So sudden and hard that you don’t even realize it at first. Just that you’re seeing stars behind your eyes, blood roaring in your ears. Rocking your hips into Satoru’s like such a slut.

Oh, if heaven was really then the part of Satoru that can still form coherent thoughts thinks this just might be it.

Because only the sight of you creaming all around his swollen cock and he’s cumming and cumming so hard that it hurts. Thick, hot ropes of cum that he can’t seem to stop. Doesn’t want to stop, and God he thinks he could cum until you beg and beg and beg it’s too much. Until you’re yelling for-

“Mercy!” you moan, head spinning with how fucking overfilled your pussy was. “Please, Toru-”

Satoru lets out a slight gasp, “Mercy?” Chuckling so cruelly at your dazed nod, “No mercy, my love. None at all.”

And God, it was so fucking hard to look at him too - eyes half-lidded and miles away, flushed and looking like he was anywhere but laid out on a hospital bed just a few minutes ago. In fact, Satoru looked like he was in heaven on Earth as he only milked his painfully hard cock on your snug pussy.

Pretty. Always so fucking pretty.

And he kept whispering that, over and over in your ear as you both ride out your highs. Oh how he loved you.

Your eyes fly open, and Satoru knew he’d said that out loud. Shit. But, well, with the way you were immediately pulling him to collapse into your arms, he thinks he really doesn’t mind.

“Love you, love you. Love you so much. Always did, always wanted to love you- to fuck you.” You barely even notice him marking down your neck, sharp canines digging into the flesh like he wanted to break something. Hard enough that you distinctly wondered whether he was out for blood. “To ruin you.”

It was oozing out of you, both Satoru’s cum - dribbling down your legs in thick globs, pooling on the overpriced sheets below - and his power. Jolts of electricity running down all the way from your poor, abused cunt to your hazy mind.

“So do it.” The air was crackling - crackling with intensity and the smell of jujutsu. It was in your veins, in your words as you whisper, “Ruin me. You’re the- ngh- only- one f’me, Toru. Always was.”

The lights go out. All of them - all across Tokyo, in fact. Shining so bright that it was blinding, until they burst. The last thing you see are his eyes - electrified with blue lightning, burning into your brain.

And then it’s black.

---

“I’ll be back before ya know it, my love.” he whispers against your forehead, cooing at the way you stir sleepily. “Gotta pest to take care of.”

Taking down that curtain wasn’t the hard part, the hard part was actually fucking regaining his senses enough to do so.

And now, all cleaned up and fucked to sleep on his bed, you were looking so unbearably delectable that it made some part of Satoru just want to stay behind this curtain. To forget the waiting sorcerers on the battlefield. Saving the world be damned.

Well, no matter, Satoru had time. He was the strongest, right? After all, how could he give you the world if there was no world to give?

“N’ when I’m back, m’gonna kiss ya to death till you go out with me. Till everyone knows you’re unmistakably mine.”

A/N. GET IT - that unmistakable bit from the panel?

Plagiarism not authorized.

#gojo x reader #gojo smut #gojo x you #jjk x reader #jjk smut #jjk x you #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru smut #gojo satoru x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen smut #jujutsu kaisen x you #jjk #jjk fic #jujutsu kaisen #gojo satoru #tonywrites

25K notes · View notes

hyper-fixates · 9 months ago

Text

Time After Time

Logan Howlett/Wolverine x AFAB!reader (no pronouns/gendered language).

Explicit content (18+)

Word count: 15.2k never let me near him again

Tags/warnings: age-gap due to logan’s mutation (reader’s age not specified), mutant!reader, unprotected sex, teasing, friends to lovers, explicit language, dry humping, storm cameos, fluff, domesticity, the claws come out when he’s close (👁️👁️), detailed descriptions & scenes of nightmares/trauma/PTSD/panic attacks, one (1) ass smack, alcohol consumption, vomiting, biting/marking, angst, soft!logan, creampie, groping/touching, use of “baby” once, aftercare, yearning (kindly let me know if anything was missed!).

Summary: 4 times you end up in Logan’s bed, and the 1 time he does something about it.

Notes: this falls somewhere in between “which could mean nothing” and “we can fix each other” 🫡 (written with a mix of X1 & X2 logan!)

Your heart, despite always being alive and beating, sometimes wakes up before you.

You can feel it before your eyes even have a chance to open. It jolts your sleep-ridden body and collapses your lungs without giving your brain a chance to fight against it. Muscles and limbs feel lifeless and detached from your body, shaking from the sleep that your heart knows wasn’t completely dreamless.

You kick the blankets off of yourself and sit up in a panic, trying to regain some control of your sudden erratic breaths while bringing a lethargic hand to your heaving chest in hopes to ground yourself. It never works.

Maybe your ribs are shrinking and squeezing your lungs, making you delirious from the lack of oxygen, but you know that’s not the case. Your heart feels like it’s being squeezed and broken into a million tiny pieces.

No part of your body feels real, yet you keep your hand on your chest as firmly as you can, trying to focus on controlling the pounding of your heart that’s working so hard with each beat that it hurts.

“Fuck. Fuck,” you choke out, feeling the tears finally breach and roll down your cheeks as your nervous system catches up to what’s happening.

Panic. It’s all panic.

You can’t do anything but sit there and let the tears hit the freshly-washed fitted sheet on your bed. So you let it happen. Nothing can stop it.

Trauma is such a fickle thing. One moment you’re fine, and then the next, your heart is screaming at you and forcing your body to process something at 4 a.m. on a random Friday when all you wanted was some goddamn sleep.

There is no choice. Your mind doesn’t give you one.

The tremors subside slowly after a few minutes, giving you the feeling back to your arms and legs, albeit minimal.

You slide to sit at the edge of your bed, resting an elbow on your thigh and setting your chin into your palm with a defeated, yet shaky, huff.

You look to your window and see that the sun hasn’t even started to rise yet. You’ll be up for the rest of the foreseeable morning, but there’s not much to do so early besides wander aimlessly and think…then think some more.

You’re confident the professor isn’t even awake at this hour, which says enough about your state. You would typically go visit Storm for some comfort, but she’s been gone fuck-knows-where with Hank and Scott until Sunday at the latest. Thanks, Charles.

A questionable, and probably manic, decision comes to mind. One that’s only two doors down, one over from Storm.

Your impulsive feet make up your mind for you. The cold hardwood floor shocking you further into consciousness as if your heart didn’t do a good enough job.

You tiptoe a couple steps down the hall, forcing yourself to turn and face the large wooden door when you reach it. You just stand there staring at it, unknocking, analyzing the wood grains, suddenly very interested in what type of wood it is and what stain was used to—

“Uh. Are you okay?”

You refocus your eyes onto the man now standing in front of you in the doorway, adorning a barely-zipped school hoodie and black sweats.

“Huh?” You blink a few times, disoriented.

Logan quirks a brow, looking you up and down cautiously. “Are you okay?” He asks again, offering a look of concern—or maybe confusion—that you haven’t seen often. A look that’s never needed to be directed towards you.

You come back to yourself. “But—I…didn’t knock,” you respond, looking equally as confused as him as you point to the door.

He leans against the edge of the door, face softening. “I could smell you before you passed Storm’s room,” he clarifies, a hint of reluctance in his tone. Oh.

You feel like a child who has just gained awareness, all too conscious of your situation.

“You’re…awake?” Is all you manage despite probably needing to say much more than that to explain just why exactly you’re standing outside Logan’s room at 4 a.m.

“So are you,” he counters with a curious look. “So let me ask again. Are you okay?” He locks his eyes on yours, probably in hopes to understand why the fuck you’re outside his room at 4 a.m.

“I’m not sure how to answer that,” you say, and it’s the truth.

You should probably be embarrassed. You show up at Logan’s door unannounced, dressed in a flimsy shirt and matching sweats—thanks, Charles—that can’t fully hide the remaining quivers throughout your body.

Logan pulls his lips together at your admission. You can almost see the wheels turning in his head trying to figure you out.

“Can’t sleep?” He questions, but he knows he’s right.

“Yeah.” You don’t know why you’re making it Logan’s problem, though. Sure, he happens to be awake, but maybe this is all too personal to push on the guy who’s seemingly all pride and no solicitude most of the time.

It’s not that he’s not a good, nice guy, but you don’t know how you would define your relationship, or lack of.

You know each other well enough from existing in the same space over the past couple months, being part of the same “team”, but it’s nothing to call a close friendship like you and Storm. He’s a bit of a rare species in the mansion, not really lingering around.

He cocks his head in a half shrug, the soft points in his hair broken by sleep shake gently with the movement.

“I don’t think I can help you,” he says wearily. “I’m no better. Clearly.” He gestures between you, drawing attention to the fact that you’re both awake. The helpless cannot help the helpless.

“Oh—no, I’m not looking for help. I think I’m beyond that at this point,” you laugh but stop yourself short when Logan doesn’t follow. Tough crowd.

“I, uh, don’t actually know what I’m looking for,” you offer.

You knit your brows together in thought, still wondering why the fuck you’re here. Comfort? Entertainment? Some other unknown third thing?

“I’m not really used to Storm being gone for so long,” you admit. “I just feel…all over the place, I guess.”

Logan considers your vulnerability for a beat, eyes flicking to yours. “I can hear you sometimes,” he says, a knowing—almost sympathetic—look on his face. “We have the same problem.”

You go cold, any expression you had on your face sliding away. You wish the floor could swallow you right now. You know things have been getting worse recently, but you didn’t think anyone could hear that fact. Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise from someone who could smell you from down the hallway.

He steps back, pulling his door open further. An invitation.

You don’t move right away. Could this be a false awakening? You’re not sure what you expected when you came to his door, but you also didn’t expect him to open it without you knocking, so you have to suspend disbelief for now. You figured he’d offer a few words of advice and dismiss you, or maybe even tell you to fuck off, but he opened his door wider for you. But you didn’t exactly think any of it through in the first place anyway.

You force your feet to carry you into Logan’s room. It’s not much different from yours; scarce belongings, minimal decor, a small work desk, brown curtains that are drawn back, and a bed.

“Were you, uh…sleeping before I came?” You sit on the unmade bed, nothing noticeably different from it compared to yours.

He shuts the door quietly, moving to the small desk across the room and filing some scattered papers together neatly.

“Trying to,” he says, keeping his gaze on the desk.

Fucking duh. “Sorry if I disturbed you,” you wince to yourself.

You see him briefly shake his head at your unnecessary apology. “I had to get up anyway.” His voice is still gravelly from sleep.

It feels like you’re invading his space. But he invited you in. How many others have had the opportunity to be in here? Probably too many. There’s nothing to make this special.

“I’m fucking exhausted,” you sigh, flopping back on his bed defeated. Simply overwhelmed with the uncontrollable repercussions of your mutation.

“Try to sleep. If you want,” he offers, moving to the edge of the bed. “It’s easier said than done, but I have to meet with Charles in an hour.” It’s gruff, but he’s sincere.

Maybe the professor is awake after all.

You roll your head to the side to look at him. Was he really offering for you to stay in his bed?

“Oh, wow…uh, sure.” It comes off as more of a question, but he quirks his brows in acknowledgment, turning back to the desk and collecting a handful of other miscellaneous papers.

“I have to head downstairs and take care of some things. Stay as long as you need,” he says, zipping his sweater the rest of the way up. Thank God in heaven.

A shy “thanks” is all you manage as you situate yourself on the bed.

Is this fucking weird? You could name a handful of others in the mansion right this second that would kill without hesitation to be where you are. They’d probably kill you specifically to get it. It’s not much of a secret that Logan is the subject of almost all students’ desires. He knows it, too.

“See you later,” he adds, his lips forming the slightest hint of a caring smile as he sees himself out. You throw one back before the door clicks shut.

Should you be offended that he didn’t stay? That he left so quickly? No, no, he can’t. He couldn’t. Charles is expecting him. The timing is just horrid. But now you’re just…alone…in Logan’s room, expected to sleep because of a random act of kindness in his heart.

Lying in his bed instead of yours is an odd sensation. The sheets and mattress are exactly the same, the pillows are just as fluffy, yet it feels unalike.

You flop your head on his pillow, tugging the blankets up to your chin. Your fingers graze something by your hip as you settle in, making you push the blanket back down. Leaning over, you see three puncture marks in the mattress, fraying the bedsheet material into feather-soft strands around the deep holes.

Your eyes widen, remembering his words before he invited you in: “We have the same problem.”

Part of your heart fractures for the second time today. Your eyes cross over to the other side of you, seeing a matching set of holes just below the pillow. It’s suddenly easy to understand why no one besides him has been seen coming and going from this room in a while. One day, things just seemed to change.

Maybe his act of kindness was an act of mercy. Trauma will always find you, and it will make sure you feel it until you either destroy it or it destroys you.

Even the Wolverine isn’t an exception.

━━━━ ● ━━━━

The gold liquid is gone from the glass as quickly as it was poured.

Your throat clenches and protests the swallow as you try to suppress the urge to gag. You gently set the shot glass back on the counter, watching Storm chase with a piece of lime that does nothing to help the puckered face she makes from the tequila.

“No more, no more. I can’t.” Your arms anchor you to the counter to stop yourself from swaying too much.

Storm nods, still fighting off the sourness with furrowed brows and a scrunched nose. You giggle at her when she quickly screws the cap back on the bottle, sliding it out of reach.

“You’re a bad influence,” she scolds as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

“No—I’m under the influence,” you counter, a playful smile on your lips. “There’s a difference. You still have your own free will.”

Storm rolls her eyes so hard you only see the whites of them. “We have training tomorrow,” she slurs. “Charles will not be happy if we show up half-conscious.” She rounds the counter to you, grabbing your shoulders for stability, and you do the same.

“He’ll be lucky if we show up at all,” you mumble.

The dim kitchen lighting embraces the two of you, the rest of the mansion blanketed in darkness with everyone fast asleep—like you both should be.

You close your eyes with a roll of your neck, more giggles falling through your lips as you clumsily grab onto Storm and rock and sway together for a moment, the alcohol quickly catching up to your motor skills. It feels like you’re spinning through time and space, and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t feel fucking euphoric. At this rate, neither of you will be able to make it back to your rooms.

“Am I interrupting something?”

You lose a bit of your balance as you try to find the resonant voice, eyes shooting open. Storm unintentionally startles and stumbles away from you, white hair also jumping from the excitement.

You grab onto the counter again, sucking in a deep breath. “Fuck, don’t do that,” you growl through your teeth, a hand on your chest as you try to calm yourself.

“Don’t do what? Come to the shared kitchen to grab a drink?” Logan huffs a laugh, an amused smile creeps to his lips as he takes in your drunk and shaken state from the entryway.

“Doesn’t anyone sleep in this place?” He mumbles to himself.

“And with that, I’m done for the night,” Storm chuckles, fixing her hair. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Her eyes lock intensely on yours, index finger firmly poking the middle of your chest to make her point for you to show up to training very clear.

“See you, Logan,” she dismisses, stumbling as she passes him.

Logan shakes his head, still smiling. He steps to the fridge, opening the double doors and plucking a bottle of soda from the bottom shelf. No alcohol is readily available in the communal fridge because, after all, you’re all in a school full of kids, so Storm had to get creative; Scott will be missing a rather large bottle from the now not-so-secret stash in his room.

As the alcohol continues to settle in you, you feel more and more lightheaded as it brings you to a new level of euphoria again. You only know this because watching Logan pop the cap of his drink with mindless ease feels a little more exciting than it would be if you were sober. But you’re not sober, and that’s the problem.

“Not gonna follow Storm?” He asks, taking a generous sip from the bottle as he casually places his free hand on the counter to lean on across from you.

A tight smile forms, mostly to yourself. “I don’t think I can make it down the hall,” you laugh in embarrassment. Maybe that last shot was one too many, and it’s not even fully done working its magic yet.

Logan raises a brow. “Want some help?” There’s no judgement in his tone like you expect. Then again, you don’t know what the fuck to expect from him.

Your already half-closed eyes, blurry and unfocused, meet his hazel ones in interest. Another favour?

It’s been two weeks since he let you sleep off the nightmares in his bed. Two weeks since you learned he’s burdened with them, too. You traced the holes in the mattress over and over before you eventually fell asleep, wondering what—or who—could have hurt him so badly. He plays it off cool; you wouldn’t suspect anything from talking to him. The same could probably be said about you.

“I didn’t know wolverine’s were chivalrous,” you tease.

The yellow hue of the lights dance over the quaffed points in his hair, making them appear sharper than usual. You would never admit it, especially to him, but you adore them. They give him an absurd amount of character that you’d expect a guy like him to not care about.

You’re not exactly complaining about the fitting grey tank-top he has on either.

“Not overly,” he plays along, taking another mouthful of the fizzy drink. “I like to think I’m special,” he says quieter.

“Maybe you are,” you say as you try and straighten yourself to see if you can stand unassisted.

The world tilts as you stand to your full height, eyes rolling into your head from the wave of dizziness. “Wow, okay,” you say to yourself, squeezing your eyes shut to stop the spinning. How many shots did you have again?

A warm hand presses between your shoulders. “Woah, nice and easy. Nice and easy.” Logan appears by your side to steady you, other hand grabbing your elbow to pull you straight. You wobble in his grip, letting him guide your useless, alcohol-ridden body.

His hand on your back rubs a few small, comforting circles as you work to regain your bearings. He watches your expressions intently, looking for the right moment to get you moving back to your room safe and sound.

Your arm crosses over your body out of instinct to grab the hand he has on your elbow for extra support.

“Are you okay?” He asks. He seems to ask you that a lot.

You lean into him, your shoulder to his chest, and you can feel the blackout creeping up on you like humidity from a thunderstorm—it’s usually too late to do anything once you notice it.

“I drank a lot,” you laugh deeply, rolling your head onto his shoulder to look up at him.

He looks so much more delicate under the ambient lights—his usual defined features have shifted and melted him into someone that doesn’t look like they should be a feared animal out in the world.

Logan all but cradles you, that same look of concern crossing his features from the night you went to his door. The only difference is that you’ve had a generous amount of tequila—and are currently being kept alert by the hot touch of his hands. That’s new.

“Can you walk?” He holds your squinty eye contact, probably searching for any signs of a coherent thought behind the blissful expression on your face. “Or will I have to carry you?” He muses, a hint of a smile crosses his lips as his hand moves up to gently rub over your shoulders.

Drunk you likes the sound of anything relating to Logan keeping his hands on you right now. You wonder what sober you would think.

“I’m not gonna tell you no, but it feels like I’m floating in a bubble that won’t stop spinning,” you hum as you let the sensation consume your senses. “I might fly away.” You dip your head back off of his shoulder in amusement as you laugh again.

“Yeah, you’re fucked up,” he mumbles lovingly. Just like anyone else who’s concerned for your well-being would.

“Hey, kitty cat—I’m perfectly buzzed,” you emphasize the teasing nickname, narrowing your eyes at him sternly as you bring your gaze back to his in defence.

“‘Kitty cat’? Really?” He snorts. “I think you’re past your bedtime by three drinks,” he remarks back with equal levity.

“Then take me to bed if you’re so concerned,” you sigh dramatically, going limp in his arms to make your point.

Truthfully, you’re probably past your bedtime by five shots. But he doesn’t need to know that. You just know that you can’t control your limbs like you were able to ten minutes ago.

“Maybe I will.” You don’t see it, but he does his quick little eye roll that you’ve seen pointed towards Scott too many times.

He slides the hand on your elbow down to the backs of your knees, pulling you up off the floor and into his chest as you fall into the arm that was rubbing your back.

Oh, so it’s gonna be like that.

An excited—or maybe shocked—noise escapes your mouth as he adjusts you in his arms. You extend your right arm up and over his shoulder to hug his neck and keep yourself stable.

The trip to your room isn’t one that should take long, but each sway from Logan’s steps goes straight to your stomach in waves of queasiness. It feels like forever before you feel him bend awkwardly to turn your doorknob.

You’re fighting to keep yourself conscious the entire time, not wanting to regret missing the feeling of being in his arms.

The room is only lit by the silver moonlight creeping through the window. It’s hard to distinguish anything through your bleary eyes besides Logan’s look of determination to get you in your bed.

He leans down, shuffling you out of his arms and onto the mattress as swiftly as possible. The care of it all pokes at your heart.

He silently goes around each corner of the bed adjusting the blankets. It may be dark, but the moonlight highlights the peaks of his shoulders as he moves. Your eyes might be involuntarily half-shut, but that doesn’t stop you from staring.

You’re now probably no better than every other mutant in this school.

“Logan,” you start before you can fully process the foolish thing you’re about to say next.

He rounds the bed back to the side you’re huddled on, looking down on you. “Yeah?” The subtle jingle of his dog tag pierces the quiet that’s lingering in the room.

You part your lips to speak but the words die in your throat. They’re replaced by a flood of saliva that has you sitting up at a speed that shouldn’t be possible for someone as intoxicated as you. You cover your mouth with your hand, feeling your stomach churning and finally rejecting the tequila.

You suddenly feel very awake.

“Hey, hey.” Logan squats down in front of you with his already permanently-furrowed brows pinched closer together than you’ve ever seen before, a hand coming to your shoulder in concern. “What—”

“Bathroom,” you mumble through your palm, eyes rolling shut at the nausea.

He doesn’t say another word. He pulls you to your feet by your arms, walking behind you fiercely with his hands gripping your shoulders to guide you to the small bathroom across the room.

You push the door open, falling to your knees in the darkness over the toilet as the mistakes from the night expel themselves from your body through rounds of coughing and gagging. He lingers in the doorway, keeping an eye on you but still giving you privacy.

“Fuck,” you cough, resting your warm forehead on your hand as you slump against the toilet. That definitely sobered you up fast.

Exhaustion hits you like a truck. “Logan…” you croak from your crumpled position on the tile floor.

He steps in, bending down again to reach your height. You can barely make out the shadow of him in the fading moonlight.

“Just…help me back to bed,” you groan, reaching for his arm as you use the toilet seat to push yourself the rest of the way up. You stumble against him as you try to make it back through the doorway.

He guides you to the bed the same way he did to the bathroom—steering you from behind.

“I’m gonna get you some water,” he says as you settle back into bed, head hitting the pillow with a quiet thud. “Even though you did this to yourself.”

“Fuck off,” you groan.

You close your eyes, hearing his footsteps fade back toward the bathroom. You hear the tap run for a couple seconds before he’s next to you again, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Drink. All of it,” he says firmly, holding the cup out to you.

You sit back up slowly, no doubt lethargic, an unimpressed look on your face that earns you a raised brow that tells you there’s no room to object.

You finish the cup in four mouthfuls, handing it back to him. “Thanks.”

You fall back onto the pillow, no longer feeling like you’re travelling through space and time.

The clothes you’re in are close enough to pyjamas. There’s no sense in undressing in front of Logan, especially with what you were about to say to him before you were rudely interrupted by the consequences of your own actions.

He returns the cup to the bathroom and you pull the blanket over your waist as you hopefully settle in for the rest of the night. You owe him big time for this. The thought of just how exactly you’ll manage that fills you with anxiety.

You turn on your side, fingers sliding over the mattress with the movement. They graze familiar strands of feather-soft fabric by the pillow.

This is Logan’s room. Are you just that drunk that you couldn’t tell the difference when he brought you in? Or are your rooms just that similar to each other?

You dip a finger in one of the three holes, hearing the bathroom door click shut as Logan makes his way back.

“Why am I in your bed?” You see him rustling through some drawers of clothing by the small desk, but he stops when you finish your question.

“You can’t take care of yourself tonight,” he says. “You’re too drunk.” He pulls the grey tank-top off, stuffing it in one of the drawers and shutting it.

You sit up at that, head still foggy and tipsy, watching him move to the foot of the bed across from you. You try to focus your eyes on anything but his bare chest and the dark hair that adorns it and trails down past the waistband of his sweats. His hair is somehow even more wild from mindlessly pulling the tank-top over his head.

“Ah. I was gonna ask you to stay anyway,” you reveal, almost whispering the bold confession.

You were planning to ask before the tequila decided to make another appearance, but maybe doing it this way isn’t so bad either. He did all the heavy-lifting.

A modest, tight-lipped smile graces his lips. “I think you still have some tequila to sleep off.”

Whether or not you still have some shots in your system, what you feel and want right now is real. It’s not influenced by anything besides some mild andronitis created by the fact that you share a common struggle.

“Is it…safe? To share a bed?” The most coherent thought you’ve had all night makes him stiffen from your sudden nervous tone. Your body could easily replace the mattress and become a new home for the deep punctures.

Your eyelids have been fighting against being pulled shut by alcohol-induced drowsiness, yet your eyes are wider than they’ve been all night in this moment.

You’re sat right in the middle of the bed and Logan comes around to the right, sitting on the edge of the mattress to come down to your level.

“You’re just gonna have to trust me.” His eyes are imploring and apologetic all at once. He understands the prospect of even having you here in the first place.

You nod, sliding over to the left to give him more room.

Logan wouldn’t put you in harms way, you reason with yourself. He wouldn’t risk potentially killing someone, especially a fellow mutant, if he wasn’t absolutely sure of his mental state. But you also don’t really know his demons.

You roll onto your right side, tugging the blanket up to your chin in comfort. “Why haven’t you been given a new mattress?” You ask as he turns to face you in the same position, his half of the blanket resting at his hip.

The bed dips significantly on his side, almost encouraging you to roll over against him.

“Forgot to ask,” he says quietly, running his right hand through his hair to push the shorter strands off his forehead.

From his tone you can decipher that he actually means “can’t be bothered.” It’s a devastating thing to imagine just how many he goes through, anyway. He probably doesn’t see the point in replacing something that will inevitably have the same fate as the others.

There has to be less than an arms length between you two. It’s a surreal situation to be in considering what you thought you knew about him. A recluse. Standoffish. Maybe it’s all a fluke and the alcohol is severely fucking with your perception of what’s actually happening.

“Thanks for everything,” you whisper as if someone else will overhear.

“Get some sleep,” he insists, rolling onto his back. You do the same.

You stare at the blank ceiling for a while, noticing the exact moment Logan falls asleep; his breathing grows slow and his body runs even hotter than before.

You think about how he could wake at any moment, claws accidentally sliding right through your stomach from a nightmare or two. You imagine all the others that have been in your position—if they felt scared, if they even knew.

He asked you to trust him, and that should be enough.

There is a body full of secrets and hurt sleeping undisturbed next to you with the ability to withstand and regenerate from any physical injury, yet there’s something that hasn’t allowed the same to be done for his mind.

━━━━

The bright amber sun hits your closed eyes through the window, making you roll your head away onto the other side of the cool pillow.

You want more sleep. Your head feels like a bag of bricks and your body feels like it got beat with them.

You stretch a leg out, gently grazing something solid with your foot. Your eyes shoot open, the night coming back to you as you drift into consciousness. Logan.

You shoot up, bouncing a little from the momentum.

Logan startles next to you, clearly interrupted from a deep sleep. “What the fuck…” he groans, rubbing a hand over his face, not seeming interested in making a move to sit up with you.

“What time is it?” Your eyes bounce around the room looking for a clock.

He grunts, reaching for a watch on the nightstand. “Seven-forty.”

You needed to be in the Danger Room for 7 o’clock.

“Fuck!” You rip the blanket off, almost tripping as you run to the bathroom.

Logan also wants to roll back over and go back to sleep, but he knows he won’t be able to. He doesn’t work like that. So he just lays there, listening to you swear and make a mess of his bathroom as the clattering of fuck-knows-what fills the room.

The surprise of how well he slept makes him feel uneasy. Although it definitely wasn’t eight hours, it was uninterrupted. He doesn’t want to credit that to you, though. He wants to believe that he’s getting better overall, and maybe he is, so he can’t offer you any flattery in his mind.

Another distant “fuck” escapes the bathroom, pulling him out of his thoughts. You exit a few minutes later, as refreshed and presentable as you could get yourself, and the sight of Logan still in bed makes something in you ache for another moment of feeling him care and tend to you. Maybe that’s your hangover talking.

“Thanks again. I’ll see you around,” you say hurriedly, offering an apologetic smile as you turn the doorknob to leave.

“Good luck with Charles.” It’s a genuine advisory. Fuck. You’ll be so incredibly lucky if he doesn’t give you more than a stern lecture in front of everyone.

You take a deep breath in and slip out of Logan’s room. There’s not a single cut, mark, or scratch on you, just like he promised.

━━━━ ● ━━━━

“I was told it’ll take a day to fix,” Storm explains with a shrug. “You’ll have to find somewhere or someone to room with until tomorrow. Jean already offered to have me stay with her.” A contrite look passes over her face.

You stand outside your rooms, staring in at the remnants of the mess caused by two terrakinetic kids fucking around in the courtyard when they weren’t supposed to be. They somehow managed to throw, or launch, sizeable tree branches right through each of your windows. Of course it wasn’t on purpose, but the Danger Room exists for a reason—to avoid mishaps like this.

Shards of glass and fragments of wood splatter your floors. The branches are hanging half-way out both of your windows, caught on the window sills and bobbing in the evening summer wind. The kids are extremely fortunate that neither of you were in your rooms when it happened.

“It’s fine. It’s just one night,” you sigh, rubbing your eyes in frustration. You don’t love how quickly your mind picks out who to go to. It’s already nearing 11 p.m., so you have to work fast.

Storm squeezes your shoulder in comfort. “The living room is always free,” she suggests with a remorseful smile.

But you don’t want the living room. Stiff couches mixed with students clamouring and passing by at the crack of dawn isn’t exactly a recipe for a good nights rest. As if you usually get one, anyway.

“Not a fucking chance,” you laugh. “I’ll be fine,” you say again, dismissing her worries. You wish her goodnight when she steps by you to head towards Jean’s room at the very end of the hall.

You glare at the mess in your room, not daring to step in. The amount of shattered glass everywhere makes the floor look like a body of water from the reflections of the pale moonlight bouncing and refracting off of the jagged shards.

“Fuck,” you spit through your teeth, solely to yourself.

Not even a full week after Logan saw you at your worst, you’re going to go back and ask for the left side of his bed. Shameless.

You don’t have much of a choice; you’re not comfortable having it be anyone else. It’s only because Logan saw you at your worst that you feel he’s the most logical choice. Already having shared a bed with him this week may also have some weight in your decision.

You take the few self-assured steps to his room, once again standing in front of his door. This time you feel more confident in approaching the Wolverine in his den.

You knock three times, the piercing sound echoing through the hall.

“You start to miss me or what?” A bare chest enters your view. You note the dog tag hanging from his neck again before you find his unyielding gaze full of ambiguity, wondering why you’re here. Again.

You blink at him slowly in hilarity. “Ha, funny. Can I stay with you tonight?” You ask flatly, not thrilled with the situation, but not completely displeased with being here now. “My window—”

“I know what happened,” he interrupts. “Figured you’d go for the couch in the living room.” He looks at you more pointedly with teasing suspicion.

“I think you know no one would ever willingly choose to sleep out there,” you reason, running a hand over your face in both shame and defeat.

He makes a face that tells you “touché” and you smirk in satisfaction. “If you don’t mind giving up half of your bed again, I would really appreciate it. I promise I’m not trying to make this a habit,” you sigh. Spending the night in Logan’s bed three times in the past month has to be a record for anyone recently.

“I don’t think it would be a bad habit,” he argues. Oh. “C’mon.” He gives a jerk of his head to allow you in, his tufts of his hair bristling with the quick movement.

“Thanks,” you squeak. He wants you here?

He shuts the door behind you, following you to the bed that’s clearly already had him in it. The blanket rests in waves on the mattress that remind you of just how human Logan is despite his reputation and image.

“Do you have an early morning?” You ask, slipping under the blanket.

“No. Charles was feeling nice for once,” he raises his tone sarcastically to rag on Charles’ judgement, which has clearly been a much needed one before now.

“Not an early bird?” You roll onto your right side like last time, facing him as he settles on his back with a deep breath. The bed sinks in again where he lays, your body wanting to give in to the laws of gravity and fall into him.

“Fuck no,” he laughs lightly, eyes crinkling around the corners. It’s self-deprecating, but it’s still a genuine laugh. The condescension from it lingers in the air, all directed at himself in a way that tells you he’s thinking about how inconceivably fucked up he is.

The last time he had a decent sleep was when you were drunk in his bed a few days ago.

“People like us don’t usually get the pleasure of a full eight hours,” he notes, sliding his gaze to yours for a fraction of a second.

He props an arm behind his head, the other resting on his chest and idly twisting the dog tag between his fingers. You watch the thin piece of steel slide and flip easily, the chain tinkling with every movement.

People like us.

“You mean mutants,” you state. You see his jaw tense in what little light there is from the half-moon tonight.

You see his brows pull together. “Yeah.” He has a point.

You think about the mutants you know, how they all have some horrific story about their gifts or family, or both. How they either were shamed by society or experimented on like rats.

The scenarios are endless. If you can think of it, some mutant has probably lived it.

Your heart sinks to the bottom of your stomach. You and Logan are not isolated or special cases, but you’ve already shared a moment of vulnerability with him when you came to his door all those weeks ago seeking solace for the same thing he fights with: the inescapable ability of remembering.

You pull the blanket tighter against you. “I don’t think you’ll hurt me.”

He turns his head to you, confusion written on his face. “What?” He stops toying with the dog tag.

“Your claws. I trust you.” You didn’t feel like you were in immediate danger that first night, but you want to reassure him anyway. Or maybe you’re reassuring yourself.

He hasn’t had to say a single word for you to know his nightmares trigger something instinctive and combative that’s been hardwired into his DNA. In this case, it’s his claws needing to find a home in his mattresses, where another body could potentially lay one night. Like yours is right now.

You noticed the lack of holes in this mattress when you first got to the bed. Maybe you mentioning them last time was enough for him to finally request a new one.

Logan knows he shouldn’t make promises he doesn’t know he’ll be able to keep, but he wants to keep you here tonight, so he improvises. He abandons the dog tag between his fingers completely, turning onto his side and reaching to find your hand under the blanket. You meet him halfway, sliding your fingers between his as your palms lay flat on the bed.

A smile tugs at your lips for a moment. He watches your interlinked fingers, observing the size difference, wondering if he really just did that—and why.

You assume it’s his way of saying “thank you” for your trust when you probably shouldn’t be putting that much into him.

“Does it hurt?” You whisper, pulling your fingers out from his just enough to caress the divets between his knuckles that conceal the claws.

He knows what you’re asking. “Every time.” He softly pushes his fingers back into yours, squeezing a little.

There’s a deadly stillness in the room despite his window being cracked. You both know you’re one in the same in a way, and that’s a connection that Logan hasn’t let himself experience. Not everyone likes looking in a mirror.

To be truly seen by someone, wholly, without judgement or fear, is what he deserves.

“What are you?” He asks, rubbing his index finger back and forth along the top of your hand. “Telekinetic? Psychic?” His curious voice grows quiet, hazel eyes fascinated with you and your lack of a physical mutation, at least nothing that he can see.

It never occurred to you that he didn’t know your mutation, or that you’ve never told him. It was never needed, but it seems unfair that you know about his when he wasn’t the one who told you.

“Ha, close.” Your eyes twinkle as you notice how intently he’s listening. “Psychometric,” you correct, watching his forehead crease.

“Sounds like math,” he quips, readjusting his head on the pillow. He’s close enough that you can feel the heat he’s putting off.

You laugh quietly. “No, it’s extrasensory perception. It lets me see the history of any object or person I touch, but only if I accept the energy,” you explain.

You watch his eyes narrow and you know what he’s thinking, so you quickly interject as he begins to pull his hand out from yours. “I need to touch a pulse point to be able to see anything,” you reassure, feeling his fingers slide back against yours. “The heart remembers everything,” you clarify.

The catch? The person’s memories and past stay with you after you see them. It’s become hard to distinguish what memories are yours or someone else’s. They all become intertwined. Good or bad, violent or gentle. You see it all, and then it’s part of you. Forever.

“I haven’t looked. I promise.”

“Good. You don’t need to see that shit,” he huffs, eyes wandering over your face. He isn’t sure what he’s looking for, but he’s a little startled for the first time in a while.

“I’m sure I’ve seen it all,” you state. It’s probably not far off from the truth. Your gift came when you were all too young, and plenty of time has passed since then for you to rack up this amount of damage from near-strangers and their lives.

“No, you haven’t.” A sure expression passes over him, shaking his head as best as he can against the pillow.

“Then I’ll count myself lucky,” you say softly. You have no idea what Logan has experienced, but his demeanor makes you want to stay curious. Not everything needs to be known, and you’re definitely not entitled to it.

A faint smile appears on his lips, then it’s gone just as quick. “Get some sleep,” he rasps. He turns onto his back and his hand abandons yours.

It’s a complete repeat of last time.

Something twinges in your heart, and you don’t like it. What exactly had you expected from Logan? He’s just doing you a courtesy by letting you stay here for the night. Nothing more. And that’s what you should expect: nothing.

The hum of crickets outside eventually lulls you into a dead sleep. It’s heavy and deep, not a single muscle twitching in your body. Logan breathes steadily next to you, a hand on his chest as the occasional snore fills the air.

From above you two might look like you’re transient, only here in this moment for a short time. And, realistically, you are.

━━━━

Logan was no where to be seen by the time you woke up, and you made quick work to get out of his room. It always feel wrong to be in someone’s space when they aren’t there.

Just like Storm said, the windows in your rooms were fixed the next day. It looks as though nothing even happened.

“Thank fuck,” you mumble to yourself as you step back into your room.

If you ever have to spend another night in Logan’s bed, you might as well wear a shirt that says “yes, we’re fucking!”, even if it isn’t true. You could deny it all you want, but it won’t stop what students would say. Nothing gets past them, even if it’s behind a closed door.

━━━━ ● ━━━━

“Are you fucking Logan?”

You almost swallow your tongue. “Sorry?” Your brows shoot up in surprise, eyes round in disbelief.

“Are you guys sleeping together?” Storm casually asks as she flicks through the T.V. channels, glancing over to you from her spot on the couch.

You’re sat comfortably in an arm chair, suddenly no longer caring what channel she decides on. “Why would you think that?” Technically you were sleeping together, but not like that. It may never happen again, no matter how badly you want it to.

“Things travel fast around here,” she deflects with a cheeky smile. “And, you know, Logan is…Logan.” She shrugs.

You don’t even know what to say to that. Is there a right or wrong answer?

“It wasn’t like that,” you grumble. “He was doing me a favour. As a friend.” It hasn’t even been a full day since he let you stay with him while pieces of your window laid on your floor, and people are already convinced you’re fucking.

You haven’t even managed a chaste kiss, despite how much as you want to, never mind his dick being balls deep in you.

“Right.” She emphasizes the word, not convinced. Or just pushing your buttons because she can.

You roll your eyes. “If anything was happening, you’d be the first to know,” you point out.

She looks back over to you. “I know,” she says with another, more sincere, smile. “You two would be cute, though.”

You give her some side-eye, not quite sure if you disagree entirely with that statement. Whatever happens, happens. Logan is not something you can control or influence. He does what—and who—he wants, when he wants.

━━━━

A bolt of lightening strikes you. You gasp, then release a choked cry, eyes flying open as you claw at your chest in terror.

Your throat tightens and you break out in a cold sweat as you sit up. The soft blanket around you feels constricting. Sporadic and short breaths make you heave as your body registers the horrors in your subconscious.

There was never any lighting. That’s just what the pain feels like.

The muscles in your shoulders and neck tense from your panicked state as your heart struggles to keep a normal rhythm. You yank the blanket off, feeling weak from fear and the onset of tremors. Your whole body gives up on itself as you sob through broken exhales. Your legs have gone cold, lungs shrinking inch by inch with every passing minute.

You crawl to the edge of your bed, wanting to just get out and leave—the blanket. The bed. The room. Most of all, you want to escape your own mind.

You sink onto the floor when a foot touches the ground, and you realize walking isn’t in the cards right now. You’re shaking too badly to be able to physically move. All your strength is gone, robbed by your memories.

Balmy tears paint your face in determination, making sure no part of you is left untouched by this spell.

You screw your eyes shut, tears still slipping out with ease anyway. Leaning your back against the bed-frame, you curl into yourself and wrap your arms around your knees on the chilled hardwood.

You try to focus on your breathing to at least slow your heart down to a pace that doesn’t hurt.

Wounded cries rip their way out of you, interrupting the breaths you try to steady. A hand touches your arm and you yelp like an injured dog, flailing at the contact as your arms swing out from around your knees in shock.

“Hey, hey, it’s me. It’s me.” Strong hands quickly wrap around each of your wrists to stop your arms from thrashing.

You try to focus your eyes, blurred and stinging from tears, on the person kneeling closely in front of you.

“L-Logan…” you whisper, balling your fists to try and expel the shakes.

He looks like someone who shouldn’t be able to be concerned about another person, yet the look on his face scares you. Brows pinched together in worry, eyes frantic, lips parted from heavy breaths. All because of you.

“It’s just me,” he hushes your cries. His thumbs stroke the undersides of your wrists tenderly, no doubt feeling your racing pulse.

You feel disoriented. “Wh…how…”

“I heard you,” he explains, watching you process everything. He drops your wrists when some recognition passes over your face.

“What do you need?” He follows your gaze as it wanders around the room, trying to keep you from spiralling further.

You look at him for a moment. He’s got his white tank-top on, the black sweats, and an intense need to help you written all over him. Fresh tears burn your cheeks as you come back into reality.

“I want it to fucking stop,” you weep, head falling into your hands in shame.

You don’t want him to see you like this, even though it’s a commonality between you two. It’s too intimate. You’d take him seeing you blackout drunk everyday of the year over this.

Then you do remember that it has stopped. Each time in Logan’s bed. There was silence. Peace. For the whole night. For both of you.

“Tell me what you need,” he says firmly, angling his head down to keep your eyes on him, desperately wanting an answer.

“You.” You suck in an agonizing breath to try and collect yourself.

He doesn’t flinch like you expect him to. If anything, his eyes become more pensive, clearly considering something. Then he shakes his head in wariness.

“C’mon. Let’s get you out of here,” he breathes, voice barely above a whisper. The only sound echoing in the room is your wobbly breathes, your body jerking with each one as you enter the aftermath and begin to go slack.

An arm slides behind your back, his hand grabbing ahold of your side while he pulls your legs over his other arm, picking you up off the floor.

He cradles you against him just like he did when you were drunk, carrying you out of your room.

He left your door open when he came in, and you hope no students heard or saw anything. He tilts to grab the doorknob, shutting it without a sound.

You wipe and rub at your eyes as Logan takes a few steps down the hall, quickly getting to where he needs to go when you feel him lean for his doorknob.

You’re sure a few rogue, leftover tears fall onto his shirt before he manages to sit on his bed lightly, you still curled tightly in his arms.

His hand pushes on your back for you to sit upright on his lap. “Face me,” he encourages, holding onto your sides as you twist around, bending your legs to slide over his thighs and straddle him loosely.

You look down at him, he looks up at you, feeling the quivers in your body dissipate as you melt further into his lap. A fondness crosses over both of your tired faces. He rests his arms over your thighs, warm hands linking behind your back as you do the same around his neck.

It’s nothing provocative or seductive. All you can feel is the care and concern rolling off of him in suffocating waves. He wants you to feel safe, and if that means overrunning your senses with his presence, then that’s what he’ll do.

“Got anything to say?” He murmurs, the fallen strands of hair around the edges of his forehead bristle with each move of his head. The rest of his hair fails to fully resemble the cat-like ears he had earlier in the day.

What does he want to hear?

You let your head hang a little, your nose almost brushing his. “I have nothing to say,” you assert, fidgeting with the chain of his dog tag at the nape of his neck.

You don’t necessarily feel embarrassed about him seeing you in such a helpless state, but you don’t want to simply unload your shit on him. So, in turn, you have nothing to say.

“Bullshit.” He almost rolls his eyes. There’s no real threat of him forcing you to say anything behind it. He won’t pry, but he doesn’t believe you.

An offended look overcomes your face, and you almost pull away. You don’t want to feel the humiliation of elaborating on just why exactly you said you needed him in this moment out of everything else.

“I just…” You roll your lips together in thought, measuring the words you could say but won’t. “Want to sleep. Here,” you sigh. “I don’t wanna go back.” You deflate in his arms, voice wobbly.

It’s already who-knows what time, and you need to pacify your wired nervous system; Logan simply holding you has already helped with that more than you want to admit.

His mouth quirks up briefly at that. “What happened to not wanting to make that a habit?” His eyes soften as his arms retract from around your sides, letting you slip easily onto his bed from his lap in a moment of calm, or relief.

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.

“Special circumstances,” you reason, already pulling the blanket over you while he keeps his place at the edge of the bed, observing you with amusement.

“Seems like you get into those a lot,” he notes, pushing himself off the mattress.

He steps around to the other side—his designated spot—and slips the tank-top off, letting it drop to the floor. You’re not trying to be a freak, but you watch the whole thing.

The flex of his arms and shoulders are out of your mind as fast as they entered as you watch him hook his thumbs in the waistband of his sweats and pull them downright in front of you, not even turning around or to the side to try and conceal himself.

Your eyes widen, then you reel in your thoughts before they get lost at sea. No one who is sane fucking sleeps in sweatpants. Duh.

But didn’t he the last two times? It’s hard for you to remember, but you’d certainly recall if you were face-to-face with the outline of his di—

“It’s rude to stare, y’know.” Logan pulls his lips together, interrupting your thoughts. You try to not eyeball the bulge too hard, but it basically looked at you first.

The snug briefs do little to hide anything. They hide nothing, actually.

You almost scoff, but the playfulness in his tone tells you he couldn’t give a shit. He probably likes it anyway. From what you know, he definitely does.

“Oh, yeah, like you’ve ever cared about modesty,” you throw back, averting your gaze to the ceiling anyway.

It’s not that he runs around the mansion naked, but he definitely isn’t shy about what he looks like or against showing some skin. You’ve seen and heard enough over the past few months.

You hear a stifled chuckle as he joins you under the blanket without a retort. He knows you’re right. He’s just glad you’re a little lively and alert.

“Will you be okay for the rest of the night?” He brings both hands behind his head on the pillow, propping himself up a little.

“I should be fine,” you say confidently. “The challenge will be getting back to sleep.” You laugh in exasperation.

It’s always hard to calm down and get back to a place of tranquility after everything has settled with your mind. You’re pumped full of adrenaline and there’s not much that can curb something that persistent flowing through your body.

You haven’t found anything to help with it. Yet.

“There’s not many people that’ll understand what you go through,” he starts, voice rough with fatigue. “But I do.”

You look to him, sliding an arm under your pillow as you turn on your side. “How do you…help it.” You’re not sure if you phrased that right. It feels crude to reduce something so complex to the likes of a common cold that has an array of over-the-counter solutions.

“You don’t. It just has to run its course.” He looks to you, wanting to see your reaction.

It wasn’t meant to be hurtful or insensitive, but he’s not going to lie to you and say that things can only get better and that the worst is over. Especially for mutants, that’s not always true.

Although you don’t know what Logan lives with every day and sleeps with every night, you do know that his capacity for empathy is still intact. Here you are in his bed after all, seeing and indulging in a side of him that many never will.

You sigh lightly. “We’re quite the pair.”

A comfortable half-smirk slips over his lips. “I think we’re just fucked up insomniacs,” he suggests with a breathy exhale that’s close enough to a laugh.

You wish you could slide a thumb over the pulse in his wrist and see what’s haunting him, just to understand what happened to the Wolverine, but you’ve learned that doing so usually isn’t worth the price you’ll pay after. If what’s in his head is horrific enough to cause him to go through a couple mattresses a month, then it won’t do you any good either.

“I sleep pretty good with you,” you offer, seeing how he raises a brow in doubt almost instantly.

He sleeps well with you, too. It kind of rattled him when he noticed a pattern of uninterrupted nights and you being by his side. Not a single mattress ruined on those nights.

“Try not to knee me in the stomach tonight,” he deflects with ease. He takes his hands out from behind his head, sliding his left arm under the pillow as he turns over onto his side and closes his eyes. Facing you.

You mentally smack yourself. Multiple times. You didn’t think you drifted that much when you slept.

“No promises,” you mutter. You catch a small shake of his head before you let yourself join him in unconsciousness as you mirror each others lonely bodies.

━━━━

Your eyes ache—to open, to move, to touch. Enough crying will do that to you.Your eyelids are heavy, but there’s something else weighing down on you.

A tired groan crawls from your throat as you try to place yourself for a moment. The morning sun is just beginning to shine too brightly for your liking, and you squish your face deeper into the pillow.

You’re still tipsy with sleep, lying flat on your stomach, but there’s something dense and hot resting over your back.

You prop yourself up on your forearms, giving yourself a minute to wake up. You twist your hips around to sit yourself up, feeling the thing on your back slide down to your waist.

The blanket pools around your hips, and you feel a hand reflexively squeeze over the meat of your hip in disapproval of your moving. Something in you clenches at the sensation of something invading the area with ease. A spot reserved for intimacy.

Your head quirks to your right, seeing Logan on his stomach with his right arm thrown over your midsection.

You blink in surprise, staring at his sleeping body. His hair is sticking up every which way, his head half-off the pillow, his side of the blanket not even covering the curve of his ass anymore. It’s endearing to see the Wolverine in such a normal, human state.

But if someone were to walk in, it would look like you two spent the whole night fucking. A lot. That wakes you up a little more.

You peek over at the nightstand behind him and see the time blinking on his watch. It’s already 8 a.m.

You rest a hand over his shoulder to gently guide his arm off of you, but you stop yourself. Instead, you lightly trace your fingers down his shoulders and upper back a couple times, occasionally scratching softly over the ridges of muscle.

A shiver quickly rolls through his upper body, but your touch doesn’t fully wake him. He knows it’s just you.

It’s the least you can do for him as a thanks for recovering your broken body from the floor of your room and bringing you here when he didn’t necessarily have to.

It almost feels like instinct to offer comforting gestures to him. There’s something inside you that just pulls to him. You want to be the one that can give him comfort and help him put himself back together.

You want to be the only one.

━━━━ ● ━━━━

There’s a shadow that’s been following you around the mansion.

As soon as you stepped out of Logan’s room that morning a few days ago, it started.

This shadow likes to be nosy about what you’re doing. This shadow likes to be in your space. This shadow wants to be in your space. And he is.

No one has seen Logan out around the mansion this much, including you, and that’s how you noticed he’s basically been attached to your hip ever since he decided your back was a comfortable armrest.

He’s always just there, like a stray cat begging for food or affection. There to entertain you, banter with you, indulge you, in any way he can, including now as you trail back inside the mansion well behind Storm from an evening walkabout in the garden.

“No smoking in the courtyard,” you sing as you pass him carelessly, not even offering a glance to him in interest.

You like playing this game. Whatever it is. Constantly poking and prodding at each other to see what you can do to get the other to break in some way, no matter how slight.

Your heart flutters and flips every time; maybe from the thrill of it all, maybe from the arousal you get from the tension. You hope he feels everything, too.

He turns his head to watch you cross into the entryway. “Blow me,” he throws back playfully through a thick puff of smoke, leaning against the brick wall with a cigar pinched between two fingers.

You suppress a chuckle, keeping your unwavering pace. “Yeah, you wish!” You yell over your shoulder. You know he hears you. He wouldn’t let himself miss it.

Logan smirks and shakes his head in amusement, always impressed with your quick rebuttals that occasionally tent his jeans. He takes one last drag out of spite before following your footsteps inside.

You have become, by definition, friends…in a way. Even if you sorely cross the line into other territory more often than not. Sexual innuendos and friendly flirting can only go on for so long before the underlying intentions and meaning reflects real desires.

It’s evolved into more than just borrowing his bed a couple times or helping each other out. It’s surpassed the fear of whatever habit you were afraid of forming from doing so. It’s become a dependency to get that adrenaline high from simply riling each other up.

You have an assumption that if you were to end up in Logan’s bed again, somehow, there will be a point of no return that you’ll be faced with. There aren’t many more excuses that can be used for explaining to yourselves why you’re together in bed before you have to recognize the truth.

That platonic line is being stretched too thin, and you’re not sure how much farther it can go.

━━━━ ● ━━━━

“How’ve you been sleeping?”

“Fine. You?”

“Could be better.” Logan hides his smirk, but you can hear it in his voice.

You narrow your eyes skeptically as he fishes around in the fruit bowl sitting in the middle of the kitchen island.

“How so?” You ask. Your legs swing leisurely as you sit upon the chilled countertop on his left, idly waiting for Storm to show up and go with you to training.

A smug, tight-lipped grin flashes across his face, a green apple rolling around in his palms before he puts it back. “You could be there,” he provokes, his eyes bright.

It’s your turn to raise a brow at him, but you can’t stop your smile. “Oh?”

He turns to you, tenderly grabbing the tops of your thighs and parting them slightly to stand between your legs.

This isn’t the first time he’s done this, and he knows it rouses you in all the right ways. But, neither of you will do anything about it. Not even a brief kiss.

“Come on,” he goads, planting his hands down next to your hips, bringing himself in closer as he bears his weight on his arms. “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” He sways his head side to side to emphasize his point.

Fuck. That’s good.

That may be exactly what you did for him, but it’s now a figure of speech for something else entirely. It’s almost impossible to argue against either way, as if you want to. This is what you’ve been patiently waiting for.

You put your hands over his as you lean back a little to put some distance between you. “How sweet,” you hum.

His eyes flick from yours to your lips one too many times before you continue. “You start to miss me?” You tease as you lean forward again, echoing what he said to you the night your window got smashed in.

“Smart-ass,” he mutters as you laugh quietly. The tips of your noses barely graze each other as he steps in closer again. You’re almost at the same height like this.

“Save me the left side,” you advise, bringing your hands to his shoulders as you fondle his white t-shirt between your fingers. You’re so close, and he’s already so warm against you just like this.

“Always do.”

━━━━

You want to rip your heart out of your chest from how hard it’s pounding against your ribs. It’s almost throwing you forward with each heavy beat.

Three resounding knocks fill the hallway as you shuffle on your feet, waiting for Logan to open the door.

It feels like you’re doing something bad. Something parents would warn their kids against. Something greatly envied.

Everything inside you feels on fire. Your thoughts, desires, anxiety, all jumbling together into one distorted state of mind and body.

“Ah, welcome back.” His sarcastic tone makes your face go hot. A satisfied smirk crosses his lips as he runs a hand through his shaggy, unstyled hair.

You shake your head, pursing your lips. “Knock it off.” You gently shove at his bare chest. Misbehaviour already. But are you really surprised?

Logan grabs your wrist, delicately guiding you into his room. “You enjoy it,” he says lowly, quickly shutting the door as soon as you’re in.

“Maybe,” you hum in response, pulling away from his grasp and seeking out your side of the bed. Logan follows closely behind, giving your ass a light smack in encouragement before he cuts away to his side while you jolt in shock, a stunned look on your face as you whip your head around to him across the bed.

“Oh, really?” You scoff. He’s biting back a smile, not moving until he knows what you’ll do next. He’s never gone that far before.

“I’m sorry, that was rude—how can I make it up to you?” He almost chokes on a laugh, pulling his dog tag back and forth along the chain while he considers you.

This Logan is very different from the one you were met with the first night he let you in his space. This one is attentive and exuberant, yet he hasn’t given you much up until this point right now. You’ve gotten way too comfortable with him without even doing anything to you.

In this moment, he isn’t the brooding, animalistic Wolverine many see him as. He’s just Logan—for you.

You watch him carefully, easing yourself onto the bed. “Get in the fucking bed,” you slap his side of the mattress with a thump of your palm. “And do what you promised earlier,” you stare pointedly at him.

He owes you that “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” favour he decided to pull out to get you here.

“Mm, alright, alright,” he surrenders, a look of amusement still on his face as he kneels onto the bed. “I thought of a pretty good idea for it,” he says softly, crawling to sit next to you on top of the blanket as the bed-frame creaks with the added weight.

Your shoulders almost brush against each other. You shift, turning your body fully toward him. “Oh? Wh—woah!”

You squeal when his strong hands latch onto your sides, lifting you just enough to pull you over his legs to plant you on his lap. He leans back against the headboard, pulling on your thighs so you straddle him tightly.

He looks devilish when you catch his gaze again, and you know what’s coming. What’s been coming. Your hands find their places on his shoulders, warm and taut, as his hands hold your hips.

The bond between you will culminate tonight. It will be wrapped in a blanket and trapped between two alike souls that lie heart-to-heart in the dead of night. It will be perpetual.

The heat of him between your legs makes you restless. It’s just you, him, and the darkness in the quiet room you’ve become too familiar with.

“Logan…” you trail off bashfully when you feel something firm through his sweats poke against your cunt. It clearly doesn’t take much to excite him.

“Hm?” He takes you in for a split second, hands running from your hips up to your chest leisurely with a sharp inhale, not yet completely bothered by the fact that you have a shirt on.

You suck in a shaky breath when your hips accidentally shift over his bulge from his hands pushing and pulling over you.

“What’s the idea?” Your voice wavers.

You know what it is. He knows that. You just want to hear him say it and fill the silence.

“Something I’ve wanted for a while,” he murmurs, eyes hyper-focused on you.

Your fingers dance their way to the sides of his neck, brushing along the supple skin while you feel muscles and tendons flex with every slight movement. You subtly press the pad of your index finger against the pulse point right under his jaw, just to ground yourself and truly feel that Logan is there in front of you.

His pulse is steady but hard, much like yours, and the prickle of energy festering against the finger almost makes it go numb from not accepting it into your body.

“Show me, then.” You smile sweetly, leaning in closer while you tilt his head up with the hand under his jaw, your finger slipping from his pulse and caressing over the dense, coarse hair along his cheek.

Your noses bump while your lips part in anticipation. His eyes flutter as he falls into you and frantically claims your mouth in an unbreakable kiss.

The first kiss. Nothing could tear him from you in this moment.

Your hands cradle his cheeks, keeping him from pulling off too far. His hands scratch and paw at your back, trying to find a way to somehow get you closer against him.

It’s all a little messy, your lips mostly just mashing together without any rhyme or reason, but neither of you care. You only care about how electrifying it feels to finally have Logan and feel how perfectly connected you are together after all these nights. You go together like a key and its lock.

“Logan,” you pant when his mouth releases yours for a fraction of a breath. The seconds between kisses dwindle the more you take from each other.

Your thighs tense as he pulls half an inch away just to reconnect more crazed as his lips lock over your bottom one aimlessly. Something deep inside you trembles and aches.

He grunts, accidentally sucking the tip of your tongue briefly before slotting his lips back over yours in an apology. “Hold on,” he mumbles in a rush against your parted lips. He knows what you’re asking—or trying to ask. He snakes an arm up along your spine and wraps the other around your waist.

Then the world is tilting.

He drops you on your back on the bed from his lap, hovering over you as he distracts you with harsh but pleasing kisses and wet bites along your neck, settling his hips heavily between your thighs. You squirm and feel how bolts of arousal are making your cunt pulse involuntarily.

Logan groans. “Fuck—I can smell it. I smell you.” He slowly grinds his hips into yours almost reflexively. He squeezes his eyes shut, and you tip your chin up to press a chaste kiss to his slick lips.

“Taste…if you want to,” you propose, lightly scratching up and down his shoulders and arms, only enough to leave faint red lines for a couple seconds.

Logan’s eyes almost roll into the back of his head before he gives it a small shake, a conflicted look overtaking his face. “Of course I fucking want to, but—fuck—next time. I promise.” He swallows whatever you were going to say with a deep kiss that has you nearly shaking when he sucks on your bottom lip.

“Let’s just take things easy,” he says roughly, bearing his weight on his left arm while he tries to get your sleep shorts and underwear off.

A promise of a next time makes your brain go fuzzy like static.

“I’ll hold you to it, then,” you resolve, lifting your hips as much as you can for him to lean back and pull away to wrestle your clothes the rest of the way down your legs, discarding them just as quickly.

“I hope you will,” he breathes through a small laugh as he shuffles on his knees. He doesn’t want to completely overwhelm you and scare you off, he just wants to enjoy you in a simple way that won’t entirely ruin you for tomorrow.

He doesn’t know what you can or cannot handle, but he’s going to find out.

The fresh air in the room brushes cooly against your wet cunt. It’s a nice contrast to how fiery your whole body feels, but Logan feels even warmer than you somehow. Maybe wolverine’s just run hot.

His sweats have ridden down his hips from his desperate grinding against you, and the dangerous cut of his v-line grows more and more narrow as the waistband teases the reveal of what’s underneath.

You watch him—palming his dick once as your knees sway side-to-side in waiting. His thumbs hook under the stretchy fabric, working what remains of his clothes down his sturdy thighs.

“It’s rude to stare.” He pops a brow, a smug, arrogant grin quirking his lips.

You push yourself to sit up, considerably shorter than him in this position as he stands on his knees, and walk two fingers up his toned stomach to his chest, avoiding the hard cock between you.

He looks at you with curiosity until your hand grabs his dog tag in a fist, pulling it towards you. “Then stop showing me your dick,” you say as he leans in to your pulling a little to not have the chain break away.

You knew the night Logan dropped his pants in front of you and let you eye-up his bulge would come back to haunt you. But it’s alluring. Big. Curves a little to the left, barely noticeable. A respectable amount of hair decorates the space between his bellybutton and the base of his cock.

He gives in to the tension on the chain, falling back to the mattress with you and trapping you between his arms as his cock rests heavy on your clit.

“How about I find somewhere to put it?” His smile pushes a whole new wave of arousal from you.

“It would be a damn shame if you didn’t,” you say against his mouth, giving your hips a roll just to tease him before hugging his waist tightly with your knees.

“Good.” He gives you a strong kiss with a small grunt, running his hands over your sides under your shirt. The movement pushes it up, up, up, until you have no choice but to stretch your arms out above you and let him slide it off between more thoughtless kisses, leaving you entirely bare.

He lets you breathe for a moment, dipping his head to bite and suck marks along your collarbones messily. You squeeze around his hips harder, trying to get him to give you something other than his scratchy cheeks rubbing against your skin and the chilled steel of the dog tag dragging over your chest.

The tip of his cock falls and catches over your clit when he moves lower, licking and sucking over your chest like a starved animal finding food for the first time in a week. You gasp from the mixed sensations.

“C’mon, kitty cat, you can do all this while inside m-me,” you say breathily, fingers digging into his shoulders to stop yourself from trembling too much.

Logan bites over a nipple before pulling himself back up to look at you. “Is that a promise?” He says lowly, that stupid smirk gracing his face again.

“Try it and find out,” you demand, enjoying the sting of the deeper bites blooming on your torso.

He purses his lips, shifting his weight back onto his knees to grab ahold of his cock to angle and guide it in.

“Hm, guess no lube is needed,” he muses when he gets a look at your cunt, sparing you a glance through his lashes.

You roll your eyes shut when your whole body lights up red-hot. “Jesus fucking Christ, Logan,” you slap a hand over your eyes as you grimace. You don’t want to be that aware of your naked self right now.

He suppresses whatever expression was about to cross his face when his cock notches itself between your soaked folds, teasing your hole with the blunt tip. His brows pinch together and you forget the embarrassment from his crude remark.

But he leaves his cock like that, on the precipice of sliding the rest of the way in with a snap of his hips. Instead, he carefully uncurls his upper body to crawl his way back up to you while holding his hips deathly still.

“Alright, stay with me,” he whispers against your neck when you moan, pressing a tender kiss to your rabid pulse in reassurance.

“O-okay,” you sigh, running a hand through his hair and tugging at the roots while the other squeezes around his arm as best as it can. You’re not even really sure what he’s saying.

He kisses up your cheek and over to your lips again. You try to keep up with his quick mouth, licking and sucking whatever part you can get ahold of, but you’ve become lost in the feeling of him all over you.

He’s in your mouth, on your chest, against your stomach, nudging your cunt. Everywhere.

He slips his tongue over yours, securing your lips together at the same time he pushes his cock in halfway. Now you understand what he was saying.

The lightheadedness from being filled, even just a bit, almost makes you lose yourself. The stretch makes your stomach drop, your legs shake, and your mouth fall open with a whine.

“A-ah—fuck. Fuck, Logan,” you whimper, fisting his hair with both hands to stop yourself from falling apart.

He groans, either at the grip you have on his hair or how good your cunt feels already, and runs a hand up your left thigh in comfort as you squeeze around his hips tighter to draw him in.

“Just a bit more,” he soothes, trying to resist the urge to slide into you in one fell swoop. It would be so easy to just let his hips fall into yours and fill your cunt.

Another heated kiss, another few inches. He works his cock into you the rest of the way with ease. You guess the lube thing wasn’t really a joke. His hungry, needy kisses may have also helped with that.

You choke on your gasps, not wanting to get too loud, and Logan does the same. He tries to muffle both of your moans with his mouth, attempting to form complete kisses, but it just turns into you panting against each other as he finally bottoms out, hitting his end.

Your legs relax around his waist as he deftly rocks his hips in small thrusts to get you familiar with his size, his small grunts filling the air each time you swallow him whole.

You let out a deep breath, dropping your hands back to his tense shoulders. He lines your jaw with soft kisses, fisting the blanket in his hands beside your head.

“Fuck. Already feels too good,” he moans, pressing into you harder and unintentionally rubbing himself over your tender clit.

You smile, squirming while he works down your neck again. “Best of luck,” you huff, amused at the fact that he might not last as long as he wants to.

He brings his face back to yours, a completely blissful expression controlling his features, but there’s still some mischief in his hazel eyes. “Oh? Yeah?”

You hold each other’s gaze, both equally dazed and overwhelmed, and he draws his hips back and pushes into your wet cunt with a complete, strong thrust. The sound of his pelvis hitting against the backs of your thighs makes him laugh in pleasure and satisfaction when you instantly roll your eyes and head back.

Your cunt quivers, gripping him tight, and then it’s Logan’s turn to lose composure. He drops his head to your chest, managing a few deep breaths as he slowly pulls out halfway just to push right back into you, over and over.

It’s a pace that isn’t quite pure, mindless fucking, but it’s also not somewhere near earnest love-making. It’s something that feels specifically curated for you. Something that feels measured and sincere.

The strength of his thighs hitting against yours pushes you up the mattress a few inches, and you don’t know whether to gasp or moan. He reaches somewhere deep inside you, and you know he can feel that, too.

A helpless groan slips through Logan’s lips. “Where have you fucking been, huh?” He muses through shaky breaths, the determined plunge of his cock hitting something that makes your muscles tense throughout your body.

Your fingers tangle in the hair at the base of his neck, keeping him close. “Two doors down,” you giggle, understanding that’s not quite what he was asking.

“Fucking smart-ass,” he grumbles, silencing any further rebuttals with a wet kiss. You don’t think you could manage much more of a conversation even if you wanted to.

The silence is quickly filled with obscene sounds that only seem to leave you wetter and Logan throbbing. You can hear your bodies connecting through your gasping for air and his choked moans, and you can feel the mess you’re making all over him. It’s smeared along the inside of your thighs from how deep he’s been hitting. The squelching only seems to make him fuck into you harder.

Something inside you starts to grow tight and wind up in your core, making you repeatedly clench around him while his cock strokes all the right spots inside you as he makes sure he’s fucking himself in to the base. He doesn’t deprive you of anything.

He drops his head to your neck, wedging his face in to latch onto the spot right where your neck starts to slope into your shoulder. The dense muscle there gives him something to basically chew on, sinking his teeth in as deep as he can without drawing blood.

“H-hah, Logan,” you whine, tilting your head into the side of his and squirming from the pleasant sting.

You feel his arm move beside you, then you hear the sound of tearing fabric as he gives a particularly brutal snap of his hips, followed by a deep groan against your skin.

You can barely form any thoughts, but you can guess what just happened. If he pulled his hand back, three long, slim holes would probably be where his knuckles are right now.

“Fu-uck, Logan, you just got t-this mattress,” you laugh a little, your words choppy from how hard he’s driving into you now.

He draws back from your neck, seeing your half-lidded eyes trying to focus on him. “Can’t always control it,” he reasons, giving you two short, fleeting kisses as you hear his claws retract from the innocent mattress.

You see the double-edged sword. You can guess that that’s the same explanation he would probably use for the nightmares. It can go either way, and now you’ve seen both sides.

“It’s okay,” you say in a hushed tone. You cradle his face, and he rests his forehead against yours. “Keep going…keep going,” you coax, face scrunching from your nearing orgasm.

You can feel it in your toes, your stomach, your shoulders—you’re tightening up everywhere, and he can undoubtedly feel it in your cunt as you pulse around him. It grips him just right for a couple seconds before relaxing completely and leaving him to chase for more.

“Keep squeezing me like that and you’ll get whatever you want,” he offers, fighting to maintain his steady pace for both your sakes.

You almost whine, knowing whatever your body does is beyond your control at this point.

“Just—inside.” You can’t even string together a full sentence anymore, but the urgency and stress on the last word makes Logan’s ears perk up.

He presses a soft kiss to your clammy forehead in acknowledgment, the muscles in his arms straining and flexing as he grabs ahold of his own orgasm after a particularly inviting flutter of your walls.

You’re both walking the line, teetering on the edge of utter euphoria, and you know nothing will be the same after. You don’t want it to be. You hope it isn’t.

He reaches an arm back, sliding his hand up your thigh again and slotting it behind the bend in your knee. He pushes forward—only slightly—bringing your leg closer to your stomach to stretch you open for him.

His cock brushes over something new. Something that makes you bite your tongue. The angle lets him fit perfectly against you, not hindered by the flesh of your thigh stopping his hips.

You want to cry from how good it all feels. You want to be suspended in this feeling forever. You want Logan to—

“Focus, baby. Focus on me,” he coos, bringing you back to reality. He holds the side of your head with his other hand affectionately. “Come on…come on, I know you’re almost there,” he encourages with a quick kiss that goes straight to your stomach.

The burn in your thigh from the stretch can’t overpower the sparks of your orgasm, and Logan just fanned the flames with a few little words.

You come with a broken sob, convulsing around his cock while he fucks you through it, submitting to his own orgasm only seconds after with deep, shaky breaths as he empties himself inside your cunt.

He doesn’t pull out or pull away. He relaxes on top of you, sweaty and sticky with cum, and he places the barest whisper of a kiss on your chin, your parted lips, your nose, and then your forehead.

Your ears ring from your orgasm, eyes still slightly out of focus. Your body trembles from your muscles finally releasing the tension they’ve been caught up in.

You desperately suck in air, trying to calm your pounding heart, and you just lie there and let Logan walk your body through a cool-down. Soft kisses. Soft touches. Soft looks. Between sweat, cum, and whatever else.

He rocks a little on his knees, weak from his release, and carefully pulls out of you with a huff as he caresses your stomach and thighs appreciatively to wind you down. You get a good look at him. Not a scratch. His hair tells a story, though—one where he’s completely possessed by bliss.

You probably look like you survived an animal attack.

“Are we even?” Logan says through a kiss against your stomach.

A mindless laugh crawls from your throat, caught up in the feeling of his hands rubbing circles over your hips. “I think I still owe you,” you argue, resting your hands over his as they travel smoothly up your side.

You’ll find a way to make everything up to him. Including the sex. The scale is now tipping to his side too much. All the nights spent in his bed, what he’s done for you, what you’ve done for each other, may just be immeasurable, but that won’t stop you from finding a way to get him back for it all.

“We’ll figure it out,” he mumbles, snaking back up your body and pressing himself against you. Face-to-face. Chest-to-chest.

You mindfully run your hands over the sides of his head, trying to tame his hair and style it back to how it was earlier in the night. It doesn’t work. He enjoys it anyway.

“Do I have the pleasure of staying here tonight?” You ask rhetorically, enjoying the warmth of him on top of you against the brisk air creeping in from the cracked window.

Logan blinks. “You can stay every night.”

A loving smile springs over your face. This may be the beginning of the end to your troubles and worries.

You—maybe foolishly—trust him. You trust that he won’t accidentally bury his claws in your side during the night, but you’ve had impressive luck with that up until this point. The only thing you can do now is continue to push that luck.

Healing isn’t linear, and you can’t expect someone to fix you, but everyone finds their thing at some point.

You slither your hand down to his neck, index finger grazing over his pulse again. You feel the energy biting against you.

Your lips graze over his, tempting him to give you a slow, deep kiss. “Can I have the left side?” Rhetorical, again.

Logan chuckles against your mouth. “Always.”

#did my best to appease readers from the criticism i’ve seen about logan fics so. lol #logan howlett x you #logan howlett x reader #wolverine x reader #wolverine x you #logan howlett smut #wolverine smut #xmen x reader #xmen x you #xmen smut #hugh jackman x reader #hugh jackman x you #marvel smut #the wolverine x reader #x men x reader #logan howlett fluff #wolverine fanfiction

6K notes · View notes

iydiamartinx · 11 days ago

Text

GUILTY PLEASURES

Pairing: Jason Todd x Reader

divider by: cafekitsune & omi-resources word count: 1.8k synopsis: You cheat on your boyfriend Jason with the Red Hood a/n: To my anon who requested this hope you liked it! I had to rush through editing so apologies for any grammar errors y'all might find. warnings: 18+ mdni, use of the words whore & slut, a little rough.

Jason Todd had been tailing a weapons deal all night, dressed in full Red Hood gear, helmet and all. The scum he’d come to intercept were already zip-tied and unconscious in the back of a stolen van. Meanwhile, you had told him you were going out with your girlfriends and had stopped texting him about an half hour ago much to his worry, so instead of going home like he planned he decided for Red hood to make a pass by the club you had went to.

Which was why he was leaning against his bike, by the alley across the street watching the people entering and exiting. He straightened up as you stumbled out giggling with your friends and he huffed both annoyed and amused at the sight. You were in the middle of saying something, hands waving animatedly when you suddenly paused at the sight of him.

You said something to your friends before you began staggering towards him.

“Reeeeed!” you sang—sang—as you stumbled closer, high heels clacking on the wet pavement, your dress slightly askew and hair tousled from what looked like a hell of a night out.

Jason froze. “Y/N?”

You beamed, oblivious to his tension. “Youuuu know my name,” you hiccuped, staggering toward him with a grin that could short-circuit every neuron in his brain. “God, its not fair that your voice this hot.”

He coughed, straightening. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s late. And dangerous.”

You only grinned, as you staggered closer hand clutching his arm as you pressed yourself up against him. “Mhmm good thing I have a big bad crime lord to keep an eye on me.”

Jason cleared his throat unsure whether he should be amused or offended that you were flirting with him—well Red Hood.

You, meanwhile, were utterly unbothered.

In fact, you leaned closer, pressing up on your toes like you were about to tell him a state secret. “You know,” you whispered conspiratorially, breath warm against the edge of his helmet, “I think about you. Like… a lot.”

Jason swallowed. “Is that so?”

You giggle. “Mhm hm,” Your wandering fingers begin to trail up under his shirt, smile growing as you felt his muscles tense. “All those hard muscles, that sexy voice, you’re like every bad decision I’ve ever wanted to make all rolled into one.”

Jason sucked in a slow breath, jaw tightening behind the helmet. The feel of your fingers skating up his abdomen sent a jolt through him, and he hated—loved—how easily you could fluster him like this. Especially dressed like that. Especially talking like this.

You took advantage of his frozen state, your grin downright wicked as you nudged him backward, step by step, deeper into the alley’s shadows. His back hit the brick wall with a dull thud, but he didn’t resist. He just watched you, tense beneath the armour, like a predator unsure if he was about to pounce—or be devoured.

Your fingers slipped out from beneath his shirt, nails grazing down his chest plate before trailing lower—lower still—until they flirted with the waistband of his tactical pants.

“Y/N—” His voice was a warning. A plea. A prayer. He wasn’t sure which.

“Just relax, Hood… no one’s gotta know,” you purr, voice velvet-draped sin, your smile all teeth and temptation.

Jason’s jaw clenched, his breath catching as your fingers danced at the edge of his restraint—and his patience. He had fought crime lords, torn through ambushes, taken bullets without blinking…but you? You were something else.

The second your fingers brushed against him, Jason snapped.

In one fluid, furious motion, he spun you, pressing you up against the cold brick wall. His chest pressed hard into your back, the weight of him pinning you effortlessly in place. One gloved hand flattened against your stomach to hold you still, and the alley suddenly felt claustrophobic with heat and tension.

“Is this what you want?” he growled against your ear, voice rough and ragged. “To be bent over in a filthy alley and be taken by a criminal like some cheap whore?”

You let out a soft, breathless noise in answer—needy, aching—and pushed back into him deliberately, rubbing back against him. The sound he made in response was low and guttural, somewhere between a curse and a prayer.

The hand not holding you still began to unbuckle his belt as he unzipped himself just enough to set his throbbing length free. Then he gripped the hem of your dress and shoved it up with no patience at all, his fingers trailing fire against your bare skin. You felt the sharp tug as something tore, heard the hiss of his breath as his hand disappeared into his pocket of his jacket—where he stashed your now-ruined panties like a trophy.

The cold air brushing your exposed pussy had you whining, your voice breaking into a desperate whimper. “Please,” you breathed, unable to hold back. “Please.”

One gloved hand reached for your throat while the other wrapped around his hard length, lining himself up before thrusting into you in one smooth motion. You were dripping wet and offered no resistance as he slid inside you with ease, your eyes rolling back as a low groan rumbled from his chest. He was was so long and thick that he filled up every inch of you.

A loud whine tore past your lips and his hand moved to muffle your mouth as he pulled out. “You gotta be quiet doll, you don’t want everyone hearing me ruin you now do you?”

You tried to say something through his hand, but he chose that exact moment to thrust sharply back into you. Whatever words you had died in a needy moan as your cunt clenched down around his cock. The last of his restraint snapped at the sensation, and he began pounding into you in earnest.

Part of him knew how wrong and fucked up this was—you were technically cheating on him with the Red Hood. But at the same time, he was the Red Hood. So were you really cheating? The complication of it all only made him thrust into you harder, taking you rougher than he usually did.

He might’ve felt guilty—might’ve—if not for how much you seemed to love it. His hand shifted from your mouth, gloved fingers curling at your lips. You didn’t hesitate, taking them in eagerly, sucking around them, gagging and drooling as he pushed them deeper.

“That’s it, doll. Take everything I give you,” he groaned, voice low and cooing—a gentle contrast to the brutal pace of his thrusts. “Such a good girl, lettin’ me use your holes.”

The sounds echoing through the alley were utterly obscene—from the wet squelch of your pussy to the sharp slap of skin on skin, and the broken moans spilling past your lips as you begged for more.

“Mmmf—feels… s’good—fuck…” you mumbled around his fingers, the words wet and barely coherent, spit trailing down your chin where his hand kept your mouth stretched open.

“Look at you… so fucked out on my cock” He groaned, “You’re such a little slut taking it so well.”

The bruising grip around your waist shifted to your clit, his fingers rubbing fast, harsh circles that made your hips jerk as you cried out. But with his cock still buried deep inside you and his strength anchoring you in place, there was nowhere to go—no escape—as he worked you toward your orgasm.

It hit you hard and fast—your head falling back, your entire body tensing before collapsing into trembling aftershocks as stars danced across your vision. He kept pounding you through it, relentless, until he finally followed, burying himself deep as he came with a broken curse, emptying himself inside you.

For a long moment, the only sound that filled the silent alley was the sound of both your heavy, ragged breathing as you both fought to catch your breaths and calm your racing hearts. Your palms pressed flat against the brick wall, still trembling, while his body remained close behind—forehead resting against your shoulder, chest rising and falling against your back in rhythm with your own.

Neither of you spoke. Not at first.

Then, finally, the quiet was broken by the low rasp of Red Hood’s voice, “You know,” he drawled, still breathless, “I don’t think your boyfriend would approve of what we just did.”

You let out a breathless, incredulous laugh, your head tilting back just enough for your eyes to find him over your shoulder. “Oh no,” you murmured with mock concern, “you think he’ll be mad?”

Red Hood huffed as he carefully began to pull out of you, his cum immediately dribbling from your well-used hole. “Well, he certainly won’t approve.”

You turned to look at him, your eyes wide with faux innocence, lashes fluttering like you hadn’t just been thoroughly fucked against a brick wall. “Really?” you said, voice light, teasing—dangerously sweet. “Even after the mind-blowing orgasm we both just had?”

Jason froze. “What.”

You tilted your head, your grin only growing. “I know it’s you, Jason.”

Silence.

He blinked, eyes searching yours, as if he’d misheard. “What… how—”

“Baby,” you cut him off with a laugh, soft and incredulous. “You seriously thought I wouldn’t figure it out?”

Jason just stared at you, lips parting slightly. You could see the moment it fully registered, the sharp shift behind his eyes as his mind caught up.

“You knew this whole time?” he asked, almost in disbelief.

You huffed and rolled your eyes as you tug down your dress. “I wouldn’t cheat on you, Jason. Come on. I’ve known for months. You’re not exactly subtle.”

His mouth opened, but you kept going, voice now edged with affection and amused exasperation. “You leave your gear everywhere. Under the bed? Really? That’s your big secret hiding spot?”

Jason let out a groan and dragged the helmet off his head, revealing sweat-mussed hair and a flushed, stunned expression caught somewhere between impressed, exasperated, and undeniably aroused.

“You are such a menace,” he muttered as he pulled you in, his voice low and full of something torn between amusement and affection.

Your hands came up to cup his face, fingers brushing along his jaw, thumbs stroking gently across flushed skin. His eyes flicked shut at the touch, just for a second—like he couldn’t help but melt into you, even after everything.

“Yeah,” you murmured, a soft smile tugging at your lips, “but I’m your menace.”

Your lips met softly, a gentle contrast to everything that had come before. When you finally pulled away, your expression shifted into something sheepish.

“You’re gonna have to carry me,” you mumbled, still breathless. “I don’t think my legs are working after how hard you fucked me.”

He snorted, the sound low and amused, as he smoothly lifted you into his arms without so much as a grunt of effort. “We still have all night,” he said, glancing at you with a wicked glint in his eye. “And trust me… you won’t be walking properly for a week.”

And with that, he carried you off to his bike, so he could take you back to the apartment to get started on round two.

#jason todd fic #jason todd one shot #jason todd x reader #jason todd #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x you #red hood x you #red hood x reader #red hood #red hood x y/n #redhood x reader #redhood x you #♡ written with love #⋆｡°⟢ the thirsty corner #jason todd smut #red hood smut

1K notes · View notes

carnalcrows · 30 days ago

Text

The one with the Scandal

pariring: rockstar! male OC x male reader [profile]

summary: You’re not dating him. You don’t even like him like that. He’s younger. He’s your job. He’s also apparently into fixing your collar, looking at you like you’re his, and letting the entire fanbase run with it. You’re just trying to not get fired. He’s making it really hard.

content warnings: 18+, idol/manager dynamic, bottom male reader, Jiho is younger but he is in control, reader is spiraling professionally but holding it together (barely), scandal via leaked video, yandere tendencies if you squint, oral (reader receiving), Jiho calls the reader Hyung, someone is watching. also: subtle HR violations and bad decisions made in very quiet hallways.

word count: 3.1k

White Eclipse’s manager's job description didn’t include “babysit rockstars,” but here you were at 6:47 a.m., standing outside the dorm in socks, trying to get a key card to work while someone inside was blasting what could only be described as sad trap piano.

You didn’t bother knocking. They never heard it anyway.

The door opened a beat later—Jiho, hoodie half-on, eyes still sleepy, holding a toothbrush like it was a weapon.

“Oh,” he said, voice rough. “Thought you were food.”

You blinked. “It’s me.”

He nodded. “Right.”

Then he just… stepped aside to let you in.

No apology. No explanation.

You used to be surprised by things like that. Not anymore. It’d been seven months since you took over as White Eclipse’s full-time manager. Seven months of group chats at 2 a.m., misplaced earrings, broken in-rooms, passive-aggressive silence in makeup chairs. You were barely keeping the group running. You didn’t have energy left for things like normal boundaries.

Jiho wandered back down the hall. You followed, because your job required it. Not to hover, just to check the morning schedule—radio taping, press call, one-on-one interview for Juhwan. Makeup in twenty.

“You slept?” you asked, mostly to check.

Jiho shrugged. “Eventually.”

“Eat something before we go.”

He didn’t answer, which usually meant no.

You sighed, already noting it down in the log.

⋆｡°✩

The van ride was quiet, except for Doyun humming aggressively off-key to a song no one else liked. You were seated up front, checking your tablet, trying to remember if anyone had confirmed Jiho’s brand outfit for the shoot. You didn’t hear him move until he leaned forward between the seats.

“Hyung,” he said. His breath ghosted the side of your neck, too close.

You didn’t flinch, but your fingers stilled.

“Yes?”

“You left your charger last time.”

He held it out—your USB-C cable, neatly wrapped.

You blinked. “You… kept it?”

He gave a half-shrug. “Figured you’d come back for it eventually.”

Then sat back like nothing happened.

You turned toward the window. The city rolled by in silence. You didn’t say thank you.

You weren’t sure you wanted to know what else he was keeping track of.

⋆｡°✩

The radio taping was delayed by forty minutes. Not that anyone told you until you were already standing in the green room, watching the stylist re-iron Taeyang’s shirt while Juhwan paced like he was on trial.

You were half-listening to a PD explain the new segment structure when Jiho appeared beside you again—like he always did, like gravity.

He didn’t say anything. Just handed you a bottle of water.

You took it automatically.

A few seconds passed before you glanced over.

“…This isn’t mine,” you said.

“It’s cold,” he replied. “You like it that way.”

You blinked, unsure how to respond to that.

He didn’t stick around for a reaction—just walked back to the couch and sat, legs crossed, earbuds in, expression unreadable as ever. Like it was nothing. Like he hadn’t just said something small and specific enough to stick in your brain like a splinter.

You told yourself it was normal. He probably remembered from a post-schedule snack run. He was observant. That was all.

It didn’t mean anything.

But when the boys were being ushered into the booth, he lingered again.

Waited until the others were out of earshot.

Then said, “You looked tired yesterday.”

Your hand paused on the equipment list.

“…That’s not part of your job description.”

Jiho gave a half-smile. Small. Secret.

“Neither’s remembering your charger.”

You didn’t smile back.

You wanted to.

You didn’t.

⋆｡°✩

That night, you stayed at the company building longer than you meant to. Not unusual—schedules had to be reshuffled, the stylists were panicking about a delivery delay, and someone had somehow misplaced two of Doyun’s in-ear backups despite the fact that you’d personally labelled them in obnoxiously bold font last week.

By the time you packed your bag, the halls were half-dark and the lights in the vocal practice room were still on.

You almost didn’t look.

You almost walked straight past.

But you didn’t.

Jiho was there. Again.

Seated on the floor, guitar in his lap, hoodie sleeves pushed up. His face was lit only by the screen of his phone, and he looked so relaxed—so out of uniform—that it threw you off for a second.

He didn’t see you right away. But the second you stepped into the room; his fingers stilled on the frets.

He looked up. And didn’t look away.

“…You live here now?” you asked dryly, trying not to let your voice give anything away.

“Only if you do,” he said, which wasn’t funny, but it made your mouth twitch anyway.

You sat on the bench near the wall, just to rest for a minute. Just to breathe.

Jiho shifted slightly, setting his guitar down.

“They let you have solo schedules today?” he asked.

You shook your head. “Temporary probation.”

He hummed. “For what?”

You gave him a look. “You really want me to spell it out?”

“I want to know what they think happened.”

His tone wasn’t teasing. It wasn’t particularly curious, either. Just steady. Like he was testing something.

You didn’t answer.

He stood slowly and crossed the room, not close, not quite, but just enough that the air changed.

“I know what I felt Hyung,” he said.

Your jaw tightened. “You can’t say stuff like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m your manager.”

He smiled, the kind that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Not lately.”

That sat in the space between you, heavy and uncomfortable and true.

You stood up, suddenly. Bag over your shoulder. Shoes already pointed toward the door.

Jiho didn’t stop you. Didn’t move. Just said, quiet and sure,

“Then what are you still doing here?”

⋆｡°✩

You’re already at the studio before the sun finishes rising, two iced Americanos in hand, and neither of them are for you.

The schedule’s stacked—two back-to-back interviews, followed by a commercial shoot, and then a fitting for a brand collab you only got confirmation for at midnight. You don’t even realise you’ve been typing out emails with your neck tilted and your jaw clenched until someone passes behind you and mutters, “Hyung, you’re gonna shatter your teeth.”

It’s Doyun.

You don’t respond. Just hand him one of the coffees and tell him to finish it before makeup.

Jiho’s the last one out of the van when you arrive at the venue. Hoodie up, expression blank, one earbud in. He doesn’t speak until the others have wandered off in different directions. You’re halfway to the front doors, double-checking a logistics note, when he suddenly says behind you, “You forgot your charger... again.”

You stop walking.

“I didn’t.”

He holds it up anyway. Neatly wrapped. Slightly warm, like he kept it in his pocket.

“Don’t leave your stuff around if you don’t want me touching it,” he adds.

It’s not flirtatious. Not playful.

Just a little… too direct.

You take it from him without meeting his eyes.

By the time the day wraps, you’ve been on your feet for nearly eleven hours, you’re starving, and you’ve answered the same three questions from the same sponsor rep three separate times.

You’re in the back hallway finishing a call when the door beside you creaks open.

Jiho again.

Of course.

He doesn’t say anything. Just leans against the wall next to you, close enough that your shoulders almost touch.

“Is there a reason you’ve been following me around like a ghost today?” you ask, keeping your voice flat.

“Maybe.”

You roll your eyes. “You’re not subtle.”

“I’m not trying to be.”

There’s a beat of silence between you.

“You know they’re already watching,” you say quietly. “Even if nothing happens.”

He shrugs. “Then let them.”

You stare straight ahead. If you look at him now, you might say something you can’t take back.

He leaves without another word.

⋆｡°✩

It starts the next morning, before you’re even fully awake.

Your phone lights up with a buzz sharp enough to break through sleep, and the notification preview makes your blood run cold.

You don’t open it at first.

You already know what it is.

You sit up in bed, screen half-lit, and there it is:

A video.

Low-res, muted, zoomed in from somewhere behind the practice room window.

You, standing in front of Jiho.

Him, fixing your collar like he’s done it a hundred times before.

You, frozen.

Him, looking at you like no one else exists.

WHO is that? he looks like STAFF??? That’s the manager hyung. I’ve seen him in airport vids. They’re so domestic, what the hell 😭😭 The way he looks at him, oh my god, he’s SO GONE idc if it’s fake, this is the best ship in K-pop rn

It’s only ten seconds.

But that’s all it takes.

You can’t breathe.

The DMs are already coming in. Three calls from PR. One from someone in legal. Your group chat with the other managers is blowing up, and your name is already trending.

You close the app.

Open your notes app.

Start typing an apology that no one’s asked for yet.

Jiho.

Then you stop.

Because your phone buzzes again.

A single text.

[ come up to the roof.]

You stare at it.

Ignore it.

Then, against your better judgment, you go.

⋆｡°✩

The rooftop is quieter than you remember.

It’s probably not even technically accessible—some intern left the door propped open during a late-night smoke break once, and now everyone pretends it’s still locked. You used to come up here alone. That was before. Before the video. Before the call from PR. Before your name started appearing in the trending bar.

Now Jiho’s already here, hoodie sleeves bunched up to his elbows, fingers curled around a can of grape soda that’s starting to sweat through the aluminium. He looks like he hasn’t moved in an hour. Like this isn’t the first time he’s sat here, waiting for you.

You shut the door behind you.

He doesn’t turn to look at you immediately. Just nods toward the railing beside him.

You don’t sit.

“You saw it?” you ask.

He hums in response. You’re not sure if that’s a yes or a who hasn’t?

“You’re not panicking.”

He finally turns. There’s no smile. No bite. Just his usual unreadable calm.

“Should I be?”

You almost laugh, sharp and humourless. “This isn’t a joke.”

“I know.”

He tosses the soda can into the nearby bin without looking. Deadcentrer.

You cross your arms. “They’re going to kill this. Quietly. I’m already off the schedule for next week.”

“I noticed.”

You expect a flicker of regret. Frustration. Some trace of guilt.

You get none.

Instead, Jiho steps closer—not aggressive, just deliberate. There’s no camera up here. No PR team. No lighting cues or stylists, or handlers. Just him. Just you.

“They think we’re together,” he says, voice low.

You don’t answer.

“Maybe we should be.”

You look away. “Don’t do this.”

“Do what, Hyung?”

“Say things you can’t take back.”

He’s close enough now that you can feel the warmth from his body—his chest rising slowly, steadily. He doesn’t try to touch you. That would be too easy. Too obvious. Instead, he just stands there like gravity, like inevitability.

“I’ve been waiting for something to break,” he says, quieter now. “I just didn’t think it’d be a ten-second clip.”

You inhale through your nose. Try to stay steady.

“I’m older than you,” you say.

“So?”

“I’m your manager.”

He leans in—not touching, not yet.

“Not today.”

The silence between you hangs, taut and electric.

Then you walk away.

You don’t run.

But you don’t look back.

⋆｡°✩

You don’t answer his messages after that.

Not because you don’t want to. You just don’t trust yourself to say something that won’t get screenshotted and sent to HR. You spend the rest of the day buried in logistics—flipping through updated schedules, emailing photographers, pretending your phone isn’t buzzing every hour with a new article, a new fan edit, a new speculative thread. You don’t see Jiho for the rest of the day, and you let yourself believe maybe that rooftop conversation didn’t mean anything.

Then he shows up at your apartment.

It’s late—past midnight. You’re wearing an old shirt and mismatched socks, half-asleep, when the intercom buzzes. You think it’s a food delivery at first. You didn’t order anything. But when you answer, all you hear is—

“Hyung— It’s me.”

You don’t open the door right away. You hesitate. Long enough to consider what this will mean if you do.

But when you finally unlock it, he’s standing there. Hoodie off. Cap gone. Just Jiho—his real face, glasses slightly fogged from the night air. He looks calm. Like he’s been here before.

You don’t ask him why he came. You don’t need to.

He steps inside like he’s done it before, like this is normal— hoodie slung over one shoulder, hair pushed back messily from his face. He looks like he belongs here, even though you’ve never invited him in, not really. You tell yourself you’re only letting this happen because you’re exhausted. Because there’s no one else around. Because you’ve already been dragged into the narrative, so what’s one more mistake?

But you know better.

You always have.

You lock the door behind him and turn to find him watching you like he’s memorising something.

“You always leave it open when you’re nervous,” he says.

You blink. “What?”

“The collar. You don’t button the top one. You fidget with it when you’re trying not to look at me.”

You don’t say anything. There’s nothing to say.

Jiho walks past you—through the short hallway, into the living room, casual like he’s heading for the kitchen. He doesn’t. He stops at the edge of the couch and looks back.

“You gonna keep pretending?”

You cross your arms defensively. “Pretending what?”

“That you don’t want me to stay.”

That lands harder than you expect. Not because he’s wrong. But because you’ve been trying so hard to keep that exact thing from showing on your face for weeks.

And maybe you haven’t been as successful as you thought.

When you don’t answer, he turns fully. Walks up to you slowly, deliberately, until the heat from his body reaches your chest and you have nowhere else to go.

He touches the collar of your shirt. Just the fabric. No skin. Yet.

“You should stop wearing this,” he murmurs.

“Why?”

“Because I want to take it off.”

Your breath catches. He hears it. You know he does.

Then, carefully, he undoes the top button. Then the next. You don’t stop him.

“You’re shaking,” he says softly.

You didn’t even realize.

“I—Jiho, this is—”

“Too late.”

He steps forward. Presses his mouth to yours—once, slow and sure. He doesn’t rush it. Doesn’t push. But there’s heat behind it. Control. Like he’s waited long enough, and he’s not going to let you talk your way out of it now.

You kiss him back.

⋆｡°✩

He leads you to the bedroom without speaking, only touching you where he needs to—your wrist, your hip, the small of your back. You sit on the edge of the bed, and he kneels without hesitation, hands sliding up your thighs, eyes locked on yours.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he tells you. “But you don’t get to lie to me either.”

You nod.

That’s all he needs.

Jiho peels your pants down with practised fingers, pushing them past your hips, then your briefs. You’re already half-hard, pulse thudding like your body’s already a step ahead of your thoughts.

He leans in. Licks a slow stripe up the underside of your cock.

Your hands twitch at your sides. You don’t touch him. Not yet.

He doesn’t look up when he takes you into his mouth. Just sinks down, slow and steady, jaw relaxed like he’s done this a dozen times—maybe not for anyone else, but in his head, you’re sure he’s thought about it. Over and over.

His tongue presses firmly along the base. His lips seal around you, and he moans—soft, like it’s for him, not you. The vibration makes your knees buckle.

He takes his time. Pulls off to suck at the head, just enough to make you gasp. Then down again—deeper, sloppier now, until your cock hits the back of his throat and he still doesn’t stop.

You manage his name. Once. Barely.

His hands grip your thighs, firm and steady, keeping you in place. He sucks you down again and again, never breaking eye contact, never faltering. He wants you to watch. To know exactly how far he’s willing to go.

When you start to lose control—hips stuttering, breath slipping—he only tightens his hold and hums around you again. That pushes you over.

You come with a choked breath, your hand in his hair, every nerve lit up. He doesn’t pull back. Doesn’t spill a drop.

When it’s done, when your heart’s still racing and your fingers are trembling, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand like it’s nothing.

Then he leans in again, not to kiss you, but just to speak.

Voice low. Calm. Possessive.

“Next time,” he murmurs, “you’re going to beg for it.”

⋆｡°✩

You wake up before your alarm.

The light in your bedroom is pale, soft, barely filtered through your blinds. The air is cool against your skin, your sheets kicked halfway off the bed, your body still aching in that strange, satisfying way. Not sore. Just… used. Thoroughly.

Jiho is still asleep beside you.

His hand is curled against the pillow, palm up, fingers relaxed like he has nothing left to chase. His mouth is parted slightly. His hair’s a mess. One leg is tangled with yours beneath the blanket.

You lie there for a moment, still and quiet.

You don’t know what time he fell asleep. You don’t know if he meant to stay. You don’t even know if he thinks this was a one-time thing or the start of something. You should care.

You do care.

You just don’t know what to do with it yet.

Eventually, you get up. Carefully. Quietly.

You don’t leave the room, just stand near the doorway, shirt half-on, trying to figure out what you’re supposed to feel. It doesn’t feel like a victory. Or relief. It just feels inevitable.

You reach for your phone out of habit. You’ve got two unread messages.

One from your replacement manager, asking if you’re available for a rescheduled meeting later in the week.

And one from an unknown number.

[hope you enjoyed last night. This is just the beginning.]

No context. No name. But your stomach drops anyway.

You read it again.

And again.

Behind you, Jiho shifts in the sheets.

You don’t turn around.

Not yet.

Taglist: @zolass @edensrose @tamias-wrld @ilovesugurugeto69 @planetxella @mazettns @longlivegojo @midnight-138 @literallyrousseau @vimademedoitt @useless-n-clueless @flatl1n3 @hikaurbae @lexkou @razefxylorf @abrielletargaryen @coco-145 @eagleeyedbitch @deathofacupid @gayaristocrat @porcalinecunt @whatsaheartxx @thecringes2000 @sageofspades @g4vcat @itsrandompersonyall @blvdprn @blueemochii @sappychat @onyxxxxqq @axetivev @s1llygo0s3 @crazydirectioner2000-blog @thestarsallowed @honey-valentin3 @academiq @gaozorous-rex-blog @idkmissgurl @sa1ki-deactivated20250510@sooniebby @seomn

2K notes · View notes

oopsiedaisydeer · 2 months ago

Text

use me ...in which matt lets you use him on your period

smut, period sex, dry humping, mutual masturbation, friends with benefits, consent, needy reader, cum in boxers, messy, vulnerability

word count - 1.7k

It’s past midnight when the credits roll.

You’re curled up against Matt’s side, cheek pressed to his shoulder, legs tangled under the covers. The heating pad is long cold, cramps dull but still lingering, your body heavy with that warm, needy ache that always sneaks up on day two. You’re sore, yes, but also so, so needy. Everything feels extra sensitive. Your thighs rub together every time you shift, and the soft drag of your pad is just enough to make you clench.

You’ve been subtly rocking your hips, chasing that perfect pressure, but Matt notices.

His hand shifts on your back. “You alright?”

“Mmhm.” You nuzzle closer, embarrassed. “Just… can’t get comfortable.”

He pauses. You can feel him thinking. Then, quietly, he asks, “Is it cramps or…?”

His voice trails off, cautious.

You open your mouth to respond, but then stop. Swallow the rest. You don’t want to say needy. Don’t want to admit the way you’ve been rocking down into every little flicker of pressure, how warm and swollen everything feels, how your brain’s fuzzy with it, full of this low, rolling kind of want. But he already knows. Of course he does.

“God. Is it that obvious?”

His hand stays where it is. “A little.”

You sigh, frustrated and turned on and breathless as you shake your head.

“It just… feels good,” you mumble. “The pressure. I don’t know. I get weirdly horny on my period.”

He clears his throat, fingers curling lightly against your hip as he speaks softly. “I don’t wanna make it weird, but… if it helps to, like, move a little… you can. I don’t mind.”

You blink up at him. “Like… how?”

He shrugs one shoulder, careful not to jostle you. “I don’t know. You could use my leg? Or, like, if you wanted to be on top of me, I wouldn’t, like, not in a weird way, but I’d let you.”

Your stomach flips. You stare at him for a long beat, your heart fluttering in your throat.

“Really?”

He nods, eyes soft. “Whatever you need. I mean it.”

And god, you need it. The ache between your legs is unbearable now. You shift, moving to straddle him carefully, your thighs snug on either side of his hips. The pad presses right against your core, right against him.

“You’re sure?” you ask, breath catching.

He looks up at you like you hung the stars. “Yeah.”

So you move. Slowly at first, grinding your hips in tiny circles, letting the pad catch against the soft fabric of his sweats, and fuck, it’s instant relief. The friction, the heat, the weight of him under you. You moan without meaning to, forehead dropping to his shoulder.

He exhales sharply when your hips stutter, when the soft, wet sound slips between you. Matt’s hands hover before settling on your hips, not pushing, just there. Steady. Supportive.

“You okay?” he asks, voice tight.

You nod quickly. “It just… feels good.”

You rock against him, a little faster now, and you feel it. Him. His cock thickening beneath you, twitching in his boxers with every pass of your hips. You’re grinding on him now, properly, your body pulsing with each drag of fabric on fabric.

“Is that—?”

“Yeah,” he says, quiet, almost guilty. “Sorry.”

You glance down. His cock hard against you, thick under the soft fabric of his sweats.

You press your forehead into his shoulder. “You don’t have to be sorry.”

He groans, like it physically pains him to hear you say that. “You’re on your period.”

You nod. “Still want to feel good.”

Your hips roll again, higher, this time. You’re not on his thigh anymore. You’re grinding against him now. Right against the thick line of him, clothed and leaking and tense.

He lets out a low, wrecked sound. “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I’m just… really sensitive. It’s all I’ve been thinking about. All day.”

“You’re gonna kill me,” he breathes, eyes squeezed shut. But he doesn’t stop you. If anything, his hands grip your hips tighter, guiding you as you grind against his cock.

It’s messy and hot and desperate. You’re both still clothed, but the slick sound of your soaked underwear is unmistakable. You can feel how wet you are, feel the way his cock twitches beneath you every time you whimper.

“Sorry,” you whisper. “Really didn’t mean to get you…”

“I already told you. Don’t apologise,” he breathes, hands tightening slightly. “Feels good. You feel…”

He groans when you roll your hips harder.

“Fuck, baby. You feel amazing.”

The nickname slips out, and it sends a thrill straight through you. You whine, soft and high, picking up pace until you’re panting, chasing the friction like it’s oxygen. His cock’s pressed right against your core now, and you swear you could come just from this, just from the pressure, the stretch, the way the pad drags slick and wet between you.

“Matt,” you gasp, “I think. Fuck, I think I’m close.”

His hands hold you tighter, rocking his hips up just slightly, helping you ride him. “That’s it. Just like that. Come for me.”

His hands are steady on you now, grounding you, letting you move exactly how you need. His cock is thick and hard beneath the layers of fabric, and the pad only adds to the pressure, the extra tension. The way it presses perfectly into your clit each time you roll down. And everything’s so sensitive. So warm. The ache that’s been sitting low in your belly all day finally finding its outlet.

You grind down one more time, sharper, and your whole body locks up, toes curling, legs trembling, a gasp torn from your throat as the orgasm washes over you. It’s sharp and pulsing, like your nerves are fluttering right under your skin. Your stomach tightens, hips stuttering as you ride it out, and you swear you can feel it through your entire core, heat and wet relief and the bittersweet release all tangled together.

Your clit throbs, oversensitive already, but you don’t want to stop. You don’t think you can. You keep moving in little desperate pulses, chasing the last waves, whimpering into Matt’s neck as your thighs twitch uncontrollably.

After a beat, you murmur, “That was…”

“A lot,” Matt finishes, brushing your hair back. “But… in a good way?”

You nod, cheek pressed to his heartbeat. “In a really good way.”

You sit for a moment, breathing against him, as a comfortable silence settles between you.

Your head’s still buried against his shoulder, breaths shallow, skin flushed and buzzing, but you realise he’s hard beneath you. Still. You can feel the weight of him, thick and hot against the damp press of your pad, and something about that makes you throb all over again.

You shift your hips slightly. His breath catches.

“Sorry,” you murmur, but your voice sounds more curious than apologetic. “You didn’t…”

Matt shakes his head, quick, breathless. “No. I mean, yeah, I’m fine. You don’t have to…”

“I want to.”

You lift your head, look down at him, and he’s already looking up at you like you’re the sun.

Your thighs are sticky with sweat and heat and the faint mess of it all, but the weight of your body over his, the way you’re still straddling him, it feels natural. Like something you’ve done a hundred times and somehow never done at all.

“I just…” you bite your lip, rocking gently against him, slow and shy. “You’re so hard, Matt. You let me, fuck, you let me use you like that. I wanna make you feel good, too.”

His hands flex at your hips, and you feel the twitch of his cock beneath you.

“You already do,” he says softly. “You, Jesus, you have no idea.”

You smile, dazed and drunk on the way he’s looking at you. Then you roll your hips again, slow and deliberate, and this time it’s for him. Your pad is soaked now, warm and slick, and it makes the friction that much heavier, deeper. Your clit still tingles from before, and each grind sends tiny electric sparks back through your body, but you focus on him.

The way his jaw clenches. The way his eyes flutter shut. The stutter in his breath when you drag your hips forward, pressing your heat right against his cock.

“You like that?” you ask, voice low, velvety with afterglow.

He nods, brows knit, eyes squeezed shut. “Too much.”

You keep moving, your rhythm messy now, more instinct than control. Every time your core drags over him, you feel the thick line of his cock push against you, just right, and it makes your stomach flutter. Your pad squelches faintly, soaked through, but Matt doesn’t seem to care. If anything, it makes him groan deeper.

“Can’t stop thinking about it now,” you whisper, almost to yourself. “How you’d feel inside me. When I’m like this. Full and sore and warm and so, so…”

“Fuck, baby,” he chokes out, fingers digging into your hips. “You’re gonna kill me.”

You lean down, kiss the hinge of his jaw, the corner of his mouth. You’re both damp with sweat and heat and something heavier that neither of you can name.

But it doesn’t need to go further. Not yet.

You slow your hips, still pressing close, drawing little circles against the hard ridge of him. You can feel he’s close. His whole body’s gone tense underneath you.

“You can come like this,” you murmur, lips brushing his ear. “Just like I did. I want you to.”

And he does.

It happens fast, his hips bucking once, then twice, and then he’s gasping into your neck, breath ragged as he spills into his boxers, the warmth of it blooming between you. He clutches you tight like he might float away otherwise.

You both go still. Just breathing. Your heart racing where it rests against his chest.

After a minute, he laughs, soft and stunned. “Holy shit.”

You giggle, pressing a lazy kiss to his cheek. “Yeah.”

He hums, thumb brushing your back. “Did you mean it, when you said…” He trails off.

“Yeah,” you say again, smiling against his skin.

“Next time, then.” He says quietly, and you nod, neither of you moving to get up. You just stay there. Wrapped in each other, warm and messy and underwear soaked.

credits to rose for the dividers!! @bernardsbendystraws

a/n: i need to dry hump matt on my period it's state mandated

main taglist: @sturnslutz @snoopychris @sturns-mermaid @shortnsweetsturnz @cowboylikenat @camzeecorner @courta13 @sweetshuga @st7rnioioss @throatgoat4u @shadowthesim237 @emely9274 @sturnberries @bluestriips @lovergirl4gracieabrams @chrisslut04 @tezzzzzzzz @strnilolover @vanteguccir @chrislova @riasturns @sturnsblogs @darksturnz @httpssturns @mi-co-uk @ribbonlovergirl @lovesturni0l0s @grace-sturnz @auttysturnz @kier-with-a-k @malsmind @edu4rd0ss

till next time!!

2K notes · View notes

imtaashu · 12 days ago

Text

The Curl Theory

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Your hair mysteriously starts curling overnight. At first, it’s just weird. But everyone’s convinced it’s the infamous “hair theory”—that your hair changes when you’re falling in love. You deny it… until Bucky shows up with coffee and a sleepy smile.

Genre: Fluff | Friends to Lovers | Domestic Softness | Hair Theory Inspired

Word Count: ~2k

💌 Author’s Note: hi! i wrote this little story based on the internet’s “hair theory” — the idea that your hair changes (especially curling!) when you’re falling in love. i thought it’d be cute to spin it into something soft for bucky & reader 🫶

craving clingy bucky or emotional destruction? — masterlist is right here baby 🫶🏻

You wake up, stretch, and blink into the soft golden light pouring through your apartment window. It’s Saturday. No missions, no chaos, no alarms. Just quiet.

And for once, you actually slept.

You roll out of bed and shuffle to the bathroom, ready to splash your face with cold water. But the moment you look in the mirror— “What the hell?”

Your hair. Your usually straight hair. It’s curled. Not soft, wavy curls. No. These are curls. Springy, bouncy, absolutely not normal.

You frown and poke at them like they might bounce off your scalp if you’re aggressive enough. You haven’t used heat in days. There’s been no humidity. No new products. No pillowcase change. No logical explanation.

Except, of course…

“Oh my god,” you whisper, eyes wide. “No. No no no—”

The hair theory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You remember hearing it from Nat a few weeks ago, when she was scrolling through TikTok with her feet on your coffee table.

“Apparently,” she said, “when you start falling in love, your hair literally changes. Like… more volume, shine, texture. Especially curls. Love makes your hair curl.”

You’d laughed. Loudly. Science doesn’t work that way, Romanoff.

But now?

Now you’re staring at your reflection, jaw slack, and your hair looks like it belongs in a commercial.

And you have a terrifying suspicion as to why.

Or rather… who.

————————————————————————————

Because Bucky Barnes moved in across the hall six months ago. And you swore it meant nothing.

Just an ex-assassin-turned-soft-heart who brought you bagels after bad missions, made you tea without asking, and sat on your couch like he belonged there.

Just a guy who looked at you like you were something steady in his whirlwind life.

Just your friend.

Right?

Wrong.

Because now your hair is curling and your brain is spiraling. You step back from the mirror, staring at your own reflection like it just exposed your deepest secret.

No. No, you’re just imagining things. Hair doesn’t magically curl because your heart decided to do gymnastics over your best friend’s stupid smile. It’s probably just… new conditioner.

Definitely not love.

Right????

You’re still battling with your hair (and your thoughts) when there’s a knock on the door. A familiar, gentle three-tap knock.

You freeze. Because of course it’s him.

You tug your hoodie over your head (ignoring the way your hair poofs out around your face) and open the door. And there he is. James Buchanan Barnes.

Sweatpants.

Messy hair.

Two coffees in his hands.

Sleepy eyes.

Stupidly pretty.

“Morning,” he says, offering you one cup. “You look like you just got struck by lightning. Cute lightning, though.”

Your face heats. “Thanks. I think.”

He walks past you like he lives here. Which, to be fair, he kind of does. His hoodie is draped over the back of your chair. His charger lives in your wall. He knows your Netflix password. You’ve stopped pretending there are real boundaries anymore.

You plop beside him on the couch, hair frizzing even more as you tuck your knees under yourself.

Bucky watches you sip your drink and frowns.

“Wait. Your hair.”

Your heart drops.

“I—it’s nothing.” He leans in closer. “It’s… curly. Like, way curlier than usual.” You hide behind your mug. “It’s the weather.” “It’s 67 and dry.”

“Okay, maybe it’s new shampoo.”

“You’ve been using the same brand since February.”

You glare. “Why do you know that?”

He shrugs, smug. “Because I notice things about you.”

Your heart does an Olympic somersault. He grins, completely unaware he’s causing your internal organs to combust.

You clear your throat and change the subject. “Anyway. Hair stuff. Not important.” But Bucky, being Bucky, doesn’t drop it.

“Y/N,” he says softly, nudging your knee with his. “You ever hear of that TikTok thing? That theory about your hair curling when you’re in love?”

You nearly choke. He laughs. “Steve told me about it last week. Apparently Sam’s girlfriend’s hair went all curly and now he’s convinced it’s real.” You stare at your knees. “Yeah, well… good for Sam.”

Bucky looks at you for a long moment. Like he’s waiting.

“…You think it’s real?”

You shrug. “I mean, not really. But…”

“But?”

You finally look at him.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not about the science. Maybe it’s just the way love makes you softer. Happier. Makes you take better care of yourself without realizing. So your hair changes. Your eyes glow. Your laugh’s louder.”

Bucky watches you. Then, voice low:

“Do you think that’s happening to you?” You freeze.

He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t smirk. Just asks.

You open your mouth—and close it again. Because it is. And it’s because of HIM.

The late night talks. The half-asleep cuddles. The way he holds your hand during scary movies like it’s second nature. The way he knows your favorite mug, your 3AM fears, your dreams.

You fell in love somewhere between the quiet and the chaos. And now your hair is curling like it’s announcing it to the damn world.

You swallow hard. “I… I don’t know.” He nods. Slowly. “Okay.” The moment stretches.

And then—

“Because,” Bucky says carefully, “mine’s doing the same.” You blink. “What?”

He ruffles his hair sheepishly. “I woke up and it was all wavy. Steve teased me for a full ten minutes. Said I looked like I walked out of a rom-com.”

Your eyes widen. “But… your hair only waves when—” He smiles, nervous. “When I’m happy. Yeah.”

Your throat goes dry.

“I didn’t want to assume,” he adds, “but if this theory means anything… I think we’ve both got some explaining to do.”

You stare at him.

He stares back.

And then you laugh.

Because this is ridiculous. And sweet. And painfully obvious. You whisper, “So… you’re saying your hair is in love with me?” He smirks. “I’m saying I’m in love with you.”

Oh.

Oh, that’s better. You whisper, “Me too.”

And before either of you can overthink it—

he leans in. And kisses you like he’s been waiting forever. Like the curls in your hair were just love letters in disguise. Like every soft strand said, I want you.

Like love was always growing, quietly, at the root.

————————————————————————————

Later, curled up in his lap while reruns play on mute, Bucky runs his fingers through your curls and smiles. “I like the theory,” he murmurs. You grin, sleepy. “You would.”

“It means I didn’t imagine it. The shift. The way your laugh changed. The way your eyes looked at me.”

You nuzzle into his chest. “Guess it’s real, then.” He kisses the top of your head.

“Definitely real.”

~end

968 notes · View notes

hyprfixate · 2 months ago

Text

magnum opus :: [H.H] x reader

read on AO3

summary: you get a call at 3AM from a number you should've blocked ages ago. you subsequently make three mistakes.

pairing: hwang hyunjin x reader

tropes: exes to lovers, artist!hyunjin, artist x muse, grapheme-color and emotional synesthesia, angst-to-smut, post breakup yearning, hurt-comfort kinda

smut warning: semi drunk sex, dry humping, desperate hyunjin (like, very desperate), begging, biting, pussy eating, slow, needy sex, unprotected sex (use condoms ppl), slightly dubious consent at first, vaginal fingering

content warning: hyunjin has a drinking problem, mentions of past arguments and previous toxic behaviors

word count: 10.9k

author's note: this was supposed to be another plotless smut but I couldn't help myself lol. also i did not edit this. if you see typos no you didn't. enjoy!

A sound penetrates your subconscious, worming its way into your dream until you blink awake, eyes dry and not yet used to the darkness of your room. It takes a second to orient yourself, to recognize that the sound is real and coming from your phone. The digital clock by your charger reads 3:24 AM.

Had you been more awake, you would recognize the ringtone, or would have seen the caller ID. This is mistake number one of the night.

You swipe accept on the call, eyes still blurry and thick with sleep. You clear your throat, which proves useless when your words still come out croaky and garbled.

“Hello?”

“Hi, pretty girl.”

It feels like ice has been doused down your spine. You shoot straight up in bed, the hairs at the nape of your neck standing fully at attention.

You know this voice.

It's an entirely unique voice. A voice splattered with colors and textures you can't begin to comprehend. But even if it weren't, you know it would still be etched in your brain forever. Your hand shakes as you pull the phone from your ear to glance at the contact name.

‼️DO NOT ANSWER (Hyunjin)‼️

Oh fuck.

This has to be a dream.

You hear his voice crackle through the speakers one more time, his words unclear with the distance you created. Hyunjin shouldn't be calling you, and you certainly shouldn't have answered. It would be wise to hang up, to block his number like you thought about doing so many times. Instead, when you hear more crackling as he continues speaking, you hold your breath as you put the phone back to your ear.

This is mistake number two.

“-- you there, love?”

You swallow thickly, willing your mind to wake up faster so you can fully comprehend what is happening. You feel like you're floating. Or drowning.

"I didn't expect you to pick up."

Your heart hammers in your chest.

"Are you okay?" You ask after a few beats of silence. It's the only thing you can think to ask.

You hear a deep hum of contentment. “Yeah. Better now.”

The air in the room suddenly feels too cold. You should hang up. You need to hang up. But your fingers refuse to uncurl from the death grip you have on your phone. “Why… why are you calling me?”

You hear the distant sounds of the city on his end of the line, padded by his breathing. It sounds labored. Manual, like he's reminding himself every so often to inhale and exhale, too busy chasing a fading feeling. You could recognize that specific pattern of his breath anywhere. You close your eyes, letting out a deep sigh.

"Are you drunk?"

"No," he murmurs. "Maybe. I don't know."

That translates to a yes.

You pinch the bridge of your nose with your fingers. This is why you don't answer his calls. This is why you should've blocked him months ago. You feel the tension of the moment fizzle into nothing but annoyance. "It's four in the morning. Why did you call me?"

Hyunjin lets out a soft whine, his breath picking up.

"I miss you."

His words land like a punch to your chest, knocking the wind out of you. A simple string of words in that pitiful, whining tone of his, and you already feel like putty in his hands.

You hate this. You hate him.

You want to scream at him. Tell him that this is bullshit. He's bullshit. That you've been trying so hard to stay away from him. But your heart is pounding so hard that you can feel it in your throat.

"No you don't,” you decide to be civil. “You're just drunk."

"But I know what I'm saying."

The civility only lasts so long. “Oh, fuck off," you breathe. There is no real power behind it, but it's better than nothing. "Don't say stuff like that."

He starts to speak, but a nearby train cuts him off. You think about taking the opportunity to hang up, but as much as you don't want to hear what he says next, you're powerless to stop yourself from listening.

"I missed your voice so much, pretty girl." The laziness of his tongue makes the words sound like something entirely new. "I missed hearing you say my name. Can you do that for me, baby? Can you say my name? Please?"

His words are slurred and heavy. You shouldn't be entertaining this. He won't remember this conversation in the morning, too busy with his extravagant artist lifestyle and the swarms of other girls that want his attention. You'll be a distant memory floating around his hippocampus with nothing to tether to, like an itch he will never find.

"Why?"

He lets out a shaky breath, the undercurrent of a whine coating his tone. "Please, baby." The desperation in his voice fills your chest and makes it squeeze tight. "Say it for me?"

You are weak to his voice, but the distant, angrier part of you refuses to let it affect you. He doesn't get to just call you in the middle of the night and ask you to talk to him. Not when he's had months to do that and hasn't bothered.

"No."

You hear him swallow thickly, a slight shift in his breathing as he lets out a short, humorless laugh. You wait for him to speak again, but you're met with nothing but silence. It stretches long enough that you wonder if he hung up, but then—

"I miss you so much, angel."

Six words.

It's only six words, but they hurt worse than anything else he could've said to you. You don't know if it's because you think he doesn't mean them, or because you hope that he does.

Regardless, emotion swells so quickly in your chest, you feel like you're going to be sick. You can't do this. You can't keep letting him do this to you.

"I have to go," you say finally, voice trembling.

"Don't hang up." He sounds panicked. "Please don't hang up. I need to hear your voice."

Your face feels hot, the back of your nose beginning to burn. You will not let him hear you cry. "No, Hy–” You stop yourself. “I can't do this with you anymore."

"Please, baby. Please. I need you. I can't stop thinking about you. I miss you."

That damned phrase again. Your breath stutters in your chest, words coming out softer than you intend. "You don't mean that."

"I do, pretty girl. I promise."

You shake your head as if he could see you. You wish he could see you through the phone— to see what exactly he's done to you, how he destroyed you. You know he doesn't mean any of this, that they're just the chosen lies from tonight's bottle of vodka.

There's shuffling on the line for a second. Then—

"Can I see you. Please?"

You close your eyes, the tears you tried so hard to fight spilling over and sliding down your face until they make fat plopping noises on your sheets. No. He can't see you. You can't do this with him anymore. You need to hang up. This has to stop.

"Okay."

And this is your final, biggest mistake.

—

You're not sure why, but you don't believe he'll actually show up.

You've played this game with him before, right after the two of you broke up. You remember the anxious anticipation whirling in your stomach while you waited for him one night, and how the first rays of the sunrise curdled it in your stomach. You suppose his way with words was what made him a good artist anyway—there is no surprise there.

So when you hear two raps at your front door, there is some surprise there.

You wipe the tears from your face quickly, running a hand through your hair and praying it isn't as wild as it feels. You glance in the mirror by your front door, giving yourself a once-over to make sure you're presentable enough, but you shake your head and stop yourself. It's not like he hasn't seen you at your worst before.

When you open the door, Hyunjin is standing in front of you, illuminated only by the soft glow of the street lamps on your block. He looks exhausted.

"Hi, angel."

You blink slowly, suddenly regretting every decision that brought you to this moment.

"You're here."

He smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes. "You look tired. Did I wake you up?"

You fight the urge to roll your eyes at his question, stepping aside to let him in. "Yes. It's four in the morning. Obviously you did."

He has the decency to at least look sheepish as he stumbles past you, looking around your apartment with a faraway expression on his face. You can smell the alcohol on him. It makes you incredibly dizzy.

He toes his shoes off and you watch him quietly, something stirring in your chest. He remembers. You didn't have to remind him about the no-shoe rule.

The realization sends a course of emotion through you that you cannot parse, so instead, you choose to focus on shutting and locking the door behind you.

It's been a full six months since Hyunjin has been in your apartment. It may not be that long in the grand scheme of things, but the two of you used to spend almost every waking moment together, especially when you were dating. You had grown accustomed to having him around so much, his absence left an aching hole in your life, your home, your bed.

When you gain the courage to turn around, you see that he's standing at the threshold of your living room. Hyunjin looks like he belongs here, yet somehow he also doesn't. This isn't the same Hyunjin from your final weeks together—the one that you screamed at until you couldn't breathe. This isn't the same Hyunjin that, in the middle of your last fight, pressed himself against the front door, caging you in your own apartment while you cried and begged him to let you leave.

That Hyunjin was different. He had meticulously styled hair and sunglasses that cost more than your rent. He was swimming in his quick rise to success, riding the wave and content to let you drown under him.

You look at present-Hyunjin, who's now peeling off the hood of his oversized sweater. There are no sunglasses. no neatly styled hair. They are replaced by a blonde buzzcut, and watery, red eyes that cannot stay focused.

It would be easy to see him as a stranger, an intrusion, but you can't. It just feels like he's come home.

You're staring for so long, you don't realize until he looks over at you from his awkward stance by the couch.

"Are you gonna come over here?"

You take a few steps toward him, but not too close. You are a flame and he is a gas leak. You will both explode on contact.

You choose, instead, to play offense. "What are you doing here?"

He looks around your living room, fingers twitching like they're begging for something to hold. He won't meet your gaze. After a bit, he lets out a deep exhale.

"I don't know."

"Why did you call me?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know anything?”

He glances at you, his already watery eyes looking dejected and tearful, and your heart stutters in your chest. You wish you could hold steady to your hate for him. Sometimes it slips through your fingers like sand, leaving you scrambling to catch the pieces. Other times it's solid as glass. You wish it was always like that. You want to shove it in his face and let him suffocate under the weight of it.

But that look. The tears, the pain. You recognize it. It's a mirror of the same look you gave him when he broke up with you: heartbreak, rejection, confusion.

You can't do this. You're going to cry. Or pass out. He shouldn't have come.

You open your mouth to say just that when he turns fully toward you, closing the gap a bit more. He's always towered over you– he's six feet tall and you're barely 5’1 on a good day– yet you find the intrusion surprising for a moment. You trail your sight all the way up to gaze into those red, unfocused eyes.

"You never say my name anymore," he says, the slur in his speech making a subtle appearance. He's wobbly on his feet. "Never on the phone, and not once since I've been here. Why?"

The question takes you by surprise. "What?"

"My name," he presses. He takes a step toward you, his presence pushing you one step back. "Why don't you say it anymore?"

You take another step back as he advances. You're not scared of him, you never could be, but the closer he gets the faster your heart beats. He's staring at you with an intensity you've never seen before, not even when you were together.

"I don't know," you echo. The lie is bitter in your mouth.

"Yes you do." He looks at you with those unfocused eyes, hurt flashing across his features. He takes another step. "You do know. You used to say it all the time, like my name was..." He trails off, his fingers twitching at his sides again, like he's trying to grasp something invisible. "Like it was yours."

You take a final step back, your spine hitting the wall. Hyunjin doesn't stop until he's a single step away from you, his chest so close to yours that you have to tilt your head back to look at him.

"Don't,” you warn.

"Say it," he pleads. His hands are shaking, and you're beginning to recognize that it's not the effects of the alcohol, but a raw desperation. He's literally shaking with need. "Please. Just once."

You exhale slowly through your nose, willing your anger to come to the forefront. You feel the start of it in your bones, boiling hot and ready to lash out.“Why would I say it now? You only listened when it was convenient for you.”

His brow furrows, confusion warring with the lingering haze of alcohol. "What are you talking about?"

The words feel hot like bile in your stomach, the heat of your anger boiling everything in you. He's too close. You're getting too angry. You should stop now, kick him out and block his number.

But Hyunjin closes the gap, his shaking hand reaching to cup your face. He barely connects with your skin before you feel the explosion.

"Don't touch me," you bark, jerking away from his hand. The hurt that flashes across his face only fuels your anger more. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to-- to come here, drunk and desperate, pretending like you care about what my voice means to you–"

"I do care," he insists, his voice cracking. "I've always—"

"No, you don't," The words tear from your throat, sharp and raw. You put both hands on his chest and shove him away from you with all of your strength. He stumbles back, but he's still not far enough.

"You stopped caring the minute that painting made you famous. The minute everyone wanted to know about the hot new painter with synesthesia and raw talent.”

It’s the first time you've said the words out loud. They taste like acid on your lips, and you hate that, but not more than how much you hate the way your eyes burn with tears.

You let the weight of your words settle between the two of you like a boulder in the ocean. You watch as Hyunjin grimaces, and internal war showing on his face before he lets out a deep breath, dragging his hands down his face and turning to take several steps away from you.

You don't want to feel bad for him. He deserves this. He deserves every ounce of pain you're feeling.

You remember that conversation you had over a year ago, tangled in his messy sheets with your head on his bare chest. Your relationship was still new, still tender. The honeymoon phase seemed neverending.

As you laid there, his heartbeat was, at first, a steady pulse against your ear, but the longer you two basked in the afterglow, the faster it got.

You remember sitting up after a minute, hands cupping his face in concern. "What is it, Hyun?"

"I... I have something to tell you," he murmured.

He told you about his synesthesia, how it was his inspiration for pursuing art, but also an insecurity he struggled to coexist with. You listened to him, comforted him, encouraged him, loved him. Told him how amazing he was and how every little quirk of his just made him better.

A few months later, he was kissing you awake and saying he had a surprise for you. When you walked into his living room, you saw the most gorgeous painting you'd ever seen-- a canvas segmented into 4 sections, each section similar in their subject but distinct in composition.

"It's, uh. It's you," he explained, ears burning red at the tips. "Not a portrait of you, but this is how it looks when you say my name. When you're sleepy, when you're laughing, when you're upset with me, and when you... when we--"

He didn't need to finish his sentence. You knew.

It was you that encouraged him to submit it to a contest a couple weeks after that. It was you who picked out his outfit for his first gallery showing. It was you who said his name over and over the night after while he showed you just how he got the inspiration for that last panel.

And yet.

"You cast me aside."

You wipe at the tears that have traitorously slipped from your eyes. "I was behind you through all of that, and then you let the sounds of the attention you got become louder than me. I didn't mean anything to you anymore."

Silence stretches between you like a chasm. Hyunjin's shoulders rise and fall with each labored breath, his back still turned to you. The air in the apartment feels suffocating, thick with everything that's been said and has yet to be said.

You don't even know why you're doing this, why you're bothering to explain anything to him when he's drunk. It'll be gone from his mind in the morning, and then what will have been the point?

You close your eyes and let your head thud against the wall. “Look. You should–”

"I never meant to make you feel invisible," he says.

You take a steadying breath.

He carries on, his voice rough in the silence. "It was intoxicating. The praise, the intrigue, the attention-- I was seeing so many colors and shapes I'd never seen before. I'd never had so many people find it– find me interesting. Or worth something.

Your voice is small. “You had me.”

He turns back to you. There are tears streaked on his face, and the raw vulnerability in his eyes makes your heart twist in your chest. “I know. But I got lost in it– in the attention. I was drowning in so many colors that meant nothing because they weren't yours. But I didn't realize that until you weren't around anymore."

You want to stay angry. You want to hold onto the hurt that's kept you safe these past months. But seeing him like this— almost as broken as you'd been feeling —cracks something open inside of you.

"Do you know what the worst part is?” At his silence, you continue. “I was, and still am, so proud of you.” Your voice is quieter now, more tired than angry. "Even when it hurt, even when it felt like you used me. I was proud."

Hyunjin opens his mouth to say something, but the words die on his lips. You watch him swallow, hard, the deliberate bob of his Adam's apple catching your gaze. In everything he does, he looks like art. It's maddening.

He clears his throat, finally finding his voice. "Can I... can I show you something?"

You narrow your eyes at him, confused. "What?"

He fidgets in his spot for a second before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone. After a moment of scrolling, he turns the screen toward you. It's a photo of a canvas—clearly a work in progress, layers of color bleeding into each other in abstract patterns.

"I've been trying to paint again," he says softly. "Ever since we broke up. But nothing's been working. The colors are wrong. Dead."

He flicks to the next picture. It's a similarly unfinished painting. "It gets easier to ignore how wrong they look after a few shots. Sometimes they move around like before. But it never lasts, because it's not you.”

The confession hangs in the air between the two of you. Unlike the heaviness of your earlier words, Hyunjin's float above you two like a balloon, hoisting the last of your irritation away with it. You see the truth of his words in the muddy browns and grays that dominate the canvas, so different from the vibrant explosions of his earlier work. It feels, painfully, like he's lost a piece of his soul.

You can't look at it anymore. You glance up at him instead.

He looks more nervous now than he did when you opened the door. It reminds you of your first ever date, and how he tried to hide his nerves with a devastating smile and charm. The memory chips at a hardened part of your heart.

You've missed him.

You've been so, so tired of missing him.

"Why did you come here,” you breathe. The question is softer this time. More genuine.

He puts his phone back in his pocket, gaze locked on you. Beneath the haze of whatever buzz he still has, you see a glimpse of your Hyunjin, the one who made you laugh so he could paint the bright yellow rays of sunshine that exploded in his vision. The one who left you sketches of your sleeping form if he had to leave before you woke up.

The one who thought the smallest pieces of you were his magnum opus.

Perhaps that's why, when he takes a step closer, you don't move away this time.

"Because I'm selfish," he admits, his voice barely above a whisper. "Because I miss you. Because I need to see it again– to feel it. Even if it's the last time."

He takes another step, the height of him caging you against the wall. His eyes search yours, desperate and hungry. "Please, angel. I am begging you. Say my name. Let me see it again."

The request vibrates through you, from the tips of your ears down to your toes. It's maddening how easily he can awaken something you've tried so hard to bury.

You know this is dangerous territory—that giving in now could shatter you all over again.

But his proximity is intoxicating, the familiar scent of him filling your senses. Your body remembers what your mind wants to forget—the way he used to worship you, the way your voice could bring him to his knees in more ways than one.

"This doesn't fix anything," you whisper, even as you feel yourself weakening.

"I know," he breathes, close enough now that you can feel the heat radiating from his body, can smell the lingering alcohol on him. "But God, I miss you. I miss the way you light up my world."

Your back presses against the wall as he crowds into your space, not touching, but close enough that the air between you crackles with tension. He puts his hands on either side of your head, caging you in so that all you can look at is him. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide with need and something deeper, more desperate.

"Say it, pretty girl."

You let his voice be the final push over the edge.

"Hyunjin," you breathe, and you watch as his entire body shudders in response.

His eyes flutter shut, plush lips parting slightly as a soft moan slips out. He's trembling now, hands twitching on the wall near your head as though still fighting the urge to touch you. "Again."

"Hyunjin," you repeat. Your voice is stronger now. Your heart is racing, stomach twisting with nerves and desire. It's been so long since you've said his name like this, and the effect it has on him is beyond intoxicating.

He whimpers, leaning in closer until his forehead rests against yours. "Fuck, I missed that," he murmurs. His breath is hot against your skin. You feel the brush of his low cut hair against your forehead. "I've never seen it like this before. Please, baby. Again. I need more."

The desperation in his voice makes you weak, and you find yourself sliding your hands up, up, up, until your fingers curl into his fuzz, tugging gently at the wisps of hair at the base of his skull. The reaction is immediate—Hyunjin grunts, low and guttural, his hips bucking forward against yours.

"Again," he pants. "Please. Please."

You drag your nails along his scalp, pulling another groan from deep within. You brush your noses together.

"My Hyunjin," you whisper, right against his lips.

He surges forward, crushing his mouth to yours in a hot, bruising kiss. You cling to him, fingers digging into his shoulders as he licks into your mouth. It's wet, messy, and desperate-- a clash of teeth and tongue that leaves you both breathless. You can't remember the last time anyone has kissed you this hard, this passionately—like he's trying to crawl inside you and never come back out.

He tastes like vodka and cheap beer, but underneath that is something that is so innately Hyunjin that you feel yourself melting, giving in to his touch and his mouth and his greedy hands. He shifts, slotting a thigh between your legs and flexing up into you. It pulls a moan from your throat that he swallows hungrily.

"Can I touch you?" He breathes his words right into your mouth.

You don’t hesitate. "Yes. Hyun, please."

His hands drop from the wall to the curve of your waist, sliding down until he has a bruising grip on your hips. His movements aren't as clumsy as you expect, but there's a hesitancy and nervousness that makes everything more enticing.

He uses his grip on your hips to grind you against his thigh. His movements are slow, deliberate. Your bodies are pressed flush together, his mouth still on yours, kissing you like you're the only thing keeping him on this plane of existence.

He bites down on your bottom lip and you whine his name right into his mouth. He hisses out a strangled sound before he breaks away, trailing hot kisses down your jaw, the column of your throat, and sucking a bruise into the soft, sensitive skin behind your ear. You're a mess of moans and whines and incoherent, half-finished sentences.

"God, you sound so fucking good," he murmurs into your neck. "Missed that too. Missed how pretty you sound for me.” He nips at your earlobe. “C'mon. Sing for me, angel."

He presses his thigh up into you more, the friction sending a jolt of electricity up your spine. You feel the length of him, hard heavy and hot, through his sweatpants. You dig your nails into his shoulders, a shuddering breath escaping you.

"Oh. Fuck, Hyunjin."

His hips buck involuntarily, a grunt slipping from him. He kisses his way back to your mouth. "That's it, my love. That's it."

"Hyunie." You're panting into his mouth now, words coming out in broken gasps. It's overwhelming, all the sensations– his hands, his mouth, his thigh. You try to hold back your next words, but the building pressure in your stomach disintegrates the barriers in your brain. They come pouring out before you can stop yourself.

"I missed you so much.”

The confession seems to do something to him. He curses and ruts up against your leg, chasing the contact, the friction. You're both breathing heavily, the space between you nonexistent, moving with a practiced ease that's only born from being familiar with each other. He knows your body like he knows art, like it's a medium for him to mold and shape into whatever he wants.

"Wanna paint you," he huffs out when you moan again. He drags his teeth along the length of your throat. "Want you to see the colors you make for me."

“Tell me.” You drag your nails along the nape of his neck. “What does it look like?”

He moves his thigh up, the sharp movement making you gasp and drop your head onto his shoulder.

"That," he pants, "That one is white. Soft on the edges like feathers. It feels like cotton in my ears."

He sinks his teeth into your shoulder, his hips rutting against you with urgency. You can't help the moan that slips past your lips, and you swear his grip tightens, his breath hitching.

"Fuck," he breathes. "And that-- that one is hot. It's like rich red. Like the sun. It tastes sweet. Tastes like you.”

You whine into his neck, the combination of his words and the movement of his thigh making the heat coil tightly in your core. You're so close, right at the edge of your orgasm. You know you should stop-- that this is a dangerous line you're crossing-- but your body aches for him in a way it never will for anyone else.

"Come on. Cum for me, angel.” His voice is ragged, raw. "I wanna see it. Let me see it, please."

And, well, you have never been able to deny him anything.

You tip over the edge, pleasure shooting through your body like a spark. Your orgasm hits you so hard that your vision goes white around the edges, a broken cry of his name spilling from your lips.

Hyunjin groans and ruts against you harder, faster. "Fuck, yes, that's it. Just like that, baby."

He kisses you again, swallowing up every noise you make while he lets you grind your way through the aftershocks. His hands roam their way around your body, his nimble fingers slipping under your shirt to trace patterns on your skin.

You come down slowly, breathing hard into his mouth. When he's sure you've ridden out the last of your orgasm, he pulls back, eyes glassy and still a bit unfocused. His gaze is locked on yours as he slides his hands down your body, slipping a hand into the waistband of your shorts and moving to cup your ass in both hands.

Some of your wits return to you. You find the hairs at the nape of his neck again, dragging your nails against him gently. "Hyun," you breathe. "Hyun, you're drunk. We should stop."

"No," he whines. There's no aggression in his movements, just pure want. He tugs at your ass again, pressing his hips into yours. "Please, baby. I need to feel you."

He leans forward again, kissing down your jaw to your neck. The brush of his buzzcut against your face makes you shiver, but you don't pull away. Instead, you press a kiss to his temple, then another, and another, until you're kissing the shell of his ear.

"You'll change your mind in the morning," you murmur. The thought doesn't sting like you thought it would. It just seems like a fact. “Let's stop now.”

It takes some effort, but you manage to gently untangle yourself from him. You put a hand on his chest, not exactly pushing him but enough to signal a need for distance between you. He relents easily, stepping back and giving you space to breathe.

You take the opportunity to stare at him for a moment, taking in the sight of him: frazzled hair, blown-out pupils, kiss-swollen lips, and an erection straining painfully against his sweatpants. It's a sight that has your body singing for him all over again.

He looks lost. Desperate. Like you're the only thing keeping him together. Yesterday, you would balk at the thought of that, but now it makes your heart soften in your chest. You try to remember a time when you weren't weak for this man and come up short.

You sigh and reach out, resting your hand on his arm, thumb rubbing soothing circles into the skin. "Come on, Hyunie," you murmur. "You obviously can't go home. Let's get you to bed."

He follows you down the hallway to your bedroom like a lost puppy, fingers loosely tangled with yours. When you flick on the bedside lamp, the soft glow illuminates the space that used to be so familiar to him. He stands there, awkward, until you turn down the comforter and sit on the edge of the bed, patting the spot next to you.

"Do you want me to sleep here?" he asks, his voice small.

You nod. "I'll take the couch."

His hand tightens around yours immediately. "No." His voice is small, fragile. "Stay. Please."

You close your eyes, summoning strength from somewhere deep inside you. "Hyunjin, I don't think—"

"I won't touch you," he rushes to say, desperation creeping back into his tone. "I promise. I just... I can't be alone right now. Please don't make me be alone."

The plea strikes something painful in your chest. You've spent months trying to convince yourself that Hyunjin was fine without you—thriving, even. That he'd moved on to bigger, better things. But the man standing before you now, with bloodshot eyes and trembling hands, is far from fine.

"Okay," you relent, because you're weak and tired and overwhelmed from the events of tonight.

When he slides under the blanket, there's a safe distance between you. Not as vast as it's been the past six months, but a tangible space nonetheless. You lie there on your side, staring at him, wondering if this is what it feels like to drown. He stares back at you, and you watch the redness of his eyes dissipate, his body relaxing under the weight of your gaze. You can't even find it in you to be angry, but you try. You really do.

He looks at you with those glassy eyes and a soft smile. "You're so beautiful," he whispers.

You feel the anger slip through your fingers.

"You're drunk," you whisper back.

"I know."

You're not sure who moves first, but you find yourself closing the distance between you, your head tucked under his chin and your arm slung over his torso. He's warm and solid beneath you, and you find yourself melting into his embrace.

He wraps his arms around you, holding you close, and you can hear the steady beat of his heart in his chest. You close your eyes, focusing on the rhythm, letting it lull you to sleep.

"Goodnight, pretty girl," he murmurs.

You're asleep before you can respond.

—

Sunlight filters through your curtains, painting warm stripes across your face. You stir, your consciousness returning to you in fragmented pieces. The first thing you register is the coolness of the sheets next to you. The second is the ache in your chest.

You open your eyes, staring at the empty space where Hyunjin had been.

Had.

He's gone.

The pillow still bears the impression of his head, the ghost of his presence lingering in the sheets in the form of his expensive cologne. You reach out, rubbing a bit of the sheet between your fingers, finding it cold to the touch.

Of course he left. What were you expecting?

You're not sure how long you lie there, staring at the ceiling, but it's long enough for the tears to come. They slip down the sides of your face and into your hair, leaving wet stains on the pillow as everything from last night comes back to you: the desperation of his voice on the phone, the feeling of his body pressed against yours, his breath hot on your neck as he begged and pleaded for you to bathe his world in color again. It all felt real, so urgent in the midnight hour.

But morning has a wicked way of washing everything clean, the sober light revealing every mistake in detail.

You wish you could be angry. You wish you could feel anything other than the pain that's splitting your chest in two. You wish you could hate him.

You press the heels of your palms against your eyes in an attempt to stall the tears before they get worse. This is exactly why you should've blocked him, why you shouldn't have let him in or slept beside him like nothing changed between the two of you.

"Stupid," You murmur. "I'm so fucking stupid."

A familiar weight settles in your gut, the same one your carried for weeks when he first left-- a noxious mix of anger, embarrassment, and grief. You thought you'd finally shed it, but here it is again, through no fault but your own.

You drop your hands from your face and glance at the clock, which tells you it's a bit past 11am. He's back at his fancy apartment by now, already forgetting the things he whispered in your skin. You let out a humorless snort, imagining that he's painting, finally able to put colors together properly after using you for inspiration.

You're about to drag your pity party to the kitchen when you hear it-- the faint squeak of your bathroom sink turning on.

Your eyes snap in that direction instantly. For a moment, you don’t hear anything else. Then–

Splashing. Someone is washing their face.

He stayed.

You freeze, heart suddenly pounding against your chest. You can hear the water continuing to slosh around for a second, then it shuts off.

More silence, just for a second, then the unmistakable padding of feet on tile.

The en suite door swings open. Hyunjin materializes in the door frame wearing the same clothes from last night. His hair catches the morning light like a halo and his face is freshly washed. His eyes are no longer glassy, even though they're rimmed with the telltale shadows of a hangover. When he sees you sitting up in bed, he pauses, hovering in the doorway as though he's unsure if he's still allowed in.

The two of you hold eye contact for a moment. It feels like forever, but you know it can't be more than a second or two. It doesn't matter how long, really. It's still too long. Long enough to make the ache inside you bloom until your entire chest is suffocating under its weight. Long enough to realize how much you still want him and need to keep him in this space that was once yours and his. Long enough to want to reach out across time and space and mold his edges into something that belongs solely to you—that only you can recognize. Something different and yet exactly the same.

"Hi," he says.

The breath is knocked out of you all at once.

"You're still here," you breathe. You feel a new wave of tears behind your eyes. You think it might be from relief.

Something flashes across his face quickly-- hurt, maybe, or understanding. "Yeah." His voice is soft. "I told you I wouldn't leave again."

Did he say that? You don't remember. You can't exactly think over the pounding of your heart in your ears.

The words hang in the air anyway, a fragile bridge stretching across the space between you. It feels precarious, like one wrong move will send all of it crashing down. You scan his face for any hint of deception, for a flicker of the old Hyunjin that prioritized his rising fame over you. But all you find is a raw sincerity that mirrors the ache in your own chest.

He takes a hesitant step into the room, then another, like he's waiting for you to change your mind and kick him out. You don't. You just sit there, heart thrumming against your ribs, watching as he drifts closer until he's standing at edge of the bed. There's barely any space separating you two, yet everything still feels so far away.

"Last night," he starts. He clears his throat, fighting against the tremble in his voice and hands. "It was a mess. I was a mess, I know."

You wait, unable to tear your gaze away from him.

"But even in the middle of all of that... I need you to know I meant it. Every word, angel. I still do."

Something swells inside of you, the pain making way for something soft and tender. It's overwhelming, but the good kind. The kind that makes you feel light and free.

"Do you?" Your voice is so quiet, you're not sure if he hears you. But he does, because his gaze softens, eyes never leaving yours.

Hyunjin lowers himself to the ground, situating himself on his knees so the two of you are eye level. He reaches a hand out, his long, slender fingers making their way across the space, gently cupping the curve of your jaw. You close your eyes, holding your breath while you bask in the way his skin makes contact with yours. The air around you feels like it might come alive. As you lean into the warmth of his palm, the ache in your chest begins to fade bit by bit.

"Yeah. I do," he whispers. His voice is thick.

There are a million things you want to say, yet the only thing you can force out is: "Why?"

He brushes his thumb along the rise of your cheekbone, the gesture tender and familiar. It's almost like he never left, like no time has passed between the two of you. He opens his mouth to answer, then closes it, like the words are getting stuck in his throat.

"Can I show you?"

The question sends a shiver down your spine. You swallow and nod.

His eyes flicker down to your lips, the hunger evident in his gaze. He leans forward, pressing his forehead against yours and breathing you in. His breath tickles your nose, the scent of your toothpaste mixing with the smell of his sweater.

"Are you sure?" he whispers.

You answer him by closing the gap.

Unlike the kiss from last night, this one is slow, measured. You pour everything you've wanted to say since he left into it, and he returns it tenfold. He kisses you with a passion that threatens to consume, his grip on your face tightening ever so slightly, tongue sweeping out to lick at your bottom lip. You part for him immediately, the taste of him igniting the dormant fire inside you.

Hyunjin kisses you like a starving man. You give him everything he needs, letting him map your mouth with his tongue, moaning into the heat of his kiss. You feel it everywhere, the heat coiling low in your belly and spreading throughout your limbs. It feels like a revelation, and the way his grip tightens tells you that he feels it too.

"Say it, please baby," he breathes. The desperation from last night is creeping back in. His hand leaves your cheek, trailing down the length of your neck to your collarbone. He curls his hand into the neck of your shirt and tugs it down to expose your skin, dipping down to wash his tongue across your collarbones. You're already shaking before he even nips at your skin.

"Hyunjin," you moan. The sound makes him grunt against you, low and needy.

His mouth is on yours again, bruising, like he wants to drown in the taste of you. You sink your fingers into his hair, pulling gently and feeling his body shudder in response. He adjusts his positions on his knees, tugging you closer to him so your hips are flush against his chest. The heat of his feverish skin burns you through the thin fabric of your night clothes.

"Again, angel," he pleads, mouthing his way over your shirt, down to your breasts, hands trailing up your bare thighs and gripping hard. You let out a little whimper, head falling back as you thread your fingers in the wisps of his hair, holding on for dear life. He doesn't stop. The mixture of his mouth and his hands has your mind hazy and unfocused.

"Hyunjin. Hyun, please." You feel him shudder at that, his mouth kissing lower, lower, lower. When he reaches the hem of your shit, he grips it in his teeth and pulls it up, tongue darting out to run a stripe across your belly button. You pant and squirm, your hands gripping his shoulders tightly, nails digging into his skin through his sweatshirt.

He nips at your stomach and you cry out his name, the sound breaking through the space like a firecracker. Hyunjin's hips buck up against the bed as his mouth finds your hip bone, sinking his teeth into the tender skin. Your back arches, legs clamping around his torso. His grip is bruising and you really hope he leaves a mark, that there are traces of him on you long after you're finished. You want him to burn himself into your skin so you never forget this again.

He's pressing sloppy kisses over the skin he's just bitten, murmuring a mixture of words you can't decipher. The sound is muffled against your skin, but you don't miss the way he says "angel" over and over again, the way his lips form your name against your body like it's a prayer, and he is the sole saint who has come to worship at your altar.

He shifts his mouth back to the waistband of your shorts, his big, blown out eyes fluttering open to stare at you in question. The look you give him is all he needs to peel off the fabric, slowly, teasingly, tossing them away and letting his fingers trail the newly exposed skin. His touch is hot on your legs, trailing up and down until you're panting for him.

"So perfect for me, pretty girl," he praises, his lips ghosting over your hips. Your brain feels like mush, like his praise is the only thing that exists anymore. You watch his long, perfect fingers slide up the expanse of your thigh until he reaches your heat, pushing your lips apart to reveal your aching cunt to him. His touch is so featherlight that it has your hips bucking up, trying to get more.

"Be still, love." He presses a kiss to your clit. "Be still for me. Let me worship you, yeah? Can you do that?"

You whine, desperately trying to remain still, to let him explore every inch of your body with his perfect hands, to let him touch and tease you like he needs to.

"That's it, baby," he breathes. His fingers run along the wetness of your cunt. "Look at you. So fucking wet for me, my angel."

He slips his middle finger in with ease, sliding all the way to his knuckle. You barely have a second to adjust to the feeling before he dives down, plump lips wrapping around your clit and sucking hard. It sends a jolt of pleasure up your spine so sharp, you can't help the half scream that falls from your lips, your hand shooting out to grab onto his head. He moans in response, letting you grind yourself up into his face. He laps at you like a man possessed, fingers curling deep inside you to press against that one spot he's found countless times before.

The room fills with the wet sounds of your cunt against his eager tongue. His hair is soft under your hand, a contrast to how hard he's fucking his fingers into you. They move with urgency and precision. Each thrust has you panting his name, and in response his moans vibrate through your cunt.

He moves his free hand to grab the one that's gripping his hair and squeezes, fingers curling between yours in a silent show of gratitude for letting him touch you, letting him drown himself in you.

The combination of his touch and the sounds he's making has your stomach coiling, tight like a spring, and your release comes quick and sharp. Your orgasm crashes into you like a wave, and you call out his name, louder than anything he's ever heard from you before, so loud your voice bounces off the walls. He works you through it, licking up all the wetness that's pouring from you, groaning and growling like a starving man. He slips in a third finger to fuck you through the last of your high and the stretch is so good, so perfect.

His grip on your hand is the only thing that keeps you grounded as the last of the pleasure courses through you, leaving you shaking and trembling against his face. Hyunjin keeps his eyes on you the entire time, watching you like a predator watches prey, pupils blown so wide only a sliver of dark brown peeks out at you. He only pulls away once you stop shuddering, dragging his fingers out of you with a loud, wet noise, slipping them straight into his mouth.

The sight of his plush, pink lips wrapped around those perfect fingers makes you whine and squirm with want, even though you've just been thoroughly fucked out. Hyunjin crawls his way back up your body and kisses you deeply. His lips are wet with you, and he fucks his tongue into your mouth so you can taste yourself. You find yourself gripping at the soft hairs on the back of his neck again in an attempt to press him closer. He pulls away slightly to trail sloppy, open mouthed kisses down your jaw, teeth dragging across the hot skin.

"You drive me crazy, pretty girl," he pants. He sucks a bruise into the junction where your throat meets your shoulder. "Every noise you make, it sizzles in my eyes like fire. I see you everywhere."

You drag your nails down his neck and he groans into you. You can feel the impossibly hard length of him pressing against your thigh through his sweatpants. He ruts against your body lazily, his movements sluggish. The post orgasm haze still hangs over your body like a heavy fog, slowing everything down to a sluggish, sensual pace. It's hypnotic and delicious, the feeling of his hardness dragging along your thigh while he peppers kisses along your skin. You know this dance, your bodies know the steps so well it feels like your back at the very beginning again, like no time has passed at all between the two of you.

"Let me have you, please." His voice is tight. His desperation is bleeding into everything, tinging the air between you like an intoxicating drug. It makes your head spin and your skin tingle. He shifts his position so his hips are rutting into yours now, slow, deliberate, and grinding right down into you. You're so wet for him still that there's no resistance in his movements. With your eyes fluttering from the sensation, you drag your fingers across the expanse of his broad shoulders and then down to the dip in his spine, trailing your fingertips up under his sweatshirt to drag across his hot skin. It pulls a shaky whine out of him.

"God, please angel." His cock throbs against you. "I'll make it good for you, so fucking good. Just please let me have you, please."

You tug at his sweater until he relents, breaking away to yank it up over his head, tossing it somewhere in the room. You take the opportunity to look at his chest, which is flushed with color and heaving with want. His lips are parted as he tries to catch his breath, lust-blown eyes staring down at you like you hold all of the secrets to his universe. He's still getting harder in his pants, the fabric stretching taut over his cock, the shape of his length visible beneath it. The sight alone makes you dizzy, and the wetness that has been slowly building inside you reaches a crescendo, your cunt pulsing at the sight before you.

Your hand drifts down between your legs. Your fingers slide easily over the wetness that's gathered there from the pleasure Hyunjin has been so dutifully dishing out to you, and you don't even think about what you're doing. Hyunjin watches, eyes glassy as you dip two fingers in the wet mess he's made of your cunt. You slide them back up to your clit and moan, hips twitching into your own touch. His lips part a fraction, a breathy gasp spilling from him. He looks so painfully hungry that the thought of denying him crosses your mind for the briefest of moments. The thought disappears the second he opens his mouth.

"Baby, please, I need it." He shifts on his knees, squirming and aching for you. You almost don't recognize his voice— it's so raspy and tight with need, words stumbling out of him with no hesitation, no thought. It makes your skin hot all over again. You circle your fingers around your clit as you watch him watch you, his chest heaving in tandem with the movements of your fingers.

Then he makes the prettiest little whine you've ever heard in your entire life.

The sound alone is enough to make you remove your hand and offer your wet fingers to him, his mouth falling open obediently to welcome them in. He swirls his tongue around your fingertips, lapping up any of the wetness he's left on you. He groans and shudders, eyes fluttering shut as he sucks and licks and hums around your fingers. Your brain feels like static and your thighs squeeze together to try and ease the ache inside you.

"Fuck, Hyunjin," you moan out, watching him suck your fingers clean. You try desperately to focus on keeping your hips still, the friction from your bodies moving together making you want to chase your pleasure again.

He moans around your fingers before pulling back, catching the hand you had been using to play with your clit and pulling it up to place a gentle kiss on your palm. He keeps eye contact the entire time, looking at you from under those thick lashes and his hooded eyes. His lips part just enough for the tip of his tongue to lick at your skin, his fingers still wrapped tightly around your wrist. It makes your stomach drop. He has you under a spell and he doesn't even need to try.

He nips at your fingertips once more before speaking again, his voice low. "You make it so impossible to see anything other than you," he says, breathless. "Everywhere I turn, everything I see, there you are."

He shifts again, his body moving downwards and slotting itself between your thighs. He uses his free hand to wrestle himself out of his sweatpants and boxers, leaving them to hang low on his hips, cock finally free from their confines and bobbing heavily in the cool air. A shudder runs through him and you can tell it's both from the chill and the feeling of relief that comes from the sudden freedom. Your eyes linger on the head, leaking so prettily for you that it has your cunt squeezing around nothing again.

The hand holding your wrist pushes gently until it has you pinned above your head on the bed, the grip loose enough to not hurt you but strong enough to hold you in place. He reaches down to finally wrap his free hand around himself, stroking the length of his cock as he lets his eyes wander all over your body. His tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip, and you're transfixed by the way he lets it run along the swell of his mouth. He's such a pretty, pretty picture like this.

You think he might say something again, but the only sound that fills the space is his soft pants and moans. His strokes on himself once, the slick, wet noises making your brain go fuzzy all over again. Then he stops, leaning forward so he's hovering above you, the tip of his nose mere centimeters from yours. His lips brush against your mouth and his fingers twitch around your wrist, like he wants to let go but can't bear to.

You tilt your chin up to catch his lips, a soft whine bubbling in your throat. Want simmers under your skin so badly that you're a shaking, trembling mess under him. He coos at you in the kiss, and you feel him shift over you, lining himself up with your entrance. He rubs the head of his cock against your slit, gathering the wetness that has dripped out of your pulsing cunt and onto the sheets, using it as lubrication for the tip of his cock to catch on your entrance. Your hips twitch upwards involuntarily, making him break the kiss with a gasp, and you both look down to watch as pushes the head of his cock into you.

"Shit," he whines. It comes out like a hiss, his eyes slipping closed. The feeling of your body welcoming him home has a shudder running up his spine. He releases your hand and uses his elbows to hold himself up over you, fingers burying themselves in the sheets surrounding your head. The tips of his ears are dusted pink, and his mouth is slack as he lets himself be enveloped by the heat of your body. He rests his head in the crook of your neck.

He feels impossibly large inside of you. It has been so long since you've had him this close, it's almost like you forgot how good he can fill you. He shifts and pushes himself a bit further in and you can't help the whimper that tumbles from your mouth. The stretch is so deliciously good that your hips twitch again, body instinctively trying to grind itself onto his length to get him right where you need him. He curses above you again and his grip in the sheets tighten as he nips at your throat.

"Angel," he chokes out. His breath feels boiling hot against your skin. "Please don't move. Not yet, baby. You feel too fucking good."

His voice is strained, tight in his chest like he's barely holding himself back from pounding into you like his body so obviously wants to. The feeling of being stretched by him has you quivering, cunt pulsing around the intrusion. It feels like it takes him forever, but he finally manages to fully slide into you, letting his hips press against yours so you can take the time to adjust to the fullness. His name is a mantra on your lips, the only coherent word your brain is able to conjure right now. He kisses your neck to calm you down, nuzzles his nose against you, licks at the tender skin that has a pulse beating rapidly underneath it.

"So tight, angel," he grunts. His teeth dig into the skin of your neck, sucking another bruise into your skin. "So fucking tight for me."

Your nails are digging into his back now, scratching angry red lines down his shoulder blades as you struggle to breathe beneath him. It feels so good, the way his weight pushes into you and lets you feel every twitch and pulse of his body, lets you feel him shake and quiver. He slides back a bit before pushing into you again, his entire body shaking with the effort it's taking for him to maintain this languid pace. His forehead is pressed against your skin still and his breath comes out hot and shaky as he fucks himself into you again and again, slow and shallow.

The drag of his cock has your toes curling. Your hands slide from his back to his shoulder, down to his biceps, fingers digging into the skin to leave crescents that you can't bring yourself to feel bad about. The heat is pooling in your stomach again, making the feeling in your toes and fingertips start to fizzle away. All that's left is you and Hyunjin. The artist and his muse.

"Hyunie," you breathe. "Hyun."

"I know baby," he grunts. You can feel the drag of his lips on you, leaving kisses against your feverishly hot skin. "I know. I'm here, I'm here."

He picks up the pace then, hips snapping against you to get his cock as deep as it'll go. Your brain has become static, aware of nothing more than the sound of skin slapping against skin, of the wet noises coming from where Hyunjin has returned to his home inside you. You arch your body into his hold and he slips his hand into the curve of your back, pressing you close so that every thrust brings him as close to your heart as he can get.

When he pounds into you particularly hard and you flutter around him, he grunts, sitting up and on his heels to gain leverage to piston into you deep.

"So fucking perfect," he groans. He reaches down to thumb at your clit, circling it and grinding it down in time with his thrusts. You whine his name and buck against his hand as his thrusts get harder and faster in response. It has the coil in your belly winding tighter, so tight your body feels rigid against the bed. "Gonna show me that rainbow, right baby? Be good and come for me, yeah?"

You're already nodding frantically, words completely failing you. The sound of your skin meeting is loud, and your own moans are a chorus that's getting lost in his groans, in his pretty little whimpers of your name. It's all too much— you can barely catch your breath.

His hand that isn't playing with your clit finds one of yours and brings it to your stomach, pushing your palm into the skin below your belly button. When you feel it—the subtle bump from the tip of his cock, pressing against his fingers and into the flat of your stomach—you moan and dig your nails into the back of his hand.

"Fuck," he grits. "You like that angel? You like feeling full of me?"

A distant pulsing of your clit is the only warning you get before your orgasm hits you hard. You scream Hyunjin's name, nails digging into his skin for something to tether to. Your orgasm washes over you like an electric current, shooting up your spine and down to your toes. It whites your vision out, each pulse of Hyunjin's thrust translating into faded bursts of colors behind your eyes. The force of it makes your cunt squeeze down hard, so hard that you feel him stutter in his rhythm above you. You feel him drop forward to grip onto the pillow behind your head and bury his face into your chest, fingers digging in tight, hips bucking up into you. His eyes are squeezed shut and he's biting hard down on the fabric of your shirt, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts. You don't need to look to know he's coming inside of you, filling you up and painting you white.

It feels like the two of you ride through the aftershocks for years before he comes back down enough to gently slip his cock out of you, hissing from the sensitivity. You barely even feel him roll off of you, the world still tilted on it's axis significantly. Your vision takes a second to focus as your chest heaves. It takes even longer to realize that Hyunjin is staring at you from where he's lying on his side, head propped up on his elbow and an expression on his face you haven't seen in months. The thought that he could still look at you with a mixture of reverence and wonder after all this time is overwhelming.

But exhaustion is the prevailing emotion, and you only manage a small, sleepy smile before you pass out, lulled to sleep by the soft kiss he presses to your shoulder.

—

When you wake up a few hours later, you’re not panicked to find that you’re by yourself. The sheets are still warm, the shower is running, and there is still a dull, pleasant ache between your legs. You stretch, muscles nicely liquid and pliant, before patting around for your phone on your nightstand.

You do not find your phone. You find, instead, a piece of paper.

It takes a moment of sleepy shuffling, but once you get the lamp on, you see that it’s a pencil sketch of your sleeping form. There’s a cloud of colors surrounding you, beautifully rich blues and pinks that overlap to create equally vibrant purples. The colors feather out around the paper, swirling into soft, delicate hearts.

There is a single word on the bottom of the drawing:

Reconciliation.

#stray kids #hyprfics #skz x reader #stray kids fic #stray kids fanfic #skz #skz hyunjin #skz hyunjin x reader #stray kids hyunjin #hyunjin x reader #hyunjin smut #stray kids smut #skz smut #stray kids x reader #hwang hyunjin #hwang hyunjin x reader

936 notes · View notes

viaxslz · 2 months ago

Text

. 【 ARRANGED ℳARRIAGE 】

享受 ! .°. ݁₊ 𐙚 !reader, cw: arranged marriage au, angst to fluff (ig), strangers to lovers (if that’s what they call it), super duber long (have this so I can disappear for a month), not proofread :P, Maknae line ver.

BANG CHAN

Your routines were simple. Wake up late, eat breakfast, get ready for work, evacuate the house, come back home, eat and sleep. It was a cycle that repeated itself every single day. You mainly did this to avoid any form of conversation or interaction with Chan. Being forced into an arranged marriage was something you wouldn’t even wish upon your enemy. Chan didn’t even look interested in this marriage. It was more like he was doing this because his family wanted him to and he had no choice. But slowly things started to change. Your conversations which Chan seemed to extend longer than usual, usually it would last for about 3 minutes that was the highest but recently you noticed and increase in the duration everyday. From 3 minutes to 5 minutes to 10 minutes now to 30 minutes. Chan also became less cold and blunt towards you, you swore whenever you talked you saw a hint of softness in his eyes. One day, the shift became way too obvious to ignore. You were eating cereal straight from the box on the couch, hair a mess, wearing an old hoodie that said “I paused my game for this?” when Chan casually walked in, ruffled your hair, and said, “You’re cute like this.” You swore almost choked on a cornflake. He gave you a sheepish grin, as if he hadn’t just dropped a flirt bomb out of nowhere and walked off to the kitchen like he didn’t just rearrange your brain chemistry. From then on, it only got weirder. One morning you found a sticky note on the fridge that read: "Good morning! Eat breakfast. You’re not allowed to die before me. –Chan” You stared at it for a full minute before whispering, “Was that…romantic or threatening?” You couldn’t tell anymore. Chan also started lingering. Like standing outside your room awkwardly like a lost Sims character, waiting for you to notice him. And when you finally did, he’d ask, “So… how was work?” and then stay for the answer. And the final straw? You caught him watching a YouTube video titled “How to flirt with your spouse (and not sound like a weirdo).” He turned around so fast when he noticed you standing there that he knocked over a chair. “THIS IS FOR A FRIEND!” “Sure, Christopher.” Now? You still wake up late, still eat cereal like a gremlin, but now Chan’s sitting next to you, stealing handfuls from the box and resting his head on your shoulder like it’s the most natural thing in the world. And yeah, maybe the arranged marriage wasn’t so bad after all. Especially when your husband starts looking at you like you’re the reason he agreed to it in the first place.

LEE KNOW

Lee Know – CEO (aka the cat dad you didn’t ask for). Your marriage to Lee Know was less “till death do us part” and more “let’s pretend the other doesn’t exist unless absolutely necessary.” You weren’t sure if you married a man or a ghost in an expensive suit. Minho, ever the picture-perfect CEO, moved with the kind of grace that said, *I don’t have time for nonsense unless it’s my cats.* You’d see him in the mornings at exactly 6:45 a.m., sipping black coffee and reading through emails like the fate of the universe rested on quarterly revenue reports. You, meanwhile, woke up at 8:03, tripped over a charging cable, and once accidentally brushed your teeth with face cleanser. Communication between you two? Nonexistent. Unless you count: “The driver’s waiting.” “Your meeting’s in 10.” “Don’t forget to sign the documents.” And your personal favorite: the silent nod of disapproval when you wore mismatched socks. He didn’t seem cruel just cold. Calculated. As if this marriage was a merger he didn’t sign off on but was forced to green-light. But you noticed things. Like how your favorite snacks were always restocked, even when you never said a word. Or how your broken phone charger suddenly got replaced, still in its package, with a Post-it that simply said: Don’t electrocute yourself. Romantic. It wasn’t until the company hosted its annual gala that things really shifted. You wore an elegant outfit, sleek and simple. Nothing dramatic until Minho saw you and paused mid-conversation. His jaw actually dropped for a millisecond before he pulled it together and muttered, “…you look decent.” That was Lee Know language for breathtaking. But the real kicker? Midway through the gala, when some investor’s son got a little too friendly with you, you saw Minho appear out of nowhere like a well-dressed Batman. Hand on your waist. Voice dangerously low.“Back off. That’s my wife.” Your brain short-circuited. His hand stayed there the entire night. From that day, the cold war melted into something else. Minho started waiting for you before leaving the house. Sometimes he’d wordlessly hand you a protein bar. Other times he’d drop sarcastic compliments like: “Wow, you finally brushed your hair today. I’m shocked.” “Your socks actually match. Who are you and what have you done with my wife?” “Don’t trip on your own confidence.” But his eyes softened. His tone gentled. And sometimes, you’d catch him staring not annoyed, but like he was memorizing something. Then came the day you got sick. Like, knock-out-fever, can’t-move-from-bed sick. You were expecting silence, maybe a text from his assistant at most. Instead, you woke up to Minho sitting next to your bed, laptop balanced on one knee, feeding you soup with the other hand like it was just another meeting. You croaked, “Aren’t you busy?” He didn’t look at you. “Already canceled everything. Don’t be annoying, just eat.” That was the moment. You didn’t say anything then, but you knew. And then… the Instagram post happened. Minho, known for a perfectly curated CEO Instagram filled with black-and-white office photos, coffee mugs, and the occasional blurry cat picture, uploaded a photo of you. You were half-asleep on the couch, cuddling Soonie, with a blanket barely covering your legs. The caption? “I don’t like people. But I think I like her.” \#MarriedLife #MaybeNotSoBad #SheFeedsMyCats. You nearly threw your phone out the window. When you confronted him, red-faced and holding back a laugh, he shrugged. “Well, it’s true. Then, under his breath: “…I think I like you too.” Now your routines are a little different. You still trip over things. He still acts like sarcasm is his love language. But there are sleepy morning cuddles, late-night cat videos in bed, and coffee cups with “CEO’s favorite person” scribbled on them. And Minho? He’s not just your husband now. He’s the one who kisses your forehead when you think he’s mad. The one who takes photos of you doing mundane things and keeps them in a locked album. The one who now smiles when he says, “Don’t be late. I’ll wait for you.”

Arranged or not, it turns out love can grow even between a grumpy CEO and the chaotic disaster he calls his wife. And he wouldn't trade it (or you) for anything. Except maybe a fourth cat.

CHANGBIN

Seo Changbin – arranged marriage (aka gym rat husband with too many protein bars). You didn’t hate him. You just… didn’t know him. Which was a problem, considering you were now legally married. Changbin wasn’t cold or rude like you’d expected. If anything, he was too nice. The kind of awkward polite that made everything ten times weirder. “Good morning,” he’d say with a stiff nod, standing in the hallway like a guest in his own home. “Did you, uh… sleep well?” You’d blink blearily at him with toothpaste foam in your mouth and give a thumbs up. He’d smile like that was a full sentence. The routine settled fast: wake up, avoid eye contact, eat in silence, exist in separate rooms, occasionally bump into each other in the hallway and say things like “Nice weather,” even when it was raining. Changbin filled the space between you two with noise. his music, his workouts, the sound of protein shake bottles being aggressively shaken at 7 a.m. like maracas of doom. He was the kind of guy who labeled his snacks, used coasters religiously, and never left a dish in the sink. But you couldn’t hate it. You wanted to. It would’ve made things easier. But the thing is… Changbin was gentle. Soft voice. Softer eyes. Always said “excuse me” even when it wasn’t necessary. Even the cats that wandered into your neighborhood liked him. Betrayers. You tried to keep things distant. Professional. Emotionless. But one day, you came home soaked from the rain, your umbrella snapped, your bag drenched, and your patience gone. And instead of ignoring it, Changbin ran over with a towel, pulled you inside, and scolded you like a wet child. “You could’ve gotten sick! Why didn’t you call? I would’ve come to get you!” “…You don’t even have my number.” That night, he saved his contact in your phone as “Husband #1 (limited edition)” and made you ramen while you wore his hoodie. It snowballed from there. He started leaving post-it notes everywhere: “Don’t forget lunch , you’ll faint and I’ll be blamed.” “I put your socks in the dryer. You’re welcome.” “If you steal my protein bar again, I’ll sue. Just kidding (unless you do it again).” You started sitting with him during his gym sessions just to annoy him, asking things like: “Do you lift with emotion or spite?” “Is that your workout face or your constipation face?” “How do your arms fit into sleeves??” He’d throw a towel at your face and mutter, “I married a menace.” But he was smiling. The turning point came when you were crying. It wasn’t dramatic. You just had a rough day. work stress, a canceled plan, someone yelling at you over something dumb and you couldn’t keep it in. You thought you’d locked your bedroom door, but Changbin knocked softly and peeked in anyway. No words. He just sat beside you, offered his hoodie sleeve, and let you cry without asking questions. You sobbed, “Why are you so nice to me?” And he said, “…Because I care, even if I didn’t expect to.” You didn’t say anything. But after that, everything changed. You started eating meals together. Watching movies. Going on “we’re-not-dates” that somehow felt like dates. He even started letting you share his snacks (a big deal, honestly). Then one night, while the two of you sat on the floor playing some dumb board game you found in the back of a closet, you asked, “Do you ever regret this? Us?” He looked at you for a long time. “No,” he said quietly. “I just wish I knew you sooner.” Now? He still works out at 7 a.m., and you still mock him for drinking stuff that smells like blended chalk. But he wraps an arm around you when he sleeps, leaves space in the fridge for your impulsive dessert buys, and kisses your forehead like it’s a habit he never wants to break. It wasn’t love at first sight. But it’s love now. And if anyone ever dares say this marriage wasn’t built on something real, Changbin will fight them. With emotional damage and biceps.

HYUNJIN

Hwang Hyunjin – arranged marriage (aka dramatic art husband with a tragic monologue for everything)nYou expected drama when you were told you'd be marrying Hwang Hyunjin. The man was a walking poem. A painting come to life. The human embodiment of “I only drink rainwater and cry to Debussy." What you didn’t expect was silence. Not elegant, movie-worthy silence. Just… plain awkward silence. The kind where you’d both walk into the kitchen, lock eyes for 0.3 seconds, and then pretend the fridge was suddenly the most fascinating thing in the world. Hyunjin wasn’t rude. He was polite, respectful, a little stiff but always civil. He said “good morning” and “sleep well” like it was scripted. You once sneezed, and he bowed and said, “Bless you,” as if you’d just performed Hamlet on Broadway. He spent most of his time in his art studio, which you weren’t allowed to enter. You learned this the hard way when you knocked once and were met with, “Please… not now. The muse is fleeing.” You closed the door slowly, wondering if “the muse” was a metaphor or a literal pigeon. The tension was suffocating. You were two strangers sharing a home, avoiding each other like roommates in a haunted house. The most intimate you got was when you both reached for the soy sauce at dinner and almost touched fingers. He gasped. You blinked. It was chaos. But then you got sick. Nothing serious, just a fever. But you passed out in the hallway and woke up to a flurry of blankets, cold compresses, and the sight of Hyunjin frantically whispering, “You’re not allowed to die. That would be… tragically inconvenient.” After that? Something cracked. He started hovering. “Are you cold?” “Did you eat?” “Here, I painted you this because your eyes looked sad yesterday.” It was a painting of a wilted flower with a single sunbeam touching it. Dramatic. Excessive. Ridiculously beautiful. You teared up. “This is about me?” He looked away, ears red. “…It might be. The man began spiraling in affection. He’d leave sketches outside your door like secret admirer notes. He’d watch you while you read, then pretend he wasn’t when you looked up. You caught him once writing a poem that included your name and the phrase “gentle destruction” and he nearly swallowed his pen in panic. And then… the art studio. One evening, he called you in. Nervous. Fidgety. Hair tied up, hands covered in paint. You stepped inside, expecting portraits or abstract chaos. Instead, you saw you. Dozens of versions of you. Sleeping. Laughing. Crying. Even one of you brushing your teeth, titled: “The Mundane Divine.” You turned slowly. “Hyunjin…” He bit his lip. “I hated this marriage at first. I didn’t want to be forced into anything. But then I saw you. Really and i…” “You’re in love with me.” He blinked. “That was going to be the last line of my speech, but yes.” You stood there, heart pounding, eyes stinging, realizing that this man, this soft, dramatic, chaotic whirlwind of a man had fallen for you in silence. Through stolen glances and paintbrushes. Through unspoken worries and 3 a.m. tea offerings. You walked over, paint-stained floor forgotten, and kissed him. Soft, real, wordless.His eyes widened. Then fluttered shut. “Finally,” he whispered. “The muse returns.” Now? You still find random sketches of yourself everywhere. He still monologues about cereal choices like they’re Shakespearean tragedies. But he holds your hand like it’s art, kisses your forehead like you’re sacred, and calls you his “greatest masterpiece” when he thinks you’re asleep. Arranged marriage? Maybe. But it was never forced love. With Hyunjin, love was always waiting. It just needed a little time and a very dramatic entrance.

PERM TAGLIST 📌🔖 ──── @the-sea-called-history02 @oc3anfloor

#stray kids #stray kids fluff #stray kids soft hours #stray kids soft thoughts #stray kids x reader #stray kids x you #stray kids headcanons #stray kids fanfic #bang chan x reader #bang chan fluff #lee know x reader #lee know fluff #changbin x reader #changbin fluff #hyunjin x reader #hyunjin fluff

829 notes · View notes

strawbewiecake · 23 days ago

Text

📌 what helps (no context necessary) 📌

Everyone asks “how do you stay on track” — here’s how. Take what fits. Ignore the rest.

1. Delay the decision.

Set a 30-minute timer. If it still matters after, fine. But most things don’t survive the wait.

2. Log everything.

You forget less when it’s in writing. Numbers > feelings.

3. Use small utensils.

Takes longer. Feels like more. Slows everything down.

4. Ice water. Always.

Cold = alert. Also makes the other thoughts quieter.

5. Mint > sugar.

If you want something sweet, go sharp instead. Gum, tea, oil, whatever.

6. Clean first.

Before anything else, tidy. It helps recalibrate.

7. Stand when you can.

Passive movement still counts. Don’t sit unless you’re earning it.

8. Plan out loud.

Even if no one’s there, narrate the plan. Hearing it makes it real.

9. Brush your teeth.

Twice minimum. It resets the mouth. You’ll want less.

10. Delay “first intake” as long as possible.

Once it starts, it gets harder to stop.

11. Track progress obsessively.

Whatever method works. Spreadsheets, apps, photos, stickers, scratches on the wall. Doesn’t matter.

12. Black coffee is a tool.

Bitter, hot, zero. Enough said.

13. Cut things small.

Visually it tricks the brain. Looks like more. Feels like less commitment.

14. Repetition = safety.

Same meals. Same outfits. Same schedule. Predictability keeps you in control.

15. Stay cold.

Blankets are earned. Heat is a reward.

16. Pick a uniform.

Avoid mirrors, avoid choices. Choose once, then stop choosing.

17. Never eat directly from packaging.

It’s chaos. Use a plate. Use a scale. Use a rule.

18. Save pictures.

Visual reminders of why. Make it a folder. Scroll through it when your brain gets loud.

19. Say no out loud.

Even if it’s just to the fridge. Out-loud “no” works better than silent guilt.

20. Delay. Again. Always delay.

Craving = momentary. Control = permanent.

21. Use liquids to kill time.

Tea. Water. Sparkling stuff. Sip constantly.

22. Keep your hands busy.

Paint nails. Fold clothes. Shred receipts. Idle hands spiral fast.

23. Don’t trust your mood.

Mood lies. Mood passes. Stick to the system.

24. Sleep earlier to avoid noise.

Late night = weak decisions. Just go to sleep. You don’t need that hour.

25. Check the stats.

Weigh in. Take notes. Keep score. It keeps you aware.

26. Routines over feelings.

How you feel doesn’t change what needs to be done.

27. Reward with non-food.

Playlist, candle, bath, nap, photo. But never what you actually want.

28. Watch people you want to be like.

Consume their content. Learn their habits. Copy until it sticks.

29. Replace "I'm hungry" with "I'm bored."

One’s real. One isn’t. You know which one wins.

30. Don’t keep “options.”

If it’s not in your space, it can’t tempt you.

31. No “just a bite.”

You know how that ends. Don’t start it.

32. Pause. Then pause again.

The second pause is where your power is.

📁 Reblog to keep this where you can find it.

💌 DM open if you want to swap more tips quietly.

574 notes · View notes

lunarcowgirl · 2 months ago

Text

lean with me | two

yeah yeah i wrote another part for my fuckass jack abbot x f!doctor!reader fic <3

read part one here and part three here

not my gif! but i do feel crazy about it!!!!!

jack abbot made a damn fool of himself in front of the one person he desperately wants to rely on him, now he's got to hope you'll let him fix it.

from the office of the author: damn! ya’ll got me feeling some kind of way in the comments and reblogs, I didn’t look at tumblr all day after part one scared it would have no notes 🥹 thank you so so much for your kind words!!!!! ideas for these two are currently eating out my brain like a terrible infectious disease, so expect more soon xoxoxoxo

also, if by chance you have requests/ideas/thoughts drop me an ask, you’d warm the freezing cockles of my heart <3

warnings: age gap of 10+ years, old man is a goose, the weather is shit in pittsburgh but i am from the southern hemisphere so i don’t understand how real winter works pls forgive me, #rollins apologist behaviour from the author, characters stand close to the edge of buildings but they don’t have any plans for leaving said building, bad grammar, bit o’ angst, bit of fluff (as a treat)

word count: 1.6k

Dr Abbot thought he was doing a rather terrible job at feeling anything other than pathetic thank you very much. The final 30 minutes of the shift dragged into eternity, and you were never close enough. You quietly extracted yourself from every scenario in which Jack might touch you or say your name. Hands quick, words gentle, you continued to heal your patients, but the wound between you and Jack remained gaping.

As 7am dawned, black and cold, Jack found himself to be in an entirely black and cold mood. And Robby’s aggravating cheerfulness upon arrival certainly did little to help.

“Brother,” The new father chirped across the desk, “How’d it go last night?”

“Sparkly.” Jack deadpanned, nearly tearing through the paper under his hands with the scratch of his pen. The computer you’d spent so much time hunched over this shift was now dark and quiet.

Usually you would wait to say goodbye before leaving, punching him lightly on the arm, cracking something wise-ass about putting his compression sock on right when he got home, letting his body rest.

“Don’t want the old legs given out on us now do we?”

You’d smile a smile that would tear right through him, making him feel young, like he could run on those old, broken and missing legs forever and ever. Every time it was a battle to not chase after you, to catch you at your car, to ask if you’d smile at him somewhere other than a place that always stunk of pain. That smile was no where to be seen. He tried his best to ignore the sensation of panic sitting near his heart.

“That bad huh?” Robby frowned, looking across one of the calmest Pitts they’d had in months.

“How is it at Casa Robinavitch?” Jack asked, putting down his instrument of destruction to look up at his friend. Robby looked 20 years younger, almost *glowing—*the freak.

“Baby slept 12 hours,” He declared throwing his hands up in delight. “Heather is perfect, and she is all mine tonight,” He added, only marginally quieter, eyebrows dancing.

In the wake of PittFest and all its rotting, rubbing, terror and ugliness, Robby and Heather deserved some goodness. But so much of it, right in front of Jack, was not kind on the stomach in this particular moment.

“Godspeed brother.” Jack laughed, rising from the desk and grabbing his friend’s shoulder for a quick squeeze. “Don’t fuck it up please?”

Robby nodded, smile unmoved, “I won’t. Now can you get your ugly mug out of my face please, I have work to do.”

“Yeah, yeah, have a good shift.”

Standing in front of his locker, the prospect of returning to a freezing, empty house for the next few days held no sense pleasure for Jack. What were the chances that if he wished hard enough, when the door clicked open you would be sitting on his couch in that ratty Penguins jersey you so adored, arms open and waiting for him? Slim, he decided. The usual low growl of the shift’s repressed hardship echoed through his head, waiting to eat away at him in the silence outside the ER. A quick trip to the roof, a few minutes in the freezing cold, would steady him enough to face it…and the absence of you.

The echo of your words seemed to bounce off the concrete walls of the stairs as he ascended.

What right do you have? Like it’s me that’s hurting you*?!*

He sped up; as if he’d ever been able to escape your voice. How was he going to explain his regret, his apology to you? Every last combination of words he tried felt shallow and inadequate. You deserved so much more than cello-taped sentences of shame.

Exploding out into sub-zero was euphoric. For just a moment, the world was in sharp focus, the blur of the past several hours evaporating into nothing but white. Pittsburgh peered down at him, the concrete offering its own disapproving look, the glass its own sting, the barren trees their own answer. Someone else was peering back at it, standing on the other side of the rail, leaning against the freezing metal.

That puffer.

You’d bought it on the very first day of Summer, parading it around the sweltering heat of a Pitt with aircon on the fritz.

“It cost me barely anything,” You told anyone who would listen, “Guess how much!”

You’d twisted back and forth, ensuring everyone got a good angle of the quality, nearly taking out Whittaker in your enthusiasm. Eventually you’d spun around to face Jack.

“Go on Cap, guess!”

He’d said something, a number plucked from obscurity. He couldn’t remember it now, or wether he’d been right. All he was thinking, now and then, was that it exactly matched the colour of your eyes.

He didn’t approach quietly, not wanting to startle you. Each crunch of snow felt like a choice being made, a door fast approaching, a step towards an abyss. You spoke without turning.

“I thought you’d come up here.”

Your words settled; a stone in a pool, ripples dancing out, brushing gently against his heart.

“I can leave if you want.” Jack said, hoping against all hope you would shake off the offer.

Your eyes turned to him, even brighter against the snow. You sighed, dusting off a patch of metal beside you and patting it firmly, “Lean with me.”

Jack only just managed to steady himself in his haste to join you, head nearly colliding with the steel as he ducked between the rails. For a moment you and him leant in breathless, anticipatory silence, looking out at the city that you had sweated and fought and cried for all night long.

It was you that first spoke into the void, “I’ve applied for the new Emergency Pedes Fellowship at PTMC, or have you forgotten that residents do have to find another job after the program ends?”

Jack’s eyes snapped to your face. He remembered Robby mentioning the opening position weeks and weeks ago, just in passing. But all the times you had mentioned your interest in Emergency Pedes medicine, every case you had jumped on to heal a little body, to calm a little mind, to soothe a little heart…he should have put the pieces together.

Without thinking he blurted, “You’ve been the only one ever any good with parents,” The internal wince at his messy attempt at soothing was immediate. Good with parents—what?

Your voice was small now, a tear soaked laugh just perceptible in it, “I didn’t want to tell you until I’d heard either way. I didn’t—” You did laugh now, “I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

Jack turned out to the city, the biting January air far, far easier to face. What an utter fool he was.

“I’m sorry.” He said, shaking his head. You didn’t say a word, just let the wind blow right through the both of you.

Jack returned his gaze to you, letting his eyes have their fill. Taking in each and every line and crease and feature. His favourite face in the whole world.

“I’m sorry,” Your name so soft and reverent on his lips, “It was incredibly…asshole of me.”

Your face scrunched at the words, rallying against a growing desire to laugh, “It was asshole indeed.”

The smallest of smiles. Your proximity. Your endless well of warmth and hope and joy. It made him want to be brave.

“I don’t quite understand it yet, but I feel very strongly about you. You are the first and last person I think about everyday. Yours is the face I picture when its all too much. Your voice is what I hear when I’m afraid. Your laugh is what stills me, calms me.”

Your mouth parted, just a bit, eyes becoming endless, swallowing him whole.

“When I thought that you might leave, perhaps that you would go overseas again, I was struck with fear I haven’t felt in a long, long time.” He took a long, stuttering breath.

“I don’t ever want to lose you.”

You surrendered, moving towards him, hand outstretched.

“It’s not an excuse,” he said, the words coming like a released river now, an outpouring of everything gathering dust within him, “I was selfish and I shouldn’t have done that, it’s not fair—”

Your arms enveloped him, face burying deep into his neck, hands curling into his hair. Everything you had wanted to do from the very first moment your eyes found his. He melted into your embrace, strong arms banding around your body, face pressing into the softest skin between your collarbone and shoulder. You cried into his scrubs, your relief and disbelief and joy bleeding out onto him—this man who had just given you a gift you had never even hoped could be yours.

Jack mumbled into your skin, “Baby, my baby.”

You pulled back, just enough to send your lips flying across his skin, every last bit you could reach. He accepted them gladly, so malleable and giving in your hands. Finally, finally, you found his mouth, crashing home with delight. For one precious eternity you simply remained pressed together, as if somehow endosymbiosis will begin. When you released each other, there was shared breath to relish in, and the feeling of foreheads connected, hands twined together. Could it have possibly been winter? Spring had come to a hospital rooftop in Pittsburgh. Something entirely new had bloomed. Jack gently released you to capture your face in his hands, with one thumb he carefully smoothed the skin between your brows, banishing for now any hint of a crease. There was no confusion, no frustration, no fear here.

“Are you working tonight?” You asked, words too full of smile to really parse.

“No, I’m off for the weekend,” His lips were in your hair.

You kissed him again, more desperate this time, seeking something more. His hands drifted south, smoothing over your shoulders, finding your hips, the tips of his fingers just grazing your ass.

Heart beating wildly, hot skin on hot skin, you took a dive, “Have breakfast with me.”

~~~~~~~~

There is fluff and hope for them in the sunrise people! Thank you for reading, these two will be back very very soon xo

previous | next

#the pitt #jack abbot #jack abbott #jack abbot fic #jack abbot x reader #jack abbott x reader #the pitt fic #the pitt angst #the pitt fluff #dr jack abbot #dr abbot #jack abbot x you #jack abbot angst #jack abbot fluff #jack abbot fanfiction #jack abbot x female reader #persiewrites

686 notes · View notes

ittybittyfanblog · 9 months ago

Text

Only You, Darling (Only You, Babe)

Summary: There were orders for your abduction. You were made to be the bait by a rival gang to get to the elusive head of Onychinus. Sylus doesn’t take it too well. Word Count: 4.8k Tags: mc x sylus, fem!reader x sylus (use of she/her pronouns), depictions of violence (it gets a little graphic), reader gets abducted and injured, strong language, protective!sylus, he’s a little unhinged here, self-indulgent! A/N: I can’t believe this game pulled me out of a three-year creative rut LMAO. I’ve been doing fanarts, now I’m writing again?? The power these pixelated men hold over me, man. Anyway, enjoy! This version of Sylus is probably a little OOC idk idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's close to midnight, and you're being followed.

On your six, a stocky man in an unassuming dark suit has been tailing you since you left the dingy bodega, a little over a mile away from your apartment, for about, three? five minutes—no, maybe even longer.

Shit, you mouth silently. Sloppy. You should’ve noticed him sooner, and the two other lackeys now closing in from up ahead. They’re armed too, if the hands hidden inside their jackets are any indication.

As if things aren't looking bad enough, you’ve decided tonight would be the perfect night to go weaponless, deciding against bringing your handgun with you since it was supposed to just be a quick run to the store for supplies. Namely, the late-night cravings sort of supply.

You clutch the wrinkled paper bag containing your coveted jalapeño Cheetos tightly.

This is what greed does to you, a mocking voice echoes in your head. Since when did your inner voice of reason sound masculine and oh-so-familiar?

Exhaling quietly, you try to calm the rising beat of your heart and appear to be clueless of your surroundings. Walk at a normal pace. Look unaware of the men with the intention to… What even is this? An ambush? Good, old, regular robbery? No, it doesn’t seem like they're in it for something that insignificant. They wouldn’t even bother to be this cautious if it were.

But then, what are they here for? The dangers you're more familiar with are of the monstrous kind in the literal sense of the word; entities that you face on a daily basis as a Deepspace hunter. Not the regular threats posed by mankind – which in this particular situation, suddenly feels more foreboding.

While racking your brain for ideas on how to slip away from their sight without escalating the situation, you fail to notice a fourth person hidden behind the dumpster inside the narrow alleyway on your left until you feel the cold, hard edge of a pistol gun hit your temple.

With a shout, your hand shoots up in an attempt to yank the gun away from the hand holding it but the sudden burst of pain from the impact has left you feeling dizzy and off-kilter. The moment you throw your fists up to block your face, heavy fists strike you directly in a flurry of hits, colliding with your forearm and your unguarded ribs.

You let out a pained grunt as you stagger backwards, trying your hardest to keep yourself from falling back on your ass and ward off the next incoming attack.

A sinister laugh alerts you of the others, now surrounding you in a circle. Shit!

You hastily shift your legs into a crouching position, bracing yourself as you attempt to sidestep the one in front of you before making a run for it. You spring into action, but before you can even take another step, an arm shoots out and coils tightly around your neck like a noose. A cloth that reeks of something distinct is slapped over your mouth and nose, rendering you unable to do anything but struggle.

“Now, now— the boss wants her in one piece, John,” The stocky man, who’s apparently larger and more jacked up-close, pipes up. John tightens the limb circling your throat, preventing you from breathing, before slightly loosening his grip.

“I’d advise you from struggling too much, sweetheart. But if you insist on making this harder for yourself,” the man talking suddenly grins, revealing rows of crooked, silver teeth. “He ain’t said nothin’ about a couple of bruises.”

You give him your dirtiest glare, trying to pull away from the death grip the burly man called John had on you, but you feel your muscles slowly becoming heavier and your vision starting to blur.

Ch-chloroform?

You make a muffled shout, a scurry that earns you a heavy hit on the stomach, one last futile move to free yourself, but the inevitable effect of the potent substance starts to overpower you.

“After all, we need to make sure that the big bad boss of Onychinus actually comes for his bitch, don’t we?”

Rendered completely useless, the men start to make quick work to restrain your arms and legs in a hogtie before carrying you down the street, to a shaded corner where a large, gray van is parked.

The barn doors open, and you’re tossed in carelessly to the back, landing painfully on the cold, hard floor. An involuntary whimper escapes your lips, feeling like one big bruise; splotches of red and blue start to form like a violent watercolor on your skin.

The engine revs. Before completely losing consciousness, you think you hear a faint caw.

The car drives off the beaten path, into the night, leaving not a trace of evidence of what transpired mere minutes ago aside from a discarded brown paper bag and a deflated bag of chips.

From a distance, flying towards the hazy skyline, a mechanical bird crows a bad omen.

_____

In the dead of the night, the head of Onychinus sits as a spectator; a towering presence at the head of a table inside a private room, obscured in plain sight, in an unremarkable establishment far east of Linkon City.

Unassuming as it may be, the room’s occupants are men of great renown, both in influence and notoriety. The CEO of a chain business in Azure Square, a regional manager of a well-known bank in Linkon, the head of a weapons trade representing a faction in the N109 zone… All hold significant power, all hold ulterior motives.

A meeting of minds; the type held only in the secrecy of the night, gone in the break of dawn.

Sylus has half the mind to listen in on the droning exchange of fake pleasantries and plastic smiles as the men deal trades in nature that of weapons and favors. A number of hungry, beady eyes cast him furtive glances, fearful yet devout. Some cautious in the hope of earning his approval.

“–the package will be en route to the agreed-upon address by the end of the week,” a stout man in spectacles finishes off, clearing his throat. Beads of sweat start to form at the back of his neck as red eyes bore into his, assessing. Deliberating. “O-or if Richard’s able to give me the go-ahead in advance, I’ll make sure it arrives by Friday,” a gulp—then, “sir.”

All in reverence.

He hums, his switchblade dancing idly in his hand, deliberately stretching the tension that hangs heavy in the air. He delights in this power to unsettle, savoring the authority that his mere presence commands—a demand for absolute deference.

“Make it half that time, will you, Raymond?” Sylus responds amicably, not as a question. The man, Raymond, sputters.

“That won’t be pos–” Sylus tilts his head, eyes shifting into something more dangerous. “Please, I’ll try to cut the time shorter but there won’t be any assurances.”

The pale-haired man sighs in acquiescence. “I suppose that will have to do.” Raymond lets out an exhale of relief, but catches his breath as Sylus continues, “Any later than Wednesday, and I’ll come to claim it personally.”

Raymond, more nerves than man, starts to blabber something in response—but stops when something black suddenly appears in a blaze of dark energy, near the shoulder of the intimidating man he’s trying to appeal to.

Sylus raises a hand, and a large crow lands on his pointer finger.

He caws, once. Twice. And shows a projection.

The inhospitably cold room suddenly went glacial.

All conversation halts to a stop as an overwhelmingly suffocating aura starts to emanate from the man—no, the being at the head of the table, making all that are in the vicinity freeze in fear.

The devil posing as the leader of Onychinus abruptly stands up, and Raymond thinks, Oh I’m going to die here.

Without a word, the man disappears in a Stygian haze.

Five minutes later, only after they felt like death was no longer looming over their heads, did anyone dare to move a muscle.

_____

Your head hurts, and your mouth tastes of rust.

Having been awake for longer than your captors are aware of – two (?) of which bickering near a barred slate of metal that you assume is the door after taking a quick peek from beneath the mess of hair concealing your face – you try to get your bearings together without arousing the suspicion of your present audience.

“–bet it’s gonna take a while ‘fore that guy arrives. You think she’s enough to get him to show his face?”

“Damned if I know. In any case, we got a pretty, li’l plaything on our hands,” a snort. “Make her worth the effort.”

Where were you? From what it looks like, you’ve been transported into a nondescript underground bunker of sorts, dank with a hint of mildew and rot in the air; a rumbling air vent on your left masking any noise that escaped your mouth when you woke up. The area is poorly lit, save for the flickering bulb hanging precariously above your head as your main source of light – good for casting shadows to hide your bruised face, bad for the pounding headache you’re pretty sure is a concussion. And with your back seemingly close to a wall, you arrive at the conclusion that there are no other entryways, no way to leave, but the guarded door in front of you.

In short, you have no idea where you are.

Fuck—this is bad, you swear to yourself internally, trying to control the rising panic swelling up your chest. You never thought your nightcap would lead to this mess. Nobody knows about your current predicament, and it’ll take more than a day before your absence raises any alarms, so right now, you’re on your own.

Think, think! What can you do?

What can you do? You have nothing on you, nothing you can use as a makeshift weapon to defend yourself with, and your hands are tightly bound behind your back by a thick, heavily twined rope with no give. The situation is slowly turning bleaker by the second, and it isn’t even your fault that you’re here in the first place! You were made a pawn, a mere bait in this messed-up dick-measuring contest between a crazy, sadistic, self-proclaimed head honcho and Onychinus’s own crazy, sadistic—

Wait a minute. Sylus.

You send a strong prayer to anyone above that’s listening, and an angry telepathic shout for good measure to the one who’s unaware of his involvement – but nonetheless the source of your ruined night – in this attempt at kidnapping a perfectly law-abiding citizen of Linkon.

Sylus, as much as I hate your unfortunate tendency to stalk me through means that, honestly? Eludes the hell out of me, I really, REALLY hope that you’ve been keeping tabs toni–

“Hey, boss! I think this one’s awake!”

Fuck. No use pretending anymore.

You hear heavy footsteps from outside the room before the corroded metal door swings open to reveal a large man, easily standing above six feet, sporting a neatly trimmed beard and an unsettling smile. His arms are covered in tattoos– overlapping, almost undecipherable. A gnarly scar runs from the side of his mouth to just above his brow bone; his right eye a cloudy gray, most likely a morbid souvenir from the sustained injury.

His functional eye zeroes in on your pitiful form, and his smile widens into a hostile grin.

“Well, well. It seems like our esteemed guest is finally ready to join in the fun,” His voice sounds like gravel, with a mocking intonation. “I hope my men weren't too rough with you on the way here.”

You let out a breath through your teeth, blinking a few times to try and rid the blurring in your vision. You have to bide your time– “Why am I here? What do you want from me?”

The man cocks his head to the side, smile still in place. “I assume you already know. But I’ll indulge you your little questions, why not?”

He crosses the space separating the two of you with just a few, languid steps before he’s in front of you. He leans forward, brushing the messy locks of hair – dried with blood – away from your face in a deceptively calm manner. “The devil needs to pay his dues, but it’s been rather difficult to get a hold of him, you see,” he sighs in exaggerated disappointment. ”I intend to collect, so I waited patiently for the right moment, for an opening. For an opportunity.

And here, the opportunity presents herself.”

You sneer, moving your head back to let your hair fall from his creepy hold. “I’ve no clue what you’re talking about, mister, but I’m pretty sure you’ve got the wrong idea.”

He barks out a laugh before gripping your chin tightly between his fingers. “You’ve got a smart mouth on you. Maybe we can find a better use for it.”

You feel it before you hear it.

“Perhaps not.”

Something vicious saturates the air, something intense and terrifying and wrong. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and some sort of primordial response deep within your brain is telling you to get away from it.

But then, the paralyzing fear melts away to something akin to hope when you realize the source of this new disturbance.

Relief washes over you when familiar ink-and-red tendrils materialize behind the man in front of you. The dark wisps dissipate like smoke as soon as it comes and in place, your savior – sporting an expression that could only be described as downright murderous – stands before you, all six feet of unadulterated rage.

Several things happened so fast, it was almost simultaneous.

A cacophony of shouts came loudest from the two men who had been on guard duty but screams also echoed from outside the room. You saw flashes of red, twin laughter, and blood spurting from the necks of the now headless guards, and then a symphony of bullets and a lot of things breaking rang across the room.

Suddenly—

Deafening silence. As if something has put an abrupt stop to the noise.

Amidst all the chaos, the scarred man in front of you had no time to make a move before savage whips of crackling energy engulfed him, leaving only his head free from the smothering darkness.

His expression betrays something wild and manic as he tries twisting around to look at the figure behind him. “You—”

Sylus pays no mind to the breathing, dead fool—lower than dirt on his feet, with the nerve to harm what is most precious to him—as he keeps his gaze solely on you; his eyes darting up and down as if taking inventory of all the bruises and scrapes you sustained from the abduction.

You meet his eyes. “You came.”

An indecipherable look passes his face, gone as quickly as it came. “A little too late. I apologize.”

You weakly huff out a chuckle, wanting to shake your head but decide against it lest it aggravates your concussion. A prickling sensation, then the rope around your wrists falls off with a quiet thud.

“Luke. Kieran.”

“Everything’s all accounted for, boss,” Kieran announces, suddenly appearing beside your right, along with Luke who’s on your left. Both look no worse for wear.

The latter gives you a sympathetic look. “Oh, man. They got you good, little crow.”

“Caught me off-guard, s’all,” you insist half-heartedly.

A sigh. “Transport her directly back to base. Attend to her critical injuries once you arrive, and keep her awake. I’ll handle the rest once I get back,” Sylus instructs the twins in a tone that brooks no argument.

They nod in sync and start making a move to carry you out, but you protest.

“Wait, you’re staying behind?” For some reason, the thought of being separated from him, even for a short amount of time, makes you feel ill. Well, worse than your current state, at least.

Sanguine eyes soften when he hears the tremble in your voice. The offending man in front of you, reduced into something less threatening than a cowering dog in comparison to your rescuer, is forcibly pushed aside to make room for Sylus as he steps closer.

He crouches low so that you’re looking down on him instead of up. One large hand covers both of yours, mindfully avoiding the fresh rope burns on your wrists, his thumb rubbing soothing circles on the unmarred part of your skin.

“This will be quick, sweetie. I’ll be back by your side before you know it,” he exhales, closing his eyes for a moment. “I swear to you.”

You swallow, but nodded reluctantly. “Come home soon.”

“I will.”

With that, you let yourself be carried out of the claustrophobic space you were confined to, into a larger room littered with unmoving bodies that you're frankly too tired to care about at the moment, up three (rickety) flights of stairs where you exit into what looks like the inside of an empty shipping container, before finally, finally getting out.

A gust of salty wind hits you and you ask, “Are we near the docks?”

“Yeah,” Kieran answers, carefully putting you down on the backseat of Sylus’ car. “Mephisto trailed after the van they stuffed you in before reporting back to the boss. We followed soon after.”

Luke frowns as he inserts the key in the ignition. “We weren’t aware that they had eyes on you for a while now. An oversight on our part, won’t happen again,” he assures you. “Gotta give them props for that, at least.”

Kieran, now getting in the passenger side of the vehicle, shoots him a look.

“Anyway, we’re glad we got to you before they did anything… worse,” Kieran continues, then winces in a show of mock sympathy. “Can’t say the same to that fucker back inside. Haven’t felt Sylus’ bloodlust this strong in a long while.”

You try to focus on their words, but you feel yourself nodding off as the remaining adrenaline slowly leaves your body. You know you should feel more worried about what the two were insinuating, but your mouth still tastes like you swallowed a bunch of coins and you just want a soft bed to sleep in for an entire day. Or three.

“Oi, no sleeping. Doctor’s orders,” A snapping finger in front of your face forces you awake.

You blink your tired eyes open in an attempt to stay lucid, the pulsing pain in your head becoming more prominent as soon as the threat of danger has passed.

“This is gonna be a long night,” you sigh, wishing that Sylus will keep his word and be quick about… whatever he’s planning to do with your abductor.

–––––

There hasn’t been much left of the man who proclaims to be the new head of an arms syndicate Sylus had dealt with in the past. He recalls the history of his relationship with the cartel being less than cordial, but nothing that would warrant his ire. Except for tonight.

He usually doesn’t leave a trace when doling out punishments; no, not anymore. Not in recent years. He prefers to be efficient about his killings, dissipating any evidence in thin air after reducing them into fine paste, rather than make a big show out of it. Quick and precise.

Except today… Someone had the arrogance, the absolute audacity to steal directly from the dragon’s nest.

The contents of which have always been kept in strict confidentiality. What is known, only chosen individuals bound to secrecy are privy to, and a lot of people would kill for.

But unbeknownst to anyone else but its owner, only one thing in this hoard of secrets truly matters to the dragon. One solitary treasure alone he would burn planets for—and someone has tried to steal it.

Harm. the treasure. To get to him.

It seems as if the new bloods needed a reminder of who, exactly, they’re stealing from.

One who dwells deep within the underbelly of the cities both monster and men inhabit, that even the most heinous of sinners seeking solace in the dark, are afraid of.

And what retribution tastes like to those who are foolish enough to bite more than what they can chew.

The poor soul unfortunate enough to be the first one to discover the carnage will witness that what was left of the man that had wronged the Onychinus kingpin is now stuck on the walls, the floor, and the ceiling of a basement where the treasure was held captive. They will find that the man’s innards are deliberately hung in a haphazard fashion, in all corners of the room like bloody, sinewy tinsel.

And the centerpiece of this bloodbath is none other than the man’s decapitated head, forcibly attached to the hanging light in the middle of the room. A bulb crudely drilled past his cranium, while blood dripped down the floor in slow, ominous rivulets.

They will understand in dawning horror that the one responsible for this... gross butchery, has left the head swinging. That the man’s mouth will forever remain agape in an eternal scream to immortalize the exact moment he realizes the gravity of his sin.

Yes, Sylus is more than glad to remind them.

_____

You arrive a quarter past four AM.

Barely taking a step past the foyer, the twins immediately whisk you inside to perform an ‘emergency patch-up.’ Luke’s words, not yours.

“We’re your personal CNA while waiting for the head nurse to take over,” he explains cheerfully, wrapping another layer of gauze around your wrist. You hiss when Kieran dabs a cotton ball on the gash on your temple, peroxide fizzing as it comes in contact with the dried-up blood. Muttering out a “sorry!” Kieran does quick work in cleaning the injury and covering the affected area.

In no time at all, all visible wounds are bandaged and disinfected. The worst of your head wound had to be stitched up, but other than that, nothing seems to require immediate medical attention. There’s nothing left for you to do but to bear the aches that came along with the bruises – especially on your tender midriff – and to pop a tylenol for your throbbing headache.

You offer them a sincere, “Thanks. No, really.” before they leave you in Sylus’ room, after multiple reminders to “not sleep before the attending nurse arrives for the final diagnosis.”

(You think they might have enjoyed playing caretaker a little too much.)

With a lot more effort than you care to admit, you painstakingly remove your bloodstained clothes until you're down to your underwear, before draping yourself in a large, red, silk robe. A hot shower sounds heavenly to your sore muscles, but the soft mattress is calling to you more so you head straight to bed.

With nothing else to occupy yourself with, you prop your head on a mountain of pillows – to keep yourself relatively upright – and let out a sigh.

Tonight had been a shitshow. All you wanted was something to snack on while you binge through the last season of the show you were watching back at your apartment; you never thought a late-night run to the store just a few blocks away would result in… this. If not for Sylus’ intervention, you’re sure you'd be leaving with a lot more than a couple of scrapes. If not worse.

You're lost in your own thoughts when short, successive raps on the door catch your attention. It swings open before you have the chance to pipe out a, “come in!”

Speak of the devil.

Sylus enters the room, not a hair out of place. You notice that he’s changed into a casual, brown sweater and a pair of dark-washed jeans. His eyes meet yours, tightly-controlled expression relaxing as he crosses the room towards the side of your bed, wasting no time.

“How are you feeling?”

“Still pretty sore, but Luke and Kieran already handled the worst of my injuries,” you answer, making a move to sit up. Sylus tuts disapprovingly, gentle as he puts a hand on your chest to prevent you from moving any further. He sits gingerly on the edge of the mattress, careful not to jostle you. Once fully settled, he let out a deep sigh.

“You had me worried for a moment there, kitten.” He admits, a slightly rough edge to his voice as emotion seeps into it. He regards you intently, like he’s trying to convince himself that you’re here, safe.

Your hand reaches out towards his face. Without missing a beat, he leans in to nuzzle your palm, eyes closing shut. He reminds you of a big wolf, unbridled fire simmering beneath the surface, yet tame in the presence of his handler.

“I’m fine now, thanks to you,” you assure him with a lopsided smile. “Give my thanks to Mephisto, as well. Tell him he gets a pass on the stalking this time.”

Sylus opens his eyes, a hint of amusement and something else you can’t identify flickering through. “Oh, sweetie. You’ll be lucky if that bird gives you the privacy to bathe alone after tonight,” he jokes.

He’s joking. Right?

You eye him for a moment before deciding to let it go. You're too tired to argue.

Instead, you cautiously ask a question you aren’t sure you even want the answer to. “What happened after we left?”

Sylus expression doesn’t change except for the upward tick on the corner of his mouth; the same peculiar glint in his eyes coming across a little stronger. “They won’t be bothering you anymore. You don’t need to worry about anyone coming for you.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He hums. “Do you really want to know?”

You stare at him, and he stares back at you placidly.

You purse your lips and look away. “Maybe not.”

Sylus breathes out a laugh. He gently grasps your chin between his forefinger and thumb, guiding your head to meet his gaze once more. A softer look on his face, inching closer to yours.

Your heartbeat slightly picks up. In your vulnerable state, you feel a welling desire to bare your feelings to the man in front of you. You want to tell him how relieved you felt when you saw him in that cursed basement, how he was able to quell your fears with just his presence alone the moment he appeared in a familiar haze of black and red. Like your own, personal, vindictive guardian.

Instead, you close the distance between the two of you, your lips meeting his.

Sylus groans quietly, a hand cupping your face as he leans closer to deepen the kiss. Your eyes flutter shut, savoring the feeling of contentment from being this close to him. You feel, more than you see, how his taut body loses the remaining tension from the events that transpired just mere hours ago, how he finally relaxes as he loses himself in you.

Very carefully, he eases you further down, cradling your head with one hand until it rests on a pillow. His lips drift to the corner of your mouth, trailing soft kisses up to the apples of your cheeks, your forehead, then to your nose.

He pulls back slightly, chuckling when you make a sound of discontent. When you open your eyes, you see him looking at you—half-lidded and tender.

In a low voice, he instructs, “Rest. You need it.”

The feeling of exhaustion pulls you in, but before you surrender to it, you remind Sylus, “I’m not that fragile, you know. You don’t have to worry too much.” You poke his cheek and he catches the offending digit to bite it affectionately. “I’ll be up and running in no time.”

He doesn't speak for a minute, considering your words. His mouth sets into a thin line before letting out a sigh.

“And if you get hurt again? What then?" He whispers so quietly, seeming as if he's talking to himself.

"I'll get hurt again, that's for sure," You tell him, matter-of-factly. "But really, that’s just an occupational hazard. I’m sure you realize."

“Love — what a terrible, little thing,” he muses, half-forlornly, half in jest. "I’d rip this cold heart out and throw it in flames if I could.”

While speaking, his hand finds its way into the tangles of your hair, gently running his fingers through the strands in a lulling manner. His lips landing on the crown of your head softly. Reverently.

You hum sleepily.

“Of course you would, Sy.”

_____

“You’ll be glad to know that the artifact you had your eye on back at the auction will be arriving this Wednesday.”

“Huh? But I thought it was already sold to someone else?”

Sylus shrugs. “I made a counteroffer.”

“You didn’t have to. I told you it was fine.”

“I know. But I also recall a certain someone telling me how much they wished they had placed a bid on it on our way back,” he pinches your cheek fondly. “Don’t worry about it, kitten. It’s yours.”

“Oh. Well– thank you,” you yawn in response, leaning your head to rest against his palm.

His thumb strokes your cheek. “Anything for you.”

#love and deepspace #lads #lnds #love and deepspace sylus #lads sylus #sylus love and deepspace #sylus x reader #sylus x mc #sylus x you #lads x reader #sylus #sylus qin #love and deepspace fic

3K notes · View notes