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textmel8r · 2 months

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[ DRABBLE ] 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒 ! ( tenth installment ) in which you are forced to plan a corporate event with your office enemy .

୨୧˚ part; one. two. three. four. five. six. seven. eight. nine. ten. eleven.

୨୧˚ incl; kento nanami

୨୧˚ cw; profanity , smuttish , pure unadulterated fluff

୨୧˚ an; thank you all for the patience 😭😭 so sorry i’ve been busy getting back into uni shit but omg!!! slowburn is peaking!!! also the tag list is officially closed because i have reached the max # of tags!!!

୨୧˚ join my discord server ! we share headcanons, fanfic recs, color roles, and more drooling emoji

Nanami’s morning routine doesn’t deviate from the norm. An alarm clock was built into his genetic code, and he rouses at half past six in the morning. Unfurling his long limbs from the confines of the couch—the suede thing was big, but Nanami was bigger. Joints popped under sheets of muscle and flesh when he gave a hearty stretch, and with that, he was ready to start his Sunday.

Fueled purely on motor memory, he filters through each step of the habitual customs he’s grown to associate with mornings. You’re still sleeping soundly in his bed, and the risk of waking you condemns Nanami to his downstairs bathroom rather than the personal en suite tailing off his bedroom. It doesn’t pose much of an inconvenience; Nanami was nothing if not prepared. The slender closet in his downstairs bathroom housed spare toiletries—handkerchiefs, tooth brushes, soaps and oils.

He brushes his teeth first, watching his reflection with tired eyes. Minty foam froths at the corners of his lips. Nanami collects the mess with his tongue before spitting into the porcelain bowl of the sink. He’s thorough, scrubbing every corner of his mouth, followed by a pass through with charcoal infused floss. Next, the man is dabbing a button of facial cleanser onto a small square of towel, wetting it under the faucet. Scouring his cheeks, then forehead, then nose. His hair is mussed from tossing in his sleep, and if not for the guest upstairs, Nanami would probably leave it as is. But you’re his guest, and for some reason that means something to him, so he slicks back the blonde frizz with wet hands.

Another staple of Nanami’s morning routine: a good cup of coffee. The machine was expensive—Nanami tends to splurge when it comes to matters that mean most to him. He doesn’t mind spending a little extra on his suit wear, his beloved watches, and certainly not his coffee. Crafted from titanium and stainless steel, it sat heavily on the black marble countertop and whirred quietly as it compressed beans into the filter.

Ingredients line the island at the center of his extravagant kitchen. Weekends were the only days in which Nanami had enough time to cook breakfast for himself, rather than grabbing a bagel or danish from the convenience store on his way to the office. It was a shame, really, because he enjoyed the gratification of cooking his own meals. And not to toot his own horn, but he was rather proud of his skills.

He never cooks for two, though.

Nanami peruses the ingredient assembly line, looking from the organic eggs, to the all purpose flour, to the carton of mixed berries. It would be rude of him not to consider your palate. Did you prefer a savory breakfast? Or perhaps you’d rather have something on the sweeter side like pancakes? He nibbled his lower lip in thought.

A divine aroma saturates the entirety of downstairs. Nanami focuses on folding a second omellette, tucking the concoction of whipped egg, chopped bell peppers, caramelized onions, diced tomatoes, and grated sharp cheddar on itself with the delicacy of a surgeon. He’s knee deep in concentration, back turned towards his staircase so your presence goes entirely unnoticed.

Hands clap together somewhere over his shoulder. He jerks with a startled gasp, the fork in his hand clattering to vinyl tiles. Nanami presses a palm to his racing chest, twisting to find your hands just inches away from his ear. What a little shit, you are. He doesn’t waste effort trying to stifle his grimace. “Was that necessary?”

You’re crouched down, retrieving the silverware off the floor. “Now we’re even.”

“Even?”

“Yeah,” you hand him the fork, to which he blinks at the useless thing. It’s been dirtied by the floor, so Nanami instructs you to toss it in the sink and grab another from the utensil drawer at the end of his pointed finger. As you play fetch, you explain. “Do you know how scared shitless I was waking up in a strange bedroom? In strange clothes?” He’s watching you toy aimlessly with the abundance of extra material bunched up around the trussed waistband of your—his—sweatpants. Nanami’s clothes cloak you more than enough; cotton t-shirt hanging just below mid-thigh, and those damned oversized sweats rolled up in stupidly big cuffs at the ankles stopping over your socked feet. You must’ve adjusted them accordingly when you stepped out of bed. Something akin to apprehension pulled at your face. “We didn’t…”

Blonde brows scrunch as he attempts to decipher your blathering. When you beckon a hand between your chest and his, Nanami abruptly chokes on his saliva. “Are you out of your mind?” He’s quick to sputter, spinning back to face the sizzling pans and contain the tickle in his throat. A white bowl and whisk are gathered into strong arms—homemade blueberry pancake batter sloshes against the wiry bristles of Nanami’s whisk. He pours three more precise circles of batter onto the second frying pan, and the sweet paste fizzles against nonstick cookware. “You were intoxicated, Y/n. Couldn’t even remember your own address.” He paused. “A change of clothes seemed ideal in the moment. Something cozier.”

You hum in acknowledgement. Footsteps pad closer, and you appear beside him, resting your back against the counter. Your head lolls, cheek falling against your shoulder. He can feel your eyes gouging into the side of his face while he flips the pancake triplets. “You changed me?”

There’s a foreign tonality bleeding into your words, something almost playful, and he’s vexed. Are you teasing him? A trimmed thumb nail burrows into the silicone grip of a spatula. Or is that genuine curiosity? “I did,” Nanami gives you honesty, licking his lip as he does so. On it, he tastes a vague note of spearmint. “You needed some help.”

“God,” you touch a hand to your forehead and laugh, “that does sound like me.” There is no perturbation or embarrassment there, only relief, and he thanks God for your uncanny ability to bypass awkwardness in situations such as these. Had the roles been reversed and it was Nanami receiving word that a coworker of the opposite sex had dressed him in a period of inebriation, well, he’d probably send in a letter of resignation to the company the next day. “Sorry for being so difficult for you.”

He wags his head, dismissing the remorse. “Please, your apologies are far from necessary.”

“Oh I think they’re completely neces—”

“Aht.” A spatula stabs through the air stopping a few inches shy of your nose. There’s a sharpness that eclipses sepia eyes behind the crystalline shield of Nanami’s wire-framed glasses; a barbed glance that telepathically urges you to drop the argument before it begins. With that same spatula, he dives below fluffy circles of speckled cake and transports them from pan to plates, divvying up the pancakes into two even portions. “You took the medication I left for you, yes? They were beside the glass of water on the side table.”

“Yeah, thanks. I’m feelin’ better already.”

“Good,” he nods with a subtle, tight-lipped grin. “That’s good. Though you should probably get some food down. Fill your stomach with something other than tylenol.” Nanami stops his ministrations, satisfied with the presentation of both plates of breakfast, and pitches you a simple question. “Coffee?”

You practically moan, “coffee sounds really fucking amazing right now.”

Coffee it is then. Nanami proposes that you go settle yourself in a seat, and that he’d handle the rest. Forfeiting another argument, you buckle and slip into a high stool at the breakfast bar that is associated along the island in the midst of the kitchen. Two twin mugs are poached from the highest shelf, crafted of gray ceramic with uneven, white polka dots. He owned a whole dining set donning those same frivolous dots; Nanami always had an absurd fascination with peculiar patterns, they were charming to the man. Perhaps his collection of ugly things were meaningful because of how violently they contrasted to his otherwise ordinary life. In both mugs, scalding coffee brimmed and emanated laces of smoke slithering up to the ceiling. Nanami didn’t bother asking you how you took your coffee—he just knew. Knew from stealing glances at you over the past year, watching you concoct a disastrous potion of lukewarm coffee poured from the communal pot that you so desperately despised, skim milk from the carton in the office floor’s minifridge, and a concerning amount of sugar packets that made him feel inclined to alert your doctor. Nanami does his best to match the ratio of coffee to milk to sugar, gives it a stir, and hopes it’s up to your eccentric taste buds.

He sets your plate and mug down, sliding it across the counter’s surface to sit before you. Nanami chooses to stand where he is, leaning against the opposite end of the island. His foot, clad in a thick, black sock, taps quietly against the floor. “I wasn’t aware of your preferences so—”

“So you made…” You go quiet, prodding at the unusual combination of food on your plate: a vegetable-ridden omelette on one side and a few blueberry-encrusted flapjacks glazed in a modest squirt of maple syrup on the other. You hate it, he thinks shortly, but then a smile splits on your lips and Nanami fears he may have jumped the gun. “Eggs and pancakes?”

“You do like eggs and pancakes, don’t you?”

“Yes sir,” you respond, enthused. “It’s perfect.”

Nanami cringes. “I’d like it if you didn’t call me that outside of the workplace.”

“What? Sir?”

He hums. “Formalities remind me of work; I don’t like to think about work when I’m eating my breakfast.” He punctuates the request with a sip from his mug. Black, unsweetened coffee scathes his tongue with powerful calidity, but he’s well acquainted with its heat by now, and doesn’t wince.

“I’ll just stick to Nanami, then.”

“Actually, I—” Was it even worth mentioning? That he’d handed you the rights to use his first name last night? The tiny, bothersome devil on Nanami’s shoulder was whispering yes. “Kento will do.”

True, unadulterated glee beamed from your person, wafting a certain warmth across the counter to smack him in the face. “Holy shit, yeah that’s right! I remember now!” Using your fork as an arrow to point at the man, “last night, you told me that. You said I can call you Kennnn-Tooooo—”

“Okay, alright.” He’s jaded by your antics, swatting his hand in the air lazily. It’s too early in the morning to get serenaded by his own name. “Say it normally, or don’t say it at all.”

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just so crazy to think that we’re on a first name basis now, y’know?” You ask before shoveling a forkful of pancake into your mouth, sighing blissfully at the taste. Gratefulness oozed into your gestures, materializing in the way you simpered up at him following each and every bite. Smiles so broad that Nanami wondered if they were out of politeness or if you really just enjoyed his cooking that much.

He can cheers to your observation. “If you would’ve told me five months ago that you’d be sitting across from me in my home—sharing breakfast with me, no less—I would have…” Laughed in your face? Had a conniption? A combination of the two? Nanami trails off into thought, shaking his head. “I don’t know what I’d have done.”

So hellbent on sticking to his judgment, Nanami rarely changed his mind about people post first impressions. First impressions were something he valued, both in himself and in others. A snap perception is made based upon the first bits of information he collects from a person, and it wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to say that your initial communication was less than stellar. Since then, Nanami’s one-track mind had pinned associations onto you like a bulletin board, assigning your name with attributes like sleazy and trashy and (God, he felt the worst about this one) slutty. This entire time, it was Nanami’s stubbornness and penchant to be right that shielded him from the realization that you were none of those cancerous aspersions.

You are you.

You are a diligent worker. You are never on time. Your favorite color is (f/c). You are easy to talk to, easy to approach. You like pistachio cheesecake and criminally sweet coffee. You are insecure about your presentation skills, though Nanami can’t understand why. You are determined. You are rarely shy about asking for something you need, a quality he appreciates in someone. You make him laugh. You can’t hold your liquor. With the way you’re drooling over your plate like a hungry puppy, it’s apparent that you like his cooking. And he likes you.

He… what?

“Yeah, well,” you tilt your head, and the melodic chuckle that follows is enough to yank Nanami from his dazedness. Lifting your mug, you push it towards him in a sort of gesture. “Good thing the past doesn’t matter, huh? We were both lame in the past, but look at us now.” You retract the mug to your lips, taking a swig. “Future us is awesome. Are awesome? Is?”

You mumble to yourself, befuddled by grammar. Meanwhile, Nanami brews in thought. Your undying fearlessness of what’s to come in life always rendered him bewildered.

“I’m jealous,” he admits, idly tracing the rim of his cup with his thumb.

You perk up. “Of?”

“Your ability to embrace the future. It’s brave.”

“I think you’re giving me too much credit,” you sweatdrop, itching your cheek. “I wouldn’t call it bravery. Maybe security? I’m—yeah, I’m secure with the route I’ve taken in life.”

“You’re secure with white collar work?”

“I can’t see myself in any other profession,” you smile, flicking him a brow. “What about you?”

Honesty permitted, Nanami would describe his job as the bane of his misery. There used to be a point in his life in which he was sure that this was his ultimate goal: a senior executive position with an esteemed, high-profile company. Younger Nanami was content to endure years of early mornings and late nights with busy schedules jammed in between because it’d all be worth it when he finally tastes that sweet senior title. Except, now he’s tasted it. He’s licked it dry, and despite that, that feeling of fulfillment Nanami had been vying for his whole career remains frustratingly dormant. The notion that this will be his routine until retirement kills him.

He chews thoughtfully on a sliver of pancake before responding. “We touched on this a little over text.”

“You want to travel.”

You remembered. He hums. “I do.”

“And you want a family.”

“I do,” Nanami sighs longingly.

You don’t make an effort to stifle a chuckle at his supposed foolishness. Shaking your head and cutting your eggs with the blunt side of a fork; “You talk about these things as if it’s all some sort of cushiony pipe dream. It’s really fucking hilarious all things considered.”

“All things considered?” Perplexed, Nanami pries for an expansion.

And with all the seriousness in the world, you begin to count on your digits. “You are probably the most charming, most intelligent, most wealthy—”

“Y/n,” Nanami yawps at your conviction. When you jest, you do it in such an obvious way. He’s come to familiarize himself with the clever quirk of your mouth’s corner, or that playfully irritating glint in your smile-squinted eyes. But now, Nanami can’t find any evidence of joking in your stoney expression. You’re sincere when you say these things about him. It makes his heart pound so viciously that it vibrates his ear drums.

“Most hard-working man I’ve ever met.” Unfazed by his apparent flusteredness, you finish with a nonchalant shrug. “Just funny, is all, that you of all people are stressing over these things when you have the ingredients to make your ambitions a reality.”

“Your compliments are… thanked…” The blonde ducks his head in an awkward, halfhearted bow, “but I can’t ever hope to truly begin my life when I don’t have the time granted to do so.” Nanami touches an index and middle finger to his temple, rubbing in soothing circles. It doesn’t do much to quell the oncoming migraine that this nightmarish topic never fails to cast upon him. “I’ve tried. Believe me when I say that I have worked my ass off trying to balance my job alongside nurturing a relationship. But I’ve come to realize how unfair of me that is—to ask a woman to bear with my neglect because I got held up at the office for the fifth night in a row. A relationship isn’t much of a relationship at all if both people still feel lonely.”

Unbeknownst to him, his tone had slipped away for a moment. He became bitter, recalling the lineup of failures that made up his dating history. Bitter and lonely. It’s been almost two years now that Nanami has abandoned the dating scene, if not for his sake than for the sake of his next girlfriend. Though, he can’t help but have moments of tenderness in which he thinks that maybe all of his occupational achievements would have been more gratifying if he had someone to share them with.

He clears his throat, lowering his voice back down when he apologizes for getting emotional.

“Don’t say sorry.” You offer a reassuring grin. “I’m sorry for assuming shit about your life. That was uncool of me.”

“Don’t say sorry,” Nanami parrots, returning your grin with a sheepish one of his own, and tilts his head toward his shoulder. “I didn’t exactly mind the compliments.”

“Conceited bastard.”

He hides his simper well behind his mug. “I’d still like to know what makes you happy, if that offer is still on the table.”

“Why’s that?”

“I just would like to.” Nanami licks his lower lip, eyes grazing yours. “Do I need a more convoluted reason than that?”

Your face reads like a book. It tells him don’t be a smartass, so he yields to your unimpressed frown. “You’re not gonna like my answer. Working makes me happy.”

The revelation doesn’t shock him. “You are demonstrably proficient, Y/n. In my professional opinion, I have no doubts that you’ll be successful.” Nanami does his best to mirror your sincerity.

“More successful than you?” You tease.

“Oh forget me, I give it five years before you’re replacing Gakuganji,” he laughs gently before pressing a finger to his lips, mimicking secrecy. “Let’s keep that between us, though.”

“The day you take orders from me is the day I can die happy.”

I wouldn’t mind that day.

“But to be honest, I think it cuts deeper than the success aspects. Ah, It’s kinda hard to put it into words…” You take a moment to string together an explanation while Nanami waits patiently. “I’m sort of a mess in my personal life. I fuck a lot of things up, I make bad judgement calls, I can get a little lazy sometimes—I just do shit wrong. Or at least, that’s what I feel like.”

Nanami hangs on every word.

“So, like, to come to work everyday and be organized and–and put on this presentation of competency,” your tongue clicks sweetly, “I need that. I need people to see me that way—I think that’s why it affected me so much when you… when you saw me…”

“At the party?” He clarifies.

You purr in agreement. “Yeah. That. I felt like, I don't know, like I shattered my whole ‘persona’ and you saw me. You really saw me.”

He can’t look away from you. The way you’re visibly shrinking, collapsing in on yourself like a wounded animal. Constricting your own torso with your arms in a self-soothing hug. Are you ashamed?

When Nanami finally speaks, he keeps his voice calm. Soft and cottony. “Do you always have such degrading thoughts about yourself?”

“I wouldn’t call it degradation…”

“I would.” Brows furrow, and he leans further into the conversation with his elbows on the island’s surface. “You talk about yourself as if you’re two separate people.”

“Don’t you see it, too?” You ask him gravely, as though you’re hinging on Nanami’s opinion. Like his insubstantial assessment of you is the only thing that matters. “You won’t offend me, I swear.”

Unperturbed, he blinks. “Not at all.”

“Then you’re fucking blind,” you cluck. “Those glasses aren’t doing much for you.”

Nanami nips the inner seam of his cheek, unamused. Right now, he isn’t much in the mood for jokes. Not when he now understands the extent of the disdain that you have for yourself. It irks him that you can’t see how rare of a person you are.

“My eyesight has no relevance, stop deflecting with humor.” “I’m not deflecting!”

“Yes, you are. Now please, stop and let me talk for a moment,” Nanami shows you his palm, and you find your silence. “You are not two people, Y/n, you’re just one. Just you. Sure, you have your quirks and flaws—as does everyone else—but they are what makes you you. They make you nice to be around.”

“You think I’m nice to be around?”

“We meet nearly every weekend now, have you been under the impression that I hated your presence?”

“It’s hard to tell with you sometimes. I assumed you were still hanging out with me because you felt like you owed me. Which you totally did, by the way.” You purse your lip together, stiff. “But, um, your debt has long been paid, especially with this delicious breakfast. So… y’know, if you don’t want to go out, you can just tell me.”

A breathy, humorous exhale huffs through Nanami’s nostrils. “I am a grown man. If I don’t want to do something, then I won’t do it. This,” he gestures between himself then you, “isn’t occurring out of pity or some strange form of charity. You’re here right now because I want you to be, okay?”

That little declaration pulls a coy smile from you, something Nanami introspectively overthinks. He tells himself that you’re blushing, just barely noticeable past your complexion. “Okay.” You whisper, the apples of your cheeks more pronounced than he’s ever seen them before.

Baring witness to a skittish Y/n was not on the docket for Nanami’s Sunday. He’s aware that this little discussion should stop. It was enroute to breaching something—something intimate and foreign and never to be acknowledged between you both. Unspoken chemistry that Nanami intended to let shrivel up and rot within his core because he doesn’t have the strength to snuff out the beacon of light you’ve shown in his life when he inevitably ruins yet another relationship.

But…

“I’ve had more fun in the past month than in my twenty-seven years of life. With you, I mean. So please don’t shun the side of you that exists outside of the office, because you have this spark that I haven’t seen in any of my associates in a long time. I’m… I would be upset if you let yourself turn into another copy-and-paste corporate zombie.”

There is an obvious shift in the kitchen air. It’s blossomed deep and heavy; Nanami feels like it’s become a struggle to keep himself from sinking into the floor. Your gaze is bolted to him, his to yours, in a quiet exchange of consciousness. Can you hear his thoughts? You look at him so intensely, he fears you might be able to hear how beautiful he thinks you look under the fluorescent light bulbs fixed into the ceiling.

You slip off your stool. Nanami watches your trek around the curve of the island. Onto his side.

It’s through feathery lashes that you look up at him.

“Do you find me attractive?”

The spine you have to ask such an audacious question. Visceral palpitations strike through the beating organ in his chest. His hand brushes the ledge of the countertop, then grips it for stability. “Yes.” So attractive, that he felt he could die right now.

“Even after I vomited on your shoes?”

“I thought you didn’t remember last night?” Nanami goads.

“It’s coming back to me.”

You feign cheekiness. “Yeah,” he swallows, taking a shaky breath for himself. “Still beautiful.”

Beautiful, even with remnants of day-old eyeliner smudges below those doe eyes. Messy in the most enticing way. An urge swells within Nanami, to cradle your precious face and swipe the makeup off your flesh with his thumb. However, you moved first.

Reaching upwards, you pluck the pair of glasses off his nose. He lets you. Folded, they sit on the island.

Nanami gives a subtle shake of his head, tonguing the sharp corner of his lip. “What are you doing?” It comes out hushed, like he’s telling a secret.

“I don’t know,” you reply impishly.

The following events can only be categorized as amorous. Ever so slowly, your hand touches. Pressing to his chest, feeling every valley and peak on its ascension to his collarbone. It peeks out from over top the collar of his raggedy, white tee shirt, and you feel him there. Offhandedly, he believes this may be the first time you’ve seen him outside of suitwear. Long, languid breaths keep him grounded, but Nanami can barely stand this torture. Though for you, he does. He lets you touch everything you want, biting his lip all the while.

“What are you doing?” It comes again, more breathy than the last.

You don’t answer, far too enraptured by the panes of his neck. He feels you drag a fingertip down the trail of a vein. Resolve unravels, he’s slipping.

“Kento.”

If he looked into a mirror at this moment, would he even recognize himself? Nanami knows he’s a better man than this. It should take more than the pillowy drawl of his name to snap the wavering thread of self-discipline within him.

Chest touches chest; he’s got you trapped against the kitchen island. The same island you both were sharing breakfast with five minutes ago. The same island, Nanami kisses you now.

Your face is sandwiched between two large hands. Nanami holds you to him, angling your neck back so he can grind his tongue deeper into your warm throat. There is no buildup, no preemptive apprehension that repels him from committing to bury himself in your mouth. He kisses you with no regrets, just desire and stifling yearning.

Moans vibrate the slobbery mess. Nanami feels a bouquet of fingers latch onto his hip and pull—he rewards you, sucking sensually against the tip of your tongue. It’s fucking hot. He’s hot. And hard. Nanami’s sweating. He’s grabbing. He’s rubbing. He’s—-

Beep!

The kiss stops synchronously with twin gasps. You gawk up at him, wide-eyed at the sudden auditory intrusion. He’s looking right back down at you, panting.

“It's the oven.”

“Oh.”

All the passion had seemingly drained, Nanami felt the altar in the atmosphere. With all the reluctance in the world, he pushes himself back to give you sizable space. Unsure of how this aftermath would play out. Awkwardly, he clears his throat, swabbing excess saliva from his chin with a palm. “I uhm—I was baking some bread.”

You nod, avoiding eye contact. “That’s cool.”

You look mortified, and that makes him feel mortified. “Y/n, I’m sorry for—”

“It’s fine.”

His heart sinks to his guts. “No, it’s not fine. Please, let me ap—”

“Kento,” you cut him off, “you didn’t do anything wrong. Like, at all, so stop apologizing. If anyone should be sorry, it’s me.”

Nanami’s brows pinch together, and he gapes at that. “You haven’t done a single thing wrong either.” You don’t seem to believe him, what with the way you sway from left foot to right foot, hands twiddling restlessly. Cautious, he takes a step closer. “You look anxious. I’m by no means kicking you out, but I don’t want to keep you here if it makes you uncomfortable. Just say the word and I’ll call you a ride home.”

A sigh graces your kiss-swollen lips, and you bow graciously. “Please, that would be great, thanks.”

“Yeah,” Nanami says gently, moving to fish his phone out of the pocket of his flannel pajama bottoms. “Of course.”

“I’ll go change out of your clothes—”

“Keep them on, I insist.” He’s quick to halt you. “And leave yours upstairs, I’ll run them through the washing machine. We can exchange them tomorrow.”

“I—okay, thank you.” You look so apologetic, it wounds him. “Thank you for everything. For taking me home last night, for breakfast, for–for this.”

“You don’t have to thank me. But you’re very welcome.”

Your taxi shows up a few minutes later. It’s hard to watch you go, especially when you left him on dubious terms. Were you upset by his kiss? Nanami hopes to God that’s not the case. Or maybe you were appalled? Fearful, even?

Nanami needs to turn his brain off—this cancerous spiral of thinking would only send him into a dark pit of guilt, and he had a web meeting later in the evening. After washing the dishes leftover from the breakfast endeavor, he sits on the sofa with his head in his hands

You tasted like fucking maple syrup.

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bunnys-kisses · 26 days

Note

Hiii I’d love to place an order! I’d like to order Angel food cake with a savory pastry and a side of iced tea and pina colada served by Lando💕

bakery menu

want to place an order? check out the menu! there's tons of things to choose from so please, hit me up! i'd love to hear from you! thank you, thank you! for this order! thank you lovely anon, i hope you enjoy it!

angel food cake ("if he fucks with me again, i'm finishing inside of you.") + savory pastry ("let your brother find out.") + ice tea (accidentally launching relationship) + pina colada (pregnancy)

cw: smut/pwp, verstappen!reader, pregnancy, phone calls, protective!max, cowgirl position

max didn't want you seeing any of the guys on the grid. it never sat right with him. he knew all of their dirty secrets and didn't need you getting involved with them.

but you and lando connected quite well, he was always sweet to you. he slowly grew to know you inside and out. you were perfect for him, it was just a shame that you had to keep your relationship private.

"this is silly." you shifted from one foot to another. you were currently in one of lando's t-shirts with a certain pair of underwear underneath, "where did you ever get this?"

lando was resting on his side with his head propped up by his fist, "the internet is a beautiful place, love." he beamed at you.

you'd barely call them panties, it was more like a strip of fabric held together by thin shoelaces. it was one step below a thong at that point. but it was neon green with your boyfriend's logo printed on the front.

you had refused to wear them to the dutch grand prix, but if he won, you'd wear them. you made the bed, now you must lie in it. you knew lando was still running off the high of the win, so you couldn't blame him. he beat your brother on his home turf, now he wanted to fuck his sister.

"do i have to wear these when i leave?" you asked.

he shrugged playfully, "sure. let your brother find out that way. if you leave them on the hotel room floor when he comes to pick you up... i can only imagine the look on his face." he knew that you had a habit of leaving things in hotel rooms. he had a decent collection of your make up that he had collected over your time together simply by taking home what you left behind.

it wouldn't be a stretch for your brother to find that thong, as embarrassing at it would be.

you crossed your arms and huffed, "couldn't i have gotten like a pair of boxers or even a bikini cut. this is shit that strippers wear." no offense to the hard working girls of that business, but that wasn't your line of work.

lando winked at you, "well, maybe you should put on a show for me."

you narrowed his eyes before you got on the bed with your boyfriend, "right, right." you ran your fingers through his hair and looked into his eyes, "you're a funny guy, norris." then went in for a kiss.

he got his arms around you and laid you out on the bed, his eyes raked your body. he admired your beauty and was eager to get the shirt off of you. which only left you in the thong.

"you know. if he fucks with me again, i'm finishing inside of you again." and watched you squirm under his grasp. oh, you were so beautiful. the prettiest thing ever put on his earth, and you were wearing his logo.

in all fairness you were going to be eventually be a norris, if his plan went well. he wanted you to be his wife. the pretty mrs. norris around the garage. all smiles and maybe a few babies.

a sick part of him liked the idea of taking max verstappen's sweet sister and putting a pretty ring on your finger. that he took the championship and his sister.

it pained him to take the thong off, but he wanted what was underneath. he wanted to see that slick pussy that he yearned for. he got the scrap of fabric off and gazed at your pussy before you took him by the shoulders and got him onto the bed.

he eyed your naked body as you straddled his waist, he helped you sink down on his cock. his expression changed as he felt himself nudge against the back of your pussy. almost took the breath out of him.

you breasts bounced with each thrust of your hips. he met his pace and held onto you. he eyed your beauty from the angle he was out. you looked painfully adorable. sweet little thing taking his big cock, letting it nudge up against the softest parts of you.

lando loved you, it was a infernal need, like the claws of hell gripped into him when he thought of you. he felt like a little devil when he got you into positions and rutted up against you. you were the ultimate prize, verstappen's little sister with the gentle eyes and sopping wet cunt. it was hot, that was all that lando wanted.

he'd never admit it to anyone (except maybe you), but if he had the choice between the championship and your sweet cunt for the rest of his days. he'd take you. there were a million prizes and trophies to win, but there was only one of you.

"lando." you gasped, your back arched a little as it hit just the right way. you felt tense as the pleasure lapped at your core. you were soaked and it felt hot all over.

"you're beautiful. you got all the beauty." he chuckled as he gripped onto your hips to meet your thrusts, "i can't believe you and max are siblings."

you whined, "lando. don't talk about my brother." your pussy sounded soaked from the movements you made. you were so wet for him and it made him shudder with want.

"sorry, sorry, baby girl." he said, "no more track talk, no more sibling talk." he leaned forward to kiss your chest as a promise as the two of your rutted against one another. the pair of you felt so good.

you moaned a 'thank you' as you placed your hands on either side of his chest to get a better angle to ride him. the feeling bloomed in the back of your head, it clouded your thoughts with that of hot, hot need. lust was a current in your system as you bounced on his cock.

"i love you."

"i love you too." you arched your back a little as you felt lando in your abdomen. a wave of lust went over you and made you run hot. your brother's rival was deep inside of you with little to no protection. it excited you.

but just as quickly as the pleasure rose in your body, it ran cold in a quick second.

your phone rang on the nightstand. while you ignored it, you caught the sight of the screen and saw that it was from your brother. you scrambled a little, with lando's cock still inside of him.

you felt ice in your stomach as you stopped for a moment. your breathing was heavy. it continued to ring.

"stay quiet." you said to lando before you answered the phone, "hey! max." you said, your voice was tight.

there was moment of silence with you still rolling your hips against lando's cock. letting it fill you. the bed squeaked a little and your breathing was heavy.

max sighed, "are you with lando?"

your breath got caught in your throat and you stopped your movements. you swallowed back the panic, "n..no. why would i be with lando.. i'm at my hotel!" you almost felt the air out of your lungs as lando's cock was painfully deep inside of you.

max said, painfully calm, "i know you are... don't lie." that was the thing about your older brother, he always knew when you lied. he could lie through his teeth, but you cracked under the pressure.

you felt lando's hands hold onto your hips. you said meekly, "surprise...."

your brother replied, "we'll talk about this after. i suggest you be more careful around the paddock, unless you people to talk... be safe. please. and tell lando to look at the driver's group chat."

you hung up the phone and put it down on the bed before lando moved you onto your hands and knees to plug his cock deep into you. he curved your back and rutted against you. you whined and tried to say something but lando spoke first.

"guess the cat has come out of the bag." the rush of it made him more excited as he rammed his cock into you. with a few more heavy thrusts, you came around his cock. and then with a few more, he finished inside of you. you came soon after as he rubbed his cock deep into you some more. the pressure made orgasm wash over you.

"lando."

"i've got you, baby girl. you look so good, all fucked out for me."

he loved the sight of you on your chest, hips up at the perfect angle to cream your sweet pussy. he slowed to a stop and pulled out, the base of his cock had a white ring around it from the mixture of your cum and his.

"what about max?"

"oh don't worry. i'll talk to him. gotta play nice with my future brother-in-law." lando said as he curled up further to you.

max didn't kill lando. he also wasn't happy. not only was lando dating you, he had also gotten you pregnant. he didn't even need to say anything and lando was already promising a ring and a life together. max was honestly a little impressed. seeing lando step up to the plate.

he could also see how affectionate lando was with you. how he was there for you every chance he got. he didn't throw you to the wayside because he got what he wanted. max only wanted the best for you.

"i'm fine, lando." you said as you pinched his cheeks, "go do you press stuff, i'll be here."

"alright, alright. but if you need anything you tell someone. i'm not having my wife getting lost or hurt out there." he tapped you on the forehead.

max chuckled into his fist and you glared at your brother.

but when you came to the paddock in mclaren orange near the end of the season, your brother was less impressed. you were with the mclaren driver, but you were still a verstappen.

"next time." max said, "you're wearing red bull, the idea of a verstappen in mclaren clothes isn't right. you're not married to him yet." some habits died hard.

maybe you should've thought this over better before you started dating your brother's rival. <3

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hottestvirgin · 7 months

Text

JUNG SUNGCHAN 18+ ᡣ𐭩 DRABBLE

your older brother leaves you alone with his best friend

warnings. dom!sungchan, sub!reader, smut, nsfw, p in v, pet names, praising, light degradation, choking, unprotected sex, just sexy sex

notes. currently taking requests!

“s-sungchan, fuck…” you moan. the sweet, savory feeling of your brother’s best friend’s thick cock pounding into you sends a wave of heat throughout your aching body.

you’re so fucked out— throat hoarse and your own salvia spilling down your chin, hot tears rolling down your puffy cheeks from having the third orgasm fucked out of you.

sungchan’s heavy hands hold onto your waist, nails digging and creating small crescents into your flesh as he pounds into you. your thighs quivers, all while trying to pull your throbbing body away from his unforgiving thrusts.

“stop running and take it.” sungchan mutters, and you could feel the teasing smirk in his voice. he moves his hands to grip your ass, spreading them to watch how his cock stretches you past your limits— a thick, white ring of your cum collecting on his shaft with each sluggish movement of his hips.

“s’ big, s’ big..” your words are muffled by the pillow beneath you, soiled with your own tears and drool.

“mhm,” sungchan hums, voice low and hoarse, “i hear you baby.”

but despite your pleas and cries, sungchan’s hips continue to pound into you. the bulbous tip of his cock abusing that sensitive spot deep inside you, repeatedly. trying to push yet another orgasm out of you.

“feels good?” he asks while burying himself deep inside your dripping cunt, stilling his body and laying on top of you. he bottoms out with a gasp, yanking your hair back just enough to lick at your glistening neck.

clenching harder around him, you nod frantically at his question. and right at that moment you thank god for convincing your brother to wear his big ass headset.

“m’ in so fuckin’ deep, feel that?” he taunts, rocking his hips to meet your desperate movements.

“y..yesh.. yes. sungchan.. yesyesyes, fuck, don’t stop..” your words might as well be gibberish from how ragged they were. but luckily, sungchan understands what you’re begging for and starts pounding into you again, using his freehand to push your head into the pillow while he punches breathless moans out of your lungs.

“shh, shh, baby. he’s still downstairs, remember?” sungchan coos. so you bite down onto your bottom lip to try to suppress your rigid moans. you would rather die than have eunseok catch his best friend balls deep in you.

“i’m close,” you whimper, feeling that familiar knot in the pit of your stomach close to snapping, “baby i’m so close.”

sungchan grunts again as you clench around him. he pulls you up by your neck, your back against his warm, sweaty chest. and oh. with this position, you could feel him reaching deeper in you, abusing your poor cervix.

“go ahead, pretty.” sungchan whimpers.

and with his permission along with his quivering voice, hoarse and low, you clench hard around him and cream his shaft with a breathless scream.

he follows and spurts his hot semen inside of your tight walls, breathing hard while squeezing your waist, stabilizing himself.

₊˚⊹ ᰔ

“where were you?” eunseok looks up from the tv as the game he’s playing with sungchan loads for the third round. you sit on the couch and start scrolling on your phone, avoiding the obvious glare sungchan sends you.

“shower.” you respond simply. and eunseok shrugs, turning his attention back onto the video game.

and when you look up, you meet sungchan’s eyes. he chuckles lightly and you clench your thighs together. you could go for another round.

#riize smut #riize x reader #riize sungchan #sungchan smut #sungchan x reader #riize hard hours #hard hours #hard thoughts #riize hard thoughts #jung sungchan smut #hottestvirginwrites

1K notes · View notes

darthfighter · 2 months

Text

stop whining

summary: you are presented with a high bounty you can collect named kai varis, he once was a former jedi. you conjure up a plan to reunite with a past lover to collect a bounty, but you are revisited with an old flame. will it light again as you two work together?

warnings: tension, violence, mandalorian!reader, character death, smut, oral (f!receiving), munch!qimir yup yup !!

word count: 5.7k

A/N: i powered through this for the beloved @nomarksonelegance who is undeniably my most loyal reader 😭 your support doesn’t go unnoticed. as well as @wooyoungsbxtch who encouraged me to write this <3 thanks for all the support bffs !!

100,000 credits. That's how much you would be rewarded if you captured this rogue Jedi. The credits that were displayed in front of you on the bounty hologram were like you were looking into the stars. You knew this price could get your foot out of the sinking sand taking you down. All your debts and needs. Especially those savory drinks you down whenever you earn enough credits to spend at Canto Bight.

Your memories start to resurface on that expensive planet. All the money that went down the drain, or especially the passionate nights between you and your partner. Your old partner, to be precise.

You and him had met once you confronted him on being a bounty. He was the hardest one to find or capture. Anyone who searched for him and succeeded, either returned empty handed, or simply never returned. You on the other hand had found him which turned into a heated brawl.

Although there was some similarity between the two of you. Neither of you knew it yet. Though at first glance people might think it was your similar attire. His helmet as well as yours. Your forearm is built of beskar to be able to block his lightsabers, like his forearm made of cortosis. The both of you built yourselves armor, but both of you deep down had something to cover internally. This, Qimir sensed. It’s why he didn’t kill you that day.

It’s why he lets you search for him repeatedly, and lets you encounter him more than once. Until you sense it too. Although you’re no Jedi. Unlike Qimir, or whatever he is. You eventually sense the familiarity with him. How he matched your violence, your anger, your rage. He resembled you, and you resembled him.

This brought you two to work together. Find criminals while maybe being criminals yourselves, but this was a hard life. It wasn’t easy. To get by in this universe was to make hard decisions or make mistakes.

Now you were both masked vigilantes in a way, working together. The two of you bounced off of each other well and it made you capture more bounties than you ever had, with the help of Qimir. He became a part of your life. To the point his voice would be in the back of your mind in his absence.

Then grew want. Your motive started to change. You ended up getting jobs you didn’t really need, but instead felt the need to be beside Qimir. The more jobs you took the closer the two of you grew.

It quickly went from gentle touches to tight lustful grips. From accompanying each other during meals to being able to taste the lingering drink on each other's lips.

Though over time, he started to become The Stranger everyone called him. He started to grow, in a way, grow away from you. Slowly become that stranger they all talked about. He grew more wants and needs that weren’t you. Even from the very beginning, he wanted a pupil. Someone to teach. Someone to become the power of two. The power you didn’t have. This causes heated arguments with voices rising and falling. You felt little, with little to offer. This led to you both parting ways.

It’s been a while since then, and in moments like now, you start to reminisce on the time together.

Although your mind stayed on him. This bounty was too perfect to pass up. Too perfect not to pursue. It was calling to you. The sight of the credits before you buzzed in your ears. You needed to succeed on this, and you knew just the right person to help make that happen.

–

Flying yourself to Qimir’s planet made you feel nothing but nostalgia. In a way it was overwhelming. The smell of the air to the sounds of the waves crashing. Just being on the planet made you feel all those feelings you once had while being here. All the memories made your eyes water.

Walking your way closer to the island made you feel less than. The reason being you have no idea if he’s really here, and you can’t exactly call out to the force to feel his presence. You just have to trust the fact he might be on this island.

You slowly shift yourself around the terrain and scan the area for any sign of his stature. The rocks tumble beneath your shoes. You start to walk alongside the shore with waves crashing beside you. You walk and walk, until you are met with him.

He’s tying a knot in a net with what seems to be his dinner inside, resting eternally.

The sight of him brings back all your feelings in an instant. Flowing through you from head to toe. It keeps you in place, frozen. Your armor stays completely still and unmoving, though your heart jumps at every chance it gets and bounces against your chestplate. You see him now, modulated from your helmet, and think of all the times you truly saw him. Unfiltered and true.

Without looking at you, he speaks between the distance “How much?” It’s monotone but assertive. There is no emotion behind it, just a simple question.

You respond to him, though your voice shakes more than you anticipated and your modulated voice from your helmet can’t cover it “100,000.”

There goes a moment of silence where neither of you say anything. The lingering amount of credits ring in his mind.

You look at him and take him in like the heat of the suns. Your body starts to panic internally at the realization about the situation you put yourself in. Going back to a man you have undeniable history with just for the sake of some credits. Or maybe it was you finding an excuse to see him.

Qimir uses his strength and hauls the net of food around his shoulder, still silent. He walks until he is a few steps in front of you, and stares at your helmet. He tries to find your eyes beneath it, scanning your visor. There is a split second he truly matches your gaze and it squeezes your heart. This makes the corner of his lip twitch into a smile. Qimir goes back to his trail and walks beside you, still saying nothing.

He was a man of few words, and whenever he did speak, he talked in a way like you were reading a book. Saying things like they were written, or like he rehearsed it. Never slurring or stuttering his words. He knew the exact words to say to get you convinced or to make you melt.

Though at this moment he remained unspoken, and you weren’t letting this trip go to waste.

“His name is Kai Varis.” You started to march towards him but leaving some distance behind him. You didn’t want to be close enough to breathe down his neck. “He once was a Jedi.” This makes him stop in his tracks.

“What happened?” He asked. His tone now wasn’t monotone, but rather curious.

“Fell into his feelings–” You walk a bit closer to him and continue on “Apparently he fell in love with a common girl. He was stationed out on a planet and fell in love with a farm girl. Maybe wanted to grow crops forever instead of his Jedi duties.” There was a hint of sarcasm in your speech, “I don't know! The point is, the Jedi council wouldn’t allow it. Revenge happened. Some Jedi died. They're trying to find him but are failing, so they’re setting out an award for whoever finds him.”

Qimir is still looking ahead, but once you stop talking, his head shifts slightly to the side. Almost like he wanted to turn and see you, but instead he continues walking on forward. “I'm assuming this isn’t an easy job.”

“I wouldn’t be asking you if it was easy.” You responded.

He walks and walks. Continues to walk. He walks even more, and still not conversing as much as you want. You are starting to grow more agitated and it makes your chest burn, you look into the distance at the suns, and you decide to set it straight “I’ll be on my ship until the suns set. If you don't make up your mind until the sky is black, I'm leaving.” You stop your pace and wait for an answer.

Still walking.

—

Sitting in the cockpit of your ship, you swivel your chair from side to side in anticipation. The last sun is almost set and it’s closing in on the horizon. The sky is growing darker, resembling the hope you have for Qimir’s company.

You start to feel like an idiot, now regretting coming here. If he does decide to not join you, the last encounter you two have is this short awkward offer instead of the true last time you saw each other. Your brain starts to reminisce on the warm embraces and passionate kisses, but you are shoved out your thoughts harshly by his gravely modulated voice coming from behind you.

“Happy now?”

You jump out of your seat a bit in surprise. While you were thinking back your memorable moments with Qimir, you missed the last bit of the sun falling in the distance. You turn to look at him, and the two of you stare at each other with your helmets on, almost like a standoff. Pulling yourself out of your thoughts, you finally realize his teasing remark and shake your head moving your helmet side to side. You don’t say anything about it and instead turn your gaze to the dashboard, pushing switches and knobs to make it to your destination.

Qimir doesn’t sit in the chair beside you for takeoff, just stands in the corner with his arms stretched out in front of his leather poncho-like attire. When you finally make it to the sky, far enough, you push forward and set you and Qimir into hyperspace. The ship shifts with a force and the environment illuminates pure blue.

Without looking back to Qimir, you set him in on the scene. The planet you both are going to is a commonly known planet where fugitives hide out, in the hopes to get a hunch on this rogue Jedi. It’s a spread out community unlike others. So everyone has their privacy. The scenery is filled with trees so tall you might crack your neck trying to look at a whole tree.

You are met with quiet. Mentally you are hoping to Maker his silence is a sign he’s listening. So you let him be. Although you are left with you. You and your mind, and it starts to wander. On why he chose to come along last minute, why he’s not speaking as much as he used to with you, if there is a possibility he hates your guts, or if there is something he’s not telling you. You piece it together. After minutes of running around in your brain trying to put the puzzle together, you have a question.

“Are you coming along to not capture him, but teach him?” Your helmet looks back to him, and he turns to you, slightly shifting down as a yes. He doesn’t care about the bounty, he wants a pupil.

This makes your chest fill with steam and your blood boil. Both of your motives are different and you aren’t on the same page. You rise from your seat and stomp towards the exit, but before you can make your way out, Qimir softly (though it is deep and raspy with his helmet) says your name, and stretches out his arm to rest his hand on your forearm to stop you from leaving abruptly. Though you sadly ache for his real touch considering his hand is only on your armor piece on your arm, not really touching your skin like how you wish. No matter what you think, there will always be something in the way with you two.

Before he can say anything, you leave the cockpit to assess the situation.

—

Your mind finally settled on an option as you just went through your mental files of ideas. You stomped your way back into the cockpit with Qimir still in the corner, the force from the ship shifted as you exited out of hyperspace. The sight of the planet came into view making this situation become a reality. The reality is both of you having different motives. You know convincing Qimir won't be an option, you don't wanna waste your time. So you accept it.

“Whoever finds him first gets to decide what to do with him. I find him, I turn him in and get my reward. Or you get to him first and train him.” After your statement, you turn to him and see him remain unmoving. Until he nods his head down indicating a yes. This annoys you, even though you both agree on something, it's not what you wanted.

Once again the two of you are going your separate ways just like before, never moving or even thinking in sync. Always off balance.

Eventually you make your way to the overgrown trees of a planet and find a place to land your ship. You do so perfectly and start to gear yourself up. Whereas Qimir just has his helmet, coat, and lightsaber. You have your rifle strapped to your back, pistol on your hip, and cuffs onto your belt for when you capture him. You have more baggage, metaphorically and physically speaking. The heaviness on your shoulders was like a spitting image of how you felt on the inside.

As you both got off your ship, Qimir looked at you from the side, and wasted no time heading to find Kai Varis. He was determined, and so were you.

Obviously you went the opposite way as him in the hopes to be going towards the side Kai is really at.

At this moment, deep down secretly, you are furious. Furious for the reason being you both aren’t on the same page, and also being the fact you weren’t a Jedi yourself. Qimir always has an advantage. It was one of the reasons he was so good at finding bounties. Though slowly your ego started to rise. This was your job and you are good at it. You have no force to call out to in moments when you could use it. All you used was your brain and instincts. It has gotten you this far in life and that seemed like a good sign to you. As well as being able to fend for yourself, and especially defend yourself with pure agility. No extra bonus in the force. All you.

You’ll find Kai Varis.

You’ll definitely show to Qimir you don’t need him as much as he thinks. Even though deep down in your bones you craved him more than you’d like to admit. You wish at this moment you could take each individual bone in your body and clean them yourself, to get rid of his residue.

This wasn’t the moment to be thinking of Qimir. Kai should be your main focus right now, but Qimir lingered in the back of your mind. Infesting you like a parasite.

With every step you took wandering around the planet, your thoughts would focus on your mission with trying to find Kai, but Qimir would end up being the forefront no matter what. It started to frustrate you, causing more force to each of your steps.

Your helmet scanned the area and even highlighted every object around you, but your main focus was the ground to see if any shoe prints were made recently. After a few minutes, you see faded imprints of shoes in the dirt before you. The anticipation makes your heart leap, stinging inside of you.

You immediately dart towards the trail to find who it belongs to, only to be met with a campsite with what seems to be a traveler. He has a pot above the makeshift fire filling the air with smoke. He sees you, you and your armored stature. There is a sense of intimidation receding off of him. You slowly walk towards him, feeding into the intimidation. All you do before him is display the bounty on a hologram, and with your actions you ask if he has seen him. With no words, he raises his right hand and uses his pointer finger to point to the right of him. You nod your head down as a thank you, and immediately head that direction.

It took a bit of time to get another sign of Kai Varis. The suns started to set a bit more, illuminating a orange hue into the green leaves around you. The bright light shined through the trees, though you couldn't see much of the sight through your helmet. You imagined it looked quite nice. The next sign you saw was an empty food container next to a bush. You pick up the remnants of Kai and feel the warmth beneath your glove. Indicating he had been here recently. You scan the area with heavy breaths at the mere thought of getting close to catching him all on your own. His steps trace to the left of you, and you follow the trail.

The more you walk the more you see the trace appears more recent. You’re getting closer until you see a bright light shine through the trees. It’s a fireplace cracking in the distance with no one nearby. You cautiously walk towards the scene, finding remnants of a life lived at this site. With cans of food and a makeshift bed on the ground. Your neck goes from left to right repeatedly, until you come to the conclusion no one is near this area. Though they couldn’t have gone far, you thought.

Your heavy combat boots crunch below you as the twigs and leaves give you away, considering your weight is doubled by your heavy armor. You decide to bring out your pistol instead of your rifle because it makes more logical sense as you are on your toes and will most likely endure close combat soon. The pistol sticks to your palms like glue and your eyes are wide and open. Barely blinking in case you miss him.

Clashes of blue and red shine in the far forest.

Qimir found him first.

It was no surprise to you that he did, but it still stung your chest and made you irritated. You groan in an irritated manner and head towards the fight. Once you make it, Qimir’s anonymous alias is fighting against a once Jedi. They both move so fluidly like water. Both in sync, unlike you and Qimir.

In this moment you are on a ledge above them and decide to take charge from this distance. You put your pistol back in its holster with your heart racing more and more by the second. With shaky hands you reach towards your back and grab a hold of your sniper rifle. You switch the mode to stun mode, and finally see your trembling hands. You’ve had countless jobs just like this one, but this specific one just has too much at stake. Too much to lose. You tighten your hand into a forceful grip to bring yourself back to reality, and immediately get in position to strike from a far distance.

Your helmet aligns with the scope of your rifle to only have them move so fast you can barely keep track of them both, so you prepare. You prepare for where they will be. They seem to be moving to the right, so you aim more ahead of the right. The stakes are high, and you need to time this at the right second. With your finger on the trigger, you anxiously hold it until the right moment comes. You see Kai in your view and pull your trigger finger. The stun ray shoots through the air, missing him by just a second.

You failed.

Then Qimir and Kai’s attention gets sent to you. Their gaze pierces you like a knife and you feel frozen. Kai darts to you, now making you his target instead.

Qimir feels fear. Fear that you are now at risk more than he anticipated. With no hesitation he as well runs towards the fight.

Now, you rise to your feet and bolt the opposite way. Moving as fast as you can muster. You have no Jedi speed, so it's only a matter of time until both of them catch up to you.

From the left, Kai appears from behind a tree and sways his blue saber towards you, which you dodge. You are still holding your rifle and you have no time to set it back in place, and it's weighing you down. Kai strikes again to which you raise your rifle out of fear and block the attack. The rifle splits into two, falling to the floor becoming instantly useless. You have no time to mourn over your lost weapon, but instead reach for your last weapon.

You reach for your pistol out your holster and waste no seconds with aiming and shooting, to which Kai blocks every laser with his lightsaber.

You’ve fought many bounties and captured many, but none of them have ever been a Jedi. You feel little and at a loss. He has countless advantages on you, and he wastes no time using them.

With the force, Kai pulls your pistol out of your hand. He lunges towards you and you sway out of the way before the hot steaming blade can meet you, but you didn't anticipate for the blade to reach your leg. With a second attack immediately after his first, he slices your right leg swiftly.

From your stinging leg, to your stomach inhaling from the pain, to your throat brewing a loud screech, and finally to your mouth letting out a hurtful wail. You fall to the floor as the weight on your injured leg becomes too unbearable for you to stand on. You are weak and hurt. Defeated.

You know these are your last moments and you don't think of all your fond memories you had, or you don’t think about you're not ready to die. Your mind is blank, and all you do is stare at Kai Varis in front of you. He raises his saber to strike you, to finish you. You squeeze your eyes shut to face the impact of death and you hear the saber scream against skin, but it's not yours. Death never came. So you open your eyes to find a red saber impaling Kai.

Beneath your helmet, you open your eyes and see life wash away from Kai’s complexion. The red lightsaber disappears and Kai’s dead weight makes him fall to the floor harshly with a loud thud. Your eyes stay onto him, realizing the situation now at hand.

He’s dead, and the money went with him.

Your head snaps to Qimir, and you stare at each other with blank gazes against each other's helmets. You can't read his face, and he can’t read yours. But you use your tone to show your expression “What have you done!” Your loud voice echoes against the inside of your helmet and it hurts your ears. You can’t see what Qimir is looking like at the moment but his chest rises and falls at a rapid pace indicating he is breathing heavily. He’s not calm and neither are you. “Neither of us got what we wanted?!”

You attempt to rise to your feet to argue more thoroughly, but you crash back to the floor with your wound on your calf bringing you back down. Qimir offers a hand but you slap it away. You feel the sting of regret when you do so. You are harsh towards him even though deep down you are tender for him, but the stakes of this moment are too high for you to be fond of him like you always are. Your credits are washed down the drain, and you are only left empty handed and wounded. Not only that, you opened a deep wound in the process of all of this by bringing Qimir into this. Revisiting old flames.

Slowly and with ease you get back up putting more pressure into your left leg leaning the weight on that side. You limp your way back to your ship, refusing Qimir’s help in the process.

The closer you got to your ship the more you felt anguish below you. Your hairline was slick with sweat and heart thumping in adrenaline to keep you from passing out. The pain was unbearable and all you wanted to do was get off this Maker forsaken green planet. Slowly you made yourself climb up the rail with Qimir behind you. He was irritating you the more time he spent around you. Like an itch you couldn’t scratch.

Finally you made it to the cockpit and crashed onto the chair feeling the weight off your shoulders finally lifted. With all the energy you had left, you flew you and Qimir off the planet, and set out for hyperspace.

With a raspy voice you asked him “Can you grab the medkit?” But he doesn’t reply. Nor do you hear his footsteps recede away from you. He just stays. In your mind, you think why must he be doing everything to make you mad?

Instead of his steps going away, they go towards you. His hand reaches towards your chair and swivels you to face him. With tired eyes, you do so. You look at him with your head laying against the headrest, but you have to raise it up to follow him, keeping your gaze on him as he kneels down in front of you.

With a gentle touch, Qimir wraps his hand around your ankle to lift your right leg. You wince above him and he still remains silent. His fingertips barely touch your wound, and he asks "So the only reason you took this is for credits? Nothing else?" He lifts your leg higher making you gasp through your lungs and inhale. You are straining your voice when you reply to his question “What are you implying?”

“You know what.”

Qimir’s words are intimidating, and it doesn't help that his modulated helmet makes it more so. With the force, he is gentle, and heals you beneath his palm. A relief washes over you like a wave and the pain slips through your fingers like silk. It is wearing off, and breathing becomes a bit easier. By the time you look down to your leg, your red gashing wound is no more. Your skin is bare and open beneath your striped cloth on your pants, and Qimir starts to massage it. He kneads your flesh like dough and your physical memories of you two in moments like this become the forefront in your mind. The moments where his big hands would softly caress your skin in bare moments like these. Those moments would be rather passionate and heated.

Although right now you are in the opposite. Clothed head to toe, and even with your facial expressions hidden away from him. You in armor hiding away doesn't change the fact your cunt starts to pulsate beneath you just from his touch. The familiar touch you mourned.

His hand stays onto your calf while his other hand reaches for his helmet, which he slowly takes off. Everything you wondered about under there is revealed. You see his dark eyes with a hazy glow to them, his eyebrows closing together in concentration, and especially his slick lips already licked from his tongue from want.

You start to bite your lip in the hopes to not let your yearning seep through your teeth. You grip the arm rests beside you tightly and the leather stretches in the air. He hears this, and his eyes dart to your tenseness in front of him. This makes his lip twitch in a smirk but is quickly stripped away.

Qimir slowly lowers his head to your exposed leg, and kisses your now healed wound. His lips are soft against your skin and it takes all the strength you have to keep your mouth shut. You don’t want to moan, not this early, not with that simple kiss. It’s pathetic how unraveled he makes you. But he doesn't stop there, he continues up your leg still kissing it even through the cloth. He plants kisses up your inner knee, to your thigh, and finally inner thigh. Your hips buck in a jumpy twitch. Finally he presses one kiss on your core, and you exhale more than you anticipated but you inhale it as quick as it came out.

He doesn’t continue, just keeps his face in between your legs while his eyes scan your visor trying to find your eyes. His head shakes from side to side in a mental disagreement in his head and this makes his long black strands of hair in front of his face move fluidly.

His body rises towards you and he reaches towards your helmet to take it off. Once it's off you both examine each other's expressions. Eyes darting from inch to inch. The one word to explain Qimir’s gaze is satisfaction. The reaction you're giving him is the exact one he wants.

Qimir’s hand reaches towards your chin to hold it in place, as he presses a soft but long kiss onto your lips. You waste no time in reciprocating it from all the lost time you two have had. Your lips haven’t meshed with his in a long time, but you kiss like you had done so yesterday. Finally, you both are in sync. In a way, this is how you two fight.

Smacks from each other's lips fill the air and you start to taste the sweet taste you missed from his lips. You hum against him as you savor it. Just as you start to let yourself melt away under him, he removes himself from your lips. Your neck extends wanting more, but he lowers himself back in between your legs. With his tender hands, he tugs onto your waistband lowering it down. The ship's cold air reaches its way to your slowly exposed skin and sends shivers down your spine. Before you know it, you’re fully exposed to him and you feel like it's the first time all over again.

His mouth hangs open in desire. With the hand he has just used to heal you, he lightly touches your pussy, feeling the slickness of want. “Just credits? Nothing else?”

“Shut up.” You retort.

Qimir uses his pointer finger and his middle to gently message the sides of your cunt. With a fast warmth, he presses his flat tongue on your entrance and licks upwards towards your clit. You sigh loud inside the small cockpit and you finally let your moans escape your lips. While he kisses and sucks on your pussy.

The vibrations of his voice below you sends waves of pleasure through you. The main crash landing onto your clit. Your gloved hand reaches towards his hair and he groans against you the more you pull.

You missed this. You close your eyes shut to savor this moment. To keep it lasting. You start to focus on not finishing. You need to make this last as long as you can. Although you start to ride his face, moving your hips back and forth. This comes to you as a natural instinct, like you rehearsed it.

Then, you released the tight bite you had on your lip and spoke with heavy breaths “This doesn’t mean I forgive you.”

His lips unlatch from your cunt, and with a wet mouth he answers in a condescending tone “Stop whining about it.”

Shortly after he latches back onto you, wanting to savor and taste more of you.

Your stomach grows tight and as well as your gloves from your constant clutches on the armrest and Qimir’s locks. Your chestpiece rises and falls from your pants, and you’re getting close. Qimir no doubt senses this. He practically can sense anything with his force. So he repeatedly hums a low “Mhm” against you, sending you over the edge.

You unravel against him and your whole body gets tense. Your eyes then shut so tight your ears hum from the force from your eyes. Qimir’s mouth never leaves you and continues to run his tongue over you. Though the more you come down the more gentler he does so. He knows you. He especially knows your body, and he knows you like him to leave lingering kisses around you once you finish.

You can hear the sound of his soft kisses against your core and thighs, feeling the comfort beneath his actions. Finally you open your eyes to be met with the roof of the cockpit, until Qimir comes into view begging for another kiss. Which you gladly give him.

Both of you and Qimir’s lips move in sync and you taste yourself on him.

Once you stop kissing, you look into his eyes and assess the situation. The reason you both were brought together was to find a bounty, Qimir had different motives, you two went separate ways, found each other during combat, he saves you from Kai to only kill him in the process, losing the bounty as well as his wanted pupil, then you are injured, make your way back to the ship, to finally being eaten out by a man you have history with.

It’s complicated to say the least.

The jump out of hyperspace pulls you back into reality. To which he gently puts your pants back to where they were.

Qimir doesn’t rise from the ground. He stays crouching below you, with doe-like eyes looking back at you.

“You forgive me?” His voice is soft and sincere. No hint of teasing behind it. He’s serious about it. Considering he took months worth of pay that you would have received away from you.

Your hand reaches the side of his face, and you lean forward. With a healed leg and euphoric come down, you answer with a kiss.

#qimir #qimir x reader #the acolyte #manny jacinto #star wars #qimir the acolyte #fanfic #star wars fanfiction #star wars x reader #fanfiction

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seiwas · 10 months

Text

₊˚⊹。look my way, you’re what i crave | gojo satoru

wc: 2.6k

summary: you and gojo made a promise to yuuji.

contains: f!reader in mind but no pronouns used, food trip/taste-testing, many food descriptions, a little bit of (playful) jealousy, pouty gojo, yuuji calls reader sensei, established relationship (but no label).

a/n: a small extra scene that takes place some time between col 2.5 and col 3! not a food expert nor am i japanese, so food descriptions are just based off first-hand experience and some research i’ve managed to do! there are some switches in povs (gojo-reader-gojo) but i tried to keep it as distinct as possible! this is also my birthday gift for you, niku @stellamancer!! thank you for sharing this idea with me and for loving the col couple as much as i do!!

collection masterlist: conversations on love 2.5. and my body keeps saying (it's yours) <- you are here -> 03. so this is what it means to be in love + (extended scene) too good to be mine

‘Losing’ isn’t a word in Gojo’s vocabulary.

If it is, it’s usually addressed to the other party.

He’s been a winner ever since he was born, two blue eyes and an extra four hidden, holding power that manifests itself only once every few centuries. Some argue that he was born for that reason: to win, without doubt, incontestably.

And he supposes, most of it is true—which is why he can’t believe the loss he’s feeling right now, standing in front of the Daifuku stall across from you.

Never in his entire life did Gojo ever anticipate himself losing to anything. But with the way you’d casually nodded off, signaled so nonchalantly that you’d follow him but clearly didn’t—it has his head turning, finding you midbite a singular, shared stick of Yakitori.

He thinks he might have just experienced his first loss.

And the victor is none other than Itadori Yuuji.

You made a promise to Yuuji.

Back when he was still up for execution by virtue of being Sukuna’s vessel, you’d laid your confidence in Gojo.

“Sensei, do you really think it’s possible?” he asks, voice hesitant but eyes tinged with hope. You were discussing the ways his execution could go down—if it even will go down.

Shoko’s always pointed out that the most dangerous thing about you is hope, and how you hold onto it so deeply that you pass it onto others like a disease, spreading it to seep into skin and bones.

Gojo calls it your hidden technique, the trump card you pull out when everyone’s knocked down, spirits low. It’s what sets you apart, he thinks, how you’re able to survive in a world that serves as an antithesis to the values you hold.

“If Satoru said to leave it up to him, he’ll find a way,” you answer immediately, like you’ve known it all this time, experienced it first-hand—a memory. Then you add, an affirmation that sounds so close to fact, it reassures him, “he always does.”

“Let’s go to Osaka and eat all the street food when everything’s done.”

You made a promise to Yuuji, and here you are now, with Gojo, keeping it.

The streets of Osaka are bustling, crowded pretty much any time of the year—carts of all sorts of street food lined up with restaurants hidden in every corner. Neon banners and LED signs light up overhead, a twinkling food heaven reflected in Yuuji’s eyes.

It must be his first time here, you surmise, because he’s looking at every food stall like he’s ready to devour. You glance at Gojo, hands tucked in his pockets with his blindfold sitting snugly on his face. His presence is bright, blending in with the light, and he turns his head to you slightly, flashing you a small smile.

You tell yourself the warmth you feel is because of the heat radiating from all the vendors’ stoves.

“Sensei, what do you want to try first?” Yuuji interrupts your train of thought, but you’re sure he doesn’t mean to. He’s just excited, and his energy has always been infectious, spreading to both Gojo and you.

Gojo isn’t too big a fan of savory things, so you know you’re going to end up having to choose. You take a look around you to survey each stall, before turning back to Yuuji with a plan on how exactly you’re going to eat and conquer.

Gojo watches—the way you zig-zag across the street, following Yuuji as he walks up to each vendor. It’s both amusing and endearing seeing you being just as, if not more, enthralled at all the savory options in front of you.

Between the two of you, he’s always had the sweet tooth, so it tickles something in him that even when you don’t, your food-tasting game plan still consists of alternating savory-sweet-savory food.

Yuuji’s first pick is of course, Okonomiyaki, an iconic must-have in Osaka. He orders one piece at first, but you insist on two, knowing that the boy is more than capable of finishing a single one on his own. On the frying sheet lie columns of the pancakes–a simple mixture of flour, eggs, and cabbage–fried and coated in flavors bursting of sweet, savory, and smoky. The lady vendor is generous with the toppings and sauce she pours over it, packing the two pancakes in separate plastic containers before handing one to you and the other to Yuuji.

You turn back to find Gojo a few steps behind you, so you beckon him closer.

“Let’s share,” you whisper, once he sidles up next to you. The plastic crinkles in your hand as you try to slice a piece, Yuuji’s muffled ‘whoah’ heard from the side.

You blow on the slice, lips shaped into a small ‘o’; he doesn’t want to stare, not with Yuuji right there and neither of you having made anything official yet—

—but this is really tempting him to kiss you.

He doesn’t know if you can tell—any hint of his desire concealed by his blindfold, but you shove the slice right to his lips. And while it isn’t graceful at all, with the sauce probably smeared all over his mouth, it’s a good distraction from how much he wants you instead of the food right now.

The texture of the Okonomiyaki hits right every time, the crunchy and creamy combination providing a great contrast that complements how sweet and savory it is. The bite you take after his has your expression mirroring Yuuji’s, and he takes out his phone to capture this memory.

“Gowo-shunsheh! Tek a shulfeh!” Yuuji shouts, mouth still full as he lifts his fingers up into a peace sign. You grin, ear-to-ear, evidence of your happy tummy; he wants to pinch your cheeks.

“Okay, copy!” he raises his phone up at an angle, fingers hovering over the volume button as he grips the edges, “ready! 1…2…3… say Okonomiyaki!”

Only Yuuji shouts it, and when Gojo reviews the photo, you’re halfway through a fallen smile—face contorting into disbelief that he said something that cringey, in typical, loud, Gojo fashion too.

“Hey!” he points out, zooming into your face in the photo, “Again! You’re not smiling!”

You shoot him a look.

“We can try it with a .5 this time, the kids love it these days.” he suggests, flipping the phone and gathering you and Yuuji closer.

He takes two photos: one with flash and one without, and the moment he counts down, you mumble right by his ear to please not say ‘Okonomiyaki’ when you have to smile—he chuckles.

And he says it again. Both times.

You expected no less, but at least you tried.

“You should be our human tripod next time,” you tell him, letting Yuuji go ahead.

The photos look good, with you tiptoeing as you balance a hand on Gojo’s shoulder, Yuuji at the back with his hands raised, holding the empty plastic that used to house his Okonomiyaki.

“Knew you were just using me,” he pouts, hand reaching behind to rest at your lower back.

It’s been the subtleties with him this trip, tonight especially.

“Yep,” you play along, smiling oh-so-sweetly, “I knew those freakishly long arms were good for something.”

Before he can retort with something cheesy, along the lines of: ‘to hold you’ or ‘to hug you in your sleep’, you move away, catching up to Yuuji.

Your pick, for Gojo, is Taiyaki. It’s not his favorite thing to eat, but it’s sweet, and is still a good, nostalgic dessert, you’d like to think. Batter is poured all over the fish molds before being filled with the red bean filling. Then, after a few minutes of waiting, it pops out perfectly, ready to be eaten by the three of you. You ask for two again, only because this time, you know Gojo can finish one whole.

But when his eyes land on the Taiyaki you’re biting from and he realizes very quickly that it isn’t his, he feels a pinch.

It's a good thing the crunchy outside and soft, full inside of the Taiyaki is enough to make him shrug off the feeling. For now.

As the food trip goes on, you end up in many more stalls—

—a Takoyaki one, where Yuuji’s ‘ooo’s’ and ‘aaa’s’ are heard every time the balls are flipped and formed. The cooking on it is perfect, the pieces of octopus sitting just right with enough bite as flavors of soy and Worcestershire come through in its glaze. Gojo only eats one from the set of six that you ordered, and he wishes he just waited, because now Yuuji is eating half of the last one you couldn't finish.

—a Kushikatsu one, deep fried beef and vegetables coated in crispy, crunchy breadcrumbs and dipped in Tonkatsu sauce. Yuuji ends up finishing three whole sticks, while you manage to eat one. It’s an animated conversation between the two of you that Gojo can’t seem to insert himself into. A part of him feels a little pathetic now, tailing you both like a dog, but he just wants a little bit more of your attention.

—a Soba shop (not so much a stall) that serves amazing Cold Soba he definitely isn’t missing out on. Yuuji is practically buzzing, excited for anything noodles; it’s the main reason you’d suggested Osaka in the first place. He ducks in the shop last, Yuuji first with you in the middle, and when you settle in your seat right beside him, he snickers endearingly. Gojo can see everything, you’re reminded of that everyday and in moments like this especially. Right now, it's the way you sigh as soon as you release the top button of your pants immediately.

You pout at him as you’re served an order each, the dipping sauce in small ceramic as the noodles lie in bamboo boxes. It’s refreshing and light, just the right balance of sweet and savory; the buckwheat noodles have a lovely bite to them, not at all mushy. When he glances at you, halfway through your bowl, he can tell that you’re already full.

But just as he offers to finish yours—

“Sensei, are you going to finish that?”

—there’s Yuuji.

You shake your head, pushing your bowl towards him; Gojo feels that pinch returning.

A few good minutes of walking find you on the way to another stall—

—a Yakitori one that Yuuji practically skips to, as if he didn’t just finish a bowl and a half of Cold Soba, three sticks of Kushikatsu, three and a half pieces of Takoyaki, a half of one Taiyaki, and a whole order of Okonomiyaki.

Gojo decides to sit this one out, eyeing the Daifuku stand across the street. He’s gone here plenty of times before, but never with you—and if there's anything he wants you to try out here, it's fresh, special mochi, all soft and delectable, delicate in the way its decorated.

He takes off his blindfold, ruffling his hair. With Yuuji having gone ahead, it’s just the two of you.

“I’m going to buy Daifuku, there’s a special one I want you to taste,” he whispers excitedly, wiggling his eyebrows.

The expression on your face is the last thing he was expecting.

Your eyes are dazed, half-lidded, almost like you’re sleepy, and you blink at him twice before you’re able to fully process what he just said. You could be having a food coma right now, just standing.

“Oh, okay,” you hum, nodding as you smile, dopey, “I’ll follow.”

He considers just waiting for a bit, because he wants you to go with him. But you insist and shoo him away, telling him that the Daifuku might run out by the time Yuuji reaches the front of the Yakitori line.

So he goes, and maybe it’s a little petty, and immature, and stupid-silly, but he hates how this entire food trip has felt like a battle for your attention between him and Yuuji.

Even though he’s probably the only one who feels it.

So it’s one-sided. Definitely.

And he’s losing. Terribly.

Each individual piece of Daifuku looks majestic, pink mochi with red bean filling, sliced in the middle to leave room for a whole syrup-glazed strawberry. He orders two boxes to bring back home and an extra two pieces, one for the two of you to share and the other for Yuuji.

Gojo’s mouth is watering and he really wants to take a bite already, but you aren’t anywhere near him. So when he turns around and spots you, mid-chew on the last few bites your stomach can take from that shared Yakitori stick—he feels that pinch again. Because throughout this trip, all you’d done was split savory food with Yuuji, and all he wanted was a bit more attention, sharing half-bites with you.

When you finally meet his eyes across the street, signature blue amidst bright reds and neon greens, he’s pouting, and he hopes he’s making it very obvious that he wants (needs) you to go to him.

Your eyes widen before crossing the street, Yuuji right on your heel.

“Whoah, Gojo Sensei! That looks good!” Yuuji’s voice booms, earning a few looks.

Gojo holds one Daifuku on each hand, the other two boxes tucked in a plastic bag hanging by his elbow.

“It’s their special one!” He smiles at Yuuji, handing it over.

You look at him curiously, head tilted to the side as you watch him closely—how his smile doesn’t really reach his eyes.

Once Yuuji moves out of earshot, his series of ‘mmm’s’ blending in with the bustle of market chatter, you face Gojo and open your mouth wide, “Aaaah,”

Gojo doesn’t move for the first few seconds, but you meet in the middle eventually, his hand inching towards feeding you while you move your head closer. He keeps his palm open under your chin, cupping it to serve as a catch tray for any filling that might spill out.

There’s something about the look of you, half-sleepy and asking to be fed, that makes him feel warm and fuzzy—like that pinching feeling earlier never existed. Like he’d gladly do this everyday if you asked for it.

The soft, plush exterior of the mochi touches your lips, and you bite, the filling oozing out just enough for you to get a good portion of it. Flavors of red bean and strawberry hit your palate, and the filling doesn’t leak, but the syrup coating the strawberry catches onto your nose when you move away.

At the tip of your nose is a shiny red spot, glistening under the busy lights. The expression on your face is pleased, content—your head doing that side-to-side sway whenever you like the taste of something.

“Mmm,” you smile at him, “it’s yummy.”

And he doesn’t know what it is, if it’s the look you’re giving him, or if it's something in the air tonight, but he feels warm and full and still very much like he wants to kiss you.

So he decides, damn all the passersby.

He does one quick scan around him, making sure that Yuuji, at the very least, is away from the immediate vicinity. And when it’s all clear, he leans in.

Gojo kisses you on the nose in the middle of a busy street food road, and his lips are soft, almost feather-light, swooping in quickly before anyone can notice. You’re stunned into silence, but the moment you come to, he’s already swiped the strawberry syrup off you.

His cheeks are starting to turn pink, the sides of his neck already as red as the signs on the food stalls. And he can tell you feel it too, with the way your sleepiness seems to have faded into what now looks like surprise.

Still cute though.

(Always will be, in his eyes).

So, ‘losing’ isn’t really a word in Gojo’s vocabulary.

But if it is, he thinks he’d gladly lose to you.

(Still not to Yuuji though. He maybe still has to keep an eye out for that one).

thank you notes: to niku for being there always!! from answering my questions, brainstorming together, and just all-around everything!! col wouldn't be what it is now without you!! i love u, i hope i gave your love for food justice, niku!

comments, tags, and reblogs are greatly appreciated ♡

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xoluvx · 3 months

Note

1. can u do a billie smut where u (reader) r in bed naked and billies working late n she comes home to find u like that in bed and RAILS like proper RAILSSS the reader 😉

2. billie is frustrated and u help her relax

doing the first request for this one .. might do the second one in another post 😋 enjoyyyy

It'd been a long exhausting day. When you got home you headed straight for the bathroom. You were in desperate need of a shower. The cool water felt heavenly on your skin. Your muscles relaxed instantly.

When you got out of the shower, you didn't bother getting dressed. You'd air dry today since your girlfriend wasn't home yet, not that you wouldn't gladly walk around naked in her presence. She'd been working late in the studio this week, so you took this time to do whatever you wanted.

Leaving a trail of water, you wandered into the kitchen for something to snack on. The savory sweet treat lightened your mood and you sipped some water before heading back to your room.

Scrolling endlessly through your phone, you consumed the multiple posts that flooded your social media. You were so enthralled in your phone, you didn't hear the footsteps approaching the room.

The door was open so your girlfriend just sauntered in. Her smile grew bigger, if that was even possible.

"Wow, for me?" she goofed approaching the bed taking off her jacket. She threw it on the bench at the end of the bed and you sat up, breasts bouncing with delight.

You greeted her with open arms and she happily cupped your face kissing you tenderly. Your arms clung to her back, the roughness of her clothes contrasted with your lotioned skin. It didn't take long for the kiss to turn feverish. Her hand traveled to your neck and you moaned from the pressure.

"I'm gonna fuck you so hard," Billie snarled, her lips sloppily moving to your cheek where she planted a final kiss.

She stepped away getting rid of her clothes in a flash. Her toned body stared back at you and you drooled with anticipation. She flashed you her perfectly perky ass when she opened the closet. A small section of it dedicated to your collection of dildos and vibrators.

"Which one should I use?" she asked and you squirmed not knowing what she had in store.

She came back with a pink frilly blindfold. Fuck, this could only mean one thing. She wasn't going to be nice tonight.

"Is this okay?" she asked approaching you. Her face softened waiting for your response.

"Yes," you swallowed and she tied the blindfold around your head covering your eyes. Her fingertips dragged down your neck and your chest rose at the touch.

"Are you going to be a good girl for me?" she whispered, her face now close to yours. Nodding, you felt her presence disappear only to reappear a few seconds later. She pushed you back on the bed, your arms sprawled on the mattress. Nipples hardening in suspense.

Billie's wet mouth was on your skin in seconds; you shivered. Her tongue rotated around your bud, her other hand palming your breast. She focused on your nipple, sucking, licking, slapping your tit before repeating the same motions on the other. As she sucked, she let her teeth sink on your skin and you moaned loudly arching your back. You simply felt her chuckle on your skin.

Her tongue ran a stripe between your breasts and up your throat. Your hands didn't know where to rest, you just bunched the sheets instead. When she kissed your jaw you felt her fill you up. Slowly, painfully slow. She'd chosen the biggest dildo you owned. You didn't even have to see to know.

When she was all the way in, you felt her skin press on yours. She stayed like for a moment planting kisses along your jaw, down your neck, back up your neck and finally your lips. You kissed back feeling her breasts lean on yours, you took this as an opportunity to wrap your arms around her shoulders.

With little warning she was all the way out, only the tip of dildo held you open. Then she pounded into you and the moan that filled the room was pornographic.

Her hips were fast. Incredibly fast, pushing into you ruthlessly. You felt her so deep, you were seeing stars in the darkness of the blindfold. Your mouth remained open, moans spilling off your tongue.

"You like that?" she groaned and you replied with a 'fuck yes' only encouraging her to fuck into you harder. She adjusted herself moving off the bed. With her legs planted on the floor, she pulled you lower. You felt empty and confused.

She took your legs holding them up against her body. The dildo slid into your pussy again. You felt it deeper in this new position. Soon enough she settled on the same speed as before fucking you so hard your skin slapped loudly. She leaned down, your legs over her shoulders, and kissed you.

You attacked her lips like you'd never tasted her before. Each kiss interrupted by a moan, a fuck, a yes, a fuck yes, a right there, a don't stop.

Her hand found its way to your neck, stifling your moans and groans. Her skin rubbing against your clit each time she thrusted. Each time rougher than the last, harder than the last.

Letting go of your neck, lips still resting on yours swallowing your cries, she hooked her arms under your shoulders pulling you down with each thrust. The dildo hitting every sweet pleasurable spot.

"Cum for me," she purred and you held your eyes shut even though you couldn't see anything. The simple gesture of squeezing your eyes traveled down your body, piercing your nipples, shooting through pussy and down to the bottom of your tingling feet.

Billie nuzzled her face in your neck still thrusting with no mercy. She felt the way your body quaked. The sudden silence that only meant one thing.

"Please baby," she pleaded and you surrendered letting your body reach eternal bliss. Billie pressed her lips on your cheek.

"Good girl," she whispered and those words alone made your body quiver again. She was still deep in you, she started moving but your hands felt their way down to her ass holding her in place. You weren't ready for the emptiness just yet.

Billie obliged and she held herself in place. She pushed the blindfold up to your sweat coated forehead and your eyes fluttered open to witness her plump rosy lips. She smiled biting her lip and you smiled back giggling.

"That was-" you sighed contently feeling the rush in your nipples again.

Billie cupped your face kissing you gently. It was so soft in comparison to what'd just transpired.

#billie eilish #billie eilish smut #billie eilish x you #billie eilish x reader #billie eilish x fem!reader #billie eilish x y/n #billie eilish imagine #billie eilish fic #billie eilish request

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orteil42 · 11 months

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Between the recent custom buttons post with the pipe bomb and the gamification post with the post -deleting boss fight I'm starting to get absolutely feral over the idea of you making a social media platform.

The companies that run the current options are cowards.

i would honestly love to give it a crack and were i younger and sillier i think i probably would. unfortunately by now i've become a bit too aware that creating a social media website is one of those nightmare projects that is guaranteed to be 500 times more work and trouble than you initially expect, and if i get into that i'd never have time for anything else. i'd also have to deal with hiring an actual team and be an actual company instead of just some guy who codes in his bedroom. and then let's say maybe the website takes off and we get a few thousands of active users. after a while our uptime becomes terrible; people can't log in, posts won't load. tech sites are starting to make fun of us. we have to grow, get bigger servers, hire more people. eventually i'd have to confront the fact that despite my cute take on monetization our social media isn't recouping the growing server expenses and our seed money is drying up and people at the office are starting to bang at my door to get paid. do i pull the plug and throw away everything we've built so far? likely not, even my own ego aside there's too many people's livelihoods on the line. other folks on the team are motivated to make this work, and a feedback loop forms where we start to ever-so-slightly readjust our values if it means we get to survive another quarter. i get more cynical; our ad slots are more and more intrusive, our monetization strategy gets shiftier and more aggressive. we accept funding from less and less savory entities. we start collecting user data beyond simple telemetry. if we've gotten big enough by that point, we may choose to restructure and begin taking on shareholders. this is a deal with the devil, and we now have a fiduciary duty to play nasty and treat our userbase like livestock in order to secure short-term profit. we can't just stop accepting new users; continued growth demands that we throw away what's left of our ethics to accommodate the gargantuan swaths of money that hundreds of thousands of database calls per second require. those of us who disagree with the new direction are gradually nudged away from positions of power. me, i've either been kicked out of my own project a while back or i've adapted to become someone i would've despised a few years prior. this is all assuming the website didn't crash and burn a few months after launch from either my technical shortcomings or my inexperience with management, or maybe just because our site ended up being too niche to really snowball. it is fun to think about tho!

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qwimchii · 1 year

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𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘭 (pt. 5) — 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘺

playlist pt. 1 pt. 2 pt. 3 pt. 4 pt. 5 pt. 6 pt. 7 pt. 8 (10/24)

𝘨𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳!𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘹 𝘧!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘺 — 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘢 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘤𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘯, 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘸𝘦𝘴𝘵'𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘭𝘢𝘸, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭 𝘩𝘪𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘸𝘤 — 17.2𝘬 (oopsie)

𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘦 — 𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘧𝘧, 𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘵, 𝘴𝘮𝘶𝘵

𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴/𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘴 — 𝘨𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳!𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵, 𝘴𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘥𝘰𝘮!𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵, 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘥𝘰𝘮!𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵, 𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳, 𝘷𝘪𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘯!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳, 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘸𝘦𝘴𝘵!𝘢𝘶, 141𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘨!𝘢𝘶, 𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 (10𝘺𝘳𝘴), 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘳��𝘯𝘨, 𝘢𝘭𝘤𝘰𝘩𝘰𝘭, 𝘴𝘮𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥 & 𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘴, 𝘤𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘴, 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘬, 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘱 𝘪𝘯 𝘷, 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘴𝘰𝘧𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩(ish), 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘷𝘪𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺

note: casually posts this 3 days later.... im so sorry you guys i didn't mean to drop off the face of the earth >< things came up all of a sudden but the next chapter is here!!

your dreams were long and relentless. they stretched out into scenes that didn’t make sense, but there were some distinct faces. one-four-one, Kate, and strange muted flickers of Konig’s ginger head, Yue-Yi, then a warmth peeking up between the passing scenes.

Simon. his bare face with silvery scars.

you wanted to reach out and touch him but he crumbled like sand before you could, collecting in a brown particulate matter between your fingers, then blowing away into the whistling wind.

then there were darker images. Charles and his gold tooth. the red gouge in the middle of Turner’s head. his cowering wife and small daughter in her arms.

your dead daddy and mama rotting away in the sand.

you didn’t know what to make of all of it, dragging your feet through a thick sludge that you couldn’t see, traveling to a place you didn’t know as images streamed past in an endless, murky deluge.

you dreamed like that for a long time, heavy and infinite, till you laid down in the soft earth and invisible sludge, letting the sticky warmth of it suck you down into the dirt and the sand blow over your body.

when you woke two days later, three, maybe four, you weren’t sure, you slowly blinked awake and sat up in the bed. you looked around.

the windows were drawn open in the soft light of the morning, pouring across the wooden floorboards and cast over the thick blankets of the small bed. there was a desk on the far side of the room, a compact kitchen pressed to the corner, and you jolted with a gasp.

Simon’s cabin.

drawing off the covers quickly, and shivering in dewy, cold morning, clad in a thin nightgown, you quickly walked to the mesh door of the cabin, feeling light and airy.

pushing the door open, you could smell a tinge of something rich and savory in the air, and saw a man in a white button up and jeans crouched down, stoking something in a pot strung up over a campfire.

he had a familiar, broad back, and a blonde head of hair. with a grin so big it ached, you padded with bare feet over to him, and draped yourself over the warm, strong expanse of his back, wrapping your arms around his neck with a hum.

“good morning, lovely,” he said with a low, thrumming laugh, turning his head to press his nose into your cheek.

you closed your eyes and nuzzled against him, squealing when he reached behind to wrap his arms around your legs and draw them around his waist, hoisting you up on his back as he stood. you clutched onto him, laughing as he walked back up the path to the cabin and laid you out over the bed with a softness.

he pressed his face to your neck, stroking through your hair, mumbling against your skin, “how are you feeling, pretty girl?”

“perfect,” you sang, truthfully honest, your heart soaring at the sight of him. you lifted his face gently to look over the easy smile that adorned it.

his strong blonde brow, the curve of his nose, full lips, dark eyes, and strong jaw, and—

your eyes darted over his upper lip again. there was no silvery scar.

brows pinched together now, Simon smoothed a hand over your chest. “what is it, lovely?”

“your scar,” you said with wonder, head tilted, “it’s gone.”

he laughed softly, the sound rough and musical. “what do you mean?”

then, he leaned down to press a gentle kiss to your lips, soft, warm, wet and captivating as his lips moved against your own.

but you pushed him back by his chest, feeling a strange, murky sensation in your stomach.

“what are we doing here, Simon?” you asked, apprehensive. he drew back, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking your hand in his.

“you’re asking such strange questions, lovely,” he said with a furrowed brow, though there was a still wry smile on his lips.

you rolled your eyes with your own smirk. “then, answer them.”

he grinned, kissing your hand softly.

“what’s going through my pretty wife’s mind?”

a dread accumulated in your throat, and your tongue grew heavy. “wife?”

his grip faltered at the flat tone of your voice, and you looked down to your joined hands, startling at the sight of a sparkling ring on your hand that was enveloped between his fingers.

“what do you want?”

your eyes snapped to his. “what?”

his face was eerily empty and void and totally unlike his own now. he cocked his head. “what do you want?”

you sat up, inching away from him. he was stock still, eyes following your movements with a predatory precision. there was a new, burning sensation building in your arm and you hissed, gripping at the tightly, but looking down to find nothing different about your skin.

Simon’s voice dropped an octave, harsh and cold now. “what do you want from me?”

you stood from the bed, and he followed you, edging you out of the cabin, looming over you with a menacing height you had never seen before. his face was twisted with anger.

“what do you want from me?”

you clasped your hands over your ears, turning on your heel and running out the cabin and away from its idyllic warmth, bare feet thudding over the earth. you didn’t turn to look if Simon was still following you, but you could hear his distant shouts through your hands.

“what do you want from me?”

the forest stretched into the desert and you wandered through its uncanny, thick and sandy sludge with bare feet, the thin cotton of your nightgown grating against your skin. you dragged your feet, a new exhaustion overcoming you with an insurmountable wave. the skin of your arm still burned with a ferocity.

to quell it, you laid down in the sand and thick sludge, letting the sticky warmth of it suck you down into the earth and the sand blow over your body.

when you awoke, you really, really knew it was real this time because there was a sore dryness in your mouth, a pulsing ache in your head, and a searing, thorough burn enveloping your arm and reaching down to your fingertips.

your eyes fluttered open. there wasn’t an idyllic cabin awaiting you, no rays of warm sunlight through the windows, nor a husband making breakfast for his wife before she woke. just a cramped room and small windows that were a pitched black dark. the soft light of the oil lamp beside you, carefully balanced on a thin, precarious nightstand, poured over the quilt blankets weighing you down.

you could barely do more than roll your head to the side, and you were endlessly grateful to see the back of Kate’s blonde head bobbing lightly as she clicked away on a typewriter at a small desk framed with stacked books on the opposite side of the narrow room, a cigarette between her lips, smoke trailing up above her head in a hazy cloud.

you tried to use your voice, to call out, but all that came out was a breathy, grating warble that had Kate whirling around in her chair with alarm.

when she saw you had awoken, she struggled to her feet, putting out the cigarette against the fine woodstain of the desk, and reached for your good hand.

“hey, hey,” she soothed, snatching a cup of water from the nightstand and bringing it to your lips, helping you take down the cool liquid over the scalding heat in your throat.

you gulped it down gratefully.

she patted your cheek with a tenderness that had your eyes closing at the lightest touch. “glad to see you awake. you scared us, missy. you slept for three days.”

you almost choked on the water at that and she drew back the cup with a haste and a noise of alarm, pulling you forward slightly to slap at your back.

emerging from your coughing fit, you jolted when you met a pair of dark brown eyes by the edge of the room. within the corner of the room, it seemed Maria had just emerged from a slumber in an armchair, rubbing at her face before stretching back into it.

Kate’s line of sight followed your eyes, face impossibly mellow when she and Maria shared a smile. you noted the interaction with a creeping curiosity.

attempting your voice, and sounding entirely unlike yourself, you croaked, “what happened?”

Kate took your hand again, tighter this time as Maria came closer. she sat at the foot of the bed with a tired smile, your feet pressed into her side.

“there’s more good than bad,” Kate said, looking so tired you didn’t think she could muster anything but the truth. you were betting on it.

“tell me the truth Kate,” you said, voice stronger now, “i want all of it. the bad.”

she shared another look with Maria, sighing out after a long moment. “alright.”

you straightened, inching further up the pillows, much to your body’s resistance, and curled an arm around your chest, trying not to fidget against the itching, creeping thrum of pain in your other arm. your eyes darted down to it—wrapped up tight in bandages from mid-bicep to your fingertips. where the pain had been in your endless dreams.

Kate followed your line of sight. “first off,” she started, tapping a finger lightly to your bandaged wrist, “bad burn. there was a surgery. will probably leave scars.”

you grimaced at the thought, but you could handle a few scars after barely scraping away with your own life. your painfully empty stomach broiled at the thought.

“how did i survive?” you asked, almost in wonder. you were so sure your last moments would’ve been beside Simon—the thick smog clouding your senses and tipping everything in a smoky, confusing daze that kept you tethered to the floor, and his soft lips against your own.

even if you crawled, you don’t think you could’ve escaped that burning mansion.

“that austrian hitman,” she sighed out, rubbing a hand over her forehead with frustration. “took you and ran. left Ghost behind to die.”

you stiffened at the thought, not sure if you would thank Konig or slap him by the end of this. if you even would see him by the end of this. did you even want to see him by the end of this?

with a sour feeling, your voice dropped, solemn and throaty. “and Simon?”

she grimaced. “he’s… alive.”

you released a shaky breath. alive was enough. more than enough.

“and the rest of you? one-four-one? how did you escape the mansion?”

she looked away from you, staring at an untrained point in the room. “we turned tail as soon as the mansion was up in flames. so did Turner’s men. Ghost was an idiot and went runnin’ in to finish off Turner and got trapped in by fallen debris. we couldn’t reach him and he got burnt. bad. i’m assumin’ he found you in the process.”

you nodded slowly, biting back a bitter swirl of anger. Simon, always so careless with his own life, and overprotective of your own. you wanted to hate him for it.

like always, you couldn’t.

“i killed Turner,” you said, voice an eerie emptiness you didn’t know you could manage.

Maria roused at the end of the bed, slouched body growing straighter, sharing a wide-eyed glance with Kate before their attention was trained on you again.

“that’s…” Kate searched for words. “news.”

you continued on. “i killed him. i wanted to leave him and let him burn to death but…”

you remembered the curling, blooming delight you felt in the moment of putting a bullet right through his forehead.

now, you just felt an overwhelming numbness.

with your prolonged silence, Kate released your hand to stroke your good arm in comfort. “you did us and yourself a service, honey.”

you just gave her a sheepish look and she returned it with a wry smile. “who knew you had it in you, angel?”

Yue-Yi did, you thought weakly, though the nauseating roil in your stomach decided that you never wanted to kill again. you never wanted to take revenge on another person again.

a panic rose thinking of the possibility of it. one-four-one would undoubtedly fill the power vacuum left behind by Turner’s death, but who would rise to challenge that?

the inevitable, never-ending prospect of violence that followed the gang like a bad omen left you clutching at your stomach with dread.

Maria leaned forward onto her palm, and she asked, “what is wrong, carino?”

her brown eyes darted over your stiff body.

“i think i’m gonna be sick,” you admitted with a sour feeling in your mouth, the room a dizzy swirl now.

Kate let out a gruff sound, leaning you back into the pillows again. “not possible. you haven’t eaten for days.”

“m’not hungry,” you lied, feeling the every acute shooting pain through your stomach. you don’t think you could keep anything down even if you tried.

that didn’t seem to convince Kate.

she left you and Maria in a drifting silence, the vaquero curling back up in the armchair and lounging in it, looking sleepy and content at your presence.

Kate came back with a plate of plain bread and greasy green beans with bacon bits.

“sorry,” she said, handing you the food with a somber look, “s’all we have. haven’t been cookin’ much.”

at that, Maria slunk from the room with tired promises to go whip something up in the kitchen, wholly ignoring your protests as you sopped up the bread in the savoryness of the green beans and chewed mechanically, forcing yourself to swallow and ignore the nauseating waves that followed.

in the meantime, Kate described the night of the party—how one-four-one had released the chandelier onto the gathered crowd of partygoers to clear out the place before any further bloodshed. when you told her how you had met Konig, and your own plans to kill Turner for yourself, running from the chandelier that came crashing down over your head, she was only mournful, taking up your hand with a softness. then, you described how Yue-Yi had been instrumental in your plans that day.

you carefully avoided sensitive discussion of Yue-Yi, only revealing that there was a sympathetic girl from the brothel who was kind enough to help you. you could only hope that Simon wouldn’t speak of her betrayal to the rest of one-four-one and los vaqueros. you knew he wasn’t stupid enough to think that you ran from the brothel and arrived at Turner’s mansion without help.

you wondered if he was thinking about you at all.

instead of thinking about that, you mourned Yue-Yi’s absence, deliberating when you could next slip away and see her after your condition improved. shifting around in the bed, you realized it might be a much longer wait than you wanted.

“where am i?” you asked, hands twitching, feeling restless. you wanted to leave.

Kate gave you a weak smile. “a farm.”

your brows raised. “a farm?”

“we’re still in california—a bit from san francisco. there’s still fighting in the city. law’s tryin’ to suppress it but it won’t die down for another coupla’ weeks.”

you felt like your eyes almost bulged from your head. “but Turner…?”

is dead. you couldn’t say it, throat closing up around the words knowing that you were the reason he was gone.

she shook her head slowly. “he’s got plenty of loyal minions. we’re chopping off heads for now. won’t last much longer. at least, that’s what John wrote.”

your mind reeled at the thought of the soft-smiled bearded and bear-like man. “and they’re okay?”

she gave you a wicked look. “‘course. we’re one-four-one.”

at that, you couldn’t help but smile and lax back into the pillows. your tongue felt heavy. “where’s Simon?”

the smile drifted from her face. “fighting.”

you screwed your eyes shut. of course he was. “i thought he was burned bad?”

you felt the bed dip as Kate shimmied onto the edge of it, her hand on your knee beneath the quilt.

“he was, but not burnt as deep as you. besides, i couldn’t keep that brute in bed even if i tried.”

of course. you felt your eyes almost brim with hot, angry tears, but you bit them back with a ferocity.

instead you opened your eyes, looking over the age and fatigue of Kate’s face, and said, “you should go. i know you want to be fighting with them.”

her eyes flashed and she shifted on the bed, telling you all that you needed to know. she wanted to go.

“i’ll be fine,” you said, “just give me that paperwork to do.”

you nodded your head towards the paper strewn across her desk.

“it’ll keep me busy.”

her brows raised slightly. “you know i can’t do that.”

your jaw clenched with a hot, sparking tightness in your chest. “am i still your prisoner?”

she stared at you for a long moment. “no. you can leave whenever you like.”

“will you let me stay?”

for a sickening heart beat, she was silent once more, eyes betraying nothing but a pale blue, before she said, “yes. you’re one of us now.”

you nodded, pulse still thudding with a nauseating speed in your temple. “good. give me those papers. i want to help.”

you couldn’t imagine the stretch of the next couple of days, possibly even weeks, doing nothing but waiting and worrying and healing while one-four-one was finishing the fight against Turner’s lackeys. you wanted to leave. was there a possibility you could slip away? and how would you?

you spoke nothing of it when Kate showed you some of the papers—financial, with lots of math, money, and reading involved. you had helped your mama with the fiances of your daddy’s saloon. nothing you couldn’t handle with a bit of practice.

you bit down any murky feelings at the thought of your daddy and mama, letting Kate help you swing your legs over the edge of the bed, putting half your weight onto the floor. your legs shook—feeling leaden and dead with a lack of circulation through the limbs that Kate rubbed to life before she hoisted you to the cramped desk.

settled in the chair, you spread the papers out over the desk, pulling the abacus closer to you and ran through the items on the page. Kate swept your hair over your shoulder.

“you don’t need to do this now. you should wash up and eat more.”

you only shook your head. “i want to help.”

she sighed out, massaging at your shoulders with a tenderness. “you don’t owe us anything, honey. you only just woke up.”

you made a disgruntled noise, ignoring her, but remembered Yue-Yi’s words with a keenness.

i know what it is like to want to be useful… now, i am not useful to anybody but myself.

her voice was defiant and strong. you only found yourself missing her more as you slowly put down the papers, ruminating with a tight feeling in your throat.

“i’m doing this for myself,” you rephrased, taking up the documents again and fishing out a pen underneath the strewn mess of paperwork.

Kate’s hands fell from your shoulders, mumbling something about helping Maria with a strained frustration in her voice, and you scribbled down some notes into the margins of the texts, breaking into the first series of equations.

you stayed there almost the entire night before Kate forced you to slurp down a steaming bowl of caldo de pollo full of hearty vegetables thick with ginger, drink more water, and sink into a cool bath that felt pleasant against the sore ache of your burnt skin. lifting your arm to your face, you observed it carefully.

a thin layer of skin stretched over the deep, red wounds. you shivered at the thought of the same thing stretched over the expanse of Simon’s chest, shoulder, maybe even traveling to his back…

all while he was in san francisco fighting.

shivering, you slipped out of the bath, bracing yourself against the counter to resist the wobble of your weak legs, a deep, rolling cold consuming you.

dread. you couldn’t shake it as you dressed in an airy nightgown, ditching a corset, which was very unlike you, and redressed your arm.

clutching at the walls, you made your way back down the set of rickety stairs into the living room. Maria was thumbing through a book near a small, lopsided bookcase, placing it quickly back on the shelf when she noticed your presence.

she gave you an awkward smile, clasping her hands behind her back, as you moved into the space. from the interior, you determined it was a small, wooden farmhouse with a brick red fireplace and big windows that overlooked the unkempt bushes in the garden and a flat, grainy plain where a barn sat in the distance, clouds thick in the night sky. a german shepherd, who you had not seen before, laid curled up on the carpet by the foot of the upright piano, his nose tucked into his tail with slow, sleepy breaths.

Maria cleared her throat beside you, and you could hear her begin to slink away before you turned to her.

“how did you and Kate meet?”

her whole body snapped to you, and you sat at the plush, gingham couch across from the fireplace, legs aching with effort. she sunk into the ottoman by the edge of the fireplace.

“spanish-american war,” she said slowly, thoughtfully, and with a strange stiffness. then, she smiled, and you were struck by the soft beauty of it. “i was younger than her. i couldn’t speak any english, but Kate tried to talk to me anyway. she started learning spanish for me, but ay dios mio, she was so bad.”

you cracked a smile at that, leaning back into the cushions. “please. tell me more.”

she hummed, hesitant, playing with the ends of her braids. “i wasn’t always a vaquero. i was a barmaid in a small town in southern texas that only spoke spanish and raised cattle. most of the town boys grew up to be ranch hands. i wanted to, too, but i wasn’t allowed. that’s what i thought until i met Kate during the war.”

you watched with a wonder at the mellowness of her—voice warm, body lax as she talked about the blonde woman.

“do you live here?” you asked instead, and she avoided your eyes, playing with the collar of her button up.

“yes.”

you cocked your head. “alone?”

she shook her head with a flush. “with Kate.”

your brows rose slightly. your mama had told you it was uncommon for women to live with each other without a husband, but you assumed, with the absence of a surrounding neighbors, Kate and Maria didn’t worry about the social stigmas that your mama had.

there was nothing explicitly wrong for a woman to not get married and maintain their own profession, you thought distantly, not sure if you believed the idea yourself.

“you must be good friends,” you said with a firm nod and Maria stiffened.

“we are.”

you almost worried you had said something wrong with the tightness in her face, but Kate reappeared from the hallway of the stairs, padding over to stand by Maria’s shoulder.

she commanded that you go back to sleep and you obeyed, half desperate to just escape the growing divide between yourself and Maria, much to your confusion and guilt, climbing back into the small bed that Kate had lent you.

the cool cast of the night sky flooded into your room. you watched the way it splashed across the door of the opposite side of the room, a part of you hoping with desperation that the door would slowly twist open, and a familiar person would step inside, flush by your side for the night. that same fat, ugly mass of dread sat heavy on your chest.

a part of you hoped it would be Simon who climbed into your bed as your eyelids fluttered shut. behind them, a slew of nightmares crept towards you, its tendrils squeezing you tight the whole night until you woke the next morning.

you spent the day between Kate’s paperwork and wandering across the farmland. you watched Maria and Kate ranch their throng of cattle with a couple of ranch hands from the nearby town, the livestock huffing and mooing as they lazily meandered across the grassy pasture.

the german shepherd snapped his jaws at their heels, tail wagging and tongue lolling out as he pranced around for a good chase that the cows ignored with heavy snorts.

you shielded the sun from your face with your good arm, tightening the shawl around your shoulders, crossing your boots as you leaned against the fence. the loose dress you wore fettered around you with a foreign slack, fluttering in the whipping wind. whether Kate and Maria noticed you had left your corset discarded in the pile of clothes on the floor of your temporary room, they did not question it.

by noon, you had picked the grassy terrain clean of its wildflowers, bunching them into your hand, the green sap of their stems staining your hands, as you bent them into flower wreaths like you had done with the girls from church after sunday service.

when was the last time you had gone to church?

setting down the floral crowns into your lap with a sigh, you looked up to gaze over the distant, stretching plains, only finding an impossible abundance of more wildflowers just out of reach from the space you had cleared.

stacking two crowns on your head, you held a third as you trekked back towards the wood farmhouse where Kate’s distant form waved you over for lunch.

you didn’t speak much over the meal—sandwiches stuffed with tomatoes, greens, and thin slices of leftover pork chop that the three of you were eating slowly away every day. you listened to the two women in a haze, mind far off and distant.

when Kate stood to clean the dishes, Maria hot on her heels, you stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floorboards with a screech.

“has John written?” you asked, then added quickly, fighting to keep your voice even, “or Simon?”

Maria continued to the kitchen, her back to you as she scrubbed at the dishes in the sink. Kate gave you a sad smile.

“i’m sorry, honey. it won’t be for a while now.”

you almost choked. you were in no condition to ride out with the fragile state of your body, as much as you had been thinking about it all day, as much as you had been trying to keep the thoughts under a tightly sealed lid. that used to work for you, but now…

it seemed everything was just pouring out.

“how long?” you pressed, and Kate gave you a confused look.

your hand clenched into the soft material of your cotton dress. “how much longer until the fighting ends?”

Kate turned to join Maria’s side in the kitchen, rolling up her dusty sleeves as she strode over.

“not sure,” she said, a murky look pinching her face. “i wish i knew darlin’.”

you did too, you mourned, that dread buzzing in between the soft inner pockets of your head. for one in maybe your entire life, no one around you expected you to stay. no one expected you to leave either. no one around you was forcing you to go one way or the next—you had the freedom to stay or leave.

and beyond the marvel of it, you still couldn’t go anywhere you wanted. you looked down to the white bandage of your arm, feeling itchy and stuffy beneath the gauze, and cursed its existence.

instead of moping, you helped them finish the dishes as best as you could with your poor arm, and returned to that small desk in your cramped room, making your way through the thick stack of papers. it kept your mind to something and kept your hands working steadily without a second thought.

there was a simple process to it—calculation, step by step, and something that, no matter the initial difficulty, had a solvable end. it soon became addictive, and before you knew it, the sun had dipped behind the horizon again and your eyes drooped, striking a match to light a nearby oil lamp.

you continued the calculations till the fat paper stack had thinned, resisting fatigue with every ounce of fight until you slumped against the desk in defeat, falling down into a slumber where familiar nightmares clutched at you once more.

before you knew it, a whole week had passed just like that. waking to your cheek pressed to the papers on your desk, a dry trail of drool across them. you would wash up, eat, wander the plains and waiting with impatience for your hand to heal, listening in on Kate and Maria’s conversations without much to say, eat again with a bitter and stale feeling in your mouth, a lingering dread that refused to melt feeling thick in your throat, and ration the dwindling leftover of papers on one-four-one’s finances.

you dreaded falling asleep most of all. there were always grotesque images—Turner dead, your daddy and mama dead, the three of Turner’s men dead, one-four-one and los vaqueros dead, Yue-Yi’s beautiful, milky skin bloodied and mutilated, and Simon…

the conjures of a distorted Simon in your mind felt too real. terrifying and foreign and the antithesis of the warmth Simon had shown you and the Simon that you knew and yet…

you feared your dreams.

you fought sleep every night. sometimes, you got lucky and staved it off, much to Kate’s chagrin. by the end of the week, she had resorted to sitting at the edge of your bed, trapping you beneath the quilt and caging you into the mattress that felt like it was swallowing you whole. sometimes, you talked, her hand stroking against your hair to speed the process, Maria tucked in the corner, content and sleepy and curled up in the arm chair.

sometimes, you didn’t.

this night, you didn’t feel like talking, turned on your good side and facing the wall, Kate’s hand on the crown of your head.

Kate must’ve sensed something was wrong because her hand pulled away, pulling you out of the slumber you were just on the verge of being dragged into, despite your persistent resistance.

“i’m sorry.” you stiffened.

slowly shifting onto your back, you looked over at Kate, her face lined with fatigue.

you forced your jaw to work. “why?”

she looked away, casting her gaze out the window and over the dark plains.

“you’re supposed to go wherever you like, but i can’t help but feel like we’ve trapped you all over again.”

there was a real, dripping guilt in her words that roused you from a haze. you didn’t know what to say.

instead, you forced a smile on your lips, and gripped at her arm to get her attention. her pale eyes were full and grim.

“you’re supposed to be fighting but i can’t help but feel like i’m preventing you from doing so,” you said, and she just shook her head.

“i don’t want to leave you,” she said, voice tight, and you felt a slow, wet burn in your eyes, mouth falling open, and then closing again.

“we’ve been so awful to you,” she whispered.

your mind raced. had they been?

one-four-one had kidnapped you, lied to you, deceived you and used you for a revenge ploy. could you blame them after the sorts of revenges you had taken? you knew it wasn’t personal. they would’ve done the same to any one of your daddy’s children—you just happened to be his only child.

but all the same, their plans had indirectly saved you from your daddy and your mama and Turner. they had shown you honest kindness throughout it and promised to return you to your home on that train ride, not knowing you didn’t want to go. you got to know each of them personally, whether they planned it or not, and Simon showed you a whole new realm of affection.

your throat closed up at the thought of him, heart twinging with a heavy, dark weight.

had Simon’s words been true? he wasn’t going to bed you for revenge from the beginning? much less even have personal relations with you? he promised he would never abandon you… was that still true? or heat of the moment reassurance—moments before you thought you would die together?

no matter how much you wanted to be a part of one-four-one, as Kate confirmed, could you forgive all of them anyways?

you looked up into Kate’s face, hooded and wrung through.

“will you be honest with me now and forever from this point on?”

she didn’t hesitate when she nodded. “you’re one of us.”

“then answer my questions,” you said, voice soft. “tell me the whole truth. from the beginning.”

and she held true to her pledge—she retold their entire ploy against Turner from the very, very beginning. how it began when they created one-four-one after the war, gunslinging and gambling for money, expanding their territory and negotiating with small towns and saloon chains, then bigger corporations, till they reached Turner’s borders. soon, one-four-one’s rise to fame got them in a lot more trouble than they could chew, always on the run from the law and Turner’s men till los vaqueros stepped into the conflict as allies, hating Turner just as much as one-four-one.

she told you about their multi-year struggle, poking around for a weakness in Turner’s defenses, finding your daddy and you by chance. a perfect avenue to reach Turner’s ego and twist it, provoking him into a full-blown conflict rather than the narrow skirmishes around each other.

when her story slowed, you couldn’t help but say, “i need to ask you something.”

she cocked her head, gaze curious now. “what is it?”

you flushed, avoiding her eyes now. “it’s a bit embarrassing.”

she huffed a gentle laugh. “m’sure i’ve heard worse.”

“is it true that—” you swallowed hard, “—is it true that Simon wanted to have intimate relations with me for revenge against Turner?”

her breath hitched and she shifted against the bed, hand twisting in the quilt. “is that what Ghost told you?”

you nodded, slow, needing to know if what Simon said was real.

he pressed his forehead against yours, warm and solid.

“i said i bedded you for revenge. i lied.”

Kate cursed under her breath. “‘course it’s a lie. he told me himself before he even left for your house to go and take you. he said he didn’t want anythin’ to do with Henry’s daughter.”

she said it with more force than you thought she would, her shoulders tight, but then she relaxed, closing her eyes for a moment. “but, of course, Ghost tells Soap and Gaz things more than he'll ever tell me. and it's mostly because they’re so nosy.”

you cracked a smile at that, trying and failing to imagine Gaz as nosy. only his stoic, serious face and his burly arms crossed over his chest came to mind.

“and that morning of Turner’s social…” the smile slipped from your face as you grimaced. “Simon wasn’t going to leave me at that brothel?”

she shook her head. “no. he said he was givin’ you a chance to change your mind and run. i…”

she looked sheepish now. “i overheard him talking with john. i shouldn’t have but i couldn’t help myself.”

you knew that feeling well, snooping around one-four-one in your time with them.

“why didn’t you run away?” her question was earnest as she peered at you, and you knew you wouldn’t be able to escape the inquiry.

mouth twisted into a scowl, you mulled over it. you had asked yourself the question time and time again, never really able to answer it, but you tried to the best of your ability anyway.

sighing deeply, you said, “i hated living in that small town with my daddy and mama, so i didn’t know where to run to. i didn’t have anywhere to run to. i didn’t have money or a gun. i had never left my home i…”

you grimaced. “i didn’t want to go home. i liked being with you guys.”

maybe it sounded pitiful, finding more comfort in your kidnappers than your own home, but Kate only nodded. after hearing Maria talk about one-four-one, finding more comfort in the local war effort and stray soldiers that filtered into the saloon where she worked, and running off to be a vaquero, you imagined Kate did understand.

“and you really want to stay?” she asked, looking unconvinced of the idea herself.

you didn’t miss a beat, and said, “after everything, yes.”

“we would love it if you did.”

you smiled. “really?”

she nodded. “really. no matter what Ghost says.”

you cocked a brow. “what did he say?”

“oh ya’ know. just the usual things he says when he’s scared.”

she stood from the bed, moving to the door and gently shaking Maria awake. when you still stared at her, feeling confused, she winked at you.

“he lies.”

at that, with her words bidding you goodnight, you turned to the wall again, listening to Kate and Maria and their footsteps and then the shut of the bedroom door.

that night, your nightmares felt lighter than usual.

it was three weeks since you woke up in Kate and Maria’s farmhouse, four weeks since you met Simon, a week since you finished all of Kate’s paperwork, a week since Maria leave to join the war effort in san francisco, and a week since Kate refused to leave you, incapacitated and healing, alone at the farmhouse no matter how you pleaded and prodded for her to go.

it was four days since you received a thick letter and heavy box in the mail.

you had dumped the contents out over your messy desk, a river of papers flooding out, unbound arm straining with effort just to hold the heavy box up. the skin of your arm was still tender and sore and a flushed pink, littered with textured scars like Kate had warned. at night, you ran your fingers over the leathery surface, discolored and shriveled. your fingers had survived the attack, miraculously, and you flexed them every once in a while just to remind yourself that you could. at least now, the pain wasn’t unbearable.

you carded through the messy pile of paperwork, finding different letters addressed to Henry’s daughter from an accounting company and several major shareholders of your daddy’s saloon chain.

you wondered how they had even found you, or the nearby town, where Kate fetched the mail. you had a very large suspicion Simon had something to do with it, as he usually did.

you had assumed the chain was being handed down to the next largest investor, or your daddy’s share would be split between the shareholders equally. your eyes almost bulged from your head as you read through the letter from your daddy’s attorney.

the saloon chain is yours now, miss.

you read through the line again. unmistakably, the words didn’t shift and morph on the page, and stayed a black bold statement on the paper. you scrambled to go through the rest of the papers, finding more paperwork. paper on your ownership.

your ownership.

slowly, you sat in the desk chair, unbreathing.

the next following days, you sent back eight different letters. one to your daddy’s attorney, who had stated in the letter he wanted nothing to do with your gang-affiliated family again, four different shareholders, one to your daddy’s bank, one to Simon, who had also been a shareholder, despite the fact you had no idea where to address it, and one to Yue-Yi. you addressed it to the brothel, urging her to respond as fast as possible, promising you’d slip away soon and see her as soon as you could.

the promise felt empty and cold.

you wondered if that was how Simon felt—promising you an endless list of things you hoped to believe with a pang of desperation. thoughts of him only circled. when would he come back? would he ever come back? could you believe his promises again?

but you held Kate’s word true above anything. she said that Simon wouldn’t abandon you, that he wasn’t just using your body for revenge. you trusted her.

now, you delved into your daddy’s paperwork, creating a thorough list of important names, contacts, addresses, and deciphered the financial books that needed to be cleaned up. the accounting company had done half the work but you tidied it to the best of your, now, advanced abilities.

you had the materials spread out over the kitchen table, Kate watching you with a careful eye from the living room couch. she clutched at her mug, knee bouncing, foot tapping against the floorboards, periodically glancing from you to the horizon through the windows.

you scribbled down some more notes into the journal Kate lent you before putting down the pen, taking in the women fully.

“what’s wrong?” you asked, rolling your tense shoulders back. she took a sip from the mug, immersed in a prolonged silence. you could only hear the tick of the clock by the front door.

“Kate.” her gaze finally fell on you, and you were stunned to see the glossy look in them. you softened your voice. “what is it?”

“i’m fine,” she insisted, voice tight and gruff, looking away from you again.

you eyed her for a long moment. you had noticed a difference in her behavior—distant, shifty, impatient, and significantly quieter since Maria left.

you didn’t believe her for a second.

“tell me,” you pressed, and she made a noise of frustration which almost made you feel bad.

she moved to sit at the kitchen table, dragging the chair back in a rough manner, before settling down at the table with a deep scowl. you raised your brows slightly, nudging her under the table with your foot.

“i miss them,” she said, so quiet you almost couldn’t hear her. she turned the mug on the table mindlessly. you followed the movement with your eyes.

“i thought they would be done soon?” you asked, and she only frowned more.

“not soon enough.”

there was that heavy, throbbing in your chest again. you pressed a hand to it, rubbing over the spot, but it didn’t ease. pure, solid dread.

“they’ll be back,” you reassured, totally unsure yourself, mind looping back to Simon as it always seemed to do.

“i miss Maria,” she said with an uncharacteristic sharpness, and you looked up at her, reaching across the table to hold her hand.

“i…” you searched for the words. “i miss Simon as well.”

it felt strange comparing a lover to a friend, but the kind of love Kate seemed to carry for Maria bordered on it. that thought became a strange prick of curious discomfort in your mind, and you waved it away, returning back to the documents spread over the kitchen table.

“John tried to get him to write you,” Kate said, and you stiffened.

“really?”

her foot nudged yours. “‘course, but he refused. John said he’s been mopin’ about all over the place, refusin’ to write anyone and barely talkin’.”

you grimaced at the thought, reading through the document but not absorbing any of the words.

“did John say why?”

you could see her shrug in her peripheral. “it started ever since that austrian guy started hangin’ around.”

your breath hitched, picking your head up to look at her again. “Konig?”

she gave you a strange look. “yeah. he’s helping one-four-one. John said he wants to see you.”

your mouth opened and then closed. that was a development.

“why?”

she shrugged again. “beats me.”

you mourned that John didn’t just write that information to you.

you had barely thought of Konig that past few weeks, despite him apparently saving your life, after almost killing you that night. you shivered at the memory of his cold eyes, revolver shoved under your chin, hand squeezing the air from your throat.

the thought terrified you enough to push it away and immerse yourself in the papers once more. Kate eventually retired to bed, trudging upstairs with a grave face. you kept writing, calculating, solving, in a long cycle till it became impossible to resist the droop of your eyelids.

you had begun to slump forward onto the table, placing your pen and head down for just a second, the soft, lulling tick of the clock a rhythmic snap in your ears till—

you jolted when the german shepherd yapped.

rubbing at your face, you peered over the table, seeing him standing by the door, tail wagging with a ferocity and tongue lolling out. he yapped again, ears flicking towards the door. you squinted out the window, finding nothing but the night pitched into a hazy ink.

a new sort of grating fear bubbled in you at the dog’s persistence. he paced around the entrance, tail still bouncing. you eyed the kitchen cabinets, remembering that Maria had told you the one on the far right had a revolver and ammo.

instead, you neared the window, squinting your eyes, seeing a distant light bobbing over the hill of the plain before many joined it. you pressed your forehead to the window, making out the shapes of horses nearing the farmhouse fast.

you stepped over the dog, opening the front door a crack to listen over the whistling wind. unmistakably, the beating of horse hooves echoed down the plan as well as—

your name.

you scrambled around for the lantern by the front door, striking a match to light it, and holding it up against the darkness as one-four-one and los vaqueros came thundering down the hill.

the dog shot out the door to greet them and you bit back a shriek, almost tripping over his paws before an arm came to hoist you up. Kate materialized beside you, laughing as you strode out to the approached figures, arm in arm.

you realized Soap was the one calling your name, and your heart soared at the sight of him, alive and happy and well and smiling as he slid off his horse, running up to you and Kate to pull both of you into a hearty hug, squeezing too tight. he pulled away to pet the dog who was running around in crazed circles.

your cheeks ached at the big smile stretching your lips.

your gaze swept over the men, at least forty of them, breath hitching at the sight of one, his black stallion stomping in the grass and the silver skull pendant of his stetson glimmering in the low light of the lanterns strung up over his saddle.

Simon’s face was bare, thumbs hooked in his belt, head tilted as he looked at you with a softness, dark eyes illuminated in the firelight. your hands curled into the skirt of your dress, grounding yourself as Gaz and John strode up to greet you and Kate. mindlessly, you spoke back, your eyes still flitting to Simon who turned away to adjust something on his saddle.

then, Alejandro took your hand politely and kissed the back of it with a curling smirk, Rodolfo at his shoulder, who only gave you a curt nod. a slew of vaqueros followed him, including Maria.

you watched in an amazement as Kate immediately yanked her into a hug, hooking around her neck and Maria’s arms snaking around her waist, pulling each other flush together.

but the other half of your attention was trained on the man who continued to fumble with his saddle gear. you edged closer to him, weaving between the vaqueros as they passed, a couple of them tipping their hats that you returned with a polite smile and a nod.

Simon leaned against the horse, looking at you from over his shoulder, face imperceptible and attention trained on you.

you stopped a marginal distance away, wary of some eyes lingering on the pair of you, hands twisting in your dress.

“not gonna say hello?” you called and his mouth only flattened into a line, making no move towards you.

your heart sank into cataclysmic depths, like all your worst fears had just been confirmed, like Simon had just opened a cavernous chasm between you and him.

he jerked his head to something behind you, something you couldn’t bother to turn and look at, before training his attention back to the straps of his saddlebags.

“we’ve got company.”

confused, you edged closer to him before a big, burly man strode into your path, his pale green eyes crinkled with a smile, and lacking his black mask from the party.

“little lady!” Konig said with a fondness, gripping your shoulders. you stood stiff in his hold, looking up at his crooked, tall nose and curly ginger hair.

“Konig?” you spluttered, and he looked smug at that, as if he was proud you remembered his name.

“your arm—” he reached down to slide the sleeve of your burned arm up, and you reeled back, hissing at the intimate gesture that was wildly inappropriate.

you held the wrist of your wounded arm, feeling a sliver of guilt from the hurt look that flashed across his face. then, you looked to Simon, leaning against his horse, arms crossed over his chest, face stoic and void.

you hoped for something you couldn’t put your name to, but that hope only deflated when he only shrugged, looking away from you.

you pulled your sleeve up a couple inches and watched Konig take in the marred skin of your arm with a pinched brow.

he took a hand and lightly brushed a finger down your forearm, and when Simon made a disgruntled noise, you pulled away from Konig, jerking the sleeve of your dress with flushed cheeks and a pit of writhing despair in your stomach.

“when i saw you on the floor in Turner’s mansion with…” Konig frowned, not looking at Simon when he said, “him, i was worried. you might’ve died, liebling.”

from behind Konig, Simon straightened with a tension in his shoulders you had never seen before. save for one-four-one, you had never really heard someone refer to Simon as something lesser than who his reputation portrayed him as—dangerous, deadly, and devilish.

although, as you watched an arrogant smile stretch over Konig’s face, the austrian ginger in front of you seemed no less dangerous and threatening as you thought Simon, or Ghost, to initially be.

that nickname had a bitter taste blooming in your mouth. your eyes flitted to Simon again. it just didn’t stick anymore.

“well, i’m fine, so thank you,” you said, setting your shoulders, jolting when Konig reached up to twirl a strand of your hair between his fingers.

“i know, liebling, you can handle yourself very well,” he said, eyes twinkling, and you couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not before he was being torn away from you.

Simon dragged the big man back by a handful of his dress shirt, eyes a deadly cool tone and face an eerie calm. you shivered, thinking Simon didn’t really need the mask to be terrifying, as you curled your arms close to your chest.

“that’s enough,” he said, voice gruff as he looked up into Konig’s taller frame.

you realized, with a blink, how strange it was seeing a man taller than Simon.

Konig only scoffed, batting away his hand, neck craning down to get eye level with Simon in a dangerous, menacing manner. “you do not own her, no? little man?”

Simon settled his hand on the revolver lodged in his holster, straightening. “say that again?”

your eyes widened at the spectacle, Simon and Konig almost nose to nose, and you reached out to them in a panic, pushing Konig away from the terrifyingly seething brit who was seconds from drawing his revolver.

“stop it!” you shouted, a dizzying panic flurrying around your mind.

Konig only clutched at your hand on his chest, shifting backwards, and shot a smug look behind you at Simon. you didn’t even dare look back at the expression on Simon’s face, half-worried if you did, you’d see his revolver raised high and aimed right at Konig.

instead, with a frustrated huff, you scolded Konig. “just get inside already!”

Konig flinched, frowning at the harsh tone in your voice, and you only scowled more, wriggling your hand from his grasp. at that, he turned sharply, grumbling something out before descending the rest of the way down the hill in easy, long strides and into the farmhouse—stuffed with people and loud and lit up against the stark night.

turning back to Simon, who was stock still, face blank, and a hand firmly wrapped around his revolver, you only cocked your brow.

there was a new, writhing anger building in your chest so fierce you almost choked on it. brows furrowed and throat tight, your hand clenched into a tight fist around the skirt of your dress, the very sight of Simon in front of you sending you hurtling toward a razor sharp edge.

“you too,” you hissed, jerking your head towards the farmhouse.

without a word, and a sour look, he snatched up his horse’s reins, and trudged to the farmhouse to tie up his stallion at the pasture fence with the other couple dozen horses.

cross with his erratic behavior, you didn’t wait to go inside with him, instead launching yourself into the messy fray and overcrowded house.

Soap and Gaz poured glasses of bourbon at the kitchen table, swept clean of your documents, and surrounded by more vaqueros knocking back drinks between loud banter. someone played a lively, bumbling tune on the piano that filled the living room with a full sweetness.

it was a miracle to think that only a few hours prior, you and Kate had been missing them all with such a fierceness that there were tears in your eyes. now, searching the room for Kate, you saw her spread over the couch, flush to Maria, explaining a story in slow spanish that had other vaqueros laughing and Maria curling an arm around her shoulders.

the image only soured when the sight brought you back to thoughts of a certain blonde brute.

you moved to Soap, wriggling between him and Gaz to snatch a glass of bourbon. Soap shouted over the noise with an impish smirk, “you drink now, lass?”

with a nod, you tipped back the drink, cringing at its burn that pricked your eyes, and Gaz laughed loud and sweet in your ear, obviously drunk as he wrapped a friendly arm around your shoulders.

“missed you, miss,” he said, lips in a wry smile, and you could only smile back.

“let me stick around then?” you offered and Soap nodded eagerly, pressing his knuckles to your shoulder in a friendly gesture.

“we were plannin’ on it!”

John materialized behind you to untangle Gaz’s arm from your shoulders, much more sober than the other two men as he reached around you to grab a glass with a wink.

“good to see you, darlin’.”

feeling indulgent and mellow, you pulled him into a quick hug, and he pressed a palm firm to your back with a laugh.

“Ghost’s been dyin’ to talk to you,” he said, tipping his hat to the man sulking across the room with Alejandro and Rodolfo who were locked in conversation. you spared him a quick glance, seeing his arms crossed over his chest and staring off into an untrained point, not at all enjoying the lively atmosphere of the room. just the sight of him sent slithering curls of something crawling under your skin.

“well he hasn’t been acting like it,” you said, not even trying to filter the exasperation from your tone.

John only raised his brows, sipping at the bourbon. “since when does he ever act true to how he feels?”

sending him a look, he only smiled with a shrug, turning away to disappear through the crowd of cowboys.

you sidled up beside Kate and Maria instead, the women inviting you into the couch with open arms, and you listened in on their conversations—a muddled mix of english and spanish. a vaquero got your attention, conversing with you in a strained english and a mix of sign language that had you both keeling over with laughter at the bizarre form of communication.

across the room, Simon’s burning, dark gaze on you caught your eye, and between exchanging words with the friendly vaqueros, your eyes fluttered to him. he was leaned against the wall, Soap flanking him now, Gaz leaning an arm over his shoulder, as they prodded Alejandro and Rodolfo in loud, tipsy voices, but his eyes never left you.

you leaned forward in your seat, elbows braced against your knees, and conscious of the way your loose blouse dipped, exposing an indecent amount of your skin as you swept your hair to one side of your shoulder, brushing against your neck.

he cocked his head, deep, murky eyes roaming down, and then back up to your gaze.

you don’t know whether you should be mad at Simon or not. you couldn’t decide what was more logical—the seething tick in your mind, or the horrible ache in your body for his touch. the sliver of affection you craved from him.

Simon pushed off the wall, and you were about to stand when Konig, much bigger than you, squeezed into the spot next to you by the couch, his arm braced against the back of it.

“i’m sorry, liebling,” he said suddenly, and you stilled, sinking back down into the cushions. “i couldn’t help myself earlier.”

“that guy—” he tipped his head towards Simon, who was stock still, hands curling into fists around his holster, “—is a nuisance.”

you scoffed at that, playing a long for a bit, and enjoying Simon’s attention on you with a mouthful of guilt you swallowed down quickly. you decided that being mad at him was more logical.

“really? i heard he’s not fond of you either, mister,” you said with a smirk, mind buzzing around as you took another swig of bourbon. he watched you with a wicked smile.

“i did not know you could handle so much alcohol, little lady.”

you shrugged. “neither did i, sir.”

he cocked his head, leaning so his shoulder was pressed against yours, and a distant, fuzzy call in your brain told you to move away, but your sense of direction was muted and muddled with the buzz in your mind.

“i heard rumors about you,” he admitted, and your brows only rose as you slurped down more bourbon. “that Ghost had stolen Turner’s property.”

that irked you, and you put down the glass on the coffee table stacked with other half-empty glass cups, wiping at the back of your mouth.

“no,” you said, with a strange drawl. “m’not Turner’s property.”

his gaze was long and imperceptible. “i also heard that Ghost owns you. is that true?”

your breath hitched, brows pinching together. “s’not your business.”

“is it true?” he pressed, and you shoved him away a bit, standing and weaving between some dancing vaqueros to get away from him.

but he only followed, snatching at your wrist, catching your bad arm and jerking you back with a tight grip. you clawed at his hand.

“lemme go—” you said, struggling between the drunk bodies, but he only grabbed your hip with the other hand, forcing you still. a new panic rose in you.

“just, listen, liebling, i don’t wanna hurt you—”

“well you are—!” you shouted, on the verge of giving his hand a good, strong bite, when an ear-splintering bang filled the room.

you screamed, clutching at your ear with your free arm, and a rush of sawdust came down over you and the wildly sober vaqueros around you that drew their revolvers with a scramble. there were a pair of dark brown eyes over Konig’s shoulder.

“let go.”

Simon was just behind Konig, revolver aimed high at the ceiling, coming down to press right against the pulse point in Konig’s neck, gloved finger heavy on the trigger.

Simon’s face was rigid, calm and cold, jaw clenched tight, but his eyes swirled with something sinister and so menacing, you wanted to reel away. the music of the room was dead now, all eyes trained on the two men, and you in Konig’s grasp.

Konig stared down at you, face blank, but pale green eyes strained. you saw them flick up behind you, then around the room, and only seeing a dozen revolvers staring back. you could see Gaz creep up in your peripheral, gun trained on Konig, and with a low, frustrated noise, he released you.

you immediately scrambled back, your muddled mind throbbing with a sharp clarity now, and you looked between Simon, seething, and Konig, face downcast and turned away with a clenched jaw. a familiar burn pricked you eyes, and you swallowed around the tight vice of your throat, chest thick and laden and aching.

“you—”

you choked on your words, unable to find what to say before you were barreling out the farmhouse, Simon shouting your name in your wake.

you didn’t turn to see if he was following you, crushing your hands to your ears as more tears spilled down your face. eerily, you were reminded of your dream, jerking away when you felt someone’s hand at your back, only rushing up the hill faster, not bothering to hike up your dress over the grassy plain.

wracking sobs left your throat, and you felt confused, the wetness blurring your vision, and ragged breaths making your head spin. why were you crying?

you collapsed into the grass, trying to catch your short, ragged breath, but there was such a tightness in your throat that you couldn’t force any air through.

when you realized you couldn’t breathe, you clutched at your throat, screwing your eyes shut as the world spun and wild, frenzied panic consuming you.

all your nightmares came flying back to you. Turner, Charles, the men you had killed, demonic twists and a thick, sandy sludge, the world burning around you and one-four-one with it, Yue-Yi, broken and bloodied, and your daddy and mama. gone and dead.

and Simon—evil and full of hate.

arms wrapped you into a solid body, smelling smokey and woody and earthy, Simon’s deep voice in your ear.

“shhh. it’s alright.”

his hand snuck around to your chest, right where that throbbing, painful ache of dread was, and his big palm rubbed over it, the warmth of his hand seeping right down to your bones.

you choked on your sobs and his voice was soft. “deep breaths.”

he breathed against you, strong and steady, and you tried and failed to match the slow drag of each one with a shaky inaccuracy, chest stuttering and whole body shaking violently. he moved you down slow, sitting you so you were between his legs and back flush against his chest, pulling you against him in a tight hold that became an anchor.

you clutched at the wrist of his sleeve with desperation.

“hurts,” you forced through painful gasps, and the warmth of his cheeks was against the side of your head.

“where?” his voice was harsh and intense now.

you slapped a hand over his at your chest, willing it to move it in those small, soothing circles that slowed the shallow, sharp gasps wrenched through your constricted lungs.

“what can i do?” he asked, a sharp edge of desperation slipping into his voice, and you could only cry, letting him rock you gently.

time stretched, agonizing and forever and never-ending, till your breaths finally, finally slowed, and the flashing kaleidoscopic dance behind your eyelids faded, lungs aching with an acute pain.

“you didn’t write me,” you said between sniffles and sharp, uncontrollable gasps, and he let out a low, tortured and broken noise, wrapping around your body tighter.

“i wasn’t sure if you wanted me to.”

you wanted to scream. “of course i did,” you almost sobbed. “i was so worried for you, i thought i’d-i’d die. i missed-missed you more than anything.”

another strangled sound of frustration left him, and he shifted you in his arms, still tight and warm around you, but enough so you could peer up into his shattered face, a foreign gloss in his eyes you’d never seen before.

“i almost didn’t survive without you,” he said, voice strained and hushed, and you wanted to slap him, but your whole body felt leaden and too light.

“i thought about you everyday,” he admitted, nuzzling his nose against your cheek, and you let him, screwing your eyes shut. “i couldn’t get you off my mind. i thought about you almost every second.”

“i don’t believe you,” you said, voice shaky, but he shook his head against you.

“then don’t take my word for it. ask Price. ask Soap or Gaz. they’ll tell you.”

“i’m so mad at you,” you said, a rage clawing up your throat and mixing with the dizzy grief of your body.

he said nothing so you pressed further. “i can’t believe you. you left me here. you’re still injured, and you left me at that brothel. i thought we were dead in Turner’s mansion,” then voice breaking, you remembered, “my daddy and mama. they’re dead—”

you worked yourself up again, choking, and Simon soothed you with soft hushes, your body wound up tight.

“i wanted to leave here,” you said in a panic, “i wanted to leave.”

“wasn’t safe,” he retaliated, his lips against your neck, and that only made you angrier.

“i don’t care.” tears slipped down your cheeks that he quickly brushed away.

“i thought you wanted to be with me all the time,” you said, grief shattering over you like glass.

he turned you and pressed your body down softly into the grass, caging you between his arms, and you wrapped around him easily, arms around his neck, legs winding around his hips as he crushed you down to the earth.

the solid weight of his body calmed every loud thing clattering through your broken mind.

“i always have,” he admitted lowly, face pressed to that spot where your hair pooled against your neck. “i needed to fix things in san francisco. now, the city’s yours.”

he pulled back, and you looked up into his warm brown eyes that were splintered and honest. “i’ll give you anything. you can have the whole city and you can be with me all the time. everything’s safe now. no one can hurt you. no one can hurt us anymore.”

with two fistfuls of his shirt, you tugged him back down to you, and he burrowed into your touch, arms coiling around your waist and pulling tight.

“just be with me,” you gritted out, your hand clutching at the softness of his hair, and he only let out a coarse, affirming noise, stock still and like a rock.

you curled into him—something you could anchor to as your eyes slid shut.

“i dreamed about you,” you rambled, and he laxed further into you, but then tensed when you said, “nightmares.”

his voice was strained. “like what?”

“it was different than this,” you said, mind hazy and fatigued, “none of this ever happened. you were never an outlaw and we lived in your cabin in the woods and we were married.”

“if that’s what you want,” he shot out, fingers curling into your hair, “i’ll give it to you.”

he deflated when you shook your head.

“you were evil,” you whispered, and he flinched, before you finished, “but i knew it wasn’t you.”

he pulled back again, leaning over you. his face was shadowed in the night, lips screwed into a tight line, but you could still make out the curve of his features.

“i prefer you like this,” you admitted, brushing your fingertips along his bare face, thumb tracing over the silvery scar on his upper lip. “an outlaw. the scars.”

“you’re crazy,” he said with a tinge of wonder, and you almost smiled at that, melting when he stooped down to kiss you softly.

his lips were warm, and you gripped at his hair, pushing his head further into you. it felt too brief once he pulled away.

“could you ever forgive me?” he asked.

you looked at him for a long moment, feeling all muddled with unease. the better question was, could you ever trust him again?

“maybe.”

he nodded, betraying nothing but the cold, hard lines of his face.

“can i at least carry you?”

“i can walk myself,” you insisted, though not unkindly, as you pushed him off you. the big, heavy man giving easily to your touch and he stood, offering a hand that you took, and lifting you with an ease.

you walked side by side in silence, only the soft rustle of the prairie grass pulled by the wind filling the darkness, the farmhouse still lit like a beam and vaqueros snaking through the interior.

when you neared, Simon snuck an arm around your waist, and you quickly wiped at any stray tears on your face, fixing your hair and pulling at the new wrinkles of your dress. Kate was standing by the door, arms crossed over her chest.

“you shot a hole through my ceiling, Riley,” she called, brow furrowed with irritation. Simon stiffened beside you.

“i’ll fix it.”

she gave him a long look void of sympathy. “not with those injuries you won’t.”

then, her eyes were on you, and she softened. “are you alright, angel?”

you cleared your throat, nodding with a quiet hum, and Simon inched closer to you.

she shot him one last nasty, dirty look, turning on her heel and reentering the party. you felt a creeping awkwardness with all the eyes crawling over you and Simon’s possessive hold, hyper aware of Konig's gaze from across the room, splayed out in an armchair as he took swigs of a flask.

“party’s over,” Kate shouted over the music, glancing briefly at you. “lights out in five minutes.”

you mouthed a thanks to her, and she only shrugged with a light smile as the men in the room grumbled, taking glasses and bottles of bourbon with them as they moved to their horses outside the farmhouse. you watched through the window as they unpacked blankets and rolled them out over the grass, some trekking towards the barn to take cover in for the night.

you watched a half-awake and intoxicated Soap struggle into a sleeping bag, Gaz already passed out near his feet and curled up in some blankets. John was only a couple feet away and staring up into the night sky.

you jolted when you noticed Konig stop a comfortable distance from you, standing in front of the farmhouse entrance and gaze trained outside. Simon sidled up closer to you, leaning against the window with crossed arms and a furrowed, serious look.

“sorry liebling,” he said with a shrug and a distant expression before taking another swig of his flask, not looking at you as he walked out the door to his horse strung up along the fencepost.

staring after him, Simon reached out to touch your cheek, and your eyes snapped to his. looking over his face, the soft moonlight poured over it, as Kate moved around the living room to put out the oil lamps. you brushed your fingers along his strong jaw, watching in amazement how it flexed under your touch.

“we’re sleepin’ outside.”

you startled with a muffled squeak, stepping towards Simon, and he easily wrapped an arm around your waist as you twisted to look back at a smug looking Kate and a tipsy looking Maria by her shoulder.

you flushed deeply, a fluttering heat in your cheeks.

“goodnight,” you said, and Kate’s smirk only grew, as she pulled Maria out the door.

“sweet dreams,” she called, a knowing lilt in your voice that only made you blush deeper.

you jolted when you felt Simon press his cool lips to your flushed skin.

“tired?”

you nodded weakly, and he smiled against your cheek.

“you sleep,” he said, patting your sides. “i’m gonna wash up.”

hesitating, the man skirted around you and headed towards the stairs, waiting at the foot of them with an expectant look over his shoulder as he watched you move to your bedroom door.

he cleared his throat, shifting from foot to foot. “night.”

you bit down on your lip, hand fidgeting around the door knob. “good night.”

you watched him walk up the stairs, heavy boots clunking against each step, a well of disappointment blooming in your mouth.

lips twisting into a scowl, you opened the door and shut it behind you too loud, not looking for Simon’s last look in the darkness.

you crawled over the bed, huffing out in frustration as you rolled in the sheets, on the verge of punching your pillow, before sliding off your bed in defeat and redressing in your thin nightgown and pushing aside the messy stacks of papers lining your room, building in an unattractive pile on your desk.

sliding into the bedsheets, you turned to the wall, feeling strange with Kate’s vacancy at your back. you rolled over and fiddled with the bedsheets, careful on your healing arm.

you had been so tired mere hours ago and now you couldn’t even shut your eyes, and you mourned it, wriggling in the sheets with restlessness and craving for something…

you eyed the door of the bedroom. you had been so mad at Simon only moments ago, the way a cataclysmic divide manifested as soon as he arrived, his immature, jealous squabbles, his ignorance, his stupidity, his strange self-destructive logic that involved pushing you away that persisted for the past three long, torturous weeks…

you would never stop being mad at him. you weren’t even sure if you could ever trust him, but, maybe, you realized, you wanted him close nonetheless.

you felt like you were thinking with a new clarity when you lurched off the bed, throwing off the quilt, and striding to the door, your hand in mere inches of the door when it was wrenched open.

with a surprised squeak, you looked up to see Simon standing there, dripping with water and holding up a towel around his waist, blonde hair tangled and matted against his forehead.

your eyes immediately slid down to the width of his hips, his deep v-line and the definition of his stomach, the bullet wound healing nicely with a healthy flush and new stitches. you bit back a gasp when you looked over the right side of his upper chest and shoulder—an angry, tender looking fleshiness that must’ve been painful.

he slowly stepped into the room, dark eyes on you, as he closed the door behind him and edged you closer to the bed with every step.

you almost whimpered, shuffling backwards, Simon looming tall and broad over you, and it wasn’t anything like that scary dream you had weeks ago. a slithering ache that you hadn’t felt in weeks return to the lower regions of your body.

he reached out, snaking a hand behind your head into your hair and gently pulling you to him in a kiss that you eagerly returned.

wrapping your arms around his neck, stretching through your tiptoes to reach him, he made a low, carnal sound in the back of his throat that had you squirming in his grasp.

“is this okay?” he asked between kisses, and you only hummed a pleasant yes, enamored by the soft movement of his practiced mouth, your legs going jittery.

he wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you flush to him to keep you steady, tongue pressing against your lower lip.

you squeaked, jerking back with a jolt of confusion.

he only smiled, voice rough and low. “never kiss someone before, princess?”

you flushed, mumbling, “yes. you,” with embarrassment, before trying to pull him back down by his neck, but he didn’t budge, smile growing wider.

“let me teach you?” he practically purred, and you blushed with a shy nod, letting him hoist you onto the edge of the bed with a yelp, your hand accidentally sliding against his raw shoulder.

he winced, and you snatched your arm back, squeaking a sorry but he just shook his head with an impatience, dragging you forward by your hips closer to him, your hands pressed to the wet skin of his torso as he nuzzled his nose against yours.

“part your lips, pretty girl,” he said, voice a low, seductive rumble, and you immediately complied, letting him lean forward and slide his tongue between your lips.

you startled at new feeling, flinching away, but he pulled you back in with a softness that had you melting, and you tried to match the wet, slick movements of his tongue with your own.

he hummed in approval, angling his head to kiss you deeper, and you almost thought you saw stars, heart thudding too fast against your chest. it was strangely hot and sensual and the sensation of it only spurred on a curiosity in you.

when he leaned back for a breath, you only felt disappointed and lurched forward to bite his lower lip, willing him to stay right there against your lips.

he let out a low groan and you jolted at the vibration that traveling straight from his throat into your own, pulling whimpers from you. that seemed to only urge him on, because his grip on your the back of your head tightened, pushing your head to his so your noses pressed together, the movement of his lips, tongue, and teeth aggressive now.

once your head spun, dizzy and light, you pressed against his chest and he finally parted from you. he was panting, lips swollen with a redness that you reached out to touch in the darkness, brushing a forefinger over his lower lip that he kissed, then kissed down your palm, the underside of your wrist, up your arm until his lips were suddenly on your neck.

your moans were involuntary, drawn from your throat like magic as Simon worked your body, fingertips slowly tracing up your thighs beneath your nightgown.

he let out a noise of surprise against your neck. “no undergarments?”

you flushed, shaking your head, and he hummed in approval, searching the skin of your legs with his palms till he found that sticky, wet source that pulsed with an ache. you squirmed against his touch, gasping when he found your clit, thumb against it, and two big fingers stretched your core as they slowly pushed in.

he pumped them between your thighs, lips and tongue and teeth still sucking along your neck and the underside of your jaw, then licking over your ear. you shook in his hold, clutching onto his forearms for purchase, head tipping back from the feel of his fingertips rubbing sensitive spots inside you that had your breath sharp and full of gasps.

“want you to come on my fingers first,” he whispered, licking over your cheek, “can you do that, pretty thing?”

you nodded eagerly, rolling your hips down onto the delicious circles rubbed around your clit and the shooting pleasure each time he pressed against that sweet spot inside you.

“more,” you whined, eyes closed, and he huffed a laugh.

“more? more what? this not enough?”

“no,” you gasped, dragging your nails down his abdomen to the edge of his towel. with half-lidded eyes, you eyed the spot curiously, then blinked up at Simon, and he just smirked, leaning down to kiss you again.

“patience, princess.”

you screwed your eyes shut, the sensations over your entire body overstimulating—his hand gently tugging at your hair, his hot tongue against your own, and your hips rolling down to the sensual movements of his other hand.

it was too much, and soon you were gasping, muscles bunching and then releasing as you came all over his fingers with pitchy moans that he swallowed into his mouth.

he didn’t waste a second to push you down over the bed, flipping up your nightgown and bunching it in a hand against your stomach, dropping to his knees at the edge of the bed. tugging your forward by your hips, his tongue was against your folds in an instant and you squirmed with little squeaks, twitching with sensitivity. but he was so much stronger than you, pinning you down to the bed easily, blonde head between your thighs.

you gripped at his hair, tugging, as your back arched against the hot, wet movements against your cunt. it was overwhelming. too good.

“Simon,” you gasped, and he just hummed in response, tongue sliding into you and reaching up to press his thumb to your twitchy little clit.

“missed hearin’ you say my name like that, pretty,” he said between kisses against your cunt, dark eyes flitting up to gaze at you, half-lidding and smokey.

that same sweet feeling unfurled in your chest so much faster than you expected, and you had no time to warn him before your core was convulsing, thighs tightening around his head as your hips bucked up into his mouth.

but he wouldn’t stop, even after your body started shaking, and you pulled at his hair, little gasps and whimpers of pleas to stop. finally, after a loud, pitched whine left your lips, he suckled against your clit one last time before popping off.

there was a reflective wetness over his jaw that made you blush, a stupid smile on his face and hazy, dark eyes flitting over your body, splayed out, twitching, and completely unwound.

you chided him. “greedy.”

he laughed, crawling up over your to kiss you, a strange salty and sweet taste on his tongue that had your stomach twisting with want again. when he pulled away, you licked over the wetness on his chin and jaw and he groaned, pushing you down to the bed with a hand against your neck.

“you…” he gaze was so hot and wanting that you shivered, clutching at the loose grip of his hand around your throat.

“you don’t even know what you do to me,” he whispered, and you licked your lips, tasting the last of the wetness. he eyed the movement with an intensity.

“i have an idea,” you whispered back, reaching down to grip at the edge of his towel again, and he smirked.

he slid off you, letting his towel drop to the floor, and you eyed his swollen length with a greediness, whimpering just at the sight of it.

already, your cunt was pulsing back to life with a wild aching desire. you squirmed against the bed.

“please?” you offered him, and he only gave you an amused look.

“please what?”

he crept over you, knuckles pressing to the bed beside your head. you spread your legs wider.

“please,” you whimpered, and his brows raised slightly.

“i don’t know what you want,” he said, low and grating, and you huffed with frustration, pressing your heel to the back of his thigh to push him further forward. but he wouldn’t budge.

“want…” you looked between his legs, shivering, and he hummed, shifting his hips forwards so that he was flush to the back of your thighs, length brushing against your cunt. you gasped, bucking your hips up.

his gaze was imperceptible, just dark and wanting, head tilted. “want my cock?”

you whined, nodding, reaching down to rub your fingers gently against the head of it where that milky substance was spilling out over your stomach. he made a noise of disapproval, snatching your wrist and pinning it above your head.

“use your words.”

“want you to fuck me,” you whispered with a blush, glancing down at his cock again, and he went still.

“supposed to save that for marriage, lovely,” he said, voice honest and soft as he brushed a palm against your cheek. you looked up at him and the tender look on his face, jaw clenched, but his eyes still blown wide with need.

“it doesn’t matter,” you said, before adding in a whisper, “i’m already yours.”

you wanted to say that you needed him—desperately needed him close, but you bit the words back, hoping he would understand.

it seemed that he did from the way he pushed your nightgown up, pulling you up so he could gently tug it over your head and throw it to the floor. he immediately eased you back down, lips roaming your bare skin, his lips over your chest, breasts, and stomach, hot and overstimulating. you clutched at his hands holding your hips down.

“hurry,” you whimpered, and he reached down to stroke his cock before sliding it between the sticky, wet folds of your cunt, catching against your entrance.

then, he hesitated and you almost wanted to scream in frustration. “remember that it hurts?”

there was a distant, little spark of fear inside you, but you were so impatient that you almost didn’t care.

“just… please, Simon.”

he leaned down to kiss you briefly. “relax. m’not going anywhere, pretty.”

that eased a place in your chest that you didn’t know was panicking, and you laxed back into the mattress, letting him touch you where he pleased as you wrapped your arms around his neck. his hands smoothed over the skin of your torso, then pressed your legs wider.

“take a deep breath for me, sweet girl.”

you complied, letting your eyes shut and you took a deep breath, the air punched from your lungs when you felt something impossibly thick pushing past the rim of your entrance. you couldn’t breath, nails sinking into his skin.

“good girl,” he mumbled against your skin, voice soft as he pressed even softer kisses to your neck and shoulders. “doin’ so good for me.”

the pain was sharp and uncomfortable, growing as he stretched you even wider. tears pricked in your eyes and he immediately kissed them away.

“want me to stop?”

you shook your head, eyes screwed shut, hands snaking into his hair to pull at it and somehow ease the pain. “no. please.”

his fingers were brushing against your jaw. “look at me, pretty girl.”

your eyes fluttered open, a tear escaping down your cheek as you looked up to him. his eyes darted over your face, a crease of worry in between his brows that you willed away with your thumb, pressing against it.

he stooped down to kiss you, swallowing your gasp when his hips pushed forward a little more, and suddenly his hips were flush to the back of your thighs, an overwhelming, throbbing fullness in your stomach. he was crammed against that swollen spot inside you that had your head falling back, seeing stars.

“alright?”

you nodded slowly, swallowing, and ground your hips against him experimentally, a new sort of pleasure racing down your spine. he let out a low sound, gripping your hips to still them.

“not yet,” he scolded, “you need to relax more. i don’t wanna hurt you, princess.”

he reached between you to rub at your clit in gentle circles, and you squirmed a little, feeling impatient.

“relax,” he reminded you, and you bit back your frustration, letting him wrap your legs around his waist.

he leaned back, enough so the moonlight from the window spilled over his muscled body, and you could see the light catch in his smokey eyes. he tilted his head, gaze full of affection as he traced a thumb over your throat.

you held his hand, moving it to clasp around your throat and pressing your heels into his back. that unbearable stretch inside you had turned achy with want, and that sweet spot inside you begged for some kind of stimulation.

“ready?” he asked softly, and you hummed a yes, watching the way his hips drew back a little and then snapped forward again, gasping when he pushed against that amazing sweet spot in you again.

then he did it again, and again, and every time it bunched a breathy moan from your lips till he was building a pace, and you couldn’t stop the little whimpers falling from your lips, clutching at his hand wrapped around your throat, using it as leverage to pull you back down on every thrust. it left your mind hazy and dizzy, your other hand searching the sheets for something to hold onto.

he leaned down, grabbing your hand and pushing it to the bed, his rough fingers interlocked with yours.

“good?” his gaze was hot and piercing.

“mhmm,” you hummed, infatuated with the strange pleasurable stretch between your hips and the rolling, hot waves of pleasure in time with his hips that overwhelmed you completely.

“pretty girl,” he said, tightening his grip around your throat, though his voice was so distant and he felt so far.

“closer,” you mumbled, and his movements slowed.

“hm? speak up, sweet thing.”

“closer,” you whined, eyes glossy and fluttering your eyelashes up at him.

he shifted above you, dropping down so he was caging your head between his forearms, pressing you down into the mattress with a pleasurable weight that had your head spinning. you wrapped around him tighter, reaching around his sides to clutch at the muscles of his back so your chests were flush together.

“better?” he asked, pecking your nose softly, and eyes so warm and full that you shuddered.

you nodded and craned your neck up to offer your lips for a kiss that he took eagerly, tongue slipping into your mouth, his hips rolling down into the hot clutch of your heat.

you gasped at the sensation, his thrusts more shallow, deeper, than before—cock so thick that you were pulsing around him in time with his thrusts. it’s like you could feel him in your ribcage, hammering against the quick thud of your heart.

overwhelmed, your nails sunk into his back, and he let out a low groan, ducking down to whisper in your ear.

“so tight, princess.”

you moaned, only tightening at his words, and that spurred him on, fucking you faster with a dizzying pace now, hips slamming so hard against yours the pain mixed into a muddled pleasure—

“Simon,” you gasped, clawing at his back, and you could feel his smirk against your skin.

“yeah that’s it. say my name, pretty girl.”

you did, gasping it under your breath with each of his rough thrusts, a familiar burn building in the crux of your stomach.

“Si—m’gonna—”

“shh, don’t talk, just take it,” he whispered, low and throaty and voice grating.

your moans were breathy now, coming in short bursts, as more overwhelming waves of pleasurable sensations hit you, burning you inside and out.

“fuck,” he growled, hand closing into fists around the sheets by your head.

you peered up at him to the best of your ability, eyes half-lidded and drooping, watching the clench of his abdominal muscles with every thrust, his body in a sheen of sweat and brows furrowed with concentration, dark eyes boring down at you with a predatory gaze.

want you to come all over this big cock, princess. come for my lovely, just come luvie, come—

on command, your whole body contracted, bright lights flashing behind your eyelids as you shook with a couple last breathy moans, Simon’s words swept away somewhere far and distant as you peaked on a delicious high.

you were crashing through it, barely registering his gentle words in your ear.

good girl. good girl. my good girl.

once you were coming back down, dizzy and sleepy, Simon’s thrusts had grown shallow and slow, moaning lowly when he pulled out and pumped his cock quickly, those white ropes spurting over your stomach in hot, sticky layers before he crashed down over you again.

you drifted through a dreamscape, humming lightly at the feeling of his hot skin against yours.

you traced over his shoulders, avoiding his burn wound carefully, listening to the pant of his breath slow, and then still, as you laid there tangled together.

you brushed a hand through his hair, carding your fingers over his scalp and scratching lightly. with a low hum, he shifted his head to look at you, face relaxed and content and his nose pressed against your breast.

“satisfied, princess?”

you tried and failed to bit back a smile, nodding slowly. he smirked back, playing with the ends of your hair.

“insatiable, greedy thing.”

you couldn’t help but giggle, tugging him up to your face, and he relented, smushing your cheek with his nose and lips. with little squeaks and giggles, you swatted at him when he crushed you down into the bed with too much force until he pulled back.

he slid into the space between you and the wall, tucking you into his chest and arms locking around you in a hold that felt possessive.

once you were settled and content, his lips against your hair, you asked him, “are you satisfied?”

he brushed some fingers along the scars of your arm for a pause. “mhmm.”

the sound was unconvincing, and some part inside you broke a little. you turned in his arms so you could see his face.

“don’t lie…”

he scoffed but looked amused. “you make a man greedy, princess.”

you tilted your head. “what do you mean?”

he kissed your forehead softly. “i wanted it to be different.”

you almost deflated, heart dropping into your stomach and skin growing icy cold.

“what do you mean?” you asked again, voice flat now. he peered down at you, blonde lashes full and long in the moonlight.

“in different circumstances. after your marriage.”

your throat tightened. “my marriage? do you mean…?”

he looked away from you when he mumbled, “our marriage.”

“why? was it not good?” you felt a spiral of panic. “do you care about… virginity?”

he only gave you a wry smile. “‘course i don’t care. you’re perfect just like this.”

his eyes darted down to your body, and you followed his gaze, suddenly conscious of your bare skin against his, and the remnants of your shared pleasure still sticky against your stomach.

with a blush, you grumbled, “what’s the problem then?”

he pulled you closer to him. “s’what you deserve.”

you wanted to scream. “i don’t get it,” you whined and he chuckled, tucking his chin over your head.

“you’re such a good, innocent girl. you deserved all that…” he spoke so low you almost couldn’t hear him, “...doting marriage stuff first.”

you pushed him back by his chest, and he blinked down at you, confused. when he reached to pull you against him again, you kept your arm extended, and he gripped at your hip instead.

“do you really want to marry me?” you asked softly, and you watched him swallow hard, before nodding slowly.

“if you’ll have me.”

there was a bitter taste in your mouth. innocent, good girl.

“even after everything?”

he tilted his head against the pillows, stroking your side. “what’s wrong, lovely?”

you struggled with the words. “i’ve killed people.”

he only blinked. “me too.”

“i felt happy when Turner died,” you admitted, the words sounding so foreign on your tongue that you wanted to puke. “you haven’t seen me kill someone.”

his brows rose slightly. “i can imagine it’s a sight.”

you felt frustrated, unable to keep yourself from confessing, “i’m having mental issues.”

you screwed your eyes shut, unwilling to see his reaction, thinking back to just prior when you ran from the farmhouse. Simon had witnessed it with his own eyes. he had seen just how insane you were. there had been one old man in your town who was insane, saying he saw things, always switching between hyperactivity, anger, and isolating himself to lie in bed all day. then, they eventually took him to an insane asylum when he had an episode in public.

you shook just at the thought of it, jolting when you felt Simon’s soft lips against your brow.

“yeah?”

your eyes snapped open, brows pinched together as you looked up into his relaxed expression. “yeah? that’s all?”

he shrugged. “me too.”

your throat felt dry. “what do you mean?”

he pointed to his own throat. “not bein’ able to breath. racing thoughts. uncontrollable crying. it happens, lovely.”

your mind spun but he continued on. “how long has it been happening?”

“since that night on the train,” you chewed out, feeling light and airy and scared when he paled in response.

“when we fought?” he asked, face pinched and stormy. you nodded and he wrapped you up in his arms again, tightly squeezing. despite your grumbles of protest, you whole body melted, a wet burn in your eyes.

“i’m sorry,” he gasped, crushing you, and from the strain in his voice, you knew he was being sincere.

“i have this feeling, ” you started, then choked, unsure of how to finish.

“tell me,” he prompted and you pressed your forehead against his strong chest.

“it’s in my chest. it’s heavy all the time. kind of like dread, but not really.” you screwed your eyes shut. “i hate it.”

he rubbed a hand over your back. “i know it well.”

“you do?” you squeaked, so sure that there was no one else in the world who felt a sliver of semblance to you.

“mhmm. breathing helps.” he snaked a hand between you, rubbing his fist in slow circles over your chest. “this helps too.”

as promised, your body relaxed, the touch warm and a pleasant pressure against the thrum of your heavy heart.

you reached up, wanting to return the favor, and rubbed your own palm against his broad chest. he smiled softly, snatching your hand up to kiss all over it, and you squirmed at the ticklish sensation, swatting him away.

he laughed, pushing you onto your back so he could slide off the bed.

“let me carry you?” he offered, but you just shook your head, swinging your legs over the edge.

“i’m fine—” your toes touched the cold floor, and you put a generous among of pressure onto your feet, before your knees buckled, legs shaking.

with a yelp, you almost tumbled to the floor before Simon easily caught you.

“careful,” he said, sounding too happy, and you sent him a dirty look.

“you did this on purpose, didn’t you?” you gritted out, clutching onto his arms, and he only scoffed, shaking his head with an amused look.

nonetheless, you hooked an arm around his unwounded shoulder, letting him curl an arm beneath your knees and haul you up into his arms.

he left your room to trudge up the stairs to the bathroom, and you couldn’t be more grateful for the dark, because as much as you protested it to Simon, he couldn’t seem to care less if someone spotted you both bare in the night. you protested enough for him to throw his towel over you before leaving your room.

he sat you down on the counter of the sink and filled the bathtub with water, peering at you softly over his shoulder every once and a while. once it was filled, he picked you up again, and gingerly set you down in the lukewarm water before sliding in right behind you.

it was a cramped space, your back pressed to his chest, and his legs around your own, so long that his toes were against the other wall of the tub.

“comfy?” he asked, and you nodded as he reached around you for a bar of soap and a washcloth, gently washing away the after effects of the intimate night you shared together.

for once, you realized, you didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for what you had done. even if he wasn’t your husband, and even if your mama had taught you against it your entire life, as you sunk back into Simon, you found yourself absolutely uncaring for what sins you had committed.

maybe things changed when you really, truly believed he was going to die. you looked up, finding Simon already peering down at you, and reached out to touch his jaw gently.

he took your arm, cleaning it gently, thumb brushing over its marred scars. he brought it up to press his lips against the scars that stretched over its surface, face twisted and somber.

“Turner tried to trap me in that room with him,” you said, voice almost at a whisper. “i fell and my arm went straight into fire.”

he made a low noise of disapproval, but you continued anyway.

“it was almost like he didn’t want to live,” you ruminated, remembering the way Turner had promised, if you try to kill me, you’ll burn with me.

he was half-right in the end.

“he didn’t even try,” you said, “threw away his gun almost immediately. just tried to strangle me.”

Simon’s arm curled around you and rubbed a palm over your chest. you clutched at it gratefully.

“i’d say i would kill him,” he said, voice so soft it was betraying, “but you already did that. you handle yourself well, little gunslinger.”

you almost giggled. “little gunslinger?”

“mhmm.” he picked up the washcloth again, wiping over your stomach and between your thighs under the water. “little gunslinger.”

“what’s my code name then?”

he mulled over that for a moment before saying, “Angel.”

your brows rose a little. “Angel? like the devil’s Angel?”

you peered at him from over your shoulder, taking in his stupid, lopsided smile with a cocked brow, and he only leaned forward to kiss you softly.

“that’s exactly what you are, princess.”

you hummed. “what about my mask?”

he smiled against your lips. “don’t need one anymore.

you parted from him. “why not?”

“no one to be afraid of anymore,” he said, tracing a finger over your lips.

and you were grateful for it because you could look at his face—all bare and handsome—as much as you wanted now.

“thank god,” you whispered and he nodded.

“thank god. now kiss me, Angel,” he whispered in a mock sultry tone, and you rolled your eyes at the smirk on his lips, before sealing them with your own, loving the way his hands traced over your wet skin.

one stopped to clutch at that spot over your heart, rubbing in slow, soothing circles that lulled you into a soft, distant place with Simon bound to your side.

okay istg i don't want Konig to appear like the villain or the asshole here, he's just a bit… arrogant and insensitive but socially anxious and has a good heart at the same time :( just a lot of built up complexes as a self-defense mechanism :(

also obviously we got jealous ghost here but how possessive was he? not very much. possessive ghost will probably appear later on... 🌚

edit: okay soooo idk what's going on w the tags on this post they are like breaking my posts???? bc i can't edit the posts with tags on the post and IDK WHAT'S GOING ON BUT if i accidentally tagged you multiple times i am sorry... tumblr is making my life a little bit harder rn 😵‍💫

#simon riley smut #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #cod mw2 #ghost cod #call of duty #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty modern warfare 2 #ghost smut #ghost angst #ghost mw2 #simon ghost riley #simon riley x you #simon riley #ghost x reader #ghost x you #ghost fluff #simon riley fluff #simon riley angst

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stranger-comet · 5 months

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Ahhhhh, thank you sm for the tag @reikunrei 🫶🏻 ⤷ ｡˚ੈ✩‧₊˚nine people i'd like to get to know better ｡˚ੈ✩‧₊˚

Last song I listened to: Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall by Simon & Garfunkel Favorite color: Uhhhh, probably lilac. Although, I do love a good baby blue Currently watching: Just finished catching up on 911 (!!!) Trying to figure out what to watch now Spicy/savory/sweet: Sweet Relationship status: Very single, might try dating again once I move Current obsession: Collecting queer pulp fiction - just bought a bunch and am gonna start reading those.

Tag, you're it (no pressure): @fizzypineapplesoda @kiirotoao @greenfiend @bewilderedbuck @sleepymrshmllow @fluffyfangirl and anyone else feeling it!

#tag game

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 1 year

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twst food culture compilation

Please note: this post does NOT include all food-related lore in TWST (for example, you won’t find a lot of information about individual characters’ food preferences or personal experiences with food here). This post ONLY talks about the food culture, notable locations, cultural dishes, and unique foods of the Twisted Wonderland world at large (ie countries, specific towns and cities, etc).

I did my best to scour for info, but I’ll update if I find anything new or details I missed the first time around.

General and/or Unspecified Location

Icicle mushrooms are one of Twisted Wonderland’s three greatest delicacies. They are extremely rare and expensive.

There is a seasoning called “pure azure salt”, which is said to be rare, even in the Coral Sea.

Twisted Wonderland has a fruit called ruby berries (which taste “like freshly picked strawberries”).

There is frozen mint with a “refreshing profile” that grows in icy mountainous areas.

There exists Walrus-brand oyster sauce. Trey uses this to cook hamburger steak for his younger siblings. He says the oyster sauce provides a "nice savory flavor" with considerable depth. Trey also jokes about adding it to chestnut tarts in book 1.

There are mentions of irl Japanese foods such as konjac and takoyaki, but so far no place of origin in Twisted Wonderland has been sited.

Like in the real world, celebrities like Vil and Neige are used to promote products (including food and drink) in commercials, on social media platforms, etc. For example, in book 5, we see Neige advertising Red Apple Soda and Vil using his Magicam account to promote the apple juice made by Epel's family.

There's a popular dish called "pumpkin carriage stew". The insides of a pumpkin are scooped out and the shell is filled with a creamy stew, which made it difficult to carry over to tables. It would sell out every day at the cafe Ruggie used to work at.

Some restaurants call their spaghetti with meatballs "starry night spaghetti", named after the tale of two dogs who shared a spaghetti kiss under a starry sky. It is said that sharing spaghetti with meatballs with someone outside would lead to true love.

Hunting is sport as well as something done for food.

Crowley goes on vacation “to the South” and reports to enjoy mango and mango-flavored products from there. He also brings back manga tea as a souvenir.

Briar Valley

General

Cotton candy is a classic snack food sold at Briar Valley food stalls. The way it is prepared resembles spinning threads, which is considered a blessed occupation (as there was a period in Briar Valley's history when no one was able to spin thread, so some clever individual tinkered around and made cotton candy instead).

In the battlefield (~400 years ago, during the human-fae war), soldiers would roast rats and lizards to eat if they didn't have rations or other ingredients.

There is little in the way of modern technology and electricity; typically, one would prepare dishes and/or collect ingredients by hand (such as via fishing) or by using magic.

Magic is used to light fires for cooking. There is little risk for fire accidents since magical fires automatically go out when you go to sleep.

Because Briar Valley is located to the north, it can get very chilly. When the snow melts, it turns into very cold freshwater.

According to Lilia, “berries are a must-have, especially at birthdays parties” in Briar Valley. They are famous for its berry juice.

The forest where Silver and Lilia live has strawberries. Silver picks them with his animal companions.

Coral Sea

General

According to Jade, there are no fires in the Coral Sea. Therefore, most of the food consumed is raw.

A month-long land boot camp first established by a mermaid princess that married a human prince teaches merpeople fire safety and how to eat food as part of its curriculum.

It's rare for merfolk to eat anything sweet, as those kinds of foods aren't readily avaliable in the sea.

The Atlantica Memorial Museum has the mermaid princess's "silver hair comb" on display. This, of course, refers to the "dinglehopper"--a common fork. This implies that merpeople (such as the mermaid princess referenced in many stories) fused to be unaware of the eating utensils on land.

Azul's mother owns the "hottest restaurant" in the Coral Sea. It started off as a small place, but has since expanded to have a large staff.

Couples from the Coral Sea frequently request rainbow dessert soup with trident cookies for their weddings. To eat it, you use the trident cookie to stir the sweet sky-blue soup, which then turns the soup into seven colors of the rainbow. This is a dish that is only served for special occasions in the Coral Sea, and it is typically served warm.

Jade says that he was surprised to see that many land dwellers eat their fruit without the peel; this would imply that those from the Coral Sea typically eat their foods with the skin/peel left on, or as-is.

Playful Land Amusement Park

All food and drink are handed out for free.

They serve food in large quantities, such as tuna, entire tart cherry pies (with cinnamon, clove, and crushed nuts in the filling) and a whole peppery roasted chicken. The park encourages consuming in excess.

Other food items being offered include fried tuna fish and sparkling apple juice. The juice comes with an umbrella stuck in the opening to prevent bugs from getting in. You remove it before drinking.

They have ice-cream in many flavors! We see strawberry milk in the related event.

The park had candy and popcorn in “apple core” flavor. Supposedly, this is a taste inspired by the story of the Generous Fox giving a Puppet Boy an apple core instead of a whole apple because “the puppet wished to have a core”.

There is a “Candy Road”, a street lined with shops that have caramel lollipops, chewy candy, marshmallows, cookies, chocolate crunch, and lots of other sugary treats!

Their chocolate crunch has 12 different charms thrown in.

The third most popular souvenir are pasta snacks in the shape of the Friendly Fox and Gentle Cat. The second most popular is a tin of plain cookies in the shape of the Friendly Fox and cocoa cookies in the shape of the Gentle Cat. Finally, the most popular are apple core flavored candies!

Sage's Island

Night Raven College

Pomefiore holds a welcome party for the freshmen, which includes a fancy dinner. Savanaclaw does not hold a welcome party.

Scarabia regularly holds banquets, typically at Kalim's request.

Heartslabyul holds "unbirthday parties" whenever it is a day that does NOT fall on a Heartslabyul student's birthday. Sweets are mandatory at unbirthday parties.

The dorm members of Scarabia and Heartslabyul pitch in to prepare for banquets and unbirthday parties.

Mr. S's Mystery Shop stocks food items, such as candies (which Floyd often buys), tuna cans, and ingredients for baking (this is where Deuce and Yuu pick up things for the chestnut tart in book 1). Sam also sells food items that he seems to have made himself, like the Mystery Drink (which Octavinelle eventually buys the rights to).

The school cafeteria is said to have delicious breads.

Students can use the school kitchens outside of normal serving hours; Ruggie and Jamil sometimes do this, but they also have their own dormitory kitchens to cook.

Once a month, a famous bakery from out of town serves their goods at NRC. Their stock includes items such as chocolate croissants, egg sandwiches, yakisoba bread and cream bread ("cronuts and bear claws"), roast beef sandwiches, red bean buns ("hot dog buns"), and deluxe minced cutlet sandwiches ("deluxe ham and cheese"/"grilled cheese" in the localization). They sell out fast!

The school library includes recipes books. Some recipes include spicy curry soup, red pepper and tomato soup, and garlic pork habanero soup.

Basic school lunches are free to all students, but they must pay for changes or extra items.

The cafeteria at NRC serves food buffet style; the cafeteria is kept warm with magic from fire fairies which are supplied with dry firewood every day. There is also a rotating daily menu.

Master Chef ("Culinary Crucible") is an elective course at NRC that teaches students how to cook. It is meant to curb the expenses related to eating out and to help the boys maintain balanced diets and learn how to take care of themselves. Judges for this course are randomly selected from the students and staff (prior to this methodology, people would bribe the judges for extra credit).

While taking Master Chef, students help with preparing meals in the cafeteria in exchange for part-time pay.

The instructors for Master Chef are ghosts who were professional chefs at five-star restaurants when they were alive. These same ghosts also serve as cafeterias staff. Crowley says it was difficult but worthwhile to recruit them.

There are various locations on campus where the students go to fetch ingredients for Master Chef. This includes an on-campus farm, ranch, windmill... and even the dormitories themselves!

The woods behind the campus have chestnuts, which the main crew collect for an apology tart to Riddle.

The Botanical Garden has some edible plants growing there. These include strawberries, which the Science Club cultivates.

NRC opens its school gates to the local townspeople for a period leading up to Halloween; during this time, they distribute candy and other sweets (such as Sam's waffles, served with jam made from NRC's apples) to guests. There's also a party on Halloween night where lots of food is served.

Mostro Lounge

Octainvelle has the Mostro Lounge, described by Jade as "a meeting place for gentlemen" where fighting between dorms is prohibited. While dining there, students are expected to abide by Octavinelle's rules. It is run by the manager and founder, Azul, who made a deal with the headmaster to get the rights to open the establishment. NRC gets 10% of the revenue the Mostro Lounge makes.

Jade and Floyd partake in some cooking, but Azul does very little cooking. He tends to investigate the competition and market.

Jade uses the weeds and plants he collects from mountain hikes to brew experimental new teas. Sometimes Azul adds these drinks to the menu.

Floyd likes to experiment with making sauces. These, too, are featured in the lounge.

The lounge offers cakes with coral decorations. You can order one for your special occasions.

The Mostro Lounge is particular about its quality name-brand dishware. Azul believes that this will boost the experience customers have in the lounge.

The Octatrio bought the rights to the Mystery Drink from Sam and raised its price from 600 madol/6 thaumarks to 1500 madol/15 thaumarks.

The Mostro Lounge has a one-drink purchase minimum.

Menu items range from roughly 600 madol to 1500 madol (6 thaumarks to 15 thaumarks).

The menu rotates on a seasonal basis; this helps to cut down on costs since they can focus on cheaper in-season ingredients.

The Mostro Lounge also operates food stalls and/or sells food at many school events, such as the cultural festival in book 5 and the interdorm magical shift/spelldrive tournament in book 2.

It is mostly Octavinelle students who staff the Mostro Lounge, but there are occasions when outside students are brought in as extra help. Ruggie has worked there part-time, as well as Jack, Ace, Deuce, and tons of other students.

Unbirthday Party Rules (related to food)

Rule 25: There must be a tea party on the 5th of every month.

Rule 29: You must not eat the Queen's tarts without her permission.

Rule 153: The only tea you may drink in the evenings is herbal tea.

Rule 186: Do not eat hamburger steak on Tuesdays.

Rule 256: You must not drink lemonade with honey past 8 pm.

Rule 271: You must get up from the table within 15 minutes after eating lunch.

Rule 339: Your post-meal tea must be lemon tea with 2 sugar cubes.

Rule 529: If you eat steak on the night of a full moon, a cat must play the violin afterwards.

Rule 562: Do not bring chestnut tarts to an unbirthday party.

Rule 648: You must brush your teeth 2 times on nights when you eat turkey.

Rule 703: Whoever comes in 2nd place in a croquet match must serve tea to the Queen (dorm leader) the next day.

If the dormouse wakes up at an unbirthday party, you are to paint its nose with jam.

Coffee is forbidden; tea must be served at all occasions except for birthdays.

According to Cater, sweets are mandatory at unbirthday parties.

Dwarves' Mine & Silent Woods

There is an abundance of wildlife in these areas; Jade often goes hiking and foraging, making note of what he finds. He uses the plants to make his own tea blends (which are sometimes added to the Mostro Lounge's menu) and the herbs, plants, and mushrooms to experiment with in cooking.

There are fish to be found at the lake, including massive catfish.

The Foothill Town

There is a port for mainly cargo ships located at the southwest part of town. It's called Crane Port! The east side has a port as well, but that one is moreso for passengers. Crane Port has been getting fewer and fewer people passing through lately (until Port Breeze Fest, in which the NRC boys run food stalls and help to revive business in the area). Group A makes churros, Group B makes waffles, Group C makes salads, Group D makes cotton candy, and Group E makes clam chowder.

A popular restaurant in the Crane Port area serves foods like french fries and burgers. Their signature menu item is a donut made from potatoes. Actually, this restaurant specializes in potato dishes!

There is a chain restaurant on the island that also has locations elsewhere, including in Ace's hometown. He mentions that there are slightly different flavors to the sauces depending on which location you go to. This chain is also described as affordable for students and gives free refills. There is a location of this chain a car ride away from Harveston.

The town also has other eateries that are more geared towards students, seeing as it exists on an island with two notable magic schools to the north and the south. Cater often mentions going into town to take pictures at cafes.

The town has a public market; the Ramshackle Ghosts resell mandrakes there.

There is a famous patisserie there. You have to line up early in the morning before opening time to get your hands on one of their strawberry tarts (or anything, really!).

There is a stall in the marketplace that sells specialty coffee. They also have a tea which Crewel enjoys (though he also brews his own).

Scalding Sands

General

The Scalding Sands seems to borrow heavily from Middle Eastern cultures. For example, some of the Scalding Sands’ traditional dishes include, but are not limited to: roasted lamb, moussaka, döner kebabs, shawarma, flatbreads, potato and bean spreads, and seafood sautés.

Tea is a popular beverage; it is had at every meal and break. People can drink up to 10 cups of tea a day!

The Scalding Sands specializes in black tea. For entertaining guests, special tea leaves are used.

In the Scalding Sands, they brew their tea leaves loose and without an infuser. This makes the tea very strong and bitter. To counteract the powerful flavor, people add lots of sugar to their tea and drink it with sweets.

“Luxurious” tea is very sweet, since sugar was once very expensive (due to a shortage of it, according to the localization) and considered a luxury.

Due to the hot weather, people often toss herbs into their tea to make it more refreshing to drink.

Coffee is also popular; there are many cafes that serve coffee and tea. The Scalding Sands is known in particular for their spiced coffee, which has a very distinctive flavor. This coffee is brewed without a filter, and some cafes do “coffee divinations” (reading the shapes and patterns of the grounds and the water droplets that remain after drinking to tell the fortunes of customers).

There are a lot of unique spices in their dishes. This is especially true of banquet dishes. However, a variety of dishes are still served at these occasions.

Kalim describes the Scalding Sands as being “big on stewed stuff” like curries.

In Kalim’s hometown, people love to gather around the table and talk over a meal.

Halloween in the Scalding Sands is celebrated by feasting on a variety of dishes. The idea is that the food must be abundant so that the ghosts that return to the world of the living for the night may also have their fill.

It used to be difficult for the people of the Scalding Sands to obtain water due to the lack of rainfall, hot climate, and expansive desserts. However, Kalim’s ancestors utilized the country’s rivers to reach other countries and to trade their textiles, spices, tea leaves, and other local goods with foreign lands. It was particularly impressive at the time, as they were the first traders from the Scalding Sands to sail (back then, accurate nautical maps were not a thing). This maritime pioneering is what would make the Asim family their massive fortune.

The Asims and other merchants heavily invested in technologies and innovations to make the area more sustainable and potable water more accessible.

The waterways of the country eventually developed into canals and communities formed around them as trade hubs. The canals are also used to host ferryboats for locals and tourists to sightsee, boosting the tourism industry. This also made access to water much easier for the residents, and the water helps to cool the temperature.

Silk City

The bazaars in Silk City are where locals do their shopping for various goods and staple foods like vegetables and fish. There are also stalls with gourmet food that cater to tourists.

Camel Bazaar is named after camels, which were used to transport people, goods, and luggage before Silk City’s canals and roads came to be. There also used to be an oasis where the camels would rest and drink after long treks; this oasis became a center for commerce and eventually evolved into a marketplace. To this day, the name “Camel” has stuck, even if people use trucks, ships, and cars more than camels.

There is also Zahab (”Gold”) Market, which is popular with tourists for shopping (especially for souvenirs!) but also has swindlers and pickpockets mixed in with regular customers.

Many snacks are sold! There’s camel milk chocolate, cookies drizzled in syrup, sunflower seeds, pistachios, chickpeas, all kinds of nuts, dried fruits (including dates), jams, jellies, syrups, starfruit, dragonfruit, etc.

(Lamb) shawarma is described as meat roasted on a spit and served on baguettes or pita bread. Because grease drips off while it cooks, it is “surprisingly healthier” than one expects it to be. Shawarma is also customarily served with vegetables (tomatoes, onions, olives, jalapenos, etc.) and sauces (yogurt, garlic, chili, hummus (a paste of garlic and chickpeas), mayo basil, etc).

There is a vendor that can supply large quantities of sweet and refreshing coconut water; this is because they’re used to providing for Kalim’s extravagant and excessive tastes. They create a hole in the top and provide straws to poke in and use to drink the water. The coconut flesh inside is also edible.

There are a lot of bread stalls; bread is also another staple food, and it comes in many sizes, shapes, and textures. Small roadside bakeries have wood-fired ovens which allow them to serve bread fresh to customers.

One stand sells baguettes that are taller than many children; these “tower baguettes” are a famous Fireworks Festival treat. People say that if you eat a big one, you’ll never go hungry again! The saying comes from a story of a young man that shared bread with hungry children. It’s because of that story that baguettes are considered a good luck food that many vendors sell on holidays.

The Camel Bazaar sells an elastic ice-cream (based on a similar irl frozen Turkish confection). It is kneaded on a pole and stretched out; customers are meant to “catch” it in their cups and cones. It’s food performance art! All the stretching makes the texture very unique.

There’s a fruit stand that is only open on festival days which sells a Silk Melon sundae; the fruit is hollowed out to host ice-cream (of the same melon flavor!) and toppings which make it very photogenic.

Starfruit is usually put in salads, according to Trey.

The dragonfruit sold is recommended to be eaten with honey. You drizzle it on top of a slice and eat!

Silk City’s signature fruit is the Silk Melon. It is called that because of its silky texture and sophisticated sweetness. It can’t be found in many other countries. The man of legend that shared his bread with a starving child is said to split a melon with his friend, even though he did not have much money to spare. It’s because of this tale that people started saying if you share Silk Melon with someone, it would make your friendship or romance last forever. Now the fruit is a festival staple and considered a symbol of good fortune.

In the past, water was only used for irrigation due to its scarcity. Some gave up on farming after years of trying to produce crops and failing—but others refused to give up and cultivated the land to made it fertile, something which future generations would reap the benefits of.

The fruits and veggies sold Camel Bazaar are freshly picked and grown locally. Jamil says this is possible because the arid climate actually helps with growing crops of high quality. Produce raised with less water concentrates flavor since the final fruit will have a higher sugar content. Because of this, Silk City’s produce is prized by chefs all over Twisted Wonderland. Of course, you can get them at an affordable prize in Camel Bazaar!

Shaftlands

General

The Shaftlands are famous for its jeweled pineapples.

The Shaftlands spans a large area of land and has drastically different climates depending on the part of it you're looking at. Therefore, we can deduce that foods and customs surrounding food are very different as well.

City of Flowers/Fleur City

The city’s food culture seems to be inspired by real world Paris, or at the very least, France.

Bread is a local specialty, particularly very buttery kinds. As you walk down the streets, you can smell bread baking. The City of Flowers has 10x (or more) the variety of bread that Sage's Island offers, and has an abundance of bakeries too.

Bread-making is popular in the City of Flowers. The windmills at the edges of the city grind grains to produce fresh flour. There are also watermills powered by the Soleil River to assist with making flour.

Because wheat is plentiful in this area, some of it is also used for desserts. One such confection is financier, which is made from a combination of wheat flour, almond flour, and butter. It resembles a gold bar, so eating one is said to bring financial prosperity.

Lately, gluten-free desserts have been trendy.

A dessert that does not use wheat flour is macarons. In the City of Flowers, they are yellow and shaped like bells to honor the Bell of Salvation which oversees the community and provides magic that helps rare plants grow in the area. The filling is a ganache with dried bits of grapes and apples.

Grape juice is popular in the City of Flowers, as the fruit is another specialty. You can buy the grapes raw and eat them as is, or ask a vendor to crush it (skin still on!) into juice for you. Some buy the grapes to give as gifts!

The grapes are grown in vineyards right outside of the city, and the farmers are constantly experimenting to improve their breeds. They taste very rich, tangy, and sweet.

The City of Flowers is also known for its many specialty cheese shops. Together, bread and cheese are called the staple foods of the city, and are sometimes eaten together. One specialty cheese shop the boys visit sells baguettes topped with ham and rich melted cheese.

The city considers goats a symbol of good luck, so they are treated with care. There are many community goats (which are just as common as domesticated cats or dogs) allowed to roam freely in the city. It is said that if you treat the community goats with kindness, they will come rescue you in your time of need.

Goat milk is used in some of the specialty cheeses produced by the city. The grapes mentioned earlier are also made into fruit compotes to go with the cheeses.

Harveston

This village has many dishes that borrow from a mixture of irl Nordic cultures. There’s also an emphasis on having hometown pride and the community itself being very close.

Crows often damage the apples Harveston grows. The community comes together to put up nets and make noises to scare them off.

As expected, many of Harveston's dishes feature apples: apple pie, grilled and roasted apples, apple salad, apple pound cakes, etc.

Epel's family has an apple orchard that has been in the family for generations. They grow different kinds of apples throughout the year. Many of his neighbors are older people who also raise produce, and they help each other out when they're short on hands. The community is very tightly knit because of this, and treat each other like extended family.

Harvest season (autumn) is the busiest time of year; once that's over, everyone comes together to have a party. It's a potluck style celebration where everyone brings a homemade dish or homegrown food to share.

Harveston preserves its produce (such as apples and wild greens) by pickling them and serving them in salads. The bright colors are maintained by boiling the produce in a copper pot, which stabilizes the pigments. It's wisdom passed down from generation to generation.

There is also pickled herring, traditionally eaten on bread. Brining preserves the fish while it is still raw and doesn't dry it up. It's ready to eat right out of a jar, no cooking required.

The local stew is not very thick. It tastes sweet because of the added vegetables and savory because of the tender meat in it. There is also a salmon broth sprinkled with herbs which is described as "melty".

Fruits and vegetables can be packed in snow to keep them preserved. This method is called “snow aging” and prevents evaporation. In the old days, the villagers would build whole farms out of snow. In modern day, they just shovel the snow into a barn. This creates a natural fridge that will naturally thaw in the summers. Snow aging in this manner makes the produce sweeter and more nutritious.

The next town over is a three-hour bike ride. The roadside has many apple trees you can enjoy during the trip.

You can easily pick apples off the branch and eat them fresh! Farmers can snack on apples while picking.

Harveston is surrounded by tall mountains that are snow-capped all year, the most famous one being Mt. Moln. The greenery around Harveston is due to the spring water irrigation which runs down from Mt. Moln.

Most of Harveston’s land is used for orchards, and apples are their main produce. They also make many products using those apples like chips, rice crackers, and cookies.

Fall apples are sweeter, while winter ones are more sour. Winter apples are unique to Harveston.

Harveston also grows a lot of garlic.

Harveston farming is done the old fashioned way, as the predominantly older population distrusts chemical fertilizers and biotechnology.

Some villagers like the mayor and Marja (Epel’s grandma) adjust their accent to communicate with people from outside the village. Marja says she switches up when she’s selling goods in another town, since it can be tricky for non-Harveston locals to understand.

Hand washing before eating is a must! They take the act very seriously in Harveston. Stories say the miners of the past used to get very sick due to poor hygiene, but their health improved drastically once they started washing regularly with soap and water. It was difficult for them to get treatment because the town is so remote and far from hospitals or doctors, so the best thing is stressing prevention. This why the townspeople are sticklers about hand washing now.

To wash the Harveston way, you plunge your hands into ice cold water and make it all foamy with soap. You also scoop the water up and splash your face as well (as the miners from the past would also do this).

Apple Square is the main festival venue; it has many vendor stalls in an area called Kokko (which means “Bonfire”) Market. The Sledathon is the most lucrative time of year for the townsfolk.

Many of their products are made locally by the older folks in town. The goods aren’t trendy or very fancy, but they’re high-quality and made with Harveston pride.

The stalls give apple juice, apple tea (which has fruit pieces floating in it), and apple ginger tea for free. The apple juice is one of Harveston’s most popular products.

Giant five-meter apple pies are made for the Sledathon. They’re considered one of the main attractions, and you can get a slice from them free of charge.

There are other stalls that sell regular apple pie too. Every vendor has their own style, from the apples used to the crust and baking technique.

There are other kinds of fruit pies for sale, but apples are the most popular and “special” ones. The Beautiful Queen had a preference for apple pies, so the townspeople do too.

Harveston apple pies have such an entrancing flavor that the nearest city has stores that stock them. Critics say that Harveston apple pies make anyone drool and that the best way to convince someone to do you a favor is to gift one.

Harveston holds an apple competition to find the reddest apple. This is because the Beautiful Queen prized beautifully red apples. In the past, the townspeople would offer the reddest apple from the season’s harvest to the Beautiful Queen. Over time, it evolved into the apple competition.

Kokko Market makes pancake balls from a flour batter and top it with jam. It’s prepared in a pan and with methods similar to takoyaki, coming out crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

Pancakes also come in a square form. In Harveston, pancakes are baked in the oven instead of on the stove. Some people cook pancakes in the fireplace too; this makes them tender, thick, and pudding-like.

There are many grains used for bread: sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, oats, flax seeds, sesame seeds, rye, wheat...

Barbeque is served for large gatherings and celebrations.

Cooking tends to be done in the fireplace instead of on a stove, especially in the case for stews. It keeps the room warm in winter while the food cooks.

Harveston has a bean and fruit soup. Most other places serve it cold, but those in Harveston sometimes enjoy it warm. It’s a thick consistency and the fruit in it has been dried.

When setting the dining table, people in Harveston leave one extra plate out. This tradition comes from a story about a traveler visiting a family’s house and being surprised by the messy state of it. The traveler cleaned the house and cooked a nice meal for the family. From this story came the belief that as long as you leave a plate at your table, you’ll never want for food or go hungry.

Sandwich cakes are common party centerpieces. They are made with bread and vegetables, topped with shrimp, deviled eggs, olives, apples, and salmon slides arranged in a rose shape. The frosting on it is made from mayonnaise and sour cream, making sandwich cakes more salad than dessert.

They sell cherries and other berries by volume. Also sold are vegetables and juice, freshly squeezed.

Because Harveston is located in a mountainous region, there are rare varieties of mushrooms to be found. These can be served in a traditional mushroom soup, which can be finicky to prepare (so usually only experts make it). Mushrooms are also cooked in butter and served in sandwiches.

Mushrooms, herbs, and flowers are foraged from the nature (both public mountains and private woods). Locals usually don’t buy plants that are wild when they can pick it themselves. Instead, they’re sold to tourists.

Good foraging spots on Moln Mountain are kept secret so people don’t overharvest. The mountains are dangerous in winter, so foraging has to be done in spring or summer.

Harveston brines raw fish like salmon in a mixture of salt, sugar, pepper, and fill. In the old days, brined salmon was buried in sand to let it ferment.

Fish is dried to preserve it and to enhance the flavor. Before there were proper roads, it was hard to bring in food for the winter, so Harveston relied on foods preserved in the spring. They last for a long time and have many uses (such as in soup stock or to eat straight up). To this day, preserved meats and vegetables are a local specialty and new methods such as roasting have been developed for preservation.

Sunset Savanna

General

The food here appears to be inspired by African cultures of the real world.

Fruit is more plentiful than grains.

There is floral cacao in the Sunset Savanna. It bears fruit only once every 10 years.

Gummy bugs are popular and a Halloween staple.

The people of the Sunset Savanna value living in harmony with nature and will go out of their way to adapt to the land (due to the high population of beastmen, who have animal ancestors). Because of this, they oppose change that could damage the environment. There are some parts of this arid country that still rely on wells for their drinking water needs. They also hold the Tamashina-Mina festival every year to pray for rain.

Sautéed mutton is a common meal in this country. Leona brags that the Sunset Savanna is top notch when it comes to cooking meats.

The bananas of the Sunset Savanna are starchy and resemble potatoes (similar to plantains). They are steamed and served as a staple food. They’re faintly sweet and are actually very light and easy to digest.

It’s easier to grow fruit instead of wheat and rice in their climate.

Rice hull crepes, another staple, are served with a stew that you pour over it. The stew comes in variants such as a white fish stew simmered in tomato sauce, spinach and potato stew, beef stew, etc. There are also many side dishes you can enjoy with the crepes. The crepes aren’t meant to be eaten alone, as they taste too sour solo.

The phrase “that’s the Circle of Life” is a proverb that has been around for ages. The strong eat the weak, then when the strong die, their bodies become nutrients for the grass which feeds the next generation of prey animals. Life comes “full circle”, and the proverb indicates this delicate balance.

The Sunset Savanna is famous for its coffee. It tastes spicy, not bitter, because the custom is to add spices to the drink.

Food prep performances seem to be common for the wealthy; Leona mentions seeing big fish filleted before being served.

Yogurt is considered a “healthy dairy” and is typically served for breakfast.

Elephant Graveyard

The Elephant Graveyard, once considered a scary and lawless place (the “shadow lands” which were not a part of the original kingdom), has become a tourist destination—something akin to a spa.

They are known for selling vanilla cookies shaped like bones.

The hot springs at the Elephant Graveyard have kettles hidden by the steam. The hot water vapor cooks onsen tamago (a traditionally Japanese irl dish) and puddings. It imparts a slightly salty and sulfurous flavor and smell to the foods.

Sunrise City

The Raintree Market is a bazaar that features many foods and drinks.

Many snacks sold in the marketplaces are local specialties, so they’re popular as souvenirs.

Wild and cultivated hibiscus flowers are boiled with sugar to produce a red juice. There is also a white juice, which is made using wild baobab (which is full of nutrients; people call it a beauty elixir you can drink). A legends says that, long ago, members of the royal family would have their foreheads painted with baobab juice when they were born. That’s how the fruit became a local specialty.

In the original tale, the juice for marking foreheads was red. It seems that, over time, the color was changed to white by word of mouth, with the latter description fitting more with the white fruit of the baobab. Because of this change, more and more stalls have been selling a mixture of hibiscus juice and baobab juice.

The baobab fruit is also used to make a particular sour candy. The candy is dyed with red food coloring and is then dusted with sugar and chili powder. It’s described as having a “mature” flavor. Leona has liked this candy since he was a child.

Mangoes are a local specialty! Vendors will happily cut open the fruit for you to enjoy on the spot.

Other notable fruits for sale are tart passionfruit and creamy but smelly jackfruit. The latter is considered the largest fruit in Twisted Wonderland and grows on its tree’s trunks.

The Sunset Villa is a luxurious hotel that hosts VIPs and important guests of the state. They offer a large selection of drinks (fruit juice, black tea, coffee…) and serve whole slabs of steak in front of you before serving at luxurious barbecues. After dinners, they have dance performances.

There is an enormous sausage that’s wrapped up in a coil. If unwound, it’s a meter long. It’s meant to be cut with scissors before eating. The sausage’s herbs make it taste refreshing, and its meat is finely grounded to allow its flavors to come through.

Seafood is fresh and cheap, provided you live by the sea or in a coastal region like Dawn City. In more inland areas, seafood is considered a luxury.

Their seafood tends to be cooked with strong spices.

Ruggie’s yet-to-be-named hometown

Because the residents are poor, their food is usually made from collected scraps (such as pumpkin pie made predominantly from the pulpy parts) or prepared with substitutions and without extra flourishes. For example, Ruggie’s grandma prepares homemade donuts for his birthday but they couldn't afford fancy toppings (until Ruggie started working to bring in extra income).

It’s implied that there were instances when Ruggie (and presumably others from his hometown) had to eat rotten food or out of trash cans to get by.

Queendom of Roses

General

There is reference to some irl UK foods in this region, such as the jacket potato.

The Queendom of Roses is famous for its rose jelly rolls. Roses are the flower the country is best known for, of course, but they also have lavender, rosemary, sweet violet, foxglove, bluebells, and many berries.

People from this country eat flowers (which are specifically grown for eating). Flowers are also used for dried flower bookmarks? potpourri, etc.

The Queendom has a good selection of breads.

Apparently, the Queendom also has a strong “tea culture”.

People in the Queendom of Roses eat a lot of different pastries (pies, tarts, quiches, croissants, etc). Croissant donuts (cronuts) in particular have been pretty trendy lately. They’re donuts made with croissant batter, so they come out super flaky. They are sometimes sold with iced tea as a combo.

Potatoes are a staple food.

Jacket potatoes are common at festivals; they are potatoes baked with the skin (ie “jacket”) still on. The standard topping for them is baked beans, but you can also have tuna mayo corn, bean chili, sour cream, avocado, and other things.

Anyone that grew up in the Queendom of Roses has probably done the “cookie smash” at least once as a kid. (More info on this under the “Clock Town” section!)

The Queendom is known for lavender, berries, and rosemary.

Riddle and Trey's yet-to-be-named hometown

Trey's family owns a bakery (called "Patisserie Clover" according to the TWST manga). It seems to be a small "mom and pops" shop with no particular notoriety. However, the manga implies that it was the Clover bakery where Riddle saw the strawberry tarts and became entranced by them. This is also where Riddle would later try his first strawberry tart.

In Riddle and Trey's hometown, people enjoy apple bobbing during the Halloween season.

Before interview: Riddle was worried whether they can start on time and was relieved when Vil showed up and Vil was pretty smug about it lmao

There is a farm not too far from where Riddle lives; it is famous for its ice-cream buns. There is also a cafe located on the farm! It opened shortly after Riddle entered NRC and is so popular that it’s spoken about in magazines and tourists go there just to sample their sweets.

Clock Town

The people of Clock Town value time and punctuality due to the town's connection to the White Rabbit, who was always in a hurry. Many of the foods sold at stalls are things that are easy to hold and eat while walking, such as sliced sandwiches.

The Clock Town Folk Museum mentions a girl that appears in the story of the White Rabbit. She ate cookies that made her grow large; the museum recreates this experiment by projecting a large image of guests that eat cookies they have set out.

The Clock Town Folk Museum also runs a bugle-playing contest. The participation prize is a carrot cookie.

Clock Town sells a brand of potato chips with the White Rabbit logo on them.

The town also sells cookies iced to look like a pocket watch. The icing is made from a mixture of sugar and egg whites (“royal icing”) which hardens considerably. You’re meant to crush the cookie with a hammer to make it into smaller pieces, making it easier to eat. It’s based on the story of the White Rabbit breaking his pocket watch. Others tried to help him fix it by hitting it with a hammer, but it didn’t help at all, only damaged it more!

A lot of people enjoy growing plants, gardening, and horticulture, including stuff that can be eaten like herbs.

Sausage rolls are served in pairs to resemble bunny ears; the container they come in resembles the White Rabbit. They’re sausages wrapped in a pie crust/puff pastry dough, and come in cheese (with a shortcrust pastry similar to what is used for tarts to help hold its shape) and a spicy sausage (with a puff pastry that makes it flaky) variant for the White Rabbit Festival.

There are large mushrooms that grow in Clock Town; eating one side will turn you large, eating the other side will turn you small. The girl in the story of the White Rabbit has eaten these strange mushrooms before. These mushrooms are said to be enchanted and only work in a particular area; its effects last for ~1 minute after eating.

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