#I just didn’t know how to explain this without doing a art

[terrifictomholland]

my art, my muse

So, quite some time ago I said on here I'd write for Tom and well - here it is! It's been a fun ride! As always I can't help but to thank @worldoftom for being the very best beta a girl could ask for! So thank you very very much darling!

word count: 6.9K

warnings: look this is nothing but absolute filth! its got a whole bunch of stuff lmao - but oral (female and male) dirty talk, spitting (ooops) slight dom-Tom, please please please, if you are under 18, don't read this I don't want to corrupt youngsters!

Without further ado, enjoy!

The doorbell rang when you opened the door, entering the tattoo shop that you spotted on a whim. The idea had been brewing in your head for some time now to get a piece done, but you hadn’t been quite sure as to what to get done. The smell of leather and disinfectant burrowing into your nostrils, somewhat of a comforting smell and the sound of a tattoo-gun in use. 

“Yo! Welco- holy shit!” a curly red-haired guy cut himself off seeing you from a seat behind a counter. Your head swiveled around looking behind you as to why this guy cursed the way he did. 

“Y’alright?” you mused seeing the slight red tint on his cheeks. “I’ll willingly put money in the shit-I–say jar in a second, but I just know you’re my brothers’ walking sex-on-legs dream come true right now.” He explained and a raucous laugh exploded out of you, your head thrown back from the unexpected comment. 

“Oh? Who’s this brother of yours then?” you asked cheekily and the red-haired guy grinned. “He’s gonna be doing your tattoo seeing as how his client just cancelled on him, so you’re in luck to torture him,” he schemed and you grinned even more. 

“How interesting, thank you for the information,” to which he bowed his head. “Always happy to put Tom in a hard position,” that innuendo didn’t go unnoticed by you as you laughed once again. 

“Anyway, what’s your name? and more importantly what are you getting done and where?” He asked wiggling his eyebrows. “Aren’t you a cheeky bugger? M’names Y/N. As for the tattoo, only for me and well, Tom to know and you too maybe, find out if you’re lucky,” you winked and his eyes glittered.

“Nice to meet ya, I’m Harry and I must say, Tom might just have met his match,” he held out his hand to which you took and shook. 

It was very fun and lighthearted talking to Harry while this infamous brother of his, Tom, finished doing some work on another client. While you waited, you and Harry made some idle chit-chat and you looked around in the shop.

It was surprisingly airy and neat, a light green with dark wood finishes. Tiny knick-knacks of things that seemed like they were personal to the brothers. Such as different but very cool mulled wine bottles, an array of different Marvel figurine bobble-heads - actually, a bunch of different Spider-Man bobble-heads for some reason. 

“Hazza? Why are there so many bobble-heads of Spider-man?” you asked, glancing over your shoulder. “Hmm, Tom’s obsession since he was little,” he shrugged and you nodded continuing on to look at some very professional looking photos of a guy tattooing a client. You presumed the artist was Tom, but you couldn’t see his face. Only his gloved hand holding a tattoo gun working on a very detailed rose piece. It was stunning, both the photograph and the design of the piece. 

“Who took this photo?” You couldn’t look away from the various photos that hung on the walls, all in the same kind of style, showcasing the talent of both the photographer and the tattoo artist. They worked brilliantly together and it really showed.

“Oh! I did, I’ve shot all of these photos in here actually,” you could hear the pride in his voice and you turned to him, giving him a wide smile, “these are incredible,” to which his cheeks turned an adorable red hue. 

“Thank you,” he said modestly, “but in all fairness, Tom’s a really good sport in letting me hover over him when he’s working, he makes my job fairly easy,” he told you earnestly and so far, from all that Harry had said about this Tom, he seemed to be a really good and stand-up guy. “That’s a really nice thing to say about your sibling. But, may I ask where this brother of yours is? Not that you’re not impeccable company,” you winked.

“This brother of his is right here,” a raspy voice said from behind and you saw Harry grin and throw you a wink as you turned around. 

Oh boy.

What Harry had seemed to forgot to mention was that Tom was sex-on-legs for you, because damn oh damn. 

Standing against the door-frame to a room in the back, was easily the hottest guy you’d ever laid eyes on. You felt him give you a once-over as you did the same. Time suspended for a moment as you drank all of his features in. 

Black fitted jeans, showing off what looked to be very strong and muscled thighs which you wouldn’t mind climbing all over. Your eyes wandered further up over to his chest and arms, he was wearing a white simple t-shirt that he made look a million bucks. A broad chest and neck which you wouldn’t be opposed as to sink your teeth in and really mark him up. 

An air of confidence about the way he held and carried himself, something slightly dangerous, but in the best and more enthralling way. He wasn’t afraid to show you who was boss, and for him? You’d abso-fucking-lutely let him. 

But the killer? For sure his arms, splattered with tattoos, at first seemingly random ones but the closer you looked, they weren’t random at all. They all told a story - the story of Tom. 

You couldn’t really take your eyes off of his arms. So defined and fucking hot, his biceps were stuff you wrote poems about. So well-sculpted, as though he was made of marble. Veins running all over his forearms that just pulled you in. 

Veiny arms and hands were your ultimate weakness and something told you that he knew he was hot-shit, by the way his eyes raked all over you. 

“You’re Tom?” you cleared your throat once and a smirk formed at the corner of his lips. “The one and only,” his voice was ever so slightly husky and raspy when he spoke to you and you shuddered in delight. 

All of a sudden, getting a tattoo today was the best goddamn decision you’d made in ages if it meant getting to spend the rest of your day in the company of Tom.

He had the perfect face, a jaw sharp enough to cut glass, dark brown eyes that could read you like a book and the most perfectly kissable lips. Which you wanted to do, very badly. 

“and you are?” he prodded and you snapped out of your own little world which was full of Tom, all over you and very sweaty. “Hmm? Oh! I’m Y/N,” you recovered giving him a slight smile. 

“Nice t’meet ya,” he pushed off the door frame to come closer to you, giving you his outstretched hand. 

Fuck, he smelled intoxicatingly good as well. As if he didn’t already have everything going for him. 

“You too,” you said taking his hand and shaking it confidently and he licked his lips when your hands met, briefly looking down on them. “Wanna head back?” You swore his voice deepened ever so slightly when he said that, or it was merely your imagination. He smirked once again and you knew he knew the effects he had on you. “Lead the way,” you said and you could hear Harry snickering behind you, having watched your exchange.

“Don’t forget to wrap it before you tap it!” He shouted and you couldn’t help but the mortified laugh as Tom flipped him off. 

“Well that’s professional,” you smirked taking a seat in the chair. “What can I say, if he can dish it out he can damn well take it too,” he shrugged nonchalantly taking a seat on his chair, facing to look at you. 

“So, what are you wanting done?” all of a sudden his voice changed and he was back to professional Tom which made you smile to yourself, “I’d like a mandala,” you said after a beat seeing him pull out an iPad, pulling up a programme in where he started to draw on it. 

“Yeah? That’s cool, anything specific you want in the mandala? A specific pattern or so?” he prodded having already started to work on a design for you. 

“Nah I’m good, putting my faith in you not to fuck me up,” you grinned cheekily and he snorted, “Thanks for the vote of confidence,”.

“Anytime,” you winked and he let out a small laugh. “What about this?” he turned the iPad after a moment and you were rendered speechless, he’d drawn up the most gorgeous mandala design you’d ever laid eyes on. “Yeah, yep it’s perfect,” you hummed not being able to take your eyes off it. He smiled proudly seeing the way you looked at it, feeling a burst of warmth inside of him. 

“Where do you want it?” 

“My thigh, please,” he nodded, eyes landing on your thigh, ever so slightly moving upwards which made your insides clench. “How big?” he asked, his eyes landing on yours and you flushed imagining something else entirely. “The piece?” he added when you were still far too in your own head and your cheeks heated even more now and he smirked - a devious look in his eyes. “Oh, um, I was thinking maybe half of my upper thigh? Would it be a good size?” watching the way he fiddled on the iPad for a moment before a stencil came from the machine by all of his equipment and he smiled at you, “I think it’ll be good, I’m just gonna place it on you and if you’re not happy with it we’ll change it because I won’t let you leave here unhappy okay?” his eyes shone with earnest and it made butterflies erupt inside of you. 

“Thank you,” you gave him a warm smile and he returned it before gloving up in a black latex glove and he put some lotion on the tip of his finger, rubbing it on your skin and placing the stencil there. 

You couldn’t help but to stare at him as he worked, eyebrows pinched together in concentration, lips pursed as he moved quickly and swiftly with precision, you felt utterly at ease in his more than capable hands. 

And oh, those hands. 

Albeit gloved up, those hands were something else entirely. From the glance you got before he put those gloves on, they were slender, long and veiny in all the right places. Not to mention how skillful they were, oozed a certain kind of confidence that could completely unravel you. 

“Have a look and say what you think of the placement, if anything feels wrong we’ll fix it,” he urged, and you stood up and walked over to the full-length mirror he had and you looked at it, both in the mirror and down on your thigh. 

“It’s so good, it’s the perfect place,” he grinned feeling happy with himself you could tell. “Thank you, that makes me happy to hear,” he grinned right back and you went back to his chair that he had wrapped in cling-film while you admired your soon-to-be tattoo. 

“I’m taking it you’ve done this before, but even if it’s been a while, just a quick reminder,” he started and to be frank, you didn’t hear much of what he said except all of the innuendos he’d managed to capture in that one single sentence. “If at any point, you start feeling woozy, or just really fatigued, tell me or tap my shoulder and I’ll stop okay? I’ve got juice and snacks so just tell me yeah? I really don’t fancy you fainting in my chair,” the seriousness in his eyes made you melt inside. 

“I promise I’ll let you know if anything is bothering me,” you reassured and he gave you a quick but warm smile, a small nod before he turned to filling up his little ink caps with black ink.

“Is it just gonna be black or do you want some colour?” he asked, taping up his tattoo gun.

“Nah black will be fine,” you got yourself comfortable as the buzz of the tattoo gun came alive. Soon enough you felt the familiar sting of the tiny needles against your skin and you shut your eyes at first. No matter how many tattoos you had, the first few strokes were always the roughest. 

“You okay?” he asked as if he could read your mind. “Yeah, yeah, just getting used to the pain again,” you told him honestly and he gave you a sympathetic smile. “Sorry to say it’s too late to change your mind now, if I stop now you’ll just end up with a dickish looking line,” he smirked to distract you from the pain and it worked, it made you laugh. 

“I’ll be fine, i’m a big girl,” you braved and his eyebrows raised slightly, “Oh yeah?” his voice laced with something more, something darker. 

“Intrigued now are we?” you teased and he gave you a cheeky grin as he kept working on your piece. The pain lessening with each stroke he did. 

“Maybe,” 

“Your brother said a curious thing when I first came in here today,” you started and he momentarily stopped and looked at you very cautiously. 

“What’d he say?” 

You smirked, “Oh just something that piqued my interest is all, how I’m apparently your sex-on-legs dream come true,” and he let out a husky laugh. In that moment you felt a rush of confidence go through you knowing that Harry was right. 

“Well, he can sleep with one eye open tonight then,” he muttered and you shook your head amused, “I’m not hearing a denial,” 

“Watch it, I’m the one with a gun,” he warned going back to your thigh starting it back up. “Yeah, apparently two,” you smirked smugly. He met your gaze for the briefest of seconds and that glance alone told you everything he didn’t say out loud. 

“The mouth on you,” he muttered as he kept going on the tattoo. You felt absolutely victorious. “What’re you gonna do about it?” 

“Have half a mind to just put you over my goddamn lap,” those words went straight to your core and you sucked in a breath and by the smirk on his face, he’d heard it. Your heart thudded in your ears at the thought of his strong hands coming down on your ass, your cunt leaking all over this thigh - right here in the tattoo chair. 

Oh god damn. 

“Oh? Did I press a button there?” now it was his turn to sound all smug and mighty when you tried to ever-so-slightly shift positions. He knew he did and you really fucking liked it, you pondered how far you could let it go. 

“So what if you did?” you played nonchalantly as though this didn’t effect you in the slightest when you both knew it very much did. 

A smirk widened on his face, “well then, we’re gonna have fun in this chair aren’t we?” and that sent heat pool in your core at the words and your previous thought that flooded your mind. 

“I guess we are,” you fired back with equal amount of heat. You didn’t think you’d ever wanted someone as badly as you did in that moment, in all of your life. The time left in the chair would be unbearable with him touching you and the ache you felt between your legs. 

That’s how it went for another hour and a half while he filled in the lines and started on doing the shading, the two of you walking along a precarious line of chatting and getting to know one another and coming up with the craziest foreplay you’d ever been apart of. 

All the while you felt a consistent heat in your core that simply never faded but you tried to move past. 

“So, I’ve got a question for you,” you hummed and he glanced at you while he filled up with some more ink. “Yeah?” 

“Do you like watching tv-series?” you began and a confused look crossed his face, “sure, who doesn’t?” 

“So here’s the real question, from all the shows you’ve watched - which show has the best first kiss?” he let out a small laugh.

“Sorry babe, but that’s not really what I focus on when I watch shows,” you pouted, “c’mon! Ask me the same question then!” you tutted to which he rolled his eyes, going back to the tattoo. You winced and he noticed and stopped immediately, “You okay?” 

“Yeah yeah, just quite sore from earlier when you went over that,” you told him honestly and he gave you a sympathetic smile, “Sorry babe, I’ll be more gentle,”. That however made you perk up, “who said I want gentle?” 

“You’re fucking incorrigible,” he groaned and you giggled, “ooh look at you and those big words,” you taunted and he just sighed, “anyway, who’s the best first kiss in a show?” 

“Nick and Jess from New Girl, don’t you fucking dare tell me otherwise - that’s right! I said what I said,” you stuck your chin out daring him to say anything else. He pondered your answer for a moment before nodding, “yeah okay, fair enough, can’t argue with that kiss - it’s a really epic first kiss,” and you smiled satisfied with his answer. 

“Good answer, I approve,” 

“What do you do for a living anyway?” he changed the subject and you smiled knowing he was doing his best to distract you from a very dull pain and you were eternally grateful for it. 

“Oh you know, I’m a pornstar,” you said off-handedly and the tattoo gun went quiet and he just stared at you, “Yo-what?” 

You smirked smugly at him, “nah I’m fucking with you, I’m a florist,” you said with a whole lot of enthusiasm in your eye and he let out a laugh, “Ah damn, what a shame I thought I’d seen you somewhere on Pornhub,” he winked and you let out a loud cackle. 

“That’s meee!” you followed along and he rolled his eyes good-naturedly at the banter. 

“How do you like it?” he asked after a while, “I love it, it’s all I’ve ever known - my grandmother started the business when she was a young girl and it was passed down to my mum and now I’m running the show,” you smiled proudly and he smiled in turn hearing you speak so passionately about your family business. 

“That makes a whole lot of sense that’s your job, you were made for making others happy,” 

“That’s one of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me,” you said shyly and he gave you a tender smile. “Well you deserve to hear it,” 

                              ****

“How many do you have?” you motioned towards his tattoo on his arm, a few of them splattered here and there. “Around twelve or fifteen I think, I’ve lost count,” he sheepishly admitted. “How do you lose count?” you asked with genuine curiosity. 

“Well, it’s quite easy to forget when you get them done absolutely sloshed,” he winced and you let out a laugh.

“Which one matters the most to you?”

“Oh, easily this one, my most recent one. My dog recently died so I’ve got her little paws with me forever,” he gave you the gentlest smile and showed you the paws he had on the inside of his left arm. “I’m sorry for your loss, but it’s a beautiful way to honour her,” you gave a gentle smile in return. 

                               *****

You let out a small gasp seeing the tattoo all done in the mirror, “Oh Tom, it’s absolutely gorgeous,” you whispered in awe, unable to take your eye off of the beautiful piece, moving closer to really take in all of the tiny and beautiful details in the tattoo in all of it’s glory. 

“Thank you,” he gave you a warm smile and you knew that he took pride in your reaction and was full of pride knowing that he had made you happy with the results. 

“You’ve been the most outstanding client,” his words were genuine but ever so slightly laced with something more sinister and it made your gut clench. His eyes wandering from your thigh, moving slightly higher and you swallowed thickly. Without word you moved back to the tattoo chair, perching yourself up on it. “Have I?” he followed suit, sitting on his chair in front of you. You looked down seeing his glove-free hands and you licked your lips having fantasized about them for all this time now that you’d been there. “Mostly,” he smirked and you swung out with your leg to playfully kick him. He snorted and took your leg with ease putting it over his thigh and all of a sudden your throat went dry. 

Your eyes following his every move as he poured some lotion on his hands and rubbed it onto your new tattoo. You exhaled shakily feeling his hands on your skin. Your skin tingling from where he touched you. 

“Are we alone?” you referred to Harry as Tom inched closer to you, his hands gliding further up your thigh and you couldn’t look away from his gaze. He had you completely locked in your place as his hands barely touched your inner thigh, your heart racing in anticipation.

“Yeah, Hazza left some time ago now, it’s just us.” That’s all that was needed for the sheer unadulterated lust to take over and take charge. 

Before you knew it, your eyes met in a wild and heated kiss. The hours you’d spent riling each other up were surely paying off now as his hand wound his way to your hair, pulling on it making you whimper into his mouth. 

He bit down on your lip making you part them and he slipped his tongue inside of your mouth with ease - you fully surrendered yourself to him as you climbed over into his lap, straddling his hips. “I’ve wanted you since the moment you walked inside these walls,” he pulled away briefly letting those words wash over you. His voice full of lust and want and it drove you crazy. 

“So why don’t you fucking take me?”  his eyes were burning with barely contained fire and you sucked in a breath knowing you were in for quite the ride. 

“Shut up,” he growled, making the tiniest smirk form on your face. “Make me,” his eyebrow raised in challenge but you knew he wasn’t one to back down - neither were you. 

“Maybe I should just have your mouth stuffed if all I’m gonna get is back-talk,” that no doubt, had the desired effect on you. Your mouth salivated at the thought of Tom using you for his pleasure any way he wanted. “Fucking please,” your voice coming out far breathier than you intended. 

His whole demeanour changed and a down-right filthy smirk spread across his face as he took your desperate state in. Your erratic breathing, your whole body feeling like it was on fire from sheer lust and want. 

“Get on your damn knees then, princess,” you bit your lip nodding as you dropped to your knees, coming face to face with his bulge and all you wanted to do was devour him. 

“Do you need an invitation?” he hummed watching you with interest as to see what you’d do next. Your hands making quick work on getting him out of his jeans. His cock was straining through his boxers and you licked your lips, it was all you could think about. But for a brief moment all you wanted to do was savour this moment, before you took off the last piece of clothing, leaving him completely naked. It was something so thrilling this part, you’d always felt that way. You glanced up at him through heavy-lidded eyes as you removed his boxers, his breathing laboured, flushed cheeks and his eyes never leaving you, keeping you locked in place and it was unbearable in the best way possible.

His fingers wrapping in your hair, nudging you forward towards his cock, all angry and red, tip covered in pre-cum that you used as glide to work your hand up and down his length. His cock hot and pulsating in your hand as you gave him a few tugs. A low moan falling from his lips, “fuck,” he breathed, urging your mouth towards him. 

“What should I do, sir?” you taunted, your hot breath falling on his cock, so close yet so far away. “Fucking suck,” he ordered giving no room to argue and you let out a moan when you engulfed his cock, feeling the weight of it on your tongue. 

You were giving Tom the performance of your life, but oh my, it was the most rewarding blowjob you’d ever given. He was so responsive to every little thing you did. “Fuck, oh,” he moaned running a hand through his own hair - you could tell a small part of him was holding back and you didn’t want that. 

“Stop holding back,” 

“Sure?” his voice was wrecked and you looked up at him, mouth full of his cock giving him a nod. 

 “God the sight of you, such a pretty cock-slut for me aren’t you?” He pushed your head further onto his cock and you whimpered, feeling your panties getting absolutely soaked by the second. He must’ve had an innate ability to sense all of your kinks, such as dirty talk was the way straight to your cunt. “You gonna take all of me? Be a gagging mess for me?” he kept going and you whined against him. 

“Please, fucking please,” was all you managed to say before Tom took over, fucking your mouth making the most obscene noises you’d ever heard. All of them going straight to your throbbing cunt. You closed your eyes, feeling his cock hit the back of your throat and you gagged quite a few times which only spurred him on. “Oh yes, the best fucking cockslut,” he grunted, his grip on your hair tightening. You preened at the praise feeling like the best girl for him.

Just when you thought he’d cum, he pulled you off of him and you looked at him confused with mascara running down your face, cheeks flushed and eyes glazed over. “oh babe, what a sight you are,” he grunted running a finger over your swollen lips. You grabbed his hand, pushing his finger in your mouth and his eyes darkened shoving another one in and your eyes fluttered shut. 

“You’re just begging to have your holes filled aren’t you?” he tsk-ed and you whined, nodding your head, feeling drunk on lust. He removed his fingers and you opened your eyes, watching him for what was next. Instead of answering you he slated his lips over you and it went straight to your head, letting yourself get lost in the kiss and you let him guide you. 

“I just bet that cunt of yours is drenched now huh?” he hummed against your lips, the air of confidence returning to him. “Why don’t you find out for yourself?” 

His large, warm hands pushed your skirt way up, letting it bunch by your waist and his fingers danced across your inner thighs making you squirm trying to get his fingers where you needed them most. 

“Don’t be impatient,” he tutted and you stilled at once, your breathing coming out laboured. “Sorry, so sorry sir,” you breathed letting out a moan feeling his lips on your neck, nibbling and biting on the sensitive skin there, causing tiny goosebumps all along your arms. 

“My oh my, what a filthy slut you are, I just bet you love letting me use you however I want huh? All this from sucking my cock?” he drawled and you shut your eyes in embarrassment when he felt your drenched panties. Hell, your juices ran down your legs - you were that turned on. “Yes sir, I’m such a slut,” your hips moving forward desperately needing his fingers inside of you. 

“You really are,” you bit your lip, batting your eyelashes at him, “what’re you gonna do about it?” 

His hands moved to your hips, gripping them tightly, “do I strike you as a person who will just..give you the answer to that?” he searched your eyes and you gulped. Your faces so close together you could practically touch his lips with yours, your breath falling onto each others. “Yes?” he tilted his head sideways and your stomach flipped. 

“No then?” he smirked, trapping you with his arms on each side of you. “No babe, we’re gonna have some fun now - so,” he hummed running his finger tips along your collar bone leaving you a shivering mess. “Why don’t you show me just how desperate you can get you filthy slut hmm? Beg for it,” he nearly growled and it had you in a puddle, your cunt clenching around nothing. 

“Please, please sir, please touch me,” the words just fell out of you, a desperate and almost incoherent mess by now. “Touch you where?” his fingers working on removing your top, and he drew in a breath seeing your tits, both of them pierced and hard as rocks.

“Say it,” he growled, flicking your nipple making you gasp. “My cunt sir, please touch my slutty cunt,” 

“Good girl,” he lowered his head, lips finding your neck and moving lower down to your tits taking one of the swollen buds in his mouth and you moaned, arching your back and pushing your tits in his face feeling him pull and tug on them with his teeth. His large hands cupping your free one, playing with it whilst the other continued to tug quite roughly with his teeth causing your body to jolt forward and goosebumps to run over your entire body. “Oh god,” but he was generous and switched, giving the other tit the same lavicious treatment and you were in heaven. 

Your head falling back and your legs spreading automatically and you felt him rip your panties from your body. “Fuck that’s hot,” you moaned running your fingers in his hair.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he murmured, moving to your other nipple, lavishing it with the same amount of attention. You bucked your hips trying to get him to touch you, but he wasn’t biting. 

“Fucking please! Sir!” you begged almost to the point of tears, you’d never been this sexually frustrated and it drove you mad with Tom’s teasing and torture which was so delicious. “Don’t you get fucking bratty with me or I’ll shove these in your mouth,” he warned holding up your panties and your jaw went slack. “That’s what you want isn’t it you filthy whore? You want your own cunt juice all over yourself while I fuck you senseless,” your cheeks burned in embarrassment once again. His eyes were dancing with raw desire for you now, his eyes never leaving yours as he bunched your soaked panties into a ball, shoving it in your mouth and you moaned, nodding your head that this was okay. 

“I haven’t even touched you yet and look at you,” he hummed, his finger ghosting over your folds and you nearly collapsed, you were so ready for him, for whatever he would give. 

“Fuck,” he cursed at how easily his finger slid past your folds due to your slick and you swallowed letting the pleasure roll through you, against your panties feeling his thick and long finger disappear with little resistance, exploring your walls and your eyes rolled back, letting his finger expertly move in and out of you. 

“More,” you muffled out as tears formed in your eyes, needing so much more. “What a greedy little whore you are,” he smirked adding a second finger, finding a rhythm with ease and you cried out. He was building up his pace, paying close attention to every little reaction you made. He angled his fingers up and further in and your vision turned hazy when he found the spot. The one where your toes curled and you screamed out against your panties, your orgasm rocking into you from nowhere and he fucked you through it and then some, letting you ride your high for as long as possible. 

He carefully removed your panties from your mouth once you calmed down and collected yourself ever so slightly. He licked his fingers clean and you let out a weak moan at the sight, “That’s hot,” you hummed licking your own lip and he smirked. “You good?” he pressed a kiss to your temple and you nodded. 

“Best fucking orgasm of my life,” you concluded and he laughed. 

“You think we’re done so soon?” you lifted your head glancing at him, “We’re not?” 

“Fuck no princess, we’re barely getting started. I’m gonna fuck you into oblivion and then I’m gonna have a real good taste of that cunt of yours before I’m letting you leave here,” and that was a promise. 

It made your stomach drop and fill with anticipation, “So what’s next?” you were game for anything and everything. “Get in front of the mirror and spread your legs,” 

Well, fuck. 

You did as told, walking over to the mirror on shaky legs, your heart racing in anticipation for what was in store. 

Your skin prickled, feeling Tom come up behind you, his cologne mixed with sweat surrounding your senses in the best way. His solid chest pushsing against your back, his fingers gliding along your waist and hips up and down causing goosebumps all over. 

“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” his voice low and husky and you closed your eyes at the sensation of having Tom’s lips over your neck, sucking rough marks on the delicate skin there.

“Feels so good,” you twisted your fingers in his hair and you let out a breathy moan when his hands snaked up to your tits and he cupped them. Rolling the hardened buds between his fingers causing your back to arch and you tried to rub your legs together to ease the ache between them ever so slightly to no avail. “Is this all it takes? Pathetic, is that why you had them pierced? To be used and tugged til’ you’re a crying mess?” his eyes were sparkling with mischief. 

“Please,” you whined craning your neck to look at him, only to see his burning eyes watching you. He was just as affected as you, you could feel it now too, his cock pressing into your lower back and you moaned softly. 

“Look at me,” he ordered and you obliged, he gave you a hard kiss and you eagerly kissed back as his hand snaked to your front, toying with your cunt, running his finger along your sopping wet folds and your knees buckled. 

He pulled away from the kiss, holding your chin with his free hand and you hissed when he circled your clit, your slick making the glide of his fingers so easy. You were just about to look away when he motioned for you to open your mouth to which you did and he did the hottest fucking thing you’d ever seen. 

He spat right into your mouth and you nearly came right then and there. He must’ve sensed it too because a wicked smirk formed. “Oh you like that huh, you filthy little thing?” just to prove his point, he did it again and you swallowed thickly, your vision hazy from lust. 

He pulled away for a moment and he rummaged through his clothes, returning with a hand on his cock, stroking it and you couldn’t keep your eyes off of his condom-clad cock, wathcing the way his wrist flicked at the tip.

“Such a pretty cock,” you bit your lip, watching as he walked up to you, his hand finding your front once more, easily slipping a finger inside and fucking you open simultaneously as he pushed you against the mirror, making sure that the two of you had the perfect view to watch what was going to happen next.

“Best put on the show of a life time huh slut?” he growled in your ear, slapping your clit and you cried out. The pain hurting so good and Tom lifted your leg up, making the slide into you easier and you both let out a ragged breath at the sensation of your walls clamping down around him. “Fuck, fuck oh Tom,” you gasped as he bottomed out and you had to take a few breaths to steady yourself. 

“The tightest cunt I’ve ever felt,” he grunted, nails digging into your hips that you were sure was going to leave a mark. You couldn’t form words any longer once Tom started fucking into you, his hips doing the lord’s work and all you could do was hang on and enjoy the ride. Which you very much did. 

You loved the way his cock felt inside of you, the way he was rolling his hips finding new bursts of pleasure inside of you that you didn’t even know existed. You screamed out when he angled his hips up, finding your g-spot and he started rutting into it over and over until you were a quivering mess, barely able to stand up. 

“Fuck that feels so good, sir,” Your breath coming out in short pants, tiny fireworks going off behind your eyelids as Tom figured out your body and what made you tick. 

He tsk-ed you, a free hand finding your clit, rubbing it in circles. “Come on, cum for me, let me feel you cum all over my cock. Show me what a good little whore you can be,” he growled and with those words, something inside of you snapped like a coil. 

A dam coming undone as your orgasm wrecked throughout you, screaming his name over and over as he fucked into you giving you what you so desperately wanted. 

“Such a fucking sight you are,” he moaned, his hips jerking as he came into the condom, his hips working their way inside of you. You watched in the mirror his facial expression as he came, eyes glassed over, cheeks flushed and jaw slacked. “Nothing like you,” you hummed, clenching your muscles and he groaned loudly putting his sweaty forehead against your neck. “Fucking shit,” he cursed finally calming down and you whimpered when you felt him slip out of you, already missing the feeling of him inside of you. 

“Wow,” he panted, slipping away from you, removing the condom and tossing it in the bin. You smiled lazily, sliding down against the mirror sitting on the floor completely spent, drinking in the sight of him. 

He really was the sexiest guy you’d ever laid eyes on. Muscles in all the right places and the juiciest ass that you simply wanted to sink your teeth into, if given the opportunity - god did you hope you’d get the opportunity to do this again. 

“Wow indeed,” he looked over at you, giving you a small chuckle when he saw you on the floor. “Y’alright?” he came over with some paper towels, giving you a bashful smile as though to say ‘sorry it’s the best i’ve got’. You took it nonetheless, carefully wiping yourself clean the best you could. “That was ..absolutely mindblowing,” you confessed honestly,  and his eyes lit up, a wide smile taking shape across his pretty face that left you molten at the sight. “It was pretty fucking sensational,” he agreed easily.

A moment passed between the two of you, your head resting on his shoulder as a comfortable silence washed over you, “so, what now?” you hummed feeling how your body finally relaxed after all it had been through, both the tattooing and getting the railing of a lifetime all in the same afternoon. He chuckled softly, “I don’t know about you but this has made me famished, so, wanna grab some dinner?” his voice turned surprisingly soft and unsure which made you grin, “aren’t you a smooth one then? All shy and bashful,” you teased and he let out a laugh, rolling his eyes, “well?”

“Yeah, let’s go for some dinner,” you agreed and he got up a hell of a lot more smoothly than you, Tom having to help you up and your legs were so shaky still. “Fuck,” you cursed walking on wobbly legs - of course Tom noticed it and he smirked proudly. 

“Shut up,” you muttered and he let out a laugh, “You can’t honestly think that this won’t give me such an ego boost, you can hardly walk and that’s all me,” he wiggled his eyebrows which infuriated you, “and here I was going to say we should definitely do this again sometime, buuuut,” you trailed off and he scoffed, pulling his shirt over his head. “Oh princess, you know we’re ending up in bed together again, no doubt,” he radiated confidence as he was checked you, not so subtly, out and it made your cheeks burn as you got dressed. 

“First, you buy me beer and dinner,” he let out a groan, walking behind you and you felt his eyes on your ass, “god, marry me already,” he begged and you couldn’t help but to be helplessly enamoured by him. 

“If that’s your way of proposing, you suck,” you shrugged and he clutched at his heart, “come on now, Romeo,” with that, you waited outside for Tom to close up the parlour.

“Thanks for waiting around,” he smiled, reaching for your hand and lacing your fingers together and you felt the same jolt of electricity as before when he touched you. 

“Anytime, something tells me you’re worth waiting around for,” you laced your fingers together as the two of you walked down the street and into a pub. 

if there's people still around to read ill tag a few of you

@duskholland @tetralea @thirsttrapholland @thefallenbibliophilequote @xoluvx @greenorangevioletgrass

[allthedrugsforcreativity]

[wyniepooh]

Closer

you thought that you were already close with patrick and art; turns out, you could get even closer.

Boardingschool!patrick & boardingschool!art x boardingschool!reader.

it’s no secret that the three of you were close.

Everyone at school acknowledges it by joking that you’re practically their manager, because you’re on the bleachers at every practice, seated front row at every match, and the second the match finishes, the first person they go running to is you.

in fact, you're all so close that you've developed a habit to follow them into the locker room after every practice. if anyone ever questioned your entry into the room, they’d both chime at the same time: “she’s ours.”

neither of them bat an eye when you sit down on the bench between the metal lockers and watch them get changed because it’s you, their little manager, and they didn’t ever hide anything from you.

You’d read them the daily school news, explain the daily school gossip, and update them on any homework they missed in the name of tennis practice. they’d thank you in their typical ways by ruffling your hair and throwing their sweaty shirts on you before sandwiching you in a suffocating hug.

You shriek and laugh and say, ‘stop it!’ but really, you’re too focused on the feel of their bare chests against you— slippery from sweat and hot from the heat— to care about anything else.

There’s always a brief moment after all the amusement when the laughter dissipates and you’re all just staring at each other. Your smile fades, and suddenly you’re painfully aware of their rapid breaths rising against you on either side, and the heat of it all fills the silent air with something else other than just audible breaths.

Today it’s patrick who looks over to art first, who returns his stare with pressed lips. you catch a flicker of something in their eyes, but they looked away before you could decipher it. However, it was clear that a silent agreement had been reached right in front of you. you suspect that for the first time since you transferred to the school, they were hiding something from you.

patrick breaks the silence first, turning slightly away from you to gently close his locker as he murmurs, “you know, there have been a lot of rumours on campus lately.”

You scoffed, stuffing your agenda into your bag before smoothing a hand over your hair. “Really? What kind of rumours?”

Patrick shrugged. He pulled a shirt over his shoulders, nodding his head towards art. “Rumours about us, mostly. Tell her, art.”

art purses his lips multiple rimes before speaking. “It’s just trash talk,” he pauses. patrick glances over to him one more time, flashing him a subtle glare before art finally continues, “there's talk about how the three of us are suspiciously close, or whatever.”

“I guess it’s not so much a rumour as it is true,” you responded. You tilted your head towards them both, eyes squinting with humour as you questioned, “you guys do consider us close, right? I mean, after all I do for you guys, I’m honestly glad that people are speculating and starting to appreciate my efforts.”

“It’s just,” Patrick turns back around, shuffling his feet to sit down across from you on the bench with legs on either side of the wooden plank. His hands are gathered in the middle, fingers attempting to itch closer and closer to your own without you seeing.

“We could be a lot closer, you know.”

You raised an eyebrow at Patrick’s sneaky hands, a slight smile still intact on your face as you asked, “How close can we get, pat? There’s a limit to everything. Even the sky.”

“he’s right.”

You almost jump at the sudden voice you hear in your ear. you cleared your throat as he slid closer towards your back. Art mirrored Patrick’s movements with legs on either side of the bench, but his hands fiddled with the edge of your hoodie as he rested his chin on your shoulder.

“We could be a lot closer.”

You observed the way art pressed his lips together, snuggling his face into the side of your neck as Patrick’s thumb rubbed circles on your hand. you hadn’t even registered that patrick was now grinning, guilding your unsuspecting hand towards his dark curls.

You instinctively wrap your fingers around his wet hair, and you almost gasp when you hear patrick whimper. He pants heavily against your wrist, lips tickling the tender skin as he breathes, “why don’t you come over to our dorm after class?”

You shake your head, dropping your hand from his head. “I don’t think-“

“Please,” art whispers against your neck.

You close your eyes, sucking on the inside of your cheek as you sighed deeply. For a beat, you simply listen to the sound of their synced breathing, taking in the familiar smell of the locker room, and the familiar smell of them. When you open your eyes again, Patrick and art are both eagerly staring at you, pleading with silence.

You suddenly laugh, smiling uncontrollably as you lean back against art and pull patrick closer by the hand that is still wrapped around yours. patrick gladly scooches closer until his nose is practically rubbing against yours, and he returns your laughter with a chuckle of his own.

“Okay,” you mutter while glancing back at art, whose mouth was agape with something adjacent to shock.

“so let’s get closer.”

-

a/n: “why don’t u come over to our-“ bags r packed.

[that-house]

“Tell me about magic,” I said to the god wearing my friend’s corpse.

It (I would not grant it the honor of using her name) smiled at me the way she used to smile. It looked like shit, by the way, streaked with mud and blood and slowly spinning new flesh from atmospheric carbon to patch up the bullet holes our latest acquaintances had left it.

“I know every word in your human languages and none of them suffice. How would you explain a black hole’s accretion disk to a fish?”

“I don’t know. Try.” I didn’t bother voicing the threat but it was implicit, as it was in all of our conversations: your kind has died only once before, but it was at the hands of mine.

It sighed with the weariness of a parent about to talk down to a kid, but it signed up for this when it trapped itself on this rock with me. “It’s a puzzle that’s almost been solved since forever began, a puzzle of infinite complexity worked on by the million sharpest minds to ever be, all themselves fractured into dizzying arrays of subminds in temporally upspun pocket universes, all striving to refine those secret arts of law and mastery. It’s cooperation and competition, vines of knowledge strangling each other as we reach ever upwards towards the sun, clawing at each other in our desperate want. It’s a science. It’s like breathing. It’s like love.”

“I distinctly recall you saying that love is an idiocy reserved for us mortals, and a more efficient chemically-induced blindness than sodium hydroxide too.”

“And I maintain that stance, but it gets the point across, does it not?” It huffed with exasperation, you know, the way that she had a thousand times when we were young. An affectation? Or a bit of humanity bleeding into the monster?

“Mhm. Sure.”

It side-eyed me but kept talking. “You don’t have the point of view it would take to truly understand magic. You never will. Even if you saw the world the way I did, you wouldn’t have the context or the time to decipher it. For you it can never be a science, only ever an art.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“In truth I envied you. With infinity at one’s proverbial fingertips, what else is there to do? The greatest possible workings have all been deduced, those most absolute and inviolable inflictions of the will upon the cosmos, and all that remains to study are the fleeting shadows of concepts beyond even us. But you humans, you tread on new ground that we’ve long since mastered, internalized, and then forgotten. The best you can manage without literally blowing your own minds is a little teleportation. You’re clueless and flawed and you fuck it all up whenever you get the chance. And I envied you.” For a creature enamored with paradox, the idea of a god envying a mortal sure pained it.

“So you cut it all free, cast off the godhead, and came down from on high to slum it with we mortals. I bet you’re regretting that now,” I said, sticking my finger in the last bullet hole and giving it an experimental wiggle. It winced, but the wound closed up like it had never been as I withdrew my finger. Pain is a just a signal, it was always fond of saying. But it still cried whenever it lost a limb.

“Not in the slightest,” said the once-god wearing my friend’s corpse. “This is the most alive I’ve felt in eons.”

[neil-gaiman]

Hello Neil, my name is Zalean. If you have a few minutes, I wanted to tell you a little story. Not really a question and I’m not sure how to use tumblr but I wanted to say thanks so much for coming to Florida a few months back and talking with Art Spiegelman. It was my first time ever figuring out how to buy tickets for something. I lived in, middle of nowhere, Vermont for most my life and had no idea what I was doing, I had never been to anything before, nothing had made me excited enough to do the 5 hour drive. And then you just appeared 20 minutes away from where I am living now.

See, I was just starting to get to know your books and work because I fell in love with Good Omens so deeply when I discovered it during season twos release. Funny thing is, I knew of you all along without even realizing it, Stardust has been my favorite book and movie since I was a kid because it was my dad’s favorite story. Finding out my two favorite things were actually connected, I started trying to get hands on as many of your books as I could. I hadn’t read in years before finding your books. It was eye opening.

The talk event at the Dr.Phillips Center was sold out by the time I knew about it, someone had asked me if I knew of the event when they saw my Good Omens keychains my mom had made me. I called the box office because there is no harm in asking. I explained how I’m an art student at UCF and desperately wanted to be inspired and learn from you both. The customer service people were amazing and ended up calling me back to get me a seat in the orchestra pit before they were released to the public. I drove alone, I walked there alone, I sat alone, and it was worth it. I was so thankful to get a seat and grateful to my professor who was a bit jealous he didn’t know about it but let me leave class early to go because of course the art professor would be understanding for any learning opportunities in the arts. And it was truly wonderful, it seemed real and that’s what I wanted. I didn’t want a show. I just wanted to hear, in some sense, that you were like everybody else. I brought a notebook and pen for any information or story’s that I thought made a difference to my little life. The other people around were wonderful, you inspire kind people.

Like I said, I had never been to anything like this and I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know you would have signed books and I only found out because the people next to me came in late. I asked them why they brought the books after it was over and the lights turned on. They did look at me like I had three heads for a moment until they realized I didn’t know there were books to buy, they looked kinda sorry for me but they were so nice. I had never really thought about the importance of someone’s scribble before this but it’s something that proves you were there. It says “Remember when this person made you happy? Remember when they changed your life? Remember when they gave you hope? Look at this and remember.” I hope to see David Tennant and Michael Sheen to get an autograph now that I understand the meaning behind it a bit more but honestly I just love diving into everyone’s projects, the wonder you all create. Oh what fun it is to live a life full of stories!

The people that were sitting next to me let me look at their signed books and hold them. I flipped through some of the big ones, handed them back and expressed my gratitude just to be in the theater. I showed them all my little quotes I wrote down, I never want to forget why I create things and you say so much about never stopping, always creating. Then the women handed me a different book, a smaller book, but when I tried to hand it back, a bit confused, she softly placed it back in my open hands and said “I want you to have it, we have plenty and I want you to love these stories just as much as we do. It’s just starting for you, I want you to remember who started it”. The book she handed me being“The Ocean at the End of the Lane”. The first book I decided to read by you and had just finished a week before. The women had no idea she given me a signed copy of the book that made me want to read again. Your books make the world better. For such a big theater and such a big stage, I just wanted to tell you my little point of view.

The story you told about wishing you enjoyed the past more than you did, I hope you get to enjoy it now, and I hope you want to. And thank you, to you and to Terry Pratchett for creating something special. I convinced my dad to watch Good Omens with me over December break, he loved it.

I forget sometimes that everything is someone's first time, and then I read something like this and feel like I need to remember that better. I'm glad the people beside you were kind.

[daechwitatamic]

cherrybomb || csc

(banner by @sailorrhansol)

cherrybomb seungcheol x afab reader || angst smut fluff || exes2lovers, pacific rim universe NSFW - minors DNI

Summary: Piloting a jaeger requires a rare ability called drifting - a neural connection with your co-pilot. You and Seungcheol are masters of the drift... until you have something in your head that you don't want him to see.

wc: 19.5k

warnings: language, heavy angst with happy ending, fight scenes, fight scenes written by an author with zero fighting or martial arts knowledge lmfao thus they are vague as possible, feelings heavy plot light and smut light, kissing and pretty generic (and brief) p in v smut

Author's note: thank you for @sailorrhansol for 1) accidentally sparking this idea, 2) agreeing to collab with me, 3) reading this along the way and hyping me up, and 4) beta-ing my mistakes, a million smooches for you ily

This fic takes place in the Pacific Rim universe but I honestly don't think you need to know the lore, everything you need to know should be explained. If you think something is unclear without prior pacific rim knowledge, shoot me a message privately and I'll make some edits and credit you for the insight!

Also in this universe: storm breaker by @/sailorhansol

Teaser:

“Marshall, with all due respect, I don’t know why you’re calling me,” you admit. “You were there. You saw what happened. Seungcheol and I can’t drift anymore.”

“You couldn’t then,” he points out. “That was three years ago. Things that were once too painful to carry into the drift… they’ve had time to mellow.”

He’s wrong, and you want to tell him so. Nothing has mellowed. You love Seungcheol just as much today as you did then.

“Have you talked to him about this?” You’re afraid of the answer. 

The Marshall’s voice hardens, and you can just picture his eyes narrowing. “Mr. Choi will follow orders,” he says evenly, “and so will you. Asking is really just a courtesy.”

“You can’t order us into being able to drift again,” you snap, pulse suddenly pounding in your arms, your hands, your face, your chest. 

“No,” the Marshall says, and any previous friendliness is gone from his voice now, “but I can - and will - order you to try.”

Playlist: you're the smoke in my gun, blowin' like cherry bombs...

The first time you ever saw Choi Seungcheol, he was flipping a man four years his senior over his shoulder and slamming him into the ground. Satisfied, he staggered backwards, chest heaving from exertion, eyes narrowed in preparation for the next move.

That’s what Seungcheol did - he leveled whatever was in front of him, and he started watching for what was coming next before the body could even hit the ground.

That’s what made him a great jaeger pilot. Not the brute strength - strong men are dime a dozen, always have been - but the watching.

You’d marked him as your first choice.

You were both nineteen. You’d grown up in the Shatterdome, the only child to a couple who piloted a neon green jaeger named Charron’s Revenge. You knew everything about how jaegers and their teams worked by the time you were nine. You started training to fight years before that. There was never a question that you would follow in your parents’ giant, mechanical footsteps one day. You just needed the right partner.

You needed Seungcheol.

The jaeger program didn’t turn away recruits - everyone could do something - but there was an organized process to match up compatible pilots. Applying recruits would fight before an audience of previously-accepted but currently-unmatched potential pilots. The pilots would rank the fighters, choosing their top five based on perceived potential for compatibility.

Then, the roles would switch. The applicants became the audience. The audience became the show.

When it was your turn to fight, you silently pleaded with the universe that Seungcheol would mark you high as well. This was the only guarantee that you’d get a chance to spar with him, to test it out before the Marshall, who would make the final call.

Let him see, you begged. Let him see how perfectly we’d work together.

And, by some miracle, he did. In fact, he rated you first, as well.

Your sparring match went exactly how you expected - he barreled at you, and you dodged every move. He could easily take you out with a single blow, but he couldn’t get his hands on you, not when you used his own inertia against him at every turn. What you didn’t expect was your own inability to land a shot. For the whole fight, you were unable to move out of the defensive - keeping out of his reach took all of your effort.

It was a draw - the first sign of strong compatibility.

You didn’t talk after the match - your father whisked you away to recover before your second-rated match, and you didn’t see Seungcheol for the rest of the day.

The second-rated match was a dud. But you already knew, even then, that it didn’t matter.

You’d met your co-pilot. You’d found your partner.

—

He found you in the mess hall that night, dropping into an empty spot on the other side of the table, his tray in his hands. His black hair was loose and wavy, and his right arm sported a sizeable bruise that he definitely didn’t get from you.

“I know who you are,” he said by way of greeting. You raised a brow at him, waiting. “Your parents piloted Charron’s Revenge.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “That better not be why you picked me.”

He gave his head an annoyed little flick. “Of course not. I picked you because you’re fluid - and I’m not.”

Appeased, you felt your hackles settle back down. “That’s true,” you allowed. “You’re not fluid. But you’re purposeful, and-”

You were interrupted when Yoon Jeonghan dropped into the seat to your left, chuckling under his breath as he fixed his long, dark hair into a spiky ponytail at the back of his head.

“Cherry, did you hear?” he asked you, ignoring the new-comer. “The crew for Fatal Rapids got called back in for misconduct.”

“Choi Seungcheol, Yoon Jeonghan,” you said, introducing the two young men. “Hannie does more than gossip, I promise. He’s one of the pilots for Devil’s Advocates. Their drop stats are insane.”

“In practice only,” Jeonghan demurred. “For now.”

“Cherry?” Seungcheol parroted, raising a dark brow. “That’s not what I wrote on my paper earlier.”

“Just a nickname,” you explained. When you were very small, you’d struggled with the name of your parents’ jaeger, calling it Cherry’s Revenge instead of Charron’s, and the crew - who doted on you like their own - started the habit of calling you Cherry. Somehow, it had spread, and stuck. “Only my parents use my real name. But you can call me whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“No,” he said, frowning as if deeply considering his options. “I like it.”

You folded your arms on the table, leaning in to peer at Seungcheol. “So, what’s your story? You’ve heard of me. I haven’t heard of you.”

He shrugged, glanced around, then decided he could talk freely. There’s something about being in a room that’s positively teeming with people and conversation - it gives you privacy without feeling too intimate. You’re not alone.

“Not much of a story, not like you,” he admitted. “I grew up thinking I’d take over my dad’s business. We lost my dad… then, we lost the business. I have no marketable skillset, and university was out of the question. But…” He trailed off, then met your gaze firmly. Something in his look demanded you forgo any pity or sympathy, demanded you take him seriously. “I’m strong. So I came here. I came to fight.”

You sidestepped the bruises he’d bared. “Not like me,” you repeated with a bit of a scoff. “I hate to disappoint you, but my parents are the pilots - the story is theirs. I don’t have one, not yet.”

Something playful glinted in his eyes, the first true sign of personality you’d seen. “So all the rumors about the Princess of the Shatterdome aren’t true?”

Your jaw dropped. You’d heard the nickname before - it was never meant nicely. You tried to ignore it as best you could - people could think what they wanted. When you had a crew, when you had a jaeger, you’d be able to prove them wrong. “What rumors?”

“You’re spoiled,” Jeonghan supplied, having decided he was part of the conversation after all. “Entitled.”

You spluttered as Jeonghan stood, giving you a cheerful pat on the shoulder. “And bitchy! That’s just what I’ve heard. Of course I know better. Anyway, I’ve got to go. Love ya!”

You stared incredulously after him as he disappeared, your face burning with embarrassment and your heart hammering with adrenaline. Fight, your systems told you.

If only you could.

Seungcheol bit back a smile, reaching out to pat your arm placatingly.

“I don’t…” you started to say, but your voice caught in your throat. You cleared it, tried again. “I don’t think I really deserve all that.”

He nodded, lips pushed into a semblance of a thoughtful pout. “What I’d heard,” he said calmly, “is that you’re a hell of a fighter, scary smart, and that you take no shit. Unless it’s from your friends, apparently.”

This made a bitter little laugh bubble from you. You still simmered with humiliation, feared that maybe he’d decide he didn’t want to co-pilot with you after all.

“I think it’s up to you which story gets told,” he said finally.

“Yeah,” you said, nodding. “That’s what I always said. So… let’s get started.”

—

You and Seungcheol lucked out - the team that had been recalled for misconduct were terminated from their posts in the weeks following the sparring trials, and their jaeger Fatal Rapids had been disassembled, the parts up for grabs.

You and Seungcheol repurposed Rapids’s main frame, your crew working to individualize the bot to your needs as best they could. You splurged on quad-processors for her legs to allow your jaeger to keep up with how you move - quick and lithe. Seungcheol lobbied for (and won) some extra power in the top half, and you compromised and chose a mix of red and blue sections for her paintjob.

Duellona Fury, you named her. Duellona for you, the destroyer. Fury for Seungcheol, because that was where his fight came from.

You got to know Seungcheol’s fury very well. Especially when you started trying to drift.

None of it happened fast - not the building of your machine, nor your neural handshake. In fact, you didn’t pilot Duellona Fury together for a whole calendar year.

You started with physical compatibility - you sparred almost all day, every day. You fought - with each other and against each other - until all you could do was lay on the ground and pant, blinking to make the ceiling stay in focus.

Seungcheol may not have grown up training in the Shatterdome the way you did, but he kept up without complaint. You learned his way - force and strength - and he learned the way you favored - to weave and dodge.

The fighting was the easy part.

You had never drifted with someone you had true drift compatibility with. Seungcheol had never drifted at all. The Marshall wouldn’t even consider hooking the two of you up to the machine until you went through the proper training.

On the day you and Seungcheol were officially declared as co-pilots-in-training, you both stood below the half-built shell of your towering jaeger, sparks flying and drills screaming as the crew worked on her.

Your Marshall looked seriously at his new team-in-training. “Starting tomorrow, you’ll meditate together. Talk to each other. Get deep about it. If you’ve talked about it out here-” he swept an arm across the deck, “-it won’t take hold so strongly in there.” He’d jabbed a finger in the upward direction of Duellona Fury.

Seungcheol didn’t look at you, nor the Marshall. Instead, he kept his eyes on Duellona's unfinished frame, stories above you. “Yes, Sir,” he said steadily.

Your parents weren’t technically retired yet, the year you and Seungcheol started training together. Charron’s Revenge still sat in the well below the Shatterdome. They still lived on the base, still took part in daily training. They hadn’t been called into a fight in years, though; the assignments went to the younger crews.

You took dinner in their quarters instead of the mess hall, that night.

“Congratulations,” your father said warmly from across the table. “You worked hard to get here.”

“Thank you,” you said, feeling shy beneath the praise. “I hope the drift will work for me and Choi Seungcheol.”

“What do you think of him?” your mother had asked, her sharp eyes honing in on you, watching your reactions.

“I think he’s a great fighter,” you said. “The rest… I guess I’ll have to learn.”

“Do you trust him? Can you trust him out there, when the sea and the wind are trying to knock you down, and hell itself rises up from the depths?”

You swallowed. She’s right for her intensity - they will be putting their daughter’s life in her co-pilot’s hands, every time there’s a fight. You knew firsthand how terrifying it was to stand in the tech bay and wait, not knowing if your loved ones will make it back.

You thought about how you and Seungcheol fight together in the sparring rooms. You thought about how you weaved and your opponent followed your movement, only to be knocked sideways. You thought of how Seungcheol followed your motion backwards, ducked in tandem with you to avoid a hit, and how you followed his momentum forward and up to attack. Your bodies followed each other like they were magnetized. And Seungcheol was always watching for the next hit.

“Yes,” you said, so quietly that you cleared your throat and said it again. “Yes, I trust him.”

“Then we wish you luck,” your father said, and raised his glass. “To Duellona Fury.”

“To Duellona Fury,” you echoed.

On your way out of the quarters, later, you slowed as you passed the wall where they hung their accolades and awards, the newspaper clippings, photos, and medals. Before your eyes they aged - the photographs changing through the years, no longer showing a bright, fiery couple, instead displaying proof of passing time: a baby bump, then a toddler, then a child beaming alongside them as if she’d done what they had done; greying hairs, softening bodies, deepening of wrinkles. Then the pictures stopped.

You never asked them if they missed it.

—

You and Seungcheol started meditating together the next morning; it seemed logical to begin at the easiest step. In an empty sparring room, you sat facing each other, knees touching.

“Have you done this before?” you asked, as you both settled in, shifting weight and adjusting ankles.

“Not with someone else,” he admitted, lips protruding in a bit of a pout. “Only alone.”

You nodded. You’d grown up learning all of this - the right way to fight as a team member, how to be in tune for a neural connection. It led to you teaching Seungcheol often - yet when you fought together, any leadership fell away.

“Normally,” you explained, “you focus on your breath, keeping your mind clear. But for our practice, you want to focus on our breath. We breathe together. And when your mind wanders, your awareness should be coming to peace with my presence there. Like, making a path for the neural connection - for later. So there’s no resistance.”

“Have you done this before?” Seungcheol asked.

You wobbled your head around - not yes, but not no. “I’ve practiced it - I’ve done the meditation with partners. But I’ve never moved forward to an actual drift with anyone.”

This seemed to appease him, and he settled his weight backwards, letting his hands rest near his knees.

You let your eyes float closed and inhaled, listening and feeling for Seungcheol’s inhale to end, letting your breath out when he did. It took no time to match your breaths, to let your mind go blissfully quiet. You focused on feeling open, readable - any thought that floated through your mind, you pretended he could hear, too. You tried to feel and release any defensiveness, any urge to close off.

When the timer went off, it surprised you. You opened your eyes, and the feeling that struck you was this -

It was surprising to see Seungcheol before you. It hadn’t felt like he was beside you. It had felt like he was you.

You meditated, you fought, and finally, you talked.

Laying on the sparring room floor, your head somewhere near Seungcheol’s shins, he asked you, “Where do you wish you were right now? If you weren’t here.”

You laughed at yourself before answering, knowing how silly you would sound. “In a tree.”

A disbelieving smile played on his lips, almost as if he wasn’t sure you weren’t making fun of him somehow. “A tree?”

“No, really,” you insisted, still smiling a little. “There’s not a lot of nature here, in case you didn’t notice. I grew up in the Dome - never got to leave, much.”

Seungcheol didn’t respond to this, just nodded like he understood, his small smile going a bit tight around the edges.

You frowned, reading him exactly. “You think I’m sheltered,” you observed. It wasn’t a question. He couldn’t say no.

He looked at you, then. “You were sheltered,” he said, voice low. “But when I say it, I don’t mean naive. I just think… there’s a lot of world out there. A lot of things to see. You won’t see any of it if you spend your entire life under the Dome.”

You nod, accepting this. “I won’t see any of it if it gets destroyed, either. There’s a lot of world out there - that we’re trying to keep safe.”

Seungcheol watched you intently for a moment, lips downturned and gaze heavy. Then, he asked, “Have you ever seen a kaiju? I mean - in person?”

“Sort of,” you mumbled.

He’d rolled from his back to his front, closer to you, putting you shoulder to shoulder. “Kind of seems like a yes-or-no question.”

Your lips twisted. “Then, no. But I’ve stood in the bay and listened to Mission Control talk my mom and dad through a fight dozens of times, watched Charron’s Revenge on the screens and prayed I wouldn’t see her get sawed in half.”

You stopped, trailed a finger through the thin layer of dirt on the floor. “I know it’s not the same as looking one in the face myself,” you whispered. “But the fear… shouldn’t that fear count, shouldn’t it feel the same?”

Seungcheol swallowed, trailed his own finger through the dirt until his fingertip just barely touched yours. It felt like energy sizzled in the centimeter between your pointer and his.

“When Menaceclaw attacked,” he said, “he missed my home by one block. We watched him go by from the sidewalk. I wasn’t even as tall as his foot. But even with him towering over the buildings, taking them down without even trying, I don’t think what I felt was afraid. I think I just felt resigned. Like I knew, at seven, that even though we survived this one… nothing was going to be… the same, or okay. I don’t know.”

“You knew what you lost,” you said quietly. “Part of you did.”

He looked up at you, nudged his finger into yours. “You never knew anything different. It wasn’t a loss. The fear was just always part of the deal.”

You rolled sideways, laying your head on your bicep for a pillow, regarding the dark-eyed, dark-haired young man across from you. His face scrunched in a laugh, brows furrowing and lips pouting.

“What?” he asked through the quiet laugh. “Why are you looking at me?”

“What else?” you mused. “What else am I going to find when we go tiptoeing through your memories?”

He smiled faintly and then mirrored you, laying his head on his arm, his eyes swimming as he thought.

“A lot of my family, probably,” he said. “A lot of fighting. Menaceclaw. Probably some very mid sex.”

You laughed without meaning to. “My condolences?”

He grinned at you, pleased. “Eh, what can you do? I try to treat everything like a learning experience.”

You laughed again, and his smile grew, gums showing. “What about you?” he asked off-handedly.

“Mid sex?” you asked, eyebrows raising. “I hate to inform you, Choi Seungcheol, but I don’t do anything mid.”

“No,” he protested, laughing, reaching out to gently shake your shoulder. “I meant - what will we see when it’s your turn?”

“The Dome,” you said, half-joking - but it was true. “Training. My parents. Their fights, their accomplishments.”

And, as a true drift partner should, he understood what you weren’t saying.

“We’ll have our turn,” he promised, pushing himself to sit up, then stand, reaching down to help you up. “We’re gonna be fucking unstoppable. Let’s go again.”

Fire sparking behind your ribs, you nodded seriously, then reached up to take his hand.

—

Weeks of sparring melded into months of meditation and talking. The next phase of training co-pilots was learning to drift in one of the simulators - but not in a jaeger. Not yet.

You and Seungcheol finished training in one of the sparring rooms shortly before dinner would be served in the mess hall.

“Meet you there?” you asked, still half-breathless, your body starting to ache as the adrenaline from a fight melted away.

“Sure,” he agreed, and you disappeared into the changing rooms, scrubbing the sweat and dirt away as quickly as you could. You changed into something clean and made your way to the mess hall.

You scanned for familiar faces, frowning when your normal table seemed to be occupied by a team of new recruits that you didn’t know.

Seungcheol appeared at your elbow, frowning dramatically. “Our table,” he whined.

“There’s Chan and Wylie,” you said, nodding to another corner where your friends sat practically on top of each other. Chan and Wylie had never understood personal space, not when it came to one another. They barely noticed when you and Seungcheol plopped onto the benches next to them, but Seungkwan did.

“You’re bleeding, Cherry,” he said, before inhaling an entire mouthful of rice.

You started to scan your arms - you didn’t feel pain anywhere - but Seungcheol found it first, gingerly swiping his thumb along your cheekbone.

“Sorry, Cherry,” he murmured. “I should’ve pulled that punch.”

“No you shouldn’t have,” you grumbled, swatting at his hand and wiping roughly at the spot, your hand coming away with a small smear of red - nothing to be alarmed about. It would stop on its own. “You pull shots in practice, you’ll hesitate in the field.”

“She’s right,” Chan said from his physical tangle with Wylie. “What you practice will show up in your muscle memory. You’ve got to mean it, every time.”

Wylie reached across his arms and took a bite from his plate, then asked, “Did you guys see the new jaeger?”

“I did,” Seungkwan said eagerly. “Chaser Supernova, or something like that? She’s smaller, but she’s supposed to be fast.”

“Is that her team at our normal table?” you asked dryly, shooting the rookies a dark look over your shoulder. Seungcheol jostled you playfully, sending you a smile that brought you back.

The bench dipped to your left, and you turned to see Soonyoung - one of Seungkwan’s two co-pilots - settle in.

“Talking about Supernova?” he asked, hands busy opening his drink. “They seem okay - they’re a trio, like us.”

“Where is Seokmin?” Seungkwan asked, scanning the room. “I haven’t seen him in like two hours.”

“Talking to Jihoon, I think,” Soonyoung answered absently, focused on his meal. “He lost another co-pilot today.”

“Not again,” you and Seungcheol both blurted, matching levels of exasperation.

“That was freaky,” Wylie said, just as Chan told you, “You two are acting like us, now.”

“We do not need another Chan-and-Wylie,” Seungkwan said seriously, shaking his head.

Seungcheol sent you a sideways, sheepish grin.

“We won’t be,” he promised the group, but his eyes were still on you.

—

The simulators were built to be exact replicas of the conn-pod, so that trainees could get used to the feeling of being strapped in, of moving with the gear. But the real purpose was to practice the neural handshake without risking damage - to the jaeger, to the tech bay, to each other.

“Don’t be nervous,” you told Seungcheol as the tech team worked around you both like a choreographed dance.

“I’m never nervous,” he said, suddenly cocky.

If you could reach his hand from where you were strapped in, you would have. If you understood anything about Seungcheol - if any part of him mirrored you - it was the way he showcased bravado, the way he used it as his most-familiar mask.

“It’s only practice,” you reminded him. “And it’s only me.”

He licked his lips quickly, eyes darting to the side and then back to you. Then, he gave you a small nod.

“Normally,” your chief tech - a beautiful woman with jet-black hair named Nainsi - told you, “right now, you would be ready for the drop. In the simulator, we skip that step because we aren’t dropping onto a jaeger. Instead, we’ll engage the pilot to pilot connection protocol sequence.”

You and Seungcheol nod in tandem.

“You’re all good?” Nainsi checks. “Then I’m going back into the tech bay - you’ll hear me through the intercom.”

Alone in the simulator, you met Seungcheol’s gaze and couldn’t help the excited grin that spread across your face. Finally, finally you were here. Once you could do this successfully, the next step was to fight in your own jaeger - to drop into Duellona Fury and walk into the sea.

He didn’t return your smile, instead giving you a tight nod, expression serious.

Over the intercom, you said clearly, “Ready and aligned.”

Nainsi answered, “Prepare for neural handshake.”

You took a deep breath and steeled yourself as the artificial voice of the simulator’s tech system spoke around you, 3… 2… 1… neural handshake initiating…

At first, you thought something went wrong. Everything went red behind your eyelids, and you blinked, instinctively trying to clear it away.

The red faded, and you found yourself in Seungcheol’s childhood home. You didn’t know how you knew that - you just knew. It was as familiar to you, inside the drift, as your own. You knew that to your left was a small kitchen with two broken floor tiles; you knew - without having ever seen it - that to your right was a narrow hallway that led to a bathroom and two small bedrooms.

Two small boys played on the carpet; rather, the smaller one played with some toy cars while the other watched the television with rapture. Behind them, at the kitchen table, a woman typed busily on an outdated laptop, bags heavy under her eyes.

Somewhere around you, a voice floated by, telling you, neural handshake strong and holding.

You could see Seungcheol in your periphery - the adult Seungcheol, the Seungcheol of now - as he looked at his mother, his brother, himself.

“It’s not real,” you reminded him gently. “It’s just a memory.”

“I know,” he said back, voice hushed, as if he might scare them away. “It’s just… good to see them.”

The house evaporated as gently as morning dew under a mid-morning sun; you stood in a schoolyard. Seungcheol, the small one, had a bloody lip and a mean swing.

You felt a rush of affection for him - him, the child, face contorting with misplaced anger, using strength as a bandage. You wanted to stand in front of him, between him and the anger, him and the other kids, and let him take a breath. You wanted to tell him to step with his punch to get more power. You wanted to put a hand on his shoulder and tell him, you’re going to be fine.

And he knew all of it, because he was in your mind.

Seungcheol - your Seungcheol - walked away from the swarm of children egging on the fight and opened a door. You followed.

Inside was not the school, but a hospital room. Your body jolted forward, distracting and alarming. You heard, faintly, a series of beeps, that robotic voice needling in your ears, saying, calibration failure… recalibrating in 3… 2… 1…

“It’s only a memory,” you said again, but the warning beeps were coming stronger, louder, more clearly. The hospital room looked opaque, and Seungcheol walked backwards towards you, away from it, herding you both out of the room. The room - a bed, a pulled curtain, a lot of white - flickered, like a glitch, and then vanished, leaving you standing in the simulator.

Neural handshake disengaged…

“Seungcheol!” you yelled, pulling your helmet off and wheeling on him as best you could with most of your body still strapped in. “What the hell was that? You pushed me out!”

He was breathing hard, eyes a little wild. “Not that,” he said, a little ragged. “I’ll let you in but - not that.”

“You don’t get to choose!” you snapped. Part of you knew this was just growing pains, he’d never drifted before, he was learning. But the rest of you smarted and stung - both from his rejection and from your failure to train, to succeed, to check off this final step before you could get inside your jaeger. “It’s kind of an all-or-nothing thing!”

He let out a billow of air, reaching a hand up to rub at his face. “Sorry. I’ll… let’s try again.”

You didn’t answer, fuming silently instead.

“I’m sorry, Cherry,” he said. “The stuff with my dad…”

“You can’t cherry-pick what we see and what we don’t,” you fired back. His eyes shot to yours and his mouth quirked and you read the joke all over his face. “Don’t you laugh, Seungcheol, it’s not funny!”

But you were laughing through the scolding.

“Stop,” you whined.

Your anger defused, he looked at you again, taking a bracing breath. “It’s not about you,” he tried to explain. “I’m not keeping you out. I’m keeping me out.”

“Don’t chase the rabbit,” you told him, shaking your head. “See what it wants you to see and move on. Find the next door. If you stand there and let your hurt - or your, I don’t know… grief - rise up… that’s when we’re going to have trouble.”

“Find the next door,” he repeated, eyes on the floor. “Got it.”

“You can’t push it away,” you reminded him, “but you don’t have to stay in it, either.”

He nodded, eyes already lighting up, ready to go again.

The second time, you saw him steel himself before opening that same door, watching carefully as he shuffled inside, only looking sideways at the hospital room that materialized around you.

“Seungcheol.”

He turned to look at you, wide-eyed, but you hadn’t called him. The voice, weak and hoarse, had come from the other side of the fluttering curtain.

The glitching started almost immediately - the image around you flickering like a bad wall projection. Something rocked beneath your feet, an earthquake only inside your minds.

You opened your mouth, started to tell him, you don’t have to stay, to remind him that he could move forward. Instead, you heard yourself say, “I’m here.”

The tremors under your feet quivered to a stop. You watched with trepidation and Seungcheol closed his eyes and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. Then, he held his hand out, waiting.

You slipped your hand into his, and then he turned and continued walking, ignoring his father’s memory calling out to him. The flickering stopped, the picture you were part of brightening again as you found the next door, stepped through, left his pain behind.

—

It got easier quickly. Seungcheol’s ability to press on, to maintain focus, strengthened.

The strolls through your mind went easier - you’d had years to practice maintaining focus, waiting until after to let the emotions hit you.

Seungcheol learned to be ready for you, after. He’d sit with you, silent, and breathe in tandem as you worked to let go, to release the images of Charron’s Revenge on the tech bay screen, the sounds of your parents’ frantic communication as they fought together, the fear crawling its way up your legs every time until someone in the bay said, “Charron’s Revenge, cleared to return.” The loneliness of being the only kid in the Dome, having no outlet except fighting. Everything that threatened your mind while you piloted, everything that you had to save for later - save for him.

You were both freshly turned twenty when you got green-lit to drive.

“Seungcheol!” you called across the mess hall, practically racing to your table. He turned, eyebrows raised, as you crossed the large room.

“We’re approved to drop!” you told him excitedly. It churned in you - finally, finally you could fight, you could prove what you could do, you could help. “We’re on the drop schedule for tomorrow!”

His grin was unfettered, unfiltered, just for you. He reached up a fist and you bumped it enthusiastically. You were too excited to eat, too excited to sleep. You tossed and turned, imagining experiencing a drop for the first time, imagining striding through the mighty sea like it was nothing, imagining staring down hell itself and bringing it to its knees.

You were still awake when you heard the alarms down the hall. Yours didn’t go off, because you weren’t on duty, weren’t approved to fight.

Down the hall, there was a flurry of commotion - shouting, rushing, people pushing past you as they pulled on boots and jackets.

“Cat-3 in the west bay,” someone shouted.

“Deploying Devil’s Advocate!”

You reached the tech bay, trying to stay out of the way but not unseen. When the Marshall strode by, you stepped sideways.

“Let us drop,” you said quickly, knowing time was precious. “It’ll be like practice. We can be back-up. We’ll hang back.”

“Absolutely not,” the Marshall said, already moving to work past you. “You’re not approved yet. We don’t need a liability right now.”

“We’re scheduled for tomorrow!” you protested, and then you felt a hand on your shoulder.

“We’ll get our turn,” Seungcheol told you quietly. Of course he’d come out, of course he found you.

You deflated. “It could have been us. We are hours from approval.”

He gave your shoulder a tiny shake. “We’ll get our turn,” he repeated. “Don’t make trouble.”

You glowered, but you knew he was right. “Fine,” you grumbled as Joshua and Jeonghan slinked past you in matching jackets and matching shit-eating grins. You stayed out of the way as they prepared to drop.

You stayed through the fight, listened to the control room buzz and chatter, until you heard, “Devil’s Advocate, cleared to return.”

Only then did you try to go back to sleep. Seungcheol gave your shoulder one more squeeze.

“Tomorrow,” he promised.

“Tomorrow,” you repeated.

—

Some people feel God at church. The history of tradition and the sanctity of ritual speak to them, help them feel part of something, help them feel that unnameable swell of something spiritual.

Some people feel God in nature. The patterns of the universe, the way math exists without human touch, the harmonies and patterns that seem too intricate for coincidence help them believe in a planner’s touch. The beauty of the outdoors allows them to wonder, to feel like they belong as a piece of this clockwork.

But you - you felt God when you stood before your jaeger, marveling at the power, the beauty, how it feels like yours, how it feels like Seungcheol before you’re even inside it. Duellona Fury promises you power, promises you purpose.

That hand was on your shoulder again, and it slid down to the center of your back before removing itself.

Beside you, Seungcheol stared up at your glorious machine.

“She looks sick,” he said, the grin taking over his face.

“I can’t wait to fuck shit up,” you murmured, your reverent tone at odds with the flippancy of your words.

“Ready?” the Marshall asked you, coming up to your left. “We’ll get you calibrated and dropped, and then you’ll do a lap of the bay. We’re sending out Pretty Savage just in case you run into trouble.”

The defensiveness rose in you quick, like a snakebite.

“We don’t need a babysitter,” Seungcheol said, voice hard. You reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze - a reminder to watch it, just as his hand on your shoulder frequently did for you.

“It’s just safety protocol.” The Marshall was unphased by the outburst. “Have fun, you two. Enjoy your first joy-ride.”

You screamed when you dropped, the exhilaration rushing out of you as Duellona Fury fell story after story before slowing and attaching to your jaeger’s mainframe.

Goosebumps raised along your arms when the Shatterdome’s sea-doors slid open, shudders traveling your body as you and Seungcheol stepped together, Duellona Fury stepping with you, her gigantic, metal form following every movement.

For the first time in your whole, careful life, you felt powerful. Your jaeger cut through the ocean waves like they were nothing, making an easy perimeter of the bay. In your head, you could somehow both hear and feel Seungcheol’s delight, his low-simmering desire to fight, to do something a perfect mirror of your own.

“How is it?” Soonyoung’s voice crackled in your ears, reminding you that Pretty Savage wasn’t far behind you.

“Incredible,” Seungcheol answered him, at the same time that you said, “It’s everything.”

It didn’t matter that you came from a family of pilots. It didn’t matter that you were raised in the Dome, training since you were young. None of that mattered. You were born for this - born to fight for your planet, born for Duellona Fury, born for Choi Seungcheol.

—

The west bay became Duellona’s playground; you and Seungcheol were often assigned to patrol there.

It was only a few months in that you faced a kaiju for the first time.

“Come in, Duellona Fury,” Nainsi’s voice came through. “We have a reading just a few miles north of you. Cat-2. Approaching at -”

Duellona Fury was turning due north before the command was even given.

“Are you ready for this?” you shouted to Seungcheol as Duellona slid through the water, the adrenaline singing in your system already.

“You know I am,” he answered, something hard in it, and the thrill in your stomach sparked.

When the sea split in half, the kaiju rising from the depths with an unearthly roar, you sank into a defensive stance, feeling Seungcheol move beside you, doing the same.

“Let’s fucking go,” Seungcheol said darkly, and launched forward, your arms rearing back for momentum before the first swing. The punch landed solidly, your whole body shaking once as the kaiju faltered backwards a few steps.

It opened its mouth and you glimpsed three rows of teeth bigger than a cow before it was lunging at you; Duellona Fury lurched. You tried to duck sideways as Seungcheol tried to move towards your opponent.

The moment of indecision cost you - the kaiju got its teeth on Duellona’s shoulder, knocking you back several steps. Beside you, Seungcheol roared as sparks flew near the bite.

“Are we breached?” you yelled, trying to steady your balance again.

“Not yet!” he yelled back, and you swung again, a hit landing hard enough to knock the kaiju loose, spitting it back into the sea.

You tried to move into a defensive crouch again; again, the jaeger faltered.

“Cherry!” Seungcheol yelled, desperation laced in his voice. “Cherry, don’t fight me!”

“Move with me!” you answered, and he did, miraculously, Duellona dodging left before an incoming attack.

Don’t fight me.

You rocked forward with Seungcheol as soon as you were clear of the kaiju’s trajectory, just as you’d done in practice thousands of times. Back in sync, Duellona Fury landed a kick to the kaiju’s middle that sent it stumbling.

“We’ve got him,” you said, feeling a win.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Seungcheol warned you. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the kaiju exploded from the dark ocean, limbs flailing as it flew towards you.

Duellona’s arms came up and locked it in battle, the impact shaking you so hard that your teeth chattered against each other. You groaned with exertion as you tried to match its strength.

“I don’t think we can hold it,” you managed through grit teeth.

“We’ve got this,” your partner promised, and with a mighty shove, you managed to flip the beast over your shoulder and beneath the waves.

“Drop the bombs and head for the east side,” you said quickly, already moving. Duellona Fury followed your command, turning and starting an easy run through the bay’s churning waters, away from where the kaiju was struggling to its feet, furious and vengeful. As she ran, she dropped three small explosives, about sixty feet apart. The explosives slipped into the ocean depths.

“Ready?” Seungcheol asked, a little breathless. “Are we far enough away?”

“Light him up,” you replied. Seungcheol reached up and tapped the button; somewhere behind you, the ocean exploded.

—

“How’s your shoulder?” you asked, later, in the med bay.

“Not that bad,” Seungcheol said, but you could see the blood-stains on the bandaging.

“It won’t happen again,” you promised. “I think I just… practiced alone for so long. I forgot to listen. I’m sorry.”

Seungcheol shook his hand, eyes finding yours. “There’s nothing to forgive, Cherry. Forget about it.” Then, he brightened. “You know what I want to do?”

“What?” you asked, not entirely past feeling guilty.

His smile was devilish. “I want to go celebrate our first fucking kill.”

– 

You marked the passing of two years in statistics.

Three hundred and forty-six explosives detonated.

Two hundred and eighty-three drops. Two hundred and eight-three kills. 

Seventy-two mainframe repairs.

Twenty-eight achievement awards.

Nine television interviews.

Six upgrades.

One ill-informed “vacation” during which you both itched with anxiety, spending the whole time messaging your friends back in the Shatterdome desperately, praying you wouldn’t miss a fight in which you were needed.

Seven hundred and thirty days of living in and around Seungcheol’s mind and heart. But that stat should’ve gone first.

It was a good high. Your team had a good run.

It wasn’t a kaiju that reduced it to ash, not an attack that took your team out of the rotation of main fighters and sent your jaeger to gather rust and dust below the Dome. It was your own stupid heart.

There were a lot of moments that could have been it. Each time you walked into a fight knowing the danger, each time he ended up in the med bay reeking of antibacterial ointment and resentment. Each time you slid into your place beside him - space he saved only for you. Each time his voice bidding you goodnight from the bottom bunk was the last thing you heard at the end of the day. Any of these moments might have been the one to make you stop, gasp, suddenly slammed with understanding. That you loved him, that he was everything you couldn’t bear to be without, that he was part of you. But they weren’t.

There was no moment of realization at all.

Instead, it slowly seeped into your consciousness, as gently and naturally as morning dew collecting on pre-dawn petals. The knowledge clung to you, as impossible to ignore as damp feet after running barefoot through the yard just after sunrise.

If you knew something, that meant your co-pilot would know it, too.

Unless you tucked it away, pushed it down deep and cast his attention elsewhere, a mental sleight-of-hand. Look here instead. 

You were twenty-three, on a routine patrol, when Mission Control radioed Duellona that there was a reading in the bay.

“Looks like it’s only a Cat-1,” Mission Control told you.

“On it,” you told them, feeling your body already mirroring Seungcheol’s as Duellona picked up her pace, striding through the waves. 

You glanced sideways at him, and immediately wished you hadn’t. He was already zoned in, eyes focused and jaw sharp as he concentrated. 

He caught your gaze for only a second. “Focus, Cherry,” he cautioned. “Don’t get cocky.”

“I would never,” you retorted, and he laughed. You were both cocky; you both knew it.

For a second, things felt better. 

The fight was almost easy, when the ocean seemed to split in two and the waves fell away like wrapping paper to reveal the kaiju you’d been sent for. 

You swung and ducked, dropping explosives strategically, Seungcheol moving in unison with you. There was something graceful about it - something beautiful in the sync, something holy in the way your muscles mimicked each other’s. 

This is what happens when sunlight hits morning dew: it warms, lifts, makes the air humid and sticky until it burns away. 

It rose up in you, your love for him, infusing the air around you, infusing the neural handshake that he was deeply imbedded in.

No. 

You panicked, tried to do several things at once - tried to shove the feeling down, tried to think of something else, tried to push Seungcheol’s consciousness out of yours.

Duellona Fury lurched around you, shuddering. 

“Cherry!” Seungcheol screamed to your left, and then the kaiju hit, its full weight slamming into Duellona’s mainframe.

You both staggered, trying to right yourselves, as the machines around you blinked and beeped and rebooted. 

Seungcheol grunted under the neural weight of driving alone as you gasped and closed your eyes, trying desperately to fix it. Around you, you heard the floating words - recalibrating.

“Recalibrate faster!” you shouted, glancing sideways to see your co-pilot struggling to hold the monster in place, his face contorting with effort, arms straining against the machinery. He bared his gritted teeth, exhaling in a hiss between them. 

You gave yourself a shake, bouncing on the balls of your feet, desperate for the connection to take again so you could pick up your half, take the literal weight from him. As soon as you felt the neural handshake, you gave a mighty shove and Duellona flipped the monster backwards, the ocean receding and then coming back to slam her shins, swallowing the monster whole.

You both sank into a defensive stance, ready for the beast to rise again.

“What was that?” Seungcheol demanded, later, as he sat in the med bay, waiting for his nosebleed to stop. The nosebleed you’d caused by letting him carry a neural load meant for two.

“I don’t know,” you lied, still panicked and desperate. 

“Bullshit,” Seungcheol countered, eyes narrowed. He reached up and pulled the cotton away from his face, examining it. “I’m fine now,” he announced, and tossed the wad into a nearby trash bin, standing.

You fought the urge to cower, knowing he’d never let it go if you did. You followed him silently out of the med bay and back towards your dormitories. Halfway there, he slowed, then stopped.

Then, more calmly this time, he asked, “What happened, Cherry? You pushed me out.”

There was a slight pout to it, a sliver of hurt, and it sliced through you like something tangible, like you were actually wounded from it, like it might actually bleed.

“I don’t know,” you repeated. Guilt poked at you until you relented, gave him something that was at least partly true.  “I got scared.” 

“That can’t happen, and you know it,” he said seriously, his large frame casting a long shadow to your left as he leaned into your space. “You can’t keep secrets - that’s piloting 101. We’ve got to handle it. You know what’s at stake here.”

You did; you did, and that was entirely the problem. It wasn’t just feelings, it wasn’t just your relationship with Seungcheol at stake. It was your relationship with your co-pilot - your ability to fight was at stake, your ability to keep others safe. Your legacy.

Your parents’ wall of pictures flashed in your mind.

“I’m going to my mom and dad’s for a while,” you said quietly. 

He nodded, let you run away - trusted you to come back to him when you were ready, trusted you to let him in.

You weren’t sure if he was right or wrong, as you walked away and left him behind.

You didn’t go to your parents’, though. Instead, you went to the tech bay and sat, watching Duellona undergo simple repairs from her fight. You stayed there, the metal cold beneath your thighs, watching the tech team buff over a scratch on your jaeger’s torso, until someone dropped into the spot next to you, bumping their shoulder roughly into yours.

“Where’s Seungcheol?” Wylie, who co-piloted Fury Striker with Chan, was your closest friend in the Dome besides Seungcheol. 

“He’s pissed at me,” you answered, looking sideways, because the question had really meant, why isn’t Seungcheol with you? 

You weren’t sure she’d understand what you were going through - she and Chan had been obsessed with each other since they were kids. Neither of them had ever had to fear that their love for each other would mess anything up. It had been part of their deal from the start.

“What’d you do?” Wylie demanded, turning her full, unfettered attention on you. You wanted to shrink from the intensity of it - but that was always how Wylie worked: full wattage, all the time.

“Almost got us killed by a fucking Cat-1 tonight,” you muttered, angry at yourself, angry at your heart.

Wylie smacked your arm hard enough to send you sideways. “Cherry!” she scolded. 

“There was something I didn’t want him to see.” You said it in your head first, weighed the words, then forced them through your teeth. You hoped she’d just know what it was, hoped you wouldn’t have to force those words past muscle and bone, too.

Wylie’s face dropped into irritation. “Cherry,” she repeated, disappointment dripping from the two syllables.

You looked up at Duellona Fury again. 

“You can’t do that,” she told you, giving your ankle a little kick for emphasis. “You know you can’t do that.”

You can’t love him? Or, you can’t keep secrets from him?

You didn’t ask. You didn’t want to know the answer.

Seungcheol was waiting up for you when you finally returned to the dorm. You opened the door to find the first room - an entryway and kitchen, both - dimly lit. Beyond it, in the small sitting space, Seungcheol sat facing the door, his chin in his hand.

You knew the look on his face. You knew it so well that you almost ran from it, almost turned right around and went back out to the hallway.

Brows slightly furrowed, mouth a straight line, jaw tight. Eyes focused, locked in. It was the face he made in training before he bodied someone. It was the face he made in the field before an offensive strike. It meant he had his sights on a target, a problem, and he was about to throw everything he had at it.

And right now, you were the problem.

“Hey?” you tried meekly.

He nodded. Licked his lips. Stood. 

He’s pissed at me, you’d told Wylie. The energy radiating from your co-pilot was much more complex than that, the air around you palpably tense and teetering.

“How was it at your parents’?” he asked, voice low. 

You took one tentative step closer. “I didn’t go,” you admitted. One lie between you was already more than you wanted. “I watched them patch up Duellona instead. Talked to Wylie a little.”

He nodded, eyes still on you. Nervousness coursed through you, but it would be a lie - another one - to say it wasn’t laced with a little excitement. He was stunning, always, but like this - it almost took your breath away.

If he was in your mind right now, there’d be no question. He’d know all of it. The attraction, the desire, the fear, the affection, the love, the need. All of it. 

His eyes caught on a bruise peeking out from the short sleeve of your top. “You should’ve had them look at that,” he said, reaching out like he wanted to run his fingers over the dark splotch, but he was just too far away, fingertips closing around the air just an inch or two away. 

You shook your head. “You needed attention first. You carried the neural load alone.” Because of me.

“Only for a minute.”

“A minute too long. I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

It hung between you. You don’t know if you’d inched forward or he had, or both, but you were close enough to touch now when you hadn’t been just seconds ago.

He lifted his eyes, his gaze locking on yours. In the dim room, his eyes shone black. “You pushed me out.”

It was an accusation, but it was also a question.

“I’m sorry,” you repeated, barely able to say it, your voice coming out in a hoarse whisper. “Seungcheol, I was scared.”

Maybe he was in your head. Maybe he did know all of it.

“Don’t be,” he told you. “Don’t be scared.”

His arms were around you though you didn’t see him move. It wasn’t the first time you’d let him embrace you - after a fight, in relief, or in victorious delight, or sometimes just in sleepy affection at the end of a long day. It was far from the first time that you’d found comfort in the space between his arms, strong and capable around your frame, your forehead pressed against his sternum as his heart beat directly into your bones. 

But it was the first time that his fingers, confident and sure, tipped under your chin, guiding you to look up at him, guiding your mouth to meet his.

You don’t know if you melted or exploded - it was somehow both at once. You gripped his back, feeling the muscles move beneath his t-shirt, relaxing into his hold and focusing on the feel of his full lips firm and hungry against your own. This was everything - everything you’d wanted, everything you were afraid of, everything you needed, everything that could rip your life apart.

You didn’t mean to whine, but it slipped up your throat and into the gasped space between your lips and his as you tried to pull in a desperate breath. He responded with a grunt, walking you backwards until the edge of the kitchen counter jutted into your lower back. His hands traveled, up to the back of your neck, back down to the slight curve of your waist, around to the back of your ass. He tugged your hips against his roughly, and you let your head fall back, panting, head spinning.

“Cherry,” he breathed against the newly bared stretch of your neck, his lips close enough to drag against your skin as he spoke.

Your hands found the back of his neck, gave the slightest tug upwards, and he followed, bringing his mouth back to yours. His tongue pressed yours briefly, your moan muffled entirely by his mouth as you tried to press him closer, closer, as if you wanted your rib-cages to meld, to slip together like fitting puzzle pieces. 

His hand slipped lower from your ass and wrapped around your thighs, taking only a second to lift you onto the counter behind you. You wrapped yourself around him immediately, pulling him into the space between your legs, arms around his neck, pulling him in, wanting to feel every bit of him against you. 

His hands found the hem of your shirt and lifted; you raised your arms in compliance and felt the cotton slip over your head and your hands.

“Yours,” you murmured, but he had already reached back between his shoulder blades, his own top joining yours on the floor.

Your hands found him on their own, sliding over his skin, fingers dipping between muscles, thumbs sweeping over shadows.

You kissed until you turned liquid, molten, your fingers wrapped in his hair. His fingers mapped every inch of your skin, as if his job was to report back on every previously unknown dip, every rough circle, every beauty mark or blemish. His fingers traced them all, his hands passing over you reverently.

The brush of his bare chest against your own was torturous; delicious until you were full, until you couldn’t take it anymore, until the electric-sharp thrill became uncomfortable. You tilted backwards, creating more space between your torsos but pushing your hips firmly into his.

You both groaned at the contact. You could feel the heat and weight of him now, and everything instinctual within you urged you to shift further, to bring that heat and heaviness closer to the part of you that ached for it. 

He pressed his hips into you without reservation, your core clenching in response to the movement and the friction. 

Then he leaned back, his hands gripping the edge of the counter, his arms bracketing you on either side, his chest heaving as he struggled to control his breathing. He drank you in, his eyes as molten as you felt. You leaned back on your elbows and met his gaze.

The moment expanded; nothing existed but his eyes and the pant of his breath and the way he smelled like he’d just finished a fight and the way he felt between your thighs, unmovable and steady.

Neither of you was connected to jaeger machinery, but you may as well have been, because you knew without a shadow of a doubt that your minds were connected, the drift be damned. Your eyes locked, you knew he felt everything you felt - the gravity of what you were doing, the love that drove you, the fire coursing through you. If there was going to be hesitation or questioning, this was the moment, this was the pause. But you were one, your minds were one, and there was none of that. 

His unvoiced question definitively answered by the certainty that flowed between you, Seungcheol moved to lift you again, taking you easily from the countertop into the dark of the room you share, settling you on your back on his bottom bunk.

Above you, mostly shadowed, was your other half, the only person who knew and understood every cobwebbed corner of your consciousness, the only person who had walked through your mind and found himself mirrored in every way that mattered. He was beautiful in the fractured light, his expression serious and gaze intense. 

You reached up to slide your thumb along his jaw and his eyes fluttered closed, his breath leaving him as in relief, as if you’d made some kind of admission. 

Making love to Seungcheol felt like drifting. His eyes on you as his fingers pulled you apart felt the same as the careful way he’d watch you when your memories got emotional, like he was watching for any sign that you weren’t okay, that you needed more or less or him. 

The way his breath and shoulders shuddered when he pressed into you for the first time felt the same as when he faltered in face of his father’s memory; both times, his fingers laced through yours and held tight until you could both breathe again.

He felt how you’d always known he would. Perfect - a perfect fit for you, a physical compatibility you had never tested but had always trusted would be there. He took you apart without even trying, and all you could do was hold onto him, feel all of him, feel all of it, and try to remember to breathe.

You didn’t speak as you moved together in the dark; the only sounds in the tight room were muted gasps, tiny moans muffled against necks, skin on skin, the obscene squelching sounds that accompanied each snap of his hips. You didn’t say the words that your lips tried to form - it’s so much, go slow for a little, Seungcheol, I love you, more - please, don’t stop. Maybe he heard them. Maybe this was a different way to drift, one that didn’t need wires.

You did your best to hold his gaze, losing sight of him only when you strained up to kiss him, when you nuzzled your face into the warmth between his neck and shoulder and gasped against a wave of sensation, when you couldn’t help but close them as they rolled back, your toes curling. 

He pressed his forehead to yours when he finished, your name slipping out of him, as if it had been literally squeezed from his lungs. “Cherry… Cherry…”

You lay together in silence for a long time, feeling your hearts slow, your skin cool. Your thumb traced his jaw again and again, slow, worshipful. “Cheol,” you whispered. My Cheol. My everything. You didn’t say the rest as you lay together in the quiet, in the dark, your heartbeats competing. 

You didn’t know that you’d drifted together for the last time. You didn’t know that your ability to neural connect could be broken.

–

The wind whips around you, stinging your face. You barely flinch. When you’d first relocated here, three years ago, the cold had made you literally cry during your first month. Just from having to walk from the door of the dormitory across the yard to the mess hall dorm, the intensity of it had sent you spiraling into misery - damning the circumstances that had sent you here, away from everyone and everything you knew and loved, to a place where the air hurt. 

You were sure it would hurt, this intensely, forever.

But time eased the sting, and despite your doubts you did adjust. Now the early morning wind feels bracing and refreshing rather than painful. You’ve adjusted to a lot of things since relocating to a small training center in Alakanuk, Alaska: the climate, the food, the no-frills campus you lived and worked on. Being away from your parents, from Wylie and Chan and Seungkwan and Jeonghan and all the other pilots you were friends with at the Shatterdome.

Being away from Seungcheol. Being partnerless, a half instead of a whole. 

Being unable to pilot, unable to fight. 

Being brokenhearted.

Just like the cold, the pain of your losses was the same - the sting of heartbreak and loneliness and homesickness faded to something ignorable, something you could keep tucked tight in the back of your mind. 

You can hear the noise from inside the mess hall before you even cross the courtyard. There are short of fifty girls ranging from ages seven to eighteen being housed here, but from the noise you’d swear it was at least a hundred. 

The buildings are single-storied, painted with a heavily-chipping grey-blue that sometimes seems to belong to the mist you often get rolling in from the ocean. When you’d first come, you’d legitimately thought they were painted that way as camouflage, meant to blend in with the sea. The other trainers had a good laugh about that. 

As you cross the courtyard between the trainers’ dorms and the mess hall, you breathe deeply, eyes on the birds alight above you. After a lifetime in the Shatterdome, you don’t take for granted the fresh air you’re afforded as you pass between buildings, outside, the sky open and changing above. You don’t take for granted the rhythm of the ocean, the cries of the gulls, nor the distant treeline.

It was Seungcheol who had noted that you were sheltered, having never lived outside of the Dome. 

It was Seungcheol you could blame - at least halfway - for your relocation here, where there wasn’t a jaeger or even a city for hundreds of miles. 

When you pull open the flimsy door to the mess hall, the noise triples. Several of the girls call out to greet you, and you give them a quick wave as you head to the table where the staff eats.

“You’re later than normal,” one of the other instructors notes as you reach for a piece of bread.

You shrug lightly, unbothered. “Still have plenty of time before the first class. What day is today, Thursday? I’ve got the little ones first, right?”

The all-girls training center is meant to teach fighting and the groundworks for drifting, but no jaegers are housed here, no teams launch into the icy bay. The girls here will grow up to pilot - if they get selected, if they get paired with a partner. 

You’re mostly here to teach them to fight, the way you trained in the Dome, but you do plenty more. Help brush hair in the mornings, console tearful faces, teach games and sports, mediate arguments. You also got sucked into running one literacy class a week, though you still haven’t figured out how that happened. 

It would be a lie to say this wasn’t fulfilling, that you didn’t love the girls you cared for, that you weren’t happy here with the ocean and birds and trees and laughter. In many ways, the seclusion of this training center is exactly what you needed to get back on your feet, to find strength in yourself, to heal with distance and time.

But, god, what you would give for a real fight. What you would give to feel both loved and threatened by Wylie, to rib at the guys, to hug your mom. What you would give to hear Seungcheol’s teasing pout, to catch his gaze across the span of your jaeger and know what his body and yours will do, to feel his fingers just barely graze your back when he knows you need to be reminded to focus.

The final time you’d tried, the neural connection never took. It was like trying to connect with a stranger. It had simply been still, a thing that was never alive.

“Don’t do this,” Seungcheol had begged, and that had been the nail in the coffin.

Don’t do this, he’d said. It had landed like blame. Like everything was your fault, and only yours. Like you had broken the connection on purpose, were keeping him out, barricading your mind from his when you desperately wanted everything to go right back to normal.

After that failure, you didn’t tell him you were asking to be reassigned. You didn’t want to give him the chance to say don’t do this a second time.

You’ve just ended a class, the girls starting to filter out through the training room’s side door towards the mess hall for lunch, when the center’s Administrator calls your name from the door.

“There’s a call for you on my line. I have them holding.”

A call? 

Adrenaline races through you; it has to be an emergency. Your parents and friends can reach you on your own device, which is tucked into your back pocket. To call the mainline here at the center means this is a base-to-base call, not a personal one.

You’ve only been in this office a handful of times in your few years here, and you shuffle awkwardly around the desk and pick up the receiver that sits abandoned on the chipped, wooden desktop. 

You greet the person on the line with your real name. 

“Cherry?”

Your Marshall - your old Marshall, from the Dome - sounds unsure if he has the right person on the line. No one has called you Cherry in three years. Even your parents have used your given name the few times they’ve said it on your weekly calls home.

“It’s me,” you affirm. “Is everything okay? My parents?”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, and you heave a relieved breath. “Everyone is fine. This is official business. I want to call you in.”

You shake your head, frowning, well aware that he can’t see your reaction. Your body has said no, but you force yourself to ask, “Me? Why?”

“We’re down a few teams,” the Marshall says. “And -”

“You’ve got more recruits than places to put them,” you counter before he can finish. “Call one of the new teams up. Call three new teams up. You don’t need me.”

“We do - we need teams with experience, teams that are ready. Not rookies bumbling around looking for mistakes. We need precision. We need Duellona Fury.”

Your Marshall lays out the situation: the teams that are out, the problems they’re having at the breach - less time between attacks, more monsters at once. You’ve seen this before, you all have, and there’s protocol in place - protocol that starts with all hands on deck. 

You shake your head again. From the door, the Administrator of the center watches you seriously, like she knows you’re being taken away. 

“Marshall, with all due respect, I don’t know why you’re calling me,” you admit. “What can I give you? I can’t pilot Duellona.”

Not anymore. 

The Marshall sighs, like he knew this argument was coming and didn’t have a good response. 

“I think you can,” he says finally. “I’m not saying it will be easy, and I’m not saying it will happen quickly or without effort. But I think you can.”

“No,” you say, the first time you’ve voiced it. “You were there. You saw what happened. We can’t drift anymore.”

“You couldn’t then,” he points out. “That was three years ago. You’ve both had a lot of time to…. You’ve both had a lot of time since then. Things that were once too painful to carry into the drift… they’ve had time to mellow.”

This blow knocks you into silence. You sink your teeth into your bottom lip, eyes steadfastly on the warped wood of the desk, fingers toying absently with the Administrator’s pen. 

He’s wrong, and you want to tell him so. Nothing had mellowed. You love Seungcheol just as much today as you did three years ago. The splitting ache in your chest that you’ve felt every day since you became aware of loving him has only worked its way deeper with time. 

And Seungcheol’s anger? The anger and betrayal he’d leveled at you, when he was sure you were keeping him out of your head on purpose? You couldn’t speak for him, but if you had to guess, there weren’t enough years in a human life to let that hurt mellow into something safe enough to drift with.

“Have you talked to him about this?” You’re afraid of the answer. 

The Marshall hesitates. “Not yet.”

“You might want to do that first,” you point out. “Before flying me back only to have him refuse.” 

The Marshall’s voice hardens, and you can just picture his eyes narrowing. “Mr. Choi will follow orders,” he says evenly, “and so will you. Asking is really just a courtesy.”

“You can’t order us into being able to drift again,” you snap, pulse suddenly pounding in your arms, your hands, your face, your chest. 

“No,” the Marshall says, and any previous friendliness is gone from his voice now, “but I can - and will - order you to try.”

The girls cry when you tell them you’re leaving, and it makes you want to cry, too. You hold it together as you give them hugs, hold it together as you pack your single bag of belongings. You hold it together in the passenger seat of the center’s only beat-up van, waving out the back window as the training center fades away.

It’s standing on the deck of the ferry, the coast receding and the sea wind clawing at your face, that you let it go. You bury your face behind your hands and feel it release behind your ribs. You cry for all of it - for leaving the girls behind, for leaving a place that had sheltered you like a sanctuary. For the time you’d lost at the Dome, for the fights you’d sat out, for the years with your parents and friends that had slipped away like sand between your fingers. For your fear that Seungcheol will turn you away, just as hurt and angry as he was one thousand and ninety-five days ago. 

You’d been so determined to keep him from walking through the depths of your love for him, in the drift. You were so scared it would be too much, too intense, too much emotion for the drift. You’d been scared it would be too much for him - that the weight of it would inherently ask for more than he could give you in return. You’d been scared it would ruin your partnership, your compatibility, your capability to co-pilot.

But that had happened anyway. You almost have to laugh. 

As furiously as your tears begin, they peter out quickly. You take a few deep gulps of salty air, use the backs of your hands to wipe at your cheeks and beneath your nose. As you calm down, you keep your eyes on the horizon, your hands tight on the ship’s railing, and you let your mind wander back to Seungcheol. Here, thousands of miles away, you let yourself think back to those last weeks before you left the Shatterdome. You let yourself wonder, for the first time, what exactly caused everything to crumble.

You’d been so afraid to let Seungcheol into your head once the loving him had taken over. Why had it scared you so badly? As you keep your eyes on the grey of the horizon, you puzzle it out in your mind.

Had it been the uncertainty? That had certainly played a part. Did Seungcheol love you, back then? If he didn’t, everything between you could have changed - your friendship, your partnership, your ability to drift. It hadn’t seemed worth the risk to lose it all - his presence in your life, your ability to fight together. 

But maybe he had. If he did love you, back then… that would have changed things, too. What if starting something romantic affected your drift? There were too many maybes, too many variables. It had seemed safe to push it all down, to try and keep him away from it. To try and keep things the same.

Of course, you’d lost it all anyway.

Even if he did love you three years ago, you think as the sea air whips around you, did he love you the way you loved him? What if it had been too much - the way you could breathe once he was with you, the way you kept each other in check - what if he had loved you, but not that much?

Had it been a mistake to keep him out? Maybe. But it could have been just as catastrophic to let him in. There was no way to know, now.

You turn away from the ship’s railing, away from the horizon and the sea, away from your mistakes. There’s no use looking back like this. You can’t change it. You aren’t even sure you can fix it.

You were hoping to sleep on the plane, but you’re woefully awake well after take-off. Determined not to keep ruminating on what had happened before you left, instead you wonder what awaits you now.

The most-likely scenario, you think, professional and polite - but cold. Like you, he takes duty and responsibility seriously. The airplane bumps, a pocket of air jostling the small craft, and your hands find the armrests and cling tight until it stops.

The best case scenario, of course, would be that enough time has passed that Seungcheol’s hurt has faded. Maybe, you think, maybe he’s moved on from harboring that anger. Maybe he’ll greet you warmly, maybe you’ll pick up right where you left off.

This hope, this day-dream, aches, so much that you blink it away and turn to watch the clouds through the window, a desperate distraction. You crave Seungcheol - you crave feeling safe with his arms around you, you crave the elation you’d feel when he entered the room you were in, you crave the peace that comes with two minds engaged in neural handshake - the peace of someone’s mind interlaced with your own, understanding you, operating with you, picking up half of your mental lift.

You crave his giggle when you say something stupid in the dark of the dorm before bed, his pout when he feels like he isn’t getting enough attention, you crave his voice echoing in your head long after he’s gone asleep because you heard him talk to you all day long. 

You crave his lips on yours, his teeth on your neck, his hands on your body, even if you only had it once. You’ve craved it ever since.

You crave closing your eyes and pressing your forehead to his sternum, feeling safe and quiet and like you belong. You miss the sanctuary of that space, chest to chest with him, something sacred in the way it exists only for you.

You know you can’t have it - any of it. The daydream isn’t real. Your curse will be to crave it forever, alone.

When you arrive at the Shatterdome, it’s your parents who greet you just inside. For a moment, you’re happy to be back, overcome with emotion as you hug them tight. They’ve aged in these three years. You’ve missed them awfully. You only tell them the latter. 

They walk with you to the Marshall’s office, where you’re meant to report upon arrival. 

You hesitate, covering the moment by tugging your duffle’s strap higher on your shoulder. Your mother reads you anyway, reaching out and giving your shoulder a squeeze. 

“It will be okay,” she whispers. 

Your father catches on. “You’ve faced down worse,” he reasons. 

You disagree. There’s no monster in the sea bigger than your love for Seungcheol, no wounding possible that could hurt more than losing him has. But you appreciate the sentiment, so you give them each a grateful nod, tell them you’ll visit after dinner, and turn to knock on the door.

“Come in,” the Marshall’s voice carries through the door, and you turn the knob and step inside. 

All you see is Seungcheol; the Marshall, the office furniture, the flickering screens on the walls all snap into nonexistence in the presence of your former lover. He’s the only thing in the room that comes into focus. Everything else is just fuzzy noise.

His face wavers for a moment when your eyes meet his, the muscles rippling as he fights to get them under control. 

You don’t know what reaction he’s fighting. You don’t know if he’s feeling happiness or hatred. You don’t know if he’s fighting a smile or a scowl.

You give him a quick bow in greeting, and he returns it. His face is stone, now, his mouth tight and eyes flat. 

He turns to face the Marshall, to receive orders, so you do the same.

“I trust your travel went well?” the Marshall begins.

You nod, not trusting yourself to speak. Even the single syllable of yes will come out of your mouth like gravel and dirt and sand, getting everywhere, leaving a trail.

“Your orders,” he says then, a bit of a sigh on his tone - as if he knows the uphill battle this will be, “are to reconnect as best you can. You’ll follow your old schedule. You’ll spar, you’ll meditate, and you’ll talk. After some time, we’ll try the drift again, see if the connection has recovered any.”

Seungcheol’s voice startles you when he speaks. “How long do you imagine it will be before we try?” he asks, just cold enough to have a sliver of sarcasm in it. 

The Marshall’s eyes narrow, just slightly, as if he’d caught it. “That’s entirely up to you two,” he says evenly. “When you were young and hungry to fight, you trained yourselves into exhaustion. You spent every waking second trying to cultivate the bond that would carry you into your jaeger. With the same intention and drive, I imagine you could be piloting Duellona within the week.”

You fight to keep your chin up, your eyes on the Marshall, instead of ducking your head and watching the floor. The Marshall lifts his arm and glances at his watch. 

“Your allotted time in Sparring Room 7 begins on the hour,” he says. This is his way of dismissing you.

In the hallway, you pause. “I’m just going to drop my bag in the dorm,” you say quietly, not looking at Seungcheol. 

He gives a tight nod. “Fine,” he says, and turns to go the other way, towards the sparring and training rooms. Clearly he intends to meet you there. You heave a deep breath, and turn back towards the wing with the dorms.

Stepping into the dorm you used to share with Seungcheol hits you harder than you thought it would. You’re not sure what you expected - to feel like coming home, maybe, or perhaps to be slapped with the memories of you and Seungcheol together, dancing around each other as you hurried to get dressed for a drop, lazing around in the sitting area after a full day of training. And, of course, the single night you’d spent together.

Neither thing happens. You aren’t overcome by a feeling of nostalgia and love, nor are you inundated by memories of what you’ve lost. Instead, the room feels exactly as it is: empty and still.

Your footsteps’ echoes taunt you as you walk through the kitchen, the sitting area, and into the bedroom. It’s pristine to the point of detriment; it feels like no one lives there. You set your bag on the floor near the foot of the bed - you can unpack later, after training - and turn to go.

Strangely, it’s stepping into the training room that slams you with memory and nostalgia. The wood cool beneath your feet, the vague smell of sweat and citrus-y cleaner, the sounds of punches landing and grunts of effort from the training rooms on either side - they all cocoon you in history, making goosebumps rise on your arms as the emotions surround you.

It makes sense, you think, as Seungcheol glances over his shoulder at the sound of your arrival. He doesn’t speak to you, just swaggers to the center of the room and takes a stance you recognize from Form One. Your body leads you opposite him, muscle memory guiding you into the first form you ever learned with him. It makes sense that this would be what felt like home - your minds going empty together, your bodies following the steps in unison. The sparring forms are the closest you can get to drifting without an actual neural connection.

Well, that and sleeping together, but you don’t see that on your agenda.

You stare at him across the invisible circle between you and try to read him. His face is cold and empty, but that already tells you so much about what he’s feeling. Seungcheol was never cold with you. When you fought together he slipped into that mode you loved so much - ready to level anything, chin lifted, eyes narrowed, confident and so very strong. But it was when you were together outside the fights that you had loved him best - often pouting, lips protruding, voice lifting into a whine. And the best of all - that smile, dimples creating shadows that beg for your thumb to press them, eyes squeezing shut with happiness or laughter.

Something must show on your face, because you watch the muscles in Seungcheol’s upper body untense, as if he’d been ready to fight and recognized that you weren’t.

“I’m good,” you mutter quickly, before he can ask. It feels better to lie to him before he actually asks you, like that’s somehow less dishonest. “Let’s go.”

Form One is basic - no hits, no fancy moves. At the training center, you’d teach it to the littlest ones until they had it memorized. It was really about control and communication - precision and alignment with your partner. You had to breathe together as your feet traced opposite circles across the knots in the wooden floor. You had to rise and bend in unison. It was about watching and listening.

You and Seungcheol could - literally, you’d tried more than once - do it blindfolded in perfect step with one another. Before. You don’t know if you still can. But, now, unblindfolded, it’s too easy.

You move through forms one through six without incident - both of you flowing as easily as water.

Form Seven is the first form that incorporates actual hits and blocks. You’ll have to touch for the first time, even if it’s forearm to forearm or ankle to shoulder. You move right as he moves left, crouch and circle as his right foot flies over your head, stand and punch where you know his open hand will be waiting to stop you.

It is, and you press your fist against it for just a second before spinning away to continue the form. You ache, even as your body continues following the steps, to have him entirely again - to meet his eyes and smile the way you both used to, because you were pleased with what your bodies could do. Because you had each other, completely.

After the tenth form, you bow, turn, and walk out of the ring. You drink some water, your back to him. Years ago you’d have used this break to chat, but you don’t know what to say to him. You’re scared that he’ll shut down anything you say, whether you choose small talk or go straight for the heart of the problem, and you honestly don’t think you can shoulder his rejection right now. So you stay quiet.

After a few short minutes of rest, you return to the center of the room. This is when you’ll spar for real.

You and Seungcheol had done this for years before things went wrong. You’d long ago adjusted to how hard you should hit, how to dodge his moves, how to make this a dance as much as a fight. Now, you feel like it’s your first time again.

Seungcheol attacks as you’d expect - all offensive, pushy, succeeding in herding you backwards even as you dodge each blow. You know his goal is to flip you, and normally you can avoid that by forcing him to go on the defensive as he avoids your own hits. Simply dodging won’t be enough - eventually he’ll cage you in unless you distract him.

You throw yourself into a summersault and manage to get behind him - an opportune moment to strike. You shift your weight to follow the blow as you twist your hips to send a kick towards his unprotected head. He turns just too late - the blow will land.

You can’t do it. You freeze, your core working to keep you upright as you fight your own momentum, halting the kick inches from his temple.

You know immediately that pulling the hit was a mistake. His eyes narrow, and he sweeps his foot at the ankle you’re balancing on. You crash to the ground, heaving a breath and taking quick inventory.

You aren’t hurt. Not this time.

“Get up, Cherry,” he says darkly, moving back to the center to start again. “And don’t do that shit again.”

He comes at you full force in the next match, too. You dodge and weave, but you don’t try to strike. You know he knows it; this isn’t how it used to work. You can almost feel him get angrier as you fight, but you can’t make yourself hit back. You want him to knock you down, you deserve to take some shots.

You take two blows to the back and one to a shoulder; you fall back unsteadily but manage to find your footing and roll away from his next kick.

The match continues - you taking a handful of blows, though none with the force to level you, and Seungcheol with his lip curled in fury.

“If you’re not going to fight, then leave,” he spits.

“Would if I could,” you retort without thinking. You mean that you don’t want to be here like this - not talking, cold, at odds. But you know it reads as not wanting to be here at all.

It seems like everything you say and do only hurts him more.

“I didn’t mean -” you start, and Seungcheol takes your arms and flips you over his shoulders.

“Don’t waste my fucking time,” he says, brushing his hands together and stepping back to give you room to pick yourself up.

“Don’t curse at me,” you answer, pushing yourself to your hands and knees, pausing to catch your breath before rising fully again.

He shakes his head, rolls his eyes a little.

You hate this side of him.

You know you deserve it. For pushing him out. For leaving him here. For loving him, messing everything up, when he never asked for that.

“Seungcheol,” you say, but he ignores you, pacing a few steps and then turning to face you, lowering himself into a defensive stance, ready to spar again.

“Cheol,” you try again. “Listen to me.”

“Marshall scheduled us time to talk later,” he says flatly. “Right now we’re scheduled to fight. So fight me, Cherry. Let’s go.”

The rest of the hour continues the same. By the time it’s over, Seungcheol storms out without speaking to you, furious over every single pulled punch.

You don’t know what to do to make it all better.

You shower quickly, dressing in dry linens, and then re-emerge for the hours you’re scheduled to meditate together. You hope that maybe this will help the situation - maybe not talking will be good for you, give you a chance to feel your connection without the chance to fuck it up with words.

You’re wrong; trying to meditate together is just as desperately fruitless as sparring had been.

You can’t focus at all - can’t shift your attention to your breath, to your body, to the earth beneath you, to the energy of your partner.

Your partner is the distraction, though he sits perfectly still, eyes closed. He might as well be yelling. His shoulders are tight, his jaw still clenched. Anger radiates off him so strongly that it makes your stomach hurt, makes you want to cower from it. You can’t stop watching him, hoping you’ll see him relax, hoping you’ll see the moment that he lets go.

He doesn’t.

“Your eyes are supposed to be closed,” he murmurs, and you feel your face heat, embarrassed that he knew you were watching him.

“I can’t,” you admit. Maybe, you think, you should just be brutally honest, starting now. It’s not like you could make this worse. “I can’t stop noticing how angry -”

“Then stop pissing me off,” he snaps, eyes opening. “Just a suggestion.”

“Don’t talk to me like that!” you cry, and push yourself to stand. You’re not sure why - maybe just to pace. “You never used to talk to me like this. Who are you?”

He looks at the floor, the first sign of guilt you’ve seen since you came home.

“Fine,” he finally bites back, and you know it’s as close to sorry as you’ll get. “I’ll reign it in. Sit back down.”

You shift your weight, arms crossed defensively across your chest, and close your eyes, deciding.

“Sit down, Cherry,” he repeats, and it’s gentler now. That’s what makes you cave, and you settle back across from him.

He’s less tense this time, so you eventually manage to close your eyes and count your breaths. But you’re still feeling for him, reaching for him in your mind, and coming up with nothing between you fingers. Touching him is as possible as touching the fog that used to blanket the training center, thick enough to blind you but impossible to grasp.

The pain feels like a cramp, except it’s behind your ribs instead of in your muscles. The pain grips and tightens, takes over. You want him, you want to be his again, you want to be inside these walls - where you used to fit comfortably. The fact that you’re out here, without him, aches so badly it makes you nauseated.

You want to beg him - let me in again, let me back in, let me be close to you again.

It won’t do any good, and you know it.

He was yours - you had him, you knew him, you could reach out to him and he’d pick you up. You’d taken it for granted, and you’d run away from it. You’d chosen to let it go, and now all you get is this: Seungcheol, cold and closed. Seungcheol, hating you for everything that happened.

—

Dinner is just as bad.

You go to the mess hall eager to see Wylie and Jeonghan and Seungkwan and all the other friends you haven’t seen in years. Wylie screeches like a banshee when she spots you, crossing the mess hall in a blur and hugging you so tightly that you both stagger, off balance, until Seungkwan joins the hug and rights you again.

“I missed you both so much,” you whisper, the only vulnerability anyone’s going to get out of you today.

“Then don’t leave again!” Wylie snaps, but you know the admonishment is full of love.

“I can’t promise,” you admit. Honestly, you’ve already made up your mind - you want to go back to Alaska. You’re not wanted here, not by the person who matters. What good are you, taking up a bed, if you can’t drift?

You’ve already given up hope that he’ll come around.

Seated at the table, you listen while your friends fill you in on what you’ve missed in three years - the fights in the bay, the new teams of pilots, the illnesses and injuries. You almost don’t notice Seungcheol silently takes a seat on Jeonghan’s other side, but something in you prickles, like you’ve sensed him.

The tension around the table heightens; the conversation goes a little stilted. When it’s apparent that he’s going to ignore you two seats down from him, Wylie slaps her hand flat on the tabletop.

“Come on, Seungcheol,” she scolds, and you’re sure no one wonders what she means.

His face goes dark so quickly it’s alarming. “Don’t,” he tells her darkly, one finger coming up to point at her in warning.

Her own eyes narrow and dart to her fork. Beside her, Chan’s eyes pingpong between them. He’s probably wondering if he should hold her back or join her.

“It’s fine,” you mutter, grabbing your tray and making to rise. “I’ll go.”

“Cherry, no,” Wylie protests, and then turns a glower onto your ex-co-pilot as if to say see what you did?

“It’s fine,” you repeat, standing. “I told my mom and dad I’d come by.”

You slink out before anyone else can argue.

You can’t even be mad at him - you did this by pushing him away. You hammered every last nail in the coffin by requesting to transfer. You pushed him out and you left him behind and now you have to face the reality that you can’t have him anymore. He isn’t yours, not anymore.

When you return to your dorm, he’s already in bed, the lights out. He’s facing the wall so you can only see his back, can only see the angry, tight shoulder poking out the top of the sheets. It tells you everything you need to know.

You don’t try to talk to him. You just go to bed.

—

You spend four days identically - fighting while sparring, not meditating, and avoiding Seungcheol’s ice-out. On the fifth day, your Marshall loses patience and changes your schedule. Your entire day is blocked to working on Duellona’s mainframe - buffing, repainting, greasing, and anything else you’re able to handle on your own.

“Since you can’t do anything else useful,” he adds, and you avoid Seungcheol’s eyes, ashamed.

Standing under Duellona’s unlit frame fills you with guilt. It feels like you’re letting her down, disappointing her by letting her rust here, failing your half of the bargain. You run your hands gently over the metal, finding the rough spots that need attention. Somewhere to your left, you can hear the telltale sounds of Seungcheol tightening bolts.

You work in silence for hours.

Eventually, you crack. You’re not sure if it’s the monotony of the task, the tension woven into the silence between you too, or being so close to your jaeger but unable to fight in it - maybe a combination. Something pushes at you from the inside, like a balloon trying to inflate under your skin and running out of room.

You flop backwards on the metal walkway, the grooves digging into your back. “What are we doing?” you ask, and you hear the tool Seungcheol had been using cling loudly as he sets it down.

“Following orders?” he says, stepping around Duellona’s side to look at you. “Fixing up the jaeger?”

“Fixing up the jaeger we don’t get to pilot?” you ask, sitting back up to look at him better.

“Is that what you’re here for?” he asks, the sudden ferocity of it surprising you. “To fight? Is that why you came back?”

You reach up to the walkway’s railing and pull yourself up. You feel yourself frowning at his question, at the heat behind it. 

“I’m back because the Marshall gave me an order,” you say slowly. 

“And that’s it?” he demands. 

You stare at him. You feel sure there’s more to the question, more that he’s asking. You feel sure, after knowing Choi Seungcheol down to the last molecule, that he’s really asking, you didn’t come back for me?

And it confuses you. You try to think about your split from his perspective: you’d shut him out, then slept with him, and then vanished. You’d made a lot of assumptions about his anger since then. You assumed he was angry at you for pushing him out of your head. You assumed he was angry at you for sleeping with him and then leaving. You assumed he was angry with you for ruining your drift, for ripping him away from the ability to fight. You assumed he was angry because he never knew why - never knew what it was that you were so desperate to hide, never knew why sleeping together had made things so much worse that the neural connection had fizzled into nothing altogether.

Is there more to it, his anger?

Should you call him on it, should you ask?

You take too long deciding. Seungcheol scoffs, like he’s disgusted with you. “I should have known,” he says coldly. “Princess of the Shatterdome, I should have known you only cared about piloting - about your legacy.”

This is something you’ve never said to him - that your desire to shine as brightly as your parents has weighed on you. This is something he’d pulled from the drift, something he only knew from tiptoeing around your mind before a fight. 

“That isn’t fair,” you say, your voice hard. “Is there another reason I should have come back? I’d love to hear it.”

He hears the challenge as it is - you didn’t ask me to come back, the Marshall did. You let me go.

He has nothing to say for himself, just stares back at you, eyes narrowed in anger, chest moving too quickly as he battles with his temper.

“Exactly,” you say curtly. The victory stings. It doesn’t feel like a win at all. “The bottom line is I’m here now, and we can pilot again if we can get our shit together.”

He shakes his head. “You left,” he says finally. “That’s the bottom line. You decided you were out, you decided you didn’t want me in your head, and then you left.”

He watches you, waits for you to say something. When you don’t, he lets out a derisive little laugh. “We’re both wasting our time here. The drift won’t work. We aren’t going to fix it.”

For the first time, fear slices through you like steel. “You can’t know that,” you say. You hear the fear in the way your voice comes out low and rounded, barely sounding like you at all.

“I can,” he retorts. “You know how I know? Because I don’t want to. You wanted me out of your head so badly? You got it. Can’t turn back now.”

He heads for the ladder, swings around and finds the third rung down with ease.

“So that’s it?” you ask his retreating form. Your heart is hammering and you’re starting to get tunnel vision. 

The only answer he gives you are his feet hitting each new rung with a clunk and a vibration that rattles up your legs.

—

You go to the training rooms alone and run through the forms just to do something; your mind turns the problem over and over as your body goes through the motions. After, you take a longer shower than normal, letting the water run hotter than you normally would.

After, you go to the Marshall’s office, determined. Or maybe resigned.

When he opens the door, he already looks irritated, like he knew exactly who would be on the other side.

“Requesting an audience,” you say flatly, fighting the instinct to cross your arms defensively.

He glances at his watch. “Five minutes.”

You step inside but leave the door open.

“I’m requesting transfer back to Alakanuk,” you tell him as evenly as you can manage. You’re sure he’s not surprised. “Seungcheol has made it very clear that we won’t be fighting together again. If that’s the case, then I can’t do anything useful here. But in Alakanuk I can.”

You pause, looking to see if you can read anything on the Marshall’s face - any hint that he’s considering what you’re saying, or that it’s a lost cause. He gives you nothing.

“Please,” you say. “Those girls need me. If I can’t help here, I can help them.”

The Marshall tilts his head just slightly. “Surely anyone can teach little girls the forms.”

You shake your head. “It’s more than that, and you know it. It’s not about the forms. I love those girls. I came back here to follow orders, and I tried. But if it isn’t going to happen… Please, don’t make me waste time here if I can be with them instead.”

The silence when you stop speaking seems to last for hours. Your heart pounds, and you work on keeping your breathing even. If he tells you no, you might just lose it, just give up entirely.

Finally, he takes a breath and seems to consider you. “If,” he says, and your eyes widen with hope, “your co-pilot agrees, then I will reassign you back to Alaska. But only if he will agree.”

“No problem,” you say quickly. Seungcheol was the one who said it was over. He should have no problem letting you leave.

When you step out of the Marshall’s office, Seungcheol steps out of the shadows. You should be surprised to see him, but in the Shatterdome it feels right that he just is wherever you are. That’s always how it was, before.

You look at him disdainfully. “I assume you heard that conversation?”

He nods, once.

“So?” you ask. “Will you tell him you approve, so I can go?”

For the first time since you returned, Seungcheol smiles, tight and sarcastic.

“No,” he says easily, like it’s kind of funny.

Fury erupts inside you; you can’t even pinpoint where in your body it stems from. “Why?” you demand. “Because you feel like I took something from you, so you want to take something from me?”

He doesn’t respond to this. You know you’re right. You know him. You know his mind.

“I hate to fuck up your narrative,” you spit at him, “but I’ve lost out here just as much as you have. You’re not the only one who lost the ability to fight. You’re not the only one who lost their partner.”

You wish you could tell him the rest - you’re not the one who spent three years with a broken heart on top of it. He had lost you as a partner and a friend - you had lost him in the same ways, and you’d had to harbor your broken heart.

He shakes his head. “Poor baby,” he bites sarcastically, and then takes off down the hallway, into the dark.

—

You stop sleeping at the dorm. Sometimes you sleep at your parents’, sometimes on Wylie and Chan’s tiny couch, sometimes in bed with Seungkwan, who kicks at you and whines that you take up too much space. Sometimes you sleep inside Duellona Fury, sitting up, your back against her metal frame.

The Marshall seems to have taken some pity on you. He schedules your mornings training the Dome’s recruits, and lets Seungcheol get back to what he was doing in your absence - which seems to be on track to move up in rank, to maybe become a Marshall himself, someday. It isn’t quite the same as being back with your girls, but training recruits feels at least somewhat fulfilling. And it keeps you and Seungcheol busy - separately - until afternoon.

Then, he schedules you to spar.

In your first week, you’d been unwilling to hit Seungcheol. You’d been feeling guilty for hurting him, sad for your time apart, hopeful that if you were soft to him, then he’d be soft back to you.

Now, you’re fucking furious.

For the first time, when the match begins, you hit him first. He’s surprised for only a second, eyebrows shooting up as he stumbles for balance, and then you watch something delighted and devilish fall over his face. Like he knows exactly what dance this is, and he’s been learning the steps in secret.

The match is brutal, reminiscent of your very first one, when you were both nineteen. You throw hit after hit his way; he blocks or dodges all of them. But he can’t get a hit on you either - you’re too quick, spurred on by fury. You’ve been angry in a fight before. But you’ve never been angry at him.

You spin and throw up a kick, expecting his forearm to rise and block it. Instead, you knock him in the jaw.

He grunts, hand flying up to cover his mouth, and you drop your stance with a gasp.

“Shit!” you cry, hurrying closer. “I’m so sorry! Are you bleeding? Let me look.”

“‘M fine,” he mutters thickly from behind his hand, but you ignore him. For a second, things are how they used to be between you. He lets you peel his hand away, lets you gingerly turn his head this way and that, even opens up so you can check his teeth.

“You’re gonna have a fat lip,” you tell him regretfully. “But nothing’s bleeding. Teeth look okay. Anything loose in there?”

He pokes around his teeth with his pinky. “Nope.”

You take a step back, cowed. “I’m really sorry.”

He laughs a little, wryly. “I bet you feel better, though.”

You bite back a smile. “Actually…” you say, and he laughs again. You both do.

Somehow, this seems to be the thing that cracks the anger you’ve both been encased in, unable to move forward or backward. You feel melted, and you wonder if he feels freer now, too.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” you say. You mean the kick, but the words land heavy.

He avoids your gaze. “I need some water,” he says, turning and heading to the side of the room.

You do the same, sitting heavily on the bench where your water waits for you.

“Hey,” he says, and you look over, brows raised in anticipation. “Tell me about Alaska.”

You can’t help but smile.

“It’s so beautiful,” you tell him. “God, Cheol, the ocean there. And the birds, and the snow…”

He’s watching you, listening, but while he listens he stands and heads to the center of the ring, settling into a starting form. With a small smile, you follow, standing opposite him. He starts an easy match that’s mostly just following the eighth form. It includes some hits and blocks, but you both do them gently, easily, circling each other slowly.

“So you liked it?” he asks. You can hear how hard he’s working to make it sound casual.

“It was so beautiful,” you admit before ducking below a kick. “But it was also… really hard.”

“What was the best part?” he asks.

You smile, block a hit. He almost gets his hands on you for a flip, but you dodge around behind him. He turns to follow you. “Weirdly, it was taking care of them outside of class. We - the instructors - we kind of their moms, away from home, you know? I’m the one who knew Yejin won’t sleep unless someone sits by her bed for a while. I’m the one that knew that Farrah and Salome only argue because they’re competitive. I’m the one that knew that Maria and Anjali don’t know their times-tables, that Ximena can’t brush her own hair, or that Iseul is allergic to fish. I loved them. I loved knowing them.”

He looks at you for a long time. “Maybe you should go back,” he says finally.

It feels like a trap. 

You look at the floor, at the wall, then finally back at him. “If you’ll do this for real,” you say carefully, “then I’d rather be here. If we’re actually trying, then I don’t want to go.”

He’s quiet for a long time. Finally, he swallows hard, not looking at you.

“What was the worst part?”

There’s only one answer.

“Missing you,” you say. “Losing you.”

He manages to get both of your arms and hauls you over his shoulders. You land on your back so hard that the air is knocked out of your lungs and your eyes close protectively. For a second, you lay there panting, waiting for the pain in your back to settle down, waiting for the stars behind your eyelids to calm.

When you open them again, the ceiling coming into focus above you, the room is empty.

–

You have a hunch on where you can find him, and you head to the jaeger bay. Sure enough, he’s sitting below Duellona, knees to his chest, staring up at her.

You sit next to him and he doesn’t get up and leave, which you take as a good sign.

“I can’t do this if you’re not all in,” he tells you without looking at you. “You walked away from me once. I can’t let you back in my head if there’s any possibility you’ll walk away again. If you’re with me, I need you to be with me.”

Something prickles in the back of your head. You feel like you’re starting to realize something - the seed of an understanding is pushing delicately through the dirt, but hasn’t yet spread out its leaves under the warmth of the sun yet.

Something about his hurt. Something about why.

“I think we should try to drift,” you tell him.

This seems to startle him - he forgets to be cold, turns to look at you, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“I can tell you how much I missed you,” you reason, “and tell you about how I spent every minute just… steeped in regret. Or we can walk through it - you can see for yourself.”

You know what you’re risking. If he gets into your head now, he’ll see it all - he’ll know everything, he’ll be able to feel for himself the depth of your loss, the height of your love. 

But what’s the harm, now? You can’t lose him twice. Maybe it’ll be enough for him to realize you hadn’t left him because you didn’t care about him. Maybe it’ll be enough for his forgiveness. 

Maybe then, he’ll tell the Marshall to let you go back to Alakanuk. 

It’s Seungkwan you bother, since he’d been in mission control before finding his team of co-pilots. The sideways look he gives you as he walks to your conn pod is withering, but you know better than to take it personally.

You buzz with nerves. The last time you’d tried this, the neural handshake hadn’t even connected. There had just been nothing.

The second you hear neural handshake initiating, you almost sob with relief. You can’t even pay attention to the memories - Seungcheol’s memories - floating around you; you want to collapse, to press your palms to the ground and thank the universe for letting you back in.

His first memories are a breeze - the ones you’ve jogged through together hundreds of times: his first home, his school, his father’s hospital room, the Dome. Then you slow your pace, because this is new.

You’re facing the landing dock on the Shatterdome’s roof. Seungcheol stands with his back to you, watching through the glass walls as a helicopter waits, the pilot talking into his headset.

You watch yourself walk towards the chopper’s open door. You watch yourself leave, remember how hard it was to not look back.

You hadn’t known that Seungcheol had been there, that he had seen you go.

The pain that accompanies the memory hits you like you’re drowning, like it’s too deep and you can’t feel the bottom, and you feel the machinery falter around you.

“Hey,” you say quietly. “I’m with you.”

He nods, still doesn’t look at you. But the beeping stops, the connection holding. 

There’s knowledge in this memory, knowledge in this pain. Seungcheol’s thoughts in this moment read in your head as clearly as if he said them aloud - I did this. I pushed her too far; I made her run.

You can’t stay here, can’t let him wallow in the memory of pain. You had to move forward - that’s how the drift works. Reluctantly you step towards the door, glancing over your shoulder to see if he’s following. 

He is. His jaw is tight and fists are clenched, but he is.

When the next memory - not in order of chronology, clearly - appears before you, you want to vanish into the floor. You’re watching yourselves in Seungcheol’s bed. Thankfully, you’re sleeping - this was after. But in the memory, Seungcheol is awake, laying on his side, his eyes drinking in your sleeping form.

The emotions and the knowledge come with it in an instant. The tenderness and the love he felt in that moment surround you now in the memory, unignorable, impossible to mistake. 

He had loved you. He had known you loved him, and he was showing you how he felt. The understanding slams you so hard that you think you stop breathing.

“Seungcheol,” you whisper. Around you, the scene begins to flicker, the connection starting to react to the oversaturation of emotion.

“We can talk about it after,” he says, voice hard. “Don’t stay in it. Find the next door.”

Your eyes find the door, but you feel frozen. You want the connection to drop, you want to unlock yourself from the stupid drive-suit and throw yourself into his arms, you want to apologize for leaving him thinking he’d pushed you away, thinking that he scared you into running.

“Cherry,” he warns. “The drift can’t -”

You know. 

And you owe him your side of the story.

You take a steeling breath and head for the door. You don’t take his hand. You don’t know if you deserve to, if he’d want you to.

When you step through the doors, you’re confused - you’re still in your dorm. Your bodies are both in the bed.

Now, though, Seungcheol sleeps, and you - the memory of you - sits on the edge of the bed, your head in your hands. 

You feel the emotion the memory holds, which means Seungcheol does, too.

Fear. It’s still fear - fear that he’ll know, fear that what you just did together will make it worse, make it harder to hide. 

Beside you, Seungcheol’s eyes go wide. 

“We have to move on,” you tell him. He looks at you, then back at the memory. 

“You -?” he starts to ask.

“After,” you tell him firmly. “We’ll talk after.”

You open the door, and you’re suddenly outside, surrounded by white.

Alaska.

The emotion knocks you over with the fury of an ocean wave - even though you know you’re not supposed to let it. This was how you had felt every day that you were gone, and it screams at you now, determined to be heart, determined to be felt. The loneliness, the regret, the despair and heartbreak all rise up in you, overtaking you, as snow falls gently and silently around you.

And the love. That never went away. That never mellowed, as the Marshall had put it.

If he didn’t know before, he has to know now. There’s no way he couldn’t.

Seungcheol squeezes your hand, and you almost jump. You look down at your linked fingers in shock, then up at him, eyes wide.

“We should go back and talk about this,” he tells you, but his grip on you is firm, assuring.

“Okay. It’s this way,” you tell him, trying to breathe, and you lead him by the hand through the snow. The fog strengthens as you walk, until you can’t see anything but grey, can’t see anything but Seungcheol’s hand in yours.

You continue on. You know where to go. When you step through, the fog vanishes as if it was never there, nothing gradual about it. With the fog gone, you can see clearly where you are - inside Duellona Fury’s conn-pod.

As you begin to work on the straps, you call through the intercom, “Kwan? We… need some privacy. We’ve got to talk - alone.”

His voice crackles back at you. “Yes, I’m leaving, I’m already gone. If you hear popcorn crunching, no you don’t.”

Seungcheol gives you a flat look. “Let’s go home and talk,” he suggests.

Home.

You are so afraid and so hopeful. You don’t know how to juggle both.

Back in your small living space, you sit like you’re meditating.

“Let’s figure this out,” he says. “No lies.”

“No lies,” you agree. Your knees touch, and you reach to take his hands. He lets you, giving your fingers a squeeze.

“You knew,” you say first, bordering on accusation. “I was trying so hard to hide how I felt about you… but you knew.”

He nods, his eyes on you. “And you,” he says slowly, “didn’t… know? That I knew?”

You shake your head, confirming. “I didn’t know. I thought I hid it.”

He smiles at you, a little placating. “Not as well as you would have liked.”

“And you…” You chicken out, swallow, force yourself to be brave. “You… loved me, too?”

He nods. “I did.” 

The air leaves your lungs so forcefully that you bend over, pressing your forehead to the tops of your hands. He pulls his hands from yours and you feel his touch, firm and reassuring, cupping your shoulders and rubbing his thumbs along them.

“We felt the same,” you echo into your shins. “You loved me.”

“Cherry,” he says above you, his voice like a plea. “I don’t understand why - when we… when I… I felt like once I forced you to look at it, it was too much. You ran.”

You sit with this for a minute, stunned and processing. His hands are back in yours, which you take as a good sign. 

“You thought… wait. You thought, after that night, that I knew how you felt, too?”

He nods. “I thought you knew,” he says, confusion still present in his tone. “I thought we both knew. I thought if it was out in the open, the glitch in the drift would be fixed.”

You wipe at your face, trying to breathe. “And instead,” you realize, “we couldn’t even connect, because I was still trying to hide it from you, and then you were hurt. I thought it was broken. I thought we really broke it forever.”

He looks at you in wonder. “That’s why you left,” he breathes, and you know he’s understanding this for the first time. “You thought we made the problem worse.”

It’s your turn to nod. “After we…I mean, I knew if I couldn’t hide it from you before that night, there was no chance I’d be able to hide it after. I kept you out in the first place because I… was afraid. I was afraid for you to see how much I loved you. It seemed… hopeless to keep trying.”

The words lay bloody between you, but his grip on your hands is strong, and you take another breath.

You push on, adding, “I was afraid it would be too much. I was afraid everything would change.”

Which it did, you think. He nods, like he hears this, like he agrees.

He releases you and leans back, blowing out a loud breath. “We’re so fucking stupid,” he says, and you splutter out a laugh.

“We really are.”

“I can’t believe we lost three years over that,” he says.

“I can’t believe you thought it was your fault that I left.”

“I can’t believe you left in the first place.”

This makes you smile, guilty. “That’s fair.”

You push yourself to stand; Seungcheol mirrors you, as if you’re already in the neural handshake, bodies working in tandem. 

“Cherry,” he says quietly, stepping closer. “It could never be too much. I love you. I’m crazy about you. I’m only me when I’m with you.”

You remember him, the night you’d slept together, telling you, don’t be afraid. He’d told you, after all, and you’d missed it entirely.

You close the distance between your bodies and kiss him hard. His arms circle your waist immediately, like they were waiting for you. He kisses you back hungrily. His mouth meets yours eagerly, his tongue stroking yours confidently before he shifts his attention to your jaw, your neck, then your mouth again. His hands don’t wander this time - instead he holds you so firmly it almost hurts, like he won’t let you move an inch, won’t let you out of his grasp ever again.

You cradle his face between your hands, let your teeth gently scrape along his bottom lip. “Cheol,” you whisper, then kiss him again. “You’re everything.” It’s what you should have said aloud the night you’d slept with him.

When the kiss breaks, he presses his lips to the top of your head and holds them there, melting around you a little. You give his middle a squeeze, revel in his heartbeat surrounding you like music.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry I didn’t just say it.”

“Me too,” you tell him, holding him just a little tighter. “I should never have tried to hide it from you in the first place.”

He kisses your temple, and you hold each other, silently, each grappling with the time you’d wasted apart. 

You’re interrupted by a knock. You break apart, puzzled. You’re even more puzzled to see your Marshall at the door, and Seungkwan literally bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement.

“I’ve heard your drift is working again,” the Marshall says dryly. 

You look over your shoulder at Seungcheol, grinning. “Seems like it.”

“There’s a Cat-1 reading in the bay. I was about to alarm for Pretty Savage to drop, but Savage’s team insisted I give you the opportunity first. They can follow as backup. How do you feel?”

Seungcheol is at your side. He looks at you, his face open and raw. “Well?” he asks you. “Are you in, or are you out?”

“I’m in,” you tell him seriously. “I’m with you.”

You thrum with excitement as a tech team helps strap you into the drive-suits, and you can’t help but shoot Seungcheol a wild grin, your happiness alive and unbounded. 

You tell mission control - Nainsi, probably, just like the old days - “Ready and aligned.”

Mission Control - definitely Nainsi - responds, “Prepare for neural handshake.”

The artificial voice bounces around you - 3… 2… 1… neural handshake initiating…

Around you, the machines flicker busily. Neural handshake strong and holding. Now calibrating…

You’re crying, but you ignore it. You beam through tears, looking sideways at your co-pilot. His eyes dance as he smiles back at you. You want to unstrap yourself to the drivesuit and go kiss his dimples, the dimples you hadn’t seen in years. You resist the urge.

“Ready to drop?”  He looks sideways at you, sly. 

You scoff at him, your own grin cocky and sure, like you’re twenty again, like nothing had ever been broken between you. “Been ready. Let’s light ‘em up.”

– end

thank you so much for reading!!!!

stay tuned for more fics in this universe! Wylie and Chan will get their own fic written by @sailorrhansol, as will Woozi! I'm also planning a Vernon x Reader in this universe, too! Should be a fun time!!

[chosok-amo]

HELP ME, MAN! : GOJO SATORU, GETO SUGURU

you, their little girlfriend, scared the shit out of your boyfriends. they don't know why, how, them, the strongest jujutsu sorcerers in the modern world are scared of their girlfriend.

warning. established relationship! satosugu, fem! reader. anger issues mentioned, you scared the shit out of them. fluff.

wc. | ( 𝜗𝜚 ) masterlist

( 𝜗𝜚 ) art belongs to the artist.

being the strongest sorcerers in the modern world, gojo satoru and geto suguru didn’t know fear. they had faced countless curses, fought against the worst of the worst, and never once backed down. no matter how dangerous, no matter how terrifying the curse, they’d come out on top, especially when they worked together. their bond and strength were unmatched. they could take on anything the world threw at them without flinching.

but there was one thing that shook them to their core. something even worse than a thousand cursed spirits combined.

you.

their fiery, sarcastic little girlfriend, who had more rage bottled up in her than any curse they’d ever faced. when you were angry, it wasn’t just explosive—it was terrifying. your sharp tongue, your piercing glares, and the way you could tear them apart with a single, biting comment. they’d rather face off against the worst special-grade curse than deal with your wrath.

and right now, they were both standing in front of you, like guilty children caught red-handed. you were pacing back and forth, arms crossed, the air thick with tension. they could handle anything… anything but this.

“so,” you started, your voice cold and sarcastic, “which one of you wants to explain this mess?” your eyes flicked between them, daring one of them to speak up.

gojo, never one to shy away from a challenge, opened his mouth, though his usual cocky grin was nowhere to be seen. “babe, it wasn’t that bad, was it?” he tried to play it off, but even he knew he was walking on thin ice.

you stopped in your tracks, slowly turning to face him, your eyes narrowing dangerously. “wasn’t that bad? really, satoru? because to me, it looks like you completely ignored the one thing i asked for.”

geto stood to the side, looking like he was praying for some sort of divine intervention. he knew better than to jump in too soon, but he also knew you were right. they’d messed up. and badly.

“idiot, stop talking,” geto said quietly, placing a hand on his friend’s arm, though his own nerves were clearly showing. then, he turned to you, his tone soft and apologetic. “we’re sorry. we really didn’t mean to mess this up, it just—”

“oh, so you’re both sorry? well, that fixes everything,” you cut him off, your sarcasm biting. “i guess next time i’ll just expect the bare minimum from the two of you.”

gojo winced, trying to shrink into the background, and even geto, usually calm and composed, was struggling to keep his cool under your stare. the two of them could take on anything, but this? this was something entirely different.

you could feel their unease, but it didn’t soften your mood just yet. “i ask for one thing,” you continued, pacing again, “and what do you do? exactly the opposite.” your voice rose with each word, your frustration clear. gojo shot a glance at geto, mouthing, “what do we do?”

geto shrugged helplessly, though he knew there was only one way out of this—admitting they were wrong. completely and utterly wrong. “look, we really messed up, okay? we’ll make it right, i swear. just… don’t be mad at us, alright?” he sounded genuine, his usual stoic tone now laced with concern.

you stopped pacing, your arms still crossed, and looked at both of them. “you better. because if you think i’m mad now, wait until i’m really pissed.” they both nodded, practically in unison. they knew better than to push their luck. after all, you were the one thing that could truly strike fear into their hearts. curses? no problem. a pissed-off girlfriend with anger issues? that was another story entirely.

“we’ll fix it,” gojo promised, his voice a bit higher-pitched than usual, clearly trying to get back in your good graces. “yeah, we’ll do whatever it takes,” geto added, backing him up, eyes serious.

you watched them for a long moment, letting the tension hang in the air before sighing. “good. because the last thing i want is to be disappointed again.” they both exhaled in relief, knowing they were getting a second chance. you may have been their biggest weakness, but you were also their greatest strength—keeping them in check when nothing else could.

I DIDN'T SLAM THE DOOR, I SWEAR!

there was also a moment—just like any other day—when you and gojo found yourselves in a small argument. nothing major, just one of those little things that built up over time. this time, it was about him always leaving his clothes on the floor. no matter how many times you asked, it seemed like he just couldn’t get the hang of putting them in the hamper.

you stood in the bedroom, arms crossed, glaring at the pile of clothes that had been tossed haphazardly on the floor next to the bed. “again, satoru?” your voice was sharp, laced with frustration. “is it really that hard to put your clothes in the basket? it’s right there.”

gojo, sitting on the edge of the bed with his legs crossed, looked up at you, his signature grin plastered on his face, but you could see the nervousness behind it. “come on, doll. it’s not that big of a deal, right? they’re just clothes.”

“just clothes? satoru, you’ve been leaving them everywhere—everywhere—for weeks. i’m not your maid!” you snapped, waving your hand toward the scattered mess. “you’re lucky i haven’t thrown them all out by now.”

gojo chuckled, clearly amused by your annoyance. “oh, come on, you wouldn’t throw them out. you love me too much for that.” he leaned back on the bed, the smirk growing wider. “besides, you could always pick them up yourself if it’s that important,“ he added, the taunt subtle but noticeable.

your eyes narrowed, the irritation bubbling up even more. he knew exactly what he was doing—pushing your buttons, trying to get a rise out of you. and it was working. you clenched your fists, taking a deep breath to keep from snapping right away, but the frustration was hard to contain.

“satoru,” you said, your voice dangerously calm as you looked at him. “i am not your maid. i’m not here to clean up after you like some kind of personal assistant.”

he opened his mouth, about to say something in response, but you cut him off, stepping closer, your temper flaring. “i already deal with enough without having to pick up your damn clothes every single day. you know i hate it when the house is messy, and you still leave your stuff everywhere. why? because you think i’ll just clean it up for you?”

his smirk wavered, just for a second, as he saw how serious you were. he might have been teasing, but he knew when you were on the verge of losing your patience. and right now? you were teetering on the edge.

gojo sat there, the smirk replaced by a hint of uneasiness. he hadn’t expected you to get this mad, but then again, he should have known. you weren’t one to back down easily, especially when it came to this issue.

he swallowed hard, trying to salvage the situation. “okay, okay, i get it. i know you’re not my maid. but come on, it’s just a few clothes. it really doesn’t take that much effort to pick them up, does it?”

you could feel your irritation spike even higher at his words, and your eyes narrowed. the way he was downplaying it, acting like it was no big deal, just pushed you closer to your breaking point. if it didn’t take much effort, then why couldn’t he do it?

“if it’s so easy, satoru,” you snapped, voice sharp with anger, “then why can’t you do it?”

without giving him a chance to respond, you bent down, grabbing one of the shirts from the pile of discarded clothes and hurled it at him. the fabric hit his chest, and he blinked in surprise, clearly not expecting that reaction.

“you think it’s not a big deal, right? it’s just a few clothes, no effort at all,” you continued, grabbing another piece of clothing and throwing it at him. “then why do you keep leaving them everywhere? because i’ll pick them up for you? i told you, satoru, i’m not your maid.”

gojo sat there, eyes wide, the smirk completely eradicated as you hurled clothes at him. he flinched each time one hit him, and he didn’t say a word, recognizing he’d messed up.

when you grabbed another shirt, he finally spoke, his voice softer. “babe, wait—”

you didn’t stop, your eyes blazing, and he saw the real anger blazing in them. “you think it’s funny to disrespect me like this? to treat me like some kind of servant?”

gojo looked at you, his usual confident facade cracking under your intense glare. he knew he messed up, but he still tried to keep some of his usual attitude, though it faltered when he spoke. “it’s not that big of a deal, doll, come on. i’m just a bit messy, isn’t that part of the charm?”

he knew the moment those words left his mouth that it was the wrong thing to say. your expression darkened even more, and another shirt hit him.

gojo’s confidence shattered the second the words left his mouth. he saw the way your expression darkened, eyes narrowing even further as the tension in the room spiked. before he could even backtrack, another shirt flew at him, hitting him square in the face. he froze for a second, blinking as the fabric slid off his head.

“wrong move, dickhead,” he thought, his heart speeding up just a bit as he noticed the way you were glaring at him, practically daring him to say something else.

without another word, gojo shot up from the bed, all traces of his usual cockiness gone. “okay, okay! i’ll clean it up!” he stammered, frantically bending down to gather the clothes you had thrown at him. he moved faster than he ever did in a fight, scrambling to pick up the scattered mess around the room.

you stood there, arms crossed, watching him with a piercing stare as he scurried around the floor, picking up every last piece of clothing with a nervous energy. the man who faced down curses without blinking an eye was now clearly scared of you.

gojo moved quickly, rushing to pick up all the clothes, his heart pounding the whole time. he had faced down some of the worst curses in the world, fought against overwhelming odds, but this? this was something else entirely.

he could feel your gaze on him, sharp and unwavering, and he knew better than to make any snide comments or try to joke his way out of this. he was in the doghouse, and he knew it. as he finally gathered the last of the clothes into a messy pile, he stood there, glancing up at you, his usual confident demeanor completely vanished before he quickly left the room.

gojo, in his frantic rush to escape the room, accidentally slammed the door behind him with more force than he intended. the loud bang echoed through the hallway, and he froze for a split second, his eyes wide with panic as the realization hit him. “shit.” without wasting another moment, he bolted down the hall, clutching his clothes like his life depended on it.

he raced into the living room, where geto was sitting on the couch, looking far too tense for someone who hadn’t been directly involved. geto had heard everything. every word of the argument had reached him, and he hadn’t dared to intervene—not with you in that mood. he knew better. much better.

when gojo came running in, face pale and eyes wide, geto’s first instinct was to flinch, his muscles tensing even more. gojo practically threw himself at geto, clinging to him like a lifeline, the pile of clothes still in his arms. “suguru, help me! she’s gonna kill me, man. i didn’t mean to slam the door, i swear!”

geto, whose nerves were already frayed from listening to the argument, quickly pushed gojo away, eyes wide with alarm. “fuck off, satoru!” he hissed, scrambling to put some distance between them. “don’t want to be anywhere near you when she starts yelling again. i don’t need to get dragged into this.”

gojo blinked at him, clearly desperate for any sort of support. “but—but you’re supposed to have my back!”

“not when it comes to her,” geto shot back, keeping his voice low in case you were nearby. “do you know how terrifying she is when she’s pissed? no way, man. you’re on your own for this one.“

gojo groaned, his shoulders sagging as he slumped onto the couch beside geto, still clutching the clothes. “come on, suguru. you can’t just leave me to deal with this by myself. we’re in this together, remember?“

before geto could even muster a response, both of them froze at the sound of your heavy footsteps approaching from the hallway. it was slow but deliberate, each step echoing louder than the last. gojo’s eyes widened in panic, and he shot a terrified glance at geto, who was looking equally tense. neither of them dared to move, as if staying perfectly still might make them invisible.

“satoru,” geto whispered, voice barely audible as his eyes darted toward the doorway, “you better hide or something, man. i don’t want to be involved when she gets here.”

“go where?!” gojo hissed back, frantically looking around the living room for some sort of escape route. but there was nowhere to go, no time to run. he was trapped. the footsteps grew louder, and gojo’s heart pounded in his chest. “oh no, oh no, she’s coming…” he muttered under his breath, gripping his clothes tighter.

“this is your fault,” geto whispered harshly, scooting a few inches away from gojo. “you’re the one who pissed her off.“

“satoru…!” your voice called from down the hallway, sharp and unamused. both men stiffened at the sound, knowing that whatever came next wasn’t going to be good. gojo’s face drained of color as he leaned closer to geto, whispering desperately, “don’t leave me, man! i’ll do anything—just don’t let her kill me!”

geto looked at him, weighing his options, but before he could say anything, there you stood, arms crossed, your glare fixed on gojo like a laser. your presence alone filled the room with an intense pressure that made even the strongest sorcerers feel small. “satoru,” you said, your voice dangerously calm, “did you just slammed the door?”

gojo was frozen, his eyes widened like a deer in headlights. he looked back and forth between you and geto, the panic clear on his face. “uh, i...i didn’t mean to,” he squeaked, the clothes clutched tightly in his hands.

geto, watching the scene, leaned back into the couch, trying to make himself as small as possible, avoiding eye contact with you. he knew better than to draw your attention.

you didn’t say anything at first, just raised an eyebrow, and the silence was enough to make both gojo and geto sweat. finally, you spoke again, your voice laced with irritation. “do you want to try that again?”

gojo immediately shook his head, eyes wide with fear. “n-no! absolutely not, babe!” he blurted out, his voice shaky. “i swear, i wouldn’t do that again! it was totally an accident! i didn’t mean to slam the door, i promise!”

he stood there, practically trembling under your glare, clutching his clothes like they were his shield. “i’ll be so careful next time—no more slamming doors. i’ll tiptoe if i have to!” he added, his words tumbling out in a rush as he desperately tried to fix the situation.

geto, who was watching from the couch, subtly leaned back, clearly relieved that gojo was taking the brunt of your anger and praying he wouldn’t get dragged into it.

gojo looked at you with pleading eyes, hoping his quick apology would be enough to cool your anger. “i’ll be good, i swear,” he added, his voice softening, hoping to appeal to your softer side. but your expression remained firm, leaving him to sweat just a little longer, wondering if he'd escaped this round of your wrath—or if he was still in trouble. you slowly nod before walking away back to your shared bedroom without taking your eyes off of him.

gojo let out a shaky breath as you walked away, the silence in the room almost deafening. he stood there, frozen in place, clutching his clothes tightly and wondering if he was really off the hook or if you were just planning something even worse.

geto, who had been watching the scene unfold, let out a sigh of relief, visibly relaxing his tense muscles. “jesus, man,” he whispered, turning to look at gojo. “i don’t know how you do it. i’d be shitting my pants right now if i was in your shoes.”

WHITE TURN PINK

you stormed into the living room, laundry basket in hand, grumbling under your breath. your favorite white button-up shirt was now an embarrassing shade of pale pink, along with almost all the white clothes from the load. it didn’t take long to piece together what happened: one of them had carelessly thrown pink clothes in with the whites.

as you stood in front of gojo and geto, blocking their view of the video game they were so engrossed in, they immediately began to protest. “hey, we were—” gojo started, but the moment they looked up and saw the expression on your face, their words died in their throats.

your eyes were narrowed, and your lips pressed into a thin line. you were pissed, and they could feel the tension hanging in the air like a storm cloud.

“who’s turn was it to do the laundry?” you asked, your voice low but laced with enough irritation to make them both sit up a little straighter. without missing a beat, gojo’s hand shot up, pointing directly at geto. “it was him!” he blurted out, throwing his best friend under the bus without hesitation.

geto’s eyes widened, his head snapping toward gojo in disbelief. “seriously?” he mouthed, glaring at him for the betrayal. but when he turned back to face you, his defiance melted away, replaced with sheer panic as he saw you holding up the now pink shirt.

geto could feel shivers running down his spine, his heart racing at the sight of your anger and the tainted shirt clutched in your hands. he wanted to protest, to deny the accusation that gojo had so shamelessly thrown at him, but one glance at your face told him it was pointless.

he swallowed hard, glancing at gojo who had the gall to give him a shrug and a smirk, as if it wasn’t his fault this had happened. but geto didn’t have time to deal with that right now. right now, he had to survive this. “care to explain this?” you asked, holding up the evidence.

geto could feel the color draining from his face, his mind racing as he desperately tried to come up with a convincing excuse. he shot a glare at gojo, silently vowing to get him back for this later, but right now, he had to handle the wrath of you.

“i...uh...” he stuttered, his voice shaky as he struggled to find the right words.

but before he could say anything more, gojo piped up beside him, clearly enjoying his friend’s predicament. “come on, tell her,"” he teased, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

gojo’s smirk didn’t last long. the second you shifted your glare toward him, your eyes narrowing dangerously, his confidence evaporated. you didn’t have to say a word—the intensity of your stare was enough to make him freeze in place. his lips clamped shut, and he quickly raised his hands in surrender, silently mouthing a “sorry” as he shrank back into the couch.

the teasing look was gone in an instant, replaced with one of sheer regret. gojo knew better than to push you any further when you were this angry. his eyes darted between you and geto, desperately hoping the attention would stay on his best friend and not shift back to him.

the atmosphere in the room was heavy, the tension palpable as both gojo and geto sat there, silent and clearly nervous about your next move.

gojo avoided your gaze, opting to find the most interesting spot on the floor to focus on, all his earlier cockiness gone. he couldn’t believe he’d so effortlessly thrown geto under the bus, and now they were both neck-deep in your wrath. geto, on the other hand, still looked like a deer in headlights, his mind racing as he tried to come up with a satisfactory explanation for the pink shirt.

your gaze slowly shifted back to geto, who visibly tensed under the weight of your stare. you crossed your arms, eyes still sharp as you raised an eyebrow. “well?” you prompted, your voice low but demanding. “explain.”

geto’s heart thudded in his chest, his tongue feeling heavy and clumsy as he tried to form words under your intense scrutiny. he swallowed hard, his mind scrambling to come up with any sort of explanation that might appease you.

“i...i...” he started, his voice cracking slightly. “i just...i didn’t...uh...”

he trailed off, his eyes darting to where gojo sat, silently mouthing, “help me, man!” but gojo only shrugged, unwilling to come to his aid and risk drawing your anger back towards himself.

geto’s throat went dry. his usual calm and collected demeanor was nowhere to be found as he fumbled for words. he could feel the color draining from his face, his mind scrambling for any excuse that wouldn’t make things worse. but there was no escaping this one.

“i—uh…” he stammered, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “i didn’t realize the pink clothes were mixed in with the whites. it was an honest mistake, i swear.” he glanced over at gojo for a split second, hoping for some kind of lifeline, but gojo was firmly staring at the floor, wisely avoiding your gaze after nearly getting himself in deeper trouble.

“i didn’t mean to ruin your shirt,” geto continued, his voice softening as he gave you a tentative, apologetic look. “i’ll… i’ll fix it. i promise.” you didn’t say anything at first, just continued to glare at him, making him squirm under the silence. geto knew he had messed up, and the longer you stared at him, the more he regretted it.

the silence was deafening, and geto fidgeted nervously, the weight of your glare like a vise around his throat. gojo watched from the corner of his eye, still trying to act casual even as the tension in the room grew.

geto swallowed hard, his mind racing for anything that might soften your anger. “listen, i know i messed up,” he began, his voice dropping to a quiet, contrite tone. “but i swear, i’d never do it on purpose. it was an error, a genuine mistake. it won't happen again.”

“damn right it won’t,” you snapped, crossing your arms. “because you two are redoing the laundry now.” gojo, still sitting stiffly beside geto, looked like he wanted to say something smart but quickly thought better of it. geto, on the other hand, sighed in defeat, clearly knowing there was no getting out of this.

gojo and geto exchanged a glance, both knowing that they had no choice but to follow your command. gojo let out a weary sigh, already dreading the chore ahead, while geto simply nodded in submission.

“yes, ma’am,” geto murmured, rising from the couch. gojo followed suit, reluctantly getting to his feet as well. the two men both looked like puppies that had just been chastised as they trailed after you as you led the way to the laundry room.

with matching groans of reluctance, the two strongest sorcerers in the world—men who had faced countless curses without fear—got up from the couch, heads hanging low, and shuffled toward the laundry room like a pair of scolded children.

as they passed, you shook your head, muttering under your breath, “honestly, how hard is it to separate the colors?” geto shot gojo a sideways glance. “this is your fault,” he hissed, still holding a grudge from being thrown under the bus. gojo shrugged, looking unapologetic. “hey, better you than me, man.”

“you owe me,” geto muttered darkly, glaring at him as they got to work on fixing their laundry disaster, while you stood in the doorway with your arms crossed, making sure they did it right this time.

they both muttered and grumbled under their breath as they sorted through the laundry, each taking their turn to throw in a sarcastic comment.

“you know, for being the strongest, we sure do spend a lot of time sorting socks,” geto grumbled, holding up a black one that had somehow gotten mixed in with the white.

gojo rolled his eyes, grabbing the sock from his friend and dropping it into the correct pile. “well, if you had been more careful—”

“oh shut up, satoru.”

you leaned against the doorway, arms crossed and eyes narrowed as you watched gojo and geto sort through the laundry, their faces set in identical frowns. they muttered to each other under their breath, casting glances in your direction every now and then, clearly miffed about being forced into this chore.

as the two men carefully separated the clothes, making sure to keep the colors apart this time, you couldn’t help but smirk. the sight of them working diligently, like a pair of scolded children, was a sight to see. you can hear them blaming each other. “stop fighting,” you tell them.

they both stop their bickering and look up at you. gojo starts to open his mouth, but you shoot him a warning glare, and he quickly closes it. “we’re not fighting,” geto mutters, continuing to sort through the laundry, careful to avoid any more pink shirts.

gojo rolls his eyes, mumbling something under his breath, but you catch it anyway. “what was that?” you ask sharply, pinning him with a look.

gojo swallows hard, realizing he’s been caught. “nothing,” he mutters sheepishly.

WE HAVE TO STAND FOR OURSELVES

in the kitchen, geto and gojo stood side by side, leaning against the counter, their expressions tense but trying to appear more confident than they actually were. they glanced nervously toward the hallway, making sure you weren’t nearby as they quietly discussed their situation.

“we’re the strongest sorcerers in the world,” gojo muttered, half-convincing himself as much as he was trying to convince geto. “we shouldn’t be scared of her. she’s… she’s just one girl. smaller than us. it’s ridiculous.”

geto nodded, though there was a hint of hesitation in his agreement. “right. we face curses and danger all the time. we can’t let her… you know, terrorize us in our own house. we’re the men in the relationship.”

they had a point. they had faced deadly curses and powerful sorcerers without flinching. but here they were, nervously tip-toeing around their girlfriend like frightened schoolboys.

“absolutely,” gojo continued, trying to sound more confident than he felt. “we can’t let her intimidate us. we’re stronger than her. we’re the strongest.” geto nodded again, though he seemed a bit less sure this time. “we need to show her that we won’t be pushed around... right?”

they both tried to sound resolute, but there was a visible nervousness in their body language—shoulders tense, eyes darting toward the door every few seconds, like they were expecting you to burst in at any moment.

“yeah,” gojo added, his voice lowering as if he didn’t even believe what he was saying. “we can’t let her push us around. i mean, come on. we’re gojo satoru and geto suguru. we shouldn’t be scared of her. right?”

but even as the words left his mouth, the doubt was clear. geto let out a small sigh, nodding but with much less confidence than before. “yeah, totally. we shouldn’t be scared… at all.”

there was a brief pause as both of them exchanged uneasy glances, neither wanting to admit just how much they were actually afraid of upsetting you. their bravado was shaky at best.

the silence stretched on. clearly, both men were starting to panic. they were not used to feeling weak, and to have you—someone they cared about and respected—wielding so much power over them was uncomfortable to say the least.

“so we...we should confront her, right? show her we're not afraid?” gojo asked, more for reassurance than anything else. geto nodded half-heartedly, his own confidence flagging as the thought of facing you head-on filled him with unease.

just as their uncertainty reached its peak, the echo of your footsteps rang through the hallway. they both went still, their eyes wide as they heard you approaching and turned to look at each other in panic. the color drained from their faces, and all the bravado they had been trying to muster moments ago completely evaporated.

you appeared in the hallway, looking nothing like the terrifying figure they had been hyping themselves up to face. instead, you were dressed in your cozy cat printed pajamas, your hair slightly messy, and you looked more like someone ready for a peaceful evening than the source of their terror. you seemed so casual and calm, it was almost comical.

but despite how cute and harmless you looked, the effect on the two strongest sorcerers was instant. when you reached them and stood in front of them, a casual look on your face as you were about to ask what they were up to, they immediately went into panic mode. without a second thought, both men dropped to their knees, their faces showing sheer dread.

“it was all suguru’s idea!” gojo blurted out immediately, throwing his best friend under the bus without hesitation, his eyes wide with fear. he didn’t even give geto a chance to protest before continuing. “he said we should stand up to you, that we’re the strongest sorcerers and shouldn’t be scared. i—I told him it was a bad idea!“

geto glared at gojo, but he was too terrified to defend himself properly. “i—what?! you were the one who said we shouldn’t let her push us around!” he stammered, trying to shift the blame back.

you looked at them, clearly confused by their sudden and dramatic display of fear. your eyebrows knitted together as you took in the sight of gojo and geto kneeling in front of you, their faces pale and their eyes wide with distress. it was such a stark contrast to the usual confident and unflappable demeanor they showed in almost every other situation.

“what is going on with you two?” you asked, your voice laced with confusion. “why are you both on the floor?” you glanced between them, trying to make sense of the chaotic scene before you. the sight of them so unnerved and trying to pass the blame off on each other was bewildering. your calm demeanor and casual attire made the whole situation seem even more surreal.

they both looked up at you, their faces a mixture of fear and shame. gojo opened his mouth to speak, but geto cut him off immediately, wanting to defend himself.

“please, we're sorry,” geto blurted out, his voice quavering slightly. “we were just... uh...”

gojo chimed in, his voice still panicked. “we were just... messing around. yeah, messing around. just having a bit of fun.” they look at you, silently begging for forgiveness and trying hard to hide their previous arrogance.

you looked at them, your expression turning from confusion to genuine puzzlement as you tried to make sense of their frantic apologies and conflicting explanations. “messing around? having fun?” you repeated, clearly unsure of what they were talking about.

“what are you guys even saying?” you asked, crossing your arms and raising an eyebrow. you took a step closer, still trying to understand what could have prompted such an over-the-top reaction. “seriously baby, what’s going on? did i miss something?” your hands softly find their cheek, gently rubbing your thumbs across their skin.

the feeling of your hands on their cheeks was both soothing and embarrassing. they leaned into your touch, their bodies still tense with anxiety.

“we... we were just...” gojo began, his voice cracking slightly. geto cut him off again, clearly not wanting his friend to say anything else that could dig them deeper into trouble.

“it's nothing, really,” he mutters, looking up at you with a mix of guilt and shame. “just a silly argument. we're sorry if we worried you.” their panicked expressions soften slightly as they look up at you, still on their knees. they look so pathetic, and so uncharacteristically vulnerable, that it's almost endearing.

you looked down at them, your expression softening as you saw their vulnerable and somewhat endearing state. a small, amused smile played at the corners of your lips as you reached out to gently stroke their cheeks.

“you two weren't in bed,” you said, your tone light and soothing, “i was looking for you two. i just wanted to see if my boyfriends wanted to cuddle or hang out. i didn’t realize you were having such a… dramatic moment.”

the tension in their bodies seemed to ease at your words and soft touch. they both looked up at you, their eyes full of guilt and embarrassment.

“we, uh...” gojo started, but geto cut him off again.

“we're sorry we didn't notice you looking for us,” he muttered, his voice still laced with shame. “we were just having a... disagreement, and we didn't want to bother you.” they both looked up at you with puppy dog eyes, their faces full of remorse.

seeing the guilt and embarrassment in their eyes, you softened, feeling a wave of affection for them despite their earlier antics. you reached out and gently helped them to their feet, your touch reassuring and comforting.

“come on, baby,” you said, your voice warm as you guided them towards the bedroom.

you could tell they were feeling remorseful, and despite your confusion over their odd behavior, you chose not to press the issue. instead, you opted to show them a different kind of comfort. “let’s just go to bed and cuddle,” you continued, smiling at them, “it’ll be okay.“

as you led them toward the bedroom, gojo’s initial nervousness began to melt away in the warmth of your gentle presence. noticing your obliviousness to the full extent of their earlier antics, he seized the opportunity to return to his usual self, his playful side resurfacing.

“you know,” gojo began, sliding closer to you with a wide, affectionate grin, “i’ve really missed you today.” he snuggled up to you, his usual playful demeanor coming back full force. “it’s like, you’re the best part of my day, and i’ve been counting the minutes until we could be like this again.”

geto, feeling the shift in gojo’s mood, couldn’t help but smirk slightly at the change. he followed suit, wrapping an arm around you as you all made your way to the bedroom. “yeah, what toru said,” he added with a softer smile “we definitely missed you.“

behind the closed door, the three of you entered the bedroom, where the soft, dim lighting created a cozy and comforting atmosphere. as you led them both toward the bed, gojo began to shed his shirt, the fabric slipping off his toned body with an air of nonchalance.

“you know,” he stated casually, “i think a cuddle session is exactly what we need right now.” he tossed his shirt aside, not even bothering to see where it landed as he flopped down onto the bed.

geto followed suit, tossing his shirt and pants aside as well before joining gojo on the bed. “definitely,” he agreed, resting his head on the pillow. “i could use a good cuddle right now. it’s been a long day, after all.”

both men looked up at you expectantly, their eyes full of a mix of affection and mischief. they patted the space between them, silently inviting you to join the snuggle puddle.

“come here,” gojo said, his voice low and warm.

as you complied with their silent invitation, snuggling in between them, gojo wasted no time in wrapping his arms around you, pulling you closer against his bare chest. geto did the same, snuggling up against your back and molding his body to yours. his hand lightly caressed your arm, the touch tender and intimate.

“this is nice,” gojo murmured, burying his face into your hair. “i love having you here like this.”

the warmth of their bodies against yours was like a small, comfortable sanctuary. gojo’s arms were wrapped securely around you, his bare chest pressed against your back. geto was curled up behind you, his body molding to yours like two puzzle pieces fitting perfectly together.

“it’s perfect,” geto agreed, his voice soft and muffled as he nuzzled into your hair. “having you here with us like this just makes everything feel right in the world.” gojo hummed in agreement, his fingers tracing lazy patterns across your skin. “absolutely,” he said, his eyes closing in contentment.

for a few moments, none of you spoke, the only sound was the soft rustle of sheets and the steady beat of everyone's hearts. then, gojo spoke again, his voice barely above a whisper. “can i tell you something, baby?”

you hum softly, still buried your face on his chest.

gojo's fingers continued to caress your skin as he gathered his thoughts. he was quiet for a few moments before he finally spoke, his voice soft and serious.

“you know we care about you more than anything, right?” he asked, his hand moving to gently tilt your chin up so that you were looking at him. “more than anything in the entire world.” geto, sensing the sincerity in gojo’s words, moved in close on your other side, his arm wrapping tighter around you. “he’s right,” he muttered. “you mean the world to us.”

you felt a swell of warmth at their heartfelt words. you looked up at gojo, his gaze soft and sincere, and then turned to meet geto’s equally genuine eyes. your heart ached with affection for them both.

“i know,” you mumbled, your voice barely above a whisper. the emotions were almost overwhelming. you tightened your grip around gojo’s waist, pulling him closer, and then reached out to draw geto nearer to you as well.

gojo and geto both responded instantly to your wordless gesture, their bodies drawing closer as if magnetized to yours. gojo pulled you impossibly close to him, his arms embracing you like a vice, while geto pressed himself against your back, completing the cozy little sandwich.

gojo pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, his lips lingering for a few seconds before he spoke again, his voice still soft but with a hint of a smirk. “we just... we want to make sure you feel loved and safe, always.”

geto’s chin rested on your shoulder, and he added his own gentle kisses to your neck and face. his hands stroked your arms soothingly, his touch tender and affectionate.

“always,” he echoed gojo’s sentiment, his voice low and earnest, “you matter so much to us, baby.” gojo’s chest vibrated slightly as he hummed, his fingers trailing lightly over your skin, sending shivers of pleasure down your spine.

“we’d do anything for you,” he murmured, his lips brushing against your ear.

you let out a contented sigh, feeling the weight of their embrace and the tenderness of gojo’s kiss on your forehead. the warmth of their bodies pressed against you was incredibly comforting, and you closed your eyes for a moment to fully appreciate the feeling.

“i feel safe,” you murmured, your voice soft and sincere, “i always feel safe with you two, more than with anyone else. each time you cuddle me, it’s like my brain just turns off. i get so comfortable that i could fall asleep in seconds.”

you nestled even closer into their arms, savoring the sense of security and peace they provided. their combined presence was like a soothing balm, washing away any lingering worries or stress. in their embrace, you felt completely at ease, and the world outside seemed to fade away, leaving only the gentle comfort of their love.

gojo and geto both tightened their hold on you even more as you spoke, their bodies pressing against yours like an impenetrable wall of warmth and affection. the knowledge that you felt safe and secure with them, that their presence could turn off your worries and calm your mind, filled their chests with a deep sense of contentment.

“good,” geto murmured against your neck. “that's exactly how it should be.”

gojo nuzzled against your hair, his arms wrapping impossibly tighter around you. “you should always feel like this,” he said, “like nothing in the world can touch you.”

as the three of you continued to snuggle, geto’s hand began tracing gentle patterns up and down your arm, his touch soothing and rhythmic.

“we would do anything to make sure you feel this way,” he said softly. “you deserve nothing less than happiness and comfort.” gojo leaned down slightly to press another gentle kiss to your forehead, his lips lingering on your skin for a few moments before he spoke again.

“always, baby... always.”

you intertwine your free hand with geto’s, feeling his fingers gently intertwine with yours. with your other hand, you caressed gojo’s bare waist, enjoying the warmth and closeness of him.

as you felt their soothing touches and heard their comforting words, you closed your eyes, already starting to drift off. “i’m so grateful for you both,” you murmured softly, your voice barely audible. “thank you for being in my life.”

gojo and geto both held you tighter as you intertwined your fingers with geto’s and rested your palm on gojo’s waist. the simple touch was like the final piece of a puzzle falling into place, completing the circle of love and affection that surrounded you.

their hearts swelled with emotion at your words, and they both responded in unison, their voices low and soothing. “we’re the grateful ones, sweetheart,” gojo spoke up. “we should be thanking you for bringing us into your life,” geto continued, his voice warm and gentle.

you felt their embrace tighten around you, the simple touches of intertwined fingers and a warm palm on gojo’s waist completing the circle of love and affection. their words filled the space around you, wrapping you in a cocoon of emotional warmth.

as their voices melded into a soothing, harmonious backdrop, you drifted further into the comfort they provided. the gentle rise and fall of their breaths and the steady rhythm of their heartbeats guided you toward sleep.

you didn't have the chance to respond, as the comfort of their presence and their heartfelt words lulled you into a deep, peaceful slumber.

gojo and geto each felt a sense of deep contentment wash over them as they heard your breaths become slower and more even, signaling your descent into sleep. they held you close, their embraces protective and affectionate.

they watched over you as you slept, their gazes full of admiration and love. they continued to whisper soft, soothing words and gentle touches, ensuring you slept undisturbed and surrounded by their love.

“sweet dreams, baby,” gojo said quietly, his lips brushing your forehead. geto echoed his sentiment, his hand gently running through your hair. “we love you so much.”

the room was filled with a peaceful, quiet atmosphere, punctuated only by the occasional rustle of sheets and the soft rhythm of their breaths. gojo and geto were completely engrossed in their silent vigil, their senses fully attuned to you and your every movement.

slowly, the dawn began to break, casting a soft, morning glow into the room. it caught the edges of gojo’s silver hair and geto’s dark locks, creating a soft, halo-like effect around their heads.

[giannaln4]

Silly Little Bet

lando norris x artist!reader

summary: You were an artist and Lando loved to do what you did best with you, even if he wasn't very good at it. (917 words)

warnings: this turns into a make out (not heavy, very short), use of y/n

a/n: hi lovelies! i know i said i was going to take a little break, but honestly i just need to not think about quali today (still crying about it idk what to tell you). anyway, this is incredibly short so i’m sorry but i still hope you enjoy it! pls let me know what you think!! feedback is very much appreciated 🫶🏻 i also wanted to thank everyone who reached out to me and sent support ❤️‍🩹 ily all so much, i really appreciate it!!

↺ back to navigation — send me a request!

Quiet nights were your absolute favourites. Getting to spend time with your boyfriend without having to worry about some schedule one of you had to stick to was perfect, to say the least. You always found a way to occupy yourselves, doing anything and nothing at the same time. 

Tonight, though, you got to do one of your favourite activities: art. You were an artist, a professional one, and of course he loved that about you; he loved seeing you in your element, so focused on what you did best, and even though he didn’t know yet, you loved dragging him with you so you could see him struggle a bit to at least not be the worst artist the world has ever seen.

Now, he was extremely talented, and if he weren’t a racer, he would be somewhat of an artist; he’s said it himself many times, but that was before he met you, because compared to you, he would never say that about himself, no matter how many times you have said it to him. 

Right now, you found yourselves sitting on your shared bed, facing each other, trying to win a silly little bet you made earlier. It was simple, really. You were supposed to draw the other person, and whoever loses would have to come up with a plan for dinner, which the both of you already knew would end up being a homemade meal, eating it on the couch, and watching some dumb show. This really worked out for him because, as talented as he was, he still struggled to draw real people, and he knew he was setting himself up when he accepted.

You knew that too, and you also knew he only gave in so he could have another one of your drawings of him. But that was okay, because another one of your favourite things was to admire his focused expression while he tried to replicate someone on a blank piece of paper. 

If he was being completely honest, the top reason he loved doing some type of art with you was because you would always come up to him and help with something, holding and guiding his hand or just being really close to his face as you explained something, so he would never say no to that suggestion.

“Okay, so I do you and you do me. Do I have to paint it as well?” He asked as you poured some of your art supplies on the bed.

“No, just a quick sketch,” you replied, scanning the bed as you carefully chose the pencil you wanted to use. “I’m starving, anyway.”

You started sketching each other; you were faster (and probably better) than him, but you couldn’t help but blush any time his eyes fixated on your face for too long, studying every aspect of you to try to draw it. After several minutes, you were done, just finishing up a few details before placing the paper on the bedside table next to you, away from him so he wouldn’t see it yet.

“How is it going?” You asked.

He looked up at you and yelled, “Don’t move!” When you started to get up.

"Sorry,” you whispered, going back to your previous position.

You stayed like that for a while, watching as Lando looked at you repeatedly and then back at the paper, occasionally erasing stuff. He was almost done, but there was one thing holding him back. “I can’t get it right,” he sighed, dropping the pencil.

“What can’t you get right?”

“Your lips. They look too big or too small, and now the paper looks worn out from erasing so much.” He was clearly frustrated.

“Can I see it?”

“Promise you won’t laugh?” Lando asked you with an embarrassed look.

“Of course I’m not going to laugh; why would I do that?”

“You are a real artist, Y/N. You finished a while ago, and I’ve been stuck here trying to fix it, but I’ve only made it worse.”

“Lando, you are actually talented; I don’t make you do art with me because I wanna have a laugh. C’mon, show me.”

He sighed again and slowly turned the paper, showing you the drawing. “It looks terrible.”

Your eyes set on the paper, and an endeared smile appeared on your face. “It looks great, baby.”

"No, it doesn’t; as I said, you’re an artist, and you know exactly what’s wrong with it.”

“I mean it." You whispered, leaving your spot on the bed and sitting next to him, “Maybe the proportions are a bit off, but it does look great, I promise.”

“Thanks,” he replied with a smile, a moment of silence filling the room as you both stared at the drawing. “You know, maybe I just need to take a closer look at them.”

“Oh- I guess that would be helpful." You turned your body to face him, cupping his cheek and brushing away a few curls that rested on his forehead. “Do you want help?”

He nodded and broke the distance between you, locking his lips with yours as he pulled you onto his lap and his hands fell on your hips to intensify the kiss. You got closer and closer, pausing when your bodies couldn’t possibly get any closer to each other even if you tried.

“You know I can actually help you,” you said against his lips and in between kisses.

“Uh huh” Lando replied, not really thinking about the drawing anymore.

[thehmn]

I finally got to watch Viften (Empire) and it’s such a fascinating movie. It was written by Anna Neye who also plays Anna Heegaard, a rich free black woman who’s dating the Danish governor of the island.

It’s sold as an absurdist comedy and I think there’s no other way to describe it. There aren’t any real jokes but you often end up laughing at the absurdity of it all.

It’s extremely honest about the horrors Danes put the black population through but thankfully it only shows it in quick flashes of art as seen in the trailer. I once watched a video where they explained why most women aren’t into slasher movies and why black people generally don’t rewatch movies about racism and slavery. It’s because the the horrors shown are very real fears and a fact of life so the only people who can really enjoy watching a woman get horribly murdered as entertaining are men and only white people can watch a black person getting whipped to death with cinematic lighting and have a fun night out. By showing the horrors in art they get to be clear about exactly what is going on without coming off as exploitative.

But it’s also very honest about the ways a society based on slavery fucks with everyone. Most of the servants at the manor are slaves except the cook who bought her own freedom years ago. She tells the housekeeper Petrine that some day she too will be able to buy her freedom and get her own slave. That’s right, the freed black people aspire to get their own slaves because that’s the sort of values a society like this instills in people. And Anna tries to be as nice as possible to her own slaves but doesn’t take her own success for granted and is more afraid of an uprising than her white lover and ends up doing some really horrible things to her slaves to keep them down.

It also touches on how people viewed being black or white back then. That it wasn’t all about skin colour but also status. That’s why all the white people treat Anna as one of them. She’s a rich, educated lady so of course she’s “white”. Even Anna express contempt at being called black because she doesn’t work in the field. The poor freed black people also call Petrine white because she dress and acts like a Dane. Not as in “you are pretending to be white” but as in you are white.

And hats off to the director Frederikke Aspöck. There’s a scene where a woman buys her freedom and they put on a symbolic slave auction where she gets up on the podium and bids on herself. All the white neighbors have come to witness it because it’s seen as this joyous day and they all clap, she’s offered to drink with them and she’s all smiles. The director managed to make the scene wholesome while highlighting the absurdity of it and all you can do is chuckle because what the fuck? The white people think it’s a good thing that she’s free but continue to keep and mistreat their own slaves, and she no doubt dreams of getting her own down the road. It’s very much depicted as institutionalized racism and not just “a few bad eggs”.

And I didn’t know where to put this but there’s a lot of interesting symbolism going on with Anna’s dresses. She always wears dresses that match the colors of the rooms she’s in, establishing her as fully part of the system, but as she begins to realize that the Danish state will never see her as fully equal her colors start to clash with her surroundings.

I watched it on Netflix and it has English subtitles so it should be somewhere for English speakers to watch if you feel so inclined.

[ma1dita]

BABEEE happy birthday!! (i'm so terribly late i'm so sorry) congrats on 23💖

🐥 so i'm having thoughts right now about luke x reader and physical affection. like maybe one of them being touch starved and always craving the other person's touch and the other person noticing it and doing it more? maybe from platonic (i will go down with best friends to lovers) to romantic, i'm just on this brainrot tonight

🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥

luke castellan x reader

a/n: back from the klerb but here with a classic 4am post 🥂 but the hangxiety wont let me rest until this is out! ill edit this in the morning... or not 😗

wc: 1.1k

—

It’s hard to miss what you’ve never had.

Luke Castellan was never a touchy guy. Sure, he’ll hold a new camper’s hand during welcome tours (especially the little ones who can barely keep up with his long legs; if they’re lucky they get a piggy back ride), and he won’t shy away from a clap on the back when his strategies for capture the flag bring his team to victory (they always do, mind you), and when he feels like it, he’ll even shove Annabeth playfully to show her he adores her (but she packs a punch now that she’s older).

It never really goes past that, and he’s never had to think too hard about it—physical touch.

He’s the one who takes care of others—a part of his nature like it is for Hermes’ cabin to take in unclaimed demigods. But something changed in the months that he’s gotten closer to you. At first, he’d bite his tongue at the way you’re so open to patting his cheek when he does something funny (which he doesn’t try to make a show of, but now…), how you choose to sit so close to him during bonfires that your knees touch (the Apollo kids could be singing about the heavens falling down on them for all he cares but he zeroes in on every word that leaves your lips), and the way you’d lock your fingers with him for a pinky promise after every little thing ‘to make sure it’s real’ (Luke didn’t understand the merit of a pinky promise over whether you could have his dessert for the next week if you took over arts and crafts with the kiddie campers for him; truthfully he’d give it to you anyway). It was unusual for him to have someone comfort him, to show care without a true reason. But he didn’t realize how much more it bothered him now that you wouldn’t even look him in the eye.

Silena and some of the other Aphrodite children had asked you the very defining question of, “Do you like Luke Castellan?” and having never thought of it that way, or being able to put your feelings for him in words instead of fingers in his belt loops or in the muss of his curls—that shit was terrifying!

You spent all Saturday afternoon at the docks with them belly down under the glare of the sun’s rays as they explained to you what the five love languages are. By the end of it, sunburn wasn’t the only reason you felt hot.

“Your love language is physical touch,” one of Silena’s older half-siblings—Connelly, says like he’s explaining that the sky is blue, “And Luke’s not that type of guy! Think he’s more acts of service…”

“Ooh, or words of affirmation….” another one of them muses, but the sound of your heartbeat tunes it all out. Well shit, have you been sending him the wrong signals? Or are there even any signals you want to send him? 

Nevertheless, in the matters of love or even the tiniest whisper of it—maybe there’s no one else you can trust with this stuff besides Cabin 10.

Wrong.

Absolutely wrong. Whatever the hell you’ve been convinced or whatever’s changed since last weekend—Luke just knows he hates it, and he’s angry. He’s angry at how you gasp in surprise every time you brush shoulders during archery practice when you used to let him fix your form, he’s angry at how you’ll squeeze campers’ shoulders to tell them they’re doing a good job carrying the strawberry crates—and all he gets is a mumbled ‘Thanks, Castellan’ when he stacks them up and takes your load.

Luke’s so terribly angry that Travis told him he’s been walking around like a big strawberry, face red and irritated—but not at you. 

He realizes he’s also angry at the fact that he can’t protect you from the onslaught of a rain cloud—or maybe it was the fact that you’re so okay with the rain touching your skin and seeping through your orange shirt like he wishes you’d let him. He’s angry at the way the wind blows your hair into your face and your fingers brush the strands away like he wishes he can. Most of all, Luke Castellan is angry that he didn’t know how good a simple touch could be until he lost it—before he even really got to appreciate yours.

You’re sitting on the opposite end of the row in the amphitheater laughing with your friends and the furrow in his thick brow is a tell-tale sign of his discomfort. Luke doesn’t dare to remember what it’s like before you to be honest—he’d rather give up Elysium instead of having you ignore him like this. He calls your name, a tinge of both anger and desperation until you look over at him, eyelashes kissing your cheeks. The hold you have on him transcends the physical touch of your fingers but he wants, no—needs you next to him.

“C’mere! Why are you so far away?”

Luke hopes it doesn’t sound pathetic, but a crooked grin splits across his face as soon as you make your way over, sitting down and crossing your legs away from him. It’s still too far, even if he can feel your breath on his shoulder.

“Did I do something to make you angry? I…” The words escape his mouth in a jumble—quick wit from his father escaping him, though he knows not to rely on that asshole, god or not. You mutter words that almost escape him too, and he leans in, chasing your hands and putting them in his own until they’re gentle and soft in his lap.

“No, no…. I just… don’t want to push your boundaries. I know you don’t like it when I’m too touchy,” and he thinks his heart clenches a little like how you’re squeezing his hands. Luke shouldn’t feel instant gratification from a subconscious action. He wants to know you mean it with him—that’s what he can’t put into words.

“I….like it when you do.”

You notice the way his fingers tangle tighter with yours, pinkys interlocking with yours. When he lets go, Luke wraps his arm around your shoulders until you’re able to laugh in the crook of his neck. He chooses to place a kiss on the corner of your mouth when your head sways to face him at the silly tune about centaurs and then you realize that Luke loves the way you love him. You wonder if he accidentally missed meeting your lips, but then the noise in your head quiets down when he pulls you closer, lips locking tenderly, intentionally—as they were always meant to.

You both hear a giggle that sounds a lot like tinkling bells belonging to children of Aphrodite. 

For once they were wrong about love. 

Luke’s tongue parts through your lips and meets your own like they’re in a long awaited embrace, dancing and devouring you from the inside out but this, you— are what he can rely on. This, your touch, and how he chooses to let it consume him, never letting go.

[freedomfireflies]

Teach Me*

Summary: Harry needs a little practice in the art of Eating Pussy, and who better to ask for help than his best friend?

You.

Word Count: 5.4k

“...I’m sorry, you need to what?”

“I need…” Harry repeats, “...to eat you out.”

You blink at the man standing alarmingly still in the hallway outside of your door. “Is it crack? Is that what you smoke? Do you smoke crack?”

He smirks at the familiar joke before he’s brushing past you and striding into your apartment. “All right, fine. I just thought I’d ask.”

“Ask what?” you huff as you shut the door and face him. “I still don’t understand what it is you want.”

“I want to eat you out,” he says yet again as your expression falls flat. “Look I need…the practice.”

“Practice…”

“Practice.” He nods before flopping down onto the sofa. “You remember Tina, right?”

“Tall, hot, and out of your league?” you recall as you walk over to him. “Yes, I remember.”

He fights a smile. “Yeah, well…she agreed to let me take her out and I just…I want to make sure I’m prepared.”

“...prepared.”

“Prepared.” His eyes follow you as you take a seat beside him. “Come on, you know I don’t have a lot of experience with that shit, and I want to make sure I’m…you know, at least capable of making her come. And I have no other way to get…better.”

“Oh, so, naturally I’m your second-best option,” you snort playfully as you pull your knees to your chest. “But how would eating me out help you make her come? Not all girls like the same stuff, you know. Lesson number one.”

“Because I need someone to help me make my technique a little…smoother, I guess. Tell me what feels good and what doesn’t so I know,” he explains, without a hint of embarrassment, and truthfully, you’re a little impressed.

Harry has always been…bold, you would say. Assertive, confident, borderline egotistical. He’s never had a problem making friends or getting a girlfriend, so learning that his sexual experience didn’t expand as far as you thought it did was kind of a surprise.

You do admire him for wanting to be good for her. In fact, the thought is almost sweet, although you have no idea where he got the idea to ask you.

Sure, you’re his best friend, but…that’s kind of fucking…weird. Right? You guys don’t do that. You don’t even like to hug.

You run your tongue over your bottom lip and look for the deception within his expression. He could be messing with you. It wouldn’t be the first time and you certainly wouldn’t put it past him.

But there’s something…earnest in the way he speaks. In the way his eyes hold onto yours as he awaits your response, hopeful and desperate.

“So…wait, hold on.” You clear your throat and straighten up. “You…you honestly want…to eat me out…just to see if I like it?”

“Kind of, yeah,” he agrees as one shoulder bobs up in a nonchalant shrug. “I’ve got a few ideas on what to do, I just…I need someone—I need you—to tell me if it feels good or not. So I can practice and make sure she’ll like it.”

Your teeth begin to absentmindedly knaw on the inside of your cheek. Truthfully, you have no idea how to feel about this. The request is outrageous and weird and it goes way past the duties of friendship.

But you’ve known him forever and you trust him and honestly? You feel a little bad for the guy.

Sure, the best way for him to get the practice he needs would be with her, but you know him. He doesn’t like to admit he doesn’t know something and he absolutely despises feeling unprepared. 

He’s a perfectionist.

And you are a little flattered that he feels safe enough with you to showcase his inexperience and that thought alone begins to wash your reservations away.

“So…all I’d have to do is just…sit here? And tell you yes or no?” you clarify, and he nods.

“Yeah. I won’t make you come, don’t worry. I know that’s…going a little farther than we need,” he says. “I just…wanna play with you a little.”

You smirk. “Wouldn’t not making me come defeat the purpose?”

He exhales a laugh as he leans back. “I just want to make sure I can. Besides, doesn’t it open up a bunch of emotions and shit? It attaches you to the person? I mean, do you really wanna live with the knowledge that you came because of me?”

“...no,” you admit. “Okay, that’s fair. So…if I agree…you’re not gonna drag this out, right? Just to annoy me?”

He chuckles again. “Well, I wanna make sure I’m doing it right…but no, I won’t drag it past that. I’ll stop whenever you want.”

Your fingers pull at a loose strand on your jeans. You aren’t seriously considering this, are you? “And if I say yes…how would we…I mean, what would we do?”

He thinks about this for only a moment, suggesting that he already came with a plan. Typical. “I guess we go somewhere you feel comfortable…we start slow. You tell me what you’re okay with, what you’re not okay with…and then I’ll just…get started.”

You look at him. Really look at him. He’s relaxed. Almost too relaxed considering the line he’s suggesting you both cross. A line you can never uncross.

And as you stare at those familiar features you’ve known for years…you feel your body exhale a deep breath. You’re doubtful, sure…but he’s always been rather exceptional at providing you comfort, just through a look alone.

Exactly like he is now.

His mouth quirks up in a smirk as he bumps his knuckles against your knee teasingly. “We don’t have to, Bee. I just…thought I’d ask.”

You roll your lips into your mouth as you hesitate, the familiar nickname calming you ever-so-slightly. “I didn’t…I’m not saying no, I just…I don’t know. It’s weird.”

“I know,” he agrees with a nod. “Look, just…forget I said anything. I’ll Google it, it’s fine. Let’s just watch Schitt’s Creek or something, yeah?”

With that, he turns toward the TV, grabs the remote, and begins to flip through the channels, leaving the conversation behind.

But you aren’t as quick to let the idea go. After all, he planted the seed, and now you’re starting to wonder. You’re starting to…accept.

Maybe things will be weird. And maybe you won’t be able to go back to how you used to be. But at least you’ll have helped him…? And that’s…something that friends do.

…right?

“I have never heard someone say so many wrong things…one after the other…consecutively…in a row,” David says to your right as Harry smiles and glances over to see if you’re listening.

But you’re not.

At least, not to David.

“Okay,” you murmur, quiet enough that it becomes lost beneath the next line on the show.

Harry, confused, raises a brow and begins to lower the volume. “Sorry, what?”

“Okay,” you repeat, a little more confidently than you had before. “Okay, I agree to your proposal. Just this once.”

He blinks. “Wait, seriously?”

“Seriously.” You nod. “What? Don’t look at me like that, I’m charitable. And cool, and a really good friend. So…don’t forget that the next time I ask you to buy the popcorn at the movie.”

His eyes roll but he laughs as he tosses the remote aside. “All right, that’s fair. Deal.”

You both go quiet.

Funny…for some reason, you thought agreeing would be all there was to it.

His eyes soften as he looks you over. “So…you’re in charge, okay? You just…tell me where you wanna go, what you’re comfortable with…whatever you want, yeah?”

You nod faintly before glancing toward your room. “Um…I guess we can do it on the bed. There’s probably more room, so it would be a little easier…I guess.”

He nods, too, before slowly moving for the edge of the couch. But he doesn’t stand until you do, eyeing you closely as if gauging your reaction.

You aren’t sure why you feel so…timid. You’re not exactly nervous, maybe just…apprehensive. But, it’s Harry, and he will always be the boy that got a blueberry stuck up his nose and snorted purple snot to you.

And it can’t get more embarrassing than that. 

He follows you into the bedroom. The same bedroom he’s seen a million times, although now, it’s like a completely different space.

With an awkward clear of your throat, you take a seat on the corner of the mattress, head tilting back as you look up at him expectantly. “Uh…now what?”

“You tell me,” he says softly, hands finding refuge in his pockets. “Where do you wanna be? Against the pillows? Might be more comfortable.”

You glance over your shoulder at the headboard. “Yeah, I guess that’s…a good idea.”

He smiles again, stepping back to allow you the room to crawl back. 

Once you’re in position and settled, he takes your spot on the edge of the bed. “Still good?”

You nod, arms resting atop your stomach, almost as if to hide yourself. “Yup.”

“Do you wanna pick a safeword?”

Your brows raise. “I mean…I think ‘stop’ will do just fine.”

He snorts his amusement. “Fair.”

Again, you both grow quiet, and you wish you could find your nerve. In the many years you two have known each other, not once have you ever been this shy. Or quiet. In fact, you don’t believe there’s ever been a second of silence between you, and you have no idea what to do with it.

He straightens up, taking the reins when he notices you don’t plan to. “Do you have your phone?”

Confused, you reach into your pocket and wiggle the cell phone free.

He nods. “Okay, I want you to pull up your favorite porn.”

Your lips part as you blink. “...I’m sorry, what now?”

"Well, I’m willing to bet you’re not exactly turned on right now, right?” he explains, nodding his chin at you with a teasing glint in his eye. “And I’m just thinking that might be a little harder to work with. For both of us.”

Unfortunately, he’s right. You’re about as dry as the Sahara desert, so you admit defeat and swipe up on your screen.

Now, while you and him have both exchanged some of your favorite videos before, pulling up one now…in front of him…feels like a whole new ballgame.

You quickly readjust the volume before looking for the ones you know normally do the trick, refusing to sneak a glance at the man now scooting a bit closer to you. 

But you do hear him smile. “Find it?”

Your eyes land on the familiar thumbnail you’ve seen a hundred times before as you whisper, “Yeah.”

“Good,” he hums, hands coming to rest near your outstretched legs. “Can I take your jeans off? Just your jeans.”

You peek out from around the screen of your phone, catching the curious but hopeful look on his face. “...sure.”

He nods his understanding before shifting closer so he can reach for your zipper to guide it down.

You debate watching him but choose instead to click play on the video and force your attention elsewhere. Maybe this will go smoother if you just…don’t look at him. 

Ever.

You feel the air hit your legs as his fingers curl around the fabric at your hips to pull it down. He’s deliberate, making sure he doesn’t accidentally graze something he’s not supposed to (ironically enough), but you appreciate the gesture. 

He gently tugs the material down to your ankles before effortlessly tossing it aside, and you feel yourself swallow.

This isn’t your first time, so you thought you’d know what to expect. But you don’t know what to expect from him. He seems to have a plan (thank God), and you catch the way he eyes your underwear before he glances up at you.

“Ready?” he murmurs, the cadence of his voice rather reassuring. “I’ll just play with you a bit for now, yeah?”

Again, you swallow thickly, forcing the nerves aside. “Yeah, go.”

And from that point on, you decide to proceed with a more clinical mindset. This is practice, exactly like he said. It doesn’t mean anything to either of you, and once it’s over, you doubt you’ll ever mention it again.

It’s just practice.

A cunt is a cunt, a tongue is a tongue, a hand is a hand. Doesn’t matter who they belong to. Pleasure is pleasure, and that’s all there is to it.

You return your attention to your phone as the bed dips, signaling that he’s getting himself into position. You wonder what he means when he says he wants to play with you, and you also wonder if he’ll actually be any good.

But before you can worry that you’ll have to tell him that he’s terrible…he touches you.

You feel his palm, gently smoothing up your right leg, slowly but with purpose. Your breath hitches as you blink at the images flashing across the screen in front of you. You have no idea if you’ll be able to get out of your own head long enough to feel turned on, but you don’t worry about it quite yet.

Then…you feel his thumb.

Your entire body goes still as the pad of his finger brushes down the front of your underwear, right over your clit. There’s just enough pressure to capture your attention but not so much that it feels uncomfortable.

Your chest deflates with a deep breath as you begin to move your focus from the porn to him.

He does it again, a little harder this time around. It’s teasing, almost. Exactly like he said it would be. He’s simply playing with your body and seeing how it reacts. And every time you twitch or your legs begin to tense, you hear him smile, as if making a mental note of it.

For a few minutes, this is all he does. He runs his fingers up and down the fabric in slow but teasing patterns, pressing and sometimes circling as you feel an ache begin to form.

The sounds coming from your phone are successful in urging your body to bend to such salacious intentions. You can feel your muscles unwind as your mind begins to release those doubtful premonitions.

With a flutter of your lashes, you move your phone to the side so you can get a glimpse of the boy between your legs.

He doesn’t seem to notice. Either that or he pretends not to. And for a moment, you aren’t sure what to make of the sight before you. Harry, your best friend, in a staring contest with your cunt and you want to be put off…but you’re not. 

“How’s that?” he murmurs after a moment, his other hand softly stroking the skin of your thigh as he pulls your legs further apart.

Your voice betrays you as you breathe, “Good.”

He looks up. Smiles. “Noted.”

He does it some more, thumbing over your clit before pressing into it and guiding it in a circle. You squirm each time, the faintest of whimpers getting stuck in the back of your throat. 

He seems proud, and you almost want to be annoyed, but you just don’t have the mental capacity to be in this moment.

Maybe when it’s over.

And then, he does something you hadn’t expected.

He dips down…and presses a soft kiss to your inner thigh. Not too close but not too far, and as he does, his eyes find yours.

Shit. “Okay, I’m ready,” you whisper quickly, hips subtly bucking up. “I’m…I think I’m good now.”

His brow raises as he drops his hand and you have to fight the urge to whine. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” You chew on your bottom lip. “I mean, if you are.”

“I am,” he says, glancing back down at your waist. “Yeah, I am.”

So you nod, and anxiously await his next move.

He reaches again for your body, and you want to sigh with relief as he slips his fingers under the band of your underwear to peel it down. 

The cool air is rather chilling and it’s then that you’re made aware of the mess already forming between your thighs. You knew you’d begun to enjoy yourself but you’re surprised by just how much. 

Whether that was because of him or because of the video…you don’t exactly know.

Once the lace has been flicked to the side, he readjusts onto his knees and formulates a plan.

He makes you wait. Watch. Watch as he once again takes your legs in his hands to guide them apart and settle between them.

Watch as he outstretches his palm so he can run it along your hip before moving lower.

Watch as he takes his thumb and brings it back to your clit which is now exposed to his skin.

And the contact is sinful. You’re worked up enough that the immediate connection makes your head drop back, and while you’d like to be embarrassed…you just don’t care.

He drags it down. Down. Presses, rubs, and dips into the wetness that waits for him.

He’s concentrated, and the look on his face is rather adorable. He’s learning. Studying. Observing each and every reaction you offer him as he continues to tease you.

Once in a while, he’ll venture a glance up, perhaps for approval, and you’ll nod quickly. Then, he’ll return to the task at hand as he looks for new ways to make you gasp.

He slides the tip of his finger in without warning and when you whimper, he stills and raises his brow.

You can tell he was aiming for the element of surprise, choosing not to warn you in order to receive this very response, but he’s not sure if that was a sound of approval or unease, so you rush to clarify.

“No, it’s fine,” you mumble. “It’s fine, it’s good.”

“Are you su—”

“Yes, it’s good. Go.”

Encouraged, he pushes in. He’s still wary of your enjoyment but he seems to focus more on the movement of his hand than your expressions. And that’s all right with you. You’re happy to simply sit and…judge. Which is what he’s asked you to do, and you plan to uphold your end of the deal.

He stops when he’s reached his knuckle, finger curling slightly before he’s gently pulling back. He repeats the action a time or two more and the fullness that accompanies the stretch is quite enjoyable.

Your eyes move to the ceiling as you fight the urge to watch him. You’re not that comfortable yet and perhaps watching him would ruin the fun. So, for now, you stare at the white paint above you as he begins to pump his hand a bit faster.

When he adds a second finger, you gasp, and he uses this as leverage to expand his search.

And you know exactly what he’s looking for, the crease between his brows indicative of his captivation.

But just when you’re getting ready to offer some help, he drives in and curls up until the tips of his fingers brush against that particular point of ecstasy.

You inhale a sharp breath and writhe away, faintly panting, “Shit…that.”

Intrigued, he perks up, although he doesn’t relax his pace. “That?”

He does it again and your eyes squeeze shut. “Yeah…yeah, it’s…mhm.”

A smile dances across his lips as he scoots a little closer to watch his own hand as he repeats the action.

You begin to slump down the mattress, limbs turning to jello as he guides your body up toward that familiar ledge, and you hear him hum his approval.

“Good,” he murmurs, you assume in an attempt to soothe you. “Very good, m’proud of you. Seem to be doing really well.”

You stumble over a scoff. “Yeah, well…so are you.”

The grin grows. “Still doing okay?”

“Yes,” you whisper when his thumb ghosts over your clit. “Yeah, I…fuck. I’m…is this all you’re gonna do…then? I thought…I thought you wanted…to…with…the other…”

Nothing that comes out of your mouth is coherent but he seems to understand. “Yeah, I just wasn’t sure if you were ready.”

“I am,” you correct quickly. “I’m…yeah, I’m fine. You can…you’re good. Just do it.”

He dips his head down but doesn’t quite connect as he continues to watch you carefully. “Bee?”

“...wha—shit—what?”

“Thank you.”

Your eyes roll playfully, although perhaps that’s just from the pleasure. “Yeah, yeah, I’m…I’m a fucking saint. Just…fucking do it, okay?”

So…he does.

Those lips you used to stare at move down to your clit and he brushes his mouth over your body for just a moment before you see his tongue.

He takes a moment to decide exactly what he wants to do before he’s pressing that tongue into you and dragging it up from his hand.

You’re so wound up that it doesn’t take much more for you to arch off the bed in search of that feeling. He’s hardly done anything but your head is rolling back across the pillow as your fingers dig into the blanket beneath you.

He nips at you gently, continuing to pump your arousal in and out as it coats his hand, and your mind instantly falls completely blank.

The sounds…god, the sounds. The sound of you, the sound of him, the sound of your body falling apart beneath him.

He’s good. He’s very good, and you almost wonder if he was lying about his inexperience. There’s no way he learned this from porn…at least, you can’t see how. But, he is a perfectionist. Maybe it just comes naturally to him.

“Awfully quiet up there,” you hear him say, and the vibration of the deep tone of voice sparks a chill down your spine. “That bad?”

No! you want to scream but you simply shake your head. “It’s…it’s good. You’re…this is great. This is all…you know…standard…good…stuff.”

When he smiles, your cheeks grow hot. “Guess I have a good teacher.”

“Please,” you huff, pressing your palm to your forehead. “You always—god, always know what you’re doing. I had nothing to do with it.”

He shrugs as his eyes flick across the mess in front of him. “Had more to do with it than you think.”

He dives back in, licking a stripe up before driving his fingers in further. And there’s so much happening. So much that it makes you crazy. There’s him, and there’s you, and there’s that reminder of need that continues to grow. You can’t focus in on any one thing, and honestly...you’re okay with that. 

When he sucks you into his mouth, you have to fight the urge to grab onto him, twisting the duvet around your knuckles as you reel. 

“Don’t,” he mumbles, and you work to figure out what he’s referring to. Did you do something wrong? “Don’t grab the blanket. Grab me.”

You blink down at him. “I’m…no, it’s fine. I was just—”

“Bee, I’m not asking,” he interrupts, rather resolutely. “You wanna do it, so do it. Promise, I don’t mind.”

You certainly aren’t a stranger to this more…authoritative side of him. Although now, you might even…like it? At least, in this context.

“Come on,” he repeats, pulling back only to shoot you a stern look. “She will. And it’ll show me what you like. Don’t be a pussy, just do it. You won’t hurt me.”

And you almost want to fight him, but he’s right, and you can’t argue that. 

So, the moment he returns to his focused work, you reach for those chocolate brown curls and give them a nice tug.

He makes a noise of approval that nearly kills you, lapping at your folds like he’s depraved and you’re his only remedy.

Tina is gonna love it.

He finds a certain rhythm that you respond to well and zeros in. His cheeks hollow every time he sucks on you only to quickly pop off as he presses his tongue beside his fingers. 

Your nails scratch down his scalp and he seems to like it, his other hand grasping onto your thigh so hard you imagine it’ll bruise.

And for just a moment, you actually don’t mind. You concede to the satisfaction he’s offering and you indulge in it. You find gratification in the fact that you accepted and you even decide that maybe…this was a good idea.

“Are you close?” he asks once your whimpers scale up an octave.

You nod quickly. “Yes…yeah, I’m…yeah.”

“Good,” he muses proudly before he’s suddenly removing his hand from your body and pulling away.

You nearly disappear through the mattress as you choke on a dejected whine and look down at him. “What…what happened?”

He breathes out a laugh as he settles onto his knees. “Nothing, I’m just keeping my word.”

His word.

Right.

“You…oh,” you whisper, fighting your disappointment. “Yeah. Well…that was…you did good. That was all…you know, very well done. She’ll like it, you’ll be fine.”

He seems pleased with your approval before his eyes begin to narrow in thought. He watches you haphazardly reach for a throw blanket to cover yourself, but just as you’re getting ready to toss it over your legs, he snatches onto your wrist.

You both still as he studies you. “Bee?”

“...what?”

He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. “If there’s something you want to ask me…then ask me.”

You blink. “What…what do you mean?”

With his hold still on your arm, he leans closer. “Bee…we agreed, yeah? M’trying to be a good student, but I can’t be if you don’t tell me what you want.”

Your breath hitches the closer he gets. “Har, I don’t know what you’re—”

“Do you wanna come?”

Well…shit. “I…” You begin to shift nervously under his pointed stare. “I was just…”

His expression softens although there’s a hint of smugness swimming behind his smile. “Do you want me…to make you come?” he clarifies as your stomach twists into a knot.

Feigning exasperation, you huff a stray hair from your eye. “Well, what do you think? Obviously nobody likes being edged.”

He’s amused as he begins to lower back down, fingers still wrapped around your wrist. “Then what do you need to do?”

You huff again, shooting a quick glare his way as you watch him drop his gaze to your sensitive cunt. “Harry…come on.”

He clicks his tongue and cocks his head. “Nope, that’s not it.”

You open your mouth, a quippy remark locked and loaded, but right before you can use it…he puckers his lips and blows on your clit.

Your muscles recoil and your throat seems to close up as you pull against his hold. “You fucking asshole, you did that on purpose.”

“Obviously.” He tosses you a wink. “You wanna try again?”

No, I wanna kill you, you think but don’t say. “Harry…please.”

You briefly notice the way his eyelashes flutter at the sound of his name but he doesn’t comment on it. “Please what?”

“Harry—”

“Come on, Bee, you can do it.”

“I just…I…this isn’t…”

“Almost there, that’s it. Be a good girl and ask me.”

Oh, that sadistic fucker. You’d berate him for such a nickname if it didn’t turn you on so goddamn much, especially with the state you're in. You might even wanna hear it again and truth be told, the thought blows your mind.

You swallow a shaky breath. “Harry?”

“Yes?”

“...please make me come.”

A wide smile bursts across his face. “Attagirl.”

And with that…he continues.

You’re thrust back up the precipice of pleasure as he slips three fingers into your aching, dripping cunt. 

And it’s purposeful and practiced and he’s such a liar because he knows exactly what he’s doing, at least to you, and you want to smack him.

But you also want to grab onto his hair and his arm and every inch of his body and never let go because he’s so good for making you feel this way. The best friend you could ever have and why on Earth didn’t you guys try this earlier?

Each curl, each twist, each push in. You feel so full and he feels so good and it’s only his hand and then suddenly…it’s his mouth, too.

And the moment he presses his tongue against you, you lose it. You roll your hips against his face, and lift your back from the bed, and drop your mouth open as a desperate moan falls free.

And it goes, and goes, and goes. Stronger and longer than any other one you’ve ever had and this time, you think it really does kill you.

But he doesn’t stop, not even when you’ve begun to settle. He pushes against the sensitive nerves until tears spring to your eyes. He teases and he tortures and he demands a second orgasm out of you before you can even fight it.

This time, he grabs onto your hips, one hand on either side, to lift you and place you where he wants.

And he tastes you. Savors you on his tongue as if this is for his enjoyment, not yours.

And you look down at him, and you see the flush in his cheeks, and the messy way his hair falls into his eyes, and the veins in his arms as he holds you.

And you lose it. Completely and utterly and permanently.

You disappear into your own head for a moment until his ministrations relax and he slowly—very slowly—begins to let go.

As you fight to catch your breath, you watch him run his thumb across his lip. He’s going to wipe you away, you imagine, but then, to your surprise, he sucks his thumb into his mouth.

When he notices you watching, he raises a brow. “Want some?”

And you can only lay there and stare at him, dumbfounded and blissed-out

He laughs to himself when he notices the spacey expression on your face, moving to hover over your body until he’s only inches away. “Can I try something else?”

“What?” you ask breathlessly.

He smiles. “Kissing you.”

Your eyes widen. “...why?”

He shrugs. “I mean, it’s only polite after something like that, no? Like…a parting gift.”

Your eyes narrow. “How sweet. No, really, that was so romantic. Don’t stop, give me another compliment—”

He presses his lips to yours. And it’s rushed and it’s messy and it’s the perfect parting gift.

It’s him.

And you don’t mind that.

You both grin when he pulls back, chuckling to yourselves as he flops over onto the bed beside you.

He helps you toss the blanket over your legs before he’s turning onto his side, head in his hand as he studies you. “All right, Teach. What do you say?”

You pretend to think. “Well…your dirty talk could use some work.”

He smirks. “Okay.”

“And your incessant need to make me spell it out lost you a few points.”

“Sure, sure.”

“But, overall…that was really good,” you admit, and he beams. “Like…better than I expected, and I kind of think you lied about not knowing what to do.”

He shakes his head playfully as he glances off into your room. “Good to know you had so much faith in me.”

“Oh, I didn’t. Not even a little.”

He snorts. “Well, I meant what I said. I only knew what to do because of you.”

“Yeah right. I didn’t tell you any of that.”

“You did,” he argues, turning his attention back to you. “Not with words, no. But with the sounds you made. The way your breath would catch or the way you’d squirm. Or when your nose would crinkle up ’cause you were trying really hard not to like it.”

Shit…had he noticed that? “I…okay, in my defense…I like almost anything. And I wanted to make you work for it.”

“Oh, is that right?”

“Yeah.”

He rolls over onto his back, grinning up at the ceiling. “All right, well…I still appreciate it.”

“Hey, don’t get all sappy on me now.”

“Fuck off,” he groans. “I mean it, Bee. I was honestly…okay, don’t fucking laugh, but…I was kind of nervous about it. About whether or not she’d like it. Whether or not you’d like it, and…I’m glad you said yes. I’m glad it was you because…you know. It’s you. And I always feel better around you.”

You work to restrain your smile as you look up at the fan spinning above you. “I feel better around you, too.”

He hums.

“Especially after that. I mean…that was good,” you add and he shakes his head again. “She’s gonna love it.”

He turns to you. “Honestly?”

“Honestly.” You meet his eye. “Really, Har, you have nothing to worry about. She’ll show you what she likes just like I did. You know what to do, you just have to listen. And then…you can call me and tell me all about it.”

“Deal,” he agrees eagerly, sticking his pinky between you.

You take it and squeeze. “And I already know what next week's lesson is gonna be.”

Amused, he says, “Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”

You grin.

“How To Eat Ass 101.”

Next part:

~ Show Me* (Pt. 2)

~ Full Teach Me Masterlist (with all the other parts plus extras!)

~ Other Harry Blurbs

~ Full Masterlist

[bosinclairsgff]

Slashers reacting to you biting them

Includes: The Grabber, Otis Driftwood, Bo Sinclair

Warnings: kidnap, cussing abuse, NSFW mentioned

Not full on drawing blood type biting but love nibbles yk? Also I hate this but idk.

- Depending on Alberts mood, he’d either giggle and find it cute or he’d slap the shit out of you.

- It’s so hard to tell what he’s truly feeling so your careful when you first do it. He had been spending more time in the basement with you, sometimes holding you. So one day while he’s holding you, you grab his arm and lightly bite him, and holding him in your mouth for a moment. Immediately he’s frozen in place, not knowing how to react at first. “Why’d you do that dove?” He’d ask while holding you closer to him. He wouldn’t mind after you explain it’s kinda your love language.

- You read the room so wrong. Al is holding you sure, but the room feels off and he breathing heavy. You make the decision to slightly bite his arm, in a loving way like you had explained last time. This time though, he pushed you off his lap, you hit the concrete floor hard letting out a small yelp. He towers over you and kicks you directly in your stomach. You cry out in pure pain. “Please, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to make you mad, I’m so sorry!” You try to reason with him. “You dumb bunny. Such a dumb pathetic bunny.” He say’s delivering another blow to your stomach, knocking the breath out of you. Satisfied, he kneels down to look at you. Saying nothing he kindly pushes your hair out of your eyes. Albert then leaves without saying a word.

- Otis would take it as a kink or a way to kick of sexy time.

- Otis was working on one of his art projects, not paying much attention to you. “Otis?” You question standing by his chair and putting a hand on his shoulder. “What do you fucking want mama?” He says slightly annoyed. He turns around to look at you. “Can I sit on your lap while you work…please? I’ll sit still and be good I swear.” You say as you pout. Otis rolls his eyes but pats his lap. You happily take your stop on his lap. Straddling your legs over his thighs, facing him. After a second of looking in his eyes, you lay your head into the crook of his neck. You stay that way for a few minutes before you get the idea to slightly bite his neck. He lets out a deep sigh. “What the fuck are ya doing girl?” He questions. “I jus wanted to bite ya. I’m sorry.” You say feeling your cheeks heat up. Otis grips your ass and pulls you closer to him.

- You can only guess what happens next.

- Bo would also take it as a way to get in your pants.

- You were in the shop sitting on the counter watching Bo work. “I can feel ya staring at my ass y/n.” He chuckles, making your face turn red. Standing up and walking over to you, just to hold you in his arms for a moment. His arms wrap around your waist and his chins rest on the top of your head. You melt into his touch, closing your eyes and relaxing. After a few moments just resting with each other he lets go of you. You lightly grab his arm and kiss it before slightly biting it. He’s immediately turned on. “Woah I’m usually the one doin tha biting baby.” He jokes. “I don’t mind this though.” Bo closes the distance between you to and catches your lips with his.

- Pound town goes CRAZY, you do explain after though that it’s a love language. He doesn’t understand and will probably always take it as your down for a quick fuck.

[rad-batson]

The Batkids and The Arts (Feral Edition)

They’re all musical theatre nerds. Every single one of them. Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Cass, Jason, Steph, Tim, Duke, Damian. They go see Broadway shows together then don’t stop talking about it for like a week. It is the one bonding activity they will never pass up.

Jason and Steph once entered a ballroom dancing competition and won after some pompous rich kids insulted their moves during a gala. Since then, they’ve entered a competition every month or so just for fun. (And for the prize money :P)

Tim is an avid believer that Culinary Art is one of The Arts. (Can he cook? Absolutely not. It was Bernard that convinced him, but he stands by it.)

Duke talks through every single movie he watches. He always promises to be quiet at the beginning, but then he gets too excited and whispers commentary to the people around him. This habit has since bled into the entire family. They are no longer welcome at the local AMC.

Every single one of them is pretentious about something.

Dick is pretentious about any and all performance arts featured at the circus. Once, someone made a joke about going to “Clown School” and Dick screamed at them about how not even their pinky would have the privilege of being admitted into clown school.

Jason is pretentious about classic literature. They can no longer tell if his jokes and references to Shakespeare and Jane Austen are correct or if he’s just fucking with them.

Cass gets pretentious about martial arts being a performance art. She is also pretentious about ballet being a martial art. She could kill a man in fifth position without losing her balance, and that’s a fucking fact.

Stephanie is very good at acting pretentious about the arts. She absorbs everything she’s learned from the rest of the bat family’s interests then pretends to be pretentious about it to mock them while sneaking in just enough correct information so no one can call her out on it. (Her true interest is graphic design.)

Tim has no professional experience with photography, but he will be pretentious about it like he knows everything. (Bruce: Tim, why is there a filter on this evidence photo you took? Tim: I thought it looked nicer that way. Really makes the blood splatter pop.)

Duke isn’t exactly pretentious about writing, but he will lay down his life for the Oxford comma. (Bruce didn’t use it until Duke called the punctuation in his mission reports “insulting.” He now uses it.)

Damian is pretentious about studio art. If he ever hears his family or friends say, “I don’t get it,” at an art museum, he will make them look at it for five minutes as he explains in painstaking detail what’s so revolutionary about it.

The kids decided to take an improv class together once for their undercover work while Bruce and Alfred were out of town. It was so fun that they still play improv games when they’re bored.

Cass is secretly a metalhead.

Whenever one of the younger kids needs to write an English paper, they will just walk up to Jason, riddle off a dumb opinion about the book or poem they had to read, and record whatever Jason ends up lecturing them about. The most recent incident resulted in an award-winning paper about how the theory that William Shakespeare never wrote his own work is deeply rooted in classism.

Damian always has paint under his nails. It just never comes out.

Dick has personally taught everyone in the family how to do The Perfect Backflip. They all get a little ceremony once they’ve mastered it. There is cake.

Whenever Cass is standing around with nothing to do, she’ll practice her foot positions for ballet. The others always notice and follow her lead.

Jason: dramatically recites a poem in the living room Steph: starts beatboxing

Steph is always the first to find typos or continuity errors in a book, play, or movie. She doesn’t intend to; it’s just second nature to her. (She is now Duke’s official proofreader.)

Duke: So how’d you like the movie? Damian: I really loved the mise-en-scène, especially during the breakfast scene and that one shot near the end with the warehouse doors. Duke: *nods thoughtfully* Everyone Else Leaving the Theater: wtf is a meez on sen?

When Duke is finished writing something and wants to share it with his family, he’ll give it to Jason and Cass first.

Jason and Duke have frequent passionate arguments discussions about who is the best poet. Never bring up Dickinson, Poe, Shakespeare, Hughes, Plath, Wilde, Kipling, Sappho, or Angelou in their vicinity unless you want to start it up again.

Damian is surprisingly good at acting. Too good.

Dick knows your music taste before you do. He has a carefully curated playlist for every single family member, every possible combination of family members, and every possible mood at the ready.

They can and will correct anyone who mistakes Gothic architecture for Victorian or Gothic Revival and vice versa. (It’s really a Gotham thing.)

Tim: How dare you call The Grand Budapest Hotel the best prison break movie when it’s clearly The Shawshank Redemption! Jason: Well, as someone who’s BEEN TO PRISON, I think I should know! Dick: It’s clearly Chicken Run! You’re all just Chicken-ist. Duke: But what about Midnight Express?! That one’s so good! Steph: Has anyone mentioned Toy Story 3 yet? No? Damian, watching from the sidelines: I liked Escape from Alcatraz. Cass: Same.

There are several art pieces in the manor that have been positioned directly over top of bullet holes and other suspicious damages.

Damian and Duke made an animated short film once for the Gotham Film Festival. Dick and Cass were their models for the concept art. Tim did historical research. Jason helped Duke edit the storyboard, and Steph was the continuity supervisor. It was about a British super spy working for MI6 that saved the world in the late 70’s. It was titled Agent A.

[cottonlemonade]

Atsumu’s New Girlfriend

word count: 656 || avg. reading time: 2 mins.

pairing: post-time skip!Atsumu x chubby!Reader (feat. MSBY)

genre: fluff, crack, established relationship

warnings: spoilers

synopsis: Atsumu’s team doubts your existence

It wasn’t news to anyone that Atsumu came to work with a superior smirk and a not-so-humble brag on his lips but recently it seemed to have increased exponentially. Without much, or really any, resistance, he happily told his teammates that he went and got himself a girlfriend and would not stop talking about how great you were. From all the stories his friends had heard by now you were stunning, smart, beautiful, kind, gorgeous, got along great with his mom, and laughed at all his jokes. That alone gave them all reason to believe that you were entirely made up.

But one day they went to talk with their PR manager, going over contracts for a new brand deal and as they waited for the elevator Atsumu suddenly pointed to a framed newspaper article and called, “Hey! That’s my girlfriend!”

Curious despite their better judgment, the team crowded around the article and studied the group photo at the top. Sakusa didn’t waste any time and pointed to a trash can that was somewhat off in the background. “That one?”

He easily dodged the slap on the shoulder that would have earned him.

Atsumu grumbled something under his breath and then put his finger to the glass again, pointing to a young woman on the left, dressed in an immaculately tailored pantsuit that sat perfectly on your curves, a confident smile on your face. Underneath the picture, it listed the names and professions of the five people.

“Lawyer?!”, the others called in unison.

With the smuggest grin anyone had ever worn, Atsumu crossed his arms and nodded.

“Do you know what a lawyer is?”, Sakusa asked with a brow raised in doubt, “Can you even spell it?”

“Hey!”

“Just because you hired her and see her regularly, doesn’t make her your girlfriend.”, Meian added carefully.

“I didn’t hire her. I just talked to her.”,

Sakusa didn’t buy it. “You talked to her? With words? And she liked you?”

“Uh huh, just talked to her like normal.” The setter shrugged.

“Yeah, but you opening your mouth is usually where it ends.”, Bokuto said sheepishly.

“Maybe she isn’t normal either.”, Sakusa muttered.

“I’m gonna prove it to ya!”, Atsumu called, a very prominent blush on his face, “She is at my place right now waiting for me. Let’s all go there!”

“Honey, I’m hooome!”, Atsumu called as soon as he pushed open the front door. He immediately regretted it because he had never done that before but when there was no reply, Hinata, Bokuto, and Sakusa looked at him with pity. The rest of the team, not wanting to add to his probable humiliation, decided to leave it to his friends to tease him.

“She must be in the kitchen and can’t hear. She likes to listen to music.”, Atsumu explained as he kicked off his shoes, in a tone that sounded as if listening to music while cooking was somehow the quirkiest thing ever.

And truly, now that he said it, faint music was heard, coming from a room at the far end of the entryway. Atsumu half jogged, half slid with his socks on the wooden floor, and opened the door in question. The others followed.

There you were, in an untucked blouse over pinstripe dress pants with a makeshift apron - a dish towel tucked into the collar - offering a (loud and) highly emotional rendition of the Spirit soundtrack as you stirred something that smelled absolutely heavenly on the stove. The three guests let out a long “Ohhhhh” in understanding, then continued to watch for a few stunned moments, before Atsumu broke from the group.

“Hey babe.”, he purred and shuffled over to hug and kiss you Hello.

You wiped the tears the song had brought to your eyes away and looked past him to his friends, not a singular ounce of embarrassment on your face, you said, “I definitely didn’t make enough for all y’all.”

art: @_hermoon on Twitter

a/n: Just something silly. Also, Spirit is a phenomenal movie and never fails to make me cry!

brainstorm powered by @haikyu-mp4

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Would I be the asshole if I refused to pay my phone bill?

📱🧾♿️ <- To recognize my post for later :)

The title is probably already a bit of a red flag, but I genuinely didn’t know how else to word it…

For context: I am a disabled, chronically and mentally ill trans guy who recently turned 20. I haven’t left home yet for a lot of reasons, some being that my parents promised to let me live rent-free so long as I was in college (which I am, just not currently for the summer) as well as the fact that they really haven’t raised me to be very independent and rely solely on them (which is honestly a whole other can of worms), but primarily because of my disability. It isn’t safe for me to live on my own, as I faint commonly, cannot stand up for more than maybe fifteen minutes at a time roughly, and sometimes am unable to eat for long periods of time due to debilitating nausea which leads to weakness. I also have severe chronic pain in my limbs and gut, something I’ve had most of my life, while my chronic illness I’ve only had for about a year and a half now and am still struggling to adjust to.

Because of my disability, I also can’t work a traditional job. I offer art commissions online, because I’m very passionate about art and it’s one of the few things I’m good at, and I haul in a decent amount, but certainly not enough to live off of. I make enough to set aside some good savings (I’m currently saving for a wheelchair, as that might grant me more freedom and the potential to get a job at least for the summer) while also indulging myself in buying the occasional fatty treat (I’m very underweight so that’s not an issue, and I was raised essentially in an almond mom household all my life, so this form of eating is really the only sense of control I have over my life, as I’m fully dependent on my parents elsewise).

The issue has come upon relatively recently. I feel like a huge entitled brat for it as well, and if others believe the same, I sincerely don’t blame you.

My mom sat me down the other day and said that she expected me to start paying at least one bill. She offered my cheapest bill (which would be for my phone; my parents bought it, and it’s theirs, they’re just letting me use it as my own.. I don’t own a whole lot of “my” items myself) and asked what I thought about that. I was fully honest with her: if I had a steady stream of income, I wouldn’t hesitate to offer to pay for all of my bills, but with the way it stands, I just don’t make enough month-to-month to regularly afford the bill. I also do my commissions through my phone, so if I could afford the bill, my phone would be turned off, and I’d be unable to continue.

My mom got very upset and started talking to me like a child (though she really has every right to, honestly, and I know that). She went on a very long rant about teaching me responsibility, and how I can’t rely on my parents forever, and that I need to grow up at some point… All things that I fully agree with. I sincerely want to! I want nothing more than to be fully independent. But the way it stands, my parents cover my entire medical bills and they pay for my meds… And I just don’t make enough to survive on my own, and I can just barely afford a meal or two from a sandwich shop I enjoy twice a month to keep my sanity in check because I’m usually bedbound.

I tried explaining to her that I would if I could, sincerely, and that I’m not trying to be a leech or lazy, but she wasn’t having it. She just scolded me and said that if I can afford to eat out every month, then I can afford the phone bill. But again, with the way things are, I don’t think I’d be able to do it every month without tapping into my savings, which again, is for my wheelchair so I can regain some sense of freedom for myself. I’m seriously debating just telling her no straight out, but I don’t know what the aftermath might look like…

So, sincerely: Am I in the wrong here? Should I just swallow my protests and cough up the money somehow? I really don’t know and would love an outside perspective.

[fruitjoos]

don’t you think you deserve it?

art donaldson x reader, patrick zweig x reader

summary: art’s playing snake between you and patrick. it’s obvious there’s a reason, so a confession is made.

warnings none

You and Patrick were in the middle of a slightly tense argument, one that had started as a lighthearted disagreement but quickly escalated. He had brought up a conversation he’d had with “a friend,” which quickly soured the mood. Patrick was feeling insecure, convinced that he wasn’t good enough for you, and no matter how hard you tried to reassure him, your words felt like they were bouncing off a wall. It wasn’t you he was listening to, it was this friend of his.

Frustrated, you asked who this so called friend was. Patrick hesitated before finally admitting it was Art. The revelation hit hard. You tried to explain that Art didn’t know what he was talking about, that Patrick needed to stop letting other people’s opinions poison his mind. But instead of understanding, it seemed like Patrick was defending Art, making excuses for why he’d take Art’s word over yours.

That was when you snapped. "If you're so willing to believe everything Art says over what I’m telling you, then maybe you two should be in a relationship instead."

The tension in the air lingered long after the argument died down, so later that evening, you set out to find Art. Unsurprisingly, you found him in the dining hall sitting with Tashi. You barely acknowledged her as you asked if you could talk to him alone. Tashi hesitated, giving Art a wary look, but eventually stood up and left the two of you alone.

Without warning, you smacked Art upside the head, fury bubbling over. “Where the hell do you get off telling Patrick he’s not good enough for me?”

Art, unfazed, rubbed the back of his head and sighed. "That’s not what I said. I told him you deserve better, and if he didn’t think he was that, that has nothing to do with me."

But his explanation did little to calm you, the damage already done.

Art’s casual tone only fueled your anger. You stepped closer, your voice trembling with emotion. "Do you realize what you've done? Patrick’s spiraling because of you. He’s questioning everything between us, and now he thinks I’m settling for him. All because of your careless words."

Art's face hardened, his usual laid-back demeanor shifting to something more serious. "I wasn’t trying to hurt him. Or you. But if he’s doubting himself that much, isn’t that something you should both face?"

"That’s not your call to make!" you shouted, fists clenched at your sides. "You don’t get to decide what’s good for our relationship. You don’t get to plant seeds of doubt in his head just because you think you know what's best for me."

Art's eyes flashed, his calm exterior cracking just a little. "I only said what everyone’s been thinking. You deserve someone who’s not afraid to be everything you need."

Your heart twisted painfully at his words, the weight of them settling in your chest like lead. You took a shaky breath, trying to hold back the storm of emotions threatening to break loose. "Why do you care so much?" The question slipped out before you could stop it, more vulnerable than you intended.

Art froze, his jaw tightening as he looked away for a moment, like he was weighing his response. Then, almost too quietly, he muttered, "Because I’ve seen him doubt himself for too long. And I’ve seen how you deserve someone who doesn’t need convincing to believe they’re enough for you."

His words hung heavy in the air between you, but there was something in his voice that made you pause. It wasn’t just about Patrick anymore, and the realization hit you like a punch to the gut.

"This is about you?" you whispered, scoffing. The accusation barely audible, but it made Art flinch like you’d struck him again.

He didn’t answer at first, his gaze fixed somewhere over your shoulder, avoiding yours. But the silence was answer enough. Your heart thudded painfully in your chest, the weight of the truth crashing over you. Art hadn’t just been talking as Patrick’s best friend. Somewhere along the way, this had become personal for him too.

"Art," you breathed, your voice shaking now for entirely different reasons. "You don’t—"

"I don’t what?" he cut in sharply, his eyes finally meeting yours with raw fustration. "I don’t get to care about you? I don’t get to worry that maybe, just maybe, you’re with someone who’ll never see himself as worthy of you? God, do you know how hard it is to watch that every day and say nothing?"

You stared at him, stunned into silence, as the full weight of his words hit you. This wasn’t just a friendship anymore, not for him. And maybe, you’d been ignoring it for longer than you wanted to admit.

Tears stung at the corners of your eyes, but you forced them back, refusing to let them fall. "You don’t get to make this about you, Art. You don’t get to mess with Patrick’s head just because you—"

"Just because I love you?" he interrupted, the confession ripping out of him like it had been tearing him apart for far too long. The words hung between you, heavy and inescapable. There was no taking them back now.

You felt like everything crashed down in a blur of confusion, anger, and heartache. You had come here to defend your relationship with Patrick, to confront the person who had planted doubt in his mind, but now, now you didn’t even know what you were fighting for anymore.

"You’re selfish," you whispered, the hurt and betrayal clawing at your throat. "Patrick’s your best friend, and you’re doing this to him. To me."

Art looked at you with a hollow expression, the vulnerability he’d let slip quickly fading into something colder, more guarded. "Maybe I am," he admitted, his voice low. "But at least I’m honest about how I feel. Can you say the same?"

Your breath caught in your throat, his words cutting deeper than you wanted to admit. Because the truth was, you weren’t sure anymore. Not about Patrick, not about Art, and definitely not about the complicated mess of emotions swirling within you.

Without another word, you turned and walked away, leaving Art standing there in the background, his confession ringing in your ears. “Don’t talk about me with Patrick anymore.”