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caelum-in-the-avatarverse · 1 year ago

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Fandom can do a little gatekeeping. As a treat.

So I finally decided to archive-lock my fics on AO3 last night. I’ve been considering it since the AI scrape last year, but the tipping point was this whole lore.fm debacle, coupled with some thoughts I’ve been thinking regarding Fandom These Days in general and Fandom As A Community in particular. So I wanna explain why I waited so long, why I locked my stuff up now, and why I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a-okay with making it harder for people to see my stories.

Lurkers really are great, tho

I’m a chronic lurker, and have been since I started hanging out on the internet as a teen in the 00s. These days it’s just cuz I don’t feel a need to socialize very often, but back then it was because I was shy and knew I was socially awkward. Even if I made an account, I’d spend months lurking on message boards or forums or Livejournals, watching other people interact and getting a feel for that particular community’s culture and etiquette before I finally started interacting myself. And y’know, that approach saved me a lot of embarrassment. Over the course of my lurking on any site, there was always some other person who’d clearly joined up five minutes after learning the place existed, barged in without a care for their behavior, and committed so many social faux pas that all the other users were immediately annoyed with them at best. I learned a lot observing those incidents. Lurk More is Rule 33 of the internet for very good reason.

Lurking isn’t bad or weird or creepy. It’s perfectly normal. I love lurking. It’s hard for me to not lurk - socializing takes a lot of energy out of me, even via text. (Heck it took 12 hours for me to write this post, I wish I was kidding--) Occasionally I’ll manage longer bouts of interaction - a few weeks posting here, almost a year chatting in a discord there - but I’m always gonna end up going radio silent for months at some point. I used to feel bad about it, but I’ve long since made peace with the fact that it’s just the way my brain works. I’m a chronic lurker, and in the long term nothing is going to change that.

The thing with being a chronic lurker is that you have to accept that you are not actually seen as part of the community you are lurking in. That’s not to say that lurkers are unimportant - lurkers actually are important, and they make up a large proportion of any online community - but it’s simple cause and effect. You may think of it as “your community”, but if you’ve never said a word, how is the community supposed to know you exist? If I lurked on someone’s LJ, and then that person suddenly friendslocked their blog, I knew that I had two choices: Either accept that I would never be able to read their posts again, or reach out to them and ask if I could be added to their friends list with the full understanding that I was a rando they might not decide to trust. I usually went with the first option, because my invisibility as a lurker was more important to me than talking to strangers on the internet.

Lurking is like sitting on a park bench, quietly people-watching and eavesdropping on the conversations other people are having around you. You’re in the park, but you’re not actively participating in anything happening there. You can see and hear things that you become very interested in! But if you don’t introduce yourself and become part of the conversation, you won’t be able to keep listening to it when those people walk away. When fandom migrated away from Livejournal, people moved to new platforms alongside their friends, but lurkers were often left behind. No one knew they existed, so they weren’t told where everyone else was going. To be seen as part of a fandom community, you need to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc. etc.

There’s nothing wrong with lurking. There can actually be benefits to lurking, both for the lurkers and the communities they lurk in. It’s just another way to be in a fandom. But if that is how you exist in fandom--and remember, I say this as someone who often does exist that way in fandom--you need to remember that you’re on the outside looking in, and the curtains can always close.

I’ve always been super sympathetic to lurkers, because I am one. I know there’s a lot of people like me who just don’t socialize often. I know there’s plenty of reasons why someone might not make an account on the internet - maybe they’re nervous, maybe they’re young and their parents don’t allow them to, maybe they’re in a bad situation where someone is monitoring their activity, maybe they can only access the internet from public computer terminals. Heck, I’ve never even logged into AO3 on my phone--if I’m away from my computer I just read what’s publicly available.

I know I have people lurking on my fics. I know my fics probably mean a lot to someone I don’t even know exists. I know this because there are plenty of fics I love whose writers don’t know I exist.

I love my commenters personally; I love my lurkers as an abstract concept. I know they’re there and I wish them well, and if they ever de-lurk I love them all the more.

So up until last year I never considered archive-locking my fic, because I get it. The AI scraping was upsetting, but I still hesitated because I was thinking of lurkers and guests and remembering what it felt like to be 15 and wondering if it’d be worth letting a stranger on the internet know I existed and asking to be added to their friends list just so I could reread a funny post they made once.

But the internet has changed a lot since the 00s, and fandom has changed with it. I’ve read some things and been doing some thinking about fandom-as-community over the last few years, and reading through the lore.fm drama made me decide that it’s time for me to set some boundaries.

I still love my lurkers, and I feel bad about leaving any guest commenters behind, especially if they’re in a situation where they can’t make an account for some reason. But from here on out, even my lurkers are going to have to do the bare minimum to read my fics--make an AO3 account.

Should we gatekeep fandom?

I’ve seen a few people ask this question, usually rhetorically, sometimes as a joke, always with a bit of seriousness. And I think…yeah, maybe we should. Except wait, no, not like that--

A decade ago, when people talked about fandom gatekeeping and why it was bad to do, it intersected with a lot of other things, mainly feminism and classism. The prevalent image of fandom gatekeeping was, like, a man learning that a woman likes Star Wars and haughtily demanding, “Oh, yeah? Well if you’re REALLY a fan, name ten EU novels” to belittle and dismiss her, expecting that a “real fan” would have the money and time to be familiar with the EU, and ignoring the fact that male movie-only fans were still considered fans. The thing being gatekept was the very definition of “being a fan” and people’s right to describe themselves as one.

That’s not what I mean when I say maybe fandom should gatekeep more. Anyone can call themselves a fan if they like something, that’s fine. But when it comes to the ability to enjoy the fanworks produced by the fandom community…that might be something worth gatekeeping.

See, back in the 00s, it was perfectly common for people to just…not go on the internet. Surfing the web was a thing, but it was just, like, a fun pastime. Not everyone did it. It wasn’t until the rise of social media that going online became a thing everyone and their grandmother did every day. Back then, going on the internet was just…a hobby.

So one of the first gates online fandom ever had was the simple fact that the entire world wasn’t here yet.

The entire world is here now. That gate has been demolished.

And it’s a lot easier to find us now. Even scattered across platforms, fandom is so centralized these days. It isn’t a network of dedicated webshrines and forums that you can only find via webrings anymore, it’s right there on all the big social media sites. AO3 didn’t set out to be the main fanfic website, but that’s definitely what it’s become. It’s easy for people to find us--and that includes people who don’t care about the community, and just want “content.”

Transformative fandom doesn’t like it when people see our fanworks as “content”. “Content” is a pretty broad term, but when fandom uses it we’re usually referring to creative works that are churned out by content creators to be consumed by an audience as quickly as possible as often as possible so that the content creator can generate revenue. This not-so-new normal has caused a massive shift in how people who are new to fandom view fanworks--instead of seeing fic or art as something a fellow fan made and shared with you, they see fanworks as products to be consumed.

Transformative fandom has, in general, always been a gift economy. We put time and effort into creating fanworks that we share with our fellow fans for free. We do this so we don’t get sued, but fandom as a whole actually gets a lot out of the gift economy. Offer your community a story, and in return you can get comments, build friendships, or inspire other people to write things that you might want to read. Readers are given the gift of free stories to read and enjoy, and while lurking is fine, they have the choice to engage with the writer and other readers by leaving comments or making reclists to help build the community.

And look, don’t get me wrong. People have never engaged with fanfic as much as fan writers wish they would. There has always been “no one comments anymore” wank. There have always been people who only comment to say “MORE!” or otherwise demand or guilt trip writers into posting the next chapter. But fandom has always agreed that those commenters are rude and annoying, and as those commenters navigate fandom they have the chance to learn proper community etiquette.

However, now it seems that a lot of the people who are consuming fanworks aren’t actually in the community.

I won’t say “they aren’t real fans” because that’s silly; there’s lots of ways to be a fan. But there seem to be a lot of fans now who have no interest in fandom as a community, or in adhering to community etiquette, or in respecting the gift economy. They consume our fics, but they don’t appreciate fan labor. They want our “content”, but they don’t respect our control over our creations.

And even worse--they see us as a resource. We share our work for free, as a gift, but all they see is an open-source content farm waiting to be tapped into. We shared it for free, so clearly they can do whatever they want with it. Why should we care if they feed our work into AI training datasets, or copy/paste our unfinished stories into ChatGPT to get an ending, or charge people for an unnecessary third-party AO3 app, or sell fanbindings on etsy for a profit without the author’s permission, or turn our stories into poor imitations of podfics to be posted on other platforms without giving us credit or asking our consent, while also using it to lure in people they can datascrape for their Forbes 30 Under 30 company?

And sure, people have been doing shady things with other people’s fanworks since forever. Art theft and reposting has always been a big problem. Fanfic is harder to flat-out repost, but I’ve heard of unauthorized fic translations getting posted without crediting the original author. Once in…I think the 2010s? I read a post by a woman who had gone to some sort of local bookselling event, only to find that the man selling “his” novel had actually self-published her fanfic. (Wish I could find that one again, I don’t even remember where I read it.)

But aside from that third example, the thing is…as awful as fanart/writing theft is, back in the day, the main thing a thief would gain from it was clout. Clout that should rightfully go to the creators who gifted their work in the first place, yeah, but still. Just clout. People will do a lot of hurtful things for clout, but fandom clout means nothing outside of fandom. Fandom clout is not enough to incentivize the sort of wide-scale pillaging we’re seeing from community outsiders today.

Money, on the other hand… Well, fandom’s just a giant, untapped content farm, isn’t it? Think of how much revenue all that content could generate.

Lurkers are a normal and even beneficial part of any online community. Maybe one day they’ll de-lurk and easily slide into place beside their fellow fans because they already know the etiquette. Maybe they’re active in another community, and they can spread information from the community they lurk in to the community they’re active in. At the very least, they silently observe, and even if they’re not active community members, they understand the community.

Fans who see fanworks as “content” don’t belong in the same category as lurkers. They’re tourists.

While reading through the initial Reddit thread on the lore.fm situation, I found this comment:

[ID: Reddit User Cabbitowo says: ... So in anime fandoms we have a word called tourist and essentially it means a fan of a few anime and doesn't care about anime tropes and actively criticizes them. This is kind of how fandoms on tiktok feel. They're touring fanfics and fanart and actively criticizes tropes that have been in the fandom since the 60s. They want to be in a fandom but they don't want to engage in fandom

OP totallymandy responds: Just entered back into Reddit after a long day to see this most recent reply. And as a fellow anime fan this making me laugh so much since it’s true! But it sorta hurts too when the reality sets in. Modern fandom is so entitled and bratty and you’d think it’s the minors only but that’s not even true, my age-mates and older seem to be like that. They want to eat their cake and complain all whilst bringing nothing to the potluck… :/ END ID]

“Tourist” is an apt name for this sort of fan. They don’t want to be part of our community, and they don’t have to be in order to come into our spaces and consume our work. Even if they don’t steal our work themselves, they feel so entitled to it that they’re fine with ignoring our wishes and letting other people take it to make AI “podfics” for them to listen to (there are a lot of comments on lore.fm’s shutdown announcement video from people telling them to just ignore the writers and do it anyway). They’ll use AI to generate an ending to an unfinished fic because they don’t care about seeing “the ending this writer would have given to the story they were telling”, they just want “an ending”. For these tourist fans, the ends justify the means, and their end goal is content for them to consume, with no care for the community that created it for them in the first place.

I don’t think this is confined to a specific age group. This isn’t “13-year-olds on Wattpad” or “Zoomers on TikTok” or whatever pointless generation war we’re in now. This is coming from people who are new to fandom, whose main experience with creative works on the internet is this new content culture and who don’t understand fandom as a community. That description can be true of someone from any age group.

It’s so easy to find fandom these days. It is, in fact, too easy. Newcomers face no hurdles or challenges that would encourage them to lurk and observe a bit before engaging, and it’s easy for people who would otherwise move on and leave us alone to start making trouble. From tourist fans to content entrepreneurs to random people who just want to gawk, it’s so easy for people who don’t care about the fandom community to reap all of its fruits.

So when I say maybe fandom should start gatekeeping a bit, I’m referring to the fact that we barely even have a gate anymore. Everyone is on the internet now; the entire world can find us, and they don’t need to bother learning community etiquette when they do. Before, we were protected by the fact that fandom was considered weird and most people didn’t look at it twice. Now, fandom is pretty mainstream. People who never would’ve bothered with it before are now comfortable strolling in like they own the place. They have no regard for the fandom community, they don’t understand it, and they don’t want to. They want to treat it just like the rest of the content they consume online.

And then they’re surprised when those of us who understand fandom culture get upset. Fanworks have existed far longer than the algorithmic internet’s content. Fanworks existed long before the internet. We’ve lived like this for ages and we like it.

So if someone can’t be bothered to respect fandom as a community, I don’t see why I should give them easy access to my fics.

Think of it like a garden gate

When I interact with commenters on my fic, I have this sense of hospitality.

The comment section is my front porch. The fic is my garden. I created my garden because I really wanted to, and I’m proud of it, and I’m happy to share it with other people.

Lots of people enjoy looking at my garden. Many walk through without saying anything. Some stop to leave kudos. Some recommend my garden to their friends. And some people take the time to stop by my front porch and let me know what a beautiful garden it is and how much they’ve enjoyed it.

Any fic writer can tell you that getting comments is an incredible feeling. I always try to answer all my comments. I don’t always manage it, but my fics’ comment sections are the one place that I manage to consistently socialize in fandom. When I respond to a comment, it feels like I’m pouring out a glass of lemonade to share with this lovely commenter on my front porch, a thank you for their thank you. We take a moment to admire my garden together, and then I see them out. The next time they drop by, I recognize them and am happy to pour another glass of lemonade.

My garden has always been open and easy to access. No fences, no walls. You just have to know where to find it. Fandom in general was once protected by its own obscurity, an out-of-the-way town that showed up on maps but was usually ignored.

But now there’s a highway that makes it easy to get to, and we have all these out-of-towner tourists coming in to gawk and steal our lawn ornaments and wonder if they can use the place to make themselves some money.

I don’t care to have those types trampling over my garden and eating all my vegetables and digging up my flowers to repot and sell, so I’ve put up a wall. It has a gate that visitors can get through if they just take the time to open it.

Admittedly, it’s a small obstacle. But when I share my fics, I share them as a gift with my fellow fans, the ones who understand that fandom is a community, even if they’re lurkers. As for tourist fans and entrepreneurs who see fic as content, who have no qualms ignoring the writer’s wishes, who refuse to respect or understand the fandom community…well, they’re not the people I mean to share my fic with, so I have no issues locking them out. If they want access to my stories, they’ll have to do the bare minimum to become a community member and join the AO3 invite queue.

And y’know, I’ve said a lot about fandom and community here, and I just want to say, I hope it’s not intimidating. When I was younger, talk about The Fandom Community made me feel insecure, and I didn’t think I’d ever manage to be active enough in fandom spaces to be counted as A Member Of The Community. But you don’t have to be a social butterfly to participate in fandom. I’ll always and forever be a chronic lurker, I reblog more than I post, I rarely manage to comment on fic, and I go radio silent for months at a time--but I write and post fanfiction. That’s my contribution.

Do you write, draw, vid, gif, or otherwise create? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you leave comments? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you curate reclists? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you maintain a fandom blog or fuckyeah blog? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you provide a space for other fans to convene in? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you regularly send asks (off anon so people know who you are)? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you have fandom friends who you interact with? Congrats, you're a community member.

There’s lots of ways to be a fan. Just make sure to respect and appreciate your fellow fans and the work they put in for you to enjoy and the gift economy fandom culture that keeps this community going.

#ao3 #lore.fm #fanfiction #fandom history #gift economy #caelum rambles

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feelfreetopleasemexo · 19 days ago

Note

Reader x Bakugo friends since kids

He asks to lose his virginity to you as you’re so close and doesn’t wanna be a pro hero virgin

First time is shit and awkward

asks to try again

Twice the charm.

〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️🔸🔸🔸〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️

“Don’t make it fucking weird.” He snapped, his eyes burning into you as his arms rested either side of your head. For someone you grew up with, someone who gave you your first bloodied nose, first win at Mario kart, first broken toe, he suddenly didnt look so familiar. His chiseled jaw somehow sharper, his red eyes somehow darker, his arms somehow wider, you tried not to let your stomach flutter but with him now towering over you on your bed, you couldnt help but let it stir.

“Stop looking at me like that.” He huffed, his cheeks glowing as red as yours, as you felt his hips shift slightly away from you, instinctively you pulled him back, arching your back slightly to bring him closer.

“Stop talking and hurry up you idiot.” You barked back, trying your best to hide your anxiety at the very strange, completely new situation you had found yourself in. He had asked you earlier this evening if you could do him a massive favour, for Katsuki this usually meant he wanted you sitting on his back to add extra weight to his push ups, or helping him finish his English paper because he was far too angry at all the adjectives and verbs Present Mic wanted from him. But this time it was something completely different.

“I am NOT becoming a pro hero if im still a virgin. Everyone else has already lost theirs, hell, even Jiro let Denki hit at least once. “ His brow furrowed, looking as pissed off as ever.

“Im still a virgin too Yano…” you offered in condolence.

“You don’t count.” He snapped back, pushing past you to grab another drink from the vending machine. “Besides, they all kinda think….i lost mine first.” Embarrassment flooded his voice as he lowly mumbled the last part.

“And why would they think that dare I ask…..” Trying not to scold him, you flash a sweet smirk his way as he downs his soda, and crushes the can in his hand effortlessly.

“I told them I had. We had.” He desperately tried to avert his gaze from yours, as your eyes widened at his blatant lie.

“You fucking WHAT?! You told them we fucked without even mentioning it to me?!” You pushed his bicep, hoping to nudge him at least a little with your frustration, but he stood still, completely unfazed at your force.

“Thought it’d be alright. No one’s said anything to you about it so….Yano….”

“Of course they didn’t! Why would they?! People dont go round confirming everyone’s broke hymens you fucking idiot!” You slammed your fist into his chest, again no reaction or acknowledgment at your attempt at hurting him.

“So, you gonna help me out or am I gonna have to find some rando to help me out.” He smirked slightly at the thought of you squirming under him, his cheeks beginning to slightly flush. You let out a deep sigh as you considered it.

“Wouldnt it be like fucking your sister though….ive known you forever. Hell, ive even shit myself infront of you before…” He shuddered slightly at the memory, pulling a dark grimace across his lips. Silence hung in the air as his eyes shifted back up to you, still awaiting your reply.

“Fine. Cmon let’s get it over with. But no kissing.” You snarl, grabbing his hand and guiding him to your bedroom.

And his hands tightened behind your head, grasping at your pillow, he start to thrust his hips against yours, letting his head lay in between your neck and jaw. His breath started to grow into a small pant as he reached down and started to grab your chest. You jolted at his hand squeezing your tit, letting out a slight gasp, as he flung his head up and concerningly looked at you.

“You alright?” He whispered in a lower, breathy tone.

“Yeah, just, not used to you touching me like this I guess…” you shake your head, trying to get the thoughts out of your mind. “Sorry, carry on….want me to take my trousers off?” You offered, desperately fighting the urge to get it over with, whilst also fighting the urge to savour every sensation that flooded your body. He nodded and moved back off you slightly, giving you room to undo and pull off your jeans. As you did so, he decided to take his joggers off too, along with his shirt.

The shadows casting on his abs made him look even more appealing, you always knew he had a good body, hell you weren’t blind, but you’d never looked at him this way, in this light, with this feeling fluttering in your groin. As your mouth opened slightly, gawking at him, you saw a small smirk creep to the corners of his mouth. He knew you were admiring him, and god did it rub his ego the right way. He started to tighten the muscles in his stomach, flexing slightly whilst staring down at you, the smirk growing wider as your eyes did the same.

“Yeah that’s right, I knew you thought i was hot. “ He proudly whispered, tensing his biceps too, as he laid his body back over yours. As he slotted back in between your hips, you inhaled slightly as his warm body encased yours under him, letting out a shy giggle as he grazed the sides of your hips, pulling you closer into him.

“Fucking hell katz, you’ve done this before haven’t you…” you stutter, completely embarrassed by how quickly your pants became damp from him pulling you in, feeling his cock getting harder and harder.

“Of course not… you think I’d of gotten this far with someone and then NOT fucked them? Cmon dont be an idiot.” He growled, looking down at your thighs trembling between him. “So, you ready then?”

Your voice trembled as you nodded your head, “yeah I think so. Just,” you tried to push the embarrassment off, tried desperately to pretend this wasn’t your first time, and that it wasn’t more special than it needed to be. “Hurry up alright? I dont want this being any weirder than it needs to be.”

“Yeah, ‘weird’ “ He scoffed, almost rolling his eyes at you, it was undeniable that something had now changed between you two, this wasnt an in out thank you very much job, it was quickly becoming an incredibly passionate, intense moment.

He slowly leant down to your neck and started peppering it with soft,slow kisses, the no kissing rule dissipated into thin air as soon as his hot lips brushed your neck. Your back arched as his hand started to move towards your waist band, pulling it down so he could brush up against your body, flesh to flesh. His warm cock rubbed against your folds, almost gliding against the hot honey that leaked from you, he let out a sharp exhale as he felt how truly wet you were for him. He rested his head on your chest as he guided himself to your entrance, slowly he put the tip of his head into you.

“F fuuuuck.” You blurted out, your eyes rolling in the back of your head already. His breathy moans against your skin made your senses burn even hotter as you dug your nails into his back. As he inched slowly into you with each thrust, you could feel your walls tightening around him, painful but so addictive you couldnt help but pull him more and more into you with your nails.

Suddenly, as he finally managed to thrust himself fully into you, he started to jerk, his whole body tensing up into a tight spasm. His face screwed up and a “oh fuck” left his lips. As he filled you with his hot cum, you couldnt help but sharply open your eyes and stare at him. Already?! It was an insanely good start, there’s no denying that, but was he seriously THAT sensitive? You tried desperately to hide your smirk, closing your eyes again and forcing your face into what you thought an orgasm face was, and started to let out small pants, there was no way you were going to let on to him that you knew what had happened. Not yet anyway. Not whilst he was still inside of you.

His eyes darted down to you in a panic, completely terrified that you had noticed he had cum already from six pumps, only one of them being fully into you anyway. As he saw your face, a slight relief washing over him as he reached down to play with your clit, he had read somewhere that this was the sure fire way to get any girl to cum, but as he swiped his thumb over it randomly, carelessly, you opened your eyes and pulled his hand away.

“Too much. It’s alright, you can get off now. “ The smirk was far too strong to hide, as it defied you and swiped across your face. His eyes furrowed as he quickly pulled out of you and sat back on his heels. As you closed your legs, you started to sit up slightly on your elbows, looking down at the cum leaking out of you onto your pink bed sheets.

“I didn’t cum.” He hissed, embarrassment slapping his face as his tried to cover his soaked wet boner from your eyes. You looked down at the cum now pooling under your ass, dripping out of you, and snickered,

“Yeah. Course not.” You darted your eye back up to his as your smirk teased him.

“Fuck off. You must’ve done something. All that squeezing inside and how wet you were….its your fault. “ he tried to turn his face away from you, tried to grab his trousers to pull them back on as he misjudged how shaken his body was and toppled to the floor. You let out a massive laugh as more cum was forced out of you, cupping your entrance to try to catch it so it didn’t completely ruin your mattress, he stood back up and huffed, pulling his trousers back over his hips and walked towards your door.

“You’re just gonna cum and run? Tsk, harsh man.” You slowly sat up, grabbing his t shirt that was flung to your side, attempting to cover your body as he opened the door.

“Yeah, whatever.” He slammed the door behind himself and left you alone in your room, defeated and unsatisfied.

The next day he didn’t look at you. You tried to push yourself past him in the shared kitchen like you usually did, but instead he swiftly moved away and let you almost fall to the kitchen counter. He left without saying a word. All day he didn’t speak to you, didnt look at you. Not in class, not in training, not even when you shouted over for him to move when sero accidentally let out more tape than he meant and it smacked him in the back of the thigh.

That night you decided to barge into his room , demanding answers, but you were met with him shoving clothes and training gear into a large bag on his bed.

“Running away cause I teased you? Cmon man, you can’t be serious.” You leant against his doorframe, folding your arms to your chest. He darted his eyes to you from the corner of his furrow brows.

“Fuck off. Im going home for a few days. Dont feel good.”

“Bull. Fucking. Shit.” You snapped.

“What? What do you want? More disappointment from one pump chump over here?! Fuck off out of my room!” He barked, smoke starting to rise from his palms as he become increasingly more angry, almost unable to control his frustration at himself.

“Really? You’re getting fucked off because of that?” You let out a short unimpressed laugh. “Dude, everyone’s first time is shit. That’s kind of the unspoken rule. First times shit, seconds slightly less shit, then you find your groove…” He throws a plushie at you, the one you won him years ago that he secretly kept under his bed.

“Fuck. Off.” His eyes didnt meet yours, he just kept packing. You walked over and slammed your icy fist onto his bag, completely freezing it under your palm. You stared at the top of his forehead with such intense anger and frustration, you couldnt help but feel like youd channeled him through yourself. He still didn’t meet your gaze as he let off a small spark and melted your ice instantly. “I said. Fuck. OFF!” He pushed you away, almost pushing you over, as you stumbled you fell onto his bed. He picked his bag up,flung it over his shoulder and started to leave. Before he opened his door, you let out an icy flick from your fingers, freezing his hand on the door handle.

“Do it better then. Don’t be a fucking baby. If your egos shattered then fix it. When have you ever not tried your best to be the fucking master of everything?!”

“Because it’s you.” He snapped, the hurt in his voice becoming even more apparent. “It was meant to be easy with you. It was meant to be an easy way to break this weird friendship family shit we have going on and make it easier….easier to tell… show you….how I felt.” His confession almost knocked the air from your lungs. Stunned, you stayed quiet, studying his back as his tight compression shirt fit so snuggly to each muscle, almost painted onto them. As the silence hung in the air with a sickeningly heavy strain, he opened the door and left.

Two days passed and he still hadn’t returned. You had decided to sleep in his room, praying that each creak, each gust of wind was him coming back into your life, your arms. But nothing. In class kirishima suddenly distanced himself from you, not in harsh hatred kind of way, but in a hurt, gotta side with my best friend kinda way. You didn’t pry, you just let him do his duty to Katsuki, and stay away. After another night alone you woke in the morning in his bed, in his favourite all might t shirt, and staggered to the communal kitchen to make some tea. Suddenly, you saw him drop his bags at the entrance of the doorway, and run to you. As he embraced you, he lifted you up in his arms and held you so tightly that it a made a loud squeak erupt from your lips. As he cradled you in his python grip, his head carving its way into your chest, you felt the tears rolling down your cheeks. You cradled the top of his head, and cried into his sharp,blond spikes. He loosened his grip slightly letting you fall down so you were face to face with him, and embraced you in a tight, passionate kiss. His lips almost burnt yours as he pressed deeply into you, still cradling you as if letting go meant losing you forever.

After it felt like time had stopped and you both remained entwined forever, he slowly let his lips leave yours for a moment as he walked towards the sofa. Gently laying you down onto it, still embracing you, he parted your legs and lay ontop of you. His kisses became slow, deliberate, passionate, as if they spoke the words he wanted to let out but couldnt. He ran his hand along the outside of your thigh as he slowly pressed himself against you, grabbing your ass he started to grab at the fabric of your pants. As the kisses became harder, his hands danced around your ass and lower back, lightly scratching you as his passion became more evident. As he breathed in your soft moans, he started to undo his trousers and tugged at your pants in between your thighs. You reached down and pulled them the side as you felt him pull his cock free from its denim prison. Slowly he started to guide himself into you as you clawed at his back. Kissing your neck, his teeth started to graze your skin as he started to bite down, sucking and claiming your skin as his chew toy. The harder he bit, the more he entered you, slow and deliberate, he managed to fully sink into you with another thrust, and started to rock his hips back and forth. The pleasure washed over you, his warmth, his passion, his fucking width stretching your walls to envelop him. The faster he moved his hips, the louder your moans became, trying as you might, nothing was stopping these sounds from escaping you. He managed to shove his tongue into your mouth and muffled them slightly, only overpowering them with his own. His hands held tightly around you as your euphoria engulfed you, suddenly your body become instantly hot as a sudden wave rose inside of you, as it reached its peak you threw your head backwards and screamed his name. As soon as his name slipped from your lips, he grabbed your chin to face him again, lips inches away.

“Again.” He smirked, the sweat dripping from his forehead, making his hair stick to it. Your voice trembled as your body started to twitch, seconds away from coming completely undo under him, you said it again and he thrusted harder. This was enough to send you into complete euphoria. Your thighs clenched around him, your walls pulsed almost pushing him out of you, as your body filled with electricity frying every single nerve ending you had. Your eyes rolled into the back of your head as you started to see stars, he placed his forehead on you and started unfolding himself. As you rode the wave together, you both eventually coming down, panting and sweating, you fell into a puddle of each other and laughed.

He opened his eyes slowly to look at you, forehead still pressed to yours, as he tucked your hair behind your ear.

“Better?” He asked, almost a whimper between pants.

“You better not have gone off to practice without me.” You giggled, your chest rising and falling quickly, desperately trying to find any extra oxygen it could. As he leant down and softly pressed his lips to yours, a sudden door closing made you both jump. You both stared, eyes as wide as physically possible at the figure standing at the doors entrance. Mr aizawa. Arms folded. Scowl burning you both to your core. The laugh that erupted from katsukis throat made you shake as he was still inside of you. His nervous laughter made you suddenly erupt in laughter too. His head hung lower as he pulled out of you, and put himself back into his trousers swiftly, praying that maybe he thought you were dry humping.

“Feeling better?” Mr aizawa bluntly asked, before turning around and leaving the UA building, just as he was about to close the door behind himself, he muttered.

“I hope you’re both ready for the punshiments coming your way. Also, denki get back to your room.” Katsuki spun his head round to see denki peering over the side of the wall, eyes wide staring at katsukis back as it hung over you. His face a mixture of mortified and jealous. He quickly ran back around the corner as Katsuki jumped up and chased him. You sunk into the sofa, trying to make yourself as small as possible, as the door slammed shut behind aizawa.

“I suppose now they can’t think he lied about us.” You whispered to yourself, giggling into your hands now covering your face.

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shouyuus · 4 months ago

Note

Yeahhhhhh I'm gonna need the mutual cockblocking with Vi, yup.

based off of this ask. PHEW alright so uh, bullet points today bc /pops open another bottle of champagne/ it's that kind of day:

is it rly called bullying if u and vi r bullying each other and ur both like... into it? (neither of u are being subtle, everyone can see the yearning and they're all either super invested in when ur gonna hook up or tired AF of ur shit)

pitfighter!vi who glares at anyone who tries to chat you up at the bar that you frequent after all her fights (u volunteer at the dingy little clinic two doors down from the fighting ring and she thinks ur too naive for the mouth you've got on you -- and you do have a mouth on you dear sweet god), pays the bartender extra to keep an eye on you and double dose whoever is trying to chat you up that night bc hell be damned if vi'll see you leave with any of these weird fuckers

loris is so over vi's tantrums whenever you push yourself between her and someone she's sweet-talking; he knows that vi's just doing it bc she knows that the moment you see her reach out to push the hair of out of another girl's face, you'll be shimmying your way over and wiggling between them, pressing your tits up against the bar, snagging the drink that vi was gonna offer her potential hookup (and yeah, what if vi ordered a drink she knew you'd like better? huh? that's got nothing to do with anything)

"why don't you just take her home?". vi squinting at loris in the dimness of the alley behind the bar, "wh-what? i don't want that -- that conniving little... rabbit -- i like someone who's a bit more bite -- or... whatever." loris hitches an eyebrow, watching vi with a deadpanned look before sighing, "yeah. whatever you say."

whenever your friends ask you why on earth you're so hell bent on keeping vi from hooking up with a rando, you'd frown and huff and "you should see the way she comes into the clinic every other day -- i'm -- i'm doing a public service! she's gonna ruin whoever she gets her hands on and -- and i've gotta watch out for the sisterhood, yknow?" cue all ur friends rolling their eyes, "uh-huh. yeah. right."

the one night that vi manages to get someone halfway to the door, you catch them right before vi manages to lead the girl out into the street, draping yourself across vi's back, giggling as you loop your arms around her neck, "vi! i was looking for you everywhere -- you promised we could hang out after your fight tonight -- did you forget again?" you purposefully stumble into the girl she's with, knocking their hands apart. vi grimaces, narrowing her eyes as she rounds on you, intent on telling you off when she catches sight of what you're wearing -- a black leather skirt that barely kisses the tops of your thighs and a tiny little red croptop that leaves nothing to the imagination, dark fishnets criss-crossing up your legs (her mouth waters at the thought of ripping them apart to bury her fingers in your cunt) --

"uhm... friend of yours?" her would-be date asks, clearly a bit put-off as she looks you over. you pull your face into a girlish pout, batting your lashes at vi, "aw... are you doing this to get back at me for the other night? i said was sorry -- would you feel better if i let you eat me out in the back alley again --"

at that point, the girl vi's with pulls away and vi barely tries to get her back before rounding on you. the dopey grin slides off your face and your eyes glitter like shards of broken glass as vi growls at you, yanking you behind her till you're both in the dim alleyway behind the bar, the thick metal door slamming shut behind you

"what the fuck is your problem?!" she asks. you roll your eyes, scoffing, "whatever the fuck is yours. i've told you that you're supposed to be resting, and you never listen --" "i come to you so you can stitch up my face not so you can give me life advice --" "well i won't have to much of your face to stitch up if you keep on going like this cause you're gonna get yourself killed!" "why the fuck do you care?!" "cause it's my job!"

vi groans, jerking away from you to kick at an already toppled over trashcan, the metallic clank of it ringing through the narrow street

"you don't get paid to cockblock me at the fucking bar --" "and you don't get paid to spend all your winnings bribing the bartender into double-dosing all my potential dates!" vi whirls around then, eyes wide, "i -- i don't know what the hell you're --" you let out a wild shriek of laughter, "oh please! you're not subtle -- and you don't think pete and i have known each other for way longer than he's known you?"

vi huffs, folding her arms defensively over chest, glaring down the alley at the thing strip of light cresting in from the street out front, "that's -- those people -- they're not good for you. they'd --" she swallows hard, "they'd hurt you -- chew you up and spit you back out and --"

you cock your eyebrows, "you don't think i know that? i am from the lanes too, yknow."

vi scowls, "then you should start acting like it."

"what?" "nothing." "no, seriously -- what is it with you?" "nothing! god fuckin' -- forget it -- i'll find another bar to --" "violet."

her eyes jerk up, "how -- who -- how'dyou know my name?"

you sigh, rolling your eyes, "your friend? loris? he told me after the first time you punched a guy for trying to talk to me. you're probably too drunk to remember but --" vi shakes her head, "no i -- i do -- that guy was an ass -- i knew him from back when i used to run jobs for -- well, doesn't matter much now but --"

"i can look after myself, violet," you say. vi scoffs before she can stop herself, "yeah. okay." you sigh, leaning back against the bar's back door, "or are you just so caught up in needing something to protect that you don't see it?"

vi very nearly flinches. "what?"

you purse your lips, "i said what i said." "yeah well, say it again." she closes the space between you both in a few quick strides, crowding into your space, slamming a palm against the door next to your face. to your credit, you don't even blink.

there's a flicker of something behind your eyes that licks fire along the length of vi's spine; "i said -- you should find some other little puppet to work out your problems on because i'm done --"

she's kissing you before you can finish your sentence, and there's nothing caring or gentle about the way she bullies her tongue into your mouth and licks along the backsides of your teeth, nothing kind or caring about the way she yanks you forward by the back of your neck till you're sure you'll be able to feel the ghosts of her fingers against your skin for days and days to come

you moan into her, biting down hard on her bottom lip, grinning when the harsh, metallic tang of blood seeps across your tongue. when she pulls back, you're both panting, and you've never seen her eyes so dark, so hungry and crowded with sharp, thunderheads of lust

"mm, that's one way to shut you up," vi muses, running a thumb along the line of your jaw. you grin, a slanted, fox-sly thing. "admit it, you've been wanting to do that for ages."

vi's lips curl; she leans in close enough for you to taste the cheap whiskey on her breath as she says, "sure, and so have you."

#⛈ monsoon season #vi x reader #arcane x reader #vi smut #arcane smut #♨ steamy #dude will i ever be able to write anything vi related that doesn't snowball into like.... 2k words of MINDboggling brainrot like #this was not supposed to be that srs AND YET HERE WE ARE #vi x you #arcane x you #vi arcane x reader #vi arcane #wlw smut #wlw fanfic #lesbian #lesbian smut #my bf (bless him) indulged me in champagne and fried chicken last night and now im feeling debaucherous

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beuxwhoyouare · 4 months ago

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Dressing Room Score

All the couples wanted the day off for Valentine’s Day but I took those shifts so quickly because hello it’s free money! I took the apparel section because it’s the easiest place to get a peak at the dressing rooms. I’m not a perv I swear, but I can’t help myself. I always kept one vital of bodysuit serum on me. All the eye candy going into the dressing rooms was like a buffet of options. Men, women, pets! Shit I don’t discriminate I love trying on another persons experience to see how they live.

We were getting a weird crowd today since all the couples were out and about. The store was filled with miscellaneous randos so I went through most of my day thinking I struck out. As I locked in refolding some destroyed sections of t-shirts, a customer came up to me asking for help locating more of a certain item I absent mindedly answered looking at what was in his hand before looking up. My words stopping in their tracks as I saw his face.

He was so adorable and dorky looking in his face but the outfit he already had on told a different story. Leaving little to the imagination, it inferred he was going on a date or going out but I didn’t want to inquire too much. I like my mouth mindlessly answer his inquiries as I kept looking back to ogle at his outfit.

Eventually he asked to use the dressing rooms and I knew this was basically my chance. We walked slowly to the rooms and as he walked into the tiny space I quickly pulled the syringe out, stabbing him in the neck behind his back. The mirrors lining the room couldve saved him but he was oblivious of his surroundings.

He began turning into a suit hollowing out into a mound that looked like skin colored liquid latex. I quickly pushed him into the dressing room with me to avoid spectators. As I latched the door, I turned around to see the process completed. I knew I was operating on limited time and quickly pulled his skin on. I love putting on a new body that’s stacked with muscles that I’m not. It’s like you feel bloated, but in a good way because it goes straight to your muscles and any other places you differ in size…if you get what I mean. He was clearly a grower because I didn’t feel anything crazy there though.

I looked through his wallet to figure out a name and basic details. Okay, Reese is the name 5’9” is the height okay there’s the address. Wait the best part! I whipped back upright standing and smiling towards my new phone.

I decided to save the rest of the excitement for privacy gathered my new belongings and headed to the address on my ID. I fumbled through several keys before eventually finding the right one as I pushed my way into a very nice but neutral looking apartment. It definitely gave upper class gay which is what I always pretended to be so this would be easy to embody.

I quickly began stripping as I hastily searched for the closest full body mirror. I wanted to see the goods from every single angle. I ripped the belt holding up my very fitted pants, dropping them down to my ankles and I just gasped at what I could see.

Reese was had the type of body I was always afraid to have. He’s so conventionally attractive that while I wore him I felt like I couldn’t control myself. I needed to push it to the limit and see what I can do.

I headed down to the gym matching the sign in tag on Reese’s keys and just pretended to be there for a good workout. I mean I did go for a workout just not that kind.

I had a hard time breaking a sweat, which only intrigued me more but I headed to the locker room to take pics. I was just so obsessed with his juicy chest. Thankfully this was the better strategy because I kept getting passing glances until someone finally took initiative and approached me.

The man was such a daddy, something I could’ve only hoped to previously attract before. He nearly demanded I come with him after he got dressed and who would be to not oblige? I got in his big truck and we made our way to his home. I don’t know how I deluded myself into thinking I’d be the dominant one in this situation but the second the house door closed behind me. The burly daddy manhandled me and pushed me onto his bed. Gentle and slow was only a dream I could’ve hoped for because that man whipped his beer can out immediately and shoved his way in.

Don’t get me wrong he was BIG but that was the moment I learned what Reese did well. He was a power bottom. There was no moment of pain, me and my new hole took it like a champ. The in and out of his aggressive pace was matched by my new muscle memory eagerness to accept it.

He attacked my muscular backside as I finally began to break a sweat. Loud moans escaped my mouth. I couldn’t control it like an animalistic cry. As I thought I was reaching my limit I came on myself as he kept going. That would become a recurring theme.

Every day I’d show up to the gym and act like the slutty himbo I wanted to be. Ending up at a different home, condo, apartment every night putting my new orifices to work.

#gay #identity theft #bodysuit

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infiniteglitterfall · 10 months ago

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I do realize this is a real niche post but I cannot tell you how many damn times over the past 10 months I've seen gentiles tell Jews some version of, "Your own holy book SAYS God doesn't want you to have a country yet!"

And it's such an incredibly blatant and weirdly specific tell that they're not part of something that grew from progressive grassroots, but something based on right-wing astroturfing.

1. Staying in your own lane is a pretty huge progressive principle.

Telling people in another group that their deity said they couldn't do X is, I think, as far as you can get from your own lane.

2. It's also very clearly Not In Your Own Lane because I've never seen anyone actually be able to EITHER quote the passage they're thinking of, OR cite where it is.

It's purely, "I saw somebody else say this, and it seemed like it would make me win the debate I wasn't invited to."

3. It betrays a complete ignorance of Jewish culture and history.

Seriously? You don't know what you're referencing, its context, or even what it specifically says, but you're... coming to a community that reads and often discusses the entire Torah together each year, at weekly services... who have massive books holding generations of debate about it that it takes 7 years to read, at one page per day....

And saying, "YOUR book told you not to!"

I've been to services where we discussed just one word from the reading the whole time. The etymology. The connotations. The use of it in this passage versus in other passages.

And then there is the famous saying, "Ask two Jews, get three opinions." There is a culture of questioning and discussion and debate throughout Judaism.

You think maybe, in the decades and decades of public discussion about whether to buy land in Eretz Yisrael and move back there; whether it should keep being an individual thing, or keep shifting to intentional community projects; what the risks were; whether it should really be in Argentina or Canada or someplace instead; how this would be received by the Jews and gentiles already there, how to respect their boundaries, how to work with them before and during; and whether ending up with a fuckton of Jews in one place might not be exactly as dangerous for them as it had always been everywhere else....

You think NOBODY brought up anything scriptural? Nobody looked through the Torah, the Nevi'im, the Ketuvim, or the Talmud for any thoughts about any of this?? It took 200 years and some rando in the comments to blow everyone's minds???

4. It relies on an unspoken assumption that people can and should take very literal readings of religious texts and use them to control others.

And a sense of ownership and power over those texts, even without any accompanying knowledge about what they say.

It's kind of a supercessionist know-it-all vibe. It reads like, "I know what you should be doing. Because even if I'm not personally part of a fundamentalist branch of a related religion, the culture I'm rooted in is."

Bonus version I found when I was looking for an example. NOBODY should do this:

There are a lot of people who pull weird historical claims like "It SAYS Abraham came from Chaldea! That's Iraq!"

Like, first of all, a group is indigenous to a land if it arose as a people and culture there, before (not because of) colonization.

People aren't spontaneously spawning in groups, like "Boom! A new indigenous people just spawned!!"

People come from places. They go places. Sometimes, they gel as a new community and culture. Sometimes, they bop around for a while and eventually assimilate into another group.

Second: THE TORAH IS NOT A HISTORY TEXTBOOK OMFG.

It's an oral history, largely written centuries after the fact.

There is a TON of historical and archaeological research on when and where the Jewish culture originated, how it developed over time, etc. It's extremely well-established.

Nobody has to try to pull what they remember from Sunday school for this argument.

#jumblr #Jewish history #hamas propaganda and fundie Christian propaganda are a terrible mix #fuck hamas #depressing discourse #wall of words

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merrybloomwrites · 7 months ago

Text

Safe and Sound

Summary: Being an online personality on a well known Youtube channel comes with it's fair amount of attention. But when one fan starts to get too close for comfort, Spencer is there to keep you safe.

Word Count: 2.6K

CW: stalker, getting drugged

AN: Another story for Whumptober! This has been in my mind for awhile so I'm happy to share this protective Spencer story with you all! It's a bit of a heavier story again so please make sure to note the content warning and please don't read if those topics make you uncomfortable or trigger you in any way.

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You always knew that there are people on the internet that are creeps. Or are just plain weird. Getting a job as a cast member as Smosh only confirmed that fact.

It doesn’t happen every time you're in a video, but you’ll occasionally see some odd comments about you. People who hate you, people who love you a bit too much, people who notice the tiniest, most random things about you. It’s a bit off-putting, but not enough to really concern you. They’re just randos on the internet you will never interact with in real life.

But then you start to get this weird feeling whenever you leave your apartment. You figure you’re just being paranoid, but still, it’s uncomfortable. Almost as though you’re being watched.

It’s disconcerting, but temporary, and by the time you arrive at work, or the grocery store, or the local bar to hang with friends, you’ve forgotten all about it.

And then the letters start. Letters sent to your apartment with no return address. They’re typed, even your address isn’t handwritten but rather stamped on.

As though the anonymity wasn’t bad enough, the content of the letters had your anxiety spiking. The person was clearly unwell, and obsessed with you. Sentences like, “I need to have you,” and “you will be mine” are all too common in their writing.

You bring the letters to the police and explain what your job is to give context of how this stalker probably found you. They say they’ll look into it, but there’s not much they can do.

Disheartened, you try to protect yourself as much as you can. You get extra locks for your doors and windows, as well as install cameras to catch anyone who may get close to your home. It’s not much, but at least you can feel a bit safer when you’re at your apartment.

You tell Ian and Anthony as well as a couple other higher ups at Smosh to make them aware of the situation. They ask if you want to take a step back from appearing in videos for the time being, but you want to continue on like usual. Whoever this person is, you refuse to let them force you to change things about your life.

The letters continue, roughly one a week for a few months. You bring all of them to the police, trying to help get to the bottom of this, but you have nothing else to go on.

Then one day as you leave for work, you have that feeling of being watched once again. You scan the area and notice a person sitting on a bench in the park across the street. Which wouldn’t be weird, except this man seems to be looking directly at you. It could be a coincidence, but something has you feeling like it may be something more sinister. You take out your phone and try to discreetly take a video of this person.

You debate over sending the video to the police officer you’ve been in contact with, but since the person isn’t doing anything obviously nefarious, it would probably be a waste of everyone’s time. You do show it to Ian when you get to the office. You’re not sure why you share it, maybe you want him to validate you that it’s weird, or maybe you want him to tell you it’s totally normal and everything is fine.

What you don’t realize is that it isn’t just you and Ian in the kitchen, but that Spencer has overheard the conversation as well.

“Wait, what’s going on?” he says, walking over to you, a confused look on his face.

“I, uhm, well I kind of seem to have a stalker,” you state.

“Oh my god. Are you okay? Are you safe?” he asks worriedly.

“Yea. I mean, I think so. Mostly it’s just letters getting mailed to my house. But I’ve been having this weird feeling like I’m being watched. And there was this guy looking at me from the park this morning, but I think that’s just a coincidence.”

“Y/N, that’s-” he stands there at a loss for words. “That sounds dangerous, like bad news waiting to happen.”

“I’ve gone to the police,” you explain. “They have all the information I have. But there’s nothing they can do, at least not yet.”

“You mean not until something bad happens. I hate that.”

“I’ve done everything I can to protect my home so I feel safe there. If I didn’t then I wouldn’t stay.”

“I’m glad to hear that. But if you ever don’t feel safe, you can come stay with me,” Spencer says.

“Or me,” Ian adds.

“Thanks guys. I promise that if it gets worse then I’ll take one of you up on that offer.”

It’s nice to know that they have your back, that you have places you can go if anything were to happen. Because while you try to stay positive, you can’t lie. You’re scared. You’re scared that whoever this person is will do something more serious. And as terrifying as that is, you’re less anxious knowing you have people you can turn to.

More weeks pass, and the letters continue. You see the same man twice more at the park, taking videos each time. After the third, you do send all of them to the police, since there now seems to be a pattern. The officer you speak with assures you that they’re looking into it, trying to identify the man. She also asks you to call them if he shows up again.

The following Friday a group of your friends decide to hang at a local bar to celebrate the end of a long filming week. You have a drink, dance with some friends, and for a moment, you forget about your problems.

But the feeling of being watched comes back. This time it’s worse than ever, your skin prickling with anxiety. Scanning the room, you notice a man whose eyes are locked on you. He looks vaguely familiar, but you can’t place where you might know him from.

Brushing it off, you go up to the bar to order another drink. It’s a busy night, and the bar is crowded so it takes a few minutes for you to get served. You scan the room, trying to find that guy again but you’ve lost him amongst the sea of people.

When you look back at the bar your cocktail is waiting for you so you place down your cash, grab your drink, and head back to your friends. You dance with them again, taking sips of your drink and just letting loose.

After a little while you start to feel a bit dizzy and figure that the cocktail must be pretty strong. You slow down, drinking less and trying to take deep breaths to combat the lightheadedness. It doesn’t seem to be helping, and you start to feel a bit nauseous, so you excuse yourself to the bathroom.

You walk to the hallway on unsteady legs, and miraculously are able to use the restroom. You slowly wash your hands, concentrating deeply on the task.

On your way back to your friends you get confused, taking a wrong turn and going down the wrong hallway. It’s dark back here, and if you were more coherent you’d realize that customers aren’t supposed to be here, and the only door leads to a storage room.

Turning around you find that you’re suddenly not alone. A tall man is there smiling at you. It’s not someone you recognize but you have a vague sense that you should know him. He steps closer and you start to feel anxious, not liking the situation you’ve found yourself in.

“Excuse me,” you try to say, but your mouth feels almost numb, and you’re not sure the words actually came out.

“I’m glad I found you Y/N,” he says. You stare at him, trying to figure out how you know him. “It’s time to get going, sweetheart.”

He starts to lead you away and you follow, unable to come up with a reason to stay. The music gets louder, lights are flashing in your eyes, and you’re becoming more and more disoriented.

The next thing you know, a group of your friends are frantically speaking to you, the man nowhere to be found. You desperately try to focus on any one thing, but it’s chaos all around you. Hands cup your face and you flinch before meeting the eyes of the person who placed them there so gently.

“Spencer?” you ask, needing confirmation that your muddled mind has at least one thing correct.

“Yea, it’s Spencer,” he replies as he moves his hands off of you, relieved that he now has your attention. “Can you tell me what happened?”

You shake your head no.

“Do you know who that man is?” Spencer asks.

Again you just shake your head.

You sway on your feet and Spencer quickly steps in and helps you sit on the floor. You lean your head back against the wall, but you find that makes the dizziness worse, so you rest it on your knees instead. You’re turned to look at Spencer, needing to focus on something safe right now.

There’s more commotion, and you watch as Spencer speaks with a couple of people in uniform. He places a calming hand on your back and tries asking you more questions, but everything is too murky for you to understand.

You’re so drowsy, and you stop fighting your heavy eyelids, letting them close as the world around you finally goes quiet.

You’re not out for long, waking up a short while later in the ambulance. Spencer is still there, now holding onto your hand.

At the hospital a lovely doctor checks you over to make sure you’re not injured. She takes blood and gives you some IV hydration. By the time you’re discharged, the world has stopped spinning and you’re able to understand and answer the questions you’re being asked.

Two of the police officers come to the hospital to speak with you now that you’re more coherent, and you tell them about the man. One of the officers is the woman you’d been in contact with regarding the letters and the stranger at the park and she pulls up the pictures you had taken as well as a still from the security footage from the bar.

Your blood runs cold as you realize that it is absolutely the same person. Just a moment ago you were reeling from the fact that you had been roofied. And now you find out that it wasn’t just some random guy that did it, but instead one who has been stalking you for months. You weren’t drugged on some whim. This had to have been planned, thought out for who knows how long.

You keep it together until the police officers leave and then you turn to Spencer, eyes wide and filling with tears.

After taking a deep breath you say, “Thank you so much for finding me. I can’t imagine what he would have done if you hadn’t come looking for me.”

“I would never have been able to forgive myself if anything happened to you,” is his reply.

You can’t think of anything to say in reply, so you choose to lean into his side instead. He wraps an arm around you, and it might be your imagination, but you think you feel him press a kiss to the top of your head.

“C’mon. The guys dropped my car off, let’s get you home,” Spencer says.

“No!” You quickly shout. “He knows where I live. He’ll find me there.”

“Y/N, they have him down at the police station. But I actually didn’t mean your home. I meant mine, if you’re alright with that.”

“Oh. Yes, please, I’m good with that.”

Spencer keeps his arm around your waist as he leads you out of the hospital and to his car in the nearby lot. He opens the passenger door and pulls out a sweatshirt. He helps you pull it over your head before you sit in the seat. You struggle a moment with the seatbelt, and he leans in to click it for you. It’s embarrassing, him having to do all of this because you’re still so shaky, but he doesn’t see it that way.

He talks the whole way to his place, and you’re grateful for the random stories that fill the silence. It keeps your mind from slipping into the dark fearful thoughts that keep trying to pop up.

Once at his apartment he asks if you want to take a shower or get some sleep.

“Shower first, if that’s okay?” you answer.

“Of course it’s okay. Whatever you need,” he replies. “I’ll get some breakfast ready as well. Anything particular you want?”

Your stomach is still unsettled so you ask if it’s possible to just have toast.

“I think I can handle toast,” he says with a smile, causing you to giggle. “I’ll make you a smoothie too, how does that sound?”

“Perfect.”

Spencer leads you to the bathroom where he starts the shower and shows you how to change the temperature of the water. He steps out for a moment and comes back with a stack of clean clothes for you to wear.

“I’ll be right down the hall if you need anything,” he says before he leaves the room.

You shower as quickly as you can, wanting to get back to Spencer. Being alone is the last thing you want right now, but you also need to wash last night off of you so you can feel clean.

It feels amazing to slip into Spencer’s cozy sweats, his old, worn t-shirt, and soft hoodie.

He’s in the kitchen and you watch as he butters toast and pours the smoothie into two cups. Breakfast is quiet as you focus on eating slowly so as to not upset your stomach. You finish as much as you can before the exhaustion really sets in.

“C’mon, you need to sleep,” he says. The polite part of you wants to help clear the dishes as a thank you, but he’s right. You can barely stay upright on the way to his room. He closes the blinds and tucks you in, and you fall asleep almost immediately.

You’re not sure how long you sleep before a nightmare has you jolting awake, screaming.

“What’s wrong?” Spencer asks as he runs into the room.

He sits on the bed beside you and you try to explain the dream you’d just had in which Spencer hadn’t saved the day and you’d ended up with that man. But as you go to speak nothing comes out except a shattered sob.

Without hesitation he pulls you to him and holds you close. He gently rocks you as he tells you, “You’re safe, you got away, he can’t get you,” over and over until the message sinks in.

You don’t say anything, but slowly your tears fade away and your eyes start to feel heavy once again. You want to lay back down and rest some more, but you don’t want Spencer to leave again.

“Stay. Please.”

It’s all you get out before you fall back to sleep.

You wake up hours later with Spencer still holding you, and for the first time in months, you know that you’re safe, and that everything is going to be okay.

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

AN: Thank you for reading! I only have one or two more Spencer story ideas so lmk if you have any requests!

#spencer agnew x reader #smosh x reader #smosh fanfiction

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strawberry-nugget · 27 days ago

Text

Chapter 1

~Technically this should be your fresh start. Moving to Japan as a single mom and getting a regular job, living the peaceful life you've always wanted. But trouble finds you in every corner, taking either the form of those weird monstrous things you catch in a blurry half gaze ocassionally, or of that extremely hot single dad, whose son, Megumi is friends with your daughter.

Pairing: Toji Fushiguro x Reader

Tags // Warnings: NSFW (not in this chapter tho sry), MDNI, canon divergence, single parents au!, slow burn(ish)

Word Count: 8.5k

“This ain't the type of car for a kid”

This is the first thing he ever sputters to you. An all too smug face is paired with the douche-y comment— for a moment you think that your fist won't even be strong enough to shatter his face no matter how hard you wish it was.

You give him a mean look instead; eyes slant, nose scrunched and angry, pouty lips. And mind you, he finds it so amusing he's laughing in your face about it. A bird chirps in the back, as the cold breeze of this spring afternoon finds release through your hair and your brain is so dry of a reply that the person standing before you must think you've gone mute.

Shooting a quick look between your car and the man you begin to wonder if he looks like he's on his right mind. Who, ever, looking this scary too, approaches a mother trying to get her toddler into her car? Right outside a kindergarten?

“Uhm, this is a Mazda Rx-7 sir”

“I know” He laughs again. “Need help to get her into the car?”

You don’t care that he’s pretty, frankly. Despite the shaggy black hair and the full lips —the heavy muscles even— you think he’s nothing but a creep. And being a single mother trying to make it overseas all on your own has made you paranoid that you shouldn’t trust anyone for your daughters safety.

However, your toddler, smiles at him from the passenger seat. You shoot her a confused gaze, but now that he’s in all of her vision you watch as she giggles.

What the fuck? Why does your four year old reckognize a man this old?

“Ey Toji” she chirps and your eyes widen in surprise.

The man—Toji— waves back to her politely, big smile adorning his features. You settle for looking him up and down, just a quick scan, but even if he looks dangerous as ever you notice he has his own four year old attached to his hand.

Damn, okay, how is his kid holding such a big hand?

Your heart starts skipping again. Somewhere between being an antisocial mess and having an overly social child, you’ve seem to have lost the notion that you’re literally picking her up from school. The thought that he’s a creep completely slips your mind, he too, is picking up his kid from school, just like you.

“Hey Megumiiii”

“Hi,hi”

Taking another look at the kid attached to this man’s arm, you think, you recognize him. He’s the one in most photos your mother would send you of your baby while you were away. Right. Megumi. Her friend.

It’s insane to think that there are more than 50 photos with Megumi and Mai-mai in your phone and you couldn’t even make it out it was him at first glance.

“Oh you’re Megumi” you speak and the kid nods coldly.

Of course he does, he doesn’t know you, he’s probably having the same reaction to you, because he has never seen you again, as the one you had for his father. What was his name again? Ah— Toji.

“Uhm” you clear your throat “sorry that was so unkind of me, I’m fine getting her in the car on my own”

Toji watches as you bow to him politely, blinking steadily so. He studies you softly and only for a moment. Your features are too similar to Mai-Mai, save for her lighter hair color and that’s the only confirmation he needs to make sure you’re not some rando picking her up from school, or worse— abducting her. He’s seen way too many good looking strangers like you with bad intentions trying to pick up a kid from school and in a fatherly instinct he thought approaching a stranger that’s struggling to get his son’s friend into her car was a good idea.

The car is… surely an addition to your image, it’s light, porcelain blue, detailed, with tinted windows, but oh well, he figures, maybe you do have money to spare to modify your car like that. Not that it’s his place to talk about this. Your parents must have had enough money to buy this for you if they can afford to send what he thinks is your sister to such a prestigious kindergarten.

“I don’t know if your mom told you, but we’ve got a playdate with your sis today”

“Excuse me? Sis?”

You stare, back and forth, between him and Mai-Mai. It's flattery that creeps up on you now, to be considered old enough to be her sister, not her mother and then it’s guilt that poisons that thought, for having missed six entire months of her at school, for having your parents stay in Japan for six whole months to take care of her, just so that her friend’s dad thinks of you as what he stated.

It’s not Toji’s obligation, however, to have known Mai-Mai has such a young mother but it’s baffling, at least, that your parents never mentioned you to the father of your daughter’s friend. Even if they’ve helped you raise her with all they’ve got, they’re still opposed to the idea of a 25 year old raising a child on her own, in a country across the globe too.

Your jaw clenches.

Normally you’d settle for just the flattery of being mistaken for someone younger, seeing that you deeply and still care that the life you had planned out for yourself in your teens hasn’t played out the way you wanted it to. You wish you were someone less responsible and younger, like your friends back in your country that you can’t even afford to fly to Japan to visit you.

But seeing as this is the reality you chose, you straighten your spine, arms crossed right under your breasts. The way he said the word ‘sis’ so casually, like it’s obvious, just absolutely shouldn’t be so destructive to your mental health. Even if it hits like a shove to the gut you weren’t braced for.

Your expression is pulled tight when you blurt it out. “Im her mother, not her sister”

A fact. An unforgiving one at that. A fact that you speak like it’s a poem you’ve practiced to recite. You’ve said it a hundred times and still your spit goes dry in your mouth because saying it makes you feel like you’ve swallowed a grovel full of dirt.

Yes, you are going to let a complete stranger think that your daughter was a mistake, and yes he's going to be right to think so. You should have thought about that earlier, not after she was born.

“Hmm, Aight, figures”

Right. That’s… it!? No joke, no backpedal. Even if you let it linger in the air for him -or you- to take in, he doesn’t react in any other way. No questions about a dad being in the picture, no flinch, no stumble. This might be the most humble and normal reaction you’ve ever gotten and it still somehow irritates you. You're used to interactions like these being a battle and it’s emptying that you’ve got no battle to fight right now.

Toji is almost paused, mid-motion as he’s picking Megumi up in his arms seeing that the little kid is set off kicking a few rocks off the road, waiting until the adults do their grown up things that don’t include him. Despite that nonchalant look on his face you catch a glimpse of what you think is surprise and step on it like the start of a staircase, just to clear your conscience as to why he’s never seen you around.

“My parents were watching her while I was away,” you add, because you suddenly need him to understand. “Work, overseas. I just got back.”

Toji shakes his head sharply in surprise.

Backtrack, baaaacktrack, this definitely doesn’t ease the awkwardness.

At least you're not a deadbeat mom.

You shift your weight to one foot, trying to ignore how your cheeks feel hot. Toji’s eyes soften a little, brows twitching like he’s filing that away, and now he looks at you different. Not younger, not like a stranger, just… like a parent.

Now he knows how you came to buy this car, he thinks, but doesn’t look twice, he still has a few manners left in him.

“Makes sense,” he murmurs. “You’ve got the same eyes.”

You weren’t ready for that. To be reminded that your daughter looks like you and someone else, that there’s a single feature of hers that isn’t yours, but she does have your eyes and your expressions, and your face shape. You don’t expect Toji to tell you this.

You look away, pretend to fix the strap on your bag just to have something to do. Or just so you don’t tear up.

Inside the car, Mai-mai is talking to herself, narrating something about a magical dinosaur kingdom to no one in particular. She taps at the window rhythmically like she’s in a completely different reality than yours, one where people don’t get mistaken for their child’s sibling, one where six months isn’t a chasm you have to cross barefoot.

Megumi waves at her and tries to lean closer to the car window, away from Toji’s embrace and you giggle at the struggle of this hunk trying to get his son to stay put.

Toji shoots you a side glance at the sound of your laugh, and for a beat, he looks at you like he wants to say something else. But then Megumi starts squirming hard in his arms, feet kicking, voice growing more determined.

Whatever moment you could have had for the fraction of a second, vanishes into thin spring air.

“Alright buddy, we’ll do the play date later, since Mai and…” there’s a sudden pause before Toji clears his throat. Oh shit, this is where you should have told him your name. “her mom need to go home”

You blurt out your name to correct him, as in to tell him you’re not just your daughter's mom but a person too and then rush— to text your mom and ask if he’s legit (to which she immediately replies that he is and that he’s lovely) and to open the drivers door at your car, before you hear it.

The shriek doesn’t come from your kid. You’d know that banshee wail anywhere—this one’s different. Lower-pitched. Angrier.

“Down, I said! I go now. We go now! Playdate!”

Toji grunts, adjusting his grip.

You’re already trying to slide into the driver’s seat, ready to shove the entire encounter into the mental junk drawer labeled ‘Weird Interactions I’ll Pretend Didn’t Fluster Me’, when you hear it once again.

“Nooooooo”

You freeze.

Your eyes flick toward the side mirror just in time to see Toji trying to meet Megumi’s face. The kid’s got his little fists balled up at his sides like he’s powering up for a street fight, and Toji’s rubbing his temple like he already regrets being someone’s father today.

You crack your window.

“Megumi,” Toji says, exasperated, “it’s not a no, it’s just not right now.”

“But you said today,” Megumi wails, voice wobbling into that dangerous emotional territory where crying is two seconds away and unstoppable once it starts.

Your daughter perks up in the seat beside you, face lighting like a lamp. “Gumi wanna play!” she shrieks joyfully, banging her palms against the window like a tiny gorilla, in support of his tantrum. “Gumi wanna come house!”

You close your eyes. Briefly. The pout of your toddler's face you can handle, but seeing Toji struggle with his own little gremlin just centimetres away from you isn’t something you can just ignore.

Maybe it’s because you’re too sad to see Megumi throw a tantrum, seeing kids being sad had always been your greatest weakness.

You step out again. This was not supposed to become your problem. You were supposed to say no, go home, pretend Toji’s smile didn’t do whatever it did to your stomach given the fact you. Just. Met. Him. and get back to your regularly scheduled anxiety spiral in peace.

Instead, you find yourself walking over to them.

Toji looks down at you, one brow raised like he’s surprised you’re coming back for more. “Sorry,” he mutters. “Told him it’d be another day.”

Megumi, upon seeing you, levels you with the full force of his betrayal. “You said! You said I can play with her!”

“Toji and my mom said,” you correct quietly, smiling like you know why you bother as if making the kid understand that you’ve got a mommy too will stop him from being the menace that he is right now.

“They did!!” Megumi screams with finality, like that closes the case.

Mai-mai is now unbuckling herself, climbing halfway out the car window before you bark her name with your Real Mom Voice, and she slinks back inside like a cartoon criminal caught mid-heist.

Toji scratches the back of his neck. “I mean. It’s technically my fault. Told him yesterday, figured if it didn’t happen he’d forget.”

“He’s four,” you deadpan. “They never forget.”

Toji exhales hard through his nose, looking at Megumi like he’s the second mortgage of his life. “Alright. If you’re up for it,” he says “I can bring him over for a couple hours.”

You blink. Then there’s this eerie feeling that glooms around his aura that punches your stomach, but strokes gently on your cheeks.

And it hits you that there is no way this man has ever been invited anywhere by another parent. He looks like he’d drink beer in a sippy cup just for fun. You imagine other kindergarten moms go out of their way to avoid eye contact with him at drop-off, scared he’s going to steal their soul or something. Or …. Not? Is he just attractive to you or are other moms swooning when they see him?

God, it’s the first fucking day of picking up your daughter from school and you already have a crush on a dad. The man could be married for all you know and you’re kinda, sorta too preoccupied with thinking that he’s never been invited to a house before.

This is usually stuff moms handle, you tell yourself. Maybe there’s no mom in the picture.

But your daughter is squealing now, feet swinging back and forth, and Megumi has gone silent, waiting for the final jurisdiction of his father.

“Ask your mom if we can come” he says, to you and you smile because your plan has worked. Megumi sees you as someone who has a mom too, he’ll probably listen to you if you tell him no.

I'm sorry I just met your dad and I don’t trust him.

My mom said you can’t, but once I get to know your dad you're free to come whenever.

But your heart— your heart swells in your chest because you can’t say no to Megumi.

“Alright. But just for an hour or two. And only if your dad doesn’t mind being stuck with me in my weird little apartment for the duration.”

Toji grins, something sharp-soft behind it.

“I’ve survived worse places,” he says.

You arch a brow. “Yeah?”

He nods. “Once spent three hours in the soft play zone at Joypolis. Got puked on twice.”

You snort despite yourself. Great. Now you’re amused and flustered. And that big ass, extremely attractive scarily looking man you just met is coming to your house.

Toji just jerks his head toward the car. “Lead the way, mom.”

And damn it—you hate that the way he says mom is starting to sound less like a mistake, and more like a compliment.

You only realize you’re staring when your daughter squeals again, a high-pitched victory noise that rattles your eardrums, and you snap out of it with a jolt. Megumi’s hand is already in hers through the open car door, like they’re comrades heading off to war and not two toddlers preparing to demolish your apartment with glitter glue and snack crumbs.

“Toji,” you murmur under your breath, testing the name like a new language on your tongue, as he leans closer. Why must you be so iradical when it comes to developing a crush? “My car isn't fit for more than two people”

You say it gently, like you’ll ruin a moment that only you think is there, like five minutes with a pretty stranger is all it takes for you to be enticed.

Maybe your best friend was right, maybe you do fall in love when someone gives you so much as a glance because you need the attention.

“Right. I’ll take mine and follow you then”

A slight bell rings inside your head. Ding ding, stranger… and you pay it some mind. Just enough so that you ask; “Wait, you've never been to our house?”

You’re sure your mother has sent you a photo of your daughter and Megumi inside your apartment.

“I have, I just figured, you know, for the courtesy of it…”

Yeah, right, you just have a very hard time accepting people you don’t know are kind.

You’re rounding the car when he looks up at you again.

“You always this trusting?” he asks, but it’s not sharp. It’s not a dig. It’s genuine curiosity, tucked behind the half-laugh that edges the corner of his mouth.

“No,” you reply without hesitation, pulling your seatbelt on. “You just looked… equally tired.”

He laughs. Really laughs. And it’s the kind that scrapes the back of his throat, like he hasn’t had a reason to in a while or you're simply deluded, thinking this is the start of some romance? How would it have turned out had you punched him earlier?

“You sure this isn’t inconvenient?” he says eventually, eyes still forward.

You shrug. “You think I’m gonna say no when I’ve just earned, like, a week’s worth of toddler goodwill? No way.”

He smirks. “Smart.”

“And besides,” you add before you can stop yourself, “I’ve survived worse places too.”

His eyes flick sideways, and there’s something in them this time. Less amusement, more… recognition. Like he knows exactly what you mean, even if you haven’t said it out loud.

The drive is short, ten minutes max through the traffic but your gut is about to burst, you haven’t been accustomed to this—accommodating a playdate for your daughter because it’s only ever been your friends that would come and visit but this? This is real. Your daughter having friends is real.

Perhaps this is how your mom felt when you’d beg to have your friends from preschool visit.

You turn into your street and the familiar weight of your life settles back over you. The smallness of your space, the clutter you left behind this morning, the meal you were supposed to cook that now might have to be ramen and chopped-up string cheese if things get desperate.

Toji steps out of his own car first and grabs Megumi like he’s done this a thousand times. You envy how natural it looks. How secure Megumi seems in his arms.

“You sure you don’t want to eat first?” Toji’s crouched in front of Megumi now, doing that calm, almost parental negotiation thing that never actually works when a four-year-old has already made up their mind.

Megumi stares back at him with the unblinking determination of someone who’s tasted the freedom of an unsupervised playdate and will die before relinquishing it.

“No.”

Toji blinks. “There’s leftover curry at home.”

“No.”

“Chicken nuggets?”

Megumi squints like that offer is offensive.

“You said play,” he accuses, and now he’s folding his arms, a tiny statue of betrayal. “Not eat. Play.”

You stand a few feet away, arms crossed, watching the entire thing unfold like it’s free theatre. Mai-mai’s already skipping circles around Megumi in excitement, chanting “Playdate! Playdate!” like a spell that’s only fueling the child-sized rebellion.

Toji exhales through his nose. He looks up at you briefly, deadpan. “You ever try to reason with a fridge magnet?”

You snort. “Welcome to the club.”

“I brought this on myself,” he mutters, rising with the dramatic weariness of a man thirty years older.

Megumi sees his dad stand up and immediately grabs your daughter’s hand again like he’s making a political statement. He juts his chin up.

“Im not hungry.”

“You will be,” Toji warns, voice lightly threatening in that exhausted-dad way. “And don’t come crying to me when you turn into a gremlin an hour from now.”

“I am not a gremlin,” Megumi says with conviction. “Im Megumi.”

Toji mutters something like “coulda fooled me” under his breath and pinches the bridge of his nose.

You bite back a laugh. “I’ve got food at the apartment. If that helps.”

He looks at you like you just offered him a parachute mid freefall. “You sure?”

You shrug. “I mean, it’s nothing fancy. Sandwiches. Cut fruit. String cheese if no one’s too proud.”

Megumi lights up like you just said magic potions. His grip on your daughter tightens and he starts tugging her toward your front door like this is his show now.

“Play and snack,” he declares. “Now.”

Toji sighs, clearly defeated, rubbing a hand down his face. “This is blackmail, right?”

You grin. “Kind of. But they’re cute, so.”

He gives you a look like he doesn’t want to agree, but he does. He definitely does.

“Alright,” he says, dragging a hand through his hair and staring toward your car with the kind of resignation that only comes from fatherhood or debt. “Let’s see if your place survives two four-year-olds and one suspiciously calm single mom.”

“Suspicious?” you echo, walking beside him to the door to your apartment

“You’re not panicking. That’s always suspicious.”

You smirk. “Don’t worry. I’ll panic internally. I Should warn you,” you say as you unlock the door, “there’s no toy box in sight. She’s got, like, one Barbie with no arms and a broken xylophone. Everything else is a mess. As in, her mom just came from overseas and she hasn’t had the heart to do all her chores mess.”

“We’ve got worse,” he replies. “Megumi’s best friend at home is a pinecone. And he also has a dad that doesn’t have the heart to do all his chores too”

You snort. Why on earth does he sound like he gets you? You won’t dare ask if he’s trying to tell you that he’s single as well and if you did catch anything in his statement, you’ll simply let it slide, despite feeling curious to know.

You know you won’t take it well if someone asks you about Mai-Mai’s dad when they’ve just met you, having some context as to that you're a single mom.

The kids barrel into your apartment like it’s a castle. You don’t even try to stop them. There’s some yelling. A crash. Someone’s giggling maniacally. It’s chaos—utter chaos since the first second, but despite it, you rush to take off your shoes and wash your hands.

Toji hovers by the door until you nod toward the couch.

“You can sit, you know. I won’t bite.”

He lowers himself down like he’s afraid of breaking something, and you wonder, briefly, how many places this man’s been where he didn’t feel like he belonged or if he has ever felt like that!? Like, ever?

Maybe, you settle for seeing that little nervousness one would feel while being in an almost stranger’s house.

Your phone buzzes on the kitchen counter — your mom, probably. Or work. But you don’t check it. Instead, you hand Toji a juice box — one of the last ones — and he takes it with a raised brow.

“What?” you say. “Equal treatment. You come into my home, you drink apple juice.”

He grins around the straw like he’s never been given anything so ridiculous and kind at the same time.

And you grin back before climbing the kitchen counter and hurling under the ventilator.

You’re still tired as you pull out your pack of cigarettes, still too tired to think that you shouldn’t smoke inside the apartment, but the weight of the world on your shoulders is… excruciating. It shouldn’t smell if the vent’s on. And for all that's worth on good manners, you offer Toji a cigarette too.

Toji eyes the cigarette in your outstretched hand like it’s an invitation to something more complicated than nicotine. You can tell he’s debating it; maybe he’s trying to be polite, or careful, or something that people like you usually don’t get from strangers who were almost punched in a preschool parking lot.

But then, finally, he takes it. He takes it anyway, brushing your fingers in that subtle way that probably means nothing and feels like something. His grin tilts just enough to make you think he knows that, too.

You light yours first, exhaling toward the vent, and he follows suit like it’s a ritual you’ve both done before in other lives, just not together.

“Equal treatment,” he murmurs, echoing your earlier words, and there’s something dry and fond in the way he says it. Like he gets it.

The vent hums above your head, a lazy background noise to the distant shrieking of toddlers turning your home into a disaster zone. Toji lights up, takes a drag, exhales slowly like it’s been a week—and maybe it has. Maybe it’s been a year, maybe a lifetime. You wouldn’t know.

Not until he says “I’ve stopped smoking for a while”

“I haven’t” you reply, like you’re flirting, when you really aren’t, yet your voice does that smooth, fake enticing thing you have only ever been able to master when you’re not into anyone.

Toji almost grins

“Riiight”

You’re an enabler when it comes to smoking, you know that.

“Im sorry, I always offer, it’s easier than asking if you're a smoker or not”

Toji leans back against the kitchen wall, eyes flicking to the narrow hallway where the chaos continues.

“…Fair.”

There’s a quiet between you—not awkward. Something easier. Comfortable, in a way that surprises you.

“Didn’t peg you for a smoker,” he says around the cigarette, his voice a little hoarse now, softer.

You shrug. “Didn’t peg you for someone who’d willingly follow a stranger home because of toddler politics.”

He huffs a laugh, shifting his weight against the counter. “I like to live dangerously.”

You glance sideways at him. “Yeah, I got that vibe when you didn’t flinch after I almost punched you.”

He takes a slow drag. “I don’t flinch.”

“That’s tough”

Fuck— you hate yourself for another flirty line.

He doesn’t respond and the quiet lingers for an agonising amount of time. You glance at him. “You okay?”

He pauses, like he wasn’t expecting the question. Then, with a small shrug: “Yeah. I mean—no. But yeah. Y’know?”

You do. You really do.

You blow smoke toward the vent, watching it curl and vanish. “I didn’t think I’d be doing this alone,” you admit, more to the ventilator than to him. “Not forever, anyway.”

He’s quiet for a beat. Then: “Same.”

Your eyes flick over to him, but he’s not looking at you. He’s watching the hallway again, where Megumi’s laughter rises like a battle cry. You don’t know if he means the parenting thing, or the being here, in someone else’s kitchen with a juice box and a cigarette, but you think it doesn’t really matter.

You let out a quiet snort and return your attention to the vent above. Smoke rises, the kids shriek-laugh from the other room, and Toji’s still there.

After a beat, he says, “So… you were abroad?”

You blink. It catches you off-guard—his voice, that question, the fact he remembered what you said despite your total awkwardness, it does something inside you. It stirs your stomach.

“Yeah… I'm not from Japan. I moved here for a fresh start last year, then I got this summer job in my country and I had to stay over for six months instead of three. So naturally Mai-Mai started school and I had to come in later… I'm honestly surprised my mom didn’t tell you all this. Then again she hates what I'm doing with my life.”

“Your mom is nice,” Toji says, clearing his throat. “I think it’s just a very personal issue to share with me” he lets out a soft, low breath that could be a laugh. “She’s sweet. Protective.”

“She was very against me moving here. Said I wouldn’t last more than three months.” You smirk, then add, whispering, rolling your eyes to the side just to meet his. And spoiler alert— he’s already looking at you

“I think im gonna last way more than that, even without her”

“Longer than that?”

You hum, letting your chest fill with pride as your face is adorned in an almost comically induced expression.

The notion of lunch is forgotten, choked underneath that fake fullness in your stomach that comes after smoking and seemingly the kids forget about it too. You wish you had the mind to eat, or the physical need of a growl in your stomach but you’re so sucked in this conversation with Toji that you can’t even think of moving away.

There’s an aura about him. Magnetising. Like it’s pulling you in—not to punch him, but to trust him, to set foot in your house when you’ve known him for an hour or two.

Your eyes are glued on him even if that eeriness about his aura remains.

Toji doesn’t say anything right away, but there’s a flicker of something in his expression—an acknowledgment, maybe, or approval. The kind that doesn’t ask questions or offer sympathy. That it’s fine for you to just look, take him in.

He taps ash into an ashtray you’ve set nearby and says, “You’re tough.”

And you can’t help it—you laugh. “I smoke inside, feed my kid string cheese, and just let a man I barely know into my house. I don’t know if that’s tough or stupid.”

He tilts his head like he’s weighing the difference. “Could be both.”

Another silence. Not heavy though.

Then he says, quieter this time, “Megumi… he doesn’t take to people easily. You noticed that?”

You nod. “A little.”

“He doesn’t laugh a lot either. Not like that.” He gestures loosely toward the hallway, where Mai-Mai’s now proclaiming herself Queen of the Pillow Fort and Megumi is swearing fealty in loud, confused syllables.

Something flickers behind his eyes then—barely there. Gone as soon as it comes. Like a window cracked open in a room you shouldn’t be in.

“I don’t bring him places much. Not like this.” His voice is rough, but not guarded. Just used to silence more than talking. “Figured… maybe it’d be different this time. Your mom has always been nice to us and to think you’re as nice too…”

You should say something. Only one little thing. A ‘thank you’. Something, anything, but you’ve never been a good responder, you’ve never had your way with words like he does. You're short on spit and words, stuck in a loop where no syllable can tell him all the thoughts that are going through your head.

Instead, you nudge the juice box closer to him. “Drink. That stuff’s elite.”

There. The only thing you can actually say.

He chuckles under his breath and takes a sip like he’s humoring you.

“You always joke when it gets heavy?” he asks, not accusing, just curious.

You shrug. “I'm bad with words. Too bad. I'm a disaster. It’s just better to not speak sometimes y’know”

“At least you’re real” he says, like it’s a good thing.

Toji nods once, eyes lingering on you like he’s seeing something past the words, past the smoke, past the carefully stacked joke-shaped bricks you build around your feelings.

You shrug. Being real hasn’t gotten you anywhere, at all, except for maybe sharing your living room in Japan with someone you’ve just met and a new friend for your daughter.

“Real’s good,” he says. Simple. Quiet. A little serious. “People forget how to be that.”

You scoff, like that kind of talk shouldn’t affect you—but it does. You feel it slide down your spine like warm water, a little uncomfortable because it’s true.

“Yeah, well. Being real doesn’t pay rent,” you mutter, flicking the ash off the tip of your cigarette, “or get your kid to sleep on time. Im kind, there’s a difference”

He huffs again, softer this time. Almost fond. “Still better than being fake. And rude.”

It’s not a compliment exactly, but it lands like one. And maybe that’s worse. Or better. You can’t tell. You inhale too deep and cough once, embarrassingly, and Toji passes you the juice box like it’s a goddamn medical prescription.

You take it, roll your eyes, and sip.

He watches you the way you’d watch a stray cat coming close for the first time—careful, patient, a little surprised you haven’t bolted.

You don’t even mind drinking off the straw of someone you just met but this… this drumming in your chest, the palpitations you can feel in your heart knowing this means something in the cultural context of Japan— it makes your skin crawl and tingle.

Ultimately, you decide the world won’t end if you catch on to the pass you were just thrown.

Right now, your daughter is laughing in the next room, and a scary-pretty stranger is in yor kitchen, and the world hasn’t ended yet.

“So what do you do?” Toji asks and snaps you away from your inner thinking “for a living I mean”

You pause. Not because you’re trying to decide whether or not to lie. Not because you think he’s gonna turn misogynistic and act like women aren’t allowed to do what you have done—but because you haven’t answered that question honestly in a long time. Not in a real way. Not in the way he’s looking at you now, like whatever you say will matter.

“I used to race cars,” you say.

Toji blinks, sharply. It’s the first time today that he’s visibly caught off guard. “What, like… professionally?”

You nod. “Back home. Small circuit stuff at first, then bigger. I got signed by a sponsor when I was twenty-three. I needed the money. But I’ll save the sob, too cliche story of a racer that gets into an accident for another time.”

His mouth opens like he’s going to say something—then closes again. He leans back against the opposite counter, jaw working like he’s trying to imagine you behind the wheel of something with horsepower and death baked into the seat.

“Damn,” he says finally, voice low. “Didn’t expect that.”

You smirk, eyes half-lidded behind the smoke. “What’d you expect? Barista?”

“No I just— anything but that.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

“No. Fuck that shit, because this isn’t something people tell you every day” he pauses “so that explains the car”

You hum. “Well it got me enough money to be able to move here, but at first it was out of spite. Mai-Mais dad was obsessed with cars and I wanted to prove that I'm better than him.”

Toji lets out a low whistle, long and soft. Not mocking—impressed. Like maybe now he’s seeing you differently. Or maybe just seeing more of you. There’s a different kind of spite -petty- you have to have in you in order to show off like that. He understands what petty is, to his fucking core and it’s still amusing.

“So… you raced out of spite and ended up making it a job,” he says. “That’s kind of badass.”

You laugh, sharp and a little bitter. “Yeah, well. Turns out rage has a pretty good fuel economy.”

Toji chuckles at that, a real one. The sound vibrates low in his chest, and it’s honestly unfair how nice it sounds. He flicks ash into the tray, then glances over at you with something like curiosity, or respect, or whatever that look is that makes your stomach tighten.

“Still race?”

You shake your head. “Nah. Well I mean, I had to in order to save some money for a year in Japan. But… Too many late nights, too many close calls. You don’t think about dying until you have someone small waiting for you at the finish line.”

His face changes just slightly—less in expression, more in energy. It settles. Quiet, thoughtful and slightly pained. He doesn’t nod, doesn’t say something cliché. Just listens. Which you’re learning is a thing he’s oddly good at. A trait that feels rarer than it should be.

The silence that follows is a little heavier now, but not uncomfortable. Like it’s been earned.

You lean back on your elbows, sighing. “Anyway, now I'm gonna teach English part-time and pick up temp work when it comes. Not as cool as racing, but it’ll keep us afloat.”

Toji nods slowly. “Cool doesn’t feed kids,” he says. “But for what it’s worth… I still think that’s one hell of a past life.”

You tilt your head at him, like a puppy would, hungry for more information. “What about you?”

He raises a brow, then shrugs like the answer’s not worth too much weight. “Odd jobs. Stuff that pays in cash and doesn’t ask questions. Construction sometimes. Security. Whatever keeps things quiet and Megumi fed.”

You nod. You get that. You get it more than you’d like to admit.

Then, without thinking—just because it slips out before you can catch it—you ask, “How old are you anyway?”

Toji glances at you sidelong, something sly behind his expression. “Thirty four. Why?”

You sip from the juice box again, feeling ridiculous and too full of adrenaline. “Just checking if I should be worried.”

“And?”

“Well I should, but it’s fine. I mean. It’s okay, I'm just jealous… you had your son at a normal age”

“Yours isn’t?” He asks

But this time you don’t expect him to understand. Even when knowing so little about his life you could assume that someone having a kid at thirty means he could have had a chance to go to college, go out with his friends, work for their own sake. You gave all that up when you decided to have your daughter at twenty one.

“I just. I'm twenty five and my life didn’t turn out like I wanted it to. Save for the Fast and Furious dream car”

Toji goes quiet, and not in the awkward way people do when they don’t know how to comfort someone—they fidget, they backpedal, they tell you “but look how strong you are” or “at least you have your kid”. None of that. Toji’s still. And his eyes, when they meet yours, hold none of that uncomfortable pity. Just awareness. Recognition.

He takes one last drag and stubs the cigarette out, his voice low. “Yeah. But I got married at twenty five”

You blink, straightening slightly. “Wait. Really?”

He nods, lips twitching like the memory tastes half-bitter. “Didn’t feel like a normal age back then. I was broke, angry, stupid. Thought I’d wrecked everything. Felt like the rest of the world was on some train I missed, and I was standing on the platform with just being in love as my only possession.”

The confession slips out so easily that you’re stunned for a second. You weren’t expecting that honesty—not so soon. Not from him.

Toji looks toward the hallway again, where the kids are quieter now. Still chattering, but sleepily. Slower. Like their little bodies are running out of chaos.

“I never had time for much else,” he says. “College, friends, the normal stuff? Didn’t happen. All I had was rage and a lot of nights I didn’t sleep. Still don’t sometimes.”

You study him now—this man who looked like he was carved out of street brawls and bad decisions, who grinned when you challenged him and drank juice boxes without complaint. You realize he’s probably never had someone ask how he got here. Or maybe he has, but they never stuck around for the full answer.

Assuming things for other people has never gotten you anywhere, but this? It’s dazzling to find out that people struggle. Globally. And you knew that before but it’s now taking flesh before you.

You try not to pry—so you don’t ask about the wife but you do let the statement concerning his rage float in your head. Saying that you’ve felt something so similar shouldn’t feel like a burden. And yet for a moment, you’re out of words.

You study his face again, but now you can see it in a light that's different than the one under the vent. You can now see past his sharp eyes and he has black circles underneath them, you can see that scar on his lip. You’re studying a face, yet you can see the tiredness that negative emotions manifest.

You wet your lips. “I'm full of rage too… ugh… Why does it sound better when you say it?”

He looks back at you. “’Cause you’re still living it. I’m just remembering it.”

And damn. That’s the first time all night you feel like your heart drops a few inches lower in your chest.

You offer him your cigarette pack again, even though neither of you really need another. He waves it off this time.

Then, because you feel like the moment needs air—you get up, plucking another cigarette from the pack and in your mouth, trying to convince yourself it’s the only way to get your hands to stop from shaking.

Toji sets the juice box down on the counter like he’s placing something valuable. Like it matters, somehow, to treat even this small thing with care.

You lean back, shoulder hitting the cabinet, arms crossed now. Your stomach growls now—but the thought of cooking feels like climbing a mountain in flip-flops. Toji cocks an eyebrow at the sound and your embarrassment fills the room.

You try another pathetic attempt at excusing yourself.

“I can’t cook,” you admit, deadpan. “I mean—I can, but not right now. I’ve got nothing left in me. We should order something. You like noodles?”

Toji shrugs. “I like free food.”

You snort, paying his comment no mind. “That’s not what I asked.”

He gives you a lazy grin. “Yeah. Noodles sound good. And some sides”

You reach for your phone on the counter, flicking it open to your food app, and halfway through picking a place, you glance over at him.

He watches you type in the order, then leans a little closer over your shoulder like he needs to see what you’re picking. You try not to freeze when his arm brushes yours—casual, unthinking, but enough to send a little zip of electricity straight through your tired body.

“You okay with spice?” you ask, barely masking your voice wobble.

“Bring it.”

You hit order and toss the phone down like it just said something incriminating. The kids scream again from the hallway—something about dragons now—and you sigh, but you don’t move. You’re still anchored here, somehow, and Toji doesn’t look like he’s leaving either.

You’re the first to pull away.

And then, as if you can’t ever allow yourself to get lost in a moment, the inevitable occurrence there is about having two toddlers playing freely in your house, happens.

CRASH!

Toji groans and pushes himself away from the kitchen counter. “Guess I better go make sure Megumi didn’t convince your kid to build a ladder or jump off a closet.”

You laugh despite the fact that your stomach lurches and let Toji pick up the pieces of what sounds like a devilish scheme of children that went rogue, verified by the ultimate silence instead of shrieking and crying that comes from Mai-Mai’s room.

Outside, the sun’s starting to dip, casting your kitchen in gold and long shadows. The smell of apple juice and ash lingers in the air. The vent hums quietly above you like it knows you still need the white noise to cancel out your anxiety.

You sit on the couch and kind of hope the food takes forever to get here.

Not even seconds later,Mai-Mai interrupts your thoughts again by launching herself into your lap with the energy of a child who has never known gravity. Megumi follows shortly, dragging a blanket and a shoe behind him like trophies of war and Toji— Toji takes the walk of shame from down the hallway with a broken bed plate, mouth pursed to the side of his face and shoulders shrug like he’s trying to say ‘sorry’.

You know what this means; that the kids were jumping on Mai’s bed and now you have to let her sleep with you tonight until you fix this tomorrow. Perhaps it’s one of her schemes, but you can’t blame her for it. She’s just a child that’s missed her mom.

“Snack,” your daughter demands.

“Snack,” Megumi echoes with slightly more menace.

Toji raises his hands in surrender. “I knew this was a trap.”

You groan, shifting under your daughter’s weight. “I ordered food”

The kids start bouncing again—Mai-Mai wiggling in your lap, Megumi climbing up on the couch like it’s Fuji—and you can feel your patience and your bones grinding down into the same exhausted powder. But Toji doesn’t look fazed. If anything, he reaches over and hauls Megumi into his own lap like it’s the most natural thing in the world, casually anchoring the boy with one arm while leaning back into the cushions like he’s done this a hundred times before.

You realize you’re still watching him. That he looks too comfortable here.

That you do, too.

“Food’ll be here in fifteen,” you mutter, mostly to remind yourself this night has a timestamp. “Try to survive until then.”

Toji glances at you, something lazy and amused curling at the corner of his mouth.

——

The food arrives in a plastic bag that smells like heaven and costs more than you want to admit.

You don’t ever ask for money from the pretty stranger on your couch.

You set the containers on the coffee table and everyone just kind of migrates around them like feral animals gathering at a watering hole. You offer the kids milder stuff—yakisoba, some sweet potato tempura—while you and Toji take the spicier dishes.

The four of you eat like you’ve been starved, in a kind of comfortable silence only broken by the occasional slurp or half-choked laugh from the kids. Your daughter acts like the most behaved child in the world—until, Toji casually announces that he and Megumi have to leave.

“No,” Mai-Mai says immediately, gripping Toji’s sleeve like she’s about to drag him back down to the floor. “Stay. Sleep over.”

She does her best — perfecting her pleading pout, lower lip all poked out under her puckered upper one and eyes deery big, as a messy strand of hair sticks to her small sweaty forehead.

Toji freezes, a half-finished dumpling between his fingers. He glances at you, one brow raised in that way that says ‘this is your problem now’.

“Mai,” you sigh, already bracing yourself. “We’ve talked about this. Guests don’t have to stay just because you’re giving them a cute face.”

“But he said he’d show me that other karate kick if I ate!”

You stare at Toji. “Seriously?”

“She asked.”

“Did you show her one?”

“She said please.”

You shake your head, but you’re smiling—can’t help it. Your daughter is practically climbing him now, and Megumi is draped over a cushion nearby with the unmistakable weight of a kid who is about to pass out in five minutes or less. Still pouty over the fact that he has to leave, but at least he’s not rebelling over it.

Toji gently peels your daughter off his arm. “We’ll come by again sometime,” he says, directing it to her like a promise, but you feel the weight of it land on you. Then, to you, quieter he says “If that’s alright and mommy says yes.”

And you sigh, knowing full well that the face your daughter tried to pull on Toji is going to work on you.

“Mommy can Gumi and Toji come over again?”

“Yeah,” you say, hands running through your hair before they rest awkwardly on your hips.

Toji stands, lifting Megumi up like it’s second nature. The kid doesn’t even blink. Toji adjusts him with one hand and glances back at you as you walk him to the door.

There’s a weird pause. Not uncomfortable. Not rushed. Just quiet lingering.

Then, he tilts his head. “Hey, uh… You got socials or something? Number?”

You blink, surprised. Not by the question, but by how casual he makes it sound. Like he’s asking if you’ve got a lighter. Even though he was the one with the lighter when he wasn’t supposed to be smoking.

“Yeah,” you say. You reach for your phone, trying not to make it obvious how fast your heart’s beating. “Here, let me”

And sure, there it is, that subtle touch of his fingers on yours, like before. Electric, insanely hot, in a way that’s completely unreasonable for how brief it is.

You look at him and notice that his eyes are green.

He hands you his phone, screen already open to a new contact. You type in your number and name, then hesitate before adding your handle. You figure if he wants to snoop through your photos, let him. You’ve got nothing to hide, no photos of an ex you don’t want to see the light of day.

When you hand it back, he looks at the screen for a second, then glances up at you, pressing the button to call you, hanging up once he sees the call reach you.

Toji gives you a look that lingers, not too long, not too sharp, just precise.

You don’t hand him your phone.

Still you ask, “Toji?”

“Fushiguro” he states, but as you type, he continues “but you’re not gonna meet many Tojis around”

“Oh im sure”

“You need anything, you call”

You nod, like you understand what he says without intending to take action toward your agreement.

Then, with a grin that’s halfway to a smirk, he adds, “And you owe me a race, show-off.”

“Drift—” you start, raising an eyebrow.

“‘Scuse me?” he cuts in, playful, almost teasing.

“I used to drift race,” you say, and his laugh rumbles out low, his grin cracking wider.

And then he’s gone, his steps echoing down the hallway, the smell of soy sauce and cigarette smoke still faint in the air. You lock the door behind him, back pressed to the wood, heart loud in your ears.

It’s not until an hour later that your phone lights up from your nightstand. A text— that one is definitely not from your mom or work.

Toji: Next time I see you, you better show me how you drift.

You don’t reply. Not because you don't want to—but because your brain short-circuits a little and you don’t trust yourself not to say something stupid like only if you wear something right.

What could he possibly wear that wouldn’t be right. With his built.

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