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stllmnstr · 5 months

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every fragile thing

genre: figure skater au, college au, enemies to lovers, angst and fluff

pairing: park sunghoon x f reader

word count: 12.3k

soundtrack: jealousy, jealousy / brutal / the grudge / get him back! / good 4 u - olivia rodrigio

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After an ankle injury lands you in weekly physical therapy sessions instead of on the ice where you should be training for regionals, you’re certain you must be the most emotionally volatile figure skater within a hundred mile radius. Park Sunghoon proves you wrong.

or,

every fragile thing has one of two choices: become stronger or shatter into a million pieces.

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Silence. One word, two syllables. A fairly straightforward term with a meaning that can be easily deduced from a quick scan of its Merriam-Webster definition.

But unlike many words, silence is one that’s typically learned through experience. Through stilted beats, pregnant pauses, dreamlike moments in the dead of night while the world around you is at a standstill.

In the moments just before the music starts, when it feels as if the audience around you is holding their breath. And you stand at the center of it all, blades of your tightly laced skates against ice, chest rising and falling in time with your heartbeat, mind spinning with possibility. In those moments, your long trained muscles take over, following the memory of countless repetitions as your body prepares to do what it knows best.

There’s a question in that silence. One that’s asked with baited breath.

Will I land this skill? Will I go home with a medal around my neck, cold weight a familiar comfort against my skin? Will this be my best performance yet? Will they love it? Love me?

That, as you’ve come to learn, is your favorite kind of silence. The kind that’s filled with endless possibility, with the promise of something beautiful or disastrous or some odd mix of the two to come.

The feeling of freedom, of flying as blade cuts through ice, as your body defies gravity with every jump, every spin.

But that is very much not the kind of silence that greets you where Dr. Min eyes you warily over the top of his pristine clipboard, a crease forming between his dark eyebrows. Frowning, he glances at the paper once more before returning his gaze to you.

“You’re sure you’ve been resting? No weight on the fracture at all?”

It takes a good chunk of your willpower not to roll your eyes. Mostly because you’re lying through your teeth, but who’s keeping track?

“Yes, I’m sure.” Gesturing to the thick black boot the lower part of your left leg and foot have been imprisoned in for the better part of a month, you add, “This thing’s still coming off in two weeks, right?”

Two weeks is pushing it, but you’ve done more with less. Two weeks puts you exactly three months out from regionals, which gives you exactly ninety-one days to pull together the most jaw dropping program you or the judges have ever seen. One that’s certain to land you on the podium and secure a spot at nationals.

Once again, you thank your lucky stars for Coach Lee. She’s been with you since you were still struggling to lace your own skates, and there’s no one else you’d trust to have you ready for regionals in such a short time frame. No one else you’d bet your fate on like this.

“That was our original time frame, yes…” Dr. Min trails off, avoiding your gaze in a way that has your stomach dropping unpleasantly.

“And we’ll be sticking to it, I’m sure.” You hate the way the end of your phrase turns up like a question.

Dr. Min sighs. “Look, ___, our original time frame was ambitious to begin with, and I hate to tell you this, but your ankle is not healing as well as we’d hoped. Fractures don’t heal overnight, and the best thing for you right now is rest.”

The argument is already forming on your tongue. “But—”

“I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m not trying to ruin your life, ___. Truly. I’m saying this to you as the parent of an athlete and a former athlete myself. Pushing yourself now will only lead to reinjury in the future and will also very likely shorten your career. Your ankle needs to heal before you skate on it again. It needs to heal before you so much as put weight on it. And you need to let it heal completely.” The sincerity in his voice is hard to stomach when he says, “Believe me when I tell you that you’ll regret it for the rest of life if you don’t.”

And logically, you know he’s right. Know that this will be nothing but a minor setback if you allow it to run its course. If you follow his advice to rest and heal. But skating has never been something you’ve done with the logical parts of yourself. And Dr. Min doesn’t get it. You tell him as much. “You don’t understand what you’re asking me to do. Regionals are in less than four months, and—”

“I hear you. Believe me, I do. But this is your third year of university, which means you have another shot at nationals next year. If you push it and try to skate before you’re ready, you may very well lose that chance.”

“So I’m supposed to do what? Sit around and do nothing until my ankle decides to cooperate?” Even voicing the possibility has you suppressing a grimace.

But Dr. Min has different thoughts. “Yes. That is exactly what you need to do.”

You don’t avert your gaze. Neither does he. Finally, after a moment, he sighs. “My recommendation at this point is still rest, but—”

“But?” Your excitement is impossible to contain fully.

Dr. Min levels you with a cautionary look over his clipboard. “But, if you’re going to do anything, our athletics department does also run a physical therapy program, which I think could be beneficial. It would help to retain flexibility, mobility, and agility in the areas of your leg that support your ankle. It could help get you back on the ice faster and maintain the leg strength you’ve built. There’s a group session that runs on Tuesday afternoons—”

“Yes,” you nod, not bothering to hear the end of his statement. “Yes, I’ll do that.”

“I… okay.” As much as you want to hate him for it, Dr. Min has a point. And while you doubt physical therapy will be anywhere near as grueling as your usual workouts, it sounds a hell of a lot better than doing nothing.

…

You’ve never liked hospitals. The odd juxtaposition of white, lifeless sterility and a culmination of some of life’s most painful moments has always left an unpleasant taste on your tongue.

It’s one that has you double checking the address Dr. Min forwarded to you as you enter the oddly cheerful building that is apparently home to a renowned athletics physical therapy facility. Despite the medical purpose, there’s a distinct liveliness that envelops the space.

The woman at reception informs you that this is indeed the right building and the session you’re attending has just begun in the room to your left.

Pausing at the door, you’re struck with a sudden timidness. A physical therapy group for athletes will obviously be filled with, well, athletes. And although you can’t speak too harshly on that particular subsect of people, being one yourself, they can be intimidating. It must be the competitiveness, you think. The drive to push, succeed, win that gives off such a distinct aura.

Steeling yourself with one last breath, you remind yourself that’s why you’re here. To get back to that version of you that has everyone else feeling a little shier. That version of you that eats, breathes, and sleeps with ice skates laced on your feet and visions of the top of a podium driving your every decision.

With determination straightening your brow, you push open the door.

And immediately find yourself grateful for the mental preparation as three heads snap in your direction.

Hitching your bag up an inch on your shoulder, you try not to melt under the sudden awkwardness. Thankfully, one of them is better at breaking ice than you.

“Hi,” the boy closest to you is the first to fill the silence. He’s all smiles where he gives you a friendly wave, moving a stray hair out of his eyes with a flick of his head as he tells you, “I’m Jungwon.”

You offer your name in return, trying on a smile to match his friendliness. You have a feeling it comes more naturally to him than it ever will to you, though.

Regardless, he offers an equally cheerful, “Nice to meet you.” Glancing over to where the second boy is moving through a series of stretches, Jungwon makes eye contact, silently telling him he’s up next.

Even mid-stretch, he acquiesces. “I’m Niki,” the second boy follows.

“And I’m Jake.” The last boy doesn’t need any prompting from Jungwon. Nodding towards the walking boot that covers the bottom half of your left leg, he glances at a similar one that he wears on his own. “Looks like we’re twins. Tore up my achilles pretty bad in my last soccer match,” he explains. “What about you?”

“Fractured my ankle,” you return, a rueful smile dragging your lips up. “Figure skater.”

“Ah, man.” Jungwon winces. “That sucks.”

You shrug, forcing a nonchalance you don’t feel. “No worse than a busted achilles.”

“That’s cool that you skate though,” Jake offers. “Kind of a funny coincidence, actually. There’s another—”

Whatever it is, he doesn’t get to finish the thought. At that moment, the door opens again, this time revealing a middle aged woman in a white physician’s coat. Her name tag reads Dr. Kim, and she introduces herself as such to you.

“Looks like everyone’s here, including our new member.” She gives another cursory nod in your direction. “Welcome again.” Glancing around, the instructor pauses. “Oh, wait. Except for—”

“I’m here, I’m here.” For the second time in the span of a minute, the door behind you opens. You don’t miss the glance that passes between Niki and Jake. You turn to face the new arrival, but his back is to you as he sets his bag down and begins the process of switching his shoes.

The way the new member enters with a dismissive wave of his hand and lack of proper greeting has you thinking tardiness is not an uncommon trait of his. Even from behind, you can feel the waves of arrogance he exudes. That seems to align more with your preconceived notions of athletes.

Studying him for another second, a sinking feeling of dread begins to build in the pit of your stomach. Long, dark hair. Unnaturally graceful movements, even if all he’s doing is digging through his bag. Tall stature, broad shoulders, long legs.

An athlete’s build through and through. Perfectly suited for the ice.

“Great.” Despite the statement, Dr. Kim’s tone is flat. “Well, we were just getting started and introducing ourselves since we have someone new joining us today.”

“Hi,” he offers, still fixated on his bag, yet to offer as much as a glance in your direction. If anything, it only serves as a confirmation of his identity. “I’m—” You don’t even need to hear him say it.

“Sunghoon?”

At that, he does finally look up.

Gaze locking with yours, a moment of confusion is quickly replaced by a furrow in his brow, the slight downturn of his lips. He’s not thrilled to see you either.

A beat passes.

Two.

Neither of you break eye contact.

The silence extends to the point of discomfort for all four onlookers, each of them hesitant to break the tension that’s rising by the second.

Finally, Dr. Kim takes a knife to the tension. “Do you two know each other?”

Park Sunghoon. Renowned figure skater at your rival university. Someone with such a natural knack for carving lines through ice that whispers of prodigy have been shadowing his footsteps since the minute he put them on a rink.

Someone with his head so far up his own ass you’re not sure how he can see half the time, much less keep his hair looking so perfect.

Oh, you know him alright.

“___?”

And it would seem he remembers you as well.

It also answers Dr. Kim’s question well enough.

“Ah, good.” It sounds like a question, like she’s hoping your acquaintance will be a positive thing instead of a disaster. You don’t have the heart to tell her otherwise. “The figure skating community is tight knit, I suppose.”

You suppress a scoff. That’s one word for it, you guess.

You remember when it felt that way to you, too. Before tight knit became too small. Back before university, when it felt like it was you and Park Sunghoon against the world, instead of against each other. Back when the two of you didn’t skate for opposing teams but instead were members of the same club. A time when you took the ice together, skated as partners until he—

You force your thoughts to stop in their tracks. Your blood pressure has spiked enough in the last few days, and thinking back on long days spent with Park Sunghoon will only send it skyrocketing again.

If anything, you’ll use this opportunity to practice perfecting your poker face for when you inevitably run into him at future competitions.

And future competitions means you need a healed ankle, not a bruised ego. And certainly not an unpleasant trip down memory lane.

Turning away from Sunghoon, you’re the first one to answer when Dr. Kim asks if you’re ready to get started.

“Yes,” you tell her, determination written across your brow, in the set of your shoulders, and perhaps most noticeably, in the way you avoid Sunghoon’s wandering gaze for the next two hours.

…

Without the rink, days are quick to meld into one another. It may be concerning, considering that you still have a set schedule of classes and homework to follow, but your life has revolved around training for so long that it’s hard to tell Mondays from Wednesdays without a set practice schedule.

Thankfully, you do still make it back to the clinic at the right time on the right day, this time for another session with Dr. Kim and your fellow band of broken athletes.

Including him.

Aside from the glaringly obvious exception, you’re not as bothered at the thought of returning as you feared you might be.

Jungwon, Niki, and Jake have proven themself pleasant enough company, and Dr. Kim seems to have built an understanding of how difficult it is to be forcibly removed from the sport you love. As such, she’s one of the least aggravating medical professionals you’ve spent time around.

“Hey,” Niki greets when you arrive. “Did you have a good weekend?”

You shrug. “Good enough. Mostly just catching up on homework.” Setting your bag down and switching out your shoes, you join him on the mat, beginning the series of warm-up stretches Dr. Kim instructed you through last week. “What about you?”

“Not too bad. I got some good news from my doctor, actually.” He switches legs in his stretch, and you’re almost envious of his flexibility. He’s a dancer, and an exceedingly good one at that. One with an unfortunate knee injury at the moment. “My x-rays are looking a lot better. He thinks I might be able to start easing back into regular use by next month.”

“That’s great,” you smile, even as a pang of jealousy stabs somewhere near your gut. “I’m really happy for you, Niki.”

“A month still feels like forever, though, doesn’t it?” He sighs. “I can’t remember the last time I was out of the studio for this long.”

Jungwon slides down onto the mat next to you, joining in on the stretch routine. “Consider yourself lucky, man. They told me at my last check-up that I probably won’t be able to do any jumping or kicks again for at least three months even though the fracture is already mostly healed.” He shakes his head. “No jumping or kicking,” he echoes, sarcasm dripping from every word. “You know, things that are super easy to avoid in taekwondo.”

“If it’s any consolation, I just got told that I’m gonna have to sit out of regionals this year. Which means I’ll have no way of qualifying for nationals.” You wonder how many times you’ll have to admit that particular reality to yourself before the sting starts to fade.

“That sucks.” Jake agrees, coming down to the mat and occupying the spot next to Niki. “I’ll probably have to sit for this entire season, too. I love my team, but it’s so frustrating watching them play when I know I could be an asset on the field.”

“That’s true.” You’re struck by a sudden wave of sympathy. “At least skating is an individual sport, so the only person I have to disappoint is myself.”

“Speaking of skating,” Jungwon sounds hesitant as he approaches the subject. “Do you and Sunghoon, uh…” he pauses for a moment in search of a neutral way of framing the unmistakable tension that surfaced the last time he saw the two of you together. “Do you two know each other?”

Grimacing internally, you suppose an explanation was bound to be solicited after your icy reunion. “We skate for rival universities.” Your gaze fixes on a spot on the ground. “And before college we used to, uh, we used to skate for the same club.”

The three boys share a glance. It’s hardly an explanation for the venom you said his name with but before they can press you further, the subject in question enters the room.

Again, he takes his time setting his bag down, getting his things ready. This time, he also pulls out an obnoxiously big pair of headphones, secures them over his ears before he bothers to turn around. Despite the fact that all three boys offer him friendly smiles and waves, he returns the gesture only with a tight smile, making his way to the mat on the opposite side of the room before he begins his stretch routine.

It’s a message that rings loud and clear. A frown passes between Jake, Jungwon, and Niki. It’s obvious to you, then, that you’re the reason he chose to set himself up as far away as physically possible.

So be it, you think, letting the slight roll right off of you. It’s not the first time he’s given you the cold shoulder for something he plays an equal part in, and you doubt it will be the last.

Besides, it will only make your sessions pass by quicker, if the burden of avoiding gazes and minimizing interactions falls on his shoulders instead of yours.

With nothing but a shrug, you adjust slightly, ensuring that the only view he has of you is of your back.

…

It’s a pattern that continues as physical therapy sessions start to become a regular routine in your week. Sunghoon, with his apparent disdain for anyone’s time but his own, is always the last to arrive. He also continues his habit of picking the spot in the room furthest away from you.

Despite the fact that you’d like to chalk it up to his social ineptitude alone, that explanation doesn’t track. Although there’s still a certain aura of aloofness that follows where he goes, it’s too often that you see him smiling at a joke cracked by Jake or sharing easy conversations with Jungwon and Niki.

Hell, he even interacts with Dr. Kim with a level of warmth you didn’t know was possible coming from him. If there’s any disdain in their conversations, he directs it all towards his right wrist. It’s why he’s here, you assume. Encased in a brace similar to the one you wear on your left ankle, his right forearm seems to be the reason for his attendance.

It’s hard to not be envious. While a wrist injury is nothing to scoff at, it doesn’t necessarily keep you off the ice. Not in the same way a fractured ankle does.

Refocusing your thoughts, you push the boy across the room firmly out of mind as Dr. Kim helps adjust you into the next stretch.

“How about now?” Dr. Kim pushes your spine a fraction of an inch further, pressure light but demanding. Before, this much flexibility would have been an easy request of your body, but lack of use has your muscles feeling tight. “Any tightness or pain?”

“No.” The bead of sweat on your brow begs to differ, as does the way the negation slipped through gritted teeth.

But you’re frustrated. Annoyed at the progress you’ve lost, at the new limits of your body, at the way you feel like a stranger in your own skin.

Across the room, you miss the flicker of annoyance that flits over Sunghoon’s features. Headphones on as always, you imagine you’re nothing more than a blip on his radar, a pesky intruder that’s easily ignored as long as he has his back to you.

“Hm,” Dr. Kim muses. “You’ve retained more flexibility than I expected.” She offers you a smile. “That’s a good thing, a sign of a quick recovery.”

You suppress a grimace. It should be a good thing. You should be recovering quickly. If only you could get your stupid body to cooperate.

Stealing another glance at the boy across the room, you can’t help the way a small burst of rage bubbles in your stomach. Prodigy. Why does he always get to be the anomaly, the exception to the rule? His injury is already less severe than yours, and he’s probably recovering quickly, too. Without even having to fake it.

Easing you out of the stretch, Dr. Kim jots down a quick note. “I’ll have Dr. Min run another x-ray at your next visit.” Nodding towards your ankle, she adds, “I think there’s a good chance that things are looking a lot better, and updated x-rays will help guide our next sessions.” She pauses for a minute. “I don’t want to get ahead of myself or get your hopes up, but I think we might be able to start putting some weight back on it soon. Start getting it stronger again.”

You’re hesitant to let your excitement grow too much. But it would be a lie if you weren’t already counting the days until your next visit with Dr. Min in your head. “Thank you,” you tell her. “I’ll hope those x-rays come back looking good, then.”

“Me too,” she smiles. “I’ll see you next week, then. Hopefully with good news.”

You nod, returning her smile before heading to the door to gather your things. Jungwon catches you on your way out.

“Hey, ___, hold on a sec.” When you turn back towards him, he tells you, “The rest of us are gonna grab lunch at a place nearby, if you want to join.”

Your uncertainty must write itself across your features, because he’s quick to add, “Don’t worry. Sunghoon won’t be there. He’s got a class right after this.”

Slightly embarrassed by the way he read you so easily, you nod. “Sure. Lunch sounds good.” Despite their friendliness with Sunghoon, you’ve come to like the three of them. And it’s been far too long since you broke up the monotony of class, homework, and medical appointments with something as simple as lunch with friends.

And as long as he’s not there, you imagine it will be nothing but pleasant.

It doesn’t take long for them to prove you wrong.

Niki barely lets you get one bite in before he asks, “So, what exactly happened between you two?” Even without the name, the question is obvious.

Still, after choking on the sip of water you’d been taking, you answer, “Who?”

Jake just gives you a look.

You sigh. “Like I said, we used to skate for the same club. We, uh, never really got along, I guess.” Avoiding eye contact, you add, “And now we skate for rival schools. I suppose it’s only natural to not like each other.”

Niki doesn’t miss a beat. “Yeah, that sounds made up.”

Jungwon swallows his bite, parts his lips like he has something to say. Internally, you heave a sigh of relief. If any of the three of them spare you, you have a feeling it would be him. “I mean, it does seem like something else must have happened.”

Or not.

“You don’t have to tell us,” he adds. “But it’s just… I mean, the two of you can’t even look at each other.”

Sighing, you suppose the circumstances do look odd from the outside. “There was… an incident. Back when we used to skate together.”

“What?” Jake asks. “Did he steal your skates right before a show or something?”

“No, no.” You shake your head. “It happened on the ice, actually. During a program.”

“Wait,” Niki interrupts. “You said you used to skate together. Do you mean like, as partners?”

The guilt on your face says it all.

“No way.” Jake says.

Jungwon’s eyes grow bigger. “What did he do?”

“Yeah,” Niki turns to face you fully. “Wouldn’t being his partner be a good thing? At least on the ice, I mean. I know he can be a little insufferable, but isn’t he some sort of prodigy—”

“Prodigy, my ass.” You’re so sick of that goddamn word. “Wasn’t a prodigy when he dropped me in the middle of our program at junior nationals, was he?”

The way all three or their jaws drop in unison is almost worth the admission.

But the thing is, he was. No accusatory fingers pointed in his direction after it happened. No one blamed prodigy Park Sunghoon for the mishap.

No, it was decided fair and square by the jury of public opinion that the mistake was entirely your fault, your burden to bear. And it’s not like you were immune to the criticism. Whispers followed where you went. And you always, always managed to hear them.

Maybe if you’d trained a little harder, completed the second rotation a little sooner, the skill would have gone off without a hitch, they mused. Hell, maybe if you’d stuck to your diet a little better, those last two pounds would have spelled the difference between a perfect landing and your ass on frozen ground, program music still crescendoing as onlookers watched with horrified fascination.

“Oh,” Jungwon grimaces.

“That’s rough,” Niki agrees.

And they don’t even know the worst of it. Don’t know that back then, at sixteen, you’d had a giant, soul crushing, earth shattering, massive crush on your skating partner. That you searched for his approval just as eagerly as you’d sought out Coach Kang's.

That you’d squeezed in as many extra practice sessions as physically possible for five months leading up to the routine just to make sure you were as close to flawless as possible, just to make sure you were chosen to be his partner on the ice.

That you giggled, giggled, when you saw the matching costumes the two of you would wear for the first time.

That you followed where he went with long sighs and lovesick eyes. That you looked forward to the grueling hours you spent on the ice with him, turning perfection into something even greater.

That your heart skipped a beat every time you ran through your program, every time he caught you with sure hands and a strong grip.

That Park Sunghoon never made a mistake, never let you fall, not once.

Not until a spotlight was spinning dreams into reality and you were already anticipating the secret smiles you’d share with matching gold medals around your necks.

Not until it all shattered in a single moment.

It was cold, as you laid there on the ice, sprawled out and unable to move from the sudden shock of it all. Luckily, you’d avoided any critical injuries. You had staggered off the ice with nothing but some bad bruising, the worst of it staining your ego and your heart.

And after it all, no matter how many times you passed him on your way to the locker room, shared the ice with him, or searched for the gaze he pointedly avoided across the room, Park Sunghoon never uttered the two words that just might have made you forgive it all.

Instead of an apology or even the decency of an explanation, you got a cold shoulder and a lost friendship you were too confused by to mourn.

In the end, you’d decided to turn it all into a blessing in a very thorough disguise. From that moment onwards, all of your time on the ice was dedicated to you and you alone. Never would you let anything but the sheer strength of your own will, your own goals, motivate you to become better, faster, stronger.

And you found that victory tasted even sweeter, when the full weight of it could rest on your shoulders alone. When no one could whisper behind their palms that the only reason you stood on the podium was a prodigy of a partner.

So fine. Park Sunghoon didn’t owe you shit. Not an apology, an explanation, or even a second glance.

And if he was a prodigy, an ice prince or whatever stupid title he’d earned alongside his medals, well, you’d just have to be even better.

But now, sitting across from new friends with a fractured ankle and a ruined shot at medalling this year, a quiet part of you admits for the first time that maybe, just maybe, part of that resolve is nothing but spite in disguise. Part of the anger you’ve clung to for so long isn’t directed at him, but at yourself.

That it was embarrassing to fall in front of a crowd, yes, but it was also humiliating to know that he was hearing all those little comments about your inferiority too. To realize that his silence meant he probably agreed. That you were a liability of a partner, unequal in both skill and importance. That he could move on from the incident, from you, completely unscathed.

That your little crush was entirely one-sided, just like the respect and admiration you’d once felt for him.

You stare at the half-eaten lunch in front of you, appetite suddenly completely gone.

“What a coincidence that the two of you ended up injured at the same time,” Jake muses.

“And in the same physical therapy group.” Jungwon nods.

“Yeah,” you echo hollowly. “What a coincidence.”

…

When Park Sunghoon speaks to you for the first time in five years, it’s completely by accident.

As the weeks have continued on, you’ve fallen into a perfect routine during your shared physical therapy sessions. A routine of avoidance, ignorance, and as much space between the two of you as physically possible. It’s become so easy that the two of you navigate it with the kind of grace only two elite figure skaters could ever manage.

If anything, it’s more awkward for the other members of your session than it is for the two of you. Jungwon, Jake, Niki, and Dr. Kim are the ones suffering as they try to stay friendly with both of you without icing out the other.

It must be why he doesn’t even bother to check who it is that’s standing right next to him as he reaches for his bag on the shelf near the front door at the end of another session. Must be why he says it in a voice so casual you don’t think it’s him at first. “How pissed do you think Dr. Kim will be if I’m late again next week?”

Even though the voice doesn’t quite fit, you half expect to see Jake standing next to you when you turn to the side.

Sunghoon realizes his mistake at the exact same second you do. You watch as shock flickers across his features, quickly replaced by something guarded, unreadable. Just as completely closed off to you as always.

It pisses you off, the way he’s so utterly and completely unaffected by you. The way he can brush you off as easily as a piece of dust. Insignificant. Unimportant. Unwanted. It has you freeing the reins on comments you should bite back instead.

“Hard to say.” Ice and resentment drip from every syllable. “Then again, I’m surprised you care about what she thinks. Doesn’t seem like something that would bother you.”

That at least earns you some of his emotion. Another bout of shock crosses his face before it shifts to confusion and falls finally to anger. You can see it in the furrow of his brow, the set of his jaw. The flare of heat in his eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

If he falls to anger, you’ll rise above it. At least on the outside. There’s no accounting for the way your gut twists in rage. Still, you offer him a smile that’s almost as fake as it is sickeningly sweet. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out if you spend enough time thinking about it.” It’s patronizing, and intentionally so. You hope it annoys him enough to keep him up tonight.

Reaching for the front door, you take your exit first. The hallways of this building have become familiar over the weeks. Even with anger clouding your vision and a bad ankle, you trace a steady path to the parking lot. You’re halfway to your car when the sound of your name stops you in your tracks.

You freeze for a moment, turning the sound of it over in your brain, stuck on the way it almost sounds like a plea, a prayer coming from his lips. The sound of footsteps draws nearer. They fall quickly, as if he’s running. Your indecision still renders you immobile.

“Hold on a second. Did I… Did I do something to upset you?”

If you thought you were angry before, you’re surely seeing red now. How dare he.

Spinning around, you only hope you sound as outraged as you feel. “Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?”

“What? No.” His brow furrows. “I mean, I know our schools are technically rivals and all, but we haven’t really seen each other in years.”

“Right, because you’ve been so sunny and welcoming since I joined the group.” And because the last time we saw each other ended on such great terms.

“I was giving you space. You practically bolted like a scared cat when you saw it was me.” He runs a hand through his hair. You hate the way it falls perfectly back into place. And you hate the way he looks so good doing it. “But clearly you’ve got something against me.”

The audacity, the sheer, utter audacity. There’s no trace of humor when you say, “You’re hilarious, really.” And there’s no room for debate when you turn away from him again, continuing to walk towards your car.

“Wait,” he tries, but it falls on deaf ears. “God, ___, would you just hold on for a second, I—”

You turn. To do what, you’re not entirely sure. But before you can decide, the grip he has on his car keys loosens, the fingers of his right hand less dexterous than usual thanks to his arm brace. He still has his reflexes though. With his other hand, he manages to stop them from falling completely.

“Better take care of that.” You jerk your chin to where he awkwardly fumbles with his keyring, trying to find a better grip. “Wouldn’t want to drop those too.”

His gaze snaps to you, eyes wide, mouth slightly slackened. The keys fall from his grasp, metal clinking delicately on the pavement. A million questions swim across his features, none of which you’ll give the grace of answering.

Instead, you turn around once more. You make it all the way to your car, all the way out of the parking lot, all the way home.

And he never says your name once.

…

The following Tuesday, you are the last one of the group to arrive. And while you would usually never pass up the opportunity to best Sunghoon at anything, including being the latest arrival, competition is not the reason for your tardiness.

It’s avoidance. That, and the fact that you had to spend eleven minutes giving yourself a pep talk in the car before you could work up the nerve to approach the front doors of the clinic. In the end, it’s a glance down at the boot on your left foot that does it. You’ve let Sunghoon ruin your chance at a gold medal once, and you’ll be damned if you let him do it again.

Besides, your last visit with Dr. Min was a good one. Your ankle hasn’t healed quite as much as Dr. Kim suspected, but progress is progress, and you’re making plenty of it, according to your most recent x-rays.

You enter the session with an apology for Dr. Kim and concentrated efforts to not let your gaze wander to the back corner of the room as you make your way over to where Jake and Jungwon sit. Starting your stretches, you assume Niki is over with Sunghoon, but you can’t work up the nerve to confirm that.

Despite her initial annoyance at your tardiness, Dr. Kim is equally pleased at your latest x-ray results and gives you the green light to switch out the resistance bands you’ve been using for the next level up. Just as you’re reaching for the set of red bands on the shelf next to the treadmills, a set of obnoxiously smooth hands gets there first.

Turning to Sunghoon with narrowed eyes, you grab the end of the band set he just snatched out from under you, eyes ablaze.

The little fucker has the gall to roll his eyes. “What are you doing?”

You yank on the band. He doesn’t even flinch, grip steady. “I’m trying to follow Dr. Kim’s instructions,” you inform, tone flat.

This time when you yank again, he yanks back. Much to your annoyance, he’s able to exert enough force to have you stumbling forward. “You’re trying to provoke me.”

“And it’s working,” Niki whispers to Jake and Jungwon in the back corner of the room. Dr. Kim just shakes her head.

“Just take the green bands,” Sunghoon suggests.

“They don’t have enough resistance. I need these ones,” you argue. “Why don’t you take the green ones?”

“Pretty sure if one of us takes the lighter bands, it should be you.” Sunghoon tightens his grip. “Or are you seriously trying to claim that you’re stronger than me right now?”

“I’m using them for my legs, you absolute jackass. Which are definitely stronger than your forearms.”

Sunghoon cocks a brow. “Should we put money on it?”

“You are such a dick. Dr. Kim literally—”

“Has another set of red bands,” the woman in question interrupts. She levels the two of you with an exasperated look as she holds them out in front of her. “There’s another set of every color on the equipment shelf next to the door.”

“Oh, right,” you nod, pulling back a little on your end of the band before you release it, just to hear the small cry Sunghoon lets out when it snaps against the skin of his good wrist. “Thanks.”

And the satisfaction that comes from completing your usual number of reps with a higher resistance is almost as gratifying as when you see Sunghoon rubbing at the still reddened skin on his left wrist as you pack up to leave for the day.

“Those two are gonna kill each other,” Jungwon tells Jake and Niki as the three of them walk to their cars, brow creasing in concern.

“Or something,” Jake agrees.

Niki hoists his bag up on his shoulder. “My money’s on ___.”

A contemplative look passes between Jake and Jungwon before they nod in unison, “Yeah.”

…

You’re in the middle of passing a medicine ball back and forth with Jake the following week when he asks, “Are your school’s finals next week too?”

And although it’s hard to believe, first semester is already drawing to an end as the days get shorter and assignments get longer.

“Yeah,” you nod. “I’m up to my ass in essays right now.”

“Same,” Jake agrees. “Sometimes it makes me wonder how I do it when I’m training, too.” Although you agree, a pang of jealousy is the only thing his words inspire. Of the skaters on your team that are preparing to compete as you speak. That have already choreographed their routines and selected their music and are spending every waking moment perfecting each and every detail of their program.

It’s hard. It’s brutal. You’d be the first to admit that. But you miss it all the same, so much it hurts.

A moment passes before he continues. “Well, anyway, Jungwon, Niki, and I were thinking that since none of us are training right now, we should celebrate the end of the semester like everyone else does.”

You arch a brow. “You’re gonna have to be more specific than that.”

“Right, sorry,” he apologizes. “Consider this your formal invitation to get absolutely shitfaced with us next Friday.”

The laugh that bubbles in your throat is so unexpected you can’t quite bite it back. While you have your fair share of good, old-fashioned fun, he’s right. Every other semester, you’ve celebrated the end of finals season with a cup of hot tea and an early night in bed. Traded one source of stress for another as you woke up bright and early the next day to hit the ice.

You send him a smile, tossing the medicine ball back in his direction. “Count me in.”

…

The following Friday night finds you double-checking the address on your phone before tentatively knocking on the front door of what you hope is Jake’s apartment. In the middle of the university district across the city from your own, you can’t say you’re familiar with any of the buildings outside of the athletic complex, which you’ve only ever visited for a handful of competitions. It strikes you then that this is also the university Sunghoon attends. And, stomach dropping, that you never actually asked who all would be attending tonight.

Before you have the chance to spin on your heel and high-tail it down the stairs you just climbed, the door swings open. It’s not Jake.

“Oh,” you mumble. The boy who opened the door is not Jake, but he is very much attractive. “Sorry. I’m looking for Jake Sim’s apartment.” Your voice turns up at the end like a question.

“You’re in the right place,” he smiles, and it’s gorgeous. “I’m Heeseung, Jake’s roommate. You must be ___.” He opens the door wider, allowing you space. “Come on in.”

“That’s me.” You offer him a grateful smile as you enter, hanging your coat and sliding your shoes off.

The interior is surprisingly sophisticated, for a college boy’s apartment. It’s clean, for starters, and as you follow Heeseung down the hallway towards the kitchen, you can’t help but be impressed by their choice in decor.

“Help yourself to anything.” Heeseung gestures to the impressive spread of snacks on the table. “But first, can I get you something to drink?”

“Um…” Your lack of alcohol-related knowledge is apparent, and the uncertainty must be obvious, because Heeseung just smiles again.

“I’ve got you.” There’s an undertone of something in his words. Something playful, something bordering on flirty. But it’s too subtle to tell for sure, and you’re not one to bet on losing odds. He reaches for a glass and a handful of ice cubes. “Do you like fruity flavors?”

“Yeah,” you nod. “That sounds good.” Besides, it’s been a minute since you’ve been well and truly flirted with at a college party by a boy that looks like he could spell trouble in his sleep. This could be fun, you think.

Glancing towards the adjacent living room, you notice the usual familiar faces. Jake and Niki are sitting on the couch while Jungwon chats with a boy you don’t recognize. Eyes tracing the perimeter, you feel your shoulders tense when they land on a familiar silhouette. Sunghoon has his back to you, but his identity is just as unmistakable as it was on your first day of physical therapy. Like Jungwon, he’s talking to another person you don’t know.

Oh, well. It’s too late to back out now and too early to make an exit. If you and Sunghoon can coexist in a room once a week without starting too many fires, you’re sure you’ll manage to get through tonight just fine.

Heeseung hands you a full glass. It’s cold where it meets your fingertips.

“Should we join them?” He inclines his head toward the living room and you nod.

Following in his footsteps, you wave a quick greeting to Jake before taking a seat next to Heeseung, enough space between you and Sunghoon for you to relax slightly.

“How do you and Jake know each other?” You ask, searching for something to fill the silence, to keep the conversation flowing. “Do you play soccer together?”

Heeseung shakes his head. “No, we’ve been friends since elementary school. But I am on the basketball team, which helps. I feel like student athletes just kind of get each other, you know?”

You do know, and you tell him as much. The crazy schedule, the unwavering commitment. It’s much easier to explain to someone that’s living through the exact same thing.

“Speaking of which, you’re a figure skater, right? For the university across town.”

You arch a brow. “I’m surprised Jake told you so much about me.”

“Not nearly enough,” he flirts, and this time it’s blatant.

You take another sip of your drink with upturned lips, weighing a response on your tongue. Before you can decide how many cards you’d like to show, you make eye contact across the room with the one person you were hoping to avoid.

Sunghoon looks equally—scratch that—even more displeased to see you. Jawline so taught you could cut your finger on it and lips drawn in a straight line, he’s pissed where he locks eyes with you from his seat. Sunghoon is the one to avert his eyes first. Throwing back whatever’s in his cup, he slices through the moment of tension with a knife.

If Heeseung notices the way your breath splutters, he doesn’t comment. Thankfully, Jungwon chooses the next moment to say his hellos and introduce you to the boys you hadn’t recognized earlier.

“Sunoo,” he nods towards the boy he’d been sitting with earlier, who offers a friendly greeting. “And that’s Jay, over by Sunghoon. And you’ve already met Heeseung.”

“And you all go to school here?”

“Yeah,” Jungwon nods. “Jay and I live together, and Sunoo is Niki’s roommate.”

“You’re deep in enemy territory,” Heeseung elbows you lightly, teasing. “What are we gonna do with you?”

You lift your now empty glass towards him, grinning. “Get me another drink, hopefully.”

Sending you a wink, he takes the glass from your outstretched hand before standing from the couch. “On it.” You watch his back retreat into the kitchen, oblivious of the second one that follows it a handful of moments later.

Jay, as it turns out, is not an athlete, but does play guitar for a local band your friend has been raving to you about for ages. He’s already promising you two sets of complimentary tickets to every one of their upcoming shows by the time you realize Heeseung’s been gone for a while. Too long.

Excusing yourself, you head toward the kitchen. And it’s just your luck that you find the person you’ve spent the evening avoiding, instead of the one you’re searching for. Even with the buzz of your first drink fading rapidly, your inhibitions are feeling low.

Sunghoon barely has the chance to register your presence before you’re laying out accusations.

“I know you don’t like me, but do you really have to spend the whole night glaring at me like that? In front of everyone?”

Sunghoon’s shoulders tense, a confirmation that he hears you, but he says nothing. Instead, he just swallows the remainder of his drink in one large gulp. His eyes are still flaring, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think you did something to piss him off.

But it’s just like him, to avoid conversations he doesn’t want to have with the end of another drink. To treat you like someone not even worthy of a response. You don’t know why you expected anything different. Scoffing, you notice the full drink sitting on the counter. Heeseung must have had the chance to refill it before disappearing.

You move to step around Sunghoon and reach for it when he finally says, “I’m not glaring at you.”

The gaze you level him with is incredulous. “Do you think I’m stupid? I have eyes—”

“For all I know you are stupid!” Sunghoon sighs, drags an open palm down the length of his face. “I mean, are you really gonna let some guy you just met pour your drinks all night?”

“Heeseung?” You’re confused why all of his rage seems to be directed towards something so insignificant. “He’s Jake’s roommate”

“And a complete stranger to you.”

It’s infuriating, the way he assumes his opinion should hold any weight in your life. The way he thinks he has any say in your decisions. “So should I avoid all the food now too?” You’re being petty now for the sake of it. “I mean, since you’ve been in here unsupervised for quite a while now.” You take another step towards your drink and he moves, blocking your path with his body.

When you look up, you find his eyes already trained on you, and there’s no ice in them now. Just pure, unadulterated heat. Fire. Flames that lick the base of your spine. “You’re so fucking agitating, you know that?”

“I’m agitating?” You take another step forward, hoping the proximity will force him away. It doesn’t. If anything, he leans into it. Into you.

You reach for the drink again. This time, he stops you himself. Fingers of his unrestricted hand wrapping around your wrist.

“Yeah.” His words are low, voice a caress even as it drips venom. You feel his breath ghost across your cheekbone. “Real fucking agitating.”

Your eyes are still locked on his, and you search them for a hint of something coherent, something that makes sense. Every bone in your body drawn taught, it’s as if muscle memory reverts you to the last moment you were like this, the last moment he held you this close, body entwined with his own in a familiar embrace. Your wrist slackens in his grasp.

Last time, he dropped you. Sent you scattering across ice until the only thing you could taste was the bitterness of defeat and the sharp sting of humiliation.

Last time, he let you fall.

You have no idea what he’ll do now.

In the end, it’s the sound of approaching footsteps that has the two of you springing apart, your wrist falling from his grip. In the scramble, you remember your original target.

Despite the long melted ice, this drink feels even cooler in your grip, a stark contrast to the simmering heat just beneath your skin.

When Heeseung enters, he’s tucking his phone into his pocket with an apologetic look. “Sorry, I had to take a call. My brother gets chatty at the worst times.” Nodding to your hand, he smiles, “You found your drink.”

“Yeah, I did.” You take a step closer to the living room, closer to Heeseung. Further from Sunghoon.

Glancing between the two of you, there’s a hint of uncertainty when Heeseung asks if you want to rejoin the others in the living room.

You put his worries to ease and your questions to rest when you agree easily, not even bothering to give Sunghoon a second thought.

You do seek his gaze one last time, though, before you follow Heeseung back to the party. Looking directly at him, you raise your glass in a mock toast. Without breaking eye contact, you bring the cup to your lips, swallowing half the drink in one long sip. When you do finally turn away, it’s to find the empty seat next to Heeseung.

The rest of the evening passes in a pleasant blur, trading stories and laughs with the people around you while Heeseung keeps the seat at your side warm. Sunghoon does you the favor of disappearing from sight after your stand off in the kitchen.

It’s easy to relax into the company of everyone else, so much so that you don’t see Sunoo until you’re running right into him, the contents of his cup saturating the front of your shirt.

It’s a problem Heeseung is quick to solve, and the gray hoodie he offers you is cozier than any of your own with a scent that’s almost addicting.

He’s sweet, you think. Sweet and charming and forward in all of the right ways. It’s solidified when he offers to join you on the porch when you tell him you’re stepping outside for some fresh air. It’s cemented when he accepts your refusal with nothing but a smile and the request that you “come back quick.”

Stepping outside, it takes you a moment to realize that you’re not alone. It would appear that your earlier assumption that Sunghoon must have gone back to his place was wrong. There’s no drink in his hand, but the way he sways with the gentle midnight breeze makes you think he’s still working through everything he downed earlier.

Silently, you glance up at the cloudless night sky, at the way the stars seem to wrap around you. Gaze returning to Sunghoon’s back, you suppose the simplest course of action would be to leave before he realizes you’re here. You turn to do just that, to make good on your promise to Heesung, when the sound of your name stops you in your tracks.

Or at least, you think that’s what he says. It’s hard to tell, with the way his syllables and sounds slur together. Turning back towards him, you find him already looking at you. He repeats your name, and this time around, it’s a bit clearer.

His eyes trace a downward line from your face to your change in clothes. Something in his face crumples, withers.

“‘M sorry,” he slurs, words not lining up quite right through the inebriation.

“What?”

“That day.” The sudden onset of sincerity in his tone makes him seem more sober than he is. “I should have caught you.”

The stars in the sky suddenly don’t seem so far away. You must have heard him wrong. A crease forms between your eyebrows, eyes scanning over his features. They’re laid open in their honesty, no trace of deception.

“I wanted to catch you. I tried to.” He sighs. “Was my fault.”

“I…” You search for words, for the vindication you’d always imagined you’d feel at his admission. In its absence, you find only confusion and an odd pang of regret. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“Sorry for what? Why are you bringing that up?”

He just shakes his head, eyes falling to his feet.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. Like a broken record. His pain is wrapped up in there too, trapped in a loop time has never quite let it escape.

When you return to the party, it’s with a jumbled excuse of needing to check on a pet cat you don’t have.

In the haste of it all, you forget to so much as exchange numbers with Heeseung. But you do find the time to pull Jake aside on your way out the door, to make sure that he helps Sunghoon get home safe.

…

The next morning greets you with a pounding headache and an unfamiliar hoodie draped over the back of your desk chair. It takes a moment of searching through hazy memories before recollection of that particular string of events finds you.

With a sigh, you head out in search of water and Advil, sending Jake a quick message that you’ll stop by his apartment later to return Heeseung’s hoodie.

Even a handful of hours later, you can’t decide if you hope Heeseung is home or not. It’s a Saturday afternoon after a long night, so you figure the odds are high. But you still can’t pinpoint whether that feeling in your gut is excitement or dread.

In an effort to delay the inevitable, you take a detour before visiting Jake’s apartment again. Your rival university’s sports complex is just as nice as you remember it, large, pristine buildings that hold everything an athletics department could dream of. Fondly, you remember the first time you skated in this stadium, back in middle school. It had felt so big, then, so special, to be skating for such a large crowd.

It felt even more special to be sharing the ice with someone who put dreams in your head and butterflies in your stomach. Still fairly new to pair skating, the two of you had put on a program with a less than favorable amount of deduction.

But still. It was yours. It was special. It was shared.

You wonder if he knew then, that one day he would be the reigning king of this very same rink.

Probably, you think. Park Sunghoon never had the habit of letting things feel impossible.

Looking down at the boot on your foot, you miss it, all of it, all at once. The late nights. The early mornings. The bruises and cuts and aching muscles. The determination after defeat. The elation after glory. The feeling of flying every time blade touches ice.

The sign posted next to the stadium is an advertisement, a reminder, of the upcoming regional championships. There’s a pang of loss, a moment of grief, for your program that will have to wait for next year.

But your x-rays are coming back better every time, and Dr. Kim is sure you’ll be back on the ice by the time spring comes.

For the first time in a long time, you think it’ll be okay. You know you’ll be okay.

In front of you, the stadium door opens, and you realize you’re standing right in front of the exit.

“Sorry,” you mutter, quickly moving to get out of the way, but then you take a closer look. “Coach Kang?” you ask, just as she says your name with the same air of disbelief.

It’s an odd feeling of synchronicity, to stumble into your childhood skating coach just as you’re reminiscing on the past.

“It’s been so long,” she beams, pulling you in for a warm hug. “What are you doing here?”

“Just visiting a friend. What about you?”

“Coaches’ meeting,” she explains. “Trying to see if I can get some of my junior skaters in to watch a few practices before regionals.” Nudging you with her shoulder, she adds, “Speaking of which, how’s your program coming along? Are you getting excited?”

You shake your head. “I’m actually off the ice for this one.” Glancing down, you lift your booted foot in explanation. “Ankle fracture has me out for the rest of the season.”

“Oh, no.” Coach Kang places a consolatory hand on your shoulder. “I’m sorry. That has to be so hard.”

“It’s okay, actually.” You don’t know who’s more surprised, her at your admission, or you at the fact that you actually mean it. “Everything is healing up nicely, so I’m looking forward to an even better program next year.”

“Well look at you, all grown up.” She smiles. “I can say that thirteen-year-old you would not have had such a good attitude about it. Honestly, I’m surprised a fracture was enough to stop you. You were always so stubborn about things. You and Sunghoon.” She lets out a short laugh as your shoulders tense at the mention of him. “I was just thinking about you two the other day, actually. We had a skater fracture his tailbone and argue until he was blue in the face that he still wanted to compete.” Shaking her head, she adds, “It reminded me of that time Sunghoon insisted on skating even though he’d just sprained his wrist.” She shakes her head again, releases a small laugh. “Never could keep you two off the ice.”

It all checks out, the stubbornness, the determination even when it was stupid. But you’re hung up on one detail. You’re sure you could list every one of Sunghoon’s skating injuries just as thoroughly as he could. But before the current one, you can’t recall any wrist injuries. “What? When did he sprain his wrist?”

Coach Kang waves her hand flippantly, like the sinking feeling in your gut isn’t intensifying with every passing moment, like she isn’t about to confirm a realization you’re already dreading. “Oh, you remember. It was just a few days before nationals that one year.”

That one year. She skirts around it, for your sake probably. But you know exactly what she means, when she’s referring to.

And suddenly, you’re falling through air again, plummeting towards ice as a hand makes a desperate attempt to catch you. As sheer will alone is no match for injury weakened bones and ligaments and muscles. As you’re sliding across frozen ground and he’s gripping his wrist with pain on his face and terror in his eyes.

As your head spins, spots clouding your vision from the force of the impact. Before the world goes black, your eyes search for him.

And in those last few moments of consciousness, you watch as his mouth moves to form words you can’t hear.

“I’m sorry.”

…

Raising your fist, you pound at the door again. One, two, three times. At this rate, your knuckles will be bloody before you get a response.

But before you can start your assault on the wood in front of you again, the door swings open slowly, revealing a familiar frame.

“You absolute idiot.”

“Well hello to you too.” Rubbing at his eyes, you appear to have just woken him from a nap. If his head is feeling anything like yours was this morning, you almost feel sorry.

But there are more pressing matters at hand. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

“That I’m an idiot? Probably not.”

“That you sprained your wrist three days before nationals? That you skated anyway? That you attempted to catch a person quite literally spinning through the air with a wrist injury?”

A beat of silence passes.

And then another.

Sunghoon suddenly looks wide awake. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. What the hell were you thinking?” There’s fire in your eyes, an anger that’s directed towards him but not in the ways he’s used to.

He pauses for a moment, eyes searching your features for another beat. Finally, he sighs. “Would you have let me skate if I did?”

It’s not the answer you expect. And it’s just like him, to answer a question with one of his own. “I… what?”

“You heard me.” His eyes don’t leave yours. “Would you have let me get on the ice if you knew I was hurt?”

And what is it, him and his habit of asking ridiculous questions like they don’t have obvious answers. “What kind of question is that? Of course not. No one in their right mind would have let you do that program with a wrist sprain, much less your partner. And I love Coach Kang, but I’m about to file a negligence suit against her, because what the hell kind of—”

“Stop talking.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry,” he grimaces, and you’re still getting used to the way apologies sound on his lips. “That came out wrong. What I was trying to say was that you… Well, I… I mean…” He trails off for the third time, casts a tentative look at the way your eyebrows only raise higher and higher every time he stops a train of thought in its tracks. His gaze falls down, somewhere between your nose and chin. An exhale passes through parted lips. Something in his resolve slips. “Oh, fuck it.”

And then he’s kissing you.

Lips against lips and hands in your hair. It’s messy and awkward, and you can’t quite get the timing right.

Sunghoon pulls back a fraction of an inch, catching his breath and letting you do the same.

“What are you doing?”

There’s heat in his eyes and fondness too, a soft sort of expression that only melts further every time he looks at you. But now there’s anxiety in the mix, a crippling fear that he’s misjudged everything entirely, done something horribly wrong.

“I’m sorry.” Before today, you could count his apologies on one hand. Now, you’re running out of fingers. “Did you not want—”

This time, it’s you that pulls him down, hands lacing around the nape of his neck, exhaling a soft sigh against parted lips that sends his mind spinning.

And it’s only the second time, but it’s already better. Already a natural rhythm that the two of you seem to fall into with a little more grace.

The expanse of his door is cold against your back when Sunghoon finally pulls you into his apartment using his good hand, and he’s a quick study. Attempt number three is an even greater improvement as hands search for new skin to discover and things start to fall into place, one at a time.

Reaching for Heeseung’s forgotten hoodie, Sunghoon breaks the kiss only to toss it somewhere outside your current plane of existence. In this moment, you exist only within the space the two of you occupy, everything else an afterthought.

And you have the feeling attempt number four will be your best yet.

…

epilogue

“Are you ever gonna join me or do I just have to stay out here looking stupid forever?”

You don’t even take a moment to consider. “The second one.”

“Come on,” Sunghoon pleads, skating back towards you where you remain planted firmly to the bench on the perimeter of the rink. He moves towards you with a grace that used to inspire a raging, stomping green monster of envy. Now, you just admire the way he cuts across the ice with the agility of a dancer. “It’s fun out here, I promise.”

Avoiding his gaze, you let your eyes fall to your feet instead. They’re already laced up in your favorite pair of skates, black boot all but forgotten since you had it removed at your last visit to Dr. Min’s office. Since he gave you the green light to return to the thing you love most.

You had been ecstatic then. Brimming with so much extra energy Sunghoon had to physically intervene to prevent you from accidentally knocking over an elderly lady on your way out of the hospital. But now, with the opportunity you’ve been dreaming of for long, hard months at your fingertips, something in you hesitates.

Sunghoon says your name, and suddenly he’s serious. “This is all you’ve been talking about for months.” Sliding down onto his knees in front of you, you’re suddenly at eye level. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He casts a doubtful glance. “Really, I just…” It’s hard, to speak your fears into existence, to let them take flight. Even if the boy in front of you makes it a little easier. “What if it’s not what I imagined?”

It’s a million little worries wrapped up in one. What if your ankle isn’t the same? What if it’s never the same? What if you’re not as good as you were? What if you’re not good enough?

Sunghoon hears them all, and puts them to rest with a smile, a gentle touch as he rests his forehead against yours. “You and that big brain. Always worrying about the wrong things.”

“Hey! I—”

“It won’t be what you imagined.” He draws back a few inches, and your eyes have nowhere to land but on his own. “It will be different. It will feel weird, and your legs will feel wobbly, your muscles will feel weak, and your ankle might give out.”

Your lips flatten into a thin line. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re doing a terrible job.”

Sunghoon just pinches your cheeks together, forcing your lips to purse. “So you’ll show up. Over and over again. Every day until your skates start to feel like a second pair of feet and the ice starts to feel like home again. Until your ankle and your muscles and your stamina are all built back up, in a way that’s different from before but will feel familiar before you know it.” He presses a single, delicate kiss to the tip of your nose. “Until I’m dragging you off the ice instead of onto it, because your boyfriend needs attention and is feeling a little jealous of all the time you’re spending here instead of with him.”

You roll your eyes. “You’re so needy. It’s gross.”

Sunghoon only smiles. “Only for you.”

This time, when he gets back on his feet and extends a hand, you take it. You follow him onto the ice and headfirst towards your insecurities feeling a little bit like a newborn deer, a bike without its training wheels.

He laughs when you stumble and brushes hair out of your face when you pout.

After an hour, you’re already feeling more solid than before. After two, that feeling of flying is starting to return.

It’s somewhere just before hour three when Sunghoon says, “Remember how I told you earlier that you’re worrying about the wrong things?”

“Yeah.” You drag the word out slowly, not liking the hint of deviousness in his sudden grin.

“This is what I was talking about. Instead of worrying about getting back on the ice, you should be worrying about how long it will take you to be able to beat me on a lap around the rink.”

“You absolute asshole. I fractured my ankle!”

Already halfway around the rink, Sunghoon just laughs.

…

outtake—five years ago.

Sunghoon’s vision is blurry. It’s a terrible combination of things—the exhilaration of the spotlight, the pain in his wrist, the grief of an egregious error. The sudden onset of tears that sting in the corners of his eyes and fall without his permission.

Despite all of it, he finds his way back to his dressing room. Choking back a sob, he reaches for the glass of water he’d left out earlier. It tastes acidic on his tongue, burns like regret on the way down.

Stupid, he was so stupid. His hands tangle in his hair. He wants to pull it out. Wants to scream until his throat is raw and he can’t anymore.

It was a terrible enough decision to gamble his own fate on an unhealed injury, but as the reality of the situation comes crashing down around him, he realizes he’s done something much worse.

Eyes open, eyes closed. It doesn’t matter. All he can see is you, sprawled out on ice, limbs bent unnaturally, eyes dazed at the impact.

The unexpected impact. Because you trusted him. You trusted him so much that of course you’d never considered what you would do if his hands failed, if his wrist gave out. If he decided to risk your program, your fate, you, all on a whim, on an inflated sense of self-importance and a lack of regard for the injury he was so certain he could power through.

He couldn’t imagine it, three days ago. Telling you that he was injured, that he couldn’t skate the program. He couldn’t imagine watching as the features he bashfully considered so, painfully pretty twisted into disappointment. Into anger.

So he turned his shame into resolve, into determination. One that allowed him to catch you with a fractured wrist in every practice run. Every time, except for the time that mattered. Biting back grimaces and cries of pain all for the fool’s hope of seeing you smile in a few days’ time, a gold medal around your neck.

Instead, he got to see you spinning through the air, slipping through his fingers, landing with a sickening thud. He wants to ask what hospital they took you to, wants to ignore the pain in his wrist a little longer and run there himself, just to make sure that you’re okay.

But then he imagines the way you’ll look at him when you see him. The way all that disappointment and anger he’d wanted to avoid so desperately will surely be all you have to offer him.

He understands. He does. He wouldn’t want to see him either.

Turning away from the mirror, he tucks away his shame for the future. But that only leaves his gaze landing on the bouquet of flowers sitting on the table. The one he’d spent nearly an hour agonizing over, the one his mother had assured him a dozen times you would love. The one he made sure had all of your favorite colors.

He snuck his own favorite in there too, in hopes of what exactly he can’t be sure, but he knows he likes the way they look together—your favorite color and the deep blue irises that represent his own.

It seems so stupid now. After everything, after this, he can’t imagine you want his flowers, and even less his favorite color. He can’t imagine that you want anything to do with him.

So he doesn’t seek you out. Not in the hospital that day, not when you’re cleared to practice and back on the ice again, not when chance has the two of you colliding five long years later.

Not until he watches you walk away from him with all that anger and resentment and disappointment he’s been so avoiding for so long. Not until it strikes him in the face and he realizes that he can’t live with it, can’t let bygones be bygones and hope time and the absence of him in your life have healed you for the better when it still hurts to even look at you.

On a dressing room table, five years in the past, a bouquet of flowers wilts.

And Sunghoon learns that with love and patience and a little bit of sunlight, beautiful things, even the fragile ones, bloom when you water them.

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

#enhypen fanfiction #sunghoon fanfic #sunghoon x you #sunghoon x reader #park sunghoon #enhypen fic #enhypen ff #sunghoon fluff #enhypen x you #enhypen x reader #oh look! another sunghoon figure skater au how original #everyone point and laugh

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shidouryusm · 9 months

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Im not coming home

Gojo Satoru x reader

Content- angsty angst, just a lot of pain, reference to recent manga,

A.N -> i wrote this in a bus all teary faced with a concerned old uncle looking at me. I need my blue eyed boyfriend so bad. This is me mourning I haven’t been able to do it properly all day. Im sorry pls dont kill me. Not proofread this is a heat of the moment writing literally 😭

“See you guys tomorrow”, you say softly before sprinting out of the building. As if your body clock instantly knows when to chime in and draw you back to your nest.

You briskly get out of the room, offering a small wave to Shoko who just entered. Her concerned eyes following your trail.

The sun was floating in the horizon, the ground painted asphalt from the dying colours of the twilight and the air filled with intangible thickness of cold. In the midst of it, you walked. You walk with a rising tornado of emotions bubbling inside you, contrast to the drying winter.

You walked through the bustle of Roppongi. The town was back from the shambles it was two months prior. Always finding a way to bounce back into its original upheaval.

Amongst the skyscrapers decorating Roppongi, you eyes wander to the little sweet shop- selling the ever famous kikufuku — sweet cream filled mochi with Zunda paste. Satoru’s ever favourite.

“baby, this isn’t just a sweet.” Satoru gasps indignantly upon hearing your allegations of getting a cavity from it — “It’s a delicacy. Zunda and sweet cream— a work of culinary that you need to appreciate by savouring it as much as you can”, you roll your eyes as you watch your boyfriend plops another mochi in one bite. “Well that doesn’t mean you can double it up as lunch , Toru. you need to eat some actual meal”

“In that case, I can eat yo— I’m sorry” gojo quickly moves away as you swivel the huge cushion towards him, sweet chuckles erupting from his chest as you look at him poutedly.

The little playback of the memory cracked a little smile on your face — the shop ever so reminiscent of your little late night trips with Satoru whenever you both feel insomniac.

You walk over to the shop, feet reflexively carrying you towards the whirlwind of memories you have with him.

The sun had already settled beneath the darkness when you arrived home. The huge compound of area void of any presence. You enter the room, turning the lights on as you settle on the table. The small bag of kikufuku carefully placed on it.

“I’m home” you say without any conscious thought behind.

How can you? When these words never failed to emerge a 6’3 white-haired nuisance, his large hands encircling your waist, his nose breathing in your scent as you get slightly levitated into the air from the insane height difference. The small whispers of “I love you”s and “I miss you”s exchanged in the small gap between your faces — as if it were eternities since you both met each other. Those cerulean eyes of his mirroring your pools with affection and love that ran miles after miles.

Followed by little kisses pressed to your cheeks, then to your eyes and lastly placed on your lips. Those soft rhythm of his lips like promises of eternity.

Your chest twists in pain like you hugged a teddy bear fashioned with sharp daggers, slicing through your soul.

A sharp throb of your heart against your ribs as if it’s begging to be freed and chase the one it’s destined to beat for always. Your body turns numb, the tears like rivulets against your cheek— while you let them flow freely after a day long facade. Your shaky hands wander aimlessly into the air, pleading to find the silhouette, the comfort, the warmth of his body.

A part of your soul seemed to die everyday since then and today another sliver of it withered into nothingness.

Your voice broken like the shards of mirror reverberates across the large room that no one but you occupy, “im home, ‘toru. Where are you?”

The bag of kikufuku lays on the table as it is but Satoru hasn’t arrived home.

A.N 2 -> Yall pls dont be mad this is my way to cope. Even though I wrote this Im clutching on to the littol hope that he will return. If not then understand gege snuffed the life out of me as well

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littlemissayu · 9 months

Text

TWST Boys as ✨ PARENTS✨(Part 3)

ft:Pomefiore, Ignihyde | pt.1 ; Heartsabyul & Savanaclaw | pt.2 ; Octavinelle & Scarabia | pt. 4; ft.Diasomnia

TW: kids, pregnancy, reader is depicted as female, domestic, fluff

Vil Schoenheit-

1 kid, he originally didn't desire kids because of his career but he changed his mind seeing how you seemed to really want children and he remembered that if his father was able to give him such amazing childhood memories with his career then he could too. Your child is extremely smart like their father. They are very beautiful but unlike their father they're not afraid to get dirty. Eventually they developed a love for gardening; it might not have been their only hobby but it's their favorite. Vil may not be a fan of getting dirty if it makes his kid happy he's happy! Just don't think he'll join the 2 of you. I heavily believe he could father either gender but I'm thinking a gorgeous little girl.

Rook Hunt-

12 kids, he's raising an entire football(soccer) team. He just can't help it, your pregnant image makes him feel aroused. So you pop out your own little team. You kids are super sneaky, even as babies they were able to sneak up on you. They all are suburb archers and could hit anyone in a 9 mile radius. The football(soccer) reference I made is ironic because I heavily believe your first and last kids both play football. Rook is such a proud dad, his kids could do anything and he's give them the ultimate praise, he never let's them forget how amazing they are. He is a parent that can find any excuse for his prefect children, because they can do no wrong. Except disrespect you, bc as their mother you gave birth to them, gave them life, and do your best to take care of them; so respecting you is no debate. You guys also have a family tradition of archery tag to start off the summer every year.

Epel Felmier-

6 kids, your kids have the most beautiful looks, just absolutely gorgeous. They are also extremely competitive, on the farm when it comes to chores they always try to finish first, and once you and Epel figure it out did you tell them they don't need to rush just to beat someone? Nah you two just decided whoever finishes first gets the most allowance, it may sound bad but it gets work done and those kids now can finish any work in record time!! Your kids are very adventurous and lucky for them dear old dad is always willing to support their curiosity. He never lets his kids doubt themselves, he teaches them to be proud yet not too proud. He is the best father to his kids. I also have a feeling the whole family has a competion around apple picking season, whoever gets the most wins, the prixe changes every year.

Idia Shroud-

2 kids, who are absolutely extroverts, loving talking and hanging out with people, everyone loves them. Idia doesn't know how them became such extroverts but he loves them anyway. He may not like human interaction much but he loves spending time he can with his kids. If there is something him and his kids is there love for video games, every Friday they have tournaments to se who wins. You join in as well; your little family loves these games because you get to be together. In terms of girl or boy dad, the 2 of you have 2 boys!(Bonus: If you don't want to name them Castor and Pollux he probably nicknames them that <3!!; and yes they are Gemini's)

Poméfiore Masterlist

Ignihyde Masterlist

Twst Masterlist

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #twst x reader #fluff #vil schoenheit x reader #vil schoenheit #rook hunt #rook hunt x reader #epel felmier x reader #epel felmier #idia shroud #idia shroud X reader #domestic #tw babies #babies

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abrunettefangirlnerd · 10 months

Text

If You Love Her

Prompt: You are dating Rafe after JJ cheated on you... but you're still a member of the pogues. A party and the boneyard makes tensions rise between everyone.

Rafe POV

Her head rests against Rafe’s chest as they soak up the last bit of the sun lounging on the Druthers. It has been a rare peaceful day and Rafe is thanking whatever higher power there is that she has become his saving grace. He just hates the way that it happened.

(Y/N) is originally a pogue, but it never mattered to Rafe no matter how hard he tried to deny it. Rafe never picked on her, only her friends. She became close with Sarah after saving whatever the latest sea creature was at the time. So she had been over a few times before Sarah started dating John B. Though it was the moment she stopped hiding behind the boys and found her voice, that Rafe has never stopped listening. He has been in a trance ever since. Her fire is what drew him in, but it is (Y/N)’s heart that melted his core. The only problem, she was JJ Maybank’s girl. “Was” being the operative word.

Rafe will never forget her tear stricken face, red eyes, and piercing sob from that night. It took everything in him to not beat that punk to a pulp. Thinking about it even now gets Rafe all riled up. He hates that she is still around JJ, she never left the group. Rafe understands they are her friends, but he doesn’t like it.

“Come on,” (Y/N) stirs, still half asleep. “You promised we would go to the party.”

“Right, the boneyard party. With the pogues.”

“Hey, I’m a pogue.” (Y/N) angles her face to look up at his with a teasing smile.

“You’re my pogue.” Rafe smiles and leans down to place a kiss on her forehead.

Yeah she is his pogue and he wouldn’t want it any other way. Any other party he would be excited to go. He loves parties with his girl, dancing the night away and playing drinking games. Tonight will be exactly like that, except he will have to see Maybank. I wonder if him and Kie have made it official yet, Rafe wonders to himself.

Your POV

The music can be heard from a mile away in Rafe’s truck. My arm wraps around his as his hand gently squeezes my thigh. I know he doesn’t want to be here. He is doing it for me and I love that he is willing to entertain me for a few hours. I won’t make him stay long. I want him to see that my friends can be cool, and I hope one day they can put away their bad blood and get along.

Years of pent-up anger at both groups has been baking as long as I can remember. If it wasn’t for becoming secret friends with Sarah years before she joined the group, I may have the same outlook on Rafe as the others. Can he be a jerk and annoying as hell? Yes, but he can be sweet and at times my friends can be no better. Things between the kooks and the pogues have been quiet lately, but I know Rafe has it for JJ. I can’t blame him, I did too before I accepted that JJ deciding to cheat had nothing to do with me and everything to do with him. If I could have wished for anything that if JJ had to cheat, I would have chosen for him to cheat with anyone else but Kie. It makes the tension in the group that much thicker.

“Relax,” I giggle. “We’ll make an appearance. Stay an hour, two tops. Then we can go off on our own.”

Rafe doesn’t say anything but I can see a hint of a smile at the corner of his lips. His thumb lightly brushes against my skin and I sense him starting to relax a bit. I just hope that tonight ends up being drama free.

The truck is parked and Rafe is on my side opening the door. I learned early on that I am not allowed out of the truck unless he opens my door for me. Made that mistake and he wouldn’t move from his spot till I got back in so he could do it properly. I thought it was annoying and egotistical, but now I find it sweet. JJ never did that for me when we were dating.

There are a lot of things that Rafe does that JJ never did. Aside from the whole cheating part, JJ was a fairly good boyfriend. He looked after me, was a good cuddler, made sure I had a good time. Being with Rafe though is so different. Sure he does look after me, kind of always has. We have the best time when together and I feel so safe in his arms. I’m not worried about a pretty blonde catching his eye. He is a complete gentleman making sure I am okay, respecting boundaries, going slow, being open. Something I did not expect is for him to communicate as well as he does. I guess once he knew I wasn’t going anywhere and that his feelings don’t scare me, he trusts me enough to talk about all the crap with his dad and if he is feeling insecure. He never freaks or overreacts when I have an issue with something.

“Hey boys!” I greet John B and Pope at the keg. I notice a small release of air leave Rafe’s chest at the realization JJ isn’t around yet.

“(Y/N) what up! I miss you at the chateau.” John B goes in for a hug and Rafe lets go of my waist to accommodate. The two shake hands after John B releases me. It is a simple gesture to an outsider, but with these two it means everything. John B is practically my brother and with him dating Sarah, and Rafe dating me, they both are trying to put in an effort.

“Here you two go.” Pope hands me and Rafe cups of beer that we gladly take.

A few drinks later, we depart for a dance near the fire. The music pulsates through my veins mixed with the alcohol and a nice buzz fills my senses. Rafe loops his arms around my waist and I pair mine around his neck. We sway to our own beat, not minding the people jumping around us. We are lost in our own world and we are the only two people who exist.

Rafe’s eyes peer into mine as we rest our foreheads against each other. His lids close and I do the same, focusing on his hold on me. Warmth swarms over my body originating from his touch. I can’t wrap it around my head that I am with Rafe Cameron and that he can make me feel like I’m on top of the world. I only hope I can make him feel the same, that is often one of my insecurities. One that Rafe knows about and tries to assure me that I am more than enough for him.

“You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me.” Rafe whispers in my ear and places a kiss on the tip of my nose. I swear he can read my mind.

Before I can say anything Rafe’s touch disappears from my body. I immediately open my eyes and find the back of a blonde standing between me and my boyfriend, JJ. The alcohol has me stumbling against the sand as I land against Rafe’s arm and he steadies me before putting my frame behind his. Always my protector.

Rafe makes his stand but waits to see what JJ plans to do first. He knows that if he threw the first punch I would be mad. All I want is peace. Except I would not ask him to hold back if JJ started it first. He promised me, and so far he has kept his promise.

“You got the money, the job, and now the girl.” JJ’s words spread through the dry air, and people are beginning to take notice of a potential scuffle. Tears sting my eyes. Why is he making it sound like it is my fault I left him?

“Well Rafe if you plan on dating (Y/N) I want to fill you in on a few things.” JJ takes a step forward and I can feel Rafe’s muscles tense beneath my hands. JJ begins to speak but his gaze falls to me. “She always has trouble falling asleep, and she likes to cuddle while under the sheets.” JJ sends a wink my way and whistles from the accumulating audience fill the air. “She loves pop songs and dancing, and bad trash TV. There’s still a few other thin-“

“She loves love notes and babies,” Rafe interrupts. “And likes giving gifts. She has a hard time accepting a good complement. She loves her whole family and all of her friends… not that they deserve it.”

I didn’t think it was possible for the air to get thicker than it has just now. JJ’s drunk eyes danced over me until Rafe unexpectedly interrupted. Both of our eyes cling to Rafe as he spoke but for two different reasons. My heart skips as Rafe reaches to grab my hand and gives it a light squeeze. I had no clue JJ was going to do something like this, but I am even more surprised at the fact Rafe has been paying attention this well. He continues to amaze me and all I want to do is kiss him.

“When she gives me her heart completely, I won’t break it like you did. (Y/N) is safe with me. I’ll stand by her side instead of sneaking off behind her back.” Rafe stares JJ down a few moments more before turning towards me.

His hands cup my cheeks and looks into my eyes silently asking if I’m okay. I nod to answer him and bring my hands up to rest against his wrists. Rafe places a soft but protective kiss against my forehead and whispers for us to go. Wrapping an arm around my shoulder, he pulls me in close and nods his head toward a stunned John B.

The walk to the car is silent. Rafe opens my door for me and waits for me to climb in before closing it. He quickly joins me in the driver’s seat but doesn’t start the car. Instead he turns towards me, he eyes furrowed as he contemplates what he is going to say.

“I’m sorry if I over stepped.” Rafe’s voice is a whisper. “I know you can handle yourself, but I couldn’t let him do that. Act like he still has claim over you, that he is the only one who can know you.”

“Hey, hey it’s okay. You did everything right.” I lean over and let my hand cup his cheek, bringing his gaze back to mine.

“I meant everything I said.” His beautiful orbs pierce mine. “I want you to know that. I’m in it for the long game. I love you (Y/N).”

His voice cracks and I can tell how scared he is to say that last part. We’ve only been dating a month but we have known each other for years. Staying the night with Sarah has usually ended up with late night talks with Rafe after she fell asleep. We are the unlikely duo but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I trust you.” I say and my face heats up with my smile. “I love you, Rafe.”

It takes a moment for the words to register in Rafe’s ears but once they do pure shock and adoration quickly take over his features. He leans in and gifts me with a soft but passionate kiss. All his love and vulnerability is wrapped in every movement he makes with me and I can already tell this is forever.

#rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron x you #rafe cameron fanfic #rafe cameron fanfiction #drew stareky x y/n #obx fanfiction #outerbanks fanfiction #rafe cameron fluff #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron x y/n #jj maybank #drew starkey #drew starkey x reader

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horrorhot-line · 2 years

Text

drapetomani

(n). an overwhelming desire to run away

➵ pairing: saiki kusuo/female! reader

➵ word count: 3.9k

➵ genre: smut, just smut (slight angst?)

➵ warnings: public sex, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, risky situations

➵ summary: for the first time in all his teenage years, saiki gets morning wood. to his disdain, he realises every time he’s near you, you make it even worse. Or, saiki’s acting weird and you try to get to the bottom of it- things don’t go as planned. you take each other’s virginity.

➵ masterlist (requests are open)

➵previous part - fika

I DO NOT CONSENT TO MY WORK BEING POSTED BY ANYONE ELSE ON ANY PLATFORM

before you read:

‘saiki telepathically communicating with reader.’

‘reader thinking or interacting with saiki through thoughts.’

“saiki talking without moving his mouth.”

“saiki talking using his mouth.”

notes: originally this was supposed to be a oneshot, but i thought it’d tie well into my series so here we are, this lovely idea came from a request from dear anon, found here, grab a glass of water, dive in and don’t forget to touch grass afterwards. enjoy!!!

also: note this is after saiki’s birthday in august, in his third year at highschool (making him 18).

SAIKI IS 18-19 IN THIS SMUT, WATCH SEASON 2 EP 13, I REPEAT SAIKI IS 18-19 IN THIS SMUT.

➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵

Saiki had no idea how he had found himself in this position, you underneath him, tears pricking your eyes, pleading him to do something. Anything.

The cold surface of the desk beneath his palm was a stark contrast to your warmth. With one hand on your hip, his voice came out strained.

"It's all your fault." He stated. But that couldn't have possibly been him talking, could it? "If you had just left it alone..." Saiki couldn't for the life of him understand what he was feeling. There was a hot pit inside his stomach, and his nerve endings felt like they were on fire.

He felt himself furrow his eyebrows, and clench his jaw, but at the same time, it didn't feel like he was doing those things. It felt like he was astral projecting, but he wasn't. Where the hell was he, and how had he ended up here- with you under him?

The sound of your voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "Please," You begged, and Saiki couldn't wrap his head around what on god's green earth was going on. It was only then when his eyes looked down between the two of you, that he realised the gravity of the situation. Was that...? No, no way.

Saiki would never admit it, but the soft sound that left you before you clasped your hand on your mouth to muffle the noise did things to him. Fuck...

Saiki shot his head back, his grip on the edge of the desk tightening as he moved forward to feel your body against his.

➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵

Saiki had a disastrous life- that much was a fact. Another day meant another nuisance, regardless of whether it was his classmates trying to steal his precious time, an end-of-the-world disaster or someone trying to catch his attention. There always had to be something. The last thing he expected was the issue this time to be his own body refusing to listen to him.

When he abruptly woke up, drenched in sweat, his heart beating out of his chest, his mind went at a million miles per hour. No matter how much he wanted to deny it, the sound of your voice fresh in his mind proved only one thing. He had a wet dream. About you, of all people.

Him? Saiki? The man who had prided himself on being in control at all times? It couldn't have been him. Had it been a premonition? Impossible. He would never let something like that happen in a million years.

He had no intention of making any moves on you. Yet. He knew of your feelings for him, and he chose to take his time. So of course, he wouldn't skip multiple chapters and fuck you. No way in hell. He refused to stoop to the likes of Toritsuka. Saiki was no pervert.

He acted as if he hadn't dreamt of you in his arms, or having sex with you, pretending like it hadn't affected him. Even though he couldn't shake the thought of you in a vulnerable position under him.

Saiki sighed, if he didn't get up soon he would end up being late for school. He moved to take the covers off him only to stop dead in his tracks when he saw what was in between his legs. A boner. He silently gazed at it, horrified.

Saiki felt like he had been swallowed up by some black hole, his brain short-circuited. No no no no no. This could not be happening. Not to him. He had never had a boner in his life! In all his teenage years, he prided himself on not letting something as preposterous as hormones get to him. The boy had never lusted over anyone in his entire life except maybe you, so why now?

'Why does god hate me?' He thought to himself.

Saiki wanted to disappear, teleport to the nearest abandoned galaxy and waste away. Saner heads prevailed, though. He would go to the bathroom and have a cold shower to get rid of this abomination.

After a long session of drenching himself in freezing water, cursing himself out for the whole situation and questioning his reality, Saiki used his powers to dry himself off before putting his uniform on. He was so lost in thought that he hadn't seen you coming until he heard the doorbell ring.

His expression darkened, and he teleported downstairs to where Mrs Saiki was, still preparing breakfast. "Tell her I'm already at school." Not wanting to stay around for extensive questioning from his mother, knowing her well enough to predict she'd grill him and then force him to walk to school with you.

He was gone in a flash, leaving Mrs Saiki dumbfounded. Her, “Ku!” Had fallen on deaf ears.

His boner was back.

➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵

Saiki had been avoiding you all day, and as much as you didn't want to admit it, it hurt you. The fucking bastard dodged you at every turn. Is this how Yumehara felt that first week you joined PK academy when she tried getting his attention?

Probably not, since you were sure she thought the universe was keeping them apart. You on the other hand knew he was using telepathy to keep his distance from you, and you couldn't understand why. Had you done something?

The last time you saw Saiki was the day before and everything was fine. He didn't act any different and yet today he steering clear of you, even going out of his way to use his powers, risking getting caught just to avoid you.

You scowled, thinking back to the previous events that took place. You had shown up at his house only for Mrs Saiki to tell you he had already left for school. As if the two of you didn't walk to school every day together- which you did, with no exceptions.

At that point in time, you had thought it was weird. It wasn't like Saiki to forget. You reasoned that maybe he was going to stop a disaster, or something had come up, telling yourself you'd ask him when you saw him at school.

When you tried to say good morning to him in class, he got out of his seat and walked out of the classroom, Nendou following in tow to ask him if he wanted to get ramen after school. You stood frozen in place, wondering what you had done.

Was it something you had said? Thought? Had you made him uncomfortable somehow? You tried to swallow the lump in your throat, why did it hurt so much? Maybe he was keeping his distance because of Teruhashi? That had to be it.

'Kusuo?' You'd ask him just to make sure. When no reply came back, the sinking feeling in your gut worsened. The rest of the day went by with Saiki rushing off every time you tried to talk to him. In between classes, he'd disappear just so he could avoid you. During classes, he didn't look your way or talk to you once.

You were sure then that it was something you had done. The man you were in love with was ignoring you and stung. Your mind was a mess and you tried to run through every time you had interacted with him before today to pinpoint where you had made a mistake.

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Truth be told, Saiki felt bad. No, he felt worse than that. In trying to avoid you, he had created a misunderstanding, inadvertently hurting you. He sat through classes hearing your thoughts, fully aware that you were blaming yourself when it wasn't your fault, to begin with.

How was he supposed to tell you he woke up this morning with a boner because of you and now his penis seemingly had a mind of its own? He'd rather die than do that, he would never be able to live with the humiliation. Saiki shifted uncomfortably in his seat, trying not to act suspicious as he once again used his psychokinesis to move his pants so his boner wouldn't be visible.

He sighed inwardly, 'Good grief', he thought to himself.

Saiki had realised that his situation would get worse any time he was around you. Every time you were in his vicinity, blood would rush to his dick and the boner he tried so hard to get to rid of would pop back up.

Saiki agonised over wanting to tell you that you hadn't done anything wrong and stopping his dream from becoming reality. Big mistake. A huge one, because the warm pit in his stomach managed to spread at the memory of this morning.

Saiki clenched his jaw for what felt like the hundredth time that day and raised his hand at the teacher, trying to keep his voice steady as he excused himself to go to the bathroom yet again.

The psychic knew what masturbation was but had never tried it himself in his life. There was no need to, until today. No harm in trying. He sighed, hoping no one would walk in as he undid his belt and sat down on the toilet seat. Wrapping his hand around his dick, he tugged at it experimentally, hissing when he felt how sensitive he was.

After a few minutes, his condition not getting any better, he decided this was all so stupid. Absurd. Ridiculous.

Even masturbation wasn't helping and to make matters worse, he couldn't help but think about you. He felt dirty. Saiki wordlessly pulled his pants back up, grinding his teeth at all the confusing emotions he felt. The most powerful being in the universe, bested by human anatomy? The situation was almost laughable.

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By the end of the day, you had one goal in mind. You were going to get Saiki to fess up. The bastard was supposed to be your boyfriend? best friend, and yet he made every effort to dodge you like you were some venereal disease. You huffed in annoyance, clicking your pen impatiently, as you watched the hand of the clock slowly move. It was torture.

When the alarm sounded at the end of the school day and chimed throughout the building, you didn't even bother packing up your stuff. You walked to Saiki's desk and stood in front of it. You knew he wouldn't teleport with half the class still around. If he did try, your hand on his arm would make sure you'd get teleported with him.

After the class had cleared out, you cleared your throat. "Kusuo." No reply. Saiki had made it his life's mission not to make eye contact with you and it only infuriated you further. The least he could do was look at you after treating you like a ghost all day. You wouldn't let him escape this time.

"Kusuo, we need to talk." You stated, watching him closely. What the fuck was his issue today? He wouldn't talk or look at you. You furrowed your eyebrows, exasperated at the whole situation. A moment of silence washed over the two of you and you observed as Saiki shifted, trying to step away from you.

Your grip only tightened, not willing to let him slip through your fingers again. "Let go." Was the only thing he said and you felt like you had been slapped in the face. You were beyond furious now, how could he act like this when a few weeks ago he said he'd think about the two of you? You gave him time so why was he being like this?

"No. Tell me why you've been ignoring me first." You said sternly, not budging. You were hurt, and it turned to anger mixed with frustration. Why was he being so difficult? Did he change his mind and decide he didn't want anything to do with you? He should have at least had the balls to say it to your face.

Saiki, still not looking at you, turned his head to stare off into the distance, "Let go. Please." His voice was hoarse, and you hated the butterflies that went crazy inside your stomach because now was not the time! He sounded hot. Curse your inability to control your hormones. You didn't move, too shocked that the prideful man in front of you had just begged you, and he sounded so fucking good while doing it.

Out of nowhere, you felt the ground shift below your feet. Your vision blurred, everything moved so fast and when you could finally see clearly, you realised you were pinned on the row of desks neatly placed next to each other at the back of the class next to the windows, with Saiki towering over you.

His hand was placed next to the side of your head, the other holding your wrist. He was between your legs, finally looking at you now. That's when you saw it, the fact that Saiki was flushed. You had never seen the man blush like this before, not to mention his breathing sounded heavy. His eyebrows were scrunched and his eyes were hazy.

You were gobsmacked not understanding what the hell was happening. Why were you pinned, first of all? And why did Saiki look like he was struggling? Worry crept on you until he shifted against you- that's when you felt it. It was like you had been doused with water, frozen in shock.

There was no way, no fucking way. Because unless you knew better you could swear you felt something hard pressed against you. Saiki groaned above you when you tried to move, his grip on your wrist tightening as he screwed his eyes shut.

"Stop moving, you're making it worse." You looked up at him, confused as hell because the guy in front of you was miles from the Saiki you were used to.

The guy had the expressive capabilities of a rock and yet here he was acting like he had been switched out with an alien. You didn't even to question the problems he had in his pants. It was your turn to flush red, and you were sure the colour covered you head to toe.

Your head was spinning, trying to connect dots and grasp at straws only to come up empty-handed. You waited, wondering if you should even voice your questions. "...Kusuo, why is your dick hard?" That seemed to make it worse because he only clenched his jaw as hard as he could.

You shifted again experimentally because how could anyone expect you not to when the man who owned your heart was doing exactly what you had dreamt of for months? You'd be lying if you said you weren't turned on. You were acquainted with the feeling of drenched underwear.

You didn't realise when your mind wandered to all the scenarios you had thought of before today, snapping out of it when you realised it was affecting Saiki. He groaned again- you swore you felt him twitch against you and fuck did it do things to you. You rolled your hips against his, not being able to hold yourself back and when he moaned, the warm feeling between your legs increased.

You couldn't help but peer between the two of you, your skirt hiked up slightly. You tried to relax, bringing your free hand to touch his chest and it didn't make it any better for the psychic. His breath shook as if he was trying with every fibre of his being to control himself. You watched as his temple and sharp jawline shifted, no doubt because he was clenching it again.

Your lips parted and you lowered your hand down his chest, enjoying watching the effect it had on him. He shivered under your touch. What a confidence boost it was to watch the guy who refused to show his emotions to anyone, become putty in your hands. Take that, Teruhashi!

"Do you want this?" You jolted when he spoke up, causing him to hiss. His hand shot to your hip, gripping it tightly. It took a moment to register what he had said. "Wha- where is this coming from?" His face scrunched at your answer, exhaling through his nose. "Fuck, before I lose all reason- Do you want this or not. Hurry."

Saiki’s only solution to this whole thing was to get his release, here and now- he knew his issue wouldn’t go away until he did something. It was a rational decision.

When you met his gaze, hooded and hazy, all reason went out the window. Of course you did, was that even a question? You had wanted him from the moment you started falling for him, you wanted him to make you, his. Mark you up until everyone knew you belonged to him. It didn't matter if it was in a classroom or on your bedroom floor, anywhere was fine as long as it was Saiki.

His breathing turned heavier and you realised he could hear your thoughts. "We-well, yeah. I do-" Saiki didn't waste a second, moving back to unbuckle his pants. You watched him, and when he was done, he caught you off guard. He leaned forward to kiss you, and you let out a squeak in surprise.

Your hands unconsciously found purchase around his neck as you closed your eyes, practically melting into him. When his tongue pushed against your lips you parted them. He moved your skirt up and you lifted yourself slightly off the desk to make it easier for him.

When he broke the kiss to stare down at you, you were panting. Fuck, you could never get enough of this man. He owned your heart and now he was going to own your body. He kissed you again and when you felt his dick line up with you and he thrusted into you, all you could do was moan into his mouth and tug at his pink locks- careful as to not knock out his control devices.

Tears pricked your vision, it didn't hurt as much as you had thought it would. Your heart swelled knowing your first time had been with Saiki, even though you hadn't seen it coming. He broke away from you to look between the two of you and you did the same. "It's all your fault." He stated, his pink brows still furrowed.

Words could not describe how fucking hot he looked. Sweat beading down his ivory skin, cheeks flushed, brows furrowed and hooded eyes clouded with arousal. All you could do was stay silent, not fully registering the fact that Saiki was now all yours. You wanted to etch yourself onto his skin so no one would ever dare look at him again. "Please," You begged him to move and he groaned yet again.

"If you had just left it alone." He continued, before jerking his hips forward until he was buried inside of you. You moaned, slapping your hand on your mouth as you screwed your eyes shut at the feeling. God forbid anyone lurking around the school heard the two of you.

When you opened them, you watched Saiki throw his head back in pleasure. He swore when he felt you tighten around him before he leaned down so he was against you. There was a pause and you knew it was him waiting for you to get used to his size.

You were sure you stopped breathing, he wasn't extremely big but fuck did he hit all the right spots. You wanted to cry- bawl your eyes out because you loved this man with all your heart and you just didn't know how to show it. With how deep your feelings were, would you ever be able to? You wanted him to move and make a mess of you. Make you his over and over again.

He did just that, he held nothing back as he relentlessly pushed in and out of you. Your fingers tangled themselves in his hair yet again, pulling at them. You welcomed his kiss, his tongue brushing against yours as he fucked into you.

He held your hips down as he tried to get as deep inside of you as he could, not taking any breaks. When he slowed down you whined, only for him to roll his hips against yours to see how you'd react. When you got louder, Saiki knew he was doing something right, and continued until he saw your eyes roll back.

When he went back to relentlessly thrusting into you and you gazed at him through hooded lashes, you jolted at the feeling of his thumb brushing against your clit. You cried out, so incredibly sensitive and turned on. You tightened around him yet again and he groaned at the feeling, all while rubbing slow circles into you. You wrapped your legs tightly around the small of his waist.

Tears fell from your eyes, overstimulated and touch-starved to the point where you'd felt you'd cum if he continued. You tried to tell him to stop but he shut you up with another kiss, his hand grabbing the one you reached out to stop him with, pinning it down above your head. "Cum for me, Y/n. I want you to cum." You begged helplessly, for what you had no idea.

Your eyes shot open when you felt the familiar feeling of your release coming. You met Saiki's concentrated gaze, his other hand squeezing your wrist. You cried out his name over and over again as you came around him, wailing at the feeling of being so full.

He panted, following you as he fucked his release into you, pumping you full of his cum and not stopping until he was sure there was nothing left. Sweat covered your back and you tried to control your breathing. Saiki leaned forward, placing his hand on either side of your head on the desk. You opened your mouth to tell him that the two of you should clean up, but he spoke before you could.

"Again."

➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵

bonus:

After Saiki had fucked you until he was satisfied 6 times in total, he vanished from your sight. You covered your lower half, making sure his cum didn't leak out and drip onto the classroom floor. He reappeared as quickly as he left with a towel, a water bottle and a pill sachet which you found out was plan b.

You had to give it to him, he was thoughtful. After he had cleaned you first, and then himself, he didn't waste a second. He grabbed you before you could say anything, picking you up bridal style before he teleported you both to his room. You were spent, completely drained.

He gave you that look he always did when he was feeling guilty and you reassured him that you were fine. "I enjoyed it, so stop feeling bad, idiot." You stated as you rested on his bed, too tired to move.

That's when you remembered why you had stopped him, to begin with. You stared at him as he placed himself on his chair next to his desk. "Why were you ignoring me?" You asked softly, having had all the annoyance fucked out of you earlier.

You tried to control your shock when Saiki told you why. "I had a premonition we'd end up having sexual intercourse and every time you came near me, my penis would get hard." Typical Saiki, blunt as always. You decided against teasing him over the fact that his ears were red or the fact that he wouldn’t look at you. Who knew he was shy?

“I am not.”

Before you could quiz him more, Mrs Saiki walked into the room. When her eyes landed on you and she scanned your body, she gave you a knowing smile. "You can stay the night, Y/n." You were so confused but decided not to question it. Saiki's expression darkened when Mrs Saiki spoke before she closed the door.

"Stay safe, you two." Your mind went blank because you knew what her words meant. How the hell did she find out?!

"What a bother. You have hickeys all over you Y/n... and so do I."

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next part - lethargy

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ronearoundblindly · 3 months

Text

Hideout (4.2)

touch-starved!Nomad Steve Rogers x motel employee!Reader

Horny Teen, part two (see previous or series)

Summary: A late-summer heat wave hits you and Steve hard.

Warnings for smut (kinda unprotected sex, momentarily--guess that's dubcon to be safe--fingering, lots of foreplay things and dirty talk but Steve can't actually talk dirty, so...hot talk? IDK, gang, I 'bout died writing this. Prepare thy loins, babes). MINORS DNI. There is plenty for you to read on my Light Masterlist, but this series is not for you! WC 3.1k

A/N: This part contains a cannibalized version of the original idea for this series, but since we've developed differently to this point, it is very different.

He calls ahead. For the first time in a year of visiting, he calls ahead and knows you aren’t working the night he’ll be here.

You work in the garden as long as you can stand before hopping in a cool shower. You aren’t even wrapped in a towel when the trill of your room phone—extension 14, as Steve now knows it—blares through multiple closed doors.

He’s checked-in, and in Room Two, but no pressure, if you want, if you don’t have plans, he’s here. It is the most adorable and awkwardest conversation of all time. It also never gets old to hear him scramble for the simplest of sentiments.

Translation: I’m excited to see you.

Your heart soars then immediately stalls in the stifling weather.

“I’ll be down in a few minutes,” you chuckle.

Of course, he opens his arms for a bear hug the instant the door labeled ‘2’ swings wide. Steve has fewer troubles with platonic affection when alone, that’s for sure, but who could blame him? You’re elated he’s here under any circumstances.

Record-setting heat this late in the summer has left all the AC units taxed to the brink, running constantly, and even with the in-room thermostat set stupidly low, a tank top and shorts is too much.

This means another first: both of you, in bed, naked.

Nothing’s happened, mind, because the swelter of the day zapped energy out of every creature for miles and miles around. The ice machine can’t keep up with eight rooms and your family needing relief from the blaze. From the bright stripe of red across Steve’s cheeks and his earthy musk, he was outside plenty. He’s wiped, too.

You wonder absently when the last time he wore cologne was and what it smelled like. Perhaps he never used it. Perhaps he misses small luxuries more than he ever realized.

Steve looks on the brink of heat-stroke, so you inched yourself onto one side of the bed to start, thinking skin-to-skin contact might be unwelcome. You barely got your palms on the sheets before he pulled you to him. You did not fight it.

It’s meant to be a profound comfort—your weight atop him—and it is.

Your cheek settles on his chest, eyes watching through the sheer curtains as dusk takes over the sky, a happy man stretched like a cat beneath you, smiling, heart beat slowing in your ear. So strong, so steady, so secure.

He’s safe. He’s comfortable. That’s all that matters.

You peer up from your perch. The thin worry lines on his forehead have relaxed. He seems younger. Freedom looks good on Steve Rogers, just as good as it looks on Captain America, maybe better.

You fall asleep straddling his hips, one knee hitched so the crook of your ankle drapes his thigh, slowly pushed up and down by his deep breaths.

You’re drifting, rocked gently by powerful waves in the nothingness of your blank mind, free like him, blooming in the warmth of a bright sun embracing you.

The glow continues until Steve gently shakes you awake.

The room is pitch black, the lights of the parking lot too muted to pass through the gossamer layer over the window.

“You’re…you were squirming a lot. Thought you might be having a nightmare,” his rough timber booms close to your ear.

“No, I—“ you wipe at your face “—I don’t think I was dreaming.”

Steve’s not so relaxed under you now. His abs quake slightly, and those slow breaths have become stunted, shallow with control.

“Did you?” you ask, looking towards his face, useless in the dark but your drowsy brain hasn’t caught up yet.

There’s a shuffling noise above you.

“Is that a ‘yes?’ Did you have a nightmare? You alright?”

The shuffling repeats, accompanied by a strangled “yes,” and you lift your arm to brace on his chest. It unhooks your leg from his, and the hard length of his erection moves from its perch at your ass, nudging the joint of your hip and thigh from below.

“Not—not a nightmare,” he whispers. “Just ignore it.”

Steve’s voice is husky, his grip on the back of your knee tight and unyielding, keeping you from trapping him between your legs.

Your impulse is to soothe him, to tell him he is fine and it is okay to be turned on, generally, when naked and pressed to someone you find attractive—hell, you definitely are—but if he wants you to ignore it, if he’d rather not, if it’s too soon or too hot (metaphorically, physically) or just too much right now, then you respect that. None of this has ever been about making him feel like how he chooses to receive affection is wrong.

Without moving any limbs, your fingers retract and relax, a gentle, nailless scratch to his broad pec beneath your hand, and his cock twitches, tapping your leg.

“Sorry,” Steve huffs.

“Do you want me to get off of you?” You suppress the urge to make a minor edit in that statement because it’s very close to what you want to do.

The shuffling noise sounds different.

“No,” he says softly.

You slide your hand up his chest to his neck and around the back of his head, petting the corner of his bearded jaw just below his ear, careful to use as few muscles as possible.

His cock taps you again anyway. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

You ignore it, as asked, and continue scratching lightly at his scalp.

“Hey,” you start in the darkness, “is this comfortable?”

You run your fingertips over his features while he nods, following his jaw up and down.

Unable to see, this paints the most vivid picture of Steve’s reactions. You feel the vibration of a hum through his cheek, the draw and release of his brow as you skate over his forehead. You hear his short chuckle when you brush ever-so-gently across his long lashes and boop his nose. Finally, you trace his open-mouth smile with the edge of your thumb, his ragged exhale rushing over your palm.

Tap.

“Sorry.”

“Comfy though?”

His voice is deeper than you’ve ever heard it. “Yeah.”

The drag of your fingers past the edge of bristly stubble and down his throat makes him shiver.

Twitch.

“Sorry.”

You flutter across his collarbone, wondering if that means he’s ticklish on more than just his sides.

“Comfy?”

He hums. You feel it rattle your cheek as much as you actually hear it in your ears.

You continue. His corded muscles giving only slightly to the pressure of your touch. His arm, his chest, down to the hand he keeps on your leg.

Several more breathy apologies sound above you. Steve’s other arm is draped over your waist, and with every pulse of need that betrays him, his grip tightens just a little. His fingers now dig into your soft flesh absently.

It’s hard to hide how desperate he’s made you, but the issue is mutual based on how his abs won’t stop tensing, searching for attention where he denies it.

You flatten your hand to his chest and make to move.

“May I?”

Steve’s swallow is louder than the ‘okay’ he returns.

You are careful not to push him in any weird angles as you raise up to your knees and straddle him, pinning his erection beneath you, not directly between your folds but nestled at the apex of your legs, just so he won’t have to worry about every involuntary poke.

With such fresh contact, he clenches his ass hard in response, lifting your whole weight completely before he settles again. The surge of heat to your core has you biting your lip to muffle a moan.

“Comfy?” you rasp at the same moment Steve offers a strangled “sorry.”

The low, constant whine of the air conditioner fills the hollow space around your cocoon of anticipation.

“New plan,” you laugh, relaxing your fingers to splay across his warm skin, “both of us stop doing that, huh? You have nothing to be sorry for, and I’ll trust you to tell me if you aren’t comfortable.”

“So…” Steve shuffles on the sheets, but whatever he moves doesn’t affect your position. “Can I touch you?”

You bite your lip harder before answering, your voice dropping to a sweet reassurance. “Yes. Of course you can, Stevie.”

You keep your pets of his chest and arms light, trying not to tickle him. He’s always so hesitant; you’re worried the tiniest misstep will send him back into his head—not in a good way.

The silence now feels purposeful, dense with possibility, and then rough fingertips land like a foreign explorer who’s braved months at sea solely to experience this moment.

A calculated inhale and exhale rock your pelvis, a wave of nerves foaming in your gut.

He starts innocently enough, mapping your thighs, muttering something about how soft they are, but you don’t dare lean to hear him better. No sudden movements. None. Even though your skin lights up as explosive as those 4th of July fireworks you missed.

Since there’s nothing to see in the room, you feel everything.

He keeps to the periphery of you at first, abandoning your legs to brush the same arms touching him, running fingers together, separating them just as quickly, caressing your palms gently, and dragging his short nails up your wrists without pressure.

You stiffen in pleasure, fighting not to shrink away from the purest intimacy you’ve ever experienced.

His long arms reach the curve of your shoulders, flit across your collarbone, and you’re doing your damndest to keep it together, leaning your head back in lieu of talking.

Don’t scare him.

It can’t last; you’re only human.

Steve’s hands slowly descend over your breasts, middle fingers catching your peaking nipples, and a lewd and aching cry tumbles from your bitten lips.

The force of it surprises you, but more surprising still is him, unfazed, encouraged to linger.

In that low timber, he growls.

“You like that… Knew you would.”

Your body throbs, pulsing with need and emptiness.

That means he thinks of you. He’s imagined this. He’s wanted this.

Stunning electricity shoots through your body as he pinches and twists, squeezes and kneads. Nothing too harsh, but he’s highly motivated when you purr and gasp atop him.

What else does he think about doing? How long has he fantasized? Is this as good as his imagination?

Yours aren’t the only noises now. He sounds tortured with little pleas and whimpers escaping before each guttural moan.

Arousal pools at your folds, and without realizing you started to move, the shy momentum of your hips has nudged his length to lay flush with your dripping center. His tip glides over your clit.

Again and again.

A hot pressure builds in you, faster than ever, kerosene dumped on your wet-dreams and burned to life, a spell manifest in the night.

Steve shakes beneath the palms you brace flat on his chest, the heels digging into his diaphragm.

He moves to grip your thighs hard.

Fire spreads beneath your skin as you two pant and gasp, his whole cock slick and slotted so close to where you truly long for him.

“Wait,” Steve groans, but you can’t understand.

No one could imagine how good this feels, how much you need this, how—

He sits up to stop you, accidentally notching himself at your entrance, your residual motion sliding the thick head of him past the that first, tight ring.

Steve’s lusty moan is barely eclipsed by your own, and you’re too close to halt sheathing him within you, arms instinctively wrapping his shoulders. Desire winds the coil in your belly too taut, the thought of losing this climax unbearable.

“N-uhhh god—“

He’s too sensitive though. He flips you both so your back crashes to the soft sheets and digs his grip into your side, his other hand thumping to anchor on the headboard. Steve sucks air through his teeth like he’s afraid the faintest smell of sex will set him off.

“Don—don’t move,” he orders in thick command.

It makes things worse.

You’re so close, vaulting off the ground and suspended by legs clamped around his waist, dangling on the precipice of ecstasy. You whine and clench, totally unable to control yourself, your nails digging into his back.

Steve cries out, choked at the hilt by your desperation and lost to his own finish.

His hand races from your side to your ass. He pulls out of you only to slot himself there and thrust his cock between your cheeks, cum shooting on the sheets below.

Mindlessly, you ride the cut of his abs, his course pubic hair adding almost enough friction to keep ascending toward your own end, but the void left behind is too consuming. The fire sputters and dims.

Steve buries his face in your neck, breath cooling the sweat lining your skin as he curls away from you, overwhelmed.

“Swear I was gonna wait,” he confesses to the tender spot behind your ear. “I swear.”

“Please,” you croak, tears prickling your eyes in lament for your ruined orgasm.

“Was gonna be better. Swear I’ll do better for you.”

You grope and claw at those thick arms which hold all but his face far away. “Please,” you beg pathetically, “fucking touch me, please.”

A drawn out grunt vibrates the column of your throat.

“Y’shouldn’t have ta beg...”

He shifts to his forearm, caging you in as you plead over and over. He kneels to hover, and your thighs weakly squeeze at his own to emphasize what you need.

“Sounds so pretty when you do…”

Something between a screech and a snarl erupts from your chest.

Steve shushes you, smoothing a big hand across your damp cheek, and quietly, he commands you, “show me what to do.”

Your quivering hold guides him by the wrist down your body. Words to instruct him won’t form in your sex-steeped brain. As luck would have it, he doesn’t need specifics.

“Next time I’ll taste you.” One finger teases your folds in search of his entrance. “Next time you’ll have to beg me to stop.” Two fingers drive forward, displacing a gush of your shared juices. “So wet,” he groans, agonized to silence when you jerk his hand to thrust faster.

“More.”

He sets a loving and delicate pace, the heel of his palm working your clit.

Too delicate.

“More,” you gasp.

He obliges, muttering how good he’ll be to you from now on. You’ll always be first. He promises.

The fire takes over again.

“More, Stevie. Please.”

You grind down on him to prove your point, and he marvels that this isn’t too rough for you.

Each strangled breath ties your moans together in a crescendo worthy of Carnegie Hall.

“God,” he rumbles by your ear again, “I know that sound. You’re close, aren’t you?”

Steve’s pumping fingers bully your body farther and farther up the bed, using only a taste of his real strength.

Your chant of ‘yes’ catches in your taxed lungs. He doesn’t need an answer though.

The super-stretched band snaps, a plateau of peace and weightlessness tipped at the vertex until—crash—nerves are razed all along you like a carpet-bombed battlefield.

“Uhnn, is that what you’re gonna feel like around me?” He sighs at the thought and stills his hand just to commit the ripple to memory. “How’m I s’pose to last?”

You slap a hand over his mouth, trying and failing to hold in your yelp of relief.

That mouth…that fucking mouth of his is a weapon all its own.

Tiny explosions wreak havoc on you, body and soul, as his fingers greedily coax you to keep coming—just a little more—just for him—one last rush—give him everything.

His lips open in your palm, but you grip his face harder.

You can’t. You can’t listen right now. You can’t hear one more dangerously sexy, completely innocent thing fall from his beautiful mouth.

Steve lets his hand go lax but doesn’t take it away from your clenched and spasming thighs.

He tries to speak again then gives up, waiting.

Finally, before you can collapse boneless to the bed, he hooks his arm behind your leg so you don’t land on the cold, cum-stained sheets.

He shakes off your forgotten grip of his jaw.

“Tops?” he whispers, patience personified in the long pause before you hum acknowledgment. “Can I kiss you?”

That fucking mouth…

There’s barely enough breath in you to make a sound, but the instant the ‘ye—’ forms in the back of your throat, Steve’s lips are on yours.

It's your first real kiss, of all the ways, after all this time, following all that.

You’d laugh if you weren’t smiling, suffocating in the gentle press that becomes deep and adoring. He kisses you thoroughly after each frantic gasp for air, savoring you, even in the reckless passion of the moment.

Steve rolls to lay you atop him again, more intimately than before. He keeps his face close, sharing breath even in the heat and stench of sex in the room, your wetness now smeared from his navel to his knee.

Turns out, he is a very good kisser, focusing on the act of physical connection. Not only do your lips touch, but he likes to nudge you into whatever minutely different position with his nose. He likes to nuzzle his beard on your sensitive skin until you giggle and squirm. He relishes you like you relish him.

He whispers things too soft to make out at first. It takes him a while to find his voice, to push past his insecurities, to find his confidence, but eventually, you hear it.

He mumbles how he should have been better, more prepared.

You weave all your fingers through his hair, propped on his chest by your elbows, smiling so he’ll be able to tell in your tone.

“Take the win, Cap.”

You freeze.

You’ve never called him that, and Steve stays silent for an excruciating beat.

“Sorry,” you offer in the dark, air conditioner churning out sobering drafts of reality.

Steve runs his knuckles gently in patterns across your bare back. There’s a short huff and an amused snort, you mind scrambling to plan some explanation as to why you’d haul the drama of out there into his safe space.

He guides you to settle against him again, tucking you into his strong hold with his chin resting on your forehead.

After what feels like an eternity, he simply asks, “comfy?”

A/N: In case you were wondering...

[Next part: Desperate Man, part one]

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