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witchywcmans · 4 months

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NEEDY. | AKI HAYAKAWA

synopsis ━━ you were in need of a roommate, and aki hayakawa needed a place that wouldn't ask any questions. you went to work during the day, while aki worked late nights. you basically had the apartment to yourself. it was honestly a match made in heaven. but then, you just had to come home one day and catch your roommate in a precarious situation. (aki x f!reader.)

content warnings ━━ voyeurism (just a wee bit), sex-deprived aki 🫶, but also possessive + jealous aki, masturbation, dirty thoughts + wet dreams, fingering, praise, multiple orgasms, classic missionary, unprotected sex, creampie, mutual pining/confession, kinda au (we're not mentioning the gun devil arc), aki has lived to see 26 + reader being a similar age, some religious imagery. nsfw (minors + ageless blogs dni).

word count ━━ 5.1k

song inspiration ━━ dealer, lana del rey / friends, chase atlantic / double fantasy, the weeknd

author's note ━━ hi.....hello.........so this idea has been in my head for a little bit, and I realize roommate aus like this are simply not that original, but god dammit I just needed to get this out of my head. anyway, I lurrrrrv sex deprived aki. shout out to my friend hollis for screaming about this with me hehe 💓

The most words you had ever said to your roommate were on the day you interviewed him before he moved in. You immediately noticed that he was strange, but also shy and seemingly harmless. When you had asked why he needed to move in so quickly, he had said something along the lines of a “toxic environment” with his previous roommates: “Denji and Power are just too noisy and reckless. They’re four years younger than me. I need a place less chaotic.” You had been interested in getting to know more – you were curious, after all, about your potential roomie – but once he mentioned that you’d probably never see him because he worked nights, you were sold.

Aki Hayakawa was your new roommate.

He had never been more excited to finally get away from Denji and Power and the tumultuous mess they had turned his apartment into. He was older now; he needed something for himself, even if it was with a roommate. Being a Public Safety Devil Hunter, he needed a place that didn’t think twice about him, a roommate who didn’t ask questions. That’s what he liked about you: your place was on the right side of the city, and you looked at him like he was normal. The Fox Devil said you weren’t going to be good for him, but Aki tended to ignore them anyway.

You had helped him move into your second bedroom just a week later and he hardly said a word, except to ask you who had formerly occupied this space. You were hesitant to talk about it at first, but you cracked soon enough: “My old best friend lived in here. We had rented this place together, but we … aren’t exactly speaking anymore,” you admitted, setting a box down at his feet. “I came home from work one evening and found my boyfriend cheating on me with her. It had been going on for months, right under my nose.” You looked away when you felt your eyes start to sting with tears, sniffling them away. “Friends come and go, I guess. But I’m thankful you, at least, worked out to rent this space.”

“Well,” he sighed, opening up the box as you turned back to him. He smirked. “I promise I won’t sleep with your boyfriend.”

You had laughed, and what a pretty sound it was. After move-in day, Aki was true to his word that you almost never saw him. You worked a normal 9 to 5, while Aki … well, you had no idea what Aki did. You assumed he was a security guard or something with the hours he worked and how he was always wearing a suit and tie. He was working all the time, even weekends. Sometimes, you would catch him coming home as you were leaving for work, or on Sunday morning as you ate breakfast in the kitchen. He would be too tired to talk, simply waving at you before retiring to his room.

It was almost like living alone … except for notes he’d sometimes leave you on the stove or the bathroom. Or the weekend mornings, when he’d get you a coffee and leave it out for you before going to his room. Or the once-in-a-blue-moon nights when you’d stumble in the early hours of the morning after drinking in the city with some friends, standing out on the deck with Aki as he smoked a cigarette. Nights like those, you could’ve sworn Fate was trying to get you two to see each other, because you would be arriving home at just the right hour and Aki would be getting off work early. And you would find him on the deck in his suit and tie, cigarette hanging from his lips, hair pulled up in his classic topknot. He would find you leaning against the railing in nothing but a short dress, the glitter on your lids making your eyes sparkle even more, and – god, you were just so pretty.

After that night, he started dreaming about you. He dreamed about how your lips would feel against his, what it would be like to have you sleep next to him and rest your head on his chest. He was consumed by thoughts of you under him, how you tasted, the way you’d tremble if he kissed that sensitive part of your neck you told him about one late night on the deck. His need for you was insatiable. In his line of work, there wasn’t much time for dating, let alone sex. He hadn’t been thinking about it that much, especially when he’d been housing Denji and Power, but now … he couldn’t stop thinking about you. Naked. Underneath him. On top. God dammit, he’d have you any way you wanted.

It made him wish he had acted on his instincts that night on the deck: pushing you against the sliding door, his lips crashing onto yours, hiking your skirt up that just barely covered your thighs and using his non-dominant hand (the one that didn’t shake) to feel how wet you were. But alas, Aki Hayakawa was a gentleman.

You two had been living together for a year. He hardly knew you, but also knew you like nobody else did. He knew how you took your coffee – black with two sugars. He knew the brand of toilet paper you liked. He knew that you liked to hang your coats in the closet on the right side. He knew you drooled in your sleep, and what TV shows made you laugh, and how much your water bill was each month.

He was acting out in ways that were unlike him. If he came home from work and saw you had a guy over, he made his presence known. When you were at the office, sometimes he would go to your room just to smell your perfume, and other times he would steal your panties. (He always gave them back, feeling too shameful. But he did keep one underneath his pillow.) Some nights, he would pretend to leave for work early and you would retire to your room for the night, and then he would hear the familiar sound of your vibrator and – fuck, he had to go to work hard. Again.

You were taking up too much space in his head. He was becoming distracted at work, thinking about what you were doing during these late hours. Maybe the Fox Devil was right: you weren’t good for him.

But he wasn’t moving out any time soon.

It was a Thursday after work and you were completely exhausted. After attending endless meetings and having to argue with coworkers all day, you left work early and were grateful to have a night alone with some leftovers from the night before. You had completely forgotten Aki telling you earlier in the week that he had this Thursday and Friday off, your mind preoccupied with work responsibilities. Sighing as soon as you walked through the door, you set your bag down and shuffled out of your shoes. You shut the door softly, at peace with the silence. You didn’t even have the energy to get out of your work clothes; you simply padded your feet to the fridge, plucking your leftovers out. It was only when you reached up to the microwave that you noticed the apartment wasn’t as silent as you assumed.

Sounds emanated from another room.

You got on your tip-toes, not wanting to make much noise if there was an intruder, and felt for the pocket knife you always kept on your person. Passing by your bedroom first, you popped your head inside. Empty. Hadn’t been touched since you left this morning. The bathroom was next, and you held your breath as the sounds got even more noticeable. You peeked into the bathroom and … clear. Linen closet: clear. Coat closet: clear. But the sounds only became more clear as you got closer to the end of the hall, Aki’s room, and –

You stopped in front of Aki’s bedroom, the door cracked just enough that you didn’t need to pop your head in to see what was happening. Aki was home, for once, and you … you were watching him through the crack in the door. But how could you not? You knew where the sounds were coming from now, because Aki was the one making them.

His dark hair swept in front of his eyes as he sat back against his pillows. He wore a white t-shirt, while his boxers bagged around his ankles. Grunts slipped from his mouth – that pretty, pretty mouth you'd seen wrapped around a cigarette. And his hand … his hand wrapped around his cock, pumping furiously – desperately – with a pair of your panties enveloping the head. The same red lace panties you thought you’d lost months ago.

You almost considered walking away, making noise in the kitchen so he would know you were home, but then –

Then, your name left his mouth in a whimper.

He was stroking himself even faster, muttering your name into the silent room with your panties wrapped so nicely around his cock. He was thinking about you, wanting so desperately cum in your panties, wondering if you thought about him when you used your vibrator. You were frozen in place, completely fixated on him as he leaned back against his headboard, his face finally exposed so you could see the way his jaw went slack, the way he moaned out your name. And – oh my god, you should leave –

But you couldn’t. And deep down, you knew there was a dirty part of you that always wanted to see this. Ever since that night on the deck, when you were wearing your favorite dress and all that glitter, and you noticed that he was looking at you in a way a platonic roommate definitely shouldn’t. You had started to think about him late nights when you were alone with your toy. You brought home dates, wanting him to see, giggling when you recognized his jealous expression. You tried to wake up earlier, just to see him when he stumbled through the door. Once, you even did his laundry to smell the nicotine on his jacket.

The two of you simply couldn’t help yourselves.

And when you watched him finally reach his peak, spilling into your forgotten red lace panties, you realized just how wet the ones you were wearing had become. You watched him grunt as he came, breathing heavily and wiping the sweat off his brow. And when he muttered under his breath a soft, “Fuck,” you couldn’t help the short gasp that left your lips.

Aki stalled. Oh, shit. You hadn’t been quiet enough. He sat up more in his bed, pulling his boxers up, and you whipped your back against the wall. You cupped your hand over your mouth, praying he wouldn’t come out and see. But he was whispering, “Who’s there?” And you only had enough time to move ten feet down the hall before you heard the creak of his soles on the old floorboards.

“Fuck,” he muttered, louder this time.

Your back went straight, and after what felt like an eternity, you slowly turned to face him. “Aki,” you put your hands up in surrender, “I didn’t see anything –”

“Oh, what the fuck,” he shook his head at himself, quickly walking back into his bedroom. You were stunned, not knowing what to do, as he continued talking to himself in the room: “Stupid fucking idiot not closing the fucking door. What the fuck? What the fuck? My worst fucking nightmare. Fuck, why do these pants always get caught around my ankles? I need to get out of here. Stay at Denji’s for the night. Fuck, fuck, fuck –”

He emerged from his bedroom, now wearing jeans, his favorite Converse, and a leather jacket. He tried to pass you without looking, whispering obscenities under his breath, but then you were tugging on his jacket, lips pressed together.

Aki paused, cheeks red with both embarrassment and anger at himself, but you didn’t let go of his sleeve. He noticed the redness of your face as well, the black of your pupils almost covering your entire eye, and were you … were you aroused?

Swallowing hard, your voice was but a mere whisper when you asked, “How long have you had those?”

He knew what you were referring to. It didn’t take an idiot. Your stares were locked, and despite his shame, he wouldn’t turn away. “A while,” he mumbled.

“How long is ‘a while?’”

“Months, okay?” His eyes narrowed and his voice took on a new tone. “Now, can you let go of my jacket so I can leave and save us both the embarrassment –”

“Months,” you repeated, licking the corners of your lips. His eyes were made of blue fire as he stared down at you, and even with your office attire on, you felt utterly naked beneath his gaze. “I’ve … I’ve been thinking about you for months too.”

Aki took a moment to process your words, and your grip hesitantly released on his sleeve. But he wasn’t – he couldn’t – let you get away so easily. His breath was shaky as he placed both of his hands on the wall behind you, pinning you to it. So many times had you two passed each other in this hallway, so many words left unsaid. And now, he was pressing you against it.

“You’ve been thinking about me … for months,” he thought out loud, leaning in a little and nosing your hair. Your scent was intoxicating. That perfume … he could cum in his pants just from smelling it. “For months, you’ve been bringing guys to the apartment to … to what? Make me jealous?” He chuckled under his breath. It took him so long to put it together. “For months, you’ve been touching yourself right before I leave so I go to work fucking hard.” His nose traveled down to your neck, grazing that spot you told him about, and you shuddered. “You’ve been putting me through the wringer and I didn’t even have a clue.”

“You’re … you’re not so innocent.” You tried to keep yourself together, but it was difficult with him pinning you to the wall and – oh, he was already hard in his pants, pressing into you. “You’ve been stealing my panties so you can masturbate with them.”

Aki hummed quietly, pressing his lips so delicately to your neck, as if his cock wasn’t completely strained in his jeans. “I supposed I have,” he whispered against your skin, “for months.”

“Since that night on the deck,” you croaked out, hands balling into fists as he licked a stripe up your neck. If he didn’t stop, you’d surely moan. “But I didn’t say anything – didn’t think about saying anything – because … because we’re roommates.”

“We are roommates,” he said, lifting his head from your neck, his lips hovering so close to yours. “And if we’re just stating facts here, I’ve needed to kiss you since that night.”

You didn’t wait for him. Immediately leaning in, your lips pressed onto his in a hungry kiss. His mouth molded to yours, and he tasted exactly like you thought: like black coffee, cigarettes, those raspberry pastries he always kept in the kitchen. His tongue, slipping into your mouth, tangled with yours in a way that you had only dreamed about. Your hands released from their fists, instead reaching up to twist in his t-shirt, bringing him even closer to you. He’d hardly touched you and you were completely, utterly soaked.

As if hearing your thoughts, his lips broke from yours for just a moment to beg, “I need to touch you.”

“Please,” you whispered back, and his mouth was back on yours.

He dragged one hand down from the wall (his shaky hand, believe it or not), still pressing you against it, and worked on unzipping your trousers. You nuzzled your nose against his as he kissed you deeply, slipping his hand in your pants, past the waistband of your panties and – you were exactly as he dreamed you’d be. Absolutely wet. Just as needy for him as he was for you. “Fuck,” he muttered into the kiss, spreading your soaked folds with two long fingers.

Your lips tore away from his, a trail of spit following, because you simply had to release the moan you’d been holding in for so long. Despite loving the way your mouth fitted against his, he was glad for it, wanting to see your face when he started rubbing your sensitive clit. And fuck, was it the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Your fists on his t-shirt went loose as your body felt like it was made of liquid, angling into his. Your lips pursed, soft whimpers filtering out as he rubbed you in those tight circles.

“So fucking wet f’me,” he mumbled, grazing his lips over yours. “Dreamed about this for months. Fuck, I’ve gotten hard just thinking about this pussy.”

He finally dipped a single finger inside you, and your hips immediately jerked against his hand. Aki let out a shuddering breath when he felt how much you were squeezing just one finger, pumping it in and out of you slowly. “Please,” you whispered, despite his thoughts, “I can take more. I promise.”

You didn’t need to ask him twice. He shoved two fingers inside you, curling them against that spot that had your hips instantly bucking. “Fuck, Aki,” you whined as he plunged those fingers in and out of you, using his thumb to rub your clit.

“Yeah?” He breathed.

“Kiss me.”

Aki moaned from your words alone, kissing you hard while fucking you with his long fingers. He was practically drunk on you: your scent wrapped around him, you tasted like citrus, and the way bucked into his hand … god, he needed to fuck you. So bad. And if you didn’t want that, then he needed to jerk himself off immediately or else he was going to explode in his pants. The last thing he needed was another embarrassing moment tonight.

It only took seconds to have you sighing into the kiss, squeezing his fingers like a vice as you came. His thumb on your clit was relentless, taking you over that lovely peak, as you mewled and cried into his mouth. It was almost religious, the way you moaned, and Aki had never felt closer to God than in this moment.

When the adrenaline subsided, he slowly removed his fingers from you and broke the kiss. You watched him intensely as he brought the fingers covered in your slick to his mouth, tasting you. Your lips fell open slightly, eyes going wide while his own closed, savoring the taste. What the actual fuck, you thought to yourself. How the fuck have we been living under the same roof and it took this long for me to see that?

Without missing a beat, you pushed yourself off the wall, winding your arms around his neck and latching your legs to his waist. He lifted you as if you were made of air, kissing you so that you could taste yourself. Before you could even perceive how much time had passed, you were on his bed, blouse disheveled and trousers undone. Even your hair hadn’t left the updo you put it in every weekday. Your eyes flickered to the right and you giggled to yourself. He had finally shut the door.

His eyes remained on you as he shrugged off his jacket, and then his pants. He was back in the same outfit you saw him in earlier, when your panties had been wrapped around his cock like a birthday present. He hesitated before finally pulling off his shirt, and you saw the scars lining parts of his chest. Definitely not a security guard, you thought to yourself but decided not to ask about it now. You reached up as he stood between your legs, brushing your fingers over the scars, and then dragged them down his abdomen. His frame was thin, but he was more built than you believed, always hiding himself under those oversized button-ups.

He wrapped his hand around your wrist as you touched him so gracefully. “Do you want to …?” His voice was so soft, the question hanging off the edge of his tongue.

And then, you smiled up at him, looking like an angel. “Yes, Aki,” you whispered.

He felt like a kid in a candy store. The only thing – the one person – he’d been dreaming about and looked at him as if he weren’t a machine, or a gun with the trigger pulled, was lying before him and liked him. For months, they’d both said. His dominant hand was shaking as he started unbuttoning your blouse, and when you noticed (though you had observed this the day he moved in), you grabbed his hand and placed it on your cheek. With his left hand and your right, you worked together to undo the buttons until your chest was exposed for him.

Moonlight streamed through his bedroom, the only light source in a seemingly dark area. City lights reflected on you as you pulled your hair free from the updo, those pretty strands fanning on his sheets. His sheets. Because you were in his bed. The blinking lights from corporate buildings outside your little apartment created a halo around your head and – fuck, you really were something religious. For so long, Aki thought only hell existed. I mean, all the Devils were here, contracted to them. But seeing you splayed out so heavenly for him on his bed, he knew then that Angels had to exist too.

He took his time taking your pants off, watching the way you bit your lip when the cold air of his room hit your soaked panties. Your eyes glanced up to his boxers, seeing the indent of his long, thick cock, and your mouth went dry. His fingers hooked on the waistband of your panties, slowly dragging down and throwing them off to the side, hoping you’d forget about them so he could pocket another pair. With you exposed and bare on his bed, he really took a moment to admire you: the way your cheeks flushed, how the halo around your head flickered, the way your arousal seeped out of your pretty pussy and your nipples peaked. He just had to touch you; it would kill him if he didn’t. Leaning down, he began peppering kisses on your neck, your collarbone, before finally latching his lips around one of those sensitive nipples. Your breath stuttered at the sensation, and he used his left hand to palm your other breast, twisting the nipple between two fingers. You writhed under him, and he couldn’t help but grind his clothed cock against you, groaning and swirling his tongue around your nipple in tandem. Locking your legs around his waist, you held him to you so he was forced to keep grinding against you. It felt too good, and he wasn’t even inside you yet.

He tugged on your nipple and released it, breathing heavily as his eyes met yours. “If you don’t let me go, I’m definitely going to cum before I’m even inside you.”

“Poor Aki,” you giggled, letting your legs fall back on the bed. “Would that really be so bad?”

His eyes were burning into yours, serious as a heart attack. “I’ve been fucking my hand to the thought of you for what feels like forever,” he whispered, pressing a light kiss to the valley between your breasts. “I don’t want to ruin this moment.”

Aki moved up so that his lips were hovering over yours again, and he could really see the sparkle of your irises in the moonlight. You reached in between your bodies and gingerly massaged his bulge, feeling how much he’d already soaked his boxers with precum. “You couldn’t ruin anything even if you tried,” you replied, your voice light and airy. “I’m on the pill. I’m ready when you are.”

“Shit,” he groaned at your mention of being on the pill, trembling as you massaged him. This had to be another one of his dreams. Just the thought of being inside you without the barrier of a condom … he was so close to completely exploding. He didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve you, after all the hell he’d witnessed and brought forth into this world. But he couldn’t help himself. He needed to have you, roommates be damned.

He stood up, needing to get away from your gentle hand. You sat up a little to help him tug down his boxers, careful of that shaky hand of his, and his cock sprang free, dripping precum on the floor. Aki, ever the gentleman, laid you back down on his bed with ease, holding your stare as he spread your legs wide for him. He breathed, praying to whatever god placed you in front of him that he wouldn’t cum prematurely. He couldn't remember the last time he had sex, but he was so desperate for you that all he cared about was not tainting this moment, this dream.

Aki grasped his cock, giving it a few hard pumps and grunting, before positioning himself at your entrance. You both seemed to hold your breath as he finally slid in, just an inch at first, and the two of you seemed to release that shaky, nervous breath. “Oh, fuck,” he groaned, burying himself further in your tight warmth, bracing his elbows beside your head.

“Keep going,” you begged. “It’ll fit, Aki. Promise.”

You were going to kill him, he was sure of it. Aki had felt the way you squeezed his fingers, but it was nothing compared to pleasure of being inside you, feeling how tight you really were. So much better than his hand. Once he was fully seated inside you, he opened his eyes just to look into yours. Your lips pursed, legs wrapping around his waist once again, and you slowly nodded for him to continue. His cock twitched.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he muttered, sliding out of you before slamming back in. You cried out, carding your fingers in his hair, and he molded his face in the crook of your neck to muffle his own whimpers. You just felt so, so good – so good that he could cry. To think that his bed had once been so cold, so lonely, but now you were occupying the space, trembling underneath him as his cock slipped in and out of you.

Your moans were like gospel. For so long, Aki had been used to loud noise: to Denji’s complaints, to Power’s shouting, to the Devils’ in his ear. But now, it was just you two on the altar of your apartment, silent except for your heavy breaths mingling and the sound of car horns outside. You were wet and slick like holy water, taking him so nicely despite his size, and god – it was like you were made for him and he was made for you.

You tugged on his hair, needing him so badly even though he was already yours to begin with. He really would have you any way you wanted. All you had to do was ask.

Aki was already so close to release, but he needed you to cum with him. As he fucked into you harder, deeper, his cock curving against that spot that made your eyes roll back, he reached in between you two and found that swollen bundle of nerves in the apex of your thighs. “Aki,” you whined, tears pricking at your eyes as he rubbed your clit. He could die happily now that he heard your voice like that in his ear, knowing it was him that made it happen.

“Yes?” He said, breathless, placing sloppy kisses on your jaw. You clung to him, melting into him like ice cream on a hot summer’s day. “I’m so close. Are you close, angel?”

You whimpered at the nickname. “Almost.”

“Almost?” He fingers went a little faster. “Let’s get you there.”

As his two fingers rubbed tight, small circles on your clit, he angled his cock inside of you so that he could brush your G-spot with every thrust. You were now clutching onto him with all the strength you had left, entwining your body with his and feeling his muscles flex against your stomach. He was so deep now and you were so close and oh my god, Aki Hayakawa had you like putty in his hands.

And it was like he knew it without you even saying it. Because as your walls started to clench around him, he whispered into your ear. “Cum for me, angel. Please, please, need to cum with you.”

Your body convulsed, going tight around his cock as you came. Tears streamed down your cheeks and you called out his name, spurring him to fuck into you faster, reaching his own peak in the middle of yours. He groaned deep into your neck, hips stuttering as he spilled himself inside of you. You kept your legs around his waist, not wanting to miss a drop, and arched yourself against him, coming down from the high of your intense orgasm. Aki was still rubbing your clit slowly, whispering praises into your skin like, “Did so good me … So pretty … Could listen to you cum for hours.”

You two laid like that for a while, feeling his cock soften inside you, panting heavily against each other. Once he finally pulled out of you, your combined releases dripping down your thighs, you laid beside each other on his bed and stared at the ceiling. The silence was comforting, until he whispered, “Please, tell me that wasn’t all a dream.”

Turning your head, you smiled at him. “Do you feel this?” You pinched his arm.

Aki flinched. “Ow.”

“Definitely not a dream,” you chuckled.

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sh1-n0bu · 8 months

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𝔫𝔬𝔟𝔲’𝔰 𝔨𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯 𝔬𝔣 2023!

day 30: choking with il dottore from genshin impact

warnings: choking, slapping, usage of aphrodisiac, dottore is a masochist, cockstepping, foot humping, degrading, cumming untouched, reader is a harbinger

notes: can you guys just tell that i fucking despise this rat????

as harbingers of the tsaritsa and a group of very unlovable, twisted, evil and just genuinely not-so-good people, disturbance at workplace was common. of course, said disturbance ranges from a simple hiss of “i fucking hate you. i hope your next mission goes so unwell that the only casualty will be your tattered corpse” to whatever this is. this could have easily been called as something that most people would call as ‘hate sex’ if only the both of you were not fully clothed.

so technically, this would be counted as ‘hate masturbating’? ah, fuck the labels or those things. right now, the only focus on your mind was to put this annoying bastard in his place.

he really thought he was the shit, didn’t he? the absolute galls of this motherfucker to even dare to put you down and insult you in front of your own subordinates. not just that, he went ahead and put aphrodisiacs into your coffee and his own like the absolute lunatic he was.

how badly you wanted to crush his windpipes in. that would oh so easy with your current position of your hand wrapped nicely around his neck like those beautiful chokers you see on some certain accessory shops. or even one that resembles a collar that is bound tightly around the neck of a rabies infested animal. but with a deranged doctor like dottore, the latter description seem to fit well with how he was moaning and wheezing, clothed cock humping your boots as he panted like a dog.

“you really are a detestable creature, you know that?” you hiss in sheer and utter anger, your other hand joining the other to wrap around his throat more forcefully. both hands on his neck, ready to crush his windpipes in if you wanted.

you had the power. a harbinger who’s currently in the position of tenth may be considered weak amongst fellow harbingers but even then, the tenth fatui harbinger is more than capable to shake an entire nation and to be seen as a threat to an archon.

and that tenth harbinger is you.

so even if dottore may be the second, one of the few who has the capacity to rival a god, right now he was nothing more than a pathetic dog who was humping your shoe. panting and whining loudly with his tongue stuck out, the mad doctor only focuses on the feeling of your hands choking him and the hardened leather of your shoes.

“y-yes.. yes yessshh yesyesyesyesyes oh archons, yes. i am. i’m a detestable creature. your detestable creature” dottore chokes on his spit, a wheezing shrill moan escaping his open mouth as his drool drips down his chin. he seems to like being degraded like this, the movements of his humping becoming more and more frantic on your shoe.

red eyes rolling to the back of his skull, sharp gasps and squeals following until he swore he could see black dots in his vision. he didn’t wanted to have the black spots dancing in his vision! because if so, how was he going to see you? he wanted to see you. that look of just pure anger on your face as you choke the daylights out of him and let him hump you like a dog in heat. no, he needed to see you.

“aaANGH—! kyuuck hhang♡︎♡︎ gck! ♡︎♡︎” a loud intake of breath is heard as your hands let go of the position around his neck, allowing him to breathe for a moment. not too long after, without even allowing him to catch a full breath, his head lolls to the side with a stinging feeling on the side of his cheek. did you just…?

“eyes on me. who said you could go around tearing your gaze away from me, rat” he could briefly hear your voice hiss through the ringing in his ears. muffled, faint, hard to tell if the voice was truly falling from your lips or if it was one of his manic episode voices talking.

either way, it was still your voice that was blessing his ears. it was your shoe that was now stepping on his clothed, weeping cock and he was thankful. maniac and downright insane but dottore knows a holy being when he sees and hears one. he may have not worshipped any of the archons, but for you? the mad doctor would gladly kiss the soles of your shoes over and over. hell, he would even thank you just for being in the same room as you.

call him unstable as much as you would like and he knows that. he even revels in the title and he would gladly wear that title for his entire life if he could be with you. dottore always had this odd obsession with you. since your titling of becoming the tenth fatui harbinger, he had developed this odd sense of fascination.

fascination to dottore, but unhealthy obsession to others.

not like the doctor cares. he had long since gave up trying to reason with other beings and had lost almost all contact with social interaction if not for the harbingers gathering or his experiments with his lab rats. until you joined his ranks.

“i said eyes on me, doctor” you grunt, slapping him across his face again. on the other cheek this time. that seemed to have done the work to catch his attention successfully as his hazy blood eyes focus on you. his cheeks were the same shade of red as his eyes, however it was hard to tell whether it was from your forceful hits or his blushing.

“ougck—! yess.. ye-es yes yesyesyesyes, eyes on you♡︎eyes solely on you♡︎” the blue haired man nods frantically, slight twitch and wince in his eyes showing that the added pressure to his cock was just a tad bit painful for him. even a masochist has their limits. but did he care? no. no he absolutely did not care. if anything, the crazy doctor wanted it to hurt since it was you who was delivering these delicious cocktail of pleasure and pain. he wanted it to hurt. he wanted it to feel good.

with another slap to his cheek for his continued disobedience — for constantly trying to look down at where your shoe was stepping on his stained pants — the doctor lets out a choked noise akin to a mewl before his entire body spasms. thighs shaking and twitching before a strangled noise is let out as the stain in his pants become darker and darker. the stain moving and spreading, some of it even seeping through the fabrics of his clothes as it drips onto the floor below.

“did you… just cum untouched?” you ask, doing a double take as you lift up your shoe to stare at the white translucent juice drip down onto the floor, leaving a tiny puddle. dottore only giggles, almost as if he was in a drunken haze, as he slowly lifts up his face to stare at you. he looked positively fucked up.

“do that again, pleaasshee♡︎?” dottore drawls out.

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normal-thoughts-official · 3 months

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It's actually insane how brave Wyll is when it comes to Mizora. Not only by not killing Karlach but also all the small ways he defies her - calling her an asshole, saying she's full of shit, even when Mizora is literally choking him he's still telling her that she's a liar. Whenever she shows up it's pretty much guaranteed that she will have to threaten him with lemurehood because he simply refuses to play nice. Even if it accomplishes absolutely nothing and in fact is actively dangerous to sass her

And like. Of course this ties in with how Wyll has pretty much nonexistent self preservation skills and a sense of moral fortitude so strong he can't even pretend to not be hostile towards her. But i also think it ties with Mizora's obsession with him

Because while we all know Mizora is evil and annoying on principle and all that shit, she seems to be particularly interested in tormenting Wyll. I have to assume shit like putting a tracker on him and showing up randomly just to spite him and staying in camp just to be annoying even after the contract is over are Wyll specials, because if she did this to every single one of her warlocks then she would have time for nothing the fuck else. And we know from Karlach that she's generally more worried about sucking Zariel's toes, so

(Also, I've been told that in early access she was like... Straight up jealous if you romanced Wyll, so, again. Obsessed with him in particular)

I always got the impression that she was so evil and annoying to him because she was overcompensating. Mizora is a cambion, which means she's half human, which means that in Hell's hierarchy she is fucking trash. Even the official cambion lore states that they are often rejected in both realms and struggle to earn one of their parents' approval. And it's obvious that in Mizora's case she's aiming to be accepted in the Hells.

I've seen some people claim that Mizora is too cartoonishly evil, and while that is objectively true... I think it works precisely because it's so cartoonish. I'm thinking particularly of how she describes her home in the Hells being all "oh, how I adore it, the delicious agony of it all". It's so over the top it's eyeroll worthy. I don't think Zariel herself would be Like This about it

In other words: Mizora is a tryhard

And Karlach even implies that Mizora resented her because she was Zariel's favorite, which is why I think Mizora's tryhardness was intentional as opposed to just a lazily written villain. She wants to fit in the Hells so bad it makes her look stupid. And she never will, because no matter how over the top she is about being Generically Evil, she is simply not that powerful or important.

So she overcompensates, and then she uses Wyll as her punching bag. If her own superiors will always see her as vermin, then at least she can cope with that by treating others that way as well.

But like I said, she will have no time left to suck Zariel's toes if she spends all her time tormenting every single warlock under her patronage, so the question is: why Wyll?

Obviously his unwavering goodness is the biggest reason. His soul is already damned and yet he refuses to be selfish with the time he has left on the material plane. Mizora can own him, but she can't corrupt him, and that makes her hate him. The fact that even despite her best efforts he is still recognized and beloved as a hero has got to sting too, considering she tries so fucking hard to be the Evilest Cashier In Hell or whatever. And the fact that he still manages to belong in his world (however isolated and lonely he obviously is) despite his connection to hers and she can't belong in her world because of her connection to his... Well, jealousy is to be expected.

But I think his refusal to play nice with her also plays a big role.

There's the obvious "this makes her resent him even more" factor; if Mizora wants to feel superior, it must piss her off to no end that Wyll refuses to bow to her, even if he does her bidding.

But, paradoxically, this also makes her feel more powerful.

Because at the end of the day, she does own Wyll's soul, and he does have to do her bidding, even if he doesn't go quietly. And the fact that he hates her so openly makes it all the more satisfying to have him do what she wants anyway. In Wyll's words, "the more bullshit she pulls, the more [he's] forced to swallow". His hatred for her is exactly why she wants him so bad, even though she obviously hates him just as much.

And so this is why she's so desperate to get Wyll's soul back, and why, even if he breaks the pact, she still makes it a point to stay in camp just to fucking spite him. Because Wyll is the only warlock that actually makes her feel appropriately Powerful and Evil, if we assume that her other warlocks are simply not as good aligned as Good Alignment Georg or even just don't want the trouble of spiting her for no reason. She can be obeyed and tolerated and maybe even revered by the other warlocks, but only Wyll can make her feel like an absolute, inescapable power. Because the other warlocks choose to obey her. Wyll makes it clear that he has to, and thus, she feels like she is mighty.

And obviously I know that the whole "person who has it all is obsessed with the one person who doesn't obey them" trope is a well known cliche, but I think Mizora and Wyll's dynamic is unique in that Mizora doesn't actually want to make Wyll bow to her and respect her as an authority; she wants him to fight back so she can feel like she's winning.

(And, of course, because Mizora doesn't actually have it all; she's just a petty errand girl who wants to feel special)

So, yeah. Wyll's incredible bravery in constantly defying her is exactly why she is so eager to keep him

#maybe all of this is obvious and again i know this isn't exactly a groundbreaking new dynamic but i do think it combines several elements #of dynamics that don't usually go together #if that makes sense #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 #wyll ravengard #mizora #mizora bg3 #meta #overflowing trashcan

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veethefreeelf · 11 months

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How many times does it take to get smarter? Y.JH

Summary:

Jeonghan and you start a fwb relationship after years of being best friends. He only has two rules: no feelings and no kissing. Who’s going to break the rules first?

Wordcount: around 6.3k

Warnings: unprotected sex, vaginal penetration, oral sex (f. receiving), fingering, bossy Jeonghan

Requested: Yes, here

P.S - Italic is for thoughts mainly from Y/N’s perspective and quotes. Bold is for text messages and/or calls between characters

As you sit on your couch on your day off and stare at the message in your phone, you ask yourself: How did this all start anyway? How are you sitting here, sexting your best friend in the middle of the afternoon and absolutely loving it? Well, for most of your shared friends, ‘this was bound to happen sooner or later’ as they so lovingly put it but, for both you and Jeonghan (the one on the receiving end of the sexting) this was never supposed to happen and it can end just as abruptly as it started.

You don’t remember exactly who leaned in and started all of this but you do remember the conversation after your boundaries as best friends had been completely crossed. While still naked and tangled, Jeonghan immediately stated he would like to continue doing this with you on a friends with benefits basis only, and if you agreed, he had only two main rules for this whole thing.

First rule was a pretty cliché one: no feelings. You remember laughing at this when it first said it and teasing him for such a cliché move.

“It’s cliché for a reason, love. It happens more than it should” you remember how serious he sounded.

Second rule was an unbelievable one and it made you laugh even harder than the previous: no kissing. Now it makes sense why he did not kiss you at all during that first time you were together even though you were very (VERY) interested in doing so.

“Hannie, are you being serious? Who am I? The mistress you can’t kiss because if you do, it’s considered cheating on the non-existing housewife waiting for you at home?” you really couldn’t stop laughing.

“Kissing is reserved for people I want a serious relationship with and see myself being with in the long run” he said, even more serious this time around.

You stopped laughing immediately and… It hurt. That comment stung. Looking back on it, you realize this may have been a sign that you should not say yes to his proposition. That there was only one way this ‘agreement’ was going to end: badly. WIth you in tears.

But you ignored that initial sting and pain. You ignored that initial sign from your brain and heart and said yes.

Jeonghan let you know there were essentially no other rules. You could call and/or text whenever you needed him and wanted to have him and he would do the same. Your friendship would remain the same, still having your weekly dinner and movie/show and, whenever either of you wanted to end this, for whatever reason, it would immediately end. One thing he kept saying was “No matter what, no matter how this ends, I still want you in my life, love. You are one of the most important people in my life, and that will never change”.

You nodded silently. But of course he would not let you get away with just nodding. He takes out his most powerful weapon against you. His pinkie. He wanted you to pinkie promise that your friendship would remain the same after you were done fucking each other casually. You remember how much a pinkie promise means to Jeonghan. The words ‘It can never be broken’ pop up in your mind and you hesitate.

This was sign two. You got two signs from yourself during that same initial conversation with him to stop this before you both ruined what you have built together over the years.

Yet… You did it. You lifted your pinkie and you made that promise to each other. Why did it suddenly feel like you wouldn’t be able to hold up the end of your promise when the time came? ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it’ you had told yourself.

After that first time, you didn’t speak to each other for two weeks. The only messages exchanged between the two of you were the ones he sent to cancel your weekly meetings. You thought this was very strange. In all the years you have known each other and started this weekly tradition, he missed one, maybe two in all that time. This was unlike the Jeonghan you knew and you started to wonder if the gravity of the situation had finally caught up with him.

You have always had the tendency to overthink things. And a tendency to: ‘hurt yourself with your own imagination’ as Jeonghan lovingly put it. So you told yourself that maybe he was just busy with work or… Well… Maybe another fuck-buddy or one-night stand. That’s the thing about him, he rarely dates anyone seriously. However, fuck-buddies and one-night stands are something he revels in more than most.

You never thought about it much. Always just figured he has high standards for who he dates and just wants to keep the loneliness at bay by having these agreements with different women.

Now that you were one of these women, you wanted to know if this would be an exclusive fuck-buddy relationship. For health purposes, obviously. Not because you are a very jealous person who does not like sharing, of course. God, you hoped he was just busy with work and not with someone else. If he had been with someone else, did this mean you hadn’t been good enough? That whatever happened between the two of you didn’t satisfy him? That would be a depressing revelation since you were left extremely satisfied after your first time with Jeonghan.

As you sit on the edge of your bed, overthinking everything about the last time you and him were face-to-face, your phone starts to ring next to you and of course, it’s the man himself: Yoon Jeonghan.

“You home?” he states plainly.

“Well, hello to you too, Mr. Yoon. How have you been? Good! Me? Been good too, busy with work but you know-”

“Stop the games, Y/N. I’m not in the mood. You home or do I have to call someone else?” he said as he rudely interrupted your very passive aggressive answer.

“I’m home” you answered and swallowed thickly.

“Good. Be there in 30. Be ready” he said in a very low voice and proceeded to hang up on you.

Shit, that was new, you thought. You were not quite sure what to make of that but you remembered the time that you accidentally heard the boys talk about how Jeonghan was less than vanilla with most people he slept with and then you started feeling oh so excited for him to arrive.

Those 30 minutes went by so unbearably slow. You remember it as if it was yesterday. You spent those 30 minutes getting ready for him. You showered, used your strawberry lotion that he loved so much and put on the tiniest, filthiest lingerie piece you had on. You then started to overthink again. Just because he had called like that, it didn’t mean he would want you. Were you being presumptuous? ‘Better put a robe on, just in case I’m extremely wrong’ you thought and you went to your closet to find the baby blue silk robe you loved so much.

He rang your doorbell right on time which was very on brand for the Jeonghan you have known for so long. You were a bit shaky walking to the door but you kept telling yourself ‘It’s just your friend, Jeonghan. Just your friend. Nothing to be shaking for. Your heart has no business beating this hard and fast for him’.

You opened the door and he immediately walked past you into your living room. He started taking off his jacket and shoes.

“What are you standing there for? Go to the bedroom, take your clothes off and wait for me on the bed” he stated while staring you up and down and realizing you had a much too short robe on you.

“Excuse me?” you defied him. Of course you did. You had always done that as his friend and that was not about to change just because you two had found yourselves in that position at that moment in time.

“Talk back to me again and I’ll leave right now and find myself someone with less of a fucking smart mouth” he said while he looked feral and very ready to be true to his previous words.

You had not answered him. Instead, you went to the bedroom, took off your robe and waited for him on the bed as he had told you. While there, you heard him moving around in the bathroom and started to realize you were probably in for a wild ride that evening.

He walked into the bedroom and when he first looked at you, he stopped and just stared. He was breathing heavily and licking his lips.

“For someone who likes to talk back to me so much, you sure were ready to be fucked tonight weren’t you, love?” he said and you gulped.

“Better safe than sorry. I like being prepared”

“Hmm… Good girl” he responded and you almost melted into your mattress right then and there.

“Are you going to do something or just stare at me all night, Hannie?”

“Let me be clear since you don’t seem to know your place. I make the rules here, not you. I move when I want to. I do what I want to. And you will be a good girl and take everything I give you, when I give you. Do you understand?” he asked and you audibly scoffed at him.

He squinted his eyes at you and cracked his neck. You got scared he was going to walk out and in that moment you deeply hated your mouth for always being so fucking honest.

“One more scoff or mouthy comeback and I’m walking out of here. That’s a fucking promise. Now, are you going to be a good girl and know your place from now on or do I need to leave and end this fucking deal?”

“Stay. I’ll be good…” you answered in a barely audible voice.

“You’ll have to speak louder, love. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s just me. Your Hannie, yeah? You trust me, right?”

“Of course I do. This is just… Very new. Maybe… Be a bit patient with me if I screw up, yeah?” you asked him in what you considered to be your most innocent look.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll be more patient. Just had a very shitty day” he said while he walked closer to you.

“Let me make it better, Hannie” you said while you started to unbuckle his belt and undo his zipper. He looked down at you and held your face with both hands.

“You look so fucking gorgeous in that tiny fucking thing, love. You know that, hmm?” he said while he held your face.

“Thank you, Hannie…” you answered shyly while you continued to take his pants and underwear off.

Once his bottom half was fully displayed to you, you started to stroke his cock while you both stared at each other. It started to leak with pre-cum and you took advantage of that to stroke harder and faster.

“You gonna put this cock in your mouth or just stroke it like we’re teenagers hiding from our parents, baby?” he said breathily. And, for a split second your mind started to think about that pet name. Baby. He had never called any of his flings by that pet name. Well, at least not in front of you but you rationalized that behind closed doors he probably had done it before. You were not different nor special.

You chose not to answer him. You just pushed him a bit away from you, you moved from the bed to the floor, on your knees and dove in.

You had never really enjoyed sucking dick. It had always been something you do for your partner but it never had any effect on you. Until this man, that is. At that moment, you were desperate. You wanted to suck the life out of him through his dick. You were going to make sure he would never forget the kind of head you gave him.

You were sloppy and loud. Spit was running down your chin and you had started easing up into fitting his whole cock in your mouth (and throat). It had been a long while since you had had a cock this big and since you deep throated. When you had finally managed to fully swallow all of him, he pulled you back with a groan. He was panting hard when he pulled you up to your feet by one of your hands and by your hair.

“You’re so greedy. You need to be taught some manners” he said as he backed you up until you reached your bed.

He took off the last pieces of clothing he had on and pushed you down on the bed. You moved up on the bed with him as he started to settle between your legs.

“Look at you. So fucking sloppy…” he said while he spread the remaining spit on your chin all over your face.

“Hmm… Just the way I like it though…” he continued praising you.

He started touching you. Started by slowly running his hand from your neck down to your hip bone while he stared at you. This had been very different from the first time you two had been together. The first time had been rushed. No suspense, mostly no foreplay. Straight to the point. This time, it seemed he was wanting to take his time and was in no mood to rush anything.

Fuck, you wanted to kiss him. Bad. You had to keep reminding yourself ‘No kissing. Don’t kiss him. Don’t lean in. Don’t you dare ruin this’. You decided to start touching him, to try and prevent your urges from coming through and breaking one of his rules.

You started to run your fingers through his hair and use your nails on his scalp, just the way he had always loved it. You then moved your other hand down his chest and lightly scratched his chest in the process. He hissed and slapped your thigh.

“No scratching and no marks, baby” he said while he started to kiss down your neck.

“Are those new rules, Hannie?” you asked as you started to get more and more breathless.

“In a sense, yes. They apply for me but not for you. No marking me but I can mark you however I see fit. Understood?”

“Unfair…” you stated as you began to pout at him.

“No pouting. These are my rules. Not too late to back out, love” he said while then moving his hand to your back to undo your bra.

All you could do was moan. Something flashed in your mind ‘Not too late to back out’. You quickly put that idea out of your mind. You didn’t want to back out. You had wanted this and you were going to continue with this deal.

That was the third real sign. Just a quick flash. A brief warning from your heart most likely. But again, you ignored it.

“I need an answer, love. Is this too much for you?” he asked and stopped moving to look into your eyes while he waited for your answer.

“No, it’s fine. Just… I might forget them in the heat of the moment, so I’ll need your help enforcing the rules” you answered and he laughed, almost mocking you.

“Don’t worry, love. I definitely won’t forget them. I’ll stop you if it gets to that” he said and then continued to take off your bra.

With the bra out of the way, he started to kiss and leave hickies all over your chest. Wherever his mouth wasn’t, his hands were. You felt so surrounded, so engulfed. You were getting louder by the second and you knew he was enjoying it. He kept humming when you got particularly loud and continued to abuse that specific spot until a full mark had begun to form.

Once he was satisfied with his work, he leaned back on his heels between your legs and stared at you while running his hands through your legs.

“You look even better with my marks all over you, baby” he said and he noticed you started to get a bit red and shy and refused to look him in the eye. He tapped your thigh twice and you looked at him (finally). He then smiled at you, leaned over and completely cupped your pussy with his hand. You started to pant almost instantly.

“Shit, baby. You’re already so fucking wet. You were trying to give me shit on marking you but look at this fucking mess you’re making” he said as he started to run his fingers through the wet patch in your (now) soaked panties.

“Hannie…” you moaned as he kept stroking you ever so lightly.

“Hmm… You sound so pretty, baby” he whispered in your ear.

He then began to slide your panties off. He was being so slow, so meticulous. You didn’t know how much longer you could wait for him to touch you. You also knew that if you had started to protest, he would have probably given you an even more difficult time.

He finally leaned in. Head between your legs, he began to blow air on your now swollen and begging to be touched clit while he held your pussy lips open with one hand. You hummed and instinctively moved your hips close to his mouth. You immediately thought you had fucked up.

The look you had in your eyes must have shown that fear because next thing you know Jeonghan is laughing at you.

“I’ll let that one slide since I feel generous at the moment” he said and before you could have thanked him, he dove in and latched his mouth to your pussy. He grabbed your thighs with both hands and started to eat you out desperately. If you thought you had been sloppy when sucking his dick, he was even sloppier while eating you out. He was making out with your pussy like his life depended on it. Your moans had started to get louder, especially anytime he sucked and rolled your clit on his tongue.

He kept humming and moaning along with you until he finally decided to insert one finger into your pussy. He had not kept that finger alone for too long and decided to join a second finger into your wet pussy. With two fingers and with how wet you were, the noises echoing through your bedroom were indecent, filthy. And you began to get closer and closer to the edge and it was when he moved his other hand to your tit and began to grab and massage it that you were pushed over the edge with a cry and moan of his name.

He moved back up your body and started to kiss your cheeks and neck softly while you were coming down from your high.

“You were so fucking good for me, baby. So good… Let me know when you’re ready” he said while you tried to calm your breathing down.

“Fuck… I’m ready… Please, Hannie… Don’t make me wait anymore…” you moaned in desperation.

He started to move his cock up and down your folds and as he was about to get inside of you, you stopped him.

“Condom? Tell me you brought one, please” you said while you looked in his eyes.

“I thought since we started this deal, we wouldn’t need it anymore. I know you’re on birth control”

“I mean… As long as you’re not fucking anyone else while you’re fucking me… I guess we can. But if you plan to have more fuck-buddies or one-night stands or whatever you want to call them, then no. We will need a condom” you said very seriously. You wanted him to understand that it was your turn to set up at least this one rule for yourself.

He looked at you with a strange expression. Almost disappointed that you even thought about him fucking other people when just two weeks before, he had proposed this deal to you.

“Of course I’m not fucking anyone else. You know I don’t have multiple fuck-buddies at the same time. Definitely not now, when I have this deal with you, love” he said and he inched closer to your face. You held your breath. ‘Is he gonna kiss me?’ you asked yourself. He rubbed his nose in yours and asked:

“So… Condom? No condom? Your call, love” and he continued rubbing his cock in your folds.

“No condom. Just get inside me. Now”

“Bossy” he smirked and finally (finally) got inside you. You both sighed and cursed under your breath when he bottomed out which made you both giggle.

He licked his lips, leaned back and placed both your legs on his shoulders. Then, he started with long strokes which quickly transformed into him pounding into you. He was fucking you hard. And with this position, he was kept at a distance from your lips which made you think about how fucking brilliant the man between your legs truly was.

The sound of skin slapping, of how wet your pussy was, was driving you both insane. You could tell he was quickly losing his composure and so were you. You were still sensitive and you were already beginning to feel that familiar burning inside of you. Fuck, you were close. Very close.

He leaned in, bent you like a pretzel and whispered so so close to your lips:

“I got you. Cum, baby. Let go. I’m right here”

With his hand around your thigh and thumb on your clit rubbing furiously, you came with a loud scream of his name.

“Hannie… Hannie… Sensitive…” you said still panting.

“I know, baby. I’m right there… Fuck… Where? Tell me where”

You knew exactly what he was asking and your answer may not have been the smartest in that moment, but honestly, you didn’t give a fuck about being smart, not while he was between your legs looking at you like that.

“Inside, please. Please, Hannie. I need it”

And then, it was his turn to spill ropes of cum into you. ‘Begging. Of course. Predictable but expected’ you had thought about what triggered him to finally let go.

Jeonghan laid on you, trying to keep most of his weight off of you while still recovering from his high.

It was like everything hit you at once. You went there again. You two really crossed that line again and from the looks of it, it would continue happening after that moment. You… Didn’t know exactly what you were feeling. Looking back now… Maybe you knew exactly what you were feeling and that’s why you were so scared in that moment after everything that had transpired between you that night.

He got up, went to the bathroom and came back to clean you. He didn’t say a word and neither did you. He laid back down and pulled you close. You remembered thinking ‘This is not how fuck-buddies are supposed to act’. And you asked him:

“Do you cuddle all your fuck-buddies or should I consider myself lucky?”

“You should consider yourself special, love” he said right before falling asleep and you had felt it then. The fourth sign. You made a terrible mistake that night. You believed him.

The next morning he had left and said he would call you or text you or ‘whatever the fuck’. Ever the poet. And this is how this journey that you are now contemplating while sitting on your couch waiting for his text started.

After that second time, you two had met up regularly, sometimes multiple times a week. You always stayed at each other's place overnight and had always continued moving forward in your life.

Your friendship was still the same, nothing major had changed and it was going great. But you kept waiting for that other shoe to drop. You knew sooner or later that it would because after the last time you were together, you remembered thinking that you didn’t want him to leave that morning. That maybe, instead of meeting up in your bed next time, you could meet up at the restaurant you’ve always wanted to go down the street from his house that he never took you to because ‘That is way too romantic for us, love’.

That last time you were together, the one that made you think all of this… It was strange. You had felt at the time, something had shifted for him too because while he was fucking you on his kitchen counter, he leaned in so close… You could almost taste him… And then he moved away and flipped you over so that you were now bent over the counter and as far away from his lips as possible. Jeonghan had wanted to kiss you then, you were sure of it. You didn’t know what to feel. Happy because he had wanted to? Or devastated at the fact he still didn’t kiss you?

Fifth sign. You were devastated. You considered stopping everything. Just putting an end to your arrangement. You already knew you were fucked for him and you were also painfully aware that he did not feel the same way.

You didn’t text or call him. He, in turn, texted and called you multiple times. You had claimed you were on a business trip and out of the country. You were just hiding at home. Too much of a coward to break it off and too hurt to see him.

Of course this didn’t last long. Jeonghan knew you better than anyone and he knew when you were lying and avoiding something. Even though he knew, he had left you alone for that week. He probably had figured you needed time to deal with whatever was holding you back. But after that week, he showed up at your door. You didn’t make a sound, wondering if he would just leave if you did not answer any of the rings or knocks.

“I know you’re in there, Y/N. I gave you a week of lying and hiding. No more. Let me in, please, love”

Nothing. You didn’t want to see him. ‘Why is he like this?’ you had asked yourself. But you knew if the roles were reversed, you would be doing the exact same thing at his door and would not be leaving until he opened it so you knew the only way out of this was through it.

You opened the door, turned and started walking to your couch. You started playing whatever you were watching before he showed up and pretended to be paying attention to it. ‘Shit’ you thought. You knew he saw right through you.

“Are you really going to do this? You think I don’t know you enough to know what you’re pulling?” he asked, sitting on the couch with you and staring at you.

“I’m fine, Hannie. Just wanted to be alone for a while. Simple” you told him. You hated playing this card on him but he knew that once in a while you got a bit down about your family and the struggles with those relationships and you always used to tell him ‘Sometimes all I need is some alone time and I figure it out’.

“You could’ve told me instead of lying though. You know I hate lies. You promised a long time ago, no lies between us, remember?”

You stared at him.

“I’m sorry, Hannie. Didn’t want to burden you, that’s all”

He had looked at you almost as if trying to figure out what you were thinking. Trying to understand why you had lied and kept lying. He must have decided then, it wasn’t worth asking anymore and he just put his arm around you, looked at the TV and asked:

“What are we watching, then?”

You had indeed started to watch the show with him but that quickly turned into something else. And again, this time was even stranger than the last.

He had been so gentle with you, always whispering sweet nothings. Things you thought should only be whispered to a significant other, not a friend, not a fuck-buddy. No. This felt very different.

That night, it felt like he made love to you. He laid you back on the couch after stripping both of you naked. He took his time eating you out like you were his last meal and only after you came 3 times from his mouth alone did he start fucking you. Or at the time, you thought he was going to fuck you but he surprised you. He held both your hands and kept them intertwined while he slowly thrusted into you. You lost track of time. It felt surreal, it felt like you were dreaming.

In the middle of all the moaning and panting and whispering, he did something that you never expected. He… Kissed you. It wasn’t soft or gentle. It was a passionate kiss, tongues intertwined, moaning like he needed this like he needed air to breathe. Such a contrast from how he was thrusting into you. And you let him. You kissed him back and you remember thinking ‘A kiss between friends shouldn’t feel this way’.

Your heart was pounding and you wanted to feel his but he had kept your hands above your head intertwined with his and would not let go.

That night, after you both came and he cleaned you up. He didn’t say a word, just like during your second time. Except this time, he did not stay the night.

He got dressed and walked out. Without even a spare glance at you. You knew then. The sixth and final sign before you had decided, it was time to come clean and end this.

And that’s precisely what you were trying to do when you started texting him. However, as usual he had other plans and that’s why texting turned into sexting which turned into you reliving everything that has happened in the last couple of months between you.

This realization snaps you back into reality and you abruptly delete the very graphic text you were about to send and send another one instead.

“Come over whenever you can. I need to talk to you about something” you sent.

“What a way to kill a boner, Y/N. Let’s keep having fun now, I’ll come over when this meeting ends” and you wondered why you even thought his response was going to be any different.

“I’m serious, Jeonghan. No more games for today. Come over when you can and we’ll talk then” you sent and put your phone on silent. You didn’t want a back and forth, you needed him to know you were serious.

You were sure he knew though. Very rarely did you call him Jeonghan. It was always ‘angel’ or ‘Hannie’. Never Jeonghan.

You knew what was going to happen once he was there. Your heart was about to be broken by your favorite person in the world. You wanted to have hope, but you knew better than that. You knew him better than that. You were never special. The only difference between you and the usual girls he found, was that you had been best friends before. That was it. Nothing else to it.

After thinking about how you were going to tell him the truth. You decided to be as blunt as possible. He always loved that about you. When you were completely honest with him about everything. Even if the shit you said sometimes hurt to hear.

He got to your apartment almost an hour after that text. That was fairly quickly during his work day so he must have known you meant what you texted.

“So… Should I sit down for this, love? You’re not dying are you?” he joked.

However, when he saw the look in your eyes he knew. This was not a joking matter and this moment wasn’t about him. It was about you.

“I love you, Jeonghan”

He stared at you.

“And no, I don’t mean in a ‘best friends’ type of way. I’m in love with you. If I’m being honest with both of us, I always have been. From the day I met you. But I knew.. I was never your type. Not then… Definitely not now. So I settled. I became your best friend. I realized I wanted to stay by your side even if you never saw me the way I wanted you too. It was… well… Stupid of me. Of course I only realized this once you started dating someone. It was painful but I pushed it down. If I’ve learned anything about my shitty childhood and most of my shitty life is to compartmentalize things. So, I put the box with all my feelings for you deep inside of my soul and pushed it down anytime I thought that dam would break. Until now. You were right. Clichés are clichés for a reason. Except in this case, I was already in love with you. I just hoped you would fall too.”

You knew it was a lot to process but now that you opened this dam, you couldn’t close it anymore. You were sobbing now looking at him and you couldn’t tell what he was thinking at all. No emotion was showing in his face. He too knew all too well to compartmentalize and he had a much better poker face than yours.

“Don’t worry though. I have no illusions that you feel the same way. I know you don’t. You made that perfectly clear after we fucked the first time. ‘Kissing is reserved for people I want a serious relationship with and see myself being with in the long run’. That really fucking hurt. The person I loved most in the world telling me I’m simply not good enough for them. I’m good enough to fuck though, apparently” you chuckled darkly.

“I know you kept saying that no matter what, you still wanted me in your life. What you forgot to wonder was if at the end of this deal, I would still want you in my life. I do. But not as a friend. Not as a fuck-buddy. I want all of it. And…I know you can’t give that to me. Even if you kissed me last time. I know you didn’t mean it like that. That’s why you left, right? Because you thought I was going to get sentimental about it. Well… I did. Cried myself to sleep in fact. You may have broken that rule first but I broke the most important rule long before we started this.” you kept going and now… Now he was also holding back tears, realizing this is not just the end of the deal. It’s the end of you two.

“I don’t blame you for any of it. In fact, you gave me plenty of options to back out. But I was greedy. I wanted to know what it was like. To be with you. Even if it was pretend, even if none of it was ever real. I wanted to feel it. What the ones good enough for you felt before me and what others will in the future. I needed to know. Even if now I am hurting and will keep hurting for a long time… Maybe for the rest of my life.”

You were done. Now, the worst part came. You were about to give him an out and you knew he was going to take it but you had to know. You had to be sure.

“I know this is a lot to take in and I know you probably feel blindsided and overwhelmed. But I also know your answer. I just needed you to hear my side. Now that you have, it’s time to make your choice. Stay here and talk to me about this, which means giving us a chance. Or leave, without saying a word. Without looking back, like you did the last time we saw each other. And I’ll know for sure.”

He started to move.

“Before you make your decision though, know that whatever decision you make is final. There will be no regrets. No reconnecting in a few years when you think enough time has passed. If you walk out. We are done. Our paths will never converge or cross again. I love you Jeonghan. But I have to love myself more.”

He nodded. Audibly gulped. And then did what you were already expecting from him.

He left.

He left you.

Just as abruptly as it started, it had now ended.

Not just the deal, no.

Everything.

You knew. You knew this would be his choice but why did it still fucking hurt this much.

There will never be another Jeonghan in your life. He was everything to you, even now. While you are crying and tearing pictures apart. You know.

Life as you know it was done. You will have to carry on with a broken heart that will never be healed.

But you are proud of yourself. You spent so much of your life choosing others over yourself and today, you chose yourself.

Eventually, the broken heart won’t be as loud. Time will help. You will still hurt, always for him but you will be better. You will be yourself again just with a few more scars.

As for Jeonghan… He also knew.

He knew there will never be another you.

He knew that night when he left. He doesn’t kiss anyone accidentally. No, he learned that the hard way a long time ago. He had wanted to kiss you. And not just that night. All the other times before then too.

He told himself it was the sex. It was just too good. It was clouding his judgment.

He didn’t have feelings for you, not at all. It just wasn’t possible. Not after all these years. Right? Or did he.. Always feel this way? Was that why he acted the way he did and jumped at the first opportunity to have you in his bed?

He knew. Finally.

He also knows now you will never forgive him. The pinky promise had finally been broken.

He will have to settle. All his worries about the future. About dating only the right people. People worthy of him. Everything makes sense now.

Most people were not worthy of him only after he met you. You showed him what love was from the start and no one could measure up.

It’s too late now.

And besides, he’s the one that was never worthy of you. Never once. And he never will be.

Please let me know if you’d like a part 2 of this. I am a happy endings fan so I might be down to write it if you guys want it too so please reach out and let me know! And let me know if you liked it please CHEERS 🥂

PS: You can find part 2 here

#jeonghan smut #yoon jeonghan smut #seventeen smut #jeonghan fic #jeonghan #yoon jeonghan #yoon jeonghan fic #anon ask #requested #vee's writings

2K notes · View notes

angelbwrry · 2 months

Note

( same person that sent the last request about ony btw!)

can u write bout how he’ll handle us if we have an attitude and start talking crazy to him

😭I feel like a slut rn imagining it but love ur writing though 💕💕!!

mdni,18

you stand in the doorway, arms crossed,staring at your dread-head fiancé.the tension in the room is palpable.you can feel your heart thundering in your chest, each beat sounding like your own undoing.ony sits on the couch, playing his playstation, unaware of the storm brewing inside of you. the continuous click of his fingers across the controller further ignites your anger.

“are you even fucking listening to me?” you snap, your voice is sharp and cutting.

ony sighs, pulling his eyes to look at his girlfriend. he doesn’t even know why you’re mad. recently, it seems like you’re always mad. last week it was because he forgot vinaigrette with your chipotle and now it’s this. ony was never the argument type, which was a bad combo because you always said what was on your mind. ony hated your attitude, and hated the way your mouth got when you had an attitude.

mhm, is all he musters out.

his nonchalance only fuels your anger. how can he be so indifferent? each time he doesn’t say anything, it’s like a slap to the face. you’re mad because he’d driven your car and didn’t put gas in it. yes, he’d given you the money after you confronted him, but it still irritated you that you had to do it.

"it’s a big deal to me," you retort, your voice trembling with emotion. "if i put my foot through this tv, maybe then you’ll pay attention.yeah?”

ony sighs, finally putting his controller down and giving you his full attention. "look,i just don't think it's worth getting this upset over," he says, trying to keep his tone calm and reasonable. "we can talk about it, but there's no need to blow it out of proportion."

but to you, it feels like he's minimizing your feelings, brushing them off as if they don't matter.the hurt and frustration bubble up inside you, threatening to spill over. you want him to understand, to see things from your perspective, but it feels like you're speaking different languages.

before you know it your feet are padding across the tan carpet,fingers snatching the plug from the wall.ony groans as his game powers off,there goes all his game progress.

“yo, y/n you’re tripping.”

“tripping? oh, you haven’t seen anything yet.have fun picking up your clothes, cause i’m about to throw all your shit off the balcony.”

you spin on your heels, ony hot on your tail as you enter the bedroom.you feel his hand grasp around your wrist and spin you around to face him, just when you open your mouth to spew the vilest things he presses his lips against yours.

you try to hold onto the anger, to remind yourself of why you’re mad, but his touch is rough and urgent, sending sparks through your body. your head starts spinning, the world around you fading away. his kiss is relentless, each movement making it harder to stay mad. you can feel your resolve weakening, your body betraying you as you melt into him, the anger slipping away with each passing second.

“finna fuck t’is attitude outta you.” he mutters against your lips, your mouth is dry as you try to think of a comeback.

“talk that shit now, girl,” ony demands, holding your hands tightly behind your back as he fucks you. you’re at a loss for words, the way his dick is prodding into your cervix has you quivering underneath him. he scoffs, “oh, now you’re quiet?” he switches over to restraining you with one hand. a breathy whine fumbles from your mouth, feeling his hand smack your ass repeatedly, each hit stinging more than the last. your face is a teary, drooling mess, cheek pressed into the pillow.

“o-ony please s-slow down!”

“nah, you gon’ take all of this.you so big and bad so take this dick.”

a shiver runs down your back as you feel his cool gold chain on your skin,followed by his soft lips.you’re a complete mess underneath him,the way he’s burying himself into your tight pussy has your legs shaking.each thrust is relentless and rough, the squelching of your wet cunt spurring him on.you wince as you feel his fingers wrap around your coils, forcing your head up and your back to arch even further.

“apologize. apologize for having an attitude.” ony grunts.

“i-i’m s-sorry-ughmfuck—“ your words catch in your throat as ony delivers a thrust that has you seeing stars.he hums, accepting your apology.ony retracts his hand from your hair and snakes it around your throat.the way your juicy ass is bouncing on him makes his stomach churn, “creamy ass pussy,” he moans softly,left hand still securing your hands behind you.

your stomach clenches each time he pushes back into you; you’re so fucking close. the pink vibrator ony’s attached to your clit has you in shambles, the vibration against your swollen bud making you shiver.you’re so damn wet, your fluids are leaking into the bedsheets. the sensation is overwhelming, and you can feel yourself pulling away from ony.he quickly puts a stop to that.

“uhnt uhnt, bring that ass back.”

fuck, why were you mad again?

#black writers #aot oneshots #aot x black reader #aot smut #aot onyankopon #ony x y/n #ony x black reader #attack on titan smut #onyankopon x black y/n #onyankopon x black reader smut #onyankopon x you #onyankopon x reader #onyankopon smut #anime x black!reader #anime smut #anime x reader

975 notes · View notes

puckinghischier · 1 month

Text

Neighbors

nico hischier x fem!reader

summary - reader can’t bring herself to talk to her new neighbor

notes - guess who’s backkkkkk!!! y’all i have missed writing so much, and i’m so happy i could get this out to y’all. i’m a bit rusty so keep that in mind while reading, but i hope you enjoy it anyways. and as always, happy reading 🫶🏼

request - from my 400 follower celly - “Abort mission, I repeat, abort mission!” “What do you mean abort mission? All you were doing was introducing yourself to your neighbor?” “Yeah, and he’s too attractive. I can never speak to him again” with either luke or nico

[3.3k]

“I really think today is the day, Mia,” you speak in to the cell phone wedged in-between your shoulder and cheek, putting away a few decorative trinkets on the newly hung shelf above your TV.

“You’re telling me you’re actually going to talk to him?” She questions, her tone telling you she doesn’t believe you in the slightest.

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you miss ‘I don’t believe my best friend has the guts to talk to a cute guy,’” you huff out, stretching your arm as much as you can to reach the high shelf.

“I mean, your track record precedes you, Y/N. You’ve said for three weeks now you’re going to introduce yourself and the universe has given you every opportunity possible,” she references the several hallway and elevator encounters you’ve told her about. “but, instead of hearing about a meet cute to an epic love story each week, all I get are stories of why you couldn’t say more than a garbled hi to him before darting into your apartment.”

Finally reaching the shelf, you huff both in response to her statement and the large reach you just accomplished.

After moving in to your new apartment a month and a half ago, you learned on your second day here that your neighbor directly across the hall from you is the most attractive guy you’ve ever met.

You ran into him while carrying a few boxes up to your new space, almost plowing him over while stepping out of the elevator because of your blocked field of view from the stack of boxes.

You apologized profusely, your line of sight still blocked, telling the stranger you know you shouldn’t be carrying this many boxes at once, but you really didn’t want to make another trip down and up. You made a bad joke about deciding to test out your sonar detection incase your eye sight ever left, and gave a few low, drawn-out beeps resembling those you’ve heard on TV.

When you heard the deep chuckle from the other side of the boxes, you turned yourself sideways to see who you almost ran over.

The man standing before you was simply the most attractive man you’ve ever seen in your life. His dark, incredibly soft looking hair matched his dark brown eyes perfectly. The light dusting of facial hair covering his face was definitely working in his favor. The smile on his face was really what made your cheeks heat, though.

Feeling the embarrassment of your terrible joke creep up your neck, you slipped out one more sorry and then all but sprinted to your (thankfully) unlocked door, not even offering your name.

It was that night you told Mia about the handsome stranger, vowing that you were going to redeem yourself one of these days.

Since then, you’ve ran into him what seems like every other day, but never could find the brain power to actually speak to him. It’s either the cliché of both of you leaving your apartment at the same time, or you both end up in the elevator together in complete silence due to your avoidance of uttering anything embarrassing in the confined space. There was one time you unknowingly parked your car beside of his, the two of you walking together the entire way up from the garage to your floor with only a small hi and a wave from you, because you pretended to be listening to your headphones in order to avoid awkward small talk.

“Well, I was never ready all of those times,” you rotate your shoulder in a few circles, trying to work out the small sting you caused. “This time I’m ready. I can feel it.”

“If I was the one living next to him I’d be feeling something alright,” Mia quips back in a suggestive tone, leading you to scoff at her raunchy joke.

“Mia, I’m being serious. I think today’s the day. It’s Tuesday, so I’m pretty sure he should be getting back from the gym around three, which means if I go down to the lobby and pretend to be getting back from a walk around that time I’ll have the perfect in,” you confide your plan in her, having thought about your strategy since last night.

“You are being so insane right now, can you even hear yourself? Just go knock on his door and ask to borrow sugar or something. Then, when he asks what you’re cooking, invite him over for dinner and BAM! a date you didn’t even have to try for,” she suggests.

“Mia, that sounds like the start to a bad porno, I’m not doing that,” you refuse her suggestion right as you hear several loud voices coming from the hallway outside of your door.

Walking over to look into the small peephole, you see not only your attractive neighbor, but several other insanely good looking-men standing outside of his door. You look down at the watch on your wrist, noticing it’s only two, confused as to why he’s home right now.

You can hear Mia chattering away in your ear, but you have no clue what she’s saying, your brain too focused on the men in your hallway.

“Mia, shut up. He’s home,” you interrupt your best friend, causing her to pause momentarily.

“What do you mean he’s home? Did you not just tell me he would be home at three?” she asks you.

“I mean, that’s how it’s been every Tuesday until now. But he’s home. And he has…friends over,” you whisper, worried that if you can hear them they can hear you.

“Friends? Like, other guys? Or does he have a bunch of girls over? Y/N, if he has a bunch of girls at his apartment right now maybe this isn’t the kind of guy you want to go after. Seems like he can’t make up his mind. Or maybe he’s trying to be the next Hugh Heffner and is holding auditions out of his apartment,” you listen to her ramble. “And if that’s true you definitely don’t want to involve yourself with all that. I mean, can you imagine-“

“Mia, so help me God if you don’t shut the fuck up right now I’ll hang up on you,” you snap out, not enjoying her wandering mind.

Watching the men on the other side of your door laugh and converse has you even more curious. You’ve wondered since you moved in what he does for work. The hours he comes and goes are often inconsistent and don’t line up with any job you know of. He never seems to have the same days off, and sometimes you even go several days without seeing any sign of him.

You’ve wondered if he was a doctor, because it would explain the late nights and odd hours, but you’ve never seen him wearing scrubs, all of the men in the hallway currently sporting athletic wear. You thought maybe he was a lawyer, because you see him wearing suits pretty often, but he never carries a briefcase or anything else to prove your theory. You’ve even contemplated that he owns his own company, seeing as he seems to work when he wants and would explain the random down time in the middle of week days.

Of course, you understand you also have a lot of free time during the week, but you have a typical, nine to five office job, you just haven’t started at your new branch yet. Which is partially to blame for the new found obsession with your new neighbor’s whereabouts. You have way too much free time on your hands.

“Damn, someone’s grumpy today. It’s all that pent up frustration from not talking to mystery man. Just go outside and say hi already. Or is today really not the day?”

Even though she can’t see you, you roll your eyes at your friend’s words.

She’s teased you endlessly about this since the second you mentioned him to her. She’s even made a tally of how many times you’ve claimed you were going to speak to him and then didn’t (13 times to be exact). You know she’s just poking fun, but you also know she won’t stop doubting you until you actually do it.

It’s this that prompts you to tell her “You know what, fuck it. Today is the day,” and open your door.

The voices in the hallway stop, all four heads turning to look at you.

Your phone is still being held to your ear with one hand, while the other hangs down at your side.

Your neighbor, standing in the middle of the group, gives you a warm smile, taking in your appearance.

When you look down at your stained t-shirt and your neon pink pajama pants, you mentally palm your forehead, not even thinking to change before making your grand gesture.

Looking back up at the group, heat rising up your neck and to your cheeks, you freeze, the simple “Hi” lost on your tongue.

With furrowed brows and a tilted head, your neighbor speaks out a soft, “Hey there, you okay?”

You nod your head a little too aggressively and manage to squeak out a ‘Fine! Peachy! Never been better!” before slamming your door.

Turning and leaning against the cool door, you close your eyes and try to block out the memory of what just happened.

“Girl…I don’t know what just happened, but that didn’t sound like a hi,” Mia speaks from the phone, startling you, having completely forgotten you were on the phone.

“Abort mission, I repeat, abort mission,” you shake your head no.

“What? Abort mission? All you were doing was introducing yourself to your neighbor? Just go back out there and try again,” she suggests, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“Yeah, and he’s too attractive. I can never speak to him again. Plan be damned, I’m going to have to move apartments again,” you whine out to her, letting the dramatics take over.

“Oh shut up, it’s not that bad. I’m sure he’s already back to talking about whatever with his friends. He’s probably not even going to remember it by the next time you see him,” she refuses to play into your drama. “Plus, you’re a catch. I’m sure he’s been as curious about you as you are about him. Sometimes the silent treatment works wonders.”

A knock on the door you’re leaning against startles you, causing you to jump away from it as if it’d burned you.

“Mia, someone’s knocking,” you whisper, looking out of the peep hole to see your neighbor’s smiling face looking back at you.

You let out a small yelp, jumping back again while covering your mouth with your hand, knowing it’s likely he just heard you.

“Mia it’s him. He’s literally knocking on my door, what do I do?” you ask he as he knocks again.

“Oh my god, you dumbass, answer it! This is your in!” she exclaims through the speaker.

“I can’t answer it! I’m wearing a ridiculous outfit! And I just opened and slammed my door in his face like a freak. Plus-“ you’re cut off by a muffled voice.

“You alright in there? I know you’re standing at the door, I can hear your voice. I just want to make sure you’re okay and didn’t need anything. Sorry if we startled you,” his accented voice carries through the thin door.

“I’m hanging up now, go talk to your man,” Mia chuckles and hangs up the phone, leaving you on your own to deal with the situation before you.

Cursing her, you bring your phone away from your face and wipe your hands on your fluffy pants.

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine. Sorry about that,” you speak through the door.

“You know, if you open the door I won’t bite,” your neighbor jokes, causing another wave of embarrassment to settle in your stomach, not knowing why you decided that talking to him through the door was a normal thing to do.

Taking a step towards the door, you reach for the handle and open it. You’re greeted with the handsome stranger standing not even a foot from your door, no sign of his friends.

He gives you an amused, but warm smile.

“See? It’s just little old me out here,” he brings his hands up in a surrender pose.

You give him a nervous laugh.

Observing his athletic attire, you admire the poorly hidden muscles peeking out from under his compression shirt. The sight makes your cheeks tinge red once again.

When he senses you’re not going to speak, he breaks the silence instead.

“So, you sure you’re okay? You seemed a little…frazzled a few minutes ago. Wanted to make sure we didn’t scare you or anything,” he starts. “I imagine four large hockey players standing outside of your door might seem a little intimidating to a single woman living alone,” he brings his hands down from his face, sticking them in the pockets of his athletic pants.

You wonder if the surprise is evident on your face. In all the time you’ve spent brainstorming about his career, hockey never crossed your mind. You knew your new city had a huge hockey following, but you never thought you were living across from one of the sports’ players.

Realizing you still haven’t said anything, you clear your dry throat.

“Oh, no, you guys didn’t scare me. I just…I don’t know why I opened the door, to be honest. Guess I had a major brain fog moment or something,” you lie, hoping he buys your lame explanation.

The man standing in front of you lets out a small laugh, shaking his head slightly.

“Well, as long as we didn’t scare you, I guess we’re alright then.”

“Yup, we’re good,” you pop the ‘p’, rocking on your heels slightly, needing to channel your nervous energy somehow.

You expect this to be the end of the conversation, but he still stands there, observing you.

“So, do I get to know your name, neighbor?” he questions you, breaking the silence between the two of you for the second time.

His question surprises you slightly, not expecting him to drag the conversation out any longer.

“Well, I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” you hear the words come out of your mouth, with an unintentional flirtatious undertone.

“Nico,” he tells you with a smirk, leaving room for your own reply.

“Y/N,” you move to cross your arms over your chest.

“Since you didn’t protest, I’m guessing you are?” he asks vaguely, causing your brows to furrow in confusion.

“I’m what?”

“Single and living alone,” his smirk only deepens.

Well shit. Is he…flirting with you? While you’re dressed like this? And have only ever made terrible impressions on him before?

“Well, Nico, that depends on why you’re asking,” your mouth is apparently miles ahead of your brain right now, not knowing where this sudden burst of confidence and flirty personality is coming from. “Are you asking because you’re curious about your weird new neighbor, or are you asking because you’re some kind of serial killer that’s stalking his prey?”

This earns a real laugh from him, not just a short chuckle, and you want to melt at the sound.

“I’m asking because I think my new, ‘weird’ neighbor just so happens to be very attractive, but I can tell that she’s far too shy to ever make a move on her own, so I figured I’d help her out a little bit,” he leans forward slightly.

His words make your mouth snap shut and causes you to stand up a little taller, not at all prepared for the conversation to take this direction.

All these weeks of you avoiding Nico, dodging him in the hallway and the elevator, flat out ignoring him from the car garage to your doors, not even being able to say one coherent word to him, and it’s all been pointless? He’s been thinking about you all this time too?

You feel so stupid in this moment. Knowing that he caught you, and knew that you were running from him this whole time makes you squirm, and not in a good way.

Your mind immediately goes back to Mia’s words not only earlier today, but every other time you’ve discussed the man standing before you. Her insistence that you were psyching yourself out for nothing and all you had to do was talk to him echoes through your mind.

“Oh…uh…well…in that case, yeah. I live single. Wait, no, I mean, I’m alone,” you wince, hearing the trainwreck coming out of your mouth. “Okay, I’m just going to shut up now and nod my head,” you shake your head yes, preventing any more jumbled words.

Nico laughs at you once again, clearly amused and not at all repulsed by your awkward nature.

“Well, I live single too. Just incase you were wondering,” he echoes your previous word stumble, shoulders still shaking from laughter.

“Twinsies,” you blurt out, holding your hand out for a high-five.

Before you can make your brain work like a normal, functioning person, Nico slaps his open palm against yours, biting his lip to keep from laughing again.

“I think I’m going to stop while I’m still slightly ahead,” you start, taking a step back into your apartment. “Thanks for checking on me, but clearly I’m lacking any coherent braincells right now, so I think I’m gonna get back to decorating,” you try to end the conversation, not wanting to give yourself anymore embarrassing moments to keep you up at night.

“Wait!” Nico quietly shouts, his face showing it was his turn to be embarrassed, clearly not meaning to have screamed in your face.

You pause the closing of your door, staring at him.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout. It’s just, do you want to grab dinner sometime? If you’re not interested that’s fine, but I wanted to at least put the offer out there before I don’t get the chance to speak to you again for another month,” he rushes his words a bit.

You’re so shocked you just stand there and stare at him for a solid minute, the braincells you lacked mere minutes ago now bouncing around in your head like a pinball machine.

Nico stands there expectantly, waiting on either an acceptance or rejection.

“Are you sure?” is what you manage to come up with.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Nico huffs out a laugh through his nostrils. “I’ll even do all the talking if you want.”

You knew you were already going to accept, but his offer made you feel slightly warmer inside. Obviously, he’s been victim to your inability to coherently speak during moments like these, but not pressuring you to carry a majority of the conversation and still wanting to spend the time with you despite your nervous habit sealed the deal even further.

Not trusting yourself to not botch your words once again, you nod your head yes, unable to hide the smile that makes its way onto your face.

Nico returns your smile, a triumphant look in his eyes letting you know he was genuinely worried you’d say no.

“Alright. Good. Awesome. Great.” Is all he says, taking a small step back towards his door.

“Well now you sound like me,” you tease, that small bit of confidence making its way back to you.

“Guess you’re rubbing off on me already,” he shrugs. “See you around?” he continues to walk backwards until he meets his closed door, jumping slightly when he runs into the solid material.

You giggle at him, nodding your head yes again, finding his sudden nervousness cute.

“See you around, Nico,” you give a small wave before shutting your door, taking in what just happened.

You unlock the phone still in your hand, clicking on Mia’s contact before bringing it up to your ear.

“Listen I know you’re mad at me, and I probably shouldn’t have hung up on you, but I knew you wouldn’t talk to him if I was on the phone and you needed a push, so really I did you a favor-“

“Mia, today was the day,” you interrupt another one of her rambles, grinning while hearing her screams to spill every detail.

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dcxdpdabbles · 2 months

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I love you and all your works 🛐🛐🛐

Currently I'm fangirling over Danny Fenton's ex cuz I love stories where Bruce is a disaster lololol. Speaking of, do you think we can have more parts of it? Please?

Danny is tending to the cosmos creation and shaping when his summons digs again. He closes his eyes, reaching out to the one making the ritual and huffs at the feeling of a familiar soul.

Ugh, Bruce has been attempting to summon him none stop. It's so annoying to have a new sacerfices again and again. He mentally presses the ignore button on the runes, feeling Bruce's sadness as his calls go unanswered once more.

He reopens his eyes, trying to focus on his work. His mood is off now, though, and the soothing sensation of light bursting in darkness is sour.

Cosmos' creation was a lot like gardening to him when he was human, and the fact that Bruce is somehow ruining it makes it worse.

Why was he bothering Danny now? It's been fifteen years! Okay, maybe it had gone in the blink of an eye for a being like Danny, but it was still a long time for Bruce, wasn't it?

He was pretty sure it was longer than Bruce's oldest child.

Which wasn't that something? Bruce Wayne, the man who claimed he couldn't offer commitment but needed to "find himself", had run off only to find some bimbo and create mini versions of himself, not once, not twice, but six times.

Didn't that just sting?

Danny could do much with his power, but he was determined to give it all up to be more human for Bruce. He had been human for three years and had been Bruce's support during his youthful days.

He should have left that human flouting in the Infinite Realms. But Danny had always had trouble looking away when someone needed him. Maybe it was left over from his hero days.

Still, Bruce had only been eighteen, just ten years away from his parent's murder, and still struggling with his need for vengeance. At first Danny had only trained him, wanting to give him the edge he would need in a fight, but somewhere along the way his heart had been stolen.

When Bruce turned twenty- two years under Danny's mentorship- he had return home, but not before begging Danny to come with him. Like a fool he had followed.

It has been a struggle to remember how much pain humans endure in everyday life. He stub his toe three steps into Bruce's caves underneath his manor- the location of the natural portal that had sucked in Bruce.

The portal would close and not reopen for another fifty years, and as a human, he would not be able to return to the Realms until his death. Danny had been fine with that, even when Jazz, Sam and Tucker begged him to think things through.

You aren't human anymore. Jazz had said from the perch of her throne. This will only end in disaster.

He hadn't cared. Danny was in love, and for the first time since their home dimension vaporized with the passage of time, he finally felt alive again.

Even before his powers forced his heart to beat once more, his lungs to expand with air, and the blood to flow through his veins, Danny felt alive, and that was because of Bruce.

Bruce, whose gentle smile, could hide his pain for only so far.

He had thought offering everything he is and everything he could be- Jazz had nearly become the Queen of the Realms since Danny was busy breathing, bleeding and suffering as a human again- but maybe it was only his body Bruce liked.

Maybe it was the fact that for all of Danny's creations, he could not give Bruce a child. What were stars in the sky to humans on Earth that could not withstand their glow? What was the point of promising him enteral happiness when humans were destined to die before they could notice the passage of time?

Danny grimaces as the familiar burning sensation starts in his eyes. He angrily wipes the tears away, bitter that even now, as a full spirit of space, protection, and death, he can still linger in humanity.

He can feel pain.

Pain that no medicine from Jazz's soft hands treat, no ointment from Sam's plants can soothe, and no peace of mind that Tucker's dreams can bring.

Just pain that raddles his otherwise still heart.

The summons flairs up again. Danny can sense Bruce placing a small notepad in the circle, ovbiosuly writting on it as the runes attempt to send Danny a mental image. He grimnces as the words flash before behind his eyelides.

Please Danny, I just want to talk.

It's too late—fifteen years too late. He sends the message in green flames, hoping they burn Bruce as much as they burn Danny. He shuts the summons down before Bruce can think of replying. Just as the wards that keep Danny out from controlling the summons shatters he can sense Bruce slumping to the ground.

It reminds him of himself, slumped over the notepad in horrified confusion. Danny had awoken from the most tender lovemaking of his life only to find his lover long gone. The message had been short and apologetic, but it did nothing to hide Danny's engagement ring, which he had Alfred help him buy in secret, which had been dug out of his suitcase and flung to the other side of the room.

It did nothing to hide that Danny had no money, documentation, or life outside of Bruce Wayne. He had not been human in many years and had thought he could trust Bruce to not worry about such things.

He had paid the hotel with a few bills on his person, and the staff gave him pity glances. The hotel had not even been in Gotham or the United States. Bruce had taken them to the Middle East for a vacation- and a possible new trainer for him, something Ghul- and left with everything before Danny awoke.

He had even been able to use his powers because part of the deal to become human was to let Phantom go. Danny had been left abandoned in a foreign country with nothing but the clothes on his back, a suitcase and a broken heart.

Had it not been for Tucker worrying about him and checking on him through his dreams, Danny would have died there, and unlike before when he turned into Phantom, his soul would have faded away.

Bruce Wayne broke something in him that day. He would not have a second chance to do it again.

Never again.

#dcxdpdabbles #dcxdp crossover #Danny Fenton's ex #Part 2 #What Bruce did to Danny #Can you guess who was conceived a few weeks after breaking up with Danny?#Angst #Heart broken Danny #spirit halloween

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emptyjunior · 6 months

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It looks like with the movies taking off, everyone is on the Dune train now!! Which is very exciting, I’m glad a bunch of new people are discovering this media and reading the books, but can I recommend you the David Lynch, Dune (1984) movie.

First of all, if you are invested in the lore of the books and the deeper messaging of the story, you’re going to need to turn that part of your brain Off. If you love kick ass shit and are willing to be slightly tipsy while you watch and have a great goddamn afternoon, this is the flick for you.

Now first fun fact I’m going to share with you. David Lynch (twin peaks, eraserhead director, celebrated surrealist) turned down the opportunity to direct Return of the Jedi for this film. A film that was devastatingly slow to make, changed hands multiple times, had a pricy VFX budget of $40 million and then made barely $31 million, David Lynch turned down Star Wars to work on it. And he did this when he had never read the novel, and did not even like or engage with sci fi media. THAT’S how you know we’re really in for something.

Now this film has some big names in it! We’ve got a young Kyle MacLachlan who is rocking some Devastating outfits:

We’ve got Sir Patrick Stewert as our Gurney and Sting, lead singer of the police, playing the 15 year old Feyd Rautha! If you wanted to see a grown man, sprayed orange, basically naked playing a free wheeling maniac you are in for a treat! And another fun fact, David Lynch also did not know who these actors were, he made a mistake and thought Patrick Stewert was someone else and when Sting said he was in the police he assumed he was in an organization of lawmen.

Now these characters are familiar to you, but let me get into the unfamiliar. Lynch made some directorial executive decisions throughout this film, for I suppose the ease of the viewer? I mean an adaptation is supposed to adapt so he went let me change some stuff up👏👏👏.

Those who paid attention to Jessica’s backstory may know about the Weirding Way. This is a martial arts style created by the Bene Gesserit, and practiced by Paul. It is more than just a fighting style but also an important philosophical concept, like Aikido or how Kung Fu has foundations in Buddhism.

You may also be familiar with the quote “My name is a killing word.” This inner monologue of Paul’s refers to how his title Muad’dub will be used to spur a holy war. A simple name is what people will die and bleed for, it will be what they scream as they cut down enemies.

Dark! Intense! That’s Dune, anyways in the novel it’s easy to take your time exploring these concepts. Introducing the audience to the religious ramifications of a simple name and fighting practice and how these things can have rippling repercussions upon a society like the Freman.

Now David Lynch didn’t have time for that! He had the belief (that may be right🤷‍♂️!) That watching a bunch of people kick each other on top of a sand dune would be Lame😭😭

So he made the choice for his film that “My name is a killing word” was to be taken Absolutely Literally and invented a device where if the freman said the name Muad-dib, shit would explode.

If they said Paul’s name, they could Explode Stuff. Let it sink in how rad that is. Hell yeah man, hell yeah. Imagine me interpreting religious text that way, imagine if I made a bible movie and the moral I took from a parable is that when Jesus asked for food and everyone donated fish, I concluded that Jesus was a mutant who had fish powers and could immediately conjure fish with magic and gave him fish death rays that shot out of his hands.

So that’s what you can expect from this interpretation, the weirding way now means everyone has Lasers its rad as hell.

Some other incredible choices made! This is a spoiler, but in the novels and the new films you can see the Freman collecting every scrap of water they can. Dr Liet-Kynes, the planetologist, reveals to us it’s because they have a long, multiple generation spanding plan to fix the planet. By introducing this water back they hope to reset the ecosystem over centuries of work. The reason they have been unable to do this is because a green planet would obviously not have worms and sand who produce spice, the most coveted drug in the empire, so imperial and harkonnen forces have been stopping this from ever happening. They want to be free from oppression so that they can start to work on slowly fixing their world, a project that plays out in Paul’s adult life and has its own dramas and complexities.

In Dune 1984??? The moment, the Moment Paul lays out his cousin and throws the final punch, it begins to rain in Arrakis. As if they were all under a magical curse and were just waiting for a teenager to come fight another teenager and then the water will come back. It’s so good, it’s so funny.

Also Pugs! House Atreides official Pugs! Paul has pugs in his lap!!

This is honestly an adaptation choice that I really really like! Paul is the result of centuries of selective breeding, this practice is an artform to the Bene Gesserit and a skill that they monitor closely. It produces bizarre and sometimes terrifying results and is the reason for Paul’s existence.

I think having an animal that was also created through selective breeding, was engineered from a wolf into an animal that can hardly breathe is an incredible metaphor! A smart and identifiable symbol for the audience, I think it’s a slam dunk and the new movies should have done it to.

Anyways can not recommend this film enough.

-The body suits the bad guys wear are made out of real body bags, that actually had been used.

-David Lynch to this day hates it.

-The original cut was four hours.

-The cast and crew were sick the Entire shoot with something they called Montezuma's Revenge, which was probably just food poisoning, side effects from the constant smog because they shot the whole thing on backup generators, illness from the cockroach infestation and terrible morale.

-Frank Herbert saw it multiple times and said he absolutely loved it.

-When they ride the worms, sick rock jams play.

If you love electric guitar, lasers, worms and will forgive me for not including all the trigger warnings cause Yes this film will gross you out, then go watch this movie.

#dune #paul atreides #lady Jessica #dune movie #dune Frank herbert #dune 1984 #movies #scifi #kyle maclachlan #david Lynch #films

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siddyyyyyyyy · 23 days

Text

Small Cuts

Jason Todd x Reader

wc: 1.7 K summary: Red Hood saves you from the chaos, being scared shitless warnings: standard Gotham violence, description of minor injuries, (panic attack), slight angst/comfort, established relationship a/n: for my loyal Red Hood fans (you know who you are), here's a special drabble I came up with while looking through my notes. have fun (divider)

Jason quickly dodges another punch, putting a bullet between the muggers eyes. Yes, Bruce said no guns and killing, but he isn‘t Bruce. He doesn‘t care, these shits need to go down, they did that themselves by doing wrongs. It seems that Dick managed to escort as many civilians as possible from the mall, getting back to his brother to fight by his side. He knows Bane is a powerful guy, but his small army seems to be quite strong too. It‘s annoying him, he probably has a broken rib by now, and the cuts along his body sting, it getting more difficult to fight against the remaining soldiers.

A scarily familiar, shrill scream sounds amidst the chaos, his breath hitching under his mask. He really hopes it‘s not the person he thinks it is. With a quick punch to the other‘s head, he can search for who screamed, already cursing Dick for not clearing the floor properly. It seems like he is on autopilot, remembering you telling him about going on a quick shop to the mall, see if there is anything new. That same mall he is fighting criminals in right now.

He finally spots you, trapped between the wall and a huge shelf that crashed against it, you being in between it. There is just enough space for you to fit in, but not enough to crawl out of it on your own. Besides, you‘ve never looked so terrified before, not even able to breath properly in your panicked state.

Without sharing another glance, he runs up to you and pushes the shelf away from the wall, grunting at how heavy it is. Now that the huge weight is off, you intake a deep breath, close to hyperventilating again. You can‘t even register who is in front of you or that you are free again.

Jason really wants to just let the medics from outside take care of you, but he can‘t. He carefully scoops you up, holding your head close against him, as he hurries away from the fighting scene, patting your back softly with his other hand. Meanwhile, you can barely register that you aren‘t crushed between the wall anymore, but in someone‘s arms, taking you away.

»S- Lady, you‘re alright! I‘m bringing you to safety, you‘re gonna be okay.«

The slightly distorted voice attempts to calm you down, doing little to actually make you stop from panicking. Jason cursed himself inwardly as he almost slipped, having to keep his secret identity from you while still outside, being close to giving up and patching you up right here; call you his favourite nicknames and petnames. It‘s not like he doesn‘t trust you, no, he would do anything for you because you‘d do anything for him. He still sometimes cries himself to sleep, thinking he doesn‘t deserve you. Now, he is close to crying again, but not because of that. His world is injured, because he wasn‘t careful enough. He should‘ve been the one escorting civilians, maybe he would have spotted you sooner.

With quick strides, Jason finally sets you down onto his couch. These are the rare moments he is glad he lives close to the mall, being still dead-concerned about you.

Your knee is badly scraped, a couple of dark bruises littering on your exposed skin, small cuts across your face.Oh, your pretty face. It‘s all his fault.

As if on instinct, he gets his med kit and kneels down in front of the couch, craddling your face in his hands. Now safe in his apartment, he doesn‘t care about his secret identity being revealed to you, he just wants to make this better.

»Darling, I‘m here, don‘t you worry, okay? It‘s me, Jason. Jay-jay.«

Before you can respond, he takes off his helmet and discards it to the floor, cleaning your small scrapes around his face carefully. His fingers barely touch your skin, the wet rug gently cleaning the little blood off of your forehead and cheeks, his own face looking way worse than yours.

Gasping, you finally take in his face and feel a rush of worry again. Leaning up, you cup his cheek, seeing his black eye and cut across his chin. He looks absolutely done, yet he is still on his knees, cleaning at your own wounds.

He is immediately alerted, searching your face for any sign of pain or discomfort. He doesn‘t seem to realise he is injured as well.

»W-what is it? Did I hurt you?« What is that question? Of course he hurt you, he should‘ve been there way sooner.

Taking a deep breath, you try to use your voice; being still shaken up and weak.

»Your fucking eye...« Jason frowns even more at your weak voice, huffing out and leaning you back down on your back. He bites down on his inner cheek harshly, trying to focus and work on your injuries as best as possible. Your eyes stay on his face, silently observing him as you finally start to breath more normally.

Your light scrapes sting as he cleans them up, putting small bandages over them.

»Don‘t they need you?« You croak out quietly again, whincing lightly as he cleans your scraped knee, the wet cloth becoming bloody.

»They can handle it. I need you to be safe first.« Jason mutters back, feeling guilty and bad for causing you more pain while patching you up. It hurts more but you bear through, leaning up on your elbows to see how bad your knee is. You grimace lightly, hissing at the familiar sting while he cleans your wound.

Jason doesn‘t glance to your face anymore, completely focussed on taking care of you. He carefully wraps a bandage around your knee, lifting it up a little on the couch. His fingertips barely graze your skin, his touch even more gentle than usual. Your body is still trembling from the adrenaline, slumping back on the couch with a heavy sigh. It all comes to your senses.

Jason is Red Hood. He just saved you from that terror attack in the mall. Seems to be in a worse shape than you and still patches you up as gentle as possible. He left his team behind just to take you to safety.

»Take off your shirt, need to see the bruises.«

His voice snaps you out of your slow procession of events, humming lightly in thought before carefully pulling off your shirt. It hurts to move your arms up, feeling a painful stretch around your right side. He helps you take it off, eyes quickly scanning over your big bruise around your ribs. It looks even worse now, a darker bruise evident against your right side. He wants to punch himself, he never meant to hurt you.

It‘s not even his fault. He was just fighting, not having been in charge for escorting civilians. Maybe he shouldn‘t feel guilty, he knows better than blaming himself for something that he didn‘t do. But it‘s just unfair, he could‘ve made it less worse if he only put an eye out and saw you and—

»Jason! Your nose is bleeding.«

You finally managed to pull him out of his thoughts, not knowing what to do. Jason quickly stands up again and gets the bathroom, leaning over the sink to get his nose clean and make it stop bleeding. Rushing over, you limp the way to Jason and get to his side, trying to see in what shape he is right now.

»I‘m fine, why are you standing? Get down- sit down, darling, you don‘t need to do anything.«

»I am not sitting down, you need to sit down, you‘re literally bleeding.« You argue back, trying to lead him to the bedroom.

»I‘m not sitting down, I need to get you safe— «

»I am safe.« You reassure him, seeing his hands tremble, eyes seem unfocused. Nothing really seems to help him calm down, grabbing his shoulders and forcing eye-contact.

After some more attempts of coaxing him into the bedroom, you can finally take care of him. He stands in front of the bed as you sit in front of him, patching up the few gashes along his torso.

Jason watches you the whole time, running his hand through some strands of hair occasionally. Yes, it does hurt as you bandage him up, but all he can focus on is you at the moment. Whole and safe, taking care of him finally.

He doesn‘t deserve you.

But he won‘t ever trade you for anyone else.

You don‘t need to talk once you get him all patched up and clean, both of you acting automatically once everything falls back to normal.

Jason crawls back in bed with you like this morning, carefully wrapping his arms around you, no matter how much it hurts his own body. Both tangled up in each other, comforting the other with sweet and grounding words. You are both safe now.

The small conversation paused, letting a comfortable silence fall over the room. After a few moments you speak up again, atmosphere getting lighter.

»I was dating the Red Hood all the time? For two years?«

He groans lightly, looking down at you in his arms.

»I‘m sorry, I… couldn‘t really tell you. But I wanted to, I really did.«

Jason apologises, his guilty expression pulling at your heart again.

»Wait, no, I‘m not mad. It‘s just… a nice surprise? I don‘t know, but I will buy endless Red Hood merch from now on. If you like it or not.«

You tell him with a small smile, making him pause before rolling his eyes. Of course. There‘s no way you would react badly. Especially after saving you.

a/n: WOW! really hoped you enjoyed it, i'm excited to hear your thoughts about it!!

← MASTERLIST

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kashimos-hajime · 5 months

Text

—dissolve | fushiguro toji

summary: he tosses the pregnancy test aside, digs into his pocket, rips out his wallet, and flips it open, fishing out the few bills he has and sticking his hand out towards you.

“take the money and get rid of it.”

WARNINGS: pregnancy, angst, violence, mentions of sex work, emotional constipation and rep of ptsd pairing: fushiguro toji x fem!reader word count: 18.5k

a/n: came back from the dead to post this. i swear TO GOD!!! that this is not a pregnancy fic. in fact, it's arguably worse because it's a plot point instead. excuse any editing mistakes.

obligatory toji might be ooc warning, but we literally have never seen him act normal outside of his job so i make due w what i got.

inspired by dissolve by joji

on ao3 woohoo

(exposition)

Toji’s made a fair few mistakes in his life. It’s hard to count on his fingers alone how many he’s made, but this has to be on the top of the fucking list.

“What do you want me to do with this information?” he spits as he pulls his pants on past his waist. His skin is burning, flushed red from the haze of sex, or maybe it’s the scoring of your nails down his back. His chest feels like it’s stinging.

You’re standing before him, raw power, untapped fury. You’re an unpredictability he has never encountered—you drive him crazy.

You’re also an avid, self-proclaimed misanthrope (ironic, given your profession, and more than a lie, given that Toji knows you), so the fact that he’s still standing here and you haven’t flung a bottle at him once during this whole charade they’ve got going on is admirable.

You don’t look at him, but there’s slick dripping down your thigh, and he’s honestly surprised you’re standing so soon after he’s made a permanent indent into the bed in the shape of your body, but then again, he’s known you for a while now. You’ve always been stubborn, proud, and never want to be seen waiting on anything, so while he’s standing there, staring apathetically at your back, you busy yourself with straightening out bed.

Red neon lights. Men, women, people, all roaming halls, hidden behind purple gauze and thick smoke.

They said the one he’d paid for would be the last one on the left.

Shit, he’s sweating like crazy.

“I don’t know,” you say, tossing the stick behind you without looking. He catches it easily, and stares at the tiny plus sign before looking back at you. You’re rubbing your face with the heel of your hand, and when you turn your head, he sees the frustration etched onto your face. “I don’t know what you can do.”

Toji pulls the door aside, and the figure on the bed looks up, painted lips parting in surprise. He beats you to the punch. “You’re the doctor.”

“You’re the fucked up guy from the clinic.”

And, because Toji has faced real commitment once and lost it just as quickly, he does the one thing he knows best.

He tosses the pregnancy test aside, digs into his pocket, rips out his wallet, and flips it open, fishing out the few bills he has and sticking his hand out towards you.

“Take the money and get rid of it,” he says, but it edges more on an order. You slant your body, frustration dissolving into disbelief at his offer, and your eyes flutter from his hands to his face before your eyebrows furrow together. Your mouth drops open and snaps shut just as quickly, then you’re bending over to gather the closest thing you have to cover yourself.

You shimmy into a shirt you’ve stolen from him, the one with the worn hole at the back of the neck, and threads coming loose at the sleeves.

Just another mistake he’s made letting you steal from him.

“You don’t get to fuck a kid into me only to tell me to get rid of it, Toji.” You straighten up, and walk up to his proffered hand. Snatching the bills, you smash them into his chest, your palm hitting him square in the sternum. His lungs hitch, but you walk past him to the kitchen and he’s left to watch the bills flutter to the ground.

Turning around, Toji walks after you, ignoring his hard-earned money smearing the floor. It’s the last thing on his mind, nestled somewhere at the bottom with sex and affection.

Your presence, mellow and tired and unsure, mirrors him.

It’s probably the realest thing Toji has right now.

“Do you want tea?” you ask without turning around to make sure he’s followed because you know he has, setting the kettle on the stove with a bit less finesse than normal.

“It’s three AM.”

“I didn’t know my question was made redundant,” you snap, and Toji wants to throw a book at your head, so he settles on scowling and grabbing a mug that’s designated as his and sets it on the counter, sliding it over to you. You stop it before it can crash and when they’re pouring over their cups of chamomile in the dead of night, on opposite sides of the kitchen island and illuminated by the single lamp turned on overhead, Toji thinks of you as a mother, carrying a child on your shoulders.

The image comes to him at an uncomfortably quick pace, and he checks his phone. He has a contract, and race bets to make, and he looks at you again. You’re already watching him, mouth hidden behind a mug with a dog painted on the side.

“Megumi is coming over,” he grunts, setting his phone back down on the counter and lifting his mug.

“And if I’m busy?” you ask, because it’s routine that you say it whenever he decides to leave his son in your hands. And they need routine. They need this charade to avoid the storm growing above their heads.

“I’m dumping him on your doorstep,” he answers, “and I’m leaving.”

You don’t text him while he’s out on the job, not even your usual restrained good luck.

It’s three days before he comes back, and when he lets himself in with the spare key you keep behind the loose ninth brick on the right of your door, in the fifth row off the ground, you don’t bring it up.

Mostly because Megumi is fast asleep under your arm, and you’re asleep with him, curled around the two-and-a-half year old baby like he’s the one thing you have to protect with your life. Toji doesn’t wake you, but he does remove your arm to pick up his little boy and Megumi knows his father better than anyone. The tiny bundle immediately tries to make fists at Toji’s shirt, and lets out an incoherent whine at being disturbed before burying his chubby little face into his father’s chest.

You shift in your sleep, muttering nonsense. You’re sweating, the back of your shirt soaked when Toji leans over to look. There isn’t anything on the nearby low table except for paracetamol, a barely-finished bowl of okayu, countless tissues and a thermometer. The apartment is mostly a mess, with dirty dishes in the sink, and ingredients left on the countertops.

Toji can still hold his son with one hand, so he uses his free hand to touch the baby’s forehead to find it slightly warm, and then, because he has nothing better to do, he crouches beside you on the couch, and touches your brow, too. Your face is shining with more sweat, and there’s a feverish twitch in your face when his fingertips meet your skin. You let out a soft snorting noise, and he grins blandly.

“You’re pregnant, huh,” he mutters, mostly to himself. Your eyes flutter open, and find his with a tired precision, before you let them shut again. “Hey.” You turn your face into the couch, and let out a crackled moan.

“Your son is sick,” you tell him instead, voice muffled by the couch. “He has the fucking flu.”

“His fever broke,” answers Toji. “Get up and shower.”

“I can’t. My body molded to the couch.” Your voice is thin with fire, hoarse with exhaustion. You’re a burnt out candle still smouldering, and when he touches your simmering cheek, you hiss, slapping his hand and grabbing the nearest cushion, burying your head beneath it. “Stop it. Just take your son and leave me the fuck alone.”

“Shower,” he barks.

“Go fuck yourself,” you reply with the same burning annoyance.

Megumi yawns, ignorant of it all.

You work at a clinic, but call in sick for the next two weeks. Toji knows because he walks past the clinic sometimes on habit on his way back home, depending on the hour. You go on your smoke break at the same time if you can help it, and he’d catch you in an alleyway two blocks down because no one wants to see that their doctor smokes. There’d be a Mild Seven dangling from your mouth, and you’d eye him with an arched eyebrow, but you never questioned his appearance.

Sometimes, he walks you back even though you never ask him to, a new-burning cigarette slung from his lips, and he complains about your shitty taste in cigarette brands.

And you will always ask why he always takes the Mild Seven you offer, and he dismisses it with a shrug, some flimsy excuse of never biting the hand that feeds you.

Toji’s accustomed to stalling coming back just so he can walk past the clinic on his way home, or sometimes, he leaves the apartment with an excuse of groceries for Megumi just in case you’re there, doctor’s coat shed and a ratty hoodie pulled over your frame to hide the scrubs you don’t bother to change out of.

You aren’t smoking on your break when he finds you on one such ‘grocery trip’, but you’re still in the same alleyway.

“Toji,” you say before he’s even fully appeared at the lip of the alley, and you look up, pulling the hood away from your face. You look awful—swollen eye bags, peeling lips. There’s barely any life to your face, and you regard him wearily, something clicking in your hand. Upon closer inspection, it’s your lighter, and your thumb flicking it open and shut.

“What’s wrong with you?” He walks closer, but doesn’t lean on the wall. You look like you’ll lash out if he even so much as breathes in your direction. A rat skitters by his foot. “Don’t tell me it’s that fucking flu and you’re still contagious.”

“I’m pregnant,” you answer dryly. “And I have a nicotine addiction.”

“Smoke a cigarette,” he suggests, moving a hand to his pocket.

“I’m keeping the baby,” you reply. He pauses, blinks, and you only lift your chin at him, folding your hands behind you against the wall. Stretching your legs farther out over the concrete, you sink a few inches down. “So, I can’t smoke.”

“You’re keeping it?” Clenching his jaw, he scowls. “If this is to spite me—“

“Do you think I’m a fucking idiot? I don’t use human lives as playing cards.” Tilting your head back against the wall, you close your eyes. “Or human lives-to-be.”

“So, why the fuck—“

Your head jerks up. “Because I want this kid, okay? Is that so hard to fucking understand?”

“Maybe.” He shoves his hands into his pockets before laughing. “You’re barely a functioning person. What makes you think you’re fit to be a parent?”

“Like you’re the perfect father for Megumi,” you retort dryly. “I don’t have to justify my choices to you, and I don’t care if you’re in your child’s life. For all you care, this isn’t your child.”

Defensively: “But it is.”

“It doesn’t have to be. I’m giving you a way out,” you dismiss aloofly, pushing off the wall and straightening up. Meeting his gaze, you square your shoulders to his, and cross your arms over your chest. “I’m just that bitch you fuck when you’re bored, and you dump your son on me whenever you feel like it. You walk all over me, and I let you. At least you used to pay me for my services.” Toji’s blood begins to burn at the utter disgust and disappointment in your expression. “Do you think I don’t know what I am to you?”

And for a brief moment, Toji is speechless. Not because you’ve shocked him into silence, because he isn’t shocked, but because he genuinely doesn’t know what to say next. Every possible answer he has is shot down by rationale, and you search his face for any sort of response.

You find none.

Another mistake he’s made in his life is tallied down in some imaginary record when he runs out of time.

With a scoff, you shove past him, and disappear around the corner.

He doesn’t chase after you.

Toji’s just not that kind of guy.

Instead, he takes the newly-purchased box of Mild Sevens from his pocket, flips it open to retrieve a fresh cig, and lights it, cupping the end and inhaling as deeply as he can.

Pinching the cigarette between two fingers, he leans to the side in that alleyway and spits out a wad of saliva, the taste of the cigarette even sharper than normal.

“God, it tastes like shit,” he sighs to no one before inhaling again.

Toji’s kinda sorta fucked up.

He knows that doesn’t escape your notice. It’s how they first met after all—him a nineteen year old lumbering mess of blood and bruises, walking into the clinic mere minutes before your shift ended. You’d just been an intern taking the graveyard shift, and he’d pushed in, chin lifted high, eyes narrowed, finding yours.

“You the doctor?”

How did it spiral into this?

You snip the final suture shut on his shoulder and set the tools down, carefully piling the packaging together.

“Get outta here,” you tell him, slapping his shoulder to urge him off. You turn, disposing the trash, ripping off your gloves in the process.

“How’s the kid?”

“Megumi’s fine. He likes avocados now since I gave him slices with condensed milk on them,” you reply shortly. “Can you leave now?”

“I meant the baby,” he informs brusquely.

If it surprises you, you don’t let it show. “That is none of your business. Leave me alone.”

When he doesn’t budge, you stand there for a moment until he turns to look at you. In your scrubs, face clear but weighed down by exhaustion, you remind him of an exasperated cat owner. Hands on your hips, you worry your bottom lip until you realize he isn’t going anywhere he doesn’t want to and you sigh, gesturing for him to move over on the examination bench. Wedging yourself beside him, you grab onto the lip of the cushion and lean forward, shoulders hunching, head bowed.

“What do you want to know?” you ask acridly. “I crave sriracha on everything, I puke, I feel exhausted, I want to smoke all the time, and I cry pretty much every night.”

Blinking, Toji opens his mouth to say something witty. He only barely manages out a quiet: “You don’t even like sriracha.”

“I know.” Miserably, you lift your head and let out a sigh that seems to take all the strength with you. “What do you want from me, Toji?”

“I was just asking how you were doing.”

“You never do that unless you want something,” you counter, looking at him. Your eyes are swollen, but Toji doesn’t know if it’s from crying or some other reason, and you smell like three day old clothes. Your gaze searches his, then flutters to a slightly crooked nose, to his lips, to the scars littering his chest. “I’ve known you for years. You disappeared on me, and you came back with a son and a new name, and I never asked questions, but you had to have known.”

“Known what?”

You don’t answer him. Toji isn’t sure if he’s grateful or irritated for it. “What happened to you, you idiot?” Your tone is somber, unbearably faint. It makes your words that much more nauseating. “Why did you come back to me?” He blinks, staring, and your gaze lowers. You quietly tag something to the end of your sentence only to yourself and he is punched by every syllable of the word you utter, every syllable you aren’t aware he can hear.

“Fushi-guro, huh.”

Sliding off the examination table, you smooth out your scrubs and make to leave. “Never mind. I think I’m just exhausted.”

You reach the door handle. He watches. Footsteps softened by the sound of your crocs, you don’t bother to hide the effects of him keeping you overtime at three AM in the morning, because he’s bleeding and soiled and disgusting, has done to your spirit.

“I got married,” he calls, halting you by the door. Your shoulders have fallen, and your hand on the door goes limp. Toji stares at your back, and wonders when he became so intimately aware of the slope of your shoulders and how they sink even more in defeat when you understand what he’s saying. “She died when Megumi was… nine months old? I dunno. Blood disease, some shit like that.”

Your head turns enough that he can see a sliver of your face—you look pretty in the dim lights of the exam room. All soft edges, sad melted honey at the bottom of cold tea. Forgotten, distasteful. Like you can hold him carefully, and none of the jagged pieces he’s made of will slice your palms open. You look so much younger.

Like the nineteen year old you were when he came to you in that room of purple silk and candlelight. So tender. Human. It’s been nearly ten years since then, and it feels so much longer.

“I’m so sorry,” you tell him, and he knows you mean it.

You leave to change, and come back to find him waiting in the receptionist area, a shadow in the pitch black as you set the security alarm before you go.

“Get out,” you tell him again, and this time, he complies and waits for you in the chilly night instead.

Toji walks you home, despite your unvoiced protest, and he pretends he doesn’t notice that his hand brushes against yours until their index fingers are hooked onto one another. Your gaze flits to him every once in a while, but he merely rakes his other hand through his hair, lips puckered around a smoke before he’s sliding that trembling hand of yours into his pocket.

“Megumi’s still asleep,” you tell him at the door. He leans over without meaning to as he watches your hands fiddle with the lock and key. Turning over your shoulder, you catch him staring, and arch an eyebrow. “What?”

“Nothing.” And he looks away.

You open the door and walk in, turning back when he doesn’t follow. Scowling, you swing your door open wider as you toe off your sneakers. “Are you coming in or not?”

He frowns. “Yeah, sure.”

Tonight, Toji’s not in the mood for sex, and you can barely stand on your two feet without swaying, so while you go to shower, he heads for the guest room that’s been changed into a makeshift bedroom for a two-year old boy who’s fast asleep, his snores filling up the room when Toji pushes in, careful to not let too much light seep in.

Sneaking across to the crib, he reaches within to pick up his son, and Megumi, never the fussy child, only lets out a little noise of complaint before falling back asleep on Toji’s shoulder. He pats Megumi’s back, pacing around the room and gently bouncing him up and down into a deeper sleep. The walls are littered with terrible drawings Megumi’s made, but they’re hung like art pieces in the Louvre, and Toji stands by the column of light the door lets in, watching the sharp shadows it carves.

Everything still, he waits for something to appear.

Nothing.

Sticking out a hand, he splits his fingers into a shadow puppet of a dog, and opens its jaws a few time in a silent bark.

He knows his son has the Technique. He’s seen the hints of it ever since Megumi turned two—shadows flickering when Megumi claps his hands together, the Cursed Energy Toji can sense radiating off of the kid. It won’t be long before some rat starts looking for the inheritor of the Ten Shadows Technique as their new prince.

He sighs. It’s just another thing from his shitshow family to worry about.

“I’ve got blankets and pillows on the couch,” you tell him by the door, and he drops his hand, heat rushing up his face as you poke your head in to see him. Although he can’t make out your expression too well, Toji knows he doesn’t imagine the way your eyes soften when you look at Megumi. “I’m going to go to bed now. See you in the morning. Maybe.”

He nods, and you slip out of the room just as quickly, your bedroom door shutting a moment later.

He heads to the living room, shedding his jacket and collapsing on the couch with a tired groan. The only light is moonlight filtering through your vertical blinds. His shoulder still burns something fierce, the numbing gel wearing off, and he cups it, rolling onto his side. Through the bandages, he can feel the even stitches you’ve knitted into his flesh, the delicate accuracy of the thread and needle.

Staring at the table, he blinks at the tablets resting on a napkin right in front of him beside a glass of water, and he sits up.

The pill bottle rests nearby, and he grabs it, eyeing the ingredients. It’s some over-the-counter pain killers, but there’s sharpie that’s covered a lot of the text. Screwing up his eyes, he makes out the first character, and, as his eyes adjust to the darkness, holds up the bottle to the faint moon so he can read the rest of it.

FOR MY HEARTACHES. DO NOT TOUCH.

Eyebrows scrunch. His eyes run it over it again to see if he’s being fucking crazy and reading into it too much.

He shoves the bottle back onto the table before he can do it one more time and grabs the pills, uncaring if the water spills as he gulps them down, shaking his head at the iciness that seeps into his blood from the water.

Throwing himself back onto the couch, he punches the pillow into shape, and rolls onto his back, haphazardly tossing the blanket over himself and slamming his eyes shut in an effort to block out your neat, slanted writing.

“…I never asked questions, but you had to have known.”

The pain in his shoulder dulls, but there is nothing that can douse the cold fire of his own hatred.

“For your heartache?” he asks the morning after like it’s a talk one should have over the coffee he holds in his hand. You’re making yourself oatmeal after spending the first hour or so throwing up. You look ragged, and you glare at him for even speaking.

Toji sets the pill bottle down, and he watches your expression carefully. Your jaw clenches, and you roll your eyes, stirring honey into your hot breakfast.

“Painkillers that work best for heartburn,” you tell him flatly, snatching the pill bottle and returning it to where it normally rests. “I got this at like two AM a few weeks ago. Why, what’s wrong with it?”

Your heart skips. He ignores the slowly speeding rhythm of your heart echoing in his own chest. “Just never pegged you for the poetic type.”

“Oh, because you peg me for so many other things. Please get your head out of your ass.”

The tension that melts out of his body is profuse, and his shoulders fall as Megumi, with his spoon, flicks cereal at his father with a giggle. And although the relief is overwhelming, there is a peculiar sinking feeling that far outweighs any positive connotation in the fact that he thought you could’ve liked him and your confirmation that you don’t.

He’s insane.

He’s insane to have thought you could have possibly…

“You’re cleaning this up,” you order. “I need to go to work and I can’t be late. We’ll… talk later. I guess.”

…ever had feelings for him.

Toji goes to fetch some towels and ignores the fact that his insides feel like rotting. What’s it matter anyway?

Except…

No. He’s not thinking of back then. That’s a section of his past he wants to keep sealed in the past, and thats final.

His son wants to go to the park one day. It’s how Toji finds himself sitting on a park bench, sipping on his iced lemonade, his son on his thigh watching everyone around them, his tiny hands planted on his father’s knee. Said father scrolls on his phone, reading his emails through his shades, but he always makes sure to kepe an eye out on their surroundings.

Opening up some bets, he leans back, settling his free hand on Megumi’s hip and raising his phone up as he looks through the races.

“I want,” Megumi babbles.

“What do you want, ‘Gumi?” he asks, squinting against the sun. He should be getting results back for his last gamble in just a few minutes.

“I want dog.”

“Yeah?” Toji says as he lowers his phone and looks around them. “You wanna big one? How many?” There are a few dogs playing in the park around them, catching balls their owners through (“Go fetch!”) and a strange bitterness arises from him. He’s never been a dog person. Not with how he was raised to see them.

Loyal beasts with no brain of their own.

“Two!”

Meant to serve.

“Go fetch, dog. ”

Mindless.

“Papa.”

“And you dare call yourself my son?”

“Papa.”

His phone buzzes, and he answers it like a habit. A swipe of his thumb. Behind his eyes flash a thousand purple bruises, and his scar aches like a sore on his lip as he lets out a tired breath.

“You were a mistake. You should’ve never been born.”

His world is so strangely silent. A curious, spreading emptiness seeps down the column of his throat and into his chest, inhabiting the giant space like a cloud of smoke as the line clicks, and he blinks at the sky. How many days had he stared at this sky, waiting for his world to grow infinitely bigger?

To escape that wretched place once and for all. He had the gall to do it, and the pit of curses had been colder than death.

If he could’ve just—

“Toji?”

—given up.

“Hey.”

Your voice pierces the haze and he blinks, looking around. Megumi is clutching onto hs shirt with a tight fist, peering at him with frustration, and he uses his other hand to smack his dad in the chest.

“You there?”

“Yeah.” He clears his throat. He sets a hand on Megumi’s head. His hair is so soft, and warm under the sun, and Toji wants to wrap his entire body around his tiny little boy, so he does the next best thing and hauls Megumi up onto his chest and swathes him with an arm. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Nah. Why would you think that?”

“I dunno. You just sound off.”

“I’m fine. Can’t I enjoy a nice day in the park?” he remarks dryly, and you huff a snide, sarcastic laugh.

“I guess you can. I was just wondering if you had plans in September.”

“That’s still a few weeks away.” He can hear your judgemental expression from where he sits so he adds, “No. Not yet. Why?”

“The Kichijoji Autumn Festival. I want to take Megumi.” You seem to speak to someone on the other end, and Toji looks down at his son who’s craned his head to examine everything around him. He wriggles until he’s facing forward, and Toji kisses the back of his son’s head grumpily. The idea of a big crowd never sits well with him. There are too many unseen variables, and too much noise.

“Doggy,” Megumi rambles, pointing out a stubby finger at a bounding labrador, trying to catch a frisbee with a massive leap and snagging it in its jaws.

“Is that okay?”

“What? Yeah. I’m going with you, though.”

“Fine. Yeah, alright! I’ll print it!” you shout away from the phone. With a tired sigh, you return. “Fucking idiot. Sorry. Work.” He shrugs, then says it’s fine, and you continue: “Are you going to be working a lot? I’m heading down to Osaka next week so I can’t take care of Megumi if you’re working.”

“Why?”

“Because… remember Hajime?”

“Skinny fuck with a big mouth. Talked too much.” A tall, lean guy who used to fuck with Toji as a teenager whenever he came to see you. He vaguely has an image of him in his head—cheeky smile, quick gaze, and an arrogance that was all a charade. The kid always knew when to shut up but he never did.

Maybe because he didn’t care. Toji had never seen his own pit eyes reflected in another boy before then, but Hajime still knew how to look like he was happy. Maybe that’s why Toji always let the boy bother him even when he was working maintenance around the House.

He doesn’t think Hajime has ever smiled a day in his life. So, just like him, Toji knows your spot for your old colleague from the brothel is softer than you let on.

“He’s not doing well,” you reveal. “I just want to be there when he passes and make it all easier for him. That’s all.”

His throat goes dry. “I see.” The unspoken question passes between them.

“Lung cancer metastasized.” You don’t let that sit for long. “So, it’ll probably be a bit before I see Megumi next.”

Words bite his tongue, and he debates letting them loose. But he wouldn’t. He’d never admit to it. “Probably. He’ll be fine, though.”

“I know.” A beat. “I’m just gonna miss him, you know. I want to see him before I leave.”

“Yeah.” And because it isn’t enough that you’ve been on the phone with him for this short while, he prolongs your hanging up with: “Yeah, you can do that. When do you go?”

“This Saturday. It was the first train I could get, so—” There’s a loud shout on the other end, and your pained groan— “Shit, sorry, I have to go. People don’t know how to do their fucking jobs around here,” you mutter foully, and Toji can’t help the small smile that stretches his lips. “See you when I see you.”

“Yeah.” The line clicks. Toji holds his phone there for a second more before drawing it away and staring at the his screen, His thumb swipes over the buttons to select his contacts, and it opens up to reveal lists of numbers in his history. They’d all been jobs, and he never bothers to write them down. The important numbers are memorized, but other than that, he’s never really kept a contact since he started working again.

Swiping to his saved contacts, there is one square there with a picture, and your name typed out in that little block font. Toji’s grip tightens as he clicks on your profile to enlarge the photo, and he scowls deeper at what it’s been set to. Rarely do they exchange photos, but the majority of the photos you ever send Toji are of Megumi, and in this one, it’s him sleeping soundly in your lap when he was still little.

Maybe ten months. He knows it’s a little after Megumi’s mom died because of how small his son is, and how Toji can’t remember this picture. That whole time period had been hazy. He had just focused on finding you, dumping his kid somewhere so he didn’t have to see the state his father was in, and going out to make enough money to make it last another fucking week.

A part of Toji knows now that you would never have turned him away even if you acted like you would. Even if he never had a baby with him.

He snaps his phone shut. Your words still haunt him, and the more he dissects that moment—a sliver of a 3AM morning two weeks ago—he starts to wonder if he made another wrong choice eight years ago.

Here is where Toji finds himself Friday night: forced to do dishes while Megumi clings to your chest like a stupid fucking parasite. You lounge on the couch, relaxing your ass off.

To be fair, and Toji rarely is, you had been called in an emergency consultation which resulted in you having to send your patient to the hospital after you couldn’t find out where the pain was coming from, and staying there because the patient had, quote unquote, no support system and was borderline hysterical with the symptoms.

“She said she had these bruises on her legs and hips like someone was grabbing her, but I couldn’t find anything. I can’t deny that her pain is real—there’s no way she’s faking this for attention because she’s… sane. She knows she’s not making any sense and we had psych do an evaluation,” you had told him when they met up in front of your apartment door. He had takeout in one hand, and Megumi in the other as you jiggled the key in. “Nothing. It’s a mystery. Maybe she’s experiencing some type of phantom pain routed from trauma.”

And Toji knows the answer before you even suggest a logical conclusion.

“She still there?” he had asked.

“Sent her home. No valid medical reason, but I told her I’ll be away, and to call me if she needs anything.”

He scrubs the dish with a dinosaur design a bit too hard, and winces when he sees that the pink colour is fading, but other than that, it remains silent on his end of the apartment. You and Megumi have a nonsensical conversation at the couch and you turn on channel that has dogs on it somehow as he finishes up. He sniffs dish detergent scent clinging to his hands, nostrils twitching at how strong the lemon is before shaking his head and rinsing his hands again.

“Doggy.”

“Yeah. That’s what those are,” comes your lazy reply. Turning around, Toji wipes his hands dry to see you lying on your side on the couch, Megumi sitting in front of your chest. You have your arm draped over his lap and wrapping his waist loosely, but you look asleep where you are. Snorting to himself, he throws the towel down and shuts off the lights in the kitchen.

You raise your head blearily at the dim light you’ve sunken into.

“You finished?”

“Are you?” he shoots back, sinking into the loveseat near your head. You sigh, burying your face into a nearby cushion, and Megumi crawls towards his father, your hand falling to the sofa. “Go to bed if you’re tired.”

“I’m not tired,” you mutter. “I’m just sick of today.”

He picks his son up, setting Megumi on his chest and running his hand over his head. The boy’s dark downy hair spikes up, and Toji tucks his chin to press his nose to a smooth forehead. “Girl still on your mind?”

“Mhm.” You crane your head to look at both of them, and your stressed scowl melts away, the knot between your eyebrows easing as you reach across the gap to tickle Megumi’s tiny socked foot. Squealing, he kicks your hand away and you chuckle to yourself, pushing yourself onto your elbow to tickle him again.

Crawling up his dad, Megumi’s chubby fists seek purchase as he scrambles to get away, and you laugh, a short, rusty noise. It sounds like a tool that doesn’t get used enough, and you cover your mouth when you laugh, a habit that Toji’s noticed you’ve kept over the years. Megumi’s complaining in his ear, but he can’t seem to tear his eyes away from the way your eyes crinkle when they shut from smiling.

Despite the eye bags, the way your cheeks have gotten puffy from throwing up, the way you shift every two seconds because something in your body’s upset one way or another—Toji finds the way your eyes smile the most brain-numbing thing. He could stare at it forever, but it’s so fleeting that he has the strangest urge to frame it in a picture. Considering rare is it that you’re ever smiling at him when Megumi isn’t with him (although it’s becoming more and more frequent these days), Toji doesn’t think he could’ve gotten used to your smile again.

When he was nineteen, directionless and searching for a place to make it through one day, you had bordered him up in your closet and asked the master of the house with your most charming smile to keep him around because “he’s real handy if he puts his mind to it. Just give him a chance—“

Toji swallows. Such an uncomplicated series of days. His mind always gets so fucking quiet around you. He doesn’t worry about the past, or the future, or any of the stresses of the present (money, food, whether he’ll survive his next contract and the next, long enough to teach Megumi how to throw a ball).

No, his mind is just blissfully silent, resting in the way your words bite at his ears, the way your laugh strums like a raspy harp.

He doesn’t recall the last time it’s been this quiet as the dogs on the TV bark and Megumi echoes the noise, a sprite of light in the darkness of the living room. It makes you laugh. Makes him hear that warm noise again.

“Put him to bed,” you utter after a while. The documentary has finished, and your voice cracks as you wake up fully. Toji blinks, ripping his eyes away from the screen to see your sleepy face illuminated by the TV. Megumi’s gone quiet, his gentle snores puffing against his father’s jaw. “I’m gonna get into my own.”

“Alright.” He stands and you swing yourself up, tipping over a bit, and his knees lock when the urge seizes him to move forward to steady you. Stomach clenching, a harsh frown passes over his face and he turns around before you can spot it. Walking down the hall, he puts his baby boy to bed just as your shadow passes over the door. You poke your head in to mumble a goodnight again, before continuing on your way. Toji sits by his son’s bed until he falls asleep before he rises again.

Closing the door behind him, Toji glances to your bedroom. There’s still a lamp on, and he wonders if you’ve just forgotten to turn it off (again), or if you’re still awake despite your previous promise, and for some reason, his feet lead him to this door.

His hand raises to knock.

“Yeah?” you answer. He pushes in.

You’re on the bed, pushing your feet under the covers. You’re wearing nothing but a long shirt, and your face is soft, tired. You can barely keep your eyes open, and maybe that is what makes you so warm to him now. You don’t have the energy to be angry with him, their situation, for anything.

“Toji?” you prompt, and he, without a second of hesitation, crawls into bed after you. Your brow furrows as he plants a hand by your thigh, but there is no defense as he pulls the covers away to get under with you. “What is it?”

“I’m staying here tonight. Making sure you don’t fuck yourself over for tomorrow,” he says simply, but the truth is, he hadn’t known that until he said it. Pulling his shirt off, he flings it to the foot of the bed and gets comfortable in his boxers underneath the coolness of your blankets. He’s always ran hotter than most. You keep yourself an appropriate distance, rolling onto your side to face him while he lies on his back.

This isn’t a very common occurence. Toji doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he settles with just lacing them over his stomach, and when he turns to look at you, he finds you frowning thoughtfully.

“What’s wrong, Toji?” you prod quietly, resting your cheek on one of your hands. His eyelids flutter, invisible weight pushing them shut as he tries to scramble up an explanation. “We don’t do… this.”

“I’m just tired, I guess,” he grunts. Because, really, he has no idea why he’s here.

Why he’s in your apartment, in your life again. He left it for a reason.

“Okay,” you murmur. Your hand reaches to touch his bicep, and he can’t really remember that reason anymore. “My train’s early, so you’ll probably have to lock the door for me if you’re staying.”

You just rest your fingers there over the curve of his arm, thumb applying a soothing pressure into his eternally-aching body. Toji can feel your heat so clearly through your palm. A napalm grenade waiting to burst as soon as he lays a hand on you.

And he does, not even seconds later, grabbing your wrist and pulling you to him.

“Stay here and sleep with me,” he whispers as your nose bumps into his, and it edges on an order without him meaning to. You swallow, exhaling shakily, and his eyes lift to yours. They’re dark, half-lidded but consumed with an unbearable desire for something that he doesn’t understand. Lifting a lethargic hand, he rests it heavily on your cheek. You arch an eyebrow, and he half-smiles limply, hauling you closer.

You push yourself on top of him, sitting yourself over his hips, and fold your arms over yourself, fingers tugging at the lip of your shirt. Toji’s gaze widens as you lift it up to reveal a body he already knows every crevice of and he clenches his jaw, dark hair falling into his eyes. Hand shooting to grab your elbow, he stops you just as you slip your head and shoulder out, the shirt hanging off your other arm.

Your breasts are open for him to swing up and kiss, to bite marks into, and they heave gently as you breathe on top of him, perfectly still, your face a whirlwind of emotions as you try to make sense of him. He slides his hands down to your hips, and he presses his finger pads into your back in what he means as a soothing pressure. You let out a tiny sigh, wiggling a bit, and glance down at yourself.

Your brow furrows. “Do… you not want to?”

“No, no, I…” He sighs, one hand reaching up to tilt your chin back up so you would stop staring at your body like that. You can’t ever think that—Toji won’t allow himself to let you go on thinking that you’re ugly. “It’s not that. I just didn’t mean it like that.”

“Huh?” You frown. He lets go of your chin and trails his hand down your chest, eyes watching his own fingers drift past your belly button until he rests on your abdomen. His lungs seize at the way it rises and falls against his palm. The fat he normally loves to grab and smear kisses all over while your legs shake over his shoulders is so familiar in his grasp. You’re still not showing though. Sometimes, Toji forgets that there’s a fucking kid—his fucking kid—growing inside you, but right now, it’s all he’s intimately aware of.

“It came out wrong.” He grimaces. “I meant… I’ll sleep with you. In the same bed tonight.” He strokes your stomach before grabbing the back of your neck and bringing you down to his level. Bending over, your lips meet his warmly, and you melt into his grasp, legs stretching over his, waist unfurling to lay flush against his body. Your arms sink into the pillow, and your fingers seek purchase in the fabric. Thumb on your chin, he gently pulls your back and he drags his nose along yours, inhaling the smell of your body wash. “Just sleep,” he mumbles against your mouth. “You need to rest.”

You pull away. “Just…?” The pause is audible. You shake the shirt off your arm and he wraps his arms around you, using one of his hands to run over your head.

Toji wants to punch himself, face burning up in embarrassment. “Lay here and sleep. For fuck’s sake, you’re pregnant, aren’t you? Don’t expectant mothers have to make sure they get enough sleep?”

You push yourself up onto your elbows, face wrinkling. “Well, I, uh, yeah, but—“

“Then, sleep. I’ll wake you up, alright?” Toji pushes you off his body and you let out a soft chuckle, shimmying underneath the blankets. As soon as you’re comfy, he yanks the comforter over your exposed body, making sure you’re covered up, before scowling and reaching over you to switch the light off.

As soon as the room plummets into darkness, a hand slides along his jaw, and another grabs his chin. He looks down just in time for a pair of lips press against his warmly and it isn’t long before their lips are on one another’s, mouths slotting open to allow tongues to dip into mouths. Falling onto his back, Toji’s hand cups the back of your neck and you roll onto your side, your leg draping over his waist, your arms bent between their chests, palms flat against his neck.

Your thigh tightens around him as a soft panting breath leaves you in the form of, “Goodnight.” Toji’s foot slides up your calf. He strokes your ear and you’re resting your head on his other arm, so there isn’t much he can do besides pull you even closer by the shoulders until their bodies are semi colons of one another.

The break—the time to breathe—in each other’s life sentences.

You slither an arm around him. His arm curls around to your back. Their noses touch, and Toji lets out a comfortable sigh before kissing you. Your eyes shut as you mumble something incomprehensible about sleeping. Tiny moans escape your throat when he slowly kisses your bottom lip in a seductive, soothing drag, and another soft whimper sinks into his heart when he kisses the corner of your mouth, your lips chasing his. You whine something barely resembling his name as you tilt your head in an effort to try to reciprocate, a habit more than a choice.

Toji nearly laughs at you, at the thought of it.

He kisses your chin instead, a wave of exhaustion slowly tiding into his pool of a body, then he returns his lips to yours, kissing you slowly. Sedated. Oozing like molasses into the next kiss, and then another, and the strength begins to leave him as your arm twitches against his body with every press, your leg squeezing over his waist. You’re panting, soft and needy, and your body wants to move, but you’re so tired you have to settle for the exhausted sounds you can muster to encourage him.

Like you want him to keep going, want him to know you’re still paying attention to him, even in your dreams.

You murmur something again. Something hushed in your breath.

“Toji…”

So soft. It reminds him of when they were younger. You were the first person he remembers uttering his name so gently—so undeservingly warm while his heart was trapped in an eternal blizzard. You said it like you meant to—like he deserved to be someone.

Against his will, something warm flickers in his hollow chest.

The woman is quiet as she stares at him, blinking owlishly in the way most non-jujutsu types do. Ota Hiroko, twenty-three. Lives with her mom, two younger brothers, and her grandfather. He’d found her pretty quickly, all things considered. You’d only given a name, mumbled into your pillow just to shut him up for five more minutes, but as soon as you’d gotten on your train, Toji had gone to work.

“Can I help you?” Hiroko asks thinly. She looks exhausted, pale, and she’s shaking as she’s holding onto the door knob. Toji almost pities her.

“You Hiroko?”

She nods, then presses her lips into a thin grimace. “Whatever you’re selling, whoever you are, I’m not interested.”

Toji cocks an eyebrow, and shifts his weight to one side, scanning what little of house he can see over her head. It reeks of Cursed Energy. No doubt what’s made its home here.

“I don’t even know why I bother.” He cocks his head, arches an eyebrow. “Could you stop hiding behind that door? I’m a friend of your friend’s. The doctor from the clinic, remember her?”

The girl’s eyes light up at the mention of you, and she stops clutching onto the door barricading her from him like a shield and reveals herself a bit more. As soon as he can see one of her legs, he sees a pale, bumpy, and gnarled hand wrapped tightly around the woman’s waist, the arm winding around her thigh.

“Did she send you? She said… she said she wouldn’t be in town, but—” The door swings open wider, and Hiroko leans forward, eyes widening with a sheen of desperation. Toji looks down at the Curse pressing its face into the woman’s stomach, and a coil of disgust wraps around his own gut. “Does she know what’s wrong with me?”

“No, but close your eyes for a second.” She frowns, and Toji resists the urge to slap some sense into this girl. Taking a deep breath, he reaches for the dagger tucked into the back of his pants, and thinks of something nicer. Or tries to. Nothing clear comes to mind, and his words come out sharp, impatient. “Lady, I can do it with your eyes open, but you won’t like it.”

“Do what?”

“Fix your problem.” Fingers wrap around the handle, and then he thinks of you, sleeping on the train to Osaka. He wonders, idly, if you ate.

Hiroko frowns, her head tilting. She looks sweet, really, and maybe a bit too naive, but Toji can see why she pulled at your heartstrings.

“Why are you doing this?”

He hasn’t a clue. “A favour,” he answers shortly. “Now, close your eyes.”

(recapitulation)

Stepping into the home, you slip off your flats and stuff them into the slippers, the grip on your bag of groceries tightening. The air smells sterile, dry, and it’s hauntingly silent, but you’ve grown used to it ever since you arrived two days earlier.

Announcing that you’re back, you migrate to the kitchen and set the groceries on the table, delegating what needs to be put into the fridge and freezer, setting the loaf of bread on the wooden board for later.

“Is that you?”

“Yeah.”

Closing the fridge once you’ve put away the vegetables and milk and juice, you continue onto frozen snacks and meat into the freezer. Then, you grab a bag of chips, a cup of water, and move to join your friend in whatever he’s doing. You shuffle down the hall where Hajime is already sitting up in what used to be the living room. The TV is on, some program you’re not exactly caught up on but he insists he can’t miss every Monday playing, so you had made him make a list of things he wanted to eat before leaving while he entertains himself with some melodrama.

Ever since his terminal diagnosis, Hajime’s moved his entire life to the first floor of his parents’ house, but that doesn’t mean it makes life any easier. Bypassing the pictures of his family, you sit down and rip open the bag of vegetable chips, tilting it towards him. Throwing aside his blanket, Hajime lets out a rough cough before reaching his hand in. You set it on his lap and touch the blankets pooling around his legs. It’s heated, the electric currents setting the soft fabric near-aflame against your skin, and your heart drops.

Making space for yourself on the couch, you adjust the pillows around yourself and get comfortable, putting the cup of water on a nearby table. On the screen, some people in scrubs are in a conference room shouting at one another, and you rest your cheek against your fist, raising an eyebrow.

“What’s going on?”

“Hospital chief was revealed to cheat on wife with one of his top residents.”

“Damn.”

“Anything this juicy where you work?”

You snort. “No.”

You think of Toji, and wonder what he’s doing. Your phone buzzed for the last time this morning, when he texted you to make sure that you were still alive, and you promised you’d call him tonight, his job permitting. Your heart clenches at the last night they spent together. The way he had kissed you to sleep, and you had woken before him anyway, his finger curled under your jaw, his chin atop your head.

Your heart warms against your will, and then aches because you miss him. Which you hate to admit, but you do. You’ve long since accepted that your soft spot for the guy has returned stronger, darker. Part of it because he’s older now, they’re both grown, but another part of it is because he’s the same.

The same man who tries to protect you at any given turn, who steals your food, who gives you a little dysfunctional family even though he doesn’t know it.

“You’re all smiles,” Hajime intones suddenly, and you blink, turning to look at him. He’s sunken into the pillows surrounding his body, and he eyes you with an unimpressed disposition.

“Am I? I’m not in a good mood.”

“Because you drew the short end of the stick and came all the way out here,” he remarks, and your mouth opens to protest but he speaks over you, “Hey, you didn’t have to. You probably have a whole life I don’t know about anymore back in the city, don’t you.”

“I’m surprised you even called,” you admit softly. “After I left… I never thought you’d try to find me again.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t change your number.”

“I didn’t change it just in case you’d call.” His eyes widen and soften, and he looks away, throat bobbing as he swallows. You add, “You were my only friend there, and I promised when I left that you could always find me if you ever needed me, and you need me now, so I might be pissed that you’re dying, but I’m not letting you die alone, alright?”

A beat.

“You’re a big softie, y’know that?” Hajime teases, but his voice is unusually thick. You give him grace and watch the TV as he clears his throat. “Underneath all that bitchiness, you actually care about me, don’t you?”

“Nah,” you say, but your voice is weak, thin. “Just for nostalgia’s sake at this point.”

They’re sitting on the balcony of his old room, in two rickety plastic lawn chairs that are weather-worn and cheap. You had carried him up there because there’s no way he’s strong enough to move, but just sitting here feels strange. You’d never known Hajime like this—never the type of friends to visit each other’s places.

Then again, that was back before he forced himself to get back onto better terms with his parents before they passed away. Before you just up and left him.

“Want one?” he asks, offering the box of cigarettes to you. His eyes are bloodshot, and his hand trembles. It’s not cold out, and it won’t be long, you think. You just have a feeling. You’re going to wake up and he’ll be dead.

“I’m good.”

“Never knew you to be someone who refuses a smoke.” He lights up and inhales. You steel yourself for the coughing fit that seizes him suddenly, and you try to pretend it’s not agonizing hearing him hurt like this. It dissolves into a fit that has him gasping, and you dart over, take hold of him as he curls in on himself, the bare bones of his skeleton poking at you through his skin. “F-fuck. Fuck. I’m… I’m fine. J-just—“

“Here. C’mon. You got this.” His heart is racing through his back, and you slowly ease him to the floor, so there’s more room, until he’s lying against you, his head tilted back onto your shoulder. His chest heaves rapidly, pumps of oxygen barely making it through to his diseased lungs, and his eyes flutter shut as he lets the red slip between his lips, down his chin.

Thick globs of dark red. It shines, rivulets that escape down his chin, to his neck. Over his quivering Adam’s apple, his lips parted; wine rose petals, tasting just as sour.

"I don’t smoke anymore,” you say, patting his chest with your hand that’s draped over his shoulder. With your other hand, you shake your sleeve down over your hand and wipe the blood away from his skin. “I’m… I’m pregnant. So, I can’t smoke.”

“Pregnant?”

“Mhm.” You look down, and stretch your arm so your sleeve falls back to your wrist before patting his head.

“It’s Toji’s?”

A lump in your throat. “Yes.”

“…I see.” Hajime turns his face away from you, and a shadow—no, that’s the wrong word—an empty void consumes his face. It makes him look young and weak and alone—everything he doesn’t want to be.

“Yeah,” he finally adds at last. “You never did get over him.” The world goes mute as he laughs to himself, a soft noise that makes his eyelids flutter. “I’m glad that you came for my last moments even though he’s back. Y’know, I’m pretty sure he hates me.”

“Toji hates everyone,” you snort, ignoring the rot taking root in your chest. You drum your fingers on Hajime’s collarbone, sighing. “It’s him against the world so don’t take it too personally.”

“He doesn’t hate you.”

You chuckle. “I guess he can’t hate the person who takes care of his son seventy percent of the time.”

“He likes you,” Hajime corrects, and there is something in the phrasing—perhaps in the tone he says it in (like it’s the most obvious, simple thing in the world)—that flips a switch in your brain. Those three words take root in your head and even though your brow wrinkles and you frown and you shake your head, you still hear those three words.

He likes you. “No, he doesn’t. All we do is fight.”

“You’re the one who convinced the Master to let him stay and”—a sharp whistle. He likes you—“there were more than a few complaints about the muscle outside your room. Y’know,” he laughs again, “they always thought we didn’t need to be protected, but Toji… and don’t let him know I said this, but he made it better. He scared ‘em off. He did.”

Your fingers brush over Hajime’s temple. “I know.” Hajime twists to look up at you through barely-open eyes, and his breaths are flimsy against your neck, as you look down at him, smiling faintly. “Toji was probably the closest thing to a friend I had. Besides you. And the other workers there. But it wasn’t like we were buddies. We were sex workers and he… wasn’t. He was just some guy who lived there.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” Hajime’s cheek presses against your sternum. “I guess, he did do some handiwork, and you weren’t the personable type. You still aren’t.”

You snort. “Gee, thanks.”

“It takes a special kind of person to really, really understand you and—“

“Are you really inflating your own ego right now?”

“—and you didn’t want to be there for the rest of your life. Which was fine. But you closed your heart off because you didn’t want anyone to know how you ever worked to put yourself through school, which is fine, but he is the only one you ever opened yourself up to—“

“Okay, and?”

“And he likes you. You’re not half as oblivious as you think you’re being, but neither is he.”

“You don’t know that. You haven’t seen him in years,” you intone scathingly, but Hajime leans back, smiling, immune. He likes you. You shove him off you and get up. “You’re only saying that because you pity me. Just forget it, Hajime.”

Coughing, your friend wheezes out, “He’s texted you how many times since you’ve came here?”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“You’re playing house with the guy.”

“I babysit his son while he fucks off to god knows where. Do you think he really sees me as anything other than the person who gives him free stitches and puts a roof over his head whenever he wants? I don’t even know why we keep fucking. I don’t why I can’t say no.” You want to tear your heart out of chest and stuff it into Hajime’s mouth just to end the conversation. You walk to the end of the balcony while your dying companion clambers to his feet, grunting, hands clawing at the railing.

“You refused to see anyone else ever again after he left the House,” he wheezes. “You want me to believe that you don’t love him? Then, explain that.”

“That place robbed me of any sort of love. I hate you.” The wind carries and caresses your neck, stronger than Hajime’s own breathing, and you scratch at the nagging feeling, that itchiness spreading into your arms and making you uncomfortable in your cotton shirt. “And I hate him, too.”

“If he didn’t care about you, he would have left already. You know that,” Hajime utters softly, and you close your eyes. “You know he feels something for you. You’re too intelligent to turn a blind eye to that.”

“He’s in love with his dead wife.” The breath that leaves you takes everything you’re made of with it. He likes you. “I’m not going to compete with the person who gave him Megumi. I respect her memory too much to do that.”

“She’s dead,” Hajime murmurs. “And you’re still alive. What does it matter that he loved her? Why can’t it matter that he loves you?”

Can’t you understand? You want to scream in his face. He chose to stay for her.

At night, you make sure Hajime falls asleep before drawing yourself up for a vigil, blanket around your sinking shoulders. His breaths are frail, shuddering, and every time he coughs, you jump and take his slowing pulse. You don’t think you sleep a wink that night. Bones resting in a body that’s melded to the chair, you’re nothing but a pair of eyes trained on a face that you used to see every day.

You don’t even recognize him anymore. He’s lost so much weight and colour, and his hair is so thin and patchy. Hajime always refused to shave it, like he’s clinging onto some last part of the old him that doesn’t have cancer.

Tonight’s the night. It sucks. Everything fucking sucks.

Before he goes, you manage to wake him up. His glassy eyes meet yours, and even near death, there is still that inquisitive gleam to his eyes.

“I don’t hate you,” you murmur. “Really just the opposite. I think I’m dying, too.”

His eyes squint in a smile before slipping shut. He’s too weak to even move his mouth anymore, and you think you’re going to puke.

You miss your old life. It was shitty, and repetitive, and made you repulsed by your own body, but perhaps you wouldn’t be so entirely alone.

You sit by Hajime’s bedside until his heart stops, and when you’re sure he is finally dead, you rise and clear your throat. Sniffing, you head for the surrounding woods.

(coda)

You don’t call him for days. It worries Toji, but you had sent him one last text saying that Ojiro Hajime is dead.

Then, another text.

Arriving 6AM tomorrow. Hope everything’s fine. Will see you soon.

His answer.

Need anything?

You hadn’t answered. He gives you a grace period until ten PM, and when you’re still radio silent despite him calling, Toji packs Megumi into some second-hand pick-up and drives to the tiny city of Matsushima. There’s a certain panic that he tries to contain. Maybe it isn’t human, but when Megumi cries about being exhausted after waking up in a car seat four hours from home, Toji just barely manages the patience to calm his cranky son whilst trying to stuff down the harsh forces punching to his tongue.

A terrible rotting is festering in his gut. You’re either dead, or you’re in danger, or Ojiro’s death had destroyed you to such an extent that Toji needs to make sure you can still function.

He passes the town line, parks in the first place he sees, and gets out of the car, hiding his sidearm underneath the flap of his jacket. Picking up Megumi, Toji’s ears prick for noise.

It’s almost two thirty AM.

You had sent pictures once you arrived. The house is up on a hill. There’s no doubt you’ll still be there in the wake of his death if you’re okay.

So he makes that climb, and smells the wind for any signs of foul play, his one hand supporting Megumi despite being in a baby carrier, and his other hand ready at his handgun. Eyes dart from every stray shadow to another unfamiliar shape. This path is unfamiliar, and although he doesn’t sense any curses, every step makes his stomach coil tighter and tighter.

His steps are silent but hasty as he ascends, and before he knows it, his knuckles are rapping against the door, thunderous knocks that nearly rattle the door off its hinges. There’s the sound of a door opening upstairs before quick footsteps, and he hears you pause to glance into the peephole before the door swings open.

“Toji?” You sound confused, tired, and he grins lopsidedly at the way you still manage to glare at him. “What the fuck are you doing here? It’s late, I—”

“Unhappy to see me?”

Your jaw snaps shut, and you tilt your head to the ground as you mutter, “No. You should come in, though.” At this, your gaze lift to meet his. Exhaustion drags your features to the earth, swallows your eyes whole. “Megumi looks tired.”

“Yeah. He’s gonna be a cranky bastard in the morning.”

Your smile begins to grow, and it brightens your eyes as you slant your body to make room for him to come in. He starts forward, his boot lifting off the ground to step through the threshold of this home. Megumi shifts against his chest. His finger loosens around the safety of his gun.

There is a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. It’s so fast he can barely detect it in time when suddenly, you’re yanked back into the darkness, a black sash wrapped around your mouth. Eyes widening, his heart freezes as a muffled scream wrenches out of your mouth. There’s a thud as the door swings shut, but he shifts his weight back and his foot bursts through the wood, splintering and cracking the night. Megumi lets out a strangled cry at the sudden movement, and Toji’s hand cradles around his son’s head, trying to protect his ears and skull as the smell of Cursed Energy drenches his entire body. It's reek enough for four or five sorcerers at most.

Stepping through the ruined door, he raises his gun into the shadows, blinking the light away. Moonlight streams in behind him, giving shape to objects but the farther away they are, the more they become a monotonous shape. Gritting his teeth, Toji holsters his gun and the Cursed Worm sitting in his stomach is pushed up onto his tongue. He spits it into his palm, guiding it around his neck and when his hand closes near the mouth of the spirit, cold chains push into his fingers.

His ears prick.

Frantic footsteps, fingers scrabble against wood. A muffled struggle echoes down the hall, and despite Megumi’s rasping cries flooding his ears and giving away his location, Toji can’t escape the panicked racing of your heart above it all. He blinks, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness before winding up the chain in a sharp spin, trained wrist maneuvering the weapon like an extended limb.

A door creaks. Grunts. Soft socked feet shoot towards him. His eyes dart left. They’ve crashed into a wall. Collapsed, sounds like, and there’s a ragged gasp.

“Stop!” Your voice sends lightning down his very core, and his eyes widen. There’s figures tussling in a shapeless pile of black, and he swears for a moment, he can see your eyes—pits of black illuminated by pale dots of pure white fear—meeting his. “Don’t! Megumi—”

The toddler boy screams as a hand wraps around your face and drags you back into the darkness. It swallows your figure entirely, and Toji begs for his legs to move, but his knees lock and he looks at the wailing bundle strapped to his body, cursing its existence. There’s too much ambiguity in this hallway. He can guess how many cousins and uncles and other off-shoot fucks playing at being royalty are lurking on the grounds. There's three in his immediate presence, but he can’t say for certain what sort of back up awaits a gunfight.

If he draws, you’re dead.

If he doesn’t, you’re lost.

The Zenin family won’t think a non-sorcerer civillian woman is worth the precious Zenin blood that Fushiguro Toji will shed, and cut their losses quick. A man steps out of the shadows as you are taken father and farther away, and he squeezes his eyes shut, trying to ignore the barbed wire gouging his heart.

“We have no quarrel with you, Toji,” Jinichi speaks, and there is that distinct oily disgust that rises when Toji hears his older brother speak. His eyes open to see him standing there, tall and solemn. “We want the girl and the child she carries, and we will care for her well enough to term.”

A harsh scoff. “Please. You’ll pamper her well enough for a prisoner, sure, but as soon as she pops out the kid, you’ll kill her, and the kid, too, if it doesn’t have what you want.”

“Any child of Zen’in blood is welcome. Perhaps she could make a suitable wife for one of our esteemed cousins,” he intones dryly.

A pillar of fire shoots through Toji, and a harsh, cold laugh spills out of his mouth. “You think she’s well-behaved enough to be a wife. You have no fucking idea what she’s like.”

“Toji, don’t make this harder for yourself. I’m showing her mercy because you seem to fond of her, and you’re my brother.” His brother almost smiles, teeth gleaming in the dark. “Besides, that’s my nephew. I am not as wasteful as our father. I won’t spill promising young Zen’in blood.”

“If you’re aiming to play into some kind of sentiment, you’re stupider than I remember.” Toji’s grip on the Chain of a Thousand Miles tightens. Jinichi has always underestimated him. It’s been a decade. Toji is sure, sure he is faster. “Do you still wanna duke it out like the good ol’ days, big bro?”

“You kill me, she dies.” Jinichi turns around, and waves a hand. The Cursed Energy flowing around the house immediately begins to dissipate, and Toji, for the first time in months, thinks about the satisfaction he would feel putting a bullet in his older brother’s head. “You follow us, you’ll never see her again. You know better than most how serious I can be.”

Jinichi of the Hei glances over his shoulder to make sure the Sorcerer Killer does not mean to follow, and then he, too, sinks into the darkness.

They cannot stay in that home, so they do not. Toji takes Megumi on foot, and walks until they find a hostel off the side of the road. The guy manning the front desk is alarmed at Toji’s appearance combined with the baby who has cried himself to sleep on his chest, but he doesn’t ask questions.

Sitting on the bed, he sets Megumi down to sleep properly, and tries to ignore the speed of which his heart is beating. His stomach’s flipped over, and a harsh scream wants to explode from his chest as he shoves himself into the cramped shower.

The shower boasts no temperature control, and his skin is red from both ice cold and burning heat when he steps out, wiping at the misted mirror. The scar on his lip has flushed where it crosses his lips, and he tugs at it absently.

They’d take you back to the main estate. Highest security, most isolated location, amongst other things. There was a collection of Curses in that cellar, but they wouldn’t keep you in there. There was no point in putting the pregnancy in jeoprady. They have no idea how far along you are until the doctor can get to you.

But the Zen’in homestead is massive. If you aren’t at the main house, you could be in the acres of woodland surrounding it. No doubt there are hunting cabins, fishing huts, other houses for the branch families to stay in or use that Jinichi could stow you away in. Toji knows some of them, but he hasn’t been home in years.

He’d have to go back to Hajime’s house, pick up a trail.

Toji exits the bathroom, rubbing at his scalp roughly as if that could work out the headache beginning to fester in the centre of his skull.

Or, he could leave. Find a place to disappear to, find a new woman to play house with. A nicer woman. One who wouldn’t make such a fuss every time he so much as breathed. He could. What difference would it make? There’s no reason why he should go back to that hellhole. Why he needs to.

Megumi is holding onto his feet, rolling on his back, and there’s a slow, drifting movement between the beds as he giggles, oblivious to it. Toji reaches for the gun he left on the bathroom counter just as his son sits up to look at him, smiling toothily, and two sets of ears prick behind the mattress.

That night, the Divine Dogs come to his son for the first time. They’re nothing more than young pups, but they’ll grow even larger in time—outmatch the hungriest of wolves and the most monstrous of bears.

But Toji doesn’t need another killer. He’s more than enough.

The shikigami sniff at the place they’ve been summoned to, exploring with keen eyes and wrinkling noses, and Toji stalks forward, crouching in front of the bed and grabbing hold of his son by the shoulders. Megumi lets out a shocked squeal, but he ignores it.

“Megumi,” Toji rasps, stares into those wide eyes. His son has his mother’s face, eyes, nose, mouth, and although it’s agonizing to look at from time to time, Megumi screws up his face the same way you do, and it strikes him now. Why he needs to do this. Why he’s done everything he has for the past few months. “Megumi, I need you to listen to me.”

Blood drips off the edge of the his knife as he pushes the door open silently. The figure inside scrambles back, and there’s a frantic, muffled scream as the dogs slither in past his legs. They sniff the air, panting, as Toji pulls his mask down.

The black dog growls a low warning, disappearing into the shadows and there’s the sound of clinking chains as a heavy gasp pierces the darkness.

Moonlight streams into the room, illuminating the white dog returning with a wet cloth that must’ve been a gag pinched between its teeth. Toji steps onto the mat, trying to keep count of the seconds he has before they’re inevitably found.

“Are you alright?” he whispers, struggling to push the desperation, the relief from his voice. His heart quickens as a glimmer of your eye catches his.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you stammer. He can’t see the state of your body just yet, but the fact that you’re talking is a good enough sign. “How did you find me?”

“Dogs. Good sense of smell.” He breaks the chains easily with the hilt of the dagger. “Hold this.” Flipping the knife over, he extends it to you in the darkness, and you let out a grunt, fingers drifting over his own briefly before you lift it from his palm. When he tries to find your waist, your breath flutters against his cheek, but you make no other noise, lifting your head over his shoulder. “Can you stand? We don’t have a lot of time.”

“I think so. Move.” You clutch onto his shoulder and push, and he helps you to your feet as the Divine Dogs lope towards the lip of the room once more, alert and ears pricked for any approachers. “I’m fine. I can walk. I don’t know where we are, though, so I can’t be of much help.”

“That’s fine. Just get behind me and watch my back. We’ve got to get to a safe house.”

“A safe house, huh,” you mutter. “Something that comes with the job.”

Toji can’t help the wry smile twisting his lips, reaffirming his grip on his knife. As they approach the exit, he looks back just to make sure you weren’t lying. Your face is smattered with bruises, cheek swollen, and the side of your head is slick with blood, but your eyes are alert. You reach forward and when your fingers dig into his shoulder strongly, a great knot right in his diaphragm becomes undone.

“Let’s go.”

Slipping out of the room, the two crouch and follow the dogs towards the forested acres surrounding the Zen’in compound. They’ll be able to escape to the river and lose the scent, before doubling back to where they need to go. The nearest safe house is a run-down motel where the owner owes Toji a favour.

They can plan their next moves from there.

“We have to go back to Osaka,” you hiss as they slink into the gardens. It’d be best to avoid leaving a trail of bodies, although the ones Toji hid earlier of the guards near your rooms would soon be found if the incoming patrols were smart. “Hajime’s body is still in the house.”

“Going back there isn’t my priority,” he replies icily. His eyes scan the path by the koi pond. It’s out in the open, but it’s either that or risking making the bushes rustle as they try to skirt around the hedge wall. “C’mon. We’ve gotta be fast.”

Four shadows dart across the silver lawn, disappearing onto the other side of a well-worn stone path. The trickling of the pond chimes, covers their soft steps as they reach the other end without much trouble, following the path to the servant’s quarters on the edge of the estate.

Signalling for a stop, Toji crouches behind a rock statue and you fall in behind him.

“Stick close. We reach the end of this building, and run for the forest.” He tilts his head, peeking around to scan the building. The shadows cast by this place are longer than he remembers, and his heart hammers against his sternum. Swallowing tightly, he closes his eyes for a brief moment. Fists take ahold of his gut, threatening to rip him apart from the inside out. If he stops for a moment, will it all come back to him?

“Toji,” you whisper, placing a hand on his shoulder. He tears his eyes away from the grass. You shuffle closer until your shoulder is pressed against his own, and your fingers ghost over his cheek. “Lead the way. I’ll be right behind you.”

He jerks his head down before ducking around the corner. The servant’s quarters have always been less extravagant than the main house. It is by no means unkempt, but perhaps it’s the best comparison when placed side by side with the luxury. The wood creaks when Toji steps up onto the engawa, and it whines even more as you ascend beside him.

It won’t be long before someone comes searching for the source of the noise but they just have to round the corner. It’ll be thirty-three steps and then a sprint into the woods. Toji’s traced these steps before, twice. He hopes this third pass will be his last.

The dogs sprint forward, the white one a shining silver beacon and the black one its blurred shadow. They’ve almost made it, and with luck, they’ll be far away from here come the morning.

Your breath comes harsh and fast, excited or anxious, he’s not sure. He’s so attuned to it that it floods his senses.

The rhythmic patter of your feet. You’re not far behind. They’re two seconds away from jumping off the veranda. The dogs reach the end of this wooden path. Tails thrashing, ears flat against their heads, they leap.

Then, the white wolf lets out a warning bark, golden glare gleaming like fire in the moonlight.

Toji is running too fast. He can’t think. His instinct is to duck.

His body moves. His knees hit the hard floor, and he slides past the corner of the building just as a shadow of a man appears in the peripheral of his view. Mouth curling into a scowl, he shoots a hand to his gun. Draws.

You’re trying to skid to a stop past him, in front of him. His eyes widen. The gun brushes your side, his finger twitching.

He can’t think. His instinct is to pull the trigger. Launch a bullet through your body, silence that man who will no doubt send all the fury of the Zen’in Clan onto Toji once more.

Blood splatters across his face.

You shove the knife up with a short, sharp huff, piercing through the jaw and up into the brain. before the scream the man was about to let out can escape, and yank the blade out. Blood gushes over your hand in terrifying, oozing waves as Toji surges forward to catch the body, easing it to the ground and grabbing your hand.

They run past, onto plush grass, into the forest and towards the river, and he can hear your frantic breaths, the thunderous echo of your heart. You turn back to look at the corpse, but it’s a fool’s task. You cannot see your work past the crest of the hill they run down.

His hand slips against your skin, but when your fingers wrap tightly around his own, he trusts you not to falter.

They run into the river, and Toji hauls you onto his back for the rest of the way. Your feet brush against the water and your arms tighten around his neck, but you don’t protest like you normally would. Instead, you rest your head down, and let him take you without any questions.

They go downstream, then upstream. The shikigami have since been dismissed by the time they have to go back the way they came. Perhaps Megumi’s fallen asleep, but his son has done more than enough that Toji reminds himself that the next time he wants something, no matter how ridiculous it is, he will seriously consider buying it.

Soaked to his torso, Toji adjusts his girp on your legs wrapped around his waist. You’re shivering against his back, and he catches a glimpse of your face when he cranes his head back enough.

“Fine?”

“Fine.”

“Almost there,” he continues over the gentle flow of the river. “Motel. You can rest there.”

“That supposed to be safe?”

“Know a guy. Occupational acquaintance.”

“How generous.” You bury your face into his neck. “Thank you. You shouldn’t have come for me.”

“Don’t be fucking stupid.” Turning forward, he grimaces when the riverbed sinks, and he hoists you further up his body. He nearly sinks to his chest and you raise your head to look around. You’re remarkably calm. It’ll come crashing down soon. He wants to be within the confines of four walls before that happens. “If you’re awake, make yourself useful and keep an eye out.”

Your dry response pricks at his ears as your hands push up on his shoulders. “Yes, sir.”

The motel is a rundown shit-hole.

Well, Toji never claimed himself to be a gentleman.

They’re cooped up in a cramped bathroom as he insisted that he look you over just in case there was Curse damage. The light flicks overhead, which you look at while Toji runs a rag under water.

“They won’t find us here?” you ask blankly. Toji turns and sees your placid face upturned towards him. You watch him with steady eyes that haven’t torn away from him for a moment despite how heavy they must feel. You’re exhausted, but by the way your hands are clenched at your knees, you can’t bare to close your eyes.

“No. They won’t find us.” He crouches before you, and begins to rub at your face. The blood has crusted and flecks off when he touches your temple, and you flinch. “Did that hurt?”

“No. No, they didn’t… it was because I tried to run. They knocked me out.” Your fingers shake uncontrollably as you reach for your head. “Head wounds bleed a lot… I promise, it doesn’t hurt so bad.”

“Don’t feel rattled?”

“Not from a concussion,” you affirm. He gently pushes your hand down, and you let out a long, deep exhale. “They can’t hurt me when I’m carrying their blood, I think is what they said, so I’m okay, I think. I need to go to the clinic to make sure, but I’m okay.”

“You’re not going back there.” Taking hold of your shoulders, he is sure to look into your eye and speak slowly. “I don’t give a fuck about money—we’re not going back to Tokyo."

“We?” you echo. Your lips twist into a bitter scowl, and you push his arms away. “Toji, I don’t even know what happened to me. I got kidnapped because of you? Is that it?”

“Yes,” he snaps. “Because you decided to keep the kid. They found out, and they want that kid more than you probably do.”

“But why? They said something about a technique. Shadows, something.” You shake your head and your eyes narrow as you stand, stepping over and around him. Bracing yourself against the sink countertop, you stare at your own reflection. “What have you not been telling me?”

“A whole slew of things.” He rests on his knees, stretches the rag out to you. You turn to take it and begin to clean up your own complexion as he struggles for words. “A world you don’t know about. My job. You never asked questions.”

“You wouldn’t have wanted to give me any answers,” you retort. You temper your breathing, try to keep it even, but as you see yourself more clearly, Toji hears every painful inhale. Every agonizing hitch in your lungs. “I just wish I could understand.”

“I know. I know this shit doesn’t make sense. It’s not fair.” He shakes his head. “I owe you. I know that.”

“You never pay your debts.”

“That’s true.” A bitter chuckle escapes him. “But you can still… if you get rid of that kid, there’s a chance they won’t touch you.” Your lips part in protest, and you twist to look down at him. Rising, Toji feels gutted raw, everything inside him scooped out and replaced with nothing but sawdust. His joints ache strangely. His throat scratches, his eyes burn. He’s had enough of this sick existence, and he wants to throw up until his guts are clean of glass. “And I’ll disappear. You won’t ever hear from me again.”

Your erratic inhales quiver as he pulls the rag away and lifts his other hand to brush the side of your head. He dabs at the impact wound as you stare hollowly into his chest.

“Do you think that pays back your debt to me?” you ask stonily. “That that even begins to cover what you owe me?”

“No,” he replies. The light flickers overhead. The buzz of old electricity hums between them. “No, but it’s the only way I know how.”

Your eyebrows scrunch when he presses too hard. Your eyelids flutter, but you don’t make a sound. Toji bites his lip hard enough he begins to taste iron, but he can’t speak. He doesn’t trust himself not to say something incredibly, irredeemably stupid.

You save him from that. You save him from so many other foolish things.

“You don’t get to run from me and pretend it’s for my benefit,” you whisper in a dull, dead way. “That’s not going to happen. You understand me? This Zen’in Clan… they’re going to come for Megumi, too, aren’t they? Those dogs. He… he really likes dogs. You said they were his, so it must be what they want.”

He touches the rag to your swollen lip, his other hand tilting your chin up. “Yeah. And the Zen’in Clan is one of the most powerful political families in our society.” You peer at him in the pale, cold light of the bathroom. It paints you in an unflattering palette, but when Toji meets your gaze, a cold, icy dagger sinks into his back. You still look at him with the epitome of surrender. Underlying any sort of gentleness or hate or fury, there is that knowing.

They are entirely at each other’s mercy.

“I see,” you reply measuredly. “So, we have no chance.”

“You do,” he insists.

“No, I don’t.” Your lips press together. “I’m keeping the baby. They’ll come for me regardless of whether or not you’re here. So, really, if you think leaving me is what’s best, I can’t change that about you.”

His heart flash decays in his chest and he shoots the rag into the sink bowl, planting a hand on the countertop and grimacing. Bowing his head, he digs his fingers into the porcelain and watch the blood water slowly trickle down the drain.

He doesn’t want to leave you, can’t you understand that? If he did, he would’ve left you with his family to die. That is the most permanent solution he could ask for. If it was the better choice for his own self, the guilt would eat him alive, and he would’ve let it, but he didn’t. Toji knew the consequences of the choice he made when he set out for his ancestral home.

You’re here with a bounty on your head, and you’re asking him. Asking him to do something he can’t do anymore, and he knew you would.

He came for you anyway.

You exhale a shivering breath, inhaling another one before it can fully escape, and turn away from the mirror. The shadows nearly envelope you entirely.

“I’m going back to Osaka in the morning,” you tell him with no room to protest. “Hajime deserves a funeral. You either come with me, or you don’t. I’ve killed someone today. I doubt there’s not much more I wouldn’t do to keep myself alive, so don’t do it out of some obligation to me."

You rest a hand on his chest, against his heart, before you nod to yourself.

“Goodnight, Toji.”

You leave. The handprint that lingers burns like arsenic.

Toji jumpstarts a car and they drive to Osaka in silence. Megumi is asleep in your lap on account of the lack of booster seat, and you don’t look at him the entire way there.

When they reach Hajime’s house, it is dawn, the air frosty despite the sun on their faces. The place is as Toji left it, with a hole through the front door. You don’t comment on the scrambled interior, and merely traverse through to the backyard where a stack of wood has already been cut.

“Help me build a pyre,” you instruct shortly. “It’s what he wanted.”

Toji spends the better part of the morning building the pyre. You stay inside to make food, and return with Megumi an hour and a half later. The boy is still asleep, which is both a miracle and a relief. Toji had worried that using the Ten Shadows would drain the child at first, but his son is strong.

He’s just finished the platform as you cross the lawn. Pulling off the gloves, he shoves them under his arm and meets you halfway. “Here.” You extend a plate towards him. Eggs, sausages, and half an apple laden the dish, and you jerk your head over your shoulder. “There’s rice porridge inside.” He nods, and your eyes drift to the pyre. “Here, take Megumi. I’ll continue where you left off.”

“Where’s…”

“Upstairs. On the balcony.” You grab the pair of gloves from him. “No good for Megumi to see that, y’know?”

He nods again. “Alright.”

Brushing past him, you make your way towards the chopped wood and lift. Together, they finish the pyre just past mid-day.

You retreat into the house and slip into one of the rooms upstairs as Toji finds anything that can be scrapped together into lunch. Holding a bowl of instant noodles and steamed vegetables, he finds you asleep in an empty room, curled atop the covers and holding a pillow tight to your chest.

Placing the food on the nightstand, he perches on the edge of the bed. He debates waking you up, his hand settling on your arm, but when you don’t stir immediately, he decides against it. You didn’t sleep much the night before, and woke up early. That, and all that pregnancy business. Toji doesn’t know half about it, but he knows enough.

Perhaps it’d be best if he left you be.

You wake up in the late afternoon.

While you eat outside, Toji carries Hajime’s body and lays him to rest. It’s a pitiful thing to look at. The boy is pale, skin loose, hair patchy, and there’s a sort of fragility that unsettles Toji. He had been nothing but a bag of bones in the end, and resembled more of an old man, but his skin is so smooth, unwrinkled.

How is that supposed to make any sense?

Toji wonders if you’ve ever smelt a burnt body before. When they light the pyre, and watch as the entire structure goes up in flames, Toji does not watch Hajime disappear. Instead, he keeps his eyes steadily trained on you. The fire reflects in your irises, brings a synthetic life to dead eyes.

For a long while, they don’t speak. Toji leaves briefly to attend to Megumi, and he watches through the window as you stare at the fire consume the remnants of your old life. He heats up leftover okayu for dinner, and brings both a bowl and his son out to accompany you.

Dusk slowly settles over the horizon as he hands you the bowl. You take it without complaint, sipping. He briefly squeezes your hands, touches the back of his hand to your forehead, and you shoot him an arched eyebrow. Megumi lets out an appreciative noise at the pretty fire, slapping his hands against his father’s forearm. Toji shrugs.

“He told me not to tell you,” you say as his hand falls away from your head, “but he was grateful to you.” Eyebrows shooting up, a deep frown twists Toji’s mouth but you only smile fondly. “You made sure we were safe, even if that wasn’t your intention.”

“I suppose.” His eyes drift distantly over the burning logs. "Tell him I say you're welcome."

Megumi falls asleep again within the hour. It must be a combination of warm food, his father rocking him, and the exhaustion from the previous days lingering. When he rejoins you, you’re standing, your empty dish by your feet, and you greet him with a curt nod as he finds his place next to you.

The fire is steadily burning away, although it’s been a while now. The whole ordeal will be done before midnight.

You loop your thumbs through the belt holes of your jeans. “Will they know where I live if I go back?”

“Yes.” He kicks the disturbed dirt near his boot. The sound of the wood bending and finally snapping cracks the night. “They might offer you money once they realize you’re alone. When the kid is born, they’ll just take him if you put up a fight. If you don’t, they might let you stay. Then, they’ll wait a few years. Find out if the kid has what it wants. If it doesn’t, they’ll throw you out and keep the kid. If it does, they’ll marry you into the family. The claim is illegitimate otherwise.”

“What claim?”

“The Ten Shadows. If the child can control the Ten Shadows, then there’s no doubt they’ll groom them to be the next head of the clan. And they’ll treat ‘em like royalty, so maybe, it won’t be so bad for the kid. It might even be good. Better, if it’s a boy.”

“The same would happen if it were Megumi,” you point out. “You don’t consider bringing him back? Let him be raised as a prince?”

“They’d either pay me or kill me for him. I’ve considered it before,” he admits. “I don’t know why I don’t.”

“I see.” You lift your head to the smoke rising up into the inky sky. A signal to those around for certain, but Toji doubts the Hei would regroup and attack again so quickly. “They won’t let you stay with me.”

He shakes his head. You worry your lip between your teeth, and turn back to the pyre. The wind blows gently, pushing the ribbons of orange, yellow, and sparkling red towards the trees.

“You got a light?”

“Yeah.”

Reaching into his jacket, he sniffs. The smoke’s reminding him of his own nasty habit. “What are you thinking?”

“Weighing my options.” You shove your hands into your pockets and withdraw a lighter. Pulling out his box of Mild Sevens, he pinches one between his lips and cups the end. You lean over, torching the end and frowning delicately when you note the cigarette.

“Do y’mind?” he mumbles.

“No.” The sizzling end of the cig is covered by the sound of your lighter clicking shut and he takes a long drag, turning his head away. “Dick move to do that in front of me, though.”

He snorts in amusement, smoke escaping. “I’ll quit when the baby comes.”

“Whatever you say.” You hug yourself, tucking your chin in. “Do you… do you think you’ll be here when the baby does come?”

Toji blinks. Run, a voice inside him demands. You’ll kill her if you stay.

“It’s a nice image,” he says against his better judgement. Your eyes drag to his figure, and you take a half-step towards him, hand reaching out, but he jerks his glare down at your extended appendage. Immediately, your body freezes, and your hand curls into a tight fist. Softly, he rests a hand atop your knuckles and gently pushes down. “Megumi would like a sister.”

"Well, I want you to stay." The flames flicker across the apple of your cheek, and you finally take hold of his sleeve. “I want you to want to stay. I know it’s too much to ask. It’s selfish. But I have watched you leave before, and if I have to watch you leave again, fine, but only if I know it’s for the last time.” Your fist shakes. He pinches the cigarette between two fingers and exhales towards the pyre. “And you promise you’ll disappear. For good. You, and Megumi. You understand me?”

As tender as a man like Toji can be: "Yeah, I understand.”

You let go of his sleeve, step away, and face the pyre too. The flames are not as tall as they were before, although they’re no less bright and voracious against the night. It’ll still be an hour or more yet until it’s snuffed entirely, which you seem to grasp as you sit down on the grass. Drawing your legs to your chest, you rest your chin on your knees and let your entire body slouch forward. Toji glances down at you before sidling in a little closer and finishing his cigarette.

Flicking the bud towards the fire, he lets out a cough. The taste is something he’ll never get used to. Soon enough, though, it’ll probably be the last reminder he has of you if he goes. Just some pack of cigarettes in a gas station as if that’s enough to represent you in your frustrating entirety.

Toji wonders what sort of person he is to think about this when your best friend is burning in front of them. He wonders, too, about what Hajime had said about him. He hasn’t spoken to the boy in a decade, haven’t thought about him in years. There had been a time where they’d almost been brothers.

He debates smoking another cigarette, for his sake, but you wouldn’t appreciate that even if you don’t tell him no.

He settles on not smoking, and watching the smoke on the pyre instead. Eventually, a weight leans against his leg. Your head against his knee, you don’t speak. Don’t move. Don’t give any indication that he’s even there. Lips twisting into wry, pitiful sort of grimace, Toji carefully crouches down, setting a hand on your head. You cant your head upwards, meeting his gaze.

“I’m sorry, too.” You lift a hand to his cheek, and your thumb stretches to brush over his lower lip. Your head tilts as you examine the scar, but then you’re lifting your gaze to his nose, trace the shape of his brow. “I just can’t let this one thing go.”

“I know.” He smiles grimly. “But to be honest, you hold a grudge.”

You mimic his smile. “Yeah, I know.”

Tilting your head forward with his hand, Toji closes the gap between them. Their noses brush, and your face, your exhausted, angry, beautiful face, is all he can see. The flecks in your irises, the stray hairs along your eyebrows. He runs his fingers down the side of your cheek as you turn to look at the fire, and remembers how hard it was to leave the first time. It rips apart old sutures in an ancient part of his withered heart. He wasn’t so much a coward that he left a note while you were asleep, but the way your face had glazed over into a placid numbness lingers.

“I know another safe house you can stay in long term,” he says as the wood pyre creaks and crumbles. There’s the sound of a few tumbling, crashing logs and your head snaps to the source. Continuing on, Toji tries to ignore the tight ball clogging up his throat. That damn fucking cigarette. It’s made his mouth feel all funny.

He plants a knee on the ground, and sheds his jacket. You’re about to shove him away but he lets out a sharp warning, forcing it around you.

“If you get sick after being out in the cold and inhaling all this smoke, how’s that good for the kid?” he snaps, and you stop, staring at him. “That place is good. They’ll keep you warm, and fed—”

“What about you?”

“What about me?” he asks. You pull the lapels of his jacket tighter around yourself. “I can take you there, and it’ll be near Tokyo. Somewhere more familiar.”

“And then you’ll leave again?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Well, do you want to leave?” you press, pushing yourself to your knees. Toji pinches the bridge of his nose as you grab his arm. “Toji. If you’re just going to leave, what is the damn point of taking me somewhere else? Why wouldn’t I go back to your crazy fucking family when I know for certain they’ll take care of my kid?”

He nearly gawks at your stupidity. “Because they’ll treat you like shit. They’ll turn your kid against you. Do you think I’m the prime example of good family dynamics?”

“No, but…” Your fingers dig through his shirt. Clenching his jaw, he refuses to look at you as your other hand latches onto his shoulder. Why can’t you see? Is he not being clear enough? You can’t go back there. Toji knows you’ll die one way or another, and while he can bear it enough to be apart from you—to kill you is to inflict a mirrored wound on himself.

“No.”

“I know what I am compared to you. Compared to them. I’m nothing, Toji.” His name slips from your mouth, reed-thin and desperate. “Toji. Look at me. Please.”

He’s never heard you beg before. It stings like a poison, swelling up in his lung. Silent, he only looks down at your hand. It springs off his arm as if he’s scalded you.

“I don’t know what sort of world you’ve been living in,” you admit dully. “And maybe that’s my fault for never asking the right questions. But you can’t expect me to keep listening to you like it’s for my own good.”

“I’m not looking for reasons. It’s what rational, you idiot. It’s because of your association with me that you’re being targeted. It would be smarter if we split up in case they come looking again.”

“Well, it’s too late now!” You shoot to your feet, yanking his jacket off your shoulders. “I’m scared out of my fucking mind right now, and you’re talking about dumping me at some safe house near Tokyo. As if I’d stay there when I know there’s a place I might be needed. I'd be irreplaceable if I go back. At least for a little while. Which is maybe more than I can say for how you see me.”

Rising, Toji bites back the harsh insults that want to pour out of his mouth. His heart splinters as you shove the jacket into his solar plexus and you let out a rattling breath, twisting to face the pyre once more. Oxygen knocked out of him, Toji lets his jacket fall to to the ground and his body moves before he can command it.

His foot steps forward, his hands reach, and his mouth opens.

“Don’t play a hero, Toji.” You spit the words out bitterly, as if you cannot stand the taste of him anymore. “It doesn’t suit you.” Crossing your arms over your chest, you blink and your eyes begin to glisten in the firelight. Catastrophic amber set in your diamond-cut face. “If you’ve already decided, why can’t you just act on what you want?”

“Because what I want,” he murmurs slowly, fists clenching tightly as his sides, “is not the same as what’s best for you.”

Your head slants, just a fraction, and the corners of your eyes soften as you regard him. “Who are you to say what’s best for me?” Ducking his head, Toji squeezes his eyes shut and ignores all the voices in his head crowing at his stupidity. Every muscle in his body trembles as the grass crunches underneath a heavy foot, and when fingers brush delicately over his arms, he flinches back. “Toji.”

Tough, callused fingertips gently find his chin and tilt it up. His eyebrows knot together even tighter, and he jerks his head away but the hand is insistent, sliding along his jaw and pushing him back towards you.

“What I know is that the father of my child is the person best suited to protect me,” you utter with such misplaced conviction. Lips twisting into a pained scowl, he shakes his head. You cup his face, wrench his head so he is forced to look at you. A wet trail has carved a path down your cheek. His heart stutters in his esophagus. “You being here by my side in these damned woods makes me feel safer than if I were alone in some safe house because I trust you. Can’t you understand that?” Can’t you trust me, too?

The thing is, Toji has always trusted you. Had faith in you in a time when he didn’t believe in anything. The countless stitches that have been snipped by your scissors, and the gauze you’ve packed against his wounds are proof of all of that—invisible lines on his body that have healed perfectly because of your diligence and the long, pink scars in your absence weave a story he’s been writing for ages, but the endings diverge, and he tries to imagine both.

When you blink, another tear steadily traces the curve of your face, and he can’t stomach it. With a rough thumb, he swipes the tear away before grabbing you by your shoulder and yanking you into him.

Your arms immediately wrap around him, hooking on his shoulders. Holding the back of your head, Toji closes his eyes and buries his nose into the crook of your neck. Their bodies meld together, slot together like two pieces. As the fire begins to die and the smoke clears, clarity finally comes to him in the shape of that image again.

A child. A baby girl, Megumi’s sister.

“Take care of Megumi, okay?”

You had been right. His son has the Ten Shadows. If Toji sold him when the signs first showed up, he could’ve haggled enough to sate him for a lifetime. Why didn’t he?

Your lips brush the curve of his jaw as you let out a long exhale.

He can fool himself into thinking it’s because he wanted the certainty of knowing it’s truly the technique his family has been searching for, but it’s because he knows what princes are treated like in the Zen’in Clan. He wants the best for his son, really he does. He’d give it to him even if it meant he’d have to erase his blessing from his mind to make it happen.

But that possibility of you, out there, living a life he knows nothing about anymore.

Maybe that is the way. To keep his son happy, and to keep his son with him for the time-being.

Your fingers entrench into his shoulders hard enough to hurt. He runs a palm down your back before wrapping his arm around your waist.

Toji wants to run. He wants to stay. He wants to make enough money to not worry about gambling debts, but he aches to see his son grow up.

And, of course, now, he would like a daughter. He’s decided a daughter would be good, too, for the end.

“Do you think I don’t know what I am to you?”

Toji wonders if when you had asked that question, you had truly known his answer.

Only one way to to find out.

“Okay,” he finally whispers. Your head tilts inwards, your nose against the long cord of his neck. Your breathing is erratic, featherlight and hopeful as he closes his eyes. “Okay, I’ll stay.”

Three weeks later, a woman, a man, and a toddler boy walk past the torii of the Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College. Despite the weapons trained on the man’s chest, he proposes calmly, almost arrogantly, a deal they’d be stupid to refuse.

The service of the Sorcerer Killer in exchange for room and board for the three of them.

Yaga Masamichi accepts.

#fic: dissolve #toji fushiguro #toji fushiguro x reader #toji fushiguro x you #toji x reader #toji x you #fushiguro toji #fushiguro toji x reader #fushiguro toji x you #jjk #jjk x reader #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen #my writing

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amjustagirl · 6 months

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title: to rebuild a home pairing: kuroo x f! reader genre: angst / fluff, post timeskip! wc: 6.8k m.list

a/n: companion piece to the original love knows not its depth, from kuroo's perspective.

Kuroo Tetsuro is doing alright.

He’s deftly juggling the roles life has handed him. His tenth wedding anniversary is coming up. He’s gotten a nice pair of earrings and a reservation at Tokyo’s hottest omakase for you to celebrate. The girls are doing nicely at school - Aiko’s grades are excellent, and Fumiko’s not gotten into any schoolyard fights unlike Bokuto’s trio of sons. His bosses seem happy with him too, paving the way for him to climb the corporate ladder rung by rung. He’s earned each promotion by burning days in the office, nights in the izakayas schmoozing with his bosses, but it’s worth it, even if it admittedly comes at the expense of being with you and the girls.

It’s a sacrifice he has to make so he can provide you with the fairytale life he’s always promised you. Not that you’ve ever complained about the trade-off.

“She’s the best wife and mom I could’ve asked for”, he tells Kenma, when the former setter asks about you. “I don’t know how she does it.”

Kenma frowns. “You make her sound like a video game character.”

“That’s cos she’s amazing -”

“Kinda sucks that she pretty much has to juggle a full time job and the kids on her own most of the time.”

“She manages perfectly well”, Kuroo enthuses, oblivious to the barb in his friend’s words. “By the time I get home, the girls are in bed, the house is clean, and there’s even a lunch box packed for me each day. She’s a rockstar at work too - should be up for a promotion next financial year.”

“Huh”, Kenma sniffs. “I wonder when she gets a break.”

Kuroo’s too distracted by the round of beers that’s delivered to his table to think deeply about his best friend’s apprehension. When he stumbles through the front door that night, he finds you crouched over the coffee table, frantically typing at your laptop. As expected, the girls are in bed, there’s nothing out of place.

“All good?” he asks you in passing, his mind already filing the tasks on his plate for tomorrow - organising a publicity event jointly held by the JVA and Bouncing Ball Corporation to introduce new national team members, reviewing the proposed budget for this year’s international competitions, popping by the under-19 team to see if there are indeed any promising candidates - he’s already one foot in the bedroom, ready to call it a night.

He doesn’t notice the violets blooming under your eyes.

“Mm.” You don’t look up. “Have a good night.”

Kruoo Tetsuro thinks he’s doing alright.

Bokuto Kotaro, for some reason, doesn’t think so. “Mitsuki said you’re lucky you’re not married to her cos she’ll skin you alive”, he informs him, as if Kuroo shares his love for women capable of chomping his head off in one bite.

Maybe the Bokutos operate on a different metric - because yes, they’re the model of egalitarianism with Mitsuki the high powered general counsel for Kenma’s Bouncing Ball Corporation (based on his referral, he likes to add, cos’ it’s funny to watch Mitsuki growl) and Kotaro the part time coach, full time stay at home dad to his wolfpack of sons, but that doesn’t mean his marriage is on the rocks.

As a child, he was the unwitting witness to his parents’ fights, which culminated in his mother walking out of the door, his father crying over a thick stack of divorce papers. His grandparents took him in, gave him stability and love and comfort but he swore to himself he’s never going to put his daughters through that.

Sure, it’s been a while since you’ve had a night to yourself. The last time he remembers you taking time away from the girls was to go out for dinner with him to celebrate his latest promotion - his conscience stings a little that he can’t remember the last time you’ve taken a break from everything you’ve been doing for him and the girls, but he’ll make it up to you once he has time. You always understand.

Still, just to be sure, he checks in on you again.

“You alright?”, he reaches for your hand, when he climbs into bed that night.

You’re lying in bed. He should find it odd that you’re still awake at this time of the night, staring up at the ceiling as if there’s something to be found there, but he falls asleep in the slow seconds, doesn't hear your response. When he wakes, you’ve already taken the girls to school. He gets himself ready for work, loops his tie around his neck, grabs his briefcase and the bento you’ve so lovingly packed for him, and hops on the train. He runs through his routine like clockwork, but there’s a niggling feeling that he’s missed something important, possibly something to do with you.

Did you say something to him last night?

It doesn’t matter. He makes a mental note to purchase a spa day for you - but that’s promptly forgotten when he’s greeted by a flood of emails and an invitation from his boss to go out for drinks that night.

Kuroo still thinks he’s doing alright.

“You’re lucky”, his boss toasts him. “Your wife doesn’t complain like mine when I go out drinking, even though I tell her I need to do it for work.”

“She’s an angel”, Kuroo replies, quietly bursting with pride. “Never complains.”

“Lucky man”, his boss says. “My wife is such a nag.”

He misses the last train home that night, drops you a text not to wait up and stumbles around Shibuya trying to find a cab. It must be a busy night because by the time he manages to flag down one, it’s three a.m. and his head is pounding from the excess of alcohol and lack of solid food and water. He fumbles with his keys, almost falls through his front door when the lock gives way. “Tadaima”, he says out of habit, too-loudly, before his stomach lurches and he has to make a mad dash for the kitchen sink.

“Tetsuro?”

He wants to respond, but he’s too busy emptying out the contents of his stomach. He shouldn’t have woken you up. He shouldn’t greet you with a mess for you to clean up. He shouldn’t lean so heavily on you that you stagger beneath his weight.

He shouldn’t do all of that yet he does so anyway. You tuck him, a grown man, into bed.

Tomorrow, he’ll apologise. Tomorrow, he’ll make it up to you.

Tomorrow comes. He wakes up.

You’re gone.

Kuroo Tetsuro is not alright.

He’s ashamed to admit that he doesn’t even notice you’ve taken off until it’s way past lunch when your mother drops him a text to ask if he’s picking up the girls or if he intends to leave them with her overnight.

“What d’you mean?” he texts her, confused.

His heart stops when your mother responds to say you dropped off the girls at her place without much of an explanation, an overnight bag slung over your shoulder. You don’t pick up your phones, his calls going straight to voicemail. For the first time in forever, he sheepishly asks his boss for urgent leave from work so he can rush home to figure out what’s going on.

You always take your laptop with you, but it’s sitting at home. He knows it’s an invasion of privacy, but he types in your password (his birthday), and your web browser reveals a booking for a ryokan in Hakone, where the both of you honeymooned almost a decade ago. It’s an hour away by train, far too much time for him to sit and stew in his thoughts. He wonders if you’ve become sick of your life with him, whether you’ve found someone new, and by the time he’s reached the ryokan and charmed the receptionist to let him into your room, he’s teetering on the edge of giving into his frustration, entertaining thoughts about yelling at you for being so goddamned irresponsible, cos how could you just walk out on him and the girls -

Until you walk in, thankfully alone.

It strikes him that it’s the most refreshed he’s seen you look in a very, very long time. Your cheeks are glowing, your eyes sparkle, and there’s a spring in your step that he hasn’t seen since you’ve had the girls.

Still, he can’t help but remain a little peeved. “I’ve been calling you all afternoon”, he informs you. “I was worried.”

He immediately regrets his words as he watches the light die in your eyes.

“Were you?”, you ask, as if you were addressing a stranger. “Really?”

“Of course”, he frowns, slowly getting up to approach you, concerned when you start to sway. “You’re my wife and the mother of our girls, of course I care.”

Laughter spills from your lips, an undercurrent of bitterness and contempt that’s threatening to drag you under before his very eyes. “If you really cared, you’d have noticed that your wife is broken”, you tell him between gasps, your shoulders caving in. “I tried fixing myself with a break, but you can’t even give me that.”

He’s starting to realise that things aren’t alright at all. You flinch when he takes a step towards you, an action which stabs him clean through his heart because he’s your husband, your Tetsuro, your person. Tea, then, a neutral offering that manages to calm you down enough to take a seat, even if you’re still shaking, falling to pieces while laughing, laughing -

“Tell me what’s wrong”, he begs. “Tell me what I can do to fix you.”

You take a sip of tea. It’s hot enough to burn you, but you don’t seem to notice.

“I can’t do this anymore, Tetsuro.”

“Don’t say that”, he snaps, his inner child recoiling because he can’t bear to have his girls go through what he went through, wondering if it was his fault, his very existence that caused his parents to split up. “The girls and I need you -”

You don’t seem to hear him.

“Princess”, he falls back on his pet name for you, rusty from lack of use. “Come back to me.”

You’re unmoved, your eyes unseeing, deaf to his pleas. Sip after sip, you gulp down scalding tea, each action jerky, mechanical. Frozen, in an impenetrable placidness that he can’t read. You’re sitting right in front of him but you’re not really there at all.

“Let’s talk when you’re back home”, he finally says. “Have a good break.”

The immature little boy that still lives in his psyche is still unconvinced that it’s a bad idea to drag you back home with him posthaste, but you asked for a break, and it’s the least he can give to you.

You allow him to roll out your futon for you, to swaddle you in layers of blankets as if that would keep you from falling apart any further. As he kisses your forehead to bid you goodnight and goodbye, he feels the brittleness of your bones, the thinness of your skin beneath his palms and he spends the hour-long train ride home wondering how he managed to look away long enough for you to turn into a shadow of your past self.

He goes straight to your mother’s house to retrieve the girls. As penance, he stands at the front door, head bowed, letting your mother yell at him in front of the neighbours for being a useless husband and an irresponsible father. After all, he deserves every word she flings in his face. He’s just thankful that she doesn’t ream him out in front of the girls.

“Where’s mama?” Fumiko mumbles half asleep into his neck. “Want mama.”

He cradles her closer. “She’ll be home tomorrow”, he tells her, hoping with every fibre of his being that that does not turn out to be a lie. Aiko, older and wiser, just stays quiet, so he forces a smile on his face for her sake.

Kuroo Tetsuro is far from okay.

The strain of the day wears on him and he’s sure there are burning emails in his inbox for him to firefight, but there’s a long list of chores to be done in your absence. The girls’ school bags need to be packed (in the case of five year old Fumiko) or checked (for ten year old Aiko), their uniforms to be laid out, the laundry sorted and folded. He barely gets any sleep before he has to hop out of bed to throw together a cold breakfast of milk and cereal that makes Fumiko burst into tears and Aiko’s face droops. By the time he shuffles his two cranky children out of the house and into their respective schools, he’s late for work.

He meets Bokuto and Kenma for lunch since there’s no lunch bento waiting for him in the fridge, though he regrets the decision to leave the refuge of his work desk for the boardroom of Bouncing Ball Corporation when Mitsuki joins them and, sharp-eyed as ever, sinks her talons into him.

“You look like shit”, she says to him as a greeting.

“Thanks”, he grounds out. The girls demanded he work their hair into the neat braids they insisted you always do, so bedhead would have to do for him today.

“I’ve never seen you without hair gel before”, Bokuto marvels. “You look weird.”

“I had a crap morning, okay”, he snaps, biting the head off the karaage fish in his store bought bento, which he resents for tasting worse than those you usually make for him. “So I’m sorry if I look slightly less than presentable -”

“You look like a man whose wife just left him - “

Mitsuki’s just stepped right on the wound he’s tried to keep hidden, festering and bleeding beneath his skin, so like an animal lashing out when it’s hurt, Kuroo slaps the table with both palms and snarls.

“Don’t - don’t fucking say that, okay? She’s just taking a break. She’ll come home.”

He can’t stand to see the shock and pity on his closest friends’ faces. “She’s coming home today”, he repeats softly, almost to himself, as if he’s little Fumiko in need of reassurance that the person she needs most in the world hasn’t just abandoned her. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Perhaps it’s the maturity that comes with fatherhood, because Bokuto is the first to react. “That’s right, you’re gonna be okay”, he soothes, pulling Kuroo into his seat. “Kenma’s gonna call your boss and tell him that you’re gonna spend the rest of the afternoon here to plan some event - “

“Sponsorship for the Under-19 team, done”, Kenma snaps his phone shut.

“Guys, I’m fine - ”

“Pretending everything’s okay isn’t going to help.”

Kuroo deflates. “Thanks, Kenma.”

Shelving his worthless pride to lay bare the situation he’s found himself in, that by neglecting his duties as a husband and father, he’s forced you to the brink of a mental breakdown, bad enough that you’ve left him - temporarily, he hopes. In the span of a few hours, he’s already found himself at his wit’s end, struggling to handle both the demands of the kids and his job, something that he realises he’s left you to bear, alone.

“But I can’t figure out why she didn’t just tell me she was feeling overwhelmed”, he says, pulling at a fraying thread in his shirt. “I would’ve listened. I would’ve done better.”

“She shouldn’t have to tell you to do your part”, Mitsuki waves away Bokuto’s desperate gesture for her not to kick a man when he’s already down.

“But I didn’t know -”

“Y’know, I really can’t stand men like you. You guys are amazing at work, able to anticipate your bosses’ and clients’ needs. At this point, you don’t even need to be told by your bosses to jump, you don’t even ask your clients ‘how high’ - yet, for some reason, you manage to turn off your brain the minute you walk in through the front door at home.”

“Maybe I should ask her for a list of things I can help her with -”

Bokuto claps his hand over Mitsuki’s mouth. “Ehhh..you might not wanna finish your sentence or Mitsuki might really bite your head off.”

Kuroo winces, snapping his mouth shut.

“Maybe you can think of it in a different way”, Bokuto says. “Instead of ‘helping’ her - cos that’s just placing the mental burden on her - at least, I think that’s the term Mitsuki-chan used when she explained it to me -” the affronted lawyer nods begrudgingly, and beaming, he continues - “you gotta do your half of the work!”

“Level up”, Kenma provides, rather unhelpfully.

“Open your eyes and use your brain”, Mitsuki says bluntly, rolling her eyes, though her tone is less sharp.

“Where do I start?” Kuroo asks.

Step one.

He picks the girls up from his mother in law’s place, bears with the lecture that’s awaiting him, and sheepishly asks them what their mama usually feeds them for dinner and breakfast, making a mental note of it. Tonight, he’ll cheat by feeding them gyudon at Sukiya, but he drops by the supermarket to procure the ingredients he needs for tomorrow’s breakfast and a bouquet of pink roses, even though he knows it’s probably too little, too late. He counts himself lucky that Fumiko loves bathtime, only needing supervision to wash and dry her hair, and Aiko’s responsible enough to work through her homework without prompting, but he’s still exhausted by the time they both head to bed.

His job doesn’t end there. Running through the checklist Mitsuki begrudgingly allowed Bokuto to give him, he surveys the apartment, comparing it against the mental image of how everything was before you left it. Toys scattered, to be put back in place. Dust on floor, to be vacuumed up. A heap of laundry in the basket, to be hung, dried, ironed.

Just as he finishes all these tasks, the front door swing opens.

“Tadaima”, you call out, voice hushed.

He nearly trips over his feet in his haste to relieve you of your luggage, usher you into a seat by the kitchen counter. “Okaerie”, he breathes,

“The girls?” you ask.

He’ll buy Bokuto lunch next time. “I picked them up from your mom”, he responds. “Don’t wake them up, I just put them to bed.”

You peek into their rooms nonetheless. “Thanks”, you say, heading next to the fridge. “By the way, I’ll pay you back for the hotel room from my own money, don’t worry.”

That’s the last thing on his mind. Besides, his sin is being a neglectful husband, not a miser. “It’s fine, I’ll cover it”, he scratches his head, embarrassed that you’re even bringing it up. “I should’ve realised you needed a break.”

That makes you frown, but you accept anyway. He watches you stack bread, eggs, ham, cheese, and it strikes him that you’re already worrying about the girls’ breakfast when you look as if you haven’t even had your own dinner.

“You haven’t had dinner?” he asks.

You reply carelessly that you’ve had a bento on the train back. You don’t even bother to look at him.

“I’ll take the girls in the mornings from now”, he tells you. “Sleep in and take a break.”

That gets your attention.

“Really?”

He plasters a confident smirk on his face to reassure you that he’s got it all in hand.

“Oh”, you’re adorable when you’re confused, but he hates that he’s given you reason to doubt him. “Wake me up if you need my help?”

“I won’t”, he promises.

It’s time for him to level up.

Step two.

He’s not going to lie to himself that he finds it difficult to do even half of what you used to do. Taking over the responsibility of wrangling the girls out of bed and into school, coming home early enough for dinner with you, that requires him to have hard conversations with his boss about not being able to go out for drinks or come in early anymore which probably hurts his chances for his next promotion, forces him to give up an hour or two of sleep, but it’s worth it if it allows you to heal.

“Don’t expect a gold star for your efforts”, Mitsuki warned him. “It’s just what you should’ve been doing before, so it’s time for you to go above and beyond.”

He takes her words to heart. You deserve to go to work well-rested, to wind down at night with a hot bath. He’ll buy a robot vacuum and pour over its manual that’s thicker than a textbook, do laundry loads while hopping on and off conference calls, wrestle the iron to press down his own shirts.

You seem baffled by the sudden shift in the winds, but he just pretends everything is normal. Business as usual. Things are just as they should’ve been.

In his next push to right his wrongs, he organises a Saturday dinner date with you. The girls are packed off with your mother, he makes the reservation, books the cab, compliments your dress. He asks you about your work (tiring), your boss (a micro-manager), the books you’ve read recently (nada, zilch). In the uphill battle to keep the conversation from being stilted, he makes a fatal mistake.

“We can make it work if you want to quit your job and stay home full time with the children.”

In his mind, that was a reasonable suggestion to make since you seem to hate your job and boss with a fiery passion. But you stare at him wide-eyed, your initial confusion hardening into anger.

“Did the guys at work tell you it’s easier to have a housewife instead of a working wife? Are you saying this because you don’t think I’m a good enough mother to our girls?”

You don’t give him a chance to backpedal, shooting a sarcastic apology for being selfish enough to refuse to be reliant on him, so he just slumps back in his chair in defeat.

“I just want you to be happy”, he murmurs. “Forget I ever said that.”

Step three.

To figure out step three, he schedules an emergency lunch meeting on Monday. The troops convene in Kenma’s boardroom to listen to his sorry tale with Mitsuki in charge of the post–battle analysis.

“And remind me again, where did you two meet?”

His face lights up at the memory of his first meeting with you. “Finance 102”, he replies. “We used to be academic rivals turned teammates after I convinced her I was smart enough for her to work with on projects.”

“What made you fall in love with her?”

“As much as I hate it, I have to admit she’s probably smarter than me”, he says, though the fond smile that creeps onto his face betrays the fact that he loves that about you. “She’s just - her, she’s headstrong and funny. Did I tell you how she tried to stab me with her fork when I stole food off her plate -”

“Only a million times”, Kenma interjects.

“She’s always been independent and ambitious, with big dreams and an even bigger heart.”

“Well”, Mitsuki says, adopting the mildest tone she’s used on him this month. “Does that sound like a woman who’d choose to stay home and depend on her husband? Not that there’s anything wrong with being a stay-at-home parent - Koutaro makes my career possible, and I’m the luckiest woman in the world to have him as my husband.”

“Babyyyyy.” Bokuto bawls, looking at MItsuki as if she hangs the moon in the sky.

Gross. Kenma seems to agree. “Let’s get back to Kuroo’s failing marriage”,

“So I shouldn’t bring up the suggestion that she quit her job again?”

His three person council shake their heads in unison. “Just keep what you’re doing”, Bokuto pipes up. “Sounds like you’re already doing the right things! Just gotta keep making sure she’s not holding up the sky herself.”

He can do that.

“And maybe talk to her?”, Kenma offers.

That’s the suggestion that he wants to dismiss right off the bat because he’s too much of a coward to even face the possibility that you might leave him. He doesn’t want to become his dad so he resolves to keep his head down and continue pushing ahead with his efforts to prove to you that he can be the husband you deserve, so you won’t wake up one day and decide to walk out on him again.

But his subconscious fears force his nightmares into overdrive. Dreams of packed bags and stacks of divorce papers makes him yelp loud enough for you to roll over and shake him awake. He’s a terrible husband for disturbing your sleep, but in his sleep-dazed state of confusion he just sinks back into the pillow, exhaling a sigh of relief.

“Thank the gods you haven’t left.”

“Why would I leave?”, you mumble, turning away again. “It’s my home, isn’t it.”

He sits up, rubs the nightmares away from his eyes. “I was afraid you left me.”

The silence nearly suffocates him. The sudden need to know exactly where you stand eats away at him and he crawls towards you. “Are you going to leave me”, he asks, praying to all the gods in the universe that you’ll reassure him otherwise.

His heart breaks anew when he hears a small sob, buried in the bedclothes. “I don’t know, Tetsuro”, you finally say. “I’m tired of being alone in a marriage when it’s supposed to be us working together.”

“I’m sorry.” There’s nothing much he can say.

A broken whisper. “I’m tired”, you exhale. “I think I deserve better.”

“I’ll make it better”, he promises.

He will. He will.

Kuroo Tetsuro is trying his best.

He takes a cooking class on the weekends to learn how to prepare bento boxes that are nutritious and easy on the wallet. He takes over the ferrying of Fumiko to her swimming lessons, work on Aiko’s art projects with her. He hires a part time cleaner to pick up the deep cleaning, so you and he have time to take the girls out on weekend outings instead of spending all day on a week’s worth of cumulated chores. A dishwasher appears in the house. He makes it a game for he and the girls to load and unload dishware each night.

“There’s a networking wine night for finance next Wednesday”, he tells you casually. “I’ll make sure to be home so you can go, if you want.”

You goggle at him.

“Go schmooze so the world knows you’re as amazing as I know you are.”

You trust him enough to leave the girls behind in his care and go. He counts that as a win.

Some nights he still can’t get home in time for dinner, but he always makes sure he’s home in time for a bedtime story and a goodnight kiss. Aiko avers that at the grand old age of ten, she doesn’t need her papa to tuck her to bed anymore, but she sidles into Fumiko’s room everynight and sits in the corner of her little sister’s bed as the littler girl listens to his tall tales.

“I met a princess when I was eighteen”, he says with a grin when he notices you listening in. “Instead of a crown, she armed herself with a fork, ready to cut down anyone who’d cross her.”

His heart skips a beat when he hears your voice from the doorway. “Don’t be dramatic”, you interrupt, a small smile growing on your face. “You were trying to steal my food and didn’t stop ‘til I stabbed you.”

Fumiko huffs, unhappy that her story’s being interrupted, but he can’t seem to tear his gaze away from you. “You left it on the table, princess. I consider that fair game.”

“Let ‘to-san tell the story, ka’san.” Aiko grumbles.

He savours your laughter. It tastes better than the finest wine.

“I can’t believe I have to fly all the way to Italy just to meet Kageyama-kun”, he huffs. “At least Hinata is meeting us there, I’ll revolt if I had to go up to Brazil as well.”

“You know it can’t be helped”, you reply. “The promotional activities planned need your presence, and it’s only for a week.”

“Will you be okay when I’m gone?”

His fears melt away when you hand him his suitcase, a flask of his favourite tea. “I’ve always managed fine. Nothing’s changed.”

His little monsters, realising that he’s about to leave, decide to launch a synchronised attack on him. Aiko throws herself at him in a bear hug. Fumiko yanks at his sleeve demanding a thousand kisses.

“Yes, well. I’ll be home soon. Please wait for me” he says to you when the girls finally release him. The expression on your face is unreadable, but you don’t pull away when he takes the liberty of taking your hand in his.

He feels your heartbeat accelerates. You glance up at him, almost shy. “I’ll see you soon.”

He’s so tempted to call his boss and pretend that he’s too ill to get on that damned flight, but he’s pretty sure that would get him fired. Instead, he calls you and the girls every day, and brings home a luggage full of presents for all of you.

When he’s home, he celebrates by putting on the frilliest pink apron he’s ever seen (courtesy of Yaku, who sent it to him all the way from Moscow as a joke) and throwing an elaborate takoyaki party, replete with customised toppings - octopus, cheese and shrimp, which the girls enjoyed even if he burnt the first batch and had to call Fukunaga frantically for tips to rescue the rest. It turns out to be such a success that he makes it a weekly event. Okonomiyaki is next, which he flips with expert confidence on a hot plate to the applause of you and the girls.

“Itadakimasu”, you clap your hands together. “It tastes good.”

He nearly melts into his pan. “Thank you”, he replies. “It means a lot, coming from you.”

His nights are still plagued by nightmares.

Things are better with you, he likes to think. The violets beneath your eyes are replaced by roses in your cheeks. He hears you humming about the house again. You pick up reading again, the shelves in the house start to groan under the weight of books belonging to the girls and you. You’re as eager as the girls to go on the next adventure, whether it be a summer night out in the park with sparklers, or a nerf gun battle at home on rainy days.

Still, he doesn’t know for sure what he’s doing is enough for you and he’s too much of a coward to check. So he’ll wake up almost every night, fumble in the dark just to make sure you’re there.

You’re there, until you aren’t.

It’s three in the morning. The space beside him is cold and empty.

He throws off the blankets, trips on his bed slippers. He crashes through into the living room and oh, there you are - sitting at the dining table, typing furiously at your laptop while mouthing off to yourself about the ridiculous demands your client makes.

“What’s wrong?” you frown.

He walks towards you, trying to discern that you’re real, you’re there, not some trick of the light..

“You’re - you’re still here.”

You nod slowly, eyeing him strangely. “My boss called and asked me to send out an urgent email. I was just about to go back to bed.”

He exhales, tries to force his trembling heart back into his chest. He thinks he’s doing a good job trying to act nonchalant, smoothing back his frazzled mane of hair, but you see right through him as you always do.

“Tetsuro”, you say slowly. “Is everything alright?

The truth tumbles out of his mouth. “I thought you were gone.”

Then he hangs his head, looks at his feet, afraid that he’ll only see rejection in your eyes. He’s a pathetic failure of a husband who has a decade’s worth of sins to make up for, and there’s no justification for him to selfishly to seek your absolution.

It comes anyway, in the form of soft hands pulling him forward.

“I’m here”, you say, pulling him into your embrace, letting him rest his heavy head in your lap.

He doesn’t allow himself to sink into your warmth. “Are you happier now? Are things better for you?”

“Yes”, he hears you say. The tension he’s been carrying around these few months lifts. “Thank you, Tetsuro. I appreciate it. I really do. You don’t have to work yourself to death - that’s never what I was asking for. If you’re tired -”

He shakes his head at your suggestion. He’s got a long way yet before he earns any reprieve.

“Tetsuro -”

He sits up abruptly, takes your hands in his.

“Promise you won’t leave me”, he pleads. “I know you’ve had to carry what must’ve felt like the weight of the entire world on your own, and I don’t have any excuse for that.”

“You don’t”, you agree.

He accepts the blow but he takes comfort that you don’t pull away. “I know that now. I know now how fucking hard it was to do it all alone.”

“It was hard. It was so, so hard, Tetsuro. I became numb to the pain. I don’t think I was functioning, I haven’t been for a while. For a long, long while.”

“I’m sorry”, his voice cracks.

“I know.” You cup his face in your hands, offers him comfort he doesn’t deserve. “That’s a chapter of our marriage that’s past, that can’t be unwritten. But the past few months have been different. You’ve shown me that you’ve changed.”

The first glimmer of sunlight after a long, dark winter. Hope blooms with your smile.

“I think”, you say. “I think we can make this work again.”

He stares at you, dumbstruck. Then the fact that you’re giving him another chance dawns upon him, and he crashes forward to rest his head on your shoulder, unashamed to cry tears of relief.

“Thank you”, he exhales brokenly. “I won’t fuck this up again, I promise.”

You press a kiss to his forehead, curl up trustingly in his arms. “Don’t thank me”, you laugh. “Thank yourself for making me believe in you.”

He drinks up each drop of your affection, falls asleep in the cradle of your arms.

“Is this what flirting is like?”

He wakes up to Aiko’s impertinent question, her hands on hips looking distinctly unimpressed at finding her parents asleep on the sofa, entwined together.

“Who taught you that word?” Kuroo asks, aghast that his ten year old daughter even recognises the existence of the opposite gender.

Aiko sticks her tongue at him, and he’s too distracted by Fumiko taking a flying leap onto the sofa with them, chattering a thousand miles an hour about what’s for breakfast and whether they can go to the zoo this afternoon - though he pins his suspicions on Bokuto’s trio of sons.

“Monsters”, he says. “Can’t even give your to-san a break to snuggle up to your pretty ka’san.”

The girls shriek in dismay - Aiko, at being a witness to further gross displays of affection between her parents, Fumiko, at being called a monster despite being a self-proclaimed princess. You prod at the soft flesh between his ribs.

“Don’t be mean”, you admonish him.

He sniffs, taking the chance to draw you closer. “I’m cranky in the mornings unless I get a morning kiss.”

You snort, swatting at him. “You make it sound as if kisses contain caffeine.”

The girls giggle, but he protests.

“Full of nonsense”, you tease, but you kiss him, again and again and again.

Things settle into a steady, sustainable pace.

You refuse to allow him to bear the weight of the household on his back alone. There are frank conversations to be had about what each of you can realistically handle without burning out. He leads the charge in the mornings, whipping up breakfast with the aid of his two sous chefs, building an expertise in braiding and french twists that could possibly allow him to moonlight as a hairstylist. You, on the other hand, take charge of evening pick-ups, cooking dinners, supervising homework and art projects until he comes home and tags you out.

Chores are evenly split. He doesn’t allow you to assume the mental load of organising the household by yourself. “We both have a degree in business management”, he likes to remind you, because he now knows that remembering to run errands, scheduling appointments - all of this is work too.

You force him to take breaks. If you get to relax with your friends, so should he. “If you get too stressed, you’ll lose your hair and we can’t have that.” He yelps when he imagines himself bald and obediently complies when you call Kenma up, talk him into getting him and Bokuto and Akaashi (when he’s feeling less morose about his singlehood) to go for a round of pick up volleyball. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself”, you note wryly when he returns home crowing about how he stuffed an Olympic player with a kill block.

“I did”, he replies, catching your hips to pull you in, cheekily ignoring your complaints that he’s sweaty. “But I enjoy coming home to you even more.”

“Gross”, you grumble, but you seem content to remain in his arms.

It’s another small moment he treasures. Life, he learns, is made of moments, both big and small. He’d made the mistake of only focusing on the big ones - graduation, playing at nationals, the day he was lucky enough to marry you, each of his daughter’s birthdays. Now, though, he cherishes each moment, each second he has with you and the girls, no matter how little, no matter how small.

He likes to come into the bathroom each night, leaning his elbow on the edge of the bathtub as you chat to him about your day, luxuriating in the bath he drew for you. You and he take turns to complain about life’s inconveniences as you clear emails once the girls have gone off to bed- colleagues who shirk their work, bosses who nitpick overmuch, washing everything down with steaming cups of herbal tea.

“Are you happy?”, he asks you, night after night.

“Mm”, you say with an impish grin. “I’d be happier if you let me put my toes on your calves.”

“They’re freezing”, he groans but scoots over anyway. “Better?”

“Much better”, you hum, content. “Life is good.”

He’s not remiss in planning the big moments too.

A year passes quickly to your wedding anniversary. He packs your suitcase, books the train tickets and whisks you back to the ryokan in Hakone, though this time he upgrades you both to their largest suite. “I feel like a princess!” you exclaim, twirling about the room.

Your happiness is worth every yen he spent.

You spend the day strolling down avenues lined with cherry blossoms, Mount Fuji looming in the backdrop, the evening exchanging heated kisses in the private onsen he booked. You’re older now, with laughter lines creased into your forehead, grey streaks in your hair, but you’re still the same girl he fell in love with all those years ago.

“And you couldn’t wait ‘til we got back to our room?” you smack him.

He also loves how there’s fire burning bright in your eyes, the way it always used to. “You kissed me first!”

“You kissed me second!”

“I don’t hear you complaining”, he cackles.

You try to shush him, to no avail, as he draws the attention of everyone around him.

“What a happy couple”, an obaa-san remarks out loud. “They must be newlyweds.”

Well, she’s not wrong. You’re as radiant as you were fifteen years ago, his spring bride, but he’s an old man doddering on, hopefully with his edges sanded off with time. “Just your regular old, married couple”, he chortles when you’re safely back in the room.

“A happily married couple”, you reply, serenely sipping your tea. “That obaa-san definitely got that part right.”

There’s a lump in his throat that he can’t swallow. “Are you happy?” he manages to ask anyway.

“With you?” Your smile is warm, bright. Always.”

Both of you are doing alright.

a/n: it's been a while, hasn't it. i've been alright - how are you guys doing?

#kuroo x you #kuroo x reader #kuroo testuro #haikyuu angst #haikyuu fluff

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aestheticpearl · 1 year

Text

— ‘you’ve got to press it on you.’

characters. dewdrop, rain, swiss, mountain, phantom

themes. SMUT

[warnings] smut, blood, biting, dacryphilia, size kink, corruption kink, light choking, mirror sex, spanking

[gender neutral reader]

ghoulettes

a/n: they’re ghouls, read at your own risk

➳ dewdrop

he def fucks with a PASSION

very accommodating

if you want to go slow, he’ll go slow

if you want it rough, he’ll be rough

he can be whatever you’d like, praise or degradation

‘oh yeah, that’s it baby— fuck you really know how to move, where’d you learn that hm? you fucking the other ghouls?’

POWER BOTTOM

i said what i said

dew loves to watch you ride him

and he loves to hold your hips to guide your movements

it’s definitely his favorite position

he doesn’t mind topping tho

this ghoul will mark you up until your neck is painted in your own blood

he’ll lick it up cause he love how sweet you taste

“such a pretty thing covered in your own blood and my cum, fuck you turn me on.”

you lay breathlessly on top of the ghoul as he pets your head. you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve cum, your mind fuzzy and fucked out.

“few more rounds yeah?” dewdrop states moving so he’s now on top of you.

he slips himself back inside you with little effort, using his own cum that’s on you as a lubricant.

you groan into your pillow at the stretch of him. no matter how many times you do it, it still burns in the best way possible.

“that’s it, you’re so good at taking my dick.” he says before leaning over to bite your shoulder.

➳ rain

he doesn’t fuck

he makes love

and he’s so good at it

gives the BEST head

he would stay between your legs for hours if you’d let him

shower sex

y’all are always fuckin in the shower or in some kind of water

oddly enough he’s not a fan of bath sex

the water splashes on the floor and you almost slipped because of it one time

shamelessly loud moans

he breathes heavily after he cums that’s so hot holy fuck

he’ll definitely thank you while cumming

‘thankyouthankyouthankyou— hgnnn i love you so much’

loves to make out with you while he’s inside you

he’s def cried after sex cause it felt so good but don’t tell anyone that

your lips are starting to go numb because of the heavy make out session between the both of you. it almost distracts you from the slow but skilled rolling of his hips into yours. almost.

“you feel so good around me, satan i love you so much.” rain says before moving back into the kiss and pinning you more up against the shower wall.

the water pours down both of your bodies and something about it just absolutely does it for rain.

“you look so amazing like this, soaking wet while i drill my cock into you.” he moans.

➳ swiss

kinky bastard

degradation king

but like his aftercare is amazing so it’s fine

corruption kink

fav position is doggy

loves shoving your face into a pillow while he plows you from behind

also likes to lean down and yank you up so he can hold your neck

has marked you everywhere

needs to let everyone know you’re his

‘you’re mine, don’t forget that’

almost bit a major artery in your leg

ALMOST

there was a lot of blood but it’s okay cause you didn’t die and it only turned him on more

he will try any angle that feels good

he MAKES you flexible

this bitch definitely growls

LOVES to make you watch how he disappears inside you

def has a mirror next to his bed

“look at how good i fuck you.” swiss grips your face and makes you turn to look at yourself in the mirror next to him bed. “look at how well your slutty hole takes me ahh fucking whore for my cock.”

you let out a pathetic whimper that makes swiss chuckle as he pushes your head back into the mattress.

“keep your eyes on me.” he whispers in your ear as he holds the back of your neck. he plants a swift smack on your ass before rubbing his hand over it gently to soothe the sting.

“good play thing.”

➳ mountain

he knows his size

he also knows how to use it

OH LORD

he is so gentle tho

a little scared he’ll hurt you

he also can’t degrade you

he tried and HE ended up crying

loves how he towers over your body

can and will man handle you which means he will fuck you everywhere he can

the wall, the bathroom, the practice room

everywhere

loves the thrill of getting caught

‘shhh baby you don’t want us to get caught do you?’

he loves when you’re vocal, since he kinda just grunts and groans

mountain lifts your leg gently for better access and you can’t help but moan loudly before his hand covers your mouth and he leans down to whisper in your ear.

“so loud, i’m starting to think you want someone to catch us pretty thing.”

your eyes squeeze shut as your body is hit with another wave of pleasure as you feel mountain’s free hand take yours to guide it down your chest and stop at your abdomen before pressing down.

“i’m right here, you feel that?”

➳ phantom

i love phantom i do but he’s younger and doesn’t have as much as experience as the other ghouls

that being said

he focuses a little too much on himself but

HE WHIMPERS

‘ah fuck’

he loves holding you close to him while thrusting into you

doesn’t pull out all the way, he kind of just jerks into you really fast

lil jackhammer

he learns how to make you feel good from your guidance

likes when you communicate how you feel during sex

he likes seeing you cry but only because it feels good

he doesn’t like hurting you

bites you but not hard enough to draw blood

he likes praising you

very possessive

phantom places gentle kisses over the fresh indent of his teeth on your neck while holding onto you for dear life.

“such a good little thing for me nghh so tight, all mine.”

you’ll admit he was going a little too fast for it to feel good on you end, that was until you adjusted your hips and he started hitting a certain spot that had your legs shaking.

phantom takes notice of this almost immediately.

“i hit your sweet spot didn’t i?”

“p-phantom i need to you slow down and keep that angle.” your eyes are practically rolling back into your head at this point as he listens to your instructions.

“fuck you’re squeezing me so tight.”

please reblog to show support ✧·˚ ༘ * ༄

feral i’ve gone feral you guys

.love always <3 pearl

.masterlist

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priniya · 1 year

Note

hi lovie! could you do some percy (or leo, maybe both?? i love them sm hahaha) headcanons abt dating an aphrodite’s child?

I COMPLETELY LOVE THE IDEA OMG??? tysm for requesting anon <3

sorry if it’s not like you imagined it😭 it’s my first time with headcanons like that

dating percy as an aphrodite’s child would include . . .

okay you all gotta admit that if percy could, he would brag about his partner being so beautiful that no one can compete with them

i feel like he’s at the university and some guys are talking and he just waits for a chance to show you off and be like “they are literally a goddess’ child”

BUT IN FRONT OF YOU??? he’d get so awkward even if you were dating for so long

also i’m 100% sure annabeth would sometimes point it out and laugh at the way he turns into a hot mess around you

but tbh you thought it was cute, cus let’s be real. it’s percy jackson, if you weren’t a hot mess around him as well, who would you be?

if you two are sent on a mission together, he rarely thinks about himself first, always making sure you’re okay before he checks himself

in his dorm he probably has pictures of you sticked to the wall in like a heart shape and his roommates might make fun of him for being such a simp but those photos gives him strength whenever you two are apart 🔥

he’s all in for that relationship, he even officially introduced you to both his parents and paul

you taught him how to braid hair and whenever you stay at his mom’s he braid his sister’s hair under your supervision ☹️☹️

when he started dating you he probably became such a gossip guy LIKE hear me out, he started paying attention to details and people’s behavior to talk about it with you

“you won’t believe what i heard today from piper.” “nah, she didn’t told me about it directly, her body language did.”, “i know right, how could he do that to her?”

he’s all in for the tea‼️‼️‼️

OH and also when you began dating he started paying more attention to jewellery and his outfits upgraded so much??

HE IS ALSO SO JEALOUS OF YOU AND HE KISSES YOU IN PUBLIC WHEN HE CATCHES A GUY LOOKING YOUR WAY

“i know you’re a child of aphrodite but these people gotta know i am your ares. or hephaestus.” “wait, am i your ares or hephaestus?”

dating leo as an aphrodite’s child would include . . .

this man is head over heels for you, and i know i said percy also is head over heels for his partner but LEO is on different level

he often drags you to the bunker whenever he feels like it and make you sit there with him, while he crafts something (mostly for you)

that man dedicates all his work for you, like

“oh this? i made it for yn cus they said [insert thing] fall apart so i just… did it.”

ngl he is kind of insecure that you’d left him for a child of ares just like your mother did to his father. even though you reassure him he’s the one on your mind, it still stings him sometimes

getting an approval from your mom wasn’t even that hard as you thought it could be. though she wasn’t exactly the most delighted you were in love with her husband’s child but… love is love right?

pet names in spanish ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

n you would pick it up and surprise him by calling him something in spanish <3

EVEN THOUGH he’s insecure about history repeating itself he jokes about it way too much sometimes 😭😭

brags to jason about you so much jason wants to off himself and i am not kidding

he once asked you to charm-speak him just to see how it feels

“what? don’t be like that, mi amor. i gotta know what’s your power’s like in case you do it subconsciously.”

(that’s literally the dumbest excuse you’d ever hear but didn’t care, considering it was your boyfriend who asked)

MANY people says you remind them of charlie and silena and when you heard it for the first time, you broke down crying because it was such a good compliment

#percy jackson headcanon #percy jackson #percy jackson x reader #percy jackson au #percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackson fic #leo valdez fic #leo valdez headcanon #leo valdez headcanons #percy jackson headcanons #leo valdez x reader #leo valdez oneshot

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inklessletter · 1 year

Text

Since I can't draw tonight, here's a steddie prompt for you:

Steve runs away from home once he becomes eighteen because his home environment is absolutely toxic. It's all yelling, and spitting insults, and constantly hearing that he is such a disappointment, so he decides to hit the road and go some city away from everyone he knows and just start over. His trauma response to loud, aggressive spaces leads him to accept a job managing a school library.

And he finds out it is his dream job.

He sees all these teens studying, sharing glances, romances beginning, stress increasing as midterms come closer, annoyed faces, giggling girls gossiping, kids vandalizing his tables... And he feels an observant. A watcher.

And he imagines. He imagines their lives, the tall jock with the widest smile going soft for the sarcastic redhead. The quiet thing blossoming between tose two boys who give longing glances when the other is not looking. The oddest friendship between the meanest eleven year old he's ever met and the most cynical kid to ever set foot in that school. He sees and he imagines, but he's silent.

Because silence is a precious shield that protects his imagination. Silence will never hurt him.

His first real friendship begins in silence. This girl, Robin, passes him a note with a poor drawing of him falling asleep on his desk. It made him laugh. She laughed too. That was enough.

They play this game together in which they both exchanged the craziest theories they could think of about other people's lives.

That one is a Russian spy.

That one runs a secret lab.

That one has mind powers (okay, that was maybe too crazy).

That one is an former cop.

"That one is a rockstar," Robin said pointing an absurdly good looking guy that was checking out a couple of books.

"He does looks like one, though..."

Robin was going to reply when she noticed Steve's rosy cheeks. She just smiled. She noticed the guy looking briefly at them, and then he grinned.

"Metal is more my scene, but close enough," he said.

Shit.

The guy approached them and Robin, the traitor, bolted away. The guy, all dimples and soft hair lent Steve two books and his library card (Munson, Eddie), that he registered and gave back to him.

Steve tried hard not to be an awkward mess, he barely managed to.

"I do actually play in a band, uh, on Tuesdays," Eddie said. Steve looked at him with a twist in his stomach. "And today is Tuesday. So if you want to come, I would gladly buy you a drink."

Steve felt a lump in his throat, and looked down.

"Uh, I—I don't—"

"Oh, sorry, I just—"

"I don't do well with loud noises," Steve said quickly. "I'm sorry."

Eddie nodded.

"Good luck tonight," Steve said, not wanting to leave the conversation in a rejection. He pointed the book. "This one is really good."

"Have you read The Lord of the Rings?"

"Yeah," Steve smiled. "I've got time and silence here."

Eddie looked at him with something hidden in his pupils meant to be discovered by Steve.

Eddie left the library.

There were a few days and a lot of conversations with Robin about that Eddie guy. Steve let himself imagine again, about him. About Eddie. He fantasized a lot, ignoring deliberately the sting in his guts knowing that he blew up his chance.

Two weeks passed and Eddie was there to return the books again, with a small guitar case hanging in his back, and Steve tried his best not to look like a kicked puppy.

"I can do soft noises," Eddie said, out of the blue. It earned him a look from both Robin and Steve. "When do you, uh, have a break?"

"Right now," Robin chimed in, quickly. "He's having a break right now."

A few minutes later they were in the rooftop. They found a comfortable spot with the best views and Eddie took out an old and battered ukulele. Then he looked at Steve.

"I am not a silent person. I exist in noise, and busy environments, and awful high pitched laughs," he said with a smile. "I can't change that, but I can change the noise."

Eddie caressed the tiny guitar strings, and the sound sent goosebumps through all Steve's skin.

"I can change the noise for you," Eddie said, low and soft, and he started playing a song. "If you let me."

His first real love began with music.

#steddie #fic #steddie fic #ficlet #prompt #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #fanfic #fluff

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moonselune · 26 days

Note

Hello!! Could you write one with your choice of characters and there baddie. Where tav thinks violence isn’t the answer and the bg3 characters ask“ what’s your plan then..?? To defeat them with the power of friendship….oh my gods it is….

Oooo okay so I'm going to do this for what I call the durge gang because they would have the biggest- basically the companions who stick around when you go full durge

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Minthara:

The air in the tent was thick with tension as you and Minthara sat across from each other, the remnants of a heated discussion still hanging in the space between you. You had been planning your next move against a band of marauders terrorizing a nearby village, and while Minthara had advocated for a swift and brutal attack, you had hesitated. Minthara's sharp eyes studied you, her expression a mixture of disbelief and frustration.

"You can't be serious," she said, her voice dripping with incredulity. "You honestly think we can reason with these scum? Convince them to change their ways?"

You crossed your arms, standing firm in your decision. "I believe in giving people a chance to do the right thing. Violence should always be a last resort, Minthara."

Minthara let out a harsh laugh, shaking her head. "Oh, this is rich. And what's your plan, then? To defeat them with the power of friendship?"

She paused, her eyes narrowing as realization dawned on her.

"Oh my gods, it is."

You felt your cheeks flush slightly at her words, but you held your ground. "I think we can appeal to their better nature. Maybe they’re just lost, or desperate. If we can show them there’s another way—"

Minthara cut you off with a snort, her lips curling into a smirk. "You actually think these marauders have a 'better nature' to appeal to? You’re living in a dream world if you think they’re going to listen to anything but the edge of a blade." She leaned forward, her gaze piercing. "This isn’t some storybook where the hero wins with a kind word and a smile. Out there, it's kill or be killed. And you’re risking your life—and mine—on some ridiculous notion of mercy."

You sighed, knowing how deeply ingrained her beliefs were, but still unwilling to back down. "I’m not naive, Minthara. I know the risks. But I have to believe that not everything has to be solved with bloodshed."

Minthara shook her head, leaning back in her chair with a look of exasperation. "You're going to regret this. When your plan backfires and they turn on us, don't say I didn't warn you."

The next day, you put your plan into action. You approached the marauders with an open hand, speaking to them calmly, offering them a chance to surrender, to find a different path. Minthara stood a few paces behind you, arms crossed, her expression one of barely concealed disdain.

For a brief moment, you thought you saw a glimmer of doubt in the eyes of the leader. He hesitated, as if considering your words. But then, with a sneer, he laughed in your face and ordered his men to attack.

The battle that followed was chaotic and brutal. You fought alongside Minthara, who, despite her earlier mocking, had your back through every strike and parry. But as the dust settled and the bodies of the marauders lay scattered across the ground, you couldn’t help but feel a deep pang of disappointment.

As you wiped the blood from your blade, Minthara approached you, her expression a mixture of triumph and something almost like pity.

"I told you," she said, her voice low and smug. "I warned you this would happen, my dearest. You tried to reason with animals, and they bit you. Violence isn’t just an answer—it’s the only answer with scum like them."

You felt your heart sink at her words, the sting of failure weighing heavily on your shoulders.

"I just wanted to try a different way," you muttered, more to yourself than to her.

Minthara’s smirk widened, and she reached out to tilt your chin up, forcing you to meet her gaze. "And look where that got you. If I hadn’t been there, you’d be dead. Your idealism is going to get you killed one day, and I won’t always be there to save you from yourself."

You couldn’t argue with her. The truth of her words stung as much as her mockery, but you couldn’t help but feel a stubborn resolve still burning within you. You’d tried—and failed—but that didn’t mean you’d stop believing in the possibility of a better way.

Minthara, however, seemed content in her victory. She gave you a lingering look before turning away, her voice carrying over her shoulder as she walked off. "Next time, listen to me, love. You might just live longer."

You watched her go, feeling the weight of the lesson she had driven home. But even as you stood there amidst the aftermath, you couldn’t entirely give up on your ideals. However, you knew better than to challenge Minthara’s approach again anytime soon. Not unless you were prepared for her to say, "I told you so."

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Lae'zel:

The conversation had started out as a simple strategy discussion, but as it progressed, a divide between your philosophies became increasingly apparent.

Lae'zel, ever the pragmatist, had suggested an aggressive approach to deal with the band of brigands that had been terrorizing the nearby village. You, on the other hand, had proposed a more peaceful solution—trying to reason with them, to offer them a chance to change their ways without bloodshed.

As you finished explaining your plan, Lae'zel’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. She leaned forward, her intense gaze boring into you.

"You cannot be serious," she said, her voice laced with skepticism. "What is your plan then? To defeat them with the power of friendship?" There was a pause before her expression shifted to one of realization. "Oh by Mother Gith, it is…"

You felt your face heat up, her words cutting into your confidence. It was one thing to believe in the goodness of people, but hearing it framed so mockingly by Lae'zel made you question your own resolve. Her laughter followed, a deep, throaty sound that both unnerved and irritated you.

Lae'zel shook her head, her laughter subsiding into a smirk. "You’re too soft, too trusting. They’ll cut you down before you can utter a word of peace. This is not some child's tale where good intentions win the day."

Her amusement gnawed at you, your initial confidence wavering. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was foolish to think you could sway the hearts of brigands with words alone. But then again, you believed in the possibility of change, in the strength of diplomacy. It had to be worth something, didn’t it?

Seeing your hesitation, Lae'zel leaned back, her smirk never fading. "Your plan is as flimsy as your resolve. You’ll get yourself killed, and for what? A misguided hope that the wicked can be redeemed?"

Her words, though harsh, hit a nerve. The doubt she had planted began to fester, and you could feel your frustration growing. Defensive, you shot back at her, "It’s not foolish to want to find another way. Not everything has to be solved with violence, Lae'zel!"

But even as you spoke, the wavering in your voice betrayed your own uncertainty. Lae'zel noticed it immediately, her eyes narrowing slightly as if she had already won the argument. That smug, knowing look on her face was the final straw.

Without thinking, you lashed out, giving her a light but firm whack on the arm. It wasn’t enough to hurt her, but it certainly caught her off guard.

"Stop laughing at me!" you demanded, your tone more petulant than you intended. The words tumbled out in a childish strop, and you could feel your cheeks flush with embarrassment. Lae'zel looked down at where you had struck her, then back up at you, her smirk widening into a full grin.

"Oh, so the little diplomat has claws after all," she teased, her voice dripping with amusement.

You glared at her, folding your arms across your chest as you huffed in irritation. "I’m serious, Lae'zel. Just because I don’t want to go charging in with swords drawn doesn’t mean I’m wrong."

Lae'zel chuckled softly, her laughter more affectionate this time. She reached out, placing a hand on your shoulder, her grip firm but not unkind.

"You’re not wrong to want peace," she said, her tone softening slightly. "But you must understand, in this world, it is strength that dictates survival. And sometimes, that strength must be wielded with force."

You wanted to argue, to insist that your way could work, but the confidence had drained out of you, leaving you feeling more frustrated than anything. Lae'zel’s words had unnerved you, and now, with the heat of the moment passing, you felt a little silly for losing your temper. Lae'zel, sensing your turmoil, gave your shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"Do not doubt your convictions," she said quietly. "But know that I will always be there to protect you, even when your heart leads you into danger."

You sighed, the tension slowly ebbing away as you leaned into her touch.

"I know," you muttered, still feeling a bit sulky but less inclined to argue further. Lae'zel smiled, her expression softening in a way that was reserved only for you.

"Good," she murmured, brushing a stray strand of hair from your face. "Now, let’s focus on what we can do together. Whether by word or by blade, we’ll handle whatever comes our way."

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Shadowheart:

The two of you had been sitting by the campfire, discussing the best approach to deal with a group of hostile mercenaries that had been causing trouble in the nearby village. Shadowheart, ever pragmatic and wary of risk, had suggested a straightforward approach—one that involved steel, blood, and as little negotiation as possible.

But you, ever the optimist, had a different idea. "Violence isn't the answer," you had said firmly, hoping to convince her that there was another way. "We can talk to them, maybe even convince them to leave peacefully."

Shadowheart had looked at you with a raised eyebrow, her expression a mix of skepticism and concern.

"What’s your plan then?" she had asked, her tone dripping with doubt. "To defeat them with the power of friendship?" There was a pause, her eyes narrowing slightly as realization dawned. "Oh my gods… it is, isn’t it?"

You had bristled at her disbelief but stood your ground. "It’s worth trying," you had insisted. "We don’t have to resort to violence right away."

She had sighed, shaking her head. "You’re too kind-hearted for your own good. This isn’t going to work, and you know it."

But despite her warnings, you had gone ahead with your plan.

When you returned to the camp later that evening, the night had already settled in, and the campfire cast long shadows around you. Shadowheart had been waiting, her eyes scanning the darkness for any sign of you. When she finally spotted you, she noticed immediately that something was off. You were walking stiffly, your movements careful, as if every step was a battle against pain. She stood up, crossing her arms as you approached.

"So," she began, her voice deceptively casual, "how did the plan go?"

You forced a smile, trying to keep your discomfort hidden. "It was fine," you lied, your voice a little too tight. "Better than expected, actually."

There was a long moment of silence between you, the crackling of the fire the only sound. Shadowheart watched you closely, her eyes narrowing as she took in your tense posture, the way you were holding yourself as if every movement caused you pain. She didn’t say anything at first, just let the silence stretch, waiting for you to crack.

Finally, unable to bear the weight of her gaze any longer, you sighed heavily.

"Alright," you muttered, dropping the pretense. "You were right. It didn’t go as planned."

A smirk tugged at the corners of Shadowheart’s lips, but she didn’t gloat. Instead, she stepped closer, her eyes softening slightly as she reached out to touch your arm.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, her tone more concerned now. "How bad is it?"

You winced as her fingers brushed against a particularly sore spot, and you nodded reluctantly.

"It’s not too bad," you said, trying to downplay it, though you knew she could see through your bravado. "But… I could use some help."

She sighed again, though this time it was more resigned than exasperated.

"I told you it was a bad idea," she said, her voice gentle as she began to examine you for injuries. "But you’re stubborn, I’ll give you that."

You couldn’t help but chuckle, though it quickly turned into a wince as she found a particularly tender spot on your side.

"I just wanted to find a better way," you said softly, meeting her gaze. "I didn’t want to hurt anyone."

Shadowheart’s expression softened, and she shook her head slightly as she tended to your wounds.

"I know," she murmured, her touch careful as she worked. "But sometimes, being too kind can be dangerous. You have to know when to stand your ground, and when to draw the line."

You nodded, the pain in your body a reminder of the lesson learned.

"I’ll keep that in mind," you said, your voice earnest. Once she finished patching you up, she looked at you with a mix of affection and exasperation.

"You’re lucky I’m here to take care of you," she teased, though there was a warmth in her eyes that made your heart swell. You smiled, reaching out to take her hand.

"I know," you replied, squeezing her hand gently. "And I’m grateful for it."

Shadowheart sighed, but there was a hint of a smile on her lips as she leaned in to kiss your forehead. "Just promise me you’ll be more careful next time," she whispered.

You nodded, the weight of the day’s events settling on your shoulders as you leaned into her embrace. "I promise."

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Gale:

The two of you were huddled in your tent, poring over maps and discussing the best way to deal with the band of marauders terrorizing a nearby village. Gale had suggested a calculated approach—one that involved precise spells and strategic combat. But you had a different idea, one that made Gale pause, his brow furrowing in disbelief.

"Violence isn't the answer," you said, your voice filled with conviction as you traced a route on the map. "We can talk to them, convince them to leave peacefully. There’s no need for bloodshed."

Gale looked at you, his expression a mix of bewilderment and concern. "What’s your plan then?" he asked, his tone cautious as if he was preparing himself for something unexpected. "To defeat them with the power of friendship?" His eyes widened slightly as he realized you were serious. "Oh my gods… it is, isn’t it?"

You nodded confidently. "It’s worth a shot. If we can appeal to their humanity, show them there’s another way… it could work."

Gale leaned back, rubbing his temples as if trying to comprehend what he was hearing.

"You’re astounding, you know that? Only you could concoct a plan that defies all logic and yet believe in it with such unwavering faith." He shook his head, a mixture of admiration and exasperation in his eyes. "But go ahead, fearless one. Let’s see where your idealism takes us."

You smiled, grateful that despite his doubts, Gale was willing to let you try. So, with a heart full of hope, you set out to enact your plan.

The marauders were camped just outside the village, a rough and rugged group that looked every bit as dangerous as the villagers had described. But you approached them with open hands, speaking to their leader about peace, redemption, and the possibility of a better life.

For a moment, it seemed like they were listening. Their leader’s eyes softened as you spoke, and you felt a flicker of hope. But then, with a harsh laugh, he dismissed your words, and the marauders closed in, their intentions clear.

Your heart sank as you realized your plan had failed. They weren’t interested in peace; they wanted power, and they were willing to take it by force. You braced yourself for the worst, feeling a surge of regret for not heeding Gale’s warning.

But just as the marauders were about to strike, a brilliant light erupted around you. Gale had been watching from a distance, his keen intellect and protective nature unwilling to let you face the danger alone. With a few precise incantations, he unleashed a barrage of spells, weaving fire and force into a stunning display of magical prowess.

The marauders, caught off guard by the sudden onslaught, stumbled back in disarray. Gale’s magic surged through the camp, disarming and disabling the attackers with calculated precision. In moments, the threat was neutralized, and the surviving marauders fled into the night, too afraid to challenge the wizard who had effortlessly turned the tide.

Breathing heavily, you turned to find Gale standing a short distance away, his expression a mixture of relief and exasperation. He approached you, his eyes scanning for any signs of injury.

"Well," he said, his voice carrying a hint of smugness, "it seems my plan worked after all."

You sighed, feeling the weight of your failed attempt settle on your shoulders.

"I thought… maybe I could reach them," you admitted, your voice tinged with regret. Gale’s expression softened, and he placed a hand on your shoulder.

"Your heart is in the right place, my love," he said gently. "But not everyone is open to reason or redemption. Sometimes, you have to be prepared for when words fail."

You nodded, feeling a mix of gratitude and humility. "You were right," you confessed, meeting his gaze. "Thank you… for stepping in."

Gale smiled, his eyes warm with affection. "It’s what I’m here for," he replied. "To keep you safe, even when you’re determined to save the world with kindness."

You couldn’t help but smile at his words, despite the lingering disappointment in your chest.

"I suppose I owe you one," you said, leaning in to rest your head against his shoulder. Gale chuckled softly, wrapping his arm around you.

"Just promise me you’ll listen next time," he teased, though his tone was gentle.

"I promise," you murmured, feeling the comfort of his presence and the steady beat of his heart. "I’ll be more careful."

Gale pressed a kiss to your forehead, his voice soft in your ear. "Good. Because I’d like to keep you around for a long time."

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Astarion:

As you stood by the campfire, pondering the best way to deal with the bandits who had been terrorizing the nearby village, you couldn’t shake the feeling that there had to be a better way than resorting to violence. The thought of bloodshed weighed heavily on your heart, and you were determined to find another solution.

Astarion, ever the cynic with a devilish smirk, noticed the troubled expression on your face and sauntered over, his gaze full of curiosity.

"Something on your mind, darling?" he asked, his tone light but laced with that familiar undertone of sarcasm. You hesitated for a moment, then took a deep breath and turned to face him.

"I don’t think violence is the answer here," you began, your voice resolute. "Maybe we can talk to them, convince them to leave the village alone. It doesn’t always have to end in bloodshed."

Astarion blinked, taken aback by your suggestion. He stared at you for a long moment before raising an eyebrow.

"What’s your plan then…?" he asked, his voice dripping with disbelief. "To defeat them with the power of friendship…? Oh my gods, it is, isn’t it?"

You nodded, your resolve unwavering despite his incredulity. "Yes," you replied firmly. "It’s worth trying. If we can avoid fighting, why not?"

Astarion’s eyes widened slightly, and he stared at you as if you had just suggested sprouting wings and flying to the moon.

"You’re serious," he said, half in disbelief, half in amusement. "You’re actually going to go through with this insane plan."

You crossed your arms, refusing to back down. "Yes, I am," you insisted. "There’s no harm in trying to talk things out first."

Astarion let out a long, exasperated sigh, running a hand through his silver hair. "Darling, I adore that bleeding heart of yours, but this plan of yours defies all logic. Bandits aren’t exactly the negotiating type."

You could see the concern in his eyes, masked by his usual sarcasm, but you were determined to stick to your principles.

"I have to try," you said softly. "If there’s even a chance…"

But Astarion wasn’t having it. He stepped closer to you, his expression turning from playful to serious.

"No," he said firmly, his hand gently but firmly grasping your arm. "This is madness. You can’t just walk into a bandit camp and expect them to listen to reason. You’re going to get yourself killed."

You looked up at him, surprised by the intensity in his gaze. "Astarion, I—"

"Enough," he interrupted, his voice firm. "I can’t let you do this. I love that heart of yours, but I would much prefer it to keep beating."

You tried to pull away, but Astarion held on tighter, his grip unyielding. "I’m not letting go until you come to your senses," he said, his voice softening just a fraction. "I’ve lost too much already, and I won’t lose you too."

His words struck a chord deep within you, and you could feel the fear and concern behind his usual teasing demeanor. A moment of silence passed between you, the tension thick in the air. Finally, you sighed, your shoulders slumping in defeat.

"Alright," you murmured, "maybe it was a foolish plan."

Astarion let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding and pulled you into a tight embrace. "Thank the gods," he whispered into your hair, his voice full of relief. "You had me worried there."

You wrapped your arms around him, leaning into his embrace, feeling the warmth and comfort of his presence.

"I just wanted to find a way to avoid more violence," you said quietly.

"And I love you for that," Astarion replied, his voice gentle now. "But sometimes, a little pragmatism is necessary."

You nodded against his chest, feeling a wave of gratitude for his stubbornness, even if it had annoyed you at first.

"You’re right," you admitted. "I wasn’t thinking straight."

Astarion chuckled softly, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "You never do when it comes to your heart," he teased, though his tone was affectionate. "But that’s one of the things I love about you."

You pulled back slightly to look up at him, your eyes meeting his. "Thank you," you whispered, "for keeping me grounded."

He smiled, brushing a strand of hair away from your face. "Always, my love," he said, his voice full of warmth. "Always."

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

I loved writing this and I hope you guys enjoyed it! - Seluney xox

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