#and I don’t mind waiting itself but rather WHY we have to wait

[the-duke-of-dick]

[leclsrc]

wanna be nearer ✴︎ mv1

genre: 18+, fuck buddies ahhhaha, smut, porn w/o plot basically...

word count: 3.6k  

It seems every time you tell yourself to stop, Max comes back into your life and all sense of resolve crumbles. title from this

auds here… hiii :) req'd by SO MANY PEOPLE i can't even start compiling all the asks hahah but if u asked for this here it is! writing's been tuff for me lately but this was the one thing i could continue daily (weird) also there is a case to be made re: max's hottest pictures being like 1 pixel in resolution... hope u all like it!!!

nsfw warnings under the cut!

18+ because... sexual tension, penetrative sex, some vague sexting/a sex tape being watched, praise/dirty talk central, size kink, unprotected sex, handjob (f receiving), max being a meanie

It’s busy today. You haven’t seen him all day. 

To be fair, you weren’t necessarily looking—not at first, anyways. How many days had it been since the last time, now? The one in your hotel room? Almost two weeks, you think. The real answer’s blurry in your head, especially when you count the close calls, but this should be a record for you two at this point. Neither of you acknowledge that the only reason you’ve been so good at staying away from each other is because when you’re not roped into the same media junket, you avoid each other at all costs.

The media pen is full; everybody’s shoulder-to-shoulder because a few other networks bought their way into the space for the Singapore race. Right when your mind settles back into the focus of work, though—

“Here,” he says, his voice rough and tickling your ear. You nearly stumble forward, shocked at how his voice almost vibrates through you, a low trill that ripples top to bottom.

His hand settles at the small of your back, like his verbal confirmation wasn’t enough on its own; it’s big and his thumb rubs softly at the smooth strip of skin in-between your low skirt and your top. “Passing through.”

“Sure,” you say, dry. “Sorry.” You clear your throat and cant backwards into his touch—briefly, before you step forward and allow him to pass fully. Across you, Lissie looks up from her phone and you sense her trying to gauge why you’re so close to Max.

You blink and wait for him to disappear, wondering what you’ll tell her—how, more like. How the conversation even opens. How you’d phrase the truth, which in itself is a horribly grey area. Well, Lis, if you must know, Max and I have casual sex. A lot. It’s actually not very casual. We stopped now, but—yes, Max. That Max, yes. 

“What about Max?”

Your eyes snap upward and then to your left, where you can see Max’s figure disappearing into a crowd of engineers. They return to Lissie and you feign confusion to mask panic. “What?”

“You were spacing out and then suddenly said his name.” She presses the tip of her pen onto her chin, humming. She doesn’t look at you and you thank God for it—eye contact would’ve rattled the truth out of you in seconds.

“I…” You shake your head. “I was irritated with—I’ve been irritated with him all morning. It’s. Yeah.”

“Oh,” she says, nodding, looking away for a second but not pausing. “Oh, okay. D’you wanna go over this edit again?”

—

The stale air of his hotel room, alleviated only by the vaguely fragrant linen spray they use when he’s out, is what greets Max when he arrives in the afternoon.The first thing he does—the only task he’d even thought of en route here—after the door clicks shut is pull up his Messages app and type.

Just got to hotel. He tosses his phone onto the bed while he waits, tugs his cap off and rakes reckless fingers through his hair. His new stylist’s got him onto jeans that don’t “look painted on” (you once said, verbatim), but he’d rather die than lounge in denim, so he swaps them out for just his Calvins.

His mind’s lethargic, but even his version of lethargic is high-drive for others—his brain has the silly tendency to work in absolute overdrive. He itches for a drink and orders a Scotch on the telephone. He checks his phone, which is lying facedown still, and as soon as he picks it up it chimes with your reply.

OK, nice. Did u need something?

No, just wanted to let you know. He hits send, then adds another. You’re off @ 8?

Ended early, I’m in the car. He’s in the middle of drafting a response when you send a follow-up.

I thought we agreed no contact unless business

He scoffs out a dry laugh. Despite himself, he reads the text in your voice, his brain completing the image of the bossy tone with crossed arms and a wickedly arched brow. In response he types: Can’t even update a friend nowadays? I am very tired you know.

Rules are rules, he reads. Then, Get some rest.

Yeah. Got a drink.

I said rest, not drink. Even then he can hear the exasperation in your voice.

How was work? I hurt a muscle doing training. That’s why I’m at the hotel early.

Feel better soon, you send. Had some press stuff today. Boring shit

Yeah? I missed you today.

Really?

A lot. He hums and leans backward, lets his head settle into the pillow, the smell of the linen spray consuming his nostrils. He waits for his phone to buzz, vibrate softly on the hard surface of his chest. It does, after a few minutes, after he’s let his eyes shut and let himself rest them for a bit, after the room service comes knocking and gives him the Scotch he’d requested while ago.

He’s back sitting on his bed when it vibrates. He picks it up and reads: How much?

You’re awfully easy to rile up. He smiles around the rim of his glass—he knows exactly where this is heading. 

So much I think I’ll watch some videos of us.

The only caveat of casual sex as two people who essentially dislike each other is the fact that it’s all under wraps—which means if you two try to sneak off together, or are even caught in the same vicinity, people raise suspicions. And that means there are weeks where you barely get to fuck.

And that means you both grow antsy for it. He makes fun of you for being needy, when you’re tipsy and palming at the denim of his jeans or when you bend over when you know he’s looking. But the truth is he grows needy for it, too, craves you like you’re all that matters—he gets extra handsy, drops another innuendo when he knows you’re listening. There is a case to be made that he’s worse, in fact, because fans sometimes skirt around his words and wonder why he sounds so flirty when you’re the reporter in the room.

It was difficult but eventually he found a minor workaround: sometimes he films the two of you. There’s none of those propping his phone up kind of stuff, he just fishes for it in the middle of fucking you so he can store it for himself. It’s locked on his phone and he only has a few (the few has grown in number lately), but God it gives him release when he needs it and you’re not there.

I’ll call you when I’m at the lobby, comes the response. It’s always futile, the attempts to stay away from each other.

He pulls up the folder and lets his eyes skate over the thumbnails, squeezes himself through his boxers. Fuck. He can’t seem to decide what he wants to watch—the ones of you sucking him off, the ones of his fingers stretching you out. He recalls the whine in your voice in each of them, the pleads that escaped you for him to fuck you harder.

So Max, for the life of him, can’t even count how many times these videos have made him cum. But there’s one he hasn’t seen yet—the one he took the night before you two parted. You’d become extra needy on this night, preceding the season, he supposes, the separation. You already were anticipating the deprivation, starved for him more than usual. He’d have kissed you pretty, given you one orgasm after another and still you’d want more. And on this night it was you who asked him to film, you who wanted all of them on tape, so you’d both have something to tide you over until he got to fuck you again.

He pulls his cock out and strokes over it. And with his other hand, he presses his thumb on that video.

In it he’s fucking you in the dark, keeping the phone’s flashlight on your pussy as he sinks his cock into you. When he pulls back out the light reflects on the slick coating his dick, makes it glisten. It looks so wet, sounds so wet, with each thrust into you. He remembers just how it feels; he imagines that he’s back in your bed, fucking you again; that his fist is your pussy, and the spit lubricating it is the wetness that’s drooling out of you on camera.

He can see how tight you are—the way your pussy grips the shaft each time he pulls his cock out, greedy for him. Just like you.

The two of you were supposed to be quiet, too. You were at a hotel, your room beside another driver’s; you were supposed to be careful not to stir anyone. But your moans are louder than he remembers; so is the way you say, breathily, between gasps, Right there, Maxie, m’so close. Max inhales through his teeth, his cock throbbing at that—that Maxie, the cute little whimper out your mouth.

He strokes himself faster, watches the way your fingers slip into frame to rub at your clit, his thrusts getting sloppier and sloppier. He can see, hear—feel how wet you are, the sound of your cunt growing wetter with every thrust. He hears his own voice again, mutter out So good for me, yeah? And your babbled affirmation in response.

You cum hard, your slick getting everything wet and shiny and Max watches himself cum next. His dick’s already spurting when he pulls out and lets himself release on your lower stomach, some of it shooting onto your tits. He blinks, anchors himself back, quickens his wrist and digs his heels into the bed to keep himself from coming. Just a second longer. He knows what comes next and he needs to see it.

Like clockwork, he watches two of your fingers swipe through his cum, bringing them up to your lips. You blink up at the camera and smile. Quit it, your lips mouth, pink and cum-slick. Put it down, Maxie… fill me up again. He releases in weak spurts over his fist, a damp, flushed grunt escaping him as he does. He feels like the air’s been knocked out of him.

His phone rings and he presses it to his ear. “Hey, angel. Come on up.”

One week later

“Vodka,” you say to the bellboy when you get to the elevator. “To my hotel room. Very cold. Please. And thank you.”

The guy scurries off to fetch it for you, and five minutes and one elevator ride later, you're wrestling himself into your room, flexing your sore foot. Japan does hotel rooms well. The leather of your Manolo digs into your foot the way it does after you’ve walked the entire day and you can feel a blister forming on the back of your right heel but it doesn’t really matter, you guess, if you’re already home. Hotel-home, anyway.

You expect to find solace lounging on your bed, waiting out the hours to your morning briefing for the race and throw back a glass or two of vodka. 

Instead, you find Max on your couch. He’s sipping ice-cold vodka—your ice-cold vodka.

“Hey, pretty,” he says. “Good vodka. I got staff to wire my FIFA on the TV.”

You just stare. “My TV. What,” you say, your eyes spotting the bottle of frosty vodka by his glass, “are you doing here?”

“I hadn’t seen you all day and I wanted to,” he explains simply. “Do you want food or something?”

“Food? I—nevermind,” you shrug. You’re frozen by the door, only just warmed now from the cold air that bit at your bare legs. “Max, how long have you been here?”

“Since Will Buxton started the post-FP debrief,” he huffs. He fiddles with the remote in his grip and extends it to the TV, where FIFA comes to life. “Aw, come on, angel. I know, I know. No sex and all that. I just like your company, you know?”

“Please. Go fuck yourself,” you scoff, toeing off your shoes and wiping your hands on the fabric of your skirt. He says one thing but you expect another—it’s only natural, given all the other times one of you had failed to keep a similar promise. But still you walk yourself beside him, fix the strap of your short dress, and allow him to pour you a drink.

“You know what I’ve been thinking about lately?” He asks absently. “About how you’re always having these talks with me about… about not having sex anymore, but you never even last two days.” He raises you the glass. “What is it, relapsing?”

“Fuck you,” you mutter. “It’s only because you keep trying to get me all hot and bothered.” You recall each time: in Monaco, in Madrid, in France. “Maybe if you got off my back once in a while, we’d be back to normal.”

He shrugs. “You just don’t have strong resolve.”

“Excuse me?” You scoff, irritation scratching at your throat.

“Wanna test that out? Come play.”

Your eyes flit over to the bright screen, all exhaustion cleared from your system. An animated Kylian Mbappe kicks a football in a loop. “Fine. One round and you’re out of my room.” He throws his hands up in surrender and you make a move to sit next to him. Max puts his hands out towards you then, nodding. You mistake it for some handshake, accept them, and then he’s wrangle you onto his lap facing outward. You feel your pulse at your throat as he pulls you tight against him.

“This is cheating,” you say, your voice dry.

“You got it wrong. Teaching.”

He moves his fingers atop yours, explaining what to press, what goes where, what to do for this or that. He can smell your perfume, hear your stilted breaths, and when he peeks over your shoulder he can see where your dress falls loose, showing the lace of your bra and your tits underneath them.

If he had it his way, he’d hike your dress up and have you ride him. But he’s given you a challenge.

You play a practice round and end up scoring a few goals, fingers making quick work of the buttons. Behind you, Max watches, content, answering your questions when you ask them hurriedly—how do I do this? That? Did I just score?

You score once, then twice, then three times, and before you know it you’re scoring in quick succession. The game is fun—it’s easy. If Max was trying to give you a hard time, he failed. You grow determined, competitive within seconds (something he really should’ve anticipated), and you’re scoring goals with skill that you’d confidently say rivals Max’s.

Max. You almost—almost forget he’s there, and then you sit up straighter and you’re hit with the sensation of his dick pressing into your ass. You inhale sharply and the controller clatters to the floor.

“You okay, pretty?” His hand comes up to rest on your knee, inching closer and closer with every hitch of your breath. Your hand, now free of the controller, seizes his, stopping it right at the middle of your thigh. 

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah? You look stressed.” He doesn’t move. “You were so close, too, weren’t you?” The score stares you right in the face: 4-5. “Maybe you just need to get your mind off it.” It’s so bullshit, so extremely obvious, but he’s right in your ear and his hand is so near where you’ve missed its presence.

You’re usually competitive. You can usually hold your ground. But with this and him—

“Maybe,” you breathe, loosening your grip. He spreads his legs, spreading yours in the process, and brings his hand closer, running slender fingers over the lace material of your underwear until you’re squirming. It grows damper the more he touches, your mouth hanging open with stunted whimpers.

“You always come back to me, schatz, don’t you,” he says, whispers against your ear. You wrench a moan out. “Remember the first time? You interviewed me in Abu Dhabi… you teased me the whole day and begged to come thrice in my room. The time in Monaco you touched yourself to me when I was in the next room. The time we almost hooked up in Miami…” He groans, to himself more than you. “You’re a dirty girl.” He’s curling two fingers inside of you now, grazing against the sweet spot pulls the most delicious moans out of your innocent mouth.

“Every time… you go, that was the last time.” While your mind recaps the memories he’s busy spelling into your ear, Max’s fingers are curling inside of you against that sweet spot just right, and your moans are getting louder and louder.

“Fuck,” he huffs, watching your flushed face get more and more euphoric.

“Aw, pretty, look at that,” Max laughs. He’s looking at your thighs, watching the way they tense and shake as his fingers stroke your g spot. Each pump and curl into your twitching pussy feels better and better, and your dripping walls are starting to clench around his fingers.

“Wait, I—I can’t,” you pant, lolling your head onto his shoulder and involuntarily bucking your hips upward. 

“Yeah you can,” he orders. “It’s so easy to get you to cum, isn’t it? Or is that just for me? The driver you hate the most?” He laughs. “Get all wet for the guy you couldn’t care less about. Say you hate me and get my dick nice and wet the next day.” You’re grinding onto his three fingers now, shameless with it.

“Are you gonna cum?” He asks.

“Oh,” you whine. “Yeah, fuck—yes.”

“Tell me what you’re gonna do,” he says wickedly. You can hear him smile.

“I’m gonna—please—I’m gonna cum,” you pant, tension coming to a halt and then bursting all at once out of you. His other arm holds your hips down against him, and you spend a minute and another twitching, your skin sticky with sweat and slick.

It’s not long before you’re whirled back to face him, your hands making quick work of his jeans. It’s a skill you’ve both mastered, the art of the quickie—in closets, hotel rooms, with sweaty, open-mouthed kisses pressed along the column of your throat, moans swallowed. 

He hikes your dress up and your panties to the side, immediately bullies his cock into you—the glide is slow, but easy. You’re so fucking wet.

“Fucking big,” you gasp out. “Jesus, Jesus—fuck.” Your head drops and presses against his; he uses the opportunity to kiss you. You moan into it, feeling the stretch, your slick wetness dragging down the length of him as he thrusts up, up, further. “Been a while.”

“Feel good, though, yeah?” Your toes curl and you nod; you’re flushed all over and you need him to hurry up. You grind downward, onto him. He does, then, fucks you hard and fast, like he’s thirsted for this for way longer than he did. You’re squirming, all wet, and it tempts him to go harder. Your face is shiny with sweat, lips drawn in between your teeth.

“Slo—slow down,” you manage, babbling; he doesn’t, speeding up his thrusts until you’re moaning his name. “Max—wait—fuck, you’re so mean,” you whine, wrapping your arms around him and letting him take control. 

“You’re fine,” he grunts, pulling out almost all the way. “You take my dick so well, schatz, every fucking time. Don’t you?”

“I do,” you gasp out, and he’s slamming into you gain. You cry out loudly, sniffling from the overstimulation—you’d barely recovered from your initial orgasm and already you’re hurtling into what feels like three at the same time. 

“For someone who doesn’t like me,” he sneers, “you sure do moan like a slut, huh?”

His words get you more turned on than you’re willing to admit, but you shake your head.

“No?” He laughs, breathy from the effort. “Maybe I should film you now. Send it to your boss, let him see his stellar reporter’s getting Verstappen’s dick wet.” 

Finally, the tension building inside of you reaches a head, and your pussy starts to twitch around his dick. He notices, grunts sharply and leans forward, shuddering as he releases into you. Your moans are choked and tapering into whimpers as you release slick all over him, and you attempt to catch your breath, collapsing onto his still-clothed, now-sticky chest. You scratch at the dri-fit material and inhale him, the smell of his cologne, his sweat. You bite at his earlobe, laugh when he flinches.

“That,” you say into his skin, “was the last time.” It’s both seriously and as a joke, playing off of what he’d remarked earlier.

“Jesus, princess. I’m still inside you.” 

You giggle and drum lightly along the plane of his chest. In a few minutes he’ll pick you up to shower, but now you’re content to inhale him in. Quietly you wonder why you just can’t get enough of him—if you were in better senses, you’d have realized he was thinking the same thing about you.

[7s3ven]

GREEK ROMANTIC. luke castellan

IN WHICH… luke castellan joins an exchange program to visit camp jupiter for sword fighting experience but ends up spending most of his time with a girl from said roman camp.

Warnings : lowkey loser! Luke, kinda long… so uh yeah, Luke kinda thirsts over reader (he’s 19 and has spent most of his time in a camp, he does not get girls), i worked on this for like a week (PLZZZ READ AND LIKE AND COMMENT AND SUBSCRIBE 🫡), less strict version of Camp Jupiter

—

idea inspired by @the-empty-refrigerator !

I literally do classical studies, this is perfect for me to yap abt my roman knowledge. I have no idea what Camp Jupiter looks like so imma just use my Roman architecture knowledge for this. THIS IS MY FIRST LUKE FIC IN A WHILE LOL.

( disclaimer : info will differ from this fic to the canon plot bc i don’t know much abt camp jupiter )

In all honesty, Luke was a little nervous. He had willingly signed up for an exchange program between Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter but now that he was on his way to the latter, he was anxiously bouncing his leg.

Years ago, there was a thick mist between the two camps due to previous events involving bloody wars. Now, that mist was lifted and the campers were free to sign up for an exchange program to visit the other.

Luke was wondering why he had agreed to sign up in the first place. Chiron promised he’d gain further experience in sword fighting, but warned that it wouldn’t be easy.

Camp Half-Blood prided itself on its friendly approach. Camp Jupiter was anything but that. Their campers were rugged, harsh, and disciplined by Lupa, the wolf who raised Romulus and Remus. Of course, their war-like nature made sense because the camp was founded on bloodshed when Romulus slayed Remus.

Luke lifted his head, looking around to see if he could spot anyone in a purple shirt. He was waiting on the side of the road, looking rather pathetic and sad to those passing by.

A black car with tinted windows rolled to a stop in front of Luke, and the car jolted open. “Are you Luke Castellan?” The demigod inside asked. Luke slowly nodded his head. “Hop in.” There was a bit of awkward shuffling from Luke to squeeze past the unnecessary amount of swords in the car. “So, how’s Camp Half-Blood?” The demigod driving questioned, looking at Luke through his shaded sunglasses.

“Good…” Luke was secretly relieved that someone was talking to avoid an awkward car ride. “Probably less demanding than Camp Jupiter, though. I’ve heard horror stories of your training from campers.”

The boy laughed as he sharply turned around a corner. “Yeah. It’s pretty bad. Made me wish I was a normal kid when I had to do all those pushups.” He paused before starting a new conversation. “Do you workout? Because you’ve got some nice muscles. Not to be weird or anything.”

“Uh, yeah.” Luke cleared his throat, “I sort of have to. Being a swordsman and all that.”

The other demigod whistled. “Must be hard, man. I’m Sohan, by the way. Son of Mercury, Hermes for you.”

Luke leaned forward, “I’m son of Hermes. That makes us like… distantly related or something.” Sohan laughed and tilted his head back.

“I like you, Castellan. Mind if I call you Luke?”

“Go ahead.”

The rest of the drive was each demigod taking their turn to explain different parts of their camps. Luke realized that Camp Jupiter didn’t have all the fun activities Half-Blood had. Though, there was a more bloody version of Capture the Flag.

“So you know how you have camp councillors, right? We have something similar but we call them praetors. They’re basically the leaders of the camp.” Sohan explained as he bit into his sugary chocolate bar. “We have two at a time, one girl and one guy.”

“So there’s only two leaders?” Luke questioned while opening the wrapping of his cheeseburger.

“Praetors are the highest leaders. Other than that, we have centurions, augurs, and quaestors. It’s confusing, I know, but you’ll get the hang of it. You don’t really need to know what everybody does, just who’s who.”

It was all too confusing for Luke.

“Our current male praetor is also a son of Mercury, his name’s Jae. Our other one is a daughter of Venus, Aphrodite for you. I think.” Sohan paused before shaking his head, dismissing his doubt. “We all thought she was kind of crazy for going after the position. That’s when I learnt to never underestimate a child of Venus because they are brutal.” Sohan chuckled as the car finally came to an abrupt halt.

Luke peeked out the window, gazing at the tall trees. Past the thick forest, he could faintly see a river.

Sohan grabbed the swords from beside Luke, sheepishly chuckling. “New sword delivery.” He uttered, “Didn’t have time to put them away. Some are still in a box.”

Luke merely hummed as he hopped out of the car. “Need help?” He questioned. He took a handful of swords from Sohan’s pile, easily supporting their weight. Sohan carefully stacked a box on top of everything else before nodding.

“You know, if I was a girl or gay, I’d have a crush on you.” Sohan uttered as the pair walked through the forest. “How do the girls at Half-Blood like you?”

“I’ve been chased multiple times. That should say it all.” Nothing was scarier to Luke than a hoard of girls sprinting towards him on Valentine’s Day.

“That’s the Tiber River.” Sohan pointed out as Luke stumbled into a sunny clearing. “The river that Romulus and Remus were thrown into.” Sohan led the way towards small, slightly unstable bridge. He effortlessly walked over it, ignoring the way the rickety wood creaked.

Luke sighed, having no choice but to follow after Sohan unless he wanted to swim.

“I’ll be the one showing you around. I just have to drop these swords off with the praetors, or at least one of them, and then we can begin.” Sohan piped up. He was shorter than Luke with shiny black hair and olive skin. Luke assumed he was Asian with the slight accent peeking through and the red-inked tattoo on his shoulder displaying a dragon with Chinese characters.

“Praetor!” Sohan suddenly shouted. Luke spotted the H/C-haired girl as she turned around, in the middle of talking with another camper. Luke couldn’t instantly tell who her mother was.

“Oh, the swords. Soldier, go find Praetor Jae.” Y/N hurried the other girl off before jogging towards Sohan.

“This is Luke Castellan. The exchange camper.” Sohan said, trying to gesture towards Luke. The action caused the box on top of the swords to slip. It opened, a group of swords toppling out.

Luke was quick to react. Instead of attempting to catch every sword, he simply grabbed Y/N and pulled her side before the swords could skewer her.

There was a second of silence before Sohan spoke up. “I apologise for my clumsiness, Praetor.” He immediately crouched down to rearrange the weapons, his movements so fast Luke thought they were rehearsed.

Y/N pressed her lips into a thin line as she stared at the swords on the ground. Her gaze flickered to Luke, who still had a tight grip on her arm. “Luke Castellan, right?” She asked, lips curving into a small yet charming smile.

Sohan looked at Y/N then at Luke. “I need to talk to Praetor Jae about something important. Praetor, would you mind showing Luke around?” Sohan didn’t wait for an answer before clumsily hurrying off, dropping swords every two seconds.

“You forget these swords!” Luke called after him but Sohan wasn’t listening.

“Dump them here with the rest.” Y/N instructed with a shrug. Luke dropped the swords, watching as they hit the floor with a loud clang. “Let’s get started with the tour.” She formally clasped her hands behind her back, standing up straighter than Luke had ever seen somebody stand.

“This is the Praetorian Gate, the entrance to the main barracks. On your right is the bathrooms. This street is called the Via Principalis, it’s the central road lined with barracks, the mess hall, and other necessaries needed for our wellbeing.”

Luke was a little stunned with how Y/N was speaking. She was talking like her words were scripted and had been practiced a million times in the mirror. Luke usually free-styled his tours.

“Centurion Sohan will show you your room once he finishes with his errand. For now, all you need to know is that you’ll be staying in one of these buildings. Behind them is the compost bin. Please do not jump in there because we have had to go dumpster diving to retrieve Half-Blood campers.”

Luke let out a quiet sigh. “It was Travis, wasn’t it?”

“You know him?” Y/N questioned, looking over her shoulder in mild interest.

“Unfortunately. He’s my brother.”

Y/N silently nodded, holding back a comment. “Beside the compost bin, where your raccoon of a brother jumped into for a game of hide and seek, are the stables.” Y/N led Luke down a smaller path to show him the stables. He glanced at the bin, arching an eyebrow at a badly drawn version of Travis on a sign with a large X on it.

“We had to ensure nobody else jumped in again.” Y/N explained, “So we put up a sign. It’s not very well-drawn. All the Apollo kids were away so we had no one artistic around. Over there is the training centre. Feel free to use it whenever. We have plenty of new swords as you already know.”

“What about those buildings?” Luke asked in curiosity as they walked back towards the main entrance.

“That’s the Praetorium and Principa, used to hold meetings and act as headquarters. Those aren’t important to you.”

Camp Jupiter was bigger than Luke expected. There were two main areas for civilisation and even a university.

“This is the forum. This area of camp is basically a replicant of Rome itself.” Y/N piped up, “There’s the senate house, also used for meetings, New Rome University, the Coliseum where we sometimes train or host mock battles, Circus Maximum, again used for training, sometimes chariot racing, ceremonies, and so on. There’s a lake over there if you ever wanna spend your free time swimming, but I will warn you that if you ever take your shirt off, it will attract attention.” Y/N teasingly smiled, confusing Luke. She was strictly sticking to her job as a praetor a moment ago, reciting a speech about the camp.

“Uh… why will it attract attention?” Luke sheepishly asked, feeling a little embarrassed for not catching on.

“You’re a new boy, Luke Girls here love fresh meat, especially when they have as much muscle as you.”

Luke’s cheeks flushed light pink. “Right.” He uttered, suddenly aware of how a group of girls was waiting for Y/N to leave so they could pounce on him. “Let’s uh, go back to the bin. I wanna see that sign of my brother again.”

Y/N slightly chuckled. “They aren’t gonna hurt you, Castellan.” She said, referring to the girls behind her, “Unless you want them to.”

“I would prefer to keep all my limbs attached to my body, thank you very much.”

Y/N cracked another amused smile. “Suit yourself. I like my boys missing an arm.” She joked.

“Guess I’ll cut mine off then after all.” Luke wittily retorted.

“We have a game of capture the flag happening tonight if you want to join.” Y/N offered, “You can sacrifice your arm for me then.”

Luke grinned, happy he was actually getting along with someone from Camp Jupiter given their rivalry with Half-Blood. “I’ve heard your games of Capture the flag are a little more harsher… to what extent is that actually true?”

Y/N quietly laughed. “It’s Roman style, someone will probably lose an eye to be honest.” She said it in such a joking tone but there was a look in her eyes that alerted Luke she wasn’t joking.

—

Luke would definitely come to regret even thinking about joining this game of capture the flag. The teams weren’t organised by Cabins, instead each leader strategically chose their members months before the actual game to ensure a high chance of victory.

Luke ended up standing across from Y/N, dressed in golden armour and holding a sword that seemed to be a little too heavy. Sohan was with Luke, checking his arrows.

“They still allow you to use how and arrows?” Luke questioned, remembering how said weapon was banned from Half-Blood’s game of capture the flag because of an incident.

“What’s fun without a little arrow wound?” Sohan joked. Luke slowly turned his head, eyes wider than usual.

“Not being stabbed by an arrow seems more fun.” He muttered to himself.

He glanced at Y/N, who was carelessly swinging her long spear around. She met his gaze and paused for a second before lightly dragging her thumb over her throat with a patronising grin.

Luke gulped. “She’s gonna kill me.” He whispered.

“Oh, good! That means she likes you.” Sohan nudged Luke with a smile, “The harder she tries to kill you, the more she likes you.”

“That seems a little contradictory.” Luke replied, almost shaking.

“When the bell rings, and trust me you’ll hear it, just follow me. We’re paired together to hide and defend the flag. All you have to do is hide and jump out to stop the opponents. They’ll think it’s only me and then, bam! You come in.” Sohan explained the plan to Luke, who was listening intently so he wasn’t the one to lose an eye.

Sohan tightly gripped the flag in his grasp. “We have ten minutes to plant the flag somewhere. A second bell will ring and that means the game has started.”

Luke nodded, his heart pounding in his chest. A loud bell suddenly rang out through the clearing and Sohan immediately sprung into action. He sprinted off and Luke scrambled to follow him.

“This way!” Sohan exclaimed as he sharply turned to the left. Luke leaped over a log, landing heavily on the hard dirt. The forest should have felt familiar since Half-Blood also played surrounded by trees but this felt different. Luke had no idea where they were going until Sohan came to an abrupt stop.

“Here should be good.” He panted.

Luke looked around. They were surrounded by heavy vegetation and he was barely able to see past the thick tree leaves. Sohan lodged the flag between two stones and nodded in approval.

“The bell will be ringing soon. Hide over there.” Sohan ordered, pointing at a bush beside the flag. Luke sighed as he ducked behind the bush, the twigs below him scraping at his knees. “I hate this hiding place.” He muttered, “I feel like a Guinea pig.”

“That sounds like a you problem.” Sohan replied. “The bell should be ringing any second now. Remember to stay quiet.”

Luke silently rolled his eyes as he ducked lower to the floor in order to get comfortable and peek past the bush branches. In the distance, he could hear the sound of the second bell ringing followed by loud shouts varying in volume. Some kids at Half-Blood, mainly the Ares kids, loved battle cries but not to that extent.

Luke waited ten minutes and when nothing happened, he resorted to lying on his back. Twenty minutes passed and there was still no sign of any other demigods. Luke had resorted to seeing how many leaves he could count before he heard a quiet rustle. He paused, waiting.

Everything was still before Luke heard weapons clash loudly together. He peered above the bush, instantly recognising Y/N past her bronze helmet. There was another kid reaching for the flag while Sohan was struggling with Y/N.

Luke quickly reached for his sword, flinging it at the Roman demigod before he could grasp the flag. The handle hit him in the face, temporarily stunning him. Luke was swift to jump out and grab his sword, holding it in front of him.

“Sorry ‘bout that, man.” Luke uttered. He swung his blade at the demigod boy, who he later realized was named Nikolai because of the inscription in his helmet.

Nikolai counterattacked Luke, effortlessly pushing the Greek brunette back. Luke was reluctant to injure a kid he barely knew but Sohan continuously shouting “hit him” was getting annoying.

Luke grabbed Nikolai by the shoulders, shoving him away from the flag. Sohan was battling against Y/N, who had a spear similar to Clarisse’s. Compared to her spear, Sohan’s bow and arrows and backup dagger wouldn’t be of much use.

Nikolai swung his sword at Luke but every time, Luke managed to block the hits. Luke pushed Nikolai’s sword away, but he underestimated his strength and the sword went flying.

Both Nikolai and Luke turned their heads to stare at the weapon lying on the floor.

“Hit him!” Sohan exclaimed through gritted teeth as he held Y/N back by her arm.

Luke, on instinct, punched Nikolai’s shoulder and scrambled for his sword. He leaned over to grasp it but he was unexpectedly kicked from behind.

Y/N, who Sohan should have been holding back, had knocked the son of Mercury to the ground and made an instant beeline for Luke.

“Don’t chop my head off!” Luke yelled as he rolled to the left to avoid Y/N’s sword as she forcefully swung it down. Luke kicked her ankles, causing her to sway.

Nikolai made another reach for the flag but Sohan managed to shoot an arrow his way, luckily not hitting the boy but it served as a warning.

“You said this was an easy job!” Luke yelled at Sohan as Y/N made another attempt to hit Luke. He tried to strike her ankles again but the same trick wouldn’t fool the praetor twice. She effortlessly pulled him up and slammed his back against a tree, holding a smaller knife to his throat.

“I am literally so scared right now.” Luke wheezed as he wiggled around in Y/N’s surprisingly strong grip. Sohan shot another arrow, this time at Y/N. It barely missed her head. While she was shocked for a second, Luke grabbed her by both shoulders and pushed her back.

“We got a runner!” Another voice suddenly shouted. A member of Y/N’s team, sprinted into the area, followed by two boys from Luke and Sohan’s group.

Sohan scrambled to stop the runner aiming for the flag but Nikolai knocked him back to the ground. Luke made the executive decision to pursue the runner. There wasn’t much Luke could do with his sword so he tossed it aside and did the only other thing he could think of; he tackled the other demigod.

Y/N let out a laugh as the two boys toppled down a hill, each trying to let the other take the brute of the floor. Luke groaned as he spat out a mouthful of daisies. His helmet had fallen off somewhere and he had no energy to actively search for it.

The bell rung once more and the demigod beside Luke sighed as he removed his helmet, running a hand through his messy blond hair.

“You’re the Greek kid, right?” He questioned. “I’m Kato.”

“Yeah. Luke, nice to meet you.”

“Do you also feel like you’ve got internal bleeding?” Kato grumbled as the two boys made no effort to sit up, instead choosing to just lie on the floor among the flowers.

“Oh, definitely.” Luke replied, “Think I might be sick later.”

—

“You both have bruised ribs. Honestly, it could have been worse. Drinking this will help.” An Apollo kid handed Kato and Luke a foul smelling drink.

“It’s best to get it over and down with.” Kato whispered, “Cheers.”

“Not sure if I actually want to consume this.” Luke wrinkled up his nose but tilted his head back away.

The pair gulped down the liquid as fast as they could, both gagging once they had finished.

“Wow, you guys are almost like twins. If Kato had brown hair, you guys might actually sell it.”

Kato and Luke exchanged a look before they both grinned.

“I didn’t know there was temporary hair dye.” Kato said as he stared down at the box. Y/N sighed, placing her hands on her hips.

“Do you want it or not? Coloured hair spray might be easier for you.”

“Yeah, give me that.” Kato threw the box of temporary dye aside. Luke easily caught it, handing it to Y/N.

“Thanks.” She smiled before looking through a trunk of hair supplies. “Good game out there, Castellan. Are you always that quick thinking on your feet?”

Luke shrugged as he stood beside Y/N, leaning on the bunk bed behind him. “I guess? Most of the time we have to think quickly at Half-Blood. We don’t exactly have strategies for every little thing.”

Y/N and Kato stared at Luke in mild surprise. Y/N let out a quiet huff, “I guess you Greeks are disorganised like Lupa said.”

“She said what?” Luke stood up straight. “We aren’t that disorganised. We still have tactics.”

“Yeah, and they kind of, forgive my language here, suck.”

“At least my whole existence isn’t based on a brother who killed his sibling because of anger issues.” Luke muttered loud enough for Y/N to hear.

“You are so dead, Castellan.” Y/N retorted, leaning forward.

“I don’t really want to use the same threat as you because that’s boring. But I will kick your ankle again.” Luke replied.

Kato cleared his throat. “Don’t mean to interrupt whatever… lover argument you have going on but how does this spray work?”

“The cap’s still on. You gotta take it off first.” Y/N exasperatedly sighed.

“Oh, yeah, got it. Go back to your lovers quarrel.”

Y/N picked up an empty box of hair dye, tossing it at Kato. “There is no lovers quarrel!” She exclaimed.

“Really? Bc I felt something.” Luke teasingly piped up from behind her.

“I hope you choke.” Y/N mumbled, sending Luke a warning glare. “Maybe I should’ve cut off your arm. Would’ve taught you a reason.”

“I’ll just take my shirt off because like you said, no one can resist me.” Luke grinned as they bantered back and forth.

“Don’t rely on your looks to escape me, Castellan. Next time we play capture the flag, I’m kicking you down another hill no matter whose team you’re in.” There was a knock on the door and a rough-looking teenager peeked his head inside.

His body was covered in cuts, grazes, and purple bruises. He had a slit in his left eyebrow and an earring dangling from his right ear. When he turned to Y/N and said something in Latin, Luke noticed a shiny piercing on his tongue.

“Castellan, right?” The boy asked, pointing at Luke. “Nice to meet you. I’m Jae, the other praetor.” Jae stepped forward and reached for Luke’s hand, firmly shaking it.

“Nice to meet you.” Luke greeted him.

“I see you’ve already found yourself acquainted with the devil reincarnated.” Jae slyly grinned at Y/N, who could do nothing but huff and cross her arms over her chest in annoyance. “I’ve got to borrow Praetor Y/N for a second, hope you boys don’t mind.”

Y/N sighed as she followed Jae out the door. “This couldn’t have waited?” She asked.

“I was reluctant to interfere. You and the Castellan boy seemed quite close.” Jae replied with a shrug.

“I will literally feed you to the monsters if you don’t shut your mouth.”

“She likes you.” Kato uttered once Y/N was out of ear range.

“How can you tell?” Luke arched an eyebrow as he sat down on a nearby chair.

“She never argues with anyone. Not like that at least. When she argues, you have to listen because there’s no choice. That was more like… bickering used as an excuse to talk to you.” Kato said as he finally put down the can of hair spray. “Yo, we kind of do look alike. That’s freaky.”

Luke ignored Kato’s last point. “How do you know she doesn’t bicker?”

“Praetor Y/N is a straight to the point type of girl. You’ll know when she doesn’t like something. If she was really arguing with you, she would’ve had you shut up within your first two words.” Kato laughed, “She made me shut up once by shoving the words down my throat… literally. She wrote my words on a piece of paper and made me eat it.”

Kato paused, shivering as he remembered the chilling moment. “Anyway, Centurion Sohan, me, and a couple of other guys are going to the lake for a swim. You wanna join?”

“Yeah, sure, why not. I’ll act as eye candy like Y/N described me.” Luke sarcastically said, making Kato chuckle.

“Trust me, the girls will love you.” Kato only reassured Y/N’s point.

There were already a few smaller groups at the lake when Luke and the others arrived. As Luke combed a hand through his hair, he noticed a few girls looking his way and giggling. Kato nudged him.

“See? Told you they’d love you.”

Luke simply nodded. He lifted his shirt to pull it off but unexpectedly saw Y/N not too far away, locked in what seemed to be a serious conversation with Jae. Her eyebrows were tensely furrowed before her gaze suddenly switched to Luke.

He almost jumped at how fast her eyes moved. He quickly pulled his shirt off, giving Y/N a small wave. She slightly raised her eyebrows but never looked away. Slowly, she waved back.

Jae finished speaking and Y/N nodded, pointing to her right and uttering a few more words before they split ways.

“Wow, you two really do look like twins.” Y/N said as she looked at Luke and Kato. “You sure you don’t share a mother?”

“You out here for a swim too?” Luke questioned, squinting under the bright sun.

“No. I came here to check out the guys and pick my next murder victim.”

“How charming. And I thought what we had was special when you threatened to roll me down a hill again.”

“I’m saving you for last, Castellan. When the police find my victims, I’ll ask you to hide me then I’ll stab you in the back.”

“You know what I’m craving right now?” Luke switched the topic, “A pina colada.”

Y/N stared at Luke for a minute before furrowing her eyebrows. “Is that… some sort of drink?”

She heard Luke dramatically gasp. “You’ve never tried one?! Lucky for you, I’m a master at making cocktails. Just sit here, look pretty, and choose your next target. I’ll be right back.”

That was how Y/N found herself hanging around Luke almost every day, trying different cocktail mixtures he made while sitting under a large umbrella to avoid the heat.

“Why’d you put so much vodka in this one?” Y/N questioned, frowning, “It’s all I can taste.”

“My hand slipped.” Luke shrugged. He was lying on a towel beside Y/N, taking advantage of the sun to gain that perfect summer tan, as he liked to call it. “How come you never join your friends in the water?” He questioned, glancing over at Jae and a few other campers who were beckoning Y/N over.

“I don’t like water.” She covered her eyes with her shaded sunglasses, ignoring her friends. “It messes up my hair.”

“I’ll go swimming then. I think my back is turning red now.” Luke stood up, stretching. Y/N gulped down the rest of her drink, carelessly throwing the cup to the side as she jumped to her feet.

“I’ll come if you’re going.” She announced.

“Why the sudden change in attitude?” Luke teased, nudging her.

“I will force your head under water and let you drown.” Y/N deadpanned, causing Luke to take a small step back. Luke reached for his water bottle and took a large sip while Y/N peeled her shirt off. Luke’s eyes flickered to her for a second before his cheeks turned red and he spat out a mouthful of water.

Y/N looked at him weirdly, a judging glint in her eyes. “You good?” She asked.

“Yeah… fine.” Luke choked out.

Y/N didn’t believe him. She looked down at her bikini with bows and ruffles before raising an eyebrow. “Are you staring at my boobs?” She accused him.

“No! Are you staring at my abs?!” Luke tried to change the conversation but his attempt backfired.

“Yes. You’ve got nice abs.” Y/N shamelessly admitted like a true Roman, never scared to state the obvious.

“Well, in that case, you’ve got nice boobs.” Luke wanted to punch himself as soon as he said that.

“It doesn’t sound right when you say that to a girl.” Y/N scrunched up her face which only made Luke’s desire to be swallowed by the ground stronger.

“I realised that.”

“Praetor! Luke! Are you gonna keep chatting or finally get in the water?!” Sohan yelled from his position on a rock in the water.

“My makeup’s gonna get all ruined.” Y/N huffed but still dipped a leg into the lake. “It’s cold.”

“Lake’s are usually cold.” Luke retorted, not hesitating to jump into the deep end of the lake. Water splashed everywhere and Y/N shielded her face from the droplets.

“Watch it!” She yelled out a warning at Luke as he resurfaced, grinning.

“Oops.” He sarcastically apologised.

Y/N sat down at the shore’s edge, soaking her legs in the lake. “I’m good here.” She said, kicking her legs.

“You sure? The water isn’t that cold once you get used to it.” Luke swam closer to her and heaved himself up onto the warm rock.

Y/N kicked the water again, nodding. “Yeah… I’ll ruin my hair and makeup if I get in.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear but it slipped out again, much to her annoyance.

She frowned, reaching for it again, but Luke beat her to it. “You’re pretty without makeup.” He said as he securely tucked the strand away.

Y/N glanced at the boy beside her, suddenly feeling very small. Luke made her feel vulnerable, not necessarily in a bad way. His deep brown eyes made her want to pour out every secret.

Like how she secretly hated an Apollo boy because he kept beating her to the last piece of cake.

Or how she cheated on every English paper in school to raise her GPA because she simply couldn’t read properly.

Or perhaps about how she was afraid of love, despite being the daughter of Venus herself. That fear always made Y/N feel a little stupid.

Or… how she couldn’t swim and refused to swim because she almost drowned once while her so-called friends laughed at her.

“Castell- Luke…” She quickly corrected herself, realising how accustomed she had become to Luke’s presence. “I can’t swim.” She blurted out. “My hair and makeup don’t matter… I just can’t swim. And I don’t want to swim.”

Luke carelessly shrugged and for a second, Y/N was scared he’d dismiss her fear.

“I’ll stay here with you then.” He said instead. “I’ll keep you company.”

“You can swim if you want to.” Y/N replied, fidgeting with her hands. Her heart leaped in her chest and her stomach felt queasy. Was this a crush?

“Nah. I like it here better.” Luke shifted closer to Y/N, slowly slinging an arm around her shoulder. He was expecting her to immediately shove him away but she remained still. Her back was rigidly straight until she hesitatingly relaxed.

“Thank you.” She said as the sun began to set, hues of orange, yellow, and blue painting the sky and reflecting into the lake. Y/N was surrounded by laughing demigods and legacies but she could only focus on Luke; how his hair looked perfect despite being damp, how his skin glistened in the sun, and how his arm was wrapped tightly around her as if he was protecting her from something.

For once, she felt safe. There was no quest she was required to complete, no glory to seek for the Legion, and no heavy exceptions weighing her down.

It was just her and Luke sitting beside each other in comfortable silence.

—

“Are you sure you have to go?” Sohan asked as he tightly clung to Luke, fully prepared to force the son of Hermes to stay.

“My little sister’s waiting for me.” Luke said as he hugged Sohan back, firmly patting his shoulder. Annabeth. Luke had told Y/N about his sister; they weren’t related by blood but she was his found family.

“Make sure to visit and right.” Jae uttered as he struggled to pull Sohan away from Luke. Y/N stood silently next to Jae, holding Luke’s bag.

“Have a safe trip.” She told him, which wasn’t the goodbye Luke had been expecting. He envisioned a small smile, maybe a hug if Y/N was in a good mood.

“Thanks. Good luck with your praetorian duties.” Luke replied, nodding his head.

“You ready to go?” Kato piped up, throwing the car keys in the air and effortlessly catching them.

“Yeah… I guess.” Luke muttered, stealing another glance at Y/N.

‘KISS HER!’ His mind screamed at him. This would be his last opportunity to address the feelings he had caught for Venus’ favourite daughter.

Jae and Sohan looked at each other then at Y/N, who seemed to be restraining all emotions. They almost seemed like they were begging her to make a move on Luke before it was too late.

“Bye, Y/N.” Luke stuck out his hand and Y/N didn’t hesitate to grab it.

“Good bye, Castellan. Camp Jupiter will miss you.”

Luke knew Y/N was too prideful to say ‘I’ll miss you’. This was her alternative.

Luke and Y/N stared at each other with their hands still gripping the other before they finally halted the awkward exchange.

Luke followed Kato towards the car, somewhat hoping Y/N would chase after him. She didn’t.

Y/N watched with her head held high to conceal her frown as Luke walked away, waiting for the moment he’d turn around and run back. He never did. He passed the stone arch that acted as entrance to Camp Jupiter, most likely to never return and if he ever did, it’d be in a few long years.

—

A year had passed since Luke’s departure from the Roman Demigod camp. He was pleased to be back at Half-Blood, but there was someone who was missing. As expected, some Aphrodite girls showed strong interest in Luke, but he never paid them attention.

They were beautiful, but Luke missed the girl who would threaten to throw him to the wolves if he even looked at her. He found her guarded personality charming.

“Luke, Chiron needs you to show one of the exchange campers from Jupiter around.” Chris, Luke’s brother, said. “She’s the last one.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Luke spent months hoping Y/N would show up randomly one day but after three, he gave up. He had heard from Sohan’s regularly written letters, which often featured Jae and Kato too, that Y/N was busier than ever as a praetor. She had doubled her work load, working until she quite literally passed out. Sohan expressed his concerns but didn’t quite know what was wrong.

“She’s waiting in the strawberry field.” Chris told Luke, pointing him in the right direction.

Luke took his sweet time in walking towards the field, his hands shoved into his pockets. There was a figure standing amongst the strawberries, admiring the various flowers and berries.

“Late as usual, Castellan. How Greek of you.”

Luke’s eyes lit up at the sight of the girl in front of him. He cracked a large grin. “What can I say, Y/N? I’m a true Greek demigod.”

FIN.

A/N: while writing this, I was randomly reminded of an old classic book I read where the main characters are clearly in love but know they’ll never see each other again after they split ways. And now I’m sad.

PJO TAG LIST (will update later, I’m tired 😴): @lostinhisworld @julielightwood @jennapancake @evrybodydies1 @kkrenae @s0ulsniper @be-bap @kamiliora @2hiigh2cry @gisellesprettylies @ur-lacol-dsylexic @lilacspider @lukecastellandefender

[ayakashiz]

Alien Stage R6 Analysis

VERY LONG compilation of my interpretations, impressions and unanswered questions about Round 6 of Alien Stage. I just wanted to write this to put all my thoughts in one place so I can finally rest (in pieces). TW for mentions of suic*de/suic*dal ideation.

The most debated is no doubt the kiss/choking scene and Ivan’s motivation for doing so in the first place. 

I think from the very beginning, even before R3, Ivan was planning to go out with a bang. That’s the immediate impression I got from the comic where he mocks/criticizes Sua for planning to “selfishly” die for Mizi and feel good being the “heroine” rather than having to deal with the trauma of being the one left behind. 

(I'm too lazy to edit the whole translation as of now, but might do so when I have more time.)

Ivan tells her how he’s “relieved that he’s not the only who’s that twisted” = He’s comparing himself to Sua. He thinks they’re both ‘twisted’ for planning to do the same thing, but from Ivan’s perspective, he at least isn’t fooling himself into thinking his motives are altruistic. He tasted the feeling of being ‘abandoned’, and he knows he doesn’t want to experience it twice. 

He also probably thought that his death wouldn’t be as impactful on Till as Sua’s death on Mizi, and therefore his own selfishness is more justified in his mind. This most likely plays a role in how cold and biting his words are towards Sua –he’s jealous of that difference between them.

I hadn’t noticed this detail the first time I watched the video: Not only did Till look absolutely miserable and defeated from the get go, but he completely gave up and stopped singing at some point. If you look at the video, we can hear the audio that was supposed to be sung, but Till is quiet and still, and THIS is the moment Ivan chooses to act.

Although they do not show the votes at that particular moment, stopping mid song would have definitely taken a hit to Till’s score as it’s basically forfeiting –a huge contrast to his previous match where he didn’t even let his opponent utter a single line.

In response, Ivan doesn’t just walk towards him but throws his microphone to the ground, explicitly forfeiting as well in order to then pull a drastic move like it was foreshadowed in his interview.

The kiss itself imo was the less calculated/arguably unplanned part. He could have just choked Till from the start and it would have gotten him the same if not better results (since it was the act of violence against another contestant that ultimately lowered his score and got the counter to stop). 

That kiss was authentic and for himself entirely, both as a last desperate attempt at conveying his feelings and a selfish way of leaving a strong impression on Till that he wouldn’t be able to forget (a hypocritical move going back to how he criticized Sua). In that sense, I don’t think Ivan was seriously trying to take Till down with him –although that’s up to interpretation. As I see it, that would contradict his actions up until that point.

Till was VERY CLEARLY suic*dal (once again, he gave up singing), and after the initial shock of Ivan squeezing his neck, this fiery, rebellious man who is KNOWN to fight tooth and nail, simply closed his eyes and relaxed his body, waiting for Ivan to end him without fighting at all. 

The thing is, no matter how suic*dal one may be, the fighting response when being actually suffocated is automatic and completely involuntary. People mention there not being marks on Till’s neck but I think the most telling sign is him not going red, not squirming, not struggling or holding onto Ivan’s wrists (again, expected involuntary responses), his eyes not watering or having blurry vision while we see Ivan from his POV, not opening his mouth even a little to gasp for air and not coughing or gasping either when he was finally released.

Ivan definitely had him in a strong grip, might have even made him a bit lightheaded, but the reason why Till could look so relaxed in the first place is because he had given up and was waiting for Ivan to go ahead. If his closed eyes and limp posture were due to the choking itself, he would have fallen or stumbled when being let go, but we see that his eyes open as soon as he feels Ivan’s hands slipping away and he looks shocked instead.

So then what was Ivan’s motivation, if not to kill him? Yes, there’s the already discussed plan to get himself disqualified. But Ivan glances at the screen only a few seconds after he starts the choking, confirming that the voting had in fact stopped with Till having the higher score. He then goes for one last ‘goodbye’ kiss before continuing to choke him, holding his grip even as he starts getting shot.

We see a closeup of him, his eyes and hands trembling, looking more frustrated/emotional than in Till’s first POV where he looks rather stoic. It makes me think that the reason he refused to let go was simply because he wanted Till to look at him. 

They strongly imply throughout the whole video that being annoying or mean or violent was the only way Ivan learnt how to make Till focus his full attention on him, but now even as he’s threatening his life, even as he himself is dying, even after that kiss, Till wouldn’t look. 

It took him getting fatally wounded and realizing there was no turning back to reach a state of acceptance. His bittersweet expression here reminds me A LOT of his smile after Till runs back during the meteor scene, although this one seems a lot more tender. He seems to accept the fact that Till will never love him back, but Ivan cannot stop loving him anyways and he at least got to put his feelings out there. 

(The parallels here are driving me insane. The way there is light in his eyes in both instances as he looks at Till even while 'losing him' in a way. The struggle between wanting to posses him yet realizing his free spirit/strong will is part of what he loves about him. That last genuine gaze from a character who spent his whole life putting on a mask. Yes I am very normal about this.)

Until then, Ivan’s more tender/vulnerable side is only shown while Till is unconscious or looking away.

(That soft, loving nuzzle to Till's face has me in SHAMBLES.)

But ironically, it’s only when he releases him and shows him this vulnerability without a mask that Till really looks at him for the first time. I’d go as far as to say that it was this moment, and not the kiss, that finally made Till understand Ivan’s feelings. And in turn Ivan gets that little shot of euphoria as he falls to the ground.

Going back to the survivor’s guilt… I can only imagine it’ll go completely downhill for Till from now on. Not only does he already think Mizi might be dead and is angry at himself that he couldn’t save her (as seen in the shot where he punches his own picture), but now he has most likely realized that Ivan intentionally fumbled their match for his sake –which would lead to the realization that he was the reason why Ivan chose to run back to Anakt Garden after him in the first place, and that choice ultimately lead to his death. 

Even though we see them fighting a lot as children through the videos and comics, it’s also implied that they were always together and they shared some quiet moments –the “Mizi didn’t play with you, I played with you” art, all that art of the main 4 playing together, those bright smiles as they ran away together during the meteor shower scene and Till looking so guilty when he let go of his hand. 

There are a few cute doodles of them for those who are on Patreon, and some more lore in the Anakt Garden kit –so they were at the very least friends in their own way (as best as 2 very traumatized and abused children could), constantly fighting and making up. Which God… it shows that despite appearances Till must have actually had the patience of a saint when they were little lmao.

But what I’m trying to say is that despite what Ivan may have thought, his death will most definitely have an impact on Till and the narrative going forward, and I’m excited to find out how that reflects in the final round (if the resistance doesn’t manage to get back up in time to disrupt it). 

Despite how much I adored (and SUFFERED WITH) this round, I still have MANY questions that were left unanswered, both about Ivan and Till, and the lore in general, and I wonder if there’ll be time to answer them all, as I can imagine the next MV will be focused on Luka’s perspective, the only one we haven’t been presented with.

One of the most pressing questions being: What’s the relationship between Ivan and that alien dog? Did he tame it? It is implied that it was Ivan who somehow led Till and Mizi to it in the first place in that one scene, and if so I wonder what his motivation was? Normally jealousy would be the first thing to come to mind but Ivan wasn’t interested in Till until AFTER he saw him stand up to the beast to protect Mizi, so it couldn’t have been that. 

This is something that was also teased on Patreon and I was looking forward to the explanation on the MV, but it never came, and now Ivan is dead, so the next video will most likely not be too concerned with his backstory any longer. (Which, also, I was really curious about his life in the slums before being captured, auctioned and brought to Anakt, as that would have played a huge role in his twisted personality/dark tendencies –once again teased on Patreon very briefly, but not explained beyond that frame of him looking famished.)

The second is, how is Ivan able to open Till’s collar/muzzle so easily? This is a question I’ve been having since R3, but chalked it up to Ivan being sneaky and figuring out some kind of code to the cell door and that somehow automatically deactivating the locks on the restraints… or something. But with how many times he does it in R6 with just a touch it’s very clear that that isn’t the case and also imo they’re trying to point this out as a significant detail. 

It may turn out that I’m just looking too much into it, but I find it really curious and interesting. Not only is he the only child without a collar (Mizi and Sua still had them despite being just as well behaved as him), but he seems to be the only one able to take them off –or at least Till’s. I’m pretty sure the children wouldn’t normally be able to remove them by themselves as it seems to be a control mechanism. So how can Ivan? This might explain a lot about how they were able to escape, and also add a layer of tragedy knowing that Ivan could have chosen to escape by himself at any point, but refused to leave Till behind.

Last but not least there’s all the human experimentation Till was subjected to, which was the main topic of the teaser and we see the same images show up in the very beginning of the MV. They help emphasize Till’s suffering and distressed state of mind, but then they’re never expanded on or mentioned at all for the rest of the video. That’s a huge piece of lore that I also hope isn’t forgotten.

I mean, I really doubt it will. So far VIVINOS & co. have been incredible with their ability to hold back information and release it at the moment where it’s the most impactful, which is refreshing to see. So I trust we’ll get some answers eventually. 

Really curious to know why they would experiment on an ALNST contestant in the first place, especially one that is undoubtedly talented and described as a musical genius (aka. has good odds of doing well on stage and earning the segyein revenue). A very plausible theory might just be that he was just getting constantly drugged to make him less of a threat/more submissive –like we see on the karaoke room scene. But it might as well be something bigger.

As for my expectations for the next round… I’m still just trying to process this one, as you can see by the sheer amount of text. There are many things left to address, and the Hyuna/Luka confrontation has been strongly teased. I wonder also, if the round goes on without interruption, what would Luka’s strategy against Till be? Would he go for provocation again, trying to imitate Mizi/hint to his recent trauma with Ivan? It probably won’t be that simple.

I mean, VIVINOS has been known for subverting our expectations with each round:

The ominous/callous framing that was given to Ivan by the end of Black Sorrow and the art that followed, making us suspicious of his intentions, only to have him die for love. The lifeless/doll-like framing given to Luka, vulnerable and cornered by flashing lights, only to have him be the cruelest/most calculating one (that we know so far). The rebellious, rowdy, willing to do anything to survive framing given to Till, only to have his fighting spirit completely break and willingly waiting to die by Ivan’s hands. The naive, complacent and passive image given to Mizi, only to have her snap, beat the shit out of Luka and join the rebellion –and with how things are going (and her being the protagonist) I wouldn’t be surprised if she, and not Hyuna (the one who was framed as the most strong and reliable, giving us a false sense of security going into R6), is who will have to try and rescue Till (and Luka???).

There are still a ton of things that keep me awake at night about R6 –my favorite character dying aside. I could talk about it forever, but I’ll leave it here. 

Feel free to share your theories, delusions, interpretations or any detail I might have missed with me. God knows we need group therapy after this as the cute chibi keychains can only heal us so far. Thanks for reading my rambles if you made it this far. :’)

[gallavichsreddie1128]

The Bet (Homelander)

Description: Homelander and Y/N make a bet that ends sexual

Warning: Smut

Word Count: 1,545k

Homelander and Y/N had an odd friendship. Not many people that meet the man put up with him or consider him a friend except Y/N. She knew he was fucked up and not okay in the head but he wasn’t an asshole to her like he was everyone else. She didn’t think much of it given the fact that she seemed to be the only one nice to him. Annie questioned her about it all the time, telling Y/N he was awful and that she couldn’t understand what Y/N saw in him. Y/N seemed to be the only one that put up with his bullshit. Y/N always told her the same thing. “He doesn’t act like that towards me.” Cuz he didn’t. Nobody knew why or understood it but that’s how it was. 

“Black Noir would kick A-Train’s ass. Are you kidding me?” Homelander said. Y/N Shrugged. “I don’t know. A-Train is fast.” “Fast is all he has.” Homelander says. Y/N stood up. “Alright then. Why don’t we make a bet?” She asked. “What kind of bet?” He asked. “If I win you have to be my personal slave for the entire week.” “And If I win..” “That’s up to you.” He smirked. “If I win I get to fuck you. Here on this table.” She was taken back by what he said. Her jaw dropped and he held the smirk. “Wait what?” She asked. He stood up from his chair. “Oh come on, Don’t act like you don’t want me to.” He said. He was a cocky son of a bitch that’s for sure. But she hadn’t really thought about it. She did find him attractive and they had a decent friendship but the thought of them having sex never crossed her mind before. “I can change it if that was too much.” He said. She shook her head. “No, it’s fine. Deal.” She said and they shook hands. 

Her jaw dropped as she watched A-Train fall to the ground. Black Noir won so quickly and easily she really didn’t stand a chance at winning this bet. Homelander had a huge smile as the scene played out in front of him. He wanted to shout “yes” at the rooftops but he looked over at Y/N and she looked defeated. He wondered if that was from the bet itself or from the fact that she lost. Either way his dick was going to be inside of her by the end of the night. She looked at him with wide eyes. “I didn’t even stand a chance.” She said. “Well I don’t know about you but I’d rather be in your shoes than A-Trains.” He said and she laughed. “And besides at least now you’ll be fucked like you deserved to be.” He whispered in her ear. That sent shivers down her body. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath trying to calm herself. He smirked at her reaction and walked away. 

She stood inside the quarters for the seven as she waited for Homelander to arrive. Her nerves were through the roof as she paced around the room. She went and bought a matching set that was red and it was under her clothes. She wasn’t in her costume but she figured he would be. She heard the door open and she stopped pacing and turned to see Homelander with a smirk on his face. She looked at him as he walked over to her. He didn’t look the least bit nervous but she was. “How long have you been in here for?” He asked her. “An hour.” She whispered. He chuckled and got closer to her. “Are you nervous?” He asked her.

She nodded and he backed her up to the table. His gloved hand put strands of hair behind her ear. “Well don’t be beautiful. I’m gonna make you feel so good.” He whispered the last part in her ear and bit it gently. She closed her eyes and sighed. His hands traveled down to her hips and lifted her on the table. She looked at him and they kissed. His lips moved against hers roughly and she pulled back. “Be gentle baby, we’ve got all night.” She whispered against his lips. Her calling him baby turned him on even more but he listened. She cupped his jaw as they kissed softly this time. His hands went under her shirt and cupped her boobs making her moan into the kiss. She pulled back from the kiss and took off her shirt revealing the red lace bra. His eyes darkened at the sight of her. He pushed her so she was laying down on the table and he kissed down her chest to her abdomen. He undid her jeans and pulled them off her revealing the red panties that matched the bra.

He took in the sight of her and sighed. “You are so beautiful.” He said, making her blush. He hooked his fingers in her lace panties but saw a hole where her pussy was showing out of. “So you wanna be fucked in the lingerie?” He asked. “Yes.” She said which made him smirk. He dropped to his knees and got the scent of her wet pussy. She smelled delicious and sweet. He nuzzled his nose in her making her gasp out and grab ahold of his hair. He took a big sniff and moaned. “Fuck, you smell so good.” He moaned and licked a big stripe up her pussy. She let out a loud moan. He took that as a sign to continue. He pulled her legs so they were over his shoulder and he started sucking and licking her pussy like it was his last meal. Her noises were loud and whiny. He was thankful the room was soundproof or some of the other heroes staying there could walk in.

He wouldn’t care if they did but he also didn’t want anyone else to see her like this. Her moans were so pretty and hot that he was getting so hard just hearing her. Her hips started humping his face and she screamed out at the feeling. His nose managed to bump perfectly on her clit making her sob. He groaned at the noise getting more turned on by the second. She was clenching around nothing and was so close. “Homelander.” She cried. “John.” He told her his name and it was all she could moan. Her breathing was getting louder and she started panting like a dog. “John, I'm gonna cum.” She whined out. He hummed against her and didn’t stop. Both of their movements were sloppy and seconds later she came with a loud moan of his name. He lapped up her juices as they spilled out of her and onto his face.

She pushed his face away once her climax had settled and she felt sensitive. He laughed and looked at her. Her chest was moving up and down fast and her eyes were closed. He stood up and she opened her eyes. She looked at him and was instantly wet again at the sight. His mouth and nose were covered in her slick. “You taste pretty good.” He chuckled. She let out a breathy laugh and sat up. She watched as he pulled down the bottom of his suit. His dick was huge and it made her shiver at bit just the thought of that inside of her. He chuckled at her reaction and pulled her closer to him. “I plan on making you cum 100 times tonight.” He growled as he entered her. She moaned out at the feeling and he groaned. She was squeezing him so hard. “Fuck, you’re tight.” He growled and started moving his hips. She wrapped her arms around his neck and placed her head on his shoulder. His arms were already around her holding her as close as possible.

They were basically hugging as he fucked her hard. The table was making a weird noise but it could barely be heard over her loud moans and his groans. “I’ve dreamed about this moment.” He growled and she moaned in response. She never would have thought that this would be the best sex of her life but it was. His hips knocking into hers. His name was all she seemed to know. He was moaning too but to her that was the hottest thing she has ever heard. Her body was falling onto his as she was getting close to her orgasm. He felt her clenching around him making him whine her name. “I’m so close, baby.” He moaned out and she nodded and looked up at him.

She managed to lean up and kiss him with everything she had. He kissed her back and she whined into the kiss and he felt her cum all over him. That triggered his release and his hips lost their rhythm. They pulled away from the kiss to moan and to breathe. They were both panting at this point and Y/N collapsed on the table. He didn’t pull out of her and got hard again. She looked up at him and he smirked at her. “I told you I was making you cum 100 times tonight.” He smirked. Boy he wasn’t kidding.

[saetoru]

✩ ‧₊˚ ✩。PLAN B — ALHAITHAM.

alhaitham has long resigned to the reality that as long as he’s dating you, there can never be an argument he can fully win with logic alone. all his life, his brain has carried him above men in the most impressive of ways, granted him effortless victories that he’s strategized in just a few quick seconds—except no matter how impressive, his brain is no match for your stubbornness.

one time, he even overhears the general mahamatra mumble, it seems like he’s met his match. to this day, the moment haunts him in his sleep sometimes.

but he figures cyno is right (though no one should ever tell him this) because otherwise, alhaitham, the akademiya’s scribe and current acting grand sage, would never be buying flowers and standing before you to apologize for something he didn’t even do.

well, he did—it’s just that he did in a dream, not reality.

“oh, has the cheater come back for my hand again?” you spit, crossing your arms and looking to the side with a hmph.

the universe must be having a field day with this show, he thinks, the show of alhaitham’s life taking complicated turns in places they simply do not have to. woefully, he’s sure kaveh is enjoying this, at least. otherwise the architect wouldn’t be sitting on the opposite couch and watching in pure glee.

“technically, i didn’t cheat,” alhaitham argues, “that was the alhaitham of your conjured imagination. the real alhaitham was peacefully sleeping until he was rudely pushed off of the mattress despite having work in a few hours—”

“i don’t speak to cheaters,” you huff.

alhaitham figures it’s now time to put plan b into action. plan b is as follows: to buy your favorite type of flowers and present them to you, all while dinner from your favorite restaurant sits on the table waiting. as soon as your eyes light up at the sight of the flowers, he’ll be able to skillfully sneak his way beside you on the couch, pull you close with one arm, and before you realize what he’s done, he’ll lead you to the dining table with your usual order waiting for you.

it’s a fool proof plan, he thinks—all plans of his have always had a ninety nine percent success rate, and this is no different. the only reason there’s not a one hundred percent success rate is solely and entirely due to the fact that he cannot plan for unforeseeable circumstances that occur last minute. these circumstances are beyond his control, but the small statistical chance of them occurring puts his mind at ease that in a few short minutes, all will be back to normal.

“these are for you,” he says, holding out the bouquet he bought—which was rather expensive, might he add.

and then, because the universe hates him, that one percent chance of an unforeseeable circumstance presents itself at the most inopportune of times.

“why is this one dead?” you raise a brow, pointing to the flower in the corner he failed to notice.

wonderful, he thinks. kaveh snorts, and alhaitham simply let’s his shoulders sag.

“well,” he starts, “i didn’t notice that one. forgive me—”

“just like you didn’t notice my presence while you cheated on me, huh? yeah, for the akademiya’s scribe, you sure do miss a lot,” you glare daggers at him.

“but i didn’t—”

“it’s your fault i dreamt that in the first place,” you hiss, “who’s plan allowed the people of sumeru to dream again?”

“yes,” kaveh adds from the corner, “do tell, alhaitham. who’s brilliant plan has lead to this situation?”

“certainly not yours,” alhaitham shoots back, crossing his arms as he raises a brow at the insufferable blonde, “if it were up to you to make the plans, we’d have quit before we even start.”

“don’t be rude to kaveh,” you scold, “kaveh would never cheat on me.”

“of course i wouldn’t,” kaveh agrees.

alhaitham pinches himself in hopes this is all his dream and he can wake up from this torturous nightmare.

“kaveh is behind on rent and acutely single. the only place kaveh could cheat on you is in his own dreams,” alhaitham argues, which earns an offended sound of indignation from his roommate.

“if this is your way of apologizing, it sucks,” you sulk, refusing to meet his eyes.

with a heavy sigh, alhaitham sets down the flowers and hesitantly—he does not wish to be shoved to the floor a second time in one day—settles beside you on the couch.

“i would never be unfaithful to you. i love you,” he says simply, but his voice is delicate, serious, like he means it. “i love you because you brighten each day, and make them far more tolerable by your side—even despite your occasional illogical fits of rage. and i will continue to love you even when i am the target of them.”

“seriously?” kaveh gapes in disbelief, “that’s your apology? are you trying to be broken up with—”

“really?” you ask, hopeful.

“of course,” alhaitham nods, and if the corner of his eyes shoot kaveh a smug look…well, only kaveh sees it.

“you’ve never cheated on me?” you narrow your eyes, searching for confirmation in his.

he grabs your hands, nodding. “never,” he assures.

“okay,” you nod, “as long as you’ve learned your lesson, i can look past the mistakes of the alhaitham of my dreams.”

“the alhaitham of your reality is so graciously thankful,” he says sarcastically.

you giggle. he smiles softly. kaveh rolls his eyes and walks to his room.

“well, alhaitham of my reality,” you hum, moving to cup his cheeks and lean in until your lips are just barely touching his, “i love you too. even despite how you infuriate me—including in my dreams.”

“it’s an unfortunate quality all potential versions of alhaitham come with,” he chuckles, and then his lips are pressed to yours firmly.

and you know, from this kiss alone, from the way he holds you like you’re the first bloom of spring after a harsh winter, that you’re the only one he has room for in his heart.

plan b had a few unexpected complications, but as always, alhaitham adds another successful attempt to his list.

this reader is so me-coded pls look away 😭

[fluffytriceratops]

Hi, I’m not sure if you’re still doing requests or not but if it’s okay, could I request a headcanon of maybe 2k12 and Rise!Leo x reader having a cuddle time? I don’t mind you choosing one of them, I totally understand. I love Leo so much he’s such a dork and needs to be protected at all costs 🥰 Thanks!

𝐆𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐂𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐬 - 𝐋𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐨 [𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟐 & 𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐞]

notes: yes, of course! i would love to write this for you!! i'll do them both since you asked so nicely hehe, but this is my first time doing a headcannon of rise leo so i apologize if it's a little ooc. ^^ i hope you enjoy! <3 [also photo is not mine fyi-] 

warnings: mature language/swearing, tooth rotting fluff,

tags: @thelaundrybitch @turtle-babe83 @leosgirl82 @rheawritesforfun @s-s-ironnie @post-apocalyptic-daydream @mysticboombox @drowninghell @lec743 @raphielover  @raphslovemuffin80 @squirrelfurs @bibiz82 @pheradream-15 @kikithedreamerwriter @m1dnyt3-w0lf @scholastic-dragon @moonsua1

(if you would like to be tagged in my future tmnt x reader related work, feel free to let me know and i'll happily add you!)

i love you all sm! i'm sending all the virtual hugs and well wishes to you!! <33

---

2012 Leonardo:

- as a cuddle bug, you love a good cuddle session. and honestly, leo wont oppose to this as he too loves to cuddle with you. 

- plus how can he say no when you waddle up to him with a cute pout on your face? wondering why he had left you in the bed all alone?? 

- "you fell asleep and i wanted to make myself a cup of tea." he hummed, extending an arm and watching with a warm smile as you curled into his side and nuzzled against him. 

- "and? i don't see your point in leaving me. is tea more important than your beloved?" 

- leo fights the urge to roll his eyes and bites back a grin. "well..." 

- he lets out a laugh when you scowl and pull away from him, he catches you by the waist before you get too far. 

- "i'm kidding, nothing is more important than you." he hums, planting a sweet kiss to your temple. 

- you huff, puffing out your cheeks in agitation. "doesn't feel like it, leonardo." 

-  leo winces. "pulling out the full name, huh? that's a low blow, baby." 

- "you shouldn't of left me for a sack of crusty leaves, dickhole." 

- leo chuckles at this, shaking his head to himself. "i'll make it up to you, promise. shall we go back to cuddling?" 

- you glance up at him, taking in the way he gazes at you adoringly. his ocean eyes are so full of love it makes your heart ache. 

- with a soft smile and a nod of your head, you wait for him to grab his tea before making your way back to his bedroom. 

- he places his mug on his bedside table before climbing into his bed. you wait for him to get comfy before climbing in as well. planting yourself on top of his chest. 

- leo runs his hand up and down your back in a comforting manner. watching as you trace invisible patterns into his skin with your index finger. 

- he loves laying with you like this. the rest of world falls silent when the two of you get to cuddle. 

- it's like the only person in the world is you. you're all that matters. 

- leo see's you getting sleepy again, eyelids falling heavy. he lets out a breath of content when you nuzzle yourself further into him. pressing your face in the crook of his neck. 

- "i love you." you mumble, breath tickling him. 

- "i love you, too." he whispers, wrapping his arms around you and holding you close. 

- cuddle sessions with you were the best. there was no place he'd rather be than here. with you safe in his arms. 

--- 

2018/Rise Leonardo:

- leo's a clingy mother fucker. he loves a good cuddle. and honestly, he can be a tad clingy.

- but you can't complain, because you love cuddles too. and leo's good at cuddling. 

- sometimes, however, it can catch you off guard. 

- you're laying on the couch, scrolling through random tiktoks on your phone when out of nowhere a body practically launches itself on top of yours. 

- your breath leaves you and you grunt at the sudden weight. "holy fucking shit-" 

- you can't see leo's face, it's buried in your chest and your face heats at the sight. "what the fuck are you on?" 

- "cocaine." comes his muffled reply and it makes you snort and roll your eyes. 

- he tilts his head up, resting his chin against you as he stares up at you cheekily. 

- "you're such a shit." 

- "but i'm your shit. and you love me." he purrs, smirking at the way your face heats even more. 

- "shut up. you didn't have to launch yourself onto me like that. if you wanted cuddles so damn bad you could have asked, asshole." 

- your hand finds his shell and you begin to trace the grooves, knowing how much he likes it. leonardo practically melts in your arms. 

- "you would've said no-" 

- "that's a fat fucking lie and you know it." 

- leo pouts dramatically. "you've got such a potty mouth today." 

- "that's what happens whenever you're around." 

- it's leo's turn to roll his eyes. "not my fault i take your breath away~" 

- "only when you yeet your entire body mass onto mine without warning-" 

- "don't be so dramatic." he nuzzles further into you, wiggling to try and get more comfortable. 

- you sigh, "you're lucky i love you." 

- he beams at this. "see, what did i say-" 

- "i will throw your ass onto the floor." 

- leo shuts up at that. but you don't miss the massive shit eating smirk on his face. the sight makes you smile. 

- "i love you too." he says after a moment, pressing his face into the crook of your neck to plant a few tender kisses to your skin. 

- it's your turn to melt against him. "you better.." 

- tossing your phone onto the floor, you wrap your arms around him to the best of your ability. your legs are tangled together and your breathing evens out. hearts beating in perfect sync. 

- cuddling with leo felt like heaven. and while you'd never say it out loud, cuz he'd never let you live it down, you honestly adored every second of it. 

[angel-kyo]

Pay it no mind

Part XI

In which reader confesses their feelings to Gojo, but it seems these are not returned (maybe?).

Warnings: reader is on the receiving end of rejection (kinda), and the fact that I'm obsessed with unrequited love is a warning itself.

Previous: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X

----------------------

Piece of scum.

Satoru was watching your adored Haruki flirting, or rather, what he thought was flirting, with a girl from behind the cash register at the coffee shop he worked at. Satoru was still outside, just looking through the window. While you had said he was just overly nice to everyone, it did not change the fact that Gojo was still repulsed by him.

As to why he was there while you were at the school with Shoko...

“Do you really want me to apologize to him?” Satoru’s contorted face looked as if he had smelled something bad.

You gave him a soft smile. “It wouldn’t hurt you to apologize for being rude to him,” you stated, but he did not really agree. “I’m not saying you have to do it. Just… He is under the impression that you don’t like him.”

Well, he is not wrong.

Satoru had not said that aloud, but your expression suggested you had read his mind.

“Just maybe try to be nicer to him next time you see him, can you?” you questioned with a pleading smile and those eyes Satoru would do anything for. He sighed, defeated.

So, here he was. He had dismissed Suguru after their mission to come here alone, although he did not want to. In any case, he figured talking to Ikeda directly would be a better approach than him trying to play good friends with him and pretending he actually liked the guy.

Better get it over and done with.

He strode in confidently.

“Welcome!” Ikeda and the other few employees said in unison when the little bell at the door rang announcing a new customer. Satoru kept walking forward.

“What can I get for…” Ikeda’s smile froze when he saw Gojo. “Oh, it’s you.” He was still smiling, but it looked a bit less rehearsed than for the other costumers. “[name] is not here today, but…”

“I know.” Gojo did not let him continue. “I actually wanted to talk to you. Got a minute?”

“That’s unexpected… But sure.” Haruki peeked at his watch. “Do you mind waiting? My shift will end in a few. You can order something in the meantime.”

Gojo noticed that, despite his words, the boy did not look surprised at all.

“It’s fine, thanks.” Satoru walked to one of the vacant tables and sat down. The girl that had been talking with Haruki just a minute ago, looked at him from another table. He did not mind her and neither seem to do Ikeda anymore.

Gojo thought he should not need more than two minutes to make things clear with Haruki; he was just going to tell him that he had not meant anything before and that it was cool that you two were friends as long as he was not up to any funny business. Or maybe he would leave out that last part. If any word of him trying to intimidate your friend were to reach you, coming here would have been a waste of time.

After all, he was doing this because of you, so he was coming in peace and would leave in peace.

The cardboard cup that was placed in front of Satoru interrupted his thoughts, and when he looked up, he saw Ikeda looking at him.

“[name] said you drink it like this. It’s on the house.”

“Uh, thanks.” Satoru thought it strange. Did he just memorize everyone’s coffee order? He was not even sure Ikeda knew who he was when he first entered, and now he knew how he drank his coffee?

He saw him walk into the back of the establishment.

After five minutes or so, Ikeda returned, no longer wearing his apron. He was on his high school uniform. Satoru had seen the girl from earlier wearing the same hue of blue on her skirt. Ikeda waved at her and turned to Satoru.

“Is it okay if we talk on the way? I’d rather not missing my train.”

“Fine by me.” Satoru got up and threw the half-full coffee in the trashcan. The two of them walked out as Satoru spared a glance on what seemed to be Ikeda’s classmate direction before marching ahead, which the other boy noticed.

“It’s probably not what you think it is. She is a classmate.”

“I thought she was your friend,” was all Gojo told him, and from the corner of his eye, he saw Haruki nod.

“One has to be friendly towards customers, right?” He was not putting up his work smile anymore.

So you turn it off and on like a switch?

They were walking pretty much side by side when Haruki asked “What did you want to tell me?”

Fine, right to the subject. I'll just say it and leave.

“I don’t know if you remember but we spoke on the phone the other day.” Not really, Satoru thought. Actually, I spoke and hung up on you.

The slightest smiled appeared on Haruki’s face. “I remember.”

“So…” Satoru did not want to do this, but he reminded himself he had to. “So I just wanted to say I’m sorry if... If I was rude.”

An awkard silence followed. Was Ikeda not suppossed to accept his apology and let him leave?

Haruki finally hummed. “Is that really all you wanted to say?”

It surprised Gojo a bit. He had not expected him to dig deeper.

“Yeah, it’s all. [name] said you might think I don’t like you, so…”

So I came here to try to convince you otherwise or convince them. Just don’t make it harder.

“And isn’t that true?” Ikeda halted and turned his head to Gojo, who swore he had seen that cold expression before. And same as previously, he saw it melt into a smile, but it was not like the one he always had for you. Satoru knew it immediately: that smile was meant to deceive. “It’s alright, you don’t have to reply; I know the answer.”

They were heading for the station, and Satoru wondered if he should just leave Haruki behind. After all, he had already said what he wanted to say, more or less.

The blue-eyed boy cleared his throat. “It does not matter, what I think of you, I mean. I’m just the friend of a friend.”

Ikeda did not look at him. “True, but you are not just any friend,” they were entering the station, “and you know it, don’t you, Satoru?”

It was Gojo’s turn to halt. Not that he cared too much, but what was with the informality now? He had never called him by his first name.

Ikeda gave him an innocent smile. “Sorry. That’s what [name] calls you. I guess it just rubbed off on me.”

“I don’t mind, Haruki.” Gojo’s voice strained on the boy’s name, but his face was serious as he tried to weigh him. He had never attempted to hold a long conversation with Ikeda, so maybe he was just not used to his manner. In any case, it still felt as if he was trying to sting him with his words, and if that was the case, Gojo would sting back.

Ikeda strutted ahead. “Now that I think of it, did we ever get introduced formally? I can’t remember, but I guess it doesn’t matter. I know your name just as you know mine, right?”

Gojo had decided to leave in peace, but with that guy's tone, it was tempting to let his resolve crumble.

“What do you want?” Satoru grumbled finally.

They had reached the platform where Haruki was going to wait for his train, and he offered him a disinterested look in response. “What do you mean?”

“From [name]. What do you want from them?”

“Sorry, but I'm not following.” Haruki shrugged. “I’m just their friend.”

“So am I.” Satoru was looking right at him through his shades. A grin appeared on Haruki’s face.

“If you are trying to say we cannot both be their friends, I guess I would have to be something else then.”

His tone was lighthearted, but Satoru knew his intentions were not, not to him at least.

“Unless that bothers you.” Haruki looked at him.

Ikeda thought Gojo looked nothing like when he was with you, always playful and smiling at your sight.

He looks so serious now.

Gojo did not back off, but his voice did not sound as confident as before when he asked “Why should it bother me?”

“I like them.”

Gojo tensed at his words.

Although it was true Haruki liked you, he had, in fact, been expecting Gojo to admit the same, and maybe get a little bit more honest if he provoked him. All he knew about Gojo was because of you, but the things he had seen for himself, the way he always sat closer to you, how he acknowledged you first among your group of friends, and that more often than not, he was the one blowing up your phone when you were out with him, all of it had made him think he did not see you just as a friend.

Surely, Haruki had been confused about how you defined your relationship with Gojo as well. However, you said you knew him since forever, and that made people often get the wrong idea. He had no reason to doubt your words, but looking at Gojo now...

Is it the wrong idea, though?

Either you were oblivious or Gojo’s love was fated to go down as unrequited. In any case, Haruki believed Satoru should at least own up to it.

“I wasn’t sure before, but...” Haruki looked at Satoru’s covered eyes with a smile “…you are a coward, Gojo.”

The sound of the train approaching echoed in Satoru’s head just as much as Ikeda’s words.

Had this guy really said that?

Ikeda watched the train stop and open its doors for boarding. The station was, surprisingly, not too crowded despite it being almost the peak hour.

“This is me.” Haruki gestured to the train. “See you around.”

Satoru heard the train doors closing, but his gaze was still fixed on where Ikeda had been standing. “Yeah, see you around,” he muttered for himself.

***

Truth was Satoru had not seen Haruki after that. You still went to the coffee shop where he worked and hung out with him a few more times after the start of that winter, though, and then, he had been gone.

Until now.

You were in front of your building, talking to a man that Gojo recognized immediately despite not having seen him in many years.

Satoru had tried to talk to you all week, but his missions kept pulling him away, and it did not help that you were busy with your own load of work. So, even when he knew it was a bit too late to pay any respectable visit, he had come to your place to talk.

Ieiri had told him you had left the school a few minutes earlier, and then he had been pulled into a meeting with Yaga that seemed to have dragged on for an eternity. Thus, he had come up with the bright idea of asking Ijichi to drop him off at your place. He had not anticipated finding this scene, though.

Had you left early to go out with that man? Satoru pondered it while still in the car. What was it? A dinner? You had mentioned lunches and coffee with Ikeda since you had told him about your reencounter, but not dinners.

Satoru looked at your frame. You were smiling at something Haruki had said.

In all honesty, Satoru had often found himself distracted by your smile during the last months. It was not only your smile; it was your voice during meetings, the way you moved when you were training the students, your eyes when you were talking to him or Shoko. To the point Ieiri had sometimes whispered to him “It’s rude to stare”, because he had been looking at you for too long. How could Shoko tell, he was not sure. He thought his blindfold should conceal his gaze, but maybe it was not as effective as he thought.

Gojo sighed. He had not noticed until after your confession just how smitten with you he was.

In the meantime, Ijichi was feeling pretty uncomfortable in the driver seat. It was not unusual that Gojo asked to be taken to your place, but he was sure he had interrupted something between you and him a week ago, and he did not recognize the man you were talking to now. Nevertheless, he could feel Gojo’s uneasiness, and if the strongest was restless, what would be of the rest of the world?

Ijichi believed both of them felt equally uncomfortable when the man leaned closer to your face.

“What is he…?” he started asking, but Gojo shushed him. Through the rear-view mirror, he saw Gojo was looking attentively too.

Ijichi’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. Was him seeing this really okay? You had been a kind senior to him in your high school days, and this felt like invading your privacy.

He could ask Gojo if they should leave, but he was not sure that any questions would be welcomed by the white-haired man that seemed so invested in the scene in front of your building.

On his end, Satoru felt an increasing pressure in his chest. You had told him you liked him. Why were you letting another man that close? Were you going to kiss him? He had never seen Ikeda kiss you, and he definitely did not want to see it now.

He put his hand on the door handle.

What exactly was he going to say to you now?

Ijichi’s eyes kept going back and forth between you and the man and Satoru on the rear-view mirror. He thought he heard him sigh when you stopped the man’s hand that had touched your face and took a short step back, smiling.

Satoru saw your lips move. You were telling Ikeda something.

Please don’t invite him up. Please don’t invite him up.

Haruki bid you goodbye with a smile and started walking away.

Satoru spared him a look. The streetlights illuminated his figure just enough to notice he was taller than before, but his features had not changed much. You probably had recognized him the second you saw him at that store. Satoru’s eyes returned to you as you entered your building.

“Thanks, Ijichi.” With that, Gojo got off and walked after you.

“[name].”

You were climbing the first set of stairs. “Satoru?” It did not take him long to reach the stairs. “Is everything okay?”

You were glad to see him, but you had not made plans with him today, and although he would come unannounced most times, there was something about his expression that made you think he had rushed here.

He smiled. “It is. I just wanted to see you. Can I come up?”

That’s a first. Since when did he ask for permission to go to your home?

“Sure.”

As you walked to your floor, you took in Satoru’s demeanor. He looked pretty much the same as always, but the almost imperceptible way he was delaying his step, led you to believe there was something in his mind.

“You left the school early,” he mentioned casually.

You nodded. “I finished everything early, and…”, Satoru noticed the slightest bit of hesitation in your voice, “I had plans. Ikeda invited me to dinner; he just left, actually.”

“I think I saw him outside.” Satoru’s voice showed no emotion, but he tried to smile. “He hasn’t changed, right?” The smile did not come out.

“Not much," you agreed.

You reached your floor and headed to your door.

“I had a meeting with Yaga.” Satoru watched you take out your keys.

“How did that go?” Had Yaga told him something that was now occupying his mind?

You entered your key in the lock and looked at Gojo.

That tense smile again.

A turn of your key and the door opened, but Satoru stayed frozen in place, so you did not move either.

“Satoru, did Yaga send you to execute me?”

Of course, you had not done anything worthy of such a drastic action, but why else would he come at this hour looking so stiff?

Gojo laughed and, for a second, he looked like himself. “How did you know?” He followed you inside.

You took off your shoes and said with a grin. “Is that or he sent you to fire me. Which one is it?”

In truth, Satoru was feeling anxious. He had wanted to get a hold of you all week and thought a lot about what he was going to say to you when he did, but now that he had you finally in front of him, his heart felt too loud in his chest, and he could not remember how he had planned to start this conversation.

“Yeah, he said you don’t need to come in tomorrow, but you can expect your pay on Monday.” At least he could still get jokes out.

You smiled and swayed to your small living room, sitting down on the same couch where he had fallen asleep last time you had a movie marathon. He wanted to sit next to you, but he felt too fidgety, so he opted for standing in front of you.

“Now is a good time to prove your friendship to me and tell me you are going to cover my expenses until I find a new job.” You were grinning at him, a gesture he returned.

“Of course. In the other hand, I could let you just starve to death.”

“You wouldn’t.”

He smiled, and you knew it was his way of saying ‘No, I wouldn’t’.

You had been blown away that time you realized one of Satoru’s shirts costed almost as much as everything stored in your wardrobe, except for, maybe, the things Satoru himself had gifted to you, which you no longer wanted to ask the price of. Even though you had scolded him for being so wasteful when it came to presents for you or anyone -the sweater he gave to Shoko for her birthday was not cheap either- you knew that, as extravagant as it looked, he was just generous.

You raised an eyebrow. “You can sit down, you know?”

He licked his lips. “I think I’m good.”

Was he really getting ready to execute you?

You shifted in your seat. “Okay, you are making me nervous now…Are you really…?”

“Just hear me out, okay?” When you nodded, he continued, ignoring the suspicions look on your face. “Remember that time you told me you liked me?”

Your lips parted. Of course you remembered, but you had never expected him to mention it so directly. Was not there an implicit agreement to never talk about it again?

“Back then, I…”

Why was he bringing it up now? Maybe it would have been better being executed...

“I remember. You rejected me.” You averted your gaze. It was the first time you had said it aloud and it tugged at your heartstrings.

Satoru crouched down in front of you. You had seen him do something similar with his students. Right after beating them, he would kneel before them to explain where they had gone wrong in their attack. Was he trying to do that now?

“[name]…”

“We don’t have to talk about it.” You thought it had been long forgotten, and you two were doing fine. There was no need to recall that humiliating chapter of your friendship.

With your faces almost at the same level, Satoru could see your puzzled expression.

“But I want to talk about it. I didn’t…” Satoru was going to say he had not exactly rejected you, but you interrupted him again.

“Why?” You were not angry, but he perceived the same hurt tone he had heard that time. “If you feel uncomfortable, you have no reason to be. It was a crush, Satoru. I don’t know why I said anything. I’m sorry, okay?”

You were not apologizing for liking him, you could never, but if he was bringing it up because he felt weird or if he thought you needed an explanation, you would do anything to save your friendship.

“A crush?” he asked. Just a crush?

That pained him just as much as the look on your face.

“Yes.” Just like that time, your eyes were on his even though he had them covered. “We can forget it. I’m over it.”

Satoru felt as if you were ripping his heart out.

He looked at you. A crush you were done with? That would hurt anyone’s ego, but that was not what pained him. His was not a crush, and what he felt for you would not go away in a matter of weeks or months. Satoru had realized that he had been falling for you for years now, in too deep to ever get out. And you had liked him for a second and now you did not anymore?

Satoru’s gaze landed on your lap and the hand scratching your wrist. You were nervous because you were anticipating an argument or…?

“You are lying,” Satoru stated flatly, and if he had not been wearing the blindfold, his eyes would have pierced your soul when they searched for yours.

He could read you well.

“But I want to get over you.” The way your words came out surprised you. You had told yourself you did not blame him for not reciprocating your feelings; it was not his fault, and he was under no obligation to feel the same way, but you still sounded resentful.

I won’t be a bother, just let me stay as your friend.

Satoru knew he would regret asking, but he did it anyway. “Because of Ikeda?”

Was he still upset about that?

“If you came here to argue about him...”

“Do you like him?” It was a question Satoru had avoided asking you for as long as he could back then. And even after he did, your answer had been simple: it was not like that. But now, what were you going to say?

“Satoru, just…”

It took a second for your mind to fully register what happened next: Satoru leaned forward swiftly, his hand was on your cheek and his lips were on yours. Your eyes had closed by reflex, and his lips, as soft as they looked, were moving against yours.

You reciprocated.

Through the years, always denying you were a couple, in your opinion, none of you had ever crossed any boundaries, except once. Satoru and you had kissed twice before. The first time had been an accident; the second, an attempt to prove that kissing a friend did not mean anything, or that was what Satoru had said.

A suppressed grunt came out of him, and you were reminded of his exact words.

“We are friends, so it doesn’t mean anything, right?”

You pressed your hand to his chest to push him back.

When you separated, you were both a little out of breath, but that was not Satoru’s main concern.

“I can’t believe you are this selfish.” Your voice cracked, and Satoru saw nothing but hurt and sadness in your eyes.

“What?” He had kissed you because he loved you, and he was pretty sure you felt the same when you kissed him back.

You blinked, trying to keep the tears forming in your eyes from falling.

“Why kiss someone you feel nothing for?”

He was dumbfounded. That was not…

“It’s horrible." You had never looked at him this way. "You should leave, Satoru.” You were already escaping his hold and getting up, looking away from him.

In the blink of an eye, Satoru had teleported away, and when you blinked again, all the tears you had been holding back streamed down.

----------------------

Note: I... have nothing say. I'll go and hide somewhere.

Thank you for reading!

Next: Part XII

@mavs-stuff @witchbybirth @crookedlyaddictedone-blog @tqd4455 @maybe-a-bi-witch @mo0nforme @maliakealoha @zacatecanaaaa @blushhpeachh @astriarose @missesgojosatoru @ba-ks @sukunasleftkneecap @songbirdlully @cole-silas @heijihattorisgf @chokesonspit @hersheyzzz @smolbeanzzz

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - new entries upset the rankings

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

April 2024 Wk 2

Ongoing Series - Thai

City of Stars (Fri iQIYI) ep 11 of 12 - Like most Thai BL pulps, this show doesn’t have much story to it. But I'm discovering that what it does have I actually really enjoy. I love that the gay boys got to play matchmaker for a change and I like how just GAY they are. It's nice. Refreshing.

We Are (Weds GMMTV iQIYI) ep 1-2 of 16 - University ensemble BL featuring PondPhuwin, WinnySatang, AouBoom, MarcPawinPoon. I like it. It’s old school Thai BL, but having fun with itself and its tropes. I’m not expecting much, so I don’t mind it waffling. All the couples are comfy. Chemistry is okay. Friendships are nifty. I like Pond's floppy hair. We fine. 

Two Worlds (Thurs IQIYI) ep 5 of 10 - What an extremely bloody episode. And bad guy turned out to be very bad indeed. And now pretty much everyone is dead. Nice kiss. Of course. 

Deep Night (Thurs iQiyi) ep 6 of 8 - It’s cute, they happy, not a ton happened. Random gratuitous bathing. As you do in BL. And I still think the sides should just end up in a thrupple

Only Boo! (Sun YouTube) ep 2 of 12 - Oh they very cute. Also very silly. 

1000 Years Old (Thurs iQIYI) ep 9 of 12 - No. NOT THE GUITAR. YES abandon guitar for the sniff test! Love this for them. And me. My most favorite trope defeated my least favorite trope. VICTORY!!!  

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Unknown (Taiwan Tues YouTube & Viki) ep 8 of 11 - It’s just so good. Baby went away, grew up, and learned how to become a temptation... and a husband. 

Gray Shelter AKA Gray Currents (Korea Thurs iQIYI) 1 of 5 eps - SooHyuk, only just surviving, reunites with YoonDae, his (brief) younger stepbrother who feels abandoned. They end up living together. The younger brother is played by Lee Jae Bin of Choco Milk Shake. OMG. STEPBROTHERS TROPE. Lucky me! Two in one season. Yay!!!! It's Korea so great visuals too. I shallow but yeah, this is great.

Living With Him AKA Kare no Iru Seikatsu (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 1 of 10 - Kindly Ryota goes off to uni only to find his new roommate is his childhood bestie, Kazuhito. Kazuhito doesn’t have a girlfriend and Ryota tries to help him figure out why. Same director as Old Fashion Cupcake. It’s utterly charming. I am charmed. Also the framing is gorgeous (of course). Very stylish.

Love is Better the Second Time Around AKA Koi wo Suru nara Nidome ga Joto (Japan Weds Gaga) ep 6fin - I don’t know. Kind of a flat ending with the leads apart for most of it. I enjoyed this show but it never really hit with me. 

Summation

After a teen betrayal and resulting separation a reporter reunites with his first love. That love wants him back. I enjoyed the authenticity of a reunion romance explored in Japan's quintessentially contemplative yet surreal way. The juxtaposition of the tenderness of the sex scenes with this Japanese style of authenticity was oddly elegant but all in all this still fell a little flat for me. There's nothing objectively wrong with it, but in total the narrative felt sluggish and the main couple were just... stiff (in the wrong way). Frankly, I'd rather just rewatch Tokyo in April is. 8/10

Love is like a Cat (Korea Mon Viki) eps 3-4 of 12 - What is going on with this show? No, I get the plot. I just don't get the show or why I’m watching it. Annoying. 

It's done, but I suck

What Did You Eat Yesterday Season 2 AKA Kinou Nani Tabeta? Season 2 (Japan Gaga) 10 eps

To Be Continued (Sat C3 Thailand grey) ep 7-8fin - I can't for the life of me find the final 2 episodes. Haven't had a real hunt, but yeah. No dice so far.

It's airing but...

Takumi-kun Series 6: Nagai Nagai Monogatari (Japan Furritsubs) eps 1-? of 10 - I may wait and binge it.

Lady Boy Friends (Thai WeTV grey) 16 eps - reminds me a bit too much of Diary of Tootsies only high school. Not my thing. DNF unless it turns a corner and is truly amazing.

Kiseki Chapter 2 (Sun iQIYI) 6 eps - It’s so boring DNFed at 2.

Close Friend Season 3: Soju Bomb! (Weds iQIYI) 6 - The problem with situational comedy BL is it must be situational, comedic and a BL. This show gets 1 of 3 claims correct. 33% is not a passing grade. Dropped at 3.

Memory in the Letter (Thai WeTV) - only 4 eps, tell me if I should bother?

Next Week Looks Like This:

4/18 At 25:00 in Alaska AKA 25 Ji Akasaka de (Japan Thurs Gaga) 10 eps - Yuki lands his first starring role in a BL drama alongside superstar Asami (previously his senior at uni). Said superstar suggests they form a sham relationship until filming concludes. As they actually begin to fall in love, the spotlight begins to burn. I think I've seen this before (joke) and also the trailer doesn't inspire confidence.

Still to Come in April

4/25 Boys Be Brave! AKA Roommates (Korea Thurs Viki) 8 eps - Trailer Jung Ki Sub is Kim Jin Woo's slacker friend - and secret crush. So when Ki Sub crashes at his place, his heart tingles to be near him everyday. But as the short stay turns into permanent mooch, how long can Jin Woo keep his true feelings under wraps and hold back from confessing?

4/26 My Stand-In (Thai iQIYI) 12 eps - adaptation of Chinese novel "Professional Body Double" by Shui Qiang Cheng. Stars Up (Lovely Writer) and Poom (Bake Me Please) directed by the same team as KP (not a recommendation IMHO - my biggest criticism of that show was the clashing directing styles). This one looks complicated, lemme try: Joe is a stuntman for famous actor Tong. Joe falls in love with Ming but Ming sees Joe as nothing more than a Tong-replacement. After learning this horrible truth, Joe dies. Joe then wakes up in the body of another man also named Joe. He manages to rebuild the same life as before—with the same people eventually re-meeting Ming. Ming wants Joe back but Joe doesn't understand why. But Ming seems to know what's going on and wants to give him some kind of explanation.

I'm exhausted just trying to describe the plot.

Knock-Knock Boys (Thai WeTV) - 4 college friends conspire to help their friend lose his virginity. Familiar faces like Seng (yes, Billy's previous pairing) and Best, news here. But will it actually air this month?

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

NOTE: It looks like one of my personal favorites of last year Unintentional Love Story is getting a spin off!

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENT

Sniff test turning into a make out sesh? Please and thank you. City of Stars

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a bother.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly

If ya wanna be tagged each week leave a comment and I will add you to the template. Easy peesy.

[divine-knight-hand]

Being Followed

Loki Masterlist || Full Masterlist || Read on AO3

Pairing: Loki Laufeyson x Gender Neutral Reader

Summary: You aren’t the only one in the castle gardens, it would seem…

Content Warnings: Fluff, a little spiciness, and snake Loki!!!

Notes: I don't know why, but I had snake Loki on the brain today, so I wanted to do something about that.

Word Count: 637

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

The palace gardens were quiet. It was a comfortable silence. I strolled along, bathing in the warmth of the golden light from the setting sun. The fresh air went in through my nose, and out through my slightly parted mouth. Refreshing.

A faint hiss snapped me out of my trance-like state, and I frantically searched my surroundings for the creature it emanated from. As I spun in a wild circle, I caught it in the corner of my eye. A small green tail retreating into a nearby bush.

Relief washed over me as I let out a breathy laugh. “You startled me!”

I got another hiss in response, this time accompanied by the small rustling of branches.

I rolled my eyes, bringing my hands to my hips. “Are you looking to trick your brother with this form again? You know he hates that.”

A small green head poked out of the bush, darting its tongue out as its small black eyes blinked at me, feigning innocence. I knew better than to trust that.

I crouched down, reaching my hand out to the small creature. “Come on. The sun is setting, and I would prefer if my night was spent with you, rather than waiting for you to finish your shenanigans.”

The snake let out another hiss as it began to slither up my arm, and I slowly stood up, making sure it had time to settle itself on my shoulders.

“That’s better.” I let out a small sigh as the snake touched its scaly cheek to mine.

The sunlight retreated as the sky continued to darken, and I began to make my way back towards the castle.

“How long do you plan on staying like that?” I asked the snake on my shoulders, earning confused and frightened looks from nearby servants as I crossed the threshold into the palace. “I can’t exactly bed a slithering reptile, now can I?”

You tempt me, darling. Loki’s voice found its way into my mind as the snake hissed aloud by my ear. Trust me, it won’t be for much longer now.

I reached up to pet the snake’s scales, and it closed its eyes in a satisfied hiss as I softly stroked its head. “I apologize to have foiled your little prank for your brother. I suppose I’m just feeling a little needier than most days.”

Loki’s soft chuckle sounded in my head before I heard his voice again. Oh, darling. I was never waiting for Thor.

I turned my gaze to eye the snake as it cocked its head at me, blinking with that same feigned innocence again.

A smirk tugged at my lips as the realization of what he meant dawned on me. “How long have you been stalking me like this?”

Stalk you? Loki sounded playfully offended. I would never. I simply followed you at a respectable distance. Nothing more.

I snorted as I opened the door to our shared bedroom. “Sure, Loki. Sure…”

Would you prefer it if I stalked you? Loki mused as we stepped inside. Hunting you like prey? A dark chuckle echoed in my mind. Oh, the things I would do once I finally caught you…

I felt warmth creeping into my cheeks as a pang of desire hit me. “Maybe don’t tease me while you’re covered in scales.”

My apologies, darling. I felt the small weight of the snake drop off of my shoulders before a flash of green shone behind me.

Then, a hand on my shoulder coaxed me to turn and meet the face of my lover before he pulled my body closer to his. “Is that better?”

His now soft face was just inches from mine, our breaths intermingling between us, and I cupped it in my hands.

“Much better.” I breathed before closing the gap to kiss him.

[roanniom]

I adored smartest! Scratched an itch I didn’t know I had for Steve. Can’t stop thinking of him seeing someone trying to flirt with his tutor and getting possessive and dragging her down the nearest dark alley to prove no one could make her dumb like he can.

Smartest - Part 2

King!Steve Harrington x tutor!fem!reader

Read Part 1

Warning: NSFW, 18+ ONLY, mutual masturbation, semi public sex / PIV sex / unprotected sex, teasing, power dynamics, King!Steve is a dick and is his own warning (but goes through angst here???)

Steve isn’t really sure what he assumed would happen after he’d been hooking up with his tutor for a while. There had been absolutely no forethought to the initial act, and the fact that you had been into him enough to let him keep fucking you during each session - well Steve Harrington isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, of course.

But he certainly hadn’t anticipated how the attention would affect how you carry yourself. In the halls. In class. In the stands during pep rallies. Walking through the diner or at the movies. Whenever Steve sees you out and about in Hawkins now, he can’t help but blink and do a double take.

You stand up straighter. You smile brighter. You make eye contact with the people around you. Your clothes are a little more relaxed, opting for flouncier skirts and fun tops rather than cardigans and your usual buttoned up, structured dresses.

To Steve, of course, the change seems motivated by him. And, to be fair, he was sort of the catalyst. He couldn’t possibly know that really you’ve started to come into your own, not because of Steve’s attention itself, but because of the way it allowed you to dismiss the fears you’d had of your own undesirability. The King of Hawkins High wanted you. You’re pretty sure it’s just as a steady fuck buddy, but still. You’d gone from scared to look boys in the eye to being very aware of the fact that you walking through the Harrington’s front door with your books and notes had a pretty much Pavlovian effect of Steve’s cock. He was basically hard fifteen minutes into any tutoring session these days.

It’s not that Steve’s attention has validated you, per se. It’s more that it has made you realize how silly men are. How easy and one track minded they can be. Its almost silly to think how starved you had been for approval and how sure you’d been that your status as an A+ goody goody made you untouchable. That was clearly, judging by the bruises Steve left on your thighs each week, not the case. The whole thing has made you ten times less nervous in his presence. And if you don’t have to be nervous around the King, it essentially means that you’re more at ease everywhere.

At first this change in you intrigues Steve. He truly had never really given you much thought prior to the start of your dalliance. Sure you were pretty…in a stuffy, academic, good girl type of way. But he was always a bird of prey, looking for shiny, garish, colorful and shapely things to catch his eye.

So the day you show up to his place in a tight skirt and a fashionable off the shoulder blouse that bares your collar bones and exposes cleavage, Steve’s eyes practically pop out of his head.

“Well hello,” he says directly to your tits. You roll your eyes and step around him into the house.

“Hi, Steve,” you reply, walking towards the dining room where you usually have your sessions. Steve jogs up behind you and grabs you at the waist, turning you back to him.

“Not in there. Let’s study in my room.”

“Why?” you ask, confused by the sudden change.

“Well, my parents are home,” Steve elaborates. Heat fills you as you realize what he means, but you cock your head to the side, waiting for him to say it. Steve rubs the back of his neck and chuckles. “So we can’t…have fun in the dining room.”

“I’m here to tutor you, Steve. So I guess it’s okay if we can’t have fun,” you say with a shrug. You can’t suppress your smile though and Steve’s smile widens. A few weeks ago you would have stuttered and gone shy but immediately compliant, hoping to please him. This was new.

“Yeah but what about when I get an answer right?” Steve asks, stepping forward and lifting his hand so he can play with the hem of your shirt. “You know I need positive reinforcement.”

You do your best to hide your swallow at the memory of how you had sucked his cock after you’d cajoled him into memorizing his flash cards. Even more heat courses through your body but you look up at him defiantly.

“I brought a packet of gold stars. You like stickers, Steve?”

Your answer catches him off guard and he lets out a bark of a laugh. There’s a triumphant fanfare ringing in your ears at the fact that you are able to make Steve laugh like that. Organically and not part of any of kind of show or flirtation or charm offensive.

“I do like stickers…” he says, his hand dipping under the hem of your top and splaying out over the bare skin of your waist. “But I think this body might motivate me better.”

Your breath catches in your throat at that. His heavy eye contact leaves you nowhere to run. Not that you’d ever run from Steve. He’s a magnet pulling you in regardless of distance or context.

But he’s also made the vital mistake of showing his hand. He wants something from you, too. This isn’t a one way serving pity situation. You might be dumb with his cock in you, but before it gets to that point you’re still the smartest girl in Hawkins. So you use this information to your advantage.

You take his hand and walk him up the stairs (a bold move that he didn’t see coming and which makes him immediately rock hard as he watches your ass away ahead of him up the steps).

You’re the one who closes the door. He locks it.

You end up getting Steve to complete all of his homework…by himself. With motivation in the form of a game where you give him a sticker after he completes each assignment and he gets to decide which body part of yours it goes on. By the end of the afternoon you’re naked on his bed, a sticker on each of your tits, each of your ass cheeks, your bellybutton, and your lower abdomen. By the end of the session his head is squeezed between your thighs, his hands roaming and roving to squeeze each soft piece of flesh he’d bedazzled with his gold stars of favor.

So yeah. At first your increased confidence was something Steve found pretty fucking hot.

But as time went on, he began to realize that your confidence didn’t begin and end with him. He started seeing you around in school more. It’s not that you had somehow increased the amount of times you cross his path in a day, exactly. More that you used to melt into the background a bit more. He’d notice you only if you were right in front of him shyly waving. He’d wave back dutifully at his tutor, sometimes throwing you a bone in the form of a wink, lazily enjoying the way it would so obviously throw you into a tailspin with virtually no effort on his part.

Now you’re somehow everywhere all at once. And not only are you noticeable in the crowd - you stand out from it. Your hair is more stylish, your clothes are unapologetically patterned and colored and fit you in ways his hands envy. Your smile is brighter than the god damn fluorescents above. And now Steve is the one who has to maneuver to catch your eye. Because you’re always talking to people these days, it seems. And a lot of those people are guys, Steve notices begrudgingly.

You stand with your back against a locker, your books pulled to your chest as your arms wrap around them, a smile on your face that is definitely not worth the lame ass comment said by the dumb jock standing before you. Steve pauses at the water fountain where he’d been bending when he’d turned his head and saw you. So clearly the recipient of some football player’s attention.

And boy do you glow under attention.

That week when you arrive at his house to tutor him, Steve tries to charm you again into simply fucking outright. Again, you coyly dance around it, making him work for it. He ends up losing his patience and crowding you in the kitchen when you get up for a snack.

“Steve! I’m trying to—!” You’re squealing but he swallows it up as he takes the coke can out of your hand and blindly moves it away from you, his mouth already hot on yours.

Before you can register what’s happening, Steve’s hoisted you up onto the kitchen counter and pushed his way between your spread legs.

“What?” Steve asks, pulling away and feigning nonchalance as if he hadn’t just manhandled you and mauled you with his lips. “You said we could have a snack break.” He slides a hand down to cup your pussy through your skirt. He pets at the place over your clit. “This is my snack.”

What would have once rendered you speechless makes you roll your eyes.

“I’m actually hungry, Steve.”

Steve gives you a lopsided grin and drops his hand on his hard on, evident and swell in the confines of his jeans.

“Got a snack for you right here.”

You laugh at that and Steve feels something akin to pride zing through him. But it’s not exactly like pride, an emotion he knows well. No, it’s something different. Warmer.

“As much as I do enjoy that particular snack, Harrington, I don’t think your cum will satiate me.”

“Fuck. Dirty talk and big words like ‘satiate’.” Steve pretends to feel faint with a hand on his forehead. “You really have this hot smart girl thing figured out.”

You shake your head at him but smile, and Steve hates the fact that it’s your smile that makes him even harder.

He also hates the fact that fifteen minutes later he finds himself sliding into a booth at the local diner rather than sliding himself into your sweet pussy.

You’d cajoled him into taking you for a real meal since there was nothing to eat at his place. And no, you’d continued to argue. His cock was not a balanced meal.

His hand had been on your thigh for half of the drive to the diner before he realized, like ice water down his back, that the whole situation reeked of a date. He’d pulled his hand back over to clutch at the steering wheel with a double grip, eyes flitting to you anxiously. However you seemed not to notice, looking instead out the window pleasantly.

As he’d parked Steve had made a mental note to reel in the PDA. He didn’t want you thinking this was more than it was. More than a weekly fuck session between two consenting people. One of whom used to have the upper hand and one of whom…had the sexiest smile with lips that looked sinful wrapped around a stripped straw and cheeks that hollowed sexually as they sucked—

Fuck.

Steve Harrington was in trouble.

The meal went by quickly, and over time you were able to pull him from his rattled internal monologue, stealing his fries and teasing him for getting in trouble in class earlier in the day. Steve throws a fry at you and nudges your foot with his under the table. You laugh. His stomach flips. His palm itches so he drops it under the table and rubs it against the denim on his thigh.

When the waitress comes with the check, you bound to the bathroom and Steve gets a minute to get his shit together.

He’s Steve fucking Harrington. Supreme stud of Hawkins High. Another girl every week (although if he was counting, which he wasn’t, it had been a few weeks since he’d reracked his rotation). He fishes his wallet out of his too-tight jeans and drops down some bills.

“Thanks, handsome.”

Steve looks up, expecting to see you but instead realizing it had come from the waitress who he’d forgotten was standing there. She’s a pretty thing, maybe a year or two older. He’s seen her working here before and he lets his eyes roam over her figure unabashedly. Her uniform isn’t zipped up all the way in the front, leaving exposed a generous swell of cleavage and her waist flares out into a voluptuous set of hips. She taps a manicured nail on her order pad, patiently waiting for him to finish oogling her. She’s a hot girl and he’s a hot guy. She knows this dance and so does Steve. When he drags his eyes up from her tits to her face, she looks expectant.

This is the part where he chats her up. Where he compliments her - or cuts her down a bit in a boyish, redeemable way - and then asks her out. He’s supposed to give her his million watt rich boy smile, run a hand through his hair, and turn on the charm.

She’s expecting it. He’s expecting it of himself.

But instead, all he can manage is a nod and a tight smile. He watches the waitress’s brows raise and her smile fall a bit. But then she’s simply picking up the money and walking away. Steve has a moment of panic as his eyes drop to watch the sway of her ass as she retreats. What the fuck is wrong with him? He could have been tucked away in his car with that hot woman, spanking that ass within the hour.

Instead he’s still tucked away in a booth at a diner her didn’t want to go to, still painfully hard without an outlet in sight.

Which is when he hears your laugher ring out, causing said hard cock to twitch. Steve turns quickly to find you standing by the entrance to the bathroom, cornered by yet another football player.

He sees red. The way you’re leaning up against the wall is a mirror image to when he’d seen you receive attention earlier in the week by your locker. You gaze up at the football player with a smile that Steve realizes he’d assumed was only meant for him. It boils his blood to think that the smile you’d bestowed on him so dutifully, so loyally, was just your smile. A thing to be handed out like some cheap party favor to any Tom, Dick, or Harry.

Steve can’t know - especially from a distance - that you really are only humoring this guy. If one looked closer they could never mistake the tight lipped, emotionless nicety on your face for the radiant, full bodied smile you reserved for Steve. You’d gotten cornered by the jock on your way back to the bathroom, and you’d been trying to politely extricate yourself from his lukewarm advances for a few minutes now.

He was rambling about his car and the upgrades he’d gotten done to it when suddenly a pair of big hands land heavy on your shoulder.

“Babe, I paid the check. Let’s get out of here.”

You whip your head around to find Steve behind you, though his gaze is placed firmly on the football player. Though they aren’t the same in width, Steve’s got the guy beat in height, and he uses it to his advantage by standing up straight and puffing his chest a bit.

“Harrington,” the jock chokes out. In the Hawkins hierarchy, the basketball team is more successful than the football team by a long shot, so a certain amount of deference is expected for the king of the court, even from fellow athletes. “I’m sorry…I didn’t…is this your girl?”

Steve feels you go rigid under his hold. Your eyes flash up to his but he doesn’t meet yours.

“Don’t you have a playbook to memorize?” Steve asks coolly. He pulls lightly and your back presses against his chest. “If I remember football season right, I’d say it’s gonna take you till fall and then some. Better get back to it.”

You try to laugh his comment off and put a hand on the bicep of your would-be suitor.

“Steve, this is—,”

“Mr. Irrelevant,” Steve completes for you, smoothly using both an insult and a football pun.

The jock stutters another apology before ambling back to his friends. You don’t have time to question Steve because his arm is suddenly around you, pulling you with him out the door.

The two of you walk briskly to his car, and only when you reach the passenger door do you finally regain your powers of speech.

“What was that in there, Steve?” you ask quietly. Your hand is on the door handle but you remain motionless.

“What? I told you, I don’t like football players,” Steve says with a shrug, yanking open the driver side door and dropping into his seat. You climb in carefully and watch him as he violently pulls on his seatbelt.

“Why?”

“Because they’re a bunch of meat heads and it’s a sport revolving around how many concussions they can rack up—,”

“No, Steve,” you interrupt gently, your hand dropping on his knee. “Why were you acting…possessive?”

Steve’s skin burns through his jeans where your hand touches him. He stares at it for a second before looking up, agitated.

“Well excuse me for saving you. I thought you’d be thanking me for getting that guy to stop drooling on you.”

His words sting and you wince. Steve even winces a bit, having not intended to sound so forceful. You shrug.

“He was only being nice.”

Steve let’s out a humorless laugh.

“That wasn’t being nice. That was undressing you with his eyes. That was trying to get you to let him feel you up under the bleachers. Nice is—,”

“Nice is flirting with your tutor to get her to do your homework?”

Steve freezes before he can turn the key in the ignition. He looks over to find that you’re staring blankly out the windshield. Your arms are hugging you, like you’re trying to comfort yourself.

“That’s not…”

“Nice is fucking her when you’re bored? Your little prescheduled sex appointment?”

Steve’s defenses raise and he unbuckles his seatbelt so he can turn more fully to you.

“Hey wait, that’s—,”

“That’s exactly what this is. I haven’t misunderstood that, Steve,” you say, finally turning the full force of your earnest gaze on him. “Have you?”

Steve blinks at you slowly. Completely unsure about what’s going on and how the night has taken this turn.

He’s even more bewildered when you suddenly move to climb into the back seat.

“What are you doing?” he asks, surprised and leaning over to watch you lay yourself down on the seat.

“You wanted to fuck me earlier. So do it.”

Steve feels like you’ve slapped him in the face. Your stare is cool and you begin to unbutton your blouse. Panic rises inside of him and his head whirls around.

“Here? Someone could see,” Steve argues. They are in the back corner of the parking lot, but it’s a parking lot nonetheless, illuminated by one sole street lamp. You shrug.

“The windows are tinted, aren’t they?”

Steve can’t begin to comprehend the conflict coursing through his veins. Of course the windows are tinted. Almost illegally so. He knows that because he’s fucked countless girls in the back seat of his car. Hadn’t he even just thought about fucking that waitress in his car only minutes ago?

But with you…

He’s thrown off by the urge he has to cover your breasts with his hands when you peel back your top. Not even to touch you but just to keep you from being seen by others.

Why does he fucking care?

King Steve had fucked at every party he’d ever been to - sometimes even in rooms with no doors or up against the back of a house with people nearby on a porch. He’d never once had a conscience about it. As long as the girl was down, he was ready to go.

So why is it different now, with you stripping in his back seat and staring at him with big doe eyes?

“Come on. Don’t make me get started by myself,” you say teasingly. You’re clearly trying to lighten the suddenly heavy mood. Steve swallows hard.

“You wouldn’t.”

You quirk an eyebrow at him and lift the hem of your skirt. You’re wearing a lacy scrap of panties that match your bra. Definitely a far cry from the sensible underwear you’d been wearing the first time he’d seduced you.

“Try me.”

And despite the confusion and warning bells going off in his head, Steve’s clambering into the back seat in seconds. He’s on top of you, hips shoved between your thighs and big hands on your wrists, pinning them above your head against the inside of the car door.

“That’s more like it,” you coo, smiling a dazzling smile up at him. It thrills him and upsets him and makes him frustrated all at once, and since he doesn’t know how to express that with words he does it physically. His mouth drops to your neck so he can pull a sizable amount of flesh between his lips and suck. Hard. You gasp and arch up into him, giving him the perfect opportunity to switch your wrists into a single handed grip so he can move the other hand down to grope at your breasts. Instead of covering them and hiding them, he rips down your bra, letting your breasts spill from the cups.

Steve bites a bruising trail down from your neck to your cleavage, sucking harder than he ever has before.

“Trying to be cute, huh?” he growls against your skin. You laugh breathlessly, wrists straining against his hold.

“Yeah. ‘s it working?”

That makes Steve strangle a laugh but it still frustrates him. You’ve somehow still got the upper hand here. Even though you’re below him and your body is at his mercy. When did the tables turn so fully?

So he sits up abruptly, leaving you laying back, legs still open wide around his hips, his spit still drying around the new bruises sucked to your neck. You’re motionless for a second before leaning up on your elbows to look at him, dazed.

“I’m a little unconvinced,” Steve says with a shrug. A frown filters over your features. You watch as he smooths his hands up and down your thighs, looking at your panty-clad center appraisingly.

“What are you unconvinced about?” you ask. Steve draws a line with his index finger over the length of the waistband of your panties.

“That you really want it bad enough.”

Frustration flickers in your eyes.

“Want what?” you ask, playing along. Steve drops one hand to the bulge in his jeans.

“This cock.”

You roll your eyes and sit up higher.

“Of course I want—,”

“I’m not sure, baby. You were gonna touch yourself back here. Maybe I should have let you handle it.” His actions contradict his words as one hand rubs slow circles right at the crease where your thigh meets your hip. Your eyebrows knit together.

“No, I want you,” you reply, almost petulantly.

There it is.

This is what Steve needed.

But he shakes his head. Now that he’s got you back on the line he’s going to enjoy this to the fullest.

“Maybe you had the right idea,” he says, leaning back a bit against the opposite door. The backs of your thighs still rest on the tops of his, and with one hand still heavy on you, his free hand pops open the button of his jeans. You feel the slide of his zipper rush down your spine.

When Steve pulls his cock out and begins to stroke it, you feel your stomach drop and your mouth water. He’s watching you as he does it. Eyes darting from your breasts almost spilling out of the cups of your bra to the wet spot in the center of your panties. It makes you hot. It turns you on in a way that’s almost painful to watch the flushed fat head of his cock disappear and reappear in the grip of his fist.

“I’m…I’m right here,” you mutter. Steve grins and takes his hand from his cock and slides it confidently under the elastic hem of your panties.

“Yeah, you are.”

The intrusion of his fingers is sudden and sure and you gasp at the feeling of them sliding through your slick. He swirls a few circles around your tensing hole before sliding up to press circles into your clit. You drop back down off your elbows and let out a satisfied moan at the stimulation you’d craved.

But then…he’s pulling his hand back, allowing the elastic of your panties to snap back on you with a sting. You sit up again fast and watch as he takes the wetness he’d gathered from you to make the glide of his hand on his cock more smooth. Your jaw drops.

“Thanks, baby,” Steve says with a wink.

“Steve, what?!”

He shrugs.

“I would’ve asked you to spit in my hand but I didn’t think you would since you’re having an attitude.”

That. That struck exactly the nerve he thought it would. Your jaw sets and your eyes flash. Scooting back a bit so you, too, can lean on the inside of the door closest to you, you drop your legs open wider, well aware of the way Steve’s attention immediately drops to them.

“You’re not very nice, Steve Harrington,” you say quietly. Both of your hands move to squeeze at your own breasts and you arch into your own touch. Steve chuckles at that, eyes on your hands.

“And you’re nice even when you’re pissed apparently,” he says dismissively. Your frown deepens as you pull your bra down to expose you fully. Steve’s face goes blank, like you hoped.

“Fuck you,” you respond, just as quiet as before. Steve’s eyes remain glazed, hand moving faster on his cock, but he gives a lopsided grin.

“There she is. Feisty.”

The interior of the car has started to heat up. The humid smell of sex fills the air, though you’d prefer actually having sex. He’s been pushing it tonight, but you really can’t help the way you feel watching his big hand move on his even bigger cock. It should be inside you. This is the day of your tutoring session. The one day of the week that almost guaranteed you had his attention. Every other day, King Steve belonged to Hawkins. He was a heartthrob and a hometown hero. Probably inside of a different girl each night of the weekend (though you try not to think of that because it’s gross).

But on tutoring days it’s just you. So the fact that he’s choosing to touch himself rather than fill you has you feeling petty. It makes you redouble your efforts. You pinch one of your nipples and let out a heady, performative sigh, all while your other hand moves down and shoves inside your panties. You trace the same path Steve did, circling your hole and then your clit. Getting yourself nice and worked up with your eyes glued on the way Steve drags his hand over his throbbing dick.

Steve is mesmerized, as seems evident by the way he’s stopped talking to watch you. To hear you.

When you push two fingers inside of yourself, you let out an indulgent moan that causes Steve’s hips to buck into his hand. Your thighs quiver where they remain stretched out around his legs.

You drop your other hand down into your stretched out panties to play with your clit while you continue thrusting fingers in and out of yourself - that’s when Steve loses it.

“Show me,” he says gruffly, eyes ripping from the space between your legs to look up at you blearily.

“You’re literally watching me right now,” you laugh, breathless. Steve shakes his head and reaches out to tug on the edge of your panties.

��Get this shit out of the way.”

Now it’s your turn to shake your head.

“Nope. You had your chance with my pussy. You wanted your hand.”

The filthy words coming from you almost makes his eyes roll back in his head. He grunts and continues fisting his cock, but he looks more frustrated now.

Unfortunately there’s something of a Pavlovian response in your body at the sight of his aggression. Whether you like it or not, your burgeoning sexuality had crackled into being under the hands of Steve Harrington, and Steve being Steve is what gets you going.

Unlucky for you and the upper hand you’re trying to cling to, Steve can tell. Back to back weeks of fucking the same person will do that to you, apparently.

“You’re close.” It’s more accusation than observation.

You want to disagree but your fingers speed up on your clit and you widen your legs even more, looking to build pressure.

“Yeah. I am.”

“Fuck.” Steve slows his hand on his cock, breathing deeply and placing a laser focus on your hands in your panties. “Bet you’re getting tight around those fingers, huh?”

“Yeah,” you nod, eyes closing and head thrown back against the door. “Really tight…”

Steve let’s out an uncharacteristically pathetic moan. The thrill of it causes your core to contract even tighter.

“Bet you wish I was sucking those tits right now,” Steve remarks, replaying in his head all the times he’d made you cum lately. You lift up to look at him with stern hooded eyes and pull one of your hands from your panties. With a pointed look you raise your fingers to your mouth, lick them wetly, and then bring them down to play with your nipple. Your hips buck into your other hand and Steve loses his fucking mind.

“Alright, that’s fucking it,” he says, launching himself forward. He’s on you in the blink of an eye, hitching your legs up and around his hips, dropping so that his elbows cage you in on either side of your head. The length of his cock slides parallel to your entrance with a wet sound, pushing your pussy lips apart.

“Finally,” you moan petulantly. And that’s all the consent Steve needs to reach down and line himself up so he can thrust into you.

Things get hot and hazy after that. Your fingers thread into his hair and pull hard at the roots. Steve’s tongue and teeth are everywhere, but especially on your pulse point and on the peaks of your breasts.

The slap of skin on skin fills the interior of the car, rivaled only by your shared panting.

Steve shouldn’t feel this good. It shouldn’t be such a relief to sink into your body, like it’s a home he’s been waiting to return to. Your nails biting into his back through his shirt shouldn’t feel like heaven and your little mewls and gasps shouldn’t be an angel’s chorus. He’s not even fucking religious, so what’s with the holy comparisons?

“Oh Steve. Fuck,” you whisper moan right into his ear. Steve slides a hand under you to push your lower back up, giving your hips a tilt that lets him hit deeper.

“It’s good, yeah?” he asks. It’s a question but it’s cocky. You bite his earlobe and clench around him.

“I don’t know, is it?”

“Fucking Christ.”

Yeah. Steve Harrington is seeing god in the back seat of his car in a diner parking lot.

~*~

It takes a minute for you both to catch your breath when you’re done. Sweat and cum and words left unsaid create a film over the two of you which makes it hard to breathe.

Eventually Steve helps you climb back into the front seat before hoping behind the wheel himself to bring you back to the empty Harrington house. Upon arriving, Steve puts the car in park and turns to you, intent on speaking though he’s not sure what he plans to say. You, however, give him no such chance to figure it out as you bound out of the car and up the path to the front door. Steve catches up to let you in.

It’s later than it usually is when you wrap up your tutoring sessions. Steve has to turn on lamps as he follows you through the dark foyer and into the dining room where he finds you already grabbing your things and packing your bag up, half hidden in shadow.

“We didn’t finish the work,” he says quietly. Some what dumbly. You hoist your bag over your shoulder and give him a smile that deep down he knows he doesn’t deserve.

“Yeah. Looks like we’ll have to finish another time.”

When you start for the door, moving at a brisk pace, Steve stumbles after you.

You’re over the threshold and making your way to your car, glowing in the yellow light of the porch lamp before Steve can blurt out.

“When?”

God, he does sound fucking dumb.

And you. You turn and give him one last smile. Looking so put together. So smart.

“That’s up to you, Steve,” you say with a shrug, opening your car door. “You let me know.”

And with that, you get in your car and drive away. Leaving Steve standing alone on his porch with his thoughts.

~*~

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Ahhh originally had no intention of writing a part two and then this happened. Please reblog and comment to let me know what you think and thanks for reading!!

[enmi-land]

#OO2. DOWN WITH THE DEMOCRACY !

𝓘. ──── . . . 𝑀𝗂𝗅𝖺 𝖽𝖾𝖼𝗂𝖽𝖾𝗌 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗏𝗈𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗌𝗒𝗌𝗍𝖾𝗆 𝗌𝗎𝖼𝗄𝗌.

🥚 𝓲-LAND EPiSODE 2 𓈀 4.8k ꗃ ❛ KOR, ENG, JP, CHi ❜ ✖ NO WARNiNGS! `⎚⩊⎚´ NEXT::PREV

shall we go 𝓲NTO THE NEW WORLD ?

Mila’s first impression of I-Land is that it has a pretty unique concept—and by that, she means it’s pretty frigging weird.

The place itself is actually quite impressive as it reminds her a lot of those mansions in Kdramas where the main male leads typically live, so that’s five stars for accommodation. But she has to take away two-and-a-half stars because the elevator lift in the lobby is a literal egg.

It seems like a pretty random choice of decor at first, and could easily be brushed off as a nouveau riche’s poor attempt at avant-gardism. But Mila makes a very detailed analysis of it, like the certified Overthinker that she is, and starts to see a morbid symbolism in the creative direction of the entire show.

The whole theme of I-Land centres around the egg—and what do people do to eggs?

They break them.

Mila doesn’t want to be an egg! Even thinking about possibly becoming the next Humpty Dumpty—who, mind you, couldn’t be put back together again—would make her arm hairs stand on attention if she had any. (The strongly recommended ‘Idol Package’ at the BigHit-endorsed beauty salon robbed her of any and all body hair.) She does get a whole lot of goosebumps—but those are more so because someone just said that there’s a graveyard a few kilometres away from here.

Shiitake mushrooms.

“Stop thinking so hard and eat.” Kiara’s voice brings Mila back to Earth.

The older female is currently piling her plate with food from the platters that were laid out in a totally non-suspicious manner on the island bench when the I-Land trainees first walked into the kitchen. Mila looks down at her own hands and finds herself holding a plate that she doesn’t even remember grabbing. Weird. But she doesn’t think much about it—mainly because she’s too hungry to—and chomps on a chicken strip as she looks around her.

The other trainees are chowing down like this is a schoolyard potluck, and that would be a pretty wholesome sight aside from a few things: Firstly, most of them are teenage boys who don’t know how to use utensils. Secondly, four of the currently nineteen trainees in the room will be evicted from I-Land in a few hours.

Mila doesn’t really know who thought it was a good idea to let the trainees vote for who gets eliminated, when most of them aren’t even old enough to vote in the presidential elections and this decision seems just as life-changing. But whoever it was, they must not know teenagers that well. Most of the people here are more likely to vote for people they don’t really like, rather than people who don’t have skills.

That’s probably why Seon keeps hovering so much—but hey, no one heard it from Mila.

Mila has nothing against Seon. Everyone is doing what they must in order to survive; she can’t fault him for wanting to get on people’s good sides. The thing is, he has a pretty obvious bias towards Kiara—which is fair, considering she’s one of the strongest in this competition so far, but it forces Mila to awkwardly third-wheel in what was once her conversation with her friend. It gets to the point where Mila decides to just let the adults talk, and wanders around the place aimlessly like a child waiting for her mother to finish gossiping with their neighbours.

And just like a child, she manages to get lost.

Oop—

“Mila-noona!”

The sound of her name being called from behind her and approaching footsteps is the only warning Mila gets before she is attacked by the sight of Yang Jungwon’s lethally cute dimples.

“Ah, you scared me!” she says before she can really think, only to then beam in excitement when the initial shock fades. “Oh—Jungwonie! It’s good to see you!”

Jungwon smiles, fiddling with the hem of his sweatshirt. She notices that he always does it when talking to her—a nervous tick, perhaps? How adorable.

Mila gives two thumbs up. “You did a really good job today with your performance!”

“Thank you,” he replies, “Noona also did a good job.”

Mila giggles bashfully. “Thanks! Anyway, I’m glad I ran into you. We didn’t get to talk much earlier— Ah, but are you heading anywhere in particular?”

Jungwon shakes his head, his fluffy hair following his movement. “I was just walking around. What about you?”

“Same here.” Mila scratches the back of her earlobe bashfully and tilts her head. Her eyes avoid Jungwon’s and land on a random spot on the wall next to her out of embarrassment of her admission: “But then I got lost.”

Jungwon blinks and Mila laughs awkwardly. They don’t get to say anything because they’re interrupted by the sound of voices down the hall which get increasingly rowdy. Mila easily recognises it as the sound of teenage boys egging each other on. It seems like something is going down…

Hm, curiouser and curiouser.

“Some of the Hyungs said they wanted to check out the gym,” Jungwon explains. “That must be them.”

“Oh, really? Did Jay-oppa and Sunghoonie-oppa say they would be there, too?” Mila asks. When Jungwon confirms her assumption (it makes sense that those two would be in the gym), she makes up her mind. “Ah, in that case, I’ll go find one of them to bother. Thanks, Jungwonie! I’ll let you go now.”

She’d hate to pester Jungwon when he’s her dongsaeng—and not a particularly close one, at that. Every time they’ve come across each other, she seems to always be the one chatting his ear off, so she thought he might be glad to see her go. That must not be the case, though, since Jungwon frowns and volunteers to escort Mila to the gym himself.

Mila is surprised, to say the least—but in a good way. It’s a relief he doesn’t secretly hate her guts or something.

The two walk in a comfortable silence that’s eventually broken as they arrive at the gym. Mila isn’t surprised to see Jay and Sunghoon participating in some sort of fitness competition with the other male trainees, however she now feels a bit nervous because she realises she doesn’t know any of them. She may be a social butterfly, but that’s only in settings where everyone is equally as unacquainted as she is, or when she isn’t the only owner of a double-X chromosome in the room. Thankfully, she isn’t alone and Jungwon is right next to her—

Nevermind, he’s walking away…

Mila contemplates leaving and just trying her luck with her nonexistent sense of direction, when Jungwon looks over his shoulder and blinks in confusion after realising she’s not following him. “Noona, aren’t you coming?”

Even though Mila knows that he isn’t trying to put her on the spot, he still kinda does. Everyone in the room hears his voice, so they all turn to face Jungwon and greet him—which causes them to notice her at the door. There is a brief silence where they all just stare at her like she’s the cow that jumped over the moon. But then Jay—thank goodness—pokes his head out from the centre of the boy’s club gathering and locks eyes with her.

Mila blurts out a relieved, “Oppa!”

“Mimi-yah?” She’s never been so glad to hear that nickname before. “Did you come to take a look at the gym?”

Jay walks over to her and she immediately feels better now that she has someone to hide behind. She can still feel some of the looks from the other trainees, so she shuffles closer to Jay. Mila briefly catches sight of Sunghoon in the background, putting a pair of dumbbells down, before she focuses back on Jay’s face.

“Not really—I was just looking for you and Sunghoonie-oppa,” Mila responds to his earlier question. 

“What for?” Sunghoon asks, appearing behind Jay. He stands shoulder to shoulder with his partner, and while it might seem intimidating to anyone else, she’s honestly comforted having them both so close. Not that she’ll admit that—least of all to Sunghoon. “I thought you said you wanted to meet new people.”

Sheesh. Is that pettiness Mila hears? 

…He’s not wrong, though.

Mila pouts. “Yeah, yeah. I know. I just wanted to see what you were up to—I was going to leave, anyway.”

And then she does her best impression of a puppy being left out in the rain—wide eyes, quivering bottom lip, and all—before turning on her heels to leave. Or tries to, anyway.

There’s a slight tug on her ponytail that has her stopping in her tracks. She turns to face Sunghoon with questioning eyes. He has a little smirk on his face, looking way too pleased with himself—like a cat that caught the cream. He totally has her figured out.

“Where are you going? You’ll just get lost.”

Again, he’s not wrong.

“Come on,” Jay says with a smile, before Mila can retort to Sunghoon’s taunt and they start bickering like they always do when they’re around each other. He places a gentle palm on her head. “We’ll introduce you to the others.”

The figurative rain clouds clear from above Mila’s head and she happily latches onto his free arm, earning a chuckle. Sunghoon, not one to be left out, snatches her other wrist and tugs it towards him. She lets him, savouring the warmth of his larger hand as it circles around her smaller one. (She does, however, make a show of keeping her hand in a fist she can’t hold his hand in return—not that he particularly cares.)

It's funny to think about how comfortable she is around them now, compared to when they first met two years ago. At that time, she had always been just a bit more hesitant to get to know the two of them, simply because she was intimidated. But they are softies underneath their tough guy exteriors—a pair of human teddy bears, really. It just took Sunghoon winning a penguin plushie for her at an arcade and Jay walking her to school one day for her to see that.

When they turn to face the other trainees, they all put on their best show of pretending they weren’t peeking at the three of them like curious housewives just moments ago. Jungwon looks the most curious of all of them, though Mila spots some concern—probably because of how she retreated into her shell like a hermit crab not long ago—which makes her want to ‘awww’. But he looks assured enough when she shoots him a genuine smile.

With Jay and Sunghoon acting as her moral support, Mila feels a lot more at ease and introduces herself confidently. The other trainees do the same and the small talk starts from there. It’s obvious that they’re being courteous of her since she’s the only girl in the room right now, as they aren't nearly as rowdy as they were when Mila heard them from down the hall earlier—but honestly, it’s kinda sweet. They’re all kinda sweet, actually.

It doesn’t even take her five minutes to warm up to them, and she finds herself demonstrating a pistol squat to officially inaugurate herself into their group of gym junkees. (It’s a good ego boost when she realises that most of them can’t actually do a pistol squat.)

Mila barely notices the two-hour waiting period pass her by. There’s only five minutes left when Mila finds her way back to Kiara. This time, the older female is with Heeseung and the Crown unit consisting of Hwayoung, Sunoo and Jaeyun. She doesn’t know how to feel about that, though, since Jaeyun hasn’t managed to get any less attractive in the past few hours. And, yeah, that’s a problem.

How long did it take her before she got used to Sunghoon’s visuals again? Ah, right…

She’s so screwed.

“Oppa!” Mila calls as she takes a seat next to Heeseung. “I was looking for you, but I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

She spent around half an hour in the gym with Sunghoon and Jay before she decided to embark on a journey of Finding Heeseung™, only to find everyone except for him. No, really. She managed to bump into literally every other trainee in the place before she finally saw him—and only because she was looking for Kiara, who happened to be with him.

Well, at least she knows her way around I-Land pretty well now.

“Ah, really? Sorry.” Heeseung softly strokes her hair—it’s basically a reflex for him by now—and she relaxes in her chair. “Did you need me for something?”

Mila shakes her head, before resting her cheek on his shoulder. “Not really. I just didn’t get to talk to you earlier…”

(She pointedly makes sure she doesn’t say, ‘I missed you,’ because contrary to popular opinion, she isn’t clingy, thank you very much.)

Heeseung smiles at this and his eyes do that thing that they do, where they look like honey is dripping from them. Before she can say anything, he playfully pinches her cheek. “Cute.”

The Crown unit across from Mila looks a little taken aback by the causal display of affection—which is fair enough. She was the same way at first, too.

When Heeseung first did it, Mila thought that he was possessed by the spirit of someone’s late aunt and almost doused him with a salt shower. But after two years of knowing him, she’s gotten used to the cheek pinches, head pats and his altogether treatment of her like she’s a particularly cute and small animal that he wants to put in his pocket and carry everywhere with him—even if she’s not particularly cute or small. 

Mila just learnt to accept Heeseung’s doting. It definitely has nothing to do with the fact that she’s a lonely, touch-starved only child with parental issues, and soaks up all forms of affection that she receives like a desperate sponge. No siree.

Kiara passes Mila a pillow, which she takes gratefully. She rests her chin on it, her cheek still on Heeseung's shoulder, while her eyes start gazing into the distance. She can smell Heeseung’s cologne really well from here—which isn’t at all a weird thing to say about her guy friend—and it feels oddly comforting. (And, again, not weird at all.)

Sunoo suddenly taps Mila’s foot with his own. “You shouldn’t fall asleep,” he teases with a smile, causing her to giggle.

“Not like I could if I wanted to,” she replies. “I’m still not sure about what I’ll do with the vote.”

“Ah, don’t remind me!” Jaeyun aggressively runs a hand through his hair, and tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling. “I’m nervous!”

“Don’t be, you guys did good,” Heeseung assures kindly.

“Right.” Kiara takes a seat on one of the beds, as the seats are currently occupied by the Mila, Heeseung and the Crown unit. “For people that didn’t have much training or even know each other for long, your performance and chemistry as a group was really solid.”

Sunoo covers his mouth with his hands, eyes crinkling with delight. “Really?” 

Mila nodded vigorously. “Even if anyone votes you out, it will be because they’re threatened by you, or just don’t want to vote out their friends. You all deserve a spot in I-Land as much as anyone else in here!”

Jaeyun tilts his head and looks at Mila like he’s in thought. She ignores him in favour of Hwayoung, who musters a smile, visibly less shaken than before. “Thank you. That means a lot.”

Sunoo puckers his lips and nods. “I guess I won’t feel too bad then if I get voted out.”

Mila doesn’t get the chance to say anything in return. The alarms blare, much like they did for the Entrance Test, and the announcement is made for Niki—who Mila remembers from the SuperM unit—to enter the voting room. Alone.

Well, then…

If the anxiety of the elimination itself wasn’t already stifling enough, the anticipation of waiting for their turn to vote is enough to figuratively choke someone out. By the time it’s Mila’s turn, she can’t even bring herself to have both her eyes open as she presses the screen. Someone would think she murdered someone when she finally walks out of the voting room with a face that screams ‘Guilty, your honour!’ and Kiara even jokingly asks whether she left any evidence behind.

Mila considers making the older girl carry her to the lobby—where the trainees must gather for the announcement of eliminees—since Kiara is so Unbothered by the whole thing. But then Mila remembers that she’s too tall to be carried by her significantly shorter unnie (“You’re only five centimetres taller, you brat!”), and unfortunately has to drag herself there.

Mila finds a random place to sit herself down and resists the urge to cover her eyes and ears like she’s watching a horror movie and awaiting a jumpscare. She’s not sure whether or not she will be the one to leave, or one of her friends; she just hopes it’s neither.

She jinxes it.

The first eliminee is announced. It’s Kim Sunoo.

Mila hasn’t known him for long, but she feels slighted on his behalf. He definitely doesn’t deserve to leave—and not as the trainee with the most votes against him. She already knew that some bias would be present in the voting, but it doesn’t alleviate the disappointment she feels to see him go. Mila actually brings Sunoo into a hug when she says her goodbyes, which is something she doesn’t do much with people she just met—men especially—yet feels oddly comfortable initiating with the boy. He seems to appreciate it, too, and even rubs her back a bit in a comforting manner.

As if Mila is the one who needs it right now.

“Come back again, okay?” Mila says as they separate. “You’re my only 03-liner friend, remember? I’ll be lonely without you.”

“Ay, you’ll probably meet more here anyway.” Sunoo laughs when she protests with the fact that he’s her first, which holds significant importance. And Mila is just grateful that he can be so bright in a situation like this. “Okay. I’ll make sure to come back just for you.”

Mila can’t help but smile. (Her cheeks feel a little warmer, too, but that’s not the point.) He’s awfully bold to be saying stuff like that to a girl he met not long ago, although she supposes she’s no better in the department of shamelessness.

She steps aside to let the Crown unit walk him to The Egg while she says her well-wishes to Taki, EJ, and Sunghchul. Then they’re on their way.

Ground, huh? Mila hopes it treats them well.

As for her, she’s left in the I-Land lobby with the remaining fifteen trainees, who celebrate their newly gained status as the top dogs in this food chain. But then the events of the day eventually catch up to them and night time doesn’t come soon enough.

Mila unfortunately can’t sleep well in unfamiliar environments (when she first moved to Seoul, it took her a few months to adjust to the BigHit dorms) and ends up tossing and turning until she decides to stumble around in the dark to sneak into Kiara’s bed. Not her idea of a good night's sleep. It doesn’t help when the reason she wakes up the next morning is the buzz of activity that comes from the other rooms down the hall because of everyone who is already up and about.

Mila is hoping this won’t be a regular thing, but knowing her luck, it probably will. And that’s crazy to her—because who on earth wakes up this early in the morning anyway?

Oh— Wait. Is that the time?

Nevermind then, Mila just woke up really late.

“Hey there sleepyhead,” Yumeko—one of the four only female trainees in I-Land—greets as she walks into their shared room. (The girls ended up together since everyone agreed it would be too awkward to share rooms with the opposite sex so early on—which kinda implies it will happen eventually, but that’s a future problem.) “How did you sleep?”

Mila hums, rubbing her eyes. “Not long enough.”

Yumeko laughs.

Mila knew of the older girl (a 00-liner, making her the eldest female in the competition) because, aside from being a fellow BigHit trainee, she also happened to always be the top of the girls’ rankings in dance—a title that Mila always missed out on by one rank in the past. She just never got to meet her properly until yesterday.

Mila wants to consider the Japanese female a rival, but she’s never been particularly competitive (it’s a wonder she did competitive cheerleading, or that she’s even on this show at all) and it’s not really her style. Besides, Yumeko is just that good; Mila knows she probably won’t stand any chance, anyway. Her cover of NCT U’s Cherry Bomb during the Entrance Test yesterday blew any delusions of stealing that number one rank from her out of the water.

“Sorry to disturb your beauty sleep, then,” Yumeko teases. She throws on a hoodie over the tank top she is wearing and Mila can’t help but notice she’s really toned. Damn. “The bathroom should be free if you want to wash your face and brush your teeth.”

Mila nods, feeling as gross she must seem, and also throws a hoodie over her head. She slept with a bra last night because she remembered the cameras in all the bedrooms (which would be pretty weird in any other setting—not that it isn’t still weird, anyway), so she isn’t worried about accidentally flashing anyone. But her hair is probably a bird’s nest right now, so the hood is there to cover her head as she pads towards the bathroom.

Yumeko is right about it being free, thankfully, so she doesn’t worry about taking her time to fix her appearance. She is just leaving when Geonu walks in, and she immediately beams. “Good morning!”

Geonu jolts in surprise. It’s kinda understandable, since Mila did just appear like a wild Pokémon jumping out of a bush. To his credit, though, he doesn’t scream or anything embarrassing like that and returns her greeting rather calmly. “Did you sleep well?”

Mila makes a seesaw motion with her hand. “So-so. I’m not really a morning person, though. And Oppa?”

“Same here,” he replies. “But you’re really energetic for someone who isn’t a morning person.”

Mila tilts her head and scrunches her nose. “Really? I guess that’s just how I am…”

Geonu, for some reason, laughs. It lacks any mockery in it, but has something there that makes Mila wonder if she said something funny. “Has anyone told you that you remind them of a bunny?”

Mila blinks. Because yes, actually, people do. “How did you know?”

Geonu shakes his head with an amused huff. “Just a feeling.”

Mila doesn’t really know what to say to that, so she shrugs instead. Oh well—as long as it’s nothing bad. “Well, I’ll let you wash up in peace. See you around!”

Geonu hums and bids her farewell.

Mila skips towards the kitchen, feeling much better now that she doesn’t look like she came off the set of Train to Busan. She’s in the middle of pouring herself a bowl of cereal when those alarms from hell start blaring and she flinches so strongly that cereal ends up flying out of the box in her hand and onto the floor.

Krabby patties.

Mila curses, bending down behind the counter to pick some of the flakes off the floor. Then a group of trainees bulldoze through the kitchen like a mob of fangirls when they spot their idols, and she decides that she’s not moving fast enough. She unlocks her inner janitor and sweeps up the remaining cereal—or as much as she can, anyway—and tosses them in the bin in record time.

She decides to wisely uses the ten minutes she’s given until she needs to be at the lobby to shovel as many spoonfuls of cereal into her mouth (she doesn’t know what she’s in for or how it will take, so stocking up energy is a priority) and take a quick toilet break. Then she’s going full Naruto ninja-speed and zooms towards the lobby, completely forgetting that she’s wearing slippers—a huge mistake, really, since she stubs her toe on a step. Ouch. But at least she isn’t late for the announcement of the show’s next stage.

The Signal Song Test begins in earnest with the reveal of the show’s theme song, Into the I-Land. Once again, it’s up to the trainees to make the big decisions—including who gets which part.

Well, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal if the number of lines were equal for all parts. But it looks like the producers of the show are aiming to make this whole survival show experience as accurate to the life of a real idol as possible, as there’s a huge disproportionality in the line distribution.

Mila doesn’t have any ambitions of getting the first part, so she naturally agrees with Sunghoon to throw Heeseung’s hat in the ring for it instead. As for the rest of the parts, they will be allocated by—surprise, surprise—a vote.

Mila does some mental gymnastics to come up with a strategy to bag the part she wants, and finally settles with the tried and true approach of Just Do It™. It seems to work pretty well, actually. She manages to get a part that appears in the centre twice, so she has some decent ‘look at me!’ time compared to the other parts.

The same can’t be said for others.

Jay has been rejected for every part so far, and seems like he’s ready to give up, but raises his hand again for the next part—and the part after that, and the part after that…

There’s now only one part left that has more than one line, and Mila knows if he doesn’t get it, it might do some serious damage to his confidence. It’s already taking a toll on him, as he has his head lowered so the bill of his cap covers his expression from her place across from him. And honestly, it hurts her heart to see it.

Jay has always been the epitome of tenacity, and he’s proven it already with his ability to keep raising his hand. Mila would have given up after the second rejection—maybe even the first. She just wishes she could do something to lift his spirits a little, even if it’s just enough so he can raise his head.

Mila ponders it for a moment, before she feels a lightbulb switch on inside her head. She raises her hand just as Heeseung prepares to move onto the auditions for the next part. “Oppa, I have a question!”

“Hm?” Heeseung immediately looks up from his tablet at the sound of her voice. “What is it?”

“I was just thinking…” Heeseung nods encouragingly at Mila. “Even if we give out the parts now, it's only based on vocals. What do we do if we get to dance practice and realise that someone can’t keep up with the choreography for their part?”

There are some nods from the other trainees, so Mila knows she’s not being completely outlandish.

“You’re right,” Heeseung agrees. “That’s why should consider every skill when we’re voting—dance and vocals are equally important. It’s better to vote for someone who you think can do both well.”

Mila nods sagely, pretending to think deeply about Heeseung’s words. “Ah, okay… So, if there's two people and they’re both pretty equal in vocals, but one happens to be much better at dancing, we should vote for that person?”

“Right.”

Mila smiles, satisfied with the answer and it’s intended result, as she notices Jay’s shoulders straighten a bit. “Okay, I get it now! Thanks.”

Everyone knows Jay is one of the best dancers in I-Land at this point, and Mila is more than confident that he’ll be able to sing the next part fairly well. There’s no reason for him not to have the part. It’s just that Mila gave everyone a little bit of a nudge in his direction by reminding them to keep an open mind.

It works like a charm.

“Okay,” Heeseung says after counting the votes, “this part is Jay’s.”

If Mila cheers a little too loudly at the announcement, that’s her business alone. But also, not really. From the smile that Jay sends her before mouthing, “Thank you,” she knows that he figured out her little trick. She can’t seem to feel guilty about it though—well, not right now at least.

But of course, in a survival show like I-Land, nothing good ever lasts forever.

taglist⠀( OPEN ! ) ⦂ @em1ejiee @menichoi @dracoslovergirl @rosas-in-the-garden @blossominghunnie @lovelypham @cornenhapovs @nee-issaire @jwnstars @tommina @queenriki7

© ENMI-LAND, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DO NOT COPY, TRANSLATE, REPOST

[lilac-5ky]

Oh then! Can I request a scenario where Toji eavesdrops on a convo between Reader and Gojo (or whoever) where Reader confesses to having a crush on Toji?

Thank you so much!

Confessions of a Confection Thief (Toji x Teacher!Fem!Reader)

Plot: On a warm summer day, you confess your love for the man once known as the Sorcerer Killer to the man who, twelve years ago, spared his life. What you don't count on is the man in question listening in, nor the consequences of a mere lunch invitation.

Tags: au in which Gojo heals Toji's ass with reverse jujutsu and makes him his bitch, reader is megumi's teacher, parent/teacher relationship, age gap (reader early 30s, toji early 40s), character development!toji, soft!toji, confession, unprotected sex, oral sex (m. receiving), facial, doggy style, petnames (teach', sweetheart, baby, doll), MDNI (obviously)

A/N: You can tell I got inspired since this took me 9k words to develop that feature not only the confession, but the date and the "happy ever after" ehe. Hopefully this was worth the wait!

“Damn machine!” You grunt as you kick at the vending machine’s side, lamenting over the 1,000 yen bill you were just robbed of.

“Let me give it a try.” The man beside you suggests and you clear the stage for him to work his magic. His right hand lifts from his pocket, open fingers coaxing an entire bundle of sodas out without even making contact. What a show-off.

He gathers the cans off the ground and hands you the one that is your favorite, making you wait while he places the rest on top of the vendor for a lucky student to find.

“Isn’t that considered damaging school property?” You raise a brow, yanking the ring close to the tab with a pop.

“Is it?” He chuckles, bringing his refreshment to his lips. “It was already damaged when we got here. Ijichi’s gonna get an earful later.”

“I don’t think that falls under Ijichi’s responsibilities, Satoru. Cut him some slack already.”

“No harm in harassing your cute underclassmen from time to time, Y/N.” He smiles. “You should try it too.”

Right, you mutter under your breath, already regretting your decision to spill your heart’s contents on someone with such little regard for others. Shoko would’ve been a better choice. Utahime, too. You could wait until the weekend, get on the first bullet train to Kyoto, and have a girls’ night out like you used to before life and work got in the way. They’d surely talk you out of the horrible mistake you’re about to commit. Maybe that’s why you chose Satoru. He’s the only one who’d give you the final push down the cliff, and you don’t mind the fall.

“So what is it that you wanted to talk about?” He brings you back to the parching reality of Jujutsu Tech’s grounds, with the sun glinting across every metallic surface and body of water in the perimeter. The heatwave has only begun, and thankfully, the outburst of curses has finally simmered down, or else you’ve no idea how you’d survive abandoned building-hopping with those three rascals.

You take a sip from your soda, the taste of honeydew melon cooling your throat like the sweetest form of redemption. You struggle not to gulp it all down in one go, eyeing the remainder of drinks that have vanished in the horizon—or rather, you have, your steps leading you toward a path of tori gates that itself leads to the school’s Inari shrine. This should be safe. No one comes around these places.

“I have a confession to make.”

Satoru stops in his tracks, awaiting a follow-up that doesn’t come. His sunglasses come off, and a knowing smile slowly creeps up his lips. “I know.”

“Y-You do?” You blink in surprise. What does he know? How does he know? Since when does he know? “Satoru—”

“You’re the one who ate the last Manzu.”

And he couldn’t be any more off the mark.

You sigh. “That’s not it.”

“It’s not? Huh.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his palm after chugging his strawberry-flavored soda. “Guess I’ll have to ask Ijichi about that too.”

“Please don’t torment him for useless things.” You cast your gaze to your feet, kicking a pebble as you speak. “What I want to confess is… my feelings.”

The cicadas come to a stop, leaving space for your words to take root. You are hesitant to move forward, cautiously treading on the shells of emotions you recently began to accept. Almost there, you encourage yourself as Satoru invades your personal space, cornering you against the red gate’s pillar.

“Finally decided to profess your love for me?”

You shove his smug face away and roll your eyes at the notion. “Dream on, Shit-toru.”

He takes a step back, acting as if you just delivered a fatal blow to his heart. You chuckle at his childish antics while shaking your head in disapproval. To think the future of the entire Jujutsu world rests on the shoulders of a conceited guy who makes everything about him.

“Then who’s the lucky guy?”

Your anxiety resumes before it has the chance to fully dissipate. You close your eyes and lean back against the pillar, the familiar name on your tongue feeling foreign. “It’s… Fushiguro.”

“Fushiguro?” You nod. You understand it’s a lot to take in and give him a moment to process it, yet the longer he takes to answer, the more tempted you are to say this was a joke and call things off. “Don’t you think there’s a bit of an age gap?”

“I mean… I suppose there is.” You sound defeated. If even Satoru saw this as an issue, then there’s no reason he wouldn’t. “You think it’s that bad?”

“Bad?” His lips twitch. “The heart wants what it wants, Y/N. Give it a few years, and the difference won’t matter.”

“You think I have a chance?”

“Oh, definitely! I saw Yuji move some of his American-star posters into his room last week, and he didn’t throw any away. Jennifer Lawrence ‘s your age, right?”

Your memory is put to the test as you go through various Jennifers. Is she the one from Friends or the one married to Ben Affleck?

“I think she’s older by a few years.”

“Older?” He snorts. “Well, if it makes you feel younger, then who am I to argue?”

You decide to let his comment slide for the sake of picking on the dissonance in his words. “But what does a Hollywood actress have to do with this? And Itadori—what are you talking about?”

“Y/N, you should get to know him a bit better before confessing, don’t you think?” Satoru says, as he finds your beloved pebble and tosses it in your direction. You catch it with your heel. “The kind of woman he likes; his best friend; the ages of top-paid actors. These things shape up a guy’s adolescence. They’re as crucial.”

By the time he finishes talking, all the puzzle pieces fall into place, and you have to mentally control every joint in your body to prevent it from lashing at him with fury second only to the Curse King’s. Even by Satoru’s dubious standards, this is plain outrageous.

“Are you outta your mind?” You yell, pushing your hair off your sweaty forehead with both palms. “How could you—why would you—what do you take me for?” You fail to put your thoughts in order until you suck in a deep breath. “I would never crush on any of my students, or any other minor, for that matter!” You declare.

Thin white eyebrows furrow in genuine confusion. “But you said—”

“Fushiguro! The man I’m in love with is Fushiguro Toji!”

And not a single soul is left on campus who hasn’t heard your confession, no matter how far and wide or close you think they are scattered.

Toji’s never set foot on these damned grounds without cursing to himself as if the paths his shoes traverse are paved with nothing but shit. Even after all these years, something about marching through the front door just doesn’t feel right. It’s not hatred, that’s for sure. He’s spent more than two-thirds of his life cultivating his loathing for sorcerers to the point where he can tell it apart by taste alone.

No, what’s tainting his palate right now and will continue doing so in the days to come is more akin to chagrin than resentment. It’s failure. A failure that’s branded onto the bare skin of his torso and that he can’t pawn off for as long as he stands, because if a fate worse than death exists, then that’s surviving on a snotty brat’s pity.

Wiping some of his sweat and plenty of his regrets against his pants, Toji remembers his reason for being here has nothing to do with Six-Eyes or his past shortcomings, as he’s here to share the news of his divorce papers finalization with the only person he’s keen on letting know: you.

A decade has passed since he last heard from his wife—his ex-wife who had no qualms about leaving everything behind (her daughter included) and ran back to her parents, never to be seen or heard from again until a hotshot big firm lawyer showed up at his doorstep with a bunch of papers and a platinum-coated Montblanc in hand.

And with that, another overdue chapter was closed, the rest of the pages flipping through the wind. By the end of summer, the goalkeeper in his relationship with his son will be heading off to college, and with Tsumiki gone, Megumi decided he’d grown old enough to slam the door on his face and choose that faux albino sorcerer over his own blood.

It was that very rebellion that roused Toji to reevaluate his lifestyle. He stopped counting the years after the candle with the number 4 became prominent in each birthday cake, but that didn’t stop time from moving forward. He was aging. And while one-night stands do a decent enough job to distract him from searching his scalp for graying hair, the nights he catches himself wishing his bed could stay warm the morning after add up.

None of the silly little girls he fools around with are capable of that, not the way you are. Since that first PT meeting he begrudgingly attended two months ago, a rusty cog in his heart began turning again.

You don’t match any of his previous criteria. You don’t come from a wealthy family and aren’t an airhead either. You live in the dorms because you can’t afford rent in the city, and you are smart enough to have graduated from a big university. You are one of them, but you’re also proof that not all beauty was lost with her.

Toji doesn’t want to screw this up. Just once, he wants to do things right. He waited until he was a free man in the eyes of the law, wore his good jeans on a day when wearing jeans should be considered a criminal offense, and kept enough cash to afford however many side dishes you ordered—assuming you accepted his lunch invitation in the first place.

The jittery, four-eyed guy he ran into on his way to your class pointed him in the direction of the school’s shrine. After a while of wandering around, Toji spots two sets of imprints in the soil, the smaller ones belonging to your heels and the larger ones undoubtedly being that brat’s. Luck isn’t on his side today. His stride overlaps with Gojo’s as he childishly covers the younger man’s tracks, leaving yours intact, and eventually, the sound of clamor confirms his lead.

He strays off the pebbled path and mingles with the shadows of the dense forest, scoffing as Gojo’s shit-eating grin becomes apparent. That beanpole’s standing way too close to you. Toji almost intervenes when you finally push him. A kick to the nuts would do him better, but that’s enough for a tiny smile to rise on his scar. That’s my girl.

There’s no reason to stay hidden anymore. After all, that brat is already aware of his presence. He takes a few steps forward, turning into a pillar of salt at your sudden outburst.

“The man I’m in love with is Fushiguro Toji!”

His hand nearly reaches inside his back pocket to double-check the name on his ID. Looks like some of his luck returned to him. Asking you out just got a whole lot easier.

“Fushiguro Toji?” Gojo twists a finger in his ear. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Toji hisses, his fist itching to knock some teeth off his face. That ought to jog his memory, but he holds back, realizing that’s all part of Six-Eyes’ plan. To egg him on into a brawl he can’t win.

“He wiped the floor with your face only a few years back, Satoru.” You sound as irritated as he is. “How could you possibly forget?”

The man folds his arms over his chest, sparing a glare in Toji’s direction as he reclines against the tori gate. “Was it at the arcades? Man, no need to rub it in.”

Your lips part, but no sound comes out. You sigh, hogging the unoccupied pillar with no intention to play his game.

“What about Megumi’s old man won you over?” Gojo gives in. “His kart skills?”

“So you do remember, after all.” You murmur in a low voice. “I don’t know. He’s just… nice.”

“Nice?” Gojo asks with utter disgust painted on his face.

Nice?

You nod, fumbling with the hem of your navy-blue dress. “Hey, Satoru. You know what makes for a good parent?” You don’t let either of them consider their answers. “It’s effort. Not success, but effort. Mister Fushiguro hasn’t missed any of his son’s PT meetings, even when the two of them are clearly at odds.”

Toji feels too guilty to step in and correct you that his priority is to see you. Not that Megumi doesn’t matter, but what’s the point of hearing his son excels in everything he never could for the nth time in a month?

“And?”

You glance at the clear sky. “And you remember those forms Yaga gave us for the kids to fill out? Nobara said her dream was to buy out Daikanyama. You can guess what Yuji’s was. As for Megumi, he left his blank, and when I asked him later, he said that he doesn’t have time for dreams; that his goal is to repay his dad the money he lost from the Naobito deal, so he owes him nothing.”

The two men blink in surprise. “Didn’t think he knew about that.”

“You aren’t exactly a quiet speaker, Satoru.” You shrug. “Point is, he doesn’t know. Neither of them do. Megumi doesn’t know his father attends his PT meetings, and Mister Fushiguro doesn’t know about his son’s dream. Isn’t it funny? They both care about each other but are too awkward to admit it.”

“And you call me twisted.” Gojo yawns. “You wanna act like a bridge between them? Is that it?”

You shake your head. “I wouldn’t want to interfere. Megumi placed his trust in me as his teacher when he disclosed that, and Mister Fushiguro… We are nothing to each other.”

Yet, Toji mentally added.

“You might think it’s crazy, but I think Mister Fushiguro’s heart is full of raw emotion he can’t put in order on his own. He’s not taught how to, and I… I think I could help him out with that; be someone he can direct those feelings to. No, I—” You shake your head again, except this time you do so with a little smile of conviction tugging at your lips. “I want to be that person. I want to be his person.”

Gojo doesn’t say anything for a good while, and you end up nearly as flustered as Toji himself. “Of course there are plenty of other things I like about him! He is funny, charming, has his own house,” your voice drops in volume, “he is very attractive, and we have the same taste in seafood.”

“Sounds to me like you’ve got it all figured out.” Gojo let his hand drop after fixing his sunglasses over his nose bridge. “But you should know, Fushiguro, or rather Zen’in Toji, is a lot more than that. He’s killed more sorcerers in his prime than most curses combined. Not sayin’ that to be a buzz kill, but you should be careful around him, or else,” his tone drops a menacing octave as he peers over his shades, “I’ll have to terminate that relationship myself.

“You get it, right?” He switched back to his usual voice with a lighthearted chuckle. “Wouldn’t want to lose another precious friend.”

Silence reigns between you, and that’s Toji’s cue to walk up. He’s heard enough. The few fallen leaves rustle under his weight, caution thrown to the wind as tiny twigs crunch below his sandals. He’s close enough for you to tell someone’s coming, but not close enough to tell that someone is him.

“Got nothin’ better to do than gossip about others, Six-Eyes?” Toji paces in the middle of you two, his eyes flickering in your direction. He has to brace himself not to smile at how red your face has gotten, his resolve giving way to a suggestive smirk. “Teach’.”

“Mister Fushiguro.” Your smile is shaky, but there. Always there for him.

“Yo, it’s been a long time!” Gojo springs forward. “Came for a rematch?” His hand travels up his neck, rolling his shoulder blades one at a time. “Could use the exercise.”

“I’m done fighting kids.” Toji deadpans.

“Is that so?” Gojo scratches the back of his head. “Your hands must be full with all that jell-o they feed you at retirement house,” he chuckled at his own joke. “What then? Remembered to pay the med bills twelve years later?”

“Satoru!” You object.

“Only if you remembered to hand the Star Vessel cash back.”

“Mister Fushiguro!”

“Money belongs to Amanai,” Gojo raises his volume. “I don’t think she’d want you to have it.”

“Really? ‘Cause last time I checked, corpses don’t talk.” Toji grits his teeth and unwillingly finds himself at the end of your right palm, the other one prompting Gojo to maintain his distance.

Your eyes are round, but the look behind them firm. The same look you assume when you reprimand your students, he bets. His gaze is drawn to your fingers, small and slender as they graze his shirt. You’ve never been so close to him before. If it weren’t for the walking parasite to his left, he might’ve been enjoying the proximity.

Perhaps for the first time in his life, Toji is the one to back away first, clearing his throat with a soundless cough. His eyes remain on Gojo’s while he speaks. “I’m here to take her out.” He stops and considers adding “to lunch”, previous occupation and all, but deems that should be obvious enough.

“You got time?” His tone softens, still bearing hints of the annoyance he failed to submerge.

A single finger pad skims over his chest as you withdraw your hand, slower than you did the other. So cute. He promises to give you plenty of opportunities to touch him later.

“I have an afternoon class, but Satoru can cover for me.” You smile sweetly at Toji and click your heel down on Gojo’s foot. “Right, Satoru?”

He’s inclined to agree, his face lightening up behind his shades. “As long as you agree to grade my papers for the next three months.”

“I’m already stuck grading the papers from when you went to Hiroshima,” you mumble under your breath, your nose scrunching in an expression that’s new to Toji. “Fine.”

“Mister Fushiguro?” You turn to him.

Toji shoots Gojo a stunted glare before his large palm finds its place in the small of your back, prodding you to move forward.

On the way to the car you find yourself making small talk about the weather, and on the way to the restaurant, your getaway is Megumi’s recent success in domain creation. This isn’t the first time you’re alone with him, but with every mile you count away from school grounds, you shrink into an ever-growing bundle of nerves that threatens to unravel on his passenger seat.

You’re in the middle of your third recounting of the kids’ excursion in Saitama when a hand moves to your lap and muzzles your every thought.

“Don’t tell me you’re nervous, Teach’.” Toji says once you’re stopped at a red light.

He’s careful to keep his fingers over your dress, only his thumb looming over the bare skin of your knee. Your glance loses momentum as it travels from his knuckles to his wrist and then his elbow, reveling at the sight of muscles bulging underneath his rolled-up white shirt. You’re glad half of his attention remains on the steering wheel, because if you got to see the other side of his lopsided smile, then you might say something that’s unbecoming of an educator—and you almost do, after his hand drops to the gear stick.

“I don’t normally do these things, Mister Fushiguro.” You admit, preserving some of his leftover warmth with your own palm.

“Hmm? What things?”

“Going on dates with parents—it’s a first for me.”

“Oh? So that’s what this is?” He chuckles lowly, as if the notion were new to him. Other than the few visible wrinkles around his eyes, you wouldn’t guess this man was roughly ten years your senior. “You can relax. Got a long way before the main course, sweetheart.”

Embarrassment flares up in your cheeks at the pet name. You can’t remember the last time you were asked out, let alone called something of that volume. You don’t mind it. If anything, you like the ring.

“Ah, and do me a favor, won’t ya?” His head cocks to the side, tousled black strands falling forward. “Quit callin’ me that.”

“Calling you what?”

“Mister Fushiguro.” He grimaces. “It’s ex mister Fushiguro now.”

“What?” You exclaim with more excitement than you’re entitled to.

It doesn’t go unnoticed. “Check the compartment glove.”

You do as you’re told, discovering a bitten-off subway that’s wrapped around at least four layers of napkins. His sloppy eating habits mustn’t be what he’s so eager for you to see. You nudge it to the side and dig out a few crane toys that are too adorable to be his, and then finally, a stack of creased official documents that you have to separate from the massage parlor flyers stuck between the pages.

You quickly go over the lines, the most notable by far being the words “Divorce Agreement” written in all capitals on the front page. “Is this…?”

He nods. “Got ‘em this morning. Thought you’d take proof over my word.”

“That’s amazing, Mister Fushig—” You bite your tongue. “Looks like you got to keep all your assets, too.”

“All, except that name.”

You remember pondering why, even though Toji was born into the main family, both he and his son left the Zen’in surname behind. Others would kill for a chance to be written in their family registry—but then again, it was just like the Zen’ins to keep clan matters private.

“You can call me Toji until I take on a new surname.” He continues, his voice reflecting his lax smile. “Am open to suggestions.”

You return it, piecing a non-existent strand of hair behind your ear. “Already proposing that I should marry you?”

“Better strike while the iron’s hot,” quietly adding, “figured that should give ya enough time to sort my shit out.”

“What was that?”

He grins as he cups your hand with his own. “We’re here.”

Toji’s restaurant of choice turns out to be a cozy little family restaurant by the park in Nerima. He asks if you’ve been there before, but you shake your head. Having no car means you rarely get to go around Tokyo without Ijichi, the kids, or Utahime whenever she decides to pull a surprise visit. You’re a tourist in your own town.

At this time of the day—neither appropriate for lunch nor for dinner—the tables are mostly empty, and you’re free to choose your own seats. He points at the bar, and you point at the window. He pulls your chair and then plops down on his own, chin quick to balance atop his wrist while he stares off at the greenery on the horizon.

You thought sitting closer to the window would be cooler, but the heat is reflected through the glass. You should have listened to him.

A waiter drops off your menus with a tired smile, patting some of the perspiration off his forehead with a napkin. “Sure is hot today, isn’t it?”

You nod politely and start browsing the list of appetizers. All those nights you spent bent over your tiny desk lamp pile up against you as your stomach lets out a low grumble—overjoyed to be presented with something that doesn’t require a microwave.

“You drink?” Toji waves the wine menu in your face.

“If the occasion calls for it.” Your reply paves the way for his next question. “I’d say a glass of champagne is due to celebrate your freedom.”

He flings the menu at the next table. “Don’t have that here. Maybe next time,” he says, and you almost stand in ovation at the prospect of there being a next time.

“You don’t want anything?”

“Not a drinker.” He doesn’t care to elaborate. You go back to scanning the pages, and you must’ve taken long enough for him to grab onto your menu. “I can recommend you some.”

Your stomach gurgles again, and this time he hears it. His stare lowers over your body, and you shift in your seat, offering him the menu to distract him from your issue. His bottom lip curls in amusement.

“The stake’s good here since their stuff’s from Kobe-hmm,” Toji pauses as he zeroes in on an item that he taps with his index. “The barbecue ribs are the real deal.”

His green orbs spin like pinball in his eyes while he flips through the pages, pointing out what’s good and what sucks, as those are the two main phrases he uses to describe the specialties. This is the most you’ve heard him speak in a row, and admittedly, you miss out on most of what he says taking in his mannerisms.

His surprisingly well-trimmed nails drum on the table when they aren’t shifting to a different page, while his cheek prop up his fist. He makes a habit out of licking his slanted scar at every nasal consonant, and there’s a slight drawl whenever he stumbles upon a foreign word, his thin brows furrowing in uncertainty. However, his most distinctive quirk of all remains the unintentional frown his lips shape; a trait shared with your young protege.

Toji might be a little rough around the edges, but still carries some of that boyish charm.

“So?” He slaps the menu shut.

You suck on your teeth, unable to remember a single specialty. “I’ll have what you’re having. You sound like you come here often.”

He gestures for the waiter to come over. “The kids dragged me here all the time. There’s a park here,” he points outside the window, as if that’s self-explanatory. The image of a little Megumi and a little Tsumiki tugging at their father’s pants to play hide-and-seek makes your heart swell.

The waiter arrives approximately a minute later, and Toji places your orders. You’re apparently having the aforementioned ribs, along with a beef bowl, some chashu, and a few standard vegetable dishes that, for some reason, should not contain any red bell peppers. He chose plenty, but he chose smart. None of these break the bank.

“Why not bell peppers?” You ask once the waiter goes off to fetch your water. Toji scratches his jaw as if he’s got no idea what you’re talking about, until the realization hits him on the head.

“Fuck, Megumi’s the one who hates ‘em.” He curses and motions for the waiter again when you catch his hand in mid-air and bring it down onto the table.

“I’m not a big fan either.”

Your eyes lock with his and slowly dart to where your hands meet, watching as his fingers decisively slip between your own. He forces your wrist to prop against the wood, your knuckles hugging, while he tests out what it feels like to be holding hands. Ever since the only woman he let himself cherish passed away, he’s avoided the slightest illusion of romance, and if you could peer into his brain, you’d see him contemplating how your hands are small like hers—how they’re soft like hers.

They’re just hands; he dismisses the stupid notion that hands can be anything beyond what they appear to be, and yet yours feel special to him. He looks back at what you told that asswipe and wonders if those shards you claimed to see could ever amount to love or if you’d be cut like all the others he purposely hurt. He wonders if you are dumb enough to love him. He wonders if he’s smart enough to love you.

“Here’s the seasoned spinach and the chilled tofu—” The waiter cuts in, and the table clatters after you fail to retrieve your hand. The man makes room for the plates and the glasses, standing there with an awestruck smile until Toji harshly orders him to “Scram”.

Another man with a lousy temper.

Metallic chopsticks replace your hand as Toji transfers about half of the spinach to his plate. “Man, I’m starving.” He declares and wastes no time to dig in.

You follow his lead and quickly forget all about his rudeness as your eyes well up at the euphoric taste that floods your taste buds—your insides sincerely thanking him for each bite that makes it down your throat.

The conversation dies down while you share the appetizers unevenly, with him discreetly claiming the last bites under the guise of asking you whether you’re going to eat that. You don’t mind. After all, he is paying, and he’s ordered enough for your belly to gain that five-month pregnancy bump without your stolen share.

However, when the main dishes arrive, he does the unexpected and takes on your plate first, separating the meat from the bones without your asking. It’s a clumsy way to compensate, but you can’t help but think it’s more of a reflex than a tactic, considering all the times he must’ve had the kids slide their plates his way. You thank him by dropping an extra three chunks of meat on his plate, which he gladly accepts—no returns.

The waiter who didn’t dare approach your table after delivering the ribs comes back with the dessert menus and picks up the dishes. You don’t fuss over your choices for long—Toji decides on chocolate chiffon cake and you on coffee jelly. It is then that you realize your impromptu date is coming to an end, and you haven’t asked him one question about himself.

“So what is it that you actually do?”

No sorcerer who hasn’t heard the name “Sorcerer Killer” exists, yet only a select few know the urban legend behind it has retired—a decisive factor in his deal with Satoru.

“You mean when your little friend ain’t tasking me with his dirty business?” Toji shrugs. “Stocks, mostly.”

“Stocks?” That’s not at all what you expected.

“Takes about five minutes of your time, and if ya get lucky, you’re settled for life. Rest is knowing how to read people and the market.”

Judging by the sound his car engine emits, he must be still waiting for his big break.

“Would you say you’re good at reading others?”

“The market? It depends. The people?” Toji smiles confidently. “Yes.”

“What’s your reading on me then?” You take the bite.

“Hmm.” He rubs his chin while sizing you up. “I bet you were one of those four-eyed nerds at school.” His serious tone makes you snort out loud. “Eighty percent of your experience comes from dating shows, and the other twenty from group dates with your gals. Y’are too damn trusting and find good even in rotten apples, but don’t mind losing a shoe if someone gets on your nerves.”

“Oh, really?” You snicker into your palm and shake your head once he asks you if he’s wrong. “I’d say eighty percent right?”

“Heh, told ya I’m good.”

The waiter interrupts you as he drops your dessert in the middle of the table. He apologizes and points at a few tables away, where a little girl is devouring the last piece of chocolate cake available. Toji huffs in annoyance, attempting to bewitch the cake from the girl’s plate with his glare alone.

“We can share if you want.” You offer him a spoon, which he begrudgingly accepts.

A few spoonfuls and half a dessert later, he points the spoon at the family behind you and asks if you want one. “Kids,” he specifies. “You like ‘em?”

You tap your spoon against your lips. “Would you believe me if I said I see them as walking-talking grading papers? Don’t get me wrong, I love my job and lucked out with our first years, but this was supposed to be a co-teaching gig before Satoru offloaded even the second years on my back.”

“Want me to teach that brat a lesson?” Toji flashes a grin.

“I think his confectionery going missing before he gets to try any is enough punishment.” You smile mischievously. “I can save you some. Wagashi or castella?”

“I’m beginnin’ to like you more by the minute.” He blurts out and perhaps it’s a slip of the tongue because you catch him cocking his eyebrows upward right after.

“I like you too.” You earnestly say. “God, I sound like a teenager.”

“Nah, pretty sure you’re my dream woman.” You both scoff in unison. “Now that’s lame.”

“Yeah, it was.” You hide your blush by pretending to search for the waiter. “Shall we get the check?”

“Thanks for driving me hom—well, back.” You give a little bow, having yet to unbuckle your seat belt.

“Don’t sweat it.” Toji leans against the steering wheel. He looks even more handsome in the late-afternoon light, the shadows that contour his face bringing out his defined jawline and jade eyes. You aren’t prepared to part with the sight. Not when you were just getting accustomed to it, but every word that follows leads to a quicker parting.

“I had fun today.” He nods.

“Let’s do it again sometime.” He nods again.

“I’ll be going now.” He is reluctant to, but nods a third time.

You open the door and step out of the vehicle, your waving turning into a grip as you tug the car door back open. A perplexed look wanes into a full-blown smirk when you ask him if he’d like to come in for a bit.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Your desk chair looks comically small wobbling beneath Toji’s weight, a long arm draped over the backrest while he gawks at your crouching form, half your body—save for your backside—swallowed by the mini fridge. He hears a lot of rattling. The dorms are quiet after sundown, and with the expulsion of the third years, the sound of empty drawers being flipped inside out (just in case a minuscule bottle of Ramune has slipped between them) echoes throughout the east wing’s desolate floors.

You should’ve grabbed those soda cans when you still had the chance. You consider running outside, but in the unlikely event no one’s gotten to them first, you doubt they’re safe for consumption after boiling under the hot sun for hours on end.

“Damn, kid screwed this one up badly, huh?”

You glance over your shoulder at Toji, who’s going through the scattered papers on your desk, finding the one test Megumi flunked in his entire four-month career at Jujutsu Tech. You close the fridge and pad toward the desk, balancing against the edge to peer at the answer sheets in Toji’s hands.

“Everyone failed that test.” You trace a finger over the bright red 48 mark. “Megumi actually did better than most; rest scored below 20.”

“Of course he did.” Toji scoffs.

He leaves the papers on the desk and quirks a brow as he takes in your image. Your dress has lifted higher up your thighs now that you’re propped on the furniture, revealing a slit that his eyes discreetly follow to where his imagination needs to fill in the blanks. He’s not here to fuck you, he reminds himself. He’s here because you were kind enough to offer him a drink for giving you a lift, but your hands are notably empty.

“What happened to the drinks?” Toji forces himself to look you in the eye, supposing that your eyes existed on the same level as your tits—perfectly delineated under your dress’ square neckline. He hasn’t even kissed you, and he’s already picturing what your nipples would look like sucked between his lips.

He shouldn’t go there. He really isn’t here to fuck you.

“I… forgot to do my shopping this week,” you answer, oblivious to his lewd thoughts. “Sorry, I brought you up here for nothing.”

“It’s fine.” Toji glances at the wall clock. Time’s the greatest excuse. “I should go. It’s getting late.”

And he really thinks he’s made the right call, until your dangling foot pushes against his chest to prevent him from getting up—slowly traveling down his lap while his eyes travel up to your actual ones, picking on a glint he previously missed.

“It’s not right for me to let you leave empty-handed.” Your voice assumes a sultry intonation that contradicts your angelic smile. The spread of your legs widens to reveal a thin white strip that clashes with the dark blue of your dress. He feels a strain in his pants; his conviction is wearing thin. It’s more of a “maybe” now, if anything.

His hand slides from your ankle to your knee, rubbing rough circles that purposely stray away from your sensitive parts. “Whatcha offering, doll?” Toji rasps.

“How’s twenty percent of what you got wrong sound?” Your toes create friction as they curl against his crotch, swaying back and forth. He doesn’t answer. He expects you to go on. “I was a big-time nerd. Got in college with a fully covered scholarship and all.”

His breath hitches as he moves closer to your thighs. “Expected that much.”

“And I did go on a lot of group dates. The girls wanted to meet guys whose names didn’t start and end with Gojo Satoru.” Your heel presses firmly onto his length. He’s big. You can’t tell exactly how big, but you know it won’t take long to have his cock plugged in one of your holes.

“And you didn’t?” Toji asks, rolling the plush flesh in his fingers like play-dough.

“I valued my precious dating shows a lot more.” You feel the stretch of his lips as they lay on your inner thigh, peppering kisses until the lower half of his face disappears past the layers of your dress.

“Seems to me I read ya like an open book,” Toji inhales deeply, growling a low “Shiiit, Y/N” when his nose nudges your dripping cunt, his jade eyes flickering shut while you shiver. You’ve never heard him use your name before—all pretense of respect in the form of his little Teach’s drops the second you start to rut your pussy into his face.

Before his hands can slip into your underwear, you prod him back onto his chair and get off the desk. His glare fades as soon as he watches you kneel in front of him and rest both your elbows on both sides of his knees.

“Skipping dates doesn’t mean I missed out on the experience.” Your smile drips with honey while you palm him on the way to unzipping his jeans.

You tug them down, and his hips wiggle to accommodate you. It’s a lot tougher than you thought, with the tight fabric stubbornly adhering to every muscle of his bulky thighs until it recedes. His boxers come down with greater ease, and your hand finally wraps around his cock, feeling his girth out in your open fist.

“I told you at the restaurant, but I really like you.” You give his length a slow stroke that has him sucking his teeth. “I’ve liked you since the moment I saw you barge into my classroom. I like you so much I think I can love you.”

Toji bends forward and pinches your chin between his thumb and his forefinger, tilting your head until his lips find yours—soft when they fumble around and rough when they part for his tongue to sneak into your mouth. Your delicate fingers insist on pumping his cock as he cups your cheek, ending the kiss with a playful bite across your bottom lip.

“I know,” he grins. “Heard ya talkin’ to that brat earlier.”

You would be shying away if it weren’t for his cock throbbing in your grasp, his swollen tip flushed with the exact same shade of feverish red as your cheeks.

“Eavesdropping isn’t so nice, Toji.”

“I’m not so nice either, but you overlook that.” Toji throws his head back, holding onto his breath, while you drool all over his cock head—clear strings of saliva streaming down the veiny shaft. “Y’know what’d be nice, hah—having that nice little mouth of yours wrapped around me.” Your hand drops to his balls, pink lips eager to fulfill his wish, with your cheeks barely hollowing around the tight fit. “So fucking nice,” he hisses.

His filthy praises are muffled out by his groans, which grow both in volume and in pitch the more inches you manage in your throat, his raspiness fading into the breathiest of moans once your nose tingles his unkempt base. You let go with a plop, air returning to your lungs through heavy pants. Your fists take over instead, appearing beyond puny as they struggle to engulf his hefty girth. Toji’s by far the biggest you’ve had; another of his assets you’re elated to discover.

You steal a lick from the precum that’s glazing his tip and purse your lips together. It’s a bit strong in flavor, but you don’t mind. It’s his.

“I meant everything I said,” you beam. “I still think of you as nice.”

“You’re bound to milk some kindness out of me if ya keep goin’ sweetheart.” Toji jokes, taking hold of his cock. He starts jerking himself to the sight of you, and you may have all your clothes on, but the way you genuinely smile at him, lips glossy from spit, almost sends him over the edge. “You’re so pretty,” he mumbles. “Even thought you were pretty in that—ugh, what was it?”

“Tunic?” You ask, recounting your first meeting.

“Yeah, right. That ridiculous grandma’s tunic you flaunted.” Raven strands flap over his forehead. “Wanted to rip that right off your body and fuck you on the spot.”

His words send pleasurable tingles throughout your body, with the pool in your panties overflowing your thighs. “What stopped you?” Your lips attach to his balls, your wet tongue lapping around until it finds a spot that has him fisting his cock at a faster pace, the tip rhythmically smacking your forehead.

Toji fails to gather his thoughts; his mind is solely focused on chasing after his incoming release. You feel his balls tighten and back away, setting your palms flat against your lap—eyes marveling at how the man who kept you tossing and turning in an empty bed for months on end is about to spill his load all over your face. A man whom you, up until a few hours ago, dreaded would reject you.

“You’re so fucking pretty,” he pants out. “Gonna make you even prettier. Gonna make you into my pretty girl—fuck, all mine.”

“All yours, Toji.” You repeat, lulling your tongue out. “Cum on my face, Toji. Please, gimme your cum.”

And it is that please that gets his cock to spurt his milky cum all over your lips and chin, with only a handful of his velvety ropes making it onto your tongue. He grunts, squeezing the final drops from the tip until it stops twitching. He wipes it clean against your lips and helps you to your feet, taking advantage of your imbalance to hold you by the waist.

“Is there something on my face?” You ask, seeing as Toji blatantly drills holes into your skull.

Heavy eyelashes flutter over his low-hooded eyes. A dark chuckle rings against your skin as his mouth presses against your jaw. “Aren’t ya cheeky?” He licks a portion of his cum off your chin and feeds it to your tongue, all nice and slow, in a heady kiss that brings your bodies closer to one another. Your cunt is still soaked, pulsing around nothing, and his cock is still rock-hard, throbbing against your stomach.

Holding turns into groping as Toji gives your ass a squeeze. “Better not fail Megumi from now on.”

Your teeth clash together as you break into a sudden cackle. “Someone might think you’re only doing this to secure his grades.”

“Among other reasons,” he states.

“Is this how you care for your son’s education?” You humor him. “By seducing his teacher?”

“Nah,” Toji pauses to tug at your dress’ strap. He’s going to have to unzip it if he wants to move things forward. “My kid’s plenty smart on his own. Besides, the teacher’s the one doin’ the seducing here.” He caresses your curves and smiles in triumph once he spots the zipper on the side. “Wouldn’t fuck ‘er if she’d let me go back to my car to jerk it like a responsible man would. Would’ve waited until the second date; buy her something good—you like flowers, right?”

You lift your arms for him to strip you. He leaves you to stand in your unmatched underwear, black lace on your tits, and white cotton around your hips. His tongue darts out, wetting his lower lip. “Is it too late to enroll?”

Your eyes perform a full circle. You almost shove his hands away from your bra when you realize it’s already off. He thumbs at your nipples with his palms cupped around your breasts, refusing to let an inch of your soft skin spill from his calloused, practiced fingers.

“I’m afraid you’re behind the rest of the class.” You go along with his game of role-play. “I’d have to give you private lessons.”

“Sign me up.”

Toji steps back to remove his shirt, undoing his buttons so quickly that you’re certain they’ll fly right off. He discards it on the floor, and you take stock of his physique, inevitably gaping at the jagged scars that span from below his left shoulder to the center of his torso. Your fingers carefully trail over them, as if the violence that caused them still lurks beneath.

So that’s what sustaining limitless leaves you with, you momentarily muse, before your sympathy dissolves into a quarter of a smile. You don’t want him to think you’re pitying him—because you aren’t. Both he and Satoru made their choices, and you refuse to be the judge of their decade-long feud.

His hands return to your waist, while yours meet behind his neck. You kiss again and again, the action of mouths stealing each other’s oxygen repeating until the edge of your desk digs into your lower back. His strong arms smother you like he’s never embraced another before; overwhelming you to the point where you’re moaning despite his cock not being in yet.

“Just so you know, this gonna be a regular thing.” Toji mutters, his green eyes confirming his sincerity in the way he pulls your thighs apart. He doesn’t think he’s never said that phrase before. It’s always the opposite.

He dips a hand into your panties, lathering his palm with your slick, and then strokes his dick. “Not ‘ere for the sex only.”

“You’re gonna stay over and buy me breakfast?” You entertain the idea.

“As long as convenience store Onigiri cuts it. A bit tight this month.” Toji leaves you some breathing space, kicking his pants off his ankles. “A’right. Turn around and arch that back for me.”

A wicked smirk rises on his scar as you face away from him. “I was hoping to fuck you on your little classroom desk, but this will do just fine. You can look back on it next time ya feel swamped with papers.”

“I won’t be able to get any work done!” You protest.

The aforementioned papers glue to your breasts when you prop yourself on your elbows. You glance over your shoulder, catching sight of Toji positioning himself between your legs. You feel him run his cock between your now-bare folds, your panties having dropped in a pool around your feet like tasteless anklets.

Toji kneads your ass with one hand, the other stroking himself along your clenching holes. “You can think of this as my confession.” He trails off as he drives his thick cock into your wet pussy, and he does it slowly enough for it not to hurt, but it’s him who ends up needing a good minute to adjust after he bottoms out.

He knows it’ll feel even better once he moves, but it already feels perfect as is. So warm; so tight; so good that he’s afraid he’ll lose composure and jackhammer into you until the desk legs break.

“Haven’t had such perfect pussy in ages.” Toji grunts, his nails digging sharp crescent moons into the fat of your ass.

He’s had his fair share of pretty girls with empty brains and tight cunts, but yours is something else. Yours, he wants it owned. He wants it to lull him to sleep every night, only to wake up the next morning to the mess you’ve made creaming around his cock all night long. He wants to make you into his personal cock warmer, and he nearly cringes at the thought, until he feels you pulse around him and realizes you probably want that too.

“Fuck me, T-Toji.” You stammer, pulling your body forward only to slam it back on his length.

That’s all he needs to get going. His hips mercilessly slap against your own while he drills his cock in and out with such vigor that he feels it kissing your cervix. The desk bangs hard against the wall, almost overpowering the sounds of your soft whimpers. He forces you to meet his tempo, using the leverage on your ass to cut down on the distance between his leaking head and your puffy cunt.

“‘member what I told ya when I first saw ya?” Toji slows down, his fingers reaching between your thighs to swipe at your clit while his hips switch to languid rolls.

“Y-You mean after you—fuck, put your shoes on my desk thinking it was Satoru’s?”

“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” He huffs and brings your arm behind your back, pressing down on it. “Remember,” he mouths hot kisses down your nape and shoulder, his palm cupping your entire cunt while your walls flutter around him. “Remember how I said you’re too hot to be stuck ‘ere teaching brats manners?”

You fist at the table, desperately searching in your foggy mind for a memory you can’t seem to find or a place to grip, the only answer you can muster being, “You never said that.”

“I didn’t?” Toji flicks the sensitive nub upward. “Well, not every thought’s meant to be shared, mhm?”

He pops your dialogue bubble by nipping at your neck, his cock scratching an itch that has you writhing in pleasure.

“Shhh, baby.” He coos, the warm timbre in his voice soothing the shrill ringing in your head. “Promise I’ll be more vocal now on. Tell ya all about how good that sloppy pussy’s flooding me, or how gorgeous your cute face looks lighting up whenever ya see me.”

The flames in your stomach shoot up to your heart, beating so loud you swear it punctuates his every word.

“How many times was it?” He asks. “Eight PT meetings in two months? Or ten? Ya think I wouldn’t notice I was the only parent called?”

Your head droops forward. “Would’ve been eleven if you didn’t come today. Wanna see more of you, Toji. F-fuck, wanna see you all the time.”

“And you will,” he detaches from your neck and picks up his speed, keen on having you see starts with the way he thumbs your clit. “Gonna make you cum around my cock every day, sweetheart. Just call me and—ugh, I’ll come runnin’. No need for that PT crap.”

Your bitten lips do nothing to contain your unregulated cries as you tighten around him like a vice—the only coherent words among your long-drawn vowels being “I’m cumming, Toji!” that you scream at the top of your lungs.

Toji begrudgingly pulls out, letting you ride your high alone. If he stays in a second longer, he knows you’ll end up with a nine-month trouble that will escalate into a lifelong problem in the form of paychecks for him and test sheets for you.

He plops down on the chair to cool down for a moment, proudly admiring your stupefied expression, eyes blown out with sheer ecstasy, and lips gasping for air.

“Hey. Are you free tomorrow?”

Maybe you are worth the trouble.

The delightful buzzes in your head are replaced with a series of acute knocks against your door. You barely have time to locate your rug of a dress in the corner of the room and zip it up, hoping the fabric’s enough to keep the marks on your body out of your visitor’s field of view.

“Should’ve known,” you groan, wishing you'd shoved your head in the pillows and pretended you were missing—except, there's no hiding from him. You step outside and close the door with your back, folding your arms over your chest. “What brings you here, Satoru?”

“Mornin’ to you too, Y/N.” His mouth is full as he speaks, rice grains framing both sides of his lips. “How was your date?”

“It was…” you pause, focusing on the plastic convenience store bag he’s holding rather than his eyes, “good.”

“Good, huh?” He grimaces. He doesn’t have to tell you he was hoping it’d fail. “Anyway, came to drop these. Someone left them on your doorstep.”

You peer into the contents of the bag, full of onigiri in different flavors—two that are tuna mayo, two with shrimp tempura, two with salted salmon, and lastly, a spare pickled plum.

Your lips curl into a smile as you pick your favorite from the bunch. So that's your answer.

"Thanks, Satoru." He is surprised you didn't scold him, gladly taking his chance to leave before you speak again. "Wait."

"I was the one who stole your Manju."

[bimbo-baggins17]

not to flood your inbox but crispy crunchy vader taking reader as a hostage for political leverage until he realizes he hasn’t stuck his crispy cock in anything for a long while since his ex-wife so he dresses reader up very similarly to padme (what a healthy coping mechanism!), chains her up in his quarters and fucks her stupid, groaning some shit about how she’ll ’give [him] a new child’ (breeding kink goes wild)

I 🩷 burnt crunchy vader trying to resolve his trauma in deeply unhealthy ways‼️

CRISPY COCK 💀 Flood away thoughhhh!!! This was perfection. We <3 deeply traumatized men

CW: NONCON!!!!!

☆…━━━━━·:*☆…━━━━━·:*☆…━━━━━·:*☆

The door to your cell slides open, flooding the dimly lit space with bright light. You sit up, squinting into it trying to see.

Two storm troopers step in, taking you by your arms, dragging you out and down the endless halls.

“Where are you taking me?” You ask but are ignored.

They come to a stop in front of a door, a few floors up. It slides open, revealing your captor. Your throat goes dry. You can’t see if he’s looking directly at you through the mask but you can feel it.

“That’ll be all.” He states simply, large gloved hand coming to wrap around your bicep.

“Very well Lord Vader.” One of the troopers says before both are turning and leaving you along with him. He drags you into what seem to be his chambers.

He’s silent until he comes to a stop. He rummages through a wardrobe before turning back to you.

“Put this on.” His voice crackled through the modulator, shoving an ornate gown into your hands.

You look down at it confused. “What?”

His lips purse under the helmet. “For such a smart little strategist you sure are stupid. Put. It. On.”

You nod your head shakily and wait for him to turn around or direct you somewhere private.

“My patience is wearing thin. Change.”

“In front of you..?”

“Now.” His poor scarred cock was aching.

You nod your head and shakily start to strip out of your clothes and into the lavish gown given to you. Your mind races with questions. What was going on? What was he going to do? Why dress you up if he was going to kill you?

Vader stands there amused as he hears your thoughts, senses your emotions.

Once in the dress you turn to face him. He looks you over for a second before stepping up. He reaches up and you flinch a little. “Don’t.” He states. He continues to reach up, undoing the way your hair was tied back, letting it fall down into messy waves around your shoulders. More similar to Padmé.

He walks slowly around you, assessing you. “You’ll have to do.” He states simply coming back to stand in front of you.

Your eyebrows draw together, “What?”

“On the bed.” He ignores your question.

When you make no effort to move, he grips onto your arm and harshly drags you over to bed and tosses you onto it. With a wave of his hand, he uses the force to chain your wrists and ankles, keeping you bound.

Making his way over, he undoes his cape at least before crawling overtop of you. He bunches the dress up around your waist. Your eyes widen, piecing together what was happening.

You shake your head vehemently, pulling at the restraints. “Wait..no please..don’t.”

“Hush!” He snaps. Maker. He didn’t want to do this. He’d rather his Padmé for this. To soothe his aching cock. But you’d have to do. It’s been so long since he’s had anyone. His robotic limbs repulsed him too much to do it himself.

He fishes his dick out from his suits. Your eyes widen at the discolored and ridged flesh. He grits his teeth, feeling your disgust through the force. “I had felt a bit of remorse for you. But now it’s gone.”

He moves your panties to the side, the cool leather of his glove making you gasp. He has to still himself before he’s pushing the maimed flesh into your unprepped cunt. The stretch burns and you tug at the restraints, letting out a cry.

His helmet tilts back as your heat squeezes him tightly, quickly trying to lubricate itself. You weren’t his Padmé but Maker, to have his cock inside someone again was almost enough to make him cum immediately. He could feel your heartbeat through your walls.

Vader’s hips start to move, shaky at first, having to figure out the way to move most comfortably with his suit and robotic limbs. The pleasure he was feeling was outweighing the pain.

As he falls into a rhythm that works for him, his thrusts become harsher, harder, the scarred over tip of his cock prodding at your cervix each time. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes. You hated him but hated yourself more as it started to feel good. The extra ridges and grooves cause for a much different feeling, more pleasurable as he hits spots you’ve never had touched before. Your head lulls to the side, jaw falling open.

For the first time in a long time, Vader was able to feel something other than pain.

“Gonna give you a kid,” He grunts out through the modulator, “Have you carry my child. My heir.”

His hips sputter before he’s planting his load deep inside of you. It just keeps going. Vader resumes the rocking of his hips, still having more to give after being pent up for so long.

You’re overly and extra sensitive now, pulling again at the restraints, shaking your head. “No-no..no more..can’t..t’s too much..”

He clamps a hand down over your mouth to silence you. “Can’t stop. Gotta make sure you’re nice a pregnant…give me what I want. Maker.”

He’d give himself a second chance. His incubator you’d be.

[autisticlancemcclain]

“There are three things I know,” Keith blurts. Lance stares at him blankly, or maybe angrily, or maybe in a way Keith can’t understand. He doesn’t bother trying, focusing instead on the way freckles dot Lance’s nose, mapping them to avoid looking at his whole face. He continues.

“The first thing is you have to — when you’re stabbed, you have to keep the knife there. You can’t pull it out or you’ll die. The second thing is that I’m bad at saying I love you. The last thing is that we know more about the moon than the ocean.” He swallows and finds his throat bone dry, scratchy. It takes him ten or twelve tries to moisten it again. Lance says nothing as Keith orients himself, refusing to grant him the mercy of ending his sentence. He waits impatiently for the rest of Keith’s sentiment, for the explanation. Or maybe he’s stopped listening and Keith is talking at a wall. He can’t tell. He still can’t bring himself to meet Lance’s eyes. He’s scared they won’t be as warm as they have always been.

“I’ve never been stabbed,” he finally manages. His voice is quieter now, muted and embarrassed, rather than the thoughtless rambling it was before. Hems made a claim and now he has to back it up and there is nothing in his fucking tank to do this. He’s sandwiching the truth between seventeen loaves of bullshit and he knows it and he’s sure Lance knows it but Heaven itself could not stop him, even if It had any desire to reach down and protect him. “I’ve never, uh, known anyone either. Who has been. I read it in a book once. And of course I can say it. It just never sounds like I mean it. And I don’t know anything about the moon or the ocean, really. I just meant humanity as a whole. The collective knowledge of science is more detailed on the satellite rather than the body of water, I mean.”

Say something, he wants to beg Lance, but even he knows that’s unfair. He wants to fold himself up and hide away. He wants to scream at Lance at the top of his lungs, for making him say any of this, for making him think it. Keith never let himself feel this clearly before he met him. Before Lance Keith kept a box of things locked and guarded in the back of his mind and if anyone so much as poked at it he ran. It worked for ten years.

But Lance danced in with a smirk and the scent of crushed daisies and Keith handed him the fucking key.

“And?” Lance asks quietly, throwing him a bone. Taking pity on him. Or mercy. They’re the same thing anyway.

Keith’s hands tremble violently. He clenches them into hard fists and could cry at the relief it brings. “I know more things. I just. Those are the things that never sit right.” The shaking starts again in his fists, then travel up his arms and jerk his shoulders, and soon he’s trembling so badly he’s half convinced he’s seizing, half convinced he’s going to have a stroke and die before he can stutter to an end, finish the fucking sentiment he offered up. The clenching of his teeth does nothing and they clatter so badly they crack to a million pieces and fall to pieces at the floor. His skin flinches right of his body. Every spasm of his muscles oozes blood down to a growing pool on the floor. He is open and bleeding and peeling and cracking and flaying and peeling and crumbling and he is open and open and open and falling, endlessly, disintegrating at Lance’s feet, essence of him seeping into Lance’s sneakers.

“Why does stabbing hurt twice?” he whispers. “Why can’t acts of good be what they are? Why can I sit on the beach and know less than what splashes in front of me than a blinking distant satellite? It doesn’t — sit right with me.” He swallows again and it’s salty. “Does it sit right with you?”

The boiling puddle of him sputters and bubbles. Every thought he’s ever had is on display. He is a spitting pool of acid and the goo at the bottom of a dumpster. He stains everything he touches. The floor will never be white and pristine again, even if it looks it, because he will always know that here is when he threw up every bit of him and still tried to hide behind what he could and here is where he lost.

“I just want you to tell me the truth,” Lance says eventually. Keith finally meets his eyes, and the brown of them isn’t dark or cold or hard but instead shuttered behind closed doors. For the first time in all the years Keith has known him he has a barrier up. It is so foreign on his face that it’s startling, like walking up to your own front door and finding the locks changed, like laying your head on your pillow and finding it smelling like someone else, like waking up to find your fingerprints in a new pattern.

“I just told you three.”

———

based on this poem by @mavigator

[cleoluvrr]

smarty v (rafe cameron x oc)

SYNOPSIS: smart girl isn’t as smart as rafe cameron.

WARNINGS: mature content; dark!rafe, toxic relationship, domestic violence, verbal abuse, blackmail, jealousy, general violence, manipulative behavior, explicit language, substance abuse & addiction, use of guns, mentions of past crimes, obsession

series masterlist

i watch from the other side of the room as rafe walks from the window to the mantle repeatedly. his hard-soled shoes would surely wear holes into the floorboard from the incessant pacing. his buzzed hair has grown out slightly, the blonde catching in the sunlight as he passes the window once again.

“barry, i don’t have time for this right now.” he says to his friend harshly. i can hear a male voice over the speaker but it’s muffled from being pressed against rafe’s ear. “why the fuck would you do that? are you an idiot?” rafe had been on the phone for fifteen minutes with the dark-haired man he calls his business partner, ten of those spent worrying around the room in an effort to not snap at him. i wasn’t aware that such a friendship had blossomed between the two until i returned from school. last time i heard of him, barry was my boyfriend’s drug dealer. 

rafe warned me once to stay away from him and now the two are practically inseparable. “you fucked it up, so you fix it! i don’t care what you have to do, man–just get the money back.”

the pair share a few more short words before rafe finally ends the call. the stress pours off him in waves that were strong enough to take both of us under. the man says nothing for a long minute as he leans against the wooden desk in his father’s former office. a long-fingered hand runs over his face before he rests his eyes on me for the first time in almost twenty minutes.

“come here.” he beckons me to him with just his words and i rise, my sock covered feet sliding across the floor to stand before him.

i wait for him to say something but he doesn’t. rather, his hands rise to take hold of my head, his warm palms planted against the plush flesh of my cheeks. his ocean blue eyes rake over my face as if it were the last time he was going to see me, his mind frantic to plague itself with the memory of me so he’d never be able to forget. the crease between his brow relaxes along with the rest of his face, eyes once hardened by troubled thoughts now shining with a peaceful relief.

my eyes are wide with confusion, but i allow my lips to part to give him a soft, comforting smile. he brings his forehead to mine and i force myself to stay put, worried that the makeup covering my own might rub off onto him and stain his tanned skin a warm brown.

rafe’s eyes flutter shut, the softness of his lashes brushing against my face as he holds me in place. we stand there in a peaceful silence until he pulls away enough to leave a few inches between our noses. he continues to drink in my appearance for a moment longer before speaking in an exhale.

“you’re so beautiful,” his voice is full of adoration, and it makes my cheeks fill with hot blood. “i’m so lucky…you don’t know how crazy i’d go without you.” my smile turns shy as i downcast my eyes. my vision is filled with our feet rather than the intense pools of blue that captures me in its waters.

tilting my head back up with a finger under my chin, he presses his lips into mine with the same gentleness he strokes over my hair with. it’s over as fast as it starts and my eyes blink back open though i don’t remember shutting them. 

with a departing sigh, the blonde pulls away from me and pushes off the desk to make his way around to the seat on the other side. he collapses into the leather seat dramatically as he throws his head back, his long neck exposed for only a few seconds before he drags himself back into an upright position. 

“did you pick up your dress?” rafe asks, eyes flickering up to my looming presence from his position behind the dark wood. he hums in approval when i nod, gaze pulled back down to the desk below to focus his attention on rummaging through its many drawers.

midsummers was coming, and much sooner than i would like. it was the first time rafe would be going without his family, and i didn’t think he planned on attending the pretentious event after the sudden death of his father. he was too busy for things like that now, and yet, he insisted we go together. i’d only been a couple of times before, both with the cameron family as a whole. “they’re honoring my father.” is what he told me when asked, and i was more puzzled by his answer than i was previously. his father was a murderer; what was there to honor? i didn’t say that though, just nodded my head and went along with it.

ward cameron was a touchy subject to speak on in kildare, especially around rafe. i’d been completely in the dark about his crimes–his death, until a few months ago, and the last thing i desired was to trigger rafe by asking the million questions that swarmed my brain every time i thought about it. the father-son duo had a strange and complicated relationship, but rafe loved him regardless and if he wishes to honor his abusive, murderous, self-serving father, then i wasn’t going to question it.

if i questioned him, i would be forced to question myself.

“i have something for you.”

rafe pulls away from the desk with a box in hand. it was a glossy black square, presumably containing a piece of jewelry. a pair of dangly earrings, or another necklace to add to my disgustingly large collection. my assumption is proven partially correct when he lifts the lid of the box to reveal its contents. what i was not expecting, however, was what he presented to me. 

with a gasp, my eyes flash up to my boyfriend’s face before falling back to the velvet cushioned box in his hands. agape with shock, my jaw nailed itself to the floor at the sight before me, eyes wide and words stuck deep in my throat with the breath it needed to escape. “rafe…” my voice was quiet, nothing more than a whisper because if i let myself speak any louder i would not be able to contain myself.

“do you like it?” i could feel the wash of his cool, blue eyes on my face as he gauged my reaction. still stupefied, i remain silent and frozen rather than give him an answer.

in his hands was one of the most stunning things i’ve laid my eyes on in this lifetime. a silver headpiece molded by gifted hands to resemble a tiara of flowers, budding with freshwater pearls, blue topaz gems, and swarovski crystals that surround pearlescent, heart-shaped petals. the color matched rafe's irises almost perfectly. it sparkled beneath the sun shining in from the window, the beauty of it only amplified by the way it captured the light so effortlessly. “like,” was far too insignificant of a word to express how i felt.

stumbling out of my dazed state, i tear my eyes away from the box to meet rafe’s inquisitive eyes. “yes…yes–yes, i love it…” i managed to scrape together whatever words still lingered in the back of my mind to give him an answer. “oh my god, rafe…when did you get this? why did you get this? oh my god…”

a soft smile slowly creeps its way onto rafe’s face. the corners of his eyes crinkle with a genuine happiness that i hadn’t seen in weeks. he seemed to take more joy in this moment than i did, if that were possible.

“my, um…” he pauses for a moment, swallowing. “my dad bought this for my mom when they got married. i think she was gonna give it to sarah someday but…yeah.” a bump of uncomfortable silence. “you deserve it more than she does, anyway.”

“it’s gorgeous.” is what i say, choosing to ignore the comment about his younger sister to avoid an awkward conversation. “but why are you giving it to me?” my brows meet in the middle in a display of confusion.

rafe sets the box down on the desk behind before picking up the tiara with careful hands. he brushes his slender, calloused fingers over the bejeweled flowers with a gentle touch, the way he carries it as if he’s scared it’ll break if he breathes too hard. i watch him stare at the few tangible pieces of his mother that he owns with unreadable eyes before he blinks away his shadowed gaze.

he clears his throat of unspoken words to give way to fresh ones. “i want you to wear it to midsummers.” my eyebrows shoot up at the request but he doesn’t falter at my reaction. the pink of his tongue breaks free of his lips to moisten them before retreating. “it’s a family heirloom, and you’ve been more family to me than anyone else…and you’re gonna be mrs. cameron one day, right? officially, anyway.” it was less of a question and more of a statement, so i don’t respond. “my dad left everything to me; his company, tannyhill, his properties, his money, his…h-his legacy.”

rafe’s jaw tenses, eyelids squeezing shut as he blinks hard. his adam’s apple bobs with the inaudible gulp of him swallowing down whatever feeling he’s been overcome with and i reach a hand up to touch his face. the whole of my palm rests against his skin as i brush the pad of my thumb over his cheek. a stray tear soaks my thumb with the pain of a troubled boy that aches for a stable life and someone that cares for him.

it’s hard to hate him. even when i know i should.

all he ever wanted was to make his father proud, to have a father that was proud of him and appreciated his efforts. instead he got a boot to the ass and an angry man that could hardly fix his mouth to do anything more than berate his son. ward was always nice to me, like a second father. he was more of a father to me than to his own son, and it made me sick.

being raised like that does something to a child. it’s not his fault he acts the way he does–not completely. maybe if ward never raised a hand to him, rafe would never act on his urge to do the same to me. if his father gave him attention for good things, maybe rafe wouldn’t have acted out to get attention for the bad things. maybe rafe wouldn’t have turned to drugs to lessen the agony that is going through life with a family that believes you’re useless. 

he’s hurt, and hurt people, hurt people.

that’s what i tell myself–what i have to remind myself of. when he’s too rough, when he’s too loud, when he’s too mean. when i come home littered in little bruises from being grabbed too hard, or slammed into things that were in the way of his anger. it’s the only way i can stay without feeling insane; and even that doesn’t work sometimes.

i was raised by two parents that worked hard and told me to work harder. a mom and a dad that praised me and loved me and kissed my skinned knees better when i fell. rafe had ward, who would push him to the edge, watch him fall over and over, and then blame him for the brokenness left behind. my parents taught me love and empathy, while rafe hardly knew what that was. we live how we learn, and rafe learned what it is to be cruel.

rafe sought after his father’s approval until the day he died. he tried his hardest to be just like him, and in a way, he is. they share the same cool, blue eyes that stare so deeply into one’s soul that it makes you itch. he carries himself with the same confidence that ward did; knowing that they owned whatever place they walked into, that they were at the top of the food chain. everyone admired them, even if it was for different reasons. they share the same passion and persistence, the same charming smile that left you feeling just a little…unsettled if you stared too long.

both of them harbor the ability to destroy anything and anyone if they so please–even themselves.

even with ward gone, it’s like he still haunts the island. his son carrying on his business served as a reminder that the powerful remain powerful, even six feet under. rafe made it his mission to carry on his father’s name–his legacy. rafe wouldn’t stop seeking ward’s approval even in death, and it made me ache for him.

“i want everyone to know that the camerons are still here.” rafe breaks his silence with a drowned voice. “that we aren’t going anywhere…we might be fucked up,” he laughs dryly at his own dark humor and i struggle to raise the corners of my lips. “but this is still our shit, you know? just ‘cause my dad is gone doesn’t mean anything. we built this shit, laia. my family made this island what it is, and i’m not gonna let anybody forget that..”

his gaze pulls away from the floor where they had fallen to meet mine. his eyes were wet but no tears fell.

“my dad loved you, you know? probably more than me.” i chuckle lightly at his words even though it pains me to do so. “before he…before he left he told me something. he said you were the only one worthy of his last name. that you were more accepting of me than he ever was, and stronger than he could ever be. he said i was a mess he created and you were an angel to try to fix it. he sounded like a damn shakespeare book or something…” 

my pained smile becomes soft for just a moment.

reaching forward, rafe gently places the tiara atop my head. though it is not heavy physically, the pressure of knowing who owned it previously was a weight upon my shoulders. i was petrified in place out of fear that it would tumble to the ground if i moved too harshly. “didn’t know ward was so poetic.” the words were a breeze that passed through my lips, loud enough for rafe to hear but breathy from the nerves coursing through my veins.

“he was right,” i lift my gaze from the ground to meet his curiously. “you are the only one worthy. it’s just us now, baby.” rafe’s warm hands rest against the sides of my head, his thumbs brushing over my cheeks as he scans my appearance. he meets my gaze again and floods the deepest parts of my eyes with two endless pools of carolina blue. “i’m the boss now. me. a-and you’re with me, alright? this is ours now and everyone is gonna see that.”

i nod my head at him and reach up to encircle his wrists gingerly, fingers tracing along the skin stretched over the top of hands. he leans in close, his forehead meeting mine in a sweet embrace. 

all of this was the last thing i wanted, but i couldn’t tell him that, not when he just poured his heart out to me. not with his mother’s wedding tiara crushing my skull beneath its pressure. he wanted us to be the new ward and rose, not rafe and laia. meanwhile, that was the last thing on my list of desires. i didn’t want to stay on this island forever and run around playing whatever figurehead rafe created wanted me to be. there was a reason i left for university the first chance i got.

what rafe doesn’t understand is that while he has everything, i have nothing. 

he has money and a company left in his name. his name means something to people. it has power, status. mine doesn’t. i was just a girl from the cut on a scholarship. to everyone here, i’m just rafe’s girl. whatever he had planned for ‘us’ would only further that notion. i’d blink and end up becoming a pretty face stuck to his side with no other purpose than catering to his need for absolute control.

none of this is mine. not tannyhill, not his dad’s empire, not kildare. the only thing i have is me, and sometimes i even doubt that. we’d been together so long that i was practically his now, too. it was so…demeaning, living a life where everyone only sees you as belonging to someone and not as your own person with aspirations and wants.

when ward was alive, he made it very clear that he wanted his son to marry me. normally kooks would never want a pouge anywhere near their child, no matter how nice they are. but ward grew up in the cut just like me. he worked his way to top and he saw how i worked to do the same. i think he saw the positives of himself in me, and that’s part of the reason he pushed so hard for it. he believed i was good for him, money or no money. however, i’m sure it was mostly because i was the only one willing to put up with rafe’s shit for as long as i did.

finding out that it was all but his dying wish for rafe to marry me only made everything more complicated. 

rafe would never let me have the freedom that i took for myself last year. it would be a threat to everything he had planned for the future if he let me slip away again. he’d lose his mind knowing that he failed his father once more, even in death, by not anchoring me down with their last name for the rest of my life.

rafe gifting me his mother’s wedding tiara for a midsummers ball held in his father’s honor was a bright, red, flashing warning for what was to come. he never talks about her–-i don’t even know the woman’s name–, but he’s giving me something of such great value to his family that it couldn’t be any clearer to me that something was happening. 

and it terrified me.