#red-write-district

[rathologic]

oh what's going on here. smiles devilishly

[amikotsu]

Itachi: “Why don’t you let me show you what real whisky tastes like.”

Kakashi, staring when Itachi returns with the most expensive bottle in the place: “What makes you think I can afford this?”

Itachi, already pouring two glasses: “Your commanding officer has a tab. You can have anything you like.”

Kakashi, confused: “And I’m sharing my bottle with you?”

Itachi, smiling: “Yes, you are. Thank you for your hospitality, Kakashi-san.”

[ravenssunshine]

i’m just gonna assume makochi is built exactly like nagoya for my own purposes (only japanese city i’ve lived in, has a shopping street, a restaurant district, and red light district. good enough)

[defensivelee]

I've just been asked irl if I write Keppel as a hoe bc he's Dutch and I have no idea what the implications are 😭😭

[cryoculus]

HI I LOVE U AND UR FICS SM KEEP ON BEING AWESOME

also freaking out over the latest hsr events……. (spoilers) do you think Mydei will come back because I need this man to come back

unfortunately! i love you more 🗣️🤍

in this cycle? absolutely not, he is DEAD. tenth thoracic vertebrae? Decimated. but in the next cycle? oh definitely 🤩 he will come back and live a good, long, not miserable life (i say, as i get wrestled back into my straight jacket)

crazy how difficult to tell it is tbh. it's been a hot minute since i got invested in a hoyo game's lore enough to make me excitedly anticipate the main quest every patch 🦖 but ofc, as all batshit insane mydei yumes do, i strongly believe he will come back 🤓☝️

[butthatsjustmyfilthyopinion]

Writing question: what are some other businesses for red light districts? Obviously there's the prostitution houses and adult theaters as Wikipedia puts it, but there's only so many of those one can make without getting bored.

Any other businesses are my main motivator but any house niches are very much welcome, I'm more so just looking for variety.

[amikotsu]

Kakashi, staring at Itachi: “Hm. So you weren't always a whore.”

Itachi, expression blank: “Do you think any of us were born in this pleasure house?”

Kakashi: “Your mouth gets you into trouble, doesn't it?”

Itachi: “That's usually why men keep it occupied.”

[welcome-to-the-districts]

Consultation

Quick little one-shot featuring Amira. Tw for mentions of blood. One-shot under the cut.

Flat-Top swallowed nervously as he skated through the dark halls. The sound of gears grinding filled the air as he glanced around the halls. His eyes were perfectly adapted to seeing in such dim lighting, a gift bestowed upon the rolling stock by the Starlight Express itself. He dreaded the conversation he was bound to have with Amira. He knew she was busy with paperwork while she wasn’t barking orders to the guards left and right. He skated off to the side as a human rushed past him with a shaken expression on their face. No doubt they knew of what happened here on the regular. Flat-Top shuddered at the mere thought of it. He slowed to a stop before two massive crimson doors with stunning baroque lifted engravings cast in silver. The door itself had to be several hundred feet tall and easily over fifty feet wide, as if it were built to accommodate a machine of gargantuan proportions. 

He took a deep breath as he reached towards the door’s controls. It was button operated, one for closing, another for opening. The controls were inlaid a black metal plaque and the buttons were the color of ruby. He pressed one of the buttons and he stepped back as he watched the gears of the opening mechanism turn on the very top of the enormous doors. The locking mechanism clicked, signifying it was unlocked before the doors slowly swung open, revealing an office that gave off a warm glow of flickering fire light. 

“Come in! Make it quick!” A familiar voice demanded from within the office. Amira’s tone was sharp and her tongue sharper. Flat-Top winced slightly at the tone before he entered the office and the large doors swung closed behind him. The concrete floors gave way to Bloodwood floors accented with ruby rugs with hand sewn silver intricate baroque patterns. The office walls towed over him, taller than the doors by a good ten feet. They were the color of blood with golden intricate patterns with silver highlights. In the very center of the wall was a fireplace. The fire was burning strong as always, no doubt ignited by Amira’s fiery breath judging by the immense heat.

There was an array of furniture, each in varying sizes, as if they were made of machines of all different sizes. Surprisingly, there was a sofa that easily reached over fifty feet tall that matched the rest of the room. It was accompanied by a much smaller arm chair, also matching the overall look of the room. An end table or two, both matching the height of the armchair and the couch sat right next to the two seats. Each had a lamp, both were turned off. The fireplace provided plenty enough light to illuminate the room in a warm welcoming glow. The light licked at the silver accents of the rugs, walls, and furniture. 

There, in the center of the room itself were two desks. One was large enough to fit a rolling stock his size. The other was absolutely massive, towering over him as if it were built for something that couldn’t possibly exist, yet there she was, sitting on a chair, busily filling out paperwork, Amira. 

Amira wasn’t in her easily recognizable humanoid form. No. Behind closed doors, she almost never was. Instead, she was in the form of a massive and impressive beast. Her long, muscular body was black as the night sky in color. Her underbelly was the color of blood and pleasantly plump with a few layers of fat that simply added that much more to her appearance. Her hair was now a silver mane that ran down the length of her neck. It was thick and perfectly soft to the touch of those who would dare to run their fingers through it. Her face had a similar shape to a mix of a diesel and steam locomotive with a crimson cowcatcher on her chin. On her nose was the shield of the Union Pacific logo. The blue stripes stretched ever so slightly across the sides of her snout, ending at her nostrils. Each nostril had a blood red horn just just behind each one.

She had six limbs in total and was sitting in an odd manner. Her second pair of legs were in a perfectly comfortable position, resting on the front of the chair, where as the third pair were sitting similar to a dog’s. The chair had a large enough gap in the back of it to allow the rest of her body to rest comfortably. A pair of arms, and two pairs of legs. As for each wheel on her body, there was a limit of some sorts. Each limb ended with clawed paws. Each claw was crimson, almost as if she had dipped them into the sweet nectar of life they all craved itself and were easily as long as he was tall. Her great size easily reached several hundred feet in height. However, the most striking feature on her body were the horns that curled in such an unnatural manner, like great red swirls. Each horn had a prong in the middle, not exactly useful, but sharp and long enough to gore someone if they were unfortunate enough to find themselves at the receiving end of her wrath. She dipped one of her claws into the black ink before she continued to fill out the piece of paperwork, using her claw like a pen. 

He cleared his throat and Amira froze. Her draconian ears pinned back against her skull. Her ruby gaze slowly lifted from the paperwork as she turned her large head to look at him. She was wearing her formal attire, having just returned from a meeting. The top of her outfit was cropped just slightly above her plump belly. Chains that were large enough to be used for logging operations rested against her collarbone and against the very collar of her outfit as it stretched across her chest , having been attached to her attire using strong material. 

The lower half started just before her second set of limbs and another chain rested on her thighs, stretching across them. It draped over her back and covered the front part of her body and partially her legs. There was a considerable gap just at the side of her second pair of legs, allowing her easier movement. The lower half came to an end just a bit before the very end of her body. The rear looked similar to an engine’s, double acting as a large bobtail. 

“What is it you want this time, Flat-Top?” Amira’s voice had softened slightly as her ruby gaze studied him. He felt so small and insignificant compared to her. She could easily crush him if she ever wanted to. Thankfully, she was an ally of his, a very close one at that. 

“I was wondering with blood moon coming in the next week… You think I should just.. you know.. isolate myself? I feel like these instincts are a curse.. I never asked for them. I don’t want to risk harming anyone around me. You know how I feel about that, Amira..” Flat-Top averted her gaze, looking down at the floor as he fiddled with his thumbs. Amira narrowed her eyes at him.

“That is up to you, but mind you, your instincts are not a curse. They are a gift. Use them wisely.” Amira turned her attention to her paperwork, dipping the same claw in the ink once more, using it to fill out her paperwork. Flat-Top looked up at her.

“Amira.. please.. you don’t understand. These instincts are dangerous! Why should a gift be so dangerous?!” Flat-Top protested. He stopped as he saw Amira tense up slightly. She was not one to be talked back at and he knew it. He slowly skated back.

“Amira, I’m sorry..”

Amira whipped her head around it face him before she stood up. Her great bulk towering over him as her silhouette loomed over him, blocking most of the light from the fire place. He fell back onto his rear and scooted back further, one arm raised defensively. She crossed her strong arms and growled deep in her chest. The girls sounded like thunder to him, shaking the office. 

“The instincts are neither bad nor good. It depends on how you wield such a tool. We survived and evolved for thousands of years thanks to our instincts. We still rely on them to keep ourselves alive. They are not something to be feared. They are something to be embraced! The more you deny them, the worse they will be when you finally lose control. Control is needed, yes, but that’s why our laws cover such things. You may kill a human, but you cannot kill another machine. Even then, the instincts do not always abide by our laws, only following the laws of nature itself. You are in denial of your teeth, boy! Sharpen them! Use them! They are the best tool you could possibly have at your disposal. They ensured our kind’s survival for far longer than you and I have ever existed! Do not throw away such a tool, a gift. Heed my warning boy, we must not follow humanities’ morals, as they do not follow our values, our history, our government! You and I are equal to animals. Where we are today is a result of us clawing our ways up the social ladder and making a name for ourselves. We evolved throughout our lifetimes, just as how the many other lifeforms had done over the course of millions of years. We abide by our laws, our own morals from a reality we forged from the fires of ire and vengeance. This is the reality you contributed to, and yet you fear the truth glaring you right in the face? You cannot deny who you are, boy. You and I both know it. Embrace it. Embrace those instincts that were gifted to you. Do not waste them, shun them or fear them. They are a part of you just as you are a part of it.  Heed my warning boy, your instincts are your strongest tools, your weapons. Ignoring them or hiding them will bring nothing but danger to those around you.”Amira’s sharp glare rested upon him as her booming voice echoed throughout the halls of the great fortress. Flat-Top didn’t want to admit it, but he knew she was correct. If she wasn’t the captain of Greaseball’s guard, she would have made an excellent politician. She had years to hone her skill, her craft. Those many years paid off, as she had clawed her way up to where she was now. 

“I shouldn’t have said anything..” Flat-Top trailed off. His fear was replaced with guilt as he averted her sharp gaze. Amira’s ruby eyes softened and her colossal body relaxed. One of her draconian ears flicked idly as she sighed.

“You’re fine, boy. I know you’re still young. You’re still afraid of the world around you, learning new things about yourself. I was like that once. Embrace who you are. Do not fear it, but do not let the instincts consume you. You saw what happened to Joule didn’t you? You watched the instincts take hold and turn her into what she is now. We all did.” Amira’s tone was much softer than before. He knew she genuinely cared for him. She always did, having had a soft spot for him from the beginning. She rarely showed it, but he always was able to pick up the subtle hints of her body language. Her voice hid the truth, but the way she moved did not. The softening of her tone and her body relaxing as she saw him in such a state was more than enough proof for him.

“I know. Just worried is all, but.. You’re right. I shouldn’t worry about them. It makes them worse.. Stress amplifies it.. Along with anger. I’m getting better with my anger, I am. I just.. Need time and consistency.” Flat-Top slowly stood up. For once, Amira’s mouth turned to a gentle toothy grin. Her sharp teeth were easily the size of a small car. Yet, Flat-Top was unphased. The fear of her had already done and gone ages ago. 

“I know. Now-” Amira stopped as she heard a series of small knocks on the door. She stood up straight and cleared her throat. “What is it?” Her tone of voice returned to it’s usual sharp nature, always demanding answers, demanding respect.

“Madame Amira, Greaseball has decided he’d like to make a public appearance. He’d like you to accompany him. Crusher will be with Dinah.” a meek voice, no doubt a guard, spoke from behind the door. 

“Hmph. Very well then! Give me a moment!” Amira called out. She looked down at the brick truck. “Apologies, we will have to continue this conversation another time.” Amira bowed her head slightly. Flat-Top nodded and was quick to skate off to the side before Amira stormed out of her office. The whole fortress seemed to shake as her voice boomed through the halls, barking orders to clear the way. He peered out from the enormous doors before he skated out into the halls. Amira was harsh with her words, yet she provided him with a much needed sense of closure in terms of his instincts.

[getouyuri]

r/Marriage: am i (24m) overly obsessed with my wife (24f)?

౨ৎ pairing — oyabun!gojo x secretary!reader

summary — all work and no play makes the fearsome oyabun of the gojo-gumi a tremendously dull boy. since you're a saint, you come into his office with no panties and a mission; to let your puppy play.

౨ৎ content & warnings — MDNI 18+, fem!reader, modern au, yakuza au, humor, smut, fluff, pet names, gojo and reader are married, whipped gojo, gojo is actually insane, dark themes, mentions of murder & violence, p in v, submissive top gojo, sub!gojo, dom!reader, femdom, mommy kink, semi-public sex (office), pussydrunk gojo, mild pet play / puppy play, oral (f! receiving), cunnilingus, unprotected sex, creampie, spanking (both receiving), reader uses gojo’s tie like a leash, MEN WHO WHIMPER >>>

author's note — i love yakuza aus and i love sub top wife guy gojo what can i sayyyy. this is my first fic on this account and it's just self indulgent as hell tbh. this is Not necessary to read, but if you want a little more background on this au, you can find info here. more notes at the end! hope u all enjoy 🫶🏽. full masterlist here.

writing © getouyuri. fanart © maronjapan9art. dividers © thecutestgrotto. wc: 13k

It’s not even 12pm on a Friday, 95 degrees, when the white flag swinging from his person is finally brought to his attention.

“Boss,” Choso says, completely straight-faced as he cleans a gun and stares imploringly at Satoru. Waxing and waning. “There's… something hanging out of your pocket.”

“Oh?” Satoru looks down, snags his fingers into the panties that are peeking out from his slacks, and rubs his thumb over the delicate embroidery in the hem. Interesting. “Oh, sweet.”

A completely normal, well-adjusted member of society would turn into a bumbling, blushing maiden and stuff these goodies away, mortified. Too bad he’s a shameless certified freak, seven days a week.

Like he’s playing cat’s cradle, he pulls at the inner hem and spreads the lingerie open to get a good bird’s eye view down into the panties. Satoru tests the stretch of the material. Turns it this way and that. Examines the gusset for any exciting stains and clicks his tongue when he finds none.

The air of the group at his beck and call sours into something painfully awkward, almost disbelieving. When he clears his throat, all eyes look away from him. Satoru takes the opportunity to crumple the fabric and press his nose into it in order to breathe your scent in.

Delectable. 10/10.

Outside the nearest window is the familiar buzz of typical Tokyo afternoon activity and traffic. Sitting in a loose ‘v’ around him in the ten-seater van they’re packed into are the men he’s tagging along with to swing by the red light district in pursuit of Ryomen’s trail. It’s rare that Satoru himself gets involved in tasks like this that are far below his pay grade, but he’ll take any opportunity he can get to get close to that fuckface and give him hell. He can practically smell his rival’s scent on the breeze.

“Huh,” he finally remarks. Choso is the only one that dares to look at him. “My wife must’ve planted these on me earlier.”

That morning, Satoru regretfully had to pull himself from his comfortable bed and his wife’s soothing warmth, though he promised you (with cuddles and kisses to further convince you and wipe the frown off of your face) that he’d wrap things up quick and meet you at the Gojo-gumi’s main headquarters for lunch. Unfortunately, hours later and worn ragged, he knows now that there was no way he would’ve been able to head over there any earlier than now. He texted you to let you know the change of plans.

Pure fucking chaos was unleashed on Tokyo this morning, all of it carefully orchestrated by Ryomen. One of the Gojo-gumi’s bigger warehouses that they use as storage for black market weapons and drugs was ransacked and then bombed by Tora-gumi shitheads. Many of Satoru’s men that stepped in to try and defend the warehouse’s stock were killed.

At the exact same time there was a shootout in one of the strip clubs— fittingly named Hell’s Paradise— that Satoru owns as one of his many, many business fronts. He and his men arrive on the scene soon after the fact and find the bodies of some of the women that worked there, all of which were personally beneath his unwavering protection that he failed to give them today, alongside some civilians that got caught in the crossfire.

Shoko herself isn’t here, but the traces of smoke linger around her girlfriend— and Satoru’s friend— like a protective ward when he goes to speak with her. Clearly, Shoko was either in the building or cat napping with her not too long ago.

Satoru isn’t labeled as the most terrifying oyabun in Japan for no reason; he handles all of it coldly and clinically to make sure many, many people pay the price for daring to threaten the syndicate, his family, that he’s worked so hard to maintain and provide for. He personally beats the fuck out of and kills the Tora-gumi’s members that were involved in both incidents, and what Satoru doesn’t do with his own bare hands, he sends Choso out like an angel of death to take care of.

While Choso ‘cleans up’, he calls Shoko and sends her out on the prowl to feel out if there’ll be any more planned attacks on the Gojo-gumi.

Fucking Ryomen.

Stepping out into the alleyway behind Hell’s Paradise, he fishes his good luck charm out for the fifth time today and takes another long whiff.

But hey, at least he has a piece of his wife with him wherever he goes, right?

Satoru gets a ride back to the Gojo-gumi headquarters. There’s a bathroom attached to the room with a shower that he had installed years back, so he strips off his bloodied clothes, showers and changes into a fresh suit, meanders back into his office, and tosses himself into his chair.

“God, what a pain,” he whines to himself.

If Satoru could pawn this monstrosity of a paperwork pile sitting in front of him off to one of his secretaries (like you, for example), he so would. Alas, things of this caliber are delegated to the boss man, and the boss man only.

His blue eyes linger on the skyline outside of the window. The Gojo-gumi headquarters is located in the heart of Tokyo and it’s not exactly a secret; hell, even the police know where this place is and what goes on behind its closed doors. Unlike his various business fronts, this establishment is strictly a hub that his syndicate directly operates out of. Organizing all their criminal operations, managing businesses, holding meetings, it all goes down here.

Years ago, it was rare that Satoru could be found sitting here. He used to just swing by the main room, get shit done, not spare his office a glance, and leave. Now, though, he has extra incentive to frequent his office. You’re here every day of the week.

The room feels filled to the brim with your presence despite you being conspicuously absent. The dark wooden surface of his desk is topped with a framed picture of you and him at their wedding, and next to it are various trinkets that you’ve bought with him in mind. His sweetheart.

Satoru lounges back in his plush leather chair (because he likes that it makes him look like royalty, thank you very much), man-spreading with a faint pout. The beginnings of a migraine buzzes right behind his eyes the longer he stares at the work calling his name.

There’s that deal he needs to finalize with Suguru that’ll leave them with a 20% increase in profits by the end of Q1. The Gojo-gumi's gonna be swimming in cash, and the Sutoraifu-gumi will have a steady supply of the goods their members need. Lord knows Suguru and his men need it after the whole Kenjaku debacle that went down a while back. Satoru’ll get to those papers soon and send them off with Suguru’s biker girl whenever she swings by again to hang out with you.

Then he has to look at the letter from the chief of police, which, yawn, that’s the least of his concerns. The detective— Kusa-something, whatever, he always forgets his name— must’ve tattled on him again for his, ah, unsavory way of handling business. That damn rookie Kusachi has a nasty habit of getting in his way and trying to take him on. Satoru could just try to pay the chief off again… and maybe he could visit Kusada’s home, set him straight. And by set him straight, he means chatting to Kusabuse’s family and telling him that their man’s extracurricular activities are gonna get him killed. His family can handle it from there.

And then—

A soft knock at his door pulls him out of his reverie. “I’m busyyy, Kento, Ijichi!” he calls just in case they’re here to hound him, fingers adorned in rings absently adjusting his tie.

It opens to reveal Kento’s unimpressed stare. He glances over Satoru’s unorganized desk, important documents scattered all over and clearly not finished. ‘Organized chaos’ he calls it. You tell him that it’s just shit on a platter.

“… cat’s outta the bag, I guess,” Satoru says glumly, his pout unbefitting of an oyabun further deepening.

Apparently, by the little entourage that Kento has with him, his second-in-command isn’t here to scold him, though. Because you, his gorgeous wife, enters his office next with Ijichi shuffling in behind you, who closes the door behind the group of three.

Satoru perks up like a meerkat and leans forward, fingers dropping away from his tie to instead interlace as he regards everyone, you in particular harboring most of his attention, with a cheery grin that’s at odds with his reputation. Though he’s the epitome of lax playfulness, there’s a questioning sharpness to his gaze as he looks them all over. You have a folder tucked beneath one arm and you look bored.

"Well, well, well, look who it is," Satoru drawls, his tone as smooth as silk. "My three favorite people, alllll in one room. It’s a little too early to be throwing me a surprise birthday party, isn’t it? My birthday isn’t for another few months,” he jests.

Ijichi not so subtly checks the date on his phone even though he knows damn well it’s April, not December. On the other hand, Kento’s eyes flatten slightly. One of his hands goes to his hip while the other massages at the bridge of his nose as if he’s already getting a headache; as he usually does in the oyabun’s presence. “Now isn’t the time for jokes, Satoru,” Kento inserts, dour as ever.

Your poker face twitches.

A blown raspberry echoes in his office. “You always say that, Kento. Would it kill you to pull that stick out of your ass and smell the roses? Experience joy and whimsy?” Satoru dramatically intones. His hand splays across his chest. “You wound me.”

Kento doesn’t even bother to entertain him. Back straight and thumb practically digging into his skin, he rattles off his report; the Gojo-gumi were able to intercept Ryomen’s ploy to undercut the Gojo-gumi’s control over the heroin trade. When he finishes, he promptly turns and makes like Scooby Doo, not wanting to be there a second longer. Ijichi hurriedly scurries at his heels.

The door clicks shut behind them and he puffs out a breath of relief at his wakagashira’s and saiko-kommon’s departure, sitting back in his chair with a gentle creak of the leather beneath him. Satoru kicks his leg up over the other, the side of his calf resting on his knee, and looks you up and down. “And then there were two. Fancy seeing you here, wifey,” he drawls.

“You say that as if we don’t work in the same building,” you snort. Then you soften, closely examining him. “You okay? Your texts worried me earlier, so I texted Choso and his partner to get more details. I heard things got pretty hectic earlier.”

He smiles at you, feeling all warm and fuzzy. Satoru doesn’t get how couples just faze out of the honeymoon stage. Years later and you still have him wanting to kick his feet whenever he’s in your presence. “Things are peachy, pinky swear. I’ve got it covered, sugar. Don’t worry your pretty little head over it,” he assures you. He crosses his fingers over his heart.

You eye him for a moment longer, but whatever you spy on his face makes you relax. Thwacking the folder against the wooden surface before scattering it among the pile, you then round Satoru’s desk and plant yourself in front of him. He inhales unsubtly, catching a whiff of your perfume that makes him go a little cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, and your lips twitch as you take your throne on the lip of his desk.

Everyone here at headquarters is required to follow a certain dress code. Satoru outshines them all, of course, fitted in finely tailored slacks and dress shirts with either a crisp light blue waistcoat thrown atop it or an ironed suit jacket. And as one of the many secretaries flitting around the building keeping the well-oiled Gojo-gumi machine chugging, it’s important for you to look just as professional. Especially since you’re his wife.

Which is why you look like an infuriatingly sexy librarian, decked out in a tight black pencil skirt that hugs your hips, a blouse with the top two buttons undone and the collar pressed open to flaunt the designer necklace he bought you swinging from your neck, sheer black nylon thigh-highs that he’d kill to feel around his head, and stilettos, cute little charms on the buckles giving your outfit a whisper bit of cheer.

(The thought of you making yourself look extra pretty today just for him has Satoru internally busting on the spot, his blood simmering beneath the fine layer of his skin.)

‘The oyabun’s wife’, his men always dreamily sigh when you walk past them— only to whip around and stare at the wall when he slinks by not even a step behind you, his blue eyes cold and caustic when he glares at them in warning. Gorgeous, breath-taking, a prized jewel— and you’re all his.

“Normally I’d only be here to scold you and make you do your work, hubby,” you hum.

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ in my near future,” Satoru muses aloud, raising his eyebrows at you in question.

“No. Just a ‘however’.” Instead of being two dumb bitches telling each other ‘exactlyyy’, they’re two smartasses fashioned in the same factory, complete with warnings labels.

“Yeesh. Can I ever be right with you?” He plasters his hand over his heart yet again and gives you a simpering moue.

You roll your eyes, a wordless ‘duh’. Satoru's lips slant upwards into a Cheshire cat smile as you reach forward and loop his tie around your fingers before giving it a tug, coaxing his chair to roll forward on the sleek hardwood floor. He uncrosses his legs and allows himself to be pulled up and out of it, heeled like a dog, stepping forward to stand between your legs after lightly kicking his chair away with a soft clatter.

Looking down at you through long white lashes that flutter like the first snowfall of winter, his gaze is a mix of playfulness and appreciation in its rawest form. Satoru has to admit, this view is far more pleasant than any document that he was pretending to give his attention to before you strode in.

Your perch on his desk gives you an air of sophisticated dominance that makes his cock give a very interested twitch in his trousers that he can’t help. Sue him for being horrendously attracted to his wife.

Though he towers over you by a mere head due to the slight height advantage that his desk gives you, there’s no doubt that he yields completely and utterly to you. His brain conjures up an image of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. Glorious and championing above the rest of them; victorious.

‘Woof’, he thinks unintelligently.

“However,” you finally continue, beginning to smile. You keep a hold on his tie and tap his nose with the pointer of your free hand, which he wrinkles at you. “I’ve decided that I’ll spare you the lecture for today.”

Satoru's hands come up to rest on your knees, thumbs rubbing slow circles on the sleek nylon covering them. Your inviting warmth bleeds through the thin fabric. He so badly wants to get on the floor, brush them down, and sink his teeth into your plush skin until your skin pinkens. He settles for giving you a gentle squeeze.

“I thank you, oh great and benevolent goddess of the yakuza underworld,” he proclaims, delighting in the fondly exasperated groan that rumbles low in your throat. “I gotta say, I'm grateful for the reprieve, sweets. Though I suspect your mercy is short-lived," he adds with a chuckle. “So give it up already. Spill.”

Fucking hell. There goes a tiny fraction of the element of surprise that you thought you were holding over him like an anvil in a cartoon.

You silently curse his eerie perceptiveness. And his newfound x-ray vision, apparently, since he leans back a fraction to take you in again, his focus lingering on your skirt. But hey, the ball’s still very much in your court, and you’re playing to win.

Not letting it faze you, you heft your legs up, his hands shifting with you, and drape them around Satoru’s waist. His desk creaks beneath you at the distribution of weight. “Yeah, yeah. What I mean to say is that your husbandly duties are calling to you, not your obligations as oyabun.”

Satoru’s blue eyes search yours and he tilts his head, adorably puppy-like in a manner that suggests he’s more innocent than his ruthless reputation paints him to be. Though he’s the epitome of laxness, there’s a questioning sharpness to his expectancy that’d make lesser men quiver and confess to their every sin.

You stare right back at him. “I don’t have any panties on,” you explain simply.

If Satoru was aroused before, he’s now hornier than a pent-up nun. He hardens so fast that it makes him dizzy. “So you’re on that type of timing, got it,” he notes through his suddenly dry mouth as if his brain chemistry isn’t actively warping with this new information.

He wets his lips. His attention darts to the door. “Ijichi locked it,” you confirm before he can ask his question.

Good. Now he can focus on what matters: no panties. No panties. No panties. Fuck.

"Well, as your husband, it's my duty to attend to your every need and desire. And right now, it seems one of those needs is to have me buried deep inside your pretty kitty,” he coos, voice dripping something sinful. “But wowww, I never thought I’d see my stern ‘business over pleasure’ sweet pie pulling this kind of stunt. Seducing me so shamelessly in my own office... for shame! What would people say if they knew you were on a mission to tempt your poor, innocent husband into sin?”

You sigh, long-suffering.

Suddenly curious to see if you’re hiding another surprise elsewhere, one hand leaves your knee and drifts up to the undone buttons of your blouse, popping another one open to expose more of your soft skin. Satoru bites his lip as his eyes snag on the lace of your bra. A shame that you’re not bra-less, but he’s fine with seeing you wear half of the set he commissioned for you from a designer in France that you like. He’s more than okay with this, actually.

You make no move to scold him or cover yourself up— you just amusedly stay fixed on him, your eyes gaining that telltale gleam when you’ve got him all tied up in knots. He’s walked into a honeytrap, hasn’t he?

Despite the clear desire emanating from him, there's a tenderness to his touch, a reverence for your body as the hand on your knee skirts up. He slides it higher up your thigh until the hem of your thigh-high gives way to skin, disappearing beneath your tight skirt to ascertain your bold claim. When Satoru’s knuckles graze your bare folds, which are slowly slickening, he whines as if he’s the one being touched. “Fuck, princess... you're actually not wearing anything at all, huh?” He groans softly, half surprised and half not that you were telling the truth.

“Duh,” you exhale. “I didn’t think I’d have to spell it out for you, though. Did you not see the—“

“The little treat that the panty fairy snuck into my pocket?” Now understanding, Satoru’s grin grows. Reverent… and, well, very perverted. “Sure did. I sniffed them, too.”

Your face contorts as if you don’t know what part to address first before you give up.

“But sometimes thiiis guy.” His eyes pointedly roll upwards in the direction of his forehead, then down at the obvious bulge in his pants. “Likes to take the backseat and let this big guy do all of the thinking. Can you blame me for being a little off my game today?”

“I can, actually. Do better. Even Yuuji gets more work done than you do, distractions and all,” you reply plainly.

Which says a lot. Yuuji’s one of the other secretaries here, though giving him that title feels… a little generous. You and Satoru see him regularly since Choso feels more comfortable going out and doing his job when Yuuji’s safe at headquarters. The teenager comes scampering into the building every day after school and Satoru pays him to do the class work that his teachers send him off with, play on his Nintendo Switch, and sometimes organize the racks of boxed files or make phone calls.

“Heyyy!”

Your cool breaks and you laugh. “You’re just easy to get to. That’s okay, though. It makes things more fun for me,” you tease in a slight singsongy lilt. You turn your head to worry his earlobe between your teeth, nipping then sucking for good measure before releasing it with an audible pop.

Breathing starting to pick up, he drops his face into the crook of your neck and drowns himself in the cocktail of the spritz of that floral perfume you favor and your natural scent. All the while, he blindly traces your slit. Up and down, entrance, clit, entrance, clit.

You cup your husband’s nape as Satoru nuzzles into your neck more urgently, feeling him shiver against you as your palm rasps over the short prickly hairs of his undercut, petting him. Your legs part a bit, skirt inching up as you rut your cunt against Satoru’s exploratory fingers and smear your wetness on him. Still, he doesn’t push in yet.

You’d think he’s teasing you if not for the obvious signs that he’s stalling. Either waiting for your permission or waiting for the best time to ask for it.

How well-trained.

"You make it sound like a bad thing, sugar. Like being under your thumb is a weakness and not a treat," Satoru says abruptly. "I prefer to think of it as... being very, very stupidly in love with my wife. I’m so far gone for you that I’d do anything that you asked of me.”

It’s so easy for him to say such devastating things from the heart without batting an eye; he’s as earnest as a child. It fells you day by day.

His voice is soft despite his low, raspy cadence, brilliant blue eyes bright with his eagerness to serve. At times, it’s almost hard to reconcile this man, the one who’s eating out of the palm of your hand, his nonexistent tail wagging the entire time, with one of the most feared oyabuns in Japan who could probably level half of Tokyo in an hour.

But you’re not forgetting his acts of what he calls ‘devotion’ any time soon. It’s rare that you walk in on him showing the full spread of his true colors, but there’s multiple incidents that stick out like a sore thumb. The one that clings to you like a particularly persistent burr occurred months before you even started dating.

It had been a fairly normal day, all things considered. Most of the men of the Gojo-gumi were preparing to intercept one of Ryomen’s ploys, banding together like sharks after blood in the main common room at headquarters. You remember frowning as you peered at each passing individual that was armed to the nines, searching for their leader so that you could deliver important documents before he could go gallivanting off to get his hands dirty, but Satoru was nowhere to be found.

You went to drop off the manila folder to his office but paused when you heard voices through the cracked door of his office. Sighing, you squatted to slip it under his door and leave, but Satoru’s voice in particular made your blood run cold and your joints lock up before you could lower yourself. “I should cut your balls off and feed them to you, you piece of shit,” he muttered with a scoff.

Apparently, one of his men, Hiro, had been coveting after you. His little work crush was fairly innocent to everyone who caught wind of it, but Satoru? He was the only one who dug into it and discovered Hiro’s… unsavory way of going about privately expressing his affections for you.

Unable to resist, you peeked through the crack right as Satoru unceremoniously tossed Hiro to the floor in front of Nanami and Choso, both of them passively watching. The easy, relaxed posture of Satoru’s lean frame hardened, his broad shoulders squaring as he stared down at the man’s mask of fear. His light blue eyes, typically vibrant and full of mirth, held a cold, calculating glint, like fake flakes fluttering around a snow globe.

You couldn’t watch much of what followed. You turned away when Satoru drew a wickedly sharp dagger from the strap around his thigh and stabbed it straight through the thickness of Hiro’s leg without so much as a warning. His underling’s screams echoed through the room as Satoru slowly, methodically twisted the blade, tearing through flesh and sinew. Blood pooled around the wound and spilled down the sides of his leg, staining the polished floor a deep, sticky red. Numbed to the violence, Nanami bent down at Satoru’s gesture and snatched Hiro’s phone from his pocket as he sobbed and sobbed, decisively crushing it and any evidence it contained beneath his shoe.

“Miss secretaaary, that you?” Satoru’s voice startled you for a second time that day. You forced your attention back to the cracked door, gaze locking onto Satoru’s pleasant, cheery smile that he gave you as if he wasn’t brutally torturing a man that he was planning to soon kill in cold blood. “Oh, good, it is. You can leave those documents on my desk.”

And that was that.

Satoru’s not exactly a good man. He’s done terrible things, will do worse still. This is a man that’s killed for you countless times and would do it again in a heartbeat. But if you asked him to give it up, he’d walk away from the Gojo-gumi and Japan as a whole without a word and give up the title of oyabun to Yuuta. He’d start fresh, wash himself of his sins, and build himself anew just for you. Not that you’d ever ask him to do that, but just knowing that you could and that he’d follow through… you’ve never felt so powerful, so needed in your entire life.

Satoru truly loves you.

“You know, I’ve heard that it’s good to air your privates out from time to time. For circulation and all that jazz.” The Satoru of the present interrupts. The tip of his finger curls, swiping up some of your wetness that spills from your entrance. “Clearly, though, you just wanna fuck nasty.”

You snort out a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, I need you or whatever,” you dismiss him. As if you don’t need this man to nut in you, like, yesterday.

You grab his wrist, guiding him to fully probe at you instead of skirting around the core of you like he has been for the last few minutes. Quick to take you up on the offer, he parts your folds.

Satoru’s pointer finger sinks into you knuckle-deep, hot and fast, and you moan. It takes him a moment to realize why the slide is so easy, and when he does, he whips his head up, suddenly wild and straining at his leash.

“Sweets,” he groans with barely concealed awe. “When did you do this, huh?” He crooks, searching, and you arch when the roughened pad of his trigger finger pets at your walls, so close to where you want him. Tightening around him does nothing to disguise how comfortably loose you are from prepping yourself earlier. Then, a little giggly, a little manic, “Did all those spreadsheets on your desk get you hot and bothered?”

“Mhm, you know I just lo-love payroll,” you hiss when he works another stupidly long finger into you, then a third, his wedding band gleaming on it, and finally massages your g-spot. Your nails flex against his nape. “Had a quick finger blast 1000 session in the staff bathroom.”

“Hot,” he says with feeling. While prying for the sordid details is tempting, there’s more important matters at hand. Like rearranging your guts on his desk to satiate yours and his neediness while you chant ‘good boy good boy good puppy’ before someone inevitably comes knocking to bother him.

Humming a jaunty tune, Satoru pumps his fingers in and out of your cunt, feeling you grow wetter and hotter with each slow lazy thrust. He takes his time, relishing the way your velvety walls flutter around the intrusion of his digits every time he perfectly hits his mark.

Artistically draped atop his desk, you’re beautifully flushed and your eyes are glazed over, lashes fluttering when they threaten to roll back. He can see the fondness etched into your expression, the love, even as you examine him with that imperious tilt to your chin. Your face says what you don’t speak aloud: 'I know I have you wrapped around my little finger, and I'm not afraid to use that to my advantage.’

He’s no art fiend, but he’d go scuba diving in an instant to find the missing head of the Winged Victory of Samothrace and gorilla glue the two parts back together to prove that you’re art in the flesh, a statue of a goddess made with blood, sweat, tears, and passion come to life.

There’s very little space between you. Your breaths intermingle. Pointedly, he glances down at your lips, and you do the same to him.

“C’mere,” he beckons, but you’re already hauling him in with the hand on the back of his neck.

You slot their mouths together with a low, happy noise akin to a purr. He kisses back eagerly, desperately, positively starved for your affection that he’s been yearning for all day. Satoru’s lips part with a shuddery sigh and he pushes his tongue past your pillowy lips to stroke along yours, tasting the sweetness of your mouth; a dash of mocha overridden by those matcha chocolates that he got you hooked on.

You squeeze tighter around his waist, milking a wounded noise from him. Gentle yet firm, you trap his tongue between your teeth, scraping over it and coaxing out the reaction you want. He predictably wedges himself closer and you drag your nylon-clad thigh over the bulge at the crotch of his pants, up and down.

The desk creaks beneath you again as Satoru leans into it and shamelessly dry humps your leg with obvious flexes of his hips. You’re no better, though, rutting into the cup of his palm and squirming in delight every time those delicious callouses of his chafe against your aching clit.

“Feeling good?” He mumbles into you. You nod, tilting your head and realigning your lips, making their kiss that much more heated. His ministrations briefly make your mouth uselessly part against his, too wrapped up in pleasure to function.

Satoru’s the first to break away. He hikes your skirt up, revealing more of your plushy legs clad in those sinful thigh-highs until he finallyyyy lays eyes on the prize. He cups your mound then pulls his palm away, just to watch how thin translucent strings chase after him before snapping and splattering on your inner thighs.

He lifts his hand and looks you dead in the eye, warming some of your gathered wetness between his forefinger and middle before sucking them clean. Ravenous. You know what he wants.

“Can I, y’know, take a proper look at your pussy up close?” Satoru asks, sly but not sly. “I wouldn’t be a good hubby if I didn’t make sure that my girl properly got herself nice and ready for m—“

“Satoru? Get on your knees.”

You have to give it to him, the man moves fast as fuck when given an order. Satoru swiftly drops down, making you worry for his knees that hit the rug hard enough that the wood below it audibly thunks.

And he stares. In an unabashedly perverted manner, at that.

“Let’s see this pretty pussy,” is all he mumbles, chewing his lips and fastening his thumbs into the skin around your folds, tugging you open with a filthy squelch of wet skin peeling away from wet skin. Spreading you wide enough that you prickle with pins and needles— or maybe that’s just because of his unnerving stare.

Your glistening cunt is swollen and enticingly slick with need. The sight of your pussy lips unfurling before him and your clit peeking out from beneath its hood has his mouth watering. Satoru’s cock jumps in his pants like he’s just had a live wire threaded into the slit of his cockhead, desperate to bury inside of you, balls deep.

He looks up at you then. His cerulean eyes gleam with a borderline manic light, wolfish in his intensity. “What next? Want me to heel? Chase my tail? Roll over?” He drawls, cocking his head. He’s more than ready to debase himself in any way you want just to get his back scratched.

You shrug, “I want whatever you want.”

Greed is a sin or whatever, he thinks dimly. But he can't bring himself to care. His fingers dance up and hook under the crook of your right knee, placing it on his shoulder. “Then lemme eat my meal.”

You hate that that makes you shudder. It also makes you wanna shut him up.

“Who are you asking?” You check, cupping your ear. “Try again; you know better, baby.”

The lilt you take on to simultaneously coax and rebuke him only serves to turn him on more, making his poor neglected cock press insistently against his zipper. Satoru knows that look in your eyes. It's the same one you give him when he's been particularly foolish— the ‘bouquet(s) incident’ instantly comes to mind— or when you want something from him. In this case, it's clear that his wife wants him to be good.

His cheeks flush a soft pink, his blue eyes growing hazier with lust, not embarrassment. You’d think that he’d rally against the condescension that coats your words like condensation pearling on a windowpane, but not an inch of his pride bristles beneath your firm hand. Not when he’d strip himself down to the marrow and hand all of himself to you on a silver platter. His pleasure, his pain, his heart and soul… it’s all yours for the taking.

“Mommy,” he moans as if the word itself does more for him than it does for you. And it probably does. “My sexy, gorgeous, take-no-shit-from-anyone, especially her husband, mommy. Can I taste you, please?”

You smile, pleased. Then, finally, because he’s been waiting so patiently, “Go ahead.”

Shit, you don’t gotta tell him twice.

Like a scenthound tracking a trail, Satoru instantly shoves his way between your legs and buries his face in your crotch, gulping down lungfuls of your scent with the desperation of an addict and making you huff out a shaky laugh. The heat radiating from you is staggering.

"You smell like heaven, holy fuck. Good enough to eat. Lucky for you, I’m starving,” he borderline complains. It’s a complete juxtaposition to how he purrs those muffled words into your skin. You shudder at the vibrations.

“That was corny as—“

Satoru was as menacing when it came to pleasuring you as he was as oyabun. There’s no shooting straight and simple with him; he’s reckless, skateboarding on the knife’s edge for the hell of it. He goes from carelessly smothering himself into you, eyes teetering back in their sockets as if drunk with each pass of your slick across his chin, lips, cheeks, to turning his head and dragging messy kisses into the crease between your hip and leg. His saliva and your wetness ooze down your inner thigh, akin to a ripe May mango being carved open and spilt on hot concrete.

But if he’s dangerous, then you’re terrifying.

Pain shears razor-sharp through his scalp. You snag your fingers into his hair, guiding and tethering at the same time, forcing him to stare into the mess they’ve both made of you. He whines, chomping at the bit for it.

“That’s not what I gave you permission to do. Down, boy.” You click your tongue. His teeth click together with how fast he shuts his trap. “I’m beginning to think that you can’t take orders after all. What a shame,” you sigh, the timbre of your voice gentle but your words condescending.

Though he gives you a guilty pout, his cock instantly spurts precum due to the way you’re speaking to him, further soiling his boxers. A teensy part of him wants to act out, harmlessly push against you until you round on him with the intensity of a thousand suns so that you’ll break him over your knee. Playing the part of the petulant brat is fun sometimes. However, his knee-jerk reaction to prove you wrong and take you up on your silent challenge that you’ve presented him with wins out.

Satoru can be a good boy without a doubt.

Sure, he was never the type to care about what other people thought of him, just as long as everyone knows that he’s the reigning king of the yakuza scene. That he’s the richest, the handsomest, everything in that vein.

But the idea of showing you how he could lend his ear to you and listen well, how he was only good for you, that he was only yours to kiss and love and fuck, was enough to drive him borderline crazy.

With his extremely selective hearing and all that corded muscle packed beneath his baby soft skin, you both know damn well that he could steer this situation however he pleased if he wanted to. Yet he goes pliant in your grip, watching, waiting, licking hungrily at his pronounced canines. A predator turned tame as he awaits your order.

It makes you feel drunkenly valorous.

You tilt his head up, angling him so, as if reminding yourself that you’re holding genuine gold and not any of that counterfeit bullshit. His blue eyes are half-mast and dreamy when you peer into them, pupils blown wide. He’s sitting back on his heels with a casual ease, too far away to kiss but not far enough that you can’t smell the intoxicating scent of him, a heady mix of vanilla and cinnamon and sandalwood.

This beautiful, arrogant, infuriating nutcase of a man. Seeing him like this makes your heart do flips. You live for moments like these, when he can let go and just be yours completely. The most feared man in Japan, brought to his knees by the woman he loves.

You tap your chin. “Didn’t your parents teach you that it’s improper to play with your food?”

His retort comes quick. “I think they cared more about making sure I could properly unload, load, and shoot a gun in less than ten seconds. And juggle multiple businesses at once. All of which I excel at, by the way.”

“Smart ass,” you scoff, but the words lack their usual bite. You sound affectionate.

“Mm, but you love my mouth.” Satoru, lecherous, wiggles his eyebrows. You can’t deny that.

“What was it that Suguru told me ages ago?” Satoru wonders aloud, glancing up at the ceiling as if it’ll come to him in a show of divine light. You’re incredibly unimpressed and almost want to shove him face first into you and do all the work yourself, but you wait. “‘Thanks should be given thricefold?’ That’s all I’m doing.”

He replants his face into your inner thigh, wetting the lacy top of your thigh-high with one indulgent lick, then latches onto your plump thigh and sucks and bites with a vengeance. The peachy pink of his shapely lips bleeds forth and mixes with your skin, producing the same color beneath his teeth. Once the hickey is dark enough for his standards and you’re writhing a little, he mumbles a faint ‘thank you’ and switches to your other leg, mauling your skin with obnoxiously loud slurps, leaving a second mark and professing his thanks again.

Then his mouth finally makes contact with your cunt and you’re a goner.

This is the same man that got you a little wet on their first date, you remind yourself. You remember sitting across from him, taking subtle deep breaths as if the very air in your lungs would break every piece of fine china in the five star Michelin restaurant that Satoru dragged you to, and stiffly cutting your wagyu steak.

Satoru knocked back the rest of his non-alcoholic drink like it was a shot, ice clinking against his lips, then sucked the single cherry between them. Grinning a little at you, he chewed into the cherry with crisp snaps of his teeth until only the stem remained. And the show-off kept his mouth open so that you could watch him tie the teeny tiny stem into a neat knot using only his tongue and the support of his teeth.

It’s safe to say that he’s really, really talented with his tongue.

He drags deep, open-mouthed kisses up and down your slit, sloppily making out with your cunt. His tongue lolls out of his mouth and firmly licks into you, and when he moans like a whore into your quivering pussy at the first taste of real, genuine ambrosia, the vibrations take root in your nerves and shake them fiercely. You keen as if you’ve been socked in the stomach, hands digging harder into his fluffy white hair and making him moan again.

“Oh, shit, yesyesyes, good boy,” you pant at the very sudden and very enjoyable onslaught.

From what you’ve learned, the best way to train a puppy is through positive reinforcement, patience, and rewarding good behavior. It works wonders.

Satoru's hand crawls to the underside of your left thigh and he tosses that one over his broad shoulders too, settling in to eat you out with single-minded focus. He feasts on you like a man starved, gathering the wetness that drips from your core, dipping inside your entrance that doesn’t resist him even a little bit to taste you more fully and nuzzling his nose against your clit, spurred on by the praises you keep singing. Three laps and he’s a swimmer. The cocktail of his saliva and your slick coats his chin and pools on the wood beneath your ass.

You dig the points of your stilettos just above his shoulder blades. Using your newfound stirrups and gripping the reins of his hair, you vigorously grind yourself against his face to try and unravel the knot in your stomach. Satoru loves when you get bossy like this, wrangling him so that you can take what you want. It’s so fucking hot.

“That’s what good pussy sounds like,” he groans, muffled by your skin, even though he can barely hear the lewd squelches of your responsive body himself, the wet clicks of his suckling. Your trembling thighs are firmly locked around his head— it wouldn’t be so bad to suffocate here. You squeeze harder, squishing his ears further against his head, as if telling him to shut up and stop quoting Vines of all things while buried in his favorite deep-dish.

He doesn’t stop running his mouth, though. “Tastes so good, f-fuck, bet you feel good too with how soaked you are. Keep moving your hips just like that, mommy, use me— just like that, yeaaah,” is breathed nose-deep into your folds that soaks every word up like a sponge. “Drag that pretty cunt all over me.”

His lips are lovely and warm, diligent in his ministrations. Choppy exhales ghost across your skin and make you flinch. He pulls back a little to lave over your clit, tasting the sweet, salty wetness that coats it, and he sinks into the bliss and into you. He gorges himself on the sweetness of your juices, swallowing it down and letting it trickle down his throat.

Satoru looks up at you, eyes frantic with adoration like he’s pleased to be doing this, just eating you out without any sort of gain for himself. There’s been countless times where Satoru’s pinned you down and munched for hours, languorous in his effort to coax noises and reactions from you. He’s done it in a changing room, during their movie marathons, on his private jet to one of their vacation homes, fresh from beating people black and blue, when you were sleeping in their cozy king-sized bed back at the Gojo estate… the list goes on. Earning gratification via your pleasure is enough for him.

Each stroke through your weeping slit elicits an approving moan or whimper from the beauty perched atop his desk, growing higher in pitch the closer you get to the edge. Your husband sounds just as wrecked, mewling babbled nonsense into you, ferally plunging his tongue in and out of your silken depths that he’d kill to stay swaddled in forever.

You screw yourself down onto him with equal fervor, your body heaving with the force of your pleasure, twisting and writhing and making the desk creak. Perhaps you’re being a bit too punishing with your pace and not letting him up for air, but Satoru takes it all with grace, not a single whimper of protest slipping past your hips that slap against his face.

"Cum for me, angel," he pathetically begs, his thumb seeking out your clit to trace circles against it. His tongue continues its relentless assault, determined to push you over the edge and into blissful oblivion. "Let me feel you. Want my baby to make a mess of me, c’mon.”

When it becomes too much, the fervent sparks licking down the sparkler too fast, you lightly bat his head away. Satoru goes quickly and obediently. Your hips itch to chase him. “Open, puppy,” you bite out.

His mouth falls open, whiny pants drooling down his pretty pink tongue. That’s all it takes to do you in. With his thumb rolling over your swollen rosebud and his eagerness on full display, you let the intensity of your orgasm sweep you away and you keen as you squirt all over his face.

Viscous fluid splashes on his tongue and he moans, looking utterly out of it as he watches you find your release. Slick coats his cheeks, chin, and lips in a glistening sheen and he licks up what he can. Satoru scrambles forward for more of it even as you try to physically hold him at bay with the weak hand fixed in his wavy strands.

“Please!” He basically cries. You’re a sucker for good manners. You’d try harder to keep him away if you actually didn’t want him all over you, so he takes your unspoken permission that comes in the form of a furrowed brow, as if you’re scolding yourself for giving in, and he runs with it.

He practically collapses into you. He seals his mouth back over your gushing pussy, fingers abandoning your clit in favor of clawing at the nylon smoothed over your thighs. Groaning, your shaking legs relax around his head and slip off his shoulders, splayed open for him to lick his plate clean. Satoru does just that, a little clumsy in his haste but no less passionate.

He keeps going until your erratic twitches turn into steady shudders, your nonstop moans quieting down, until his jaw aches from how hungrily he threw himself into the task. He doesn’t even realize that he’s palming himself through his slacks until his hips sway forward and he pulsates in his grip.

Satoru reluctantly draws back as if it physically pains him to not be buried beneath your skin when your high heel lightly kicks at his flank, too overstimulated to allow him to keep going. His gaze drags over you, recommitting every fine detail to memory; trembling lips punctured by teeth marks, your expression dreamy, body curled halfway over him and ripe for the taking. He wants to remember you like this, wants to burn this image into his brain so that he can call it up when the long nights stretch before him and the weight of his duties threaten to crush him.

“You’re so pretty, mommy. My pretty baby,” he whispers.

He meets your eyes that burn into him. He can only imagine what he looks like. Pink from the tips of his ears down to his neck, face messily painted over with your slick, white hair fluffed up and a little frizzy from the sweat at his hairline. A pussydrunk mess.

You almost want to press your high heel to his chest, kick him to the floor, and then ride him until he cries. The lazier half of you wants to sit back and take the reins from below.

“Let’s get those pants of yours off, baby,” you gently coo.

Satoru exhales sharply and fumbles with his belt. The leather strap slips through the buckle with a sharp clink and he tosses it to the floor. His boxers drag along his erection almost painfully as he shoves them and his slacks down to bunch around his shapely thighs.

Flushed and dripping, his cock draws up now that it’s free of the confines and slaps against his abdomen, staining his pristine white button up with the copious amounts of precum that slicks it. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve been convinced that he already blew his load in his pants. You sit up straighter to get a better look, looking as drunk as he feels.

“Please let me fuck you, mommy... I need it so bad. Need to make you feel good,” he pleads, blue eyes nearly rolling up to the light fixtures on the office ceiling as he finally fists his weepy cock. It feels so good that it hurts.

He was never apologetic about his spoiled golden child tendencies when it comes to you, even borderline proud of acting so shameless about it at times.

Still, Satoru needs a certain level of coaxing in order to be truly vulnerable. His obedience has always been fickle— difficult to coax out of him when his head is on straight, his thoughts moving too fast for him to melt like putty beneath you that easy. Pride is a wretched, untamable thing. An unstoppable force and an immovable object.

Yet he’s on his knees begging to get inside of you.

“Get up,” you breathe.

“Huh?” He mumbles stupidly, still fixed on you.

Your laugh is devastatingly fond. “Are we fucking or what?” You shove your pencil skirt up to your midsection.

Satoru gets a little distracted by the sight of your mussed up thigh highs, the tops of them soaked through, the splotchy hickeys dotting both of your legs, and your messy folds. His thumb stutters over his swollen cockhead.

“You don’t wanna leave mommy waiting, do you? Come get your dick wet.”

The second you finish speaking, he’s on you, flying up onto his feet and ignoring the smarting pain in his knees. He reaches past you and wildly sweeps at his desk, sending papers and pens to the floor. In the next instant, his hands are on the backs of your thighs, pushing your legs up and out to get a good look at your bare ass and glistening cunt.

While admiring the view, he risks his precious left hand by letting it come down to deliver a sharp smack to your ass. When you don’t bite his head off, he does it again, because damn, that’s a lot of movement back there. Your asscheek flares red like a warning. He’s of the opinion that you should get ‘Ms. Nasty’ tatted there, but you always shoot down the idea.

Fingers wrench at your hips to haul you forward, making you choke on air. Sweaty palms scramble for purchase on the smooth oak, stretching back behind you and hooking onto the edge of the desk at the last minute before he can send both of you falling to the floor in a heap.

“Gentle,” you scold. The flare of his nostrils gives away his uncharacteristic disappointment with himself, which you think is a little unfair to himself. He really has been so well behaved; one mishap is nothing. Humming soothingly, you pet at his cheek and his tension releases like a deflated balloon.

You shimmy a little, rubbing your velvety warmth all over his cock that he notches at your entrance. "Good boy," you purr, hooking your legs around his waist and crossing your ankles at the small of his back, tying them together with a cute little bow. "Such an obedient little puppy, following mommy's every command.”

Satoru groans, guttural and wet, and surges forward to connect their lips. The tangy taste of your own slick greets you, but you don’t mind, drinking down every pornographic whimper that drips from his mouth.

“Put it in,” you mumble between drawn out kisses. You rub your thumb just behind one of his ears and a pleased hum rumbles through his chest, which rises and falls rapidly as anticipation coils tightly in his gut. You shove his suit jacket off of his shoulders, letting it drop to the floor, then loosen Satoru’s tie enough that you can get your fingers on the first button at his collar and work your way down. You leave his shirt hanging from his shoulders but you roll his sleeves up.

Arms that have snapped countless necks flex as Satoru plants his hands on the desk on either side of your hips, caging you in. You drag your hands up and down them, squeezing at the muscle of his biceps beneath his skin, shamelessly feeling up your husband. His cocky smirk is like a brand against your lips.

One, two, three more kisses are exchanged before he pulls back with a wet pop and you can finally peel your eyes open.

Lean muscle and pale scarred skin greets you, peeking from behind the curtain of his undone shirt. Not that you can see it from here, but you can practically picture the massive tattoo of a six-eyed, six-winged angel that he has etched into his back. There’s that jagged scar of his that always makes you wince in sympathy, the line of it running from one shoulder to his opposite hip that an assassin gave him when he was in high school. A smattering of fine white hairs races down his navel to the denser patch of hair curling around his cock. God, you wanna rub yourself all over him like a cat in heat— especially on those washboard abs of his.

With a deep breath, he begins pushing in, working just the tip in past the ring of your cunt. Instantly, Satoru stutters over a moan as if near tears.

Your velvety hole drenches Satoru’s cock with your syrupy slick and clamps down mercilessly as if trying to trap him inside. He shudders, a full-body tremor that starts at the top of his head and travels down the length of his body. Satoru has to grit his teeth to keep from emptying his balls right then and there like a teenager getting his first taste of pussy.

He’s genuinely delirious. His head is dizzy, stupid, because his wife is obscenely fucking tight despite everything and so damn warm. “My toes are throwing up gang signs,” Satoru coughs out as they curl in his Italian leather shoes and you bust out laughing. As responsive as ever, your cunt tries to wring his dick like a towel and he chokes.

You’re actually gonna be the death of him. Here he lies, Gojo Satoru, the deadly oyabun of the Gojo-gumi and the pride of the Gojo clan, dead via sex. May he forever rest in peace.

You’re not faring much better, though. Your previous orgasm left you raw and sensitive, so you’re fighting against the urge to run from his cock and the pleasure that crashes over you each time he throbs inside of you. “And I’m sending off Morse code signals,” you breathlessly joke. It’s a miracle that you’re able to manage a coherent sentence.

“Uh huh, I can tell.” Satoru licks his lips, staring down at where he guides another inch into you, then another, making you slap the desk to try and cope with the way he’s spreading you open. You feel full to the brim and he’s not even halfway there. “Your tight little cunt’s telling me that she can’t handle my cock.”

He needs his mouth washed out with soap. You have to hold back another peal of laughter.

Satoru brokenly whimpers, a sound that’s equal parts pleasure and pain, when you yank at his designer silk tie like a leash without warning. The expensive fabric pulls taut against his throat. Your next tug sends him stumbling forward, hips slapping against the plumpness of your ass with a heavy smack that echoes through his spacious office, forcing him to sink into your welcoming heat up to the hilt. The desk creaks, the wood protesting the rough treatment. Both of you moan when his cockhead smushes against your g-spot and your brain momentarily goes blank.

“You sure it’s not the other way around?” You try for a smirk and it wobbles around the edges.

“Hmph.” Satoru manages to pout at you, pursing his lips. He even rolls his eyes. This diva.

Attempting to dig up the dregs of your sanity and cling to it is hard. You’re one wrong step away from losing your cool, the sheer pressure and pleasure of being practically split in two overwhelming you. It's too much, too intense, and yet you can't stop from leaning into it nor stop the excessive amounts of slick pooling around him and dribbling onto the desk in a steady rhythm, spelling out your arousal. All you know is that you want more— more of Satoru and this perfect, mind-numbing ecstasy.

The man of the hour goes willingly as you wrap more of his tie around your fingers and reel him impossibly closer. He drops his weak head and nuzzles into the crook of your neck as he grinds his hips in tight circles that stir up your insides, practically humping your ass like a rutting canine. He only stops when you let loose an unsteady peep.

His breath shakes out of him in short, sharp gusts, lost in the sensation of being buried inside of you. "You feel so fucking good, sugar," Satoru slurs his words a little, nipping at the tendons in your neck that flex when you swallow before soothing the sting with a swipe of his tongue. He inhales the lip-smacking scent of your natural scent and your perfume. "So wet and perfect. Can't get enough of this sweet cunt."

He kisses his way down your neck and to your collarbone as you both adjust to being so intimately joined, reveling in how you loll your head back to give him more skin to work with. He spies down your shirt that gapes open a little, showing where your necklace is trapped between your heaving breasts, and gets an idea.

The muscles in his arms bunch up right before Satoru rips at the front of your blouse, figuring he’ll buy you a prettier and more expensive one later. He doesn't care. All he cares about is getting his hands on your tits, plain and simple.

You can only watch in mild horror as buttons pop off and fly everywhere (one nearly takes out his eye), ping ping pinging off the walls and the floor, a shower of scattered stars. One goes skittering beneath his office door. Another bounces so hard off of a tiny lamp across the room that it goes careening off of the side table and the lightbulb smashes into bits on the floor.

Since everything’s already going to shit, he doesn’t bother with finesse when it comes to the front of your now decimated, but blessedly open, shirt. He simply yanks the fabric down your arms until it pools around your elbows.

“What the hell, Satoru!” You scold him. The subtle hitch of your hips and your dilated pupils betray you. “I swear to god, if you don’t learn the art of subtlety and figure out how to stay quiet, I’ll—“

“Relax, my men’ll probably think it was hail or something,” he says flippantly.

Your glare is withering. Shit, he needs to score brownie points all over again.

He nips at the soft upper curves of your breasts, burying his face between them as far as he can with the restriction of your bra holding him back, and innocently blinks up at you, trying to look as sweet as pie. “Wait, I’m sorry for interrupting you. Go on, wrap it up. Tell me how you’d shut me up, yeah? Would it hurt? I wanna know all the dirty deets,” Satoru simpers.

“Hit dogs holler.”

Ooooooh.

“Fuck, fuck, stop right there, I nearly came,” Satoru moans dramatically.

Your low, aggrieved noise turns into a wobbly inhale when he leans down to mouth at the swell of your cleavage, tongue tracing the edge of a cup before he pulls that down too.

Out pops your titty. His dick nearly busts inside of you as if saying hi. He quickly yanks down the other cup to let both of your breasts fully spill free, both of them begging to be worshipped. “There’s my girls,” he croons.

Your nipples quickly harden now that they’re exposed to the cool air chugging through the vents. There’s very few things better than anointing every inch of your pretty tits with kisses and licks and nips, which he does happily. He squishes them together to enthusiastically motorboat them (he misses the way your eye twitches), slaps your left tit to watch it jiggle and spits on the right one, watching the strand of saliva slip down the curve of your body. Satoru chases it down and sucks your nipple into his mouth. Being winded by all this stimulation does nothing to stop you from eagerly arching into him.

“Having fun?” You ask dryly. Teeth roll your nipple around, gently biting into it and eliciting a weak spasm from you. Your vision threatens to cross when that makes your body swallow his cock in further.

He pulls back, breaking the seal of his lips on your breast with a lewd pop. Just to ensure he’s covered all his bases, he openly sniffs your chest. You grimace at him. “Mmmmm. Yup. Can I move now, mommy?”

You nod.

“Good.”

You’re promptly fully laid down atop the desk. Before you can even blink, he’s screwing his shoes into the foothold of the carpet beneath him, gripping at your hips, and he plasters half of the weight of his upper half on you without crushing you.

Hips draw back with the tautness of a bowstring, a deadly instrument of war. The tension is suspended when he slides the thickness of him almost fully out, your folds just barely clinging to the underside of his throbbing cockhead.

He releases it. Driving forward, he hits his mark with military precision and you swear you can feel him up in your throat.

“Satoru,” you gasp, your voice nearly drowned out by the sticky squelch of his body reconnecting with yours. You’re leaking so much that your ass and thighs and his pelvis are finely glazed with slick, a concoction as thickly sweet as the one pasted over pastries.

“Shit.” The curse punches its way up his throat and out of the drooling seam of his mouth. Starting up a filthy grind drags more from his worn lungs. He rocks with the sensual finesse and purpose of someone seasoned in the realm of the red light district, dragging along each crevice of your heavenly warmth.

(Your stern, nonchalant facade nearly crumbled when you asked him if he’d ever been to the red light district back when you first started dating years ago, long before wedding bells rang. At the time, you kind of wanted to throw up even though it would’ve made sense and you would’ve understood. Why get jealous of what came before you? However, Satoru looked at you like you hit your head. “For Gojo-gumi business? Yeah, of course I have. I literally own a few clubs in those parts.”)

Every silky inch of you threatens to be his ruin. You’re pillow soft. Satoru has to screw his eyes shut in a futile attempt to handle it. “God, fuuuuck, baby. M’so drunk on this pretty body of yours, so addicted to you that it’s driving me crazy,” he warbles.

His fingertips dig into the soft pouch of your hips, keeping you in place so that you can release your death grip on the edge of his desk. “There you go, that’s— that’s perfect, right there. That’s a good boy. Mommy’s perfect boy,” you babble right back.

The way you praise him all sweet with your voice tuned to a higher pitch, your blessed hands finally petting over every inch of him that you can touch, slipping under his shirt to dance along the knobs of his spine, nails biting into the inked angel on his back, drawing your fingers back out to brush them along his face— it’s like a switch flips in his brain, reducing him to a needy mess incapable of doing nothing but pleasing you. You have him under lock and key.

The poor desk beneath you feebly creaks and wobbles, openly protesting their coupling. Drawers rattle in their slots from the force of Satoru's increasingly powerful thrusts, banging open in a chaotic cacophony and spilling papers and office supplies onto the floor. With a whine, Satoru changes the pace so that he’s battering his way in and out of your cunt to the rhythm of your pulsations around his cock, like a bass being plucked. Your joint moans grow borderline frantic.

“Open your eyes.” Satoru peels his eyelids apart to look at you as requested. He blinks back the spots lining his vision.

Your beauty is the kind that he’s sure artists would kill to put on paper. Sweat glistens enticingly on your trembling body, making it seem like you’ve been buffed in stardust, your abs fluttering every time his cockhead kisses that spongy spot deep inside you that drives you insane. The commanding pools of your eyes reel him in and it makes him melt.

“My gorgeous fucking wife,” he rasps. “Mine.”

The flat of Satoru’s palm smooths down to your stomach. He presses down right where there’s visible distension from the thickness of his cock embedding itself in you. Your lips fall apart in a lewd ‘o’ as the pressure adds to the hot sparks of pleasure flooding your body. “That’s how deep I am, huh, princess? It's allll in your tummy,” he crows breathlessly, trying to sound cocky but failing. Miserably.

Your nod is borderline frantic. “Keep fucking me just like this,” you insist, eyes rolling back, body jolting. And he obliges.

His face is dusted in a dark pink shade that L’Oréal would kill to make a lipstick out of and Satoru’s sporting a fucked-out, hopelessly giddy grin. Sweat marches down his temples, his snow-white hair falling damp and disheveled over his brow from his exertions. His once crisp button-up hangs off his broad shoulders, the tie swinging from around his pale neck.

Blue eyes hazy and wrecked, lust swims in the yawning voids of his irises as he stares down at where he’s joined with his wife. He watches, enraptured, as your stretched cunt greedily sucks him in, tight walls adhering to him and pumping out slick.

With the way Satoru’s sinking into you with heavy deep strokes, you matching him with frenzied ruts of your own hips, it’s like he’s trying to crawl inside of you and never come out. This intimate closeness is what he craves, needs. Satoru’s long white eyelashes, clumpy and wet, veil his vision with how low lidded his eyes are. He blinks at you between the slits with raw, open affection.

Using his hold on your hips, he yanks you onto his cock over and over and over again. His chin drops to bump against his sternum, groans hissing through the barrier of his teeth as you cry out and squeeze around him. “Sosososo fucking good, swear on everything that you’re perfect. Use me for your pleasure. Juuust like that, pretty, I got you,” Satoru spews like a two-bit whore on the street.

He’s too loud. Any illusion that you may have been quiet enough to have gone undetected to the rest of the building has been long shattered, but schematics, schematics.

Your thumb draws at the plump swell of Satoru’s bottom lip, pushing into the slight natural divot of them. His eyes follow the movement, transfixed, and he opens up without hesitation when you replace your thumb with two fingers.

Satisfied, you sink them into Satoru’s mouth. “Stay quiet and occupy yourself with mommy’s fingers.” He lets out a muffled moan in response as you push them deeper, tongue instinctively curling to try and force them right back out, but he forces himself to relax. He draws his tongue lazily over your fingers, tasting his own saliva mingling with the faint flavor of your lotion.

Creeping over his soft palate, you press at the back of his throat, coolly watching him gag around the invading force for a moment before sliding them back out, back in with a wet noise. Drool escapes the corners of his stretched lips in rivulets and dribbles down his chin and onto your sternum, making him look more like a sloppy, over-excited puppy than the feared yakuza boss he is.

The points of his canines shrieeeek over the gloss of your nails when you stretch your fingers apart in a ‘v’ and nestle them between his teeth. Yet he doesn’t bite down. He holds your fingers there like a soft mouthed retriever, docile and tender.

“My baby likes having any part of mommy in his mouth, yeah?” You manage.

He dutifully nods. You indulge him until your fingers prune, letting him suckle and gag himself on you to his heart’s content. There’s a constant stream of gargled moans and whimpers flowing from him, all of his words running together until it’s just meaningless sound. Only then do you pull them out, allowing more of his saliva to splatter on your sternum and ooze down between your bobbing breasts.

It’s a little hard to secure a hold with your wet fingers, but you manage to snag the edge of his tie and once again use it to dictate the pace of his thrusts, pushing and pulling him around the same way one does with a toy.

By now, any semblance of coherency has all but been forgotten and he’s just rutting into you, mindless, puppy-like; the relief of fixating on you and your pleasure a thrilling change of pace from the constant demands and expectations that come with his position. He may be looming over you as he fucks you like his life depends on it, but he’s under no illusion that he’s the one in control here.

They’re moving in sync, two waves cresting and crashing and ensuring each other’s ruin every time they come together. Teeth chafe against skin, promising, before sinking in. Fingers grapple for proper leverage, smoothly trimmed nails sinking into warm thighs and scalps and sweaty backs. Your ass claps against his thighs so hard that it burns, sopping pussy ravenous in its efforts to envelop him.

“Shit, m’not gonna last long,” you heave. Your legs tighten around his slutty ass waist and cling there for dear life when one of his flexing hands drops away from your hip, hurriedly dipping down between you and frantically rubbing his thumb over your sensitive bundle of nerves.

“You’re so close, I can feel it, f-fuck, squeezing me so tight. C’mon. Make a mess of my cock, please cum for me again, mommy. I’m all yours, I’m all yours, I’m all yours,” Satoru deliriously whines.

You see red.

It’s not the kind of red that comes from anger. No, it’s the kind that comes from having your brain cells fry from the sheer mind-numbing euphoria that bursts through your body like a supernova. You’re pretty sure you wail as your slick rushes wetly from your plugged up cunt, but it’s drowned out by the roaring blood swelling in your ears.

You babble a litany of nonsense, half of it praise and half of it mindless chants for more, for less, you don’t know. Satoru more than happily fucks you through your orgasm, thumbing your clit, driving wildly into you and making you mercilessly convulse.

"That's it, angel," he groans, feeling his own release fast approaching. A gooey feeling curls in his stomach, hotly insistent, and his balls draw up. It’s riding him hard.

Bowing further over you, he bodily pries your shaking legs away from his waist and tosses them over his shoulders, folding you in half like a lawn chair and making one sleeve of his shirt slide further down his arm. The new angle allows him to push impossibly deeper and your moan scratches it’s way out of the column of your throat.

"I'm gonna... fuck, I'm gonna cum, sweets," he grits out through clenched teeth, his voice strained with the effort of holding back. But it's a losing battle, his body trembling and tensing as he teeters on the precipice of ecstasy. Only you, his anchor, ties him down to earth. "Tell me I can... tell me I can cum inside this perfect cunt."

You don’t respond, either too busy drowning in the remnants of your climax or just blatantly ignoring him, and he releases a big shuddery whimper when he realizes his misstep. “Please,” he tries.

Big blue eyes watery and wide, he looks like a ruined angel above you. “I’ll buy you that new phone you wanted, or take you on a trip anywhere in the world. I’ll do anything, say the word and I will. Just— just lemme cum. Please, mommy.” His saliva-slick lips drag down your chest and seal around one of your pearly nipples, suckling gently and trying to appeal further to you.

He sounds so broken, so desperate, and it’s the hottest thing you’ve ever heard. It almost makes you wonder if you could cum again just from hearing him like this. You know you could make him beg for hours if you wanted to, even demand that he halt completely, but he hasn’t done anything to warrant being on the receiving end of your borderline sadistic streak.

(Though, knowing this 6’3 eager to please masochist on top of you, he’d rock with it.)

“Go ahead, baby,” you tell him. Nails claw at his back, likely shredding along the feathery lines of the tatted angel’s wings, further spurring him on.

“Ffffuck, thank you, thank you, I love you so much,” he chants around your swollen nipple, voice breaking on each word. He pulls his mouth away, spit clinging to his lower lip and connecting him to your tits that sway every time he rocks his twitching hips against yours.

Satoru greedily paws at you, squeezing your pillowy breasts, tracing your curves, pressing into your navel, anything he can get his hands on. He's like a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet, determined to sample everything until he’s no longer allowed to.

Your neck strains as you thrash your head and he visibly wavers like a house about to fall. “What, can’t take it anymore?” Satoru pokes fun, but his question is really a ‘you good?’

“Shut up.” ‘I’m fine, I love you, go ahead.’

The perks of a married couple… telepathy.

Satoru drops his head, slams into you a little faster. The drawers continue rattling like teeth in a jar. Despite the euphoria clogging your pores and melting your brain down, you lift your hands, cupping his face, thumbs fanning outwards from the bridge of his nose and gently digging into the warming apples of his cheeks.

He leans into your touch, nuzzling into your palms as your thumbs brush away tears that he didn’t realize were escaping him. In his electric blue eyes that make your nerves sing with just a glance, you can see the depth of his devotion and trust in you, the way he's utterly handing himself over to you in this moment.

“You’re so good to me, baby,” you whisper. “Mommy’s perfect puppy.”

His vision goes black and his mouth opens. Then, suddenly, a searing and blinding white explodes across his retinas like a droplet of paint in a cup of water as he lets go.

His cock jerks, painting you over and over again with spurts of his spend. He pulses inside you with each aftershock that rumbles through his very bones, your pussy eagerly wringing around him in turn, milking him and siphoning his soul out via his cock, and forcing him to plug his load in deep.

The whole while, Satoru lets out watery whimpers, peppering your scrunched up face in sloppy uncoordinated puppy kisses and grinding into you. If you squint, you swear you can see a fluffy white tail wagging faster than the beat of a hummingbird’s wings behind him.

As he comes down and his movements peter off, stopping to mould his pelvis to the curve of your ass and leave himself buried in you, he nuzzles his way between your tits. Your perfectly soft, plush, pillowy tits. This is heaven. Needily, he rubs his cheek on the gentle swell of your right boob, drinking you and the smell of sex and sweat in.

Your hand sinks into his white hair, stroking the sweaty strands and trying to comb them into place between gentle scratches at his scalp to pacify him further. He practically purrs. In his wife’s presence, Satoru isn’t the almighty oyabun of the Gojo-gumi. Nuh uh, no sir. He’s completely and utterly your annoying husband that scrambles for your affection as if he’s a broke person on the street chasing pennies— and you always give it to him.

Together, the two of you slowly breathe and bask in the afterglow. Satoru, humming out sweet nothings, you, petting over him and probably tracking the fan above them that spins round and round. Minds blissfully blank.

(‘I need to buy this man a collar,’ you think to yourself. ‘And then peg the absolute dogshit out of him.’)

God, he’s so fortunate to be able to come home to you every damn day. He’s been counting his lucky stars since the day they met. A sudden burst of emotion swells in his chest, warm and golden like the summer sun.

“Love you, pretty,” he sighs dreamily. He catches your hand in his, planting a kiss to the back of it, then to your engagement ring and wedding band.

Your hands refix themselves on his cheeks with a gentle squeeze. “I love you too, baby,” you murmur, drawing him into a hopelessly sappy kiss. He pecks you one, two, three more times, chasing your lips, and you laugh softly.

Satoru jolts when skin cracks against skin in a sudden spank, a vicious throb skyrocketing beneath the skin of his ass. “Hey! Way to ruin the moment!” He complains with the most offended look he can muster. You smile with false serenity.

He’s sure it’ll bruise into a small reminder, one that will surely haunt him for days to come whenever he sits in his office chair and feels the bruise pulse beneath the pressure, drawing him back to this moment— Satoru breaking your back on his desk, waiting for you to give him permission to go ahead while he writhes, needy and wanting and begging with his body.

You pull back a little to scrutinize him. “That was for my shirt that you—“ he winces when you jab a finger at him, “destroyed.”

You yelp when he abruptly slots his arms beneath you and hoists you up off of the desk. Satoru drops down into his chair, sending them skidding back a few steps when it gets the wheels rolling, and cordons you off in his lap by squeezing you close, his stupid dick still buried in your guts. You widen your legs to properly straddle him then frown at the sensation of tacky drying cum, slick, and sweat between your bodies.

Behind Satoru, the sun peeks over his head and sets his white hair aglow. Towering buildings go on and on, stretching out before the empire of the Gojo-gumi.

He tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear and lets his touch linger a little before he snuggles you closer. In his arms, you’re utterly at ease. He’s equally at peace— always is, actually, in your presence. You quiet the incessant din of his life and fill it with you; your snark, your gentleness that you only ever show him, your authority that he leans on, your love and your dreams for you and him.

You’re intrinsically part of him now. Nothing can ever change that.

“I’ll buy you a new one, relaaaax. You can wear my shirt on your way out and I’ll just grab one of my spare suits for myself,” Satoru cajoles, puckering his lips and theatrically fluttering his lashes. You grumble something highly censorable. Trying to find a way to hush you up before you can let loose on him, he glances around the room, drinking in the pens, papers, the shattered lamp, random buttons, and half of their clothing littering the ground. A mess that he most definitely will not be cleaning up himself.

Then, once he finds it, he scoots them along a fraction in the chair and taps his foot against a certain paper. You look behind you. “Oh, good, I needed your signature on this. Now I can go forward with my plan,” Satoru says cheerily.

You blink, confused. You don’t hold any executive power in this building, not enough to warrant your signature. Nor have you signed anything of note in the last week, here at headquarters, at home, or otherwise.

Satoru taps his foot against it again. Dotted along the paper are dried splotches of what is most likely your wetness. Your supposed ‘signature.’ Heat rises to your face. “I got us a seventh vacation home!”

“Fucker.”

After he has a giggle fest over it and you quiet him down with more kisses and unserious scoldings, which leads to an overly heated make out session that has you evaluating the pros and cons of another round, a fist pounds on the door. You pause in the middle of mauling your husband’s neck, painting the smooth expanse in hickeys in revenge for the two fat ones throbbing on your thighs, and pinch his side to push him into action.

Satoru rolls his eyes so hard that it’s a wonder they don’t get lodged back in his skull. “Does it look like I’m available? The door’s locked for a reason,” he hollers.

A beat. You hear Kento’s familiar, utterly exhausted sigh. “If you two are done in there.” It’s clear what he’s referring to. Your eyes flare again and Satoru tries for a smile. “Gojo is needed elsewhere. I’ve been made aware that Geto has been blowing up his phone for quite some time now. It’s urgent.”

Then, when neither of you answer, Kento adds, “There’s been an incident in Shibuya.”

Oh hell no.

Satoru’s about to show Shibuya a real incident for interrupting his moment with his wife.

author’s note: he will be collared in a drabble GOD WILLING

thank you all for reading this freaky ass shit, hoping to post more of my 1748282 wips soon :3 reblog and/or comment to let me know ur thoughts because i eat replies UP, they’re all greatly appreciated muuuah 🫶🏽

tags: @stuboo2053 @pvmpkingod @spirit-kat @skz8stay @loyalguma @amane1271 @irishiruuu @m1nrrva @onixsky @q2uq2u @enchantinghonymoon @exc3llentshot @libr4sonsa @kaitospo @n1vi @ieathairs

here are my fav comments from my betas (#smashsecretaryreader2k25movement):

[ervotica]

please don’t go, i love you so

pairing: young!coriolanus snow x reader

warnings: a lil toxic!coriolanus, he’s rough with r, possessive talk, quite tame in this but imma tamp it up soon, a bit of making out and being lovey

note: i do not careee about who likes this character or who doesn’t okay i am writing about him because he is literally one of the hottest men i’ve ever seen, kay? i’m not here for moral dilemmas thank u, enjoy (yes i will follow up w smut and my young!coriolanus snow reqs are OPEN!) please please remember to comment and rb, it helps me so much!

hunger games masterlist

Coriolanus is possessive.

It sickens him to his very core, sends nausea rolling like a wave through his chest; he’s not a child. Yet, the mere sight - thought - of you engaging with any other man, even innocently, is enough to have him seeing red: white-knuckled, muscles drawn taut like a bowstring, ready to eliminate any and all threat standing between him and his girl.

It's the way those boys look at you. As if you're a piece of meat, a toy to play with that they're just begging, aching to sink their teeth into, to leave a permanent mark on. The boys in this district are barbaric- that's what Coryo thinks anyway. It's disgusting, the things that he knows they think about you.

It's been a long day in District Twelve. Coriolanus' grey jumpsuit rubs and itches and his skin crawls with an uneasiness settled at the pit of his stomach. It's a warm day, his skin sticky as he peels the top half of the jumpsuit from his slender arms and ties it neatly around his waist. The grass by the lake is damp with the leftover dew from the morning.

He catches sight of you amongst the trees, weaving and bobbing through the undergrowth as you do, your lithe fingers brushing against leaves. Your head dips and then raises as his tall figure creeps into your peripheral vision. A smile graces your features, real and earnest with all your teeth.

There’s a slight waver in your countenance when you catch Coriolanus’ own expression; his brows are knit, pushing his forehead into a crease, lips pushed together tersely.

You walk straight into his arms, balancing yourself on one leg and pushing your shoulder underneath his armpit. You needle your way in, your forehead rested against his chin, so close you can feel his breath against your face.

“Hi, gorgeous,” you murmur. You reach up to push out the ridge in his brow and your thumb traces the bridge of his nose in a way that couldn’t be perceived as anything other than unbridled affection. “Something wrong?”

His slender fingers settle against your waist. You shiver at the contact when he spins and pushes you back into a tree. The bark digs into your back as you shuffle to meet his eyes— his eyes that have suddenly clouded with something dark and possessive.

“What is it?” you ask again; your voice is becoming more strained the longer he stays quiet, your own hands snaking up his arms like vines and squeezing.

He shakes his head and drops his face to look at you properly.

“Nothing. I have you.”

“Okay.” You click your tongue, tilting your head at him. His face gravitates towards yours, breath hot and mixing with your own. “You gonna kiss me or what, handsome?”

He doesn’t need any encouragement, surging forward to catch your lips between his own; his hands are rough, kneading the soft flesh of your hip. His other makes its way up to your jaw, fingertips pressing so hard you’re sure he’s branding you. You’ve never been kissed like this, with such fervour and passion and need. You gasp into his mouth and your arm wraps around his neck to pull him further into you.

“Coryo,” you pant.

“Shh,” he forces out, his fingers suddenly an iron grip around your neck; the hollow of your throat is bared to him and bobs under his cruel touch.

“Coriolanus, that hurts,” you say, strangled. His eyes are alight with a fire, a blazing inferno roaring in his head as he squeezes your throat and laughs.

You wheeze, clutching at his wrist in an attempt to loosen his grip. He obliges you, running a thumb over the indents he’s left in your soft skin to smooth them away.

“You know I’d never hurt you, right?” he asks. His head drops to the juncture of your neck, arms hooking loosely around your middle as he relaxes into you. “I just wanted to feel you. To know you’re mine.”

The incident is forgotten as soon as it ends. He has a charm in that sort of way; you don’t see his faults even when he shows them to you clear as day. You’ll never see what’s right in front of you even if he wants you to.

“Of course I’m yours, Coryo. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“The way they all look at you here…” He falters. “Like they all want you. Like they want to take you away from me. You’re mine- they have to understand that.”

“No one could take me away from you,” you giggle, your temple resting against the tip of his shoulder so you can duck your head to meet his eyes. “I know where I belong. And that’s right here with you.”

“Good.” He mouths at your neck like a man starved, arms coming right up until they’re hooked just underneath your own. He pulls away heaving for breath.

“Wanna show me just where you belong?”

[sirfrogsworth]

Well, that's just not true.

The most famous protest in US history was peaceful and effective.

I just don't think these tiny protests with people waving snarky signs are doing much at the moment.

Activism and protesting need to be strategic and organized. If you can only convince 20 people to stand outside a Tesla dealership, that probably won't do much.

If you get 250,000, that is another story.

Smaller peaceful protests can work if you do them right. Like say, filling the lobby of Trump Tower.

I think activism requires action from many vectors. Sometimes that does require civil disobedience. Vandalizing Teslas seems to be scaring people into selling them or just not buying them.

And the boycotts in Europe are plunging the stock. If Elon loses the company, that would be huge. Apparently he used his Tesla stock as collateral to buy Twitter.

But the Left's biggest issue right now is lack of organization. We are so splintered. We are riddled with infighting. And it doesn't help that Democratic leadership is... uninspiring.

I really hope we can get our shit together soon. I think AOC and Bernie and Tim Walz doing town halls in red districts is a good start. The Republican leadership has directed reps to avoid speaking to the people.

Numbers work. I think they work better than anything. Authorities are scared of numbers which helps with the peaceful part. And if shit goes down, the authorities end up looking bad. When police arrested 60,000 people during Gandhi's Salt March, it was a real bad look. Because it was just a bunch of people walking and making their own salt.

I think activism needs to make our leaders fear the populace. But we also have to win hearts and minds. And sometimes those goals can be conflicting or we forget about one over the other.

There were ~90,000,000 people that did not vote in the presidential election. If we could reach them and win the House back, that could really limit the damage.

So we need to not just fuck shit up.

We need to win hearts and minds. Make some motherfucking salt.

If it were me in charge, I'd start organizing mass acts of compassion.

Set up food drives in places where egg prices are highest. Give out some free eggs.

Set up a job fair in places that have mass government job losses. Find small local businesses that are hiring. Have clothing donations for job interviews and people to help write resumes.

Set up free mobile health clinics in deep red places that are about to lose Medicaid. Free check ups for kids and veterans and anyone else. And some vaccines to piss off RFK Jr.

If we organize and help the people who Trump is hurting, we can win those hearts and minds.

Don't give up on peaceful action as a tool. If done right, it can be more powerful than anything else.

[wizardysseus]

On Friday, the president signed yet another Executive Order, this time directly targeting funds allocated to libraries and museums nationwide. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is a federal agency that distributes fund approved by Congress to state libraries, as well as library, museum, and archival grant programs. IMLS is the only federal agency that provides funds to libraries. The Executive Order states that the functions of the IMLS have to be reduced to “statutory functions” and that in places that are not statutory, expenses must be cut as much as possible. [...] The department has seven days to report back, meaning that as soon as this Friday, March 21, 2025, public libraries–including school and academic libraries–as well as public museums could see their budgets demolished.

Actionable items from the article:

Sign the petition at EveryLibrary to stop Trump’s Executive Order seeking to gut the IMLS then share it with your networks.

Write a letter to each of your Senators and to your Representative at the federal level. You can find your Senators here and your Representative here. All you need to say in this letter is that you, a resident of their district, demand they speak up and defend the budget of IMLS. Include a short statement of where and how you value the library, as well as its importance in your community. This can be as short as “I use the library to find trusted sources of information, and every time I am in there, the public computers are being used by a variety of community members doing everything from applying for jobs to writing school papers. Cutting the funds for libraries will further harm those who lack stable internet, who cannot afford a home library, and who seek the opportunities to engage in programming, learning, enrichment, and entertainment in their own community. Public libraries help strengthen reading and critical thinking skills for all ages.” In those letters, consider noting that the return on investment on libraries is astronomical. You can use data from EveryLibrary.

Call the offices of each of your Senators and Representatives in Congress. Yes, they’ll be busy. Yes, the voice mails will be full. KEEP CALLING. Get your name on the record against IMLS cuts. Do this in addition to writing a letter. If making a call creates anxiety, use a tool like 5 Calls to create a script you can read when you reach a person or voice mail.

Though your state-level representatives will not have the power to impact what happens with IMLS, this is your time to reach out to each of your state representatives to emphasize the importance of your state’s public libraries. Note that in light of potential cuts from the federal government, you advocate for stronger laws protecting libraries and library workers, as well as stronger funding models for these institutions.

Show up at your next public library meeting, either in person at a board meeting or via an email or letter, and tell the library how much it means to you. In an era where information that is not written down and documented simply doesn’t exist, nothing is more crucial than having your name attached to some words about the importance of your public library. This does not need to be genius work–tell the library how you use their services and how much they mean to you as a taxpayer.

Tell everyone you know what is at stake. If you’ve not been speaking up for public institutions over the last several years, despite the red flags and warnings that have been building and building, it is not too late to begin now. EveryLibrary’s primer and petition is an excellent resource to give folks who may be unaware of what’s going on–or who want just the most important information.

[ama3003]

A Pawn Once More (3)

Character: Haymitch Abernathy

Requested: Again Sorta??? Lol I've been seeing all the love it's been getting and had to continue. Plus I love this story.

Type: Angst/ Fluff

Summary: The final moments leading up the 75th Hunger Games.

Part 1: Here

Part 2: Here

I'm not going to lie, this was the most fun I had writing, and I'm lowkey very proud of this. Let me know if you wanna read her her being in the games.

A.N: I haven't read Sunrise on the Reaping, so please, No Spoilers. It's a Female!Reader. Age Gap: Haymitch is 41 and Reader is in her 20s (preferably 25)

***************

Your nerves hit like a wave the second you stepped into the waiting room.

The air was tense—heavy with the kind of silence that only comes when everyone is pretending not to be afraid. The tributes were scattered around the room, each lost in their own thoughts, their own strategies, their own quiet dread.

You felt your stomach twist.

Last time you were in this position, you scored a seven. Clean, precise knife throws. It wasn’t spectacular, but it got the job done—just enough to earn some sponsors without making you a threat. It kept you safe.

But this wasn’t like last time.

This time, you were older. Sharper. Tired in a way you didn’t know how to explain. And despite all of it, you had no idea what you were going to do in there. No plan, no performance. You hadn’t let yourself think too hard about it, because thinking meant caring—and caring meant fear. And you were so tired of being afraid.

The Capitol had already taken everything. Your home. Your peace. Your sense of self. And now they were back for what little was left.

Your gaze drifted across the room and landed on the District 12 pair, sitting quietly in the far corner. They weren’t speaking, just watching. Watching you. Their expressions were unreadable—somewhere between wary and curious. You offered them a small nod and the faintest smile. They didn’t return it, but they didn’t look away either. That felt like enough.

Then, you saw him—Mason, cutting through the room with that quiet steadiness he always carried.

He slid into the seat beside you without a word, his presence warm and familiar.

“Hey,” he said gently, his voice low. “You ready?”

You nodded automatically, but your fingers betrayed you—tapping anxiously on your leg, tense and restless. Mason noticed. He always noticed.

Without saying anything more, he reached over and placed his hand on top of yours. It was steady. Grounding. You immediately stilled.

“You’re going to be alright,” he said, soft but certain. “We both are.”

You looked at him—and just like that, something inside you loosened.

Those eyes. You remembered them. The same ones you met when you were sixteen, standing awkwardly at your Victor’s party, trying not to be seen. He hadn’t mentored your Games, but he found you anyway. Quiet, lost, and not ready for any of it. He’d seen you for what you were—another broken kid trying to survive something you weren’t built for.

He knew that look. He’d worn it once, too.

And from that night on, Mason became something steady in your life. Maybe even something safe. He couldn’t stop the Capitol from throwing you into another nightmare, but if you had to go back in, you were glad it was with him.

“It’s going to be fine,” you murmured, offering a small, tired smile. And for a moment, you let yourself believe it. Mason would follow you anywhere. You didn’t have to question it. His loyalty wasn’t loud or showy—it was just there. Unshakable.

“Y/N. Mason.”

You turned at the sound of your names and saw Cashmere and Gloss approaching, their movements smooth and practiced like they were walking a red carpet instead of waiting to face death again. Behind them, Enobaria and Brutus stood from their seats, joining the group.

Cashmere slipped her arm around your shoulders like it was second nature. “You ready to make some jaws drop?” she asked with that signature smirk. Confident. Stunning. But under it, you could see the flicker of something else. That same tension that lived in all of you now.

“Always,” you said, letting the corners of your mouth lift. “I think I’m just gonna wing it. Do whatever feels right.”

Cashmere raised an eyebrow. “That’s either brilliant or reckless.”

“Maybe both,” you replied.

“As long as you scare them a little, you’ll land at least a nine,” Enobaria said, cracking her knuckles and flashing her sharpened teeth. “I’m thinking of stabbing a dummy and barring my teeth at the Gamemakers.”

Brutus rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and they’ll send you straight to the Capitol psych ward.”

Enobaria grinned wider. “Sounds like a vacation compared to what’s coming.”

You huffed out a quiet laugh before turning to the siblings.

“What about you two?”

Gloss shrugged, arms crossed over his chest. “Spear work. Something fast and clean—show them I haven’t slowed down. I’m not there to impress them. Just remind them what I can do.”

Cashmere spun a knife lazily between her fingers. “Knives, obviously. Hit the vitals, maybe throw in a flip or two if I feel like showing off. Nothing too wild—we’re aiming for tens, not twelves.”

She looked at Mason, nudging his leg with her foot. “What about you?”

Mason tilted his head, thoughtful. “Not much I can do solo. Might ask to use the moving targets—simulate a real fight. Or…” he glanced sideways at you, smiling faintly, “maybe someone here’s brave enough to volunteer.”

You rolled your eyes, smirking. “Keep dreaming.”

But before anyone could say anything else, a sharp voice echoed through the room:

“District One, Gloss Tanner. Report for individual assessment.”

Silence fell instantly. All eyes shifted to Gloss.

He stood slowly, rolling his shoulders once, then turned to his sister. Cashmere reached out and touched his arm, her expression softening.

Gloss gave her a quick squeeze on the shoulder and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Then he looked at the rest of you, smiled like it was nothing, and said, “See you on the other side.”

And then he was gone.

No hesitation. No second glance.

The moment lingered in the air. Thick. Heavy. Real.

Enobaria was the first to break the silence. “We’ll head back to our seats,” she said, giving each of you a quick hug like she didn’t want to think too hard about it. Brutus did the same—no words, just a quiet presence—and then they were gone.

“We should, too,” Mason murmured, giving Cashmere’s shoulder a squeeze.

You turned to her and wrapped your arms around her tightly.

“He’s going to do great,” you whispered. “And so will you. Okay?”

Cashmere gave you a watery smile, blinking fast. “Good luck, Y/N.”

“You too.”

She held you for a second longer, then let go and sat down, folding her hands in her lap, eyes fixed on the door Gloss had disappeared through.

Before heading back to your seat, you squat down in front of Finnick and Mags. Grinning, you greet them with a playful, “Hello, my fishies.”

Finnick rolls his eyes dramatically, but there's a smile tugging at his lips. Mags, ever the nurturing figure, pats you on the head as if you were a child, her touch gentle and warm.

“I swear, before I die, I’m going to need a new nickname,” Finnick jokes, sounding far more serious than he probably intends. “I can’t die with ‘Fishy’ on my tombstone.”

You nudge his knee playfully. “Oh, don’t worry, Finnick. I wouldn’t do that to you. But I would say, ‘Best Swimmer in the Mighty Seas,’” you add with a wink, your tone light.

Mags laughs softly, her eyes crinkling with kindness. You turn toward her. “Ready to blow them away with your rope-tying skills?” You can’t help but tease, excited for the elderly woman you admire so much.

Mags gives you a thumbs up, her smile all the answer you need. Then she points to Finnick, mimicking the movement of a trident with her hands.

“Oh, yes. Finnick and his big fork,” you tease, ruffling his hair affectionately. You and Finnick had always been close—almost like siblings, really. You won your Games right after him, and to say you leaned on each other would be an understatement. There was an unspoken understanding between you two, born from the shared experience of surviving this hell.

You hear Cashmere’s name being called, and as she rises, she shoots you a reassuring smile before heading toward the door.

Turning back to Finnick and Mags, you see the stress hanging heavy on their shoulders. Without thinking, you rise to your feet and give them both tight hugs. “It’s going to be fine,” you say, your voice firm but kind. “I’ve never seen anyone handle a trident as well as you, Finnick. And no one—no one—can tie a knot as tight as you, Mags.”

Both of them smile up at you, their faces softening. They know exactly what you’re doing—trying to ease their tension, give them a little comfort. That’s why they love having you around.

“I’ll catch up with you two after, okay?” You give them both a final squeeze. “Good luck out there.”

They nod, their smiles a little more relaxed now. You return to your seat next to Mason, feeling a brief moment of relief as you settle beside him.

“You’re being a great motivator. I’m feeling inspired,” Mason says with a half-smile, his tone teasing as he nudges you lightly.

You can’t help but scoff, shaking your head. “These are our friends. And we’re supposed to kill them like it’s nothing?” You laugh softly, but it’s a bitter sound.

Mason’s smirk fades, and he turns to face you more seriously. “We all know how this is going to play out,” he says quietly, his voice laced with a mix of resignation and practicality. “And we promised we weren’t going to take it to heart. Quick and painless, remember?”

You exhale slowly, your chest heavy. “Doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. And let’s say… in the off chance that we both make it to the end. Then what?” You meet his gaze, both of you silently acknowledging the truth between you. Neither of you would be able to kill the other. Not after everything.

Mason’s eyes soften, but his voice is firm as he shakes his head. “That’s never going to happen. You know that,” he says, his tone heavy with certainty. “It’ll be someone else, or… it’ll be me.”

You can’t argue with that. It’s the cruel reality you’re both facing, one that feels too dark to even consider. You drop your head into your hands, the weight of it all pushing down on you.

Mason doesn’t have any comforting words—he knows they won’t help. He just reaches over, ruffling your hair lightly before pulling you into his side. His presence, solid and steady, is the only thing that’s keeping you from shattering in that moment.

You watch the District Three pair go, followed by Finnick, and then Mags. Each one of them stepping into their fate, and each one leaving a piece of their heart in the room.

Time passes slowly. Your own thoughts are heavy, weighed down by the same unspoken question everyone in this room is carrying.

And then, you hear it.

“District Five, Mason Cover. Report for individual assessment.”

Your body freezes. Your heart skips a beat.

Mason feels it, too. The weight of the arena, the uncertainty of what’s to come, the fear—it’s all there, hanging between you two.

“Darling, it’s going to be fine,” he whispers in your ear, his voice calm, steady. He presses a kiss to the top of your head, the warmth of his lips a small comfort in the sea of tension.

You try to return the reassurance, offering him a soft smile. “Good luck,” you murmur, even though you’re not sure if either of you believe it.

He meets your gaze, his smile small but sincere. “You too,” he says, his voice softer now. He ruffles your hair one more time before standing up. “See you on the other side.” His words are light, basically mimicking Gloss. But you still teared up.

You nod, trying to swallow the lump in your throat as you watch him leave. He glances back once, offering you a final wave, and then he’s gone, heading toward the door with that same quiet confidence he always carries.

Now, the fear was real. The anxiety had a tight grip on you, and no matter how hard you tried to steady your breathing, it was a struggle. Your chest felt heavy, each breath an effort.

You closed your eyes, trying to center yourself. Ten minutes. That’s all you had. Ten minutes to somehow find a way to push past the panic, to focus, to prepare yourself.

You were so far inside your head that you didn’t even notice someone sitting down next to you until you heard a soft voice.

“Are you ready for your assessment?”

You jumped, startled, and turned to see Peeta sitting where Mason had just been. He gave you a small, sheepish smile. “Stupid question, I know. I’m sure you’ve been asked by everyone else. Should’ve said something else.”

It wasn’t what you expected—Peeta of all people sitting next to you. You glanced over at Katniss. She was watching you closely from a distance, eyes trained on both you and Peeta, her protective instincts sharp.

You turned back to Peeta, trying to shake off the unease. “I’m ready enough to just get it over with,” you replied, your voice steady, but you could feel the tension coiled deep inside you. “Are you?”

He nodded, though his smile was a little strained. “Yeah, it’s kind of crazy, you know? I was doing this exact thing a year ago. Not much has changed.”

You shook your head slightly. “Everything’s changed, Peeta. You’re a Victor now. That means something.”

Peeta met your eyes, his gaze serious. “We both know I wasn’t supposed to be one.”

“I could say that about all of us,” you said, your voice soft but firm. “None of us were supposed to be Victors, but here we are. And it’s important, Peeta, that you start believing that. It’s the only way you’re going to make it out of the arena.”

He didn’t speak for a moment, just looking at you like he was weighing your words. Finally, he broke the silence, his fingers fidgeting with a loose thread on his sleeve. “Haymitch says we should team up. I know enough to sense how important you are to him.”

You raised an eyebrow. “You’re trying to recruit me?” you asked, teasing but also a little touched by his honesty. You could tell he wasn’t exactly sure where this conversation was heading, but he was trying to find his footing.

He looked uncomfortable but pushed on, “I’m not saying we should be best friends or anything, but you’re important to Haymitch. I think you’re important to Katniss, too, even if she doesn’t show it.” His voice softened. “I’m just doing what I can. You know, trying to look out for her… and for us.”

You couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t think your fiancée would agree,” you said, your tone light, but there was an edge to it.

Peeta let out a small, dry chuckle. “And I don’t think your partner would be thrilled, either, but here we are.”

That made you smirk. He had a way with words, even when he was hesitant. “I’ve always been on your team, Peeta. I just need you to accept that you’re on mine, too.” Your voice was quieter now, more earnest. You met his gaze, not backing down. “I’m behind you a hundred percent. And I know Mason will be, too. But you have to trust us. Just like you want to protect Katniss, I do too. I’ll do whatever it takes to see her come out of this alive.”

You leaned in slightly, lowering your voice. “If you don’t trust my words, trust Haymitch’s. I’m on your side.”

Before Peeta could respond, the loudspeaker crackled, cutting through the tension.

“District Five, Y/N L/N. Report for individual assessment.”

You tensed, your heart skipping a beat, but you tried to keep your breathing steady. This was it. You stood up slowly, then turned to Peeta. With a light touch, you patted his leg.

“I’ll see you later, Peeta. Good luck to you both,” you said, your voice more confident than you felt.

Peeta watched you as you turned to leave, his eyes following you until you reached the door.

Once you were out of sight, Peeta made his way back to Katniss, who was still watching him closely, waiting for him to speak. He sat down beside her, his expression thoughtful.

“I think we should team up with District Five,” he said, his voice low but sure.

Katniss looked at him, skepticism written across her face. “Are you sure about this?”

Peeta met her gaze, his eyes steady. “Trust me.”

After a long moment of silence, Katniss finally nodded, her resolve firming. “Okay,” she said quietly.

************

You stared at yourself in the mirror, your reflection a ghost of someone you used to be. The makeup was heavy, transforming your features, and for a moment, you looked like you did nine years ago—before the Games, before all of this.

Tomorrow, you would be thrown back into the arena. Tomorrow, you’d have to fight your friends, leave your husband behind, and maybe die. And the weight of it made everything seem so much heavier.

You were scared during your first Games, but this fear—it was different. It was paralyzing. It settled deep in your chest, like something solid and cold, and you couldn’t breathe.

The sound of cheers rang out as Caesar Flickerman strutted onto the stage, his perfect, rehearsed smile beaming across the crowd. Your pulse quickened.

"There, absolutely perfection," your stylist said, patting her face to dry the tears you hadn't realized had begun to fall.

"Thank you," you whispered, blinking the haze from your eyes. You stepped onto the line between Mags and Mason, trying to steady your breath, your heart threatening to burst out of your chest.

"Breathe," Mason whispered, his voice low but steady. "You look beautiful."

A small, trembling smile pulled at your lips. "Thanks," you murmured, looking at Mags. "You look pretty," you added, hoping it would ease the tension in the air. Mags smiled, a soft, knowing look on her face. She pointed to your dress. "Thank you," you said. "It’s supposed to mimic my first Games."

You swallowed, looking around at the others, trying to block out the tightness in your chest. Nervous energy swirled around you. The others could feel it, too, but everyone was doing their best to keep it together.

You saw Gloss take his turn, then Cash, and then Brutus. One after another, they walked past you, their faces filled with the same mix of dread and determination.

"I can’t believe tomorrow is the day," Mason said, jumping up slightly, the nerves evident in his voice.

"You're telling me," Finnick said, giving a smirk that didn’t quite reach his eyes. "I’m about to perform my best acting yet—pretend I’m not already dead inside—and then I’m gonna die. Sounds like a real blast."

Mags shot him a disapproving look, but you could see the faintest hint of a smile tug at her lips.

"We just have to get through tonight. Tomorrow’s a whole other day," you said, trying to sound reassuring, though the words felt hollow even as you spoke them. "We’ll figure it out then."

The others fell silent at your words, each one lost in their own thoughts, the realization of what was coming settling in.

Finnick went next, followed by Mags. Then Mason.

"Wish me luck," Mason said, winking at you before stepping onto the stage, the Capitol audience erupting in applause.

"Good luck," you said, smirking, watching him stride out with the swagger only Mason could pull off.

"It’s annoying how charming that guy is," you muttered, half to yourself.

Johanna let out a short, dry laugh. "Do you think, before I die, he’ll grant me a death-wish kiss?" she joked, her usual biting humor still intact.

You nudged her with a grin. "Hey, I think the probability of that is extremely high."

Mason’s interview went off without a hitch. He played the ‘I’m about to die, and I never loved anyone’ card, and the Capitol ate it up. The single women in the crowd swooned as he strutted off the stage, bowing to his fellow tributes.

"And now, for one of the Capitol’s favorite girls, let’s hear it for Y/N L/N!" The announcement was loud, and the crowd roared in excitement.

You took a deep breath, forcing a smile as you walked onto the stage, the eyes of Panem on you. You knew how to work a crowd, how to present yourself as the confident, charming Victor everyone adored. But tonight, it felt like more of a mask than ever before.

Caesar Flickerman’s smile was as dazzling as always, his voice smooth as silk. "Oh, my dear girl, how are you?" He leaned in for air kisses, his theatrics just a little too perfect.

"Well, I’ve had better days," you said, a soft smile curling at the corner of your lips.

"Today is so emotional and hard for all of us, isn’t it?" Caesar continued, his tone dripping with faux sympathy. "But you—good news for you—you scored an eleven! Absolutely amazing!"

"Thank you," you replied, trying to keep the flatness from your voice. "Since I’m probably going to die tomorrow, I wanted to go out with a bang, I guess."

You saw Caesar’s smile falter for a moment, unsure how to handle your bluntness. But he recovered quickly, ever the professional.

"Well, a bang you did," he said, voice still upbeat. "Now, my dear, we’ve heard so much about those waiting for you back at home. Who’s there for you? Anyone special?"

You forced your gaze to drift across the audience, your eyes scanning the sea of faces before finding the one that anchored you—Haymitch. His eyes were locked onto you, steady and unwavering, like a lifeline in the chaos.

"I have my parents back at home, taking care of my younger brother," you said, your voice a little softer now. "It was definitely a surprise when these Games were announced."

"I’m sure they’re watching you now and cheering for you back in District 5," Caesar smiled warmly, his eyes glistening with false compassion.

You swallowed hard, your throat tightening. "I doubt they will. They promised me they won’t watch. Who would want to see their child get slaughtered?" The words left your lips, cold and harsh, but they were the truth. The crowd grew silent, and Caesar struggled to regain his composure.

"Uh…" He coughed awkwardly, glancing toward the camera. "Well, that’s unfortunate, I’m sure they’ll be missing a good game. Is there anyone else waiting for you? Maybe a man? A little boy toy?"

You didn’t even need to think. The words felt right, even as they left your lips. Your fingers moved instinctively to the necklace around your neck, slipping it off with a deliberate motion, and you looked back at Haymitch. His eyes widened as your fingers found the ring you’d been wearing around your neck. The same one you’d both always kept secret.

"I do, actually," you whispered, barely above the noise of the crowd. A ripple of surprise ran through the room. "I have someone waiting for me."

You slowly slid the ring onto your finger, letting it shine under the Capitol lights. For a moment, the crowd was dead silent. The world seemed to hold its breath. And then, the cheers exploded.

You could see Haymitch in the crowd, his expression unreadable at first. But then, something in his eyes softened. He didn’t hide his emotions, even if you couldn’t hear his voice. It was in the way his hand shook as he reached for his flask, eyes never leaving you.

"You’re married?" Caesar’s voice was full of excitement now, a gleam in his eyes. "What a surprise! Tell us, who is this lucky man?"

You met his gaze again, locking your eyes with Haymitch's. "I’m afraid I’m keeping that information to myself," you replied, your voice calm but firm. "Just in case I die tomorrow, I want him to move on, to find happiness. Obviously, without all the cameras and media .That’s all I’ve ever wanted for him."

You glanced down at the ring, your fingers brushing over it gently as you spoke. "My death will not be the end of him. He will mourn, but he will live. Live for me. Live for us. Live for the world. My death won’t erase our love. Our love will live on. These Games may take everything from me, but our love? That’s something that will last forever." You blinked rapidly, tears beginning to blur your vision. "I’ve loved and been loved in these few years more than some do in a lifetime," you whispered, your voice cracking slightly. "I’m one of the lucky ones."

The audience was silent for a moment before an overwhelming wave of applause broke through the air. You could see the tears welling in Caesar's eyes, his voice shaking with emotion. "That… that was beautiful," he said, his tone sincere. "I’m sure he knows how deeply you love him. And he’s lucky to have someone like you."

"Thank you," you said softly, your heart pounding.

The audience cheered again, but you only had eyes for Haymitch now. You blew him a kiss, a simple gesture, but one that felt like it carried everything you couldn’t say aloud.

"That was amazing," Mason said, wrapping you in a tight hug the second you stepped off the stage.

You cried in his arms, the weight of everything threatening to swallow you whole. "It’s going to be okay, darling girl," Mason whispered, his voice warm and comforting. "He knows you love him, and you know he loves you."

Johanna was next to you, rubbing your back. "You really did a good job. I think all of Panem’s crying right now."

You stopped crying, and only the sound of the following interview filled the room until Johanna spoke again, her voice annoyed.

"Really? A wedding dress?" She raised an eyebrow at Katniss’s dress, which looked suspiciously like a wedding gown.

"Snow made me wear it," Katniss said, her tone flat, not caring much for Johanna, but glanced at you. Haymitch trusted you, and so did Peeta.

"Make him pay for it," Johanna smirked, causing Katniss to smile faintly.

"Come on, let’s get you cleaned up," Mason said, wrapping an arm around you, guiding you away. But then Katniss reached for your wrist, stopping you.

Mason tensed but you turned towards her.

"You did good," Katniss said quietly, nodding at your ring. "I know he appreciates it."

"Thank you," you smiled at her, though it was strained.

"Plus, I’m sure you made Peeta cry," Katniss added with a rare smile.

You laughed softly, your heart lighter despite everything. "Good luck," you said, offering her a smile before following Mason out.

"So, we’re really teaming up with District 12, huh?" Mason said, rolling his eyes.

You nudged him, a small smile playing at your lips. "Yup."

*********

You found yourself staring out the window of the living area in your suite, the stars twinkling distantly in the night sky. Mason was sitting across from you, nose buried in a book, but you couldn't tear your eyes away from the vast darkness outside.

After the interviews, you all held hands, the gesture simple but filled with power, as if, for a brief moment, the Games could be stopped. But an hour ago, Abigail had come in and crushed that fragile hope, informing you that the Games would go on as planned.

You sighed, the weight of the news heavy in your chest.

"I know you're not reading," you said, breaking the silence as you turned to Mason. "You've been on the same page for the last six minutes. It usually takes you three."

He looked up at you, a sly smirk tugging at his lips before he closed the book, setting it down on the table with a soft thud. "True," he said, the humor gone from his eyes. "But it's hard to focus on anything when death is looming over us."

You didn’t respond. Instead, you stood and moved to the window, resting your hands on the cool glass. He followed you, his footsteps soft on the carpet.

"Did Cash seem fine when you told her we weren't joining the pack?" he asked, trying to shift the conversation.

Your shoulders tensed slightly, "She wasn’t happy, but she knew," You said with a nod. "They all knew we were going with District 12. Expected it, even." Then you turned to him, your heart pounding slightly. "Are you mad at me?"

Mason shook his head instantly, his expression softening. "No. Never." He sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair. "I just… I just hope we're not making a mistake. That’s all."

You hesitated, then spoke the words that had been in your head. "You could always go with the Careers, you know."

The words barely left your mouth when Mason shot you a glare, his eyes darkening. "Shut up," he said, his voice sharp but filled with the raw edge of care. "I've been saying the whole time—it's you and me, always. If you want to team up with the newbies, we do it. If you want to team up with the Careers, we do it. Hell, if you want us to be on our own, we’ll do that too. I’m with you, partner, okay? You can't get rid of me that easily." He paused, a small, teasing smile creeping onto his lips. "I’ve been taking care of your ass for almost a decade. I’m not about to stop now."

A lump formed in your throat at his words, and you smiled, fighting back the emotions. "You're my best friend," you whispered, and he chuckled.

"Don’t let Cash hear that or she’ll make it her mission to have my head tomorrow." His voice was light, but there was something deeply affectionate in it.

"I’m serious, Mase," you nudged him, a little more forceful now, your voice cracking. "You’re my best friend. And this… this fucking sucks."

Without another word, Mason wrapped his arms around you tightly, his grip firm and warm. "Darling," he murmured into your hair, "no matter what happens tomorrow, know that you're my best friend. You’ve always been. And, I can’t really be mad at you. They're an alright team. The girl is good with those damn arrows. Plus, we get Finnick and Beetee. It could be worse."

You stayed like that for a long while, holding onto each other, the silent comfort of a friendship that had weathered more storms than anyone should ever have to. Then you heard a soft cough from the doorway, and you reluctantly pulled away.

You turned to see Haymitch standing there, leaning against the doorframe with a smirk. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Mason rolled his eyes dramatically, his tone mockingly offended. "Dude," he said with a grin, "I just got told I’m her best friend, and you couldn’t wait five minutes to swoop in? That’s crazy."

Haymitch raised his hands in surrender, still grinning. "Ouch, I thought that was me." He turned to you with a feigned look of hurt on his face. "Sweetheart, you wound me."

You shot them both a tired, amused look. "Quiet, both of you." You turned to Mason, giving him a small, pleading glance. "Mase, can you leave us, please?"

He groaned, but there was affection in the sound. "Fiiiiiinnnneeeee." He dragged out the word in a mock pout, but then he wrapped his arms around you one more time, pulling you close. "I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? I’ll find you." He kissed your forehead softly, the gesture comforting despite the weight of everything.

He pulled back, moving toward Haymitch. Before he left, Haymitch stopped and whispered, "Take care of her in there, and I’ll take care of you both out here."

Mason nodded, just slightly, so you wouldn’t notice, before giving Haymitch a firm hug. He stepped back, his eyes lingering on you for a moment before he turned to leave. "Good luck, Mason," Haymitch said softly, patting his shoulder as he went.

Mason gave a small nod, trying to keep the tension from showing, and then he left the room.

The door closed behind him, and for a brief moment, the room was silent.

Haymitch walked toward you, his steps slower than usual, more weighted. You didn’t need him to say anything. You already knew.

This was goodbye.

Without a word, he wrapped his arms around you, holding you tightly like he was trying to memorize the way you fit against him. You buried your face into his chest, inhaling the scent of him—whiskey, pine, and something softer, something that always felt like home.

You wouldn’t see him tomorrow. As soon as you woke, the Peacekeepers would be there—no time for goodbyes, no time for holding each other like this. They’d tear you away from your bed, from this room, from him.

So this… this was it.

The two of you settled onto the couch in silence, your body curled into his, your face tucked into the crook of his neck, and his arms wrapped around you like armor. His hand moved up and down your back in a slow rhythm, steady and calming, though his heart beat loud and uneven against your cheek.

You could die like this, you thought.

God, you wished you would die like this.

"You know what I was thinking?" you said softly, your voice barely above a whisper.

Haymitch hummed in response, low and thoughtful, his fingers gently threading through your hair.

"I think we were meant to be with each other. In every universe. It's always you and I,” you breathed. “And I know... I know in another universe, we got to have a beautiful, long life together."

His lips twitched into a smile, pained but sincere. "You think so?"

"Oh, I know so," you said, the corner of your mouth lifting. “We have three kids. Two girls and one boy. They're perfect—just like we always dreamed. We live in this beautiful home with a white picket fence, big porch swing. You finally grow tomatoes that don’t taste like dirt. We grow old together. We see our kids have kids. We'd be cool grandparents."

"The best grandparents," he said quietly, still stroking your hair, his voice strained and cracked with longing. “Is it weird that I'm jealous of that us?”

"No... because so am I." You closed your eyes, the fantasy a cruel comfort. It felt so real. It should have been real.

Your voice broke as the grief crashed over you like a wave. “This isn’t fair.” The words came out as a sob, and you shoved your face deeper into his neck, clinging to him like he was the last safe thing in the world.

"I know, sweetheart. I know," he murmured, holding you tighter. His hand moved slowly over your back, as if he could rub the pain away, ease the break in your heart. "But I'm going to help you. You and Mase. It's going to be alright.”

He leaned back just enough to look you in the eyes, his own gaze sharp and urgent. “I just need you to stay with Katniss. No matter what—stay with her.”

You blinked, confused for a moment, but nodded. There was something in his tone, something just beneath the surface. You didn't know the full story, but you trusted him. You always had.

"I promise, Haymitch. I’ll try to protect them... for as long as I breathe."

He stilled. Completely.

His jaw clenched, and his grip on you tightened again.

He hadn’t meant for it to come across like that. God, no. He never wanted you to think you owed him that—your life for theirs. That wasn’t what this was.

"I just need you to breathe," he said, his voice rough and trembling. “That’s all I need, okay? Just breathe. Protect yourself. I’ll take care of the kids. I promise. But you—you look after you. No playing hero. No playing mama bear.”

You lifted your head to meet his eyes, your heart thudding. “You care for those kids, Haymitch Abernathy,” you said, voice firm. “I’m going to protect them as much as I can. Nothing’s happening to those kids if I’m there.”

He stared at you, the pain behind his eyes shining like glass ready to crack.

"And I care about you, Y/N Abernathy." His voice hitched. “So you're going to make sure you survive.”

Your bottom lip trembled. You looked at him—at the man you loved more than anything—and whispered, “Only one comes out alive, Mitch.”

Your voice cracked like a brittle bone.

“I’m not even in the top five of who should win.”

Tears welled in your eyes again, hot and burning, and his face crumpled just slightly as he pulled you back into him, his breath stuttering.

You could see it. The way he was unraveling. The storm brewing behind his eyes. He had been holding something in, and it was clawing its way out of him, ripping him apart from the inside.

You’d been accepting your fate quietly, trying not to make it harder for him. But he needed more from you now.

He needed you to fight.

He needed you to live.

He needed to say the thing that had been killing him since the moment he knew. There was this plan. A plan to get Katniss and all the other victors out of there. A plan that could save your life. And he wishes he could tell you scream it out.

But Plutarch didn’t want you to involved because of your close relationship with the careers. He said it could compromise the whole mission. But he needed to tell you. He needed to guarantee your safety. Plutarch be dammed. You’re his wife. You’re the only thing that matters.

"I—" he started, voice hoarse, his hands twitching at his sides. Just spit it out he thought to himself.

You turned to face him fully, one brow raised. He was spinning in his own mind, fighting every instinct. You could tell he wanted to say it, to scream it but there was something holding him back.

"There's thi—well, there's this... this plan... Plutarch—" Why couldn’t he just say it? His heart was screaming at him to spit it out.

You stepped in before he could finish, your heart stalling. You knew that look, the flickering indecision, the desperation caught behind his teeth.

"You're not supposed to tell me, right?" you asked gently, already knowing the answer.

He faltered, looking at you like you’d read the last page of a book he hadn’t finished. He wanted to tell you. So badly. And that’s what terrified you.

"There's this plan—"

"Stop." You raised your hand, voice quiet but firm. A small, tired smile tugged at your lips. "Don’t tell me."

He stared at you in disbelief, his brows furrowed like you’d just spoken in a language he didn’t understand. "What...?"

"There's a reason why you can’t tell me, right?"

He hesitated… and nodded.

"Then it’s probably a good reason.”

"It can save your life," he whispered, and that was when the first tear slipped from his eye. He was screaming at himself to tell you to save you. Why the hell isn’t he saying anything?

Your chest tightened, but you held your voice steady. "But it jeopardizes Katniss, doesn’t it?"

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The silence was loud enough.

"Then don’t tell me."

"Sweetheart..."

"Don't tell me, Haymitch." You stepped closer, looking up at him with as much reassurance as you could muster. "I’m telling you not to tell me. You were going to—and now I’m saying no. So if anything happens, it’s on me. Not you. Never you."

You could already see it in his eyes—the guilt building like floodwater behind a dam. You couldn’t let it break him.

"You need to protect Katniss," you said softly.

His expression cracked as tears finally spilled freely, his voice breaking under the weight of his helplessness. "I need to protect you."

And that nearly broke you.

You had to look away, just for a second. "You’re putting her first," you said, your voice catching. "And that’s okay. You need to put her first. Always. You and I both know that. It’s for the greater cause—something bigger than just you and me."

He clenched his jaw. You both knew it was true. If the rebellion was going to work, it had to be Katniss. It had to be the Mockingjay.

"I need you safe," he said again, like if he repeated it enough, the universe would listen.

"And we need her alive." You were already shifting, already planning. Your voice quickened, desperate to be useful, to give him something to hold on to. "Both of them. Without Peeta, Katniss won’t want to do anything for the rebellion. Okay, I’ll look after Katniss and Mase can look after Peeta. Well of course I’ll also look after Peeta, but—"

You rambled, words spilling from you as your mind raced, building walls to keep the fear from crashing in. And he just looked at you.

God, he looked at you—like you were made of light and heartbreak and everything he could never deserve.

Then suddenly his hands were on your face, steadying you, grounding you. He needed to tell you. It was eating him alive.

You froze under his touch, your voice softening to a murmur. "Don’t tell me, Haymitch. I’m not mad. I won’t be mad. I’ll never make you choose between them or me. I care about them too."

He pulled you close, resting his forehead against yours, his breath trembling.

"It’s always been you," he choked, tears falling freely now. "It’s always going to be you."

You closed your eyes. If you could bottle this moment—this closeness, this certainty—you would have. You’d carry it into the arena like armor.

"This is more than just us, Mitch," you whispered. "If she survives… the districts' hope still lives."

He let out a bitter, shaking breath. "Damn it, woman, I want to tell you. I need to tell you."

You touched his cheek gently, tears stinging your eyes. "But you're holding back for her. And I'm telling you it’s okay."

You swallowed the lump in your throat and straightened your shoulders. "I told you since the beginning—I’m getting her out of that arena. Now you need to promise me you will too. Over Mags. Over Beetee. Over me."

Your voice didn’t shake this time. Not when it mattered most.

You looked into his eyes and saw the war in them—saw him silently screaming I can’t lose you.

But he knew you were right.

"I promise," he whispered, barely getting it out.

"It's going to be okay. We're going to be okay," you whispered, your voice thick with unshed tears as you pulled back, giving him a smile that trembled with hope and heartbreak. "And then one morning, you’ll wake up back in District 12… and you’re going to look out at the sky and feel it. Feel the peace. The Games will be gone. The children will be able to be children again. It’s what we’ve always wanted."

You smiled as you spoke, but he could see it—you weren’t just comforting him.

You were saying goodbye.

And Haymitch felt it. In the hollowness in his chest. In the way your voice cracked just slightly when you talked about a future you didn’t believe you’d see. You were accepting your death. Quietly. Gracefully. Willingly.

Even when the cause didn’t trust you enough to let you in.

And yet, here you were, dreaming about a life beyond the war—knowing you wouldn’t be part of it.

His hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“I feel like I’m making a mistake,” he said, voice raw, like it scraped his throat on the way out. Damn the cause. Damn Plutarch. Damn those District 12 kids. Damn this plan.

“You’re not,” you said gently. “You’re a mentor. We give our lives for those children. If I could’ve saved my tributes, I would’ve.”

You smiled through your tears, and it wrecked him.

“You’re the best mentor known to man. And an even better husband.”

That was the final blow.

“I love you,” he whispered like a confession, like a prayer. “So, so much. More than the moon loves the stars. More than the sun loves the ocean. I love you, Y/N.”

You cupped his face like he was fragile, precious. Like he wasn’t the broken man the world always thought him to be.

“And I love you, Haymitch,” you murmured. You nestled yourself back into his chest, fitting there like you were made for him. And maybe you were.

You both stared out the window as silence wrapped around you. Not a single word for an hour—just hearts beating in sync, like this moment could stretch forever.

But it couldn’t.

Eventually, you sat up slowly, blinking back the heaviness in your eyes. “You have to go check on the kids. The elevator locks soon… and I doubt you want to walk up seven flights of stairs.”

He clung to you a little tighter. “I’ll be fine. Come back here.”

You gave him that look. The one that always shut down every argument. Soft, patient, immovable.

He sighed. He knew. You were doing it for the kids. For him. If the Peacekeepers found you both here, alone, asleep—it would be over for him. You’d never let that happen.

“Fine. Fine.”

You walked him toward the elevator slowly, each step a thousand pounds heavier than the last.

Then you paused.

“Tell Effie I say that I love her… and that she needs to take care of you. No more than three whiskey bottles a week.”

He didn’t laugh.

He didn’t even smile.

He just pulled you into his arms like he was afraid you’d disappear the second he let go.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and he meant it for everything—for the plan, for the Capitol, for the years wasted, for the future he couldn’t give you.

“I’m not,” you said softly, holding his face like a lifeline. “I lived a beautiful life… with amazing friends and a perfect husband. I meant what I said. I felt more love in the years with you than most people ever feel in a lifetime. You made me happy. You make me proud. After everything you’ve been through, we’re finally going to be at peace.”

He was breaking. He didn’t care how pathetic it looked.

“I need you,” he choked, like the words themselves were ripping something loose in his chest.

“And you have me,” you whispered, “forever.”

You kissed his cheek, pulled him close again, memorized the shape of his body, the weight of him in your arms.

“I’ll be fine,” you lied. “Remember your promise.”

You stepped back, slowly pushing him toward the elevator. Your hands were shaking, but your face was steady. Because if you faltered—if you gave in—he would stay. And that was too dangerous.

The doors slid open.

And he didn’t move.

He couldn’t.

But you gave him a little push.

Because you had to.

He stepped inside. And as the doors started to close, you saw the panic take over his features.

"I love you," he said, the words tearing from his chest like a final breath. His heart physically ached. Like it was collapsing in on itself. Like maybe, just maybe, a person could die from a broken heart.

"And I love you too," you replied, the softest smile breaking through your tears. How could you smile when you were walking into your death?

Haymitch didn’t know.

But you always found light, even at the end of the world.

“I’ll see you in the next lifetime,” you said, and your voice cracked on the final word.

The doors slid shut.

And as the elevator descended, the last thing he heard was the sound of you sobbing.

And that was it.

That was the sound that shattered him.

This felt extremely long lol anyways thank y'all for reading! I also live for your comments they actually make my day.

Let me know what you want to see!!!!

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[nahimjustfeelingit-writes]

The Blackline.

This is a sub-story about Stack’s Brothel in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1929. It will be within the same alternate timeline I plan to write when I explore Stack as a pimp. Exploring Smoke in the midst of it all.

Summary: The Blackline is a sultry, tale set in 1929 in the hidden quarters of Little Rock’s Black district, where flappers, vice, and hoodoo tangle in velvet-lit shadows. Violet, a timid Gullah Geechee girl with nowhere else to turn, finds herself working in a brothel run by the enigmatic Stack Moore—a pimp with charm, secrets, and a past steeped in sin. But it’s Stack’s older twin, Smoke, who consumes Violet’s thoughts. A war-worn man of few words, Smoke commands the room with silence alone.

Warnings: SMUT (building tension, soft dominance, Virgin!OC)

Part One.

There was a hum on Ninth Street that didn’t exist anywhere else in Little Rock.

Not in the white part of town with its strict corners and clean churches. Not along the cotton fields where sharecroppers bent their backs and begged the sun for mercy. But right here, between Gaines and Broadway, down near the old train tracks and past the Dreamland Ballroom. Black life pulsed like a second heartbeat beneath the city.

In 1929, Ninth Street was everything.

It was jazz sliding off trumpet bells, bootleg whiskey sweet as sin behind the curtain, girls in sequin dresses with rouge on their knees, and young men in sharkskin suits gambling rent money on backroom dice. It was barbershops and beauty parlors, Sunday suits and Saturday lust. It was survival. Black, brilliant, and dangerous.

This street had raised its own people.

It gave birth to musicians, conjure women, gamblers, preachers, and madams. And when the city turned its back on them, they turned to each other and built banks, clubs, undertakers, and juke joints from sawdust and spite.

But where there is rhythm, there is shadow.

And in that shadow lived a man named Elias “Stack” Moore.

Down a narrow alley off 9th, just past an old tailor’s sign faded into the brick, was a heavy red door with no name.

Folks called it The Blackline.

Not just because of how close it sat to the edge of everything respectable, but because crossing that threshold meant you were stepping into the soft belly of Black pleasure and vice. Nothing past that door was legal. Everything inside it was intoxicating.

To get in, you had to know the knock:

Three slow. Two fast.

Or the password:

“I got the blues but I ain’t broke yet.”

The inside glowed with low amber lamps and the heat of too many bodies. The walls were velvet red. The air was thick with jasmine oil, cigar smoke, and sweat. A gramophone crackled from the corner, slow jazz bleeding through the room like maple over a hot skillet.

Curtains hung heavy around each alcove, some whispering, some moaning, always shifting like silk being pulled from the skin. The floor creaked under heels, under knees, under lives slipping quietly into pleasure and forgetting.

The women here weren’t just working. they were art personified.

Dark-skinned goddesses with gold hoops and garters. Plump cuties with high cheekbones and wide backsides. Light-eyed country girls with long legs and sad stories. New flappers with pressed curls and voices like gin. All of them owned by no one: except Stack.

Stack ran The Blackline like a man who knew the cost of control.

He wasn’t loud like most pimps. He didn’t need to be. He watched everything, leaning in the corner with a cigarette between his fingers, or a drink in his hand, velvet coat open, fedora low and dapper over his brow. His eyes were sharp, mouth always curved in that half-smirk that meant he either wanted to fuck you or gut you, and sometimes it was both.

His girls respected him. Feared him. Some loved him, though they wouldn’t say it out loud. He didn’t beat his women. But he didn’t let them leave easy either. He fed them, clothed them, protected them from the white cops and the worse men who came knocking. And in return, they gave him their best—on the floor, in the backrooms, on their knees.

Stack wasn’t just a pimp. He was a businessman. A gambler. A bootlegger.

And he wasn’t alone.

They were born in heat and hunger, two Mississippi boys who came out the womb fists clenched, mirror images with mirrored scars.

Elias was the mouth, the mind.

Elijah “Smoke” Moore was the fire.

Stack ran the brothel, the books, and the girls. Smoke handled the bootlegging, the deals, and the dirty work. He was the enforcer, the bullet in the chamber, the one you didn’t see coming until your knees gave out.

Together, they built an empire on sin and silence.

People knew the Moore twins didn’t play. You crossed them, you didn’t just get beat—you vanished.

And yet…

Smoke had a way with women. A slow kind of seduction. A man who touched soft but fucked hard. Girls wanted him even when they didn’t know why.

Stack didn’t mind.

As long as the business kept running, the girls kept earning, and the city kept looking the other way, The Blackline stayed lit, and the Moore brothers stayed untouchable.

She didn’t belong here.

Not yet.

Not with her thrift-store shoes worn at the heel, her patched satin dress clinging too loose to her hips, or the scent of salt marsh and memory still clinging to her skin. Not with her innocence intact and her voice too soft to ask for anything out loud.

But Violet was desperate. And desperation was the only currency that mattered on Ninth Street after midnight.

The alley was narrow and damp, lit only by a flickering gas lamp and the far-off glow of the Dreamland Ballroom. Jazz bled through the brick walls like vapor, and somewhere in the distance, a woman laughed too loud.

The red door loomed before her.

She’d been told what to say by the older girl who’d found her crying behind the beauty shop two days earlier, the one with the silver eye and a split lip she wore like jewelry.

Three slow. Two fast.

“I got the blues but I ain’t broke yet.”

The peephole opened.

Two shadowed eyes looked her over, lingered on the bare knees below her hemline.

“You don’t look like you know what you doing,” the voice said.

“I can learn,” she replied, trying to keep her chin lifted.

The door creaked open.

And Violet stepped inside.

Heat wrapped around her like breath. The air was thick with perfume, pipe smoke, and the smell of sex so fresh it clung to the walls. Light came from low amber lamps, each corner flickering like a secret. Everything was red—the carpet, the drapes, the wallpaper—blood velvet and mahogany shadows. She could hear moans behind curtains. Laughter behind beads. Cards flipping. Shoes tapping. Skin slapping.

A woman walked past in nothing but a beaded bra and stockings, hips moving like a song no man could resist. A man in suspenders had his hand buried beneath the hem of another girl’s skirt, and no one batted an eye. The air tasted like cinnamon and heat. She felt it instantly—between her thighs, in her belly, behind her ribs.

She didn’t belong here. Not yet.

But something inside her, something deeper than fear, wanted to.

He saw her from across the room.

Stack leaned in his usual spot—against the far wall, velvet coat draped open, dark liquor in his hand. The room swam in bodies and fog, but his eyes landed on her like they’d been waiting for her arrival.

Young. Thin. Pretty in a way that wasn’t polished but raw. Something untouched. Her eyes were wide, posture tight, hands gripping the strap of a borrowed purse like it held a weapon.

He knew the look.

Fresh meat.

He stepped forward, smooth and slow, like the room parted just to let him walk.

“You lost, baby girl?” he asked, voice deep, syrupy.

Violet turned toward him, startled by the height of him, the sharpness of his jaw, the way his mouth didn’t smile even when his tone pretended to.

“No sir,” she whispered, “I’m lookin’ for work.”

He let his eyes drag down her body, slow.

“You ain’t been touched, have you?”

Her breath caught.

“No,” she said softly, “But I’m willin’. I just need a place to stay.”

Stack stepped closer, leaned in near her ear.

“‘Round here, baby…we don’t take what ain’t offered. But if you wanna give it, there’s a place for you upstairs.”

She swallowed hard.

He smelled like rum, spice, and danger. She felt like a match held to oil.

He straightened up and looked her over one more time.

“Name’s Stack. You remember that.”

Then he turned, nodded to one of the girls near the bar.

“Get her cleaned up. She sleep in the green room tonight. I’ll decide what to do with her come mornin’.”

And just like that, Violet was pulled into the velvet bloodstream of The Blackline.

Not as a worker. Not yet.

But as a girl the house would keep its eyes on.

The green room was small, no bigger than a boxcar berth, with peeling wallpaper and a single oil lamp that painted the cracked mirror gold. Violet sat on the edge of the old porcelain tub, steam rising in curls around her face. The bathwater was warm, not hot, the kind that clung to your skin like a whisper. Rose petals floated on the surface—leftover from another girl’s soak, but she didn’t mind.

It had been a long time since she’d felt anything soft.

She undressed slow, like it meant something. Like the silk slip she unfastened wasn’t secondhand. Like the stockings she peeled from her legs weren’t fraying at the toes. She laid them gently on the wooden chair. Her body looked thin under the lamplight. Not fragile—coiled, like something waiting to bloom.

Violet stepped into the water.

It wrapped around her like hands from the other side.

She exhaled, lowered herself in, and let her head fall back against the porcelain. Her eyes fluttered shut.

She thought of her grandmother.

Old Miss Luella. Thick hands, voice like saltwater and thunder, skin dark and smooth like polished shell. The woman who raised her on boiled root tea, haint blue, and Gullah prayers whispered to the wind.

“Your body is a gate, child. Not a gift. Not for free. And not to be feared.”

The memory of her voice wrapped around Violet now like arms.

She’d come here because she had nowhere else to go. But something inside her knew this was more than survival.

This was crossing a threshold.

She reached into her bag and pulled out her most precious thing.

a piece of lavender ribbon, worn and soft.

Her mother used to tie it around her wrist when she was scared.

Her grandmother would wrap it around her ankle and say, “No man can touch what’s guarded by memory.”

Now, Violet tied it around her throat.

Not tight. Just snug enough to feel.

It wasn’t just protection anymore.

It was a signal.

That she was hers first.

And whoever touched her after this…would have to be worthy.

She dried slow, humming a tune only her family would recognize. Her curls damp, cheeks feeling like brown velvet gone warm, the warmth of her body from the bath and the shade of her skin like café au lait. She stood in the cracked mirror, naked but not ashamed. There was still fear. But there was something else now too.

A quiet hunger.

Not just to survive…

But to become.

The room was warm with lamplight and perfume.

Not strong, just faint hints of amber, pressed powder, and lilac, the kind that clung to bedsheets long after a girl had gone. The velvet chaise against the wall sagged with familiar use, and lying across it, a cigarette in one hand and one heel kicked off, was Cordelia.

Cordelia Toussaint.

The girls just called her Delie. The men called her whatever she whispered in their ear.

She was thirty miles of legs and don’t-give-a-damn, eyes lined in coal, lips always painted in something dark like plum or wine. Her robe was silk and nearly see-through, the color of crushed garnet. One thigh peeked from the slit, golden and gleaming.

She didn’t flinch when Violet walked in.

Just raised one arched brow and looked her over.

“Mmm,” Cordelia hummed, “Ain’t you a delicate little thing.”

Violet froze in the doorway, arms wrapped tight across her front, “Sorry—I didn’t know anyone was—”

“I ain’t just ‘anyone,’ sugar. I’m the Queen of this floor,” Cordelia smiled slow, cigarette curling smoke toward the ceiling, “And this here,” she gestured to the piles of lace, satin, and beaded silk draped over the bed, “is your coronation.”

Violet stepped farther in, bare feet soft on the worn rug. The heat of the oil lamps made her skin glow, still damp from her bath. Her curls had puffed around her face, and her ribbon—lavender—was still tied around her neck.

Stack had sent up a box of clothes earlier. Beautiful ones. Too beautiful. Like someone else’s dreams.

“Stack got taste,” Cordelia said, eyeing the garments, “Or maybe he just sees somethin’ in you he don’t wanna say out loud.”

Violet looked down, fingers trailing over a lavender chemise trimmed in black lace, “I’ve never worn anything like this.”

“Well, try it on then. Ain’t nobody gonna bite. ‘Cept maybe me,” She grinned around her cigarette.

Violet turned her back, cheeks burning.

She slipped out of her plain cotton shift and stepped into a deep emerald set. It was a camisole that hugged her waist and barely reached the curve of her hips, paired with tap shorts that rode high.

When she turned around, Cordelia sat up, real slow.

“Well, well, well…” she purred, “Ain’t you a quiet little storm.”

Violet shifted, unsure, “It fits weird. I’m too skinny for it.”

Cordelia scoffed, “Skinny? No, baby. You just got all your weight where it counts.”

Her eyes dragged down Violet’s frame, deliberate.

“Those hips could rock a man stupid. And that little ass? That’s trouble. Small up top, soft down low. You built like a promise.”

Violet’s arms crossed her chest, trying not to blush harder, “You’re just sayin’ that.”

“No, honey. I only say what’s true.”

Cordelia stood then, barefoot, and came close. Close enough that Violet could smell the jasmine and smoke on her skin. She ran one fingertip over the satin strap at Violet’s shoulder.

“You ever had a woman look at you like this before?”

Violet swallowed, “No.”

“Well, Miss Vi, you better get used to it,” Cordelia stepped back and smiled, “‘Cause by the time Stack puts you on the floor, they all gon’ be lookin’.”

Violet sat on the edge of the bed now, legs crossed at the ankles, fingers tracing the hem of the tap shorts.

Cordelia had returned to the chaise, reclined with one arm draped behind her head, her cigarette replaced with a glass of dark wine that shimmered like rubies in the lamplight.

For a while, neither of them spoke. The room was thick with perfume and tension—not heavy, just tender, like when rain wants to fall but isn’t ready yet.

Then, softly, Violet asked, “Does it hurt?”

Cordelia didn’t turn her head. Just sipped her wine and let the question settle.

“When it’s your first?” she said finally.

Violet nodded.

Cordelia breathed slow through her nose.

“Sometimes. Depends on the man. Depends on how much you want it…or how much you pretend you do.”

Violet looked down, “And what about after that?” she asked, “After the first time?”

Cordelia set the glass down on the floor and finally turned toward her, one knee drawn up beneath her robe.

“After that?” she said, “You learn your own rhythm. What you can take. What you like. Where to let them touch. Where to keep to yourself,” She studied Violet for a long moment. Then added, “It don’t always feel like much. But sometimes…”

She trailed off.

“…Sometimes?” Violet whispered.

Cordelia smiled slowly.

��Sometimes, with the right one…it feels like your soul’s gettin’ kissed from the inside out.”

Violet’s breath caught. Her thighs pressed together instinctively.

Cordelia’s smile deepened, “Mmhm. You felt that, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Violet said, “I just—when I think about someone touchin’ me like that…I get warm. But I also feel scared. Like my body wants it, but the rest of me ain’t caught up yet.”

Cordelia nodded, “That’s natural. Your body been ready. It’s your heart that takes her time.”

She reached over and plucked a satin robe from the side of the bed. Rose-colored, soft, worn. She walked it over and draped it gently around Violet’s shoulders.

“You don’t gotta give nothin’ you ain’t ready to give,” she said softly, “Not to Stack. Not to Smoke. Not to nobody.”

Violet looked up at her, “Have you ever loved someone who paid you?”

Cordelia paused, just for a breath. Then said, “No. But I’ve loved how they made me feel. For a little while. That counts for somethin’, too.”

Violet pulled the robe tighter around her chest. “I don’t want to be just…a body.”

Cordelia tucked a curl behind her ear, “Then don’t be.”

She leaned in, kissed Violet’s cheek—soft, warm, and brief.

“Let ‘em touch your skin, sugar. But keep your name in your own mouth. Keep your soul in your back pocket.”

Violet had been at The Blackline for a week.

Long enough to learn which girls brought in the most coin. Long enough to know who Stack trusted with the money box. Long enough to stop flinching when the back curtain swayed with moans, and long enough to learn how to smile without meaning it.

She hadn’t let any man touch her yet.

But she knew how to lean soft against their side, how to let her fingers trail across a lap, how to pretend she’d whisper something filthy but only ask if they liked their drink cold.

Stack didn’t pressure her. Not yet.

“You sell the idea right now,” he’d said, voice low, one gold tooth catching the lamplight, “Let them chase what they can’t have. That body gon’ pay double when the time comes.”

So she played host.

She laughed when needed. Danced when asked. Gave lap dances in silk and lavender and let men groan beneath her without ever opening her legs. She was a ghost in perfume, a promise wrapped in ribbon.

And when her shift was done, she’d sit in the corner room behind a sheer drape, knees drawn to her chest, watching.

Watching the other girls work.

Watching bodies move like shadow puppets behind beaded curtains, the sound of wet mouths and thick groans muffled by the low hum of jazz.

Sometimes, she’d close her eyes and imagine someone touching her like that. Not the men who came in drunk and lonely.

Someone else.

Someone who hadn’t even looked her way yet.

He came and went through the hallway like a breeze before the storm.

He didn’t linger. Didn’t smile. Didn’t talk unless he had to. Just passed through with his coat open, sleeves rolled, his news cap pulled low over a face that made women stare without meaning to.

He hadn’t looked at her. Not once.

But Violet noticed everything about him.

The way he lit his cigarette with one hand. The way his loafers hit the floor slow but certain. The way his voice rumbled when he spoke to Stack—not raised, not rushed, but enough to make the other girls shut up just to listen.

He wasn’t dressed like Stack, who wore velvet and gold and lace cuffs when he felt like it.

Smoke was simpler. Cleaner. But not softer.

Dark shirts. Dark trousers. Black suspenders. He didn’t wear flash. He didn’t need to. He wore command.

And something about that…Something about how his silence filled a room more than any shout…

It did something to her.

It made her thighs press together beneath her dress.

It made her breath catch when he passed.

And it made her wonder, what would his hands feel like?

Not the hands of the laughing men who grabbed without asking.

But his?

Would they be rough? Careful? Would he say her name like it was a secret or a sentence?

Violet didn’t even know if he’d noticed her.

But her body already had.

On the third night she saw him, some drunk fool tried to grab at one of the newer girls—Peaches. The kind of man who forgot this place had rules. Smoke didn’t say a word.

He rose from his chair like a dark wind, flicked his cigarette to the floor, and grabbed the man by the collar. The struggle wasn’t loud. There were no threats, no curses. Just the wet sound of knuckles hitting bone, the quick thud of someone’s pride dropping to the floor. Then silence again, broken only by the ragged wheeze of the man as Smoke leaned in, murmuring something only he could hear.

He dusted his coat, lit another cigarette, and sat back down.

Violet hadn’t realized she’d stopped breathing until Cordelia touched her hand beneath the table and whispered, “That’s how Smoke handles disrespect. Quiet and clean.”

They all tried him. The girls.

Some sat on his lap, giggling and twirling curls like schoolgirls. Others pressed their breasts to his arm, offering their best pout. Cordelia once wrapped her legs around him just to tease, but even she couldn’t break through that armor. Smoke didn’t flinch, didn’t soften. He simply watched. Took long drags of his cigar and let the world orbit him.

The only time he smiled was when Stack made some offhand joke, or when the saxophone player hit a particularly sweet note. But never at the girls. Not the way they wanted.

Violet found herself waiting for him. Listening for the weight of his boots on the floorboards. She never approached. Just peeked around corners. Hid behind curtains. Her heart fluttered every time his gaze swept across the room.

Once—just once—his eyes landed on her. Those sharp, heavy-lidded eyes. He didn’t smile. Didn’t blink.

And Violet turned away so fast she nearly tripped over her own feet.

The night had finally slipped quiet, the gramophone long gone silent, the perfume of cigar smoke and gin clinging to the velvet drapes like ghosts.

Backstage, in the dressing parlor with cracked mirrors and soft lamplight, Cordelia peeled off her silk stockings slow, leg stretched out long, her golden skin catching the amber glow like honey poured over polished mahogany. She had high cheekbones dusted in old rouge, eyes lined sharp as razors, and a gold mole painted just above her full mouth. Her hair was set in glossy Marcel waves, pinned back with a diamond barrette she claimed once belonged to Josephine Baker herself.

She sat in front of the mirror like she was on stage again, one leg crossed over the other, smoking a thin clove cigarette in a long ivory holder.

Peaches was across from her, lounging in a pink floral robe that hugged her plush figure. She was soft in all the places men dreamed about—belly round, hips thick like southern bread dough, and breasts that spilled out no matter what she wore. Her sandy brown coils framed her moon-round face like a lioness, fake flowers tucked behind her ears—yellow hibiscus and a few wilted daisies from the night before. She smelled like coconut oil and rum, sweet and warm.

Violet sat quiet near the wall, still in her slip, legs curled beneath her. She wore a pale-blue robe Cordelia had passed down to her. It was satin and fraying at the sleeves, but still soft against her shy skin. She didn’t speak, not yet. Just listened.

Cordelia let out a long sigh and flicked ash into an old crystal ashtray.

“Mmm. That old man in Room 2 tried to suck on my toes again,” she muttered, “Swore up and down I was an angel sent to forgive him. I told him, baby, I ain’t the Virgin Mary, I’m just Cordelia with rent due.”

Peaches cackled, her laughter rich and sweet like a gospel solo.

“At least he’s clean. That man with the gold teeth wanted me to act like his damn mama,” Peaches said, fanning herself, “Callin’ me ‘mama’ while I was ridin’ him. I almost said ‘boy, go to bed’ just to mess with him.”

Cordelia leaned back, puffing on her cigarette, “These men want every kinda woman. Soft ones, mean ones, silent ones. But you know what they really care about?”

“Pussy hair,” Peaches said, deadpan, grinning.

Violet’s eyes widened slightly.

“Exactly,” Cordelia purred, “I swear, half these fellas more opinionated than a church mother. One want it waxed bald like a lil’ girl. Another want it wild like a thicket. One man asked me to braid it.”

Peaches hollered, “Stack like it full, but trimmed. Just enough for his nose to get lost but not choked.”

Cordelia raised her brows at Violet through the mirror, “You shy, baby, but you got somethin’ under there. What you got goin’ on? Don’t be modest. We all women here.”

Peaches wiggled her brows, “Show us, baby girl.”

Violet hesitated. Her cheeks burned, but something in the way they watched her wasn’t cruel, it was curious, sisterly. So slowly, carefully, she opened her robe just enough to reveal the soft down between her thighs. A natural, delicate triangle—neatly trimmed, but untouched by razor.

“Well damn,” Cordelia murmured with an approving nod. “That’s a pretty little thing.”

Peaches smiled warmly, “You keep it just like that, baby. Let the right man teach you how he likes it.”

Violet closed her robe again, heart thudding.

“I’m surprised Stack ain’t done your initiation,” Cordelia said next, shifting tones.

Violet blinked, “My what?”

Cordelia smirked, “The initiation, sugar. When Stack gets a taste. He don’t always fuck you, sometimes he just eats. But he gotta make sure you gonna sell. That your body gonna bring money in.”

Peaches nodded solemnly, “He say he can tell from just the first taste. If you gon’ be a money-maker or a waste of time.”

“All the girls been through it,” Cordelia added, “We love Stack, even when we hate him. He run things tight. If you need food, he got it. If a man put hands on you, he handle it. If you act up, he cut you off. But he protect his girls.”

A hush fell after that. Cordelia reached for her perfume, dabbing it behind her ears. Peaches picked petals out her hair.

Violet sat quiet again. Not with fear—just thought.

She wondered if Smoke had ever done an initiation.

But the idea seemed…strange. He didn’t look at them like Stack did. He didn’t play. Didn’t sample. He sat in the shadows like a king who’d already had every fruit in the orchard.

Still, she wondered.

if he did it…how would it feel?

Would he ask?

Would he taste slow?

Would he whisper her name?

The brothel was still humming low that night—music crawling through the floorboards like midnight pour, the scent of clove and spilled gin heavy in the air. Violet was in the hallway near the parlor, pretending to check a tear in her stocking. But really, she was watching.

Cordelia walked by in her silk robe, hips swaying like she owned gravity itself. She passed Violet without a glance but tossed, “Don’t stare too long, baby. You’ll get ideas,” over her shoulder with a sly smirk.

Violet followed behind, quiet as always.

Stack was in the main parlor, sunk into his velvet armchair like a man born to it. His legs were spread, gold rings glittering on thick fingers. A black button-down hugged his chest, the top few undone just enough to show the glint of a gold chain and the curve of a rose tattoo blooming over his collarbone. A toothpick rolled lazy between his lips, and his fedora was tilted just enough to cast a shadow across his sharp eyes.

He was flanked by two women—Black beauties dressed in mink-trimmed lingerie. One with midnight skin and copper-gold eyes, the other with a cinnamon glow and long, oil-slick braids. Girls from back in New Orleans. The kind who moved too quietly, whose laughter echoed wrong if you listened too long. Their glamour was turned up high tonight—cheeks glowing, lips stained bloodred, eyes like honeyed storm clouds.

They leaned into Stack like cats in heat, one on each arm, hands tracing his chest while he accepted the girls’ cut of the night’s earnings—crisp bills folded neat in silk pouches. He didn’t look rushed. He didn’t ever look rushed.

Cordelia stepped forward, elegant as a sermon, and slid her own pouch into his open palm, “For you, baby,” she purred.

Stack gave her that grin, slow, wicked, full of teeth and secrets, “That’s my girl.”

Cordelia stayed close, ran her hand up his thigh, “I got a question though,” she said lightly, tone flirtatious but eyes sharp, “That lil’ new one…Violet. Why ain’t you done her initiation yet?”

The question landed like a dropped match.

The girls giggled, expectant.

Violet froze in the hallway, half in shadow.

Stack chuckled low, licked his lips slow. Then he leaned back and finally looked up—right toward Violet. Right through the wall, through the shadows, like he felt her watching.

“’Cause she ain’t ready,” he said. Voice calm. Final, “She still soft. Still dreamin’. I bite her now, she won’t come back from it.”

The room went still for a moment.

One of the girls murmured, “Ain’t never heard you hold back before.”

Stack smirks, “I don’t break toys I like.”

Cordelia tilted her head, “You like her?”

He didn’t answer that part. Just sat there, eyes still locked in Violet’s direction.

The one of the girls leaned down, whispering something in his ear. He grinned wider, eyes glinting gold.

Cordelia laughed, kissed him on the cheek, and walked off, hips rolling like waves.

Violet slipped back down the hall, heart pounding, not sure what she felt.

She wasn’t afraid.

But something in her ached.

She didn’t know whether it was longing for Stack…or disappointment that it wasn’t Smoke who’d said those words.

The days passed, and Violet became a ghost of temptation.

She hadn’t laid with a single man yet—not really. Not how they wanted. Not how Stack trained the girls to break a John in, slow and sweet. Violet would let them look, let them taste her perfume and the way she moved when she walked—but that was all.

She’d lean in close enough for breath to catch in their throat, then pull away with a soft apology and a smile that made them want to beg.

They were starving for her.

Some started offering more; double, triple. One even brought roses. Another sent sweets and a gold bracelet. Stack let it happen. Watched from the upstairs rail with his cigar in hand, head tilted just enough to track every whisper, every reach, every ache in the eyes of the men who wanted to ruin her.

Cordelia called it “the long game.”

“You reel ‘em in slow, baby,” she told Violet one afternoon in the vanity room, lips lined red, a lace shawl loose over her shoulders, “Make ’em chase what they already think they own.”

She leaned in, breath warm against Violet’s ear, “You let ‘em think you’re green. Shy. Then one night, you open that door just a little…and they lose they whole mind.”

Peaches nodded from across the room, filing her nails, “Ain’t nothin’ like the first time a quiet girl turns bold. That pussy hit different when it’s got mystery on it.”

Violet listened. Blushed. But she held her posture a little taller now. Her silence wasn’t fear, it was control. And she was learning.

Upstairs, Stack knew.

He saw it in the way she moved through the hallway now, hips learning how to sway without effort. He saw it when she made the mistake of biting her lip in front of a customer and didn’t notice the way his hand twitched. She was blooming. Not all at once. But the petals were opening. And Stack…was patient.

He didn’t rush the flowers he wanted to own.

That night, Smoke returned.

The front door swung open in the low light. He came in like he always did—silent. Slow. Solid. Black suspenders over a white shirt, sleeves rolled just enough to show his forearms and the cut of his veins. Cigarette already lit. No words. No greeting.

Just presence.

Violet was sitting behind a sheer gold drape near the hallway curtain, her usual hiding place. A secret pocket of velvet and hush where she could pretend to be invisible and watch the world breathe.

She held still, barely blinking, eyes tracing the shape of his jaw in the smoke.

And she wasn’t the only one watching.

Two of the girls were near the bar, sipping gin and whispering low.

“Mmm mmm mmm…that man walk in here like sin in a suit,” one said, fanning herself, “I’d let him ruin my whole damn life.”

“He don’t even talk much,” the other whispered back, “But I love me a grown, confident-ass man. One that don’t gotta raise his voice to make the whole room shift.”

“You see how he move?” the first continued, “Like he ain’t gotta explain nothin’. Just action. He said forget all that talk, I’m bout that action.”

They giggled, voices thick with desire and bravado, but there was hunger underneath it. Real hunger. The kind even the boldest girls didn’t say too loud.

Smoke didn’t even glance their way. He walked straight to the far wall, leaned back, lit a fresh cigarette, and scanned the room with eyes that held weight. You didn’t look into them—you fell into them.

And then…he paused.

His eyes drifted. Toward the sheer drape. Toward her.

Violet held her breath.

Did he see her?

She didn’t know. But she knew one thing…

The ache inside her, the low simmer that burned beneath her belly, had a name.

And it wasn’t Stack.

It was him.

Smoke.

The brothel quieted in the small hours, when most of the girls had either gone to bed or were curled in the laps of men too drunk to finish what they started.

Violet slipped away to the back bathroom, the one with the deep porcelain tub and the cracked pink tiles, where steam clung to the mirror like breath. She twisted the knobs, hot water rushing out, cloudy with the salts and lavender oil Cordelia always kept in a little jar by the sink.

She stripped slow.

Her pale blue slip slid down her curves, skin dewy in the dim yellow light. Her breasts rose and fell with soft, shallow breaths. Her thighs were warm with sweat from the long night. Her curls stuck to her neck. She eased herself into the bath, the heat licking at her skin, pulling a sigh from her lips.

She sank deep with her knees drawn up, arms resting along the edges, eyes drifting shut.

And then the ache started again.

Smoke.

Not Stack. Not one of the slick-mouthed Johns who tried to coax her open with sweet words and sugar lies. But him—silent, watchful, heavy with power and mystery. The way he filled a room without ever trying. The cut of his jaw, the roll of his sleeves. The way he looked like he’d never say your name out loud—but growl it into your skin.

Her hand drifted down.

Fingers slipping between her thighs, slow at first. She breathed his name so softly it never left her lips. Her toes curled. Her hips arched slightly. She imagined his hand instead of hers. His fingers. His breath hot against her ear, not asking permission, just knowing what she needed.

The water lapped softly. Her moans were barely whispers, but they filled the little room all the same.

She was just on the edge, lost in that imagined weight of Smoke pressing her down, when—

Knock-knock. Click.

The door creaked open.

“Mmm.” Cordelia’s voice floated in, amused, “Now what we got goin’ on in here, sugar?”

Violet jerked up, water sloshing over the edge. She scrambled to sink lower into the bath, cheeks blazing red.

“I—I thought I locked—”

Cordelia leaned against the doorframe, fully dressed in a black silk robe trimmed with marabou feathers, cigarette holder dangling from her painted fingers.

“You didn’t,” she purred, eyes twinkling, “And even if you had, I got keys to everything in this house. Don’t look so scared. I ain’t mad. Girl’s entitled to her lil’ bath time fantasy.”

Violet covered her chest with her arms, mortified. Cordelia stepped inside, clicking the door shut behind her. She didn’t come to shame. She came like a storm that knew the rain was needed.

“Let me guess…” Her eyes narrowed, voice playful, “You wasn’t thinkin’ ’bout Smoke, was you?”

Violet didn’t answer.

Cordelia smirked and slid down to sit on the edge of the tub, letting her hand stir the water lazily.

“No shame in it, baby. That man walk in like judgment day, and every girl in this house got a little tremble in her thighs when he lights a cigarette.”

Violet looked down, face flushed, lips still parted from what almost was.

“You ever wonder what he’d do if you let him have you?” Cordelia asked, voice dropping, “Not rough like these other fools. Nah. A man like Smoke…he take his time. He don’t fuck. He consumes.”

Violet whimpered under her breath, thighs pressing together beneath the water.

Cordelia chuckled softly, “See? I knew it. You hooked and he ain’t even touched you yet,” She stood, smoothing her robe, “Just don’t drown yourself in here, alright? Save a little of that sweetness for when the time come. And baby…”

She paused at the door.

“When a man like that finally notices you? There ain’t no goin’ back.”

Then she was gone, leaving the room scented with her perfume and laughter.

And Violet?

She leaned back in the tub again.

But her hand moved slower this time.

And in her mind, she heard Smoke whisper her name.

After her bath, the house had gone hush. Only the soft lilt of old jazz drifted up from below—scratchy and faraway, like a memory playing through a wall. Most of the girls had gone to their rooms or curled up with company. Violet had begged off early. Said she had a headache. Nobody questioned her.

She wasn’t sick.

She was starving—but not for food.

The dressing room was dim, lit only by a row of half-burned candles flickering in their dusty glass jars. Smoke from earlier perfumes still clung to the air—rose, patchouli, hair tonic, clove cigarettes. The mirrors were fogged from the night’s heat and steam, the room heavy with the perfume of want.

Violet stood barefoot on the cold tile floor, wrapped in a short silk robe. Her curls were damp, falling in soft tendrils around her face, and her cheeks still flushed from her bath. Her skin glowed in the candlelight—bronze, delicate, young.

She stepped closer to the mirror.

The fogged glass showed only a whisper of herself at first, like a spirit trying to take form.

She wiped it clean with her palm.

Then stood still.

She studied her reflection. The cut of her collarbone. The shape of her mouth. The softness of her eyes, the way her lips always seemed half-parted like a question left unanswered.

“He don’t want soft,” she whispered to herself, “He want…sultry…woman.”

So she tried.

She dropped one shoulder of the robe. Let it slide down slow.

She ran her fingers through her curls and pushed them back, exposing her neck. Then she tilted her chin up just a little, parted her lips.

“You like this, don’t you?” she murmured, voice breathy, “I bet you wonder what I taste like…”

She paused. Cringed.

It didn’t sound right.

It sounded like someone else. Cordelia maybe. Or one of the other girls who knew how to speak a man into madness. Not her. Not sweet little Violet from the coast with Gullah blood and old folk songs still hiding in her bones.

She tried again.

Swayed her hips slow. Dragged her finger down her chest. Let the robe part just a little between her thighs.

“You want me, don’t you?” she whispered.

The words stuck in her throat.

Her shoulders tensed. Her eyes dropped.

It felt fake.

Like she was wearing someone else’s skin, trying to fit into a mold that wasn’t made for her. Pretty? Sure. She’d been told that. Men looked. Girls cooed. But she didn’t have Cordelia’s poise, Peaches’ sass, or the polished glamour of the girls from Stack’s past. She didn’t know how to weaponize her beauty yet.

And Smoke?

Smoke would eat a woman alive if she stepped to him wrong.

Violet sank onto the vanity stool, staring at her bare thighs, her robe still half-open.

She whispered, “You don’t see me, do you…”

She wanted to cry. Not from sadness. From that terrible tightness in the chest when your want grows too loud, and your confidence grows too quiet.

She reached for a lipstick tube and twisted it open. It was a deep wine red, something Cordelia once left on the table.

She painted her lips slow.

Then leaned in and kissed the mirror.

A print bloomed on the glass.

“If I was bold…you’d touch me, wouldn’t you?” she whispered again, softer now, “You’d press me to the wall. You’d tell me I was yours without sayin’ a word…”

Silence answered her.

And still, she sat there, robe slipping from one shoulder, red lips parted, candlelight dancing across her skin.

Just a girl aching to be noticed.

She didn’t even remember falling asleep that night. One minute, she was staring at her own reflection, robe half open, mouth painted, thighs pressed together. The next, the mirror seemed to ripple, soften, breathe.

And suddenly, he was there.

Smoke.

Leaning in the doorway behind her, half in shadow, cigarette in hand.

But this wasn’t the real Smoke. This was dream-Smoky, smoky Smoke—heavier, slower, hungry.

He stepped into the room with that same impossible quiet, like the floor moved for him, not the other way around. The door didn’t creak. The candles didn’t flicker. He just was.

His eyes moved over her…over her parted robe, over her soft thighs, over the kiss mark on the mirror like it was a challenge.

Violet tried to cover herself, but in the dream, her arms wouldn’t move. She could only look back, breath catching, skin prickling with heat and shame.

“I was just—”

Smoke didn’t speak.

He crossed the room in three long strides and stopped behind her. She could see him in the mirror now. Towering. Watching. His gaze dragged down her body like a match tip over dry bark. And then, he bent low, his mouth grazing the shell of her ear.

“You think I don’t see you?” he murmured, voice like liquid dusk on hot skin.

His hands slid down her shoulders, calloused palms dragging over her arms, her waist. He didn’t grab. He claimed. His touch said…this has always been mine.

No one else’s

You hear me?

You’re mine, my pretty Violet…

She whimpered. Softly. Slightly strangled. Like an echo. Like she’d been longing for him to say those words and it’s only been such a short amount of time.

He dipped his head further, pressed his lips to her neck feather-like, breathing her in like she was a fragrance. The robe fell from her shoulders. Slowly. Her nipples hardened in the air.

“I see everything, Violet,” he said, “Every little ache. Every quiet moan you try to hide from the night…”

He turned her gently in the dream, and she rose without resistance. She was bare before him, trembling, but not afraid. Ready. Puddy beneath his calloused hands. Ready and willing to be told what to do.

“You ain’t gotta perform for me,” he whispered.

Then he sank to his knees. His eyes never leaving hers. Not once. His mouth was at her belly, then lower, his breath hot against the soft thatch between her thighs. He pressed a kiss there—slow, worshipful.”

“I want this,” he said.

And she believed him.

Violet gasped—and woke with a jolt.

The candles were low. The room was quiet. Her thighs were wet with sweat, her robe askew. No one was there. No door creaked. No match was struck.

But her heart was racing like he’d just left.

And for a long, long moment, Violet sat in the hush, fingertips brushing her lips.

A thought bloomed in her chest like a secret.

Despite what Violet thinks Smoke wants—sharp, sultry, polished women like Cordelia…

She’s wrong.

He’ll want her exactly as she is.

Soft. Quiet. Ache and all.

@theereinawrites @angelin-dis-guise @thee-germanpeach @harleycativy @slut4smokemoore09 @readingaddict1290 @blackamericanprincessy @aristasworld @avoidthings @brownsugarcoffy @ziayamikaelson @kindofaintrovert @raysogroovy @overhere94 @joysofmyworld @an-ever-evolving-wanderer @starcrossedxwriter @marley1773 @bombshellbre95 @nybearsworld @brincessbarbie @kholdkill @honggihwa @tianna-blanche @wewantsumheaad @theethighpriestess @theegoldenchild @blackpantherismyish @nearsightedbaddie @charmedthoughts @beaboutthataction @girlsneedlovingfanfics @cancerianprincess @candelalanegra22 @mrsknowitallll @dashhoney25 @pinkprincessluminary @chefjessypooh @sk1121-blog1 @contentfiend @kaystacks17 @bratzlele @kirayuki22 @bxrbie1 @blackerthings @angryflowerwitch @baddiegiii @syko-jpg @inkdrippeddreams @rolemodelshit

[justafewberries]

Drusilla advises Haymitch to be “naughty, not dangerous” like a university student who dyed the fountains pink.

“They’ll respond to a bad boy, not a rebel. You need to be naughty, not dangerous. For instance, last winter, one of the University students dyed all the fountains pink when there was a face cream shortage. So saucy! Everyone loved it!”

This is an obvious allusion to a common criticism of protestors, that they should be peaceful, not violent, seen but not heard, so to speak.

But beyond that, it has me wondering if the university student who dyed the fountains intended for it to be about face cream at all. Dyeing fountains red (or, when diluted, pink), is a common way to represent blood in a form of protest.

We know the capitol has complete control over the narrative daily life. In CF, one of Katniss’s prep team members explains she can’t get shrimp for a party because of the weather in District Four, when it’s actually the rebellion.

The prank and the victory tour both happened in winter. All eyes would be on the capitol. The university student was likely genuinely protesting the games, but the capitol recontextualized it into becoming a funny prank, and thus, that’s all it was.

If a meaning of protest isn’t clearly and immediately understood, the narrative of the action is the dominant party’s to write.

The propaganda and public opinion machine completely erased the point of their poster, just like Haymitch’s.

[inseobts]

Can you do a gn but soft feminine reader where they get worried that Shanks and them are drifting apart (theyre married) and that Shanks now even seems like he may have started cheating, even being caught on an island in like the pleasure district or something. Super angsty the reader is suffering and stuff but im sensitive obviously so it turns out he had also felt like maybe he had been too busy and distant with stress and planning (this is close to the current canon time) to pay proper attention to reader so the "cheating" was him trying to find out a way to like get them a romantic place alone. Like the pleasure district girls were just teaching him about different gifts he could get you and the best hotels/resturants to go to for a date. He chose them just bc he could pay for their time so no bothering random people and they were knowledgable about the finer stuff in life. Pls end fluffy and they actually make up and get along and stuff and go on the date. You can add smut at the end if things get heated at the hotel but if it feels like it doesn't fit in the story youre writing you don't have to add it.

sorry if i sent this twice i have bad memory and i dont remember if i actually sent it or not so just in case im sending it again its not me rushing you or spamming

Driftwood Hearts

shanks x gn!reader

a/n: at some point I forgot I was writing it as gn!reader, I tried to fix it but I'm not sure I didn't miss any. I also forgot he has a missing arm...

words count: 3.5k

tags: mild smut, angst with comfort, misunderstandings, emotional hurt/comfort, marriage struggles, pre-egghead

masterlist || ao3 || ko-fi

The wind brushes gently across your skin as you stand at the railing of the Red Force, eyes fixed on the endless blue. It’s quiet except for the creak of wood and distant voices of the crew laughing below deck. But you don’t feel like laughing. You haven’t in a while.

The sea always feels colder without him by your side.

You swallow hard, fingers tightening on the rail. Shanks has been gone for four days now, anchored at a nearby island for “business”, but the way he avoided your eyes before leaving haunts you more than the distance itself. He kissed your forehead and told you he loved you, but it felt… forced. Or maybe that’s just your fear talking.

No. Something’s wrong. You feel it, you know it.

You haven’t slept well in weeks. Shanks has been distant, preoccupied, caught in whispered meetings with Benn or writing something behind locked doors. He touches you less, barely looks up when you enter the room, and when you reach for him at night, he turns away, murmuring that he’s tired.

But what scares you most is what Lucky Roux let slip last night over dinner.

“Yeah, I saw the captain heading toward the pleasure district. Guess he needed to unwind, huh?”

You didn’t ask for clarification. You couldn’t. The blood had drained from your face and you had excused yourself quietly, retreating to your shared quarters, where the bed still smelled like him.

You feel sick remembering it. You’ve tried to be reasonable. He’s a Yonko. He’s busy. He’s under pressure. But you’re his wife. And yet lately, it feels like you’re just… a fixture. A memory he keeps forgetting to look at.

Footsteps approach behind you. Your heart jumps instinctively with hope, but it’s Benn.

He gives you a small nod “He’ll be back before sundown.”

You just nod, eyes still on the sea “Thanks.”

There’s a pause.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine...” you lie, your voice soft but trembling.

He doesn’t press. He just gives a long sigh and leaves you be.

Later that evening you hear his boots before you see him. The heavy, slow step of someone who’s either dreading a conversation, or trying to steel themselves for it.

You sit on the edge of the bed, hands folded tightly in your lap, trying not to shake. Your heart pounds when the door creaks open.

“Hey,” Shanks says softly. His hair’s tousled from the wind, his cape half off his shoulder, and he looks… tired. His gaze lingers on you for a moment, your stiff posture, your swollen eyes, and something flickers in his face.

“You’re back” you whisper.

He closes the door gently behind him “Yeah.”

Silence. It stretches too long.

“I heard where you were...” you say quietly, almost apologetically, as if it’s wrong to admit you know.

Shanks doesn’t answer right away. He walks a little closer, but not enough. His jaw tenses.

“Is it true?” your voice breaks just slightly “Did you really go to the pleasure district?”

He flinches “It’s not what you think.”

You shake your head, tears burning hot behind your eyes “Then what is it, Shanks? Because lately, I don’t know where you are anymore. You’re here, but you’re not. You don’t see me. You don’t touch me. You barely even talk to me unless it’s about the ship.”

He stares at you, and his expression cracks “I know.”

You blink, caught off guard.

“I know I’ve been… distant.” He drags a hand through his hair “And I hate that I made you feel alone. That’s the last thing I ever wanted.”

“Then why?” your voice trembles “Why were you there?”

He takes a breath and crosses the room in two strides, kneeling in front of you “Because I’ve been trying to plan something. For us.”

You don’t understand “What?”

He smiles, but it’s bitter with guilt “I didn’t want to bother random people asking where to take my wife on the perfect date, so I paid women who know the best spots. Gifts. Food. Hotels. I asked them what someone like you would love. That’s all it was.”

You’re frozen. Your mouth parts, but no sound comes out.

He takes your hand gently “I was afraid I’d been too absent. That I hadn’t made you feel loved. And I thought… if I could find the right place, something just for us, maybe I could show you how much I still adore you. But I screwed it all up by not telling you.”

Your vision blurs “You weren’t cheating…?”

He looks devastated “No. God, no. Never. I love you. I love you more than anything. I’ve just been so stressed about everything. Egghead, the tension between the Emperors, the Marines breathing down our necks… I didn’t mean to push you away.”

Your body trembles, and finally you let go. You wrap your arms around his shoulders, burying your face into his neck, and cry.

“I thought I was losing you...” you whisper, voice shattered.

He holds you so tight it almost hurts “You’ll never lose me. Never.”

The cabin is dark even though the sun has long since risen.

You haven’t moved from the bed.

Shanks had fallen asleep holding you last night, warm and solid, whispering apologies and promises, but the ache in your chest didn’t fade. If anything, it’s worse now.

Because you want to believe him. You need to.

But some part of you still hurts too deeply to reach for his words. That soft little voice in your head won’t stop whispering:

If he really loved you, why did it get this far? Why didn’t he notice sooner?

He’s gone again this morning.

You heard him slip out quietly hours ago. No kiss. No note. Just a hush and the sound of boots.

You stare at the door.

Was last night just guilt?

You pull the blanket tighter around yourself, curling up in the center of the bed that now feels too big, too empty. You’re sick of crying, but the tears still come out. Quiet, desperate sobs that shake your shoulders as you muffle them into the pillow.

Why does love feel so much like breaking?

Flashback – A Week Ago “Do you need anything?” you asked him quietly, standing in the doorway of his study. He didn’t even look up “No.” You tried again “Even just… a few minutes? I miss you.” “I said I’m busy.” He hadn’t meant it harshly, you tell yourself. But the words had still hit like a slap. You remember standing there, fingers tightening around the edge of the doorframe, waiting for him to glance your way. He never did.

Present

You’re still trembling when you hear the door creak open again. Heavy footsteps. A pause.

Shanks.

But you don’t move.

He calls your name once, quiet. Then again, more hesitant “Baby?”

You don’t answer. You just lay there, eyes shut.

He walks closer, then sits on the edge of the bed “I went to confirm the reservation,” he says carefully “For the place I told you about.”

Silence.

He swallows “I want to take you somewhere beautiful. Just us. No crew. No stress. I wanted it to be a surprise…”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Your voice is raw.

He flinches at the sound of it.

“I didn’t know how to fix it,” he admits “I thought if I just did something big enough, maybe I could make it up to you. Instead of facing how much I’d already let slip away.”

Your breath catches.

He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees “I keep thinking about how I’ve failed you. You married me, and I still made you feel like you were second to everything else in my life. That’s on me.”

You finally turn your head toward him “I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

The words land heavy. His shoulders tense.

“You’re everything I want,” he says hoarsely “I just forgot how to show it. And I was so damn afraid that if I turned around, you’d be gone.”

You sit up slowly, blanket still clutched to your chest “I wanted to leave. I started packing, twice. I kept wondering if I stayed, would it hurt worse than walking away.”

His eyes go glassy “You were gonna leave me?”

You nod, and it breaks him.

He falls to his knees beside the bed, burying his face in your lap “I deserve that. I deserve every second because of the way I made you feel.”

You stroke his hair, hands trembling “You don’t. But I was scared. You’re always looking out for the world, Shanks… and sometimes I wonder if you forget how small I am compared to it.”

He lifts his head, and the pain in his eyes is unbearable “You are my world.”

Then he reaches into his coat pocket.

A small, folded cloth. Inside some delicate jewelry, hand-crafted glass roses, a map with hand-drawn notes on the margins: circles around restaurants, sketches of views he wanted to show you.

“I went to the pleasure district because they know things, like what to buy, what’s romantic. I didn’t want to half-ass this. I wanted it to be perfect.”

Tears spill over your cheeks “You idiot.”

He chuckles weakly “That’s fair.”

“I don’t care about perfect.” You lean in, voice cracking “I just want you. Not a version of you that shows up with flowers once it’s already broken. I want you beside me when things start to crack.”

Shanks nods slowly “Then I’m here. From now on, I’m here.”

You’re both crying now. But this time it feels… healing.

When you lean in to kiss him, it’s slow. Deep. Raw. A kiss that tastes like sorrow and survival.

He presses his forehead to yours.

“Let me take you on this date.” he whispers “Let me try. Just one night, to remind you of us.”

You nod.

And in that quiet, your heart finally begins to piece itself back together.

The island air is warm as Shanks leads you up the winding path through the trees, fingers laced tightly with yours.

He doesn’t speak much, just gives your hand little squeezes now and then, like he’s afraid you’ll let go. You don’t.

You pass through ivy-covered archways and stone steps lit with lanterns, until you reach a quiet hilltop villa overlooking the sea.

It’s stunning.

Soft white fabric flows like waves around the open balcony. Candlelight flickers in tall glass lanterns, dancing over a table set for two. In the distance, waves crash softly against the rocks. But it’s the little details that stop your breath.

Your favorite flowers. A wine you once mentioned in passing, chilled and waiting. A pair of sandals that match the ones you lost on Dressrosa, placed by the door like a quiet apology.

“You remembered all this?” you ask softly.

“I never forgot.” Shanks murmurs “I was just too buried in my own head to show it.”

Your heart aches. But not the way it did before. This ache feels more like thawing.

You step inside the villa together. It’s private. Warm. Gentle lighting, music playing faintly in the background, a violin, lilting and slow.

Dinner is quiet at first.

You sip, you eat, you share pieces of food with soft smiles and hesitant fingers brushing. The air between you feels careful, like the two of you are still remembering how to breathe in each other’s rhythm.

And then, somewhere between the last bite and the second glass of wine, Shanks leans back and really looks at you.

“You wore that expression the first time we met” he says quietly, a ghost of a smile on his lips “Half curious, half like you already knew I’d ruin your life.”

You raise an eyebrow “You did ruin my life.”

“And you still said ‘I do.’”

You reach across the table and take his hand “Because even when you drive me insane, I know who you are underneath it. You’re not just a captain. Not just a Yonko. You’re the man who sits beside me when I cry and still calls me beautiful.”

He looks down, jaw tight “You scared me.”

You blink “I scared you?”

“You were slipping away, and I knew it, and I didn’t know how to stop it.” His voice is strained “I thought if I just held everything else together, the crew, the politics, the alliances, then we could get through it. But all I did was push you further.”

You let silence sit for a moment.

“Next time, just hold me.”

He nods, eyes glassy “Yeah. I will. I swear to you.”

Later, in the Villa bedroom the air gets softer. The light low, the sheets freshly turned, the balcony doors open to let the ocean whisper inside.

You both stand in the doorway for a moment, unmoving.

Then Shanks steps behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist. He rests his chin on your shoulder “You still feel far away.”

“I don’t mean to” you whisper.

“I know.” He kisses your neck slowly “Can I get closer?”

You nod, turning in his arms.

The kiss you share this time is deep but it’s not rushed. Not lust-driven or demanding. It’s reverent.

His hands slide to your hips, careful, asking. And you melt into him, fingers curled in his hair.

Clothes fall away slowly. Like they’re being forgiven piece by piece.

Every inch he touches is a wordless apology. Every kiss is a promise to never let things get this broken again.

He looks so open, so bare... eyes soft, lips parted like he’s still trying to breathe you in.

Your hand finds his cheek “You look at me like that, and I’ll never be able to stay mad at you.”

“I’m counting on it” he says with a quiet smile.

The kiss you share is slow, lazy, lingering like you’ve both been starving for each other. And you have.

You sigh against his mouth as his fingers slide down your back, over your waist, to your hip. The weight of his touch is steady, but unhurried.

“Can I touch you?” he asks softly, breath brushing over your jaw.

You nod, already melting beneath him “Please.”

He shifts over you, body flush against yours. The feeling of his skin against your own is overwhelming, warm, grounding, real. Every inch of contact feels like a reassurance.

His mouth traces your collarbone, then lower, pressing gentle kisses over the parts of you he missed, like he’s trying to memorize you again.

His hand finds your thigh, sliding up slowly.

You gasp when his fingers brush where you need him most, already wet, already aching. He groans quietly against your neck.

“You’re already soaked.”

“It’s you,” you breathe “It’s always you.”

He sinks two fingers inside you, slow and deep, curling them just right. You arch, hand fisting in the sheets as your body trembles under his touch.

“You feel so good like this” he murmurs, kissing your jaw.

When he finally moves over you, positioning himself between your legs, he doesn’t rush it. He just looks down at you, brows knit in something close to awe.

“I don’t deserve you” he whispers.

“Then earn me...” you whisper back.

And he does.

He pushes inside you slowly, forehead pressed to yours.

It’s lovemaking, real and deep and raw. His hands caressing your face, your thighs, your heart.

You whisper his name. Over and over. And he answers with soft gasps, broken praise, shaky murmurs of “I love you” between kisses.

When you come, it’s with your forehead pressed to his, tears in your eyes and nails digging into his back. And he follows just seconds later, trembling above you, holding you like he never wants to let go.

You end up wrapped in the sheets, tangled in limbs and whispered vows and bare skin warmed by candlelight. It’s not even about sex, though the want is there, steady and sweet, but it’s more about feeling. Rebuilding.

Later, lying against his chest, you trace slow shapes on his skin.

“I don’t need fancy” you murmur “I just need this.”

His voice is low against your hair “Then this is yours. Always.”

The villa is bathed in warm dawn light.

The ocean hums beyond the balcony, and the silk sheets are tangled around your legs. You don’t remember falling asleep, but you remember every second of last night, every whispered apology, every kiss, every way Shanks clung to you like he thought you’d vanish if he let go.

You shift slightly in the bed, and Shanks stirs behind you, breath brushing against your neck.

“Mornin’ beautiful” he murmurs, voice still low and rough with sleep.

You hum softly, stretching “I didn’t dream that, did I?”

His arm slips around your waist, pulling you closer “No, sweetheart. You’re right here.”

Shanks brushes a thumb along your cheek, your lips, your throat “You’re everything to me,” he says “You know that, right?”

“I do now.”

You kiss his knuckles and tuck yourself against his chest, warm and sore and whole again.

And this time, when you fall asleep, it’s without fear.

The villa is quiet again, but this time it’s not tense, but just slow and peaceful.

You stretch out on the linen sheets, the morning sun warming your skin. The space beside you is empty, but you can hear him in the next room, moving around, humming softly under his breath.

You smile before you even open your eyes.

A moment later, the door creaks open, and Shanks walks in shirtless, hair damp, a plate in one hand and two mugs in the other.

“Look at that,” you tease sleepily “You can be domestic.”

He grins “Only for you.”

He sets the tray on the bedside table and slides in beside you again. You sit up, and he hands you your favorite blend of tea without needing to ask. The mug is warm in your hands. His shoulder brushes yours, bare and solid.

You take a sip “This is nice.”

“It’s more than nice” he says, voice soft “It’s… right.”

You glance sideways. He’s looking at you like you’re made of glass, but not fragile. Precious.

“You okay?” you ask.

“I am now,” he says, brushing a piece of hair behind your ear “I don’t want to go back.”

You smile faintly “You mean the ship? Or reality?”

“Both.”

You lean into him, resting your head on his shoulder “We can’t stay here forever.”

“I know. But I wanted one more quiet morning before I go back to being Captain Red-Haired Shanks, Yonko of the New World.”

You chuckle “You forgot ‘disaster of a husband’ in there.”

He nudges you with a groan “Ouch. Low blow.”

You finish your tea in companionable silence, then finally, reluctantly, start to move.

As you dress, he watches you from the bed, chin in his hand, that lazy grin creeping back onto his face “I’m going to be annoying about you for the next month, you know.”

“Oh?” You raise an eyebrow, pulling your shirt over your head.

“Mm. I’m gonna brag. To Benn. To Lucky. Hell, to Mihawk if he shows up. Gonna say, ‘See? That’s mine. I have someone who still loves me, even though I nearly fumbled it all.’”

You laugh, cheeks warm “They all already know that.”

He walks over, presses a kiss to your forehead “Yeah, but now I remember it again.”

Later on, the moment your boots hit the deck, you’re surrounded by the familiar sounds of the ship, the crew shouting to each other, seagulls overhead, the gentle groan of wood beneath your feet.

Benn is the first to approach, his expression unreadable “Welcome back, Captain. Y/N.”

You nod, trying not to shrink under his gaze. You’re not sure how much the crew knew… how much they saw before you left.

But Benn simply gives a short nod “Glad to see you two walking side by side again.”

Shanks smiles, hand settling warmly on your back “We’re more than side by side.”

Lucky Roux whistles from the helm “Damn right you are! Took you long enough, Captain!”

“You all knew?” you ask, half-embarrassed.

Yasopp grins from across the deck “We knew something was off. Man’s been moping like a kicked puppy for weeks.”

Shanks mutters, “I have not!”

“You were so depressing we started a betting pool” Bonk Punch adds.

Your eyes widen “A what?!”

“It ended yesterday,” Benn says, deadpan “Roux won. He bet you’d be back today.”

You cover your face with both hands while Shanks laughs, his arm tightening around your waist “God, I missed this dumb crew.”

“They missed you...” you say, a little quieter.

He leans down, presses his lips to your ear “I missed us.”

You look up at him, sunlight catching in the red of his hair, that boyish grin soft around the edges now, and suddenly you’re not afraid anymore.

Not of drifting. Not of breaking.

Because you both remembered how to reach for each other again.

That night, you’re wrapped in his arms in your shared quarters. The door is locked. The ship rocks gently beneath you. His fingers trace slow patterns on your back.

“I want more days like this,” he whispers “Not just now. Always.”

“You’ll have them,” you murmur “Just don’t shut me out when it gets hard again.”

“I won’t,” he promises “You’re my anchor. I only drifted because I forgot where shore was.”

You smile into his chest, heart calm for the first time in what feels like forever.

“I’m right here.”

And you are.