aviceth

[aviceth]

well look at that, my horniness took the better of me, so here’s the result

I bite back

Yautja x Reader / Yautja x Human female

Rating: 18+

Read: Part 2

“When is this going to end?” you murmured, gently tapping your forehead against the cold glass of the chamber that held you.

“You keep feeding me. Giving me water. What do you want?” you asked again, your voice low, tired.

It was strange. You were aboard a spaceship—held captive when you’d expected to die the instant you locked eyes with the creature that had taken you.

At first, you fought. You cried. You screamed. You pounded your fists against the reinforced glass until your hands ached.

You had been so much fiercer in the beginning.

Now? You were numb. Almost bored.

Days blurred together, each marked only by meals of unfamiliar but oddly palatable fruits and endless silence from your captor.

The questions haunted you: Why did it take me? Where are we going? What does it want?

Fear had long since faded into fatigue. You were too tired to be terrified anymore.

In truth, some days, you thought you would’ve preferred death over this drawn-out uncertainty.

But then… something changed.

One day, the alien stumbled into the ship, and you froze.

It was wounded.

A deep gash ran down its arm, green blood—neon and thick—oozing from the torn flesh. The limb hung at an unnatural angle, barely attached.

You watched, breath caught in your throat, as it clumsily moved through the ship, almost forgetting your presence entirely.

It collapsed onto a pile of thick rugs, panting, trembling.

You observed behind the glass, transfixed.

It was the first time you’d seen it in pain. The first time it looked… vulnerable.

Maybe, just maybe, this was your chance.

It stitched itself with crude but efficient movements, applying strange, iridescent substances you couldn’t identify. It let out a low, guttural sound—half a roar, half a groan—and then lay still.

You sat down, quietly, eyes on its shifting, unsteady breath as it twisted in discomfort.

It wasn’t out for long.

Minutes later, it stirred abruptly, eyes opening wide with a sharp inhale.

Then it disappeared and returned shortly, holding a tray of those strange fruits you’d been living off of.

As always, it slid open the small hatch of your chamber and pushed the tray inside.

But this time, you moved.

You reached out, quickly, instinctively and grabbed its wrist.

It froze.

For once, it didn’t pull away. Maybe it couldn’t. The wound had slowed it down.

But still… it let you touch it.

Your hand trembled slightly as your fingers wrapped around the rough, scaly texture of its skin. It was cold. Not quite like a reptile, but close. Unfamiliar. Alien.

You didn’t expect it to go this far, that it would allow contact.

You swallowed hard.

“Are you… hurt?” you asked, barely above a whisper.

No response.

“I saw you. You collapsed.”

A pause.

“Let me help you.”

You didn’t know what you could do. You had no training, not even with human medicine, let alone whatever this was. But the words came anyway.

“You’ve been feeding me. Taking care of me. Let me return the favor.”

Still, it said nothing. But it didn’t move either.

Maybe it was trying to understand your intent—measuring the risk.

Then, slowly, it shifted its hand beneath yours.

Your fingers slid over its palm as it moved. Coarse. Cold.

You repressed a shiver.

The creature took a step back, eyeing you carefully. You were still kneeling, looking small, unthreatening.

You knew how you looked to it. Fragile. Weak. But that was the point.

You wanted this—this moment. A crack in its guard.

If it trusted you, even a little, maybe… just maybe… you could turn that into a chance.

A way out.

The creature took two ragged, guttural breaths before stepping closer to the chamber. Its clawed finger slid over the padlock in a slow, deliberate motion. With a soft, mechanical click, the door released.

What?

Was that it? Was it really that easy?

Had all it taken was appearing small—fragile—for it to trust you?

Before the door had even swung halfway open, you were already slipping through the gap, adrenaline firing through your veins. You moved fast, fueled by a desperate, animal instinct to flee.

But freedom didn’t last more than a breath.

A hand, massive and unrelenting, wrapped around your throat and slammed you back against the cold glass chamber. Your skull hit the surface with a thud, and all the air was gone from your lungs.

Panic overtook you.

The creature’s clawed fingers squeezed, just enough to restrict your breathing but not crush it entirely. Its grip was so strong, so terrifyingly effortless. The sharp curve of its nails dug into the tender skin at the nape of your neck, pressing hard enough to hurt, to warn.

You clawed at its wrist, nails scraping over its scaled skin, desperate for air.

It didn’t flinch.

Even with blood still dripping from its wounded arm, it held you firm, as though pain meant nothing.

Your feet dangled, your body pinned like prey, caught and immobilized.

It could kill you. Right now. Just one twitch of that wrist and it would all be over.

Your vision blurred at the edges. Your eyes welled from the pressure.

“Please—” you gasped, voice cracked.

The grip loosened, barely.

Air returned in small, painful sips, but the hand remained, keeping you locked in place, back pressed hard to the smooth surface behind you. You coughed, instinctively reaching to support yourself, but the creature didn’t move away.

It leaned in closer, massive frame radiating heat. Its head dipped low, its strange mandibles brushing your cheek. Its breath, hot and coarse, ghosted along your skin, and then came the sound.

A low, rumbling growl vibrated from deep within its chest. Not quite a purr. Not quite a snarl. Something primal.

It grew louder, reverberating in your ears and against your ribs, until it cut off sharply.

Then came the voice… deep, guttural, foreign… but unmistakably clear.

“If you try to escape again, I won’t hesitate.”

He didn’t say what he would do. He didn’t need to.

You nodded quickly—yes, yes, you understood.

You were no threat. Not now. Not yet.

Slowly, his grip slackened, and you dropped to the floor in a heap, gasping, fingers clawing at your throat as your lungs fought for air.

You looked up at him.

He towered over you, chest rising and falling rapidly. The wound on his arm had reopened, neon blood dripping down in thick lines, staining the floor.

Even in pain, even with one arm nearly useless… he was still dominant. Still terrifying.

And yet…

You saw it. Something behind the rage, the instinct, the brute force. He was hurting. Breathing heavily. Off-balance. Vulnerable… in his own way.

This was dangerous. All of it. You knew that.

You rose to your feet—slowly. Carefully.

Every movement was cautious, as if one sudden gesture might awaken some dormant, primal instinct in him.

You kept still once upright, eyes locked on the heaving rise and fall of his chest. The green blood still poured from his arm, trailing in slow rivulets down his thick, scaled skin. It was grotesque and oddly beautiful. Like art painted in pain.

You had never seen anything like him before.

You swallowed the lump in your throat and spoke, your voice soft and unsure.

“Tell me how to help you.”

Silence.

He didn’t look at you immediately. Instead, he walked toward the part of the ship where he’d earlier attempted to patch himself up.

You watched him, his steps heavy, his breath audible. With a sharp tilt of his head, the long, rope-like dreadlocks shifted around his shoulders with grace.

He turned, mandibles twitching, the low clicking sound they made vibrating in the air between you like a warning or a signal.

He held something out.

A skin stapler—if you could even call it that. It was massive compared to any human medical tool, mechanical and crude, made for strength over finesse.

Then, without a word, he turned his back to you.

And only then did you see the true damage under the light.

A jagged slash, deep and raw, tore across his back. It wasn’t just bleeding—it was gaping, the green fluid seeping from it in thick, steady drops. You could see sinew beneath. Maybe even bone.

You stifled a gag, covering your mouth briefly before forcing your hand back down. Your stomach churned.

This was worse than you thought.

His back muscles twitched under the strain, contracting with each breath. Even still, he stood tall, tense, waiting.

You had to do this.

You needed his trust. And if earning it meant holding back the bile in your throat and pretending your hands weren’t shaking uncontrollably, then so be it.

Your fingers trembled as you took a step forward. You reached out with your free hand and gently touched his shoulder to steady yourself and him.

He flinched.

His skin was cold, much colder than you expected, and the contrast between your warmth and his body made him shudder. But he didn’t pull away.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, before pressing the device to his torn flesh.

You braced yourself, and then pulled the trigger.

The stapler hissed as metal bit into skin.

He grunted, guttural sound rumbling from deep in his chest. His hands slammed down onto the metal table in front of him, claws digging into it, leaving deep gashes in the surface.

You kept going.

Staple. Staple. Staple.

With every burst, his muscles flexed. His arms shook under the pain, and the table beneath him groaned under the pressure of his grip.

But he didn’t move. He didn’t strike out. He simply endured.

By the time you were done, the line of staples snaked clean across his back, sealing the worst of the wound. You stepped back, your hands slick with sweat and blood, the device trembling slightly in your grip.

You had done it.

He leaned against the table, his breaths deep and uneven. You watched his back shift with each inhale as he flexed the stitched muscles, testing the damage, testing your work.

Your hands were still trembling slightly when he turned and took the stapler from your grip.

Then, he faced you.

He didn’t speak. He simply watched.

The kind of stare that made the air feel heavier.

You didn’t know what to say, so you said nothing. But he seemed to be waiting for something—anything.

And when you remained still, uncertain, he closed the distance.

His hand reached for your face, fingers curling around your cheeks, thumb and forefinger applying just enough pressure to coax a reaction. You flinched slightly.

“What else do you want?” you asked, voice low and guarded, a frown forming on your face.

But the alien didn’t respond. He merely observed, eyes flicking across your features like he was trying to learn you, maybe even memorize the softness of your skin beneath his clawed fingertips.

His hand left your face, trailing down to your neck, then your shoulder, tracing a path beneath your arm and along your forearm. You shivered involuntarily when his thumb pressed firmly against the underside of your wrist, pinning your pulse.

He felt it.

Your heartbeat.

Unsteady.

And undeniably human.

A low purr resonated from deep within his chest, vibrating through the air like distant thunder. It wasn’t threatening, but it was possessive. Satisfied.

You let him explore you, not out of desire, but out of necessity. Every touch was a test. You didn’t know what he would do next and neither did he, maybe. But still, he touched like someone who had been holding back for too long.

When his hand slipped under your shirt, brushing just below your bellybutton, you stepped back instinctively, muscles tightening.

You couldn’t read his intentions, maybe he didn’t fully understand them either.

“I’m… ticklish,” you said quickly, a shaky breath escaping as you gently pushed his hand back up to your stomach.

Whether he believed the lie or not, he withdrew, wordlessly. Then, with fluid strength, he turned you around by your shoulders.

His claws traced along your back now, slow,intentional strokes.

Right over the spot that mirrored his own injury.

The gesture didn’t feel like threat.

It felt like recognition.

You bit your lip, steadying yourself when his touch followed the length of your spine. You had to clamp your hand over your mouth when his claws reached the small of your back. A tingling ripple ran across your skin.

He paused there.

Then, nothing.

Just silence.

Until you felt it.

Hot breath—on your neck.

It ghosted over your skin in slow waves. You froze, every instinct inside you telling you not to move.

His mandibles clicked, close to your ear. The sound sent a shiver down your spine, your head turning slightly away, just to escape it.

That’s when his grip tightened. Hands holding your shoulders firmly, anchoring you in place.

Don’t move, your mind warned.

Don’t give him a reason to think you’re resisting.

His breath returned, heavier now, brushing over the nape of your neck and then came the sharpness. You hissed softly as you felt the faint sting of his mandibles grazing your skin.

There was moisture.

Not blood—at least not yours.

Then, a slick warmth dragged slowly over the same spot.

His tongue.

You hadn’t seen it before, but now you knew. It was real, and it was on you.

Testing you.

Tasting you.

You clenched your jaw, holding in the gasp that threatened to escape. The sensation was foreign, unnerving, but strangely cautious. He wasn’t being careless. He was exploring. Reading your reaction. Studying how far he could go.

You were being mapped with his mouth, his claws, his curiosity.

And all you could do was endure it.

You hadn’t expected things to escalate this quickly—yet they had.

The sensation that bloomed where his mandibles had latched onto your skin again was so alien, so unfamiliar, you could barely contain the noise that threatened to rise in your throat. It wasn’t like anything you’d felt before, stinging, with a strange heat. And that’s what unsettled you most.

And still… that same unknown sent a pulse of something dark and electric down your spine.

Your knees trembled—not just from fear, but from the way your body responded to the contact. Helplessly, shamefully. Your heart threatened to burst out of your chest, as if caught in a tug-of-war between terror and… something else.

Another hiss slipped from between your clenched teeth when his tongue swept along your wounded nape, tasting the blood he had drawn moments before. You could feel the deliberate slowness in the way he licked over the bite, like he was trying to understand you—your scent, your flavor, your limits. This had to be a test, didn’t it? A threshold he was pushing you toward, waiting to see whether you would flinch… or endure.

If you could survive this, if you could hold your ground, maybe he’d trust you. And if he trusted you, then eventually… maybe you’d be free.

Then his hands were on you again, turning you to face him.

His breathing was ragged, strained, his chest rising and falling fast.

His mandibles were slick with crimson, your blood still fresh on him.

You should’ve recoiled in horror.

But you didn’t.

Instead, your eyes lingered on the tautness in his body, the tension in his shoulders. His gaze bore into you unrelenting and unreadable. Yet there was something unmistakably raw in it. As if he didn’t fully understand what he was doing, only that he needed to.

One clawed hand rose slowly, catching the hem of your shirt and giving it the smallest tug, pulling you closer until you were pressed to him, your face just above the curve of his chest. He was colder than any being you’d ever touched… and yet somehow, from within, he radiated heat. Like a furnace buried under stone.

Your breath stuttered as you tilted your head up, eyes meeting his.

He studied you the way a predator studies prey, but there was no hunger. Just intensity. Curiosity.

And then, without a word, one long, talon-tipped finger rose to your lips.

You held your breath.

He dragged it gently across your bottom lip, then pressed inward, urging your mouth open, just enough to trace the warmth inside. Your lips parted automatically, breath catching as the cold of his skin met the heat of your tongue. You didn’t even realize you’d made a sound until his chest rumbled in response—a satisfied purr.

He was testing you again. Learning the intricacies of your body the way someone learns the pressure points on a weapon.

And still… you didn’t pull away.

“Ooman, your heart is racing… yet you don’t seem scared.”

His guttural voice struck the air like a blade, freezing you where you stood.

Those red eyes—dark and unreadable—pierced you from above. There was something almost gentle in the way he stared, but it was impossible to ignore the sheer force behind his stance.

And he wasn’t wrong.

Your heart was hammering inside your chest like it was trying to escape your ribs… yet you hadn’t ran.

You hadn’t screamed.

He had touched you—bitten you—and you hadn’t moved.

Maybe worse… part of you didn’t want to.

Shame curled hot and thick in your chest, but shame didn’t undo the way your body had reacted. You were only human. You couldn’t control everything. Not when it felt this strange… this overwhelming.

He pressed his thumb further against your tongue, forcing you to choke slightly, the reflex hitting before you could stifle it. Tears welled up in your eyes from the gag, but even as your vision blurred, he didn’t look away. If anything, his gaze sharpened, his mandibles twitched, and the shimmer in his eyes suggested… fascination.

He liked that sound. Like he had just discovered a new function in a toy he hadn’t yet finished learning to play with.

“Are you sad, ooman?” he asked suddenly.

You blinked. That question was… unexpected. But you realized quickly why he asked it.

He had only ever seen you cry when you begged him to let you go, sobbing behind reinforced glass. You were sad then. Terrified.

But now?

“…No,” you whispered.

He pulled his thumb from your mouth, glancing at the saliva stretched between his fingers. He examined it with the same curiosity a scientist might give a strange specimen before flicking his gaze back to you.

“Then what do you feel?” he asked again, this time quieter.

You didn’t know how to answer.

Fear, yes. Curiosity, definitely.

But the heat coiling inside you, the warmth spreading down your spine and pooling between your legs—it wasn’t curiosity alone. It was something deeper. Something primal. Something neither of you seemed able to name.

“I’m not sure,” you admitted.

And you meant it. The confusion, the contradiction of everything in your body and mind. It was too much to untangle.

But something about your honesty changed him.

He studied you again, slower this time. And then his claws returned, sliding under the hem of your shirt. With one decisive movement, he tore the fabric, the sound ripping through the quiet as you gasped.

Your stomach, exposed now, just below your ribs, was bare beneath his stare. A sharp sound left your lips as he pressed a single claw to your abdomen, not aggressively, but intently.

He was testing you again.

The touch crawled up, just below your chest, and stopped when you tensed, your eyes shut tight in fear and… anticipation. But he didn’t go further.

“Why is your heart racing again?” he asked, voice low and impossibly close.

You opened your eyes, meeting his.

“Are you scared, ooman?”

Your throat tightened. You wanted to lie, to give a simple answer and end this test. But there was no hiding from him.

You nodded. Then, unsure… you shook your head.

His mandibles clicked, clearly confused by your response.

“Use your words,” he commanded, the demand more like a nudge this time.

Your face burned with shame.

“I… I am scared,” you whispered. “But I also feel… hot. Wherever you touch me.”

You couldn’t meet his gaze anymore, so you looked away, resting your forehead lightly against his chest. Partly to hide, partly because he felt so real.

He was massive. You hadn’t truly registered the sheer scale of him until now.

“Does it feel good?” he asked, his voice hoarse, strained. Desperate to understand.

You nodded again.

“Speak,” he said, more forcefully now.

“…Yes.”

The sound rumbled from deep in his chest—a pleased, almost feral purr that vibrated through his body and into yours.

He liked that answer. All of it. Your hesitation, your embarrassment, your honesty.

And then, without warning, he moved.

In a swift motion, he slid an arm beneath you, gripping you just under your thighs and lifting you into the air like you weighed nothing. A yelp escaped you—startled, unsteady—as your hands instinctively wrapped around his neck.

You felt the wetness of his healing wound bleed onto your pants, staining them green. The contact was hot and sticky, and your panic spiked just enough to make your breath hitch.

“What are you doing?” you asked, your voice trembling.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he lowered into a crouch and dropped you onto the pile of thick, ragged furs that covered the floor. The makeshift bedding cushioned your fall, but your body tensed as he loomed above you.

He knelt now, towering yet strangely calm.

The light overhead cast shadows across his skin, accentuating the dark blue hue of his chest. Scars, some old, some fresh, lined his torso, like a war map drawn across his body. He didn’t speak, didn’t gesture. He simply presented himself.

And you stared, drawn in despite yourself.

He didn’t wait for your permission this time. His hand grabbed your wrist firmly and brought it to his chest.

You hesitated.

Then… slowly, he let you explore.

Your fingers traced the hard lines of his muscles, the roughness of scarring, the slickness of partially healed wounds. He made a noise, deep and choked, when you grazed one of the fresh cuts.

Your eyes drifted up to his dreadlocks, long and heavy, brushing over his chest like strands of ink.

Hesitantly, you reached for one, curious now. You wrapped your fingers around it, stroking once, then again, before giving it a light squeeze.

That’s when it happened.

His entire body jolted, his muscles seizing as though you’d flipped a hidden switch. He collapsed forward slightly, one fist hitting the ground to steady himself, breath tearing from his chest in ragged bursts.

Your eyes widened.

Whatever those were… they weren’t just hair.

You let go immediately, crawling back into the furred rugs as he struggled to regain composure.

You didn’t speak. You didn’t move.

But your mind raced.

What was he?

And what had you just done?

You thought, for one breathless moment, that maybe this was your chance.

Maybe that flicker of weakness, his body buckling from your touch, meant you could shift the balance. Regain some control. Use it against him.

But that illusion vanished the instant he caught his breath.

He looked up at you with a low inhale and you saw it. The shift. The hunger. The intent.

Like a predator fixing its gaze on something it knew it could catch.

You stared, uncertain whether to brace or beg.

He didn’t give you time for either.

With a sudden, terrifying grace, he lunged forward, crawling fast over the rugs until he loomed above you. His forearms landed on either side of your head with a thud, enclosing you in his shadow.

You barely had time to gasp.

Warm blood dripped from his healing wound, trickling down to your cheek. You clenched your jaw to keep still, holding your breath, afraid to move or speak. Maybe this was it, maybe you’d pushed too far.

Then he lowered his head.

You heard the click of his mandibles before you felt his teeth.

He sank them into your shoulder, not deep enough to break bone, but enough to make you cry out. Sharp, white-hot pain bloomed across your skin as you twisted beneath him, but his weight pinned you like prey caught in a trap.

His hand pressed hard over your chest, flattening you against the furs, and then he struck again. His mouth finding your other shoulder with terrifying speed.

Another bite. Another cry.

This time, something was different.

He lingered.

You felt his tongue glide slowly across the mark he had made, the heat of it dragging across your skin, soothing and igniting at the same time. The sting of pain morphed into a low, building ache. You gasped, but not from pain. From…

Frustration.

But not the kind born of anger. This burned lower, deeper. A need you didn’t recognize, spreading like fire in your belly.

Your nipples stiffened under the thin fabric of what remained of your torn shirt. You weren’t sure when it happened, but his hand, still pressing on your chest, seemed to be aware before you were. Every brush of his palm made the sensation worse. Unbearable.

His mouth trailed lower, tongue dragging along your collarbone, then upward toward your neck.

You knew what was coming. Another bite. Another mark.

And some primal instinct in you snapped.

You acted before thinking, before fear could stop you.

You reached up, grabbed one of those thick, heavy dreadlocks hanging over your face… and yanked.

Hard.

He reacted instantly.

His body spasmed, his torso pitching forward until his chest nearly collapsed onto yours. A guttural sound erupted from him—not a growl, not a roar, but something building in his chest, shaking through his ribs like a lion’s warning.

His breathing turned ragged, desperate again. You felt him straining against the instinct to move, to react—to take.

His fist slammed down into the furs beside your head to steady himself.

You’d hit a nerve. Literally.

You let go. You could’ve stopped there.

But you didn’t.

Driven by something reckless, something stupid, you leaned up—and bit the same dreadlock between your teeth. Not enough to maim… just enough to threaten. To warn.

To show him that you could.

And that’s when it changed.

His hand shot up, clawed fingers wrapping around your throat.

Not with full strength, but enough to knock the air from your lungs and force you to release your bite.

He held you there, suspended between danger and awe. The grip at your throat was firm, unrelenting… but conscious. Just enough pressure to remind you: he was in control now.

Yet his eyes… they told another story.

Because in that moment, he wasn’t just looking at a fragile, soft-skinned thing he’d captured.

He was looking at something dangerous.

Something wild.

Something that bit back.

Your teeth might be small, but they could’ve torn through that sensitive appendage. And he knew it.

You saw that realization land behind his eyes.

And you saw something else too.

Respect.

Predator or not, he now understood:

You were not prey.

You stared up at him, breath hitching under the pressure of his hand, your body thrumming with adrenaline, confusion, heat.

“You bite like an animal,” he growled, voice low. “Yet you’re not one of them.”

The hand around your throat stayed firm, his grip no longer punishing, but purposeful. Curious. Possessive.

He studied you like a puzzle he hadn’t expected to find inside his cage.

Your chest rose and fell beneath him, breath caught somewhere between panic and anticipation, your lips parting reflexively as his thumb pressed against them—harder this time. Enough to make your head tilt slightly, your jaw strain. Enough to draw out those same desperate, involuntary sounds that had already begun to unravel him.

Mewls. Gasps. Whimpers that betrayed you, that sent heat rushing through both your veins and his.

He made you feel weak, pinned under his massive frame, restrained, breathless and yet the trembling in his chest betrayed a dangerous truth: he was just as undone as you were.

There was green blood staining the rugs now, hot and slick, smeared along the curve of your hip where he’d held you. His claws flexed at your sides, eager, restrained, and trembling. The Yautja was trying to hold himself together, and you… you were the reason he was falling apart.

In all his years of battles, of honor duels, of hunts through hostile terrain and endless bloodshed, he had never been brought to this edge. This need.

And not just because you fought back.

It was how you did it.

You didn’t bare fangs to kill.

You bared your teeth to warn, to challenge. To play.

And in his world… that meant something else entirely.

The way you looked up at him, defiant even as his hand rested on your throat. The way you gasped around his thumb, shame flushing your cheeks but never reaching your eyes. You weren’t meek. You were alive. Burning.

That was a language he understood.

It wasn’t what he expected when he first claimed you. You hadn’t fought then. You’d been taken without a struggle. No weapons, no resistance, just a shaking, wide-eyed creature.

He was supposed to drag you back. A trophy. A specimen.

Maybe even meat, if the elders had deemed it so.

But he hadn’t brought you to them.

He hadn’t handed you over.

He hadn’t harmed you.

Not even once.

Instead, he kept you.

Why?

He hadn’t known the answer… until now.

Now, your body squirmed beneath his. Your heat mixed with his, and your spirit rose like a flare against his instincts. You weren’t just prey. You were spark.

His chest began to tremble with a low, guttural noise, not quite a growl, not quite a purr. Something deeper.

Amusement.

He laughed.

It was alien, yes, but unmistakably pleased.

A sound from deep inside his chest, vibrating through your body like a drumbeat.

You blinked up at him, startled by the change. The gleam in his eyes was no longer just predatory. It was amused. Intrigued. He tilted his head as if seeing you for the first time, not as an obligation, not as cargo.

But as entertainment. A wild, feisty creature dropped into his hands.

You felt it then, something shift in the way he looked at you.

You weren’t just a captive anymore.

You were his distraction… his companion… his toy.

And in a life filled with blood, silence, and cold steel…

You were the first thing that ever made him feel alive.

[aviceth]

touch tank

pairing: clark kent (superman 2025) x journalist!reader summary: he’s soft. earnest. 6’4 of midwestern guilt and golden retriever loyalty. and he looks at you like you invented the sun. you’re fine. everything’s fine. it’s just friends-with-benefits. you're not a thing. but clark? clark has always been there. warm, steady, maddeningly soft. indulging your commitment-phobic nonsense with quiet patience and those unfairly good dimples. until suddenly—he’s not. listen to the playlist here! word count: 11.2k (jesus christ, i am so sorry) content warnings: 18+ mdni, fem!reader, piv sex, they freak NASTY in this one, dom/sub undertones, soft dom!clark, sub!reader, brat/brat taming, oral (fem!receiving), marathon sex, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, shower sex, eye contact, mentions of bdsm and handcuffs, light marking kink, nipple play, protected sex (wrap it before you tap it!), then unprotected sex, rough sex, riding, mentions of sex toys, clark picks the reader up, mentions of reader's hair, commitment issues, situationship survivor!clark, ungodly amounts of yearning and denial, angst, happy ending

It doesn’t start with sex.

It starts with Clark.

Which is to say: it starts with Metropolis’s biggest, most overgrown corn-fed boy scout, who gets flustered every time you swear, who says things like “gosh” and “what the hay” without a trace of irony, and who you once watched spend ten full minutes trying to politely decline a street hotdog but the vendor just “looked so hopeful.”

You met him on your third and a half day at the Daily Planet.

He spilled coffee on you. A full cup. Right down the front of your blazer. Frothy iced caramel latte catastrophe. He panicked immediately—rushed through an apology so fast you barely caught the words—then offered, in complete earnestness, to dry-clean your coat. Not send it to the dry cleaner. Do it himself. Like it was the gentlemanly thing to do. You just stared at him, dripping, blinking. “Are you okay?” you asked, because someone had to.

He nodded—too fast—then proceeded to trip over the recycling bin just trying to get you napkins.

You’ve been friends ever since.

It’s not the cleanest origin story.

But over time, somehow, Clark became your person.

Not in the “call-at-3-a.m.-while-sobbing” kind of way (that’s Jimmy), or the “bring-wine-and-insult-your-evil-ex” kind of way (also Jimmy). 

But in a steadier, quieter way. You write your little articles; he helps edit them. You fight with your sources on the sidewalk; he bakes them apology muffins the day after to make sure they don't contact Perry. You cover Metropolis politics like it’s trench warfare, and he smiles across the bullpen at you like you’re doing God’s work even when you're calling the mayor a “power-drunk thumb in a trench coat and a receding hairline you can see from space.”

He’s your constant. Steady and reliable and always five degrees too soft for this world.

Which is exactly why it doesn’t make sense.

Why, one night, it all… shifts.

.

You’re soaked.

Not in the steamy, sexy way. Not even in the Charli-XCX-Spring-Breakers kind of soaked.

Just: wet. Unpleasantly. In that half-drenched, trench-foot, what-is-my-life kind of way.

The weather app lied again (seriously, Metropolis Weather has one job), and your jacket is now suctioned to your body like a bad ex. Your boots have crossed the line from “water-resistant” to a really bad “Swamp Thing cosplay,” and your tote—home to your press pass and a sad little Tupperware of soggy couscous—is dripping like it’s auditioning for a plumbing ad.

So when Clark offers his place—soft-voiced, ever-accommodating, all that big dumb golden retriever energy—you say yes.

Not because you’re weak. Please.

Because he lives closer.

Logistically. Geographically.

(Okay, maybe emotionally, too, but you’ll unpack that when your socks aren’t squelching like a really bad porno.)

So now you’re in his apartment. Standing in the entryway. Leaving a trail of water on his hardwood floors while he gently, gently hands you a towel and fiddles with the thermostat and says things like, “You’re going to catch a cold if you don’t change out of those clothes.”

And you, being the self-possessed adult that you are, snort and say, “Thank you, Mom.”

Clark blushes.

Actually blushes. Like a cartoon character. Like a man who has never, in his life, imagined someone undressing in his home, which is hilarious, given that you’ve seen the size of his arms. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just meant… yeah. You’re soaked.”

His place smells like cinnamon and laundry detergent. There’s a candle burning on the kitchen counter—one of those $9.99 specials from Bath & Body Works. You imagine him in the store, earnestly reading the label on something called "Warm Vanilla Sugar" while the cashier tries to upsell him on a five-for-fifteen deal.

The image makes your lips curl. Your mascara's halfway down your cheekbones, your calves are cramping from the walk, and you should really, really, really just go take a hot shower and crash on his couch.

Instead, you look at him.

And he’s looking back.

Not like most men do—not the bar-stool inventory of what you are and aren’t. Not a scan. Not a question. More like a memory. Like he’s already filed you away in some quietly treasured part of his brain and he’s just taking the time to make sure the details are right. Like you are known.

You don’t think. You don’t make a plan. You just move.

Step forward. Grab the lapels of his flannel like it owes you money. Pull him down. Kiss him.

It’s not graceful. Not choreographed. You catch his chin at a weird angle, and your nose bumps into his, and the kiss lands too sharp, too fast. Like you’re trying to stun him. Like you’re trying to win a fight.

But then, he exhales.

And he melts. Not urgently. Not hungrily. Just… fully.

Like this is the thing he’s been waiting on for months, and now that it’s finally happening, he’s scared to spook it. His hands hover for a beat, like he’s making sure it’s real, and then one comes to rest lightly on your waist—tentative, patient. The other curls around your jaw with all the softness of a man who has no business being this gentle.

You break the kiss first, of course.

Because you always break things first.

When you look at him, he's staring at you like you invented language. Like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so they hover awkwardly at your sides, respectful, warm, and shaking just a little.

Which is when the panic crashes in.

He’s not supposed to look at you like that. Like you hung the stars. Like he knows you. Like he loves you.

Because if he does. If he really, truly does. Then eventually, he’ll stop.

They always stop.

People love you in the beginning. They love your bite, your snark, the way you know which part of a politician's background are most incriminating. They love the thrill of earning your attention. They love that you make them work for it. But eventually, the charm fades. The sharp edges cut a little too deep. 

You forget to text back. You overshare. You undershare. You get tired. You get real.

And they get bored.

You’ve never wanted to risk that with Clark. He’s been yours—just yours, in the safe way—for too long.

You step back like the floor might collapse under you. 

Put space. Just… anything between your body and the soft burn of his flannel. Try not to think about how fucking warm he was. “Shit—uh. You don’t have to say anything,” you blurt, voice too fast, too thin. “We can pretend it didn’t happen. Go back to normal. That’s fine.”

Clark’s brows knit, not in offense, just concern. He doesn’t look hurt. He looks… steady. Like he expected this part. “Are you sure?”

The way he asks it is soft. Unhurried. Like it’s not some ultimatum. Like it’s okay if you're not sure.

You open your mouth. Close it. Swallow.

“I just—” You press your fingers to your temple, like maybe that might just reorganize your entire internal filing system. “You know I don’t do relationships.”

“I know,” he says, without hesitation.

You study him—really study him—like you’re trying to find the catch. Some hint of disappointment or wounded ego. But it isn’t there.

He reaches up slowly and tucks a damp strand of hair behind your ear, his touch feather-light. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”

You blink. “Even if I’m the one who kissed you?”

Clark smiles, just barely. “Especially then.”

His hand lingers near your cheek, but he doesn’t push. He’s patient in that maddening, disarming way. Waiting, always, for you to meet him halfway.

“Whatever you want,” he says again, quiet. “I’m good with that.”

You stare at him. “You’re really not gonna argue?”

“Nope.”

“Not gonna psychoanalyze me? Tell me I’m avoidant or emotionally stunted or terrified of my own vulnerability?”

He huffs a small laugh. “Already did. Long time ago.”

Your lips twitch despite yourself. “And?”

He shrugs, like it’s the easiest truth in the world. “You’re complicated. But you care. A lot. More than you let people see.”

And damn it, you hate how much that lands. How much he lands. You hate that he’s always been able to see through you, gently, without ever demanding more than you could give. And you hate—more than anything, more than all of that—how badly you want to kiss him again.

So you do.

Maybe to prove a point. Maybe to blow it all up before it can settle. Maybe because you’re already in too deep and part of you is tired of pretending you’re not.

You didn’t plan for it to go further. You didn’t plan anything, really. 

But your hands slide up into the open collar of his flannel, and he stumbles a little as you back him into the bookshelf. His glasses tilt when your fingers brush his temple, and you pull them off carefully, reverently, like they’re the only thing tethering you both to whatever was before.

His eyes are wide. His mouth already parted. And when he looks up at you like this—flushed, breathless, undone—you think, mine.

And it’s terrifying.

Because it means it’s real.

It happened.

God.

It happened.

.

You strip him out of that worn flannel with a kind of sick, obsessive care. Button by button, like you were unwrapping a gift, like you were unearthing something you’d been searching for in every bad date, every failed talking stage, every mediocre bar makeout that had ever left you cold.

His flannel hit the floor. He doesn't say a word.

Not until you settle into his lap, thighs on either side of his. Then—quietly, like he wasn’t sure if it was okay to want anything—he says, “You… you don’t have to be gentle. Just, just in case. So you know.”

But you are. Because he is. 

Because even now, even with your mouth to his, your hands fisted in his curls, his hands stay light on your hips. Like he doesn't want to take more than you’d give. Like he's still giving you the option to leave.

He makes a sound when your hips tilted forward. Not a groan, not exactly. Something deeper. A noise from his chest, halfway between a gasp and a plea. You kiss more of it out of him, mouths clumsy and desperate, fingers scrabbling at the hem of his undershirt, and it feels like breathing.

His breath's caught between his teeth when you rip a condom wrapper in between yours, slotting it onto him with shaking, shaking hands and trying not think about how he's probably the biggest you've ever had.

Lord have mercy.

You ride him like your life depends on it.

You get a thigh cramp halfway through—let out an annoyed groan and tried to keep going—and he, sweet, precious idiot that he is, sits up and says your name like it hurt. Voice quivering like he wants to stop, wants to help, wants to make sure you're okay.

Absolutely no way in hell you wanted that to happen.

“Clark,” you hissed. “Chill. I'm okay, dude. I’m fine.”

“Okay,” he said, dazed, grinning. “Just—didn’t want you to get hurt. I mean. You’re, uh. You were very intense. Just now.”

“Yeah, well, you’re the one with the dick that's slowly rearranging my guts,” you mutter, and he laughs so hard his shoulders shook.

And worse—goddamn it, worse—he looks at you the whole time.

No games. No posing. Just Clark. Holding your hips with those hands—god, those hands, unfairly big and warm and steady—and looking up at you like he meant it.

You’d told him once, over shitty fries past midnight on the curb at McDonald's, that you didn’t trust men who made eye contact during sex. Called it performative. Manipulative. 

“Like they’re trying to Jedi mind-trick you into thinking it’s love,” you’d scoffed, and he'd gone quiet in that way he does, not sulking, just thinking. But that he was filing it away.

So of course—of course—when you're bare above him, hair a mess, mascara still clinging to your cheekbones, all vulnerable and exposed and teetering over the edge because his dick was doing wonderful, amazing things to your insides and making you melt—

He looks up at you with that open, earnest face and asks, softly:

“Do you want me to close my eyes?”

You freeze. Like an absolute idiot. Like prey.

And you say no.

"No."

Never.

He nods. “Okay.”

Then he kissed the inside of your wrist—just because it was there—and you lost ten entire emotional minutes and your grip on reality, grinding down on him like your life depended on it.

You come so hard you forgot your name. 

Forget what you were supposed to be protecting yourself from. Forget every lie you’ve ever told yourself about  the depth of your feelings for him.

It was insane. Deranged.

(Perfect.)

Later, three orgasms later, you collapse over him in a ridiculous heap of limbs and half-dressed post-coital delirium, forehead pressed to his shoulder, chest still heaving.

And he whispered something into your hair—something low and steady and not quite the word love, but so close it that it scraped through your head.

Then he hums.

You don’t recognize it at first—just the vibration under your cheek, the low murmur of a tune, warm and unassuming. You’re half-asleep, boneless, and not fully aware he's still inside of you, pulsing, your fingers curled around his neck.

But you listen.

“You humming Dolly right now?” you murmur, voice hoarse.

Clark hums a little louder. “‘Here You Come Again.’” Then, almost shy, “She’s good. What?”

You groan into his chest. “You absolute dork.”

“I like her,” he says, defensive. “She’s smart. You know she gave away, like, a million books to—wait, are you laughing?”

You are. Full-on giggling into his shoulder now. Giddy and too full and sore in all the best ways.

.

And you really don't mean to keep it going in the morning, let alone  in the shower.

Truly. 

You're just trying to get clean. 

Wash off the evidence of the night before—sweat and come and a whole life’s worth of repressed emotional distress—but then, Clark steps in right behind you, warm and quiet and too gentle. 

And suddenly it was over for you. Just absolutely fucking over.

He offers to join, sheepish and bashful, eyes flicking away like he hadn’t just had his face between your thighs just a few hours ago. “Just to save water,” he says. “'Cause of the environment… and all that.”

And sure, Clark. You absolute liar. The environment.

Except the second he steps in behind you—naked, dripping wet, glasses still off so he looked all boyish and wreckable—your resolve crumples like wet newspaper.

He reaches around you for the body wash and that was your downfall. Arm flexing around your waist, that goddamn baritone rumble in your ear as he asks, “This one okay?”

Like you're supposed to just—what? function when his voice was doing that thing? That was supposed to be okay?

But then his hands are on your hips—steady, reverent, huge—and you tilt your head back just enough to graze his jaw. He flinches. Or maybe you do. And before either of you could process it, your palm's flat against the tile and Clark was slowly pressing himself against your back.

“Okay?” he asks, voice a little too hoarse, a little too human.

You nod. “Yeah. Just—don’t be sweet about it.”

“But I'm always sweet about it,” he mumbles, and then he was, dragging a hand up your stomach, brushing your wet hair off your neck, mouthing at the base of your spine like he was making a wish.

He moves inside you slow. 

Like he means it. Like he thinks he’d scare you off if he went too fast. And it was disgusting, really, how good it felt. How intimate all of this was.

Your knees nearly buckle. You have to brace yourself with both palms on the glass, forehead pressed against fogged-up safety plastic, biting down on your own goddamn fist to keep from crying out his name like something from a romance novel.

(You still did, eventually. He made sure of that when he pressed one large hand up against your stomach so you can feel him, really feel him, and another down your front, rubbing at your clit like it was a lifeline until you saw stars.)

"Clark. Clar—fuck, baby, I'm almost—Jesus Christ—oH!"

When it was over—when your legs were jelly and your throat was raw and your spine was doing that post-orgasm melt thing—you turn to rinse the shampoo out of your hair, and he just… helped. Without you even having to say anything.

He lathers it for you, gentle and thorough, massaging your scalp. His cheeks are pink. His mouth is pink. You think about biting him. Maybe.

But instead, you let yourself lean into his chest while the water poured down over both of you, and you didn’t speak, because if you spoke, it would become too real.

So, you just let him wash your back.

He didn’t ask you to stay.

You didn’t ask if he wanted you to.

But when you wander out of the bedroom ten minutes later—half-wet, flushed, wearing his old Central Kansas A&M hoodie like it hadn’t just been folded neatly in a drawer—you find him in the kitchen, humming again. 

Making pancakes.

“You want blueberries in yours?” he asks, like he didn’t have his dick in you in the shower ten minutes ago.

And you—traumatized, horny, emotionally compromised—you say, “Sure."

Then, because your brain has finally rebooted just enough to return to its default defense mechanism:

“Also, we need to talk.”

Clark pauses mid-pour, then turns around, spatula still in hand. “Okay,” he says, unbothered. His voice is calm, casual. Like you didn’t almost combust from having maybe, four—no, five or six orgasms in his arms over the past twelve hours.

You cross your arms over your chest, over his sweatshirt. “Last night—and this morning was great. I mean, objectively. A solid eight out of ten. No complaints.”

He looks amused. “Only eight?”

“I’m leaving room for improvement,” you say, defensive. “But I just want to be clear again that this isn’t… this isn’t a thing.”

Clark nods slowly. “Okay.”

You squint at him. “You’re not going to ask what I mean by that?”

“Well,” he says, lips twitching, “I—uh, I figured I’d let you finish your prepared statement first.”

You gape at him. “I knew I was giving Perry's press conference energy.”

“You’re even holding your coffee like a mic.”

You glance down. You are. Damn it.

He walks over, sets your pancake on the table next to you, and then settles into the armchair across from the couch. His legs are way too long. He has to fold them a little awkwardly, which should be goofy, but somehow only makes him look more like someone who could carry you up a mountain and apologize for the inconvenience while doing it.

You sip your coffee. Clear your throat. “So. Ground rules.”

He raises his brows. “Rules?”

“Yes. Rules. Guidelines. Frameworks for how this… goes.”

Clark tilts his head. “You mean for… us?”

“No, for NATO,” you deadpan. “Yes, us.”

He tries to cover a laugh with a sip of his own mug, but you see the dimple twitch. Smug bastard.

You forge ahead. “Okay. Rule one: this is casual. Very casual. Like… like ‘you can sleep with other people’ casual.”

Clark nods, slow. Thoughtful. “Do you want to sleep with other people?”

“No,” you admit. Then scowl. “But I want to have the option.”

“Right,” he says, nodding. “The illusion of freedom.”

“Exactly. Wait—"

He’s smiling at you now. Soft and fond and dangerously amused.

You plow on. “Whatever. Rule two: no romantic stuff. No dates. No—like—Valentine’s Day cards or surprise cupcakes or, God forbid, foot rubs.”

“You’re really against foot rubs?”

“I just think they set a tone.”

Clark looks at his plate. “What if I just make you pancakes sometimes?”

You narrow your eyes. “Pancakes are a gray area. I'm only allowing it this time."

“Noted.”

You tuck your feet under you. “Rule three: no falling in love.”

He looks up.

There’s a pause. A beat of silence so thick it fills the whole room.

You add, quickly, “I know that sounds dramatic, but I’ve seen what love does to people, and it’s terrifying. They lose brain cells. They post Instagram captions like ‘my forever’ with sparkly emojis. They start making weird couple TikToks where they throw cheese slices at each other’s heads. I can’t be part of that kind of ecosystem. I'm lactose intolerant."

Clark’s smiling again. Not in the ha ha you’re sooooo funny way. In the I think you’re the best thing to ever happen to me way, which is very much against the rules.

“Are you even taking this seriously?” you demand.

“I am,” he says, clearly lying. “You’re very intimidating.”

You roll your eyes and gesture wildly. “I’m just saying! I don’t want this to become something that implodes because I—God, because I can’t remember your favorite pizza topping one day and suddenly we’re—we're not friends anymore and splitting custody of houseplants and  fucking Cat is stuck writing a gossip column about it.”

Clark chuckles. A pause. “well, for the record? My favorite pizza topping is mushrooms.”

You wrinkle your nose. “That’s a red flag.”

“You’re the one writing up a treaty before brunch.”

“Exactly,” you say, triumphant. “See? We’re incompatible.”

Clark leans forward slightly. 

The sunlight from the window cuts across his glasses, but you can still see his eyes, warm and impossibly blue, locked on yours like you’re the only person in Metropolis who matters. “I think you’re scared,” he says gently. “Which is okay. I just want you to know… I’m not going anywhere. Rules or not.”

And that—

God. That should not make your eyes burn the way it does.

You shake your head, fast. “Don’t say stuff like that. It’s dangerous. You’ll trick me into liking you more.”

“I’m just being honest.”

“Well, stop.”

He raises a brow. “What do I do if I want to kiss you?”

You freeze.

Your heart does a complicated backflip-kick into your ribs.

“...well, that's allowed,” you mutter.

He smiles again, dimple sinking deep.

And then, because he’s a menace with zero self-preservation, he leans in.

You meet him halfway.

And it’s soft this time. Sweeter. Slower. No rain, no adrenaline, just his hand cradling your jaw and your fingers twisted in the hem of his t-shirt like you’re trying to anchor yourself to something real.

.

It's been months now of your little arrangement. And you're already destroyed by the time he even speaks.

Not because he’s touched you yet. Not really. He’s just there, mouth warm against the inside of your thigh, hands stroking the back of your knees like you’re something delicate. Something precious.

Which is so fucked. You are not precious.

You told him that that, breathless and still shirtless and sitting on his kitchen counter at midnight while he gently fed you the leftover peach cobbler Martha left for the two of you straight from the fridge.

He just nodded. Wiped away the crumb left on the edge of your lip. Said, “Okay.”

And then he kissed the inside of your wrist again and said, “You’re still allowed to want things, you know.”

Which is—god, so not fair. 

Now he’s between your legs, kissing a line up your thigh like he’s praying. He’s been taking his time. Like the goal isn’t to get you off, but to study you. Like he’s memorizing the exact way your breath catches and the little twitch of your fingers every time he licks just close enough to your center, but not quite.

You’re panting. Whimpering. Biting your lip so hard you’re pretty sure you taste blood.

And he’s grinning. Not cocky—just happy. Which is so much, so much worse.

“You’re staring at me again,” you breathe.

Clark hums, kissing just below your hip. “I just like looking at you.”

“That’s crazy,” you whisper. “You’re crazy.”

“Probably.” He kisses your navel. “Do you want me to stop?”

You whine. You actually whine. You feel like you've just set feminism back by centuries. “No.”

“Didn’t think so,” he murmurs, nuzzling into your skin. And then, because he’s the devil in a button-up: “You know, the way you objectify me is honestly very inappropriate. I’m not just a—just a piece of meat, you know.”

You bark out a laugh, head tipping back against the pillow. “So bad news, you're actually a mountain of meat, man.”

“See? Objectified.” He presses a kiss just below your ribs. “Reduced to my—”kiss“—ridiculous shoulders—”kiss“—and tragic dimples—”kiss“—and stupidly proportionate thighs—”

“I didn’t say anything about your thighs—”

“Oh, but I think you were thinking it.”

You giggle, delirious. Drunk on this man. “God, shut up and fuck me.”

Clark goes still.

Not awkwardly—this isn’t early-days Clark, the one who used to stammer when you wore red lipstick when you came over and knocked over his own coffee trying to offer you a napkin. 

This Clark—the one under you now, hands broad and firm against your thighs, spine pressed into the worn couch like it’s the only thing keeping him from rising into the sky—this Clark is different.  

He’s grown into himself. Into this. Into you.

Not cocky, not exactly. But assured in a way that makes your stomach clench and your mouth go dry. You’ve seen it happen slowly. Like the sunrise—you didn’t notice until the whole room was full of it.

This Clark doesn't flinch when you flirt, doesn’t panic when your mouth goes sharp or your eyes go guarded. He just… waits. He sees it all. Lets you burn yourself out. And then lays a hand on your cheek like you’re made of something precious.

Still, he doesn’t move.

And that’s what sets you off.

You squirm, shifting your weight in his lap, irritated now. “What?”

He looks up at you, his jaw tight, hands still splayed over your thighs like he doesn’t know whether to hold on or let go. There’s something in his eyes, sharp, patient, impossibly tender, and it makes your chest ache in a way you refuse to name.

“You really want that?” he asks, voice low.

You roll your eyes. “You think I climbed onto your face to do taxes?”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Your stomach flips. You hate when he does this. Gets all serious and calm and measured while you’re flailing, clearly two seconds away from combusting. You cross your arms over your chest—petulant, defensive. “Clark.”

“You say stuff like that,” he murmurs, one hand slowly dragging up the back of your thigh, “but then you pull back like I’ve asked for your soul.”

You glare at him. “I’m not pulling back.”

He lifts a brow. “You haven’t even kissed me yet.”

You scowl. “I was about to, but you’re being annoying.”

His smile is crooked, lazy, maddening. “Yeah? Gonna punish me for it?”

Your heart skips. You hate that you love it when he talks like that. You hate that he’s right—that you’re the one drawing lines in the sand and then pretending you don’t care when he steps over them.

You lean down, hover over his mouth. “I swear to god, if you don’t do something soon, I’m walking out that door.”

He catches your jaw in one hand, gentle but firm. “You won’t.”

“Watch me.”

His thumb drags over your bottom lip. Lets it pop out just a bit, so you can feel the way the wetness drips over your chin. “You always say that. You never do.”

Your breath stutters. Your spine goes stiff. You hate how much he knows you. You hate that he’s always so calm about it, so damn tender, even when he’s calling you out.

“I’m not just a warm body, you know,” he says after a beat, the faintest furrow between his brows. “If that’s what you wanted, you should’ve picked someone who doesn’t look at you like I do.”

You blink. “And how is that?”

Clark tilts his head, eyes never leaving yours. “Like I actually see you.”

You hate him for that. A little.

But you kiss him anyway.

Hard. Sharp. Like a warning.

And then he flips you—effortless, smooth, like it doesn’t take more than a breath. One of his hands pins your wrists above your head. The other trails slow up the curve of your thigh. His mouth finds your neck, and you gasp—not in surprise, but because it’s too much. He’s too much.

“You keep asking me to take you apart,” he murmurs against your skin, “but you never let me show you what it actually means.”

“Oh my god,” you groan, shivering under him. “You are so fucking—”

“What?” he interrupts, dragging his mouth back up to yours. “Soft? Serious? A buzzkill?”

You don’t respond. You’re too busy squirming, too busy arching into him, because he’s right. Again.

“Too bad,” he murmurs, smiling like a secret. “You don’t get to run the show tonight.”

And you're already clawing at his back by the time he finally pushes in. And god, fuck, it’s—

He’s so much. Too much. Even now, even after months of attempting to get used to him, after a minimum of one hour of foreplay every time, hours spent fingering you open and devouring you whole and it still makes your spine tingle in the best way possible. The push and pull of it every time, the struggle, the way he looks at you so, so proudly when he's bottomed out and your smiling from under him like you've just won the lottery.

You make a sound—something small, strangled, "Clark."—and he doesn’t shush you this time.

He smiles.

“There it is,” he murmurs. “Now we’re being honest.”

.

Then one day, Clark cancels a lunch.

That’s it. That’s all. Not the end of the world.

He texts you a sweet apology. Too many words, as always, classic Clark, something about a lead on some money laundering story and “I’ll bring dinner to make up for it, promise, anything you want, even that overpriced pasta from the place with the weird chairs.” He adds three emojis. Two are completely nonsensical (a chicken and a rain cloud?). One is a little heart. You stare at it longer than you should.

You text back something breezy. Casual. “You’re the one missing out on my lunchtime TedTalk about corrupt city councilmen and their tragic toupees.”

He doesn’t respond until hours later. Just a thumbs-up emoji.

You tell yourself it’s fine. You tell yourself you don’t care.

.

Then it happens again.

This time, you're already standing outside the Planet, coffee lukewarm, watching a construction crew down the block try to maneuver scaffolding around a new billboard. It’s another Superman PSA—third this month. Something about disaster preparedness and blood drives. His cape’s caught mid-whip, expression noble and inhumanly calm. You roll your eyes, but your stomach tugs a little. Something about the stillness in his posture—it looks almost familiar.

Your phone rings.

Clark.

You answer with a smirk, trying to make it light. “Should I be worried you’ve joined a pyramid scheme? Please tell me you’re not selling supplements.”

There’s a pause, then his voice, warm but ragged around the edges: “I’m so sorry. Something came up. Can I explain later?”

You make some offhand joke about mafia debt collectors and say, “No worries,” even as your stomach twists.

He sounds tired. Tired in a way Clark never really gets. You’re the one who burns out, who rants and paces and flirts with deadline-induced breakdowns. He’s the one who shows up with coffee and an extra pen. Always.

But now his voice has this roughness to it. Frayed edges. Like he’s trying not to breathe too hard into the receiver. Like he just ran here. Or ran away from somewhere.

“Are you okay?” you ask, before you can stop yourself.

Another pause. “Yeah,” he says, and he softens, like he always does when he hears your voice. “I will be.”

.

By week three, he’s dodging plans like it’s his new hobby. You’re not hurt, obviously. You’re busy too. You have other friends. You go to bars. You flirt with bartenders you’ll never text back. You have a whole life outside of this whole thing with Clark.

It’s not a relationship. It’s just a thing. A nice, dependable, sometimes pantsless thing.

That’s all.

But still, there’s this night.

You’re at your apartment. There’s an old movie playing, something black and white and miserable, and Clark was supposed to be here an hour ago.

You’d ordered his favorite takeout. You’d even found that dumb craft soda he likes, the one that tastes vaguely like melted gummy worms. You told yourself you just wanted someone to share the noodles with.

He doesn’t show.

No call. No text.

You sit through the entire movie. Alone.

And when your phone finally buzzes—close to midnight, just his name and a short, “I’m so sorry. Can we talk soon?”— you stare at it for a long moment.

Then you flip your phone over, face-down.

And in the dark, you think, Shit. This is how it starts. The distance. The shift. The slow pulling away.

You’ve done it to people before.

You just never thought you’d be on the receiving end.

Not from him.

Not from Clark.

.

Around 11:30, you open Twitter out of boredom. You don’t cry. That would imply something was wrong. That you were hurt. You’re not. Obviously.

You’re just a little annoyed.

And maybe, just mayb, you’re thinking about how Clark used to be your safest person. Your sure thing. Your just-text-me, just-call-me, just-walk-right-in-without-knocking guy.

And now he’s something else. Something slippery. Something you have to squint at sideways to understand.

Your thumb scrolls through the usual mess. Politicians being embarrassing, memes you’re already tired of, some half-hearted discourse about whether the Metropolis skyline is over-designed or “delightfully optimistic.”

Then: a video clip.

No sound. Just shaky phone footage.

A blur of red and blue moving fast—streaking through the air over Hobbs Bay, pulling someone from a collapsed scaffolding, leaving behind a wake of stunned bystanders and bent steel.

You pause. Watch it again. Retweets piling up.

BREAKING: Superman saves construction worker after scaffolding collapse.

You stare at it for a second longer than you mean to, then snort under your breath.

Must be nice, you think. Some people get rescued. Some other unlucky fuckers just get ghosted.

.

The message comes on a Thursday. One of those weirdly warm spring evenings when Metropolis smells like asphalt and deli grease and the last ten years of your bad decisions.

Hey. You free tonight?

You stare at it for a moment too long. Thumb hovering.

Then:

yeah. yours?

A pause.

If you want.

God, he’s infuriating. Polite even now. Careful with you, like you’re made of something breakable. Like you haven’t already cracked half a dozen times this month alone.

Still, you go.

.

It’s not tense at first. It’s easy. Familiar.

Clark opens the door wearing one of those threadbare t-shirts that should be illegal, sleeves barely containing his biceps, neckline just a little too stretched from use. His hair’s damp. There’s flour on his cheek.

“You baked?” you ask, stepping past him before he can do that thing where he tries to gauge your mood like a barometer.

He shrugs. “Felt like it.”

There’s banana bread cooling on the counter. Two plates. One knife. He’s already sliced yours and left the end piece—your favorite—on the left, like always.

You want to be mad. Or suspicious. Or anything that would make this easier to navigate. But it’s hard to keep your footing when he’s being like this. Soft. Normal. Like he didn’t flake three times last month. Like you hadn’t spent the last few nights half-dressed and overthinking on your bathroom floor

But them again, you could never really resist him for that long.

So maybe it’s no surprise that your dress ends up pooled around your ankles. The lamp’s still on. Your mouths are moving like they’ve done this a hundred times—because you have, but it's not enough, will never be enough—and you’re both pretending it’s still casual. Still nothing.

Except it doesn’t feel like nothing.

And then Clark pulls back.

Not sharply. Not like he’s been burned. More like he just remembered something, which, again, not unusual. You’ve seen that look before. That oh shit look.

But tonight, he doesn’t immediately jump up. 

He doesn’t mutter something about needing to check in with Perry or help Lois edit her headline.

He just… stares at you.

And not in the usual way, not with those soft, soft eyes like you’re something he stumbled across in a field and decided to treasure. He looks—serious. Scared, even. His hand is still on your hip, but his other is twitching slightly at his side like it doesn’t know what to do with itself.

“We need to talk,” he says.

You still have one shoe on. You don’t even remember kicking the other off.

You blink at him. “I—what?”

He licks his lips. His glasses are smudged. He doesn’t take them off.

“Something’s been—there’s something that I need to tell you,” he says, slower now, like he’s rehearsing this in real time and trying not to panic.

And that—that is when your stomach drops.

Because you know this script. You’ve seen this scene. The music swells, the camera pans in, the guy who smells like safety and Sunday mornings says he “needs to talk,” and then boom. Heartbreak, cut to black, roll credits.

You hold up a hand before he can say anything else. “Wait. Just… don’t. Yet.”

Clark pauses. He blinks at you.

“Look,” you say, backing up a step, scanning the room like you’re looking for your dignity. “If this is about how I’ve been kind of, I don’t know, evasive or inconsistent or, like, deeply emotionally unavailable, I just want to say — I know. Okay? You don’t have to do this so gently.”

His face twists. “What?”

“You’re trying to break things off,” you continue, steamrolling him, your voice way too steady for the freefall happening inside your chest. “And I get it. I do. You’ve been pulling away for weeks, you disappear all the time, you don’t sleep anymore, you look like you’ve been hit by a truck most days, which I assumed was just bad reporting hours, but who knows, maybe it’s metaphorical.”

Clark tries again. “I’m not—”

“It’s fine,” you say, voice louder now. “It’s fine if you met someone. You don’t have to pretend it’s not happening.”

“I didn’t—”

“You’re allowed to outgrow this. Me. Whatever this is.”

Your dress is still on the floor, and you suddenly want it back on like it’s armor. You crouch to grab it, clumsy with urgency, your hands all wrong.

“I should’ve seen it coming. You were too good to last. Guys like you don’t stick around for girls like me.”

“Hey,” he says sharply, stepping forward, but you back away before he can reach you.

“Don’t,” you say, holding your dress to your chest like a shield. “Don’t be nice to me about it.”

Clark runs both hands through his hair. He looks like he’s short-circuiting. “You’re not even letting me—I’m not trying to end this with you.”

You stare at him, lips parted.

He’s breathing hard now. His glasses are askew. His shirt’s wrinkled, and his jaw is clenched like he’s holding something back with both hands.

“I was going to tell you something,” he says, voice raw. “Something real. Something I’ve never told anyone who didn’t already know.”

You freeze.

Because that doesn’t sound like cheating.

That sounds like confession.

“What,” you whisper, suddenly breathless. “Like a dark secret? You have a kid? You’re actually married? Are you part of a mafia? Are you—Oh my God. Are you a stripper?”

“What?” he blurts, completely thrown.

“I don’t know, Clark!” your voice spikes, hands flying up. “What the hell could you possibly say right now that starts with ‘we need to talk’ and isn’t a relationship guillotine?”

His eyes flick to the window. Just for a second. A glance, like instinct. And then right back to you.

And for the first time, you see it.

The quiet panic. The way his entire body is buzzing like a live wire under skin.

Like he’s not scared of you.  He’s scared for you.

But it’s too late. You’ve already built the wall and bricked yourself in.

You grab your dress, yanking it on with the dignity of a raccoon being evicted from a trash can. Somewhere behind you, Clark says your name again, gentle, like a bruise he’s afraid to touch. You ignore it.

Instead, you just start collecting your things like a squirrel in crisis.

Because—and this is humiliating—you’ve essentially moved into his place over the last year in the slowest, most passive-aggressive way possible. Not officially. Not “hey, should we get you some keys?” But enough that the signs are there. 

Enough that you now have to do this, which is to say the break-up equivalent of packing a go-bag in the middle of a fire drill.

You grab the mug with the faded “Central City Gazette Student Press 2013” logo you refuse to drink out of at home because it’s chipped, but which you do drink out of here, because Clark always makes tea the right way — hot, strong, too much honey. You grab the copy of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow you stole from his shelf three months ago and meant to pretend was yours all along. The sweatshirt he “forgot” you left here, that you “forgot” he noticed you wore to bed six times in a row.

You jam it all into your work tote like it’s a goddamn body bag.

Then there are the smaller things. The stupid things.

The half-used notepad from a city council meeting where someone tried to blame vigilante-induced infrastructure damage on solar panels. The disposable camera from that one weekend in Smallville — the one you never developed because the idea of seeing his parents smile at you felt too dangerous, too much like you might belong there.

And then you eye the drawer next to his bed. Your drawer, to get that clear, which was never explicitly claimed but which somehow holds one (1) pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs, two (2) half-empty bottles of lube, and three (3) protein bars, one of which is probably from last fiscal year. You shove it all into your bag, zipper groaning like a sad, sad accordion.

Clark’s still standing near the window, looking bewildered. Like he walked into the scene five minutes late and can’t tell who started the fire.

“Wait—are you leaving? You don’t have to—just—can we talk? Please?”

You don’t look at him.

Instead, you gesture vaguely at your bag. “This is just me doing a quick inventory of my terrible judgment. Don’t mind me.”

“Can you stop for two seconds and just let me—”

“Clark,” you say, and your voice comes out quieter than you meant it to. “It’s okay.”

It isn’t. But you’re trying to win the emotional Olympics in the “cool and detached” category, and you’re not about to blow it with something as devastating as eye contact.

You sling the bag over your shoulder and pause by the door. 

You consider saying something devastating and poetic. Something from Hamlet, maybe. You’ve always liked the line about cutting love out with a knife and it still bleeding. But instead, you give him a big, fake smile and an inexplicable hand up, like a contestant leaving Rupaul's Drag Race in disgrace.

“No harm, no foul,” you say. “Tell whoever you're seeing that I say hi.”

And then you leave.

.

You are, in every measurable way, unwell.

You don’t call it a breakup.

That would imply there was something official to break. That you were ever really together. That there was something solid under your feet to begin with, instead of months of teasing the edge, hovering over the line like two people too chicken to admit they’d already crossed it.

So, no. Not a breakup.

Just—a recalibration. A pause. A hot minute.

You say this to Jimmy, who narrows his eyes and says, “You’re holding a spoon like a murder weapon right now, so I’m gonna circle back on the ‘hot’ part of that minute.”

You even say it to the woman at the corner bodega—the one who always gave Clark an extra packet of honey for his tea and once slipped you a protein bar when you looked particularly anemic on a deadline.

She glances up from restocking the gum and says, “He’s okay? The tall guy? With the glasses and the very... polite shoulders?”

You blink. “Sorry, what?”

“He always said thank you. For the bag. Like, sincerely.” She squints at you. “You were good together.”

You make a sound of vague agreement and exit before she asks if you want your usual. (You do. But the idea of holding a wrap in your hands right now makes your stomach lurch.)

You take your PTO. Two weeks. You don’t tell anyone where you’re going, mostly because you’re not going anywhere. You lie in bed. You eat cereal out of a mug. You watch a three-hour documentary about the collapse of a bridge in Gotham and cry when a random city engineer says, “We tried our best, but it wasn’t enough.”

You don't let yourself think about that… that stupid drawer by Clark’s bed.

Or the banana bread.

Because there is banana bread.

It shows up on your doorstep the morning of Day Three, wrapped in wax paper and still warm. No note. Just a faint imprint where a palm must’ve rested on the foil, like he wasn’t sure if he should knock. You don’t bring it inside right away.

You stare at it. Then the door. Then back at the bread like it might explode.

Eventually, you take it in. Set it on the counter. Eat half of it standing over the sink with your fingers, because you don’t trust yourself to not drop it.

He texts you the next day. Just your name. Then a minute later: Just wanted to check in. Hope you’re doing okay.

You stare at the dots blinking at the bottom of the screen until they disappear.

You don’t answer.

He calls a few times, a few days later. Your phone lights up with his name, and you let it ring out. Not because you’re angry—okay, maybe you are, a little—but because you know the sound of his voice will wreck you. Because if he says your name in that soft, patient, Clark way, you’ll crack like a fucking fault line.

He doesn't leave a voicemai any of the times l. Just hangs up.

(You spend the rest of the night clutching a throw pillow to your stomach like it’s a life raft.)

You tell yourself this is temporary. You’ll get it together tomorrow.

And then tomorrow happens.

And then the next day.

And then—on the seventh day, like Jesus, you rise.

Kind of.

You pull on the ugliest hoodie you own, some too-large sweatpants with a questionable stain, and a pair of knockoff Crocs. Your hair is doing something that technically defies gravity, and you haven’t worn deodorant since Tuesday. Your soul is gone. Your standards are lower. All that remains is one singular thought:

Hotdog.

.

Which is how you find yourself under the flickering fluorescent lights of a 7/11 at 1:42 a.m., perched on the curb out front like a feral raccoon, holding a lukewarm hotdog in one hand and a Red Bull in the other, actively disassociating while Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You plays through a tinny outdoor speaker with all the emotional resonance of a dying Roomba.

You stare off into the distance.

Which is, of course, exactly when Clark walks up.

You see him in your periphery first. Hear the crunch of gravel, the telltale weight of his sneakers.

“No,” you say, out loud. “No. No. Absolutely not.”

Clark stops short. “Hi,” he says, voice soft. A little nervous.

You hold up the hotdog like a loaded gun. “Turn around.”

“I—”

“I swear to god, Clark.” You don’t even look at him. “I am mentally and spiritually clinging to life by the barest thread, and if you say something kind to me right now, I will vomit on the pavement.”

He nods. Raises both hands. “Okay. Not saying anything.”

You stare at him. His flannel is wrinkled. His hair’s sticking up at the back. There’s a scuff on his glasses like he’s been rubbing at them all day.

Goddammit. He looks like home.

You turn your burning eyes back to the pavement and try to focus on your dinner. Try to remember how this whole dignity thing works.

“Why are you here,” you say finally, flat.

He swallows. “Because I needed to see you. Because I’ve been calling, and—”

“Right,” you cut in. “The calls. That I didn’t answer. On purpose.”

“I know.”

“And you took that as a challenge?”

Clark exhales slowly. He takes a tentative step closer.

“I’ve tried everything else,” he says.

You roll your eyes. “Maybe that’s because you’re not supposed to fix this. Maybe this is just what it is now.”

“That’s not what I want.”

You shrug. “And? Sometimes we don’t get what we want. That’s life. Welcome.”

He’s quiet. Long enough that you glance sideways and catch him staring at you with a look you can’t name. Doesn’t defend himself. Just stands there, quiet, while a beat-up minivan idles past the edge of the lot and the Whitney Houston outro fades into static. And you’re just about to tell him to cut it out—whatever this whole tortured-eyes, kicked-puppy thing is—when he steps forward.

One arm wraps around your waist.

And then—

You are no longer on the ground.

You shriek like a B-movie scream queen, clutching your 7/11 hotdog in its sad foil wrapper like it might save your life. “WHAT THE FUCK,” you yell. “WHAT—ARE YOU KIDDING ME—WHAT IS HAPPENING.”

“I’m sorry!” Clark yells over the wind.

“ARE YOU—IS THIS YOU?! ARE YOU—”

“Yeah!” he shouts. “Hi! Surprise!”

“SUPERMAN?!”

“…Yes!” he calls back, cringing midair.

“YOU’RE SUPERMAN?!”

Clark doesn’t answer that. Just… grimaces. Flying sideways. His arm tightening around your waist like he’s half-expecting you to elbow him in the ribs and wriggle free.

You might, honestly. As soon as your brain catches up. You’re only just vaguely aware of your Croc flying off somewhere over a used car dealership.

“My toothbrush is still at your apartment!” you shriek.

“I know!”

“I HAVE A TOOTHBRUSH AT SUPERMAN’S APARTMENT!”

“I know! That’s why I—listen, I panicked! You weren’t picking up! You blocked me on like, four platforms—”

“I BLOCKED YOU BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU WERE GHOSTING ME FOR ANOTHER GIRL, NOT MOONLIGHTING AS A NATIONAL TREASURE.”

The wind roars past your ears. Your teeth are chattering. You’re barely holding onto the last few shreds of coherence. And Clark—no, Superman, apparently—he’s not even breaking a sweat.

“You couldn’t have called?” you snap.

“I did!”

“WITH WHAT, MORSE CODE?”

“I showed up at your apartment!”

“With a cape, Kent?!”

“No! No, the cape’s new—look, I didn’t know what else to do. You wouldn’t talk to me. Jimmy said you took PTO and haven’t left your apartment in four days and I just—I needed you to see me. To listen.”

You make an inhuman noise, somewhere between a wail and a curse. “So your solution was to airlift me like a stolen asset out of a CIA bunker?!”

“I checked to make sure no one was looking!”

“YOU TOOK ME HOSTAGE.”

“I swept the parking lot, I swear! The cameras at 7/11 are fake, and there was one guy but he was busy dropping a Big Gulp.”

You blink at him. Wind in your eyes. A foot still bare. There’s an onion from your hotdog stuck to your shirt. Your heart does a slow, brutal somersault.

“…Okay,” you breathe. “Okay, so this is real.”

“It’s real,” he says.

“Like, capital-R Real.”

“Yeah.”

You shake your head once, sharp. “Jesus Christ.”

And then something in you quiets. Something that’s been vibrating with panic for days—for weeks—sputters out like the end of a bad engine. You’re too tired to scream again. You’re too wrung-out to cry.

So you just say, quietly: “I'm sorry. For not listening. Or giving you the time to explain. But, what the fuck, dude.”

Clark swallows. His eyes flick to your mouth, then away. He nods—once.

“I didn’t want to lie to you,” he says again, quieter now. “I hated it. Every second of it.”

His breath fogs slightly in the night air. He still won’t quite meet your eyes.

“I thought I could keep it separate. You and… that part of me. I thought if I just kept my head down and made you pancakes and let you call me out when I forgot to text back, it’d be enough.”

He runs a hand through his hair, still wind-tossed from flight. “But then it wasn’t. Because I started… I don’t know, noticing stuff. Like the way you always get a little mean when you’re scared. Or how you never remember to lock your front door but you’ll glare at me for refusing to jaywalk. And every time I had to run off and I saw the look on your face—I wanted to tell you. I almost told you, like, like, forty darn times.”

His voice cracks a little. He’s still not looking at you.

“I kept thinking, if I say it out loud, you’ll leave. Or worse—you’ll stay, but only because you think you owe me something. Because I have the suit. Because I can lift a building. But I don’t want you to be impressed by me. I just want you to look at me the way you used to. Like I’m just… Clark.”

He laughs, sudden and shaky. “God, I sound insane.”

You say nothing. You’re not breathing very well.

And then, softly, finally, like he’s pushing it out before he loses the nerve: “I love you. Not in a heroic, save-the-day kind of way. Just—I love you. I think I’ve been in love with you since you made me help you tail that councilman with the suspicious hair plugs. And you made fun of me the whole time, but you still brought snacks.”

He swallows. “I don’t need anything from you. I just wanted you to know.”

The wind whips gently around you both now, slower, softer. Like the world has dialed down to listen in. 

Clark hovers easily in place, arms strong around you, careful and warm, like he’s afraid you’ll wriggle free again and drop straight through the clouds.

He’s flushed. Nervous. He looks like he’s trying to prepare for every possible version of the moment after this. Every soft or horrible thing you might say. Every joke you might make to dodge the weight of it. Every silence.

You lean back a little to look at him.

And then, honestly, you just kiss him.

Because it’s easier than saying the whole thing. Easier than listing every moment that’s led to this, every reason you tried not to fall for him and did anyway. 

The time he walked (not flew) across the city in the rain because you forgot your keys. 

The fact that he never interrupts when you’re spiraling, just waits it out, steady and warm and right there. 

The way he let you drag him into that adult store and joked around and made him blush with the pink handcuffs, and then he bought them for you anyway.

 The banana bread. 

“I love you too, you idiot.”

His whole face crumples. And then he laughs, messy and relieved and a little helpless, like he wasn’t expecting you to say it back. Like he wasn’t hoping.

“You do?”

You nod, eyes stinging. “Yeah. In every kind of way.”

And Clark—not Superman, Clark Kent, the world’s most ridiculous man, the guy you’ve known and kissed and run from and found again—leans in and kisses you silly again.

.

You’re still smiling when he stumbles through your front door with you in his arms.

Not gracefully. Not like some poised, soap-opera seduction —more like the two of you crash through the threshold like a couple of drunk fucking idiots who forgot how to use their limbs. You reach back and slap the door shut, barely catching the knob, breathless from altitude and adrenaline and everything that’s been boiling under your skin for months.

Clark kicks over your shoe rack by accident. It topples over with a loud bang and suddenly, all your shoes are on the floor.

“Sorry,” he says, half-choking on a grin, already pressing you to the wall. “I’ll—clean that up—later—”

You cut him off with your mouth. Sloppy, desperate. Fingers tangling in his curls, tugging just to feel him gasp against you. You can feel the way he hardens close to you, and you're really, really liking where this is going.

It’s not like you didn’t know he was strong. 

You’ve seen his biceps. You’ve felt the hand at your back steady you when a cab came too close. You’ve watched him shoulder his way through panicked crowds, through chaos, through life, always quietly making space for you.

But this is different.

This is him holding your entire body like you weigh nothing. Like physics doesn't apply to you anymore. Like his hands were made to carry you and his mouth was made to ruin you.

“Clark,” you gasp, because you don’t know what else to say. Your hoodie’s already halfway up your torso. His hands are under it, up your ribs, one squeezing your thigh like he’s staking a claim and the other splayed wide across your spine. “You’re—fuck—”

“I know,” he pants, nosing down your throat, licking into the hollow like he’s starving for it. “I know, baby. You’re—God, you’re actually killing me.”

He lifts you—actually lifts you—like you’re nothing, just sweeps you up with one arm under your ass and carries you toward the bedroom, leaving a trail of your jacket, your hotdog wrapper, and one of your slippers behind. 

You claw at his shirt, frantic, trying to get it off. Buttons ping off somewhere near the kitchen island and you both flinch, then laugh again, dizzy with it.

He drops you on the bed and follows fast, crawling over you, shedding the remains of his flannel and undershirt like he’s being hunted for it. 

"Fuck, fuck—take this off," and yank off your hoodie and he groans at the sight, like the skin of your chest is some sort of a revelation, like he hasn’t had it memorized since the first time he saw you in a tank top at work and forgot what day it was.

His mouth is everywhere. On your collarbone, your shoulder, between your breasts. 

Hot and open and eager, tongue twisting ruthlessly around your nipples. He’s making sounds now, those broken, happy little gasps like he’s surprised every time you let him touch you again.

You’re squirming under him, soaked and breathless, tugging at the waistband of his pants like it might save your life.

“I am gonna ruin you,” you manage to say. "Baby, let me fucking ruin you."

Clark laughs again, the kind of laugh that goes straight to your core, deep and bright and boyish, and then he flips you effortlessly onto your stomach, pushing your thighs apart with his knee, dragging his mouth down your spine like he’s tracing poetry there.

“Oh yeah?” he murmurs, low and smug and reverent. “Get in line, pretty girl.”

He pushes into you with one smooth, slow thrust, so much of him, too much, your jaw goes slack, and he just stays there for a moment, his hand curled over yours, forehead pressed to the back of your shoulder.

“I love you.”

Your breath stutters.

He doesn’t give you time to recover, emotionally or physically. Doesn’t let you laugh it off or throw up your usual wall of flippant sarcasm. He kisses your shoulder again, hips moving deeper, slower.

You twist beneath him, trying to turn over because as much as you love doggy, you can't bear to not look at him right now. 

But his hand presses gently between your shoulder blades, grounding you. “Wait,” he murmurs, and you freeze. You’re still so full of him you can barely think. “Just let me—can I just—”

He grinds forward, pushing all eight inches of him inside, and you choke on a moan. You’ve never heard him like this. Not just desperate, not just lost in it — but open.

“I love you when you’re mean,” he pants, voice fraying around the edges. “I love you when you roll your eyes at me in meetings and mutter under your breath during interviews. I love you, God, you're so tight," another thrust. "—when you wear those socks with the tiny dogs on them and try to pretend you’re not soft.”

You turn your head, mouth parted, eyes wide. “Clark—”

He leans down, kisses your cheek, your temple, the place behind your ear that makes your thighs shake.

“I love you when you’re being impossible. When you steal my flannels. When you pretend you don’t care. When you kissed me for the first time and then gave me a whole spiel about it.”

“Stop—”

“I love you,” he says again, brokenly this time, like it’s being torn out of him. “I love you even when I’m scared you’ll leave. Even if this is all I get.”

You turn fully this time, eyes glassy, fingers curling around the back of his neck to drag him in.

And you kiss him.

Hard.

Hungry.

Grateful.

“I love you,” you whisper against his mouth. “I love you, you wonderful, wonderful man.”

Clark lets out a sound that’s not quite a laugh and not quite a sob.

Then he flips you under him and fucks you like it’s a promise.

You say it again when you come the second time, breathless, high-pitched, hands clutching at his shoulders, and again when he follows with a low, shuddering groan, spilling into you like he’s got nowhere else he’d rather be.

.

The car smells like spearmint gum and way, way too much coffee. Clark’s got one hand on the wheel and the other laced through yours like it’s always been there. Which, lately, it has.

You’re about halfway to Smallville.

“So,” you say, tapping his knuckles with your thumb. “How many embarrassing baby photos am I being subjected to this time? Just give me a ballpark.”

Clark chuckles. His dimples show. “Oh, uh… probably all of them. Again."

You groan. “Even the corn maze one?”

“There are multiple corn maze ones,” he corrects gently. “There’s one where I’m dressed as a scarecrow.”

You stare at him.

He nods solemnly. “With face paint.”

“Oh my God,” you wheeze, turning toward the window. “I don’t know if I’m emotionally prepared for that.”

“Don’t worry,” he says, squeezing your hand. “Ma loves you. You could commit tax fraud in front of her and she’d ask if you wanted seconds.”

You snort. “That’s very comforting.”

He shrugs, smiling again. “It’s true. She already set up the guest room.”

You blink at him.

“…The guest room?”

A pause. Clark glances over. “Well, I didn’t want to assume we’d—uh—share a bed. With my parents in the house.”

You raise a brow. “Clark. We had sex in a supply closet at the Planet.”

“That was—okay, yes—but that was under different circumstances.”

“We are dating.”

“I know.”

You lean your head back against the seat, grinning. “You’re so weird.”

“You love it,” he mutters, cheeks pink.

You do.

God, you do. You love him.

It still sneaks up on you sometimes. The clarity of it. The quiet, persistent fact of Clark Kent: the man who once made you blueberry pancakes the morning after you nearly ran out on him, who kissed your wrist like it meant something, who never—not once—looked away. Who told you he was Superman in the middle of a 7/11 parking lot, like some fucking lunatic.

And now here you are. In his car. On the way to meet his parents.

Officially.

Not just as the girl who sleeps over sometimes. Not as the coworker who won’t stop pretending she doesn’t care. Not as the idiot who thought she could get away with loving him and not doing anything about it.

No. Now, you’re his girlfriend.

Which means this is real. Which means you’re going to their farmhouse in Smallville. And Martha is probably going to offer you pie. And Jonathan is probably going to show you Clark’s fifth grade spelling bee trophy like it’s the most precious thing in the world.

Which should terrify you.

(And maybe it does, a little.)

But mostly—mostly it feels like the best thing you’ve ever said yes to.

Clark clears his throat. “Hey.”

You turn.

He’s watching you with that expression again. That soft, unguarded, ruined look like he still can’t believe you’re real. It’s so sincere it nearly undoes you.

“I’m really glad you’re coming,” he says. Quietly.

You look at him. You squeeze his hand back.

“Me too, Michigan.”

His ears go a little red. “Don’t call me that.”

“Oh? I thought you liked when I objectify you by state.”

“I like it slightly less when it happens in front of a rest stop attendant while you’re holding beef jerky and winking at me. And when it's the wrong state."

You smirk. “Not my fault you were born with that jawline and a humiliation kink.”

Clark coughs through a laugh. “God help me.”

He reaches across the console, dragging his thumb lightly over the inside of your wrist. The same spot he kissed that night. The one you think might still hum a little under your skin.

You let your head fall against his shoulder, smile tucked into your cheek.

“Wake me when we’re ten minutes out?”

“You sure?” he murmurs, already lowering the volume on the radio.

“Mhm.” You close your eyes. “I gotta mentally prepare myself for the scarecrow photos.”

You feel the press of his lips against your knuckles. Gentle. Familiar.

“You’re gonna be fine,” he says. “They love you, you know that. I do too."

You smile.

Because yeah. You do know.

[aviceth]

─── 啓悟 THE ART OF FALLING

keigo; 4,599 words; hurt/angst, not that much comfort, heavy allusions to suicide, terminal illness!reader, mentions of abuse (keigo's dad), pro-hero!keigo, no "y/n", lapslock

summary: all of life is a falling, all of life is a losing, all of life a catching, a remembering. endless, endless, until it isn’t.

a/n: apologies in advance for this one -- pls do heed the trigger warnings!!! big thank you to @aimfor-theheart for beta-ing and suffering through my keigo-flavored meltdown u__u i promise i will be writing fluff with the birdman soon he deserves it but first... the horrors...

─── 啓悟 HE CATCHES YOU FALLING out of the sky; it will not be the last time.

“oop — careful there,” he says, cradling you to his chest, an easy grin slung across his lips, his eyes twinkling as if there’s an inside joke caught in liminal space between your body and his, “trust me, i get the urge to go flying too but,” he shrugs, zipping through the air till he’s found a nice low rooftop to set you on, “not havin’ a pair of these makes the landing a bit tricky,” he jerks his chin back towards his wings, feathers red as freshly spilled blood.

you swallow, the prickle of hot, angry tears tickling at your eyes as you blink slowly at him as he sets you down. your bare feet curl against the bits of gravel on the rooftop. he glances down at your feet.

“ah… sorry about that. here —”

two red feathers zoom out of nowhere and deposit your sandals at your feet. you stare, almost unseeing. it’s hot, the air miraged in heat, overhead the sun screams its light over the tokyo skyline.

he bends down, holding up a shoe, “alright, on you get —” he reaches out a gloved hand, gently picking up your ankle and slipping your feet into the shoe. your foot drops with a clatter and he glances up to make sure you’re stable before helping you put on the other. when he’s done, he pushes to his feet, stretching his hands above his head in a great, over-wrought sort of yawn.

“man, it really is a good day for flyin’ though,” he shields his eyes with his hands, squinting out over the endless rooftops.

you lick your chapped lips.

“why’d you save me?” you ask, voice soft. there’s a piece of gravel stuck underneath the pad of your right foot.

keigo turns, hitching an eyebrow as he looks you over. his lazy smile stretches, but there’s a hardness to his gaze that almost makes you flinch back.

“cause, pretty girl like you deserves saving, no? and, well, a big ol’ hero like me? comes with the job description.” he chuckles, the noise curt and self-deprecating.

you frown and open your mouth, but the heat is making you woozy, the world going liquid around you as you wobble on your feet.

“oi — are you alri — oi!”

his voice tunnels, warping, echoing and strange, an underwater thing. the sky pinwheels above you, and then — blissful, cool, darkness.

you wake up in a hospital bed; it is not your first time.

the systematic beeps of the machines around you is almost a welcome sound. you count your breaths, feel your heart sync up to the rhythmic whir of machines, you open your eyes to the white-tiled ceiling, the spinning fan, the lifeless fluorescent panel-lights.

“you awake?” a groggy voice asks.

you turn your head; your heart skips a beat. the traitorous machine to your left maps the skid in a perfect spike of bright green light.

keigo yawns, his wings flexing out behind him as he shifts in the hospital seat, strangely dwarfed by the size of his wings. he cracks his neck and sits up straighter.

“i’d say ‘nice place’ but…” he looks around the hospital room, his lips tug into a grimace, “they say it’s not good manners to lie to a lady.”

you can’t help it, a coughing laugh burbles out of you, the motion so unexpected it jolts your whole body. you swallow around the dryness in your throat, but keigo is already leaning forward, helping you up and pressing a glass of water to your lips.

“there, easy does it…” he watches you drink, soothing a hand up and down your back. his palm is warm against the thin linen of your hospital gown. he frowns slightly as you pull away, licking at your lips.

“thanks,” you say, your voice a croaking thing. you flush at the sound, heat creeping up your neck and into your cheeks. keigo laughs.

“no need, just promise me you’ll keep on doing that.”

you frown at him, “doing what?”

he points to the water, and then at you, “drinking water. keeping yourself alive.”

you let out a long breath at the way he leans into the last word, casting your eyes towards the window. outside, the summer sun is just skimming the far horizon, the light gilding the room in liquid gold.

you turn to find him watching you, even as his eyes flicker from your face out towards the setting sun. like this, every feather on his massive wings looks like a lick of fire, and you can almost reach out to feel their heat.

“c’mon,” he says suddenly, jumping to his feet and offering you a hand. you stare at it before slowly letting your eyes wander up to his face. he grins as he meets your eyes, there’s that self-same mischief dancing behind their golden glow, a secret he wants to tell you, just you, and no one else in the world.

you eye his hand once more.

“let’s get outta here, hm?”

you reach out to take his hand.

it is not every day that you get to watch the sunset from the top of the tokyo skytree, and not every night you get watch the moonrise there either. keigo sits with you slotted between his legs, his wings domed around you to block out the wind.

“why’re you doing this?” you ask, after a very long while. overhead, the stars have just started their twinkling ascent. keigo shrugs, letting leaning back, his hands propped behind him.

“like i said, it was a good day for flying and…” his voice trails off. he drops his chin, a mirthless little laugh tumbling out of him. after a moment, he shakes his head, almost mumbling to himself.

“figured… you’d probably never done anything like this before, so.”

you let out a giggle, the sound jolting him up. his eyes go wide as he watches you fall into a semi-silent fit of laughter, a palm pressed to your chest to keep from laughing too hard, lest you start coughing again. he gives you back a few ginger pats before you wave him off.

“n-no —” you manage between gulps of air, “can’t say i have, though… i don’t imagine most people have done this —” you motion towards the space around you, the night sky seemingly encasing you both, sat atop the outlook deck of the highest point in tokyo.

again, he shrugs, but there’s a smile spreading across his lips.

“yeah, well… i didn’t bump into any of them on patrol today, so guess they’re not that lucky.”

you scoff at the word, the smile slipping from your face.

“yeah… lucky.”

“hey,” he leans forward, tipping your chin up, “c’mon, dovie, none of that now.”

you frown, “dovie?”

keigo nods down at your white hospital gown, “yeah, white — like a dove.”

you crinkle your nose and try to shake off his hand. he laughs.

sometime before midnight, he brings you back to your hospital room. strangely, no one’s come to check in on you (though you find out later that keigo must’ve spoken to the nurses and told them to leave you be for the night). he sets you down beside your bed and hops back onto the window ledge.

you watch him with your arms linked behind your back.

“alright, you keep on drinkin’ water and —”

“staying alive, yeah, yeah,” you say with a tiny tremor like a laugh to your voice that makes keigo smile.

ten minutes after he leaves, you hear a faint tink-tink, only to find a single bright red feather poking at your water glass. your jaw drops.

“you left a feather to babysit me?” you ask, before you can even wonder if the feather can hear you. the feather taps it’s sharp spine against the glass once more, nudging it closer, even as you let out a long sigh and reach for it.

you take a long gulp, letting a thin droplet of water trickle down your chin.

smacking your lips loudly, you set the glass down and stare at the feather, now lying motionless on your bedside table.

“there, happy?”

the feather remains unmoved, but you can’t fight the tiny little smile that threatens your lips as you flip onto your side and tug the sheets up over your shoulders. outside, the moon is bright and round as a rime of rice; the city below her glitters in a sheet of undulating stars, and you close your eyes to sleep, for the first time, without fearing for what you’ll find in your dreams.

keigo does not know what brings him back to you; it will not be the last time.

but when he finds himself hovering awkwardly outside your hospital window, he allows himself a single eye-roll of what-the-fuckery before pushing forward to let himself in. you’re reading in bed, a fresh bouquet of flowers on your bedside table.

he feels a strange, almost startling jab of something inside his chest before he shoves the feeling aside and alights down easily onto the floor in front of the window.

you look up from your book, painfully unfazed by the appearance of the winged hero at your bedside.

“i made it into a necklace, look,” is all you say, tugging down the neckline of your hospital gown to show him the bright red feather now tethered to a thin red thread, looped around your neck. he clears his throat, feeling a blush prickle at his cheeks as he glances around the room.

“yeah — i — i know.”

you cock your head, staring at him, the movement so birdlike he almost laughs.

“oh, well, i thought about putting it on a gold chain or something like that, but metal’s not good for mri machines,” you say, casual as you reach for a small mandarin orange from a basket on your table and start the methodical process of peeling it.

keigo watches in muted fascination as you slowly work the peel off with your fingers, one long strip of it, till it falls away to reveal the soft veined flesh beneath. gently, you break off half the mandarin and hold it out to him.

“they’re really sweet today.”

keigo nods, dropping into the seat by your bed and popping three slices into his mouth at once. there’s such an explosion of flavor he almost chokes. coughing, he reaches for the glass of water and chugs half of it in one go, thumping himself in the chest.

“wow — you really weren’t kidding — these are sweet!”

you nod, humming as you break off a section and press it slowly into your mouth.

“some of the girls from uni came to visit today,” you say, your eyes scanning across the words on the page before you flip to the next one, “one of them is thinking about asking an underclassman boy out.”

keigo watches you press another slice of mandarin into your mouth, his throat suddenly very dry.

“uh — yeah? wait — uni?”

you turn towards him, blinking owlishly, “yeah. i was studying to be a nurse. guess i got my wish in the end though —” you let out a flippant little sigh as you slump back into your pillows and look around the hospital room, “no better masterclass than to see the experts at work, right?”

keigo blinks. you were decidedly less talkative the last time he’d been here, though, it was also under decidedly very different circumstances. he wonders about the kind of girl you were before all this, before the endless tests and tubes, hospital visits and check-marked charts. if you were effervescent, if you laughed a lot, made jokes, more than the dry, gallows-humor kind that eventually infects everyone living with a terminal illness.

“oh, you’re super popular with them —” you say, and for a second, keigo is confused, but then he sees the stack of magazines half-hidden beneath the fruit basket. the corner of one depicting his signature bright red wings. he sighs, running a hand through his hair.

“yeah well, that also comes with the job description.”

you flash him a smile, bright and cheeky, and keigo silently thanks the heavens that he’s not the one linked up to the heartbeat monitor because he’s certain his reading would’ve just gone haywire.

“you never told me you were such a heartthrob hero,” you say, lilting the last two words. he scoffs, holding up his hands.

“whoa, whoa there, dovie — that’s not a light accusation to make — and plus,” he says, propping one leg over the other and leaning his elbow on the hitched up knee, “that kinda title is given, something bestowed upon you. ‘s not something you bring up yourself, alright?”

you hike a perfectly arched eyebrow and lace your fingers delicately across your lap.

“bestowed, huh? by whom?”

keigo leans back in his chair, balancing on the hind two legs, spreading wide his arms. behind him, his great crimson wings flare out, sending a woosh of air through the room.

“by the adoring public, of course.”

you stare at him for a beat of three seconds before falling into a fit of laughter that sets every nerve-ending in his entire body ablaze. he fights the urge to flap his wings, if only to get some air in here — damn — he glances towards the window to make sure it’s still open.

it is.

it’s a strange thing, spring. the shortest of all seasons, but eternal in it’s endless impermanence. flowers bloom, green buds darken into the lush green of summer leaves. the whole world blushes, and the wind spins her skirt tails, light over a humming horizon.

keigo’s always wondered about the likeliness of people falling in love in spring, thought it cliched and strange, a seasonal sickness maybe — the change in weather making everyone light-headed. but, he gets it now.

it’s hard now to fall in love, when the world is doing the same with living.

he finds himself hovering outside your window, more nights than not, hesitating about whether or not to go in. usually, it’s after he’s dropped you off after whisking you away to watch another sunset, somewhere, another moonrise, somewhere.

he basks in the musical lilt of your laughter, the rhythmic sway of your breaths (like wingbeats); he takes you flying and flying and flying, till you stop looking down when you plummet towards the ground. you know he’ll catch you, and he does.

every time.

except —

“i won’t need you to catch me when i’ve got a pair of my own,” you say one day, tucked into his side, sitting atop a skyscraper made of metal and glass, the summer sun burning itself out over the jagged tokyo skyline.

keigo glances over.

“a pair of…?” he pulls his attention away from the way you feel curled against him, body to body, his wing feathered over your shoulder like a cape.

you run a thin finger along one of his long flight feathers.

“wings, duh.”

keigo frowns.

your eyebrow kicks up in a devious little dance.

“y’know, for when i’m up in heaven.”

he freezes, every muscle in his body slowly calcifying. he turns his head slowly. you’re watching the sun sink inch by shimmering inch behind a row of faraway buildings, the light refracting off of a hundred thousand windows, spilling into a hundred thousand homes. a hundred thousand people going about their hundred thousand lives, unaware of the looming threat of death, tucked into every darkened corner, lingering behind every closed door.

keigo wants to scream.

he feels it building inside him, fluttering, as if the scream could grow wings and beat it’s way out of his chest.

“call me cynical but… i never used to believe in shit like that.”

you quirk your head, a curious little bird. keigo’s heart aches.

“used to?” you ask.

he lets out a puff of laughter, his wings drooping, closing in and in and in till they’ve almost blocked out the sun entirely.

“yeah,” he turns, his voice catching on his barbed-wire regrets, “and then i met you.”

you watch him for a second longer before leaning in. your mouth barely grazes his, but by the time he realizes, you’re already pulling back, a small, satisfied smile pressed between your lips like a flower, or a secret.

“c’mon, i’ve gotta be back by 8… or else the nurses will have your head.”

“eh, a couple of autographs and they’ll be happy.”

keigo grumbles, allowing you to tug him up by the hand. he loops his arms around you and tips off the edge of the building, letting the pair of you tumble into freefall for a long moment before swooping out of it with a great woosh of sun-licked feathers.

later, perched on the railings of the hospital rooftop, he peers over the edge of the building and wonders what it might be like to jump, to surrender yourself to air and gravity with no wings to catch you. he sighs and stretches out one wing, then the other, groaning as he feels each muscle and tendon pulling taut.

he’d never know. instinct would kick in first, and he’s always had his wings.

“the scan didn’t go well,” you say, toying with the worn red thread around your neck.

keigo’s long since gotten used to the tiny niggling feeling of your skin brushing against his feather. at first, he’d been acutely aware of it, the inside of your hospital gown, the soft warmth of your skin, the way he could almost, almost feel your heartbeat if he concentrated hard enough.

how the presence is a constant companion, a grounding piece of knowledge, something his mind gravitates towards during moments of pause and rest.

“hm, i’ve heard that before and you’re still here, aren’t you?” he asks, flipping through one of your magazines, rocking on the two hind legs of the hospital chair.

you shoot him a tired, annoyed kind of look.

“the doctor said i should stop treatment.”

the steady creek of the chair stops. you cast your eyes up at the white-washed ceiling, a bone-deep tiredness settling in as if death had been waiting for precisely that moment to come creeping in, to remind you of it’s closeness.

the chair clatters to the ground, but by the time you look over, keigo’s already halfway to the door.

“keigo — where’re you —”

“to go have a chat with those goddamn doctors —”

“it won’t do any good.”

he whirls around, wings flaring out. you push yourself up into a sitting position, wincing slightly as pain twines up the length of your spine.

“how do they know? they should at least try —”

“we have been trying. what do you think all this has been?” you motion at the room, the beeping machines, the endless tubes and iv drips.

“well you don’t stop trying just because it gets worse before it gets better —”

“there is no better, keigo. not for me.”

“you don’t know that!”

feathers, a flurry of feathers. his fingers pressing into your skin, his hands on your shoulders, holding you, shaking you. feathers everywhere.

you let him shake you, let him press his face in so close your noses are almost touching.

you wrap your fingers around his wrists and hold him till his grip goes slack.

“i — you can’t know that,” keigo says, and it sounds so much more like a plea. to what, or whom, you can only guess.

“the treatment’s not working,” you say, your words soft, gentle.

keigo slips to the floor, buries his face in your lap, crumples the rough hospital sheets between his fingers. his wings encase you both, a great dome of red, mottling out the light till you’re both just shadows.

he leans up to kiss you, a harsh breath puffing out against your lips the only warning. you nod ever so slightly before he tips forward and crushes you to him.

he’s never handled you as delicately as most other people do, as if you might shatter at the slightest touch. but now, he doesn’t hold back, clutches you to him, kisses you rough and hungry, there’s a desperate, furious slant to the way he licks at the seam of your lips, groaning deep in his chest when you finally let him in.

when he pulls back, you’re both lightheaded and breathless.

keigo runs a thumb along your bruised bottom lip with a tiny, self-deprecating laugh.

“how long?” he asks.

you sigh, looking down at the negative space between you.

“few weeks, a month,” you offer.

keigo swallows, the distant ticking of your heartbeat now no longer a sanctuary but a haunting specter, creeping ever closer.

“alright…” he says, unable to think of anything else to say, “alright then.”

later that night, whistling through the clear metropolitan night, he remembers the one and only time his mother had ever brought him to the beach as a child. he remembers watching a family of three building a sandcastle — mother, father, and son — how the child had been so delighted when the castle was finished, clapping his pudgy little hands, his fingers caked with sand, but less than half an hour later, the rising tide had all but washed the sandcastle away.

he remembers being enchanted by it, the transitory nature of the thing. how something that looked so solid against the dying light could be whisked away so quickly, so completely, by just a rush of foamy water.

he thinks of his father, and enjoys the sun.

that same year, they’d passed by a winter festival on their way home from picking up groceries. he was sporting a freshly bruised arm, and his mother a black eye she was attempting to cover with her muss of mousy hair. they’d caught a glimpse of the tail end of an ice-sculpture competition, the massive glittering structures standing on mounts, already dripping.

keigo had heard the announcer lament about how terribly sad it is that things so beautiful can’t last forever.

he’d thought it a strange sentiment then — wasn’t their ephemera an integral part of their beauty? the fact that it doesn’t last forever? because he knows, better than most, that temporary is good, temporary means that there’s always an ending worth looking forward to.

except he’s not a kid anymore, and this is a kind of ending that he never thought he’d have to deal with, at least not so soon.

with a looping barrel roll, keigo lets himself tip into a dive, cutting through the humid night air like an ill-shaped comet. he wonders briefly when he’ll stop falling in love with ice sculptures and sand castles, things that are destiny-bound to leave him. he thinks it’s such dramatic irony that the first time he properly falls in love is with a girl with one foot already out the metaphorical door — but of course it is.

your funeral is a muted affair, small, intimate. keigo debates whether or not he should go — after all, he hasn’t really told anyone about you (one night, he’d wondered wryly who he would even tell — endeavor, perhaps; he strikes the thought almost as soon as he has it), and you about him. so he watches from afar, watches on crimson wings and nectar-drenched air and wishes he were something else, someone else — someone with a quirk that didn’t literally pin his identity to his back.

“it’s a bit lonely at the top, isn’t it?” he remembers you asking one day, the magazine in your lap opened to a glossy centerfold of the most recent pro-hero rankings. he glances over, eyes catching on a candid shot of himself, his wings taking up a decent quarter of the page, eclipsed only by endeavors’ hulking form, the flames melding seamlessly into his own mess of feathers.

“lonely? nah — i’ve got —” he cuts off as he tries to think of something to say that won’t sound like a deflection — his legions of adoring fans? his fellow pro-heroes? the people at his agency? the students he’s mentored? sure, they’ve all staked out their own claims to his heart but closeness, the kind that he’s seen so casually bandied about on the mid-summer streets (in the way teen girls topple into each other, giggling, careless of the way their limbs get tangled, in the way men who have known each other for decades greet each other with just a knowing smile, in the swift way lovers might graze a kiss by the other’s cheek to say hello or goodbye), he suddenly finds that he can’t think of a single name.

you, perhaps.

he bites his lips.

you let out a tiny laugh, “it’s okay, it gets lonely here too,” you’d said, before going back to flipping through your magazine.

he thinks he could kiss you, then. so, he tugs the magazine from your lap and does.

he feels your body burn, his feather burning with it, the distant knowledge of heat and smoke stinging his subconscious. he feels it standing at the edge of the hospital roof, staring down. he’s been doing that a lot lately, coming up here, perching on the railing, staring down.

he tries to think of what you might’ve felt, standing here like this, the hopelessness, the endless, innumerable hurts of life, how a person might be tempted to step off and simply cease to be.

but he’d caught you, that day, falling. and he still can’t figure out if he’s glad he did.

he feels you burning, until suddenly, it’s over. the feather rendered to ash along with the rest of your body. he hopes you’ll be buried somewhere the spring can reach, somewhere with flowers, somewhere high up, perhaps, but not high enough to warrant a jumping off.

keigo takes a deep breath, can almost taste the smoke in his lungs.

faintly, he thinks he can feel summer breeze pick up, brushing by his cheeks, his lips, grazing his skin like your lips once had.

“i won’t need you to catch me once i’ve got a pair of my own,” you’d said of his wings.

he hopes that heaven is a beautiful place; he hopes that your wings are bigger and more beautiful than his, stronger too.

he closes his eyes.

the air is mandarin-sweet.

he teeters over the edge. his wings ache. distantly, he thinks he can hear the voices of curious people below — he must cut such a silhouette.

then, he breathes out, tips himself forward, and lets himself fall.

taglist: @simplyshelbyrae @raven-nevra @honeyoru @dira333 @unriding @fennecnco @encrytpta @simpingdailyforthem @dreamcastgirl99 @frosted-flakes @ryzheling @metalprincessxoxo @katiekawls @ally-all-around -- join the taglist

[aviceth]

when reading smut and y/n says “daddy”

[aviceth]

Unsettling Legacy - Dabi/Touya Todoroki 

He’d catch himself raising his voice gradually within any argument, even with those he loved. Yet when he saw the minute terror flash within your eyes, he flinched back due to his own actions. Looking down at the bruised and charred landscape of his hands and arms, all due to his inability to regulate his own emotions.

He remembers when he was much younger, back when he still believed his father was a good person and how he’d ignore the fleeting glances of disappointment in his eyes as his quirk diminished.

He remembers being small and weak and fragile. Useless, just like his father had said. Defenceless to the harsh words piercing the air as he cowered under his father’s hands raised midair, pausing before crashing down onto his face.

Often he finds himself devaluing his own anger, as in comparison to the shameful abuse his father inflicted on him, a little shouting wouldn’t hurt. You’d get over it; you’d have to.

That’s when he realises his father and he are more alike than he cares to admit, and whenever he feels pure rage, he knows he is his father's son.

-aviceth

[aviceth]

worth the wait a nerdjo fic

pairing ⸺ nerd/academic rival/rich boy!gojo x reader

summary ⸺ you abhor your academic rival, satoru gojo. he's a cocky asshole that you fight with constantly for the spot at first place. but when you finally discover what's underneath all those lame sweaters of his with a once in a blue moon visit at the gym (spoiler alert: he's not a scrawny nerd), you'll be fighting your severe attraction to the man who makes your life a bit harder. and maybe fall in love with him, too, in the process.

warnings ⸺ smut, f recieving oral, praise, he makes you beg for it lol, p i v sex, making out, angst if you squint, a lot of fluff, college AU, nerd!gojo, reader gets insecure sometimes and is treated horribly by her discord mod TA/research advisor, typical misogyny/sexism in STEM fields, but gojo defends her!!!, sleeper build gojo with a happy trail because im a slut, the good old pining and yearning i like. art by @/deltapork

a/n thank u to all my beta readers for editing part of this for me :3 happy valentines day!!!

general masterlist

You blink at your paper.

98.

You suppose you should be happy—it’s a graduate level physics class, anyways. For a moment, you stare at the red markings of the TA that graded it, as if willing an error in the one problem you made a mistake on could make it go away. 

2+2=5.

You exhaled sharply, almost fighting back tears. You’d think you could avoid simple arithmetic mistakes, but apparently doing tensor products comes easier than simple addition to you. Shoving your backpack on your chair, you stuff in your laptop and the test haphazardly, not caring that it’s going to get messed and crumpled up in your backpack after your folders and binders jostle around. Fuck that test.

You wouldn’t normally act as if the test had personally wronged you—trust, you were not going to get that heated were it any class. But because of this one class, one person, you knew it was coming. The inevitable.

"Better luck next time." The voice, drenched in smug satisfaction, slithered through the air behind you, his voice and demeanor like a slimy, slimy snake. 

Your jaw tightened, but you forced yourself to remain calm as you turned around. And there he was—Gojo Satoru, the bane of your existence, a plague upon your academic record, a walking, talking statistical anomaly who somehow managed to be both infuriatingly brilliant and aggressively insufferable.

He leaned against the desk beside yours, glasses sliding down just enough to reveal the glint of those ridiculously blue eyes. He crosses his arms while they’re covered in that ridiculous, ugly sweater he’s wearing—he’s probably going for the old money aesthetic, but he doesn’t need to know he gives off more “finance bro that helps billionaires evade taxes,” or whatever finance bros do.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” you sniff, pretending to act nonchalant while you grab your backpack, swinging it roughly on your shoulder like it was the weight of your grievances against him.

"The test." Gojo unfolded a crisp sheet of paper with the kind of theatrical flourish reserved for revealing royal decrees. A perfect 100, circled in bold red ink.

Your stomach twisted. This is what those two points meant. Two stupid, meaningless, soul-crushing, rage-inducing points.

"Guess that makes it… what, five to three this semester?" He tapped his chin, pretending to count, as if the score wasn’t already seared into your brain like an irreversible branding. "My lead, obviously. But hey, if you ever need tutoring, I could always squeeze you in."

You bite the inside of your cheek in frustration. “I wouldn’t want to impose on the time for any of your hobbies. After all, when will you get the time to watch anime? My 5000 Year Old Girlfriend is Stuck in a Twelve Year Old’s Body, was it?”

He presses a hand to his chest in mock hurt, as if your words had truly pierced him through his chest. “Tut, tut. After all this time, I’d think you’d have my anime preferences memorized since you’re so obsessed with me. It’s Digimon, not whatever pedophilic shit you think I jerk off too.” He pauses, and then his voice drops into a conspiratorial whisper. “But you know Fred, the grad student TA that holds recitation every Wednesday? I just know he’s probably a Discord mod of a server that sends, like, daily tentacle porn. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on the Megan's law registry either.”

Now, you have to hold back your smile because Gojo has a point. Fred is not just any TA. Fred is the grad student that mentors you on a research project; the program’s super selective, so when you realized you got him, you couldn’t just back out and give up the opportunity. However, Fred isn’t just a weird–-he’s sooo handsy with his greasy ass hands, so you accept any and all Fred slander. Because he’s your research advisor, you can’t wait to finish the project any faster. He probably would be into underage girls, but you don’t need to express your approval to Gojo, or worst of all, let him think he’s funny. God knows that would get into his head. “Yea, yea. Whatever. Anyways, I hope you have fun with your Pokemon—”

“Digimon.”

“—or whatever. I’m leaving. Some of us have things to do. Later, Gojo.”

You turned on your heel, lest Gojo hook you in with another taunt. 

Maybe you needed to blow off some steam, if you’re allowing yourself to lose to Gojo. 

Worst of all, it’s become a streak, like two times in a row—one on this quiz, and the other on the midterm a few weeks back. Your mind goes back to the last women in STEM recruiting event you had went to, and, how, in the middle of taking a bite of the delicious margherita pizza they offered, you registered that the woman in the panel had insisted that what helped her power through her PhD and dickwad supervisors was by exercising. Her fervor over pilates could almost qualify as a cult pitch, but it made you pause at the moment. Before you continued to further engorge yourself on the food offered on the charcuterie board. 

But maybe it was time to hone your focus in, and some sweaty endorphins might help you get just that. 

You’re not really surprised the demographic at your university’s gym looks like the way it does. After all, not only was it renowned for its academics (from all the nepo babies like Gojo whose families donated buildings and had like four generations of alumnus), but it was also a Division I school. So not only was the gym packed but it was packed with men.

As you walked in the hallway towards the room that contained weight machines, gym bag slung over your shoulder, you eyed the glistening backs of the (D1, mind you) men’s swim team through the glass that separated your path and the swimming pool. 

Wow, those Speedos really hugged their asses. You imagined Gojo in one, and almost snorted. Rich boy nerd Satoru definitely didn’t  learn how to swim; his family’s mansion probably had a twenty year old personal lifeguard that Gojo lost his virginity to, or something. Regardless, he would squint in his silly swim goggles, the exact antithesis of sex appeal while his glow-in-the-dark eyes lit up the pool while he stroked, cheeks puffed like a pufferfish.

Regardless, the smell of testosterone that hits you when you enter the weight area is almost nauseating, and, if you’re honest, a little intimidating. You’re not exactly the fittest of people, so you quickly speed walk past the grunting and sweaty men at the squat machines and barbells, avoiding eye contact and praying furiously that none of them perceive you.

 When you reach the dumbbell stands, you hunch over, taking random light weights. Then, you pretend you know what you’re doing while jumping every so slightly whenever anyone comes in six foot distance of you. It’s only when another girl comes in to grab a weight (and when she bends over, you definitely ogle her ass in a way that would get you slapped if you were a man) that your gaze removes itself from where it was focused on the 2.5 lb dumbbell you were previously bicep curling with. To see him.

The glint of ivory hair is unmistakable—you’ve basically gotten off to the fantasy of razoring it off in his sleep. His blue eyes are bored, pretty boy face framed in glasses. Now, he’s giving teenage boy turned to Andrew Tate after a breakup. Black sweatshirt and sweatpants that are too small, because they cling to his legs in a form-defining way. He’s walking over, hands in his pockets, to a barbell station. Slaps some guys on the shoulder as he goes through, gets a lot of daps. 

Which is weird to you, because you only the Gojo inside your physics class, not outside. He’s a fucking nerd—a loser that spends his time beefing with you, so why is he so popular when he gives you the time of day?

There are three dimensions to gaining alpha status, or whatever they call male popularity. You have to be 1) rich, 2) really physically fit, or 3) just really charismatic. Considering that Gojo—in all his clothing—-looks like a twink moreso than ripped gym bro, it’s definitely not dimension two. So you conclude that it’s because he’s rich and probably throws yacht parties so these ripped guys don’t push him into a locker, or something.

When he finally reaches his destination, you smirk to yourself. With that scrawny build underneath all those loose sweaters, you know he’s only going to be able to lift the bar, no plates. After all, he was warming up. insulting Gojo in countless of ways by taking jabs at his physique mentally, so you barely register that he’s grabbing for the hem of his sweatshirt, peeling it up—

To reveal his bare torso.

Your first thought: Wow, he has huge bazonkas.

That has easily got to be one of the most built physiques you’ve seen at your college so far. His pectorals basically pop out out of his torso as he moves to grab plates. First, he grabs a really big plate—you’re not a gym expert, so you wouldn’t know the weight—and stacks it. And stacks another. And another. And another, until you’re sure it’s definitely more than your bodyweight.

As you’re staring at him in awe, your 2.5 lb dumbbells hang limply by your sides, abandoning all pretense of training to openly gawk at the clench of his biceps, the sweat rolling down his temple, and the set of his jaw as he stares holes into the bar. And by the way there’s heat creeping up your cheeks you realize one thing:

You’re screwed.

“You know what?”

You keep your eyes on your notes firmly, refusing to look at Gojo sitting right next to you. You don’t know why he always chooses to sit next to you on recitation, really—it’s not like you’re receptive to his company. After all, he could be doing other things—like metaphorically sucking a TA’s dick by talking about their research, where Gojo probably knows more about the TA’s research than they do themselves. 

From your periphery, you notice Gojo pouting, then scooting his chair (dragging it, so it makes a god awful screeching noise against the floor tiles that has you cringing) until he’s so close that he slings an arm on the back of your chair and leans in closer and closer. You’re fighting to keep your eyes on your notes, face heating up traitorously until you feel his breath fan across your neck because he’s just so close.

“Rude, ignoring me. Look where that got you.” He then points to a problem on your paper, one you were currently working on. “You’re doing that wrong.”

You finally turn to glare at him, but he’s closer than you anticipated, his face just inches from yours. His grin is all sharp edges and knowing amusement, and it makes your stomach flip in a way you refuse to acknowledge.

“I’m not doing it wrong,” you argue, despite the creeping suspicion that, okay, maybe you did mess up somewhere.

“Oh, really?” Gojo drawls, tilting his head slightly. “Then why is your integral off by a factor of two?”

Your eyes snap back to your notes, scanning through the equations—and, dammit, he’s right.

You huff, begrudgingly erasing the mistake. “Whatever.”

“You know, you should really be thanking me,” Gojo muses, still leaning way too close for comfort. “If I weren’t here, who knows how many mistakes you’d make?”

“She’d have me,” comes a greasy voice, and you have to fight the tears in your eyes that arise when Fred (the aforementioned pedophilic TA and your research advisor) comes, his moldy cheese stench following him as he takes a seat from across you and Gojo. You grudgingly turn your face away from where it was so close to Gojo’s to look at him and sigh inwardly. At least Gojo’s face was prettier to look at.

“Hi, Fred,” you smile tightly, willing him to go away. “We’re good here, so you can help out other students—”

“How was your weekend?” He instead replies, and you wince. Stealing a quick glance at Gojo, it seems that his jaw and posture are uncharacteristically tense. 

“Lot of work for the class and for, uh, our research,” you respond, nodding and averting your gaze to your paper and feigning working on a problem so that he would get the hint.

Fred, unfortunately, does not get the hint. Instead, he leans forward, elbows on the table, eyes too focused on you. “You really ought to take breaks, you know. You can give me the code late. Someone as cute as you shouldn’t stress so much. You’ll get wrinkles.”

Your fingers tighten around your pencil, your skin crawling at the way his tone veers into something too familiar, too patronizing. You open your mouth to give a clipped response, but Gojo beats you to it.

“Oh? Didn’t know you were an expert on skincare, Fred,” Gojo drawls, his voice deceptively light. His arm, which was still resting on the back of your chair, shifts just slightly—not quite pulling you in, but making his presence more noticeable. “Though, if we’re giving out advice, maybe you should take your own. I mean, stress must be rough on you too, right? All those late nights grading papers, staring at screens. Takes a toll.”

Fred bristles, but Gojo just smiles lazily, pushing up his glasses as he tilts his head. “Actually, you know what? Maybe we should all focus on our own business. Like, say, teaching, instead of weirdly hovering over students. Crazy thought, huh?”

You swear you see the muscle in Fred’s jaw twitch, but he forces out an awkward chuckle, shifting uncomfortably. “Right, right. Just looking out for her.”

“Don’t worry,” Gojo interrupts smoothly, now fully leaning into your space, his arm draping a little lower behind your chair, “I think she’s got plenty of people looking out for her already.” His voice is soft, but there’s an undeniable edge beneath the words.

Fred lingers for a second too long, but finally, he mutters something about helping another student and stands, walking off with an air of forced nonchalance.

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding, slumping slightly in your seat. Gojo hums beside you, his fingers tapping idly against the back of your chair.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” he teases, but there’s something in his tone that’s softer than usual. He then makes a show of stretching, raising his arms. His sweater rides up a bit, exposing his lower abs and peeks of white that has you averting your gaze, the heat creeping up at his proximity once again. Then, his arm back on your chair. Weirdly, you find that you don’t mind it.

You sigh, resigned. You’ll figure out these feelings later. “Yeah. Thanks, Gojo.”

But you don’t immediately go back to your work, because Gojo suddenly hunches down and whispers in your ear. “Yea, I definitely saw an underage anime girl sticker on his laptop.”

Your responding snort is so loud everyone turns to look at you and Gojo, who is now sporting a mischievous and satisfied smile.

It starts with a single drop, fat and cold where it splats against your wrist. You glance up from your phone just in time to see the sky split open.

“Shit,” you mutter, stuffing your phone into your bag. The library doors shut behind you with a heavy clang, sealing away the scent of old books and the quiet hum of studying students. Outside, the air is thick with the petrichor of freshly fallen rain, and within seconds, the pavement is slick, puddles forming in the uneven cracks of the sidewalk. The streetlights reflect off the wet ground, casting fragmented golden glows against the darkening sky. You’d been studying to grind for the upcoming assignments; after all, to rival Gojo is a no small feat. It’s just unfortunate it seems to take you thousand times more effort than it does for Gojo.

“Guess we’re stuck together, huh?”

You don’t have to turn to know who it is.

Satoru Gojo, standing beside you under the library’s narrow overhang, wearing that insufferable grin like he’s amused by the entire situation. Like the rain personally fell from the sky just to give him an opportunity to bother you.

“I’ll take my chances,” you say flatly, shifting your bag on your shoulder. But as you peer past the downpour, your stomach sinks. The rain is merciless, an unrelenting sheet of water stretching as far as you can see. There’s no way you’re making it back to your dorm without looking like you took a fully clothed shower.

Gojo hums, pulling something out of his bag. You blink when he flicks open a half-broken umbrella, the metal ribs slightly bent like it’s barely holding itself together. He gives it a little shake, sending droplets flying, before glancing at you with a smirk.

“Well?” He lifts a brow. “Wanna be smart about this?”

You do not want to be smart about this. You want to wait out the rain or make a break for it. But the storm shows no signs of letting up, and the thought of walking through it alone makes you hesitate.

Reluctantly, you sigh. “Fine. But I get most of the cover.”

“Hey, sharing is caring.” He tilts the umbrella slightly, just enough to make a point.

With great reluctance, you step closer. The moment you do, you regret it.

Gojo is warm. Even in the damp, chilled air, he radiates heat, standing so close that his sleeve brushes against yours. He smells good, too—like expensive laundry detergent with a faint undercurrent of something sweet, something distinctly him.

You swallow hard, forcing yourself to stare straight ahead as the two of you start walking. The rain pounds against the umbrella, droplets cascading off the edges, and with every step, you’re hyper-aware of the way Gojo moves beside you—loose-limbed, annoyingly graceful, a stark contrast to the crooked metal above your heads.

“Man, this thing’s on its last leg,” he muses, tilting the umbrella just slightly. Water dribbles off the side, landing directly onto your shoulder.

“Gojo!” you yelp, recoiling as the cold soaks through your shirt.

“Oops.” He does not sound remotely sorry.

You glare at him, but before you can snap back, he shrugs off his jacket and—without preamble—drapes it over you.

You freeze.

It’s warm, still carrying the heat of his body, and it smells so much like him—clean, sweet, dizzyingly familiar. Your brain short-circuits.

You force yourself to breathe, keeping your gaze firmly ahead. “You didn’t have to do that,” you say, voice tight.

“I wanted to.”

Something in his tone makes your stomach flip. You glance at him from the corner of your eye, and—

Damn him. Damn him.

Water drips from his bangs, clinging to the sharp edges of his jawline, sliding down the curve of his throat. His shirt sticks to his skin, fabric clinging in a way that reveals the toned lines of his arms, the broad plane of his chest. He’s watching the rain, the usual teasing glint in his eyes softened into something contemplative.

You swear your eggs just recently got released, for you cannot help but avoid your ever going attraction to Satoru Gojo except the age-old excuse: ovulation. Your mind wanders to how his arms would feel around your head, to lay on his chest, how he’d be able to manhandle you, force you to take it—

But you’re snapped out of your inappropriate thoughts by what he says next.

“You know,” he says, voice quieter now, “I like this. Just us, no grades, no competing.”

You pause.

He says it so simply, so easily, like it’s nothing at all. But the words settle deep, curling somewhere warm inside you, and you don’t know what to do with them.

So you do what you do best: you shove them away, bury them beneath years of rivalry, of late-night study sessions fueled by caffeine and stubbornness, of sharp words and sharper glances.

You roll your eyes, forcing a scoff. “Don’t get used to it.”

But even as you say it, your fingers curl into the fabric of his jacket, holding it a little tighter.

It’s been a week since you saw Gojo. He had dropped you at your dorm in a surprisingly gentlemanly way, and you had insisted on returning the jacket only after washing it, to be courteous. What you didn’t mention was how you kept repeatedly smelling it in your dorm whenever you got a reprieve from your roommate’s eyes because Gojo smelled like expensive cologne and he did one thing most nerds / physics majors don’t do: shower. This fact, unfortunately, made you more attracted to him because the bar is truly in hell.

You’ve concluded that these…feelings can’t hurt you and that it isn’t real, like a beefy and shirtless Gojo-looking demon that’ll jump and surprise you from under your bed. So you move on your life, caught in the ever perpetual slog of studying and researching. 

Thus, you find yourself at the library once more.

The night hums low around you, quiet except for the occasional shuffle of paper and the distant hum of the library’s espresso machine (only librarians could use it, however. you fervently thought that was a form of elitism, but you digress). You’re at the corner table, the one by the window, where the dim light pools just enough to illuminate your notes but not enough to make you feel like you’re being studied under a microscope. You think you’re alone—until you aren’t.

You don’t have to look up to know it’s him.

Satoru Gojo is hard to miss, even when he’s not trying. He slides into the chair across from you with the kind of ease that makes it seem like he belongs there, like he was always going to end up sitting across from you tonight. His hair is tousled, white strands falling forward in a way that makes him look softer under the warm light. His glasses are perched low on his nose, a rare sight given that he usually has them pushed up like some kind of pretentious scholar.

The two of you don’t speak.

It’s surprising, really. Gojo never runs out of things to say, whether it’s an obnoxious quip or some unnecessarily insightful observation that makes you want to throw your textbook at his face. But tonight, he just pulls out his own notes, taps his pen against the edge of his lips, and starts reading.

You should focus on your own studying, but something about this—this silence, this late-night haze, this tiny moment carved out of time—makes your mind wander. You steal glances when you think he won’t notice. His brows furrow when he’s concentrating, his jaw tightens when he’s stuck on something, and when he exhales, it’s this slow, measured thing, like he’s trying not to get frustrated. He’s just—

He’s just really there.

You’ve spent years defining Gojo as your rival. Your competition. The person standing in your way at every academic milestone. And yet, somehow, somewhere, he’s slipped into something else, something harder to define. Because you’ve seen him like this before—when he’s so focused that he forgets the world around him, when he bites his lip in thought, when he gets so caught up in something that he mutters under his breath without realizing it. And for the first time, it dawns on you: you don’t actually hate it.

You don’t hate this comfortable silence. This moment of peace, a white flag waving lazily between you both.

The hours blur. The café starts to empty. Your notes turn into background noise. It’s late, and the warmth from inside lulls you into something dangerously close to comfort.

A soft sound breaks through the quiet.

You glance up and freeze.

Gojo’s head has tilted to the side, his glasses slipping slightly down the bridge of his nose. His hand is curled loosely around his pen, and his breathing has evened out. He’s asleep.

For a moment, you don’t move. You barely breathe.

Gojo, asleep, is not something you’ve seen before. He’s always in motion, always buzzing with energy, always running his mouth about something. But right now, he’s still. His long lashes cast faint shadows over his cheekbones, and the tension he always carries—the cocky bravado, the smirking sharpness—is nowhere to be found. He just looks… peaceful.

Cutie.

What?

The thought slips in so quickly, so effortlessly, that it nearly makes you jolt. But when you look at him again—head tilted just slightly, glasses slipping down his nose, breathing slow and even—you can’t deny that the word fits. He looks like a lazy cat napping in a sunbeam, limbs loose, utterly unguarded. It’s so unlike him that you find yourself staring, caught in the contrast.

Your fingers twitch. Before you can stop yourself, you reach forward, slow and hesitant, to push his glasses back up his nose. But you catch yourself just before you touch him, as if the warmth of his skin might burn. Your hand hovers in the air for a fraction of a second too long, and then—

You pull away.

Your heart is pounding. It’s fine. It’s nothing. You just need to get out of here.

You gather your things quietly, glancing back at him one last time before slipping out the door into the cool night air. The moment you step outside, you take a breath, deep and shaking. The world feels different now. You feel different now.

Because for the first time, it isn’t just that you find Gojo attractive.

It’s that you care.

And you don’t know what the hell to do about it.

The gym, once again, smells like sweat and overpriced protein powder.

You don’t know what’s possessed you to come here today. Maybe it’s because you keep telling yourself that you need to exercise more, or maybe it’s because you need to take a break from studying before your brain melts. But deep down, if you’re really being honest with yourself, you know the real reason.

Gojo is here.

You spotted him the first time by accident. You were on the treadmill, barely jogging at a pace that wouldn’t embarrass you, when you caught a flash of white hair across the gym floor. And there he was—dressed in a fitted black sleeveless top and joggers, casually loading plates onto a barbell.

And he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

It was a stupid, inconsequential detail, but it made all the difference. Without them, he didn’t look like the annoying academic rival who constantly got under your skin, flashing his smug grin as he beat you in exams by the smallest possible margins. He looked… sharp. Unfiltered. Effortlessly attractive in a way that made your stomach tighten in ways you didn’t like.

You’d seen him in his regular clothes before, of course. You knew he had broad shoulders and long legs, that his body wasn’t just a lanky frame hidden behind layers of sweaters. But here, in the gym, watching him roll his shoulders as he prepped for another set—it hit differently. He was lean but muscular, his arms flexing as he adjusted his grip on the bar, and for some godforsaken reason, you couldn’t look away.

You shouldn’t be watching him. You should be focusing on your own workout, pretending you don’t care. But the way his shirt clung to his back, the way his forearms tensed, the way he exhaled sharply as he lifted—

You’re so screwed.

You force yourself to look away, grabbing the smallest dumbbells available and curling them in what has to be the weakest excuse for a workout imaginable. You’re barely paying attention to what you’re doing, too busy sneaking glances at Gojo between sets. It’s pathetic, but at least no one else is watching you.

Or so you think.

Because then she appears.

A girl.

Tall, toned, and effortlessly gorgeous, with sleek hair pulled into a high ponytail. She strides over to Gojo with a confidence you could never dream of and smiles at him, saying something that makes him laugh. Her ass is definitely bigger than yours, and she’s in this coordinated, cute, pink set, looking like she walked straight out of a fitness TikTok. You can’t hear what they’re talking about over the sound of weights clanking and some obnoxious EDM song blasting through the speakers, but you can see it. The way she leans in, the way she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, the way Gojo—

—smiles at her. That easy, lazy grin he always wears when he’s teasing you, except this time, it isn’t for you.

Your grip tightens around the dumbbells, something ugly curling in your chest. It gets worse when she gestures toward the squat rack, and Gojo nods before moving behind her, hands hovering just slightly as she sets up for a squat. You watch as he spots her, one hand resting lightly on her lower back, close enough to correct her form but far enough to be polite. He’s focused, watching her movements carefully, murmuring something that makes her laugh before she drops into another rep.

Your stomach twists.

This is stupid. You have no reason to be feeling this way.

It’s then that it hits you—you can have your silly little academic rival moments with Gojo, but, in the end, you’re just a footnote in his story, a fleeting challenge in a life where everything already belongs to him. He quite literally has generational wealth; he’s not going to spend his life buried in grant applications or clawing for recognition in a field that demands twice the effort for half the reward. He’ll be the one funding the research, sitting at the head of the table, making decisions that shape the future. And you? You’ll be one of the many who struggle just to be in the same room.

He’s the guy who spends his vacations on yachts or private islands—not just surrounded by wealth, but by people who belong there. Girls who glide through life with the same effortless ease as him, girls who don’t second-guess if they deserve to be in the spaces they occupy. Girls who don’t have to fight for their place at the table because it was always set for them.

Girls that are his equal—equally attractive, equally smart, equally rich.

Not you.

You swallow hard, forcing yourself to look away, but the image is burned into your mind. The easy way he talks to her. The way she tilts her head when she listens. The way he doesn’t even know you’re here.

You shouldn’t care. You shouldn’t care. You shouldn’t care.

But you do.

You grip the dumbbells tighter, exhaling sharply. Then you put them back, pick up your water bottle, and walk out of the gym before you do something stupid.

The office is too small. Too suffocating. Too filled with the weight of unspoken words and the sharp-edged smile of Fred, the TA, as he leans back in his chair and laces his fingers together.

"You know," he begins, voice sickly sweet, "I really expected more from you."

You sit stiffly in the chair across from him, your hands curled into fists in your lap, nails digging crescents into your skin. Your heart pounds, but your face remains carefully neutral. You've been called into his office under the guise of "academic guidance," but you know better. You always know better.

"I don't know what you mean," you say, keeping your voice even.

Fred exhales dramatically, shaking his head. "Come on. You and I both know you're barely keeping up in this project of ours."

You grit your teeth. You're not barely keeping up. You're giving him your work at the highest level, at its best. But Fred—Fred has always had a way of twisting things, making you feel small, insignificant, like your achievements are nothing more than accidents.

“I think my progress speaks for itself,” you respond tightly. Mind you, while he was supposed to be your mentor, you’ve done 80% of the work.

But you think Gojo’s defense of you ran deep into Fred’s heart because by the way he’s sleazily smirking at you, you know he’s trying to get back at you.

He smirks. "Your progress? Sure, you’re smart. But you think that’s enough? You think anyone’s going to care about a girl like you when there are people out there who don’t have to struggle to be exceptional?" He leans forward, voice dropping into something conspiratorial. "You’re wasting your time. The best you can hope for is being someone’s assistant. Maybe a glorified research grunt if you’re lucky. Just like for me."

Your stomach twists. You shouldn’t care. You know you shouldn’t care. But the words burrow deep, hitting a place inside you that already doubts, that already wonders if you’re nothing more than a temporary obstacle in a world built for people like Gojo Satoru—people born brilliant, born wealthy, born effortless.

Fred’s eyes flick over you, assessing, smug. "You’re working yourself to the bone for what? You’ll never be at the top. Not really."

The bitterness of the situation really dawns on you—Gojo’s the one who took a jab at Fred last week, not you. But you’re the one who’s left to deal with its consequences. You’re not going to assign blame and lament that it’s not Gojo in this office dealing with him. It was in your defense, after all. 

But Fred’s words remind you. You’ll never be at the top. At Gojo’s level, who’s at the top without even seeming to put in effort.

You’ll never be his equal.

You stand abruptly, shoving your chair back so hard it scrapes against the floor. "If that’s all, I have work to do."

Fred chuckles, leaning back, clearly pleased with himself. "Sure, sure. Don’t say I never tried to give you advice."

You don’t respond. You just walk out, gripping your bag so tightly your knuckles turn white, the echo of his words following you down the hall, settling in your bones like lead.

The hallway is too bright. Too loud. Too full of people who don’t know that you’re on the verge of crumpling in on yourself like a dying star.

Your breath feels too shallow, too quick, and there’s a weight pressing down on your chest that no amount of rationalizing can shake off. It’s not even your meeting with Fred—just a slow accumulation of stress and exhaustion and frustration that’s settled deep in your bones. A grade lower than expected, an upcoming deadline you’re nowhere near prepared for, a general sense of drowning no matter how hard you try to keep up. It’s all too much, and your hands are starting to shake from how tightly you’re gripping the strap of your bag.

You just need to get out of here. You need air, space, something.

But, of course, the universe has a cruel sense of humor, because when you round the corner, you slam straight into Satoru Gojo.

“Whoa—”

Your balance is already precarious from the way you were rushing, and the impact sends you stumbling. For a split second, you think you might actually fall—your ankle twists awkwardly, the world tilts—and then there’s a strong hand gripping your wrist, another bracing against your back, steadying you before you can hit the ground.

You don’t process what happens immediately. Your mind is still stuck on too much, too fast, can’t breathe, and it takes you a second to realize that Gojo is holding you upright, his hands firm but careful, his expression hovering somewhere between amusement and concern.

“Jeez, what’s the rush?” he teases, but his voice lacks its usual careless lilt. He’s searching your face now, eyes narrowing behind his glasses, and that’s when you realize: you must look as bad as you feel.

Shit.

You jerk away from him, a little too fast, a little too sharp. “I’m fine.”

Gojo doesn’t look convinced. “You sure? Because it kinda seemed like you were about to pass out on the spot.”

“I said I’m fine.” You adjust your bag over your shoulder, shifting your weight onto your other foot, ignoring the faint throb in your ankle. “Go bother someone else.”

Most of the time, that’s enough to send him off with an exaggerated sigh and a smirk. But not today.

Today, Gojo just stands there, watching you like he’s trying to piece something together—like you’re a problem he wants to solve. He doesn’t press, not yet, but the silence stretches, and it’s unbearable, because you can feel the weight of his gaze, and you don’t want to be seen like this. Not by him.

So you give him a tight nod in dismissal, and walk away.

There’s a knock at your door. You frown because you didn’t expect any visitors, and you’re in your sleepwear. Regardless, you pad your way lazily and open the door.

To see Gojo.

What the fuck.

He’s drenched in the glow of the hallway light, looking entirely too at home despite standing on your threshold. His hair is still slightly damp from the rain, white strands falling over his forehead in careless disarray. He’s not wearing his glasses.

"Why are you here?" you demand, gripping the doorframe, willing your voice to stay steady.

He quirks an eyebrow, tilting his head just slightly. “You’re holding my jacket hostage.”

Oh. Right.

You make your way to your wardrobe, where the now-cleaned jacket hangs neatly on a hanger. Grabbing it, you hand it over to Gojo, who’s standing at your threshold while eyeing the insides of your dorm, as if trying to take in what your living space looks like. You shove it into his chest, stepping back like the heat of it burns. "Here."

Gojo takes it, but instead of leaving like a normal person, he lingers, running his fingers over the material like he’s checking for something. Then,, he lifts a hand to the back of his neck, rubbing it in that way that only makes his biceps flex, his lean muscles shifting beneath his shirt. You hate that you notice.

A beat passes.

"You know," he muses, far too casually, "you seemed a little disheveled back there."

Your stomach twists. "It's not a big deal—"

"—Bullshit." His voice cuts through yours, sharp and immediate. He shifts, stepping just the tiniest bit closer, his tone losing its usual teasing lilt. “You’re lying. I saw what you looked like. What happened?”

“It's none of your business,” you say, stiffening. “Nor is it a big deal, really.”

Gojo exhales, something heavy in the sound. His eyes don’t leave yours, and for once, they aren’t filled with their usual mirth or mischief. Just something searching, something that makes your chest ache in a way you don’t have the strength to deal with right now.

"You always do that," he says, softer now, but no less intense. “Act like no one’s supposed to care. Like you’re carrying the world alone.”

Your fingers curl into your palms. Your lips press together. You don’t want to hear this. You don’t want to acknowledge the way his words settle too close to the truth.

And then, quietly, Gojo asks, “Do you not consider me your equal?”

You swallow.

Your silence must be enough of an answer because something shifts in his expression. It isn’t anger exactly, but it’s something close—something bitter and disappointed and aching all at once.

"You’re the one who shuts me out, you know." His voice is sharp now, edged with frustration. "You act like I'm the one keeping you at a distance, but every time I try to get close, you push me away."

Your throat tightens. “Why do you even care?”

Gojo lets out a breath, his head tilting just slightly, eyes scanning your face like you’re something he’s trying to figure out. Then he laughs, quiet and humorless.

“You really don’t know?”

“I—” Your voice wavers. “What do you mean—”

“For a girl so smart, you sure do act stupid.” He steps forward then, closing the space between you just enough to make you want to back away, but your feet don’t move. His voice drops lower. "Do you think I talk to you because I give a fuck about physics?"

Your brain short-circuits. “What—”

He groans, dragging a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I give zero fucks about the class or any class, trust me. I have better things to do than to try to aim for 100s on every test."

Your heart is pounding now, too loud, too fast. “Then why—”

"God," he exhales, tipping his head back, like he's debating whether or not he should even say it. Then, after a beat, he looks at you again, and whatever is in his eyes makes your stomach flip, makes your breath hitch.

Something in your chest lurches, but before you can even process it, he huffs a laugh—like he’s just remembered something ridiculous.

"You didn’t even look my way the first week," he says, eyes flicking over your face, searching. "I could tell you only cared about anyone that could challenge you. Like, it wasn’t even until I did better than you on the second midterm that you even talked to me."

You open your mouth, then close it, heat prickling at the back of your neck. Because—yeah. He’s not wrong. You had ignored him, dismissed him as just another overconfident rich kid who thought he was smarter than he was. It wasn’t until he proved himself, until he became a real obstacle in your path, that you bothered to acknowledge him.

Gojo smiles, but it’s not cocky this time—it’s small, almost rueful. "And then you looked at me like I was finally real. Like I existed."

Your breath hitches.

He shrugs, eyes dropping for a brief second before snapping back up to yours. "So, yeah. Maybe I started trying harder. Maybe I cared about all those stupid tests because it meant I got to see that fire in your eyes, that I got to be the one you were pushing against." He rubs the back of his neck, his biceps flexing in a way that would usually annoy you, but right now, you’re too busy trying to remember how to breathe.

Gojo stares at you for a long moment, gaze unwavering, like he’s daring you to say something—anything.

Your chest feels too tight, your pulse erratic, and you don’t know what to do with the way Gojo is looking at you—like you’re something precious, something worth holding onto.

But he’s wrong. He has to be wrong.

“You can’t like me,” you whisper.

Gojo frowns, expression shifting. “What?”

Your throat clenches, and before you can stop it, heat pricks at your eyes, blurring your vision. “You can’t like me,” you say again, voice cracking. “I can’t even match you.”

Gojo's face slackens, his teasing demeanor completely gone.

"You do everything so effortlessly," you force out, your fists clenching at your sides. "It’s so infuriating." A shaky breath escapes you, and you shake your head, looking down. “So why would you even want this? You make me feel this way, and I—I hate you for it.”

For a second, there’s only silence.

Then, Gojo exhales softly.

“Is that what you think?” His voice is so gentle it makes something inside you ache.

You don’t answer. You can’t.

Gojo shifts, stepping forward slowly, carefully, like you’re something fragile. And then—then he reaches out, his fingers ghosting along your wrist before curling around it, grounding you. “It’s not effortless,” he murmurs. “I try so hard. You just don’t see it because I don’t want you to.”

"You really don’t get it, do you?" His voice is quieter now, something dangerously close to vulnerable. His fingers twitch at his sides. "I care because it’s you."

You shake your head, still not understanding, still unable to believe it.

Gojo watches you for a moment, then exhales, running a hand through his hair. “You act like I just woke up one day and decided to like you.” He huffs a quiet laugh, but there’s no real amusement in it. “Do you know how long I’ve been stuck on you? How infuriating it was, realizing that no matter how much attention I got, the only person I wanted it from was too busy treating me like an obstacle?”

Your breath catches.

“I tried everything,” he continues, voice rougher now. “Teasing you, annoying you, beating you in tests, losing to you in tests. It didn’t matter what I did, because you—” He breaks off, shaking his head. “You only saw me when I gave you a reason to compete.”

Your fingers tremble slightly at your sides. You don’t know what to say, don’t even know what you can say.

And suddenly, everything—the teasing, the constant pestering, the way he always had to be around you—it all clicks into place.

Your heart hammers in your chest, and before you can second-guess it, before you can even think, you surge forward and kiss him.

It’s a mess of a kiss—too rushed, too desperate, all clashing teeth and uneven breaths—but Gojo groans softly against your lips, like he’s been waiting for this. His hands are on you immediately, one slipping around your waist, the other cradling the back of your head as he presses you flush against him.

You’re dizzy. Overwhelmed. But it’s good. It’s him, and you don’t want to stop.

When you finally pull away, breathless and unsteady, Gojo is grinning, his lips slightly swollen.

“Worth the wait,” he murmurs, eyes shining.

You avert your gaze, fully blushing now. “But I—” You take a look at him, then hide your face in your hands. “I’m a stalker.”

“Maybe I’m into that.”

“No,” you bemoan. “I’ve stalked you at the gym, and I—” Your voice drops into a shameful whisper. “You were good. Like, stupidly good. Like, making everyone stare at you good.”

His lips twitch. “You were staring too, huh?”

You glare at him, but he just grins, all teeth, clearly eating this up.

“I hated it,” you insist, heat prickling at the back of your neck. “I hated that you’re already smarter than me, that you already have all these advantages, and then—and then you also have that? Like, it’s just unfair. You’re unfair.”

Gojo is silent for a second, and you think you’ve screwed up, but then exhales a sharp laugh, shaking his head. “You are so cute.”

“Stop it!” you whine, but you don’t protest when he pulls you closer and locks your lips with his another time. You clutch the front of his shirt, drag your hands on his chest, his arms, everywhere. Then, you guide his to firmly clutch your ass, to which he freezes.

“We can stop here. We don’t have to do anymore than this, and—”

But you interrupt him, slamming your lips against his once more. Grabbing him by the shoulder you pull him into your room and slam the door behind you, pushing him against the door. “Fuck no.”

He laughs breathlessly, then continues to switch your position, now you against the door. “Thank god. Now, jump.”

You do, and you almost moan at how easily he grabs you in his arms, your legs straddling him. It’s like you weigh nothing to him as he carries you over to your bed and manhandles you into it, following not long after.

When he gets on top of you, he maintains eye contact as he pulls your shirt over your head, trailing kisses down to your neck, the valley of your breasts (but not before giving each of the girls their own tender kiss), and your stomach. With his eyes boring into you, he slowly, teasingly drags the pants you were wearing down your legs until you’re just in your panties.

You let out a noise, and he coos. “I know, I know, baby.” He gives you a gentle kiss on the top of your mound, and you clench, squirming from the contact. “Let me take my time, though.”

He gently, but firmly, lays a hand on your hip as he starts licking the crotch of your panties. It’s truly maddening—the sensation is there, but you oh so wish his skilled tongue was meeting your skin, bare and electric.

He’s taking his time laving, ravishing your taste, but you’ve had enough. “Gojo, please,” you sob, throwing your head back and grinding further into his tongue, which he welcomes. “Stop teasing.”

“Mmmm,” he pretends to think, all while focused and looking only at your crotch, now rubbing your clit in small, miniscule circles. “I can, but,” and now he’s just mocking you, with the way he adopts a babying tone, “I think you’re going to have to beg for it.”

You groan in frustration as a response, but he only clicks his tongue as his fingers reach and finally rid you of your panties. He spreads your folds with two fingers, his face oh so close to your bare pussy. But instead of finally giving you what you want,  he clicks his tongue, pouting as if you’re the one forcing him to be a bastard. “Yea, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to earn it.”

Before you can respond, he holds out his tongue and inches his face even closer to your bare folds until you can feel his warm breath over it. “You just have to say please.” Then, he ahhh-s, as if holding his tongue out to a doctor and says, “Look I’m so close—ahhh.”

You can only plead with him. “Please, Gojo.”

“No, it’s Satoru to you now, baby.”

“Satoru, please eat me out.”

He smiles. “Yeaa, that’s my girl.” And proceeds to eat you out in a way that has your toes curling.

He acts like a man eating his last meal on death row. It’s the masterful combination of laving over your folds, kissing your clit, and groaning and making noises that has you inching closer and closer to your orgasm. When you tell him, you’re close, he does exactly what he’s supposed to do—keep doing what he’s doing, same spot, same tempo, same pressure.

With a cry of his name, you come quickly, and he takes your writhing hips and their motion like a champ, easing you through it. When you feel the all-too-familiar feel of over sensitivity, you grab his hair and pull him towards your face, kissing him tenderly. 

He maneuvers his huge frame to lay down next to you, and you fall easily into a gentle embrace. It’s a comfortable silence, as he burrows his face into your chest and you stroke his hair gently.

Gentler than how you’ve ever treated him.

It’s this thought exactly that you voice to him. “You know,” you muse softly. “I was such a bitch to you.” This gets his attention, because he moves from where he was comfortable (your boobs) to look at you in alarm. “Like, I was always mean, and like acting all high and mighty—”

“Whatever you think you did, it was hot,” he interrupts you, grinning boyishly. “Like damn when you insult me I get all fired up—”

“Satoru!” You laugh, shocked, looking down at him. “You’re crazy.”

“Yea,” he winks. “Crazy for you.”

You smile softly at that, biting your lip. “I mean, I get that.” You feel his curious gaze rove over you and heat creeps up your neck as you confess, “Like I was stalking you at the gym. I saw you one time, and um. You definitely have a sleeper build.”

He hums. “I get that a lot.”

“Yea,” you blurt. “you’re really hot. Like you have really big arms, which I definitely didn’t notice in all those sweaters you wear. You could definitely throw me around.”

Silence.

When you look down at him, he’s looking at you mischievously. He sits up, takes off his shirt, and says, “Want to test that theory?”

The both of you test the theory, indeed—it’s a nice nod to your guys’ academic, theoretical physics roots. But instead of some theory involving dark matter or quantum physics debated while in class, this theory takes all night to prove.

general masterlist

a/n special thank you to @purplegemadventures ily pookie <3 we were discussing how a lot of fics so far have made seem nerd gojo really cute and shy but we tried to envision a shit eating sassy diva just like hidden inventory arc <3 like what that one anon said i need my gojo to be a little annoying cocky (but cute) bastard (or, i quote, "your gojo makes me want to oil his scalp and give him an aggressive head massage and mess his hair up"). ANYWAYS props to that one anon that dropped the "nerd gojo with sleeper build" and my beloved @tiramisuandlove i love you forever

comment and reblog to let me know ur thots!

[aviceth]

request where viktorxfemale reader and reader is very shy and hides her face/closes her eyes all the time during sex, maybe when she is not having sex she is more braty/confident. like when she is covering her face viktor forces her to look at him.

Hi Anon! Here's your request:

Mind Holds The Key

viktorxfemale!reader explicit! soft dom Viktor, from warnings we could throw in light orgasm denial and many of my recent works have praise kink, it snuck its way to here as well :v

word count: 4K

author’s note: Title from My Body Is A Cage song (like, it perfectly depicts what Reader might be feeling).

artist on X

—

It happens every time.

You release a breath when his head dips into the crook of your neck—what a blessing. A moment of reprieve, in which teeth meet skin, and you can slide your hand from his back to shield your eyes.

Before he knows it, you come undone, and Viktor follows, searching for your gaze that’s nowhere to be found. Instead of the two big eyes he longs to see, all he gets are your knuckles—five little peepers acting as a barrier between you. It makes him feel lonely.

At first, he doesn’t quite catch it. Could be that you’re so overtaken with pleasure that your body acts on instinct, independent of your mind. Could be that you’re shy—though that hardly aligns with the way you carry yourself day to day. Could be that his bedroom face is outright hideous, but he fucks you so well you don’t have the heart to tell him. Could be plenty of things, some of which he doesn’t dare to entertain.

At first, he tries peacefully—gentle handholding, nuzzling, foreheads touching. But as soon as he stops you from covering your face, you simply close your eyes instead. Or, if he noses at you, you nose him back, and though he can’t see, he knows by the tickle of your eyelashes against his cheek that your lids are squeezed shut.

Until today.

The setup is nearly perfect—you straddling him, arms caged in by his, no space left between you to hide. Yet, just as your face starts to wrinkle in that beautiful way he adores, you find a way out. You dip your head into the small gap between you, leaving only the parting of your hair in his view.

So he stops.

Moreover, he untangles his arms from you completely, making you whine at the loss of contact and, worse, the loss of your impending orgasm as his hands still your hips. And maybe it isn’t entirely worth it, but at least now you’re looking at him. Your lips part at the sight.

There’s something vulnerable in the way he stares at you—wounded, raw. A flicker of fear flashes across your chest.

You cup his cheeks, your voice quick and searching. “Are you in pain?”

He exhales sharply, eyes darting down. “Am I so horrendous to look at?” His fingers twitch at your sides, but his grip remains loose, as if he’s suddenly unsure whether to hold you at all.

Your brows pinch together in disbelief. “Viktor… you are gorgeous. What are you talking about?”

Some of the lead in his stomach melts away at that. So, it isn’t his face. “Then why won’t you ever look at me?”

“I…” Shit. That didn’t take long. “I am…” You try to wiggle your way out of it, avoiding the weight of his scrutiny, but ultimately, you give up with a small, quiet, “… shy.”

A breathy chuckle escapes him, his shoulders shaking. “Lásko, you are many things, and shy is not one of them.” His mind flickers back to all the times you’ve been anything but—bratty, teasing, unafraid to push him.

You chew on the inside of your cheek. “I am a shy lover,” you whisper weakly, and at that, Viktor twitches inside you. His fingers flex against your wrists, his gaze heavy with thought.

Then, his eyebrows scrunch in curiosity, and he asks, almost stupidly, “Why?”

You open and close your mouth, unsure of what to say. He watches you, waiting for an answer, and his voice softens when he adds, “What makes you embarrassed?”

You groan in frustration, covering your eyes again as if to hide from him. “I don’t know... It’s like... oh, having an autopsy, for lack of better words. An autopsy of the soul. I can’t stand it.”

Viktor pauses, his expression thoughtful, before he leans in, his voice low and inviting. “Would you be willing to… experiment?” The edge of a smirk plays at his lips.

You narrow your eyes, scepticism rising. “Does your experiment include torture?”

He hums, tilting his head in playful consideration. “Eh… maybe a little.” His hand moves to rest gently on your cheek, a soft brush of his thumb has you blushing. “Hopefully,” he murmurs, his touch tender, “it will get the key from here.” A finger is pressed to your forehead. “To unlock this.” His finger then moves to point directly at your heart.

At the sight of your questioning eyes, excitement surges through him. Another thing to unravel about you—how thrilling. He almost doesn’t want to leave the warmth you’ve enveloped him in, but the urge to explore and understand is stronger. So, with a small nudge of his hips, he says, “Up, up.”

A groan escapes him when you slide off and shimmy up against the headboard. You hug your knees, awaiting instructions, and Viktor—oh, his eyes glint the same way they do when he’s on the brink of something, just this time, love and affection seep through the scientific interest.

He nestles beside you, smiling at the hungry glances you steal toward his thighs. He presses a kiss to your neck, a caress to your calves, before whispering, “Relax. Open your legs for me.”

Like a rusty hinge, you part your thighs—barely enough to accommodate his palm. He nudges your knees further apart until one rests against his leg, the other sinking into the covers. A warm, flat palm runs up the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, and already, you shudder and squeeze your eyes shut.

“No, none of that,” Viktor chides, and the fingers that had caressed you come to wrap around your throat—a gentle touch, guiding. “If you stop looking, I stop touching. Do you understand?”

You nod timidly, and Viktor tsks. “Words?”

“I understand,” you murmur.

“Very well.” One last soft kiss, before his hand slides down your torso, back between your legs.

His touch is gentle at first, fingers teasing along your seam, inquisitive and exact. He finds your clit easily and you gasp at the first press, coaxing a grateful smile to Viktor’s lips. He watches your expressions shifting from the tremble of your lips to your brows pulling together with a serious face, studying and memorizing you. Three thoughtful fingers rub your pussy around, nudging the spot you want him at the most with each movement, and your stomach begins to coil with heat. Your thighs shift from idle rest to being spread apart with intent, and your hand braces against his stomach. His eyes remain on you, darkening with each broken gasp that escapes your lips.

This is truly horrendous. Pleasure knots in your chest, tangled with a fear that comes from an unknown place. There’s no hiding from him like this, and for a moment, you don’t even try. Your body freezes—caught between fight and flight—and you force yourself not to blink. Your eyes glaze over, breaths come in shallow gasps, and you don’t know if it’s the fear of losing his touch or of being seen like this.

“There you are,” he murmurs, and he means your gaze. You realise you’ve been looking at him, truly looking, and the thought makes your stomach twist.

It’s too much.

The closer you get, the heavier the shame coils in your chest. Like a hand gripping your throat, squeezing until every reaction feels unbearably raw, exposed. Your body betrays you—hips rolling into his touch, thighs twitching under his hand, voice catching in soft, needy sounds. And Viktor, he drinks it in with dark, fascinated eyes, his other hand wrapped around the nape of your neck, squeezing affectionately.

“So beautiful,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to your jaw. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

But you do.

Because the heat rising isn’t just pleasure—it’s mortification, vulnerability crackling over your skin. It builds and builds, cresting unbearably high, and just as the wave is about to break, your hand shoots up, shielding your face in a blind, instinctive act of self-preservation.

The loss is instant.

Viktor’s hand retreats from between your legs, leaving you aching and throbbing. Your breath stutters, body jolting at the sudden lack of touch. It takes you a moment to realise why—why the bliss has been so abruptly stolen from you. And when you do, your stomach drops.

You peek through your fingers to find him watching you, expression unreadable but firm. His hand hovers over your lower belly, waiting. Viktor doesn’t speak. He simply watches you, patient and ready.

It’s your choice.

Slowly, hesitantly, your fingers slip from your face, down to your chest, over your ribs, clutching at the sheets instead. You force yourself to look at him.

Viktor smiles, pleased. He brings a hand back to your thigh, thumb stroking the inside in a slow, grounding motion. He leans in, lips ghosting over your cheek.

"Good girl," he whispers before giving back what he took away—and more.

Oh, and his hand comes right where you need it, sliding between your thick lips with ease, gathering your wetness with a slick sound as he pushes a finger inside you. He moves in and out slowly, adds another, and drinks in the sight of your mouth falling open, your eyes locked onto his.

Viktor tells himself this is not about him, that this is about you—about him holding your hand as you battle something unnecessary within yourself. And yet, he cannot help the way his hips rut into your thigh, the heavy press of his cock against your flesh. It is so very hot, this soul-baring unravelling of yours, that he almost allows you to close your eyes for a second too long.

A gentle tsk of his tongue brings you back, and to keep your hands from twitching, you clasp one against his cheek while the other rests at his waist.

You focus on the feeling, on the rhythm. You rock your hips to meet him, the heel of his palm catching your clit with each slide of his fingers, and the familiar pressure returns. Your eyes itch to go shut, the skin of your hand tingles, and you wonder if it’s contagious—if Viktor’s skin will prickle in goosebumps because of you. A strangled sound escapes you, discomfort bleeding into pleasure, and Viktor is there to guide you through it.

"Stay with me, almost there," he coos, brushing his nose against yours.

You press your foreheads together, cross your eyes to keep them fixed on his, and he is so grateful. Pride softens his face as he murmurs lovingly, "You are doing so well."

It’s almost easy like this. Something shifts.

The tension in your chest doesn’t vanish, but  loosens, just enough for you to take a deeper breath. With Viktor’s forehead pressed to yours, his voice low and steady, his touch never faltering, the fear that once curled around being seen begins to unravel.

You blink up at him, chest rising and falling in quick succession, and when your lips part, your voice is barely there. “More.”

The word spills into his mouth, and Viktor drinks it all up. His breath hitches, a tremor runs through him, and for a brief moment, he closes his eyes, overcome by something he cannot name. When he looks at you again, it is with a hunger edged in devotion.

“Oh, lásko,” he breathes, and his fingers move with new purpose. His palm catches your clit just right, his rhythm unfaltering. “You are—ah—so good for me.”

Your body tightens in response. You can hear him now—not just his words, but the small, ruined sounds he makes when you clench around his fingers. He moans when you do, his hips pressing just a little harder into your thigh, like he cannot help himself.

“You feel—” He swallows a groan, his hand flexing at your waist. “So perfect like this. My girl.”

A fresh wave of pleasure crashes over you. You chase it without hesitation, without shame. Viktor sees it—feels it—the way you arch, the way your nails press into his skin. His praise comes unfiltered now, spoken through shaky breaths, his own pleasure evident in the rasp of his voice.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, his fingers curling deep. “You are taking me so well. Stay with me, stay—”

You do. You do, because somehow, with him, it’s easier.

The tension coils tight, unbearably so, and your breath is gone from your lungs. He feels it—sees it—his free hand tightening around your neck, his forehead still pressed to yours. His lips part, his eyes burn into yours, and when you finally break, it is with him watching you, holding you, staring into your soul.

You shudder, a soft cry spilling from your lips, and Viktor groans—low and guttural—as he works you through it, whispering your name, a quiet thank you falling in between.

“And that’s a sight to behold,” he says finally, his voice rough with need. “Thank you, my love.”

You smile faintly, still feeling the aftershocks, but your playful side returns. “Sorry, did you think we are done now?” You curl your legs up, wrapping your arms around him, pressing a kiss just under his ear, feeling the heat of his skin against yours.

“Oh?” Viktor’s breath hitches as he feels the press of your lips on him. It seems that through being lost in your head, you missed all the pretty faces he makes. You run your finger up and down his length, watching how his body reacts to your touch, feeling the contrast between tenderness and the lingering ache of want.

You meet his gaze, your voice meant to be teasing but it’s a plea. “Would you be willing to experiment further?”

Viktor’s pulse quickens at your words, his body taut and ardent when he wraps his arms around you, pulling you closer, and then he rolls over, trapping you beneath him. His lips find yours in a kiss that is deep, desperate, and full of hunger.

“Yes, yes, please,” he breathes against your mouth, his voice longing. He kisses you again and again, his lips trailing across your face, worshipping the skin beneath them as he murmurs praises, each one an attempt to convey what he's feeling, almost successful.

To see and to be seen—what a feeling, you think. What a tremendous thing it is to have your heart unlocked with the key his fingers plucked from your mind. Crushing.

[aviceth]

Resources to ace your GCSEs

Maths

- Gcsemathstutor

- mathsgenie

- Khan academy

- quick maths tips

- Corbett maths

Science

- Freesciencelessons

- Khan academy

- science shorts

- primrose

- cgp workbooks

English

- Mr everything english

- first rate tutors

- Mr salles teaches english

- mr bruff

History

- Mr cloke history

- revision bird

Multiple subjects ✨

- Physics and maths tutor

- cognito

- revision world (past papers)

- gcsepod

- seneca learning

- blooket/kahoot

additional study advice

- Do exam questions as revision

- do methods that use active recall

- Blurting and mindmaps to figure out where there’s gaps in your knowledge

- try to go to school everyday before exams and give it your all in lessons

- Don’t spend hours studying on end because it won’t help you remember anything

- pomodoro technique

- Use the three minute rule when you’re procrastinating

[aviceth]

Resources For People Studying 'Macbeth'

Videos

Mr Bruff's Analysis Videos

Shakespeare In Seven Minutes: Macbeth Summary

Last Minute Macbeth Revision

Macbeth Contextual Analysis

Top 12 Most Important Macbeth Quotes

Articles

Plot Summary

Characters

Themes

Form, Structure and Language

Dramatisation

Sample Exam Question

Podcast Episodes

Act 1: Scenes 1 and 2

Act 1: Scene 3

Act 1: Scenes 4 and 5

Act 1: Scenes 6 and 7

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5: Scenes 1-3

Act 5: Scenes 4-9

Character Analysis: Lady Macbeth

Character Analysis: Macduff

Character Analysis: King Duncan

Character Analysis: The Witches

Character Analysis: Banquo

Pathetic Fallacy and Symbolism

Structure, Meter and Dramatic Irony

Themes: Bravery

Themes: Power and Ambition

Themes: Violence

Themes: Choice (Fate vs Free Will)

Themes: Supernatural

Themes: Masculinity

Themes: Armour, Kingship and Natural Order

Themes: Appearances and Deception

Themes: Morality

Themes/Motifs: Women, Children and Sleep

Themes/Motifs: Madness and Blood

[aviceth]

wanna be faced fucked by literally anyone at this point 😭

[aviceth]

I’ll have no self respect if i said what i want to say about these pictures

[aviceth]

𝐏𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄

toxic!ellie x reader, abby x reader summary: it’s been months since ellie admitted her love for you. although she promised she’d change, she’s stuck in her old ways. you decide to get back at her by seeking comfort elsewhere. warnings: cheater!ellie, cheater!reader, fingering, choking, tiny mention of edging and overstim, brief mention of squirting, ANGST. a continuation of unpunishable. wc: 6.5k<3

Things were great with Ellie when you first got back with her. It almost felt like a brand new relationship. She was slowly opening herself up to you; there were nights when the two of you would stay up til dawn discussing her past. You would console her after, even though she never shed a tear, what you heard was enough for you to cry. You were so happy at first. You were finally getting what you wanted. But everyday, you felt a sense of impending doom as if it could all be taken away with a snap of a finger. 

You looked up at Ellie, your eyes squinted as you fought to keep them open. Her fingers were pounding into you with so much force that it shook the bed. Her free hand rested on your cheek with her thumb in your mouth. You let out muffled whines, feeling dizzy as you were getting close to cumming again. 

“Shh, baby,” said Ellie. “You gotta stay quiet.”

You tried to speak but couldn't, Ellie’s thumb in the way. She sent you a devilish smirk. “What was that? Hm? I couldn't hear you,” she taunted. She slipped a third finger in, your eyes widening and a loud groan escaping your throat. 

“You like it when I stretch you out with my fingers?” You nodded profusely, sucking and biting her thumb harshly as you felt pressure in your lower abdomen. 

“You’re gonna cum? Yeah? You wanna cum for me baby?” 

You whined, practically begging without verbalizing that you wanted—no, needed—to cum again. It was becoming too much. This was the fifth time in a row and you could feel how wet the sheets were underneath you. It almost made you feel overwhelmed. Ellie had made you squirt twice. You didn't even know you could do that until tonight and she has overstimulated you many times before. You knew you would be dehydrated after this and you silently prayed that Ellie’s stamina was finally running low. Lord knows she could go on for hours and hours. The pressure was building up more. You were coated with sweat, shaking profusely as Ellie fingered your sensitive hole. Your moans grew louder, still muffled with Ellie’s thumb, as you felt yourself reach your peak. Once you knew it was finally coming, Ellie just stopped.

She pulled her fingers out of you and sucked on them, chuckling at your expression. “N-No, no,” you whined, bucking your hips up. “Fuck, Ellie! Why would you… why would you do that? I was right there.”

“I just like torturing you.”

You could've cried. You were so desperate for release and now it was slowly fading away. You could feel your cunt throbbing. You reached down, your fingers barely brushing your swollen clit before Ellie grabbed your wrist and pinned it aside your head.

“What was that?” Ellie questioned. “You don't get to finish. I don't want you to. You've had enough, don't you think?”

“But… but Ellie!”

“You'll live,” Ellie said harshly, a grin growing on her face. You shut your eyes to avoid eye contact with her. She placed a kiss on your pouty lips and stood up.  She disappeared into the bathroom that was connected to the bedroom, coming back with a towel. She placed it on the bed trying to soak up as much as she could. “It probably went through the sheets,” she mumbled to herself. You heard her phone vibrating on the bedside table. She picked it up and set it back down, rolling her eyes. “Call you back later, Dina.”

Your eyes shot open at the mention of Dina, Ellie’s ex girlfriend before you. From your knowledge, Dina was the reason Ellie decided to sleep around with women instead of dating them. She left Ellie for Jesse, their mutual friend, which broke her heart and made her close herself up.

“Ellie,” you whispered. “You’re talking to Dina?”

Ellie cocked an eyebrow. “What?”

“Why is Dina calling you? You’re speaking with her again?”

“Oh my god,” Ellie groaned.

“What?”

“I didn't even know you could hear me. Stop making a big deal out of it. I wasn't even talking to you.”

You tried raising up, your body weak and trembling from dehydration. You gave Ellie a nasty look, nasty enough to piss her off.

“Don't fucking look at me like that,” she snapped. “I hate when you do that.”

“Don't fucking speak to me like that. I was just saying, Ellie! Fuck. Way to ruin a good night.”

“Yeah, it’s my fault. Sure,” Ellie said sarcastically.

“Fucking Christ, Ellie! I was just asking! I don't want you talking to your ex girlfriend, it bothers me!”

“Why, does it hurt your feelings?” Ellie asked in a mocking tone. She pouted her lips a bit which made you furious.

“Yes, Ellie, it does. And it hurts that you're immediately overreacting and going off on me for saying something!”

“Oh, I’m overreacting?”

“Yes!”

“Well, you know what? I'm tired of you always getting insecure about dumb shit. I'm tired of you bringing it to my attention too. You know I wouldn't do anything with her and that's what pisses me off. We’re just friends. You’re accusing me of  bullshit when you know better than that. Knowing I’ll get pissed off,” Ellie suddenly squatted down by the side of the bed, looking up at you with a glare. “You know what, do us both a favor. Get a fucking diary and put your thoughts there. I don't care to hear them.”

She stood up straight, throwing the towel down on the ground and kicking it away from her feet. “You can be such a fucking bitch sometimes,” Ellie muttered under her breath. But to her surprise, you heard loud and clear what she said. You scrunched your face up, anger and hurt rushing through your veins. Your chest rose up and down with every breath, quickening as you felt yourself grow even more pissed off. You couldn't let it slide. You stood up, stumbling towards the dresser to yank it open. You grabbed a pair of clean clothes and shoved them on. Once you were dressed, you stormed out of the bedroom and into the living room where Ellie sat on the couch.

“Call me a bitch again, Williams. This time to my fucking face,” you spat out.

“You know what… I think I liked you better when you took shit from me.”

You chuckled dryly, resting your hand on your forehead in disbelief.

“Get out, I wanna be alone,” Ellie hissed.

“C’mon, Ellie. Go ahead. Just say it to my face and I'll leave you alone. I’ll stop accusing you of shit even though I never did. Say it, Ellie. Go ahead!”

“Get out!”

“Oh, you can't call me a bitch to my face? You have to be a fucking… a fucking pussy who talks shit under her breath?”

“No, I'm not afraid to call you a bitch. Because you can be a bitch sometimes and you're being one right now.”

“You know what? Since I'm such a fucking bitch, how about you text your other bitch Dina. Get a break from this one.”

Suddenly, Ellie held her phone out to you. “I already have,” she said.

You rushed over to the couch, bending over a bit to read the screen. Your eyes widened. You went to grab her phone but Ellie was quick to lock it and throw it next to her.

“Are you fucking serious, Ellie?”

You stood up straight and turned away from her, not letting her see the tears rolling down your face.

“You’re not tough shit anymore, huh? This is what you wanted, right?”

“You texted her before I even said anything!” you yelled, spinning back around to see her giving you that sly smile she used to when she'd break up with you. “And I’m being a fucking cunt! You know I wouldn't want you to fucking text her.”

“We’re not even doing anything.”

“My girlfriend is being such a bitch lol,” you said, using your fingers as quotation marks. “What idea is that supposed to give Dina?”

“I don't care. You know if I wanted to fuck her, I would've already done that.”

“Let me see your phone,” you demanded, holding your hand out. Ellie rolled her eyes, handing it over to you muttering something about how you wouldn't know the passcode to unlock it. You kept a straight face, snatching it from her hand and disappearing into the bathroom. You locked the door behind you and sat down on the closed toilet seat. With a shaky hand, your fingers tapped in the numbers 147369. It unlocked immediately. Ellie was stupid to think you couldn't guess that, especially when she has unlocked her phone in front of you a million times. It was easy. It was the three numbers on the left and right. A toddler could have guessed that.

You opened up her texts with Dina, ignoring the recent one she just sent. You scrolled up, your eyes scanning the texts for anything out of the ordinary. Ellie asked about JJ a lot. You weren't sure who that was until you stumbled across a picture of a baby. You almost felt bad. It must have hurt Ellie seeing that. But she didn't seem to care. She seemed happy for Dina. All these texts were completely normal it seemed. You sighed, thinking about giving up and just scrolling really high until you saw a bunch of photos being sent between them. You immediately scrolled back down, catching a glimpse of some of the texts Ellie sent to Dina along with nudes being shared between the two. You swallowed the lump in your throat, locking the phone and standing up.

You brought it out to Ellie, throwing it on the cushion next to her. “Told you you wouldn't figure out my passcode,” Ellie teased.

“She doesn’t feel as good as you,” you said. Ellie’s whole demeanor dropped. “She doesn't feel as—”

“Babe, that wasn't… what it looked like.”

“I don't really care, Ellie,” you sighed. You began to walk away but Ellie was up and pulling you back before you could make it to the door. You tried shoving her hands off but Ellie kept a firm grip on you.

“Look at me, please…” Ellie nearly whined. “We were broken up. I was lonely, I-I was just saying things.”

You stared down at her with a blank expression. You didn't even care anymore. Your relationship with Ellie had gone too far. You were weak; always coming back to her when she'd break up with you. You took her back after you caught her talking up some girl. Now you find out she's been texting Dina for awhile and even sent nudes once. You didn't check the date of the messages, Ellie knew you would be too focused on the photos so it was easy to lie to you. But you didn't care. Together or not, Ellie still did it.

“Say something please?”

“Go fuck yourself,” you ripped yourself out of her grip and stomped into the bedroom, slamming and locking the door behind you. All you wanted to do was cry. But your tears had dried up and all that was left was the urge to get even with her. There was no telling if it was just nudes or if Ellie met up with Dina to fuck her. So, maybe you’d send nudes to someone else. And you knew exactly who to look for. You got on Ellie’s side of the bed, grabbing your phone from under your pillow and opening up instagram. You typed in the username of the girl you knew had a crush on you in high school. Abby Anderson.

Abby was beautiful. But you were too damn focused on your little crush on Ellie back then to give her any attention. You stopped hanging around her once you got with Ellie which made you feel awful. You wouldn't be surprised if she ignored you or blocked you. But it didn't hurt to try.

you: hey! long time no see:)

abby: oh wow hey

abby: haven't seen you since high school. you look good

you: thanks abby, you look rlly good too. you buffed up

abby: thanks:)

you: sorry for messaging you so late. saw you were back in town on your story and you've been on my mind since. just wanted to see how you were doing

abby: yeah, im in town for a few days. i’m here a few days out of every month lol. but im great, how are you?

you: hmmm could be better

you: why do u come back every month?

abby: mainly to catch up with friends but also i just like seeing my dad as cringe as that is

you: that's sweet

you: maybe we could catch up with each other?:)

abby: i didn't think you'd wanna see me. we weren't rlly close near the end of school.

you: yeah i know:\ that's my fault. i knew you had a crush on me and i didn't reciprocate it at the time. i was focused on someone else and started dating her and i felt like i was hurting u somehow by being so close to u so i distanced myself

you: i regret that, im sorry

abby: wtf you knew i liked you??

abby: and it's okay. i understand

you: abby you would blush every time i spoke to u

abby: fuck that's embarrassing

abby: wait

abby: “at the time” ??

you: hm… youve been on my mind.

abby: how so?

You contemplated your next move. You slowly lifted your shirt up, exposing the bottom half of your breasts but keeping your nipples covered. You took a photo and sent it to her. She immediately opened it up. You felt your heart beating out of your chest, the anticipation of her response eating you up.

abby: oh fuck

abby: i wasn't expecting that

you: too forward?

abby: is it too forward for me to say i wanna see more?

you: i’ll show you whatever you wanna see abby:)

abby: fuck me

You and Abby began sending nudes back and forth, saying dirty things in between them and complimenting each other. Abby sent one that nearly made you whine. Her toned arms were in the photo, making you squirm in the bed and squeeze your thighs together. She looked so delicious. You took more photos to send to her, ignoring the thought of Ellie all alone in the living room.

Ellie’s eyes never left the bottom crack of the door, watching for movement to figure out what you were doing in there. She heard the occasional shuffling of the sheets but no shadows crept through the door. She had her phone against her ear, whispering to Dina through the receiver.

“I fucked up,” she said. “I don't know if she’ll ever forgive me for it.”

“I agree that it was wrong of you to keep my nudes for so long but you have to try and explain to her that we slept together when the two of you were broken up. I don't want her to think I tried taking you away from her.”

Ellie was silent. She had no idea how to break the news to Dina.

“Ellie? You were broken up with her, right?”

“I mean… we were the next day.”

“Ellie!”

“I know…”

“Oh my God, Ellie! I feel so sick. I never would've done that had I known,” Dina stated, aggravation and disgust in her tone.

“That’s why I didn't say anything.”

“God, you're so messed up Ellie. Maybe we shouldn't be friends anymore. I worry you focus too much on my life and I definitely don't want to interfere with your relationship. She seems like a sweet girl. Go and apologize to her, fix your relationship and let me go.”

“Dina, you know I don't love you. I see you as my friend but it doesn't hurt me to not speak with you. That night I was saying fucked up things that I didn't mean. I wasn't fair to you and I’m sorry for lying to you.”

“I say you're focused on my life because you always ask about JJ. I think you’re still attached to me,” said Dina.

“No… I like seeing JJ because… pft, I don't know. Maybe I've been thinking about asking her if she wants kids with me. And seeing JJ makes me feel… I don’t know. Seeing him makes me think I need to grow up and be a mother. I want to be a mother.”

Dina was silent after Ellie’s admission.

“I won't talk to you again. You're right. I need to fix this with her. I can't lose her again. Bye.”

Ellie hung up and set her phone down on the table. She rested her chin on the back of her hand, contemplating on what to say to you and how to apologize. She felt so sick to her stomach.

You got up from the bed after you were done sending pics to Abby, shutting the light off and getting back under the covers. Your heart was pounding while you were thinking of what to say next.

you: maybe we could meet up when u have the chance. i wanna see if you’re all bark no bite

abby: oh i bite

you: yeah?

abby: tomorrow night?

you: just tell me where and i’ll be there

Abby sent you the address to a club right outside of town. It was by the highway and it was a place you've never been to but heard so much about. Abby said her friends, Nora and Manny, were taking her there. But they wouldn't notice nor mind if she disappeared for awhile. You confirmed a time to meet up with her and set your phone down on the bed next to you. Your stomach was twisting and turning; you were full of shame and guilt. A tear slipped down your cheek. It hurt you to do this to Ellie. You wondered if you'd even be able to go through with it. How did Ellie ever do it, you thought. It was so difficult. How could she not struggle? Did she think of you when she did it? You thought of her the whole time.

Ellie was lying down on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. You had turned the light off in the bedroom right when she was about to knock on the door. She didn't want to bother you after that. She felt like crying but she never cries. She had no clue how to let out all the emotions she was feeling. She was so used to keeping it hidden inside. And the only person she was able to open up to a bit was angry with her. Hopefully tomorrow, she'd be able to explain herself. She prayed you would give her another chance.

-

You stared at yourself in the mirror after you finished putting on your makeup. You were feeling nauseated knowing you were leaving you and Ellie's home to fuck another girl. You tried to excuse it in your head. Ellie has done this to you and she never cared. What's the problem with having your own fun with other women? How is it fair she can and you can’t?

You stood up, going to the full body mirror to study your outfit. You wore a short, white silk dress with fishnets and combat boots. You let out a shaky breath, trying to calm your nerves. You were starting to feel really bad but deep down, you wanted this. It wasn't just about getting even with Ellie anymore.

Ellie had been home from work for hours, just waiting for you to finally leave the bedroom so she could talk to you. But you never did. Ellie would hear shuffling every now and then on the other side of the door but you never came. She sighed, deciding finally that she needed to take a shower. She wished you'd at least let her in for that but went to the guest bathroom. Hopefully you'd be out of the bedroom by the time she was done.

You could hear Ellie walking down the hallway followed by the sound of a door opening and shutting. You took this as the perfect opportunity to sneak out. You grabbed your purse and phone, sending Abby a quick message.

you: see you soon;)

-

You were already pulling up to the club by the time Ellie got out of the shower. When she saw light coming into the living room from the open door, she started rushing towards it. “Babe?” she called out, peeking her head into the entrance of the room. When she saw you weren't there, she made her way to the kitchen. But there were no signs of you. She walked towards the front door to where her keys were and noticed yours was gone. Her heart ached at the sight. Ellie plopped down onto the couch, phone in hand already dialing your number.

Hey, it's— 

Ellie hung up and dialed again.

Hey, it’s—

“Fuck!” Ellie groaned out in frustration, slamming her phone down on the ground. Her hands found itself into her hair, tugging at the strands. Where were you? Ellie couldn't stop thinking about how once again for the millionth time, she fucked up. How could she be so stupid to risk losing you over women who don't mean shit to her?

You walked inside the club, the loud music making your insides vibrate. It didn't help at all with the nerves and excitement you were feeling. You wandered through the crowd, looking all around for Abby when suddenly a tall blonde was in your view. You couldn't believe this was happening. You pushed your way through the people until you made it to a clearing. The space led you straight to her. You walked slowly but confidently, a smile on your face once you finally made it behind her. You reached up and tapped her muscular shoulder.

Abby turned around quickly, looking down at you with a confused look until it registered that it was you. Her eyes softened, a smile playing on her lips as she held her arms out to hug you. You leaned against her side awkwardly, inhaling the scent of pine. Abby pulled you away and leaned forward, her lips barely grazing against your ear. “I didn't think you’d show up,” she yelled over the music.

“Why would you say that?” you questioned in her ear.

“I thought I was dreaming!”

You felt a blush form on your cheeks. You reached your hand up and gently placed it on the side of her neck.

“Still think you’re dreaming?”

Abby stood up straight, her eyes trailing down your body with a smirk. She held her hand out to you. You took it, allowing her to guide you through the crowd of bodies. You glanced backwards at her friends sitting at the bar, who were too lost in conversation to notice that Abby left. Hopefully they won't come looking for her. Abby opened the door and led you into a tiny, dingy restroom with a flickering light. She locked the door behind her and turned towards you, getting closer and closer until your back was against the wall.

“I know this is disgusting,” she apologized, referring to the restroom.

“I like disgusting.”

Abby inhaled deeply, reaching out and placing her hands on your hips. “Fuck,” she whispered. “I want to take my time with you.”

She pressed her lips firmly against yours, moaning at the contact. You wrapped your arms around her neck and pulled yourself up on your tippy toes, deepening the passionate kiss. Her hands left your hips and cupped your face. She slid her tongue across your upper lip, begging for an entrance. You parted your lips and darted your tongue out against hers, the kiss growing sloppier by the second as you clawed at her shirt. She picked you up and balanced you against the wall. Your legs wrapped around her waist instinctively. You pulled away to take a deep breath, batting your eyelashes up at her.

“Abby?” you breathed out.

“Yeah?”

“Did you ever fantasize about me?”

Abby’s brows turned upwards, her lips parted in a slight pout as every thought she ever had about you entered her mind. “I did,” she admitted.

“Tell me.”

“Why tell when I can show?” Abby teased, her fingers tracing over your clothed breast. You shuddered at the contact, arching your back slightly off the wall, desperate to feel more.

“I-I want you to tell me with your fingers inside me.”

Your words excited Abby. She wasted no time lifting up your dress to see you had no panties on with the fishnets. Her skilled fingers ripped an opening, exposing your wet pussy to the cool air.

“I always wondered what your pussy looked like,” said Abby, her thumb rubbing circles in your inner thigh. “It's prettier than I imagined. Fuck, you’re so wet.”

Abby looked up at your shoulders, reaching up to drag the spaghetti straps down your arms. You lifted them up and out, letting the torso of the dress slip down to reveal your chest. Abby leaned down and wrapped a mouth around your nipple, her tongue circling and flicking it. Your soft moans echoed around you. Your hands gripped the back of her head tightly. Finally, your thoughts of Ellie were subsiding. The only thing on your mind was Abby. Abby, Abby, Abby. 

She pulled away, a soft pop sound escaping her lips as she broke the contact. She glanced down at your dripping cunt, desperate to touch it. To taste it. She set you down onto your feet so she could get on her knees. She grabbed your right leg and brought it over her shoulder, her hand wrapped around your thigh. She raised her free hand up to your pussy, her fingers sliding up your folds gathering your slick. You let out a shaky breath. She smiled, placing the pads of her fingers in her mouth and sucking them.

“You taste so good,” she complimented. Before you could thank her, her middle and third finger slid inside of you. You gasped at the feeling, your nails digging into her exposed shoulders. Abby watched your face carefully, her fingers going in and out at a steady pace. She shut her eyes for a split second to  focus on the sounds of pleasure that spilled from your lips.

“You have no idea just how much I thought about doing this to you,” she whispered against your thigh. “How badly I wanted to hear you moan my name.”

“Abby,” you whined.

“Say it again.”

You called out her name again, resting your head back against the wall with your eyes squeezed shut. It felt so good, her fingers were long and reached parts of you that you never could reach. Parts Ellie couldn't reach. Your eyes shot back open at the thought of Ellie. How is it that she’s still plaguing your mind when you have a hot, buff woman on her knees for you, wanting nothing more than to get you off? You push her away once again, glancing down at Abby with heavy eyes. “You feel so good,” you purred.

Abby brought her face closer and closer to your heat, her mouth slightly watering as her stomach did flips. She couldn't believe this was actually happening. She had an angel above her, moaning out her name and gripping onto her shoulders. You looked so beautiful. Abby felt as if you didn't deserve this. Getting fingered in a trashy club bathroom? She wished she could have taken you to the comfort of her bed.

Her lips wrapped around your clit and sucked harshly, eliciting a groan from you. You let out a string of cuss words as she drew circles with her tongue. Your legs trembled, making Abby grip your thigh harder to try and keep you held up as she ate you out and fingered you simultaneously.

“Fuck, Abby!” you hissed. “I-I… fuck.”

“Is this too much?” Abby questioned, taking her fingers out of you.

“God no, please don't stop. I… I just don't wanna fall.”

Abby gently pushed your thigh off her shoulder and stood up. She reached down to pick it up again, holding it against her hip while her fingers went back to work on your clit. You placed your hands on Abby’s chest, resting your forehead against it.

“Is that better?”

You hummed out an agreement. You gripped onto her shirt tightly and threw your head back so you could look up at her. “T-Tell me what you fantasized about,” you rushed out between breaths.

“It’s filthy. You’re too sweet. I don’t wanna weird you out.”

“Y-You don't know just how filthy I am, Abby.”

Abby’s fingers slid back down to your entrance. She shoved them in roughly, curling her fingers upwards onto your g spot.

“I always wanted to tie you up,” Abby breathed out. “Eat you out, make you cum over and over again. I wouldn't stop until you begged me to.”

Abby bit her lip, waiting for you to protest the idea. But your grip hardened, your nails digging into her flesh through her shirt.

“I’d leave marks all over you. I’d want everyone to know you’re mine.”

Ellie.

You pulled yourself into Abby's chest, burying your face into her neck. Stop thinking about her.

“Are you mine?”

Abby. Abby. Abby.

You could feel yourself growing closer. Your knees wobbled, causing Abby to hold you against her tighter. Your whines got louder and louder while your hips bucked. You were almost there. The pit in your stomach felt more intense than ever. You were desperate for release. Her fingers were drilling into you, speeding up when she felt you tighten around her.

“Are you, baby?”

Your orgasm came over you quick. You cried out in pleasure, dropping your foot back onto the ground and pushing Abby’s hand out of you. She held your trembling body in her strong arms, mumbling praises softly against the top of your head. Your heart was pounding out of your chest. Abby kept holding you while you tried catching your breath, your legs weak and close to giving out. The impact of your climax was overpowering emotionally and physically. You didn't know what to do now. You didn't think this far ahead. You just stayed in Abby's arms and she let you.

“Are you okay?” inquired Abby, running her fingers gently through your hair.

“Y-Yeah,” you stuttered out.

“Do you want me to let go?”

“Please don’t.”

You stuffed your face into her chest, taking in her scent. It was so different from Ellie. God, she’s home all alone. Is she wondering where you went? Is there another fight waiting for you back home? Fuck, Abby doesn't know about Ellie. God, you were a horrible person. You felt so close to Abby at this moment. You didn't know if you should even say anything to ruin the moment. But it was so fucked up of you. She’s a good person. You were just as bad as Ellie.

You finally pulled away from Abby, pulling up the straps of your dress and pushing down the end of it so it fell above your knees. It didn't cover up the ripped fishnets, though. You didn't realize just how big of a hole Abby had made.

“Thank you, Abby. I had a great time with you,” you said.

Abby cocked an eyebrow. “You're leaving already?”

“Um, y-yeah… I’m sorry, I'm just exhausted.”

Abby chuckled. “Yeah, I did a number on you huh?”

“You most definitely did.”

You smiled up at her, getting lost in her sultry gaze. The two of you stood there just staring at each other for a few minutes, unsure of what to say next. Abby placed her hand on your cheek, caressing it softly. She pressed her lips on your forehead and let it linger there for a few beats before pulling back. “It’s a shame I go home tomorrow,” she mumbled. “I wouldn't mind seeing you again before I leave.”

“I wouldn't mind it, either.”

Your own confession shocked you.

“Listen, not to make this awkward…” Abby began. You tilted your head slightly in confusion. “But after you went to bed last night, I… found you on Facebook.”

She knows.

“If this was a one time thing, I understand. Maybe you're in a rough patch with your girlfriend but… just let me know, okay?”

You felt your chin wobble as tears threatened to spill down your cheeks. “I-I’m sorry, I’m not mad,” she attested. “Please don't think I'm mad. I wanted this and I knew what I was going into. But I will say I would've preferred it if you were straight up.”

“I’m sorry, Abby,” you choked. “I… I know it was wrong of me, I was… I was getting back at my girlfriend for cheating on me countless times and I feel so guilty because I—” you suddenly stopped, taking a deep breath to calm yourself down before talking again. “I don't want to go. I-I mean, I don't… want this to be a one and done thing but I don't know if I can leave her either. I'm so conflicted. But there's only so much I can take and you’re so different from her and genuine.”

You couldn't stop rambling on and on. You were worried Abby would get angry and either tell you to shut up or just walk away like Ellie does. But she listened to every word that came out of your mouth, her brows furrowed in sorrow as if she felt what you were saying.

“I-I love her, you know? But she promised she’d change and she won't. I know she won't. I'm the fool who keeps going back. I deserve better, I know. But I'm so used to her. She was my first everything. She changed me.”

“I understand,” said Abby.

“I'm really sorry for putting you in this position.”

“Don't be,” she reassured. “Listen, I need you to know that you can get out of your situation. It's tough but you can and you will. If you want to come by my place tomorrow, you can. Even if it isn't for sex. We can talk more, get to know each other.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But after tomorrow, if it’s still her… then we can't. Not again.”

“I know,” you whispered softly.

Fuck. You didn't know what to do. All you could think about was going home and telling Ellie what happened. You knew she would be angry but would she be hurt?

“I gotta go,” you said. “But I might take up your offer. I had a great time tonight.”

“I did too,” Abby admitted with a sad smile. “Well, just let me know, okay? Do you want me to walk you to your car?”

“Sure, I'd like that.”

You walked side by side with Abby, your arm wrapped around hers so the two of you wouldn't get separated in the crowd. But even when the both of you were finally outside, you didn't let go. You stayed intertwined with her.

-

You stood at your front door for a few minutes. You were too scared of what you were walking into. You were unsure of what you’d say, how you'd react, nothing. All you knew was you were on the brink of breaking down.

You turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. The full moon cast a light into the dark room and you caught a glimpse of Ellie on the couch, facing your direction. You felt your heart sting at the sight. Fuck. Fuck. You shut the door behind you and leaned against it. Ellie flicked on the lamp next to her so she could get a better look at you. She said nothing as she studied your outfit. Her eyes trailed further down to your ripped tights, exposing a few bruises you had no idea you got from Abby digging her fingers into your skin. Ellie was stuck on it, so much going through her head. She envisioned a faceless woman touching you, fucking you, making love to you… and she lost it.

Ellie choked on a sob, doubling down into her lap and covering her face. You watched in silence, too scared to move. You knew if you did you would just break down with her.

“I did this,” Ellie wailed.

You couldn't hold back anymore. Tears were flowing down your cheeks and you were suddenly on your knees in front of her, a death grip on her arms begging her to look at you.

“It’s over, right? It's over?”

“I don't know,” you bawled. “E-Ellie, I felt so sick. I feel so sick. I couldn't stop… th-thinking about you and I feel so guilty. I liked it. I just wanted to get back at you, Ellie! And I-I’m so stupid. You said you were only texting her but it was the final straw for me! Because this isn't the first time.”

“I lied,” Ellie admitted, her voice cracking. “I slept with her, I slept with other women, I did. I did.”

“O-Other women?”

“You didn't see?”

Oh my God. You were so focused on Dina that you didn't even think to look at her other texts or any dms on social media. It was worse than you thought.

“When was the last time?” you asked.

“A w-week ago.”

You fell back onto your behind, scooting away from Ellie as far as you could get until your back was up against the table.

“I'm fucked up and I’m sorry.”

You had nothing else to say. You just stayed on the floor crying with her, knowing that yes, it was over. Of course it was over. You got back on your knees, crawling slowly towards her and resting your head on her lap. You had no idea what you were doing. You were so fucking angry and hurt, yet you felt the need to be close to her. The two of you stayed like that for hours, just crying and attempting to comfort each other at the same time.

-

You were heartbroken. But even in your heartbreak, Abby was on your mind. The two of you had quickly become great friends. You never had sex with her again. After your breakup with Ellie, you moved back in with your mom. When Abby was back in town, either she would come over or you’d go to hers. You would play games with her or go have lunch with her. Most of her time back in town revolved around you. When she was gone, she was calling and FaceTiming you during her free time. Sometimes you'd fall asleep on the phone with her and she wouldn't hang up. She would stay up as late as possible to listen to your soft snores.  You knew that you were healing and that you needed the time to heal. Abby was a huge help in your healing process; you wouldn't have made it without her. You knew that when you were ready, you wouldn't mind going out with her again… on a real date. But for now, you were comfortable where you were. You loved Abby. You really did. You knew you would be fine no matter where the road took you.

[aviceth]

becoming ellie williams' personal nurse was absolutely not part of your grand plan. in fact, being ellie williams’ anything hadn’t crossed your mind until an unexpected run-in left you the only one available to patch her up after a rough patrol. you’d spoken fewer than ten times before that, but after that night, ellie unilaterally decided you were the only person allowed to help her when she got injured. you didn’t fuss as much as maria, or dina, or anyone else—and that was enough for her. or at least, that’s what she claimed. it certainly didn’t hurt that you were cute.

that's how you found yourself falling into a routine—ellie 'just happening' to show up at your door, flashing those worn green eyes and grumbling about how "it's not that bad" to garner enough pity until you inevitably caved and fixed her up, sparing her yet another lecture from maria.

tonight was no different. she lingered outside, shifting her weight like she was debating whether to knock. but since this had become clockwork, you were already pulling the door open, and she shuffled inside uttering a, “don’t make a big deal out of it.”

you sighed, already moving to nab your ever-growing stash of first-aid supplies as she dropped into your desk chair. ellie had tried to clean herself up beforehand, but it was fruitless—her green jacket, the one now being hastily shrugged off, had been covering the worst of it. a deep gash on her arm, the lingering traces of a nosebleed, fresh cuts along her cheek. she’d been through hell and back.

"ellie," your voice carried a warning as you approached, reaching out to cautiously inspect her wounded arm. "this isn't just some scrape." ellie exhaled sharply through her nose, taking the accosting while settling in the chair she'd visited many times already. "it's nothing. i don't want maria finding out and pulling me off patrols."

your lips pressed into a thin line, but you didn't protest further. you knew how much patrol meant to her—how she needed it. how ellie seemed to rely on it to feel like she provided something useful to jackson. so instead, you got to work, gently cleaning the cuts along her forearm. ellie winced as the antiseptic hit raw skin, her fingers twitching against her thigh. unfortunately, the cut had grazed her tatted arm. you made a valiant effort to be delicate enough to mend the cut without disturbing the tattoo—luckily, it had missed the chemical burn ellie said she'd gotten on that arm years ago.

"oh, stop whining," you chided over her complaints. "shouldn't you be used to the pain by now? little masochist. and what's with you aiming for this poor arm so much? you've got two to work with, you know.” ellie scoffed at your chastizing, biting the inside of her cheek as her expression shifted to annoyance but not full offense. "right, lemme plan my injuries better next time."

you dabbed at a shallow abrasion beneath her cheekbone. ellie's eyes flickered up, trying to capture yours, but you wouldn't budge from the injury. she bit her crimson-stained lip, like she was weighing her next words wisely. "you keep patching me up, though. makes me wonder... i mean, i dunno..." ellie stilted her delivery, partly out of nerves, partly to grab your attention. "maybe you like seein' me all banged up," her tone took on a pitchy lilt as she kept peeking up at you.

the way she said it—less of a tease, a tad second-guessing, trying to dare a reaction out of you—made your stomach do something stupid.

"a better patient would stop causing such a distraction," you shot back, deliberately avoiding her gaze while keeping with the 'strict nurse' facade. you couldn't suppress a hint of a smirk though, briefly wiping your mouth to try and shield the small break over her nervous attempt at flirting. you just hated how right she was—no one was forcing you to do this, to put up with her maddening stubbornness and save her hide time and time again. all ellie had to do was bat those ridiculously pretty greens, and your defenses crumbled.

ellie huffed, pleased with your accidental admission but now more determined to coax more from you. she shifted slightly—and that's when you felt it. the light press of her fingers against the dip of your waist, like she had just meant to steady herself but forgot to pull away. her fingers curled slightly into the fabric of your shirt, sending a shiver up your spine. you said nothing, pretending not to notice. maybe she hadn't even meant to. you'd both insist, later, it was simply the sting of the antiseptic anyway, as if she hadn't weathered worse injuries before. neither of you moved.

ellie couldn't disguise her beaming when your strict charade allowed the gesture. she swallowed, like she was trying to decide whether to try her luck. her fingers tapped your side, hesitant.

“i think you're helping me all the time 'cause you've got a soft spot for me."

your breath hitched, warmth creeping up your neck, but you weren't about to let her win that easily. with a little head shake, you willfully regained your composure and lightly patted ellie's uninjured cheek before schooling your expression. "hush. you're being disorderly. i can't fix you up with all this blabbering."

ellie let out an exaggerated hiss, scrunching her eyes shut dramatically. your stomach clenched in brief panic, helper mode reigniting—until you realized she was full of shit, twisting her head like she'd been mortally wounded when, in reality, you had barely touched her.

"you're impossible," you muttered, smacking her good arm lightly in playful retaliation. "your life is in my hands. don't forget that." ellie leaned forward just enough to close the space between you, her voice dropping. "yeah, yeah, and every time i show up like this, i'm choosing to put my trust in you."

she wavered briefly, then added, softer still—only brave enough to say it now because she was already committed to the bit—"and that’s also why you won’t look at me."

you froze, and the second you met her gaze, it was over—long lashes framing those round green eyes, a smattering of freckles, some loose auburn strands that had escaped her barely-held-together bun sticking to her skin from the leftover sweat of patrol. with scraped skin and blood-streaked face, ellie was a proper mess—and yet, here you were, fighting every aching urge screaming at you to throw yourself on top of her.

you swallowed hard. the unassuming, bashful, loserish ellie was nowhere to be found. replaced by an ellie probably still riding the adrenaline of her close call with a horde of infected earlier, caring a little less about the consequences of her words and even further fueled by your easily cracked stoicism.

ellie seized your defeated, flustered silence to keep going. "also, as my nurse, i'm surprised you don't know the best cure for any injury."

you inhaled to brace for whatever nonsense was about to come out of her mouth. "oh, yeah? what's that?"

".....a kiss."

a drawn-out groan escaped you. "jesus," you muttered, cheeks burning. but fine—just this once. you weren't giving in completely, but you leaned in, pressing a fleeting peck to the tip of her nose.

the way ellie's face immediately split into a stupidly giddy grin was almost worth it. almost. her whole expression flushed a rosy pink, too.

"oh, on the nose? that barely counts," ellie teased, her voice dipping into something softer, more expectant. definitely hoping she hadn’t pushed her luck too much.

"deal with it, williams," you murmured, but your mind was already betraying you.

despite your best efforts, you couldn’t stop yourself from wondering what it would be like if you really gave in. if you disregarded all medical safety and climbed into her lap and kissed her senseless, letting your hands explore each other in desperation and recklessly savoring the taste of metallic red left on her soft lips.

snapping yourself from that less-than-holy thought, you deflected under the guise of needing to retrieve more supplies for another small cut you had overlooked.

when you came back, ellie was still watching you, something unreadable in her expression. you hesitated for a moment, then finally gave her a little glimmer of hope to cling to.

"tell you what," you started. "don't be an idiot—which i know is hard for you—and let everything heal," you let the jab sit for a second to build suspense, "and i’ll grant you the other half of that kiss."

ellie's smile widened triumphantly, though her posture was beginning to laze as exhaustion from the day's chaos caught up with her.

"anything for the nurse."

"yeah, yeah. now hold still so i can finish fixing you up."

and, for once, ellie williams actually listened. pic creds @/elliesgalaxy

[aviceth]

Thinking about kissing Satorus face scars after the fight against Sukuna.

You were straddling his lower abs your hands on the nape of his neck, as your soft lips kiss each scar on his face. Satorus eyes were closed his large scarred hands on your waist the only feeling was your lips kissing his face.

You pull away your hand gently pushing back his white locks on his forehead, “you’re so gorgeous ‘toru..” you whisper looking into his ocean blue eyes. His hands gently rubbing up and down your waist with the most lovesick smile on his face.

“thanks baby,” he says back his voice filled with so many different emotions. At first Satoru was a bit insecure by the scars all over his body, since he didn’t know what you would think of them. That little insecurity melt away quickly from the moment you straddled his lap kissing each scar on his face with love and tenderness for the first time.

And now it’s a morning and night time routine to straddle his lower abs, kissing all over his face whispering soft affirmations with each kiss to his pretty face.

*๑♡՞——*๑♡՞——— *๑♡՞—- *๑♡՞

A/N —> quick drabble !! i might do a more detailed version soon !! i just thought of this and needed to share it :3 —

[aviceth]

BAD LIARS —

fake dating hockey! vi x reader | fluff, angst, fake dating trope, romcom-ish, smut (mdni 18+) wc 20.8k

synopsis: following the release of four outdated love letters, vi vanderson is more than willing to start fake dating the girl of her dreams as a way to get rid of your clingy ex (and her ex hookup): caitlyn kiramman. 

content: fake dating trope, some fake insta/snap stories/smau content!, language, betrayal, makeup smut (kissing, fingering, oral, mdni!), clingy ex!caitlyn, college au, lying, miscommunication

soundtrack: if you let me (alina baraz) | lowkey (niki) | lovers (anna of the north) | see through (amelia moore) | fetish (selena gomez) | kill bill (sza) | all of the girls you loved before (taylor swift) | two weeks (fka twigs) | everything happens for a reason (madison beer) | every summertime (niki)

Three-fourths of your favorite cereal is absolutely disgusting. 

The deep blue circles start off sweet, but leave a bitter aftertaste that stains your tongue. The auburn ones aren’t all that bad, but they get too soggy, disintegrating into grains that fade into the now colored milk. The chestnut brown discs are so scarce that their taste is completely forgettable; you swear there’s only three in each batch. 

Had these been the only flavors, you’d chuck the box in the trash and scold your best friend-roommate Mel for even bringing them into your shared apartment. But that one-fourth of strawberry pink circles make it worth it every time. They’re sweet on your tongue, sweet on your heart, swee—

“What’s with the look?” 

Mel’s concern-filled voice brings you back to the present, making you smile sheepishly like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. The girl slides her white puffer jacket on, keys jingling in her hand as she awaits an answer. 

“Nothin’, just ate a blue one.” Your mouth flattens, attempting to squeeze the bitter flavor from your tastebuds. 

The gold-eyed girl hums. She blinks as her arms cross and she takes two, then three cautious steps towards you. Her gaze flickers faster than light, attempting to read every inch of your body language. 

“You know,” she starts, sitting down to place a comforting hand on your shoulder. “If you need to talk about it, I’m here. Don’t feel like you have to suffer in silence.” 

That makes you snort, soft reassuring laughter following as you shake your head with confidence.

“Suffer? Mel, I broke up with Caitlyn, not the other way around.” 

“Yeah, but transitioning from a relationship to a peace-abundant single life is hard nonetheless.. unless you’re ready to jump to the rebound stage?” Her full brows raise in persuasion as she finishes her sentence. In her mind, getting laid would solve any problems that the complex inner-workings of your mind could craft. 

The question catches you off guard once more. Not that it should. It’d be a big fat lie to claim the idea never crossed your mind. In fact, it planted itself inside your brain like a bug and dug all the way down to memories you’d attempted to forget. Down to highschool of all places (God forbid). Down to those four names that perfectly defined the word ‘desire’ for you. Ellie Williams, Caitlyn Kiramman, Sky Young, and Violet Vanderson. 

Ellie, a fellow camp counselor at Wildflower Haven your junior year, took hold of your heart on day one. Sneaking out of your cabins at night, skinny dipping in the camp lake, even making matching bracelets that you claimed you’d ‘wear forever’. Your crush blossomed at superluminal speed. But before you knew it, camp was coming to an end and you were saying goodbye forever. 

Caitlyn Kiramman. A classic senior-year-of-high-school crush that didn’t develop until the first semester of college sophomore year. Your now ex, who is the last person you want to think about. High five to your high school self for predicting that one, though. 

Sky Young, a skating instructor at your local ice rink: Polar Peaks. After you’d fallen on your face for the fourth time and were ready to give up, you saw chestnut brown curls above you, decorating one of the friendliest smiles you’d seen to date. She helped you rise to your feet and held your hand for a lap around the rink. Unfortunately, you were a sophomore when she was a senior, and a week later you returned to the rink to find out she’d officially left for college. Not that there was anything between you two. Still, you could dream. 

And last, but certainly not least, Violet Vanderson. The star athlete of your school’s hockey team then and now. Sculpted muscles, a singular tattoo that multiplied quickly after graduation, and a killer smile that could put a halt to the gears turning in any girl’s head.

It was a simple interaction. You were the first one to read your final poem in front of your literature class with clammy palms, a shaky voice, and a dream. As you finished, looking at attentive students like a deer in headlights, Vi was the first to clap. It was enthusiastic, loud, and genuine. And like always, other students followed suit. 

Vi didn’t know you. She knew of you, the bits and pieces she could gather. You were somewhat of a social butterfly, you smelled of strawberry and vanilla every time you passed her seat, you were mind-consumingly beautiful, and you could write. Unfortunately for the both of you, your paths didn’t seem to cross any further than that.

And so, you wrote a letter.

Four love letters, to be exact. Each one in the high point of your crushes, attempting to soothe the longing feeling in your gut that ached for you to do something. You wrapped them all the same, in either a dark blue, chestnut brown, auburn, or pink envelope with a bow on the seal, even going as far as addressing and stamping them. Of course, they were never meant to be sent, which led them to their hiding place in a rose-red cylindrical fabric box that was stashed away into the depths of your closet. 

“C’mon, you’re hot and single again. I have some good contestants–”

“I don’t know Mels,” you cut her off with a look too mixed to decipher. “But really, I’m good,” you reassure, taking another spoonful of cereal into your mouth. 

Yuck–  another blue one. 

“Sevika, what the fuck!”

Gert’s complaint was drowned out by skates shuffling against the abused ice. Players clad in blue and white practice jerseys messily fill the space, fighting to keep up with Sevika. The woman speeds past, guiding the puck along the ice and slamming it into the goal.

The sounds of hurried feet and grunts subside, leaving breathless panting and shared looks of confusion across the teammates’ faces. But one pair of skates never slows, coming up behind the buff figure and skidding to a stop.

“The hell are you doing?” Vi scolds the woman with a scrunched up face of judgement. This is the sixth time Sevika’s pissed her off this week and it’s starting to get on her last nerve. “You’re hogging the puck. You’re not the only person on this team, in a game this would’ve–” 

“Get the hell out of my face,” the burly woman throws back, shoulder checking Violet hard enough to make her break her cool, squaring her shoulders and raising her voice with a “Sevika,”. 

“Vanderson! Grove!” Coach Talis’s voice echos throughout the rink, making the hockey players stop in their tracks. 

“Unless you two want to run extra drills: cut it out. Now.” 

“Is it just me, or is she being more of a fucking pain than usual?” Vi asks the woman across the locker room rhetorically, slipping on a clean compression shirt and plopping down on the bench to knot her laces. 

“I told you dude, she wants to be you, or at least take your spot.” the blonde sighs, pulling her braided hair from under the pullover she just slipped on. “As long as she’s taking her anger our on you and not me..” She continues, and the pinkette throws her a scoff before the blonde continues. 

“You know if you need stress relief, you could always go back to Kiramman. Heard the pretty girl called things off with her.”

And although her teammate only muttered the words, they set off blaring alarms within Vi’s mind. Because she can’t go back to hooking up with Caitlyn, she lied to her friends saying the two of them were ‘too busy’ when in reality Vi called things off because she couldn’t stop thinking about the one girl she knew nothing about. You. And suddenly, you and Cait were dating. Suddenly, she sure as hell couldn’t tell anybody the real reason she stopped seeing her. 

“Nah Abby, not happening,” she simply replies, attempting to sound as bored with the topic as possible.

“Fine, stay dry. I’m just throwing things out there,” the blonde puts her hands up in defense, shutting her locker as she walks towards the exit. “Later!” she waves before slipping out of the door. 

A beat passes. Then two. Then three. Finally, she takes a deep breath, leans down to unzip her practice bag, and reaches in. 

And out Vi pulls a pink envelope, decorated with a bow perfectly placed on the front and her name adorned with hearts on the back. 

The force of cool air coats your face as you walk throughout campus, ranting on the phone to Mel about your latest hell of a group project. “And it’s not even.. even.. sorry, I’m getting a call. Talk at home!” 

You smile at the friendly contact photo covering your screen, rounding some greenery as the parking lot comes into view. With a click of the ‘accept’ button, you're greeted with the gentlest of voices. “Hey!” 

A soft chuckle leaves your lips.

“Hey little man, look I’m about to drive home so I can’t talk for long,” you blinked a few times, realizing you went further from your car and spinning on your heels. 

“No worries,” he starts, “I just wanted to let you know that last week I was helping clean your old room and I found some letters, looks like you forgot to send them out? They were stamped and addressed and everything, so I just sent them for you.”

Ekko continues, giving some speech about God knows what.

But you can’t hear any of it, because the ringing in your ears is deafening.

No. 

It takes a few beats of your pure, shocked silence before your brain powers back on. And once it does, every inch of your mind is racing.

Okay, you thought to yourself. Ellie’s letter was addressed to camp, so there’s no chance of it getting to her anytime soon, if at all. Sky’s been gone for years, but you can’t remember the address you put down for her letter. Violet– shit. She definitely has hers. 

Oh. No. No, no, no. 

Your body feels oh so fragile and suddenly the idea of fleeing the country doesn’t sound entirely heinous, because only a few feet away stands Caitlyn.

Her blue hair is in a messy ponytail and her outfit is less perfected than usual, urgently thrown on. She’s searching, a determined expression plastered on her face as her gaze flickers through crowds of students.

For a moment, you pray it’s a misunderstanding. You pray she’s in a rush to find someone else, because there’s absolutely no way your ex was mailed a love letter you wrote in highschool. 

But your eyes trail down to her hand wrapped around that beautifully decorated navy envelope, and your knees are seconds away from buckling.  

“Yeah, yeah uh huh that’s great and all Ekko but I’ve really gotta go. Call me another time, okay?” you hit the ‘end call’ button with more force than needed and dash to your car. 

As you swing open the car door and drop inside with a slam shut, you can feel it. The way your heart pounds against your chest as if it’s trying to escape. That achy feeling that crawls its way up the back of your throat and transforms into tears that prickle at the corners of your worried eyes.

You shake your head, putting the key in the ignition and immediately shifting to reverse, not tending to your clouded vision. 

“Woah!” 

The somewhat-familiar yelp has your foot slamming on the breaks. Your face scrunches in confusion, the sleeve of your coat wiping your eyes just enough to make out the empty space behind your car as you look in your rearview camera. You’re confused, ready to switch the car back into ‘reverse’ before a tap tap at your window makes you gasp. 

Violet stands there, looking relaxed as an almost smug smile coats her lips. 

Your face distorts, torn between speeding off and giving in to her request, but before you make a decision, your manicured hands are rolling the window down. Cool air flows inside, but it loses to the subtle warmth that fills your body from the way the pinkette is eyeing you. 

“You know you’re supposed to check behind you before pulling out, right?” she teases.

The question itself is mocking, but the glint in her eye and how she leans down to relax a forearm on the car tells you to let it slide. 

“Right,” you agree. “Right, sorry about that. I just really need to leave so–” 

“Think y’ can explain this before you do?”

With no time to brace yourself, she holds up that stupid decorated pink envelope, and all you want to do is faint. 

“I don’t..” you whisper, accepting there’s nothing you can say to make this go away. But that blue hair is nearing, and you’re going to have a heart attack. 

“Can you get in?” you ask, voice a soft plea. 

Vi’s expression falters. That was the last thing she expected.

“Please?” you try again. “I can’t talk about this here.”

Your foot’s going to fall asleep if you sit like this any longer.

The two of you stay perfectly still, worried that any form of movement will penetrate the bubble of silence that formed as soon as Vi sat in the plush passenger seat.

Her mind is racing, because the beautiful girl she’s had her eyes on for months sent her the most heartfelt confession she’s ever gotten, and now she’s sitting in her car in a secluded area of a park. For a moment, she wonders if she’s dreaming. But the sound of your seat belt unbuckling and you shifting to face her, sweet and cautious eyes looking into her soul, has her heart skipping beats. She concludes she’s wide awake.

“Interesting spot for our first date,” she hums after clearing her throat. “You’re not gonna kill me, right?” 

That has your expression faltering. 

“You’re..” you stammer, “you think this is funny?” 

“Listen I’m just a little confused, sunshine,” she doesn’t miss the way your body stills at the nickname. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered. But you and her majesty just broke up, and I think you should know that her and I—” 

“Just– let me see that.” you cut her off and reach out for the rosy packaging, but Vi’s quicker, pulling it back with a squint in her eyes.

“I’d like to know how mortified I should be,” you confess quietly after a beat of silence. “It’s been a while since I read yours.” 

Naturally, the athlete oozes confidence and cockiness, but the pure confusion that colonizes her expression makes all of that fade for the moment. Her guard is down, allowing you to reach over her lap and seize the envelope. 

“Wait wait wait,” she starts as you focus your attention on pulling the folded paper from the envelope. 

“What do you mean ‘yours’? Are you saying I’m not the only person who got one ‘f these?” she asks, voice laced with confusion and another emotion you can’t quite pinpoint. You ignore her, hands stilling as sour nostalgia hits you in the gut and knocks the wind out of you.

My dearest Violet,

Do you remember Ximena Talis’s creative writing class in junior year? You acted so uninterested in each lesson when your teammates were around, but when they were busy skipping class, you were sticking your nose in the next Shakespeare play or Edgar Allen Poe poem. You shared your own writings with the class, a bored look painting your face and an awkward laugh spilling from your throat (although, they really weren’t that bad). But when I stood in front of our peers and performed my spin on “Annabel Lee”, you rose to your feet in applause. I’ll always be grateful that it was you who gave me my first standing ovation. Because in that moment I knew, from my happily raised eyebrows down to the nervous shuffling of my feet, that I love you Violet Vanderson. I really, truly love you. 

You physically can’t read the rest of this.

The tense sensation in your stomach only tightens as you hastily fold the paper and toss it back to the athlete, who’s still examining you with a curious glint in her eye.

“Okay–  here’s the thing,” you begin after a deep breath. “I wrote four letters, and they’re all outdated, like– from sophomore through senior year. A family friend sent them out by accident.” 

The explanation has Violet blinking, because in one sentence you’ve managed to crush her plans that she confidently pranced over with. In one sentence, you’ve made her question what the hell she was thinking. In one sentence, you’ve washed away her suave persona and turned her to a questioning pile of mush, because– you’re not just trying to get into her pants?

“..Well who else got letters?” She cringes at her whiny tone, running a hand through her hair for comfort. 

“Uh,” you sigh and shift your position as you look anywhere but the girl, dread consuming your almost-annoyed face. “A girl from summer camp, some girl from the ice rink, and… Caitlyn.” The last word comes out as an embarrassed murmur that leaves Vi’s mouth agape in shock and pity. 

A few beats of silence pass before Vi’s eyes light up. 

It might be a crazy idea, and you might despise her after the suggestion leaves her lips, but she can’t pass up this opportunity.

“Things with Kiramman must be tense now, right?” she offers.

Your lips press together in silent agreement, gaze trailing to your shining phone screen.  35 new messages and 6 missed calls from Caitlyn, just in the past two hours. You’d texted Caitlyn an explanation as soon as you’d parked: that Ekko sent her an old letter and that was just that. But still, stubborn as always, the bluenette refuses to believe you. 

“You could say that,” you mumble reluctantly. “I just,” you whisper, “I don’t know what to do.”

Her gaze flickers up and down your frame once in final thought. Your bright eyes drooping with worry and once confident voice lacing with insecurity makes up her mind. She wants nothing more than to console you, to wrap her strong arms around your frame and make you beam. Vi’s not sure if it’s her or the seventeen year old in that creative writing class speaking, but words fall from her lips. 

“I could be your girlfriend.”

A wave of disbelief washes over you, leaving widened eyes and a pounding heart in its path. The panicked expression on your face is enough to have her next words sputtering out in consolation. 

“Fake girlfriend, of course.” The way your eyes soften in thought fuels her to continue. “Just for a little while y’know? To give Kiramman the hint.” Her words are spoken with more power as she sees the gears turning in your pretty little head.

The idea’s heinous, and the thought of your scheme being revealed makes your stomach turn in embarrassment for the both of you. It’s ridiculous, idiotic, and risky, but your phone lights up once again with a text from your navy-haired ex, and that’s enough to make you answer.

“Okay, let’s do it.” 

caitlyn: I know you didn’t mean what you said. Just come and talk to me, love.  caitlyn: Jesus, don’t be stubborn. 

The messages continue on like a flood, piling onto your guilty conscience until the notification ringing becomes all too much, making you flick the silence button on your phone. The quiet doesn’t last long as you near the doors of the practice rink. Five players burst through the doors, a cluster of chaos and yells surrounding them before one girl, hair tied back into a dark brown bun, notices you. 

“That her?” she whispers to her teammates, their backs facing you as they walk away, but they whip their heads around (noticeably at that) to get glances at you. 

“Damnn.” another draws out, earning a slap on her neck. 

“How’d Vi do that so fast?” you hear another quip before they take a turn down the hallway. 

You only smiled gently, rolling your eyes at the comments as your hand pushed open the door to the rink. At least you make a believable couple. 

“You know, my words were ‘you could always go back to Kiramman, the pretty girl dumped her’, not ‘you should go bag your ex-fling’s ex-girlfriend’. They’ve been broken up for, what, two weeks? Does she even know about you and Cait?” Abby’s raspy voice fills the ice, making Vi shush her in annoyance.

“Yes, of course she knows.” 

There’s a beat of silence, neither of the players move when the words of a lie fill the air.

“Fuck fine. No, she doesn’t know yet. I’m just waiting for a good time..” Vi confesses, aimlessly kicking the ice.

“You know this makes you messy, right?” the strong blonde grinned. 

“Oh fuck off. Messy is pounding half the swim team.” The pinkette sends an accusatory glance and Abby’s raising her hands up in innocence with a shrug and a smug smile. She rounds the ice and stops in her tracks when you enter the room, glistening skin and a patient waiting look on your face. 

She snickers, letting out a quick whistle as she skates towards the exit off the ice. “Violet,” she coos in a sing-songy voice, “look who’s here for you.” 

The blonde waves goodbye to her friend once and sends you a wink before exiting the room.

Your hands are clasped behind your back as you take your time walking up to where the carpet and ice of the rink are separated. Realizing your limit, you lean your side against the entrance, looking at the athlete whose eyes are grazing over your attire painfully slow.

“You want some skates?” she finally speaks, eyes meeting yours with a glint.

You laugh gently. “Hell no.” She snickers along with you, removing her helmet to run a hand through her hair. 

“So you’ve,” you slightly raise your hand to point your thumb in the direction Abby and the other players exited, “you’ve told people already?” 

Worry flickers over her face, because for some reason she just can’t read you right like she can read other girls and it drives her insane. 

“Yeah, something wrong with that?” she asks cooly, placing her helmet back on the pink fluff as she glides around.

You bite the inside of your cheek in thought, finally shaking your head. “No, no I mean that’s the whole point, for people to know.” you hum. 

“But I have to ask, why are you doing this?”

Vi stops in her tracks, body turning to face yours from feet away. 

She contemplates it, telling you the truth. That she’s infatuated with and intrigued by you. That you’ve completely ruined hookups and “crushes” for her because she can’t get you out of her head. And maybe she doesn’t know you too well just yet, but she’s going to. And yes, she used to fuck your ex girlfriend way before you were even girlfriends, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the bond she wants to have with you, and she prays it doesn’t affect deem her unreliable. 

Yet none of that can come out of her mouth. So, she settles on her practiced lie and prays whoever’s up there doesn’t look down on her for it.

“Coach doesn’t like my reputation for ‘getting around’. Says it just doesn’t look good. Being with you gives me some cover.” She talks smoothly, making sure there’s not a hint of guilt behind her voice, because it's a lie. Coach Talis couldn’t care less about what she’s doing in her free time as long as she shows out on the ice. 

You only hum and nod.

You don’t notice how close she’s gotten until she’s there, staring down at you. Her musk and amber scent is intoxicating, seeping into your nostrils while powder blue eyes catch yours through her helmet and– is it possible she looks better than you remember?

“The letter,” you sputter out, mentally cringing as the pinkette raises a brow. “Can I see the letter again?” 

She’s cheesing, reaching into the pocket of her pants to whip out the neatly folded paper and.. is she just keeping that on her? 

As if she can read your mind and wide eyes, she speaks. “Just knew you’d want it,” she explains, placing it between your waiting fingers. She watches as you unfold the paper and look up at her. Thick silence fills the air before the athlete gets the hint, blinking twice with a nod. “Right, sorry,” Vi apologizes simply before skating off. 

You take a deep breath, heart swelling the same way it did when you first wrote this sweet confession. 

My dearest Violet,

Do you remember Ximena Talis’s creative writing class in junior year? You acted so uninterested in each lesson when your teammates were around, but while they were busy skipping class, you were sticking your nose in the next Shakespeare play or Edgar Allen Poe poem. You shared your own writings with a bored look painting your face and an awkward laugh spilling from your throat (although, they really weren’t that bad). But when I stood in front of our peers and performed my spin on “Annabel Lee”, you rose to your feet in applause. I’ll always be grateful that it was you who gave me my first standing ovation. Because in that moment I knew, from my happily raised eyebrows down to the shuffling of my nervous feet, that I love you Violet Vanderson. I really, really love you. 

When I sat back down in my seat, you slipped a pink sticky note back onto my desk. Gentle handwriting and a sweet smiley face in the corner decorated the words “that was amazing, how do you write so well?”. I’d never had my heart pound harder, never felt my palms sweatier or my spirits higher. As each day passes, I hope you’ll look at me with the same rose colored glasses as you did that class. I dream each night with my lovestruck brain of you taking me by the hand and asking me to be forever yours. I’ll be waiting, no matter how long it takes.

- forever yours, ____

It doesn’t take long before you get that warm and fuzzy feeling, the same one that caressed your body while you wrote this very letter. It takes even less time for it to be replaced with soul eating shame that has you wanting to curl into a ball. 

“You’ve always been a good writer,” she calls out, nearing you. “I meant it when I said it.” 

“..I know,” you agree, a smile forming against your will. 

Vi’s grinning at your sass, and damn is the only word that fills her brain. “How are things with Kiramman?” she asks gently.

“She just doesn’t believe me. She’s texted a thousand times since yesterday and is totally convinced I want her back.” you roll your eyes in exhaustion.

“Do you?” 

You pause at her question, because underneath that carefree and playful persona hides a hint of worry behind Vi’s voice, and it’s fueling the curiosity within you. “Why are you asking?”

A beat passes. “Just wanna know how humiliated I’ll be after all of this,” the pinkette admits.

Her confession makes you laugh and shake your head. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” you hum. “I broke up with Caitlyn and that’s that. If it takes a fake relationship and a little pda for her to see that then so be it.” 

Vi nods, making sure not to let the smile she’s feeling creep onto her face. 

“So you like writing, you’re smart as hell, you dress real cute,” she points a finger up and down your outfit and you tilt your head. “Anything else I should know about you or our little.. ordeal?” 

You tongue your cheek in silent thought before replying. 

“You can’t kiss me.” 

That has Vi’s brain short circuiting, because the image you’ve set in her mind from those words alone is sparking a crimson glow across her face and– fuck she shouldn’t be thinking about this. But she had to admit (to herself, not out loud of course), she’d have no problem with running her lips across yours if you asked for it. 

“Did Kiramman not kiss you, angel?” ‘She’d have to be a fucking idiot not to’ is the next thing that wants to come out of her mouth, but she settles for a soft tease. “That’s a couples thing, if you didn’t know.” 

“We kissed, obviously.” You cross your arms as you speak. “You can– y’know, hold me, kiss my.. anywhere else.” Both you and Vi feel a shift. Damn, are ice rinks always this warm? “Just, no real kissing. It’s too personal.” 

Vi gently nods, slipping out a soft ‘alright’ because you have a good point. 

She moves forward to step off the ice, placing a firm hand on your waist to gently guide you out of the way as she passes. Your body tenses at the touch, whipping your head towards the girl in surprise.

The pinkette notices, and she knows she shouldn’t chuckle at it, but she does. “If it’s gonna take ‘a little pda’, you might wanna get rid of that before this weekend,” she’s speaking cockily as she nears her bag, her helmet coming off for good.

You clear your throat. “What’s this weekend?”

“Party ‘m takin’ you to. Think of it as our couples debut.” And Vi loves the surprised little look on your face as you ask her if that’s ‘really necessary’.

“You really think anyones gonna believe we’re together if I’m at a party all by myself? Who’s gonna fight off all the girls craving my attention, sunshine?” 

You wonder if the notorious smirk on her face is permanent as she slings her practice bag on a sculpted shoulder as she moves to tower over you, the cool air of the rink becoming very present.

“So you’re coming, yeah?” 

Your eyes travel from hers to the empty space beside her in thought. 

“Of course.”

“You’re sure it’s not too boob-y?” 

You tug at your low cut top, half yelling over the chaos of other students to your roommate who’s eyeing you like your one head has turned into five. 

“Wait, you didn’t want it to be ‘boob-y’? Practically wearing a bra,” she yells back with a knowing smile, sipping from the red cup that quickly found her hands. At the sight of your worry, her smugness turns to playful comfort. “Come on, you’re at a frat not a damn funeral. You look sexy.”

“She’s right.”

The raspy voice behind you is unfamiliar, sending a soft chill down your spine that turns you on your heels. 

You’re met with a tall, muscular, brownskin woman. Half of her hair is pulled back, and loose strands fall to decorate her face that holds piercing eyes which are completely directed on you. You’ve seen her before for sure, but her name is the last thing on your mind as her eyes trail over every inch of your exposed skin. 

“Sevika,” she tells lowly, placing a red cup between your manicured fingers to which you scoff under your breath. 

You give her the benefit of the doubt. 

“___,” you offer your name, looking for any hint of recognition on her face, and you get it when she smirks and tilts her head. 

“I know who you are, beautiful,” she purrs.

“Then you also know I’m Vi’s girlfriend?” you throw back. The words feel completely foreign on your tongue, but come out so awfully right. 

The raven’s eyebrows raise right before she huffs out a laugh of disbelief, sipping from whatever mixture graced the cup in her hand. “Girlfriend?” she repeats. “Shit, with the way she was talking about you, I thought you were just a hookup.” 

The air’s suddenly much thicker, tenser, and you don’t have much time to process what Sevika just laid upon you before pink hair makes its way through the crowd.

“There’s my girl,” Vi calls out as she nears you, her sweet words cutting the tension like a knife. “Been looking all over for you,” she speaks as gently as she can in the atmosphere, completely ignoring the presence of her teammate.

“Hi,” you simply let out. Your knees feel weak and you think maybe you’re not cut out for this, because the pinkette slides a warm hand around your waist and places a chaste kiss down on your bare shoulder. 

She’s pulling back from your skin when her eyes land on the cup in your hand, a confused glint in her eye as she squints. “Thought you drove?” The calloused fingers tracing meaningless patterns on your skin and soft breathy words hitting your face from just inches away make you feel like Melting. What’d she ask again?

“No,” is all you manage to stammer out, shifting in the girl’s arms until the right words form in your head. “No this isn’t mine.” you’re mentally facepalming.

Vi’s eyes flicker from you, to the cup, to Sevika, finally piecing together her part in this. The athlete stands a bit taller, gently taking the drink from your hands and shoving it against Sevika’s chest. Some of the liquid splashes over the cup, leaving droplets of a stain on the angry woman’s shirt.

Sevika’s slowly taking the cup without breaking eye contact. Her gaze is sharper than daggers as Violet huffs out a scoff, her grip on your waist more present as she guides you away from the brute and through the crowd of partygoers. 

“I’m sorry about her. One asshole of a teammate.” Vi’s words kiss your ear to avoid yelling as she walks. “You okay?” she asks slightly softer, which earns her a nod and quick ‘yeah’. The pinkette’s hand snakes from around your waist down to grab one of yours, holding you tightly as you worm your ways through the horde. 

As you exit the crowd your left arm finds its way to wrap around her right, placing your free hand lazily on her bicep, because if you had to feel her fingertips on your skin anymore you’d faint. The pair of you walk through the spacious backyard, decorated with a pool, groups of your classmates, and a cluster of hockey players lounging on some couches that circle a fire pit. 

“You ready?” She whispers softly.

“Ready,” you reply with a smile that turns into an “o” shaped mouth, big worried eyes capturing VI’s. “They won’t ask me about hockey, right?” 

The girl lets out a sweet, genuine laugh, and so cute is what she’s mentally replying. 

“There you are!” Abby calls out as soon as the two of you are in her vision. The rest of the team follows, greeting both you and Vi, throwing her smirks or nods of approval when you have your focus elsewhere. Vi sits, sprawling out against the couch with her legs perfectly spread for you. As if it were natural, her hands find their way around your hips and she guides you down into her lap. 

And you hate it. 

Not the feeling of her firm chest against your back, not her warm legs encasing your bare and crossed ones, not even the way she wraps her muscular arms around your torso and places her head so close to yours. 

You hate how normal she’s making all of this feel, how your brain is being fried with each touch, but your faux girlfriend doesn’t seem to be bothered one bit. And you’re starting to wonder if it’s a problem. 

“How’d you two even meet? Didn’t you and the chick from the basketball team just break up?” one of her teammates questions you with a raised brow. 

Fuck is all your brain renders, and you hope the shock didn’t show on your face because—

“I’ve had the hots for her since high school, thought it was time to do something about it,” Vi replies. A proud feeling washes over her when your body relaxes in her arms.

You’re gently squeezing her arm twice, thankful that she’s such a great actor. She’s running her thumb against your skin, thankful that you can’t read minds. 

A few sweet nods and noises of approval are let out before Abby speaks up. “‘The hots’? What are you, fifty?” She jokes, earning a grinning ‘fuck off’ from Vi. 

The teammates’ conversation continues both with and without you, leaving moments for you to think of something ‘girlfriendish’ to say or a new place on Vi’s skin to touch. And then, it starts. Against Vi’s rolling eyes and Elora’s complaint that this is “so middle school”, a game of truth or dare ensues. Ever the fun one, the blonde convinces everyone that it’ll be fun, that it’s good to be childish every once in a while. 

So far, Gert’s been dared to send an ‘i miss you’ voice note to her ex and is utterly ashamed, Abby’s mouth tastes both bitter and spicy from the liquor concoction the teammates dared her to drink, another girl has been stripped down to her shorts and wife pleaser and shooed away from the fire to ‘endure the cold’ for ten more minutes. 

When it comes to the other teammates, you don’t know how many “___ and i banged” truths and “take this many shots” dares you hear before it’s finally your turn. 

“Truth or dare?” Vi coos in your ear.

“Truth–” 

“Dare?” she cuts you off with a mean grin. “Alright, I dare you to jump into the pool. Right here, right now.” 

Your head whips towards the girl fast enough to send chills down the pinkette’s spine. The hockey team is whooping and cheering you on as Violet comes to a stand with your mid area still locked by her arms. 

“No– no– I said truth Vi!” you sputter out. Your body and mind are moving at an astronomically slow speed because before you know it, Vi’s scooping you off the ground and throwing you over her shoulder effortlessly. As she begins to walk, the hollering of the team growing in intensity, one of her warm hands lays at the back of your thigh, holding down the bottom of your already short skirt. The other trails its way down your leg and to your feet, slipping off your shoes and letting them fall with a plop. 

“Violet Vanderson.” you warn firmly, squirming in anticipation as you neared the icy blue water. You’re feeling five emotions at once, and at the same time evaluating how much Caitlyn’s perception on things truly matters, because you’re this close to firing your ‘girlfriend’. 

When she suggested this entire ordeal you imagined it’d be standing together for an hour and dancing, going out for drinks once or twice, maybe even an instagram story or two. 

You didn’t expect pool shenanigans, shoulder kisses, and powerful arms wrapped around your sides every two seconds. You didn’t expect to be having fun, let alone like it. 

“Put me down!” you yelp through rising giggles.

“A dare’s a dare, angel.” she speaks lowly over her shoulder to you, who’s dangling helplessly in her grasp. “C’mon, it looks good for us as a couple,” she whispers.

“Wait wait wait!–” 

Your last threat is drowned out as Vi jumps into the glowing blue.

“Wonder how many people have had sex in here tonight,” you joke through chattering teeth. You’re holding your soaked hair together to the best of your ability as to not drench everything in your path, but truthfully, water is the cleanest thing to grace those frat floors. Vi trails right in behind you, snorting out a laugh as she leans against the closed door. 

The pinkett’s pool stunt only had you upset for so long, mostly out of shock of her actually going through with it. However, once you rose to the surface of the water, the only things that could spill from your mouth were hearty giggles. 

What made it ten times better was that people saw, Vi’s teammates whooped while others just snickered at the ‘new couple’s’ playfulness. 

What made it a hundred times better was Abby informing you of how pissed Caitlyn looked, staring at you and Vi before storming back the way she came from. 

“Enough to start a new std?” She flashes her pearly whites at her own joke.

“Violet!” you cringe, making her chuckle. 

As cold as your water-soaked clothing, skin, and drenched hair makes you, the athlete’s soft gaze is a lighter igniting a blaze in the pit of your stomach. For the first time in a long time, protected by the walls of someone’s room, you’re able to explore her face. 

Perfect, full brows are intercepted by a slit with one to match down on the the left of her rosy lips. Sweet freckles dance on and around her nose, and gosh she’s pretty. It’s the same face you’d admired years ago, but you still look at her as if you’ve discovered her beauty all over again. You stand there attempting to pinpoint what shade of blue her eyes are when she finally speaks up. 

“Here,” the athlete steps closer, taking off her thick black coat and handing it over sheepishly. “Can’t do anything about your skirt, but I thought these would help.” A hint of blue and white fabric peeks out from underneath, and you unravel it to reveal a jersey. One of her jerseys. 

There’s a glint of suspicion in your eye, and Violet’s in fear. 

“You just.. keep this in your car? All the time?” You question with a perfectly raised eyebrow. 

Vi clears her throat. Because no, no she doesn’t. She just had to do something to get you in her clothes. 

A beat passes with no response, and finally the pinkette’s eyes are flickering around the room before she turns. “I’ll let you get changed.” 

The door’s opening and closing before you can protest, and it’s finally safe for that suppressed smile to grace your lips without shame.  

It doesn’t take long for you to strip out of your sopping clothes and into the oversized comfiness of Vi’s. You examine yourself in the full length mirror, fixing your wet hair to the best of your ability and running your hands over the warmth of the new clothing. It sMells just like Violet, and you convince yourself that you don’t care, but underneath that protective mask is the lovestruck teenage girl you once were.

Turning on your heels, you gather the wet bundles of fabric and head for the door when someone on the other side beats you to it. 

Correction, the last person you want to see beats you to it. 

Caitlyn’s quick to step inside the room, closing the door with an indecipherable expression plastered on her face. Her brows furrow with more distaste than usual, and her once perfect navy blue locks now have strands messily shaken out of place. Your tongue is strangled by the bite of your teeth. It takes everything in you not to roll your eyes to the back of your head. 

“Violet Vanderson?” She wastes no time, chary eyes examining your face with crossed arms. “Really?”

You’re done holding back, so you scoff.

“Yes, really. What, are you jealous?” you quip. “Y’know what, don’t answer that. I already know.” 

She ignores the sassy remark. “I’m surprised you chose her, considering everything.” 

You raise an eyebrow in confusion. “Considering, what exactly?” 

Caitlyn’s poker face had been drilled into her since she was a kid, but the bluenette physically had to suppress the amusement from taking over her face when she realized: you had no clue. 

“I just didn’t think she was your type, and that was awfully fast,” she saves. 

“I didn’t cheat on you, if that’s what you’re insinuating.” You spit the words like they burn on your tongue as impatient hands come up to rest on your hips. 

“I’m insinuating that I don’t believe whatever this is.” 

That has you pausing. Your face, demeanor, and attitude all stay the same, but you both notice the shift in the air. 

“I think you realize you messed up when you broke things off, and now you’re playing hard to get.” She continues, stepping forward as her toned arms fall to her sides. 

“There’s no need to play games with me, you know.” 

Cait’s look is condescending, and it only pisses you off more when her hand reaches out to caress yours. The perfect persuasion, an easy fix to all of her problems when the utter of her surname isn’t quite enough. But you’re not easy, and you didn’t mess anything up. So you quickly swat it away, sneering as you step around the tower of a girl and towards the door. 

“Get over yourself, Caitlyn.” 

You exit the room with blood red vision, a fury which follows you on your journey to find Mel in the drunken crowd and pull her to the front while Vi offers to walk both of you to your car. 

And in your red haze, you miss the eye contact Caitlyn and Sevika make from across the crowded room. 

Sweat is dripping from the athletes’ foreheads down to the stretch of their neck as Talis blows his whistle, allowing the players to catch their breaths.  

Normally, Vi would be more than willing to stay longer than the scheduled practice time. Running fun drills with Abby, racing Gert, whatever the matter may be. Hockey is her thing. 

But, at the moment, you’re also ‘her thing’. And right now you were patiently waiting in your apartment for Vi to make an appearance. A friendly one, of course. Away from watching eyes and overwhelming questions, where you could discuss your next moves in peace–as peaceful as you could get with the muscular tease looking at you as if you were a star to wish on at night. 

So she keeps her mouth shut and her eyes trained on Coach Talis (who’s giving some end-of-practice spiel) as Sevika glides up next to her.

She keeps her mouth shut as the brute lets out a soft scoff at how hard Vi’s trying to ignore her. 

She has to bite hard on her tongue when the woman mutters something about the pink-haired athlete needing to ‘give up while she’s still ahead’. 

And her mouth opens immediately when your name falls from Sevika’s lips. “___, she really is somethin’ huh–?” 

“Don’t fuck with me, Sevika,” she threatens, a tad louder than expected. Their stubborn gazes stay locked on one another, and Sevika’s letting out a scoff while squaring her firm shoulders.

“Or what?” the raven throws back, intimidation oozing from her presence.

“Hey! What did I say?” The bubble of their rivalry is popped as Coach Talis raises his voice. 

“That’s it. Bag skates.” 

[REDACTED]: you sure this’ll work? 

When Vi finally shows up at your sun-glistening apartment, her hair is wet from the quick shower she took, she’s a total blubbering mess about how she’s crazy sorry and feels terrible for making you wait an extra hour, and she’s holding one cup of coffee that looks exactly like the one you always order.

“Vi, seriously it’s okay,” you chuckle, and the girl deflates in soft relief. A smile sweet as honey graces your face and Vi finally figures it out: you’re just an angel in disguise.

You reach over from your seat on the couch to take the cup of coffee from her hand. It’s your order to a T, and the sip you take sends a cold trail of liquid down your throat and into the warmth of your stomach. 

“Mmm,” you hum, making Vi malfunction when you lick the remnants from your lips. “Did you chug yours on the way?” you ask.

Perfect blue eyes blink twice while Violet calculates the odds that you’ll say yes if she were to suggest you drop the whole act and venture off on a real date right now. 

“Oh– hell no. I can’t stand coffee. I just went to get you one,” she hums without thought. Fifty-five percent chance, not good enough. 

“Again, I’m sorry. Sevika’s been more of an asshole than usual. Made us run back and forth on the ice until we practically collapsed. Don’t know what the hell she was thinking though, almost missed her shift at that rink..” Violet continues on with conflicted brows furrowing and a hardened gaze. But just like waves washing away at imperfections in grainy sand, the awestruck glimmer in your eyes wipes the fury from her blood. 

“You went just for me?” the question comes out almost as a whisper.

Violet swears she can feel her heart Melting from your actions, and the feeling bubbles its way up as words in her throat. “Of course.”

It’s left at that. Of course, a declaration that it was common sense she’d be of service to you even behind the scenes. Neither of you dare to ask or explain why. For a moment, there’s no words. Just the soft sensation of little breaths, beating hearts, and wandering gazes, but only for a moment.

“Cait doesn’t believe us,” you spill.

Vi can only huff gently, shifting in her seat as her spread legs move a bit wider. 

“She’s smart, I’ll give her that.” Vi hums in thought. The cogs in her brain get distracted and come to a halt when she sees the glistening worry in your orbs, and without thought, her hand is coming up to hold your chin, guiding it to connect your gazes.

“Hey, we’ll fix it, alright?” She reassures, and a thumb glides over your cheek. The moment is tender, something deep and sweet, but it doesn’t take long for the both of you to pull back as your eyes flicker anywhere else. 

“We just need to… to up our game.” At the sight of your confused eyes, she continues. “Give me your phone,” Vi instructs softly, holding her hand out.

You simply obey, placing the device in her hand with a slight squint in your eyes. 

All uncertainty is replaced with giggles and content when Vi holds up the camera. Her left hand holds the phone while her right arm lifts into frame next to her face and flexes, revealing the entirety of her sculpted muscles. 

Jesus, your mind betrays you.

After the snap of the camera, the pinkette hands the device back to you. 

“Make it your lock screen,” she speaks so casually, like the idea behind these actions have no effect on her whatsoever. A black cased phone is then slid into your hands, and big powder-blue eyes are staring at you expectantly. 

“Oh, you want..” you internally cringe at the stammer. 

“Of course, needa see your face too.” she states with a grin.

You’re nodding at that, as if a swarm of what you think are butterflies aren’t rummaging around in your gut. Raising the camera in your manicured fingers, you snap a photo mocking Vi’s. More kissy face, less muscles. The athlete has the biggest grin as she takes the device back, and with a ‘there’, your face is  blessing her lockscreen. 

“So, should I book our room at Mt. Sky, or do you want to?” Her eyes are trained on your face as she drapes both swole arms across the back of the couch. 

You do nothing to hide the surprise on your face. With crisp frosty air, a winter wonderland of snow, and more unplanned pregnancies and sexual noise complaints than any of the campus’s frat parties, Mt. Sky was the unofficial University of Piltover ski trip of the year. Athletes, hookups of athletes, curious freshmen, and anyone who concerned themselves with campus drama banded together for a few days of thrillingly-messy paradise. 

“You wanna share a room?” you ask with raised brows, because ‘wait, we’re going?’ seems out of the question.

The pinkette’s lips curl into a smile, one that flashes the white of her teeth as blue orbs flicker down and up your frame once.

“Yeah, I do.” 

The short silence that follows is smothering, and you swear the room just got a hundred degrees hotter—because there’s the same tease you remember fantasizing over as your pink glitter pen graced the paper of her letter. 

“It’d be weird if we didn’t,” she explains. “Wouldn’t just be Cait questioning us, it’d be everybody,” she tilts her head, and you’re snapped back to the reality of your situation. Fake. 

You’re not looking at the freckled girl as you hum with a nod. 

That has the athlete’s suave persona faltering. A rough hand snakes up to gingerly move a piece of hair from your face. She’s barely touching you, as though you’re more fragile than glass in her grasp. 

“We don’t have to, if you wanna room with Mel that badly–” 

“–No, no I think we should,” you reassure with a smile, because you do want to, more than you probably should, but your brain’s having a very hard time deciphering fantasy from reality. 

It’s her turn to hum, and that tender hand doesn’t leave your face, it only stills as you turn your head completely towards her. 

“You don’t have to do that when we’re in private,” you refer to her wandering hands with a gentle tone. Vi’s eyes soften into something raw and real as she lulls out a response.

“Doesn’t hurt to get comfortable with each other. Right, sunshine?”

Wrong. 

Because it could hurt. It could wound the both of you and cause an ache like never before. Because—admittedly—you don’t know what you’re feeling right now. But more importantly, you don’t know what Violet’s feeling. You had her all figured out at seventeen, but now, you’re unsure of how gentle or reckless she’d be with your heart.

And still, against all the skepticism your brain concocts, you agree. 

“Right.” 

[REDACTED]: Of course I’m sure. Just do what I ask and we’ll both get what we want.

“Late again?” Finn coos, a teasing expression on the raven’s face. 

“Another run in with pinkie,” Sevika smirks, almost seeming proud. 

The man shakes his head with a smile before placing a handful of mail on the counter in front of the pair. “You mind?”

A groan falls from Sevika’s lips as her gaze flickers between him and the letters. “But I have—”

“Please?” the man asks, already inching away from the space. “I just have to deal with something.”

Before she can argue further, Finn thanks her and rushes off towards the rink. The woman’s left muttering swears and rolling her eyes as she rummages through the envelopes filling her space. 

To: Polar Peaks, To: Polar Peaks, To: Sky Young, To: Pola—

She blinks once and her firm hands come to a pause before her fingers are backtracking to a chestnut brown envelope, covered in hearts and kiss marks. 

Sevika’s huffing out a laugh of disbelief. Her eyes trail over every inch of the sickeningly sweet decor. The recipient address is the ice rink, just like the rest of the pile, and the woman’s intrigue only grows as her eyes trail to the top left corner. To the sender. To you. 

“My favorite energy drink?” Vi throws out.

“Berrybulls, specifically the yellow and amber ones.” you quip with confidence, smiling when Vi nods in content. 

A lightbulb flickers across the pink haired girl’s face, and she stops in her tracks, unintentionally pulling you back. You’re standing still now, and as the frigid air threatens to consume your body, the reminder that your hands are intertwined with one another spreads warmth throughout your core. You let yourself forget that it’s for show, and enjoy it. 

“Vi?” you question, stepping a bit closer. 

“This one’s important,” her tone is more serious, and her eyes meet yours as she takes a deep breath.

“What’s… my coffee order?” 

“Oh my gosh–” a joking scoff falls from your lips, and you’re gently shoving the laughing girl as you pull her to continue walking. The warmth of hand holding can only do so much to combat standing still in the chill of winter air. 

“C’mon sunshine, we’ve learned all there is to know. Besides, you really think anyone’s gonna come up and start quizzing us?” 

“No,” you admit as Vi holds you closer with a hand around your waist while more pedestrians enter and exit the sidewalks. “But I think it’s good to know just in case. Besides, I like learning about you.” 

“Oh yeah?” she coos. You hear a phone buzz once. 

“Yeah,” you let out with a giggle. Another buzz, and you’re reaching into your back pocket and tapping on the screen to reveal… nothing. 

kiramman: You have until the end of the trip. kiramman: If you don’t tell her, I will.

Is it possible to feel complete peace and soul-shredding anxiety simultaneously? 

On one hand, you’re having the most fun you’ve had in a long time. The drive to the resort with Mel—and her newfound friend Elora— was filled with guttural laughter. The three of you screamed songs at such a volume you’re surprised the windows didn’t burst. 

When you arrive, you’re trapped by the strong arms of Abby who’s lifting you into the air with her hug. Vi has to be the one to mutter “That’s enough, Abs..”, earning a laugh from the surrounding teammates, who are quick to tug you and your friends into conversation. 

There’s arms around your waist and a bulky body encasing yours while you sit around a fireplace, quiet giggles to each other when you’re bored of the group conversation, and a sweet goodbye kiss to your forehead when Vi and her peers leave to ski. The day progresses perfectly. 

On the other hand, you can feel as Caitlyn’s eyes follow you. A predator stalking its prey. And even though you’re not afraid of the girl, you wonder what it’s going to take for her to throw in the towel. 

“Was the sex that good?” Mel’s golden eyes are both teasing and genuinely questioning you. 

“You’re unbelievable,” you throw back with a laugh. 

“I’m serious, why is she so persistent? Does your tongue have a built in vibrator?—”

“Mel!” 

She’s giggling with you now, face falling into the plush of the king sized bed you’re both sprawled out on. 

“By the way, watch out. Your girlfriend’s biggest fan decided to show up this year,” she flips over onto her back, head tilted to look at you with a pitying–but still undeniably smug–expression.

“Sevika?” you whine and she nods. “She never comes to Mt. Sky. She’s just... anti-fun.” 

Mel hums. “A refined Kiramman has turned into a borderline stalker, Sevika Grove is coming on ski trips, what’s next? Aliens?”

“Surprised the aliens weren't first.” 

Your giggles are cut short as Elora knocks at your already open door, and Mel’s swiftly coming to a stand. 

“Talk to you later?” she offers, and you smile with a nod. 

The tranquility of an empty room only lasts so long, because within seconds, Vi is bursting into the space and hastily shutting the door. You hear the click of the lock and jolt up with confusion written across your face. 

“Vi? What’s—” 

“Cait’s on her way up here,” she speaks with haste.

“I could talk to her, if you want. Just say the word,” Vi offers, and there’s no time to overanalyze the tightness in your chest at the idea of the pinkette protecting you. 

Thousands of possibilities fly throughout your racing brain. Talking went in her ear and out the other (or, rather, around her head entirely), and going radio silent only amplified her stubbornness. The way you see it, the only thing left to do is play Caitlyn’s petty game, to make it clear that the two of you were done. 

Your brain is completely heated and fuzzy at the idea, but you have no time to waste as you hop off of the bed and over to the butch. 

“We’re gonna have sex,” you state. 

Vi’s completely stopped working. That’s it—she’s died. She’s died and gone to heaven. That’s the only plausible explanation for—

“Fake! Fake sex, I mean.”

Well that makes more sense. 

“Fake–what? You’ve gotta explain a little better than that,” she’s trying to suppress the color from showing in her cheeks, and a hand comes up to run through her hair. 

“Just—” you stammer, moving the girl by the arm so that you’re both a few feet away from the door, leaned up against the wall with Vi hovering over you. Your hand stays on her arm, which is gently placed on the side of your waist. The room’s air grows thicker by the second, and tension oozes from every movement made. 

“This doesn't feel very fake, sweetheart.” Her voice is lower, more sultry, and it sends a shiver straight up your spine. 

“We’re gonna…” gonna faint. The sound of footsteps power walking down the hallway throws your brain back into action. “Just follow my lead,” you breathe.

The athlete’s in a state of utter confusion. She’s squinting harder than ever as you bite your lip, seemingly in thought, before you send a wave of pure shock throughout her core. 

You moan. 

Not a whine, not a whimper, not even a wince, a raw moan that compels something in her to twitch. 

“Violet,” you’re singing, eyes closed, and your head thrown to the side. Out of embarrassment or getting into character, she’s not sure. She’s not sure of anything, quite frankly, because how on earth is she expected to think when you’re squealing her name like she owns you?

“Oh yes—please please,” you coo. As if someone flipped a switch, you’re opening your eyes to look up at the athlete. 

“Say something,” you snap in a whisper. 

There’s no wasted time, because Violet’s thoughts spill at your approval. 

“So fuckin’ pretty. Who knew your moans sounded so good, baby?” 

You’re about to lose it. All sense of good judgment—or what’s left—is flying out of the window and being replaced by the dirty haze of your mind. You can’t help the way your hand is gently trailing up Vi’s arm and sliding down to rest against her abs. You don’t miss the way her grip around you tightens.  

You expect her to be done, but Vi’s kept these thoughts tucked away for way too long. If they’d be of any service to you, she might as well let them out. 

“Bet she couldn’t fuck you like this, huh? No angel, she couldn’t.”  

A symphony of grunts, whimpers, and moans of passion decorate not only the room, but the ears of Caitlyn. Your navy haired ex lingers outside the door, seeing nothing but blood red as she listens to the noises you used to make for her. The noises Vi never made for her. The newfound passion that the pinkette pulled out of you, one that Cait never could. 

With clenched, clammy fists and gritted teeth, Caitlyn reluctantly drags herself away from the door and down the hallway. 

Like coming down from a high, shallow breaths fill yours and Vi’s ears before all sounds subside. Neither of you dare to move as the clack of Caitlyn’s feet storm down the hall and out of earshot. Colorful orbs stare down at the floor or up at the white ceiling, because they’re suddenly oh so intriguing. 

And maybe, just maybe, this is the moment you realize not everything is as imaginary as you thought. 

Meanwhile, Vi’s imagining what the hell she’d say in this situation if her brain were computing. Because the sight of you throwing your head back in fake pleasure and spilling noises straight from your core was entirely soul-shifting. 

And it’s different, to be seeing you this close. Granted, she’s been closer. Graced the skin of your forehead or cheeks with her soft and scar-decorated lips more than once. But here, hovering over your softened body, her hand connecting to your waist with the gentlest of touches, and her eyes firmly memorizing every angle of your face, it’s different. Everything’s softer, and Violet’s able to relish in your raw loving aura, rather than put on a performance for the skeptical eyes of others. 

And then you laugh. 

You laugh, and laugh, and laugh. So hard that you don’t notice the way Vi smiles, one that doesn’t quite meet her eyes.

And definitely, oh definitely, this is the moment she realizes she’s undeniably smitten. 

“Think we’ll get the first noise complaint?” You joke while coming down from your fit of laughter. 

That pulls a laugh from Vi’s throat, one that has her leaning forward with a deep breath after it bubbles out. The soft of her forehead tenderly meets yours, and the room’s heart rate rises exponentially, but neither of you squirm out of your positions. Because this is exactly where you want to be.

You can’t see it as your eyelids flutter shut, but Vi’s left hand wraps around your waist to meet her right, cradling you in a way that’s so natural, so sweet, so real. A cradle that protects and shields you from forces you can’t handle alone. A shelter for disasters from tsunamis to the cold chill of winter. From pretending to be your girlfriend to replacing your wet party clothes, all the way back to being your first standing ovation. Vi is your refuge. 

“Thank you,” you whisper, worried you’ll crack the faultless atmosphere. “Can’t believe you’re putting up with this– with me.” 

Her grip lightly tightens. “I’d do it over and over again.” 

She would, and she will, if you let her. 

You feel the truth in her words, and your eyes flutter open to pull back, just enough to look into those perfect blue specks. 

The pair of you stay there for what feels like forever, examining the watercolor paintings that you call your eyes. And–although she could stare at you for the rest of her life–Vi physically can’t wait any longer. Like magnets, your lips are tugging her forward. Centimeter by centimeter. Inch by inch. Heads tilting, eyes half lidded, and breaths hitching. Vi can practically taste the plush of your feature when—

“Yo! You guys in there?”

Abby’s fist thumps on the door three times. And as fast as you connected, you’re drifting apart.

you don’t care whether she knows or not. you just want her crawling back to you. not happening.  kiramman: I’ll tell her.

“Would you rather go a month without sex, or a month without candy?” 

“What kind of stupid ass question is that?” Vi throws at Abby, who’s snobbishly leaning back in the heated water as if she’d given the ultimatum of the century. 

Her newest middle school party game is would you rather, and while Vi couldn’t care less about the event itself, she’s secretly over the moon at the effort her teammates and close friends are making to connect with you. 

“A month without candy,” you cooly state as you look down at the water. Making the relationship more believable. That’s all you were doing.

That enables a chain of raised eyebrows and looks to Vi, whereas others let out sly whistles and snickers, throwing out little quips like “you hear that, superstar?”. 

“Alright, alright,” she’s calming them with a tug at the corners of her lips and a roll of her eyes. You only snicker to yourself at the odds, as if you didn’t have sex— fake sex with the girl minutes prior.

Leaning closer against Vi’s skin, plush bodies warming each other in the bubbly heat of the hot tub, you’re almost completely relaxed. The outdoors is the perfect flaky winter wonderland you expected, cabins further out from the resort look like the coziest of all shelters, and the milky mountains in the distance tie the atmosphere together. 

And while you’re focused on the landscape, Violet’s eyes are completely trained on you. 

She examines the way you sit so properly in her lap, the way your legs squirmed as she slid her hands away from your thigh and around the small of your waist (so others could see your contact.. of course), how you get so comical and chattery once you’re finally comfortable in a group, and the angelic resting look on your face when you’re finally at ease. 

And neither of you know it, but when the conversation is one that allows you to listen instead of talk, you’re both daydreaming about the endless possibilities of this night. The potential of this moment, as well as that of the countless others you’ve had since this entire ordeal began. 

Neither of you know it, but you’re both considering the idea that life could be like this all the time. The two of you snuggled up, surrounded by those cherished, laughing until you just can’t breathe. 

A chin comes to rest gently on your right shoulder, and Vi’s breath sends a shiver throughout your body faster than the crisp winter air ever could. 

“Do you always sit with your legs crossed in pools?” she teases, voice low, like she’s sharing a secret with you. Only you. 

“No,” you simply hum. Your tongue is prodding the inside of your cheek in thought, and you go through with the lightbulb in your head. 

“It’s a great reminder of how dangerously close your hands are to my bikini though, isn’t it?” 

The pads of her fingers that were once tracing meaningless patterns on your waist come to a stop, and you can hear the smirk in Vi’s voice. 

“You want me to move them?” she breathes.

Your response is almost automatic.

“No.” 

The conversation of what would’ve happened if Abby hadn’t knocked on your door was yet to come, but the newfound tension and playfulness that spilled from both of your lips was undeniable. 

Vi grins at your confidence, but underneath the suave persona, she knows you’ll be the death of her. 

“Bold girl,” she hums.

You’re so trapped in your playful banter that you don’t notice the way the rest of your peers are leaving, running off towards a different attraction of the resort, only god knows what. 

“You were pretty convincing up there,” your sly lips are curivng up at the corners. “You have fake sex often?”

“Nothing fake about my sex.” 

You’re snickering at her confidence, relishing in the way her arm hardens around you as she chuckles. 

“Don’t get cocky. I’m sure someone’s had to fake-orgasm with you once.” Maybe the lying’s getting to you, because you know in your heart of hearts that’s the furthest thing from the truth. 

“You really believe that?” she speaks in a lower tone, head snaking around to make eye contact with you. 

Like a clock rewinding, you’re seventeen again. 

Not physically, nor mentally, but your full heart is pounding the same rhythm as when you first fell for the tough, pink haired beauty in your writing class. Your breaths are shallow, gazes locked, and the warmth between you is incomparable to any sensation you’ve ever experienced prior. 

“Thought so,” she brazenly states after your lack of words, and you’re smiling in thought before gently splashing water towards the smug girl, Melting her charming essence that has you by the throat. 

Vi gasps through a laugh. Soon, she’s threatening to splash you back while you laugh and squeal through your begs for mercy. 

And although your vision isn’t flawless through the squinted happiness of your eyes, you can recognize that swinging navy blue hair approaching you.

Fuck. 

“She doesn’t give up,” you think out loud, and Vi doesn’t need to waste energy on turning her head to register who you’re talking about. 

You don’t see it through your irritated gaze, but Vi feels a jolt of worry crawl up her spine. While you worried about Cait smothering you for the rest of eternity, Vi’s skin shivers at the idea of her place in your heart being twisted from one of love and trust to hatred.

She wants to tell you, wants you to make the conscious decision to love her despite any past affairs.

But she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it now, while you’re warming up on her water-covered body. And she sure as hell couldn’t let Caitlyn poison your mind with it.

So there she sits, staring into your soul with those loyal eyes that silently swear they’d do anything for you. And, understandably, Vi makes all sense of good judgement Melt from your brain until it’s a useless pile of mush. 

So when Cait nears, practically striding her way to your uneasy soul, you make a decision. 

You kiss Violet. 

It’s a quick shift in atmosphere. One moment, your heart is beating out of fear, and the next it’s being thrashed around your chest by the ascended butterflies from your stomach. You turn in her lap to have easier access to her mouth, and the connection of your plush mouths is anything but fragile. It’s messy, hungry, starved even. Your lips dance in unison, and Vi’s sculpted arm wraps around you and gently holds the back of your neck. The way she’s handling you coupled with the burning water is giving your body a fever. 

You don’t know when Caitlyn sees you, how long she glares at your wet mouths and pressed bodies in pure anger, or how long it takes for her to storm off in defeat, because every inch of your mind is focused on the pinkette holding you as if you’re all she has. 

And it’s this moment that you finally accept the truth that’s kept itself hidden in your gut, you want her. And those sparkly powder-blue eyes are telling you that she wants—needs you too. 

But when you slide your hand down to hers and shyly move her calloused fingers to what little fabric’s covering your chest, she’s pulling back. There’s resistance in the movement, but she forces herself to disconnect from your wanting lips nonetheless. 

“Can’t,” she whispers, breathless.

You freeze, big dazed eyes blinking in confusion and embarrassment. ”But..” is all you can muster before Vi opens her mouth.

“Angel–it’s not that I don’t want this, I’m just—” 

The athlete’s rubbing her temples. Her mind, body, and heart must be at war inside of her, because each is telling her a different path to take, and she looks so conflicted as she speaks. 

“You don’t want this,” she finally decides.

“What?” is all you manage to choke out. 

“You don’t want this.” she repeats, less convinced than the first time it left her lips. 

You can only scoff, attempting to hide the bullet to your heart and ego. 

“You don’t know what I want,” you counter, and the ache in your voice sends a crack through Vi’s heart. “Why are you denying this?” 

Because this is fake, a scheme to get your ex girlfriend off your back. Because I haven’t been completely honest with you, and for that I don’t deserve a sweet love like this. Not yet. 

But instead of that, or even coming clean to you altogether, Vi sighs. And for the first time, her eyes are disloyal, looking anywhere but yours. 

You’re huffing, shoving stiff arms off of you. You pull yourself from the hot tub into the freezing air of the night, a replica of your once blazing heart turning ice cold. 

“Whatever, Violet.” you spit out, and just like that, you’re gone. 

The debate over soul-shredding anxiety and complete peace has come to a halt, because the ache of a pummeled ego and a confused heart that’s afraid to beat outweighs both. 

You didn’t sleep in yours and Vi’s shared room that night. Instead, you grabbed a pillow and stormed over to Mel and Elora’s, who were happy to have you. Making up a lie about dying for a girls’ night, you gossiped and giggled, arguably with a stronger poker face than the Kirammans, before a yawn finally slipped from Mel’s mouth and exhaustion spread throughout the air. 

At last, in the silence of night, salt ridden tears noiselessly slide down the bridge of your nose and pile onto the cool fluff of your pillow. 

As if your lack of adequate sleep and racing mind didn’t have you at your wits end, the next day was twice as cruel on you. Ignoring one athlete was a walk in the park, but avoiding two, while trying not to raise suspicion, is just as hard as it sounds. 

Caitlyn’s in the hallway, so you rush to your room. Violet’s in the room, so you venture off to the spa with Mel and Elora. Caitlyn’s entering the spa right before you finish up, so you’re suggesting a lap of skiing to the girls, but Vi’s exiting the room in her snow gear when you near the door. 

You just couldn’t win. 

So when you hear the soft voice coming from the doorway, you don’t even bother to lift your body from the plush of your blanket. 

“Don’t go,” Vi pleads, gently shutting the wooden door and ridding herself of her puffy jacket. 

The pinkette’s still, waiting for you to move, to do or say something—anything, but you do nothing of the sort. When she concludes it’s safe she takes small, soft steps towards the edge of your bed and you feel the mattress dip under pure muscle. 

With still hands and a timid heart, Vi speaks the first words into the air. 

“Well, we broke our little rule set.”

Her playful smile is uneasy, one made when she examines your weary face too hard. And when she notices the lack of expression on your face, it flattens out into worried brows and soft lips. 

“I’m sorry,” slips from her lips, prompting you to turn your head towards the pinkette. 

“Stop. You don’t have to apologize for your feelings… or lack thereof,” you whisper the last part as if it’s shameful. 

With a sigh, you hoist yourself up to sit straight and lean against the decorative headboard. With fidgeting hands laid in your lap and eyes that travel anywhere but the anxious girl before you, you speak.

“I just thought that there was— something,” you start. “And.. and maybe it’s stupid, but I thought that maybe all of this means something. Maybe my letters getting out wasn’t the worst thing, because maybe things between us could be exactly how I wanted when I was writing them.” 

Vi feels terrible for giving you emotional whiplash, but she can’t stand to see you beating yourself up over something you want— something the both of you crave: eachother. 

Tender fingers snake their way up to your face and hook on your chin, tilting your head towards her alluring orbs. 

“You really believe that?” she asks, eyes squinted.

“Believe.. what?” 

“That I don’t feel things for you?” she asks like the answer is the most obvious thing in the world.

“I couldn’t tell you all the things you do to me. All the ways you make me feel,” she slides the hand that’s cupping your face to gently tap the side of your pretty little head. 

“Here, and.. here,” her finger grazes your skin as it skims down to tap once against your encaptured heart. “And….”

She cuts the sentence short, dropping her hand down to intertwine with one of yours, because you’re supposed to be having a serious conversation, so she needs to focus. 

“You do terribly good things to me, sweetheart.” 

“Then why did you push me away?” you whisper to combat the rapid speed of your heart as adrenaline rushes through your veins from Vi’s simple and sensual touches. 

She contemplates it, ripping the bandage off and telling you the truth, she really does. Would it be that big of a deal? Would you take it with ease and laugh at her anxiety, caressing her like she dreams and letting her finally place a guilt-free kiss upon your soft lips? Or would you crumble at the news, and let the trust you’ve built up shatter with it? 

“I didn’t know whether it was real or not,” she decides: a lie. “I know that the way my heart races for you is real, the realest thing there is. But I know it’s easy to get caught up in a fake high, and when you were kissing me I just—” she sighs at the ramble, but the gentle squeeze you give her hand guides her through it. 

“I just wanted to let you decide if this is really what you want. Not because of Cait or anyone else. Just you.”

She’ll tell you. Eventually. She silently swears it to herself. 

But right now, Vi’s looking at you the same way she did that day, and it’s suffocating. 

Big pretty eyes examine every inch of you with that awestruck gaze, a child watching a shooting star pass by. Except this time, she wouldn’t let you leave. 

This time, you, that creative girl with clammy palms and shy eyes, watching her bubblegum haired love give her a standing ovation— that shooting star would come crashing down and right into the warm arms in which she belongs. 

“The love I have for you.. it never went away, it just transformed,” you confess.

Violet’s once worried expression morphs. She’s still soft, still trapped in the beautiful moment, but there’s a newfound confidence behind her demeanor. 

“The love I have for you has stayed the same. Ever since that stupid writing class—” you giggle at her words, and she does the same, “I think I’ve loved you for years. It’s left such an ache in my heart, baby.” 

There’s a glitch somewhere in your brain, because the athlete’s words mixed with your newest nickname is causing a system overload. 

You’re suddenly very aware of the amber musk filling your nostrils, and Vi’s proximity has you squirming, soft hand gently squeezing at hers which carresses you so gingerly. You’re trapped between the headboard and her oh-so-close body, and it’d be a lie to say any part of you is complaining. 

“I can.. I can make that ache go away,” you whisper, shy head tilting as you wait for her approval. 

The suave, player-like girl is back in full force. With a notorious smirk in place, she’s leaning closer, tilting her head opposite of yours and lining up her plush lips with yours. 

“Yeah, you can.” 

That’s all it takes for your lips to come crashing together at full force. It’s messy, loving, and infuriatingly sexy all at once, and you don’t have any brain power left to think about it. All of your energy, every bit of your soul is being put into showing this girl how you really feel. 

The atmosphere feels heavier and lighter simultaneously in the best way possible. Vi’s kissing you like you’re the air she needs to breathe, and drinking you in like your mouth is water and the torturous years leading up to this have taken place in the desert. 

For the first time, the pair of you silently agree that this is real. Real touches, real passion, real tongues gliding against one another, and real desire for more. 

You hum into Vi’s mouth as she ravishes you, and your hands find their way to tangle in her fluffy scalp as she effortlessly switches places with you and lifts you into her lap while she relaxes back against the headboard. You can’t help but chuckle as her hands move to cup the fat of your ass, causing her to grin through kisses until you finally stop, because your lips are practically peppering her teeth. 

“What’s so funny?” you ask through a snicker. Vi shakes her head, sneaking kisses down your jaw and the stretch of your neck. 

“Nothin’, I just don’t want this to end,” she confesses, ending with a tender kiss to your collarbone. 

An uncontrollable smile fights its way onto your face. 

“Well I’m not going anywhere,” you assure.

She nods, wrapping strong arms around your torso to pull your body as close to hers as possible. 

“Neither am I, sunshine.” 

Violet’s learned three new things since you fell asleep in her arms. 

One, you’re a cuddler. Every inch of you has touched, skimmed, or wrapped around the butch since you laid upon the soft matter of the bed. Her favorite position is when you curl yourself up against her chest and slide a leg inbetween hers to let them intertwine.

Two, every inch of you still smells like that perfect mixture of cotton candy and strawberry she remembers from years ago. 

And three, she’s completely whipped for you. For your brain, your voice, the giggles you make between kisses, the way you give your all to her, and don’t get her started on your body. She’s got it bad. 

So, the struggle she faced when she had to snake out of your grasp was ultimately the hardest thing she’s done in her entire life. 

The love-hazed girl didn’t bother to do anything but slip on some shoes and run a hand through her hair, because within minutes she’d be right back next to you where she belongs. 

At least, that was the plan. 

She doesn’t know why the loud cacophony of cackles catches her attention, because she knows how obnoxious her teammates can be, but it does. She lazily turns her head once, letting it lull back before the alarm of confusion goes off in her brain, and she’s turning towards the sound once again. 

Sevika, a few members of the basketball team, and some others she doesn’t recognize, all sit against the couches and chairs in the lounging area. But there’s no relaxation in the way they rest against the furniture. Each is laced with anticipation, and their eyes all lay on the buff brownskin girl who’s smirks as if she’s discovered a pot of gold. 

“Your voice of honey soothes my soul, and the picture of delicate curls falling to frame your face as you lift me onto my feet will stay forever plastered in my mind,” the woman spits.

The words are so sensual, so raw, so genuine, filled with nothing but passion, but Sevika’s interpretation does it no justice. 

And Violet knows exactly who wrote those words of desire. 

Her feet move quicker than she’s ever felt the need to before. 

When she nears the group, a face of pure determination, she spots it. A brown envelope, decorated with a bow and pretty hearts accompanied by a single kiss mark. So similar to the one you made for Vi all those years ago. 

“There’s the woman of the hour,” Sevika taunts loudly, leaning back in her seat. Her fingers tap the letter in her hands against her own thigh, a reminder that your past words of hope and love still lie with her. “Or, would you be the second? No… no, that’d be this uh, Skye, huh?” 

Sevika’s smile is poisonous, infecting Violet with a rage she’s never experienced before. 

“What are you doing with that?” Vi’s practically seething, eyes trained on the brown paper between Sevika’s fingers.

“Found it on the ground, guess it slipped away from your girl before she could mail it off to her secret lover,” she lies, throwing her hands up in faux innocence. 

“I swear to God— fucking give it to me, and I’ll forget this happened.”

“And you’ll forget that she’s dreaming of someone else’s mouth?” The burly woman scoffs, coming to a stand directly infront of Violet. The space between them is thinning, disintegrated by rageful tension.

“Seriously, I don’t see why you’re going through all this trouble for a whore, pinkie.” 

Faster than anyone in the room can register, Vi’s fist comes up to smash into Sevika’s jaw. The slam is loud, echoing throughout the room until it creates a stunned silence.

Sevika’s hand comes up to hold her jaw, craning it as the metallic taste of blood sets itself on her tongue. 

Within seconds, she’s lunging right at Vi. Their fists look like skin colored blobs in the air from how fast they land punches to one another’s guts. They’re thrashing around in anger, threatening the space they reside in, before four onlookers break them apart.

Some whoop and holler, others laugh and speculate exactly who ‘won’, but neither of the girls care. Through their heavy panting and darkened gazes, they’re only focused on one thing: the brown envelope that now lies between Vi’s fingers. 

With a cocky, bruised grin and the satisfying drug of adrenaline, Violet turns on her heels and stumbles out of sight. 

[REDACTED]: listen, toots. i have a better plan.  … [REDACTED]: I’m listening. 

With the way neither of you dare to move, any third party would think the two of you are paralyzed; and you are, by love.

It’s been five minutes since you’ve woken up, and Vi’s sweet gaze keeps you in a warm, butterfly inducing trance. Neither of you move from your position in the bed, savouring deep synced breaths, snuggling under the blankets, and wrapping around one another. You’re sticking together like your feelings are superglue. 

Finally, one of the pinkette’s hands rubs at the small of your back, drawing sweet nothings on your dimples and the line that trails up your perfect torso. 

“I haven’t slept that long in ages,” you hum, making Violet pull you just a bit closer. 

“Maybe you should sleep with me every night,” she concludes, sending you a smile that has you giggling with a little ‘oh sure’. 

She sees your sweet bubble of happiness wobble when your eyes squint at the sight of her chin, now decorated with a blossomed bruise. A soft hand comes up to graze the purple mark as you ask, “When did that happen?” 

As fast as the pinkette opens her mouth to speak, it shuts. Because she definitely can’t tell you that Sevika’s tried to embarrass you by reading one of your old love letters to a group of your classmates. Why has she become more of a pain now than ever? Vi hasn’t figured that out yet. But she has come to one conclusion: worrying you wouldn’t do any good. What you didn’t have to know, you wouldn’t. 

She quickly takes your wandering hand in hers, intertwining fingers and giving them a little squeeze. 

“I’m fine, sunshine. Got up all hazy last night to turn the light off since we forgot. Completely ran into the wall, that’s all.” Although Vi isn’t a klutz, it seems like a perfectly plausible story, so you don’t push. 

You only chuckle, shaking your head. “Be more careful. I have to get you home in one piece.” 

A soft smile spreads across her face, and she’s kissing your knuckles while responding. “Of course, angel.” 

While you scolded Vi about her bruises, you were set up to get some of your own. 

“Vi I’m not sure if this is a great idea,” you worry, looking down at the girl who gets on her knees to lace up your skates. 

The freezing temperature kissed your nose a subtle hint of red, but the beautiful sunlight gently coating the flurry white wonderland that surrounded the city made up for it. All around you, classmates and city locals of all ages glide around the ice rink with glee. Sounds of love, joy, and the squeals or laughter of tripping inexperienced-skaters fill your ears. 

“Why not?” she asks, eyes flickering up to yours for just a second before moving on to the other foot. The picture of her is just all too much, and you have to look away to regather your thoughts. 

“I know that you’re a hockey player so this may come as a shock to you, but not everyone is good at ice skating,” she grins, rolling her eyes at your sarcasm. “I’m just gonna fall on my ass a bunch,” you whine.

“And I’ll be right there to pick you back up.” Vi’s confidence melts away your worries. Finally, as she finishes with your skates, you playfully roll your eyes and come to a stand (with the help of her strong hands). 

The thinning space between you two and your starry eyes which look up at Vi keep her in a trance as her arms mindlessly wrap around your waist, hands dangerously close to your ass. 

“Promise not to let me go?” you whisper through a grin.

“Shit. I wouldn’t dream of it.” 

And she doesn’t. Through your first steps and little slips on the ice, Vi stands right beside you, holding your hand with tender care. 

“This is pretty romantic, right?” she hums in your ear as you attempt to push your feet against the ice like she taught you. 

“As long as I don’t completely eat it.” you warn, eyes trained to the ice.

She snickers.

“Well, you look sexy when you’re focused, I’ll give you that.”

Butterflies erupt throughout your stomach, and a warmth is travelling up your body as you look at Violet with a faux sternness. 

“Quiet. You’re distracting me,” you tease.

Vi’s tongue pokes at the inside of her cheek in thought before she’s letting go of your hand and coming to stand right infront of you. Sculpted arms snake around your waist, and the lack of space between you two as Vi stares with a hungry gaze is making your body feel weak. 

“I’m distracting you, sweetheart?” 

You quietly suck in a breath of icy cold air, searching for a response in her pretty powder-blue eyes before she snickers once more, stepping back. At last, you feel like you can breathe.

She takes you around the ice, helping you reach a good foundation to feel comfortable skating on your own, and the ‘good job, baby’ she praises you with sends a sweet sensation throughout your body. As you’re gliding away from her, giggling in surprise as she pretends to chase you with her intimidating hockey stance, a group of her teammates call for her attention.

She pauses, breath kissing your ear as she lets go of your body. “I’ll just be a second, yeah?” 

You nod, sending her off to the group with a smile. 

And for a moment, everything’s perfect. Until it isn’t. 

The call of your name from her mouth freezes your body faster than the chill of the ice ever could. Effortlessly, Caitlyn’s gliding up to you with a calculated and calm expression. She knows you can’t get far in those skates. 

First, you’re praying that Vi will look over at you and race back just in time to save you. Then, anger’s bubbling in the pit of your stomach, and you whip around to make eye contact with the navy-haired girl. Finally—

“What, Caitlyn?” you snap without hesitation. 

The girl’s expression refuses to waver, and toned arms are crossing with the notorious sly smirk of a Kiramman. “Never thought I’d see you with blades on your feet.” 

“Never thought I’d see you begging for attention, but here we are,” you quip, placing your hands on your hips, completely distracted from the ice below you. 

Her arms uncross with an amused hum, and for a moment you think that maybe she’s getting off on the negative energy you throw her way. But then she begins to push her skates against the ice, slowly circling you. 

“I just thought I’d check in on you, sweetheart. You’ve forgotten to answer my calls and texts–”

“You know damn well I haven’t forgotten, Cait—”

“—And I wanted to applaud you in person for being so understanding about what happened with Violet and I.”

She comes to a stop, and so does your heart. The little red organ skips a beat before continuing, pace matching your weariness. 

“What are you talking about?” you question, brows furrowed so innocently that Caitlyn has to stop herself from laughing.

“She hasn’t told you?” The bluenette makes no attempt to act shocked. Your eyes lock, and her skates scrape against the ice until she’s hovering right over you. 

“Weren’t you wondering where she slept after you left her at the jacuzzi?” The visible air that blows from her mouth is just as harsh as her words, stabbing your heart with its icicles.  

“What are you..” you mutter, but the words die in your throat.

“Vi and I had a… rekindling.” Her head tilts with a cocky smile. “It was bound to happen I suppose. Once a hookup, always a—”

“I don’t believe you.” Your stern words contradict the uncertainty tainting your voice. 

Caitlyn doesn’t speak. She simply reaches into her back pocket, pulls out her phone, and scrolls to open her messages with Vi, gently placing the device into your quivering fingers.

Really? My ex girlfriend? You’re a class act. i’ll love her better than you ever could, caitlyn Is this to get back at me? You’re the one who ended our little affair. stop texting my number. Come to think of it, I never told her about us.  Does she even know?  fucking drop it cait You have until the end of the trip.  If you don’t tell her, I will. you don’t care whether she knows or not. you just want her crawling back to you. not happening.  I’ll tell her.

“You see it now? How easy it was for her to lie to you? She doesn’t love you, not like I do.” 

“Angel?” Vi’s voice calls out. The once sweet melody to your ears now erupts a symphony of confusion and anger inside of you. Did she plan out those nicknames?

Before you know it, Vi’s coming up behind you and placing an arm around your waist. Instead of feeling comfort, you’re suffocated. How can she fake it so easily?

“Can I help you?” the pink haired girl spits to the Kiramman with a voice of pure disgust. How could you have known?

“I was just leaving,” Caitlyn hums. With the fulfilling sight of your aghast eyes and Violet’s hidden panic, she skates off. 

The two of you are uncomfortably quiet for a moment. Your body’s still, save for the racing thoughts in your mind, but when Vi’s hand on you tightens you’re breaking from her grasp.

And then she sees it.

The broken gaze in your sorrowful eyes, the one look she desperately wanted to avoid. Her worst nightmare has become her reality. 

And you see it.

The way her gaze goes from calm and collected to a deer in headlights. It’s like a switch was flipped in her brain, and Violet’s mask comes off as she speaks. 

“I can explain—”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Your heartbroken voice drowns her out. 

“You don’t understand,” she pleas, but you’re pushing your weight into one foot in an attempt to turn yourself around on the ice.

“I understand perfectly fine you backstabbing–”

Your knees come slamming into the icy ground with a thud, and the newly proclaimed backstabber is at your side, attempting to lift you onto your feet. You shove her off with a huff, using one knee to come to a wobbly stand. 

“Just..” you start, ignoring the tears of frustration that bubble in the corners of your eyes, accompanied by the prickly curse in your throat. “Just stay away from me, Vi.” 

And you’re gone.

Vi obeys your wishes and leaves you alone like you asked.

But only for the next two hours, while she figures out what the hell she’s going to say to make up for the pain she’s caused you. Because she did hook up with Cait, but the last time was was months ago, before either of them had anything with you. Because she knows Cait did something to fuck with your head, and now her baby’s fretting and scared to trust anyone. Because she’s in love with you and only you, and she’s never going to forgive herself if she doesn’t get you back. 

So when she slips into your shared room and finds you packing your things, she braces herself for the yelling and cussing she expects to come.

But, it never happens. Instead, you look at her with a woeful expression, and turn back to your open luggage with a scoff. 

“I knew Caitlyn was fucked up, but I never imagined you’d have as many screws loose. You’ll be perfect for each other,” you spit, the words acid to Violet. Manicured hands move at a fast pace, roughly tossing in clothes and skin products like they mean nothing to you. “And I know we’re not actually dating, but to fuck the one person we’re trying to lie to? Then come to me the next day acting like you…” you trail off, discarding the sentence like trash, but she knows what you were trying to say: like you love me. 

Wait, what?

“Hold on, hold on. I haven’t fucked Kiramman.”

“..So you weren’t with her the night I slept in Mel’s room?” you squint.

“Fuck no. It’s been months since we’ve hooked up, angel. Like, before you and her were even a thing–”

“So you did fuck! Jesus, why didn’t you tell me?” you raise your voice in question, whipping around to face the girl with exhausted body language. When Vi’s mouth hangs open with no clue of a better response than ‘I was scared’, you shake your head, coming to conclusions yourself.

“That’s why you did this, right? I should’ve asked more about why you proposed this whole scheme,” you start, walking towards the nightstand. “Make me look like an idiot? Get back at Cait? Get with Cait? What was it?” 

“No– no. I was going to tell you angel, God I swear, I just didn’t know how to tell you without making it hurt. I don’t want anything with Caitlyn, cross my heart, her and I are history. Everything I said about you– everything I felt with you is real.” She’s speaking so tenderly, inching closer to your frame.

And you would’ve turned, would’ve calmed down enough to finish this conversation civilly, maybe believe her. 

But instead, you’re staring at the opened drawer of the bedside table, right at the chesnut brown envelope decorated with hearts. The same one you wrote for Skye all those years ago. 

You’re completely over this.

Violet’s close enough to see everything now. The envelope and letter, the way your face is morphing through thousands of different expressions, and the tears that finally begin to slide down your cheeks as you lift the paper into the air and choke out words.

“Why the hell do you have this? How much did you plan to humiliate me, huh?” you ask through sweet sobs.

Violet sighs, because everything she’s kept from you is hitting her. All of her mistakes are crashing down upon her at once. All she wants is to fix it for you. 

“That’s not– fuck this looks bad.” She’s cursing herself for everything she didn’t tell you, all the chances she had to come clean and never did out of fear. 

“Sevika had it and I took it from her. We fought over it and I hid it here because I didn’t want you to be embarrassed. That’s all. I swear.” 

She watches your glossy eyes flicker to her bruised jaw that you touched so lovingly that morning, to her eyes that beg you to forgive her, and to your bag as you walk towards it.

“Well you don’t have to worry about me anymore, Violet. This– us, whatever we are is done. ” You knuckle away your tears, sniffing and pulling at the handle of your suitcase.

The pinkette takes no action to hide the dread that fills her face, quickly following your motion around the room. 

“So we’re just breaking–” she stops. Her heart is racing at an ungodly speed, and the next words come out as a horrified mumble, “We’re just over? Like that?” 

There’s a pregnant pause, and for the last time, you look back at Vi, voice clear. 

“We were never together, Violet.” 

There’s nothing she can say to rebuttal, or stop you from walking out of that room, because despite both of your desires, it was true. 

For the next two days, your bed becomes your safe haven. You put your phone on ‘do not disturb’, wrap yourself in the thickest blanket your apartment has, and hide from the rest of the world. It’s only thanks to Mel, who’s worried to death, that you remember to eat every once in a while.

Safe to say, you’re a wreck. 

Three soft knocks on your bedroom door prompt you to roll over, and you’re pulling your head from the covers as the aforementioned beauty enters the room with a plated sandwich in hand. 

“I have something for that headache of yours,” she offers, setting the platter on your bedside table and sitting at the edge of the soft mattress. 

From your blanket-clad vision, you see her lips press together in thought before she finally decides on her carefully sculpted words. 

“I talked to Abby,” she starts. You groan, pulling yourself back under the blankets.

“Listen,” she scolds, and you bite your tongue. Hard. “I talked to Abby and she says Violet slept in her room that night. She was moping about you the entire time.” 

“She didn’t tell me about her and Caitlyn,” you seethe.  

“No, but she said she was going to, right?” She offers, tilting her head. “In the end, does it really change anything about how you two feel towards each other?” 

When you don’t respond, she sighs, patting your blanket and coming to a stand. 

“It’s your decision what you do, but I can tell Violet really cares about you. And I think you feel the same.”

With that, she’s stepping out of the room and gently closing your door with a click.  

Almost immediately, your head pokes out of the blanket, and your gaze travels to your now black lockscreen lighting up.

One message from Caitlyn.

caitlyn: Are you ready to apologize to me? I’ll still take you back. 

You block her number. Something you should’ve done a long time ago. 

Then, you check the three messages from Vi. 

superstar <3: i know you want me to leave you alone, and i’m trying my hardest to please let me talk to you angel whenever you’re ready to hear me out

You can only sigh. 

“I don’t know how else to get this through to both of you.”

Coach Talis’s sharp tongue scolds the winded athletes. Sweat is dripping down every inch of their skin under their heavy gear. While their teammates ended practice an hour ago, they were here running drills for the ‘stunt’ they pulled back at Mt. Sky. If it weren’t for the exhaustion capturing their bodies, they’d be pummeling each other this very second.

“I’m this close to benching both of you, and you know I don’t want to do that.” Both girls rapidly shake their heads.

“This better be the last time I hear of an incident regarding the both of you, do you understand?” The tanned man snaps, and both athletes are throwing out soft “yes coach”’s before he waves them off to the locker room. 

Throughout her entire shower, Violet’s brain is focused on two things. One, how much she loathes Sevika (fuck her), and two, how much she fucking misses you. 

Throughout her time spent drying herself off, getting redressed, and packing her backpack, she prays for a text, call, something from you. When she hears the buzz of a phone, she’s whipping her head around to face her lockscreen (with her favorite picture of you looking effortlessly beautiful and silly simultaneously). 

It’s not until the second buzz goes off that she realizes it’s not her phone that’s being blown up, but Sevika’s. 

Despite better judgement, she curiously walks over to the device, reaching down to pick it up with careless hands.

And it almost drops from her calloused fingers in shock. 

There’s three notifications from ‘C. Kiramman’.

c. kiramman: That worked better than I thought. You’re not as dumb as you look.  c. kiramman: I think our work together is done. C. Kiramman sent you $300!

You’re at war with yourself.

Your brain is clawing at you to block Violet, get yourself together, and move on with your life as if she was never a part of it.

Your heart and every inch of hope that fills you is begging for you to pick up your phone and give her a chance to prove that it was all a case of bad timing, misunderstandings, and that you truly mean something to her. Because you want her, you can finally admit it, but you’re deathly afraid of being made a fool of.

You’d skipped classes for the day, pulled yourself from your sheets, showered, and now sit on your black couch with a little sigh, sinking into the fluffy matter. The silence of the apartment is contrasting the swarm of loud thoughts inside your mind, and before it can drive you utterly insane, the doorbell rings. 

“Angel?” That sweet voice calls out.

You rise to your feet embarrassingly fast. Your brain waves a white flag and your heart dances in success. 

When you swing the door open, it takes everything in you to keep yourself from jumping into Violet’s arms. She’s worried out of her mind, but the surprise that you even opened the door is giving her a jolt of hope and encouragement. You take in her presence, musk amber scent, oversized jacket that once protected your arms, and all. 

“I’m so sorry,” spills from her lips, and you scan her expression before stepping to the side. 

“Come in.” 

You and Vi sit on opposite ends of your couch. You’re trying to show off your self control, but she’s just glad you’ll sit next to her at all. 

“I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you about my past with Caitlyn. I was scared that you’d hate me, and shit it all just caught up with me before I could grow some balls and rip the bandaid off.” 

You’ve never seen her look so worried, so vulnerable. 

You take one scoot closer. 

“But I promise, I ended things with her a long time ago and that was the last time we ever did anything.”

She’s pulling out her phone, opening the photos app, and setting her phone down face up on the cushions for you to take. You do, picking it up with weary fingers, ones that still when you see the material she’s revealing.

“Caitlyn hired Sevika to fuck with us. That time at the party, all those times she got me in shit at practice, taking your letter, even giving Caitlyn the idea of lying that I did something with her. They’ve been trying to get inbetween us for a long time.” 

Your mouth is slightly agape as you scroll through monetary payments and texts from your ex. Ones about her getting you back (fuck that), and others about Sevika getting the spotlight once Vi’s burnt out and screwing up at hockey (again, fuck that). 

“I get why you’re pissed at me, and I understand if you want me out of your life forever.” It shakes her to even utter those words. “But I…” 

She’s biting her lip, and you watch as she pulls a neatly folded piece of loose leaf paper from her pocket. With embarrassment flushing her face, she sets it on the couch for you to take.

“What’s this?” you ask softly, taking it in your hands and gently unfolding.

“Please don’t read it out loud.” 

Your heart quickens at the suspense, and your fingers come to a stop as Violet’s handwriting fills your vision. 

Dear _____, 

Oh my god.

The words fill your mind and apparently show through your eyes, because when you look at Violet once more, she’s looking more sheepish than ever.

With a deep breath, you read. 

I’ve been in love with you for so long, longer than I ever realized, and I never knew how much it warmed my heart and brightened my days until I lost you. The way your eyes light up when you laugh, the loud laugh that takes over your body when we’re alone, the quiet moments we shared, where we didn’t need words, just the way our hands fit together so perfectly. How being near you made everything feel like it was right, even when nothing else made sense. All of the little things that make you, you, have become the moments I crave most. 

I know I’ve messed up. Been too wrapped up inside my head and covered in fear to tell you the entire truth, but I miss us. I miss your laugh, your smile, the way we would talk about everything and nothing all at once. I wrapping my arm around your waist or kissing your neck cheek nose forehead and feeling like everything was right in the world when we were together. And I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to lose you. I’m not asking for everything to go back to normal right away, because I know things take time. But I want to try again, if you’ll let me.

You’re worth every second, every inch of love that exists throughout my blood, and I will spend the rest of my days trying to show you just how much you mean to me.

-With all my love, yours truly, Violet

In the eleventh grade, you thought you loved Violet more than humanely possible.

Now, you wonder how shocked your younger self would be to hear that amount has grown exponentially. 

"I know it's bad. I'm not a genius like you bu-"

Lips smashing into hers silence any worries that the letter didn’t do its job. Your plush mouthes press against one another’s with a passion so deep, so genuine, that it speaks louder than any words you’ve spoken; louder than any love letter either of you have written. 

You faintly pull back, giggling breathily as Vi chases your lips with a look sweet enough to give you a heart attack. With touching foreheads and closed, relaxed eyes, you use the same words as when you first fell in love with her. Except this time– you say them out loud. 

“From my happily raised eyebrows to my.. gosh however I worded it. Y’know that was so corny now that I think about it,” you begin to whisper, and giggles erupt from both of your mouthes. You hum, placing another chaste kiss on her swollen lips. “I love you, Violet Vanderson. I really, really love you.” 

The warmth radiating from your soul and the heat of your intertwined bodies is all too much. It does anything but help when Violet places soft kisses on your cheek, ones that trail down to your jaw and the base of your neck as she gently pulls you into her lap. 

“Do you–” she places a kiss, “forgive me?” The suck and lick she gives to your neck sends a shudder down your spine. Wait, what’d she ask again? 

“I don’t know,” you hum teasingly, feeling her smirk against your wet skin. “I think you should work for it.” 

“Whatever you want. Tell me what you want, baby.” 

Fuck. How can words make your eyes roll into the back of your head? 

“Want you to—” 

You gasp as she slides her tongue down your neck, coming to kiss at your collarbones.

“Use your words, sweet girl,” she whispers sensually. 

“Fuck. I want you.” 

That’s all she needs, and Violet’s sliding a cold hand up your shirt, inching it up slowly over your bra and refusing to break eye contact. The action has you whimpering into submission, and you huff.

“You’re such a tease.” You complain.

“You’ll take it,” she hums, finally pulling the shirt over your head and going straight for the clasp of your bra. 

You take the time to trail a hand under her own shirt, letting your finger tips trail over her abs, and you gasp as your already hard nipples twitch from the newfound cold air when Vi tosses your bra to the side. 

“God you’re beautiful,” is the last thing she says before diving head first into your chest. The room is filled with soft kissing sounds, wet licks and pop’s from Vi’s mouth on your nubs, and your moans of pleasure when she twists at whatever nipple isn’t getting her mouth’s attention.

“Vi– babe please. Need you now.” 

She groans against your sensitive skin, releasing you from her mouth. 

“Need me now, baby?” The girl mocks your neediness with a smirk.

“Yeah, yes please,” you whimper out, and she snickers at how you’re already too dazed to focus. 

She decides she’s played with your tits enough (for now), and pulls you right back into a messy, tongue infested kiss as she flips your position. You lean against the couch as she reluctantly separates your lips, sliding kisses down the middle of your torso as her strong hands work at pulling down your pants terribly slowly. 

Once they’re off, and you think you’re free as she runs a finger along the middle of your panties, right over your clothed heat. She hums at the way you buck forward. Her just graze along the seam as you speak. 

“I’m not– mmm, feeling very forgiving right now…” you scold, eyes so gone that Violet has to stop herself from apologizing. 

“Do you want my mouth or fingers to change that?” she asks, and she can’t hold back the laugh any longer when your eyes unknowingly light up. 

“Mouth– both– Vi anything, just give me it now.” 

She laughs, finally pulling your underwear down at a reasonable pace and scolding you gently.

“We’ll work on fixing your tone another time.” 

She leaves the tiny fabric hanging off one of your delicate ankles, mumbling something about how fuckable you look sprawled out for her like this. The girl’s quick to effortlessly spread your legs, and she gulps at how slick and glistening your cunt is all for her. 

“Fuck me, baby,” she mutters in awe.

“I’m trying to,” you whine, taking her back to the present where you and your body are completely at her mercy.

Finally, your prayers are answered, and she’s licking a clean line straight up your pussy, taking a river of juices with her pleasure-inducing tongue. 

As if the taste enchants her, Vi’s dropping her head down to your needy heat. Her tongue lulls out, swirling against your clit, your hole, anywhere she can make you feel good. It’s not long before two thick fingers plunge into you, and you’re throwing your head back. 

“Oh my god, please please– yes.”

“Please? Please what, sweetheart?” she mocks once more. Your moans motivate the muscle-flexing girl to go deeper, go faster, and she has to hold you still when you arch from how sweet her digits hit your g-spot. 

The way she’s drinking your cunt sucks away your thoughts as well, and it’s not until she hands a harsh slap to your ass that you’re blinking, babbling something about needing to cum. 

“You can do it baby, yeah good girl. Fuck.” 

Sweet praises decorated with the perfect mixture of her fingers, tongue, and the lust-laced eye contact send you over the edge, and your loud moans carry throughout the entire space as you finish. 

Vi’s tools don’t stop, not until you’ve completely come down from the best high of your life, not until your shaky hand is gently placing itself over hers in silent appreciation. 

When your heavy pants are all that’s left to be heard, she kisses your cunt goodbye and says hello to your lips. A strong hand on the back of your head keeps your mouth pressed against hers, and you love it. Because you’re sure you could twist lips with this girl until you pass out from forgetting to breathe. 

“Taste yourself?” she whispers once her tongue’s slid out of your mouth. You can only nod, relishing in the way her arms wrap around your body, a silent insinuation that you’re hers to protect.

With a hum, you’re kissing both of her cheeks, then her nose and forehead in thanks as her chin rests against your chest.

“I guess that was a good enough apology.” You fake dissatisfaction, completely ignoring the way your body presses even further into hers while you smooth a hand through her hair. 

She snickers in disbelief.

“Think you need another? Just to see how sorry I am, of course.” 

You hum, finally shrugging with an inconcealable smile.

“I guess that’d work.” 

Vi makes no complaint, because why on earth would she, and she’s kissing a line right back where she started.

“Is this too over the top? The number six was fine but the hand prints? Do I look like a high schooler? Be honest—” 

Mel cuts off your babbling with a laugh. “You didn’t want to look like a high schooler?” 

You’re whining from your position in the stands, and Mel’s apologizing for her joke as she confirms you look amazing. “Vi’s already seen you, and she seemed to love it,” she coos in your ear, bumping her hip against yours as you laugh. 

And the girl’s right. Throughout the game, Vi’s taken glances at you every second she gets. She’s grinning at the pink body paint handprints that travel up your legs, winking when you blow her kisses everytime your gazes lock, chuckling at how loud you get when you cheer ‘go Vi!’, and don’t get her started on how you’re body is clad in her big jersey. 

Yeah, she’s completely whipped. 

There’s only two minutes left in the game, and the Piltover Knights are winning 2-4. But you’re not entirely focused on the screaming atmosphere or Vi’s upcoming victory, because all you can think about is how hot and aggressive your girlfriend looks in her element.

There’s a jolt of joy that zips up your body, because: yeah, that’s your girlfriend. 

The horn chugs to signal the end of the match and the crowd’s roaring with glee, especially you and Mel, who jump up and down while screaming out for your respective players. 

Vi throws you a toothy smile from the ice, one that you see again after she exits the locker room and comes to find ‘her girl’ in the loitering crowd. 

She embraces and lifts you into the air, spinning you around as if you’re a feather in her grasp. Each giggle that spills from your lips is more joyous than the last, just like every moment you spend together. 

“You were so cool out there! Never seen you look so mad and focused,” you praise your pink-haired girl as she sets you down, placing a warm kiss to the top of your head.

“That’s because you bring out the good in me. I’m usually all rude and scary and—”

“With that hair?” you tease, ruffling your hand through her fluff. “You’re not fooling anybody, pinkie.” 

Vi’s jaw drops in shock. 

“Pinkie?” she repeats with a squinted gaze. 

A beat passes, and you’re turning to run away, but it’s too late. The athlete lunges forward, wrapping her arms around your core to trap you as you fake complain in protest, but giggles are soon falling from your mouth and breaking your character. 

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” her playful words kiss your ear.

“Oh whatever, you love me.” you grin through the claim, turning your head to have her beautiful face in your vision. 

Vi’s smile softens into something genuine as she scans over your pretty face. Your astonishing, stunning– fuck there are so many things she could say about your face, about your heart, about your brain, about you. 

“Yeah. I really, really do.” 

Sparkled blue eyes connect with yours, and they’re sending you into a trance as you’re lured into a tender kiss. 

With every kiss, the world around you is drowned out until it’s just you and Violet. Your minds, bodies, and hearts intertwine, and with each connection of your lips, you taste everything she feels.

It’s perfect, even better than you could’ve imagined from that creative writing class, and it gets better everyday that you live the reality.

From the grasp of your passionate kiss, as colors of blue, auburn, chestnut brown and more pass by you, you smile knowing that safe in your arms lies your perfect pink. 

©silknspice

[aviceth]

FUCK YOU !! (AND, UH, FUCK HER TOO) — LOGAN HOWLETT + SCOTT SUMMERS

ft. scott summers x f!reader x logan howlett

a/n: deadpool and wolverine full throttled me back into my x-men era... rewatched the first two movies and binge wrote this over the course of three hours... it's pure, shameless smut with slightly gay undertones idk what to tell you... reader is basically in place of jean!!

cw: 18+ content, double penetration, almost cucking, cheating, reader is scott's girlfriend, logan is an asshole, competitive sex?? fighting, clawsTM, biting, marking, mild possessive behavior, p in v, mild scent kink, assholery all round tbh, creampies, threesome. gay crisis for a second x

word count: 2.3k words

Scott is starting to think Logan likes his things way too much. First, it was the way he looked at you when he was first brought to the school, eyes raking over your form. Scott wasn't blind – the visor didn't impair his vision that much. He remembers walking into the room when the both of you were alone. He could sense the tension between the two of you before his presence was even made known to you.

It wasn't until a while later he'd figured out Logan probably smelt him coming. Cocky bastard probably wanted to be caught.

Then, it was his motorcycle. His very own pride and joy. Returned with an empty tank, his keys tossed to him like it was nothing. His eyes narrowed imperceptibly behind his visor as he chucked the keys back to Logan. He barely managed to reign in his irritation.

“You gonna tell me to stay away from your girl?” Scott had told him to do so after that comment, despite having the faith in you that you'd be able to avoid Logan's charms. He was clearly wrong. Logan didn't seem like the type to have much respect, but this was just taking the piss.

“Been meaning to test if these beams could pulverise Adamantium.”

All he gets in reply is a shit eating grin from Logan as he pulls away from the heated kiss Scott had walked in on, his hands still gripping your waist. You really had the audacity to get all wide-eyes and shocked, like you weren't just about to fuck Logan with your ass perched on Scott's bike.

“Shit. Scott, I'm-”

“Sorry?” He cuts off, gaze very clearly still trained on Logan despite the way his shades conceal his line of vision. “Yeah. Save it.”

“Thought I could smell that shitty hair gel.” Logan huffs, bringing his head down to nip and suck at your neck, adding to the wide array of marks he's already left. And you fucking let him, tilting your head back and gasping like it's the best thing you've ever felt. Scott's gonna kill you, then Logan, then quite possibly himself. “How long’s it take you to get that done in the mornin’ anyway, pretty boy?”

“Right. Says the guy with kitty ears?” Scott bites back, taking a few steps towards the both of you. “I'm gonna give you about three seconds to get away from my girl and my bike before we see how good your healing factor really is.”

Logan fucking laughs, kissing his way up your neck and along your jaw so he can whisper into your ear, breath hot against your skin. “Stay put for me, yeah? Shouldn't take long, sweetheart.”

He pushes away from the bike, turning around to face Scott. Cocks his head to the side like a damn dog, rolling his shoulders as his claws shoot out from his knuckles. “Don't make me embarrass you in front of your girl, Cy-clops.”

Scott fucking hates that, hates the way he drags out his name as if it's stupider than Wolverine. Hates everything about Logan, if he's being honest. Hates how easily the man manages to get under his skin every single time.

“You're such a fucking asshole, y'know that?” Scott squares up, trying his best not to hurl a beam directly at Logan with the hopes he'd be able to send him flying through the garage wall. He's meant to be a team player. Level-headed. He's not sure how the older man always reduces him to this.

“That really hurts my feelings, bub. I thought we were a team.” Logan stalks closer, and Scott's vaguely aware you've gotten up, ready to break up a fight that never comes. Claws sink into the drywall beside his head at the same time he hears you tell Logan to ‘stop’. His back hits the wall, and then the asshole leans down, lips brushing his ear just like he had to yours moments prior.

“Y'know, I can smell the changes in your scent when you're pissed, happy... Can also smell it when you're turned on.” He breathes out, inhaling deeply just to tease the man further. “So either you're really into you're girl gettin’ passed around, or you wanna fuck me. Shit, or both. Which is it, pretty boy?”

“I don't want you to fuck my girl, Logan.” Scott grits put. His looks literally can kill, and he's becoming increasingly tempted to prove that to the other man. “And I definitely don't wanna fuck you.”

“C'mere, baby.” Logan coos, gaze flicking to you. He tuts when Scott goes to move, pressing his body against his to prevent him from getting too far. “Ah-ah. Stay there, pretty boy.”

You're at Logan’s side in a second, peering up at him through your lashes like an obedient dog waiting for its next command. Shit makes Scott's blood boil, his body going rigid against the other man's.

“D'you wanna kiss me, sweetheart?” He asks you, cocking his head to the side with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. And you fucking nod, like your boyfriend isn't right there staring at you. “D'you think he wants a kiss from me, too, sweetheart? Think he deserves it? Can't have been treatin’ you right if you came runnin’ to me, huh? Maybe I should teach him?”

“Yeah, think he needs it. He's always so stressed, never wants to do anything.” Now you're airing out your relationship issues? Fucking great. Scott's practically seething now, lips parting to say something – anything – to defend himself.

He doesn't get the chance before Logan's lips crash against his. He tenses up, ready for a fight. His hands come up to push the man away, but fuck he's a good kisser. It's a lot different from a girl – rougher. There's a drag of his stubble, a pleasant burn that comes from it. His teeth sink into Scott's lower lip before tugging, then he's forcing his tongue into his mouth. Scott ends up dragging him closer, eyes fluttering shut as he kisses back.

A growl rises in Scott's throat when he hears you giggle at his reaction, but he doesn't have much time to think on it, ‘cause Logan laughs all breathy and hot into his mouth, and it's making him short circuit. The growl quickly transforms into a low whine, his lips chasing after the other man when he starts to pull back.

His eyes open just in time to watch as Logan grabs you by your hair to pull you into a needy kiss, his free hand grasping at your hip to grind you against his rapidly hardening length. Scott feels his own cock twitching to life at the sight, a breathless ‘fuck’ leaving his lips as he reaches down to palm himself through his jeans. He hasn't been this hard in months – maybe ever. He feels like a horny teenager again, leaking pre-cum steadily into the fabric of his boxers. He isn't sure what to think of it. Humiliating, is what it is.

Logan's lips are on his again, his hands sliding under his shirt, tugging him closer. He feels his cock pressing against the hard ridges of Logan's muscles, feels your own hands join his in exploring Scott's skin, your lips pressing kisses along his neck and jaw.

“Relax, Scott.” You say, as if it's the easiest thing in the world. Relax, yeah. His dick is rubbing against another man's for the first time while his girlfriend is reaching around him to unbutton his jeans, and you want him to relax. This is a totally normal scenario that isn't throwing him head first into an identity crisis.

He gets lost in the hands on his body, the lips against his skin. Before he knows it, the three of you are naked and panting and pressed against each other. Scott feels like he can't breathe properly. His eyes dart between your body, and the fattest dick he's ever seen in his life. He doesn't know if he should be turned on or really, really insecure. His cock answers by jumping against his abdomen and leaving a sticky trail of pre-cum. Traitor.

Logan grunts as he lifts you up almost effortlessly, his arms resting at the back of your knees, using them as makeshift slings to hold you up against his chest, which is flush to your back. He quirks an eyebrow as Scott just stares, unmoving. “Well? You don't need me to tell you where to put your dick, do you? No wonder she's so pent up.”

“Asshole.” Scott says simply in response, stepping towards you. His words lack any real bite – he's too turned on to even think about being pissy. He fists his length leisurely a few times before lining up with your entrance, pushing forward inch by inch until his hips are flush with the backs of your thighs, your legs dangling helplessly at his sides.

You gasp and whine as Logan moves to slide in alongside your boyfriend, nails digging into his skin until Logan is buried to the hilt inside of you. Scott instantly peppers the skin of your neck with kisses, trying to soothe you.

“You alright, baby?” He asks, all soft and sweet. He's forgotten why he was mad at you in the first place, mind foggy with arousal as your cunt clenches around him.

“She's fine, bub. She can take it. Isn't that right, sweet thing.” Another whine, then a nod. It eases Scott, if only slightly, when he feels you relaxing against them. A beat passes, and then another. His eyes meet Logan’s and they both start to move – slowly, at first, before picking up the pace.

You're so much tighter like this, sucking him in desperately as he tries to find a rhythm with Logan. He can barely focus in anything but your heat and the way his cock ruts against Logan's as they both fuck into you. It's almost maddeningly hot, and he's feeling overwhelmingly anxious that he's going to cum in an embarrassingly short amount of time.

Scott leans down, his lips meeting yours as he rocks forward over and over. His lashes flutter as he sucks on your tongue, kissing you greedily. He feels a hand tugging at his hair, pulling him away from you before sharp teeth start to nip at his lower lip, a tongue bullying his way into his mouth. He sucks on Logan's, too, kissing him back just as hungrily as he did to you. He rubs soothing circles into your hips as he picks up the pace, coaxing you into relaxing further.

A growl rumbles Logan's chest when he feels Scott fucking you faster, his hips snapping against the fat of your thighs with more intensity, like he's determined to fuck you better than the other man. He's bigger, tip bullying your cervix with every thrust in a way that makes you tear up. His nose twitches as he smells the saltiness of your tears, then he's pulling away from Scott to lap them off of your face.

“Shhh, shh… you can take it, sweetheart. I know you can.” He coos softly, moving to nuzzle the crook of your neck, nose running along the skin like he's scenting you. Both men continue to slide in and out of your slick heat, grunting and groaning like animals as they chase their release.

“You gonna cum for me, baby?” Your boyfriend coos. Scott needs you to cum soon, because he's barely holding on as it is. He doesn't want to leave you unsatisfied – especially now he's very aware Logan will gladly pick up his slack. His hand falls from your hip to make its way between your legs, thumb rubbing circles into your clit until your muscles grow taut. He grins, sucking a possessive mark over one of the hickies Logan had left earlier. Take that, asshole.

Your walls flutter and clench around both cocks as you reach your peak, a shaky moan of Scott's name leaving your lips as your head falls back against Logan's shoulder. Check and mate.

“Hear that, kitty claws? I'm still her favourite.” He huffs out, hands returning to your hips in an almost bruising grip as he ruts helplessly inside your tight heat, balls tightening as his orgasm rapidly approaches.

“S'only ‘cause she's lookin’ at ya, dumbass.” Really, it shouldn't be Logan's gruff, fucked-out tone that drives him over the edge, but it is. He blows his load a second later, forehead dropping against the crook of your neck as he fills you with spurts of hot, white liquid. He gasps against your skin, nails digging into your plush flesh.

Logan isn't far behind, grunting as he forces every inch of his cock deep inside of you, head tipping back as he releases. The tips of his claws threaten to breach the skin of his knuckles, but he manages to suppress them enough that they never fully unsheathe. He pants softly, chest heaving as he thrusts shallowly through his orgasm.

“Fuck.” He hisses, slowly pulling out of you. He lifts you off of Scott's cock, settling you down on the seat of the motorcycle so you can all catch your breath. Logan rubs soothing circles into your back as Scott steps forward, all but slumping against you as he embraces you.

“Did so good, baby. Was perfect.” He breathes out, pressing kisses along your bare shoulder. He pulls back just enough to look at Logan, who's already lighting up a cigar. “The fuck did that even come from?”

That shit-eating grin lights up the older man's face again as he takes a few short draws from the cigar in his mouth. He exhales the smoke, pulling it out of his mouth to speak.

“Trust me, pretty boy. You really don't wanna know.”

[aviceth]

i need hinata shoyo so bad i can’t breathe