#anyway. yeah i have a problem. what of it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

chanifesto · 13 hours ago

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ᯓᡣ𐭩 mr. fix it | yeon sieun

pairing: yeon sieun x afab!reader (weak hero)

synopsis: yeon sieun was notoriously known as your program’s tech handyman. when he wasn’t hunched over calculus problem sets, sieun was busy fixing his peers' laptops, for a price of course—one that was nonexistent for you because you seemed to make his software hard.

genre: another smutty university au

word count: 6.9k

warnings: [MDNI!] explicit sexual content, grinding, making out, oral (f rec.), pussydrunk!sieun, piv sex, protected sex, many consent checks, sieun is so so gone for you, you are literally his pretty little angel, if devotion was a person it would be him, sieun can’t figure out his goddamn integral

reader notes: written with afab reader in mind. reader has breasts and a vagina. reader is described to look ‘small’ at one point. all characters are consenting and over 18 yo.

this fic was requested – thank you so much, i loved coming up with the concept .ᐟ

۶�� 𝑙𝑒𝑒'𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑢𝑑𝑒 ࿐ park jihoon uggghhhh need need need him. had the most exquisite time picking out the concept pictures.

“You broke it again?”

His voice sounds flat, but there's a tinge of hope, a sense of subdued anticipation perking his last few syllables.

Sieun stares at the half-solved integral on his desk, phone pressed to his cheek, screen cold against his skin, fingers loosely gripping the sides. The warm glow of his lamp casts a nimbus over the mess made of a barely punched in calculation and his calculus textbook, pages worm from flipping back and forth between the chapter problem sets and appendix answers. Outside his window, the campus sky is dim, too gray for six in the evening.

“I didn’t break it!” Your voice crackles through the line, scratchy with frustration. Sieun can hear your breath over the receiver, rough and rushed.

“It just won’t turn on,” you continue, “I don’t know what happened. I just opened my tabs, and then—dead.”

He exhales. “And you tried plugging it in?”

“Yes, Sieun. I tried everything you taught me—nothing worked,” you huff, “I have an essay due Monday, and everything I need to write it is on this damn laptop.”

You sound slightly breathless, your voice hoarse with the kind of air that clings to lungs on chilly evenings. Wind rushes past the speaker, muddling your words with static. Sieun’s ears pick up on this.

“Where are you,” he asks, dull, but more abrupt than intended.

You’re silent for a few beats.

“Outside.” Another gust of wind bleeds through the receiver.

He feels the warmth of perspiration prick across his palms. “Where?”

The brisk, hollow rustle of plastic, and then, “Walking to your dorm.”

Sieun feels his breath dissipate in the back of his throat.

“I’m sorry,” you start. Sieun squeezes his eyes upon hearing these words in your soundwaves, words he thought were too unnecessary when masked in your voice.

“I saw the forecast, there’s going to be rain—shoot, I forgot my umbrella, I knew I was forgetting something—anyways, I figured I'd head over to yours before it hit,” there’s an unmistakable sincerity in your voice, “I really need you right now, Sieun.”

Need to murder him, he thought. Clearly, that was more fitting for the illusive objective of your last sentence, one that roused his hand to the back of his neck, called his fingers to smooth over his golden skin, wailed for them to curl against his flesh in hopes of helping him get a grip of himself. Literally.

He sighs, half flustered, half enlivened. “You’ll be here soon?”

“Yeah, just five minutes more.”

There’s a pause. “Okay.”

A quick exhale breaks past your lips, a restrained puff of air that had been trapped in the back of your throat, waiting for a green light to let it loose. “Thank you, Sieun.”

He can still feel the ghost of icy plastic against his cheek when you cut the call. Unfocused eyes cloud over the sheets and pens and smudged writing lazing atop his desk.

Of course.

Of course you’re coming over. Because why wouldn’t you? Your laptop’s dead, and he’s the tech guy, and this is just what happens. He fixes things.

And right now, you need him to fix your things. He couldn’t help but feel his heart jump at the idea, an eagerness creeping into his chest, fogging up his lungs and grabbing hold of the air that dared to escape up his trachea.

Sieun, as cold as he seemed, felt warmth fixing your things, like he’d swallowed the sun and it dissolved into his blood. Unlike the peers on your campus, he does it for you free-of-charge—hell, he thinks he’d pay you just to let him fidget around with your laptop’s battery that burns to touch or the program functions you can’t seem to figure out even after using the ‘help’ tab. He’d never admit to it though.

Not yet, at least.

His eyes flicker to the unfinished problem adorning his notebook, numbers and symbols half-formed, abandoned mid-line. The solution sits just out of reach.

Much like you.

His unfinished integral mocks him.

⊹₊⋆✩⋆₊⊹

Your cheeks are flushed, supple and radiant, the dermal symptom of cool drizzle and dewy autumn air. Sieun’s eyes surf the strands of your hair, glinting from subtle rain droplets that catch even in the dim fluorescent light of his dorm hallway.

You look small like this in his doorway, backpack straps sagging over your shoulders, your sweater sporting little wet spots that are sure to smell like petrichor. Your hands tightly clutch a white plastic bag to your abdomen, the vertices of a cardboard box poking out at him.

You smile at him, small and sweet and a little flustered. “There was some drizzle when I turned onto your lane.”

Sieun’s gaze, currently traveling across the ridges tenting your plastic bag, snaps to your face.

“Oh.” It’s a soft expression, a barely-there phoneme he manages through concern for you—how dare the clouds cry over your angel face?—and some muffled curiosity.

Sieun just can’t help the fall of his gaze. He stares blankly at the bag in your hands. He’s not surprised when you take notice.

“It’s brownie mix!”

He peers at you again.

“Brownies?”

You grin sheepishly, fiddling with the plastic handles. “Yeah, I thought, well– you work so hard, you deserve a fun break, one you can get a sweet treat out of!” You pause. “And, I guess it’s also thanks for my laptop. You’ve saved me a lot of money I already don’t have, more than once now.”

He’s still staring at you, face blank, unreadable, lips sealed in a line, but his eyes gleamed. Whether it was annoyance or humour, you weren’t sure, but his dreamy, tired eyes gleamed.

Your eyes go wide. “Oh gosh, I should’ve asked you if brownies were okay. They looked so good on the box, I just had to pick them up. You could be allergic to chocolate, or maybe you don’t even like brownies–”

“Brownies are cool.”

Sieun watches your lips halt their rambling, configured mid-sentence, before they slowly spread into a toothy grin, one that radiates a warm feeling into his bones and almost—almost—makes his lip twitch up to match yours.

⊹₊⋆✩⋆₊⊹

All you needed to do was force start.

That’s all.

No hardware to trifle with, no delinquent software meddling with your computer programs.

All Sieun had to do was press a couple buttons in tandem before your screen lit back up to life, resurrected from its cry of wolf.

Your cheeks had heated, bashful from your ignorance, but also a little humoured.

They blazed further when you caught sight of the calculus massacre on his desk, hurried apologies spilling past your pretty lips to wash out the guilt that crawled up your chest.

Sieun reassured you all was well—It’s fine, I was almost done anyways—with a look in his eyes that had you capitulating to his sincerity.

“Can I repay you with brownies?” you had prompted, fingers twiddling behind your back as if it would have subliminally helped rouse the answer you sought after.

Sieun slowly flattened your laptop to a shut before his Bambi eyes peaked at you and whispered exactly what you needed to know, exactly what you wanted to hear.

So, you’d both clambered in his tiny, cozy dorm kitchen, ingredients and bowls and utensils scattered across granite, instructions serenading the walls in your voice, Sieun’s hands working to mix the dark sea of cocoa batter.

You had assumed the role of a conductor but managed to pull a mess over you like a magnet. Whatever hadn’t been mixed into the warm batch of brownies basking atop Sieun’s countertop had found consolation on your being—cocoa powder and melted butter and drying batter decorated your skin and sweater.

Sieun thought it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

Of course, Sieun had missed any defiant ingredient attacks entirely.

You’d both picked up a piece each, melted chocolate furnishing your mouths while Sieun, starry-eyed and attentive, listened to you babble about your stress baking and how, no matter the many times you made something, you’d always be left with a bit of a messy souvenir from the process.

It was during this instance when the rain had hit.

Hard and harsh and pattering ferociously against the window of his measly living room. You and Sieun had snapped your heads at the sound, sticky embellishments of chocolate coating your fingers.

You’d looked so worried, so consumed in the thought of how you’d walk home through what was practically a typhoon. You hadn’t checked for a storm warning, all you’d known was a chance of rain. Your umbrella wouldn’t have stood a chance.

You’d looked so worried, so it felt almost natural when Sieun suggested you just stay over.

“...Really?” Your eyes were breaking past their sockets, and Sieun had nerely felt the weight of his words crash over him until your orbs softened and he saw the ghost of a smirk brush past your lips.

“Yeah, you can’t get home through that,” his voice had been tinged with his radiation of care for you. His eyes swept over your chocolate-covered frame. “You can use my shower if you want. I’ll give you some clean clothes to wear.”

You’d obliged. Quite happily.

And now, Sieun sat at his desk, unfinished integral staring up at him, the muted sound of his shower silking through the wall, almost louder than the merciless storm outside his window.

Sieun hadn’t touched his sheets or pens since he’d retreated to his room, changed into his own set of nightwear, and lowered himself into his desk chair. He couldn’t focus.

How could he? When you were just a dozen feet away, naked and wet under the rush of his shower.

He knew he shouldn’t think about it, begged himself not to, but when his mind slipped over the way you had chocolate powder flowering your neck and underneath your sweater, he couldn’t help but let his mind run, just a little.

Run over the way your fingers probably tucked under the bottom of your sweater, dragging it up along your beautiful body and over your head. What had you worn underneath? Had you even worn anything?

In Sieun’s little fantasy, you hadn’t. You’d been bare for him under your clothes, and he’d been ready, quick to ravish you, to kiss and suck and bite at your warm skin.

But, that was just a fantasy.

In reality, it didn’t matter whether or not you’d worn anything underneath your sweater. Sieun had just helped you out, made things a little easier for you, eased your anxiety by offering an innocent sleepover so you wouldn’t have to sacrifice yourself to what was the making of an ocean outside his dorm.

It didn’t matter, just like his integral, still unfinished. Deferred. Mocking.

The blood had barely made it to his cock before it was rushing back to his brain.

A couple minutes more of unsuccessfully undressing the math symbols littering his half-blank page and you were padding your way into his room, feet bare, heels marginally lifted off the cold floor of his dorm. Your clothes were folded, carried atop your forearms, and your cute body was swallowed in his t-shirt and shorts, sleeves too long, neck hole too wide, fabric swaying just over your knees with each of your scampered steps.

You gaze at Sieun from the edge of his bed, clothes now tucked away in your backpack, the hem of his shirt twirling in your fingers.

God, Sieun thought you looked ethereal, bare-faced and in his clothes. The warm, mellow glow of his desk lamp illuminates your face like a halo. Your sweet angel eyes are drowning him far past the storm outside.

Sweet oblivious angel eyes. If only they could see the mess he’d made of you in his head.

“Are you ready to sleep, or do you want to study some more?” Your voice is so soft, so melodious bouncing within the confines of his skull, and your eyes twinkle just right, brightened from his lamp and the mere cast of moonlight simmering through his window.

“I’m done,” Sieun starts, “You take the bed. I’m going to sleep in the living room.”

He’s about to push himself up when you cross your cute arms, defiant and determined. He watches your eyes narrow, eyebrows dip with a scrunch.

“Absolutely not!” you chide, your squint piercing. Sieun stares, half stood. He sits back down.

“It’s not fair to you! I showed up, practically unannounced, had you press a couple buttons on my laptop because I was too incompetent to figure it out myself, then made you make brownies with me against your will since you don’t take any economic compensation! And I know you’re not done with your problem set, I can see it from here. It’s exactly how you left it before we made those godforsaken brownies! I completely butted into your evening and messed up your studying, so you best believe you’ll be sleeping in your own bed and getting a good night’s rest!”

You puff at the end, like you’d said it in one breath, forearms glued to each other, fingers digging into your biceps.

Sieun is still staring at you, face blank, eyes gentle.

“You’re not incompetent.”

You blink.

“That’s not the point, Sieun.” You huff, pointing to his blankets.

“Now, get to bed.”

His eyes flick, your attention on his bed now shared. There’s an ease in the air, one that helps to hoist Sieun from his desk chair, click his lamp off, and carry himself over to the side of his bed. He lifts the corner of his duvet, slides underneath, and lets it fall over him. All without a peep.

His eyes scan to your frame, still at the edge of his bed, still in his too-baggy clothes, still looking too ethereal for him to indulge below the moonlight’s gaze, even in your quarrelsome stance.

You stare back at him.

“Okay… good.” You sound stifled, almost suspicious of his obedience.

Your arms unclasp, a little dazed at how fast he’d listened to you. With a hesitant scratch to your neck, you shuffle to what would be your side of Sieun’s bed, just for tonight.

Even though Sieun wishes it could be a less transient arrangement.

But he was doing this to help you.

Afterall, you’d looked so worried.

Sieun watches your warm body roll onto his mattress, feels it dip with your added weight from across. You shamble to face him, the duvet bunching in your hands, a relaxed, content tilt gracing your lips. Your cheek presses against the pillow, eyes squinting with warmth and kindness and gratitude and what Sieun could describe as a fatally contagious ray of tranquility.

You look so sweet like this, cuddled into his bed in clothes—his clothes—that swallow your body whole. The rain had slowed, granting permission to an even larger crowd of moonlight to flow over your face.

Sieun thought you were unreal, a mythical being from a dreamy world far beyond the current celestial limits.

A mythical being who saw him only for his technological abilities.

You were only here for tonight. Sieun was just helping you.

Because you had looked so worried.

So, he rolls onto his side, nearing the edge of the bed, hands tittering close to an abyss.

“Goodnight,” he grumbles. He doesn’t bother to pull the duvet to his front, lets it hang just over his side, as if any extra movement would make him appear more visible to you.

You gape at his back.

“Sieun!”

Sieun closes his eyes. Perhaps the world around him wouldn’t see him if he couldn’t see the world.

You puff, a frustrated push of air that has Sieun squinting his eyes shut further. He feels the duvet minutely ruffle behind him, feels the dip of the mattress sink gradually.

“I don’t get it, are you actually upset?” Although you were quiet, you sounded so disgruntled, confused. Sieun could only wish he was better at this so he wouldn’t have to bear your honey-like voice convey such emotion, like thrones stuck in a cloud.

But, Sieun was Sieun. A man of minimal words who spoke the truth and nothing but—until now.

“No, just trying to get a good night’s rest.” Just trying to keep my mind off you, so close, for just one night.

“Ugh! Will you just turn around so I can talk to you?”

Your hand reaches out and grips the collar of Sieun’s shirt, a tight grip pulling him towards you, a gentle grip to avoid attempted murder.

His eyes pop open, a hand catching onto the taut fabric around his neck. If there was the slightest chance Sieun’s conscious was to succumb to strangulation tonight, he thinks he’d only remember the warmth of your fingers fogging over the back of his neck.

Sieun yields to your force, falling onto his back. Why are you so damn strong?

With a hatch of his neck, his eyes find yours in the dark room, the patch of moonlight from his window dimmed from the roar of thunder and familiar strikes of heavy droplets against the glass.

There’s light provocation simmering through your face, playful like a child in a game of tag.

“Talk about what?” His voice is quiet but firm, his body a statue sandwiched between the mattress and sheets, daring not to move a millimeter.

You peer at him, words hanging along the tip of your tongue, as if debating whether they were worth speaking into the medium shared between your beings.

You decide they are.

“I know you take a fee from others when you fix their laptops.” There’s a quirk in his neck, a twitch at the corner of his lips that urges you further. “You’ve never taken one from me, even when I mention it. Why is that?”

Sieun feels a gradual quickening of his heartbeat at this concoction of your voice, and, like the start of a tornado, the thoughts in his head rampage into a whirlwind.

To be or not to be? Sieun, who previously seemed to lack any cognitive resources to solve his monster integral, was now calculating his next move with rigorous intricacy.

Maybe it was the kick in adrenaline that had him instigating your little game.

Sieun chose to be.

“Why do you think?”

Your eyes narrow in an instant, the entire play a chain reaction. Were you also debating your next actions, words? Were you also aware of the string snapping taut between you, tense and nearing a strong, sudden tear?

Sieun definitely was. Like always, he knew what he was getting himself into, knew he was igniting something far beyond repair, unlike the many laptops he’d resurrected.

Sieun knew what he’d started. He’d calculated it, perhaps from the very beginning, from the moment he uttered the word “stay.”

He was just helping you, for one night. Just one night.

You’d looked so worried, of course.

Perhaps Sieun had wanted your eyebrows to furrow from another force of nature—him.

Say something.

A quirk to your lips. Dark shadows in your eyes.

And a hand reaching out for his neck, this time to pull him to the plushest centre of your visage.

His lips graze the fullness of yours when you whisper in a breath.

“I knew to force start.”

Sieun isn’t spared a chance to retaliate his sockets stretching back when you press into him.

The dense pressure molds his own lips flush against yours, an electric fog swarming your face and down the flanks of your neck.

It’s a reflex, an abrupt, consuming, greedy reflex, when his arm curls over your back, big hand hastily grazing along your spine to knot into your hair.

Had Sieun fallen asleep?

This has to be a dream.

But your lips were too soft against his, too warm.

And your back curved so well along his forearm, strands so luxurious curled around his fingers.

Your hand on his chest, basking down his torso… Sieun believes he doesn’t possess even a speckle of the imagination required to muster a feeling as heavenly as that.

Definitely not enough to muster a feeling as heavenly as your hand sliding over him through his thin flannel pajamas.

You were a fallen angel who had come to play unsacred games.

And Sieun proved to be a worthy opponent.

His fingers grip around the base of your skull to pull you from his lips.

His eyes are heavy with a murmur of inquisition, flitting over your lips before boring into your own with words unspoken. You mirror his gaze with equal weight, savouring his quiet inhale when you push further down over his hardening curve, feathering your hand up to rest against the supple part of his abdomen.

“You know where this is going.” It was a statement, a quiet, breathless, almost restrained mutter carrying all the responsibility and uncertainty and anticipation littered within Sieun.

You gaze, knowing, unbothered.

“This is what you want? This is what you came for?”

“Yes,” you whisper, “Take it as part of my thanks.”

“I thought the brownies were your thanks.”

You smirk. “That was just the appetizer.”

Sieun scoffs quietly, a humble pfft to accompany the fingers gently rubbing over the bottom of your scalp, a means of easing into his next utterance.

You were drowning in his milk chocolate orbs, a velvety sea full of nothing but care and adoration and awe for you.

“Are you sure you want to go further?” Any quieter and the storm battering upon his window would have drowned his sound completely.

“Yes, Sieun.”

That was everything he needed to hear.

A gentle push to your neck has your lips pressing back into the plushness of his own.

It’s a slow kiss, chaste but blazing with the need you’d both been bearing for months. You move against the other, the ghost of anticipation urging you further into it.

Sieun definitely is not dreaming.

All his prior frustration, graced from his still unsolved practice set and the many long, agonizing weeks of indirect contact with you, melts away, leaving a tender warmth to dry in its place. Your lips feel as soft as—no, they were softer, so much softer, and warm like sun rays on cold skin—the many times he’d imagined the ghost of them wisping against his.

A transient ghost, barely lasting a mere tortuous ten seconds. He’d stop himself from savouring it, pry the ghost away before his hopes shot higher than the sky above him.

But now, you were here, tangible, with your mortal lips on his. They were so supple, so plush and warm and real. And they were flush against his. No one else but him.

Sieun had spent so long denying your fabricated being, the one who would distract him from his problem sets, urge him to isolate from the many gadgets his peers would throw his way in times of technological misfortune.

Sieun decided it was finally time to show you what your ghost had been doing to him.

He sucks in your bottom lip, hands grazing over your hips to pull you over his growing hardness with a delicate hold, treating your vessel like original vintage artwork. Fragile. Authentic. Godly.

The duvet shifts against your back while you shift over him, the core of your heat finding solace over his own. The hem of his borrowed t-shirt rides up your torso like it knows what’s coming.

It’s an abrupt, consuming, visceral feeling when you first connect with the stiff rod bulging against the stressed material of Sieun’s pajamas.

It’s the same for Sieun, so when a small groan muses from the depths of his throat at the feeling of your heat radiating along his length, he remains basking in its aftermath.

Lips still working into each other, you almost don’t acknowledge the slow, tantalizing roll of your hips.

Sieun does, and it drives him crazy.

Sieun, who was always so cool, composed, and distant was now growing hot and undone, all while pressing himself further into you, meeting you at an undefined middle, ridding any and all separation from your heating bodies from the insufferable vexation of need.

His hands knead into your hips, bearing your heat further along him, before they configure to push himself up while embracing you flush against his chest.

You’re consuming him, physically and mentally. Your lips on his, your body wrapped tightly around his own, hot cunt slowly grinding over the hard curve of his cock, a barrier of too much fabric plastered between your beings and pushing you both into frustrated desperation.

Your name, your scent, the suppleness of your skin, they all fog his head, conquer it with the ghost of you.

Both your mortal and immortal forms had possessed him, consumed him whole until he was nothing but a spec of utter devotion to you and you only.

Your hips grind again, slow, sinful, and Sieun’s breath stutters against your mouth.

You feel the shiver that rebounds through him like a tremor, feel the tight grip of his hands at your waist falter before steadying again, tighter this time, as if he needs to anchor you, or maybe himself.

His lips leave yours only to trail hot, desperate, open-mouthed kisses along your jaw, your neck, your crescent of skin beyond the shirt’s collar, the devotion in each press of his mouth turning you molten.

“You feel…” he murmurs, barely audible, like he’s speaking to himself, “…too good. Too good to be real.”

You tilt your hips forward again, slower this time, answering him with equal desperation, and Sieun’s head tips back, a ragged exhale pulling from his throat. The sight strikes you—his lashes trembling, his brows knit together in pleasure so raw it borders on pain. He looks ruined.

Kiss-swollen lips and flushed cheeks, shades of pink colonizing his visage in the shower of eventide luminosity.

You don’t realize you’ve gasped until his gaze finds you again, pupils blown wide and gleaming with disbelief. His thumbs rub along your hip bones, a fragrant sensation even through the fabric of his shorts you adorned.

Your hands glide under his shirt, pushing up until he’s reaching for the edge himself, prying the shirt past his head and letting the fabric fall to the cold hardwood beneath his bed.

His hands slip beneath the hem of your own, and his touch is hesitant, wavering, like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he reaches too far.

“Can I…?” he asks, voice husky and threadbare, already tugging at the fabric.

You nod. His hands glide up, slow and reverent, brushing over the curves and valleys he’s only ever imagined, each touch leaving heat in its wake.

He drinks in the sight of you like he’s been thirst-starved for days, gentle eyes falling over your face and down to your taut peaks. You weren’t a ghost anymore—you were a dream, glowing and radiant beneath the muted haze of damp moonlight.

And when your bare chest presses to his, skin to skin, nothing between you but the thundering pace of your hearts, Sieun chokes out a soft, desperate moan.

The ghost of you has vanished.

What remains is you—real and soft and warm and all his.

And he’s no longer a boy haunted by longing. He’s a man who’s finally allowed to feel.

Your fingers find the nape of his neck, weaving into the soft strands of his hair, and the sound he lets out—broken, hushed, completely unguarded—settles somewhere deep in your chest.

Sieun’s lips return to yours with more urgency now, less caution, the kind that only comes when desire and restraint blur into the same overwhelming thing. His tongue traces your bottom lip before slipping inside, gentle, exploratory, worshipping, like he’s memorizing you.

Every movement of his hips under you is hesitant but needy, as if he’s still trying to slow himself down, still trying to process that you’re not slipping away.

“You’re driving me insane,” he whispers against your mouth, voice hoarse and cracking like lightning behind the storm-glassed windows.

He kisses you again, softer now, almost like an apology for how his hands are now gripping at the swell of your thighs with mounting desperation.

Then, with a breath that shakes against your lips, Sieun pulls back. Only just.

“Lie back,” he murmurs, voice low, thick with something you’ve never heard from him before. Anticipation, maybe. Hunger, definitely.

You do, painfully unlatching from his warmth and sinking into the pillow behind you.

Sieun follows, crawling down the length of your body like a man crossing sacred ground, his drowsy gaze never leaving you. It lingers on the slope of your neck, the lines of your collarbone, the tender stretch of skin bare to the cool air of his bedroom. Each inch he memorizes like scripture, utterly fascinated and unspeakably enamoured.

“You’re…” he begins, almost too quiet to even comprehend, but trails off, like no word quite fits what you are to him.

And then you see it. The way adoration turns to ache.

A valley of creases between his brows, a marginal slit parting his pout, the quickened wisps of air trailing out of him. He’s wrecked, far past.

And you had barely touched him.

Sieun’s hands slide up your thighs, calloused fingertips brushing along the waistband of the very shorts he lent you, the ones riding too low on your hips, the ones he's dreamed about you in far too many nights to count.

He kisses the inside of your knee.

Then your thigh.

Then the soft dip just above your hip bone.

His hands move, thumbs hooking into the waistband. There’s a beat—one last, wordless check—and then he draws them down.

And stops breathing.

You’re bare beneath them. No panties. Just slick, glistening proof of how long you’ve wanted this too.

“Fuck,” he breathes, like it’s been torn from him. His jaw goes slack, eyes shadowed with affection and disbelief. “You didn’t wear—?”

He doesn't finish. He can't.

His hands twitch.

You’ve rendered Yeon Sieun speechless.

Sieun blinks once, twice, like he’s trying to process the sight before him, trying not to let it undo him entirely.

But it does.

It does.

He swallows hard, jaw flexing as his eyes drag along the slick sheen glistening between your thighs, warm and glimmering and pooling out of you sans constraint.

His hands settle on your hips again, firm, needy, desperate.

“You’ve been like this this whole time?” he whispers, voice hoarse, eyes flickering up to meet yours, the question half-shattered already. “Wearing my shorts… like this?”

You don’t have time to answer.

Because Sieun leans in, drawn like a man starved, mouth ghosting just above your heat and breathing you in.

His composure fractures there.

A low, guttural sound breaks from his throat as he presses a slow, devoted kiss to your core. Just one.

Then another. Then again, deeper, wetter, until his tongue slides through your folds with a trembling groan of restraint and craving colliding all at once.

Your hips twitch and Sieun’s grip tightens instinctively, his fingers digging into your waist to anchor you to him like you might vanish otherwise.

His tongue moves again, slow and patient, still trying to worship even while losing his mind.

But you’re so wet, and he’s so gone.

Each soft moan that slips from your lips draws another shaky exhale from him, each roll of your hips a crack in his control.

He tries to keep it measured. Gentle.

But then he hears you gasp his name, all broken and raw, and something inside him snaps.

His pace quickens.

He licks into you deeper, more desperate, tongue flicking, flattening, circling like he’s chasing a high that stubbornly runs just a step out of his reach. His nose brushes your clit and he doesn’t even think to pull back.

He wants it all.

You feel his moan against you, deep and wrecked, and you realize:

Sieun isn’t composed anymore.

He’s hungry.

Possessed.

And completely, unbearably devoted to the taste of you.

You’re gasping now, each breath shallower than the last, and Sieun can feel you trembling beneath his palms.

It spurs him on, wrecks him in ways he never knew were possible.

His thumbs rub slow circles into your hips, as if to soothe you, steady you, but his mouth is relentless, nose tirelessly working into your nub. His tongue is languid one moment, then firmer the next, lapping through your folds with aching, focused precision, memorizing all that makes you fall apart.

You roll into a nimble arch, head tipping back, and your thighs quiver where they rest over his shoulders.

“Sieun—” you whimper.

His name breaks in your throat, and that’s what crumbles him.

He groans into you again, the vibration shooting straight through your core as he licks you harder now, deeper, more rhythmic, mouth coaxing you right to the edge, right to the place he’s been aching to take you.

His hands are cradling your hips now, keeping you spread open, helpless, vulnerable, his.

And then he whispers it, barely audible, a prayer into your skin.

“Come for me.”

Your breath catches.

“Let me taste all of you,” he mumbles again, like he’s asking for divinity, like your pleasure is holy.

And when you finally do, when your body tenses and your thighs clamp tight around his head and that beautiful cry of his name leaves your lips, Sieun doesn’t stop.

He groans into you, licking you through it, drinking it in like he’s never tasted something more sacred.

Like he’s never belonged more to anything—anyone—than he does to you in this moment.

And even after the tremors still, even when you’re limp and gasping and glowing beneath him, he keeps kissing you softly, as if he can’t bear to let you go just yet.

As if this is how he says I’ve wanted you like this forever.

You’re still panting when he pulls back, lips slick and pink, eyes hooded and blown wide with awe. He looks stunned. Disheveled. Like a man undone by worship.

But you, trembling and aching and desperate to have all of him, manage to find your voice.

“Sieun,” you whisper, reaching for him. Your fingers trail along his jaw, coaxing him up until he’s hovering over you again. “I want more.”

His breath hitches.

Your palm slides over his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart beneath his ribs. “I want you inside me.”

Sieun stills completely.

And then his eyes close, jaw tightening as if your words alone could undo the last shreds of his composure.

“Fuck,” he breathes, voice rough with disbelief.

He kisses you, not hard, not hurried, but slow and deep, like it’s all he can do to keep from losing control. You savour the heady taste of your slick coating his lips. He presses his forehead to yours, and mutters shakily, “One second.”

You watch as he reaches for the drawer beside his bed and pulls out a condom from the crumpled blue box Hu-min had shoved at him weeks ago with a stupid grin and no explanation.

He’d meant to throw them out. He hadn’t.

He tears the foil open with controlled fingers and slides his flannels and boxers off his body, finally bearing himself free.

He’s thick, flushed, already leaking from the tip. He hisses under his breath as he rolls the condom on, fingers twitching like he’s barely holding it together.

When he settles between your thighs, eyes drowning in your sight, the air changes.

Gone is the boy who’s too quiet, too closed off, too powered from the urge of indignation.

What remains is Sieun drowned in passion, eyes wide and dreamy and dazed by the sight of you spread open for him, the warmth of your body beckoning his own.

“You sure?” he asks again, voice almost too tender.

You nod, pulling him down into a kiss, and guide him with a soft whisper, “Yes. Please, Sieun. I want all of you.”

He exhales shakily.

Then he lines himself just beyond your heat, and with a leisurely push of his hips, he slides inside.

You both gasp.

You’re hot and wet and hug onto his inching cock, and he sinks in like he’s always meant to belong there.

“God—” he grits, arms trembling on either side of you as he tries not to lose it too fast, forehead dropping to your shoulder.

“You’re…” His voice cracks. “So good. So—gosh, I don’t—”

You wrap your legs around him, anchoring him to you, and moan when he rocks forward again, deeper this time. You feel everything, every inch, every pulse, every lazed drag.

He starts slow, shallow, testing your fit, his own restraint. His hips roll into yours with a tender kind of ache, like he’s afraid to break you, like each inch of him inside you is a miracle he can’t fully comprehend.

But your body answers with desperate softness, clinging to him like silk caught in wind. You tilt your hips, chasing more friction, and whimper at the way his cock presses deeper, fuller, perfectly where you need him.

Sieun moans, a sound so broken and quiet it nearly guts you.

“Please,” you breathe, clutching at his back, your voice hitching with each movement. “Don’t hold back.”

His jaw clenches. His eyes flutter shut.

And then he moves deeper, hips rocking into you with a fluid rhythm that makes your breath stutter and your legs tighten around him.

The friction is delicious. The stretch, overwhelming yet cosmic.

Sieun presses closer, burying his face further into your neck, panting softly against your skin.

“You’re so—” He chokes on a groan as your walls flutter around him. “You feel unreal.”

You drag your nails lightly down his spine, whispering back between moans.

He fucks into you slowly, like it’s sacred. Each thrust is a vow, a prayer, an unraveling. His hands are everywhere—one gripping your thigh to anchor you to him, the other cradling your jaw like you’re too precious to let go.

Your body sings for him. You meet each movement with your own, hips rising to greet him, rolling and shifting to take him deeper, to keep him close.

Your moans mingle with his gasps, the heat between you building with every thrust, until there’s nothing left of restraint, only the desperate, languid drag of two bodies finding rhythm in devotion.

Sieun lifts his head to look at you—really look—and what he sees makes his hips stutter.

Your face, flushed and shining, lips parted, still pink and swollen, eyes glassy with bliss and admiration.

You’re breathtaking. And right now, you were his.

He moans again, broken and stunned, and leans down to kiss you like he’ll fall apart if he doesn’t, slow, messy, teeth grazing lips, all while his hips begin to move faster, harder, chasing something he’s never dared imagine before you.

Your bodies are slick with heat and need, the world around you reduced to nothing but the way he fits, the way he fills, the way he worships you with every thrust.

Sieun is whispering your name like a lifeline, like it’s the only word he knows, murmured into the skin of your throat, your jaw, your lips, as if it can tether him to reality while he teeters on the edge of something vast and consuming.

“You feel so good,” he rasps, voice hoarse and reverent. “So perfect—you’re perfect.”

Your back arches, body shuddering as he angles his hips just right, deep and slow and precise, hitting that spot inside you that makes gush over his length.

Your moans turn high and breathless, desperate.

“Sieun—” you gasp, legs tightening around his waist, pulling him in deeper. “I’m close—oh my god—”

He knows.

He feels it, the way you start to flutter and squeeze around him, the way your breaths collapse into whimpers. And even through the haze of his own rising pleasure, Sieun slows down just enough to draw it out for you, to feel every trembling second of it.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers, breath stuttering. “Come, please.”

And you do.

It rushes over you in waves—white-hot, pulsing, unstoppable—your climax washing through your entire body with a strangled moan, your limbs tightening, your voice shaking as you cry out his name.

Sieun swears under his breath, something desperate and soft, and then he loses it.

The way you clamp around him, slick, pulsing, so warm, is all it takes to send him spiraling. His rhythm falters, hips stuttering, muscles trembling as the pressure finally breaks. He groans, deep and guttural, and spills into the condom with a few last shallow thrusts, his whole body curling into yours like he’s trying to fuse the two of you together.

And when it’s over, when the tremors in both your bodies begin to subside and your chests press together in exhausted, blissful rhythm, he stays.

Buried in you, breathless, consumed. His forehead pressed to yours, his lashes fluttering, lips ghosting your cheek.

And finally, his lips quirk at the corners, gracing his features with a small, gentle smile.

Because he decides he won’t be washing his shorts.

And he thinks he’ll get you to ruin another pair when you bring your laptop over for him under the guise of fixing it again.

৬ৎ 𝑙𝑒𝑒'𝑠 𝑝𝘰𝑠𝘵𝑙𝑢𝑑𝑒 ࿐ i decided for a soft, feral rendition of sieun’s university au. this will be the last weak hero fic i write before i move onto skz and atz! need more? you can read hyuntak’s version over here ⌯⌲ smart girl

───── how do we feel about starting a taglist?

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writeriguess · 2 days ago

Note

Okay, first of all, I ADORE your writing! You just GET the characters, and I seriously look up to you. You even made me wanna write Bakugo again, and I thought I was past that phase. Anyway, is it weird to request a fanfic of a fanfic? Because I cannot write smut to save my life. No pressure at all, but I wrote Bakugo with an unhinged, lovestruck reader who’s always trying to win him over while he pretends not to care (but totally does). They end up together, and I’d love a fic where reader tries to surprise him with something sexy in her usual chaotic way. He’s surprised, laughs, but ultimately goes along with it because, well, that’s why he loves her. Some fluffy, comedic smut, if you’re up for it. But if not, no worries at all. Just wanted to shoot my shot!

Laced with Chaos

Katsuki Bakugo has been dealing with your bullshit for a long time.

It started with the relentless, borderline concerning pursuit. Grand declarations of love in public places. Handmade gifts that ranged from endearing to downright dangerous. A once-a-week habit of sneaking into his agency, just to throw him finger guns and whisper "call me, Dynamight" before security dragged you out.

And, to be fair, you did eventually win him over.

He’d begrudgingly fallen for the way your chaotic energy filled every room you entered, how you never took his attitude personally, how you loved him so unapologetically he didn’t stand a chance. It had been inevitable. Unavoidable. His fate, whether he liked it or not.

Still, if there was one thing he should have expected by now, it was that you’d never stop being a walking, talking, sexier-than-you-had-any-right-to-be problem.

Which is why, when he comes home from patrol and finds you standing in the bedroom doorway, draped in sheer black lace, holding what appears to be a homemade whip crafted out of shoelaces and a broken phone charger—he nearly drops his duffel bag.

“…The fuck?”

Your grin is dazzling. “Welcome home, Dynamight. Hope you’re ready for a night of debauchery and sin.”

Oh god. You’re doing a voice.

He squints, stepping closer. "The hell is on your head?"

It’s a DIY lace veil, of course. Because of course you’d take it that extra step.

"Do you like it?" You wiggle your shoulders in what he thinks is supposed to be a seductive manner. "I thought I’d spice things up, you know? Give you a night to remember. Make all your dirtiest fantasies come true."

Bakugo drags a hand down his face. "Why do I feel like you're about to hit me with a theme?"

“Because I am,” you say brightly. "I call this... The Fallen Angel: A Tale of Lust and Damnation.”

He chokes. "A tale—?!"

"You found me, broken and longing," you continue, as if you didn’t just give him an aneurysm. "Cast from the heavens for the crime of loving too hard.” A pause. Then, seriously, “And maybe also tax fraud. But mostly love.”

He wants to die. He wants to walk into the ocean and never come back.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. "What the fuck am I listening to right now?"

"A story, Katsuki," you say with conviction. "Our story. One of passion, redemption, and—"

"I'm gonna stop you right there." He sighs heavily, tossing his duffel onto the floor. "Where’d you even get that outfit?"

You gesture grandly to the bed. “Oh, I made it.”

Bakugo looks.

There, in a heap of suffering, lies a pile of butchered lingerie. Expensive-looking lace bras that have been haphazardly cut into strange, asymmetrical shapes. A pair of fishnets with the crotch completely obliterated (why). And, off to the side, a sewing kit he knows you have no idea how to use.

His eye twitches. “Babe."

“Yeah?”

“…Is that superglue?”

“Maybe.”

He prays for patience. “Why?”

“Because stitches take too long.”

He closes his eyes. Counts to five. Opens them again. "You glued yourself into your own outfit?"

You lift your chin. "Wouldn't be the first time."

He stares at you. You stare back.

Then, slowly—so painfully slowly—Bakugo exhales, and a grin twitches at the corner of his lips.

And that’s when you know.

“Oh my god,” you breathe, stepping closer, hands pressed to your heart. “Are you laughing?”

His jaw clenches. “No.”

"You are."

“Shut up.”

"You love me."

He grabs you, hauls you into his arms, and throws you onto the bed before you can gloat any further. You squeal, but it immediately turns to a giggling mess as he lands on top of you, pinning you beneath his weight.

“Listen,” he says, voice low, fingers curling beneath your chin. “You wanna be a fuckin’ menace? Fine. But you do not have to DIY your damn lingerie, dumbass.”

You pout up at him, thoroughly unrepentant. “But I wanted to make it special.”

His thumb brushes your bottom lip. His eyes darken. “…Tch. The only thing special about this is the fact that you haven’t glued yourself shut.”

You bat your lashes at him. “Would you still hit it if I did?”

He barks a laugh, loud and rough and real, before dragging his teeth over your neck. “Don’t test me, idiot.”

You shiver, tilting your head, giving him more access. “You’re not mad?”

He nips at your skin, soothing the sting with his tongue. “Nah.”

Your heart soars. “So you do like it—”

He bites you harder, shutting you up with a sharp gasp. “Don’t push it.”

You whimper, squirming beneath him. His hands slide down your sides, slipping beneath the sham of a lace bodysuit you’ve trapped yourself in, and—

—rrrRIIIIP!

You gasp. "Bakugo!"

"What?" He grins, teeth sharp, voice smug. “Just helpin’ you out, babe. Ain't like you're gettin' outta this thing on your own.”

Your mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.

Then, finally—“…Hot.”

He laughs again, this time softer, and presses his forehead to yours. “You drive me crazy,” he mutters. “But fuck if I don’t love the shit outta you.”

And then—well.

You do end up making it a night to remember.

Just… maybe not the way you originally planned.

#bakugou katsuki x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #katsuki x reader #bakugou x y/n #bakugou x you #bakugou x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #x reader #bakugo x reader #bakugo x you #bakugo x y/n #bnha #mha #mha fanfiction #my hero academia #boku no hero academia

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certifiedlovergirlsstuff · 2 days ago

Text

sleeping with other people | s.h. x fem!reader (inappropriate language and sexual content)

1990, a shitty apartment somewhere in indiana

“billy! i know you’re fucking in there! let me in you asshole, don’t try and hide when we both just need a fuck!” it was eight thirty at night as you were banging a heavy fist against a wooden door. you were ignoring the plenty of other occupants staring from their doorframes as you kicked a boot foot with a strength that almost brought you to the floor.

“hey!” you turned to see some older man storming over to you, a dark blue bathrobe flowing with the air from his stride. “you need to get the hell out of here or i’m calling the police.”

“i’m visiting someone, i’m doing nothing wrong.” huffing as you crossed your fishnet covered arms over your chest. a hip cocked, the bottom of your mini shirt tickling your upper thighs.

“well if that someone doesn’t claim you in the next minute, you better get your ass moving or you’ll be loitering.” the older man giving the same sass back.

“uh, i’m-i’m her someone.” a younger voice announced. you and the man turned to see a guy, probably in his twenties like you, wearing a loose t-shirt and plaid pajama pants. his hair was thick and full, looking a bit of a riot. “yeah, sorry. i was sleeping, sa- sam. you know me, the apocalypse couldn’t wake me up.” he chuckled nervously, you eyed him up and down.

“you want to be responsible for this mess?” “hey!”

the guy stepped between you and grumpy face, “yeah it’s all good. no more problems for the night, promise mr. johnson.” the man “hmmp” eyed you up and down then turned away.

the other tenets lingered for a moment longer before your new friend started to direct you to, what you assumed, was his apartment. it was pretty much a dorm room, an even tinnier studio. you just flopped onto his bed, the springs creaking from your thrown weight, and heard the rolling wheels of a chair then a sigh.

“so…what’s-what’s your name? guessing it’s not actually sam.” boy savior tried to break the thickening silence, patting noises bouncing off his four walls. “i’m steve.”

“y/n.” giving a mindless wave of your hand as you let your eyes focused on his popcorn ceiling. you just wanted a fuck now you’re just talking with some random dude. pushing onto your elbows you observe the boy, steve, across from you. a tilted of your head you noted how he was covered in freckles, a slight stubbed was darkening his upper lip and jaw, he tried to avoid looking your way with a slight red running up his neck. cute.

“do you know billy hargrove?” abruptly asking about your go to fuck buddy. you saw the way steve’s brows twitched and he made a slight face, “uh not really. just super annoying, plays loud rock music and there’s always a girl leaving his room.” his eyes drifting to his lap as he picked at his pants fabric.

you rolled your eyes, “can’t believe i’m attracted to that stupid guy.” dropping your head back down, a sharp sting in your chest at the confirmation he couldn’t give a flying shit about you. not like you, always running back to be in his arms.

steve coughed, “yeah…uh, no offense but what’d you see in him anyway? like you’re completely out of his league.”

you gave a huff, “he choose me out of a room full of extremely beautiful women. that doesn’t happen to me and…i don’t know. guess he kinda always made me feel beautiful for an hour and i became addicted to it.” saying it aloud made you feel ice cold, a chill that just sat in your heart.

“well you probably already know this, but you deserve better. like thousands times better, someone who’s always gonna put you first.” steve’s voice got soft, sardonic and sweet. it made your stomach tangle together.

you joked, “and is that someone gonna be you? since you were my savior for the night?” but you weren’t opposed to the idea, if you could still have sex tonight that’s a win for you. and if it’s with a better guy then it’s a huge fuck you to billy.

“uh-i-i mean…i wouldn’t mi-mind being that for you…” again you pushed onto your elbows, brows cocked at steve’s stuttering, it was endearing and sweet. he squeezed his eyes shut tight and it caused his face to scrunch up then his hands started moving through the air, “in general. i-i don’t want you to think i’m taking advantage or-or something gross, but i-i would be that person to put you first.”

a smile appeared on your face, “that’s very bold of you to say when we’ve only know each other for…like ten minutes.” you changed your position on his bed from laying on your back to shuffling onto your stomach with palms holding your cheeks.

steve shrugged, “what can i say, i’m a bold guy. and i don’t know, you just have a good energy or whatever about you. my friend told me sometimes you just know right away if someone’s good or bad.”

“wise friend.” “oh definitely, but only on certain things. her taste in food is another thing to worry about.”

the silence settled over again and then, “hey steve, wanna have sex?” he coughed, “what?” you shrugged, “what? i can’t be a bold girl?” he blinked rapidly, “no-no that’s…i’m just-are you sure?”

you tucked some hair behind your ear, “your a good guy steve, no one else would’ve taken a screaming girl into their home. and i’ll be honest, i kinda want to see how well you treat a gal. are you a giver or taker?” wiggling your brows suggestively.

steve scuffed, “i’ll happily give all night.” with that you pushed back onto your knees, eyes hooded while your fingers played with the hem of your skirt, “then why don’t you come show me.”

he stayed in his seat, eyes trailing over you. “are you sure?” voice breathy. you nodded your head and that was the signal that allowed for him to step closer and rest a knee into his comforter. his large palms caressed your warm cheeks, a thumb tugging at your plum colored bottom lip.

“i’ll give you everything you deserve.”

2007, a chinese restaurant

paul was…what’s the word? he’s fucking boring. but he was a nice guy and you needed to be with nice guys, but all those other things just combined into a bigger boring mess. you had to withhold an eye roll every ten minutes whenever he coughed, even his coughing bothers you!

“so i was telling sandra about how i was thinking we were in the market for a place, together, and maybe to even start a family. but that was just an after thought, i’m not sure what your stance on that is still. but i was thinking somewhere in the more suburban areas, you could-“

“i’m sorry,” mind running off its tracks the longer he talked. “i-i uh, there was something i actually wanted to tell you tonight. my therapist thought it would be a good idea.” pulling a folded piece of paper from your clutch, running your palms over the wrinkled lines.

you cleared your throat, “paul-“ “y/n.” your nostrils flared at the simple interruption. “paul, my therapist suggested that i come clean about something i’ve been withholding and i agree, wanting to move forward honestly.”

you heard him give a small scuff, “well i don’t think you need to pay a therapist for that.” “paul, please just-“ he held his hands up, “right. sorry, lips sealed.”

a deep breath, “my therapist says i have sexual anxiety, meaning whenever i’m feeling a certain way i always go back to this one person over and over again, no matter if the outcome is the same.” you rubbed your rouge lips together, “i’ve been cheating on you with someone else from the beginning of our relationship.”

he was quiet, the restaurant was buzzing with idle chatter around you, your blood was rushing in your ears. “and also, we should breakup.” icing on the fucking cake.

paul puckered his lips while nodding his head, a slight humorless huff, “a big it’s not you it’s me. because yeah, this is all you, y/n. you could’ve just said something from the beginning, but nope! you had to cheat on me this entire fucking time!” he was practically screaming and all eyes were on the two of you.

“paul, i-i’m really sor-“ “you’re a fucking whore. a goddamn sex fiend whore!” and with that dramatic display he stormed out of the restaurant leaving you shaking in place. somehow, someway your brain kicked into gear and rushed you outside of the restaurant into the lukewarm night. with shaky fingers you managed to pull up his number and send a simple, ‘hey’. slamming your eyes shut, you tilted your head to the sky and tried to stop any tears from falling. and then your phone pinged.

‘come over’

2007, a video store

“have a good day sir.” three second beat, “jackass,” mumbled under steve’s breath. no one was ever satisfied with simple customer service these days, they basically want your hand up their ass and puppet them around so they don’t have to think for them to be satisfied. or in robin’s cause, you need to smile more and satisfy every male customer that enters the store.

“you wanna get drunk after work?” robin asked once she walked up to the counter and dropped off a box of return dvds. steve smiled at her idea, “what happened today that you want to forget so badly?” chatting while getting to work on the computer.

robin sighed dramatically, her default mode, “i tripped in front of a really cute girl and that resulted in some dvds crashing to the ground. and i still have to go pick them up, i just walked away! then i could hear soft giggling, they sounded so pretty, but god it’s cause i looked like a doofus!” her hands smacked her temples.

steve just shook his head and ignore the doorbell until he heard someone yelling, “you fucking asshole!” that caught his attention. his head whipped in time to get smacked back into its original position, pretty sure he felt his brain rattle for a second. “you cheated on me with my cousin! what the hell is your problem?”

he had to blink a few times before he was sure his vision was clear. standing on the other side of the counter stood a fuming blonde, her nails almost leaving scratch marks on the wood top. “hey…ste-“ “it’s sarah.”

“sarah, right. sorry. uh it’s just that we’ve only been having casual…sex.” dropping his voice when he remembered this was his place of work. he turned to robin, “give me five?” she just nodded with wide eyes.

“let’s talk outside.” persuading sarah into leaving those nosy old people behind compared to the busy working crowd. she leaned against the brick wall while steve watched her with his hands sitting on his hips, “okay like i was saying, we were only having casual sex. you explicitly stated that and i was taking your word for it. so after two months if you wanted something more you should’ve said something.”

sarah huffed, “me? you also could’ve said something! didn’t you want more after a month?” steve licked his lips, “no, not really. i-i couldn’t find a spark with you that was worth searching for.”

“so you fucked my cousin. was that your dramatic way of saying this was over?” “…kinda?”

next thing steve knew, a fist punched him in the nose.

2007, a sex addict meeting (that’s a real thing?)

“before i started this program i thought ‘love’ was a feeling. but that’s bullshit, it’s not a feeling it’s a decision, like everything else. and i see now that when i was in my addiction i made the decision over and over again to choose sex over my self-worth. and it doesn’t mean that i don’t like sex now it doesn’t mean i’m not a sexual person. gail. i don’t need to go trolling online looking for women to go down on. i don’t need to fuck eight guys on one night. i don’t deny what i’ve done. i embrace my past. yes, i did once call one of my neighbors in the middle of the day when he was at work and said, ‘grab some condoms and meet me at the delicious soft pretzel place.’ who cares? i did let someone put a protein bar up my ass once. big deal. i did hack into my supermarkets instagram account and posted a picture of my asshole and said, ‘there was a sale on asshole.’ and then said, ‘come and lick my asshole if you’re bald.’”

you had to leave that meeting before you started laughing at something you weren’t supposed to, plus you couldn’t stop checking if he texted you every five seconds. this was something your therapist suggested you attend, but after tonight you probably won’t be attending another meeting.

a cool breeze tickled your cheek just as you heard someone speak. “holy shit, no way.” you looked over your shoulder to see a guy standing on the building steps with his eyes focused on you, planning to ignore him was changed once you realized your recognized that face.

a soft laugh, “what the hell? steve?” moving closer as he descended the final two steps, automatically pulling each other into a hug. you leaned back with your arms still holding his waist, “wow it’s been so long, like ten-“

“seventeen years.” he quickly corrected you. that made your eyes widen and step back, “wow. and you still look the same, just more matured.” letting your eyes wonder over a forgotten piece of your past.

“you look even more beautiful,” he spoke the sentiment so easily. “so what’ve you been up to?” slipping past his comment quickly onto neutral ground. you lightly scoffed your boot against the concrete, “uh yeah, i-i work with kids, shockingly. kindergarten, little fuckers piss me off, but it keeps me from wanting kids everyday and i appreciate that.”

that got steve to laugh loudly and you followed after a beat when you realized how insane that sounded outside your brain. “i just-i already see them as my own kids and some are more like younger siblings in a way. but yeah…not planning to add to the population anytime soon.” rambling like you were trying to save face.

“no yeah, totally understandable. i have friends with younger siblings and they are such little shits, but i really do love them.” steve stuck his hands into his jacket pockets, “actually i meant to ask you, what’s a girl like you doing in that shit hole?” nodding his head at the building behind you both.

“and i have that same question for you. whatcha doing here girlfriend? you a supposed sex addict?” taking a quick glance at your phone, no message. you turned back to steve who was watching you with raised brows.

“what?” “got a booty call to take care of?” you scoffed, “no. just waiting for something important.”

steve hummed, “well um, if you’re free…would you like to get dinner? catch up a bit more?” he bounced slight on his feet. you debated blowing him-off-but you really didn’t have anything waiting for you, especially not him. “got a place in mind?”

one hour later, a small diner

“no way! she really whacked you hard.” leaning over the table slightly to see how steve’s nose still held some black and purple bruises. “bet she had a good reason for it though, am i right?” pointing a salty fry at him with squinting eyes.

he sighed, “yeah.” a hand rubbed the back of his neck, “i sorta slept with her cousin…” “boy or girl?” feeling a plot twist coming.

“…boy.” “oh how scandalous!” smiling widely around your straw. he rolled his eyes, but kept his head ducked low, long strands of his hair shadowing his eyes.

“hey steve?” he hummed around a bite of his burger. you taped your nails on the table, “you remember billy hargrove?” that caused steve to choke on his food, the loud coughing drawing eyes to your booth. you smiled just a bit at the amusement.

“hargrove? what-what about him?” managing to swallow some root beer and wipe away his tears. you replied more to the table then steve as you mumbled, “i’ve been sleeping with him on and off for the past fifteen years.” quickly sucking on your straw, chugging down your milkshake.

a beat then, “wow that’s…i’ll be honest that’s sad.” brows furrowed as your jaw dropped, a little milkshake sliding onto your chin, “and you constantly cheating isn’t?” trying to defend your actions.

steve held a finger up, “first of all, i’m cheating with new and interesting people. you cheat on your partners with the same asshole that you keep crawling back to. now that’s a toxic cycle.” and he…wasn’t wrong.

“fuck,” groaning to yourself. “i really need to get over this awful attachment i have to him. it’s genuinely ruining my chances of having a happy relationship, that fucking parasite!” slightly yelling the last bit.

“yes the parasite and the…other parasite. cause let’s be honest it’s an equal parasitic relationship if you think about it, his side is just more deeply concealed.” steve wiped a finger clean of ketchup with his mouth, your eyes followed the movement. you felt that knot in your stomach.

“i really want to fuck you right now,” blurting the thought out. steve was taking a sip of soda at the exact moment and it ended up spraying the table, and a bit of your top. “sorry-sorry,” he coughed while grabbing a billion napkins to do damage control. you didn’t bother with your shirt, just covering it with your jacket for now.

“sorry didn’t mean to spring that on you, but i felt the need to say it. cause like, i like this sharing we’re doing, but i don’t want to mess it up and just constantly think about you sexually. on accident of course.”

“right,” steve covered his face with his hands for a moment, “um…how about this? we come up with a safe word whenever the other is doing something sexy.” running a hand through his dark strands.

you smirk, “are you saying the feeling is mutual?” steve smiled shyly and looked out the window for a moment, “of course it’s mutual. you got sexier and everything, everything about you is dangerous for me.”

you didn’t exknowledge his sentence, moving forward. “what if we use…avocado?” “too sexual.”

your brows jumped, “how is avocado too sexual?” “if you saw the way i cut one open then you would agree.” “are you just using your fucking bare hands? what are you a caveman?”

steve waved you off, “what about red light? very obvious to stop.” “nah, doesn’t sound fun. that’s the point of safe words, to kinda sound fun.”

he sighed, “okay what’s the worse thing you can think off? like something you know can cause someone great pain.” “dick in a mousetrap.”

steve recoiled, “jesus! where the hell did that come from?” he visibly shivered at the words. “such a sadist you are.”

you grinned brightly, “but it makes you scared, so we’ll shorten it to mousetrap.” you took a quick glance at your phone and realized how lates it’s gotten, “shit. sorry, but i gotta head home, need to make sure i have everything ready for work tomorrow.”

“oh yeah,” steve looked at his watch, “didn’t realize the time flew by.” he insisted that he pay the check and the both of you headed back onto the quiet night streets. you stood in front of each other, a distant street lamp casting its yellow glow.

you pulled a pen out of your purse, “give me your hand.” steve hesitated then stretched it out, “this…is my number. so we don’t have to do smoke signals or keep going to sex addict meetings to find each other.”

steve smiled while flexing his fingers, “smart. well this was definitely a pleasant turn of events, made my night.”

“me too,” twisting your body slightly. you didn’t want to leave but you had to. “well…talk to you later, boy savior.” and you headed off into the night, only looking over your shoulder twice to see him still watching you walk away.

to be continued

a/n: PLEASE GO WATCH THE MOVIE ITS ONE OF MY FAVORITE ROMCOMS!!!!!!!! also that’s what inspired this, like i’ve been wanting to do a fic inspired by the movie but i recently rewatched it with a friend and boom! inspiration!

#steve harrington imagine #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington #steve harrington fic #steve harrington reader insert #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington au #steve harrington smut #steve harrington stranger things #steve harrington angst #steve harrington x fem!reader #stranger things au #stranger things imagine #stranger things fic

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kikufufuku · 1 day ago

Text

unconsciously, you

pairings: university!bestfriend!gojo x reader

warnings: two idiots pining, mild angst, mild swearing, dumb(?) oblivious(?) gojo, soft!gojo, jealousy

wc: 6.5k-ish? first work! hope u guys like it ᵔᴗᵔ

Satoru considered himself as a smart man, no, he knew. He’s basically the pride of his university, flying to different countries to participate in academic challenges. His name never dipped below number one on the rankings. Ever.

Everybody knew him not only for his ability to answer algebra questions under 15 seconds but also because of his looks. With long white eyelashes, paired with stunning blue eyes—one wink and he could bring a girl to his knees. He did. Flirting with them as he laughed at how they looked. He couldn’t understand what they were feeling. To him, they were just pathetic. He was handsome. He was intelligent. That was a fact. A truth as absolute as gravity.

So why couldn’t he figure himself out?

Emotionally constipated Gojo Satoru who can’t seem to figure out what this specific feeling in his chest is.

Shoko lit up a cigarette.

She’s leaning next to the vending machine, ignoring Utahime’s complaints about how she shouldn’t do that on school grounds and she’ll get in trouble. As if Shoko gave a fuck. What are they gonna do? Expel her? As if. She knew they wouldn’t, no, they couldn’t. She was a top student and they couldn’t afford to lose her for the sake of the university.

“Ugh, fine, do whatever you want,” Utahime rolled her eyes, sipping her milk. “Where’s Geto anyway?”

“Right there, with Satoru,”

Utahime followed her line of vision and squinted, nodding as she saw their figures, standing near the grassy field.

“Geto looks like he's yapping his ass off,” Utahime snorted. “Gojo looks like he couldn’t give a shit.”

Shoko took a drag. “He’s doing it again,” she muttered.

“Hah? Do what? Gojo?”

“Yeah. He’s staring like a love-struck idiot.”

Utahime cackled, “To whom? Gojo? Love-struck? Please. That man flirts with air.”

But Shoko wasn’t smiling. “Exactly. He flirts with everyone. But he never stares.”

Utahime paused.

Gojo Satoru didn’t do romance.

He played with it—joked about it, teased it, weaponized it when it was convenient. But love? No.

He didn’t fall. He hovered safely above it, untouchable and unbothered.

And yet—

There he was.

“I doubt he even knows what he’s feeling,” Shoko exhaled a thin stream of smoke, amused. “He’s doing it subconsciously.”

“You think his feelings are reciprocated?”

“Hm.”

You laugh, running through the field as your friend chases you with a frog.

Satoru watches.

He knows he should be listening to whatever Suguru is saying, what he’s rambling about—maybe philosophy, the problems of the world, academics, who knows. Satoru sure as hell doesn’t know because he’s not paying attention. Sure, the words are there but they’re just background noise, like a low radio hum.

He’s in a trance. Watching you. You’re laughing. You’re happy. And for some reason, it made something in his chest shift.

He didn’t understand it. He didn’t like not understanding things. Gojo Satoru always knew what he was feeling. He could identify an emotion, categorize it, file it away.

But this? What the fuck is this?

This strange, warm pool in his stomach? It was warm. Gentle, almost. Like sunlight filtering through a window on a quiet afternoon.

Only when your head turns to him, beaming as you give him a big wave, before facing your friend as you plead for her to stop, does he snap out of it.

“So, what do you think?” Geto asked.

“Huh?” Satoru blinks, “Yeah, sounds cool.”

“Fucker. I just said I made the decision to go bald.”

“WHAT?!” Satoru yelled, catching other people’s attention as Geto slapped the back of his head.

“I just said that to find out whether you were actually listening or not. And I was right, you weren’t,” Geto deadpanned, like he was tired of his shit, “You were staring at her for 10 minutes.”

“I have not,” he says, a little too fast. Okay, that was too fast.

“You’re obvious.”

“No, I’m observant.”

“You’re whipped.”

“Shut up.”

Geto laughs and claps a hand on Satoru’s shoulder. “You’re in denial, man.”

Satoru scoffs, shoving his hands into his pockets. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?” Geto challenges, still grinning.

“Fuck if I know,” He removes his hands from bis pockets, ruffling his hair, before groaning in both of his hands, “She’s my bestfriend, along with you guys. I care for her,”

“Right… Now I’ll go because the love of your life is on the way here,” The black haired man laughed and went on his way. Satoru gritted his teeth out of annoyance, the defense already in his throat, ready to yell SHE’S NOT THE LOVE OF MY LIFE, as he removed his hands from his face, only to look up and see you. The anger died as quickly as it came. Oh, Suguru wasn’t lying about you coming.

“Sup?” You sat down next to the chair beside him, looking up to see him looking down at you. He looked down at you, looking at the way your eyelashes flutter, your forehead shiny with sweat, and the way your chest heaves up and down. Nope. Not admiring. Just looking.

“So you’re also afraid of frogs huh?” He grinned, the ends of his lips curling up to reveal a teasing smile, his hand coming up to brush some strands of hair away from your face.

You rolled your eyes, slapping his wrist away, “No. I’m not.”

“Right.. let me add that to your list of fears. Cockroaches, spiders, heights, and now.. frogs.”

Kicking his ankle, you cackled as he nearly stumbled to his knees. “What are you even going to do with that list anyway? And I’m literally not afraid of frogs! I just ran because it was dead. Dead. I’m not afraid of living frogs.”

“Ouch!” He stood up, pain etched onto his features before he ruffled your hair, making it messy as he laughed, “I’m gonna show up to your house one day with cockroaches, spiders—make it infest your home,”

“You’d be dead before you even cross the gate,” you warned, swatting his hand away as you tried to fix your hair. “And it’s funny how you’re the one collecting this list like some obsessed maniac.”

He tilted his head, grinning. “Well, someone has to remember the details you forget. What if we’re in an apocalypse and I have to protect you from all your irrational fears?”

You narrowed your eyes, “In an apocalypse, you’re the first person I’d sacrifice.”

“Harsh,” he said, hand on his chest like you’d wounded him. “After everything I’ve done for you?”

“Oh? What exactly have you done for me?” you challenged, raising a brow.

Satoru tilted his head, putting a finger to his chin as he listed off things, “Hmm.. Letting you rant at ungodly hours, waiting for you after lectures, sharing my food and hoodies with you.. Holding a tissue up to your nose after you bawled because of—“

“RIGHT!” You screeched, slapping his forearm, “I get it. I get it.”

Satoru laughed at you as you slapped his forearm. Pouting. He wanted to grab your cheeks and squish, play, squeeze them. He didn’t. Instead, he sat back down beside you, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

It stretched into a long, comfortable, silence with both of you admiring the campus field in front of you, students walking by and the sounds of birds chirping present. The silence was nice. Before you broke it.

You sighed and leaned back, your elbows resting on the table behind you. “It’s nice out today.”

“Mhm.”

“Warm. Bright.” Satoru looked at you.

“Yup.” He murmured, looking away.

You glanced at him, catching the way his gaze lingered just a second too long. He looked away, feigning interest in the clouds like they were the most fascinating things he’d ever seen.

“Stop being weird,” you teased.

“I’m not weird,” he muttered. I just feel specific things about you right now and I’m not exactly sure what it is.

“You’re being weird. You’re, like, extra quiet. That’s suspicious.”

“You’re suspicious.”

“That’s not even a comeback.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t say it was.”

“Come on, what’s up, Toru?” Toru. Toru. Toru. You’ve always called him Toru, even Sat, but why does it feel different right now? He curses his emotions. He’d have to study on this later, maybe run a fucking experiment, write a thesis, because he is, unfortunately, still lacking for he cannot even comprehend what he’s feeling.

“Toru? Sat? Hellooo?” God help him. He could feel the warmth spreading to his ears as he forced himself to ignore your curious gaze, and instead opted to look at the grass field and clouds in front of you. What the fuck is happening to me?!?!

He couldn’t just tell you that he was feeling things. Not normal things. But complex things in his heart, his stomach, his ears, his brain—everywhere. So naturally, he panics. And panicking means deflecting.

“Okay, you know what’s actually up? The vending machines.”

You blink. “What?”

“They’ve replaced the lemon soda with some abomination called ‘citrus sparkle’ and it tastes like disappointment and floor cleaner. I’m serious, I think it gave me an existential crisis earlier. Like, if I can’t trust the lemon soda, what can I trust?”

You raise a brow, amused. “You’re ranting about soda now?”

“It’s betrayal in a can! I’ve been loyal to that drink since year one. It’s been there through my academic journey, study sessions, heartbreak—”

“Heartbreak? And as if you study.”

He freezes. “Figure of speech. And I do actually study! I’m literally at the top of the school, duh. Anyway, I just think we should stage a protest. Or a petition. At the very least a boycott. Don’t look at me like that, I’m serious. This is a matter of integrity.”

You laugh, fully now. “You’re the most dramatic person I’ve ever met.”

“And yet you continue to spend time with me. Tragic,” he sighs, dramatically throwing an arm over his eyes like a distressed poet.

“Of course, you’re my Satoru. My bestfriend. I think you’re fun.” You say, nudging his shoulder.

His breath hitches. My. My. My. My. I’m malfunctioning. Help. I have to play it off. He peeks at you from under his arm, expression unreadable for a second too long.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

A breeze passes. His arm drops. He looks at you like he wants to say something else—something real, something not about soda—but instead he just hums, the corners of his lips tugging up faintly.

“Then I guess I’ll keep being fun.”

You snort. “You do that, Toru.”

He looks at you again. Toru.

God, why does that sound like a problem now?

Satoru thinks he’s going insane.

No—scratch that. He knows he’s going insane.

Because how the hell is he supposed to finish this thesis when he hears your laugh in his head like it’s been hardwired into his brain? Every time his fingers hit the keys, he hears it—bright, familiar, cutting through the silence of the lounge like some parasitic melody that’s made a home in the corners of his mind and refuses to leave.

And no, it isn’t even just for today. You’ve been haunting every inch of his mind for how many weeks now, and he can’t—with all his intelligence—figure out why. You’re all he thinks about as soon as he wakes up, brushing his teeth and even on the way to campus. He should resent you for creeping in the depths of his mind but he won’t. He can’t.

You’re sitting across from him in the school lounge, sitting with your legs criss-crossed on the couch, headphones in, nodding along to whatever music you’re listening to, occasionally smiling at your screen like it said something funny. You’re doing nothing. And yet. Why? How? How are you tormenting him like this?

He grits his teeth, fingers smashing across the keyboard in a hurry, before backspacing for the nth time. He’s written the same sentence three times and erased it three times because halfway through typing “The prevalence of fast-food consumption..” his brain replaces it with “Are you hungry? Are you comfortable?”or “why are you laughing like that?” or “you’re so.. knskqjsownakakq” and he malfunctions.

He’s doomed. He knows he’s completely, utterly doomed.

“Hi, Satoru!” A high pitched voice says. Annoying. He slowly looked up from his laptop, seeing a familiar girl smiling shyly at him. She looks familiar. Meh. Probably one of the girls he flirted with before.

“What’s up?”

“Wanna go.. get dinner later?” If he was the same Satoru 4 weeks ago, before you were haunting him, he would say yes. He would say, sure babe, with a matching wink. But now.. now he finds himself glancing over your direction.

He finds you staring at him with an unreadable expression on your face. You meet his eyes as you raise your eyebrow, tilting your head to the girl before going back on your phone.

Satoru feels his throat dry up.

The girl was still waiting. Looking at him like he was the goddamn sun. And yeah, he was used to that. People looking at him like he was untouchable, like saying yes was a given, like they already knew the answer. Because he would actually say yes back then.

But now.. he glances at you.

And for some reason, now, the thought of disappointing you—even just a little—suddenly made his chest ache.

“Nah. Busy.”

He could hear the disappointed whimper of the girl, but he could care less as he went back on to looking at his laptop again. Occasionally stealing glances at you. Satoru couldn’t resist the small smile on his lips, his heart fond of just looking at you. He didn’t understand it—not really. He didn’t have the words or the framework or the damn thesis title that could explain why watching you scroll on your phone made him feel like he was home.

But maybe he’d embrace it.

“Toru,” you giggled, “Look at this. Come.”

“What is it?” He grinned, standing up, but not before deleting the tab.

TAB I. heart does backflips whenever you’re near somebody hELP ME GOOGLE

Deleting…

“Is it a silly cat video, again?” He sighed in exasperation, but it was filled with fondness. He playfully pushed you to give him space on the couch as he plopped beside you, leaning in, giving no regards to your personal space as he watched the Tiktok.

The warmth of your shoulder against his. The way your laugh vibrated through your chest, so close he could feel it. He wasn’t thinking anymore. Just reacting. Just existing next to you like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And then you both looked up at the same time.

Face to face.

So close that your breaths tangled in the air between you. Your eyes widened just a little, and his mouth parted like he was about to say something—anything—but nothing came out.

He could see all the details on your face. Your mascara, smudged just slightly under your lashes from hours of wear. The color of your eyes—he never realized they had those flecks of color near the center. The way your pupils dilated just a fraction as you stared back at him.

Even under the mascara, he could count your eyelashes. He could see the way your eyebrow twitched, ever so slightly that he doubted you even noticed. Do you see me too? The words were on top of his tongue, but somehow, he had no strength to say nor whisper it.

Do you see me too? He wonders what you’re thinking about right now. Are you counting his lashes? Do you see the details of his blue eyes? Do you see how his eyes dilate when he looks at you? (Even though he can’t directly see it, he knows. He knows, knows, knows.)

He could see the way your lips parted in surprise, feel the heat rising in his ears again, and for the first time in a long time, Satoru Gojo had absolutely no idea what the hell he was supposed to do.

His ears were warm, so warm that he could feel the warmth radiating from them. His heart had twisted, backflipped, cartwheeled into different directions all at once.

A beat passed. Neither of you moved.

His gaze dropped, unconsciously, to the curve of your lips. Soft. Dangerous. He swallowed hard. He flickered his gaze back to your eyes.

God. You were so close. He could just—

You blinked, a small breath escaping you—and it brushed against his cheek. His heart stuttered.

He didn’t understand this. Not really. But suddenly, understanding felt like the least important thing in the world. It was the least important thing when he’s this close to you. He can see the fine hairs near your temple, the tiny scar on your cheek when a cat scratched you—he remembered that day. He remembered taking a picture and laughing at you, but he also remembered putting a band-aid on top of it, sending you funny memes later that night to cheer you up.

He didn’t understand this shit. All he knew was that he really wanted to fucking kiss you.

If I move even an inch, I’ll kiss her.

And worse—I want to.

Then—

Your phone buzzed, making you both jolt and immediately pull back, laughter spilling between you like it had to make up for the tension.

“Jesus,” you laughed, voice strained. “That scared me.”

“Yeah,” he coughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Totally.”

You like Gojo Satoru.

There’s no use pretending. No dramatic denial, no inner monologue trying to convince yourself otherwise. You like him. With all his chaotic charm, razor-sharp wit, stupidly perfect face, and that rare, fleeting softness he only shows when no one’s looking.

Who wouldn’t?

You fell for him. Slowly, then all at once. Not because he was untouchable or because everyone else seemed to want him—but because when he laughed, really laughed, you felt like the world made a little more sense. You saw how he offered you his umbrella in the rain even though he was the one sneezing the day after. How he shared his last kikifuku mochi like it was some divine offering.

You fell for the late-night talks. The ones that started with memes and ended with “Do you think we’ll still be friends when we’re old and grey?”

You fell for how he remembered the smallest things. Your favorite snack. That one show you loved 3 years ago. The way you like your coffee. The way you don’t like bugs or anything remotely small and crawling.

And even though you knew he was too flirty, flirting with everyone in the goddamn campus, you still stayed. Even as he leans too close to some girl in the hallway, says something dumb and flirtatious just to make her giggle. When he winks across the cafeteria and it’s not for you.

You still stayed.

Stayed as his best friend. Because being his best friend was better than being nothing at all.

“He likes you!” Shoko groaned, rolling her eyes as she played with her food. You both were in the cafeteria, getting lunch when suddenly she brought up Satoru. “I swear to god, if I have to watch him stare at you with that love sick look on his face one more time—”

You snorted, shaking your head. “Ieri, he literally flirts with the student librarian. He calls her sweetheart. You think that guy likes me?” He flirts with everyone. I doubt he even knows what love is.

She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you trust me? Yes that guy—who didn’t show up to his thesis presentation because of your period cramps. That guy who buys an extra bottle of your favorite drink and pretends it was an ‘extra.’ That guy who literally forgets his own birthday but remembered the exact date of your friendship anniversary and bought you a box filled with gifts. Yeah. That guy likes you.”

You looked away, focusing instead on peeling the corner of your bread like it was the most important task in the world. “That doesn’t mean he likes me. He’s just… like that. He’s sweet. He cares. That’s what he does.”

“Sweet?” Shoko snorted, “He fucking told Suguru his haircut was ugly and that it was a cry for help. He laughed out loud for 10 minutes.”

You tried not to smile. “Okay, yeah, that was kinda uncalled for.”

She leaned forward, tone softening. “Listen. I’m not saying he’s easy to read. Because he’s not. But he’s obvious with you.”

You looked at her. “But I’m just his best friend.”

“Exactly,” Shoko said. “And it’s always the best friend.”

Right. Right. In these cases, wasn’t it always the best friend who ended up with the main character? The one that’s been supporting them and being with them silently. Reassuringly. For God knows how long. You laugh bitterly in your head, as if. As if this was a movie plot. This was your life. But still.. You let the silence hang between you both for a beat too long. Because part of you wanted to believe her. Part of you wanted to take every accidental brush of his hand, every too-long glance, was filed under something more than friendship.

Yeah. Maybe there is a chance.

“Maybe,” You laugh, eyes crinkling up before you paused mid-bite, as your eyes flicked across the cafeteria—and then froze.

There he was.

The bane of your existence but also the love of your life albeit unrequited. Gojo Satoru, with that lopsided grin and messy hair he never bothered to fix unless someone told him to, standing near the vending machines. Talking to someone.

Your eyes flickered to the girl standing in front of him. You feel Shoko follow your line of sight from the corner of your eye but you don’t pay any attention to it, you can’t. Not when he was laughing. That laugh. That stupid, genuine, crinkly-eyed laugh that you used to think he only gave to you.

You watched as he offered her a drink from the vending machine. A citrus soda.

He said something dramatic, complete with flailing hands and a look of exaggerated betrayal. The girl laughed, clapping a hand over her mouth.

And you knew.

You knew what he said. You’ve heard him say it.

You aren’t as important as you thought. The voices in your head whisper, and suddenly the wounds of unrequited feelings hit you harder more than ever. It stings. Like someone poured salt on it. You thought it was your own little inside joke huh? Hah, as if.

You tore your eyes away before the ache in your chest turned into something visible. Your throat felt dry. You reached for your drink just to keep your hands busy. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Shoko didn’t say anything, but you knew she saw it too.

And she knew—because she sighed softly, nudging your plate a little closer like that would somehow anchor you back.

“I told you,” you murmured, eyes glued to the table. “He’s just like that. With everyone.”

“I still stand with what I said.” Shoko murmurs back, taking a bite of her food.

You don’t say anything.

Gojo Satoru leans back against the fence, eating a piece of kikufuku mochi, grimacing at the taste.

“Ugh,” He spat it out, throwing the packaging at a nearby trash can. “This brand sucks. They didn’t have the usual,”

“I told you it was disgusting,” Suguru voiced out, not bothering to look up as he played a game on his phone.

“Well, I don’t trust you. Especially with sweets. But I guess you were right this time,” Satoru grumbles, “It sucked. Fucking betrayal in the form of mochi. I miss my usual brand,”

Shoko raises an eyebrow from her spot beside him, pulling out a lighter to spark her cigarette. “You’re such a drama queen. You probably hoarded your usual brand and that’s why they’re out of stock.”

“I’m passionate,” he corrects, pointing a finger at her lazily.

“Sure,” she says dryly. She takes a slow drag and exhales. “Speaking of passions—when are you going to admit you’re in love with her?”

Suguru snorted.

He chokes. Actually chokes. Coughs into his sleeve like she just announced his funeral. The fuck? Unprovoked?

“What?” he gapes, eyes wide behind his sunglasses. “Who?”

Shoko gives him the flattest look known to mankind. “Don’t play dumb. You know who.”

He scoffs. “I’m not in love with her. Jesus, Shoko. She’s my best friend. My best friend.”

Love? He cackles at the idea. Gojo Satoru doesn’t do love.

Not because he’s running from it, but because he’s never really known what it feels like. He’s familiar with affection. That, he is a pro of. He knows how to charm, to tease, how to say all the right things to make someone laugh or blush or fall a little too fast. But love? The deep, shattering, love that he knows from the movies? Loving someone unconditionally? It’s not that he’s cold, or incapable. It’s just… foreign. Like a language he never learned. People say you just know when you’re in love. That it hits you out of nowhere, that it’s clear. But Satoru doesn’t know what that’s supposed to feel like.

“Uh-huh.” She doesn’t sound convinced.

“I just—care about her. Deeply. As a friend. A very important, high-priority, top-tier—platonic—friend. Like with you guys.”

“You’re fucking hopeless,” Suguru pitched, laughing with that infuriating voice of his. Satoru feels the urge to smack the back of his head but fortunately, he doesn’t act on his urge.

“Do you even know what a crush feels like?” Shoko stared at him, raising an eyebrow.

“A crush?

“Yeah. That fluttery, stupid, irritating feeling in your chest when someone’s around. When you look for them in a crowd without meaning to. When their name sounds different in your head. You know… a crush.” She said it slowly, like she was explaining basic math to a toddler.

“Well..” Satoru chewed his inner cheek, “I like people.. sometimes. ‘Specially pretty people, I guess.”

He thinks of you.

“That’s not the same,” Shoko said, huffed, “Liking someone because they’re pretty or smart or fun isn’t the same as catching feelings.”

Satoru raised a brow. “Catching feelings,” he echoed, like the phrase was foreign.

“Damn, so you’re saying with all the women you get, you’ve never actually catched feelings for any of them?” Suguru snorted, shaking his head.

Catching feelings.. He absentmindedly hums. Has he ever catched feelings? He has flirted, teased, women, gorgeous gorgeous women—hell he has kissed a few but he never felt that tight feeling in his chest. Or that weird fluttery thing Shoko is talking about. He doesn't look for anyone in a crowd.

Suddenly, his mind wanders to you. The way his eyes immediately zooms in your figure whenever you’re around in a crowd, the way your eyes crinkle when you laugh. The way you roll them at his antics but still always save him a seat. The way your name sits differently in his head, softer somehow.

His lips press into a line.

“Yes, Satoru. Catching feelings.” Shoko snapped him out of it as she groaned, “Do you not realize what’s happening? With her? The way you look at her?”

His jaw tightened, just slightly. “I just care about her, okay? She’s my best friend.”

“Dude, there's nothing wrong with falling in love with your bestfriend. Why are you deep in denial?” Suguru groaned, “Fuck this game,” He scoffs, turning his phone off.

Shoko leaned forward, eyes sharp. “Right. Bestfriend. Look over there,”

Satoru snaps his head, his eyes instinctively flicking over to your figure. There you are. His chest immediately bursts into.. fondness, but it dies down as quick. Because there you are. Talking to some guy. Tall, decent-looking, too comfortable for Gojo’s liking. He can’t hear what the guy’s saying, but you’re laughing again, hand gently touching the guy’s arm.

Something snaps in his chest. His heart. But unlike the other times when he’s with you, it’s not doing cartwheels nor backflipping in multiple directions. This.. doesn’t seem pleasant.

He frowns. His jaw clenches.

Why does it feel like his lungs forgot how to expand?

“Still think it’s just friendship?”

You were curled up on your bed, blanket tangled around your legs, face contorted in a mixture of pain and annoyance. Heat pack pressed tightly against your abdomen, you were barely able to focus on the messages flooding your phone.

“Fuuuuck,” you groan, clutching your abdomen as you curl up on your bed. This fucking sucks. You grab your phone, eyes blinking and trying to focus on the messages. Satoru.

[toru <3 : on my way.]

[toru <3: u want ice cream orrr]

[toru <3: what do u want other than icecream]

[toru <3: my treat 🤑🤑]

You squinted at your screen.

[You: didn’t u have ur thesis presentation today????]

[You: wtf go focus. gl]

[toru <3: otw lol just stay there]

[You: be fr rn. dont.]

[You: hELLLOOO? reply]

[You: holy shit dont come]

[You: ok ure not replying i hope thats bc youre focusing on UR PRESENTATION!!!]

[You: im ok bruh istg]

No reply.

And then, a knock. Three taps, light and rhythmic.

You didn’t even have time to sit up before your door creaked open and there he was—Gojo Satoru, holding a bag of snacks, two lemon sodas and what suspiciously looked like a plushie shaped like a uterus. He walked in like he owned the place, kicked off his shoes, and dropped everything on your desk before coming over.

“What the fuck-“ you rasped, sitting up, “Didn’t you have your thesis presentation today?!”

“Reschedulable,” he said nonchalantly, already pulling your chair beside the bed and sitting down. “You, however, looked like you were about to wage war on your own organs.”

“That’s because I am,” you gritted out, clutching your stomach, “Still! Holy shit, go back right now, I can feed myself.”

“You’re in pain. So I’m here. Duh.”

“So?! You skipped your thesis presentation for me?!” You screeched, debating on whether to throw a pillow to his face or bawl your eyes out.

He shrugged, resting his chin on his hand as he looked at you. “It’s not like I can let my best girl suffer alone while I talk about.. well. My thesis. Besides,” He leaned in slightly. “You sounded like you were crying earlier. That kinda overrides all academic responsibility.”

You blink. And before you know it, before you can help it, your face has slowly turned red. You open your mouth but nothing comes out.

My best girl. My best girl. My best girl. My best girl. My best girl. My best girl. My best girl. My best girl. Mybestgirlmybestgirlmybestgirl—

“You good?” He brings a hand to your forehead, “You look red. Flushed. Don’t tell me you also have a fever,”

He was so unfair. So fucking unfair. You looked away, throat tightening. Why say that shit and don’t mean it?

“I’m fine.”

“Mhm.. I brought lemon soda. And ice cream. And, uh…” He held up the plushie. “This little uterus guy because I thought he might help you emotionally, or something.”

You stared at the plush, then at him. “You are actually insane.”

“I prefer ‘endearingly selfless,’” he grinned.

You shook your head, the smallest smile threatening to form. “You shouldn’t have skipped, Toru. Really.”

He was absurd. Irresponsible. Unbelievably dramatic. But in that moment, all you could feel was warmth—a strange, fluttering warmth that had nothing to do with the heat pack on your stomach.

“Thanks,” you murmured.

“Haaahh?” He grinned widely, a glint in his eyes as he leaned even closer, “What’d you say? Say it again, I didn’t hear. You said thank you? Wow! Say it again. Am I dreaming?”

“Fuckface!” You pushed his head away, not making eye contact with him. Because God knows that if you did, you would’ve fallen in love even more. And that was dangerous.

You were already falling so hard.

“Ugh,” You groaned, skimming through the papers of your thesis. “These fuckass groupmates.”

Your room is quiet except for the soft rustle of papers and the occasional frustrated sigh you let out.

You’re sitting cross-legged on the floor, a thick stack of thesis drafts spread out around you like a paper battlefield. Red ink stains the corners of your notes, your highlighter is uncapped and dying, and your group mates are currently the number one reason you’re considering changing majors.

Satoru is on your bed, sprawled out like he owns the place. He’s flipping through one of your pillows like it might entertain him, long legs dangling off the edge, hair a mess from the way he’s been turning over and over like a restless kid.

“You need better pillows,” he says absentmindedly, voice muffled into the fabric.

“You need to go home,” You roll your eyes, fingers flipping through the pages, “You can’t exactly insult my pillows when you’re laying on top of it.”

He chuckles, the sound light and aimless. “You love my company.”

You don’t reply—just glare down at a sentence so poorly structured it makes you genuinely angry. ‘The qualitative data was analyzed in a manner that is significant to the research aim, showing results that may be indicative of patterns which can be observed over time’ Be so fucking for real. Word salad. Did they just jumble words together and hope for the best?

You flip through another page with more force than necessary.

Then, out of nowhere:

“Hey,” he says, softer.

You glance over your shoulder. “Hm?”

He’s lying on his side now, head propped on one hand, the other playing with the edge of your blanket. His gaze isn’t on you—it’s on the ceiling, distant and thoughtful. Unusual for him.

“Have you ever felt like…” He pauses. “Like something’s wrong with you because you don’t know what you’re feeling?”

The question lands heavier than you expect.

You swallow, “What kind of feeling?”

“I don’t know,” he admits, brows furrowed. “It’s not bad. Just… weird. Like my chest gets tight for no reason. And I look for someone without realizing it. And it’s like—when they talk, everything else just fades out.”

You press your lips together. There’s no name, but your mind wanders to the pretty girl he was talking with at the cafeteria. How he laughed, laughing like he does with you. Your heart sinks.

You know that feeling all too well. You feel it when he’s with you.

“That sounds like a crush,” you say lightly, careful to keep your voice from cracking.

He hums thoughtfully. “Shoko said the same thing.”

You force a smile, eyes scanning your paper without reading a single word. “Well, sounds like she’s right.”

You know Gojo Satoru. He doesn’t do crushes, nor love. You know him, too well. He’s interwoven in your soul and you can figure him out like a basic math problem. I guess that’s why it hurts, you think. Hearing him struggle to understand this feeling, realizing it’s real and meant for someone—someone who isn’t you—it hurts like hell. Because you know he’s never liked anyone before. Not like this. And now, for the first time, he actually does. But it’s not for you.

“I don’t really get it,” he continues, unaware of how still you’ve gone. “Like, I flirt with people. A lot. But this doesn’t feel like that. It’s not about how they look or what they say. It’s just… being near them feels different.”

You want to ask. You want to look up and say who? But the question stays lodged in your throat, too scared of the answer. The open wound of unrequited love stings. It’s throbbing. You want to wince, to let the tears fall out but you can’t.

Instead, you nod, flipping a page you don’t see. “Yeah. That’s a crush.”

There’s a long silence.

He sits up slowly, eyes flicking toward you. You don’t meet his gaze.

“Have you ever felt that way?” he asks.

This time, it’s your breath that catches. Your hands are still on the edge of the paper.

You finally glance at him, and he’s watching you now. Closely.

And you wonder—just for a second—if he’s asking you something else entirely.

“…Yeah,” you whisper, and you wonder if he hears the way your voice shakes.

Satoru just nods, almost like he’s relieved you understand.

And you wonder how someone so brilliant can still be this oblivious.

[You: IERI I’m SO FUCKED]

[ieri the loml: ?]

[You: he likes someone. im sure of it. he has a crush. yk that right. he told me u said the same thing]

[ieri the loml: yea]

[ieri the loml: did he tell u who it was

[You: NO but holy shit i feel so.. sad]

[You: i feel like its the girl we saw at the cafeteria ughhh]

[You: he was looking at her like she hung the STARS]

[You: i can do that too :/]

[You: whatever im gonna move on. REAL THIS TIME hahaha fuck this shittt]

[You: he doesnt do crushes! nor love!! i know him!!! so it hurts even more bc he now likes someone!! HE LOOKED SO INLOVE IERI I SWEAR]

[You: hellooooo do u have anything to say]

[You: comfort me pls]

[You: i dont wanna look at his stupid face anymore]

[You: ok im lying i still do]

[ieri the loml: wow that fucking idiot]

[You: ??????]

Gojo Satoru has finally realized something.

He likes you.

Not in the easy, casual way he’s used to. Not the harmless, flirt-and-move-on kind of interest he’s thrown at a dozen others. No—this one’s different. It’s uncomfortable. It lingers. It aches in quiet moments.

He doesn’t know when it started. Maybe it was that day you fell asleep beside him mid-rant, and he just sat there, watching your lashes flutter in your dreams. Maybe it was the way you always saw through him, even when he was hiding behind jokes. Maybe when you scolded him when he skipped his exams, just because.

He can still hear your voice.

“You stupid idiot! You skipped your exams just because?! Huh?! Well just because you’re the top fucking student and the university favors you doesn’t mean you can just— just do whatever you want! That exam was important, oh my god—“

He chuckles.

He doesn’t really get it. He really doesn’t. Not fully, atleast. The way his chest tightens when you smile, or how his ears go hot when your hand accidentally brushes his. How his brain just short circuits when you say something kind. Or worse—when you’re quiet, and he finds himself staring, admiring the little details on your face. He has done that so many times he thinks he can draw your face from memory.

He’s never done feelings. Never caught them. He thought he was immune.

But now?

Now he’s losing sleep thinking about you. Not in a desperate, obsessive way. He wasn’t a goddamn creep, but in that soft, terrifying way where you creep into his thoughts at the strangest times. Like when he hears a song you’d like, or when he passes by a store and thinks, they’d love that.

So this is what it feels like.

He hums, glancing at you. The park was quiet at midnight, cloaked in that rare kind of stillness only late hours could bring. The sky was deep blue, borderline black. Speckled with stars barely visible, and the only sounds were the rustling of leaves and the occasional zooooom of cars.

You were seated on the swings, gently rocking back and forth, your sneakers barely skimming the dirt. Satoru stood nearby, leaning against the metal frame. The glow from a streetlamp a fee feet away cast soft shadows across his face. He sighed, pushing himself from the frame and walked to the bench.

“Sit with me,” he says.

“Hm? Okay?”

He hears the tilt in your head, he knows you’re tilting your head even when he has his back facing you. He knew you all too well. He doesn’t hear the creak of the swings anymore, and he knows you’ve stopped. He hears your footsteps and he sits down, spreading his legs wide. You glance at him, before sitting down beside him. He can feel the heat of your body next to his.

He never meant for this to happen.

His eyes glance to your thighs before flickering back to the moonlight. God, he was fucked.

No, this was never part of the plan.

He doesn’t even realize he’s speaking until he hears his own voice, low and unsteady:

“I think I like you.”

The words hang in the air, and for the first time in a long time, he feels exposed. Fuck, say something. The usually confident Satoru, the Satoru who answers algebra questions in under a minute, the Satoru, top of his university, the Satoru, who carries his group in all of his research and thesis, the Satoru, who, for the first time in his life, feels his hand sweat.

He hears your breath hitch and fuck, he wants to run. He wants to play it off. Say he’s joking. That you heard wrong. But he can’t. He won’t. Not this time.

Because suddenly, all the late nights and inside jokes and the way he remembers your coffee order without trying—it all adds up. This equation is clear.

He ignores your look, still gazing at the stars above. “I think I’ve been liking you for a while. I just didn’t know that’s what it was.”

Satoru expects you to laugh, or a disbelieving ‘hah?!’, or hit him on the shoulder. But instead, you’re quiet. That scares him more than anything. His heart’s pounding, his palms are sweating, and he wants to disappear—but he forces himself to stay, because this is the first time he’s being honest in a long, long time.

He sees you stand up from the corner in his eye, and his heart leaps out of his throat. Are you leaving? Fuck. Fuck—

But before he could dissolve into an overthinking puddle, before he could have an existential crisis, he finds himself staring at your eyes. He blinks. You were standing now. Infront of him. Looking down at him as he sits down.

“You said it wrong.”

Your voice is quiet, but it slices through the air like a blade.

Satoru blinks, startled. “What?”

You take a breath. “You said ‘I think I like you.’”

Another pause. Your gaze doesn’t waver. “But you don’t think, Satoru. You do. You do everything at full force. So don’t half-ass this.”

The breath he didn’t know he was holding escapes in a shallow exhale. His lips part—words caught in the knot in his throat.

You grab his hands, fondling with his fingers. His heart stutters as you pull him up to stand. His hands are trembling.

“You don’t need to be sure about everything all the time,” you murmur, squeezing his hand, “but when it’s me… when it’s this… I want you to mean it.”

His eyes finally meet yours. Wide, open, terrified.

So he swallows, shaky and raw, and says again—louder this time, more certain:

“I like you.”

Fuck it, he yanks his hand from your grip and instead brings both of them to your face — warm, trembling slightly. His thumbs brush your cheeks. Your breath catches.

“I like you, and it’s stupid and scary and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” he breathes, leaning forward.

“I’ve flirted with a dozen people,” Satoru admits. “Laughed with them, kissed some. None of it felt like anything. Just noise.” He pauses, “But you… you’re different. And I didn’t know how to name it. Not until recently.”

You exhale. He can’t tell if you’re relieved or scared. Maybe both. God knows he is.

“I started looking for you everywhere,” he continues, the words spilling now, like a dam breaking. “In crowds. In hallways. I noticed how I can’t stop listening when you talk, even when I pretend I’m not. And when you’re not around, I just…”

“I just miss you. Fuck, it’s always been you. Unconsciously, you.”

“Say it again,” you murmur, “but without thinking too hard.”

“I like you.”

You smile, and he thinks, Beautiful, “Good.”

He doesn’t even look at the stars anymore.

Just you. Your eyes are more beautiful than the entire milky way out there.

“I like you too, idiot,” you whisper, and when you lean in—when his lips finally meet yours—his heart bursts.

Under the cold midnight sky, Gojo Satoru finally lets himself fall.

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notsodelirious · 15 hours ago

Text

Secret, unknown languages

synopsis: you’re having a hard time adapting to big changes

notes: SFW, this is the second version of the reader losing their hearing prompt that I promised and then just never posted but here you go :3

tags: hearing loss, Jason Todd being a sweetheart, ASL, hurt/comfort, 1k words

also tried to keep the ASL as close to actual ASL as possible but a) I’m British and know more BSL than ASL and b) ASL isn’t really a written language so kudos to my friend for helping me out

anyway, enjoy and here’s my masterlist <3

initial prompt and response

•─────⋅☾⊱♰⊰☽⋅─────•

“Babe,” Jason called as he waved at you, but you remained oblivious to his attempts, scrolling aimlessly through your photo gallery for a stupid meme your friend couldn’t herself. “Babe.”

He didn’t raise his voice—the neighbours would file another noise complaint because they never cared enough to figure out why anybody was speaking loudly.

He picked up a small mouse toy at his feet–a very generous gift from your cat before he decided to fuck off into your bedroom–and chucked it at your head, watching as you looked up mildly disgruntled at having a half-chewed cat toy thrown at your face.

“Yeah?”

“… you filed?” he asked, and you only frowned.

“What did I file?”

‘INTERVIEW ????.’

Your face scrunched further, as if you had just bitten into a rotten lemon.

You repeated the sign with a frown.

Your irritation wasn’t his fault—it wasn’t his fault he was already fluent in the language, that his father and brother had drilled multiple languages, including ASL, into his little child noggin, and you just weren’t there yet.

But it was still frustrating—endlessly so.

‘TRANSCRIPTS,’ he fingerspelt, and your shoulders dropped a little when the whole picture finally clicked into place.

“What do you want with the interview transcripts?”

‘WHERE?’

“Cabinets,” you said, pointing towards the appropriate cabinets under the TV. He thanked you quickly before he slipped off his chair to find the file he needed.

You set your phone down as you watched him crouch and rifle through papers, irritation still niggling in the back of your skull.

It didn’t have to take that long—it shouldn’t have taken that long. You didn’t have time for it to always take that long.

Where did you put the interview transcripts you filed?

That had been the whole question. It was a stupidly simple question.

And yet.

It worked out and you knew it had worked out and that was the important part but that didn’t make it any less frustrating—never in your life had you had such a huge gap in communication—when you were a child, people understood the gap, learning to speak for the first time, you expect to be patient, explain, repeat, slow down, change language; but you were an adult, people expected you to have had your entire life to practice communicating.

And you were losing it.

You knew you had missed the first, second, third, fourth, nth time he had called your name, nickname, legal name, pet name, anything to grab your attention, but it fell on deaf ears.

Deafening ears.

It sucked ass; losing oral communication, all the while still being behind on sign language. On bad days, it made you want to tear your hair out and cry and grieve.

On good days, just grumpy.

Jason looked up at you as he returned to his seat.

‘OK?’

You shrugged.

“Want to get better at sign.” He regarded you for a moment, tossing the manila folder on the table before kneeling in front of you.

“You’re already doing …”

You sighed, rubbing your temples, closing your eyes momentarily before opening your eyes again. There had been a shoot-out yesterday—you might have been part of the problem. You hadn’t gotten hit—thank fuck or Jason might have wrung your neck for being so careless—but it had left your ears aching and the world just a little more muffled than before.

Not quite bad enough for Jason to stop speaking to you—but your lip reading was just as shit as your signing.

‘AGAIN?’

“You’re already doing great,” he repeated, signing along with his words, “It’s a language, practice.”

Your face soured again, and he offered his hands, rough and calloused—they held so much power and yet held your own hands so gently, like he feared he would hurt you, or restrict you.

You squeezed back quickly before pulling away.

‘LONELY.’

You had been told it was what you deserved—after a lifetime of inflicting pain, handling a gun without proper protection, it was a foreseen consequence.

You’d always known, ever since your ears first began ringing, that it could—would—happen.

But still.

It was isolating. Demoralising.

‘SORRY,’ Jason signed before resting his hand on your forearm—there wasn’t much more to say. There was nothing else to do. Jason could feel sorry for you all he wanted, but at the end of the day, the reality was the same. People stopped talking to you, never bothered to learn to communicate to stay close to you.

You would adapt, you had to. There was no alternative, no going back, so you just had to move forward.

He opened his arms for you, and you slid down to the ground, burying yourself in his embrace as you rested your head on his chest—you couldn’t hear his heartbeat, not the soft, gentle da-dum, but you could feel it against your cheek.

You would always be able to feel his heart beat in his chest.

You sank into his touch when gentle hands began petting your hair, and the deep tenor of his voice vibrated in his chest—you could make out his voice, but not his words.

Maybe there were no words. Maybe he simply hummed for you softly as you sat on the kitchen floor, ignoring how tears welled in your eyes and splattered against cold tiles—your grief was not yours to nurture while Jason held you close, singing a tune you must have once heard him sing.

You don’t know how long you sat there for, letting him hold together the pieces of you that threatened to shatter until you finally felt whole enough to pull away.

“Thank you.”

He tilted your chin up, his smile a little crooked as he met your eye.

“…you.”

You realised too late you had forgotten to read his lips, far too entranced by sea-green eyes. You blinked. “Huh?”

He rolled his eyes and grabbed your face.

You chuckled into the kiss, tilting your head to return it with just as much eagerness—chapped lips and sharp teeth were home to you, and you could never get enough of him, but eventually you parted for air.

“What did you say?”

“I said I fucking love you!”

“Damn, why are you screaming?!”

You didn’t have time to shove him away before sharp teeth sank into the apple of your cheek, laughter and pleas for mercy falling on deaf ears.

•─────⋅☾⊱♰⊰☽⋅─────•

Didn’t post this one earlier for the same reason as the previous post—I just wasn’t too happy with the characterisation so you got the other version instead but I figured some people might also like a softer Jason so here you go

at the time of this being posted I’m pretty sure requests are closed but checked my pinned comment for more info and here’s my masterlist for more of this <3

#dc #dc comics #jason todd #red hood #jason todd x reader #hurt/comfort #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x you #jason todd/reader #jason todd/you #jason todd x gn!reader #dc x reader #x reader #x gn reader #dc x gn reader #red hood x reader #red hood x you #red hood/you #red hood/reader

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anonymouscreatorxd · 2 days ago

Text

(Finally got this finished, well in at least sketch form)

Sriracha Cheddar: Hey PJ! What are you doing?

Pepper Jack: Oh well, I was just trying to make a sorta "family map" for me to look at.

Sriracha Cheddar: What do you mean by that?

Pepper Jack: I-I'm just trying to figure out how my family tree looks now. Since you're my family now. And I now call the Golden Cheese kingdom my home.

Sriracha Cheddar: Oh! Ok then... Wait, is that a drawing of me? And Mom, Dad, and Pa? The others are there too...

Pepper Jack: Well yeah. I couldn't just steal pictures or something for this. That would be bad. So instead, I decided to just try to draw everyone.

Sriracha Cheddar: Cool! Wait, are those your birth parents at the bottom?

Pepper Jack: From what I remember, yeah it is. That was about how they looked like. But I can't really remember them too well. So who knows, I could have gotten it all wrong.

Sriracha Cheddar: You really don't remember their faces?

Pepper Jack: Sriracha, I thought I already talked to you about this. It's been hundreds, if not thousands of years since my parents deaths. You can't expect a cookie to be able to remember a face for that long. It's a miracle I'm even capable of remembering at least some details about them.

Sriracha Cheddar: Sorry I didn't mea-

Pepper Jack: I know Sriracha... I'm sorry I didn't mean anything, I just miss them. Wish I got to know them more before they had to go...

Pepper Jack: But anyway, I've been actually struggling with this for a full hour now and I swear I'm starting to lose it.

Sriracha Cheddar: WHat?! How? You got to be joking. Just connect the two families by just connecting them both to you, simple, problem solved.

Pepper Jack: Siracha it's not that simple...

Sriracha Cheddar: Really, why not!?

Pepper Jack: Sriracha, now that we're family... I now technically have 3 sets of parents that have taken care of me.

Sriracha Cheddar: ...

Pepper Jack: ...

Sriracha Cheddar: WHAT!?!

Pepper Jack: Don't ask, I can't even answer you if I wanted to.

Sriracha Cheddar Cookie belongs to @iyz2scared

And @fishymom-art owns the Fix a Beast au that the other characters are from

#crk #crk oc #pepper jack cookie #mini beasts au #fix a beast au #sriracha cheddar cookie #cookie oc #cookie run kingdom

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ofeliaxoxo · 1 day ago

Note

running by after seeing the imola driver's parade to ask if you have any thoughts on charcarlando? (i dont know their trio name)

Anon you have really come to the right place. Do I have thoughts on charcarlando…..it seems I struggle to have thoughts on anything else.

Like Look At Them. Oh my god…….. they make me crazy. (Me: god this makes me insane. Also me: is reacting to a very neutral photo of three men standing)

Let’s do a quick real life foundation. I think charlando can get snarky but don’t legit have serious problems with each other we’ve seen them have casual and friendly interactions too. I don’t think they’re buddies or enemies. They do seemingly get a little mean girl with each other on occasion but I’m fairly sure it slides off both of them I don’t think either man is ever like How Could You. Carlando are obviously good friends that care a lot for each other. Ik there’s lore about how they’re both precious about the word friend but tbh words and categories don’t mean all that much like if you act this much like friends you literally are friends there’s no special secret line. Charlos and friendship is more complicated in my eyes BUT they have both said they are friends now and they have stuck to each other a fair bit during 2025 race weekends so for the sake of simplicity those men are friends (literally goes against my nature to say so because I actually do see it as slightly more complicated BUT I’m not up there in the tax haven idk what goes on for real). So you have Carlos as the centre of this little group and he’s the one they both like and are notably linked with. Not each other. I don’t think Charles and Lando have ever publicly admitted to friendship. How i see it (and this is just how I see it these men are unknown to me) is that the strongest and most straightforwardly positive relationship is carlando, the snippiest and least developed relationship is charlando, and the most emotionally intense relationship is charlos.

So that’s the rock on which I build my church. Let’s move swiftly onwards to rpf its much sexier.

Now there’s absolutely threesome potential there but that doesn’t really do it for me so my flavour of this trio always keeps any actual romantic or sexual feelings between charlos, while carlando are besties and charlando are Not.

Even in the photo above, the rpf potential is perfect. Both standing so close they’re almost touching to Carlos. Carlos leaning in to Lando more, they’re actually chatting. Charles silent and looking outwards. It seems he’s not interacting with them but he’s standing near to Carlos, so near that it suggests a level of closeness and familiarity. You could absolutely say that carlando are happily chatting while Charles sulks about it. Stood on the other side like well idgaf about the conversation anyway. Carlos as truly the focal point of the three.

My favourite scenario for charcarlando is Charles being jealous of their friendship, he feels like Carlos likes Lando more and he hates that, furthermore he doesn’t personally love Lando all that much, and these feelings meld until he’s like. GOD. Why do you have to hang out with LANDO again. This works for established relationship charlos but it also works for other situations. Carlos doesn’t realise that’s what’s happening. If they’re not together, he already knows he likes Charles but he doesn’t know it’s reciprocated so he doesn’t ever think Charles might be jealous. You know the clip where he’s like here I am with my TWO favourite teammates when it’s obviously a carlando moment. I feel like those things would happen and Charles is gritting is teeth like Yeah You Are Great Friends. No Problem. And let’s combine that with the way he’d always insist he and Carlos knew each other SO well. Charles insisting on the closeness and emotionality of their relationship while everyone else is like waow carlando. It feels terrible to him but he doesn’t have the framework for why so it just translates into God I can’t stand lando. Does anyone else think he just fucking sucks. Lando is just so the worst and I don’t think anyone should be friends with him and THATS why I’m getting this sharp pain watching the two of them hug and smile and go for dinner and golf and on holidays. I just think that Carlos would be better off without him!

A charlos moment happens theyre like alone or chatting and Charles is feeling inexplicably happy everything is so nice and he thinks it must be his general good mood that has him feeling this rush of affection for Carlos like wow he’s so great and he’s paying so much attention to Charles they’re such good friends and then suddenly here comes Lando to join and Charles is trying desperately to hold on to the good mood but Carlos is turning to greet his lil bestie and Charles can’t explain why he’s so annoyed that Lando has joined all he knows is that he HATES it. There he was thinking about how much he likes his friendship with Carlos and now Carlos is talking to this other guy who everyone knows he’s far better friends with and now Charles just feels stupid:(

Throughout all of this Carlos would of course be delighted to know Charles even felt that strongly. He truly is just friends with Lando and has all these feelings for Charles that he doesn’t think are mutual. He has strong emotions as well as attraction but he’s electing to ignore it and remain cordial but distant with Charles because he thinks that’s what is best. He doesn’t think Charles would even especially notice if they stopped talking so he gravitates more and more towards Lando instead. All this would have to come to a head somehow. Oh maybe Charles and Lando have a fight. Charles is like fuck you!! over something random and Lando, who has no context for any of it, is like well ykw girl fuck YOU.

And now, some images:

“Yay the sun is shining I feel confident everything is good this is gonna be a great Sunday -”

“Ugh”

Like literally alone with Carlos smile:) but with carlando no smile:(

And finally, the ultimate charcarlando image

Finally got him close to you all to yourself and yet Lando’s still there…no DONT look over my shoulder at your orange bestie come close and let me hold you

Truly I could go on forever but I will stop here. If anyone ever needs another charcarlando rant hit me up I will be there I LOVE them

#ask #charlos #charlando

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writingdevil · 20 hours ago

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hello!!! i LOVEE your writing, i was wondering if you could perchance do something about contrarian ? no pressure ofc ^_^

(Hello ask that disappeared from me and made me question my sanity/j. Anyway, I love Contrarian, but I always feel like I have trouble writing him, so I hope this one is good. I put Cheated here as well because I've seen really cute dynamic ideas with them-enjoy!)

Cheated groaned and shoved his face into a pillow, trying and failing to go to sleep for the last three hours.

His body was just aching too much for him to be able to drift off, and it pissed him off so much, because he knew that he would just be irritable and cranky in the morning, and that was the last thing he wanted.

Some nights the pain was more bearable and Cheated could get some sleep, but tonight was not one of those nights, evidently.

He sighed, pushing himself up and out of the bed. There was no point sitting there and watching the hours pass until the sun rose in the sky again.

He grumbled to himself as he made his way down the hallway and past all the other bedroom full of people that had no problem with falling sleeping, while Cheated was left to suffer with his stupid body and its stupid chronic pain.

He decided that a walk might do him some good. Maybe he'll just overpower the pain with simple physical exhaustion until his body had to sleep. It was worth a shot.

Cheated walked out into the living room drenched in shadows, making his way for the front door, when he suddenly froze at the sound of-sniffling?

He stopped, and turned around, squinting in the darkness, and he heard the sniffling again, this time followed by a whimper as well.

Cheated didn't take his eyes away from the room as he reached over and grabbed the front of a curtain, then yanked it back, allowing moonlight to shine in through the window.

There, sitting curled up on the couch, very clearly crying, was Contrarian.

Contrarian yelped in surprise as the curtains were pulled back, having seemingly been too in his own head to hear Cheated enter in the first place.

Contrarian wrapped his arms and wings around him, head twisting around wildly until they landed on Cheated, and Cheated hated how he immediately forced a smile onto his face.

"Cheated! Almost gave me a heart attack there!" Contrarian whispered with a nervous chuckle, using one hand to desperately comb down his ruffled feathers.

"What are you doing up?" Contrarian asked, still keeping that playful smile on his face, as if everything about this situation was completely normal.

"I couldn't sleep," Cheated quietly replied, much more focused on Contrarian's expressions, and how deflated the other looked, despite the way Contrarian tried to perk himself up.

"Same," Contrarian said with a casual shrug. "Just got too much energy, you know what I mean?" Cheated narrowed his eyes at him, taking a step forward, and didn't miss the nervous glint in the other's eyes as he asked, "Are you sure that's the reason?"

Contrarian tensed up, but just chuckled at the question, even as Cheated began to make his way beside him on the couch.

"I thought you'd be doing something stupid to pass the time," Cheated said, sitting down next to Contrarian, "not just sitting on the couch."

Contrarian kept his gaze forward, only giving Cheated the briefest of side glances as he said, "Yeah, I would, but being given out to by Hero once for waking the house up, is enough for even me to tone it down."

Cheated remembers that night. It sounded like an explosion had gone off inside their home. To this day, Cheated still has no idea what happened.

"So you're just sitting here in the dark? Why not go for a walk?" Contrarian lowered his head, his smile getting smaller and more weak by the minute.

"Just- uh- didn't want to," was Contrarian's answer, and Cheated sighed, leaning back as he took in Contrarian's whole form.

The red-rimmed eyes. The tremble in his body. The heaviness in his voice.

"Connie," Cheated whispered softly, making Contrarian flinch and turn his head the other way. "It's okay to be upset."

"I'm not upset! I'm just tired!" Contrarian argued in a low voice, twisting to glare at him for a second, before realising what he'd done and quickly turning away again.

Cheated wasn't so sure how to go about this, so he just moved a little closer to the other, making sure not to scare him away just yet.

"Connie, I heard you crying when I walked in."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"No, you didn't!"

Cheated sighed, reaching a hand out to rub Contrarian's back, who flinched at first, but ultimately relaxed against the touch. Cheated kept his movements soft and slow as he said, "You don't have to be embarrassed about being sad. We all have bad days. Shit, I've probably had more bad days than anyone, so if anyone will understand, it's me."

Contrarian was silent for awhile then, shoving his face back into his arms, and Cheated was content to just rub his back, and he could feel the way the other bird's body shook beneath his palm.

After what felt like forever, he heard Contrarian sniffle again.

"It's just-" he started, before sighed and lifting his head, and now Cheated could see the tears rolling down his cheeks more clearly. Cheated didn't like seeing Contrarian cry, he decided.

"It's just that my day had actually been pretty good," Contrarian confessed, resting his chin on his knees. "I hung out with Hero, had a flying match with Stubborn, I even made Cold chuckle." Contrarian smiled fondly at the memories, before it quickly fell into a frown that didn't suit his face.

"But then I fell asleep and- and-" Contrarian suddenly let a shaky breath out, letting a whimper out as he squeezed his eyes shut, as if trying to block out memories.

"-and then I was back in-in-"

In the cabin.

Cheated sighed, knowing exactly what had rattled Contrarian so much.

He didn't say anything or urge Contrarian to continue. He just silently wrapped an arm and a wing around him, and Cheated felt the way Contrarian tensed at the movement, before slumping against Cheated's side.

Cheated hugged Contrarian tight, hoping that he was able to provide some comfort to the other. Cheated has never seen Contrarian upset before, so he's not exactly sure how to make him feel better.

But he's pretty sure not leaving him alone at a time like this was a good start.

"I'm sorry that happened to you," Cheated whispered, and he heard another sniffle, but didn't comment on it. "It always sucks to get a nightmare like that."

"But you know," Cheated muttered quietly, as if afraid of someone overhearing their conversation, "you don't have to be all happy and smiley all the time. It's okay to not be a jester every once in a while."

Contrarian leaned further into his side, and then nervously asked, "But what if the others don't know how to handle a different side of me?"

"I can handle you. All of you."

He heard Contrarian gasp-and Cheated suddenly feared that he had said the wrong thing-but then Contrarian's breath hitched, before he burst into quiet sobbing, twisting to hug Cheated tight, and Cheated's arms were already bringing Contrarian into a secure hug.

Cheated held Contrarian close as he cried, and he only hoped that he was strong enough to make all of Contrarian's dark thoughts go away for good.

#slay the princess #stories #my writing #writing prompt #stp #stp voices #stp contrarian #voice of the contrarian #stp cheated #voice of the cheated

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tanoraqui · 1 day ago

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holy shit that distinction between describe and define. you. you put it into words.

damn i should've replied to this earlier, so I didn't have to dig through my blog to find the relevant tags, because they ARE good and I DO want to wave them in more people's faces:

#I think we need to start swapping in the word ‘describe’ for ‘define’ sometimes #and ‘describe myself’ rather than ‘identify’ too #‘define’ and ‘identify’ and such have too much power #would I DESCRIBE myself as someone not interested in romance; ie aromantic? yeah probably #would I DEFINE myself that way? is it a key part of my IDENTITY? uh no. literally no why are you making such a big deal out of this #I understand part of the answer to that 'why' is ‘massive external social pressure bc everyone ELSE both for and against the many #varieties of queerness cares So Much about it’ #(‘it’ here being not just romanticism but sexuality and/or gender ofc) #but hot DAMN do I think that THAT - that CARING; that DEFINING - is a root of the problem in the first place #not THE root but surely A root) #I’d define myself; identify myself; as a bookworm several minutes before I thought to include my interest in who or how much #i want to romance or to fuck; in a self-description. and I don't read nearly as much as i used to #and whose business is my sexual preference anyway? or my gender; if we're just gonna talk about books?) #if everyone did the college freshman orientation thing and introduced themselves with name; major & state of origin #I’d know more about them as a person than pronouns and sexuality in their bio #or at least I’d know approx as much #and it should be down to a personal choice what’s ‘identity’ and what’s only ‘description’ #rather than this…whatever we’re collectively doing now.

(bolding added now)

#shamelesslymkp #society #gender #sexuality #pronouns

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wishcamper · 1 day ago

Text

oh hello

smoke signals ch 8

is up now

read here on ao3, preview below the cut

It makes her feel like shit to admit, but it’s nice not to be the problem for once.

Not that she’s happy it’s at Cassian’s expense, but it was a relief to not be the one all eyes in a tense room slid to, the one fending off under-breath grumbles and patronizing criticism veiled as concern. It's the first time in twenty-four hours she hasn't felt observed, and the soggy-blanket weight lifted from her shoulders at last.

It didn't hurt seeing Graysen whimper like a little dweeb, either.

Morrigan, finding only Nesta and herself left, has parked herself on the sofa with a fat glass of white wine and a rerun of the millionth season of The Bachelor . Nesta’s planning to sneak to her car for a cigarette when she feels a large hand graze the curve of her waist.

“Hey.”

There’s a weird air about him as Cassian sidles up behind her, something tight about his mouth. He’s changed his clothes, too.

“I need a favor,” he murmurs close to her ear. “Can you drop me off somewhere?”

His voice has just a hint of roughness, the fine gravel at the bottom of fishtanks.

“You’re leaving?”

“Just for a bit, I’ll Uber back.”

Nesta isn’t following, and it’s weird to have no idea what’s going on with him, not when he’s always been so open. “Can’t you drive yourself?”

“No, I just—I can’t. Not right now.” Cassian pleads with those big hazel puppy eyes, the ones that make her want to believe everything he’s saying. “I’ll explain when we get there.”

“Sure, okay.” Nesta shuffles toward the stairs. “Let me get my keys. Are you okay?”

She doesn’t mean to ask it, and she can tell he’s just as surprised as she is. Like he’s just heard the question for the first time.

“Yeah. I don’t know. Actually, no.” He drags a hand through unruly hair. “Can we go? I want to get there by noon.”

Nesta feels his edginess begin to seep into her, a nervous tingling down the backs of her thighs. “You’re freaking me out.”

Guilt makes a home on Cassian’s face. “You’ll understand when—you’ll get it. Please trust me.”

This is a shit feeling, knowing he’s struggling, being on the outside. Knowing he needs the space but wanting to dig into his thick head and drag it out anyway, even if it's just to ease herself.

But he respected her this morning, and she's determined not to be a hypocrite. At least whatever it is will get her out of this house. Preferably for a while, so she can go back to avoiding Feyre as she should've in the first place.

Cassian smokes two American Spirits in the car, the second lit off the end of the first. He’s silent, massive shoulders hunched to fit in her Civic, but he fiddles with the radio enough that it puts Nesta more at ease. Whatever’s going on, it’s not so emergent that he’ll tolerate twenty minutes of children’s gospel choirs.

#smoke signals #nessian #nessian fanfiction #nesta x cassian #acosf #modern AU #nesta archeron deserves better

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smilingformoney · 2 days ago

Text

Champagne Problems

Chapter 5. Hello, Nice To Meet You

Lionel/Reader

Summary: After Sinclair discovers his wife has been cheating on him, he turns to the one person he knows that might understand what he's going through, leading to unexpected consequences for you and Lionel.

Word Count: 17.2k

CW: references to past cheating and past drug abuse

All chapters here!

Read on Ao3 or below the cut:

1990

Sinclair respected your decision and didn’t call you again — at least, not until the following summer, towards the end of August. You were in the garden, pulling up some weeds, when Cole poked his head out of the back door.

“Hey, Mum, phone for you. Someone called Sinclair Brian?”

You sat up, frowning. “Sinclair Bryant?”

“Yeah, that was probably it.”

Wondering what on earth Sinclair could possibly be phoning you for, you pulled off your gardening gloves and wiped your feet on the mat before stepping back into the house to pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Oh, hi! Is that [Y/n]?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Hi [Y/n]! It’s Sinclair. Sinclair Bryant?”

“Yes, I know who you are,” you laughed.

“Okay, great. I hoped you hadn’t forgotten me. Hey, was that Cole that picked up?”

“Um, yeah. Sorry, Sinclair, it’s great to hear from you, but… why are you calling?”

“Right, sorry! Well, I need to talk to you. Something’s happened and you’re the only one I can talk to about it. And you know I always need to talk about everything! Can we meet up?”

“Yeah, of course. Do you want to come over for dinner?”

“Sure, I’d love to! Oh, but – I want to talk to you alone, if that’s okay. Not that I wouldn’t like to meet Cole! Just… this is kinda personal. Would that be okay?”

“Yeah, of course it is. He’s out with his mates most of the time anyway, I’ll make sure he buggars off somewhere. Is Friday at 7 okay?”

“Yeah, Friday’s perfect! What’s your address? I’ll bring some wine.”

You gave Sinclair your address, and when you hung up, you turned to find Cole not so subtly spying on you from the corridor.

“Bloody hell, C. You’re just like your gran sometimes.”

“Soz. Am I being kicked out on Friday?”

“Yeah, and if you could go ahead and never come back, that’d be great.”

“Wasn’t planning on it. Who’s Sinclair Bryant?”

You hesitated.

“He’s… an old friend.”

Cole looked at you suspiciously. “Friend, eh?”

“Oh, shush. It’s really not like that. He was like a brother to me, a very long time ago. Anyway, he’s coming over at 7 on Friday, and it sounds like he wants to talk about something personal, so can you go sniff glue or whatever it is you do with your mates?”

“I have permission to sniff glue! No backsies!” Cole laughed, and he ran back up the stairs before you could respond, cackling all the way, leaving you alone to wonder what on earth was going on with Sinclair.

- - -

Sinclair didn’t tell you what was up right away, and you didn’t press him. He evaded your questions about his life, rambling on about everything but, and it wasn’t until after dinner, when you were both sitting in the garden with the wine he’d brought over, that Sinclair finally revealed the reason he was there.

He told you the whole story – the whole story, including the identity of Natalie’s lover.

“That’s – holy shit. Her brother? Eiw.”

“I knew they had a really intense relationship. And I knew she was cheating on me. But… I couldn’t put two and two together. I even confided in him about it! I asked him if he knew who it was, because I thought if she’d tell anyone, it’d be him. I didn’t think it would be him.”

Sinclair’s fingers were fidgeting with the stem of his now empty wine glass, spinning it in his hands.

“I hope you don’t mind me telling you all this. I didn’t know who else to talk to. I figured if anyone understood how I feel… it’d be you.”

“Oh, Sinclair, of course I don’t mind you telling me,” you said soothingly, placing your hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort. “I’m glad you did. I didn’t think you’d want to see me again after what happened at the wedding.”

Sinclair bit his lip. “About that… what did you mean when you said I could do better?”

“Clair, if I’m honest, everyone I spoke to at that wedding thought the same. But who were any of us to tell you not to do it? But if you must know – you are vibrant, you’re interesting and interested in everything. You are so sweet. And she was… dull. That was it, really. She was so boring, Sinclair, I really don’t know what you saw in her.”

Sinclair looked at you curiously. “Lionel said the same thing. He said she was dull.”

You pulled your hand away from him as if burnt.

“Yeah, well… like I said, everyone thought so.”

Sinclair leant forwards and buried his face in his hands.

“I don’t know what to do, [Y/n],” he whined. “How do I trust her again?”

“Hang on. You mean you’re not divorcing her?”

He looked up at you. “No, of course not. I love her.”

You winced. “Really?”

Sinclair looked at you incredulously, then sat back with a sigh.

“Yes, really! God, you sound like Lionel. Is it so hard to believe that I love my wife? I don’t want to run at the first sign of trouble. I want to work on this, to fix it!”

“Sinclair. You said you came here because I know how you feel. And you know that I’m still hurt by what Lionel did.”

“Well, maybe if you’d tried, you could have forgiven him!”

You stared at him. “I’m sorry, did you come here for comfort, or to tell me I was wrong to dump the guy who cheated on me? Right under your nose, might I remind you.”

Sinclair folded his arms, sulking.

“Maybe if you’d tried, you could have been happy.”

“Yeah, and maybe if he’d tried to think with a different head, there wouldn’t be anything to forgive.” You sighed and rubbed your temple. “Why couldn’t we have fallen in love, Sinclair? Everything would have been so much easier. We’d never cheat on each other.”

Sinclair shifted in his seat. “Has it really been hurting for eighteen years?” he asked quietly.

You thought for a moment.

“Yes and no. I haven’t spent the last eighteen years constantly angry at him. I’ve even had boyfriends. But… it’s really fucking hard to get over it when I see his face all the bloody time.”

“Does Cole look like him, then?”

“What? Oh, no, Cole looks like me. There’s some Lionel in there, sure, but not enough that it’s obvious. You know, not like you and him. No, I mean the fact that he buys up every media outlet he can get his stubby little fingers on, and when he does, he announces it to the world by plastering his face all over it. ‘Now part of Shabandar Media!’ And there’s that ridiculous picture of himself he always uses, you know the one? Where he’s staring at the camera like the cameraman just farted.”

Sinclair let out a boisterous laugh, the one you knew and loved so well.

“That is exactly what he looks like!”

“I bet he thinks he looks so cool and powerful. Anyway, it makes it difficult to get over him when I’m queuing in the shop to buy tampons and I see him staring at me like that from a magazine.”

Sinclair wiped a tear from his eye, and thankfully, it was a tear of laughter.

“Oh my god, [Y/n], you’re so right. See, this is why you were so good for him. You always saw right through his bullshit. Mine, too.”

You shrugged. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t see through him that well. I couldn’t figure out that he was cheating on me all year. I was stupid enough to think that he was calling less because he was busy with coursework. Nope, it was because he felt guilty calling me when he’d just emptied his balls down some other girl’s throat. And do you wanna know what really pissed me off about the whole thing?”

Sinclair nodded, curious.

“It wasn’t like I wasn’t putting out, you know? Every time he came home to visit, we were going at it. Like, a lot.”

“Yeah, you weren’t exactly subtle about that.”

You suppressed a snigger. “Oh, god, sorry. I didn’t mean to traumatise you. Anyway, maybe that’s why I didn’t think he could be cheating, because he’d be shagging me as if he hadn’t even wanked in months, let alone had sex. So I don’t know what else I could have done. That was what kept me up at night after I found out. I kept thinking, what did I do wrong? Why did he cheat on me? But I just kept coming up blank. I like to think I can admit when there’s blame to be left at my door, but apart from following him to Cambridge, I don’t know what else I could have done.”

Sinclair stared at you, eyes wide, as if he was having some sort of epiphany.

“[Y/n]... you’re right. That’s exactly it. I knew there was something bugging me. I don’t know what I did wrong! She never said she was unhappy. And we – you know, we were having sex. I don’t claim to be a perfect husband, but she never gave me any sign things were so bad that she’d be tempted to stray.”

“Maybe they weren’t. Maybe you didn’t do anything wrong. Maybe… maybe some people are just cheaters.”

“No, I don’t believe that,” Sinclair said stubbornly, shaking his head. “Nobody does things for no reason. Especially not awful things like that. There’s a reason Natalie cheated, something I did wrong… or didn’t do.”

“I wish I knew why Lionel cheated,” you sighed, slumping dejectedly in your seat. “Other than because he’s a piece of shit. But… okay, so I try to only buy newspapers he doesn’t own. It makes no difference, I know, but it makes me feel like I’m rebelling against him in some way. Anyway, he appears in the gossip sections sometimes. Always dating rumours, he’s dating this starlet, he’s dating that model… just a stream of girlfriends. Kind of reinforces my point that he’s just a manwhore.”

“Well… I don’t know if it helps at all, but… those rumours aren’t usually true. He has dated some women, but never seriously. I mean, he – you know, he’s very flirtatious with women. And they usually flirt back. I assume he sleeps with them, obviously I don’t ask. But there’s never been another you. You’re the only woman he ever loved.”

“Did he, though?” you asked uncertainly. “Did he love me?”

“Yes!” Sinclair insisted earnestly. “Yes, [Y/n], he loved you, I know he did. I mean, he wanted to marry you! He was so excited when he told me he was going to propose. He doesn’t get serious with me much, he never has. You know, he doesn’t talk about his feelings. But I asked him, ‘Lionel, are you sure? Marriage is a big commitment.’ And… god, he was so earnest about it. He really loved you, [Y/n], and he wanted to commit to you. And to be honest with you, I think – no, I know. I know he still loves you. He wouldn’t have argued with you like that last year if he didn’t.”

You sniffled and shook your head.

“But then why did he cheat on me?”

“That, I don’t know. If you really want the answer to that question, you’re going to have to ask him.”

You reached over and took Sinclair’s hand in yours. He squeezed it reassuringly.

“Let’s make a pact, Sinclair. I’ll ask Lionel why he cheated on me… if you ask Natalie the same question.”

Sinclair bit his lip, thinking.

“I don’t know, [Y/n]. I don’t think Natalie’s gonna know why Lionel cheated on you.”

You laughed, and he laughed, and for a few moments, you both remembered just how much fun you’d had all those years ago, when it was nothing but sun, laughter, and love.

“Okay, okay, I’ll ask her,” Sinclair agreed as his laughter died down. “Shall we set a deadline? A date we have to meet up again and we’ll have our answers.”

You wiped a tear from your eye.

“Yes, let’s. Cole’s back at school on the 3rd. How about we have lunch then and exchange tales of woe?”

Sinclair grinned and held his hand out to you. You took it and shook his hand firmly.

“It’s a date!”

- - -

The Shabandar Media office tower was as ridiculous as you expected.

You doubted that the BBC headquarters had a huge picture of the Director-General staring down at visitors in the reception area. Hell, you didn’t even know who the Director-General of the BBC was. Why couldn’t Lionel be as unknown to you?

Then again, if he wasn’t so extra, he wouldn’t be Lionel. He’d always had big ambitions, and he’d always been loud about them. Success had just made his ego worse.

“Hello. I’m here to see Lionel Shabandar,” you said when you approached the front desk with a polite smile.

The receptionist looked you up and down as if she were deciding whether or not you were worthy to see the mighty Lionel Shabandar.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No, but he’ll want to see me. My name’s [Y/n] [L/n].”

“You need an appointment to see Lord Shabandar.”

You tried not to groan in frustration. You already didn’t want to be doing this, and now his gatekeeper of a receptionist was making the whole thing a lot more difficult.

“Look, can you just give him my name and tell him I’m here? I can assure you, he won’t be happy if he finds out you wouldn’t let me in.”

The receptionist looked at you patronisingly. “Mmm-hmm. You’re not the first pretty girl to stand here and insist his Lordship will drop everything for her. Appointment. Only.”

Oh, she did not just imply you were one of Lionel’s arm candies.

Well, if she wouldn’t let you in, you had a feeling you knew who could get you in.

On the very top floor of the office tower, Lionel was trying to concentrate on a report from his CFO, but his phone kept ringing. After the third consecutive missed call from Sinclair, he picked it up with irritation.

“Someone had better be dead,” Lionel snapped.

“[Y/n] wants to talk to you!”

“…What?”

“[Y/n]! You know, your ex-girlfriend? The love of your life? The woman you’ve been pining for for the last eighteen years?”

“Shut up, I know who she is. And I’m not pining! What do you mean, she wants to talk to me?”

“I mean she’s in the reception of your office building right now trying to see you, but your receptionist won’t let her in.”

Lionel growled in frustration. “I am going to fire that bloody receptionist. Right, fine, I’ll call down. Thank you, Sinclair.”

He hung up before Sinclair could start rambling on about something, then dialled the number for the main reception.

“Good —”

“What’s this I hear about you not letting [Y/n] [L/n] in to see me?” Lionel demanded, cutting off the stupid woman before she had a chance to speak.

“Oh, yes, we had a lady by that name. She’s still in reception. She wanted to see you, but she didn’t have an appointment.”

“She doesn’t need an appointment, and if I hear of her being refused entry again, it’ll be your job. Send her up, now.”

“Y — yes, your Lordship. Apologies, your Lordship.”

Lionel slammed the phone down. Downstairs, you put down the magazine you’d been reading and approached the desk smugly.

“News from the big man?”

“I’m so sorry, ma’am, I had no idea. Here — a visitor’s pass. Through the gates, take the lift up to the top floor, his office is on the right.”

You took the pass, and you had to suppress a laugh at the way the snooty receptionist had suddenly become completely subservient as soon as she got an earful from Lionel.

A few others got on and off the lift at various floors, but you were apparently the only one destined for the very top floor. You stepped out of the lift and headed right to find yourself in yet another waiting area with a desk and a receptionist, and another stupid picture of Lionel’s stupid face.

“[Y/n] [L/n]?” the new receptionist said with a smile. “You can go straight in.”

Now, that was the type of welcome you liked.

You silently reminded yourself of your plan as you entered Lionel’s office. You were going to talk, really talk, and if he said the right things, maybe you’d consider thinking about letting him be in your life again.

If he just tried to stick his dick in you, you’d know he hadn’t changed.

Lionel’s office was far bigger than necessary. It must have had more floor space than the entire ground floor of your house. One of the walls wasn’t a wall but a huge window, nothing but glass from corner to corner, with a view over London that Lionel no doubt loved to take in while he told himself he was king of it all.

The man himself was sat at his desk, brow furrowed as he read something in a binder. He glanced up at you dismissively.

“Oh, [Y/n]. I’d heard you were here.”

You folded your arms and raised an eyebrow at him as you finally crossed the swathe of his office and reached his desk.

“Busy, are you? I can come back another time. I know I don’t have an appointment.”

“I’m going to fire that bloody receptionist,” Lionel cursed, dropping his façade of not caring that you were there. He slammed the binder shut and sat back in his chair. “What’s the point of giving these people a list if they don’t look at it?”

“What list?”

“People who don’t need an appointment. You, Sinclair, Mum and Helen. Come on, let’s go in here, it’s more private.”

Lionel stood and ushered you towards a door to the side.

“I’m on the special list, am I?” you said. “I’m honoured. Not even Kylie Minogue?”

Lionel looked at you with a frown. “Why would — oh, for fuck’s sake, you don’t read Murdoch’s shit, do you? He’ll take any interaction I have with a beautiful woman and turn it into gossip fodder.”

“Well, you know, I have to get my news from somewhere. I don’t really want to get it from you.”

Lionel led you through the door and into a smaller, more intimate office, which had just one, reasonably-sized, window. Books, files and folders lined the shelves against the walls, and two leather sofas sat opposite one another across a coffee table. You could easily picture Lionel here with a drink in one hand and a fag in the other, discussing some rich man bullshit with other rich men.

He was still obsessed with lions it seemed, from the painting of a pouncing lion that stood over the fireplace. And when Lionel gestured for you to sit, you noticed there were lions embroidered into the throw cushions.

He was still fully clothed — he was doing well so far.

“Wine?”

“At work? Scandalous.”

Lionel smirked as he poured two glasses of a probably very expensive red. “I won’t tell your boss if you don’t tell mine.”

“Did Sinclair tell you why I’m here?” you asked.

“He said you wanted to talk,” Lionel said as he handed you a glass of wine and sat on the opposite end of the three-seater sofa, his legs crossed and an arm thrown across the back cushion. “So let’s talk. I have an appointment in twenty minutes, but nothing that can’t be pushed back.”

“He reached out to me last week, to tell me about Natalie. He wanted to talk to someone who understood what he was going through. And I decided I needed to…” you trailed off, trying to find the words to describe exactly what it was you were looking for.

“You needed to see me, did you?” Lionel said with a smirk.

You scoffed. “If I just wanted to see you, I wouldn’t have had to fight my way past the reception, I could have just looked at that massive picture of your face that’s on the wall down there.”

“Or you could look in your favourite gossip rag.”

“Or on the cover of whichever magazine you just bought. See, this is why it’s hard to get over you, Lionel. You’re bloody everywhere.”

You took a generous gulp of your wine.

“I told you, didn’t I?” Lionel said proudly. “I told you I’d be a huge success. Is that why you’re here? Want a piece of it, do you? I’ll write you a cheque if you need.”

“No! No, god, no. Do you really think I’m here for money?”

“You made it pretty bloody clear you didn’t want anything to do with me, so…”

You shook your head. You took another large gulp of wine for courage and set the glass down on the nearby coffee table.

“No, Lionel, I don’t want your money, I never did. I just want… answers.”

He looked at you expectantly, waiting for the question he was supposed to answer.

“I need to know why,” you said quietly, avoiding his gaze.

Lionel was quiet for a long moment. Then, he too took a long gulp of wine and put his glass on the table.

“I was an idiot. That’s why.”

He sighed and rested his forehead against his palm.

“You hit the nail on the head at the wedding. I thought I could have it all. I thought I could fuck a new girl every week, then toss them out like used tissues, and still have my girlfriend waiting for me at home. I spent most of that first year drunk or high or both — it’s no excuse, I know, but I went fucking insane. It wasn’t until Sinclair slapped some sense into me that I realised just how insane I was acting.”

“You said you thought Sinclair didn’t know.”

“About the girls, no, I didn’t think he knew. But the drinking and the drugs, he knew about that. Poor bastard had to clean up after me enough times. After I missed an exam because I was too hungover - I don’t even know what from - he tore me a new one. Christ, you don’t want to see him when he’s really angry. That was when I realised what an idiot I was being. I knew I had to clean up my act… and that included committing to you fully.”

Lionel shifted in his seat, as if he were about to move closer to you, but he thought better of it.

“[Y/n]… I am truly sorry. I should have apologised then, or in any of the time since. I should have apologised at the wedding. I don’t ask you to forgive me, but you must know how sorry I am.”

You looked up at him. It pained you to see how earnest he was being. For so many years you’d seen only his public face, the stern, powerful, egotistical front that he showed the world. You’d forgotten that underneath that façade, there was a man who, like everyone else, just wanted to be loved. The boy you’d fallen in love with was still there, and in that moment of vulnerability, he wanted you to love him again.

“I’ve thought a lot since the wedding,” you said quietly. Without realising you were doing it, you began fiddling with the corner of the throw cushion. “You’re right, I should have given you the choice to be a father or not. I was so scared you’d reject him, and so certain you would… I didn’t want to see you turn him away, so I didn’t give you the chance to. I thought about it. God, I’ve thought about it so many times. We’ve never really struggled with money, but I could never give him everything he wanted. There are things I had to say no to. So I was tempted… but I was never with you for your money, you know that, and I didn’t want to go crawling back to you for it. And… I missed you. Sometimes I thought about reaching out just because I missed you. Silly, I know…”

“Not at all,” Lionel said softly. “I’ve missed you, too.”

“What, even when you’re with Kylie Minogue?” you said with a wry smile.

“Even then. I’ve taken many beautiful women to bed, I won’t deny it, but you’re the only one I loved. They were just filling the void you left, chérie.”

It was just one word, but that little nickname still managed to make your heart flutter. You felt like you were a teenager again, with all the potential of the future ahead of you. It reminded you of Paris, where you’d confessed your love in front of Monet and shared your first time together. It reminded you of that summer, when you would spend hours just talking, planning how you were going to take over the world together. There was so much ahead of you, so much you could have been — and within a year it was gone, and all that remained was a little clump of cells growing in your belly.

Lionel was just considering closing the gap between you when, without warning, you stood up and walked over to the window.

He blinked in surprise at your sudden movement and turned to you. You had your back to him, your arms hugging yourself across your chest, and you were looking down towards the city.

You just stood there, silent. Lionel stood and approached you carefully, like you were a wild animal he didn’t want to frighten.

“Did I… say something wrong?” he asked cautiously.

You shook your head.

“No, I’m sorry, I… I promised I wouldn’t do this.”

“Do what?”

You looked up at him. He was next to you now, a hand hesitantly hovering near your shoulder, as if unsure whether to touch you or not.

“Want you again. I promised myself I wouldn’t just fall back into your arms, Lionel, I can’t — I can’t repeat the past.”

“I don’t expect you to fall back into my arms, [Y/n]. I don’t even expect you to ever trust me again. But I would like to know you again. If trust comes of that one day, I’d be honoured. But just having you in my life would be enough for me, in whatever form that may take. If you want to be friends, lovers, business acquaintances — I’ll take whatever you’ll give me just to have the opportunity to know you.”

“I’m not going to forgive you easily, Lionel,” you said, quiet but firm. “If at all. I didn’t come here to forgive you. But I’m willing to accept that the Lionel standing here now isn’t the same Lionel I knew. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I don’t know, but… I’d like to. I’d like to know you.”

Lionel looked at you curiously for a moment, then stuck his right hand out towards you, as if to shake your hand. Frowning, you gave him your hand, and he did indeed shake it as if you were some new business acquaintance.

“Pleased to meet you. Lionel Shabandar.”

You laughed.

“[Y/n] [L/n]. I’m sure we’ve met before, but I can’t really place it.”

“In Paris, I think it was.”

You smiled as he let go of your hand.

“Yes, Paris. Can we go back to Paris and pretend nothing since then ever happened?”

“I sincerely wish we could,” Lionel said wistfully. “I’ve never been able to recapture the magic of that weekend. No matter how much art I buy, however many women I seduce… I’ve never come close to that feeling again. But it wasn’t the art or the sex that made Paris special, was it? It was you.”

“The art and the sex were pretty great, though.”

Lionel chuckled.

“Yes, they were, but only because of you. In fact — I’m attending a charity fundraiser this Saturday at the V&A. Perhaps you could come with me. As a friend, as a date, whatever you want it to be. But your company may be exactly what I need.”

“Okay.”

Lionel raised his eyebrows in surprise, as if he’d expected you to say no.

“Okay?”

You smiled and took his hand in yours.

“Okay.”

- - -

When you were eighteen, you couldn’t get ready to go and see Lionel without your mum pestering you with questions. Now, it seemed, she was doing it again, because you were sure her ghost was possessing your son.

“Can’t you at least tell me where you’re actually going?” Cole pleaded as you tied up the laces of the boots you were wearing.

“I told you! I’m going to the Victoria and Albert Museum.”

“No, you can’t be, ‘cus they’ve got a fundraiser on tonight. You have to be really rich to go, it costs like a grand just to get in.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“My mate Ben told me, he volunteers at the THT, he said that —”

He was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell.

“I’ll get it!” Cole exclaimed, almost tripping over his feet as he ran down the stairs to get to the door.

You considered running after him, but you decided against it. You knew Lionel wouldn’t be picking you up personally. Instead, you slung your purse over your shoulder, and made your way downstairs much more calmly than he had.

The door was closed again, and Cole was waiting for you in the hallway, staring up the stairs at you accusingly.

“Mum, your boyfriend sent a driver! In a Rolls Royce! Is he rich?!”

“He is not my boyfriend,” you said firmly as you reached the bottom of the stairs. “Seriously, Cole, don’t push this. Money’s on the counter for a pizza. Do not invite your mates over. I might be back late, I don’t know. I might never come back at all, if so then remember that I never loved you and you’re nothing but a burden.”

You opened the door, and sure enough, a Rolls Royce was waiting at the kerb with a driver in a black suit standing waiting for you, looking more like a bodyguard than a driver.

“Is your boyfriend in the car?” Cole gasped, standing in the doorway trying to get a look into the car, but fortunately the windows were tinted.

“Get inside,” you snapped, waving him back into the house. “I’ll see you later.”

“Or tomorrow,” Cole winked.

“Or never.”

You ushered him inside and made sure the door was shut before you crossed the pavement and let the driver open the door for you.

Lionel was waiting for you inside, a glass of champagne already in his hand, and you sat yourself down next to him with a sigh.

“I swear, that boy is possessed by the spirit of his grandmother,” you huffed. “Always with the questions.”

Lionel chuckled. “Well, when you’re dressing up like that on a Saturday night, I’d be asking questions too.”

You glanced down at your outfit with a frown. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Absolutely nothing. You look incredible. Here, this is for you.”

Lionel handed you the glass he’d been holding, then began pouring himself his own glass from a bottle he procured from a compartment behind the front passenger seat.

“You have a secret compartment for champagne,” you snorted.

“Of course. Cheers.”

He held up his glass to you.

“To new beginnings.”

You smiled and clinked your glasses before taking a sip. You’d forgotten how good rich people’s drinks were.

“So this is a charity thing, right?” you said as the driver pulled off. “Rich people showing off their massive cheques. Like a dick-measuring contest but with money.”

Lionel chuckled.

“I see you’ve not lost your ability to see right through the bullshit. Yes, that’s precisely what it is. Most of the people attending tonight won’t even know what charity they’re raising funds for. I can guarantee you, they’re all on their way there now, their assistants briefing them on what cause they’re supposed to pretend to care about.”

“And you’ve already been briefed, have you?”

“No, I know what the cause is. There’s a reason why I’m richer than all of them, and that’s because I don’t spend for the sake of it. If I’m going to donate to charity, I’m going to donate to a charity I believe in, not whichever has the best optics.”

“Hmm, so it’s a charity you believe in…” you said thoughtfully. “Is it the Inflate Lionel’s Ego Foundation?”

“No.”

“Then I’m drawing a blank.”

Lionel looked at you with a smirk. “Well, then, I guess this is your first challenge in getting to know me.”

“Well, then, I guess I’ll have to find out. Actually, I do have some things I’d like to know, while we can’t be overheard.”

Lionel looked at you curiously.

“Kylie Minogue.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lionel sighed. “Are you on Murdoch’s payroll? Are you actually here to get gossip from me?”

“Lionel, I swear, I’m just curious!” you laughed.

“She — Christ, I didn’t realise you’d grill me about flings.”

“So you did sleep with her!”

“Once! She was between boyfriends. Perhaps I should be grilling you on this subject. Sinclair told me you mentioned past boyfriends. They couldn’t live up to your first love, was that it?”

You rolled your eyes and smacked his arm playfully.

“You wish. No, men find it hard to date a single mother who runs her own business. They say they don’t mind that I have a child, or that they admire the independence of my work. But when they realise I’m not prioritising them over my work or my son, they lose interest.”

“Christ, I have the same problem,” Lionel sighed. “Anyone I have tried to date gets frustrated quickly with how busy I am. They always think being rich means I can do what I want, when I want. They don’t seem to realise I do actually have to work for my money.”

“Yeah, that must be so annoying when they show up unannounced at your office. Even when your receptionist tells them to piss off, they just call your cousin and get him to let them in.”

Lionel laughed, and without thinking about it, he placed his hand on your thigh.

“I’ve had women try many things to get in to see me, yes. But using Sinclair is a low only you would stoop to.”

“Hey!” you laughed. “I’m on the list, remember?”

“Yes, and that stupid receptionist is on thin fucking ice.”

Lionel suddenly noticed where his hand was, and he tried to be subtle as he pulled it away.

“Anyway - if you must know - I have tried to date and not just fuck around, as you seem to think I do. But as I said, they always want more attention than I can give. If you think running a shop makes it hard to date, try running a media empire.”

“Pfft, try raising a child. Men and their fragile egos can’t handle knowing they’ll always be the second most important man in my life.”

“Third, surely?”

You frowned, then groaned when you saw his stupid smirk.

“No, you are not number one! You’re not even number two! The only number two you are is a piece of shit, Lionel Shabandar.”

He just cackled, and you realised with a pang that his cheeky cackle sounded just like Cole’s.

“Honestly, the nerve on you,” you sighed with amusement. “If I had to rank the men in my life, you spent the last eighteen years at the bottom of the ladder, and if you keep that attitude up, you won’t get much higher. But even if you do climb back up again, don’t set your expectations too high, the best you can do is fourth.”

“Fourth?”

“Yes, fourth. Cole, Dad, Sinclair. Then, if you earn it, you might get fourth place one day.”

Lionel was quiet for a long moment. You looked at him curiously, wondering why he was looking suddenly thoughtful.

“What?” you asked.

“His name’s Cole?”

“Oh, shit, you didn’t want to know. Sorry, it just slipped out. Um, yeah, it’s Cole.”

“No, that’s alright. I had intended to ask. If we’re to… well, I don’t have any doubts that you come as a pair.” Lionel cleared his throat. “Anyway, I dispute your claim that Sinclair has such a solid position. I’m sure I can at least knock him down to fourth.”

“I dunno, after warning me about you, he solidified himself pretty well. Have you spoken to him, by the way?”

“Mmm, I’ve had lunch with him a few times this week. He’s still convinced he can make things work. I told him if he ever changes his mind, I can call in some favours and have her life ruined.”

You snorted.

“You wouldn’t need to do that. Losing Sinclair would be life-ruining enough.” You took a sip from your champagne and looked out the window. “This traffic is so bloody slow. It would have been quicker to get the tube.”

“How dare you speak that word in my car.”

You laughed. “Oh, sorry, are you too rich now to share the tube with the common folk?”

“Yes. Your buddy Murdoch would have a field day if someone got a picture of me on the Underground. I’m the richest man in England, [Y/n], I don’t use public transport.”

“Oh, sorry, your Majesty. Hey, are you richer than the Queen?”

“I am,” Lionel said smugly. “In fact, she granted me a lordship just last year for my contributions to the arts.”

“Yeah, I read about that. Monetary contributions, I suppose. If I had married you, would that have made me a Lady?”

“It would. You’d be Lady [Y/n] Shabandar.”

You burst into laughter then.

“Oh my god, that sounds so dumb!”

Lionel frowned, looking somewhat affronted. “There’s nothing dumb about peerage. It’s a great honour bestowed on very few —”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, ‘my Lord.’ Nah, sorry, I’m not calling you that. You’re Lionel to me. Or Dickhead.”

Lionel rolled his eyes, but you could see his amused smirk.

“Well, we’re nearly there, so let me remind you that there will be a lot of sycophants sucking up to me tonight. I don’t like it, but it comes with the territory. You can laugh about it later, but can you at least hold it in in public?”

You wiped a tear of laughter from your eye.

“Of course I will. You know I like to tease you, but I also know your optics are important. I’ll behave. I always behaved at parties, didn’t I? No matter how ridiculous and out of touch the people were. In fact, you were the one always misbehaving! I’d be trying to seem cool and mature so your fancy friends would like me, and you’d be there trying to fondle my arse.”

“Lies and slander, I have never tried anything in my life. If I want to do something, I do it, and that includes fondling your arse.”

There was something promissory in the way he said that, and you quickly looked away, knowing that if you saw that hungry look in his eye, you might do something you’d regret.

“Ah, we’re here,” Lionel said as the driver pulled up, and you looked out of the window to recognise the entrance to the museum.

The driver opened the door and Lionel stepped out, then turned around to give you a hand out of the car. You put your arm in the crook of his elbow automatically, as if this was something you did every day, and Lionel smiled to himself when he felt your hand on his arm.

He escorted you to the entrance of the museum, which bore a sign indicating it was closed for an invite-only event. He opened the door as confidently as if he were walking into his own home, and approached the ticket desk with you still holding his arm.

“Good evening. Lionel Shabandar, plus one. You’ll find me on the guest list.”

The man smiled politely. “Of course, Lord Shabandar.” He scanned the list on his clipboard and ticked off Lionel’s name. “I don’t believe you prepaid for a plus one, your Lordship.”

“No, I’ll pay for her now,” Lionel replied, already reaching into his jacket for his wallet.

Despite your curiosity, you decided to look away politely as Lionel paid for your entry. You didn’t want to know if Cole’s estimate of “like a grand” was accurate, and you didn’t want to know if Lionel banked with one of those rich people banks that gave out stupid gold bank cards. But knowing him, he probably did.

Lionel tucked his wallet back into his jacket and placed his hand lightly on the small of your back to guide you into the museum.

“Your Lordship,” you said mockingly under your breath.

“Shut up,” Lionel said, but he was smirking. “You’re behaving tonight, remember?”

“Or else what? Gonna punish me, your Lordship?”

He looked at you with a cocked eyebrow, somewhat surprised at your sudden flirting, but his smirk of amusement morphed into something else, and you felt his hand press slightly more firmly onto your back.

“That remains to be seen,” Lionel purred in a low voice. “Now, I need you to smile politely and look pretty while I bat off the sycophants. Can you do that?”

You looked up at him and smiled sweetly. “Looking pretty’s my best skill, I could do it in my sleep.”

“I can assure you, you do.” Lionel turned towards the man that was approaching him and plastered on his best charming businessman smile. “Sir John! How good to see you. How’s Wormsley coming along?”

You lost track of all the names eventually. Sir this, Lord that, all far more interested in talking to Lionel than to you — unless they felt like flirting, in which case their attention turned to you. When that happened, Lionel’s hand would move to your hip, and he would subtly but firmly pull you in closer.

“Christ, I can’t take any more of this,” Lionel muttered as he managed to shoo away some Duke or Earl or something or other. “I need a drink.”

He flagged down the nearest staff member and relieved her of two glasses of champagne.

“Why do you come to these if you hate it so much?” you asked, gratefully taking the glass Lionel was handing to you.

“I have to show face. If I, the only person richer than the Queen, am seen donating to a cause, others will follow my lead.”

“Oh, are you very rich? You hadn’t mentioned.”

Lionel laughed and shook his head.

“Come on, let’s go and actually look at some art, shall we?”

“You remembered we’re in an art museum!”

Lionel rolled his eyes and took your hand to guide you out of the event hall where the rich people were mingling, and down a corridor you found yourself in a much quieter room that was full of nothing but paintings.

“Ahh, this is better,” Lionel sighed with relief, and his shoulders visibly relaxed. “Some privacy, some beautiful art, and a beautiful woman. What more could I need?”

“To take your clothes off?”

Lionel looked at you and raised an eyebrow. “That’s the second time you’ve flirted with me tonight. Are we on a date after all?”

“I am not flirting! I was talking about the fact you hate wearing clothes.”

“Mmm, I’m sure you were,” Lionel said teasingly, in a tone that told you he absolutely did not believe you. “Don’t test me, [Y/n], because I will take my clothes off, and maybe I’ll get you to take yours off too…”

Before Lionel could follow through on his promise (threat?), the door opened behind you and you both turned to see Generic Rich White Man #17 of the evening slip through the door and quickly close it behind him.

“Duke Grosvenor! How good to see you,” Lionel said.

The Duke apparently spotted the two of you, and he grinned. “Lord Shabandar. I must say, I’m relieved to see you. Am I interrupting?”

Lionel slipped an arm around your waist and smiled.

“Not at all. [Y/n] and I simply slipped away for a few moments away from the sycophantic suck-ups.”

“Oh, Christ, me too,” the Duke groaned, pinching his nose in frustration. “They keep telling me how much they’re going to donate tonight, as if it’s supposed to impress me.”

He looked at you, stood up straight and gave you a polite nod.

“I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Right, of course. [Y/n], this is the Duke of Westminster, Major Gerald Grosvenor. I did get all your titles in, Gerry?”

The Duke offered you his hand with a grin. “Oh, I lost count of them years ago. [Y/n], is it?”

“[Y/n] [L/n],” you said, shaking his hand while sporting the polite smile you were tired of flashing. “No titles, I’m afraid.”

“Ah, titles mean nothing. I bet you have more O-levels than I do.”

“Gerry’s one of the few people here I’d actually believe cares about the cause. He’s president of more charities than I could name. You’re donating tonight, I assume?”

“Yep, but not cash. I’ve donated some originals from my collection for auction, half the proceeds to be donated. You won’t want to miss it, Lionel, there are some pieces you’ll definitely be interested in. Starts in about half an hour in the main hall. There’s some brochures floating about somewhere listing the pieces.”

“Oh, really? We’ll have to take a look. Come on, [Y/n], let’s see if we can find one of these floating brochures.”

Lionel put his hand on your back, a gesture you’d learnt by now meant that it was time to leave.

“Lovely to meet you,” you said to the Duke as you allowed Lionel to escort you out of the room.

“Good man, Gerry,” Lionel said as the door closed behind you. “Third richest, you know, after myself and the Queen.”

“After this, we’re going to a bar, and I’m going to make you take a shot for each time you’ve mentioned the fact that you’re rich.”

“Are you trying to give me alcohol poisoning?”

“That depends entirely on how many more times you mention tonight that you’re rich.”

Lionel mimed zipping his mouth closed. He led you through to the main hall, where chairs and a small stage were set up for the auction. He picked up a brochure from one of the chairs and flicked through it.

“These are some generous donations,” he muttered. You peered over his shoulder to get a look, and you recognised some very famous artists’ names, as well as pieces that you’d seen only ever in print.

On the last page, you recognised a piece you had seen in person.

“Lionel, look, it’s our painting!”

He looked at you curiously. “Our painting, is it? Well, then, I’ll have to have it.”

He closed the brochure decisively and glanced around the room, scoping out the competition.

“Oh, bloody hell. Takagawa.”

You followed his line of sight and saw that Lionel was staring daggers at a Japanese man who was currently laughing boisterously with some other Asian businessmen.

“You know him?”

“Yes, and I bloody hate him. He’s best buddies with Murdoch, for one, and he shares my taste in art — which means he’s always setting some fierce competition in auctions. Well, if he tries to bid on Haystacks, I’m not backing down. That painting is ours.”

“Don’t do anything stupid, Lionel,” you said warningly. “Set yourself a limit and don’t go higher.”

“One billion.”

“No!”

“…Half a billion.”

“Lionel.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll think of something reasonable. But don’t worry, chérie,” Lionel said, looking at you with a determined smirk. “We’ll get our painting.”

The bidding was intense. Haystacks was the last piece, so although he bid on and won a few other pieces, Lionel held back. Perhaps if he lulled Takagawa into a false sense of security, made him think there wasn’t going to be much competition for Haystacks, he could take the painting right from under the little shit’s nose.

It was probably the most bizarre display of wealth you’d seen yet, and with Lionel, you’d seen some pretty bizarre displays of wealth. People were bidding six or even seven figures on paintings, including Lionel, who won three paintings he didn’t even seem that interested in with bids of 2, 3 and 3.5 million.

“Lionel, this is ridiculous,” you whispered to him when he smugly won his third painting.

“All for a good cause,” he whispered in reply.

When Haystacks was finally brought out for display, you instinctively took Lionel’s hand in yours.

There it was. The painting Lionel had spoken about so enthusiastically the very first day you’d met. The painting the Duke of Whatever had loaned to the Orsay just in time for you to confess your feelings to Lionel.

And here you were. Older, changed, a little bit broken. Lionel, so successful but so lonely, as if all the riches he’d amassed were nothing but an attempt to fill the gap that had been left by you.

But that painting, it hadn’t changed. The haystacks still stood on their field at dawn, frozen in a day that was always beginning. The future was ahead, always open, never certain. And somewhere in that painting, woven into the brushstrokes, was every day that had come and gone since Monet had sat down in a field to capture that hopeful moment.

But you didn’t see the other days in the painting — you only saw that one day, your day in Paris, the future and the open possibilities that had been ahead of you.

You hardly even heard the bidding. If you had, you might have whispered to Lionel to stop, but would he have listened?

“Sold for £11 million to Lord Shabandar.”

The gavel came down and shook you from your thoughts.

“Eleven…?”

The auction came to an end, and the crowd began to mutter among themselves. You turned to Lionel to tell him he was a money wasting idiot, but he was already on his feet, looking more proud of himself than ever.

He offered you his hand, and you let him pull you to your feet.

“It’s ours, chérie,” Lionel said in a low voice. “Now a piece of Paris will be with us forever.”

“It wasn’t Haystacks that made Paris magical, Lionel.”

He just smiled.

“I know. The magic came from us, two dumb kids in love… but Haystacks is imbued with it, don’t you think? Our love is in that painting, and I’ll be damned if I let anyone else have it.”

He wrapped an arm around your waist and began to lead you out of the room. Some stupid confidence overcame him as he passed Takagawa, and he stuck his middle finger up as he strode past.

You just shook your head and sighed.

After mingling a little while longer, you noticed a crowd of press beginning to form, and Lionel was pulled away by someone. You found yourself at the edge of a small crowd that had gathered along with the press, and some guy you’d not seen before looked like he was getting ready to speak to them.

Lionel stood nearby, and you looked at him questioningly. He gave you a small “wait” gesture, and so you waited.

Behind the mystery man, someone was trying to set up a display stand. Mystery Man helped them lock it into place, then a sign was placed on the stand, purposely placed to be visible as Mystery Man took his place to speak to the crowd.

You stared, transfixed, at the sign. You’d noticed, throughout the night, that nobody had actually mentioned what charity they were all there to fundraise for. There were talks of “the cause” and “those poor people” but no specifics, and you didn’t want to embarrass Lionel by outright asking what charity you were actually there for. You’d assumed it was children or cancer or children with cancer, something safe like that.

“Thank you all for coming tonight,” Mystery Man said to the gathered crowd. A hush fell as everyone stopped talking amongst themselves and listened, making the clicking of the cameras more obvious.

“My colleagues and I are overwhelmed by the support and generosity shown here tonight. I wanted to take a moment, in particular, to thank those who bid in our auction tonight. We expected to raise at most a few million in the auction, but we’ve far surpassed that — thanks, in no small part, to the generous bids made by Lord Shabandar.”

The man gestured for Lionel to join him, and the crowd clapped politely as Lionel took his place in front of the crowd, smiling and waving in a way you knew he’d practised for years. He shook hands with the man, who announced to further applause that Lionel’s bids had come to a whopping total of £19.5 million.

“Thank you, Rupert,” Lionel said with humility you knew was fake. “And might I say what an honour it is to have the opportunity to raise funds tonight for such a worthy cause. But of course, not every penny of those funds go to you, do they? Only half the proceeds are donated to the cause. Well, I believe you should receive the full value. That’s why I’m going to be donating an additional 10 and a quarter million cash —”

A collective gasp from the crowd.

“— bringing my total donation tonight to £20 million to the Terrence Higgins Trust.”

The crowd applauded, cameras clicked, and Lionel shook hands with the man named Rupert. He smiled benevolently for the cameras, making sure each one got a good picture of him and Rupert shaking hands.

“Thank you, Lord Shabandar, for your incredible generosity,” Rupert said. “Now, the night’s not over yet, so everyone dig deep and have a wonderful evening. Thank you.”

With another polite round of applause, the crowd began to disperse. Rupert turned to Lionel to exchange some less public words, and you didn’t notice the cameras continuing to photograph them.

Lionel looked among the crowd searchingly, and smiled when his eyes landed on you. You approached him, not even noticing the way you almost bumped into someone.

“Are you really going to do it?” you asked.

“Of course,” Lionel replied, as if the answer were obvious. “I told you, it’s an important cause. Anything I can do to —”

You even surprised yourself when you cut him off with a kiss.

Lionel didn’t hesitate to react. He wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you in close, deepening the kiss. The world around you stopped existing; there was no crowd with most eyes on you, no cameras clicking away. It was just you and Lionel, back in your bubble, and nothing else mattered.

Lionel had to break the kiss. If he let it go on any longer, he’d find himself sporting a hard-on in the middle of a charity fundraiser for people with HIV/AIDS, and that was not something he wanted plastered in any magazine, his or Murdoch’s.

Someone wolf-whistled, and Lionel turned his head sharply towards the noise.

Your attention was drawn to the direction Lionel was looking, and your stomach dropped when you realised you’d just kissed him in front of a crowd of onlookers, his peers and friends, and several cameras, which were still clicking away.

“I can’t believe I just did that,” you whispered in shock.

Lionel looked back at you and his expression softened.

“Let’s get out of here,” he whispered back, and he released his hold on you only to take your hand and lead you out towards the entrance. He used the reception phone to call his driver, then escorted you outside to wait for him.

You heard the clicking of a camera again, and turned to see you were being followed by two men, one with a camera and one with a handheld tape recorder.

“Lord Shabandar!” the one with the tape recorder called. “Lord Shabandar, who’s your mystery woman? Is this a serious relationship, or another fling? Do you think it’s appropriate to bring a fling to a charity fundraiser?”

Lionel turned to the reporter, his brow furrowed and his nostrils flared, and he looked the man up and down.

“One of Murdoch’s lot, are you? Well, you can tell your boss from me: this brilliant woman is off-limits. He can spread as many rumours as he wants about my involvement with any other woman, but she is not to be touched.”

He pointed a finger at the cameraman threateningly.

“If I see a single photo printed of her, I will have your life and career over in less than a day.”

The reporter opened his mouth to say something, but one withering look from Lionel shut him up again.

Lionel’s car pulled up not a moment too soon, and Lionel didn’t even bother waiting for the driver to open the door; he opened it himself, gave you a hand in, then followed you and closed the door firmly behind him.

You sunk into the car seat, your face in your hands, and groaned.

“I didn’t think the kiss was that bad,” Lionel said casually as the car moved off.

You looked at him between your fingers.

“I just kissed you in front of all those people.”

Lionel appeared to think for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes, I suppose you did.” He grinned. “It was great. What made you finally give in? Was it the charming smile I gave for the cameras?”

“No, you dolt!” you exclaimed, your hands falling away from your face to land in your lap. “I didn’t know what charity it was! Nobody said… I didn’t think… I assumed it was Cancer Research or something like that.”

Lionel frowned. “What does it matter that it was Terrence Higgins?”

“Because…”

You hesitated, not wanting to give too much away.

“It’s for people with HIV/AIDS.”

“Yes.”

“That’s not… exactly uncontroversial. A lot of people will think less of you for even associating with them, let alone giving them 20 million fucking pounds.”

“If a few bigots stop buying my magazines, that’s worth the lives my donation might save.”

You looked at him for a long moment. Yes, you knew he wasn’t the same Lionel you’d known all those years ago. Yes, you knew that, to pass judgment on this Lionel, you had to get to know him.

But you hadn’t expected this. You hadn’t expected him to…

“You’re staring at me like you have no idea who I am.”

“…I think I’m beginning to realise that I don’t.”

Lionel frowned. “You didn’t think I’d hold those sorts of prejudices, did you?”

“No! No, of course not.” You reached over and grabbed his hand. “But there’s a difference between not being a bigot… and being seen to help. To stand up in front of all those people and tell them where you stand, and to put your money where your mouth is. That’s… that’s brave, Lionel.”

“Being rich and spending money isn’t brave, [Y/n].”

“Risking everything to stand with people who have nothing? I think that’s really fucking brave.”

You smiled and laughed to yourself.

“I might even say that’s the bravery of a lion.”

Lionel’s hand gripped yours, his eyes darkened dangerously, and you heard something of a growl in his throat.

“Jerry, get us home, now,” he called out to his driver. “I am about to fuck this woman, and I am not doing it on the backseat!”

Before you could protest, Lionel grabbed you by the back of the neck and kissed you fiercely. His tongue pressed against your lips, and you parted them to let him in, because you were fucked. You were completely and utterly fucked.

And you were about to get fucked.

- - -

“Say it again,” Lionel demanded for the fifth time through gritted teeth. “Say it.”

You raised your lips to his ear.

“You’re my brave lion,” you said breathily.

A shudder ran through Lionel’s entire body, and his cock began pounding into you faster.

“Yes — yes, I fucking am! Oh, Christ. Fucking — take it. Take your lion’s cock. My fierce lioness, so good for me, taking my cock so well. Such a perfect cunt for me. All mine!”

Lionel’s teeth sunk into the skin of your neck, and you gasped. He licked the spot he’d just bitten into, as if he were a vampire healing puncture wounds. Somewhere in the back of your mind you knew you’d be sporting a bruise in the morning, but you didn’t care.

“You don’t take another man’s cock again, you hear me?” Lionel growled into your ear. “Should have been mine all along. Christ, I fucked up. But no more, never again. There’s no other cunt for me. You understand, love? Tell me you understand.”

“Y — yes,” you mumbled, your lips hardly able to form words at this point.

“I’ll never take another cunt again. You’re all I need, [Y/n]. You’re all I ever needed — fuck! Promise me, chérie. Promise you’ll never take another cock.”

“I promise, Li. I — ah! I only want you. Only ever wanted you. Lionel, please, I’m so close…”

With a wicked chuckle, Lionel sat up, and the fresh angle had his cock rubbing up against your sweet spot with an intensity that had you practically screaming with pleasure. Lionel’s thumb found its way to your clit, and you knew it was over for you.

“Lionel! Oh, fu-uuck…”

“Say it again! Say it as you cum!”

“My — my lion,” you cried out. “My big, strong — brave — lion!”

“Yes! Yes, I’m your fucking lion!”

He roared as he came, his thumb still rubbing your clit as he felt you cumming with him, and you saw stars for a few moments as pleasure crashed over you, more intense than you’d ever known.

Even as Lionel came down from his high and his thrusts slowed, his assault on your clit continued, and he watched with hungry eyes as you kept writhing beneath him, your spent body trying to come down from its high, but Lionel kept pushing back with every perfect flick of his thumb.

“I can stop if you want,” he growled. “Do you want me to stop, love?”

You whined and shook your head.

“Good. Because I’m going to keep touching you like this, and when I’m ready, I’m going to fuck you again, and I’m going to keep fucking you over and over again, all night. I’ll have to collapse with exhaustion before I stop fucking you.”

Lionel could feel his cock softening and the condom loosening. He knew he’d have to change it, so he took your hand and guided it to your clit.

“Keep touching yourself, chérie.”

“Want you to do it,” you whined, pulling your hand away insolently.

Lionel chuckled.

“And I will, love, but I need to throw this condom away. I’ll only be a minute, but I want you to keep touching yourself in the meantime, alright?”

You nodded and moved your hand back between your legs. Lionel gently pulled out of you, and when he was satisfied you were touching yourself properly, he climbed off of the bed and made his way into the bathroom to clean himself up as quickly as possible.

“Are you still touching yourself, chérie?” he called out to you as he pulled the condom off. “I don’t hear moans. If I were touching you, you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from moaning. Let me hear you.”

You concentrated your efforts, touching that one little area of your clit you knew was that little bit more sensitive, and you let out the moan Lionel wanted.

He grinned proudly. With noises like that, he’d be hard again in no time.

He finished cleaning himself up, and when he went back into the bedroom, he had to catch himself on the doorframe when he saw what was possibly the most arousing sight he’d ever seen: you, naked on his bed, touching yourself.

Maybe there was some truth to Lionel’s assertions that he was a lion, you thought as he practically pounced on you, trapping you beneath his hands and knees. He kissed you, then your neck, then your breasts each in turn, each kiss sloppier than the last. He slid off the end of the bed to sink to his knees, then grabbed your ankles and pulled you down the bed until your arse was almost hanging off the edge.

He finally let you stop touching yourself and replaced your fingers with his tongue. You’d known men to motorboat your breasts before - Lionel had done it himself many times when you were together - but nobody had ever done it to your cunt.

That was the only way you could describe what he was doing now, making out with your cunt so passionately you could hardly keep track of everything he was doing. At some point he produced a dildo from under the bed, and before you could get the words out to ask why a straight man owned a dildo, he gave you an answer by slipping it inside you to fuck you with it while he continued eating you out.

Your thighs clamped around his head when you came, and that was the last thing he needed for his cock to get hard again.

It was around 4am by the time you both collapsed, exhausted, onto the bed. You’d lost count of the amount of times you’d each cum, and you knew one thing hadn’t changed about Lionel – he still had impressive stamina. Even when his cock went soft, that didn’t stop him using his hands, tongue and an impressive array of toys on you until he was ready to go again.

You just about managed to muster up the energy to drag yourself into the bathroom. When you emerged, Lionel was already snoring, although when you climbed under the duvet with him, his arm instinctively wrapped around you, and as you drifted off to sleep, you wondered what on earth had happened to that promise you’d made to yourself not to fall back into his arms.

- - -

You woke up when the morning sun moved in the sky and shone directly on your face. With a groan, you pulled the duvet over your head, trying to shield yourself from the sun’s cruel insistence on waking you up, but it was too late.

Especially when you felt a hand that definitely wasn’t yours gently caressing your hip, and you suddenly remembered where you were.

You rolled onto your back, and sure enough, there he was. He was sitting up against the headboard, an open magazine on his lap, one hand holding a cup of tea and the other lazily draped over you.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” you groaned.

Lionel looked down at you with a raised eyebrow. “Well, that’s a strange way to say good morning.”

You pulled the duvet back over your head.

You heard the sound of Lionel putting his mug down and tossing the magazine away. You tried to turn away as he joined you under the duvet, but he caught you around the waist and pulled you back in with a wicked chuckle.

“Going somewhere?” he murmured, his breath hot on your skin as he peppered you with kisses.

“Can’t, can I? You’re inescapable,” you grumbled.

Lionel just grinned with pride. “I prefer the term inevitable.”

“I thought we hated each other.”

“That was always one-sided, chérie. You hated me, and rightly so. But I never hated you. I was angry, heartbroken… but only because I loved you.”

He shifted on top of you, and you found yourself trapped underneath him.

“I hope you realise that now I have you back, I’m not letting you go,” Lionel purred as he left wet, open-mouthed kisses along your neck and your collarbone. “I’ll tie you up in this bed if I must.”

“I’m not — I’m not something to be possessed, Lionel,” you said breathily, though you made no effort to push him away as he continued his wet exploration of your body, your clavicle his next frontier.

“Oh, I know that. You’re your own woman, of course you are. I’ll take however much of you you’re willing to give. If you just want to fuck, we can just fuck… if you want to get married tomorrow, we can do that… or if you want just to meet up once a week to discuss the weather, I’ll keep my filthy thoughts to myself. I’ll do my very best to resist doing… this.”

He took your nipple between his lips and sucked, and you whined. Christ, why did he still have so much power over you after all these years?

“Lionel, I — I need to get up…”

He released your breast from his mouth and looked up at you, something hungry and animalistic in his eyes.

“No, I don’t think you do,” he said in a low voice. “I think you need to stay right here, where I can remind you who you belong to. Where I can worship you like I should have been doing all this time. Where could you possibly have to be that’s preferable to here, hm? I know your shop is closed on Sundays.”

Your stomach responded for you by growling with hunger, and Lionel chuckled.

“You must be ravenous after all that exercise last night. How about some breakfast?”

You nodded enthusiastically. Lionel kissed you gently, then pulled the duvet down to climb out of bed. You followed and looked around on the floor for your scattered clothes.

“Your clothes are in the wash,” Lionel said, and he passed you a robe from his wardrobe. “If you must cover up that gorgeous body, you can wear this.”

The robe was, of course, patterned with an animal print. It was oversized for you, but it smelt like Lionel, and it was luxuriously soft.

Lionel didn’t bother with a robe. He’d never liked clothes, and now that he lived alone, he could walk around in his birthday suit all day long. So when he led you downstairs into the open-plan living area, you got a nice view of his arse jiggling slightly with every step.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Coffee would be amazing.”

“Coffee it is. I’ll call the chef to make us some breakfast.”

Lionel picked up the phone from the wall and dialled a number. You looked around curiously, wondering where the chef was supposed to pop up from.

“Do you have a secret portal the staff come out of?” you asked when Lionel put the phone down.

Lionel chuckled as he set about making your coffee in the French press.

“They live in the apartment below and come up when needed.”

You looked at the lift and frowned. “If the lift opens straight into the apartment, what’s to stop anyone else from just walking in?”

“Oh, that’s a private lift,” Lionel said dismissively, as if it were a normal thing to have. “It only opens here, the staff quarters, the ground floor and the car park. My tenants have a separate lift which opens into entryways.”

“Your —? Wait, you own the building?”

“Of course. Did you think I was paying rent?” Lionel scoffed at the very idea. “My work may be in media, but the money is in property. When I decided I wanted this apartment, I bought the entire building. I installed the private lift so I wouldn’t have to wait or share the main lift. There are 35 apartments in this building, it’d be tedious to wait for it only to have to share it. Didn’t you notice last night that there were only four buttons on the keypad?”

“I can’t say I was particularly interested in the keypad last night. I seem to recall spending the entire journey up here with your hand up my skirt.”

Lionel looked up at you and grinned. “I do have a habit of distracting you, don’t I? Here you are — do you still take two sugars?”

He handed you the mug of coffee, and the first sip of the rich, hot drink was exactly what you needed.

“God, that’s good. You know, I don’t usually bother with fancy branded stuff, but coffee is one of the few exceptions. You have to invest in good coffee.”

Lionel hummed in agreement as he took a sip from his own mug. The lift doors opened, and the chef stepped out, dressed ready for action in the kitchen.

“Ah, Louis. Un petit-déjeuner pour deux, s'il vous plaît,” Lionel said, then he asked you, “What’ll you have, chérie?”

You laughed to yourself as a memory came back to you.

“Omelette du fromage.”

Lionel smiled, and you could tell he was thinking about the same thing.

“Very well. Deux omelettes du fromage, s’il vous plaît, Louis.”

“Oui, monsieur,” Louis said with a small bow of his head, and you and Lionel moved out of the kitchen to give him space to cook.

“I suppose he’s used to walking in and finding you naked,” you said with amusement.

“He’s certainly seen more of me than he probably cares to.”

“Can I use your phone while we wait?”

“Of course you can.”

Lionel kissed your temple affectionately, and you picked up the phone to dial your home number. He leant against the wall and watched you with a smile. You looked so beautiful like this, wearing nothing but his robe, your hair still a mess. Underneath that thin robe, he knew you had bruises forming on your arse.

He reached out and lightly took the fabric of the robe between his fingers. While you listened to the phone ringing, Lionel gently pulled back the robe to reveal the left side of your body to him, and his cock stirred when he saw that there was indeed a juicy bruise forming on your arsecheek.

You shot him a disapproving look, grabbed the robe and pulled it back around, but it was too late. Lionel had already seen what he was looking for.

“Oh, hey, it’s me,” you said when the phone was picked up. “Just wanted to let you know I’m alive, sorry I didn’t come home last night. You okay? … I told you, he is not my boyfriend! But it was good, thank you. Very enlightening.”

Lionel’s hands were on you again. They were on your hips now, creeping around to the front of the robe to try and pull it aside again. His large hands spread out across your stomach, as if he had to touch every inch of your skin that he could, and he not so subtly pulled your body against his, pressing your back against his bare chest.

“No. … C, I mean it, don’t push it. If there’s anything to tell you, I’ll tell you when you need to know, okay?”

Lionel gently pushed your hair aside, and he began peppering light kisses on the bare skin of your neck, smiling smugly to himself when he saw another bruise on your neck.

“That’s it, I’m hanging up the phone now. I’ll be back at some point today. I don’t know when. But definitely tonight. … Hopefully the latter. See you later. I love you.”

You hung up the phone and groaned in frustration.

“Lionel, you are impossible!”

“What?” he murmured innocently against your ear, and you shuddered when you felt the tip of his nose brush against your cheek. “Did you expect me to just stand here and look at you when you look so fucking good in my robe?”

“I expect you not to start groping me when I’m on the phone to my son!”

Lionel chuckled, and you could feel it reverberating deep in his chest.

“So I’m not your boyfriend, am I?”

“No, you are not. You’re my ex -boyfriend, if you remember.”

“Hmm, I don’t think exes do what we did last night. Nor do they do… this.”

Lionel slipped his hand between the gap in the robe you were wearing and cupped your heat with his large palm.

“I don’t think now’s the best time to have this conversation, Lionel…”

You let out a small whine as you felt a finger gently caressing your folds, teasing them, as if he were trying to coax your cunt to open up for him.

“Some food for thought, that’s all,” Lionel murmured. “I’ll be whatever you want me to be, of course… but if I’m to remain merely your ex-boyfriend… then there’ll be no more of this.”

He withdrew his hands from you suddenly and stepped back, and you annoyingly missed his touch as soon as it was gone. You turned to stare daggers at him, but he just chuckled at how irritated you were, and the way he sucked his fingers clean so damn smugly just made you more annoyed.

Lionel glanced over your shoulder.

“Ah, breakfast is ready.”

You felt your cheeks burning red when you remembered that Louis the chef was in the kitchen and had probably seen and heard everything.

Apparently unperturbed by the witness, Lionel grabbed a robe from the coat stand and wrapped it around himself. He gestured for you to take a seat at the dining table, and he sat across from you.

Louis brought over fresh mugs of coffee, followed by some very delicious-looking omelettes. You thanked him, he gave a small bow of his head, and Lionel waved him off.

“Dig in, love. Now, I heard you give yourself until tonight to go home. Do you have plans, or is this you hoping I’ll clear my very busy schedule for you?”

You shrugged nonchalantly as you cut up your eggs. “Well, if there’s something else you’d rather be doing…”

“Trust me, love, there is nothing I’d rather be doing than you,” Lionel said in a low voice. “I have a few calls to make, but it shouldn’t take long, then I’m all yours.”

“That’s okay. Can I take a shower while you make your calls?”

“Chérie, you can do whatever you like. You can use my phone, my shower, my TV. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen, you have free reign of this place. The only thing off-limits is my computer — it has a lot of sensitive business information, you understand.”

“I wouldn’t know how to work it anyway,” you shrugged. “Cole keeps telling me I should get one for work, but I like doing everything by hand.”

“Oh, I agree, there’s nothing quite like the personal touch. But when you have as much going in and out every day as I do, doing it by hand just becomes tedious.”

You continued chatting amicably as you ate, and you appreciated that he didn’t flirt once. Instead, he asked you questions: about your life, your business, your interests, your opinions on current affairs.

After breakfast, Lionel went into his home office to make the calls he needed to, and you went upstairs to brush your teeth and take a shower in his ensuite. When you came back downstairs, your hair wet and your body clean, wrapped in Lionel’s robe again, you heard him on the phone as you approached his office. His voice was muffled by the closed door so you couldn’t make out what he was saying, but you could hear him using a tone of voice that commanded respect, giving firm orders to whoever he was speaking to, and you felt a tingle of arousal to hear him speak with such calm power.

You turned the TV on and flopped down on the sofa while you waited for Lionel. You really had no idea what you wanted to do today, if you wanted to go out somewhere or stay in, if you wanted to fuck all day or just canoodle on the sofa — all you knew was that you wanted Lionel’s company. For a long time, just seeing Lionel’s face plastered on another billboard or magazine had irritated you, but now, you were feeling butterflies again.

Lionel slid open the doors to his office and sauntered out with a prideful walk that told you his phone call had gone the way he wanted. He was also naked again.

“All good?” you asked.

“All good,” Lionel confirmed with a smile. “No photographs of us from last night will be printed. I convinced the necessary people that doing so would detract from the importance of the Trust’s work.”

He sat down on the sofa next to you and put an arm around your shoulder.

“Lionel Shabandar’s mystery woman will remain a mystery,” he said before kissing you on the shoulder affectionately. “You get your privacy, the Trust keeps its spotlight, and I get to keep you to myself. Everybody wins.”

You smiled and rested your head on his shoulder. Lionel’s arm around you tightened, and he kissed the top of your head. He turned his attention to the TV, which was currently playing an educational programme about architecture.

“Is this your usual Sunday morning entertainment?” Lionel asked with wry amusement. “A little dry, isn’t it?”

“I watch it sometimes, but it was just on when I switched the telly on.”

“Oh, yes, BBC Two, I was watching the cricket yesterday.”

Maybe it should have worried you how comfortable you were with him already. Eighteen years of bitterness and anger was already beginning to feel like a distant memory. You’d walked into Lionel’s office less than forty-eight hours ago only looking for answers, and now here you were, cuddling up to him on the sofa in front of the TV, you in his robe and he in nothing at all, chatting meaninglessly about what was on the TV.

You lost track of time, but you thought it must have been a few hours that had passed when Lionel’s phone rang. He groaned, detangled himself from you, and reluctantly got up to pick up the phone.

“Nice arse,” you called out as he walked away from you.

Lionel gave his booty a little shake, and you laughed.

“Lionel Shabandar speaking,” he said when he picked up the phone. “Hello, Sinclair.”

Lionel glanced over at you as Sinclair no doubt rambled about something on the phone.

“I can’t, I’m busy today. … Yes, I know, but I’ll have lunch at home. … No! No, do not come over, Sinclair.”

You practically jumped up from the couch and ran across the room to grab the phone from Lionel’s hand.

“Hi, Sinclair, it’s [Y/n]. Lionel would love to have lunch with you today, so long as I can join.”

Lionel folded his arms and stared daggers at you, but you just grinned cheekily as you heard Sinclair gasp loudly.

“[Y/n]?! You’re at Lionel’s place? In the morning? That’s it, we have to do lunch now, I need to know everything! I was just telling Lionel that I’m in town for a work meeting — I know, I know, on a Sunday, Natalie’s already reminded me of that several times — but I got my times mixed up, I thought it was at 11 but it’s actually not until 3! There’s no point going home just to come back, so I thought it was the perfect time to have lunch with my cousin — and lunch with my cousin and my favourite art lover is even more perfect! Do you want to meet at the Black Dog, the one on Fleet Street?”

“Yeah, sure, we can meet there. We’ll get dressed and head over now.”

“Okay, great! See you soon, [Y/n]!”

You hung up the phone and Lionel groaned in frustration.

“Ugh, you’re worse than my PA, always scheduling meetings at the worst times.” Lionel grabbed you by the hips and pulled you close. “What if I don’t want to have lunch with Sinclair, hm? What if I want to stay home and fuck you?”

“Well, I’m going to have lunch with Sinclair,” you said decisively. “If you want to stay here where you can wank in the nude, go ahead. But I’m going to get some clothes on and go and see Sinclair.”

“Really? You’re going to a pub for lunch in the same dress you wore last night?”

“So you’re saying you don’t have spare women’s clothes hanging up in one of the spare bedrooms in case one of your flings needs something to wear?”

Lionel hesitated. “…No, I’m not saying that.”

“Ha, knew it,” you said triumphantly. You kissed him on the cheek, then skipped away towards the stairs, and Lionel followed you, taking the opportunity of being behind you on the stairs to give your bum a squeeze.

“You’ve got a nice juicy bruise on your arse, by the way,” he growled, and you felt his large hand gently caressing the sore area.

“Yeah, I saw that in the shower. I’m not surprised with how hard you were biting it last night.”

Lionel chuckled victoriously and kissed your temple as you reached the landing.

“Well, you know, we lions are known for our powerful bite. There, that bedroom has some clean women’s clothes. Keep whatever you wear.”

You managed to find some clothes you liked in your size, and when you met Lionel down by the lift, you were both fully decent, and he looked very handsome in a red polo shirt.

“It takes about a minute and a half to get to the bottom floor from here,” Lionel said as he opened the lift doors and gestured for you to go ahead. “Do you think you can cum around my fingers in that time?”

“Don’t even try it, mister!” you laughed.

Lionel pressed a button on the keypad, and this time you did notice that there were only four buttons. He hooked his index finger around the waist of the skirt you were wearing and pulled you closer to him. You fell into his arms far too easily.

“Don’t worry, I won’t. I told you — if I’m not your boyfriend, it’s wholly inappropriate for me to start fingering you in the lift.”

“You didn’t seem to think that when you were fingering me in the lift yesterday.”

“Lions may be proud, chérie, but I’m not so proud as to think I can never change my mind.” He made a show of pulling his hands away from you, holding them up as if you needed to see them to know he wasn’t groping you. “I’ll keep my hands to myself. I am, after all, merely your ex -boyfriend.”

You knew what he was getting at, but you weren’t willing to budge yet. Instead, you busied yourself with checking you still had everything in your purse, and when the lift came to a stop and the doors slid open, Lionel led you back into the car park you’d come in from.

One of the benefits of having a private lift: Lionel’s parking space was right next to it. Jerry the driver was standing by the car, waiting, as if he’d been standing there waiting ever since dropping you off last night.

He opened the rear door, and Lionel gave you a hand in.

“Where did Sinclair want to meet?”

“The Black Dog on Fleet Street.”

“Alright. You heard the woman, Jerry,” Lionel said to his driver. “Take us to the Black Dog.”

The journey, once again, would take longer by car than it would have by tube or bus — hell, you could even walk there. But Lionel would probably rather eat a piece of his art collection before he stepped foot on public transport, so you resigned yourself to being driven.

“Sinclair’s gonna ask a lot of questions,” you said to Lionel as the car made its way through the busy city streets. “What are we telling him?”

“That’s up to you, chérie. I told you, I’m whatever you want me to be.”

“Let’s just tell him the truth, then. I talked to you like I promised him I would, you invited me to the fundraiser, I came, then afterwards we went back to yours. Now it’s the next day. He doesn’t need to know anything more than that.”

“He’s going to think we’re together, you know.”

“Yeah, well, he also thinks it’s a good idea to stay with Natalie, so he’s not exactly the world’s leading expert on relationships.”

Lionel scoffed. “Isn’t that the truth. He’s the world’s leading expert on pretty much everything but relationships, despite the fact he’s a serial monogamist.”

“That’s probably why he’s not dumped her.”

“What, because he doesn’t have his next girlfriend lined up?”

“No. Because he doesn’t know how to be alone.”

Lionel looked at you curiously.

“I think you might be on to something there,” he said thoughtfully. “Growing up, we did most things together. By the time our careers demanded we live more separate lives, he was already living with Emily.”

“Oh, speaking of Emily!” you exclaimed, so suddenly it made him jump. “What is this I hear about you sleeping with her?!”

“What? They were broken up!” Lionel protested indignantly.

“For like two weeks! Your brother is experiencing his very first heartbreak, and what do you do? Do you comfort him? Nooo, you comfort her the only way you know how, by sticking your dick in her. How would you have liked it if Sinclair slept with me after our break up?”

“First of all, Sinclair is not my brother —”

“Yes, he is. Yes, he is! Sure, technically he’s your cousin, but genetically he’s your half-brother, and emotionally, at least to him, he’s your brother. Hell, you might as well be twins, you look so alike. That betrayal must have been worse for him than the break up.”

“Don’t assume you know Sinclair better than I do. And if we’re talking about betrayal, what about the fact he knew the reason you broke up with me and didn’t tell me for seventeen years?”

“Oh, you knew, Lionel!” you scoffed. “You were a dumb kid who’d never heard of the word ‘consequence’ but you weren’t stupid.”

“Why are we arguing all of a sudden?” Lionel asked incredulously. “I thought we were having a good day!”

“Yeah, we were, then you reminded me of another thing I’m pissed at you about,” you said grumpily, your arms folded.

“Look, why don’t you sit down and make a list of all the things you’re pissed at me about, then I can go through each point and apologise. Get it all done in one go, rather than springing something new on me in the middle of the day.”

“I think that was it,” you huffed. “I’ll let you know if I think of anything else.”

Lionel scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“…What was the second point?” you asked after a few moments.

“What?”

“You said first of all. What was second of all?”

Lionel sighed. “I was going to say that I did comfort him. I’ve sat there and let him cry on my shoulder after every single bloody break up. He never learns his lesson. He falls in love far too quickly, and I always tell him this, and he always says he can’t help it. He puts too much of his self-esteem onto whether or not other people love him. Never mind the fact that if he let himself be single, he’d still have me, and our mums, and all the friends he’s constantly collecting. He has a massive bloody support network. It’s not like he’d be lonely.”

“Hmm, I get the impression they’re fair weather friends,” you said thoughtfully. “They’ll go to his parties to drink his wine and eat his food, but how many of them would let him cry on their shoulder? His big, vibrant energy pulls them in, but how many of them will stick around when that energy dims?”

“…I forgot how annoyingly right you can be,” Lionel muttered. “But my point still stands! He doesn’t need a romantic relationship to not be lonely. Fear of loneliness is a terrible reason to be in a relationship, and it’s probably why they’ve all failed, because his happiness relies on them too much. In my opinion, if you can’t handle being alone, you’re not ready to be together.”

“That’s… surprisingly insightful.”

Lionel cocked an eyebrow at you. “Like you said — I’m not stupid. And I’m not a dumb kid anymore.”

“No… no, you’re not. And hopefully you haven’t slept with any of Sinclair’s other exes.”

“Christ, no. I’m not doing that again. Oh, look, speak of the Devil…”

Lionel pointed out the window, where Sinclair was standing outside the pub, waiting for you. His eyes were cast downwards, his brow furrowed slightly, as if he were deep in thought. He spotted Lionel’s car pulling up, and his face quickly lit up.

You got out of the car first, and Sinclair nearly knocked you over when he barrelled into you for a hug.

“Oh my god, [Y/n], I am so happy to see you!”

You laughed as you hugged him back.

“It’s only been a week!”

“I know, but clearly a lot has happened since then!”

“Excuse me, can I get out of the car, please?” Lionel grumbled from behind you. Sinclair had barrelled into you so fast you hadn’t had time to move away from the door, so Lionel was currently stuck waiting for you to move.

Sinclair released his grip on you to let you move aside, and Lionel climbed out of the car, grateful that Sinclair hadn’t barrelled into him too.

“Come on, I’ve got drinks waiting for both of you!” Sinclair said, putting his arm around your shoulder to guide you into the pub. “[Y/n], this is one of our favourite places, we come here often for a pint and some food. In fact, we were in here when Lionel first told me he’d tracked you down last year!”

The pub was fairly busy, as it was a Sunday lunchtime and everyone wanted a roast, but as Sinclair chattered away, he led you to a booth tucked away in a corner, giving you a little more privacy. Three pints of beer were waiting on the table, one already half-drunk; you and Lionel sat on one side of the booth with the full pints, and Sinclair sat opposite you.

He put his chin in his hand and looked between the two of you with a grin.

“Sooo… tell me everything.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Lionel said curtly as he raised his pint to his lips.

Sinclair turned his attention to you expectantly.

“Come on, [Y/n], you’ll tell me, won’t you? How come you were in Lionel’s place this morning?”

“Well, I woke up there, so…”

“I knew it!” Sinclair exclaimed, slamming his hand down on the table excitedly, causing Lionel to jump slightly and your pint to spill a little. “Lionel told me you were going to the fundraiser with him last night, and I asked him if it was a date. He said no but I knew he was lying!”

“It wasn’t a date,” Lionel insisted. “We agreed to get to know each other again, and since we have a shared interest in art, I thought it an appropriate event to invite her to.”

“Yeah, which is exactly what a date is!” Sinclair said, as if it were obvious. “You go places together and get to know each other, and if it goes really well, sometimes you end up waking up next to each other in the morning. So it must have gone really well!”

“Sinclair, seriously, don’t bloody push this,” Lionel said sternly. “Even if it was a date —”

“Which it was.”

“— it was one date. We are not back together. Right, [Y/n]?”

“I gotta agree with Lionel on this one, sorry, Clair,” you said. “We already had an argument in the car on the way over here, so it’s not exactly sunshine and rainbows.”

“Okay, but that’s good, that means you’re talking, right? You can have all the arguments you’ve been building up for the last eighteen years, then when the air is all cleared, you can get back together!”

Lionel sighed in frustration, then shuffled out of his seat.

“I’m going to the bar to order food. Sinclair, I assume you’ve already ordered.”

“Yes, mine’s coming!”

“Fine. [Y/n], what do you want? They do pork, beef, turkey or mixed roast.”

“Oh, um, pork, please.”

Lionel nodded, then left for the bar, leaving you alone with Sinclair.

“So I guess we don’t need to do our lunch date tomorrow,” Sinclair said to you. “But I’d like to anyway!”

“Yeah, of course we can. Did you speak to Natalie, then?”

Sinclair nodded. “Yeah. She didn’t say much… just that she felt things were stale and Richard offered her some excitement.”

“Stale? Sinclair, you’ve not even been married a year. Had she expressed that feeling before?”

Sinclair shook his head, then took a sip of his beer.

“This is the first I’m hearing of it,” he said.

“That’s ridiculous. She didn’t even try to communicate with you that she was unhappy, just jumped into bed with her brother? I don’t know, Clair. It sounds like an excuse to me, not a reason.”

Sinclair shrugged. He glanced over to the bar, where Lionel was still trying to get served.

“What did Lionel say? Did he give you an explanation?”

“Yeah, he said it was because he was stupid.”

Sinclair tried to suppress a laugh, but you laughed too.

“I believe him, though, that it really was that simple. He was stupid. He said he thought he could have it all, a steady girlfriend at home and a different girl to fuck every week. He told me how he spent most of the year drunk or high, and that you had to slap some sense into him.”

Sinclair’s expression darkened.

“Yeah, he really pissed me off. I was sick of cleaning up after him when he took too much of something. He’s lucky he never ended up in the hospital! He missed one of his uni exams because he was hungover, that was the last straw for me. I told him he had to get his act together, that he’d never get the first class degree he was so confident of if he didn’t go to his bloody exams. It was pretty bad, actually, we’ve never argued like that. We would squabble as kids but never really argue. He didn’t back down until I told him that he was letting you down, and that if he continued acting like that and somehow didn’t get himself killed, he’d lose you. And he did, he got clean… and decided to propose.”

“That’s a lovely story, Sinclair,” Lionel said as he sat down next to you. “But you missed out the part that came after the break up.”

You frowned. “What happened after?”

Lionel and Sinclair exchanged a glance, as if they were using a twin bond to agree what to tell you.

“I relapsed,” Lionel admitted in a quiet voice. “Badly. I spent the rest of the summer in a rehab clinic trying to get clean before term started again.”

You stared at him, eyes wide. You’d pictured him spending the rest of the summer moping around his giant mansion, not in rehab.

“Lionel, I had no idea…”

“Of course you didn’t, you wouldn’t answer the bloody phone,” Lionel snapped. “I suppose it’s a good thing you didn’t tell me you were pregnant. My father was a piece of shit, cruel and violent, but at least he wasn’t so weak as to be a drug addict.”

You put your hand over his on the table.

“Lionel, I have hurled a lot of insults your way over the years, but weak is not one of them. Drug addiction is the result of chemical reactions, not a personality defect. You had the wisdom to realise what was going on and you did something about it. That shows strength.”

Lionel’s hand squeezed yours. He avoided your gaze, staring at a spot on the floor, his expression unreadable.

Realising he wasn’t going to tell you anything more, you turned to Sinclair, who was watching his cousin warily.

“Did anything else happen after that?”

Sinclair shook his head. “He’s been clean ever since — as far as I’m aware. I think I’d notice if he relapsed again. Put his head down, got that first class degree he wanted. Now he owns a media conglomerate. Not bad, eh?”

You looked back at Lionel with a small smile and nudged his shoulder.

“Hey, Lionel… remember our first date? I told you I expected you to be the biggest name in business by 36. I was right, wasn’t I?”

He blinked and seemed to come back to reality. He turned his attention back to you, and you could see a smile pulling at the corner of his lips, although there was a sadness there too.

“I just wish you’d been by my side while I built it all,” he said quietly.

When your lips met Lionel’s, Sinclair suddenly felt like he was intruding on something very private. He whispered an excuse that he needed the bathroom and extracted himself from the booth, leaving you and Lionel alone.

There was something desperate about the way Lionel kissed you back, as if he were pleading with you, begging you to understand; as if his lips were trying to convey in a kiss what they couldn’t with words.

And you did. Finally, after so many years, you understood. He’d hit rock bottom, and Sinclair had helped him up; on his path to recovery, he’d wanted to commit to you, to put all the ways he’d fucked up behind him. And when you rejected him, he fell again, and it was only through his own strength of character and the support of his family that he’d climbed up again, his ambition strong as it was, so determined to become the man he’d always wanted to be.

He’d fucked up. He should have told you he was struggling, should have told you he was in rehab, should have apologised a thousand times over for betraying you.

But you weren’t innocent either. You’d known something was up, but you’d done nothing about it. If he was calling less, you could have gone to Cambridge. Perhaps you would have been able to pull him back before he hit rock bottom at all.

And you should have given him more than just “no.” You should have answered his calls. You sure as fuck should have told him you were pregnant.

When your lips parted, you realised you were crying. Lionel raised a hand to your cheek and gently wiped away a tear.

“I’m here now,” you whispered. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

Lionel smiled.

“Good. Because I’m never letting you go again.”

#alan rickman #lionel shabandar #sinclair bryant #gambit 2012 #close my eyes 1991 #lionel x reader #champagne problems

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