#Does NOT look good in the middle of the night

[jungwnies]

f1 grid | first kiss

୨ৎ : featuring : all drivers on the grid ୨ৎ : synopsis (requested by anon) : first kisses with the grid

୨ৎ : word count : 800

୨ৎ masterlist ୨ৎ 10k event | masterlist ୨ৎ

ᡣ𐭩 a/n : an on-time upload.. woah T-T

ʚ・red bull

max verstappen

he hesitates for a second, thumb brushing your cheek like he’s making sure this is okay. then it’s slow, a little intense, and he lingers like he’s memorizing the way you taste. no teasing—just genuine, quiet passion.

yuki tsunoda

it’s sudden, right in the middle of you laughing too hard. he grabs your face, flustered and bold, and kisses you before he can overthink it. pulls back all red and goes, “shut up,” even though you weren’t even talking.

ʚ・mercedes

george russell

the kind of kiss that feels like a promise. it’s after a long night, when you’re both a little tired and he’s looking at you like he can’t believe you’re real. hand on your waist, forehead pressed to yours, and then he leans in.

kimi antonelli

nervous, soft, and clumsy in the sweetest way. he’s grinning before and after, probably says something dumb like “that wasn’t too bad, huh?” but his ears are so red and he won’t stop smiling for hours.

ʚ・ferrari

charles leclerc

a little breathless, full of build-up. he brushes your hair behind your ear, eyes searching yours, then leans in like he’s giving in to something he’s felt for ages. kisses you like he’s saying finally.

lewis hamilton

gentle and incredibly tender. maybe it’s after he compliments something small about you, then you look at him like you’re about to say “thank you,” but he just kisses you instead. soft music playing, hearts racing.

ʚ・mclaren

lando norris

it’s cheeky at first—he makes a joke, you roll your eyes, and suddenly he’s leaning in. quick, then slower when he realizes you’re kissing back. pulls away and goes “that was cool,” trying to play it off, but his smile gives him away.

oscar piastri

surprisingly smooth. he’s quiet, watching you talk about something random, and then just goes for it. it’s calm, confident, and sweeter than you expected. when you ask why now, he shrugs: “felt like the right time.”

ʚ・aston martin

fernando alonso

teasingly slow. he waits until you’re annoyed with him, then cups your face with a smirk and kisses you like he’s been planning it all along. pulls back with a raised eyebrow like “you good now?”

lance stroll

soft and shy. it happens while you’re cuddling or talking quietly. he leans in slowly and almost chickens out halfway, but you close the gap. his hands stay at your waist the whole time, grounding himself in the moment.

ʚ・williams

alex albon

warm and playful. probably after he’s been making you laugh, and he catches you mid-giggle. the kiss is light, smiley, and makes you both laugh right after. he kisses you again immediately, softer this time.

carlos sainz

confident but caring. he leans in close, makes sure you’re looking at him, and kisses you slowly—like he knows what he’s doing and wants you to enjoy every second. murmurs “bien?” against your lips.

ʚ・haas

ollie bearman

absolutely panics internally but tries to be cool. gives you a shy little grin, then just leans in and goes for it. surprisingly good at it, but turns bright red after and starts rambling. “was that okay? i mean—obviously, but—”

esteban ocon

thoughtful and deliberate. he makes sure the moment feels right. kisses you like he’s been thinking about it for a while but wanted it to be perfect. afterward, he just holds your hand tighter.

ʚ・racing bulls

liam lawson

mischievous and flirty. he says something like “you keep looking at me like that, and i’m gonna have to kiss you,” and then actually does. it’s cocky for about two seconds, and then very soft when he realizes how serious it feels.

isack hadjar

a little hesitant, but once he’s sure you’re into it, it’s full of emotion. he touches your face, almost reverently, and kisses you like he’s scared it might be the only one. spoiler: it’s not.

ʚ・alpine

pierre gasly

oh he makes it a moment. dim lights, soft music, his arm around your shoulder. it’s slow, smoldering, and just a little showy. he pulls away with a smug smile and goes “you’ve been thinking about that too, right?”

franco colapinto

innocent and genuine. it happens during a quiet, wholesome moment—maybe while stargazing or lying on the couch. he brushes his thumb over your lips like a question, then kisses you like he’s dreaming.

ʚ・kick sauber

nico hulkenberg

surprisingly sweet for someone so blunt. it’s simple, nothing flashy—just a quiet lean-in when you're standing close. he kisses you like it’s obvious, like this was always going to happen eventually.

gabriel bortoleto

excited and a little rushed. he just has to kiss you. maybe after you say something cute or smart, and he can’t help himself. pulls back with a sheepish grin and says, “sorry, i’ve been wanting to do that for weeks.”

2021-2025 © jungwnies | All rights reserved. Do not repost, plagiarize, or translate

[ghouljams]

I'm fully smitten with Mr. and Mrs. Riley. Call me trite, but I love some good old high school sweethearts. But I also think that getting married that young would definitely raise a few eyebrows.

You know that feeling you get when you see people your age start to do grown up things, like getting engaged or buying a house? I imagine that's what your acquaintances at uni feel like when they find out you're married.

People know that you have someone, because every now and then there will be a mention of "my Simon". So you have A Simon, whatever that means.

Eventually it always comes up in conversation. Someone will ask if you have plans with your boyfriend for the summer, to which you respond "oh, he's not my boyfriend." This revelation causes the person you're speaking with to think they've fully stepped in it. Had the two of you broken up recently? Or were you just in some sort of long-term situationship? Their train of thought gets swiftly interrupted by you going "he's my husband."

While they silently question how the fuck someone in their early twenties has a fucking husband, you happily chat on about your summer plans.

It's not like you planned on getting married young. It's just that your Simon has a terribly dangerous job and a terribly big heart, and he won't leave a man behind. He'd looked so guilty telling you how he'd run into a fire fight to drag a man to safety, apologized, he knew he promised you not to do anything dangerous and-

Well... How could you not marry a man like that?

It does raise some eyebrows though. You try not to advertise your marriage. You don't have a ring, neither you nor Simon had the money for one. You don't have a house, again, money. You don't have kids, though you do think about them often. Really the only thing you have are the stories that you and Simon have made together. Walks in the park that had you pulling him out of the pond. Movie theaters that kicked you out for crying too loudly (and for Simon arguing with the usher). Nights at the pub that ended in great heaving laughter. You're sure you paint a pretty picture of your relationship.

Your Simon. You don't have anything else to call him, he is yours. More than just a husband, he's your best friend, and besides it still feels so strange to say that. ("My God we're like child brides," you'd told him as you were signing the papers. "Worse," he'd joked, "we're military wives.")

You make it through two years of university, and multiple deployments before any of your uni friends find out you're married, and it happens in the worst way.

Your Simon goes missing in action somewhere in Mexico.

You get a call as you're walking out of lecture, and when your friend asks what's wrong (following your complete breakdown into tears in the middle of the sidewalk) you tell them that your husband is MIA. They can't tell you where, why, or how, but they do tell you to prepare for the worst.

Weeks with no news. Barely eating, barely eating, only doing your work because there has to be somewhere for Simon to come home to if they ever find him. Two months pass in a sick haze of lectures and part-time work.

Another call, while you're working this time. You barely apologize to your boss before rushing out, a hastily scribbled hospital name clutched on notebook paper between your fingers. You don't even notice the distance, time barely passes from point A to point B. One moment you're at work, the next you're standing beside a hospital bed.

He looks rough, nose broken, eyes ringed in purple, gauze covering half his chest, leg broken, angry red scars raised on any uncovered skin, but it's your Simon. The brown of his eyes is as soft as it's ever been, and his cracked lips still smile when he sees you. He's alive, and this- this is far from the worst thing you could have prepared for.

And you're so young suddenly, crying like a child at nearly losing your best friend, big wracking sobs that nearly crumple you because your heart is still here with you. It's Simon that lays a big hand on your head and comforts you.

"Told ya I'd come back," He reminds you, "Jus'took a minute."

He doesn't give you any details until he's out of the hospital. Not until you're both cuddled up in the just slightly too small bed that fills your bedroom in your definitely too small flat. The duvet is heavy and Simon still can't rest on his side, but you cuddle close, listening to him walk you through Mexico with a heavy heart. Classified. He keeps repeating it, like that will make it easier for you to digest. The secrecy of it when he tells you about dragging Washington to safety. It makes your stomach squirm. 'He shouldn't have done that' you think guiltily, 'he should've saved himself.'

You don't feel as guilty when Simon meets Washington again and tells you, "'e did somethin' odd, not sittin' right wi' me."

Makes you feel better screaming and shouting when you spot Simon's brother in arms tailing you on campus, when he grabs you and you kick him in the balls just like Simon showed you. The cops find a gun on him, he spews vitriol, spouts manifestos. Brainwashed, they tell Simon.

It's hard to keep a marriage under wraps when the city paper writes a story about you. "Terrorism in Manchester" is front-page news, after all.

[architectdoespolitics]

@planetsnakes you make good points! Let me address a few of them, if I may:

The need for green things in urban spaces and buildings: yes, I 100% agree that urban spaces and buildings need green growing things! I think are essential for cities, for public health and enjoyment and also to counter the urban heat island effect (keep all the asphalt and concrete roads and sidewalks cool). I also firmly believe that good buildings should have views to nature, and include nature inside where possible (plant walls, water features, even trees!) I agree that the first generation of brutalist architects often neglected this, and it was to the detriment of their buildings. I think eco-Brutalism, as you mentioned, takes steps to remedy this.

The need for natural ventilation in buildings: i agree, natural outdoor air is essential! A lot of first generation brutalist buildings are surprisingly good at this! Many feature large atria in the middle with skylights that can be opened for ventilation, forcing air to circulate vertically through the floors. Also, operable windows on the long sides of the buildings paired with very open floor plates provide excellent cross ventilation. For example, here’s a study I did in architecture school of the air flow through a brutalist school in the Netherlands. Just opening the doors on the ground floor got air all the way up to the top level, which I find pretty remarkable.

Concrete and heat absorption: you’re totally right, concrete is a high thermal mass material that absorbs lots of heat from the sun during the day. However, in a lot of climate zones in America at least, this can be good thing! In any climate that has large temperature swings between day and night (to the point where you’d need AC during the day and heating at night) brutalist high thermal mass buildings are great! The concrete absorbing the heat before it can reach the interior of the building makes it so the AC doesn’t have to switch on as early in the day. Then, in the evening and at night, the concrete releases its heat back to the interior space, meaning you need less time with the heating on. So yeah, high thermal mass structures (this includes brick and stone, not just concrete) cool the interior during the day and heat it at night, meaning less energy spent on mechanical heating and cooling.

Pigeons (aka the bane of a civic architect’s existence): I’ll be honest, pigeons are kind of the worst. I’ve never found a good way to make an interesting building that doesn’t tempt pigeons to sit and poop. I’ve used bird spikes, but they’re ugly.

Longevity of concrete: true, modern concrete does not have as long a lifespan as other materials such as brick, stone, or Roman concrete. It is generally more durable/longer lasting than wood, steel, or iron though! Your point about Roman concrete is a good one—I think we need to put serious thought into how to make concrete last longer than a century if we’re going to continue to build with it.

Carbon impact of concrete: concrete is pretty much the highest carbon footprint material we can build with, which sucks. Because of this, I think an all-brutalist future of nothing but current concrete is a pretty bad idea. There are some types of structures (particularly infrastructure) that are just really hard to construct without concrete, so I think it will always need to be used. We should be looking for ways to make concrete more environmentally sustainable—for example, by reducing reliance on Portland cement by using fly ash, using hempcrete, etc.

My personal thoughts—please note I’m an American architect who has been through the American architecture curriculum, so my opinions and knowledge are by no means global. Brutalism to me is beautiful in its simplicity, but also in its texture and variation. I like that it’s not just a plain glass box on the outside and a plain white box on the inside like a lot of International Style modernist buildings. But at the same time, there’s not a ton of extra effort going into fake or garish ornamentation, like was often seen in American Post-Modernism. I actually see a lot of color and variation in Brutalism that is done well. By changing the concrete mixtures and adding local minerals/stone as aggregate, you can get colors from almost white to brown to deep dark gray. Check out the Paulista School style in Brazil for example. Also, here are some the same photos from my first post in color!

In conclusion: I’m not suggesting buildings in every city should be brutalist—that would NOT work. I do think a new and improved eco-Brutalism could have both a positive impact and a prominent place in urban spaces in the future!

Nordic Pavilion by Sverre Fehn | Venice, Italy

Robert C. Weaver Federal Building by Marcel Breuer | Washington, D.C., USA

Gould Hall by Gene Zema and Daniel Streissguth | University of Washington College of Built Environments | Seattle, WA, USA

I have opinions about urbanism and all of you will be subjected to them, whether you want to be or not.

Brutalism is good and should have never been abandoned. It's cheap, makes cities into canvases for graffiti, provides easy opportunities for services to be within walking distance or transit distance of literally anyone's home, and in general looks good.

Commie blocks are some of the best designed city blocks ever built, and more places should have copied them.

Trams should be everywhere, with trains acting as intercity transport and trams acting as intracity transport, with other auxiliary methods being available.

Cars should not be banned from every part of a city, but should be heavily regulated to ensure that they do not overtake the city's main purpose, which is to provide a comfortable and welcoming space for all of its citizens and visitors.

[inlovewithquestionablecharacters]

Yelena Belova X Reader: The Sound of Safety

a/n: not sure how i feel about this one

Word count:1.1K

Warnings: injure (nothing bad), fluff, yelena being a cutie, no use of y/n.

Your hands are shaking. You’re not scared, not really—but you're filled with an absurd amount of adrenaline. You’d just returned from the building you’d been sent to survey. There were only supposed to be some guards—nothing you couldn’t handle. But your intel was wrong. So very wrong. The number of trained guards inside was about triple what you were expecting. You’d fought them off until you realized it was no use. If you wanted to survive, you had to run. So you did.

Yelena trailed behind you, shouting into her earpiece as she told the rest of the crew to get back to the watchtower without you two. There was no way you could get to the ship without compromising everyone else. You’d find another way back. You always did. You were focused on finding somewhere to hide, eyes scanning for movement in front of you. You could hear Yelena’s ragged breathing, but the sound didn’t worry you. She was tired—you both were. As soon as you stopped for a second, she would catch her breath and it would be fine.

For the second time that night, you were wrong.

You’d managed to get into a small shed in the middle of nowhere. You didn’t know why it was there, and honestly, you didn’t care. As long as no one came here, you should be fine. You’d started rambling just as you made it through the door. It was just what you did—you talked and talked and talked. Stressful situations normally made you even more chatty. A coping mechanism, probably, but one you’d lived with your entire life. People had told you to shut up before. You were used to being called annoying as a kid. But it was never like that with the Thunderbolts. They bantered back with you and never—well, almost never—made you feel like you were talking too much.

So when Yelena didn’t immediately start responding to your never-ending comments, you got a bit worried. You turned to face her, smile dropping once you realized she had her vest off, her hands moving to lift the part of her shirt that was clearly soaked in blood.

You moved to her before you could even think about it. The Russian girl raised her gaze to look at you, hands falling away as you replaced them with your own. You lifted her shirt, eyes widening as you revealed the bullet wound the fabric had been hiding. From the looks of it, the bullet had gone through to the other side—which was good. But that also meant there was a hole in Yelena’s abdomen. A hole that was losing a lot of blood.

You moved on instinct, removing her shirt as she grimaced. She tried to get up, but you shoved her shoulder down, giving her a meaningful glance. She lifted her hands in surrender, silently telling you she understood.

You assessed the damage. There wasn’t a lot you could do without proper equipment, but you did have a serum you’d developed to take on missions that might help. It was meant to keep wounds from getting infected with a simple shot. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, but it worked in a pinch.

You reached for the injection in Yelena’s vest—you knew it would be there. You’d personally put one in all the crew’s suits.

Yelena called out your name just as you managed to find the serum. You looked at her, wondering if something was wrong.

“It’s just a shot. I need to give it to you, and then I’ll call the team so they can get us back to the tower and I can patch you up properly.”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it? Does it hurt? Do you feel faint?”

Yelena smiled as you started badgering her with questions.

“That’s more like it.”

Your brows furrowed, not understanding what she meant.

“What?”

“You—ugh—not talking. Felt weird.”

You rolled your eyes.

“Not the time to be funny, Lena.”

You placed a hand on her shoulder, pressing her to lie back down. You pushed the injector over the wound before she could even react. She let out a hiss of pain, causing you to murmur a soft “sorry.”

After a moment, Yelena’s breathing calmed a bit, her body relaxing into the ground. The serum was starting to kick in, dulling the pain you were sure she’d been feeling before. Yelena's eyes were glued to the ceiling as you watched her.

“Wasn’t joking.”

“Sorry?”

She moved her eyes to look at you, the rest of her body staying completely still.

“You talking. It calms me down. When you stopped, I got…” she paused, taking a deep breath in. “I felt scared.”

“Oh, Lena.”

You grabbed her hand, pulling it to yours. You gave it a small, reassuring squeeze.

“You make the noise go away. When you talk—about anything really—it’s like there’s this brightness coming out of you. It makes everything else dull. I can breathe easier when you’re talking.”

Yelena lifted herself up a bit, leaning on her free hand as she gazed at you.

“You make everything easier.”

You couldn’t help but smile at her. Your hand moved to push some hair off her cheek, causing her to close her eyes.

“I think you might be a bit high. The dose in the serum still needs some work.”

Yelena shrugged slowly, her thumb moving over the back of the hand she still held onto.

“Might be a bit high. But I meant every word.”

You leaned forward, resting your forehead against hers. The two of you stayed like that for a moment, breathing each other’s air. Then a voice cut through your earpiece. It was Bucky. They’d tracked your location and were stopping the plane closer to where you were. You gave him your okay.

“They’re coming, but we’ll have to go meet them. You okay to walk?”

“Think so. Might need to hold onto you, though.”

“Okay. Let’s get going.”

You and Yelena stumbled to the jet, her body slumped against yours the whole way. As soon as you arrived, you got Yelena settled before going to talk to Alexei in the pilot’s seat. After you’d calmed him down enough to get him to fly the jet, you went to sit with Yelena. You settled into the seat next to her. As soon as you’d fastened your belt, she moved to rest her head on your shoulder. She let out a soft hum as you leaned down to place a kiss on her forehead.

“You alright, Lena?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

Silence filled the jet for a brief moment, just before the engine shifted as you sped into the sky.

“Hey,” Yelena whispered, barely audible over the hum of the jet.

You turned to her.

“Don’t stop talking, okay? Not until we land.”

You nodded, your voice a soft murmur in the quiet cabin. “I wasn’t going to.”

Maybe you talked too much. Maybe some people would find it annoying. But Yelena didn’t—to her, your voice was a sound of safety. So you began to speak—about anything, everything. Her grip on your hand tightened just a little.

You didn’t let go.

[bowtiepasta]

akaashi is not having a good time.

he didn't even want to come. but bokuto swore up and down that it would be fun. which, in his vocabulary, translates to “i am about to make a series of poor decisions and require a responsible witness.”

then he sees you, and well. he-

“keiji! hi. can i sit here?”

what really scares him — is how he can’t even tell if you’re sober. but he can’t ever say no to you, can he?

one knee slides between his, then the rest of you follows, easing down into his lap; the most natural thing in the world. “i’m sitting here.”

“i noticed,” he says to your back. “comfortable?”

you turn around like you’re about to tell him a secret, breath tickling his ears. “i would be if you weren’t sitting like you were in a business meeting.”

that earns a soft laugh from him. his other hand comes to rest just above your knee. he squeezes it gently.

“better?” low enough that only you can hear.

you hum, nodding while you readjust. your skirt flies up a little, and he fixes it for you. “getting there.”

“you’re drunk,” he says, as if noting the weather.

you laugh into his neck. “tipsy. not stupid.”

akaashi hums, low in his chest. “there a difference?”

“mhm,” your hand slides up and down his shoulder, fingers curling against the fabric of his shirt. “if i were stupid, i’d be over there—” you point.

bokuto and hinata were trying to convince atsumu to climb on kuroo’s shoulders for a chicken fight in the middle of the living room. grown men, may i remind you. osamu, in the kitchen, looked two seconds away from lighting the countertop on fire.

“—and not over here.” you boop his nose, then scrunch your own because you can feel it flush.

“you’re tense,” you murmur, drape an arm over his shoulder, toy with the curls at the back of his neck.

he moves his head to study you. “you’re drunk.”

you pull at your collar. “i’m hot.”

“that too.”

“oh shut the fuck up,” you push his head away, laughing, and he chuckles. “is the air on in here?”

he glances around. it’s hot, yes. not to mention loud, and someone cannonballed into the inflatable pool in the backyard. bokuto’s acting like it’s the olympic finals.

but you, flushed and draped across his lap, eyes glossed over, skin warm — you’re the real problem.

“c’mon.”

you lift your head. “what?”

“we’re going outside.”

“but i’m-”

“you’re sitting on me, yes,” he says evenly, “which makes it very difficult to stand up. so help me out.”

you groan, dramatic, and peel yourself off with all the grace of someone who is definitely more than tipsy. he steadies you with one hand at your waist before slinging your arm over his shoulder and gently sliding his own around your waist.

you blink, a little thrown. “keiji, if this is your version of kicking me off your lap, just say that.”

he doesn’t answer, shrugs off his jacket without a word, draping it over your figure before weaving you through the bodies in the crowd ‘till you’re settled out in the cool air.

“i told you i was hot.”

“it’s going to be cold outside.”

“you’re kind of a romantic, you know that?”

akaashi laughs, and you curl your fingers around the jacket lapels. it smells like him. of course it does.

“so what’d you drag me out here for?”

he sits down on the porch step and pats the space between his legs. “here. since that’s apparently your favorite seat tonight.”

you narrow your eyes at him, legs already moving anyway. “don’t act like you didn’t like it.”

“don’t put words in my mouth.”

you twist in his lap, knees on either side of his hips now, straddling him while he swallows his own name from your lips, and he groans into your mouth like that’s what he’s been trying not to do all night.

“you’re—” you gasp between kisses, “such a liar.”

“about what?”

“i think you do like having me in your lap.”

his teeth graze your bottom lip. “isn’t that obvious?”

when you laugh into his mouth, he kisses you again like he never wants you to stop. and he thinks maybe, he doesn’t hate parties after all.

[buckyys-babydoll]

Break through the cold

Pairing: BestFriend!Bucky Barnes x BestFriend!Fem!Reader

Summary: Coldness. Darkness. It’s both a daily companion, some days more, some less. And some days, it’s all you feel deep in your heart.

Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, fluff, insecurities, best friends to lovers

Wordcount: 1.208 Words

Authors Note: Requested by @buckyseternaldoll, hope you like it! Divider made by me.

Bucky Barnes Masterlist

Coldness.

Some days it’s all that’s left. A coldness feeling like ice around your heart, wrapping around it. Squeezing it. Freezing it. Making all feel so numb.

Some days, you cherish the numbness. It stops you from feeling the cold and the pain. And other days, you wish you could enjoy the feelings of happiness and joy like everyone else.

But you can't. Not always. Not often.

But some days. You can.

“Babydoll?” Bucky’s soft voice whispers into your ear. His warm breath fanning over your neck as he presses his lips to your jaw.

He makes you feel so loved. Cherished.

The softness. A softness you don’t deserve. A love you don't deserve. And yet, here you are craving more of it.

More of the warmth, the love only Bucky can offer.

“What’s going on in that pretty mind of yours?” He asks, leaning back on the couch.

His strong arm is trapped over the backrest, his legs stretched out on the couch while you’re curled into his side. Your fingers tracing soft patterns on his slightly chubby belly.

Bucky needed so long to become the man he is now. The past was hunting him like his own shadow and nightmares kept him from having a peaceful night.

And now, he’s sitting next to you, with such a soft and loving smile. He came so far, still not healed from the wounds he never caused. Wounds he never deserved.

He is so strong. And you, are just so weak compared to him.

“Nothin’,” you whisper, leaning your head against his shoulder.

You have to be stronger. He’s able to, too!

“Liar,” he huffs, playfully and yet still serious. “I know you well enough to read you like an open book, babydoll.”

You nod. He does. He always did.

For your best friend, you're bare. Not literally, but it only needs one look into your eyes and he knows the truth. One look at your posture. One word, the tone of your voice. He always knows.

You shake your head.

And even that little gesture tells him so much more than words could.

You're pushing him away. Trying to bring distance between the two of you. Because he’s too good. Because you're afraid he could hurt you if you don’t.

So, you prefer to drown in the coldness, in your loneliness, instead of getting hurt by him. Or by his love.

You push. But he doesn’t budge. He will never budge.

“I’m not gonna leave,” he mumbles into your jaw, pressing his lips to your soft skin. “Why can’t you see what I see, babydoll?”

“Because you see more than there is.”

Bucky huffs.

He pulls back slightly, making eye contact with you.

Bucky’s ocean blue eyes are so soft, so loving. A soft but sad smile on his lips.

Your heart squeezes in your chest. Bucky isn’t disappointed, but he’s sad and it’s the last thing you want. Especially not when it’s because of you.

You take a shaky breath, trying to hide your face back in his chest but he doesn’t let you. His fingers find their way to curl around your cheeks. Thumbs tracing along your skin as he kisses the tip of your nose.

And sometimes, the coldness holds a hint of warmth. Because your best friend, lights a small fire in the middle of the frozen endlessness.

And sometimes, it’s all that keeps you warm. But at least, it keeps you warm. Just like his embrace. His soft words. His beautiful smile. Or his ocean blue eyes.

“You’re so much more than your insecurities or fears. And you can push me away. Over and over again. But I will pull you back, I won’t let you get away,” he whispers, kissing your nose once more. “Push me, all you want. But I will stay by your side, because I love you.”

You whimper. Confused. Touched. Hurt. Loved.

You want to push him away. So far that he will never want to come back. That he won’t love you anymore.

And yet, you want to keep him close. Want him to keep you safe and happy in his strong arms.

“I love you.”

“But you shouldn’t,” you mumble, closing your eyes to get rid of the tears that threaten to form in your eyes.

You’re so damn weak. So. Damn. We—

“Don’t push yourself down, babydoll,” Bucky mutters.

Damn him. He’s just too perfect.

Reading your thoughts. It only needs the flare of your nostrils. The shaky breath you take, and he knows everything that’s going on inside your mind.

A tear slips through your closed eyes, rolling down your cheeks. Bucky immediately wipes the wetness away with the rough pats of his thumbs.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry!

Another tear. And a third. Before you’re sobbing.

Your best friend pulls you closer and onto his lap. His strong arms pulling you as close as possible as he lets you cry.

Face hidden in the crook of his neck. His sandalwood scent surrounds you like a warm blanket.

“Shh,” he whispers, rubbing his calloused hands up and down your back.

Your heart breaks. And it’s collected back together at the same time.

The tears flowing freely down your cheeks. A weight is lifted off your heart with every tear.

With every stroke of his fingers over your back, the ice inside of your cracks. It breaks the ice, replacing the cold with a warmth only Bucky can offer.

“Let me in,” he says softly. Pleading. Begging. “I will never hurt you. You’re everything for me, and I know everyone can say that. But I will use every single second to prove to you, that I mean what I say, if you let me. If you want me.”

You sob. A noise that’s breaking Bucky’s heart.

“What if you get tired of me? Or… let me push you away?” You whisper, sniffling softly. “I always push people away, I don’t want it, but I do it.”

Bucky shrugs. He pulls you closer, his fingers curling around your waist to keep you tightly pressed against his chest.

“Push me all you want. I’m glued to you,” he mutters.

And he means it. You can push. And push. And push. But he won't budge.

If he budges, he will move back toward you, immediately.

“I love you. You! My precious babydoll,” he says with a soft smile, his chin resting on top of your head. “You’re so much more than just my best friend, you might not see it yet, but you will.”

Maybe after the cold ice inside of you is broken. But he does whatever it takes to make you see what he sees.

A beautiful, intelligent woman. Sweet. Smart. Loving.

His woman.

“I love you, too. More than just my best friend. But I was too afraid to push you away to confess these feelings to you. Even to myself,” you say before leaning back to look at him.

His blue orbs shine bright. Light blue like the sky of a sunny summer day. No clouds. Just blue. Clear blue.

No judgement, no doubt. Only love. Pure, bare love.

And the soft smile that curls your lips upwards, it’s the most beautiful sight for Bucky.

@armystay89 @rogersbarber @firelilyfox

[katebishopsbaefy]

can you do 7 with billie pretty please?

prompt list

prompt masterlist

7) finding a somewhat private area at a fancy party to fuck (coat closet, empty office, secluded corner on the big balcony, hedge maze if we wanna get dramatic, etc)

words: 839

She’d been bothering you all night long. You’d almost forgotten what it felt like to not have one of her hands on you at all times; her pinky brushing yours at every chance she got, a hand constantly on the exposed bit of your back, her fingers ghosting over your ass whenever someone looked at you in a way she didn’t like. It was only when her fingernails started to run along the inside of your thigh as you sat and chatted, though, that you understood why she was being so handsy.

You’re sat around a couch with a group of your friends at some afterparty Billie had dragged you to. The only reason you decided to go was to spend time with her, and because she made a promise to dress up for you, which she made sure to keep. It feels like ages since you’ve seen her in a dress, but here she is, all dolled up like she promised. Not that you’ve ever cared what she wore; you thought she looked good in everything. She just thought you’d be more inclined to go if she showed some skin. And she was definitely right.

“I need the bathroom” she murmurs into your ear, tugging lightly on the sleeve of your dress. You both knew damn well she didn’t need the bathroom. She just wanted you alone, and Billie’s always been a blunt person, so she squeezes your thigh with her ring-cladded fingers to make sure she gets her point across. Her hands might be cold, but they make you feel like your skin is burning.

You turn your head to look at her, and her face is just inches away from your own. She’s been hovering over your shoulder for the duration of the conversation. “We’re talking, though,” you whisper back, mostly just to tease her. It’s partially true, though; you’re kind of in the middle of a heated discussion with your friends. But from the way her pupils are completely blown out, you know she isn’t going to want to wait.

So, she grabs your hand, tugging you off the couch and mumbling something mostly incoherent about being hungry or needing to pee. You can’t really tell what she’s saying, which is the point; she’s just hoping no one will question it.

She drags you down the hall of the venue, avoiding eye contact with everyone so they won’t stop her and try to talk. It makes you giggle; you don’t think you’ve ever seen her this focused on something. The little frustrated grumbles that leave her when she can’t find a bathroom make you giggle even more, but before you know it, your laughs are cut short when she abruptly bumps your hip with her own and pushes you into what must be some kind of janitor’s closet.

She’s on you in an instant, grabbing your hips and pressing you against the wall as her lips find yours. It’s dark in the little closet, so it’s messy, but you make it work. Your hands find her hair and tangle themselves in it, and it makes you moan when her own hands start to wander. She doesn’t even bother tracing her hand along your body like she usually does, no teasing, no taking it slow. You don’t mind at all, though. You love when she gets this needy.

Your moans tumble into her mouth when her hand palms your breast over the fabric of your dress, squeezing and toying with you in a way that makes you both weak in the knees. 

“Gotta stay quiet,” she whispers against your lips, and it makes you scoff. She isn’t even touching you properly, never mind being touched herself, and she’s still managing to be louder than you. Every breathy whine you let out is punctuated by a desperate groan of her own.

Without warning, her cold hands are hiking your dress up to your waist, and she’s got one shoved in your panties before you can even comprehend the sudden movements. The coldness of her fingers and rings makes you gasp in the best way, which turns into a whine when she starts rubbing your clit. Still, though, she’s moaning even more than you. Her body is pressed completely to yours, and she’s basically rutting her hips against your pelvis in a way that would normally never get her off, but it seems like it’s doing it for her tonight based off of the way she sounds. She’s so beyond needy, and so unashamedly obsessed with you.

You figure out how to work your own hand into her underwear to help her out properly. It's pitch black in the closet, so there’s a lot of fumbling around, some giggles, and a knocked over roll of toilet paper or two, but you manage. You rub furiously at her, and she flicks at you, and it barely takes two minutes to finish at the same time, moaning and whining into each other’s mouths, completely desperate and all over each other.

a/n: hey guys! so sorry i've been so inconsistent with posting, i've had so much going on it's ridiculous but i'm hoping to post way more in the summer!!! i'm trying to get these prompt fics done because i have so many requests literally rotting in my inbox (sorry), but i am keeping track of them so if your request hasn't been done yet just know it will be posted at some point!!

[thelittleladysworld]

Simon Riley.

♡ Fluff ♡

Simon Riley who doesn’t like a chat, and no one really started one with him. He was an abundance of sorrowful grunts and greetings, and only giving his expert opinion at the exact right time.

Simon Riley who would walk into a bar with the Task Force after a successful mission, in the middle of London, and order “Beer.” He’s deep voice would command no more questions, and the bartender would get him whatever was easiest to pour. He never complained.

Simon Riley who doesn’t stand for his rookies questions, or their silly nature, or the fact that they were rookies. He doesn’t understand that he was once a rookie too, but he makes them work twice as hard, just like he did.

Simon Riley who when he meets the new communications director, to replace Kate Laswell when her wife goes into labour, is stunned. He doesn’t realise how long it’s been since he’s taken notice into one’s appearance until that very moment.

Simon Riley who is taken aback by your beautiful smile that just radiates happiness. He has to stop what’s he doing for a split second to regain his composure after Price introduces the two of you.

Simon Riley who glared at Price after you turned around because he was giving him a knowing smirk.

Simon Riley who finds excuses to walk past the communications room, just to see you tying up your hair, or sipping your tea.

Simon Riley, who after a full month of listening to your directions in the comms, seeing you around base, and watching you laugh with the task force in the common room, he finally decides to talk to you.

Simon Riley, who comes up to your desk, sits down in front of you, and just awkwardly waves.

Simon Riley who looks at your curious face and falls in love with you.

Simon Riley who nods at you and just sits there. Never the first to speak, and never the last.

Simon Riley who smiles as you laugh softly and ask, “What’s up, Ghost?”

Simon Riley who recoils at the words falling from your mouth. He likes being Ghost, definitely, it’s his safe space. What he doesn’t like is that you don’t know him as Simon, and that annoys him.

Simon Riley who, as gently as he can, says, “Simon, love. Names’ Simon.”

Simon Riley who watches you nod, wishing he could tuck your hair behind your ear because it keeps bothering you. “I know, but I didn’t want to overstep. I’ve read your extensive file.”

Simon Riley who is now just now realising that you know more about him than he does you.

Simon Riley who makes you tea every morning until you say, “I love it.”

Simon Riley who pays attention to your favourite things so he can buy flowers for you when the time comes.

Simon Riley who writes little notes for you at night, and leaves them on your desk. Something like, “Have a good day, shortie. -Si.” His handwriting is almost just completely chicken scratch.

Simon Riley who slowly and quietly makes you fall in love with him.

Simon Riley who is surprised when he finds you on the roof of the base, taking in the stars.

Simon Riley who walks up, leans on the railing with you, savouring this quiet moment, as he does every time he’s around you.

Simon Riley who is surprised when you grab his hand and start tracing his scars on his knuckle. And he’s even more surprised with the fact that he doesn’t pull away.

Simon Riley who trusts you completely.

Simon Riley who, to his friends, is known to be a hard ass. But with you, he’s less than that. He’s just a man, who loves a woman, and will continue to do that.

Simon Riley who, that very same night when you held his hand, he pulled you into a kiss. You were surprised at how soft he was being, and the fact that he even asked before he kissed you, a simple, “Can I?” was all it took.

[sixxels]

taunt me ~ t.fushiguro angst

fratboy!toji x reader

wc: 18k

!!disclaimer!! angst-heavy content, mutual pining, slow burn, jealousy, detailed consensual smut, alcohol use, hurt/comfort, references to unhealthy coping mechanisms.

summary ~ between late-night parties, jealous stares, and the chaos of sukuna’s games, your relationship with toji is a tangled mess of almosts and apologies. he pushes you away to protect you, but it only hurts more every time he does. when everything finally implodes, it’s not just love on the line, it’s your sanity. you both want each other. but love’s never been that simple. m.list

the bass hit first, deep and thick like it had teeth, rattling the cracked windows of delta phi and bleeding out into the dark. the house was already a mess by the time you got there. glitter on the floor, someone shotgunning a beer in the kitchen, a girl crying quietly in the hallway. classic. you’d been to a few of these now. you knew the rhythm. the chaos. the low thrum of want and violence that came with being around them, especially him.

toji was already inside when you arrived, leaning against the wall by the living room entrance like he always did, watching everything with that dark, sharp gaze like he was bored but taking notes. someone had tossed a hoodie over his shoulder, tank top clinging to his chest, black jeans ripped at the knees. his hair was messy like he’d just gotten out of bed. maybe he had. his eyes flicked to you when you walked in. slow. low. they lingered on your legs, then your lips, then back to your legs. he didn’t smile. he never did. just that slight raise of his brow, like he was amused you were even there.

you knew that look by now. it meant 'come here.'

you didn’t go right away. instead you wandered through the crowd, brushing past sukuna’s throne-chair in the living room where he held court like some bored devil, girls draped over him, red tattoos sharp in the strobe. he caught your wrist for a second and leaned in too close. “looking pretty tonight, sweetheart,” he murmured, mouth brushing your ear. “toji’s watching, you know.”

you didn’t reply, just slipped free and kept walking. sukuna’s laugh followed you. sukuna was always like this, too bold for his own good, always talking shut. the exact opposite of his best friend toji.

by the time you reached toji, the music had shifted into something lower, dirtier. he didn’t speak. didn’t ask. just reached out and took your hand, pulling you into the crowd with the kind of possessive ease that made your chest burn. you didn’t protest. you never did.

you ended up right in the middle of the room, surrounded by sweat and smoke and the smell of spilled liquor. bodies pressed close, but you only felt his. his hand on your waist. his fingers splayed against your back. he moved slow at first, lazy, like he wasn’t even trying, but his grip never loosened.

“you look good,” he said, voice rough from whiskey or weed or both. “real sexy.”

you looked up at him, close enough to see the slight scar above his brow. “you always say that.”

“cause it’s always true.”

your fingers curled in the hem of his shirt. you wanted more. wanted his mouth on your neck, his hands on your skin, but all he gave you was his eyes and that crooked smirk that meant trouble.

all you wanted was him. all of him. you two had been friends who flirted for about two years now, and god, it was getting so fucking unbearable.

you danced like that for a while, grinding, turning, your body brushing against his over and over until it was hard to tell where you ended and he began. every time you pressed into him, he let you, but his jaw stayed tight. his hand never dipped low enough.

“you gonna kiss me tonight, toji?” you asked against his throat.

he chuckled, low and dark. “you want me to?”

you tilted your head up, lips inches from his. “maybe.”

he didn’t kiss you. he never did. just leaned in like he might and then pulled back at the last second. teasing. cruel.

it drove you fucking crazy.

gojo wandered by at some point, wearing sunglasses and no shirt, red solo cup in hand as his perfect body shined with the blue led lights above. “jesus christ, get a room,” he called, grinning. “or don’t. watching this is better than the music i guess.”

toji flipped him off without looking. you laughed, but toji’s hand tensed on your waist for half a second. only you noticed.

eventually, you both pulled back, breathless. not from dancing. from the way he kept looking at you like he wanted to ruin you and hated himself for it. he led you to the edge of the room where it was quieter, just you and him and the pulse of the party vibrating through the walls.

“you shouldn’t dance like that,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

you stole it from his mouth and took a drag. “why not?”

he looked down at you, smoke curling from his lips. “cause it makes me wanna do things i shouldn’t.”

your heart kicked hard in your chest.

you handed the cigarette back. “so do them.”

he exhaled slow, eyes dropping to your lips again. “you don’t get it,” he muttered. “you never get it.”

he was always like this. hot and cold. pull and push. he’d dance with you like he wanted to take you apart, then disappear the second things got too close. sometimes he ignored you for days. sometimes he found you in the hallway at midnight, eyes dark, and murmured your name like a confession. you didn’t know what he wanted. but you knew what you did.

you wanted him. all of him. even the broken parts.

in the kitchen, shoko was pouring shots with sukuna. geto leaned against the counter, joint tucked behind his ear, quietly judging everyone. choso sat cross-legged on the floor, eyes half-lidded, scribbling something in a sketchbook. nanami was nowhere to be seen—probably upstairs rereading a syllabus and pretending he didn’t live here.

this house was wild, loud, suffocating. but it had toji. so you kept coming back.

you were still close to him, back against the wall, watching him smoke. he glanced at you. held your gaze for a second too long. “you like all this?” he asked. “the parties. the attention.”

“i like you,” you said, honest. “that’s why i’m here.”

his eyes flickered.

“shut up, y/n. you don't know what you're saying,” he said finally. voice low. tired.

“i know.”

“then stop trying.”

“i cant.”

he stared at you. his hand brushed your waist again, just for a second. a soft touch. something real.

then it was gone.

~

he watched you laugh with gojo later, something tight coiling in his chest. you looked happy. light. too good for this hellhole. too good for him.

you didn’t see the way his jaw clenched when sukuna slung an arm around your shoulders. didn’t see the way his fists curled when you leaned into geto’s side, laughing at something he whispered. you didn’t notice the way he watched you like he was memorizing every detail in case it was the last time.

you were popular, of course you had a lot of friends l, including the ones he was friends with. but fuck if it didn't hurt watching you get touched up on by all his frat brothers like you were just some girl.

toji fushiguro didn’t fall in love. he fucked. he fought assholes who's egos needed a good bruse. he disappeared when things got too warm. but you… you made everything complicated.

you were soft and beautiful and real. you looked at him like he mattered. like he wasn’t just some fuck up with too many scars and not enough soul. you smiled when he was cruel. didn’t flinch when he pushed. you kept coming back like you didn’t know any better.

he wanted to kiss you so badly it made his teeth ache.

but he didn’t.

he leaned back against the wall and watched the party burn around him, heart heavy, throat dry. he couldn’t have you. not the way you wanted. not without wrecking you. and he cared too much to do that.

so he hurt you instead.

kept his distance. said shit he didn’t mean. shit that he knew kept you up at night. let you believe he didn’t want you.

it was the only way he knew how to protect you.

and it was killing him.

~

he stayed outside for a while after that. just him, the stars, and a silence too thick to breathe through. the cold didn’t bother him. he’d take it over the warmth of you any day. warmth made him weak. warmth made him want to pull you into his lap and never let go. warmth made him selfish.

inside, the party didn’t slow down. it just got messier. louder. meaner. when you came back in, sukuna was still where you left him, perched in that throne-chair like some cursed king with a solo cup in one hand and a cigarette in the other. he gave you a lazy smirk, legs wide, tattoos gleaming under the shitty lights. “your little shadow still outside?”

you didn’t answer. you were too busy scanning the room. your eyes found him immediately. he was back inside now, leaning against the far wall like he hadn’t just told you he was bad for you with eyes full of regret. he looked calmer than he felt. calm enough that it made your heart twist.

you were about to move. one foot forward. just one. he was across the room but you could make it. you could try again. maybe this time you’d get through. maybe this time he’d—

then she walked into frame.

a girl. short skirt. tight top. she said something to him. laughed. he didn’t even hesitate. toji reached for her waist and pulled her in.

then he kissed her.

you froze. couldn’t move. couldn’t breathe. his hand cupped the back of her neck like he’d done to you once when he was drunk and reckless and almost real. his mouth pressed to hers slow at first, then deeper. open. hungry. you stared.

it felt like your ribs cracked open one by one. like your skin peeled back to make room for the ache blooming in your chest.

you and toji had been like this for two years. flirty friends. nothing more.

you weren’t even sure when it started. maybe it was that one party where you ended up sitting outside together at three a.m., passing a blunt and talking about shit neither of you usually said out loud. maybe it was the way he always made room for you on the couch without asking, or the way his hand would linger a little too long on your back when he walked by. maybe it was the night you both ditched the chaos and drove around in his beat-up car for hours, sharing gas station snacks and laughing at nothing until the sun came up.

but the thing was, he never kissed you.

not once.

you’d slept in his bed. worn his hoodies. let your legs tangle under his blanket when the movie ran too long and no one wanted to move. you’d made ramen in his kitchen and cleaned up his messes and seen him hungover and shirtless more times than you could count.

he’d seen you cry once. held your face in his hands and wiped your tears away with his thumbs and still didn’t kiss you. it drove you crazy sometimes. how close you were without tipping over the edge. how he flirted like he meant it but never followed through. how he’d call you sweetheart with that low voice and look at you like he was starving, then laugh it off like it was nothing.

you were just friends, everyone said it. he said it. you said it. but it never felt that simple.

not when he showed up at your dorm at midnight just because you sounded off over text. not when he sat next to you at parties even though he never sat still. not when he gave you his hoodie when you were cold, even if it meant standing outside in just a tank top himself. it was friendship, yeah. but it was the kind that felt like something sacred and dangerous all at once. like a match too close to gasoline.

and maybe nothing had ever happened between you two. not technically. not officially. but you felt it, he did too. you knew he did. and that made it worse.

you didn’t realize you’d stepped back until your shoulder hit sukuna’s. he looked down at you. and for once—just once—he didn’t say something cruel.

his voice was low. almost quiet. “he’s trying to make you hate him.” you blinked hard. your mouth was dry. “it’s working,” you whispered.

sukuna sighed and leaned back, dragging a hand through his hair. “yeah,” he muttered, “but you won’t. not really.” he tilted his head, looking at you sideways. “you’re too fucking soft.” you didn’t respond. couldn’t. your eyes were still locked on toji. he’d pulled away from the girl now. was saying something in her ear. she laughed again, tossed her hair, disappeared into the kitchen. he didn’t watch her go.

his eyes found yours instead. and even across the room, in all the chaos and noise and flickering lights, you saw the guilt. you saw the shame. you saw how much it hurt him to do it.

but he’d done it anyway.

you turned away.

sukuna stood, stretching lazily. he flicked his cigarette to the floor and ground it under his boot. “come on,” he said. “i’ll get you something stronger.” you didn’t want to follow him, but you did.

because it was easier than staying.

you ended up on the back porch with a bottle of cheap vodka and sukuna sitting next to you, his usual smugness dimmed. he didn’t touch you. didn’t flirt. just passed the bottle back and forth and let you sit there in your heartbreak.

“you wanna hear the truth?” he asked eventually. you looked at him, eyes rimmed red. “he’s not doing it to be cruel,” he said. “he’s doing it cause he thinks he’s saving you.” you blinked. “by kissing someone else right in front of me?”

he shrugged. “yeah. stupid, huh?” you didn’t laugh. didn’t smile. he looked up at the sky, jaw tight. “guys like him don’t know how to love without destroying shit. we don’t get soft things. we just break them.”

you stared at him. “and what about you? what do you want?” he met your eyes. something unreadable passed between you. “doesn’t matter,” he said. “i’m not the one you look at like that.”

you didn’t have anything to say to that. so you took another sip and let the vodka burn a hole through your chest where your heart used to be.

~

toji hadn’t moved from his spot.

he was still leaning against the wall, arms crossed, pretending not to look for you in every corner of the house. pretending the kiss hadn’t made him sick to his stomach.

he could still taste that girl’s lip gloss. fake cherry. too sweet. not you. he’d seen your face when you caught him. saw the way your expression cracked down the middle. the betrayal. the confusion. the hurt.

he wanted to punch something.

but this was what he’d wanted, right?

he told himself that. over and over.

she needs to hate you. she needs to leave. she needs to find someone who won’t break her.

so he kissed someone else, and now he was alone.

choso passed him on the way to the basement, headphones around his neck. he paused, looked at toji for a second. said nothing. just shook his head like he was disappointed.

gojo showed up a few minutes later with a raised brow and a knowing smirk. “you done being a dumbass?”

“go away.”

“you know she left with sukuna, right?”

toji’s head snapped up.

gojo grinned. “yeah. out back. he got her a bottle. they’re talking. real close.”

toji’s jaw clenched. “fuck off, satoru.”

“just saying,” gojo drawled. “you’re not the only one who knows how to self-destruct.”

he walked away whistling.

toji didn’t follow. he couldn’t.

he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he saw you sitting with sukuna, drinking and crying and leaning into the shoulder of a man who didn’t deserve to touch you. he’d lose it. do something he’d regret.

he deserved this. he made this happen.

and still—still—his hands were shaking.

~

you stayed out back longer than you meant to. the vodka numbed the sharp edges, but not the center. not the deep, hot ache that sat in your throat like a stone. sukuna didn’t try anything. didn’t even make a move.

he just let you be broken.

“i don’t get you,” he said after a while. you looked over at him, wiping under your eyes.

“he’s an asshole,” sukuna continued. “but you look at him like he strung the stars.” you laughed bitterly. “maybe he did.” he scoffed. “no. he just learned how to hold a hammer and forgot to put it down.” you leaned back, head against the siding of the house. “he’s not all bad.”

“no,” sukuna agreed. “but he’s not all good either.” he glanced at you. “just remember that next time he tries to break you in half.”

you wanted to argue. to say you could take it. that it was worth it. but your voice caught on the truth. it already hurt.

and he hadn’t even touched you.

when you finally came back inside, the house had shifted. quieter now. people passed out on couches. music down to a murmur. the scent of smoke and spilled drinks clung to everything.

toji was gone.

you checked the usual places. the kitchen. the hallway. even peeked into the basement where choso gave you a look like he wanted to say something but didn’t. eventually you found shoko leaning against the railing upstairs, cigarette in one hand, textbook in the other.

“you seen him sho?”

she looked at you without surprise. blew smoke out the side of her mouth. “he went to his room.”

you nodded. turned to go.

“don’t,” she said. you paused. “just… don’t,” she repeated. “not tonight.” you swallowed hard. “why?”

“cause you’ll forgive him if you do. and he won’t stop.” you looked at her. “i already forgave him.” shoko didn’t smile. didn’t judge. she just took another drag and said, “i know.”

you stood there for a long time. just stood. unsure of everything except how much it hurt, and how much you still wanted him anyway.

your anguish didn't go unnoticed to your friends, especially not to your most over the top one, gojo. he was pissed. pissed at toji. so after you had left, he made it his god sent to speak his mind to his brooding brother.

the hallway outside toji’s room still smelled like tequila and cheap weed. music was finally starting to die down downstairs, voices slurring into sleep or hookups or some kind of mess. gojo stepped over a knocked-over chair, kicked an empty red cup out of the way, and knocked hard twice before turning the knob without waiting for an answer.

the door creaked open. dark inside, save for the blue glow of a laptop screen. toji sat at the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, tank top clinging to his chest with sweat. his hair was a mess, jaw clenched tight, a bottle of jack daniel’s sitting beside him like company.

“the fuck do you want,” toji muttered without looking up. gojo leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “wanted to see how the world’s biggest asshole was holding up.” toji scoffed. “get lost.”

“can’t. house rules. i get to verbally beat your ass at least once a semester.” toji didn’t move. just stared at the floor like it had answers. gojo let the silence hang for a second before pushing off the wall and walking inside. “you really had to do that to her? in front of everyone?”

“drop it."

“nah,” gojo said, voice tightening. “you don’t get to pull shit like that and then sit here acting like you’re the victim.”

“you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“i know exactly what i’m talking about. she looked wrecked, toji. she left early. sukuna of all people had to comfort her. do you even realize how fucked that is?” toji’s head snapped up. “i said drop it.”

“and i said no,” gojo snapped. “you want me to stop then tell me why the hell you did it. why you kissed some random girl when the one person you actually give a shit about was walking toward you.”

“because she was walking toward me,” toji growled, standing now. “that’s why.” gojo blinked. “what?”

“she was coming over, gojo. i saw it in her face. like she still thought there was something there. like she was ready to try again.” toji’s chest rose and fell, breathing sharp. “and i can’t. i can’t do it.”

“can’t or won’t?"

toji laughed, bitter and low. “don’t start with that bullshit.” gojo stepped closer, voice sharp now. “then what is it, huh? you string her along for two years, make her think she means something, then blow it all up the second it feels real?”

“because she does mean something,” toji snapped. “that’s the problem.” gojo went quiet.

“she’s too fucking good,” toji said, voice breaking low. “she’s soft and kind and stupidly hopeful and i’ll ruin that. i’ll tear her apart without even trying.” gojo’s hands clenched into fists. “so your solution is to rip the bandaid off by kissing someone else in front of her? are you listening to yourself?”

“it’s better this way,” toji muttered, like he was convincing himself. “for who? not for her. and definitely not for you.”

“what do you want from me, satoru?” toji barked. “you want me to say i’m in love with her? that i can’t fucking sleep unless i know she’s safe, that i think about her every time i lift, every time i come home, every time i see her name on my phone? you want me to say i wish i wasn’t like this, wish i could be good enough for her?”

gojo stared, jaw tight. “well i’m not,” toji said, voice raw. “i’m not good. i never was. and if i let her close she’s gonna learn that the hard way.”

“she already knows,” gojo said, softer now. “she’s seen it. and she stayed.”

“she shouldn’t have to.”

“maybe that’s not your call to make.”

they stood there breathing like they’d just fought for real. and maybe they had. the air was thick with unsaid things, old wounds, the kind of hurt you only let out when it’s been sitting too long. “i’m not gonna tell you what to do,” gojo said after a long beat. “but you owe her better than what you gave her tonight.”

toji sat back down on the edge of the bed, rubbed a hand down his face like he was exhausted. “i know.”

“and for the record,” gojo added, “if i didn’t like her like a sister, i’d be the one standing next to her right now. not you.” toji looked up at him, eyes sharp. gojo raised a brow. “but i do. so don’t make me regret having faith in your dumb ass.”

the room was quiet again. not calm, not exactly, but the storm had passed. gojo turned to go, then paused in the doorway.

“you know,” he said without looking back, “i’ve seen you take hits from guys twice your size. but the look on your face when she walked out? that was the first time you actually looked hurt.”

then he left, door clicking shut behind him.

toji didn’t move for a while. just stared at the door like he was hoping you'd walk through it instead. like maybe he hadn’t ruined everything.

but you didn’t.

and he had.

~

the next morning was rough.

the sun was sharp and mean, casting everything in that washed-out gold that made the world feel too loud. toji didn’t bother with sunglasses. he never did. he walked like someone who had nothing to prove and still made people get out of the way.

he was headed to his monday morning business class, dragging his feet a little more than usual, hungover but used to it. the hangover was never the issue. it was the way his thoughts stuck to the back of his throat like smoke that wouldn’t clear. his little verbal fight with gojo last night ontop of making you feel like shit was not helping.

campus was already moving around him, caffeine-fueled freshmen and overachieving finance majors crowding the sidewalks, chattering about midterms and internship interviews and parties they weren’t even invited to yet. toji didn’t speak to any of them. he didn’t have to. everyone already knew who he was.

toji fushiguro was a name people said with caution. the kind of name that came with rumors and stories passed around late at night, most of them half true. people said he used to be a cage fighter. that he dropped out sophomore year because he broke someone’s jaw in a seminar. that he only re-enrolled because delta phi practically begged him to come back. that he had a kill count and not just in bed. and hey, he's not saying that's not true.

he didn’t care what they said. he’d been through worse than whispers.

he wore a black long sleeve shirt, sleeves shoved up to his elbows, tattoos crawling down his arms like they had minds of their own. heavy black ink that looked rough even from a distance, sharp edges and sacred lines. they looked like they belonged on someone who didn’t believe in softness. piercings glinted at his brow and ear and lip, silver catching the sun. his jeans hung low on his hips and his boots were scuffed like they’d seen too many nights out.

he was big. not just tall, but thick with muscle, all wide shoulders and brutal arms. one of the man reason he got you do hit and bothered. he looked like he could lift a car if he felt like it, or throw a man across the quad just to prove a point.

and despite the fact he barely said ten words to anyone in class, the professors never called on him. not anymore. he didn’t sit with anyone, except nanami when he felt like it. didn’t take notes. didn’t even open his laptop. but he passed every exam, turned in every assignment, and showed up just enough to stay under the radar. just enough to keep his spot at delta phi, which was really the only reason he hadn’t burned the whole place down yet.

toji wasn’t the president. that was sukuna’s circus. but he was something scarier—unofficial muscle. the one who kept the wolves at bay when they came too close. the one everyone looked at when things got ugly. he didn’t speak unless it mattered. didn’t fight unless it was worth it. but when he did? people remembered.

he cut across the back end of campus on his way to class, heading past the old science building where the vending machines always ate your change. the path was quieter here, shadowed by overgrown trees and cigarette smoke curling from cracked benches.

he caught the tail end of a conversation before he even saw who was talking.

“…seriously, fuck gojo. he’s not even that hot. just has clout. i saw him with mia last week. she was crying about me the week before, now she’s on his dick like i didn’t even exist.”

toji slowed down. his jaw twitched. the voice belonged to some guy he vaguely recognized—football or lacrosse, something cocky and replaceable. he was laughing with another dude, but it was bitter. jealous. toji turned the corner and looked directly at him.

“say that shit again,” he said, voice low and calm. the guy froze. his friend bailed immediately, slinking off with a muttered “i’ll catch you later, bro,” like even he knew what was coming. toji stepped closer.

“what?” the guy asked, trying to puff up his chest like that would help. “you think i’m scared of you?”

“no,” toji said, voice flat. “i think you’re pathetic.”

the guy scoffed. “you don’t even know what—” toji grabbed the collar of his hoodie and slammed him back against the brick wall, one hand flat against his chest like he wasn’t even trying yet.

“you got a problem with gojo?” he said, voice quiet. “say it to his face. otherwise shut your fucking mouth.” the guy flinched. toji could see the flash of fear behind his eyes now. good.

“jesus, man—he fucked my ex.”

“she left you. there’s a difference.” toji let go with a hard shove. the guy stumbled forward, catching himself on the edge of the bench. “you wanna blame someone for your girl moving on? blame yourself. don’t drag my brother’s name through the dirt ‘cause you’re too soft to handle it.”

the guy didn’t respond. didn’t even look at him. just turned and walked fast in the opposite direction, muttering under his breath. toji exhaled through his nose, shook out his hand like the heat in his blood was trying to burn through his skin.

despite his altercation with satoru the night prior, he'd always stand up for his family. hell, gojo probably wouldn’t even care. he never did. too laid back for grudges, too self-assured to let shit like that stick. but that didn’t matter to toji. because he knew what gojo didn’t show. he knew the cracks that didn’t reach the surface. the stuff behind the sunglasses and grins.

and loyalty? that wasn’t optional for toji. it wasn’t a trait. it was the only rule that mattered. delta phi might’ve been a shitshow, but it was his shitshow. they were his people. no one talked about them like that.

not without consequences. he adjusted the strap of his backpack and kept walking, heart still beating a little too fast in his chest.

because the truth was, he needed them. more than he’d ever admit out loud. the house, the chaos, the late nights and stupid games and gojo yelling about who stole his lighter again. it kept him tethered. kept him from spiraling too far. he knew gojo only meant well, so he'd never hold shit against him for putting his mind in the right place.

but mostly, it was you. you were the one thing he couldn’t name. couldn’t reach for. couldn’t lose. and now that sukuna was getting closer, now that you were looking at him like you didn’t know what to believe anymore, now that he was the one who made you cry—

he felt it slipping.

all of it.

and he didn’t know how to stop it.

'fuck me.'

~

your dorm feels colder than usual. the light is soft and pale through the blinds, the kind of grey morning that makes everything feel slow and sticky, like your body’s moving through half-dried paint. it’s just past nine and your bedsheets are tangled around your ankles like they fought back in your sleep. you didn’t dream. you didn’t get the chance. too many thoughts, too many flashes of his hands on someone else’s waist, her mouth on his, the curve of his grin that should’ve been yours.

you roll onto your back, stare up at the ceiling and breathe through the ache that’s settled behind your ribs like something permanent. you told yourself you wouldn’t fall for him. two years of skirting the edge, of shared joints on rooftops and late-night food runs and smirks across dance floors. two years of almosts and maybes and looks that said too much but never went anywhere. two years of him pulling you in just to push you away.

but last night? that felt different. dancing with him, the way his hands gripped your waist, the way his voice dropped when he said your name like it meant something.

it had felt real.

and then it hadn’t.

you replay it over and over—the moment your eyes locked across the room, the second you stepped away from sukuna, ready to go to him again, to risk it all one more time. and then the way his hand wrapped around her hip, how his mouth found hers like it was nothing. like you were nothing.

your stomach turns. you sit up, hair a mess, hoodie sliding off your shoulder. you hadn’t even taken your makeup off last night, just crawled into bed and let it all hit you at once. you remember sukuna’s voice at your ear, warm and surprisingly soft despite the venom he usually spat.

“you don’t cry over guys like him, sweetheart,” he’d said, pressing a drink into your hand. “you let them cry over you.” you weren’t sure why he cared. maybe he didn’t. maybe he just liked having a front row seat to the destruction. but last night he didn’t press too hard. just sat beside you while the party roared on, kept his arm slung behind the couch and didn’t let anyone else get too close.

your phone buzzes beside you. you pick it up and squint at the screen.

sukuna [9:09am]: you okay pretty girl?

you stare at it for a second, then type back.

you [9:10am]: i'm fine ryo

you hesitate, fingers hovering over the keyboard. you want to say more. thank him, maybe. tell him you appreciated it, even if it came from the last person you expected. but before you can send anything else, there’s a knock on your door.

you blink. frown. no one ever knocks on your door at this hour. you climb out of bed, tug your hoodie down, try to smooth your hair a little as you shuffle toward the door barefoot. you unlock it and pull it open—

“good morning, sunshine!” gojo stands there, grinning like the hangover skipped him entirely, sunglasses perched on his nose despite the cloudy sky outside. he’s holding a flyer in one hand and a coffee in the other.

“you’re… happy,” you mumble, rubbing your eye. he shrugs. “always am. some of us don’t let heartbreak slow us down.” you blink at him. “what?”

“nothing,” he says, way too fast, and pushes the flyer toward you. “special delivery from delta phi. invitation only. it’s a bar takeover tonight, and i was instructed—” he leans forward like it’s a secret— “by myself, because i’m a genius, to invite you personally.”

you take the flyer. the paper’s thick and smells faintly of weed. “you’re really doing printed invites now?”

“classy, right?” he wiggles his brows. “sukuna wanted a neon poster that said ‘girls drink free until they cry’ but i vetoed that.” you snort, but it dies fast. your fingers tighten around the flyer.

“so,” gojo says slowly, “how are you holding up?” you look up at him. he’s smiling, but not as wide as usual. he’s watching you carefully. “fine,” you say.

he tilts his head. “wrong. try again.” you shrug, leaning against the doorframe. “i don’t know. last night sucked.” he nods, lets that sit for a second.

“toji’s an idiot,” he says eventually. your breath catches. “you don’t have to—”

“i do,” he cuts in gently. “because i know him. and i know you.” you press your lips together. “he’s…” gojo runs a hand through his hair. “he’s complicated. always has been. doesn’t let people get too close, especially the ones he actually gives a shit about.”

“yeah, i noticed.” he frowns. “look. i’m not gonna make excuses for him. what he did last night? not cool. not even a little. and i know it hurt you.” you blink fast.

“but,” gojo says, stepping forward, “if it means anything… he didn’t want to hurt you.”

“he literally made out with someone right in front of me,” you say, voice cracking just slightly. “after dancing with me like—like he meant it.” gojo exhales. “i know. i was there.” he leans against the wall across from your door, crosses his arms. “he’s terrified. you mean too much, and that makes him feel like he’s already failing before he’s even tried. so he lashes out. does something cruel, because then he doesn’t have to deal with the guilt of ruining something good.”

you swallow, hard.

“i told him he was being a dumbass,” gojo adds. “for what it’s worth. we got into it a little.” your brows lift. “you fought?”

“not like, fists and broken bones. just the usual screaming match.” he shrugs. “brotherly love.” you lean your head back against the frame and sigh.

“you ever think,” you murmur, “maybe i was stupid for waiting this long? for thinking he’d eventually… i don’t know. stop running?” gojo’s voice softens. “you weren’t stupid. you were patient. and hopeful. that’s not weakness.” you close your eyes.

“but,” he adds, “you also don’t have to keep waiting. not if it’s breaking you.” you nod slowly, thumb brushing over the corner of the flyer. “so what do i do?” you ask. “show up tonight? act like it’s fine?”

gojo gives you a crooked smile. “you show up looking hot as hell, dance with whoever you want, and remember you’re not the one who messed up.” you huff a laugh. “easier said than done.”

“i’ll be your wingman. we’ll make it a whole thing.” you raise a brow. “you’re not gonna try to flirt with me?”

“oh, i absolutely will. but only in the respectful, ego-boosting way.” you laugh again, a little more real this time. he pushes off the wall. “think about it, okay?” you nod. “thanks, gojo.” his smile softens. “anytime. and… for what it’s worth, if he ever gets his head out of his ass, you’re the only girl i’d root for with him.” you blink at him.

“he’s never looked at anyone else the way he looks at you. not once.” then he’s gone, already whistling down the hall like he didn’t just emotionally disarm you before ten a.m. you stand there a while longer, door half-shut, staring at the flyer in your hand and wondering what the hell tonight is going to feel like.

wondering what’s going to hurt more—seeing him again, or pretending like none of it ever happened. and most of all, wondering if he’s going to look at you like he did before everything fell apart.

or if he won’t look at you at all.

~

~

god, you should’ve never come.

you told yourself that the whole walk over, heels clicking on uneven pavement, breath caught somewhere between your lungs and your throat. the air was sticky and warm, just the edge of summer pressing in, and you were too aware of the way your dress clung to you, the way your lipstick felt too pretty, too brave. but gojo had asked so sweetly, flashing that grin like a sunrise and pressing the invite into your hand like he already knew you’d say yes.

and maybe you did. maybe you wanted to be seen. maybe you wanted him to see you.

the bar was already a mess when you walked in—bodies packed wall to wall, bass vibrating through the floor, lights flickering pink and gold. it was chaos, the kind gojo thrived in. you spotted him first near the bar, shirt half-buttoned and sunglasses still on, despite it being night. he raised a hand when he saw you, mouth already forming something ridiculous, but your eyes didn’t stay on him long.

they found toji.

of course they did.

he was across the room, leaning back against the booth like he hadn’t ripped your heart out just nights ago. like he hadn’t kissed someone else while your chest was still cracked open in front of him. he hadn’t texted. not a word. not a hey. not a sorry. not even a “you good?” like you were some girl he barely knew. you hated that your first instinct was still to look for him.

and god, he looked good.

black tee stretched over his chest, sleeves rolled just enough to show the curve of his biceps and the ink that wrapped around them like smoke. his chain caught the light when he tilted his head. he hadn’t even shaved. a shadow of a beard clung to his jaw, making him look more like trouble than usual.

he saw you before you could look away.

his gaze locked with yours. it didn’t falter, didn’t skip. it stayed steady, calm, unaffected. he lifted a brow like he’d seen you last night, like nothing had happened, and your heart clenched in your ribs.

you almost turned back. you almost went to gojo and begged for a drink and a distraction. but toji was already pushing up from the booth and walking toward you, slow and steady, beer still in hand, eyes never leaving yours.

“you look so sexy y/n,” he said when he reached you, voice lazy, deep, low enough to drown in. his mind drifted to gojo screaming at him to get his shit together, but it quickly faded when he remembered just who he is. a fucking asshole that's nothing mroe than bad news.

he watched you blink, stupidly. “just gonna ignore last weekend?”

toji smirked like it was funny, like your confusion was some private joke he didn’t plan on explaining. “we’re at a party. don’t ruin the mood.”

you hated how fast he pulled you back in. how your anger wilted under his closeness. he smelled like cedar and whiskey, like heat and sweat and safety, even if he was the last person you should feel safe with. his hand ghosted against your lower back, not quite touching but close enough that your skin burned.

“so you’re just gonna ignore it?” you said, voice soft but sharp. toji’s eyes didn’t waver despite his intense inner turmoil. “what do you want me to say?”

everything, you thought. 'i miss you. i didn’t mean it. you’re not just some girl.' but you didn’t say it. because the second you did, it would all come spilling out, everything you’d been holding in since you met him two years ago, since you realized the way your stomach flipped every time he looked at you like you were a secret he didn’t want to share.

you shook your head instead and let him lead you toward the bar, let him order a drink for you, let him stand too close while you sipped vodka from a sticky straw and tried not to crumble.

“you looked good dancing with sukuna last weekend,” he said casually, like he wasn’t gripping the bar so tightly the tendons in his hand strained.

“you looked good kissing that girl,” you shot back. toji’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t flinch. “she kissed me.”

you gave him a look. “didn’t look that one-sided.”

he didn’t answer, just took a swig from his beer and looked straight ahead. the silence between you turned thick and bitter, but not unbearable. it was always like this. always a push and pull, a fire you both stood too close to.

after a beat, he leaned in, mouth brushing your ear, voice low.

“you still mad at me?”

“what do you think?”

he didn’t pull away.

“think you’re too pretty to look that angry.”

you hated him. hated the way he knew exactly how to disarm you, how he used softness like a weapon. hated that you leaned into him anyway, your shoulder brushing his chest, your breath catching when his fingers ghosted over your wrist.

“you don’t get to play like this,” you said. “not after that.”

“i’m not playing.” you stared up at him. his face was unreadable, but his eyes were anything but. something dark swam there, something he’d never say out loud. fear. guilt. want. it made your knees weak.

“then what is this?” he didn’t answer. you danced with him anyway. because what else were you supposed to do?

when the music shifted into something slower, hazier, he pulled you into him like you were meant to be there. your hands found his shoulders, then the curve of his neck. his arms circled your waist and tugged you closer until your chest was flush against his and you could feel his heartbeat, erratic and hard. he smelled like home. like everything you wanted and couldn’t have.

“you didn’t text me,” you whispered, staring at the place where your hand rested against his collarbone.

“i know.”

“why?”

“i didn’t know what to say.”

you bit your lip. “you could’ve said sorry.”

toji’s mouth curved into a grimace. “you think that’d make it better?”

“no,” you said honestly. “but it would’ve meant something.” his grip tightened just slightly, like the truth hurt. “i didn’t know if you wanted to hear from me.” you looked up at him. “i always want to hear from you. even when i hate you.”

his eyes softened for half a second. then he pulled you closer, forehead resting against yours. “you don’t hate me.”

“sometimes i wish i did.” he smiled. it wasn’t a happy one. “me too.” the song ended but you didn’t move. his breath was warm against your cheek, his hand splayed across your back like he was holding you together.

“what are we doing?” you asked quietly. “making bad choices,” he said.

you laughed. it sounded hollow. “yeah. i noticed.”

“you wanna leave?”

you looked at him. god, you wanted to. you wanted to crawl back into that space you used to share—his bed, his couch, that place on the porch where you’d sit and talk shit for hours. not that he meant it in a hook up way, you were bound to just go home and talk. you wanted his hand in yours, his mouth against your shoulder, his voice in your ear. but not like this. not until he meant it.

“not tonight,” you said. toji nodded. he looked away, you stepped back, he let you go.

you didn’t look at him again as you walked off the dance floor, not even when you felt his eyes on you the whole way across the bar. you found gojo leaning against the wall, sipping something neon and watching the crowd like a bored lion. he looked at you, then at toji, then back again.

“you good?” he asked.

you didn’t answer.

he handed you his drink.

you took it.

"fuck satoru i don't know how long i can do this shit."

~

meanwhile he was spiralling.

toji slammed the bars bathroom door so hard it rattled the fucking frame. fluorescent light buzzed above him, harsh and yellow, and the second the lock clicked into place, he was across the bathroom, fists braced against the sink, head down, jaw clenched so tight it hurt.

his reflection stared back, mocking. he hated what he saw.

“fucking idiot,” he spat, low and sharp like a curse. he was breathing too hard. chest heaving, eyes wild. “you fucking idiot.”

you looked beautiful tonight. more than beautiful. you looked like a dream he never deserved to touch. and when you walked in—god. you’d barely looked at him. you held yourself like you were trying not to shatter and he’d done that. again. he was the one who made you pull away, the one who twisted something soft into something cold.

he hadn’t even fucking texted you. because he’s a pussy. a loser with nothing good to offer and too much fucked up inside to fix. he gripped the edges of the sink harder, breathing through his nose, his heart pounding in his throat. the way you looked at him when you walked away—it gutted him. you didn’t yell. you didn’t cry. you just looked… done.

“you always ruin it,” he growled at the mirror. “always. every fucking time.”

you had every reason to hate him. he let you get close, let you crack open the rusted door to his chest and see what was rotting inside. and right when it felt like maybe, maybe he could be something better—he kissed that girl. right in front of you. because he was too fucking scared to admit that he wanted more. because wanting more meant admitting he needed you, and needing you meant risking it all, and he’d never been brave enough for that.

so he ran.

again.

and now you were out there in that goddamn dress looking like the one thing in the world that could save him, and he just stood there like nothing happened. just leaned in close, smiled, said stupid things like he hadn’t torn you apart. he leaned down and let his forehead hit the mirror with a dull, solid thunk. breathed hard. hands shaking. he felt like his bones were trying to break through his skin.

“you ruin everything,” he whispered. “you ruined her.”

his knuckles cracked as his fist slammed into the side of the sink. the porcelain groaned under the force, a tiny web of fractures blooming under his hand. it didn’t break all the way, but it was enough to feel something. enough to hurt. he deserved it.

he couldn’t get your face out of his head. the way your voice shook. the way you said you wished you hated him. me too. he meant it when he said that. because maybe if you hated him, you wouldn’t keep coming back. maybe you’d finally let go, finally move on, finally be safe from him. he leaned over the sink, hands on either side, and stared at his reflection again.

this wasn’t what you deserved, he’d never been what you deserved. and maybe that’s why he kept fucking it up. because deep down, he knew. there wasn’t a version of this story where he ended up the good guy. there was only you, trying so hard to love someone who couldn’t even love himself.

the door creaked open behind him, casual and slow. toji didn’t move. he didn’t have to. he could already smell the cologne—something expensive and offensive, paired with the soft, familiar click of jewelry against skin.

“jesus christ,” sukuna said cheerfully, voice bouncing off the tile. “you’re really losing it, huh?”

toji didn’t turn around. “get the fuck out.”

sukuna laughed. laughed. fucking prick.

“so touchy,” he said, stepping deeper into the bathroom like he owned the place. “must’ve been one hell of a kiss.”

toji’s jaw tensed so hard he thought his teeth might break. “don’t start.”

“but it was such a moment,” sukuna drawled. “the drama. the heartbreak. the way she looked at you like you just kicked her puppy. that was some real emotional cinema, man. had me misty-eyed.”

toji turned slowly, his eyes dark, dangerous.

“last warning.” but sukuna just leaned against the wall, all lazy arrogance and smug grin.

“what’re you gonna do, fushiguro? cry some more? break another sink? maybe punch a wall like a real alpha male?”

toji stepped forward once. sukuna didn’t flinch. “you think she’s gonna wait around forever?” sukuna said, voice dipped low now, a little more serious.

“you keep pushing her away, one day she’s not coming back.”

“shut the fuck up.”

“you know i’m right.”

“you don’t know shit.”

sukuna tilted his head, tongue poking the inside of his cheek. “i know she was crying.”

toji froze.

sukuna smiled. “i saw her. outside. right after you played tonsil hockey with that desperate little blonde. she was trying so hard to keep it together. but you broke her, man. again. and the worst part? she still looked like she was hoping you’d come after her.”

silence.

toji’s fists curled so tight his nails dug into his palms. “so what do you want, huh?” sukuna said, tone suddenly sharper. “you wanna keep her on a string? just close enough to feel her, just far enough she can’t touch you? you wanna fuck her up until she hates herself for loving you?”

toji launched forward so fast the room blurred, slamming sukuna up against the wall with one hand twisted in his shirt. the tile cracked behind him. sukuna grinned.

“hit me,” he dared, eyes gleaming. “do it. take all that guilt and rage and let it out. won’t change the fact that you’re a fucking coward.”

toji’s breathing was ragged, his other hand shaking at his side. he wanted to. he wanted to bury his fist in sukuna’s face and watch the smug drain out of his mouth. he wanted to feel something break that wasn’t inside him.

but he didn’t move. because sukuna was right, and that made everything worse.

“fuck you,” toji breathed, venom in his voice.

sukuna chuckled low in his throat, leaned in just enough to say, “she deserves better.” then he slipped from toji’s grip like water, smoothing out his shirt, fixing the collar like nothing happened. “see you out there, big guy,” he said, casual, and walked out.

toji stood frozen in place, chest heaving, hands shaking, heart breaking. he looked at the cracked sink again, at the tiny lines spidering out like fault lines in porcelain.

just like him, splintered. ready to shatter.

~

you weren’t sure how long you’d been standing at the bar since you left tojis side, the bass thumped under your feet, lights spinning across the floor, but everything felt distant. muffled. like you were underwater watching the night move on without you.

you leaned against the back wall of the bar, drink long forgotten in your hand, staring into the crowd like you were searching for something—someone. like if you just waited long enough, maybe toji would come back. maybe he’d walk up with that lazy smirk and say something stupid like 'you look pretty'. you hated how much it still hurt.

your throat was tight, chest heavy with that unbearable ache that sat behind your ribs and wouldn’t move no matter how many times you told yourself to be fine. you felt like a fool for hoping. for showing up looking good, thinking maybe things could go back to how they used to be, thinking he’d finally see you the way you saw him.

but of course he hadn’t. because that would’ve required him to care enough to be honest, to be brave, and toji fushiguro didn’t do honest. didn’t do brave. he just did damage. and you were so, so tired of bleeding over him.

you closed your eyes. tried to breathe. tried to escape the way your body ached for someone who wasn’t even trying to hold you anymore. and just like a prayer whispered into the dark, someone stepped into your silence.

“you’re looking like you just got stood up,” a voice said beside you, smooth and cocky and way too amused. your eyes snapped open. sukuna stood there, drink in hand, eyebrow raised, mouth curled into that familiar smug grin.

“fuck off,” you said, no heat behind it.

“harsh,” he laughed. “and here i was, ready to rescue you from your little emo spiral.” you rolled your eyes, but you didn’t walk away. you couldn’t. not when his presence suddenly made the air easier to breathe.

“you don’t need to do this,” you muttered.

“do what?” he asked, feigning innocence as he leaned against the wall beside you. “check on the pretty girl who looks like her world’s falling apart? seems like the least i could do after last time.”

you looked at him then. really looked. he didn’t look sorry. he never did. but there was something else in his face—something quieter underneath the usual edge. not sympathy. not pity. just… attention. you hated that it felt good.

“come dance with me,” he said suddenly, holding out his hand.

“no.”

“yes.”

“i don’t want—”

“i don’t care.” he grinned. “come on, sweetheart. let me give you something to think about that isn’t him.” you hesitated. just for a second. and that was all it took. he grabbed your hand and pulled you into the crowd like you weighed nothing. and maybe in that moment, you didn’t. maybe the ache in your chest loosened just enough for you to follow.

the music swallowed you both whole. bodies pressed in all around, but sukuna didn’t care. his hand found your waist like it belonged there, the other lacing through your fingers as he pulled you close—too close. “relax,” he murmured, lips near your ear. “you’re allowed to enjoy yourself.”

you wanted to argue. but then his hips rolled into yours and everything inside you short-circuited. he danced like sin. like temptation wrapped in a body built to destroy. and the worst part? you let him. because for once, someone wanted to be close. someone was choosing you, and god, it felt like oxygen.

somewhere off to the side, you caught gojo shaking his head as he leaned toward geto. the two of them were watching from their booth, drinks in hand, resigned like babysitters watching a soap opera unravel in real time.

“should we stop this?” geto asked, sipping his whiskey. “nah,” gojo sighed, tapping his glass. “let it play out. toji needs to see what happens when you leave something good waiting too long.”

on the dancefloor, sukuna spun you around and tugged you back, your chest against his. his hands skimmed lower than they should have, but his touch didn’t linger—he wasn’t greedy. just deliberate. “you’re tense,” he said into your neck. “no shit.”

“i could help with that.”

you snorted despite yourself. “this isn’t a solution.”

“no,” he said, looking down at you. “but it’s something.”

you wanted to be strong. wanted to step away and prove that toji didn’t still own some broken piece of you. but your body betrayed you—moved with sukuna like he was the only thing keeping you upright. your breath caught every time he touched you, every time his fingers slid just barely across your skin. it wasn’t love. it wasn’t healing, but it was a distraction.

and you needed it.

what you didn’t see was toji.

he walked out of the bathroom with fists clenched, throat tight, still reeling from what sukuna said—only to be met with the image of you in said mans arms. dancing, smiling, laughing like you hadn’t just cried over him a few nights ago. he froze. everything inside him froze, and then it all caught fire.

he saw red. thick, searing jealousy choking out any rational thought. his stomach twisted. his heart fucking dropped.

you were dancing with him. his stupid fucking frat brother who was notorious for being a slur, bit that he could really speak on it but still. the one guy who never shut up about wanting you. the guy who toji knew was only doing this to piss him off.

and worse—you were letting him. he didn’t think, didn’t breathe, just turned on his heel and stalked straight toward the bar.

“what’s good, baby?” he said to the first girl he saw. she was tall, pretty, and already drunk enough to think he meant it. “hi,” she giggled, touching his chest, he didn’t even hear her name, he just kissed her. sloppy. hard. intentional. made sure the angle lined up perfectly so when he opened his eyes mid-kiss, you were watching.

your body went still on the dance floor. sukuna smirked down at you. “there he goes.”

you stared, heart pounding, feeling sick. toji was kissing someone else. again. like nothing mattered. like you didn’t matter. you pulled away from sukuna, stumbling a little.

“you okay?” he asked, still smirking, but there was a sharpness behind it now.

you didn’t answer. you were too busy watching toji pull the girl closer, whisper something in her ear, and start leading her toward the door. your heart shattered in your chest.

again.

gojo groaned into his drink. “he’s such a fucking idiot.” geto sighed. “you think he’s doing it to hurt her?”

“i think he’s doing it to hurt himself,” gojo muttered. “she’s just collateral.” you turned and walked off the floor, jaw tight, trying not to cry in public again. behind you, sukuna just chuckled.

“this is getting good,” he said, sipping his drink.

across the bar, toji didn’t look back.

not once. but he felt every step you took away from him.

and it burned.

~

everything after seeing him with that girl felt like a blur, you didn’t remember how you got to the couch. didn’t remember pushing past the noise or the crowd or the awful ache in your chest. all you knew was that when you saw gojo’s bright blue eyes across the room and the way geto looked up like he already knew something was wrong, your knees went weak and everything you’d been trying to hold in just crashed through you like a wave.

“woah,” gojo said, sitting up. “hey hey hey—”

“oh no,” shoko muttered, putting her drink down. “come here, sit. now.” you collapsed onto the couch between them, face hot, hands shaking, heart beating too fast. you couldn’t breathe. couldn’t think. couldn’t stop the tears even if you wanted to.

“he— he kissed her,” you choked out, voice cracking, “he did it again, and i let myself believe he wouldn’t.” shoko put a hand on your knee, gentle, grounding. gojo was frowning now, serious in that rare way he only ever was when someone he loved was hurting. geto reached for your hand, warm and solid, thumb brushing over your knuckles like he was trying to anchor you back to earth.

“just breathe,” geto said softly. you tried. you really did. but everything in you was unraveling. “i don’t understand what i did wrong,” you whispered. “we were so close. for two years he’s been my best friend, he’s been everything to me. and yeah, it was flirty and yeah, i caught feelings, but i thought— i thought he felt something too. i thought maybe—” your voice broke again, and you covered your face. “i’m so fucking stupid.”

“no,” gojo said immediately. “no you’re not.”

“he doesn’t even look at other girls like he looks at you,” geto murmured. “you’re not imagining it.”

“then why does he keep doing this?” your voice rose, raw and shaking. “why does he keep picking someone else? why does he keep hurting me and acting like i don’t mean anything?” shoko lit a cigarette, exhaling slowly. “because he’s scared. and because he’s an idiot.”

you laughed bitterly, wiping at your cheeks. “he doesn’t even text me. he can’t even say sorry. he just pretends like we never almost— like nothing ever happened.”

“toji’s always been like that,” gojo said, watching you carefully. “he shuts down. he panics. the second he feels something real, he runs.”

“but why?” you asked, voice barely a whisper. “what’s so wrong with me that he can’t even try?” geto pulled you closer. “it’s not you. it’s him. he’s just— he doesn’t think he deserves good things. and you’re the only thing he actually wants.”

you collapsed into him then, forehead against his shoulder, tears soaking into his shirt. “i hate him,” you mumbled. “no you don’t,” shoko said gently.

“i should.”

“yeah,” she said, flicking ash into a nearby tray. “you probably should.”

you didn’t say anything else. couldn’t. not with your whole chest cracked open, all the grief and love and hope spilling out where everyone could see it. gojo leaned back and sighed like he was tired of watching people break over someone who refused to show up properly. shoko lit another cigarette. geto just held you while your shoulders shook.

and somewhere near the back exit of the bar, sukuna leaned against the wall, sipping his drink and watching it all unfold with a little smirk pulling at his mouth. the chaos was beautiful.

you were so far gone you didn’t even see him watching. but toji wasn’t. toji stood outside, arms crossed, jaw tight, staring off at the road while the girl he’d kissed leaned against him, giggling about nothing important.

“you callin’ the uber?” she asked, lips already brushing his neck. “yeah,” he muttered, pulling out his phone and tapping through the app. he wasn’t even listening to her. didn’t know her name. didn’t want to. she wasn’t you.

she’d seen the whole thing—him dragging her out of the bar, eyes locked on you like he wanted to tear something apart. she’d liked the attention. thought she was gonna get lucky with the hottest guy in delta phi. but now, standing on the sidewalk, it was clear to her he wasn’t really there.

“you okay?” she asked. toji nodded, tight and short. didn’t meet her eyes.

when the uber pulled up, he opened the door for her and she paused, confused. “you’re not coming?”

“nah,” he said, barely looking at her. “go home.” her face fell. “seriously?” he didn’t say anything. “wow,” she huffed, rolling her eyes as she climbed in. “asshole.” the door slammed and the car pulled away.

toji stood there in silence, head tipped back against the wall, wind biting at his skin.

he hated himself.

he reached into his jacket, pulled out a blunt and lit it with shaking hands. took a long drag and exhaled slowly, trying to ignore the way his heart felt like it was about to cave in.

“you fucking dick,” he muttered to himself, staring out at the night. he had no one to blame but himself. no excuse. no reason that made any of this better. you’d shown up tonight looking like a dream. like something out of a memory he was too afraid to hold. and he saw you—saw how you smiled, saw how you scanned the room like maybe, just maybe, you were hoping he’d come to you.

and what did he do? he panicked. again. like a fucking coward. like the version of himself he thought he’d buried long ago. all because he didn’t know how to handle the way you looked at him like he could be good.

he smashed his fist against the brick wall, breathing hard. hated how he made you feel. hated that he’d watched you cry and didn’t go to you. hated that he couldn’t fix what he kept breaking.

and worst of all, he hated the way sukuna touched you. he had his hands on you. he made you smile. you were supposed to be safe from that. from him.

toji took another long drag, jaw clenched so hard it hurt. the weed didn’t calm him. nothing could. he could still feel your eyes on him when he kissed that girl.

could still feel the disappointment in your face. he saw the way your body tensed. saw the way sukuna pulled you closer like he owned the moment. and toji had let it happen. he’d let someone else have you. again.

he closed his eyes.

“you don’t get to love someone like that,” he said to the night. “not when you keep proving you can’t handle it.”

he wasn’t good for you. he knew that. he’d known it from the start. but god, he wanted to be. he wanted to stop fucking it up. wanted to stop pushing you away every time it got too real. wanted to hold you like he meant it and stop making you cry and just be enough for once.

but he wasn’t.

he was this.

a fucked up mess with bloody knuckles and a blunt burning slow between fingers that didn’t know how to be gentle.

“you deserve better,” he whispered. and for once, he actually meant it.

~

you woke up to the smell of cologne and the scratch of expensive sheets. your body ached. your head throbbed. your mouth was dry and you had no idea where the hell you were. sunlight filtered in through high windows, catching on glass shelves and too many sunglasses and a stupid amount of hair product on the dresser. the room was cold, the blankets heavy, and it hit you all at once.

this wasn’t your dorm. and you were very much in someone’s bed. you sat up fast, heart pounding, brain still foggy. your dress was still on. your shoes were at the foot of the bed. no one else was there. but the panic still crawled under your skin.

'no no no no no what did i do—'

the door creaked open. gojo poked his head in, holding a red solo cup and a protein bar like he hadn’t just stepped into a full blown crisis.

“you’re alive,” he grinned, “that’s good.”

you stared at him. “what— where— did we—”

his face scrunched up like he tasted something sour. “ew. no. jesus."

you blinked. “but i’m in your bed.”

“yeah, because you were blackout at the bar and i couldn’t find your dorm key and you kept telling everyone you wanted to fight god. i figured this was safer.”

you slumped back against the pillows, dragging a hand over your face. “frick.”

gojo walked in, setting the cup on the nightstand beside you. “here. water. drink before you shrivel into dust.” you took it with shaking hands and sipped slowly, nausea curling in your stomach. everything from last night came back in pieces. the dancing. the kiss. toji dragging that girl out. the way he looked at you like you didn’t even exist.

sukuna’s hand on your waist, your breakdown on the couch. toji going home with that girl.

you groaned and curled up on your side, still clutching the cup. “so,” gojo said, sitting on the edge of the bed, “wanna talk about it?”

“no.”

“you sure? because you cried a lot last night and i think you used geto’s hoodie as a tissue.”

“satoru.”

“right. shutting up.” he leaned back on his hands, still watching you, still grinning like an idiot but softer now. it was that rare expression he wore only when he really cared. like when geto got too high and panicked or when shoko locked herself in the bathroom during finals week. “he’s a fucking idiot,” gojo said eventually. “just so you know.”

“yeah,” you whispered, staring at the wall. “i know.” you stayed there for a while. quiet. raw. letting the weight of it all settle on your chest like a stone. you didn’t know why it still hurt so much. maybe because you’d let yourself hope again. maybe because it wasn’t just any guy—it was toji. your best friend. your everything. and he didn’t even look at you. after a while, you pulled yourself up and grabbed your shoes, brushing past gojo without a word. “you sure you’re good to go?” he asked.

“i’ll live.” he didn’t stop you. the hallway outside was dim and quiet, the frat house still half asleep from the chaos of the night before. your heels clicked against the wood floor as you moved past the open kitchen, the beer cans, the stained couches. everything felt distant. muffled.

you turned the corner too fast and slammed into something solid, or someone. your stomach dropped.

him.

toji in all his tired glory stood there in a black hoodie and sweats, duffel bag slung over one shoulder, keys in his hand. he was heading to the gym. of course he was. that was what he did when he couldn’t deal with reality—he trained like he could beat the guilt out of his body.

he froze when he saw you. eyes dark. jaw clenched, you opened your mouth. maybe to say hi. maybe to apologize. maybe just to explain that you didn’t sleep with anyone in the frat. that you were still yours. but he didn’t give you the chance.

his eyes flicked down. took in your clothes. the fact you were coming from the direction of sukuna or gojos room.

and just like that, his face hardened. lips pressed tight. no emotion. no recognition. no trace of the person who used to make you laugh so hard you couldn’t breathe. he pushed past you without a word.

just brushed his shoulder against yours and walked out the front door like you weren’t even real. like you had done something wrong. you stood there, frozen. breath caught in your throat. he thought you’d slept with someone else. and that mattered to him, but not enough to stop, not enough to ask. not enough to care out loud.

you felt it again, that horrible twist in your chest. that ache that had nothing to do with heartbreak and everything to do with betrayal. you’d given him everything. time, trust, love. and all he gave you back was silence. you blinked hard, lips trembling.

fine.

if he didn’t want to listen, then you’d stop talking. if he didn’t want to care, then you’d stop hoping. you’d learn to shut it all off too.

just like him.

but god, why did it still hurt so bad?

~

the gym was cold.

too cold for this early in the morning, but that didn’t stop him. nothing really could when he was like this—when his chest was tight and his head was loud and everything felt like it was seconds from snapping. toji slammed the barbell back onto the rack, chest heaving. sweat ran down his neck and soaked through his hoodie. he didn’t even bother peeling it off. he wanted to feel like he was suffocating.

his knuckles were raw from the heavy bag. he’d been there for a while. lifting. hitting. breaking down, and it still wasn’t enough. he wiped his face with the back of his arm and dropped onto the bench again, eyes burning, heart racing.

he kept seeing your face.

your eyes when you looked at him in the hallway disheveled from sleep. the way you opened your mouth like you were gonna say something and he just—walked past you. pushed past you like you were nothing. because he couldn’t hear it. couldn’t take the sound of you explaining how good sukuna made you feel. at least that's what he thought happened. how you finally let go. how it meant nothing, just sex, just comfort. how it didn’t hurt you like he did.

his stomach twisted.

he was the one who ruined this. he’d kissed another girl. in front of you. like a fucking child. like some messed-up defense mechanism he didn’t even understand. and then you disappeared, all teary-eyed and broken, and now what? now you were with sukuna?

his hands curled into fists. 'of course it was sukuna, it had to of been him. gojo wouldn't of done it.' sleazy, smug, opportunistic sukuna. he probably saw how fucked up toji was over you and waited for the perfect moment to slide in. always smiling. always watching. always pushing buttons just to see what would happen.

and you let him. you let him touch you. god, his head was spinning. he didn’t even know what happened, not really. but the way you looked this morning, still wearing that dress, walking out of someone's room like you couldn’t even care—he could feel it. you were gone. and he should’ve expected it. you weren’t his. you never were. just friends. that’s what it was. that’s what it always was.

he told himself that so many times. drilled it into his head like it’d eventually feel true. even though he watched you for two fucking years and wanted you more than he ever wanted anything. even though every time you smiled at him or leaned into him or laughed at something he said, it lit up something in him he didn’t know how to name. he wanted you. not just your body. not just sex.

you.

and he was too much of a coward to admit it. so instead he kissed some girl he didn’t even like. and now sukuna got to have you.

toji grabbed a weight and launched it across the room. it hit the wall and cracked the plaster, landed with a heavy thud that echoed through the gym. he bent over, elbows on his knees, breathing hard. his chest hurt, not from the workout, not from the cold, from you. because no matter how many times he reminded himself that he didn’t deserve you, that you deserved someone better, someone softer, someone who wouldn’t break you just by existing—he still wanted to be that person.

he wanted to take it all back, the kiss. the girl. the silence. he wanted to be the one you turned to when you were hurting. not sukuna. never sukuna.

he wanted to knock on your door and say all the shit he never let himself say. how he thought about you every goddamn day. how he felt safe with you in a way that scared the hell out of him. how he loved when you doodled in his notebook and how he’d watch your hands more than he watched the board. how sometimes he caught himself picturing your name next to his in places it didn’t belong.

he dug his fingers into his hair, pulling hard, trying to breathe. why did it feel like losing something he never even had? he was the one who made this mess. he knew that. he just didn’t think it would cost him you.

and now that it had, he didn’t know what the hell to do with himself. the gym fell quiet again. just the buzz of the old lights overhead. just the sound of his own breathing. heavy. strained. like he was trying not to fall apart. in the back of his mind, sukuna’s voice laughed, smug. cruel. knowing.

he knew he won.

toji grabbed the heavy bag again and punched until his hands bled.

god, why did it hurt so bad?

he didn’t even hear the gym door swing open over the pounding bass in his skull. he was too busy beating the shit out of the punching bag, sweat dripping off his jaw, chest heaving, knuckles already raw through the tape. he could barely breathe past the thoughts echoing like fists against his ribs. you and sukuna. god, just the image of it made his stomach twist.

and then there it was, a voice like poison dipped in silk. “damn. someone’s got issues.”

toji didn’t even have to look to know who it was. he’d know that cocky tone anywhere. he turned anyway, slowly, shoulders stiff and glistening under the fluorescents. sukuna was leaning in the doorway like sin itself, sweatpants hanging low, torso bare, tattoos stretched like inked war across his golden skin. hair messy like he just rolled out of someone’s bed, that smug-ass smile already curled on his mouth. he looked annoyingly perfect, like he hadn’t lost a second of sleep.

“you always train like you’re trying to exorcise your demons or is it just the guilt today?” sukuna stepped inside, slow and casual like he owned the place, dragging his fingers through his hair. “guessin’ she didn’t take it well, huh? not that i blame her. you kissed that blonde like you were tryin’ to make a porno.”

toji’s eyes narrowed, chest rising faster now. he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, jaw tight enough to snap. “don’t,” he muttered, voice low.

“don’t what? bring up the girl you keep playing emotional dodgeball with?” sukuna cocked his head, mock sympathy dripping from every word. “you fuck her up, push her away, then lose your shit when someone else so much as breathes her direction. tell me, does she even know how deep she’s in? or are you too busy acting like you don’t care?” toji’s hands curled into fists.

“you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“oh, i think i do,” sukuna grinned, stepping even closer now, chest to chest. “you’re just pissed because for once, you’re not in control. and i gotta admit, she looked good last night. felt good too. all soft and sad, leaning into me like she just needed someone who wasn’t gonna treat her like a walking heartbreak.”

that was it.

the punch came so fast it cracked through the air. toji’s knuckles collided with sukuna’s jaw hard enough to whip his head sideways, and for a second, everything went still. even the music felt quieter.

then sukuna laughed. blood on his teeth. “oh, it’s like that?” he growled, and then lunged. they collided like a thunderstorm, all muscle and fury and months of unspoken shit. fists flying, bodies slamming into the gym wall, the weight bench tipping over with a crash. sukuna landed a punch to toji’s ribs, toji shoved him back and hit him square in the gut. it wasn’t frat brothers fighting. it was men with grudges too deep to hide behind loyalty.

“you think you’re better for her?” toji snarled, grabbing sukuna by the collar and shoving him against the mirror. “you think she’d want you?”

“i don’t gotta think,” sukuna spat back, blood trailing down his chin. “i already know i’d treat her better than you ever fucking could.” they barely noticed the gym door open again.

“for fuck sake,” gojo said, deadpan, as he and geto walked in. “and here i thought you two were just gonna kiss eventually.”

“this is bad,” geto muttered, already moving. “you think?” gojo stepped between them first, planting a hand on toji’s chest and forcing him back. “enough. what the fuck is this? you fighting your own brother over a girl you don’t even have the balls to admit you love?”

“stay out of this,” toji growled, panting, but his fists didn’t rise again. “too late for that,” geto said flatly, shoving sukuna back with a hand to his shoulder. “you both look pathetic.”

“he started it,” sukuna muttered, wiping his lip with the back of his hand, smirking like the devil. “i just gave him a reason.”

“you’re both bleeding,” gojo said, exasperated. “you’re not in high school. jesus christ.” the silence was heavy, tense, thick with adrenaline and the stench of sweat and resentment. toji looked at sukuna again, the red haze behind his eyes finally fading to something colder. disgust. at himself more than anything.

“you don’t get to talk about her,” toji muttered finally, voice quiet. “then maybe you should stop giving her reasons to need someone else,” sukuna shot back.

gojo grabbed his shoulder before toji could move again. “how about you both just shut the fuck up.” toji didn’t fight the grip. not anymore. his heart was still pounding but his energy was drained. his eyes dropped to the cracked mirror behind sukuna and for a second he saw himself. just a fucked-up guy, broken and bleeding, trying to fight what he couldn’t fix.

geto crossed his arms, glancing between them. “you both better figure this shit out before someone gets hurt worse than a busted lip.” sukuna scoffed but didn’t say more. toji stayed quiet, chest rising and falling like a man trying not to drown. gojo looked at toji. “you need to decide, man. either stop hurting her or start being real. you don’t get to have it both ways.”

toji’s jaw clenched. god, he knew that. he knew that.

he just didn’t know how to do either.

~

later into the day.

you were just trying to breathe.

the day felt heavy on your chest, like everything you’d been ignoring had finally decided to sit on top of you all at once. your head still ached from the night before, sleep had barely touched you, and your thoughts wouldn’t shut up. you’d left the frat early that morning, the weight of toji’s silence clinging to you like a second skin. all you wanted was to get coffee, maybe clear your head, maybe pretend life wasn’t completely falling apart.

you weren’t expecting to see sukuna, but there he was.

leaning against the corner store wall just across from campus, cigarette tucked between his fingers, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, that stupid grin already on his lips like he knew you were coming. he looked like sin soaked in sunshine, messy hair, glinting piercings, tattoos slipping under his collar like secrets. and then you saw it—his lip. swollen and cracked, red crusted at the edge, the faintest bruise shadowing his jaw.

you stopped in your tracks. "jesus,” you muttered without thinking, eyes locked on the damage. “what happened to you?” he grinned wider, like he wanted you to ask. “oh, this?” he gestured lazily, tapping his bottom lip. “got into it with a wall.” you gave him a flat look and he rolled his eyes.

“fine. toji punched me.”

the air caught in your throat. “what?”

“mm,” sukuna said, dragging on his cigarette, exhaling smoke like it didn’t matter. “we had a little… disagreement.” you blinked, heartbeat crawling into your mouth. “what about?” he tilted his head, watching you too closely. “you.” your breath stuttered.

“sukuna…”

“i might’ve said something that hit a nerve. poor guy’s been wound tight for days. looks like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. and hey, when you keep pretending you don’t feel things, eventually they explode. right?” he gave you a pointed look, all knowing and cruelly soft. “you’d know something about that.”

you folded your arms, trying to stay upright under the weight of his gaze. “what did you say?”

“nothing that wasn’t true,” he said, smiling like he didn’t just set your insides on fire. “just told him maybe you needed someone who didn’t keep breaking you just to pull you back in. someone who wouldn’t make you cry every other night. someone who actually knows what he wants.”

you looked away, chest tightening, blinking too fast. he was always good at this—getting under your skin with a smile and watching you unravel like it was art. “he hit you because of me?”

“he hit me because he hates himself,” sukuna said smoothly. “i just gave him the mirror.” you hated how much that made sense. hated the twist it pulled in your gut. you hadn’t spoken to toji since the party, since he’d looked at you like you were nothing. you didn’t know if it was better or worse to find out he’d gotten violent because of it. “why are you telling me this?”

“because you deserve to know he cares,” sukuna said, and for one second, he actually looked sincere. “even if he’s a fucking idiot about it.” you stared at him, throat burning, but before you could answer, he stubbed out his cigarette and pushed off the wall.

“sure i want you, i think that's much is obvious, but he wanted you first. i was just here to stir the pot abit. take care of yourself, sweetheart,” he said, brushing past you with a low chuckle. “you look like you’re about to break.” you didn’t say anything.

you couldn’t.

you stood there frozen, chest cracked wide open, heart bleeding somewhere behind your ribs. his words echoed like static in your skull, twisting everything you thought you understood. he cared. toji cared. he just didn’t know how to show it. or maybe he did. maybe this was what love looked like from someone who didn’t believe he deserved it.

you made it down the street before your vision blurred. you ducked into the nearest alley and finally let the tears come, clinging to your coffee cup like it was the only solid thing left. you sobbed quietly, shoulders shaking, the weight of all of it catching up at once. his silence. his eyes. the kiss. the pain. the fact that he’d rather fight someone than talk to you. the way he looked through you like he didn’t still dream about you every night.

and somewhere far off, you were almost sure you could hear sukuna laughing. not because it was funny, but because he’d won. he’d pressed all the right buttons, and now you were left alone with nothing but your feelings, and the cruel understanding that you still loved a man who didn’t know how to love you back.

what the fuck were you going to do?.

~

toji wasn’t answering his phone. not gojo’s texts. not geto’s vague check-ins. not even shoko’s “you alive?” at 2 am. he wasn’t going to classes either, not really. he showed up to one lecture midweek, sat in the back with his hood up, left halfway through. no one said anything. no one ever did.

the next morning he hit the gym. hard. again and again. he trained until his knuckles bled. by the fourth day his hands were fucked up enough that even gojo noticed and said something, but toji just laughed it off. said he liked the sting.

he drank every night. it started with a few beers. then whiskey. then whatever geto had stashed in the back of the kitchen. the nights bled into mornings. he wasn’t sleeping much. wasn’t eating right either. he didn’t want to talk to anyone. didn’t want to explain that the thing eating him alive was not knowing if you really slept with sukuna, or if he just assumed that because of his own guilt and jealousy. didn’t want to admit that the thought of sukuna touching you made him feel like he was choking.

he saw you once across campus. walking with shoko, hair pulled up, hoodie sleeves too long. you didn’t look at him. didn’t even hesitate. that’s when he knew. you were done. or trying to be.

he couldn’t even blame you.

by the time saturday came around, toji wasn’t planning to go to the new party satoru was throwing. it was a quieter one, a smaller crowd, mostly people they knew from the frat or nearby houses. nothing crazy. but still, he couldn’t stomach the thought of seeing you there, laughing with someone else. maybe sukuna. maybe not. didn’t matter. he couldn’t fucking bear it.

so he slipped out the back of the house and started walking. hoodie on, hands in his pockets, head low. didn’t know where he was going. just kept moving. the streets were cold and empty, sky a low grey. there was a flicker of music echoing out from a cracked-open window two blocks down. someone laughed. he kept walking.

he thought about texting you. he even opened the screen. stared at your name. the thread of messages hadn’t moved in a week. last one was from you. just a simple “did i do something?” and he never replied. he couldn’t. he stared at it until it blurred. thumb hovered over the keyboard. he typed out, “can we talk?” then deleted it. typed, “i’m sorry.” then deleted that too. locked his phone. shoved it back in his pocket like it’d burned him.

his head was spinning. maybe from the whiskey he snuck earlier, maybe from the shit swirling inside him that he couldn’t name. regret. anger. grief for something that never even got a chance to start.

he turned the corner and stopped dead in his tracks.

you were walking toward him.

you looked soft under the streetlight, skin glowing and eyes wide when they landed on him. you weren’t dressed for a big night out — simple jeans, jacket, a look that still made his breath catch because it was you. because he hadn’t seen you this close in a week and it physically hurt.

you stopped too. like the world had pressed pause on everything.

his heart stuttered. fists clenched in his pockets. he didn’t know what to say. he didn’t know how to look at you and not fall apart. didn’t know how to open his mouth and not spill every raw, cracked, bleeding thing he’d been trying to keep buried.

but here you were. real. walking straight toward him like some cruel twist of fate or some final test from the universe.

and all he could think was:

'fuck. i missed you.'

you stop a few feet away from him and the wind knocks right out of you. he looks like hell. hoodie pulled low, dark circles bruised under his eyes, hands in his pockets like he’s holding himself together by a thread. but he’s still him. still that big, broad-shouldered shadow you’ve known for two years. the longest you’ve ever gone without hearing his voice was a few days during winter break. this week felt like being buried alive.

and now he’s right here.

you open your mouth to say something and nothing comes out. your throat burns. your heart’s clawing at your ribs and your brain’s playing back every horrible thing from the past week like a cursed slideshow. him kissing that girl. him ignoring you. walking past you like you were nothing. all the nights you cried into gojo’s pillows. the way sukuna smirked when he saw you shatter. all of it presses down at once and something inside you snaps.

“i’m sorry,” you choke out, voice already breaking.

toji flinches.

“i’m so sorry,” you say again, louder, more desperate. “i shouldn’t have danced with sukuna, i should’ve just gone home, i didn’t mean to make things worse, i didn’t want you to think—”

your words trip over each other like they’re racing to be forgiven. “i didn’t sleep with him, i swear. i wouldn’t. i was drunk and stupid and mad, and i just… i missed you. and i know you hate when i say shit like that, but i missed you so much and i’m sorry. i’m sorry for everything. i don’t know what i did to ruin this, but i’ll fix it, i swear—”

“hey.” it’s quiet. barely a breath. but it cuts through your rambling like a blade. you look up and he’s already stepping forward. his arms come around you in one smooth, heavy motion, big and warm and solid like the rest of the world doesn’t exist anymore. your knees almost buckle. your face presses into his chest and his hoodie smells like cigarettes and something familiar that makes your stomach ache. he holds you so tight it almost hurts.

you freeze for half a second and then sob into him. you don’t even care how pathetic it sounds. you cry into his hoodie like it’s the last time you’ll ever be held. you grip at his sleeves like if you let go he’ll disappear again. and he just stands there, letting you fall apart against him.

after what feels like forever, he finally speaks. “everything’s gonna be okay baby.” you hiccup against his chest. he says it again, lower this time. like a promise. “everything’s gonna be okay, alright?”

you nod, even if you don’t believe it yet. his voice is that same deep, unreadable rumble it always is, but it softens at the edges now. like he’s trying. like maybe he’s been hurting just as much.

“i’m sorry,” he says, and you don’t think you’ve ever heard those words from him before. “i’m sorry for being such an asshole to you. not just last week. all of it. the whole fucking time.” you pull back a little, just enough to look up at him. your face is hot and damp and your eyes are swollen and he still looks like he’s carved from stone. but his eyes are glassy. you’ve never seen him look like this before.

“toji…”

“you didn’t do anything wrong,” he says. “none of this is your fault. i just… i can’t be what you need. i don’t know how to. i never could.” you shake your head fast, “don’t say that—”

“i love you.” the words hit the air like a truck and your breath catches. he says it like it’s already killing him. like it’s always been true and he’s hated himself for it every second.

your heart stutters.

“i love you so fucking much it makes me sick,” he goes on, jaw tight. “and that’s why i can’t do this. because i’ll ruin you. because i’ll drag you down with me and you don’t deserve that.”

you start crying again.

he doesn’t try to stop you this time. he just watches, eyes dark and wrecked, like this is costing him everything. like this is what love looks like when it’s too broken to survive.

“i can’t fix it,” he says. “i wish i could. but i’m not built for the kind of love you deserve.” you don’t know what to say. your throat’s closing up. your chest is a mess of cracks and bruises. your fingers dig into his arms and he still doesn’t let go.

for a second, the world just goes still. your face pressed into his hoodie, his arms around you like armor, the ache of everything you never got to be pressing down from all sides. then you whisper, “i just wanted you.” he closes his eyes and presses his chin to the top of your head. “i know.”

and it’s not enough.

but it’s something.

you stay like that for a long time, pressed against his chest, the weight of everything between you hanging in the air. you’re not crying as hard anymore, but your breath still hitches now and then. his hand stays on the back of your head, fingers in your hair, like he can’t stop touching you even if he wanted to. finally, your voice comes out small. “what if… what if we tried?” his chest rises and falls beneath your cheek, slow and tense. you feel it before he even says anything.

“you don’t know what you’re asking,” he murmurs. “you really don’t.” you pull back just enough to look up at him again, your hands still gripping the front of his hoodie. “maybe not. but i know what i feel. i know i want you, even after everything. i don’t care how messy it is, i don’t care how broken you think you are. i just—i just want to figure it out with you.”

his jaw clenches. he looks away, breathing hard through his nose like he’s trying not to snap. “you say that now, but give it a few months. i’ll fuck it all up again. i’ll hurt you again.” you shake your head. “you don’t know that.”

“yes, i do,” he says, harsh and bitter. “that’s the one thing i do know. i’ll say the wrong thing or push you away or get jealous and do something stupid—again. and you’ll hate me. and i’ll hate myself even more.”

“then let me hate you,” you whisper. “but let me decide.” his eyes cut back to yours. you keep going, voice trembling but sure. “you’ve spent two years deciding what’s best for me. you keep saying you’re protecting me, but what if that’s not what i want? what if all this time, i just needed you to stop pushing me away?”

he stares at you like he wants to believe you but doesn’t know how. “i’m not scared of your damage,” you say. “i’m scared of not having you at all.” his throat works like he’s swallowing glass.

“please,” you whisper. “we don’t have to call it anything. we don’t have to make it perfect. i just want a chance. with you. even if it’s just a maybe.” his hands tighten on your waist. you feel the shift in him before you hear it in his voice. “what if i say yes,” he murmurs, low and rough, “and i end up destroying you anyway?”

you search his face. “then at least i’ll know i wasn’t the only one who tried.” his expression crumples for half a second—just a flicker, there and gone—but it’s enough to tell you he feels it too. all of it. the love, the fear, the impossible ache of wanting something that feels like it shouldn’t belong to you.

he leans in slowly, resting his forehead against yours. your noses brush. his breath is shaky. “a maybe,” he echoes. “that’s all i can give you.” you nod. “i’ll take it.” he lets out a breath like a war is ending inside him. and for the first time in what feels like forever, he kisses your forehead. soft. deliberate. full of everything he’s never been able to say out loud.

you close your eyes and let it sink in.

not a fix. not a solution. not a promise of forever.

just… a maybe.

and maybe that’s enough for tonight.

"toji... let's go back to my dorm, i don’t want to deal with a party right now."

~

you didn’t say much on the way back. your fingers were laced in his, warm and rough, grounding you in the quiet dark as the two of you walked through mostly empty sidewalks. toji kept stealing glances at you like he was checking you were still real, still here with him. your hand in his, your steps matching his pace, the silence between you strangely soothing.

he stopped you once just before you turned onto the path leading to your dorm, pulling your hand gently and making you look at him. the streetlamp above you flickered like a heartbeat, painting soft yellow light across his face. he looked like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how. he opened his mouth, paused, then just said in that low, gravel voice, “are you sure?”

you nodded before he even finished the sentence.

inside, the dorm was quiet. your roommate was gone for the weekend and the place felt hollow in a comforting way. as soon as the door shut behind you, you turned to him and he was already looking at you like you were something delicate and holy and he didn’t know if he deserved to touch you.

you stepped into his space first, gently taking his face in your hands. he leaned into your touch like he’d been starving for it, letting out a quiet breath as his forehead pressed against yours.

“you okay?” you whispered.

“not even close,” he whispered back, and then you kissed him.

it started soft, like testing the waters of something you both knew had been there for years. his lips were warm and slow against yours, his hands moving to your waist like he was scared to hold you too tightly. you pulled him closer, fingers curling into the back of his shirt, grounding yourself in the heat of his body.

toji sighed into your mouth like the weight of every regret he ever had was being lifted off his chest with every brush of your lips. he kissed you like he was saying sorry, like he was saying everything he never had the courage to speak out loud. your hands were on his chest, feeling the muscle beneath his shirt, the slow thudding of his heart that was somehow calmer now that you were touching him.

he pulled back just slightly, eyes searching yours. “you don’t have to—”

“i want to,” you said instantly, no hesitation. your thumb brushed his cheek. “i want this.”

something cracked in him. he kissed you again, deeper this time, more certain. his hands roamed up your sides, under your shirt, fingers slow and reverent. you felt like the most precious thing in the world under his touch, and god, you’d waited so long to be wanted like this by him.

you guided him to your bed. he let you, letting you crawl backwards onto the mattress as he hovered over you, eyes dark and full of something almost too intense to hold. he kissed your jaw, your neck, down your collarbone, whispering your name between each press of his lips. your shirt came off in a blur and so did his, and the feel of his skin against yours was enough to make you tremble.

“fuck,” he muttered, pressing his forehead to your chest. “you’re so—i don’t even know, i’m losing it.” you cupped his jaw and tilted his face up so you could kiss him again. “then lose it with me.”

his hands moved carefully, learning every part of you like he’d never get another chance. he took his time, like he didn’t want to miss a single detail. he traced the curve of your hip, the dip of your waist, kissed every inch of skin he uncovered like it was sacred. you felt worshipped. like he was finally letting himself feel everything he’d buried beneath all the guilt and fear and self-loathing.

you tugged him closer, wrapping your legs around his waist, gasping softly when you felt the way he pressed against you. your fingers found the waistband of his jeans and he froze just for a second, looking down at you with that broken look he’d worn since the day he realized he loved you.

“you’re sure?” he asked again, voice low and tight.

“i’ve never been more sure of anything,” you said, threading your fingers through his hair. “just… be here with me.”

his eyes dropped to your mouth like he couldn’t help it. like something in him was still resisting but not strong enough to stop what he needed. his thumb brushed your cheek, slow and reverent, and then you felt it—his breath mingling with yours, his hand sliding behind your neck like he needed to anchor himself to you, and then he kissed you.

god, he kissed you like he’d been dying to. like he was sorry and starving and scared all at once. it wasn’t rushed, it wasn’t just lust. it was deep. full-bodied. a confession sealed between parted lips and quiet moans. his hands were rough from years of training and weightlifting but the way they held your face was so gentle it made your chest ache. you wrapped your arms around his shoulders and kissed him back like he was everything. because he was.

“missed you so much,” you breathed against his mouth, barely able to get the words out between kisses. “you hurt me so bad, toji…”

he groaned into your lips like the truth pained him. “i know, baby. i know.”

his voice cracked when he said it. there was guilt in his hands, too—how they ghosted over your body like he didn’t feel worthy of touching you even now. but you weren’t going to let him float away again. not tonight.

you reached for the hem of his hoodie and tugged it up, and he let you, watching you with that dark-eyed intensity like you were unwrapping something dangerous. he didn’t stop you, not even when your fingers danced over his abs, not even when your lips trailed kisses down his chest like every part of him deserved worship. his hand came to the back of your head, gentle pressure, not to control you, just to feel you. to feel that this was real.

“can’t believe you’re real,” he murmured, like he was saying it to himself. “can’t believe you still want me after all that.” you met his eyes, then kissed over his collarbone. “don’t make me regret it.”

his mouth twitched like he almost smiled, but he couldn’t hold it. not with how shaky he felt inside. you pushed him back until his knees hit the edge of your bed and then climbed into his lap, straddling him slow, your hands finding their way into his messy black hair. he looked up at you like you were the only thing in the world he wanted to see. his hands settled on your hips and stayed there, tight enough to ground him, loose enough to let you move how you needed.

you rocked into him gently and felt the low groan vibrate through his chest as he buried his face in your neck. “fuck. you’re gonna kill me,” he whispered, voice hoarse.

“then die with me,” you whispered back, kissing the shell of his ear, “if you’re gonna be dramatic.” toji laughed under his breath, shaky and soft, and you felt something in him melt for you. he held you tighter, his forehead pressed to yours, and you both breathed each other in. this was slow. this was real. not some hazy hookup or guilt-ridden goodbye. this was you, pouring everything you had into the way you touched him, kissed him, held him. this was toji, stripped down to something raw and trembling and human beneath all his bravado.

you guided his hands under your shirt, placed them over your bare waist, your ribs, your back. he explored you like he’d never touched you before, even though he knew your body better than most. his fingers left burning trails. his mouth followed. every kiss was an apology. every gasp he pulled from you was one more promise that he’d do better, be better, love you right if you’d let him.

you tugged at the waistband of his sweats and he sucked in a sharp breath, head dropping against your shoulder. “you sure?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

you cupped his jaw and made him look at you. “i’ve never been more sure of anything.” his lips crushed into yours before you could say another word, and this time it was urgent. all teeth and tongue and breathless need, hands sliding over bare skin like he was trying to memorize every inch. clothes fell away one by one, carelessly discarded, and soon it was just skin against skin, heat tangled between sheets, and the weight of everything left unsaid hanging in the air around you.

he moved slow. every inch, every roll of his hips, every kiss to your throat, your chest, your stomach—it was all deliberate. no rush. just the ache of needing to feel connected. you clung to him, gasping his name, whispering how much you loved him in between moans and desperate kisses, and he gave it all back to you without saying much at all.

his mouth told you in other ways.

his hands told you in reverence.

his body told you in devotion.

you lost count of the times he made you cry out for him. lost yourself in the way his fingers gripped your thighs and how his voice broke when he told you you were perfect. he held your hand while your bodies moved together like they were made for it, pressing kisses to your palm, your wrist, your collarbone like he could kiss away all the damage he’d done.

you were shaking in his arms by the end, a mess of limbs and sweat and whispered i love yous, and he just held you, his arms strong and warm and wrapped around your body like you were something to be protected. something to be cherished. he didn’t run. he didn’t shut down. he just stayed, kissing the top of your head, whispering against your skin, pulling the blanket over your shoulders like you were the most important thing in the world.

and maybe you were.

“still scared?” you murmured sleepily, fingers tracing over the lines of his chest.

he kissed your forehead and whispered, “terrified.”

but he didn’t let go.

and neither did you.

never again would either if you slip away from each other, because this was real, this was what you two had always yearned for.

m.list!

oo i might like this better than my choso fics icl 🙁🤝 i hope you enjoyed ong i loved writing this make sure to tell me how you felt about itt 🫦

[brooklyn-duo]

Bucky can’t help but laugh, “C’mon Tony, I know everyone else is happy to let you foot the bill ‘til you go bankrupt but that doesn’t mean I am. One day I’m going to learn how to work those delivery service apps and then you’ll be in real trouble,” he warns. He had tried a couple times getting food delivered to surprise Tony, since he would never agree if he had told him. The first time the delivery driver ended up just taking it because they had thought it was a prank delivery because the name on the order had been ‘James B.’ but the address was Avenger’s Tower, and they hadn’t recognized the name. The second time, also the last time, Bucky had accidentally chosen the smallest size of everything and it hadn’t been enough for even just one of them. Tony had laughed so hard when putting in a second order that Bucky had made him pay for it that night on his knees, which honestly had been one of their best nights together. Tony enjoyed pushing his buttons after that to see how far he could push Bucky.

He leans over, resting his head on Tony’s shoulder as he looks at the options on the menu, “I don’t know the names for some of the stuff we ate last week but definitely get some soup dumplings, those were really good, and do they have any egg drop soup? I had it the other day from someplace else, Sam had gotten lunch after training, and it was alright but I’m guessing this place does it a hell of a lot better,” he reasons, leaning back again with his arm draped over the back of the couch.

His expression softens as Tony reassures him, and the reassuring pats to his thigh turns into Tony just resting his hand there, and it’s just a reminder of how comfortable they both are together. Tony definitely deflected from showing any emotions, especially about things that bothered or even upset him, and people seemed to believe that he wasn’t the type to comfort another person like this. And Bucky, who had gotten used to hiding any of his anxiety or trauma responses from even Steve, was surprised with himself too for how easily he accepted the comfort. It was one thing being vulnerable after hours in bed together or if it was in the middle of the night, when it was too dark to see clearly. But in the last couple weeks, especially after starting therapy, he’d been more open with Tony about his mental health and when he’s struggling.

First it was because Tony was the only one who knew about the therapy but it had quickly become obvious that it was beyond easy to talk to him about this stuff. He didn’t judge, or pity him, or make Bucky feel like he was upsetting Tony with any of it. And now, it was almost second nature to accept his comfort.

“Yeah..yeah Tony I know, I promise, if I really wanted to back out I would tell you, but even with how bad my anxiety is, it’s going to be better for me having it replaced. Not just..i know it needs to happen to stop it from continuing to pull at my shoulder and causing the pain i’ve been having, but just…seeing that red star in the mirror sometimes is too much of a reminder..” he admits softly, hi hand moving to rest over Tony’s, not holding it but just patting it absently.

But then something Tony said made him pause and sit up properly, “Wait, they might have to..take off my whole arm? Tomorrow?? I thought that was only going to happen during the actual procedure to replace it?” he asks with mild alarm.

Bucky was starting to really enjoy Tony’s company, not just the sex but the time they spent together whenever they were both free. The banter that they shared, the constant teasing would more and more often lead to them tearing each other’s clothes off and hurrying off to the bedroom, but it also led to them laughing together.

More than once, he’d had nightmares and woken up in Tony’s bed, and every time Tony had been able to help calm him down. He was starting to feel more comfortable with letting Tony see that side of him, the anxiety and the fear that still hid under the surface. They had both started therapy and it wasn’t terrible, Bucky was still struggling open up about the worse traumas but he found himself talking often about the new friendship (even though it felt like much more than that) with Tony. He still struggled with guilt sometimes, wondering how Tony could tolerate him because nothing changed the fact that he’d been forced to kill his parents. But the doctor had been stern about this, Tony’s decision to forgive him was Tony’s alone. Bucky should respect that, and try to work through his own guilt to be able to forgive himself for it.

Even if he hadn’t opened up about much of the traumatic memories, the doctor had known who he was and the main focus at first had been to work on forgiving himself, because the nightmares were likely caused by residual guilt and shame even though he knew it had been out of his control. But in the last few appointments had been working through the trauma he had regarding the surgery. He had explained it to her, the history of medical trauma from HYDRA and how they had fucked him up in different ways with they way they had attached the arm and the way they had worked on it without any anesthesia or regard for his pain. And he knew he was still very scared for the surgery that was only a few days away but he had worked through several different ways to cope to try and keep his anxiety down, mainly breathing exercises. He tried to focus on other things, training with Steve and Sam and his time with Tony

Steve had noticed that there was something different, but had chalked it up to Bucky adjusting and becoming more comfortable in general, but Sam had given him several knowing looks when he noticed that Bucky wasn’t going straight to his room anymore after training but to the lower levels, where Tony’s lab was. Neither had tried to talk to him about it and at least right now, he was happy to keep it to himself.

When Tony approaches him with the two glasses of scotch, he smiles and takes the offered one to sip. He may not be able to get drunk but Tony had been showing him the finer sides of liquor and he had to admit, his top shelf scotch was one of his favorites.

“Your treat? You know, one of these days you’re going to have to let me buy you at least a milkshake or some shit, because you’re always treating me,” he grins, clearly teasing before taking a second to think, “I could go for chinese, that place we had last week? You were right, that was some of the best Chinese food I’ve had,” he recalls, sitting back on the couch and resting his arm along the back.

“Shuri and everyone is coming in tomorrow, right? And I’ll…they want to examine me to make sure the surgical plan doesn’t need to be adjusted?” he asks, it was something he did to help his anxiety, asking questions he already knew the answers to just to confirm the plans and make it so he couldn’t overthink whether he had forgotten or missed something.

[milk-is-stable]

SFTH Hunger Games - Tribute Interviews

The Reaping

HA-HIYA! Welcome to the first ever Shoot from the Hip Hunger Games TRIBUTE INTERVIEWS, hosted by ME, the one and only ANDRE BEETROOT! Hooo, ladies and gentlemen today's gonna be a great day, it's the day before the greatest competition that you have ever seen, and we're gonna sit down and talk with each of our incredible tributes tonight!

First up from the beautiful luxurious District 1, we have Janusz and Alexa!

AB: NOW, the two of you hold the distinction of being two of our youngest tributes this year, can you tell me all about yourselves and what skills you're bringing to the competition today! Janusz: Um, I don't really know, I'm just a janitor's son...Alexa, she is the one with the skills and the talent. Alexa: But I don't think dancing will really help in this case...besides, I don't want to hurt anybody! I didn't want this! AB: Ah, but the two of you are very cute, and who knows, if the audience falls in love with you, they could shower you in enough gifts that you come out on top!

Now, for our next tributes tonight we have THE Power Couple of the century, from District 2 please welcome Caesar and Juliet!

AB: Now, the two of you are MARRIED, how does it feel going into the games with that weight hanging over your heads? Caesar: Yes, of course it's devastating, but we are going to stick together no matter what. Juliet: We will not allow Rome to fall without us, whatever it takes. I made a promise to Maximilian that we would overcome the odds and do whatever it took to preserve the empire. Caesar: ....wait, what do you mean you promised Maximilian? AB: UH OH, sounds like there might be trouble in paradise! Keep an eye on these two, folks, they're sure to deliver on the battlefield!

Coming up now from District 3, we have quite the peculiar pair, let's get a huge round of applause for Janae and his older brother Johnnyyyyy!

AB: Now Johnny, I hear you have an incredible gift, please, tell the audience all about it! Johnny: I, um...I have these dreams sometimes, and um...well, you see, um...what happens is.... Janae: My brother has supernatural premonitions, and acting upon those premonitions allows him to alter the future before it becomes fixed in time! So good luck trying to get anything past him, he'll always know exactly what to do to keep himself alive! AB: You're lucky to have such a powerful brother looking out for you! Let's hope the future holds good things!

Let's hear it now for our next tributes coming from the deep blue waters of District 4, it's Julian and Jasper!

AB: Tell me gentlemen, do you have any strategy going into tomorrow's games? Julian: Um, I'm just hoping not to get in any of the more dangerous tributes' way, I suppose... Jasper: Well, this isn't the first time that I've dealt with someone trying to kill me, so if I just do what I did last time then I'm sure I'll be able to come out on top! AB: HAHA, confidence! I like it!

Next up we have a real ELECTRIC set of tributes, from District 5 we have two young men sure to spark your interest, it's Jim L and John Hobson Junior!!!

AB: So my friends, tell us, why do you think YOU will be the one to take home the ultimate victor's crown in these games? Jim: I know I don't look it, but I've got a temper and I know how to use it! It's probably better for people to just avoid me in the arena than to get on my bad side. Junior: I'm a problem solver, and I also know to never underestimate the power of an alliance! Working together is always smarter than trying to do things all on your own. AB: Only time will tell, my friends, only time will tell!

OKAY everybody I want you to give me a huge WOO HOO CHOO CHOO for our incredible tributes from District 6, Clarissa and Benjamin!

AB: How does it feel coming out SMACK in the middle of the night's festivities? You've seen half the tributes speak before you and now half will speak after. Clarissa: I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, but I think that the young man earlier was right, alliances are key. I definitely have some tributes now I'm thinking of approaching in the arena. Benjamin: Not to mention some tributes that it'd be smart to avoid...I certainly know who I wouldn't want to cross. AB: Yeah yeah yeah, I bet you do!

Speaking of people you wouldn't want to cross, coming up here from District 7 are two tributes who are no strangers to dealing with the extreme dangers you may find in the arena, we have Michael and Priscillaaaaa!

AB: Each of you has faced down certain death before, is that right? Michael: I have, and everything I went through taught me lessons that will serve me in that arena. Working with others, being resourceful, keeping your wits about you and making hard choices...all of that is key to survival. Priscilla: .....yes, what he said. Especially the part about working together. I think that sticking by people who have your back is very important. AB: Well we'll certainly be watching closely to see if that holds true!

Now folks, put your hands together for our sensational tributes from District 8, we have Jimmy and the one and only Robin!

Robin: IT'S SCOTTISH ROBIN TO YOU, YOU POMPOUS SHITHEAD! AB: .......Ah. I don't like you. Jimmy: Well that's not fair! What'd he do to you? AB: Just super annoying right out the gate, isn't he? Robin: OH I'M THE ONE WHO'S ANNOYING? NOT YOU, WITH YOUR STUPID FUCKIN COAT AND VISOR? Jimmy: Yeah! Honestly, your outfit really could use an upgrade, I know a great tailor actually, if I can just figure out how to get into his shop- AB: ALRIGHT THEN, that's enough of these two, out you get, go on.

NOW, to represent District 9 we have the beautiful blue-eyed Hugh and the lovely lady Inga!

AB: So how does it feel to be here on the day before the games finally begin? Hugh: It's all a bit overwhelming to be honest...I don't really know much outside of plants, but that does mean I know how to survive in the wild. And I'm brave! I won't just lie down and accept my fate. Inga: I also know how to survive in the wild, to forage and hunt and find food and shelter, and I even know how to deal with dangerous wildlife. I feel very prepared, and I'm certain that with some help from sponsors, I could take the entire competition by storm! AB: WHOA, amazing confidence from the young lady, let's see if she has the skill to back it up!

HEYO everyone you've seen many tributes tonight who are compliments to one another, but get ready now to see some polar opposites, from District 10 we have Peter Steven aaaaaaand MARTY!

AB: The two of you are no stranger to hardship, do you think what you've gone through in your life has been enough to prepare you for the arena? Peter: Well, I do like spending time outside! So it'll be nice to do some of that for a change. And there have been people on before us who seem like they'd be good ones to make allies with...but I'm no fool. I know what I have to do if I'm going to make it home to my mom, and I'm ready to do it! Marty: If you ask me, what most of these tributes lack is the proper *cough cough* conviction. I mean, let's face the facts! Twenty three of us are going to die in the next week, and even if I'm not one of them then I'll probably die in the month after! So may as well make the most of the time we've got...if those sponsors really want to see a show, then they know who to help. I'll make sure they have a...fantastic time. AB: ........HAHA, COOL!

Now ladies and gentlemen it's astonishing that it happened once, but the fact that it's happened TWICE, I can hardly believe. Please welcome our second set of sibling tributes, from District 11 it's Pinocchio and his sister, Maria Clarissio!

AB: Maria, as an older sister, how does it feel knowing you may not be able to protect your brother in the arena? Maria: Well...I've already failed him once before. And living with that failure hanging over my head these past months has been more than I can bear. You have to promise me something, Pinocchio. Promise me you'll do whatever it takes to win the competition and get home to Papa. Pinocchio: But sister, what about you? Maria: It doesn't matter what happens to me. Papa nearly lost you once, and it almost destroyed him. Don't let that happen again, okay? AB: OH MY GOSH, you two are gonna make the waterworks come on all across the audience!

Now finally tonight we have our amazing tributes from District 12, we have the rock solid Chip and the salacious Sally Xavier!

Sally: Hey! I'm only 17, don't be weird, alright? I've had enough of men being weird in my life already. AB: ANYWAY, tell me what your strategies are for dealing with your fellow tributes! Sally: Well, I know I don't look very strong, but I do know how to work well with people, and I have a few tricks up my sleeve that could surprise you. Don't count me out just yet! Chip: Look, telling you while they can hear me doesn't sound like the smartest move, to be honest. If I tell you my strategy now, then they could make a plan around it. I'll keep those cards close to my chest for now, thanks. I'm here to try and win, not make friends with someone I'll have to turn around and kill. AB: Ah, a social butterfly versus a lone wolf! We'll see who fares better tomorrow!

Ladies and Gentlemen and ALL other configurations of being I hope you had a FANTASTIC time watching our show tonight! I hope you got to know our tributes a bit better, and are ready to place your bets on who will be the one to be crowned the victor! We here at Capitol TV want to know your thoughts, so share them with us below or in this poll!

Once again I have been your incomparable host ANDRE BEETROOT, and the Shoot From the Hip Hunger Games begin TOMORROW! Good luck to all our tributes, and may the odds be ever in your favor!

GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODYYYYY!

— — —

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Day 1: The Bloodbath (next)

Masterlist

[theglassofmiddleearth]

Evenfall

Imagine you wake up in Twilight as a random side character. (Part 8)

Nullification!reader Human reader! Fem reader! SideCharacter Bella! Isekai au! Edward Cullen X reader. Eventually Jacob Black x reader. (2 endings.) (All characters will be written less creepy and one dimensional than the ones in the books.)

Previous

After the revelation of Waylon's death, Edward had refused to leave Y/N’s side until she had agreed to never go anywhere alone for the next day and a half. It was almost not enough to convince Edward but somehow Y/N had managed to do it. 

Dinner with Bella went smoothly, they had easy chatter and she had told Y/N that she wanted to stay at least for the rest of the year seeing as it was already the middle of the school year and it wasn’t worth switching schools again. They ended off their dinner by going home to finish their trig homework together. Something that Y/N hadn’t expected, was that Bella was very openly showing her aversion to Edward. 

‘Honestly, are you okay? He seems so possessive.’ Bella frowned while punching in numbers into her calculator.

‘Yes! We’re just friends. I don’t think he actually likes me in the way he says he does.’ Y/N winced, biting down on the end of her pen thoughtfully.

‘Oh no. He likes you. Don’t get that wrong. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.’ Bella looked up, giving her a soft smile.

‘Besides, he all but ripped my head off with his eyes when I tried to flirt with you.’ She snickered, resting her hand on her closed fist.

‘Huh?’ 

‘You’re so cute Y/N/N.’

‘Wha-’

‘But I can tell you also like him. That's the only reason I'm backing off.’ Bella stood up, gathering her papers with a sly smile.

'Huh??'

‘So, if he ever treats you badly, I’m available okay? G’night.’ She gave Y/N a wink before heading up stairs.

Y/N was stunlocked. What? Bella liked her? Wait, wait. Huh? She blinked, turning to look up the stairs. Well thank goodness Edward wasn’t here to witness that. Y/N slowly cleared up her desk. That was a turn of events she wasn’t expecting.

That night, Y/N swore that just as she fell asleep, she heard a wolf howling. Although, she could have been dreaming because she remembered distinctly she did dream about wolves that night. A large russet coloured one with intelligent, dark brown eyes. It stood next to a jat black wolf. Huge in size, almost like a bear. He was leading a pack towards her. They were all huge, bigger than normal wolves but the one in the front was largest.

Y/N awoke with a start, gasping for air. For some reason, that dream had Y/N’s heart racing. It felt as if she had forgotten something. Something very important.

Prom was in a few weeks.

Y/N didn’t do dancing. That was something in common she had with Bella. Dancing at school functions was a nightmare.

Actually, school functions alone were nightmares.

She groaned and sat up, rubbing her eyes with a yawn. Maybe she could skip it. Edward probably wouldn’t ask her. It didn’t seem like his type of thing anyways.

She stood up and stretched her stiff limbs, turning to her window to find that it was drizzling.

Of course it was. It was Forks.

Well, she had enjoyed enough sunshine for the past week. Her eyes caught sight of a familiar white Volvo.

Back already? Y/N squinted, before turning away to get changed. It was going to be a cold one today. Probably a cold week actually but who was keeping score? 

She sighed, rummaging through the fridge, spotting some bacon and a carton of eggs. Well, that didn’t sound too bad. She got to work, cracking the eggs into a bowl and began whisking them when a soft rap from the front door interrupted her.

‘Already?’ Y/N mumbled, setting down the bowl and dusting off her apron. Opening the door, she was greeted by a slightly damp Edward. His hair was flopped over from the rain and the drops of water slid down his porcelain skin. He looked almost flushed, as if his cheeks almost had colour to them.

Beautiful.

‘I’m home.’ He whispered, looking completely unaffected by the weather. His eyes were crinkled into that same familiar smile. Y/N felt a pang through her heart. 

He probably only liked her because she had assumed the role of the main character. At the end of the day, Edward didn’t really like her. It was the fact that he couldn't read her mind. Y/N steeled her heart and gave him a friendly smile.

‘Welcome back Edward!’ 

Edward blinked, his smile faltering.

‘I know that look. What's wrong? What are you thinking about?’ He really had the kicked puppy look, down to an art.

‘We can talk about it later, I'm still making breakfast.’ Y/N stepped back to let Edward in, looking down at the ground to avoid his prying eyes.

‘Y/N…’ He whispered, sounding wounded.

‘Edward, come inside, it's cold outside, come on.’

‘Y/N I can’t read your mind, I need you to tell me what’s wrong.’ Edward begged, bringing a shaky hand to brush a thumb against her cheek.

‘It’s nothing.’

‘It’s not nothing if it's making you upset.’ 

‘How do you know I’m upset?’

‘Your shoulders are tense, your heart’s beating fast and not because I’ve smiled at you. Your eyebrows are drawn together and you can’t look me in the eye.’ He rapidly fired answers at her, tone apprehensive still.

‘Have I done something?’ Edward stepped inside, giving Y/N a once-over trying to see if he had somehow hurt her physically.

‘No Edward, it’s fine. It’s nothing, really.’ She clenched her fist before turning back to the kitchen.

‘Y/N.’ Edward blurred over to her.

‘It’s hard to understand why you like me. Honestly, I wonder if it's just because I smell ‘good’ to you and that you can't read my mind.’ She sighed, picking up her bowl of semi-beaten eggs and turning her back to a silent Edward.

A pair of cold arms, wrapped around her mid waist slowly, lovingly.

‘Thank you for telling me. I’m sorry.’ He whispered, pressing his face into hair.

‘It's not your fault.’ She mumbled setting down the eggs to turn on the stove. Her heart sped up at the contact.

‘It is. It's my fault. I haven't been showing you how amazing you are. How kind hearted, how brave or resilient you are.’ He sighed, closing his eyes.

‘What are you even talking about? You've only-’

‘You were lost on your first day. Yet instead of asking for help you stuck with trying to look for class yourself.’ He recounted, as Y/N began to place the slices of bacon on the cast iron pan.

‘You also held your ground, when I was rude to you. Telling you to leave. Which I am still sorry for.’ He winced at the memory. 

‘And yet, you are kind to me. I was rude for no reason and you were kind.’

‘You did save my life.’ Y/N mused, over the crackling of oil.

‘Yes, and even then you asked me if I was okay. After you had almost gotten crushed. Besides, I can't read Chief Swan's daughters mind and I can't stand her.’ Edward spun Y/N around gently. ‘Y/N you are so kind, you are everything and I will spend the rest of my damned life making sure that you can see that you are everything if you'd let me.’

Y/N felt her neck begin to heat up. She buried her face in Edward’s chest to hide her embarrassment.

‘Not fair.’

‘What's not fair?’

‘I was trying to let myself down easily but then you come and say all this stuff. Now I can’t convince myself that you don’t actually like me.’ Y/N whined, pulling back and slapping his chest.

‘Hey, why are you hitting me? I didn’t do anything!’ He laughed, turning back on the stove and pouring oil on the pan.

‘Hush you, it’s not like it hurts you anyways.’ Y/N turned around huffily, pouring the beaten eggs into the pan. She grabbed a spatula and whacked Edward on across the chest lightly.

‘Better flip your bacon too or it'll burn and we’ll be late.’ Edward moved to wash the empty bowl and discard the unneeded items on the counter.

‘Well, now what is this?’ A deep voice interrupted.

‘Morning Chief Swan! I was going to pick up Y/N but she needed some help with the cooking. I hope you don't mind.’ Edward gave Charlie an ever charming grin.

Charlie raised a single eyebrow and turned to Y/N for confirmation.

‘Mhm, it’s bacon and eggs today!’ Y/N gave a smile, wiping her hands. ‘I’m sorry Charlie, I should have asked before inviting him in.’

‘No, it’s okay Y/N.’ Charlie gave her a reassuring smile, walking over to the breakfast table and sitting down. ‘It’s not you I’m worried about.’ Charlie gave Edward a pointed look.

‘I assure you, Chief, I intend to court Y/N. Though, I don’t think you need to worry about me at the moment.’ Edward gave a half hearted wince. ‘She doesn’t seem to return my feelings just yet.’

‘Hm.’ Charlie sniffed, looking between the two teenagers.

‘Breakfast is ready!’ Y/N interrupted, handing Charlie a plate full of toast, scrambled eggs and bacon. ‘I hope scrambled is okay.’ She sat down, giving a look to the plate she made for Bella that was sitting on the stovetop.

‘Is that one over there for me?’ Bella slipped into the kitchen, pulling on her shoes.

‘Yep! I left it on the stove so it’d stay warm!.’ Y/N grinned, as Edward hurriedly sat down next to her.

‘Thanks so much! You’re the best Y/N!’ Bella snuck a quick kiss on Y/N’s cheek in passing, flashing a vicious smile towards Edward.

‘No worries!’ Y/N sat down, gripping the side of Edwards shirt, grounding his simmering form.

‘Not gonna eat?’ Charlie narrowed his eyes at the boy who was grinding his teeth.

‘I had breakfast before I came to pick up Y/N.’ Edward gave a thin, yet somehow, still alluring smile. Y/N raised an eyebrow in amusement. Technically it wasn't a lie. He did go hunting before he came, so he did eat.

Y/N polished off her plate quickly, wanting to get out of the room as quickly as possible. The tension between Bella and Edward was palpable, and not in a hot way. 

‘Okay! I'm done! I'll be home early!’ Y/N said, standing quickly.

‘Oh, before I forget. My sister's Alice and Rosalie, want to take Y/N out tomorrow to Port Angeles dress shopping.’ Edward stood, pushing back his chair.

‘Oh?’ Charlie raised his eyebrows, flicking his eyes over to Y/N, who was washing her plate. ‘Well if she wants to go it's fine.’ Charlie mumbled, forking a mouthful of eggs.

‘Thank you Chief Swan.’ Edward gave a genuine grin, looking over at Y/N, who was wiping her hand on her apron.

‘Okay! I’m ready to head out. I’ll see you at school Bella?’ Y/N smiled sympathetically. ‘Make sure you drive safely okay!’

‘Alright! I’ll see you soon.’

And so, Friday passed just as quickly as any other day. Nothing special, at least not until Y/N had heard Angela asked Bella to the dance. That was cute and yet somehow expected. It wasn't like Eric Yorkie was really any competition.

Soon it was Saturday, and they had already set off toward the Cullen house. Edward had stayed over the night again, keeping his eyes closed as promised. He was practically buzzing in excitement for the day after. Somehow though, he was able to keep himself from trembling in pure enthusiasm.

Y/N however, had slept in patchy increments. She couldn’t particularly remember the dreams but she remembered feeling a cool hand on her forehead in the middle of the night. The gentle cold, flushed away lingering, hot irritation.

Edward had barely fought off Alice and Rosalie into driving themselves to Port Angeles. Y/N didn't mind if they car pooled but Edward was indignant that he and Y/N had their privacy for the hour drive. However, Rosalie had a BMW M3 convertible, and Alice had a yellow Porsche 911 Turbo. Honestly the Volvo paled compared to the girl's cars. (Don't tell Edward.) But she had promised to ride with Edward.

He rolled his eyes, grumbling about how he could still hear their intrusive thoughts.

‘So how does your mind reading work?’ Y/N asked, snuggling into the heated car seat. He had remembered this time. 

‘Well, I don’t have to look at them to hear them. I can hear everything as they’re thinking it. It sounds just like talking except that its in monologue.’ Edward hummed, placing his hand on the centre console.

‘Wow, must get pretty loud all the time.’ Y/N noted, trying to imagine how it would be. Constant chatter, 

‘Mm yes, but I've learnt to tune it out.’ Edward gave a half shrug, turning to Y/N with a smile. ‘Besides, I get a bit of peace when I’m with you. I don’t have to read your mind to know what you’re thinking most of the time.’

‘Ok smarty pants.’ Y/N rolled her eyes, amused.

Edward laughed, before his voice turned into a groan.

‘Whats wrong?’ Y/N blinked

‘Alice wants you to know we’ll be there in ten and Rosalie wants to ask if you like Versache and if you’d prefer Bvlgari or Cartier jewellery.’ Edward sighed, before raising his voice slightly.

‘Shut up, I’m doing fine. I do not need flirting tips.’

Y/N burst into a fit of giggles, snorting into her hand. Edward looked slightly embarrassed.

‘The Edward Cullen getting flirting advice?’ Y/N said in between chuckles, wracking her body. ‘HA.’

‘What, you don’t think my face is pretty enough?’ Edward teased, glancing at the still laughing girl. Her eyes were crinkled, cheeks lifted into a soft, bright smile.

‘Hm, I’d say you've got the flirting thing down.’ 

‘You think?’

‘I’m sure. But, your dimples do help your cause.’

Edward flashed a winning smile. 

The last hour had been Y/N trying on dresses whilst Alice and Rosalie ooh and ahh’ed over her. Y/N felt like a Barbie doll, but not particularly in a bad way. It was kind of nice to be fussed over.

Edward was strangely quiet, smiling in appreciation at each dress that Y/N stepped out in. Only Alice and Rosalie could tell that Edward was completely enraptured by Y/N's quiet gracefulness and honesty.

‘I really don't have a preference.’ Y/N mumbled, gathering the fabric of the cream, taffeta gown she was wearing.

‘If you give us your measurements, we could order a bespoke gown for you. How do you feel about Alexander McQueen?’ Rosalie pulled out her phone typing out a message.

‘Oh my days ABSOLUTELY NOT-'

‘We’ll take your measurements.’ Alice nodded, whisking Y/N into the dressing room while Rosalie asked for a measuring tape.

'WAIT!'

After a full ten minutes of being poked and prodded. Y/N cracked her neck, stretching her arms out in her own clothes finally.

Stepping outside the door of the dress shop for a second. She spotted a group of suspicious looking men, leering at her. The group seemed disheveled and unkept, like a pack of rabid dogs awaiting their next meal. 

The one in the front was being nudged forward, men around him snickering in a depraved manner.

Y/N frowned slightly, tilting her head, men being strange. This wasn’t anything new, nothing to worry about.

‘If you even touch her.’ Edward snarled, all but ripping the door off its hinges.

‘Edward?’ Y/N jumped, flicking her gaze behind her. ‘What’s wrong.’

‘I’m going to kill them, I’ll rip apart their bodies and douse them in gasoline.’ He trembles, hands clenching into stone fists.

‘Edward you can’t. Calm down-’

‘I’ll take the left and Alice will take the right. You go down the middle.’ Rosalie added, being joined by Alice who also somehow looked terrifyingly calm. They had come out of the shop without Y/N even noticing.

‘Guys.’ Y/N said insistently, attempting to herd them with her arms. ‘Don’t cause a scene. Come on, let's go back into the store-.’

‘HEY LEATHER JACKET GIRL.’ One of them shouted from the street. ‘WANNA GO FOR A-’

‘I’M A LITTLE BUSY TRYING TO MAKE SURE YOU DON’T GET KILLED SO WHY DON’T YOU FUCK RIGHT OFF.’ Y/N struggled, knowing that it wasn't her strength that kept the vampires from massacring the strangers.

To the group’s credit, they looked confused and decided to leave, continuing down the street whilst chattering amongst themselves about how strange it was that the other three had golden eyes.

‘There all finished! Now let's go back to dress shopping!’ Y/N rambled, shoving the vampires back into the shop one by one. 

‘I should kill them for what they were thinking.’ Edward muttered, shoving his hands in his coat pockets.

‘Yeah but that would mean you have to leave me here.’ Y/N pouted, trying to tempt him into staying.

Edward narrowed his eyes and looked at Y/N, mulling over her words.

‘Fine. I’ll do it later.’

‘NO.’

---

A/N

Sorry guys! I've been really fatigued and just finished exams! Honestly still super tired but I hope this was okay :C I know it's on the shorter side, DONT HATE ME PLS 😭😭

Also! Please follow the post so you can see when I update it!! That way I don't have to do a tag list-

[gothamhappiness]

Love me like in a dark fairytale (knight!Jason Todd x princess!reader) - Part III

Jason Todd becomes reader's knight, in a heroic fantasy universe. This series is about their forbidden love turning into something even darker.

Dom!reader x sub!Jason (who falls first and harder) through the whole series.

Part 1 // Part 2

I really hope you'll enjoy it <3

Warnings: no proof reading, angst/comfort, very subby Jason, sexual activities

Jason didn’t find sleep the following night. 

How could he when his princess took away from him the brightest moment of joy of his days? He blamed himself, he should have been better at concealing his reaction. He could still be enjoying your touch then.

You couldn’t sleep either. 

It felt wrong to put a distance between your knight and yourself.

Finally, you decided you needed a walk in the streets of your city… if Jason was up to it. 

You quietly left your bed and put a robe on before knocking at his door. You were surprised how quickly he answered it. He frowned when he saw you as you tried not to look at his muscled chest on display in front of you.

“Are you hurt, princess?” he whispered, his eyes scanning you with concern

“Did I wake you up?” you asked

“Are you alright?” Jason asked again, he was on edge and it surprised you even more. You quickly nodded

“Yes, yes. Just sleep does not seem to want me tonight.” you reassuringly smiled at him and it appeased him a little bit

“What can I do for you, my lady?” 

“I want to have a walk in the city.” you explained and your knight hummed

“Anything you want” Jason nodded “I will put clothes on” he added and you smiled

You stayed silent for a long time, as you were wandering in the streets, a lot on your mind. Thankfully, the fresh air of the night eventually helped you find some peace. It was then you noticed how tense your knight still was. You felt bad for having woken him up and he clearly would have been more at ease in the gardens, than in the open like that.

“You are troubled” you finally commented, thinking he was worried about your safety

“I am displeasing my princess without meaning to, so yes” Jason admitted and he winced at his own words. The lack of sleep and the stress caused by your new rules of being “appropriate” were making him act like a fool. “Please, forget I say anything, my lady” he begged you, fearing to make things even worse

“You are not displeasing me” you replied “I would have sent you away otherwise” you added, hoping to quieten down Jason’s worries but it didn’t. On the contrary, actually, but your knight remained silent.

After a little while, you stopped walking and you looked at him.

“My lady?” Jason hummed, stepping closer to you so he could see your face more clearly with the moon shining behind him

“Were you sleeping when I came to you?” you asked

“No” your knight quickly replied

“Why not?” you asked again “Because you are so certain you are displeasing me?”

“Yes” Jason whispered

“What made you think so?” you wondered

“I have told you I am yours and yet…” Jason trailed off, too ashamed to continue

“And yet?” you tilted your head to the side

“You… do not act as if I was” 

“I looked for you in the middle of the night, is it not proof that I know you are my knight?” you countered “So where is the problem?”

Jason didn’t answer and you started to lose patience, getting tired too. 

You hesitated going back to the palace in silence but you knew your knight would just be even more on edge the next day.

“Answer me and that is an order, knight” you finally groaned.

It caught Jason off guard but he quickly obliged. He couldn’t disobey a direct order from his princess.

“You stopped tending after me, you stopped touching me” he replied, not looking at you, his cheeks burning

You were too baffled to say anything at first, so you simply resumed walking back to the palace. Jason followed you in silence, certain you were going to ask for a new knight.

As you reached for your room, you wished him a good night. 

You were about to get into your room, but eventually turned back to him.

“You were tense when I used to bandage you” you said

“I am yours but you are not mine” Jason repeated what he told you the day before and you groaned in annoyance once again

“What is the meaning of this?” you asked and Jason’s eyes widened at the clear irritation he caused you. He panicked so he blurted out the truth:

“I need your touch to live, but I also need to resist the desire of running my own fingers down your skin”

“Do you love me?” you asked him

“More than anything” Jason admitted in an instant

“Kneel” you hummed with a little smile, and your knight didn’t question it, instantly going on his knees for you, before looking up at you, waiting for your next words.

You softly cupped his face in one hand and the man instinctively leaned into your touch, so relieved to feel the warmth of your skin against his. He closed his eyes. You watched him and enjoyed the sight of him a little too much for his own good.

“You can kiss my hand” you offered

You didn’t need to repeat yourself twice, as Jason quickly took your hand in both of his and started to softly kiss your skin, every inch of it. He had dreamt of it for so long, and you tasted even better than he ever imagined it. You were surprised by the intensity of his love, and it made you unbearably happy.

You finally removed your hand from his grasp, and by the look of his face, he would have loved to keep adoring on you.

“Please, do not ask for another knight” Jason pleaded with you

“Oh I do not intend on sending you away. You said it yourself, you are mine. And I still want you.” you smiled down at him.

Jason knew he was going to cry of relief when he would be alone in his room.

“Thank you, my lady” he whispered

“Good night, Jason” you hummed before going into your room and closing the door on the man, who was tasting the sound of his name rolling off your tongue. 

He never liked his name better than when it was coming from your sweet lips.

You were both tired when you got up a few hours later, but your knight seemed more at peace. His eyes searched for yours, and when you smiled at him, he fully calmed down. You told him to be careful before he started his training and he bowed to you.

He took your words as a token of your affection for him, and he put all his energy into doing better than the day before. He didn’t disappoint you. 

When you joined him in the nursery, he was looking like a man who would have enjoyed nothing better than a nap. He woke up a little when he saw you coming closer to him.

You inspected his body in silence before starting to look after him. Jason’s eyes followed your every move, enjoying getting back your touch and undivided attention on him. You settled in between his legs to look at a cut he got on his forehead. He could so easily take into your scent with how close you were and his hands were itching from grabbing your waist.

You must have read his mind, as you quietly and very naturally brought his hands on your hips before resuming taking care of his cut. Jason couldn’t help but smile at being allowed in touching you that way. His warm hands gently brought you closer to him, and you loved his touch on you a little too well for your own good.

After that, you quickly learnt that Jason was a clingy and greedy worshipper. 

It started with soft and almost shy touches and kisses, but the more room you gave to his love, and the more you received. 

After a few weeks, whenever you were alone, and that you allowed him to touch you, his hands were instantly roaming your body and his lips kissing your face and neck, feverishly. You couldn’t help yourself from giggling at the constant attention, and the sound was always making Jason smile against your skin. 

At first, you believed that after a few times of being authorised kissing and caressing you, he would get used to it and lose his passion; he would then stop acting like an excited puppy. You realised you couldn’t be more wrong: the man couldn’t get enough of you. 

Never. 

You were his divinity.

He was happy, when you were happy with him. He was happy when he could kiss you. He was happy when he could keep you all to himself.

The first time you kissed his mouth, he knew he would damned himself to be allowed to marry you. He had instinctively pressed you against the nearest wall to deepen the kiss, to get his body even closer to yours, his arms around your waist. When you both parted for some air, you smiled up at him.

“You are good to me, my knight” you whispered to him and his eyes lit up

“I am content if I can fulfil my duty to you, my lady” he replied, gently leaning his forehead against yours

“Meet me in my room for midnight” you murmured to him again, not really realising what you were saying; you just wanted to have him all to yourself without worrying about anyone seeing you.

“Anything you desire,” he nodded.

At midnight, when you opened your bedroom door to your knight, you knew you were going to give him something only your future husband should have, like your grandmother always said about sexual relationships between a man and a woman. 

You locked the door behind yourself before kissing Jason. You only heard rumours about pleasure, as it was a pretty taboo subject. But one thing was certain, you wanted your knight, more than you ever wanted anyone before. Actually, you did not remember having desired anyone like you did in that moment. You got annoyed at Jason’s clothes, you wanted to feel more of him.

“Undress yourself” you breathlessly told him.

Jason was a good soldier, always eager to obey you, even more with your dilated pupils looking at him with such impatience and raw desire.

“Still easy on your eyes?” he asked as he was standing in front of you in his underwear, as you were hungrily detailing him.

Your sole answer was to let go of your robe in one swift movement, leaving you naked in front of him. He knelt without thinking, and started to gently kiss your feet and legs. You barely heard him calling you his goddess, as he busied himself worshipping you.

You finally laid down on the bed together, your hands and mouth discovering one another. Despite the burning love between the two of you, you were tender and taking your time. You needed to feel the other one, to find the sweet spots, to be intimate to become one for the night.

When Jason started to touch you in between your legs, you had no idea that pleasure would actually feel that good. Jason showed you heaven.

Or maybe he was heaven.

At least he was yours.

--

Part 4

--

Taglist for all my work <3

@blublock404

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@winterhi09

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Taglist for this series <3

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[junimojo]

More Bob headcanons because you guys really seemed to like the first one

(+ some SentryAgent if you squint)

TW: suicidal thoughts/attempt, & mentions of past addiction

I’m genuinely floored that my first Thunderbolts headcanon post got so much positive feedback and I didn’t think anyone would see it or care, so I really appreciate all of the kind comments! Doing this is helping me get back into the groove of writing again and it’s turning into a nice coping mechanism as someone with GAD and PTSD. It’s nice to finally have a character like Bob to relate to. I’m glad other people like these as much as I do!

Headcanons start under the cut. Please refer to the trigger warnings at the top of the post and in the tags. Movie spoilers are also ahead!

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Growing up, Bob was always told that he looked just like his dad. A spitting image of him, even. From the time he was old enough, he kept his hair longer and always shaved his face clean. He would rather not have the face that hated him stare back at him in the mirror.

The first time the team heard Bob laugh out loud was during a trust exercise in training when Alexei suggested a trust fall. Ava didn’t catch Walker. The thud of Walker’s body hitting the floor and the much too long silence that followed made Bob double over and laugh so hard he lost his balance and fell. Not a giggle or a chuckle– a genuine, loud, belly laugh and a smile so wide that his cheeks hurt. (Bonus: Bob snorts when he laughs really hard. He hates it, but it’s how everyone knows he’s enjoying himself. Walker denies his heart skipped a beat when he watched Bob fall down laughing. Bisexual awakening has officially begun.)

Solo or group grocery shopping trips usually end with Bob coming back to the tower with snacks, sugary drinks and/or candy. Walker teases him for having the diet of a teenager whenever they go together, but he learns Bob rarely got to try these things as a teenager due to his addiction, so he lets him throw whatever he wants into the cart. He likes sour and gummy candy the best.

Bob’s the type of person to complain about his stomach hurting after drinking milkshakes, but he still does it anyways because they’re good. He missed out on a lot of things during his addiction and he isn’t going to let a stomachache ruin it, no matter how much he’ll hate himself for it later. “That’s a problem for me 2 hours from now.” He says. And then he whines about how his stomach hurts and he thinks he’s gonna throw up. He never learns.

Quality time, acts of service and physical touch are Bob’s love languages. He doesn’t need to be doing the same activity the team is doing. Just as long as they’re nearby or he’s in the same room as them, he’s fine with being a fly on the wall or in the corner doing his own thing. He keeps his mind busy by doing chores or other small deeds around the tower, like cleaning, laundry, the dishes, or (attempting to) cook dinner. The way Bob physically relaxes when he’s hugged or has his face cupped in someone’s hands is both adorable and sad seeing how touch starved he is. The smallest touch can bring him comfort, even if it’s linking pinky fingers, letting a hand rest on his lower back, or the gentle scratch of a beard brushing against his cheek.

There are some nights where Bob will have an occasional nightmare or two. He doesn’t know he talks and cries in his sleep, or sometimes he cries out to his mom. Yelena once went to check on Bob in the middle of the night when she heard him crying, but she found somebody had beat her to him, listening to quiet shushing and hushed comforts. Bob woke up confused that morning wondering why Walker was in his room, snoring away next to him.

Bob is afraid of heights, but he found himself at the top of the tower one day. He’s afraid to die, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t thought about how the team would be better off without him. He’s basically a walking nuke that needs constant monitoring or else Manhattan will disappear again, or worse. He wasn’t able to control himself yet. He didn’t want to put the team through that responsibility and to him, simply leaving wasn’t the best option. Bob did almost fall, if it wasn’t for his shaky legs, tripping over himself and falling flat on his back onto the roof. He laid there, staring at the sky and cried his heart out. He’s grateful to be afraid of heights.

[sturniqlo]

JUST ME AND YOU— C.S

pairing: boyfriend!chris x girlfriend!reader

summary: a regular night out with chris and his (not so) insane idea of wanting to run away with you BLURB

cw: cursing, fluff

wc: 825 (not proofread)

an: two days in a row?? who am i

masterlist | join my taglist

------------------------------------------------

"chris— youre insane!" you giggled, the sound breaking the quietness of the city as you walked next to chris. you two had just gotten out of the ice cream shop you had been craving all week. and chris being chris, took you. "what?! i'm serious!" he said, taking a spoonful of his ice cream and eating it. "we could just run away! y'know? disappear for a bit— or forever! just me 'n you."

you playfully rolled your eyes, eating a scoop of your ice cream. but, you couldn't help the smile that spread onto your face. chris always said the most out of pocket, yet sweet shit. and their was one of those. "and where would we go? the middle of nowhere?" you egged on to the idea.

"exactly!" he said a bit to loudly, and you shushed him for being too loud in the quiet neighborhood. "you can pick, i'll go wherever you want. a cabin in the woods, a fucking island! hell— even a farm, i'll turn into a farmer for you, babe. you'd like that, yeah? living on a farm. we could get some chickens, a pony, or a cow. we could get our milk that way." he shrugged like it was nothing.

you looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "and do you know how to milk a cow, my love?" you giggled. he shook his head and finished his ice cream, tossing it in a trash can you two passed by. "nope, i don't. but i'd learn for you." he wrapped his arm around your shoulders and continued walking. "okay, enough about milking cows and running to a farm, i thought i was choosing."

"right, right. i was just giving you an idea. so, where would you like to go?" he rubbed your shoulder. before you said anything, his free hand stole the spoon out of your hand and ate some of your ice cream. "hey— thief!" you said. "sorry, baby. i just wanted some more ice cream. i should've gotten the bigger size." he said, returning the spoon. you rolled your eyes and let out a breathy laugh. "anyways— if it was up to me, i'd probably choose somewhere warm. maybe near a beach. quiet, but not boring. or probably a city, new york sounds nice. i liked it over there when we went."

"new york?" he said, taking another spoon of your ice cream, but you didn't mind it this time. "yeah, what about it?" you pouted. "it's— i was thinking more... montana." he said, kissing your cheek, his lips cold. "montana? the hell is in montana?"

"exactly! nobody does, it makes the perfect place to run away to." you laughed a bit louder this time. "chris, you are not a montana guy." you came down from your laugh. "okay, so what kind of guy am i?" he smiled at you. "you're a 'get lost in brooklyn' type of guy." you teased him with the fact that he lost you two in new york looking for a pizza spot— twice.

he gasped. "hey, that was one time!" he whined. "twice, actually." you corrected him. "okay, fine. twice, but i still found the spot. and it was pretty fucking good." you smiled, looking up at him as you two continued walking. the street lights illuminated his face with a muted white color.

"seriously though." he started. "it would be nice. just us. somewhere new, no noise— maybe, no pressure. just waking up and do whatever we want." you looked ahead. maybe his idea wasn't crazy crazy. you both had been busy lately, very busy. the thought of leaving that behind for a bit sounded nice. "yeah, that would be nice." chris nudged you playfully. "see? not so insane now, is it?" you giggled. "okay, but you're still insane. i love that about you." he grinned.

you walked in a comfortable silence for a while, the sound of your guys' shoes hitting the pavement. chris unwrapped his arm from around your shoulder and laced his fingers with yours, something that came natural to him. "you know," he began. "we don't have to make it a big deal. we can just wake up, pack a bag and leave a message. and just.. leave." he kissing the back of your hand. you looked over at him. "would you really do that? just drop everything?"

"for you? i'd do anything for you, baby. you should know that already." he said without hesitation. you didn't say anything. "are you considering it now?" he teased. you giggled. "maybe, just a bit." he smiled, and kissed your hand again. "good."

and just like that, the idea didn't sound insane anymore. yeah, you wouldn't pack a bag the next morning without actually planning something. but the idea of you two could do something like that— just you two— didn't sound so bad.

as long as you had chris next to you, things didn't sound so crazy.

[dastardly-imbecile]

NOTDEER

AO3 HERE

Simon nods at you. He’s tall enough that, at the angle your phone points, the slant of light only reaches his neck, face still obscured in shadow. You can make out, through the barest changes in shades of gray, the suggestion of a nose, the theory of a brow, hypothesis of the lips. Indistinct enough that you could not draw him, defined enough that you can recognize him. --- When you cannot trust your own memory, alone on a trip in the woods, what else is there to do but submit? OR the incomprehensible monster who haunts your campsite is an alcoholic

---

Wordcount: ~7.5k

Inspired by this wonderful drabble by @ceilidho. Also, mandatory nods to the 'Goatman' and 'Fleshgait' creepypastas.

TW: this is some halfbreed horror story, so there WILL be graphic depictions of violence and death! Read at your own discretion!

It starts like any good romance: a grove of darkly flowered dogwoods and a rousing campfire, a bit too much to drink and a night just cold enough that you have an excuse to huddle together. 

It starts like any good horror movie: a storm and a drenched forest, clouds blotting out the stars and the sounds of many toothy things in the realm beyond your sight. 

It starts like any story ever, which is to say a hapless protagonist and a presence that watches, that waits. 

It starts like this: you are sitting around the campfire with three of your friends, trying to spear your marshmallow, fallen into the fire. Giving up, once it grows indistinguishable from all the other lumps of charcoal. 

Darren laughs too hard at that, puts an arm around you when he goes to grab a new marshmallow. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why: Darren’s had a crush on you, ever since you drunkenly hooked up with him at a party in high school, and he’s just the right combination of too forward and too coy to be annoying. Makes rowdy, boys-locker-room jokes, sneaks looks at you to see if you laugh. Loudly talks about some new date around the group, bemoans his singleness in your private messages. 

You haven’t brought it up. No use making things awkward. No use letting him down gently, not when he’ll deny your claims, make it into some big, pick-me delusional-woman deal. 

Besides, you’d be lying if you said you didn’t like the attention a little bit. You’d be lying if you said the night and the campfire and the shitty beer buzzing through your veins doesn’t make any warm body look a bit appealing. 

“Hey,” Kelsey says from across the campfire, “grab the bottle.”

You’ve known Kelsey since third grade—the longest out of everyone at this circle. Were neighbors, close enough that when the fighting between her parents got bad, she’d come crawling through your window and you’d sleep in the same bed, back-to-back. She was your first kiss, during spin the bottle in middle school. Sure took that a lot better than Darren did. 

He does, changing course to reach for the beer. His arm brushes you, not entirely accidentally. You meet his eyes, smile, and the surprise that lights in them makes your grin widen.

With a bit of sloppy, tipsy incoordination, Kelsey fills her own red cup. The liquid is piss-yellow, and it tastes like gasoline, but anything is good when you’re already drunk and a hundred miles from the nearest liquor store. 

Wordlessly, Lou holds out his own cup. You don’t know him all that well, as a matter of fact, but he’s some friend of Kelsey’s from college and she insisted on bringing him along so she doesn’t, quote, get all caught up in your pining third wheel bullshit. Quiet, but the type of funny that makes you think he’s been saving all his humor up. She pours him one, and then, without needing to ask, you and Darren. 

Above, there is the distant rumble of thunder. You realize that you can’t see the moon anymore—it was full, ten minutes ago, and you suppose it’s technically still full, but out of sight, out of mind, all that. The campfire is the only source of light in the woods, that and the flashlight steepled by Lou’s feet, and it gives the whole clearing a sort of airy, unreal sense. Heat mirage, wavering light making everything a bit less solid. 

Kelsey pours a fifth cup. Sets it on the ground. Darren raises his eyebrows. “Wow.”

“What?” She asks. He laughs, like she’s being dumb—which is one of the reasons why you’ve never even tried dating him—and juts his chin out at the extra cup. 

“Going double, really?”

“What?” She repeats, looking down, then back, “it’s for Simon.”

“Who?” You ask, tilting your head. 

“Simon? Remember? Jesus, he lived on the same street as us. Remember, when Mom and Dad were divorcing, he let me stay at his house for two months because your folks didn’t like me?”

You remember the last part of that—your parents had developed an aversion to Kelsey because she dyed her hair and got a septum piercing, and they were the type to call that a bad influence—but not the first. As far as you’d known, she’d gone off to stay with her cousins for that stretch of time.

“No,” you say carefully, “who-”

Darren interrupts you, gesturing around the fire. “And where is Simon?”

“He just got up to take a piss,” she snaps, and the conversation’s getting heated, too heated, pushed along by the same things that made it fun—that being, alcohol and two groups who don’t know each other all that well and sleep deprivation—tipping over the edge of delirious entertainment to irritation. 

“Kel,” Lou says, careful and slow, “maybe you shouldn’t drink more, actually. Nobody named Simon came with us.”

She pauses. There is a strange, slow moment, where time stretches like taffy and the fire seems to freeze, and her face falls in a way that makes her look unlike herself. It’s what you imagine a doppelganger to look like—all the right features, all the right proportions, but a different person behind the eyes, windows to a different soul. 

“Sorry,” she says, and it’s back, all her spirits in the right body, “I don’t know… fuck, I’m mixing some shit up. Yeah, I don’t…”

Another peal of thunder. You look up at the sky. When you were a kid, you always had this wriggling thought in the back of your mind—that you should not look at the sky, in case something looks back, peels you open from epidermis to intestine and puts you back together wrong. 

No, you didn’t. Where the fuck did that come from?

“I think it’s gonna rain,” You observe. Darren throws back his beer, throat working in an effort to chug it, up-down-up like a ship on turbulent waves. Across the campfire, Kelsey looks at her cup with faint distaste. After a moment of consideration, chucks it into the large back garbage bag hitched to the nearest tree—Lou follows, though his cup is considerably emptier, and you as well, after a moment. 

Guess who drops his cup on the ground?

“C’mon,” Kelsey says, pointing. Darren looks at it, picks it up with a two-fingered grip like one might a piece of toilet paper on the bottom of their shoe, chucks it into the bag. 

“My bad,” he says, “Smokey the bear’s gonna get me, huh?”

“He’s for wildfires,” Kelsey snaps, “you’re just a fucking asshole.”

She doesn’t like him much. That’s also why she insisted on bringing Lou. 

He holds up his hands in a back off sort of resignation, pushes himself to his feet. You follow—as you do, a raindrop strikes the corner of your eye, teeters perilously close to falling in. By the time you blink it away, there are more—upon your arms, your legs, striking with the force of slow bullets, which is to say not like bullets at all. Shitty metaphor. Blame it on your BAC. 

When you make the trek back to your tent, Darren sticks with you for a bit longer than would necessarily make sense—it’s only when you don’t spare him a glance, while unzipping your tent, that he finally peels off. 

You turn around—the same instinct that makes you double-check the oven is turned off—to examine the campfire. Stupid, because the rain, extinguishing even the embers, but it does make you realize that Lou left his flashlight there. It illuminates the clearing, the four logs, and the absence of the fifth cup. 

Kelsey must’ve thrown it away. Didn’t see her do it, but Smokey Bear and all that jazz. 

Doesn’t take long for you to fall asleep. A full day of hiking—well, insofar as hiking means trekking a case of beer halfway up a mountain, which you think very much counts, actually—has given your body plenty to be tired about. 

—

When you wake up, it’s the middle of the night. If the darkness beyond your tent does not tell you that, then a quick glance at your phone does—the stark 2:54 splayed out across the screen. 

More pressing is the pressure on your bladder. Most of you wants to stay warm and comfortable in your sleeping bag, but the rest needs out, so you shove your way free. Stumble around a moment before you manage to unzip your tent. Can’t bother to look for your flashlight, so you grab your phone, use it to illuminate the way out into the edge of the clearing and into bliss. Not really needed, in any case—Lou’s is still on, and the rain has stopped, which makes the trip remarkably clear. 

When you turn around, you almost scream. There is a silhouette in the center of the glade, made stark by the stuttering light of the abandoned flashlight. Tall enough to dwarf you in the vertical direction, broad enough to do the same in the horizontal, and the only reason you do not shriek is that freeze manages to claw a victory over flight and fight. 

Instinctively, you put your hand out in front of you, phone still in it—and, when that tinny light lands upon the figure, all the panic suddenly bleeds out of you like a punctured lung. 

It’s just Simon. You met him in the campus coffeeshop, junior year of college, because he was sitting in your usual study spot. It was a silent competition, for a few months, to see who could get to the spot first, until one day, fed up, you sat directly across from him at the table. Another month of silent stalemate, both working across from each other, until you’d broken the ice by asking why he was ordering tea at a damn coffeeshop, and the rest is history, so to say. 

He’s a good friend. Kelsey likes him more than she likes Darren, for sure, and he and Lou could spend a century in happily companionable silence. 

“God,” you groan, “scared the shit out of me. What’re you doing?”

He nods at you. He’s tall enough that, at the angle your phone points, the slant of light only reaches his neck, face still obscured in shadow. You can make out, through the barest changes in shades of gray, the suggestion of a nose, the theory of a brow, hypothesis of the lips. Indistinct enough that you could not draw him, defined enough that you can recognize him. 

“Same thing as you,” he replies, “felt good?”

You snort. “You’re so weird. By all means, the spot’s yours.”

He doesn’t move, as you step around him, though you get the sense his head is turning, keeping his eyes upon you. 

“Remind me,” he says, casual, “how long’re we staying here?”

Right. He’d been a last-minute addition to the groupchat. You’d only added him because you’d remembered him mentioning, offhand, that he did some hiking. Well, in his words, less nature walks, more hunting. 

Thank God he’s not one of those guys that poses with dead deer like they’re fish. 

(Guess who is?)

Though, maybe you wouldn’t mind too much if he was. Since you were a kid, you’ve always wanted to cut a deer open, dig your hands into its guts and pull everything out, line them up all neat on a white table like you’re playing offal-solitaire. Push a finger into its eyesocket until you touch the brain, fuck yourself on its antlers. 

You blink. “Sorry,” you say, “spaced out. Uh, three days I think? A fourth, for getting back home.”

“Good,” he replies. 

A moment where you stare at each other, and then you add, a coy smile tugging at the corners of your lips, “fine if I use the kettle for coffee first tomorrow? You’ll have to wait for your tea.”

When he laughs, it’s a deep, burrish sort of rasp that digs into your sternum. “Fine by me, dove.”

—

You don’t remember making it back to your tent, but you must, because when you wake up, you’re back ensconced in your sleeping bag. The only proof you have that you went out at all is that you forgot to plug your phone back in, and it lays by your head. When you blearily prod at it, the screen does not light up, and you groan when you realize it must’ve died. 

Oh well. Get off that screen, enjoy the marvels of nature, all that. Lemons into lemonade. Water into wine. 

You’re not the first one up—that’s Lou, who’s busy heating up a cast iron over the replenished campfire, boxed pancake mix to his right. He nods at you, and you nod back, perfectly content to stay silent when it’s this early—talk can wait until the sky’s finished birthing the sun. 

You circle around to the other side of the fire, set up the kettle over the grate. By the time the water’s boiling, Kelsey is out, and by the time you pour out four mugs, Darren pushes his way into the open. 

“Hey,” you say, “where’s our teabags?” 

“Didn’t bring any,” Kelsey replies, “none of us drink tea?”

“Oh. Simon must’ve brought his own,” you reply, and the group freezes for a second. Not in the strange, unreal way from last night, but instead in the way that happens when someone’s just made a very poor taste joke. 

“Who the fuck is Simon?” Darren asks, looking up from his half-burnt pancake, “some bloke you and Kel know?”

She frowns. She hates when he calls her Kel. 

“I…” you say, glancing at her. Past her, to the line of tents, to the four tents, not five. “I swear… I talked to him last night?”

The last words are uncertain. Did you? You remember him, of course, tall and broad, but now, if you try, you cannot see his face in your mind’s eye. 

“...I think Kel freaked you out,” Lou says, “must’ve been a dream.”

“I think they’re fucking with us,” Darren says, and you shake your head, though you can’t tell whether it’s to deny him, Lou, or yourself. 

A dream makes enough sense—went out to piss, sure, forgot to plug your phone back in, had some tired-drunk-hallucination midway through. Kelsey’s little thing messed with her head, and maybe she’s the one fucking with you, and it worked a bit better than intended. 

When you think back on college, in that coffeeshop, you find that you don’t remember a single thing about a hulking man in the corner of the place. Makes less sense the more you think on it—why would he be there, not a student? Why would you talk to someone like that? Back then, at least, you were timid enough that you wouldn’t correct a waiter on your misheard order, let alone sit yourself down across from a stranger. 

Weird dream. You scrub a hand over your face. 

“Sorry,” you say, “must’ve… I don’t know.”

“Maybe lay off the alc, huh?” Darren asks, like you’re not only attracted to him when you’re drunk. You nod anyway. 

The day passes as lackadaisically as any day with four twenty-somethings alone in the woods can go, which is to say, easily. You while away a few hours in the morning just strolling through the desire paths that circle your clearing, listening to the birds sing overhead, the squirrels bouncing through great leafy branches. Even see a deer at one point, as it leaps over the path, and it dredges some quiet, half-grown memory from some quiet, half-there part of your mind, a dream within a dream within a bender. 

Lunch is canned ravioli, and the afternoon is a few rounds of poker played with sticks and rocks. Darren suggests—a few too many times for it to be funny—to turn it into strip poker, until Lou starts taking his pants off, and then he shuts up. 

“There’s a lake a few miles from here,” Kelsey says, consulting a map as dusk conquers the horizon, “we should go tomorrow.”

“Didn’t bring swimsuits,” you observe, “or fishing rods.” 

“We can skinny dip,” Darren suggests. 

A moment of silence, to emphasize that he’s being ignored, and then Lou says, “scenic hike, then.”

It’s settled. When night is fully upon the forest, Darren walks to the cooler, and as you once again lose a marshmallow to the flames, he yells back to you. 

“Who drank everything?”

“What?” You call back. A moment of silence, the sound of rustling and the clinking of glass bottles. 

“All the beer! We brought a 12-pack up, and we had nine after last night, and there’s only seven now.”

“Jesus,” Kelsey drawls, “you were counting? Alcoholic, much?”

“It’s not counting, it’s common fucking sense. Three bottles last night, so there should be-”

“Maybe it was Simon,” Lou says. The way he’s leaned towards you implies that it was a comment meant for your ears only, but he’s a bit too loud or everyone is a bit too sensitive, because they stop their argument immediately. 

Your eyes fix upon the marshmallow in the fire, past the point of softening and edging into char. When you were in third grade, a firefighter came to your school, gave a presentation in front of the class. You remember he described a burning house and a woman who wasn’t able to get out. Hid in the bathtub instead. When they went back inside, she was melted into the porcelain. Human lard, he said, smiling, smells just like Sunday morning. Anyone like bacon? 

Yum. Your tongue prods at the back of your teeth, and you try to remember what you ate for dinner. 

A tense moment, nobody sure how to respond to that, whether to brush it off or to play in it. Eventually, it’s Darren who half-laughs, half-groans, “shut up.”

He lumbers back to the fire, carrying two bottles in his hands. 

“So,” he says, handing one to you and one to Kelsey to pour, “again, who is he? Some neighbor kid?”

“No,” she says, staring at her hands, “I think I met him… somewhere else.”

“I think I met him in college,” you blurt, and she brightens immediately, meeting eyes with you. 

“Yeah, me too! That’s it.”

“I think,” Lou says, “the problem with that is that you went to different colleges.”

Darren snorts. You consider passing him the cup, but rapidly change your trajectory to Lou. “Woah. Can’t even get your story straight.”

A new furrow has worked its way into Kelsey’s brow, and she tilts her head. “Did he go to our high school, then?”

“I’d know him,” Darren says, and she shrugs loosely. Looks like it takes a conscious effort to clear herself up, to smooth out the tension in her skin and reach down her throat with a hand and wring her kidneys out like bloodsoaked rags. 

“Dunno, then. Maybe he’s one of my mom’s friend’s sons. She introduced me to a ton of those, back in high school. Or maybe I am messing with you.” She smiles impishly, but you don’t have to examine her eyes to know that she’s lying, that she’s trying to cover. 

The topic passes, eventually, but the mood it sets does not. Lou’s some massive horror buff, apparently, and he regales you with the type of story that takes you back to ten-year-old summer camp. Even Darren gets into it, and you’re reminded why you came on this trip with him in the first place—when he’s not being horny or being an asshole, he’s surprisingly funny, good at setting the mood. 

“...drip, drip,” he says, “and you’ll never guess, what she sees when she’s looking at the trees above the car-”

“Oh my god,” Kelsey moans, “it’s way too fucking dark for this. I’m going to bed.” She points an accusing finger at Darren, “and if I catch you dripping water over my fucking tent-”

“Would never,” he says lightly. She giggles as she stands, staggering to her feet, out from the dome of the firelight and off to the dark lumps of the tents beyond. 

After only a minute, Lou follows, yawning and murmuring a quiet, “night.”

And then, there were two. You glance over at Darren, and through the haze of tipsiness, in the flickering light, he looks almost good. Firelight is better than a diet—it casts all the planes of his cheek in chiseled levels of light and shadow, cuts off the extraneous until all you can see is the shape of a person. 

He must notice, because he grins. 

“You scared too?”

You return the grin. It feels like slipping on someone else’s skin. “Maybe.”

“I can think of something to help that.”

You swat at him, laughing. “And that is?”

“Come to my tent. Find out.”

“God, you’re corny. Fine.” You point at the campfire, “you go ahead. I’ll put out the fire. Smokey Bear, you know.”

He chuckles, and for a moment, you almost think this might not be a mistake. 

The fire’s almost entirely burnt out already, but you give it a few more minutes as you go fumbling about for the shovel. Must trek all the way to the cooler before you find it, buried under a tarp, and by the time you return, there is someone sitting on your log. 

Simon, you know instinctively, from the hunch of his back, from the rasp of his breath. You grin as you come up behind him. 

“There you are. Thought we scared us to sleep, and you were just too chicken to tell us.”

He laughs. It’s deeper than Darren’s, sends a tremor rattling through your chest. 

Carefully, you sit down next to him—he left your space free—and stare into the fire. You don’t feel particularly like looking at his face right now. Maybe you’re afraid of what the firelight will do to it, how the shadows will cut him, shave away the flesh to expose the bone. 

You’ve known Simon since high school. He wasn’t a part of you and Kelsey and Darren’s group—new student, transferred in sophomore year, bit of an outcast, from arriving late in the game and for being generally offputting. Dark clothes, dark eyes, unspeaking. 

It wasn’t until you started talking to him, after being assigned to tutor him in maths, that the wider student body warmed to him. Still, Darren’s never liked him—sees him as competition—and Kelsey’s never liked him—still thinks he’s a bit weird—and Lou, you’re pretty sure, doesn’t like him either, though you can’t say why. 

“Can’t believe you drank the beer,” you say, “and didn’t tell Darren.”

“Wasn’t v’ry good,” he replies, “prefer bourbon.”

You cast him an askance look. “Who’s bringing bourbon on a camping trip?” 

He doesn’t respond. Eventually, you add, “next time. For you,” and he huffs out a muted bolt of laughter. 

“You gonna fuck him?” He asks, after a moment. You chew on your bottom lip.

“Maybe. What’s it to you?” 

You dated Simon briefly, senior year. Your hookup with Darren was a rebound of a sort, in that way, and you don’t think he took it very well—to this day, he still glares at him, still clenches his jaw when he makes some stupid comment. Earlier, when Darren made that joke about strip poker, he looked like he was going to launch across the clearing and pummel him. 

Crash to the ground, break his nose, dig his fingers into his eyes and crush his chest. You remember a factoid—something about lungs, when spread out, something about the length of a tennis court. You bet Simon would do it, slowly unpeel every nerve from the walls of his chest and string them up around the trees like he’s toilet-papering a neighbor’s house.

Your heart beats a little faster. You bite down harder on your lip. 

“He won’t make you cum,” he says, and you shrug loosely. 

“Then who will?”

He tilts his head like you’re asking a really stupid question. You suppose you are. 

When his hand clamps down upon your upper arm, it startles you—for some reason, you haven’t been expecting him to be solid, are not used to the feeling of his fingers on your skin. He’s cold, despite the fire. 

Wordlessly, he yanks you to your feet, drags you to your tent. You don’t necessarily mean to pull your feet, to resist a tiny bit, but it feels right—makes it righter when he yanks open the zipper to your tent, near-throws you inside. It’s spacious enough that two people can fit, low enough that he must duck, and Simon hunches his back in such a way that the shadows obscure his face, paint him in broad strokes of gray. 

You hardly have a moment of peace on the ground, back against your sleeping bag before he’s kneeling, putting a hand in the nexus of your thighs. Such an insistent pressure that you scrabble to tug your pants off, leave long scratches down your stomach with the clumsiness of speed. The cold air almost stings against your bare sex, but before that’s too much a problem, Simon’s lowering himself. There is a brief moment in which his face is in the light, but you blink, and you miss it—and, by the time you’re looking again, his tongue is hitting your cunt, and stars bloom in your vision. 

His hands were cold, but his mouth is warm, and he licks a long stroke to your clit. Focuses on that, for a moment, sucking on it gently, which is enough for your legs to wrap around his back in half-greed half-gratitude. 

When he bites down upon it gently, the brief nip of teeth, you moan. When you were a kid, your neighbors left their bedroom window open one night, and you watched the husband fuck the wife upon the bed, intertwined as closely together as the friendship bracelet Kelsey gave you. After he was done, he peeled off the wife’s skin and ate her whole. Started with the toes and ended with the eyes, shoved her bones down his throat like a fire-eater. 

How does one eat an elephant? 

One bite at a time!

You laugh. Simon knows you well enough that he doesn’t ask you why. 

Instead, he brings his mouth down to your hole, circling it with his tongue, as his hand goes up to rub at your clit. You push forwards into his face, desperate, greedy, and he strokes his hand down your thigh. He’s warm now, warm as you are. 

“More,” you manage to pant, when he extends his tongue into your opening. If anything, he slows—teasing bastard—and now, it’s with a luxuriating sort of tension that he inserts a single finger into your cunt. Follows, a moment later, with another, curves them down and uses his thumb to spin a slow circle over your clit. 

It’s enough to send you over the edge. Your body shakes, walls clenching in on a gaping nothing, and though the climax leaves you limp-boned and hazy, it’s clear that this is only the start for Simon. He rises to his feet to shuck his pants off, followed by his underwear, which does much to reveal that he’s already hard. 

Good. You’d be insulted, honestly, if he wasn’t. He kneels, and you reach out a hand to run over his cock, feeling out the shape of the veins, stroking a single finger over the tip and smearing his precum about. He places a hand upon yours, gently shifting it off, and the other goes to your waist. Without what seems like an effort at all, he flips you from your back to your stomach. Now, you are facing the wall—he may as well have no face, no body, just a pair of hands and a dick. 

“Eager dove,” he murmurs, and you arch up towards him, wanting to be filled, to be contained and released, but all he does is stroke a slow, almost reverent hand over your ass. “Had my eye on you, you know? Ever since I saw you.”

“Please,” you half-moan half-snap, and he finally obliges with a thrust forwards that takes the breath from your lungs. There is an immediate burn. It is not given time to fade, time to adjust, before he’s pushing himself deeper—you shudder, clenching with the effort it takes to accommodate him. The hand upon your ass, he brings up, brings back down again, a sting to distract from the pleasant ache within you. Less a slap and more the way a man thuds a new car, more possession and less the intent to hurt. 

“Not leaving,” he says, and you don’t quite process what the words mean. Simply nod—you’d not if he told you to break your phone and slit your throat with the glass, you’d nod if he asked if he could cut you chin-to-clit and crawl inside your body. He bends closer, close enough that his chest is pressed to your back and his chin notches into the crook of your shoulder. 

You’re already sensitive from his previous workings, and with this—him, hitting spots inside of you that you do not think anyone else could, not in any sense of the word—it does not take much to bring you over once again. A full-body shake that stars from your core, expands outwards like ripples in a lake, violent enough to make you click your teeth together. Warmth, seeping inside of you, and when he tenderly pulls back, it gushes out in a stream that might as well be blood. 

There is movement behind you, shuffling, and by the time you regain the wherewithal to turn back around, sit up, he’s already pulling his pants on, back to you. 

“You’re leaving?” You ask, trying not to sound insulted. True love you did not think this was, but he could at least stay the night. 

“Some business t’ take care of,” he grunts, “I’ll be back soon.”

It’s a good enough excuse that you let your head fall back upon the pillow. You don’t hear your tent zipper being pulled open, but when you look back up, he’s gone. 

—

Kelsey screams. Once, again, again. 

You wake up. 

She screams. 

It spurs you into action, and you leap from the warmth of the bag, fumbling with how quickly you unzip the tent. Burst into the open air—see, from your peripheral, Lou doing much the same thing. 

Once you’re out, it’s not hard to see why. 

Hanging from a tree directly above the campfire, by his wrists, is a man. Is Darren. His chin is tucked into his chest, and he is naked, stomach cleaved open. 

Strangely, there’s no blood, no puddle. You stare at it, some yawning emptiness that might be horror opening inside of you, look down, then up, then down again. 

His dick is cut off. You think, in some ironic world, that would be funny. 

Lou reaches Kelsey first—she stands at the edge of the log circle, looking up, face ashen and eyes wide. It reminds you of, when you were in seventh grade, when you walked into her house after school and found her Mom dead in the kitchen, a knife embedded in her neck. It was her Dad. They never found him—Kelsey’s always been scared that he’ll find her, someday, do the same thing. 

Your hand twitches. It was you. You killed her. She never found out.

You rub your forehead with your hand. Maybe you’re getting a migraine. You can’t remember what you were thinking about. 

“We have to go,” he says, after a moment, voice high with panic, “c’mon, don’t… don’t stay for anything, we have to go.” He whirls around, meeting eyes with you. “Hey! Where’s Simon?”

Silence. Kelsey, after a moment. 

“You’re joking.”

He hesitates, face suddenly as stricken as hers, all blood drained out. “I…”

She whips around, face almost nose-to-nose with his, “you’re fucking joking, who the fuck is Simon, what-”

“I was with him,” he swears, backing away a step, head swiveling around—like Simon will materialize at any minute—“I… he came into my tent, told me he couldn’t sleep. We played poker and he took all my rocks.”

“No,” you say, distantly, like your voice is not your own, “he was with me.”

With me seems like a better word than fucking my brains out. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Kelsey says after a moment, half-sobbing, “whatever- whatever the hell he is, let’s leave.”

“My phone,” Lou says after a moment, dashing towards the tents. You follow, and when Kelsey catches up to you, her hands lock onto your arm. They’re warm. You place your hand over hers, and wonder how long it takes to make a corpse feel real. 

When he emerges, phone in hand, there’s little hope upon his face. 

“Dead,” he says, “flat-out dead, not no service, dead.”

“Mine’s dead too,” you say, recalling that first night, forgetting to plug it back in. You haven’t remembered to do it since. 

“We need to leave,” Kelsey repeats, “no point in checking.”

You don’t need any further reminding. The path that led you to the clearing is easy to find. It’s significantly lighter, going down, with not even a pack upon your backs—makes the journey feel quick, even if it’s agonizingly slow. You do not stop for anything—not food, not water, all done with a numbness of your feet and the strange fog in your mind. 

“I should’ve known better,” Lou says, as the sun reaches his zenith—it comes out with the certainty of a thought that’s been stewing for hours—“I’ve watched a thousand horror movies, obviously. You both think of a man that doesn’t exist and you get confused when we prod you on it, and we’re in the woods, oh my god.”

“Don’t start,” Kelsey snaps. Her voice has stabilized from earlier, but she still has that wide-eyed, deer-in-headlights look. 

“It was so obvious,” he repeats, “and of course, Darren dies first, because he’s the confident asshole, and…”

That feels a tad insensitive, but you suppose the charitable part of his brain has short-circuited.

“And what the fuck does that make you?” Kelsey asks, “the meta guy? You die next. You’re fucking Randy Meeks.” 

“I know,” he replies, and that quiets her. It puts you on that line of thinking—that of horror movies. Logic dictates something along the lines of a final girl, unless your filmmaker is avant-garde or a sadist, so it could go either way for you. 

You don’t realize you’ve turned back around until you’re short of breath—until you realize that somehow, you have made a 180 on the trail, and are now going uphill. It takes another five minutes before Lou notices, before he stops in his tracks, and says, “we… we got turned around.”

“What?” Kelsey asks. He points up the slope. 

“We’re walking up. I recognize that tree! We just passed that rock! Oh my god.”

He puts his head in his hands. She stares dully up the trail, as if uncomprehending, before slowly turning around. 

“Let’s go.”

There’s not any hope in the words. Another bit of time—you don’t have any way to tell, but you think it might be an hour—before, once again, you are climbing up. 

“There’s not really any point,” you observe. 

“No,” Lou says, and he turns again. 

When the sun begins to sink below the horizon, when the sky darkens like a bruise, you break back into the clearing. Logs to one side, tents to another. 

Darren is gone. You look up at the tree, and see not even a rope mark—and, without the puddle of blood, there is no sign that he was ever there at all. 

“Fuck,” Kelsey says. Turns, kicking out at one of the logs, screams the word, then collapses to her knees, sobbing. Lou kneels by her side, rubbing a hand along her back. Looks up at you, after a moment. 

“We’re sleeping in the same tent tonight. All three of us. He seems… he seems to only get one of us at a time. There is no Simon.”

“There is no Simon,” you breathe, digging your fingernails into your palms. No Simon. You did not meet him in college, did not meet him in high school, he was not in your tent last night and you have never felt his hands upon your skin. 

When you were a kid, you’d repeat that mantra to yourself, there is no, there is no there is no there is no there is no there is no there is. 

When you were a kid…

You blink, and you are in the tent. Must be Lou’s—cramped, with all three of you, but you and Kelsey are sharing a sleeping bag, and Lou is in his own. You stare at him, sleeping, and then crawl out into the cold air. Sit for a moment, in the tent, look at the darkness around and the things beyond it that you cannot see. 

Quietly, you unzip the flaps, pull yourself into the open. Walk a slow circle around the camp, half-contemplating, half enjoying the cold air. 

On your third loop, you see Simon, sitting in what used to be Darren’s tent. Your heart stutters briefly in your chest, but you relax just as quickly. He’s so familiar that it hurts. 

You’ve known Simon since first grade, when he would chase you around the playground, and make you kiss him when he caught you. Kelsey’s always hated him. So has Darren. Even Lou, from the first moment he laid eyes on him. When you told them that you were bringing him along on the trip, Kelsey dug her fingers into your neck and strangled you until your nails were bloodied from scratching at her skin. 

“Hey,” you say, ducking down to sit next to him. You didn’t think to bring a light with you, on this trip, so he’s shaded in darkness, but you can hear the movement of his body, feel the soft brush of his lips as he leans down to kiss the top of your head. “Mourning?”

“Somethin’ like that,” he replies, “Lou thinks he can get you out?”

“Yeah,” you reply, “he’ll try again tomorrow, I bet.”

He laughs. You wonder if he has a mouth to laugh with. 

“Not gonna work, Dove. You know that.”

You shrug listlessly. “Makes him feel better.”

One heavy, warm hand settles around your wait, tugs you closer, until you’re half-onto his lap. You nestle your head on his shoulder. He smells like blood. You dig your nose into his chest, inhale deeper. 

“I love you,” you say. His fingers dig in, the tiniest bit, pinpricks of sensation down your side. 

“I know. Love y’ too much, sometimes.”

“Is that possible?” You ask. He laughs, and you swear you can smell it, swear you can taste it. 

“Guess not. I’d just do anything to keep you. Anything, y’hear?”

“Anything,” you whisper. You’re so close to his heart that you swear it goes straight through, you swear you can dig your teeth in and tug it out and speak to it directly, mouth wrapped around his aorta. 

—

When you wake up, you’re sprawled on the ground outside of Darren’s tent. Stumble to your feet, steadying yourself with a hand upon the flimsy material, walk around listlessly until Kelsey pushes her way free of last night’s abode. She looks around, surveying the space, before her eyes lock on you. 

“Where’s Lou?” She asks. You blink once, taking in the tender hope, the wish—she wants you to say, bathroom, or in my tent, or, over there, behind that tree, peekaboo!

You swallow once, and whisper, “I don’t know.”

It is like some invisible wall collapses, making her suddenly smaller. “What do you mean-”

“I mean he’s gone,” you reply, running a hand through your hair, pretending it’s someone else’s, someone you never knew and someone you know as intimately as yourself, “I mean he’s… he’s dead, probably.”

“No,” she says, “no, we were all together- he couldn’t get us, it’s not possible, I- where were you? Why are you out here?”

“I saw him last night,” you whisper, “Simon. I… I went outside.”

“No,” she repeats, “why the fuck would you do that? Is it you?” The accusation comes with the force of a slap—you’re half-surprised one doesn’t accompany it. She backs away a step, pointing, “is he yours? You’ve- you’ve seen him the most, haven’t you, and he fucking killed Darren because you hated him, and he killed Lou because he was trying to get us out, and, oh my God.” 

Another step. She turns, still staring at you over her shoulder—like you will pounce, like you will come for her—begins a halting run down the path. Accelerates to a sprint, by the time she’s out of your view. You place a hand to your chest, and feel the beat of your heart, and wonder what’s wrong with your legs. 

Not ten minutes later, you spot her over the horizon, still running—if at a flagging pace. She turns, when her eyes meet with you, but it’s short order before she’s back in the clearing, collapsing on the log before you. 

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” you say, not turning towards her. Almost surprisingly, your voice wavers, and some animal instinct buried in your hindbrain twitches, caught in the throes of death. “He… it… whatever he is, I didn’t summon him, I didn’t ask for anything. I see him, and I know him, and what am I supposed to do?”

She’s quiet for a long moment. Pushes herself up to a sitting position. 

“Tell my Mom that I love her. And my Dad.”

You can’t remember having a family. You can’t remember being a kid, can’t remember meeting those people that were once your friends. Again, you think of the doppelganger. Maybe you’re the clone, maybe you’ve slipped into the skin of whoever used to inhabit this body. 

“I don’t know if I’m making it out either,” you reply. She laughs. 

“What, he’s gonna kill you? Please.” Again, a peal of laughter, and she can’t seem to contain herself, one hand wrapping around to cup her stomach. 

“I didn’t say I’d be dead.” 

That sobers her. 

The sun falls across the horizon. She walks to the cooler eventually, digs around in it. Comes back with a single bottle of beer. 

“Go fucking figure. Only one left.”

She opens it, takes a swig, holds it out to you. You oblige, turning it about in your hand, take a cautious sip. It brings you back to the firelight, to the time of hours ago, to the life that you cannot be sure you lived. 

You see him before it’s fully dark. Behind Kelsey’s back, in the treeline, face hidden by the drooping leaves and the curve of the shadows. 

“You should go,” you tell her. She stares at you. 

“Yeah? Where?” 

“Let her go,” you say. If there is one favor you can give to your former life, then it’s this. If there is one favor he can give to you, it’s this. 

You don’t see him nod, but you push her anyway, urge her to her feet. 

“Go. Quickly. You’ll… you’ll make it.”

You don’t know if it’s any kinder, honestly. Deer chews its way out of the snare, must live the rest of its life with an amputated leg. Still, she gives you a single, wide-eyed stare, before she jerkily walks to the path, takes to a jog in the dying light. 

There is nothing between you and Simon, not anymore. You stand up, walk into the trees, and he comes towards you in the same measure. Keep walking, until your chest is bumping against his, nose pressed into his chest and legs arranged between his, some half-dissolved hug. 

You have known Simon for as long as you’ve known yourself, and where your skin meets, you can’t quite tell who is who, which limbs you can control and which limbs you cannot. 

“They’ll come looking,” he says. You say. 

“Is that a problem?” You reply. He replies. 

“No,” he whispers, hand coming around to sink into your back, “good hunting.”

“Good hunting,” you echo, and it feels like you could stand here forever, as still as the trees around you. 

You look up at his face. Meet his eyes. 

When you lean up to kiss him, it is the only thing you have ever been certain of.