#but I hope it’s reflective of my personality at least

[prolix-yuy]

Hello friends! It's been way way way way WAY too long since we chatted, and to be honest I've been taking an embarrassingly long time to write this update post because godDAMN life just gets you sometimes and you go on an impromptu hiatus that gets super messy. So let's get into what's been going on and what to look forward to!

Pedro Tax for this long-ass post.

(We're gonna get into some personal stuff, but if you're just here for what's coming up skip down to WHAT'S NEXT for the tl;dr version)

So beyond work getting hectic from January to March, which was the catalyst for everything getting wacky, I experienced a weird emotional turn that I wasn't expecting. It made me get a little introspective, which I blame some of my productivity slump on.

As I was finishing up the Bangathon entries, I noticed a sharp decline in interaction. I'm a fairly young fic writer on Tumblr, but I was a little baffled as to why stories I'd posted only a week before got a nice bit of interaction yet the newer ones were only getting half to a quarter of what I expected. For a minute I thought I had been shadowbanned (I was not) or I hadn't tagged the posts (I had) or my taglists weren't working (they were). People were already talking about interaction being lower, so I sat back and tried to go with the flow and not let it bother me. I posted Decoherence, which has a more niche audience, but I was definitely missing and wishing for some of the comments and reblogs I thought I might get.

All this led up to one of the least favorite voices in my head saying something that stuck around:

"Well, you were right not to become a writer if your motivation is this closely tied to feedback."

If you're new here or I haven't talked about it much recently, I initially was planning to be a writer. Went to school for it and everything. While I was there I felt like I hadn't found the stories I wanted to tell yet. My colleagues were developing in their niches and writing "the great American novel" and I didn't feel like I fit in. My stories had a lukewarm reception, and I never felt like anyone was excited about anything I was trying to say. So I wrote myself into burnout by the time I graduated with not much to show for it. I ended up doing a career switch, which I love to this day, but I stopped writing for almost 10 years.

Coming to Tumblr, I felt that spark of excitement writing again, and some of that was definitely due to people commenting and being excited or interested in the stories I was sharing. That truly revived something in me I thought was long gone, and reflecting back on the last two years that I've been sharing stories with this community makes me wildly emotional. I didn't know how much I missed of the life I left behind, and how much joy it brought me to share stories again.

Which is why it was SUPREMELY FRUSTRATING to have that shitty little voice pulverize my productivity and excitement over something as silly as interaction. But I'm sure most of you know how hard it is to get that voice out of your head. I worked to write things I found fun and less stressful than the series I already felt bad for not updating. And while I still love those stories, it felt like I was pulling them from an inauthentic place and finishing them wasn't as satisfying as I'd hoped.

Thus the hiatus! I stopped writing and turned my attentions to consuming and creating in other ways. I watched some shows I'd been meaning to catch up on, started planning to buy a house, worked my butt off at the day job. And I was starting to feel like inspiration was coming back. I didn't want to spook it so I took my time and promised myself I was going to start small and not stress about getting stories out for a bit.

Top that off with some medical surprises, an upcoming surgery, and a little re-evaluation of life moving forward and things have been wild. But I've been missing the daily joy I get from being part of this fandom, and I'm getting back into being here more because I miss you guys! AND! I have stories I want to share and fun to be had. So let's shake off all the heavy shit and get to the fun stuff!

WHAT'S NEXT!

The big thing I'm getting ready to post (after teasing it for so long) is the 2024 Bangathon! This one is different from last year's because instead of requesting stories from me, the Bangathon is open to anyone who wants to participate! There will be a randomizer to play with, and some fun bonuses for those who participate. The announcement will be coming out soon, stay tuned!

As for fics, here are some updates on what's in my WIPs:

Series:

I Think of You: I spent some time rewatching Mando for the newest installment, and I've finally gotten the thread of where to go next thought out. It's been a long time coming so this one's gonna be BEEFY to make up for it.

SW!Frankie: I am crushed to realize it's been over a year since I posted any SW!Frankie! I've got a new story about him and Ms J moving in together I need to finish, then some more asks that are getting into new story arcs I'm excited to share!

Best Laid Plans: Dieter and Murch's first date is bouncing around in my head and I NEED to get it on paper. There's much fun to be had, and I've been binge listening to my playlist for them to get into the headspace.

Midnight Alley: I got all up in my own head about continuing the story with these two and lost a little steam, so I'm going to ease off my "big plans" and start smaller with some oneshots instead. I think it'll help me find out where I want this story to go.

One Shots in Progress:

Decoherence Follow-Up

Incubus!Dieter Ask

You know, laying it out like that makes it feel much more manageable than my brain was telling me! I'm also planning to prioritize more fic reading while I'm getting these updates in ship-shape. Reading your stories always helps get my creative juices flowing, and there are so many good ones lingering in my TBR list that I need to devour.

This has been a rollercoaster of emotions, so thank you for coming on the ride with me. I'm excited to bring more of myself back to Tumblr and have fun with all of you again! To many more stories!

[lou-struck]

Made With Love Part 3

OM Brothers & Datables x reader pt.3

Featuring Special parts with Satan, Asmodeus, Beelzebub, Belphegor

SERIES MASTERLIST HERE

Part 1 Here

~Now that you know how to nullify the Love Potion's effects, you wander the castle in search of your loved ones. But as you venture through these darkened halls you feel like you are being hunted.

WC: 7.1k

Warnings: Love Potion based personality changes, obsessive behaviors, mention of suggestive behavior, lots of teasing, kissing, touching, etc, Reader is implied to be smaller than Beel.

Asmodeus’ part alludes to past experiences of SA (not with the reader). If that topic makes you uncomfortable please skip it.

a/n:  sorry for the wait my friends. I know so many of you have been looking forward to this part so I hope you like it!

Intro~

The air in Solomon's lab smells both burnt and strangely damp as Luke pushes his way inside. His little heart is pounding furiously as the door shuts behind him. Bits of dried herbs from experiments past litter the ground and crunch under the angel's feet. 

Running from the palace has left him winded, and the stress from the situation makes his heart beat furiously in his chest, but he can't rest. 

How could he after what he did? 

Guiltily, he pulls out his DDD and taps on the darkened screen. It glows to life at his touch, illuminating the sweet photo of you and him working behind the counter at the RAD bake sale; one look at your kind smile sends him plunging into the deep dark sea of guilt as he is reminded once again that he is the one responsible for sending you into the lion's den to save everyone. Although he knows that none of his friends would ever hurt you, he worries that their love potion induced obsession may unintentionally cause them to act carelessly. Nervously, he checks his notifications and sees that he has no new messages from you. Which at least means that everything on your end is turning out alright. 

All he has to do is find the recipe book that Solomon used to make the mysterious Potion and somehow use the knowledge from his Devildom Alchemy 101 class to reverse engineer the antidote before his unpredictable, love-sick friends try to do something stupid. 

Seems simple enough…

But as Luke's eyes scan the cluttered countertops and bookshelves, he wonders if there is any order in this cluttered chaos. Books are everywhere, they overflow the shelves, lean precariously over the tables, and some are dangerously close to the enchanted burners. 

"How am I supposed to find the book Solomon used in this mess?" He cries aloud. The lab does not answer back and Luke is met with the last thing he needs right now; silence.

Right now, you need a hero, a guardian angel. And Luke will do whatever he has to do to save your special day and free everyone from the effects of the Love Potion.

He takes a deep breath and looks determinedly at his reflection in an old mirror that Solomon keeps around so he can see the physical effects his mystery potions have, "I got this." he says, placing his hands on his hips and striking something that Asmodeus refers to as a power pose. 

This confident posture fills him with hope as the little angel rolls up his sleeves and begins to get to work.

~

"Man, my head is killin' me." Mammon groans, tossing his white hair back onto the back of one of the banquet room's many velvet armchairs. "That damn potion gave me one helluva hangover."

Sprawled on a sofa across the room lies Lucifer, who holds a cold rag to his forehead as he flinches in annoyance at every word from his younger brother. "Silence, Mammon," He murmurs in a murderously low tone. Dark tendrils of energy flare up from around him, darkening the already dimly lit room. "If you continue to run your mouth, I promise you I will string you up till you turn purple."

Mammon's eyes widen in fear, "Right… Noise… Headache… Sorry." he gulps nervously as the dark flames die down. "I'll be quiet."

"Thank you," his brother says, rubbing his temple. "I'm glad we have reached an understanding."

Mammon sinks deeper into his seat as an uncomfortable silence befalls the room. He just can't believe that the afternoon has turned into this period. He was supposed to be having a great time with you and stealing every second of your time that he could. Now, he's confined to the banquet hall, feeling like he just got run over by a pack of HellHounds. 

His head is practically throbbing with discomfort, and all he wants to do is go home and lie down in a dark room with you in his arms. 

'Why did that damn Chihuahua have to go and ruin everything?' he thinks to himself, too worried to speak aloud after Lucifer's threat. If he hadn't eaten that damn cookie, he probably would've been able to steal you away and remind you why he is your First Demon.

He continues to wallow in his self-pity and potion-induced hangover until the door to the banquet hall opens slowly. Levi takes small steps with his squeaky shoes, leaving a puddle of pool water behind him in his wake.

Intrigued by his brother's drenched appearance, Lucifer sits up a bit in his chair, and his cold rag falls off of his forehead. "do I even want to know what happened?"

Levi's eyes widen, and a deep red blush creeps up his neck. "I don't wanna talk about it." He mumbles shyly.

"Why are ya all wet?" Mammon asks from his spot; although he's curious, he keeps his voice low so as not to invoke the Wrath of Lucifer. "Did Mc see how ya were actin' like a jerk and toss ya in?"

"No…" he mumbles, looking down at his dripping shoelaces. "I pulled them in."

Both brothers jolt upwards and look at each other in alarm.  "Oi, what do ya mean ya pulled em in? Didn't ya know humans are fragile? They can't grow gills like ya can, idiot." Mammon spews worriedly. 

Lucifer, on the other hand, has fallen murderously silent, his hands gripping the arm of his sofa until the enchanted wood begins to crack under his palms. "

"I-it's not like I wanted to do it." Levi stutters, trying to defend himself. "I-it was the potion, it made me want t-to keep them someplace only I could get to."

"And do what?" Mammon asks, rolling up his sleeves as if his fist is about to make contact with the Otaku's face. "Drown 'em?"

Levi opens his mouth, but no sound escapes him. His poor brain is too busy trying to process the whirlwind of emotions swimming around in his fandom-filled brain. Guilt, Exhaustion, Lust…Lucifer clears his throat. "Clearly, you are going to have to make it up to Mc after this whole nightmare is over." he pauses for a moment as a bit of shame flashes in his crimson gaze. His features fall as he recalls his previous behavior. "We all do."

"Not me," Mammon adds unhelpfully. This partially true statement earns him a death glare from both his brothers. 

Satan~

"Come on, come one, come on," you mumble as you hold the power button to your waterlogged DDD in vain. But the screen doesn't even humor you with a weak flicker or a hum.

"Shit," you mutter, sliding the dead weight into your still-damp pockets. "Damn it Levi."

Deep down, you know it's wrong to blame the Avatar of Envy for this. After all, it was only because of the Love Potion that compelled him to lure you into the water like some kind of demonic siren and unintentionally destroying your clothes and your device.

But every squeaky step in your still-wet shoes has you wanting to send him the bill for your replacement DDD. 

Knowing how embarrassed he felt when you broke the spell on him, he probably would give you double what you asked for.

With a shrug, you shove the destroyed tech into your soaked pocket and continue your search for the others. 

Although this wasn't the day you had planned for, you have to say this lovey-dovey scavenger hunt of yours is definitely amusing to you. Getting to see the Brothers and apparently everyone else acting completely different is nothing short of entertaining. 

But as you continue to search, your wet clothes feel uncomfortable on your body; if you are going to find everyone before the end of the day, you'll need to get changed into something else. Something dry. Something more comfortable.

As you turn the corner you realize that you have been in this part of the castle before. The familiarity of this hall comforts you as you follow the path to the spare room Diavolo had gifted you for the nights you choose to stay over. Where your dresser of your spare clothing awaits you.

You step into the room as the door shuts behind you a bit louder than you expected it to. Now alone in your safe place, you take a moment for yourself and grab a set of loungewear to throw on; the soft fabric feels much better against your skin than the wet, scratchy garments of minutes past. 

Glancing down at the pile of your wet clothes on the floor, you grimace and take them to your spacious private bathroom to dry over the tub. It only takes a moment, but when you come back into the bedroom, you notice the hallway door is open.

'That's odd,' you say aloud, "I thought that door shut when I came in."

Before fear can begin to simmer in your gut, you are ambushed from behind by a warm figure. You let out a yelp as you lose your balance and fall over onto the carefully made bed with your attacker. 

You squirm, trying to twist out of the firm grip around your waist with no success. When you feel the unnatural warmth radiating from your attacker's skin, you pause and notice the familiar blond head of hair that nuzzles into the nape of your neck. Relief crashes into you like you're a bird in a window cleaner commercial, and you stop fighting. "Satan?"

Upon hearing his name, the Demon perks up and pulls away to get a look at you. And aside from the hearts where his pupils should be, the usually intelligent avatar of Wrath appears to not have a single thought behind his eyes.

"Cutie pie." He hums, reaching up and pinching your cheek. "I missed you so much."

"You missed me?" You tease, a smile curling up on your lips in amusement. You ruffle his layered blonde hair, and he seems to lean into your touch like an eager puppy. His usual cat-like nature is completely gone, thanks to the effects of the strange love potion.

"Soooo much," he whines. "I haven't seen you in forever."

"Oh really?" you hum. "So, what have you been doing up here?" 

"Was looking for you…" hu murmurs, "But then I got lost and didn't know how to find you; I got worried I would never see you again, and I got really sad."

"It's only been four hours." You remind him gently. 

He furrows his brow and cocks his head in confusion. "Oh. How long is that again?"

"Not long at all," you say, taking your hand away from his head. When the Demon no longer feels the heavenly sensation of your touch, he looks up at you with big eyes full of hurt. You feel unbelievably guilty as you place your hand back atop his head and once again return to playing with his hair.

That lovesick smile returns to his face, and you are sure that if he was in his demon form, his tail would be wagging like crazy. His heart-shaped pups seem to come in and out of focus as he looks at you. "You're the goodest ever." he smiles.

"Guess what? You're even better," you respond.

One simple compliment seems to be what drives him over the top. His blush deepens as he tosses his head back and laughs. He giggly kicks his feet on the side of his bed as he wraps his arms around you again.

"Noooooo, you're the bestest." He says stubbornly.

All right then, you win." You relent. "Do you want to know what you win as a prize?"

"What do I get?" he says eagerly, crunching his hands into fists. As cute as he is acting, you really need to break the spell. Cute puppy love is entertaining, but you know that the real Satan would hate the way he's acting now.

Gently, you take your hand and cup his cheek. He's all smiles and adoration as you lean in to claim his lips.

The moment your lips touch his, you feel his body tense up with realization, his posture straightens, and he seems to be recovering his sense of self. 

By the time you open your eyes, the Satan you know and love is back. 

"The details of how I got here may be blurry," he says softly, gently stroking the side of your face. "But ending up here with you certainly was worth it."

Now you're the one blushing.

"How are you feeling?" You ask, taking a step backward to give the Demon his space. "What do you remember?"

"He concentrates for a minute as if he is mentally tracing his steps. When embarrassment takes over his features, you know he has figured it out. "It was the cookies, wasn't it?"

"Yep," you respond, relieved that Satan is back to his usual inquisitive self.  "Luke used a bowl from Solomon's lab, and it had some weird personality-changing love potion in it."

He grimaces, no doubt recalling his behavior. "Mc, words cannot begin to express how ashamed I am of my actions, but I'm relieved that you were the only one present to witness my behavior. If I made you feel uncomfortable in any way, please accept my sincerest apologies."

"It's all good cutie pie." You say, mimicking his lovely dovey attitude from before. 

He freezes and looks at you with a dull seriousness in his green eyes. "What do I have to do to make you forget this ever happened?"

"Hmmm, I don't know if I want to forget about this," you tease him, stepping closer to you to the point you are chest to chest. 

"What If I gave you a real kiss?" he smirks, cupping your face gently. "Nothing like that pathetic excuse for one I gave you earlier."

"Are you bribing me?" You ask, endeared amusement lacing your voice as you look up at the avatar of Wrath.

"Perhaps," he grins. "I've read that kisses are an acceptable payment between lovers."

"Well then, I guess we're doing it by the book." You say, gladly accepting his payment. He kisses you desperately. Seemingly devouring your very soul as if it were the newest edition of his favorite series. But behind the genuine passion and adoration, he moves with a certain intelligence, knowing just what he has to do to take your breath away. 

By the time you are able to breathe your own air again, you notice that Satan is beginning to feel the fatigue from the Potion's effects. His skin looks pale, and you can tell he is trying to fight off the impending headache. "Are you okay?" you ask, keeping your voice soft so as not to cause him any more discomfort as his hangover-esque symptoms begin. 

"Yes, I'm alright," he murmurs. 

"No, you're not. The others were like this too; you should go back to the banquet hall and lay down."

"But what about you?" The concern in his voice touches you, but you know you have to find the others alone. "I don't remember much about the others, but they won't be acting like themselves."

"I'll be fine," you reassure him. "From what I understand about the Potion, they won't harm me. I promise, if I need help, I will let you know."

"Okay, I believe in you." He nods but still looks worried. "But just know, if anyone attempts to cause you harm, I will burn this place to the ground and stomp on its ashes until I am satisfied."

His words send a flurry of butterflies aflutter in your stomach as he disappears around the corner, his footsteps echoing menacingly through the hallway. You have a feeling that his warning wasn't so much as given to you for reassurance rather than set aloud in the hopes that everyone else would hear it. 

Alone again, you step into your guest bathroom to splash some cold water on your face to refresh yourself. 

You definitely need it.

Asmo~ 

You feel like you're being hunted. Every single time you turn a blind corner or step past a darkened doorway, you feel like another one of your cursed loved ones is going to reach out and grab you. 

Despite a few hiccups on the road, breaking the spell on the first four of the brothers has been pretty easy so far. 

All of them have practically jumped into your arms and insisted on the Potion-breaking kiss within moments of seeing you.

Movement at the end of the hallway catches your eye, and you freeze. It's too far away to tell who it is, but you have found someone. You can tell from the way they stop in their tracks that they see you, too. 

Although you do not hate the feeling of getting pounced on and smothered in affection from the beings you love the most, today has you feeling a bit jumpier than normal. The longer you stare at what is most likely a demon at the end of the hallway, the more nervous you get. 

You don't know what to do. Should you run? Should you hide? Your brain can't decide on what to do so you brace yourself for them to lunge at you, but the embrace never comes. 

"Hello?" you call out. The nervous tremor in your voice bouncing off the walls. 

To your surprise, the person at the end of the hallway dashes away, leaving you confused and just a bit scorned. 

"Wait, please," you call, running after them and into the statue gallery. Where you are surrounded by dozens of elegantly carved statues. The darkened room full of figures should make you afraid, but you get a smug sense of satisfaction from being the one doing the chasing this time.

You stop in the center of the room under the skylight. The cool moonlight shines down on you, and you can feel a pair of eyes on you somewhere in the room. "Hey, it's okay. Please come out. I just want to talk to you." you say between huffs. 

 Through the darkness, you hear a small, shy, shuffling sound as the one you were pursuing forward into the light.

Asmodeus steps forward timidly; his steps are clumsy and off-balanced, most likely due to one of the potions' many side effects. His pretty peach-colored eyes were big and sparkling. The heart-shaped pupils and light blush on his face look so fitting on him that you just stare at him in awestruck silence, taking in his beauty.

Instead of basking in your undivided attention like he usually does, The Avatar of Lust shies away from your gaze of admiration and looks down at the floor.

"Asmo," you say gently, noting this difference in his personality. "It's just me; why do you look so nervous?" You give him your friendliest, most encouraging smile and extend your hand out to him.

Just that simple gesture of love and kindness turns his cheeks a furious red, and he takes a quick step back, nearly knocking over a black marble statue of a Demoness with hair made out of pearls.

"Holding hands with you?" he asks in a soft whisper. "I-I don't know if I am ready for that?"

What?

The Asmo you know loves PDA. 

You shake that thought out of your head; this isn't the Asmo, you know. If he's not comfortable with that, you need to make sure that he feels safe with you. Love Potion or not.

"No worries," you say with a kind smile, sitting on one of the carefully carved benches in the gallery. "How about we sit down and talk? Would you be okay with that?"

He nods his head slowly and sits down on the very edge of the bench. 

The two of you sit in silence for what seems like a decade. In that time, he doesn't meet your gaze once, but whenever you don't appear to be looking at him, his eyes are on you like he has an innocent schoolyard crush.

Finally, you decide to break the silence. "how are you feeling?"

"F-fine," he says in a small voice. He shuts his mouth quickly as if he doesn't trust his words around you.

"I'm glad to hear that you're doing well," you say, noticing the subtle change in his body language. He doesn't look like he is about to run off at any moment. "Why did you decide to run from me?"

He nervously picks at his perfectly painted nails, chipping the dual-colored polish and letting the colorful strips flutter onto the patterned stone floor. "I ran because I was nervous. The others are just so bold, and I thought you would want to be with someone more confident and sexy like Simeon."

'Simeon?' you think to yourself. "That's the second time someone mentioned the Angel's uncharacteristic behavior today." Although your curiosity is fighting to the forefront of your mind, you cannot deprive Asmodeus of the attention he craves. 

"Right now, Asmo, I want to spend time with you." you say, "I want to make sure you know how much I care about you, even if you're not as confident as you usually are right now."

His eyes widen with hope as his furious blush creeps up to the tips of his slightly pointed ears. But he is too tongue-tied to utter anything. He goes to shyly cover his face with his hands but you stop him. 

His skin is hot on contact, but you pretend not to notice. You can tell there is something he wants to say. "Asmo, you know you can tell me anything. Right?"

"I can?" he whispers softly.

"Of course you can."

He takes a deep breath and clenches his fist as if he's gathering the courage to force the words from his pretty lips. "Can I kiss you?" He spits it out so quickly that you almost miss his request.

Your smile is victorious, "Of course you can."

"C-close your eyes, please," he stutters, "It's better that way."

You oblige, letting your eyelids shut. You feel him lean in close, his nervous breaths hitting your skin as the spellbound Demon gathers the courage to kiss you.

You don't dare move; this kiss has to be done on his terms, even if it takes all day. 

His breath hitches, and he goes for it, giving you the smallest, quickest peck on the cheek. Before he slides over to the other side of the bench. A melancholy feeling blooms in your gut as you begin to wonder if that little kiss would really be enough to break the spell he is under.

But to your surprise,  Asmodeus' laughter fills the room, and when you open your eyes, you see the Demon's heavy blush and unconfident posture subsiding. 

"Asmo?"

The Avatar of Lust pounces on you, wrapping his arms around you tightly and nuzzling his face into your neck. "You are just too cute, Hon." he squeals, very much back to normal. 

One thing you noticed is that he does not look anywhere near as tired as the others did after the spell is broken. Is it his concealer or is it something else?

He notices the way you are looking at him and gives you a dazzling smile. "It will take a bit more than a silly Love Potion to bring me down." he winks. 

"You remember everything?"

"Mostly," he giggles. "I know there was something in the cookies and then I just started feeling strange. I felt like I was watching some kind of bad reality TV show. If I wanted to do something, it was like my body did the opposite." His features soften just a bit, and he looks at you with sincerity. "Still, thank you for looking out for me, Mc. Even if the real me would want to do more with you than just a cute little peck on the cheek, you waited for the cursed version of me to feel comfortable enough to initiate something, and that doesn't really happen a lot." His eyes turn glassy as he grabs your hand. "When you are as beautiful as me and used to having demons, witches, and everything else throw themselves at your feet, you find that people tend to take every inch they can get."

This time, you are the one who can't speak. The meaning behind the Demon's words causes you to hold his hand just a bit tighter as he blinks away his unfallen tears rapidly. This moment between the two of you may not need anything else right now. When words fail, you can rely on something as simple as silence.

"I should go lay down," he says at last, furrowing his brow. "You have a day to save, and I feel like I just drank a whole thing of Devil's Drink."

"Do I even want to know what that is?" you ask with a voice that seems to scream 'tell me.'

He tosses his head back in laughter. "Ohhh, you are so cute. Devil's Drink is a punch that consists of whatever types of demonus someone has on hand. It gets the party started, but afterward, you have the worst hangover ever. 

"Oh my," you shudder, realizing that you and Lucifer are probably going to need to have a talk with him about drinking responsibly later on. "You should lay down then; the others are in the Banquet hall recovering as well."

He turns and starts to walk away before pausing in the corridor and giving you a sly wink. "Don't you worry, Hon; once this whole thing is over with, I promise you I will give you a proper thank you slash makeup Valentine's Date. Kay?" He puts his fingers to his lips and blows you a kiss before leaving you alone in the statue gallery. 

"I'll hold you to it," you smile catching the kiss he blows your way as the carved figures around you send you encouraging smiles to continue your quest. 

Beelzebub

All of this walking in silence makes you feel as if you are playing some weird backroom-esque game; you feel hyper-aware of your surroundings, listening for even the smallest sound that could lead you to find another one of your cursed men. 

The bottoms of your feet feel slightly fatigued but you are spurred on by the fact you have managed to find at least half of the guys so far. At this rate, you'll probably be able to find everyone by dinner time. 

Passing by a large window, the bright moonlight blinds you momentarily. You squint and step slightly out of the light, taking a glimpse of the miles and miles of dark forest that lies beyond the glass. 

You take this moment to appreciate that so far, everyone is confined to the walls of the castle. This Love Potion has changed their demeanors so much that if they were to get out into the world, they would make quite the spectacle.

Suddenly, a cool breeze hits your skin, and you stop. The two large glass front drawers to one of the back balconies of the palace are wide open, and the sheer curtains are twisting violently in the breeze.

Knowing Barbatos would never allow this door to remain open for such a long period of time, you come to the conclusion that the door was opened fairly recently.

You begin to panic, your heart thrums wildly in your chest, and you worry that you're going to have a heart attack. You rush outside thinking that someone escaped and is out in the Devildom without their wits.

The cold air embraces you as you glance frantically around. Stepping up to the ledge of the balcony, you look down into the giant hedge maze below. It's only known to few if someone were to stumble out in there. It would take a long time to find them.

Swearing under your breath, you wonder if you are really going to have to go searching in the middle of the maze.

Before you can move to climb down the steps, a thin white flower pedal flies past your face, briefly pooping your nose. This little distraction has you turning your head, and you see a massive figure hunched over on a small-looking stone bench just on the other side of the balcony.

You are with a full sense of relief as you make your way over to them more and more flower petals seem to float to the ground. As you get closer you hear that they are mumbling to themselves.

"They love me. They love me not. They Love me. They love me not." You recognize that voice anywhere.

"Beel?" you say as the Avatar of Gluttony turns eagerly toward you and lets out the happiest little squeal of delight. You've never heard him make such an adorable sound before, and it fills your heart.

He springs from his tiny chair and lumbers over to you eagerly. His inhumanly strong arms wrap around you in a bear hunt that is so tight you can hardly breathe. 

"Can't. Breathe." You out topping his arm to get his attention. He pouts but lets you down gently; even though you're out of his arms, he still has a firm grip on your hand.

"Sorry, Mc, I just love you so much I didn't wanna let you go. I've been wanting to be held by you the entire day."

"That's all right, Beel." You spot a flower petal Stuck in his hair, and you gently take your hand up to his face to remove it. He leans into your touch and lets out a happy little giggle.

"I knew you would come for me." He says enthusiastically. "but it took you so long I thought you forgot all about me. So I started picking the flowers so they could tell me if you loved me or not."

Glancing down briefly, you see flowers he was plucking earlier. You recall from a Devildom botany class they are called eternal daisies. No matter how many one plus a pedal from it, grow back after a few seconds. For the Demon to have amassed such a large pile of petals, he must have been doing this for a while.

"And what did the flowers tell you?" You tease, ruffling his hair; his violet eyes follow your hands as if they are about to show him the world's secrets. Your simple touch makes his heart-shaped pupils grow larger by the second.

"Flowers?" He sighs dreamily, unable to think of anything else but you. Curiously, you decide to let go of the gentle giant to see what he would do if you weren't touching him for a second.

His face falls, and he looks at you like you had just told him Hell's Kitchen shut down for good. 

His kicked puppy persona hurts your heart so bad you immediately grab his hand, and the look of pure bliss returns to his features. 

"You're so cute, Mc," he murmurs softly. 

"Wanna know something? You're even cuter." 

He lets out a delighted squeal and excitedly holds you again. The unnatural warmth radiating from his body makes you realize how cold you are out here on the balcony. 

"Beel, would you like to go inside, and we can get you something to eat?" you ask, hoping to tempt him with food. But he shakes his head adamantly. 

"M' not hungry."

Woah. 

You pinch yourself just to make sure you are not dreaming of Beel denying you a chance to eat.

"Isn't it a little cold out here?" you ask teasingly, trying to take his hand and guide the larger Demon backward, but he stubbornly digs his feet into the ground and shakes his head stubbornly.

 "No, If we go back inside, the others are gonna find you and take you away from me, and I won't get to hold you anymore."

"What will it take to get you to come inside with me?" you sigh. Normally, you don't barter with demons, but you are exhausted and just want to get inside.

"Could you carry me?" he asks, his heart-shaped pupils full of hope.

"Carry you?" you repeat.

"Yeah," he nods, swaying slightly, "like a piggyback ride. I am always the one giving them it would be nice to be carried around for a bit."

"That's true," you nod, glancing back at the door; it's only a few steps. "I guess I could try."

You crouch down slightly so the much larger, much heavier Demon can climb on your back. Thankfully, he goes slow so as to not throw you off balance, but you have to reach deep inside yourself to find the strength to move the Demon made of solid muscle who clings to your back.

No amount of strength training could've prepared you for this.

Beel nuzzles his face into your neck as you take step after agonizing step toward the door. When you finally let him down on the ground, your legs feel like jelly but the look of joy on his handsome features alleviates some of your back pain. 

"That was so fun," he laughs, leaning in and kissing you eagerly as a form of payment. Although you are sore from this unexpected powerlifting session, you accept his kiss happily. It starts off tame and innocent, but he begins to lose himself. 

His gluttony breaks through the spell, and he begins to devour your lips like he hasn't eaten in days. 

When he is satisfied, you pull back and are relieved to see that he has returned to normal. "Mc, I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I can't believe I made you carry me." he frowns, holding his hands together so tightly it looks painful. 

"It's okay, Beel, I'm fine," you reply, ignoring the slight pain in your back.

"Are you sure?" he asks worriedly. There is so much concern in his gaze you find yourself immediately reassuring him.

"Still, you shouldn't have to carry me. You need it, I will carry you around.-"cut off by the loud growling of his stomach. "M' hungry"

"I bet you are, "you say. His current state of hunger is overpowering the headache the others are suffering from right now. "you should go into the banquet hall; there's still lots of food left over from the party."

"Are you sure you don't wanna come with me?" He asks, "Food tastes so much much better when I'm with you."

"I wish I could, but I have to find Belphie and the others. But I promise I'll be back soon."

You can tell from the look on his face that he wishes he could carry you back to the banquet hall with him, but he leaves. As he disappears out of sight, you hope that all the cursed cookies are hidden away by the time he reaches the banquet hall so he doesn't accidentally eat any more of them.

Belphie~

There is an uncomfortable knot in your back as you walk; giving Beel a piggyback ride certainly was not what you expected you would have to do today. 

The sound of broken glass reaches your ears, causing you to flinch slightly at the noise. 

What was that sound?

Where did it come from?

Is someone hurt?

Briskly, you walk towards the corridor where you heard the sound, your head on a constant swivel for any kind of danger or lone shard of glass until you reach a small staircase.

You don't think you've ever seen it before; the dark wood looks old but well tended by the Butler's expert hand.

Taking hold of a railing, you begin your descent into the darkened room; you feel along the wall for a light switch until you land on it and flick it upwards.

You find yourself standing in the middle of a massive wine cellar with thousands of unique bottles of Demonus. Surround you and you find yourself mesmerized by all the dancing colors of glass.

In the back corner of the room, you find the source of the earlier crash. Belpheghor kneels over a broken bottle of miscellaneous liquor. Shards of glass sprinkled the pool of deep purple liquid-like islands on the sea. 

The youngest avatar of sin moves quickly, cleaning up the mess with a speed you have not seen from him before. He is so focused on the task at hand he doesn't notice you coming up behind him until you utter his name.

"Belphie, I heard the crash. Is everything all right?

His head snaps toward you, and he beams at you, his whole body seemingly abuzz with excitement as he scoops you into his arms. "Careful, there might be some glass still on the floor, I should hold you until it's safe."

"I hope that bottle wasn't too expensive," you shudder, looking at the remains of the bottle that is most likely older than your family tree.

"Nah, that one was only 500 years old. I thought you would like it since it's not too sweet," he mutters, brushing your cheek with his thumb. 

"He shrugs and says it was only five hundred years old, so it was pretty cheap for the castle standards. I just read the tasting card and thought you would like it more than all those dusty old bottles."

"Five. Hundred. Years?" you breathe, swallowing nervously. 

"Yeah, that's nothing." he laughs. "I am so glad you're here, Mc. I am so bored. Let's do something fun together." He is overflowing with this excitable golden retriever energy, and you can't help but be infected by it.

"Oh yeah? What do you want to do?" you tease, playing along with him. Although you still have to break the spell on him, you may as well have a bit of fun with this energetic version of Belphie while you can. 

"Let's go hiking," he says at once. "It's too boring here, but someone once told me about a great spot for a hike. I have never wanted to go on it before since I would've rather been sleeping, but I think we could have a lot of fun."

"Oh, that would be fun," you smile, leaning your head against his shoulder, "Maybe we should go on a warmer day. That wind is really cold outside, and it will be hard to look at the stars with all the clouds."

His eyes fill with confusion as he looks at you with his unnerving heart-shaped pupils. "Why would I want to look at some dumb stars when you are right in front of me? You are so amazing I don't think I ever want to stop looking at you." Although he isn't going anywhere, his body can't seem to sit still. It's like he is hooked up to an IV full of Red Bull. 

Nervous laughter leaves your lips, and you reach up to play with his hair. "That's really sweet, but wouldn't you get tired?"

"No," he says plainly. "If I close my eyes, then I won't be able to look at you until I open them again."

"Oh really?" A little plan is formulated in your head. "You mean to tell me you will never close your eyes ever again?"

He smiles innocently and shakes his head. "Never again."

"Not even to blink?" you ask, looking up at him with big eyes. With your head cradled in his chest, you notice that even his heartbeat is accelerated. Is this another one of the Potion's side effects? You make a mental note to remember as much information as you can so you can tell Solomon all about this once everything is over and done with. 

"Not even to blink," he says confidently. 

"Prove it. Staring contest right now." 

The prospect of a challenge intrigues the Demon, and he gently sets you down on top of one of the cellar's many kegs. "What do I get if I win?"

"let's see," you hum, holding your chin in consideration. "if you win, we get to go on that hike right now."

"go hiking! Let's do it." he leans him close, never taking his eyes off of you for a second.

"Ready? Go!" You open your eyes wide and meet his gaze. Now that he is face-to-face with you it makes it a lot easier to steal a kiss from him.

Demon is ruptured in the competition at hand to even think that you're going in for the Bell breaking kiss until your lips are on his. And surprise and lets his eyes close, leaving you victorious.

As he comes back to his senses, Belphie relaxes greatly. His movements are lazy, as is his kiss. It's slow and comforting but perfect, nevertheless.

By the time you pull away, you see how heavy his eyelids are drooping.

"Are you tired now, Belphie?" You ask as he rests his head against your shoulder.

"Mmmmmhmmm," he groans. "How'd I get here? What happened to the party?" 

"There was a potion accidentally mixed into the cookies," you explain. "I promise you I'll tell you everything later, but for now, you should go back to the banquet hall and get some sleep; your other brothers are back there waiting for you."

"Is Beel okay?" he murmurs.

"Yes, He's fine now."

"That's good." he sighs, dragging his feet toward the door. "Thank you for helping with all this. Why do we keep dragging you into these messes?"

"To keep me on my toes, I guess." you laugh, basking in the warmth of the Demon's gaze. 

He smiles at your comment, but then a look of realization crosses his features, and he looks at you seriously. 

"Mc, please be careful," he says suddenly, his left hand rubbing his temple as his headache grows. "I don't know why, but I feel like you should really watch yourself around Simeon."

"Don't worry," you reply softly, trying your best to sound reassuring. "I promise I've got this handled. We will all be back together soon…"

~Thank you for reading!

Part 4 coming soon...

Tagging: @enchantedforest-network

@solomiracle @randomdutchgirl @dn4su @downinbedrockck @yuuvis32 @exrellian @cuddlybelphie  @yeet-skeet-nifty-neat @romaissa @littlesliceofcheese @the-panda-queen @enoe-of-noen @marvelous-maniac @irllydontcare69 @nutmeg030 @im-in-love-with-fairytales @snowthatareblack @stressed-cryptid @miracl3d @eussstasss @ishouldreallykillmyself @unixilian11032 @soupieoopieisloopie @ourfinalisation @daveyserket @fenfourks @laffytaffyspoon @wtf-why-do-i-gotta-do-this @beezgobuzzbuzz @darkflowerav @bethleeham @fangirlinindia @eternallyanxiousandstressed @the-sassiest-toaster @nanamisbigassschlong @tak3yourpill @uhnanix @anjodedesgostoeerros @orikuu @lykunsstuff

[ohtobealady]

Would you do "Anticipation" for the one word drabbles? Thank you! ♥️

My sweet friend! This is such a great word! Sorry this is a little short (and rushed). I owe you a better one soon :)

—————————:::::::::————————-

He meant it when he told her he’d imagined their reunion. For he had. He had imagined the way the soft angles of her upturned face would catch the summer sun. He had imagined the way her eyes would open in surprise and then warm over, crinkling at their sweet corners when he came closer to kiss her. And as she smiled up at him.

He had imagined other things as well, things that brought a quick heat to his face when his mind lingered on the images. He shook those away, but with a chuckle. It couldn’t be helped, could it? After all, he’d not been so far away from his wife in such a long time. And across an ocean from her? Oh. Distance did strange things to a man.

He felt a little like a young person again, his heart skipping about, his lips curling into a grin he couldn’t seem to untuck from his cheek. He did his best to keep as calm as possible, at least while Bates was still in the room with him, but he was sure the truth was plainly obvious to the man. He was married himself, was he not?

Grinning more, Robert didn’t bother to button the top button of his pajama shirt. Propriety be damned.

“Will that be all, my lord?”

Robert lifted his chin, picked up his dressing gown from his narrow bed, and he managed a very controlled, “Yes,” and, “Good night, Bates,” before at last turning the knob of the dividing door and pushing open the adjoining door to his wife’s bedroom.

His silly grin blossomed easily into a wider smile as he was met with the scent of her space: white jasmine, of course, and the lavender of her hand cream. But no sooner had he grinned had he frowned again.

Baxter was still here, with Cora, still combing through her hair.

He caught Cora’s eye when she turned her head to greet him, and he thought he could see a small apology in the way her gaze softened.

“Hello, darling. My, it must be later than I thought,” she said as he moved to the bed behind her. He tossed his dressing gown upon it.

“No, not very. I believe I’m early,” he answered, trying to seem nonchalant and uneager though his body ached sweetly to hold her. “The day of traveling has made me tired, is all.”

“I hope not too tired.”

He felt his face go scarlet, even through the tips of his ears. He barely resisted gasping. How could she say such a thing before Baxter?

“I want to hear how it all went, in the end. And about Mother and Harold.”

He almost stumbled into a nod, finally coming enough to his senses to respond, sure that his vulgar thoughts were beginning to color everything around him. But when he looked over again at her, Cora smirked at him in her mirror.

Oh, she knew what she’d said, his darling flirt.

“Ah. I see,” he pretended to straighten her bedding in his lap, and again catching her reflection. “And there is one other thing I’m eager to share with you.”

He thoroughly enjoyed the flash of embarrassment he saw warm Cora’s face.

“That’s all, Baxter,” she easily transitioned, if not a bit abruptly, and touched at the short length of her braid. “Thank you.”

He hardly heard her maid at all as she wished them both a good night, but instead did his best to continue to fold himself neatly into his wife’s lovely bed, a bed he’d dreamt of for days and days.

It was when the door clicked behind her, that Robert felt brave enough to look again at Cora.

“That was very naughty,” she mock-chided as she stood and began to untie her dressing gown.

He laughed. “I assume you are referring to both of us?”

She rolled her eyes, her lovely eyes, as she shrugged the garment from her shoulders. “No,” she said firmly, but the way she crawled into her bed towards him, her nightgown falling agape for just a moment at her chest, it made Robert flush with excitement.

“Darling,” he felt himself gasp, “I have missed you.”

She didn’t answer, at least not with any words. Instead, she let herself lean to him and press her lips against his cheek and then against the corner of his mouth.

That was enough.

He let his hand catch her wrist, and he worked to angle himself toward her too, eventually forcing her backwards, to have her lie down.

He opened his eyes to look at her when at last he rolled more upon her.

She was already looking at him. “I confess that I found the anticipation of tonight quite heady,” he heard her whisper before she lifted her chin to kiss him again. He felt her fingers thread through the hair at the nape of his neck, and he sighed against her mouth.

“Perhaps I should absent myself more often.”

Now they were kissing, truly, but he felt her pull away just enough to quietly plead, “Oh, don’t. I need you close to me. Always.”

He didn’t respond, but instead he wrapped an arm around her and held her ever closer still.

[tainebot01]

A little portrait of my sona I made in December last year.

[puppyeared]

personal character design headcanons + brainrot

Note: the re-bound!au does NOT belong to me, it belongs to @chipper-smol I’m just not normal about it lol

[clownprince]

alright i was already intrigued by the premise of knight terrors: the joker but i'm SO fucking hyped now you're telling me rosenberg is elaborating on the divorce arc??? also dark workplace comedy is exactly where i hoped they'd go with this

[bisexualseraphim]

Alright fine I’m gonna speak my mind.

My cis followers, listen up:

Being attracted to trans people is not inherently a fetish. The way you speak about trans people CAN be fetishistic, but 99% of the time when I see cis people calling out trans fetishism it’s literally just. Someone being really horny for a trans person. That’s not inherently fetishistic.

Sorry but it actually hurts me a little when I see cis people claim that a content creator is being fetishistic for drawing a trans guy with tits and a pussy, or for writing smut where a trans guy really enjoys using his pussy for sex, or God forbid said trans guy is fem. Trans people like that exist, you know. I myself have a pussy and fuck yes do I want people I’m in a relationship with to be attracted to it. And the same goes for many transfemmes who keep their natal parts, especially butch transfemmes.

Trans people are not a monolith. We don’t all hate our bodies or experience dysphoria or express our genders the same way. I swear to God cis people are all “allies” until a trans man is fem or a trans woman is butch or an enby isn’t androgynous or we actually enjoy our bodies or we have a kink or sexual fetish you don’t like.

Cis people: I know your hearts are in the right place and I appreciate that, but spouting “oh this content is fetishistic and Bad because trans men NEVER like their vaginas and are NEVER feminine” (or something equal to other trans people) is seriously not the allyship you think it is.

There is absolutely a conversation to be had about fetishising trans people — chasers in particular — but it’s quite a bit less black and white than hating certain FICTIONAL portrayals of trans people because these types of trans people exist in real life and we can see what you say about us.

I love my dick and my pussy (because I have both — are you aware we can have both?) but I saw a post today by someone I really like that actually made me feel kind of shit about myself because it was a cis person essentially saying that smut that describes my genitals in any particularly horny light is fetishistic and that really kind of hurt me. It made me feel like people think I’m undesirable due to my body only it was said in some backwards attempt to be an ally which is almost worse than deliberate transphobia lol.

I guess my point is: not all trans people’s feelings and experiences are universal. Call out obvious transphobia when you see it, yes, but please stop speaking for us about complex situations you just can’t fully understand unless you’re trans. Trans identities and experiences can be so much more complicated than what mainstream celebrities and articles will tell you and I just really need cis people to stop behaving as though the issues we face are a quick and easy fix. It never is. Sometimes the best allyship is to listen to how WE feel and take it into consideration instead of saying whatever you think we want you to say — because a lot of the time, we don’t.

[krbkss]

mha 395

has anyone brought this up yet </3

[tytoalbatross]

fictional parents. yes i will analyze them in a way that is true to canon and not in the way that mirrors what my relationship to my Own parents is like, currently. surely not

[saetoru]

hope you guys break up tbh lool

u have a very cruel heart tbh

[boyruggeroii]

Oh boy

[bloggirl8842]

Makes me so so sad that my first relationship was bad for me even though nothing explicitly bad happened. I see all these things about first loves or firsts in general and how fun it is but all I felt was obsessive, scared, confused, very rarely good. I only had fun when I was drunk (and he always made sure I was safe when I was drunk ofc) but the rest of it-- and even that-- was so tense and fraught, like trying to make unoiled gears turn

[arolesbianism]

If nothing else Im just begging dst to not do the easy but lame idea of adding the fleece of the lamb and making it increase follower time. I get it. It makes sense. It's simple to implement. But it's also boring and useless. In begging yall add a fleece that does smth cool

[hoshigray]

𝐇𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞, 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐝 | satoru gojō

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: Is it possible to wish to be in the embrace of someone who makes you want to throw them off a cliff? You seem to think so, and the same goes for Gojo. But alas, good things always come to an end, even when not meant to be...

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: Gojo x fem/afab! reader - explicit content; minors DNI - modern + college AU - frenemies to lovers + mutual pining - Gojo and reader are at least age 20 - implied fwb relationship - catching/awakening feelings - oral (m! receiving) - ball massaging + sucking - sex in a shared room; college dorms (alone) - cowgirl position on a chair - breast fondling + sucking + nipple play - protected sex (psa: wrap it up, or get tf up) - pet names (baby, cutie, pretty, princess) - heavy depiction of a blowjob - cameos: Haibara and Ijichi - fluff + angst; misunderstandings - humor bc i'm [not] funny.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 7.6k

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: second part, let's goooo!! i loved ur support and comments from the first story, so hope y'all are excited for this part :DDD and ty so so so MUCH for 5.5k like??? i kiss you on cheek, every single on of you, hehehe~

prev story » ❤︎ « next story

“If you’re not gonna help, then leave my dorm!”

“Ehhhh, hell no! It’s cold as fuck outside; you want me to freeze to death?”

“They’re…still going at it.”

“Yeah…give it a minute, and we’ll just go to the library without them?”

It’s coming down to the last week of January; university students are finally settling in with their new schedules and getting used to the groove of the spring semester. Or some run around trying to keep up with the new semesters and the change of weather already getting on people’s nerves, wanting nothing more than spring to come quickly.

Three weeks in, and you already have stuff to do, one of them being an argumentative presentation assigned by Professor Yaga in your Contemporary Issues class. You and three other people are tasked to find sources for a topic issue you find interesting and then present a discussion-based presentation on two sides of the topic (two people in favor and two people against).

Unfortunately, the groups were to be randomly assigned. Luckily, two friends you knew in the class, Haibara and Ijichi, were picked to work alongside you! However, the bad part was that another person you knew was assigned to work with you, and he happens to be the guy getting on your last nerves right now, sitting on your couch while clicking through the television channels with the remote. 

Your roommates weren’t home today. The club fair was occurring at the quad, so Mei Mei and Utahime had to go out and represent their clubs for the afternoon. Shoko is having an intense study session with Geto for an exam on the first of February, so they’re at the library now. 

That leaves you alone at your dorm, using this as a perfect opportunity to invite your group over to work on the project. 

“You can freeze your nuts off and become the next Jack Frost for all I care; if you’re not going to do your part of the work, get out!”

Well, minus you yelling at your partner, who clicks his teeth before turning to you. His round sunglasses shone from the light reflected from the living room windows.

Satoru Gojo was your number one nemesis within these campus grounds; this was a known fact to everyone, especially the other group members who nervously examined you two bicker. Being in the same space as him is enough to make you wish you could pull your hair out or put him in the nastiest headlock you could do. Worse, being assigned to the same group as him for your project almost made you want to rip your ears off. 

But you had to suck it up; at least you were the first group to start a presentation. Better now than worry about it later, right? 

“Pssh, fine, I’ll get up and—Oh! Wait, you guys have Digimon on Hulu? Ahhh, sick!” 

Nevertheless, you can’t say that when your supposed partner acts like a child glued to your TV screen instead of doing the work he promised to do. You grit your teeth with a twitching brow, “Why you…”

Across from the common area was the kitchen, where Haibara and Ijichi sat at the dining table. The two sophomores could do nothing but feel the tension between you and Gojo grow with every passing second, suffocating the younger duo. Haibara eyes Ijichi from across the table and whispers, “Wanna make a run for it now?”

The black-haired second-year didn’t reply, only a hurried nod before the two grabbed their coats and stuffed their laptops back into their backpacks. The sound of their zippers alerts your ears, turning to them to question, “Huh? Where are you two going?” 

Haibara takes it upon himself to deliver a half-lie as he zips up his jacket. “On second thought, Ijichi and I are thinking of taking the shuttle to the library to work instead.”

Huh? The library? Were they leaving because of the belligerence between you and Gojo? God, you hoped not. “Wait, you guys don’t have to do that. I already made you guys walk all this way here; it’d be rough to have you leave for somewhere else…”

Ijichi comes with the assist after putting the sling of his messenger bag around his shoulder. “It’s okay, Y/n. We found material from the library we could use as sources, so we’re heading up there to take some notes while they’re there.” 

“Yup!” Haibara exclaims in agreement, and the two walk past you to put on their shoes by the front door. “Maybe you guys can find sources of your own while we’re gone, and then we can converse and share what we found when we come back. Sounds good?” 

“I suppose so…” you couldn’t shake the feeling that they were leaving to avoid being in the same room as you and Gojo. The guilt is hard to endure since you didn’t mean to make the younger boys uncomfortable. “See you guys, then.”

“Cya!” And with that, the door closes on their way out, leaving you and Gojo alone in your apartment. 

Well, this is just great; you’ve driven your group members and friends away and are now stuck with the nuisance of a partner who still keeps his attention on the television. It takes everything in your power not to pop a vein. But with one calm breath, you steady yourself and stand tall. 

You walk in front of the TV, blocking it from Gojo’s view. The white-haired boy throws his hands up in exasperation, but you couldn’t care less. “What’s the big idea?” He questions you as if he has a right to at this moment. 

You cross your arms across your chest with narrow eyes. “Haibara and Ijichi just left.”

“Uhh, yeah, I heard the door,” he maneuvers his body to try and see the children’s show blocked by your figure. “Doesn’t have to do with me—“

“It does have to do with you.” You interrupt him, taking two steps and bending to stare him down. Your face is a foot away from his. “You’re supposed to be here to work with Haibara on the ’no’ part of the argument while me and Ijichi do our part. You’ve only been here for thirty minutes, and the only thing you’ve done successfully is take off your shoes at the door and read your manga books on the couch. 

Gojo chuckles – oh, how you hated his laugh – as he puts his hands behind his head, spreading his long legs from their crossed form. “You heard them, no? They’re going to research on their own and then come back. Besides, you know I’m not one to start stuff right away. I’m a procrastinator, remember?”

“You’re annoying; that’s what you are.” You straighten up with a heavy sigh.  God, I wish Utahime and Shoko were here. They’d help me out with this white garbage…

“Ahhh, lighten up, Y/n. It’s not like the presentation is on Monday; we got until Friday to come up with everything.”

“Yeah, I’m aware of that, smartass. And you’re right: I do know you. And I know you tend to do things at the last fucking minute. But not this time!” You watch him try to put his feet up on the coffee table, and you quickly intervene by kicking them off. 

“Tch. Look, you knew what you were getting into being partnered with me. And relax; those two said they’ll be back to discuss the material later. They already left – nothing I can do about it.”

Your hands rest at your hips, tapping your foot with visible frustration. “Oh? And I wonder why they left in the first place, Gojo. Mind telling me how?”

He quirks up a brow with a smug grin — a telling sign that you’d get ticked off with whatever he’s about to say. “I don’t know, Y/n. Why not ask the nagging control freak talking to me right now, huh? Maybe their short height and angry temper are affecting the mood of those around them to be miserable like them.” 

You almost did it — your hands nearly gave into your intrusive thoughts and were about to lunge at the snow-haired guy’s neck to wring around like a rag doll. But you played it off with a clap, rubbing the palms together to distract your temporary violent thoughts.

You sucked your teeth and turned on your heel. “Forget it. I’m gonna go take a nap.”

He scoffs, “Good, maybe your tiny brain needs it to calm down.”

“Choke and die, Gojo!” You say down the hall, already at the door of your shared bedroom. Before slamming the door shut, Gojo’s patronizing laughter can be heard to your dismay. With gritted teeth, you march to your bed to throw yourself on the mattress. 

“Ughhh. That Satoru Gojo,” you curse his name under your breath as if he’d hear you through the walls. “So unserious…”

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

To be quite honest with himself, Gojo doesn’t necessarily hate you.

The white-haired boy lies on his side on Utahime’s bed, watching you nap. He did knock on the door – believe him, he did. He even gave you the good old ten-second rule, waiting for your response. But then you didn’t, which gave him the initiative to waltz in and see you in your slumber.

You slept so peacefully; your face at peace, and your faint snores were the only things his ears picked up on. It was as if your little nagging show from earlier was hard to comprehend when seeing your tranquil state in front of him. It used to be rare to see you like this. Keywords: used to be.

For the past two to three weeks, your relationship with Gojo has become more…intimate. Ever since he took your first kiss and drew your virgin curtains, the two of you have gotten a little closer than before — both platonically and physically. Something that Gojo never thought he’d experience with you, his tiny, cute frenemy. 

Gojo has known you since freshman year; you were two in the same enrichment group to prepare you to transition into college life. Personally, he wasn’t much for the program; he found it a waste of time, a mandatory prerequisite that he felt he didn’t need. He’s all about experience, wanting nothing more than to get on with his day, go to classes, hang with friends, and repeat. 

“Hello, my name is Y/n. It’s nice to meet you all!”

And then came you, the person sitting across from him at the round table your group would always meet at. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t enamored by you the second he saw you. Gojo rarely finds someone who could easily pull his eyes to them — not saying the girls who’d usually crowd and admire him weren’t pretty. There was something about you that kept him wanting to know more – to engage more – about you. 

One thing he knew from you was that you carried your character with pride. Your achievements, your personality, your kindness, and your mannerisms — all of which were displayed elegantly and were a breath of fresh air to look at. You stood out to him more than all the other kids in the group, his eyes always finding a way to steer from the professor’s advice to your alluring, listening face. 

Another thing Gojo liked about you was that you weren’t afraid to stand your ground, especially when discussing with your peers or him. Sure, you were always respectful and would respect other people’s arguments. But, God, the way you said things so constructed and nuanced, it had the tall other glued to you whenever you spoke.

He’s not going to lie; he’ll admit that he’d try to tick you off and get you to get a little angry with him when it came to arguing. He couldn’t help it. He just liked the thought of you layering out of your poised appearance to the point you’d glare at him whenever you saw him in the halls. And it had him giddy knowing he’s the one that made you angry because you looked cute. 

And that was the other thing he really liked about you. The more you two interacted, argued, hung out with his friends, or attended classes together, the more Gojo’s fascination for you turned into that of a school-boy crush. He wouldn’t admit to anyone of this (minus Geto and Shoko if his life depended on it) because it certainly wasn’t something to be known. He was okay with what you two had right now, being the friend who loves to push your buttons to see you nag at him. 

That was until you two started sleeping together. Because holy fuck, the past weeks you two have been sneaking time to have each other’s bodies close made Gojo’s mind go crazy. So fucking crazy like the feeling of you on him is borderline addicting. Your whiny cries calling out to him when he scrapes your sweet spots, your nails scrape on his chest, your half-lidded eyes when you look at him, or how you whisper his name only for him to hear.

This was the kind of relationship you two brewed, a secret thing only between you two. And Gojo was satisfied keeping it like this because it was what you wanted. No need to flaunt it around; it was no one’s business. Besides, he likes having you to himself, seeing a side of you that only he could imagine and experience.

The sensations of your body under his touch, the various tunes of your voice, and the beauty exhibited in your gaze. It was all addicting. You were addicting.

“Who told you to lie on my roommate’s bed? You know she’ll kill you if she ever saw you.” 

It was so addicting that he didn’t even notice you awake until you spoke to him, the erotic memories of you clouding his brain dissipating at the indication of your voice. He smirks, “Oh, I’ll be fine; not like she can hurt me with her tiny self.”

You’re too groggy to roll your eyes, sighing as you turn to your side to face him from across the room. “How long was I out for?”

“Almost an hour,” he replies, switching to sit criss-cross on Utahime’s bed. “I got bored watching TV and knocked.”

“How long have you been in here?”

“Maybe twenty minutes?”

“Just watching me sleep?”

“Yeah.”

You let out a scoff, shaking your head. “Weirdo.”

He snickers at you for recognizing his silliness. “Whaaat? There’s not much to do aside from looking at you. I got bored of the TV.”

“What about your manga?”

“Got bored of that, too.”

“Anyone on your socials that you’d wanna talk to? Girls? Friends? Your teammates?”

“Mmm, nah, none I’d wanna talk to right now.”

Your brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Hmm?”

“What do you mean ‘right now’? You make it seem like I’m keeping you from interacting with your outside life. If you’re bored, talk with whoever you want. Maybe bother Geto…No, nevermind, he’d probably be annoyed since he’s studying.”

Gojo examines you, silently removing himself from your roommate’s bed and treading towards yours. He takes off his sunglasses and places them on top of your dresser before sitting on his knees on the floor. He rests his hands and chin on the edge of your bed, his sky-blue eyes locked in with yours. God, you were so beautiful to look at. 

“I meant that I don’t want to talk to anybody.” Now that he’s closer to you, his voice dials to a whisper. “Not when I got you here to myself.”

He notices your brows drawing upward at the sentence. “To yourself?”

“Mhmm,” he hums, bringing a forefinger to trace your brow. A sensual touch not to startle you. “Just you and me.”

You give him a look as if you think he’s trying to pull something. “Don’t tell me you were making me mad at you earlier just so Haibara and Ijichi could leave, and I’d be stuck with you.”

His smile broadens with every word, his dimples out to see. “No, although I hate that I didn’t think of that myself.” His hand goes to your cheek for his thumb to stroke gently. “Would it have been a bad thing if I did?”

You don’t reply, only placing your hand on his. Your eyes are still on his blue orbs, and – you don’t know this because Gojo has the perfect view of you – the light from the window made them shine charmingly as it highlighted your face. 

“No…I don’t think so,” you murmur, gaze gradually venturing down to his lips. “I like being around you…Satoru.”

He heard his name leave your lips, an invitation to what he wants to do, his eyes fixated on your lips before closing them and drawing in closer. “Me too…”

The kiss was soft and gentle like he always starts with, waiting for you to give him the okay to kiss you again. And when you meekly lick his bottom lip, he gives in to your request and claims your lips again. 

Your moans were so sweet to his ears — his favorite thing to hear — especially when he becomes a little devilish and sucks on your tongue to make you whimper a little louder, turning him on even more. It serves as the perfect distraction for him to snake a hand into your shirt, his hand already making itself home and cupping your breast in your bra. 

You break the kiss with a gasp, and massages to your mound make your breath shaky. “Mmmah…you sneaky pervert,” you name-call him sweetly. 

“Can’t blame me; I just know that you like to have your tits played with.” Gojo sneers, tweaking your nipple to hear you gasp again. “Hey, remember you said you’d suck me off next time?”

“Huh?” The question threw you off before you could fall deeper into a euphoric haze. 

“Don’t ‘huh’ me, you promised!” He whines to you like a hurt puppy. “After I ate you out for twenty minutes straight last time, can I just have your mouth on my dick once?”

“I never told you to eat me out for twenty minutes!”

“You crying and telling me not to stop said otherwise!” He stands his argument, even if you warn him with a glare. “Just suck it, please. I haven’t felt your mouth in a while.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. You didn’t expect to deal with his childish tendencies, but it is Gojo we’re talking about. You sigh, “…Fine, Satoru.” And then the white-headed boy beamed at the confirmation, immediately standing up and heading to your desk. It was an abrupt change of pace for a second until he brought your desk chair out. 

With glee, Gojo flings his jeans and boxers with ease, his half-hard cock out for you to see. He sits on your chair with spread legs, “I’m ready~.”

You roll your eyes, yet the smile on your face sneaks without you knowing while leaving your bed and crouching between his legs. “You’re such a big baby sometimes…”

Your hand finds its way to the body of his dick, gliding it up and down to feel the veins under your palm and fingertips. Gojo hums to your cold fingers, hitching his breath when you tease him with a blow of air. 

Your free hand comes to his balls, massaging his testicles in a way that has his leg jerk. He tries to fight it, but the squirm on his legs says otherwise. “Hahhh, fuck…quit it…”

“Hmm? What, you don’t like it when I tease you?” You peer up at him with a smug grin before using your tongue to lick on the glans slowly, and he covers his mouth before a gasp comes out after lapping on his frenulum. “But when you do it to me, it’s not a problem, huh?”

“Mmmph, shiit, Y/n—Ohhh…!” Another jolt of the hips after you lick and kiss one of his balls, teasing the skin with a kiss and tiny chews that would have him choke on his breath. “Jesus, fuck! Y/n, baby, you’re driving me crazy….Aishhh!!

“Oh, really?” God, you were such a fucking tease. But he fucking loved that so much. “What should I do?” You ask him before sucking on his balls again, and a hand comes to your shoulder to grip. 

“Mmmm…Blow me off, princess,” shivers crawl up his spine as you place kisses from the base of his cock towards the tip. “Please, I wanna feel you…” 

You giggle at his reply, finally taking in his cockhead to your pretty lips and sighing through your nose as you hollow your cheeks to take in more of him. 

Gojo sighs at your licks and sucks on his girth, his erection becoming accommodated to your oral cavity wonderfully. You unhurriedly prompt yourself to take in more of him until your lips reach his pubes, your throat now full of him, and the warmness of your gummy walls makes him squirm more. 

Bobbing your head at a moderate pace, you suck him off to that of a pleasurable cadence. You still use your hands to stroke him, Gojo melting to your touch even more. He throws his head back when you attack his tip again with the onslaught of licks and laps, the hand on his balls roughly kneading them jerks him to moan aloud. 

Fuck, it feels so fucking good having you suck him off like this. How your tongue moved up and down on him was so dangerous, prompting him to place a hand on your head for support. As if that would help, you don’t show him mercy when you suck him harder and faster. The noises coming from your mouth sounded so erotic and pornographic, the heat on his face brewing out more. 

“—Khhmm, fuck, man, I can’t…Ahhh! Y/n, I’m gonna cum if you keep licking it like that. Stop, st—Ahhaaa!!” 

But like he said before – you’re a tease (if not worse than him). You remove Gojo’s dick from your mouth and throat at once, the groan he exerts fueling the fire in your body. You stand to withdraw your shirt, bra, and panties to the ground, knowing Gojo’s watching every move. “Don’t get mad at me; I know how much you wanna cum inside.” 

You pull out the condom from the pocket of your skirt, placing the rubber on his cock after removing it from the wrapper. He couldn’t help but laugh, “Seems like you’re more of a pervert than me if you had that ready while those two were here earlier.” 

“Shut up,” you playfully kiss him with a sneaky bite to his bottom lip. Then, you mount and align your cunt on his dick, the glans kissing your wet labia. “Hmmm, fuck…”

“Relax, cutie,” he kisses you on the cheek while his hands fondle your breasts. 

You slowly descend your slit onto him, the tip of his cock pushing into the entrance of your vagina. A couple of exhales and inhales keep you steady when inserting him into you, not letting the pain distract you from the task at hand. And the both of you moan in unison when it makes it in, your hips leisurely coming down on him until your ass rests on his thighs. 

You grind on him with the roll of your hips, evoking choked intakes of air from him as a hand goes to your ass with vigor. His face to your chest while the other hand plays with one mound. His lips found a nipple to pop into his mouth to suck on. 

With a slow pace, you rock your hips onto him. Your legs bent for your feet to be on his knees, the chair solid enough to withstand you bouncing on Gojo’s dick with repetition.  

“Hoohhh, ohhhh, mmmm,” your hums are expressed in tunes. The curve of his cock is so fucking good, scraping your insides with precision. You couldn’t help but increase the speed just a little bit. 

Gojo keeps sucking on your nipple; the grazes of his teeth and pushing the bud up to the roof of his mouth only fuels more quivers to travel down your bouncing figure. Both of his hands now under your skirt to feel the flesh of your ass under his hungry grasp. He kneads your asscheeks with every thrust to your chasm, and your shrieks get louder by the second. 

“—Mmmph! Shit, shit, you feel so good, pretty,” he finally lets go of your hardened nipple, burying his face to your chest. “So fucking good for me…fuhuuuucck!

You could feel your cunt contract around him; every graze to your sensitive spots prompted your walls to grip around him. He hisses, looking up to see your expression as you ride him out. Fuck, you looked so good on top of him like this. He’ll add this position to the list of things to do again with you.

You peer down to see that Gojo is staring at you, and you quickly bring a hand to cover his eyes. “—Ahhahhn, d-don’t look at me like that! Yer soo embarrassing…!” 

He only chuckles at your shy demeanor, especially during this. But he humors you, not fighting your makeshift blind for him to see you wholly. He’s seen it all already — felt it all, too. And he could never get enough. 

“Ooooh, Satoruuu—Nnaaahh!” He loves how you say his name, your hand traveling to his hair to grab in tuffs. “Oh, fuck, ‘toruuu, I’m gonna cummm…!”

“—Hnngh! Yeah, baby?” Oh, he knows. The way you’re grinding to and fro on his pelvis tells him so. “Go ahead, princess. Clench on me and ride it out.”

And with that, your hips go to an erratic pace that has the both of you holding for dear life. The squeeze of your inner walls clenching on him almost makes him choke on his spit, the nails of his fingertips forming crescents on your skin. And you scream at it, slamming your ass onto him as you both climb up to orgasm. 

Within seconds, it hits the both of you like a train. This had to be Gojo’s favorite part of the entire thing, experiencing having your folds clamp and flutter around him as you cry for him. It took everything in his power not to come with you because he wants to have you on him a little longer. You just felt too good to let go — too addicted to your body to be done with one round.

When the contractions subside while your slurred howls get quieter, Gojo gives you a few minutes to let your body be free from the aftershocks. He knows your body is extra sensitive now, rubbing circles on your back and placing chaste kisses on your clavicle. You hum under his lips, letting the wave of your crescendo exude out from you quietly. 

However, since you wanted to be such a tease, why not be a tease back? At least, that’s what Gojo thought before he threw your cunt another snap of the hips, his cock jabbing into your delicate walls that haven’t recovered yet. A sharp cry comes from your puffy lips, the hand covering Gojo’s eyes finally freeing him to see you. 

He grins with hooded azure eyes, “Sorry, cutie, but I didn’t get to finish. Wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t get to have fun of my own, right?” 

You chew on your lip with trenched brows before bringing your face to his. “Don’t you get carried away like last time, Satoru.”

“No promises, princess~” he sings to your ear before humming into your lips. 

As mentioned before, Gojo doesn’t hate you — he just hates that he can’t fully express liking you. 

But having you on top of him like this, in his embrace, is a nice change of pace he’ll happily get used to.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

“Okay, everyone, class dismissed! Thank you for your time, and see you all on Friday.”

Professor Naga closes up the last class for today, and the students all get up from the seats of their elevated rows to pack up and leave. The clock is ten minutes before seven o’clock, the winter darkness already claiming the sky with a sheet of night. Students are either famished and heading to the dining hall for food, going straight to their dorms or homes, or staying behind for last-minute conversations.

Gojo was one of the latter, deciding to stay behind to chat with the group for a bit. After packing his backpack and putting on his coat, he slings from the table to jump to the row below him, where you were talking with Haibara and Ijichi. 

You watch his stunt, ready to lecture, “Jesus, Gojo, what’s all that for? You could’ve just walked around.”

“Ehhhh, why would I do that? That’s so lame.” He comes and bends close to you enough to slang his arm around your shoulders. 

But you click your teeth and try to maneuver away from his tall figure. “You’re lame,” you mutter under your breath.

However, Gojo’s ears perked with furrowed brows. “What did you say?”

“You heard me, you lame white furby!” You repeat yourself with a huff and the snow-haired student gawks at your brazenness. 

The two of you argue again; students passing by silently exit the class, others stand and watch, and Professor Yaga can only sigh at yet another altercation between you two. 

However, it quickly dissipates when Haibara laughs from his seat. “You two, there’s never a dull moment.”

You and Gojo blink at the dark brunette before removing Gojo’s hand from your shoulders. “Hmph, it’s not like it’s my fault; he’s the one who starts it.”

“Oh, what could I possibly do to make Y/n so upset with me this time?” He pushes up his sunglasses, snickering at the scowl you send him. 

Ichiji, being the passive second-year he is, meekly changes the topic from the row below you three. “On some brighter news, at least we did well on the presentation.” 

“That’s right!” Haibara happily agrees with the statement, leaning against the chair with his hands behind his head. “Professor Yaga seemed really pleased with our arguments; I don’t think he intervened even once. Plus, he said many good things about how we handled the topic. Nice one, team!” 

The raven-haired one hums at the other’s exclamation. “I think most of it goes to how Y/n and Gojo bounced off each other’s arguments. How you two pulled up examples from the articles yet remained dignified with your viewpoints was cool to witness. I even saw some students be engaged with the conversation, many amazed with how Y/n refuted Gojo’s arguments elegantly and respectfully.”

But most of all, what the two sophomores wanted to mention was that there was no yelling. To them, the professor, and all the students of this class, you and Gojo presented your presentation without a single tone of malice, no pointless teasing, no name-calling, nothing! It was a civil conversation between two opposing sides. To everyone’s surprise — and thankful stars — today was a success.

You chuckle nervously at the praise. “Oh, come on, you two, don’t let me and Gojo take all the credit. You guys did your part. Especially you, Ichiji; you were an exceptional help for my side and finding sources I could build off from.”

Gojo, on the other hand, rolls his eyes. “Psssh, don’t butter them up like that; without us, they would’ve failed this presentation big time. No offense.” He was forced to say that when you called him by his last name and hit him with your elbow.

None taken, the two younger friends say to themselves unbeknownst to each other. 

The tall one continues, “Besides, you were the one who did most of the work. I slacked off until the last minute when you whipped me into shape.” Gojo brings his hand on top of your head for a pat. The action surprised you enough to flinch a bit. “Nice work like always, Y/n.”

Were the stars aligned differently, or did Gojo just compliment you? It certainly took you aback, especially the two others who silently kept their observation to themselves. 

You could only look at his complacent look for a few seconds before you realized the warmth of your cheeks became stronger. Averting your eyes, you remove his hand from your head. “Thanks, Gojo…” you express gratitude. “You weren’t so bad yourself.”

A cheeky smile, his dimples prominent to blind you. “Awww, would you two look at that? They’re complimenting me, too~” Another bump to the chest has him cackling like a child, and you shake your head with rolled eyes.

The two younger students observe the scene before Haibara forcibly stretches and yawns to catch the two’s attention. “Man, I’m so hungry; I skipped lunch to prepare for this presentation. Me and Ijichi are gonna meet up with Nanami at the dining hall. You guys wanna come?”

You instantly beam at the proposal; who are you to refuse a dinner with your friends? “Sure! I’d love to…Oh! Wait, let me use the restroom and fill my water bottle.”

You rummage through your backpack for your water bottle before exiting the classroom. The boys watch you descend from row after row, and Gojo says, “Don’t take too long; I’ll convince them to leave without you.”

“Hmph, go ahead and try! They invited me; I don’t know who told you to invite yourself.” You stick your tongue out at him before opening and closing the door behind you. 

Gojo watches you with a smile still plastered on his face for a few seconds before Ijichi makes a tiny cough to catch his attention, the sunglasses-wearing junior turning to look back down to the other two. He notes the albeit cheesy-smiling faces they harbor, and he lifts a brow. “The hell are you two smiling for?”

The raven-haired sophomore squeaks at the sudden firm tone, “N–Nothing!”

“Pfft, oh come on, Kiyo; let’s not act like we didn’t see what we just saw.”

Gojo catches the nuance of Haibara’s comment. “Saw what?”

“You’re over here talking about our faces, but you’re the one who’s smiling at Y/n as they leave the door?” The brunette sophomore sends a wink to his junior, whose face doesn’t change at the comment.

“And your point is?”

“Well, it seems — to me, at least —  there might be something going on with you and Y/n?” 

Gojo was prepared for that, opening his mouth to interject quickly. However, the dark-haired other beat him to the punch. “Now that you mention it, Gojo and Y/n have been kind of…stable? There's still the usual arguments, but those haven't happened as much since last week…”

“Right!?” Haibara points at Ijichi with exclamation, making the other second-year flinch. “For some reason, things seem to be a little quieter with the two of them now, not to mention them hanging out way more often. Everyone’s been talking about it; even Geto and Shoko asked if Gojo had done anything that made Y/n passive?”

“I asked Nanami about it on Monday; he thinks maybe Y/n finally knocked some sense into Gojo’s childish brain to have him be so civil to engage without yelling their head off.”

“Pffthaha, I wouldn’t go that far. Y/n did just kick him in the shin yesterday for scaring them from behind.”

“Ahh, yes, well, that was deserved.”

“You two realize I’m still standing right the fuck here, right?” No, they hadn’t because the two discerned the twitch of Gojo’s brow after conversing about the tall, white-haired boy. 

“But it’s true!”

Another voice enters the set, making Gojo raise his head, and the other two turn to their left. It was some girl and her friend. Gojo knew of her; she sat next to him during class. Again, he knew of her, meaning she had no significance to his knowledge.

And yet, she speaks to the three boys. “You and Y/n have gotten a lot more close these past weeks compared to previous semesters—“

“Real close, too!” Their friend adds on from behind. “It’s as if you two are like a couple.”

“So…Are you two….a thing?”

Gojo could tell from a mile away what this was. Obviously, the first girl has a thing for him — he can see the anxiousness from the twiddle of her thumbs and avoidant eye contact. Although he wasn’t interested, he couldn’t even answer the question the way he wanted. What the hell could he say: that you two are in a secret relationship? He knows you’d have his grave ready before he could finish that confession.

And he can’t say the two of you are in any relationship either; it’s not what you would’ve told them. To everyone else, you and Gojo are friends who would preferably be caught dead rather than lying in bed together. So, might as well keep that facade up.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” he starts with the push of his sunglasses. “Y/n is a pretty good friend, and I’d like to keep it at that.”

Haibara and Ijichi turn from Gojo to look at each other and shrug. Before turning back, something caught their eye that caused the two sophomores’ skin to turn white.

Ijichi tries to prevent Gojo from speaking further. “G-Gojo—“

However, the tall one doesn’t listen. “I mean, sure, they got a nice personality and are independent…Kinda pretty, too, not gonna lie. But they’re not really my type. I mean, have you seen them? Just a little person who likes to find trivial stuff to yell at me over. Angry at the world around them, I’d say.“

“Go. Jo.” Haibara says the junior’s name through gritted teeth, bringing his hand up by his neck and drawing an imaginary horizontal line back and forth — a gesture for Gojo to not say anymore. But unfortunately, the sign wasn’t seen, and the words kept pouring out.  

“And to be honest, can you imagine? Me and Y/n, a couple? Jesus Christ, that would be fucking exhausting to deal with, especially with someone so boring and too uncute like them. I’ve seen prettier, been with better. I feel sorry for the poor bastard who does end up with them—“

“SATORU GOJO!”

Now — that sudden burst of yell from a loud, masculine voice — that was what got Gojo’s attention. It’s what got the attention of everyone else in the room. The snow-haired student jerks to look at the professor standing at the front, the older man with a deep frown. “What?

The professor doesn’t answer him. Instead, he points to the left of him with his chin with a huff. With common sense, Gojo turns behind him to see where the older man points. And at that moment, he felt his very being drop to the soles of his feet. Haibara and Ijichi took a slow breath in unison at the immediate tension.

Behind him stood you, a lone figure holding their water bottle within three arm’s length away from the group. But that was sufficient enough for you to have heard everything said. 

Breathing suddenly felt impossible for Gojo; his entire body was stiff under your gaze. His shades could hide his eyes, but he wasn’t sure it could shield the instant shame that slapped him across the face from you. 

And that was another thing: the look you harbored was indecipherable — the true definition of disengagement. There were no widened eyes, quivering lips, or shaky hands. You stood plainly and looked as though you were detached from the entire situation. And that was what scared him the most.

This was strike one.

He dared not move when you began walking up, and your eyes then shifted to ignore his presence. “Hey, Yu,” the brunette straightened his posture at the use of the first name. “I think I’ll have to decline on that dinner offer. I’m a little tired and have a paper I need to work on…Maybe next time?”

“Uhh, yeah, sure, no problem.” He answers with a sweat.

Wait a second. Gojo tries to call for you, “Y/n—“

“Ijichi,” but you immediately shut him down and directed your attention to the other sophomore friend as you put on your coat and stuffed your water bottle back into your bag. “Be sure to submit the presentation template and sources to the course site before the end of the day, please.”

“U–Uhh, already done, Y/n.” He squeaks while reassuring.

Wait, please. The tall one tries again, “Wait, Y/n—“

“Good.” You sling your backpack on, refusing to look at the person trying to talk to you. “Well, I’ll be seeing you, then.” And with that, you turn on your heel and head down the row to leave.

No, wait, stop— “Y/n, wait!” This was strike two. 

Gojo doesn’t hesitate to call out to you. At that moment, he follows you to the class steps where you were a row down left from the door. He grabs your hand without thinking, the size of your palm captured by his slender fingers. He knew it was a risky move, but he had to — he had to get you to talk with him right now, if not ever. Because the latter is something he isn’t ready for, something he didn’t think would be a possibility.

And yet, he will learn this lesson of being prepared for the impossible when you rapidly turn to him. Strike three.

SLAP!

Have you ever seen someone get smacked in the face so hard that their sunglasses come off? The remaining two girls who witnessed it know for sure now. Haibara and Ijichi won’t admit to it as they immediately turn to the other side of the room when they saw your hand move. But please believe they winced at the sound of the impact. The same goes for Professor Yaga, who was too stunned to speak, yet it was a valid outcome. 

Gojo didn’t move a single limb, allowing the stinging feeling on his cheek to course through his facial muscles. His eyes were glued to the carpeted ground; he knew that’s where they were supposed to be. And you snatched your hand away from his grasp, leaving his fingers to suffer in forced loneliness.

“You…you think it’s all fun and games to say stuff like that when I turn my back for a few minutes, huh?” He can see your hand palpitate from his peripheral; the anger depicted alone was enough to interpret. And the tremble in your voice? It felt like an arrow to his being. “…Look at me.”

He’d be a fool to have you repeat yourself; he has lost that right to toy with you now. With a slow inhale, Gojo rotates his head at you, azure eyes tracking up your figure to your face. And when it lands at that destination, his heart is shot down.

Tears stream down vexed, watery eyes. Your brows furrowed, and your bottom lip chewed in a terrible attempt to stop it from quivering. The rise and fall of your shoulders as you moderate your breathing, trying so hard not to let your temper dwell into a deeper phase of ugly. It was bad enough you’re crying in public, in front of your peers, your teacher — and it was because of him. 

“From this day forward,” you fight your sniffles to say your statement as clearly as possible. “Don’t you ever talk to me, Satoru Gojo. Enjoy your life without something as boring as me.”

And with that, you dismiss yourself from him and the class altogether, the room silent even after the slam of the door closed. No one says anything, too shocked from the event to utter a letter. 

The silence aids the ringing in Gojo’s ears, his breathing still having trouble maintaining a balanced front. The cheek you slapped burned with pain; he’s sure the skin is as red as a cherry. 

Oh, fuck.

He brings a hand to his face, his body fighting the trembling. The ringing in his ears worsens, along with the pounding in his head that beats like a drum. His eyes stuck to the ground below him, choosing to focus on something inanimate and not living. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck—

All he could think of in this time and place was you. Memories flashing right before him, of you and only you. He can hear the way you say his name, both in vexation and in sweet tunes. Your smiles, your frowns, your huffs, your whispers. When your eyebrows scrunch whenever you express worry for him, how you’re never afraid to stand up against him when making a point, the smile that’s been blinding him for many days and nights — the smile he wouldn’t mind seeing for eternity.

All those memories were one stab to his heart after another. And every time a recollection ended, a flash of your crying face would return to haunt him. Tears that weren’t meant to be there but were, and warm feelings you expressed with him were gone the moment he saw your eyes void of feelings for him. At least, that’s what he saw.

He hurt you. That was the only revelation that haunted him where he stood, making his voice falter from confidence. It was a revelation he never meant to bring about. And now that it exists and he sees the damage, nothing would be better for him now than the ground beneath him swallowing him whole.

“What…the fuck…”

© 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐲2024 ❤︎ reblogs + comments are appreciated wholeheartedly ☆ dividers by @/cafekitsune & @/animatedglittergraphics-n-more.

[ms-demeanor]

You posted about adhd and I was hoping to follow up to clarify something. I’ve explained to my partner a million times about how the borderline-hoarding mess of his space is very mentally draining to me, and he understands but we’ve both essentially accepted he won’t clean his mess because he can’t because of his adhd. You’re saying he’s actually being a shit head?

This isn't necessarily an issue of him being a shithead, but it also isn't a sustainable situation. It's not good for you and there's a level of clutter that's probably not good for him either.

Large bastard is a lot more clutter-y than I am. The solution we've come to is trying to keep our messes at least isolated from one another; he can have his messes and I can have mine, but he can have those messes in his spaces, not all over the place. Sometimes those messes migrate, and that's when it's important for him to make the effort to rein them in rather than trying and failing to make a daily effort to keep our entire shared space tidy.

I think when you say "we've both essentially accepted he won't clean his mess" what I'm hearing is resignation; you're not happy about this but you don't know what to do so you've thrown up your hands and he feels helpless and unsure of what to do to improve the situation. This is the kind of "it's fine" that isn't really fine.

I think it would be worthwhile for you to each separately think about the mess and talk about it together. Are there areas that YOU *need* to have not-messy? Both for utility and your mental health? Are there areas where you can tolerate more mess than otherwise? Are there areas that are going to be harder for him to keep the mess out of than others? Are there things he doesn't *know* about cleaning up the mess?

I'm obviously a big "communication communication communication" person so I'm going to recommend a lot of talking about stuff, which is probably going to mean a lot of thinking about and interrogating stuff. I'm going to say "talk to him about why the mess bothers you" which means you also have to really articulate to yourself why the mess bothers you (for instance I'm not actually *bothered* by a messy kitchen, but I know it's going to reflect badly on us - and me specifically b/c of presumed gender roles - if someone pops by and the kitchen is a disaster, AND a messy kitchen is going to be harder to use). Genuinely, sometimes knowing *why* something is a problem might make it easier for someone with ADHD to do something. And it's not that he doesn't care that it upsets you, it's just that "Oh if I don't wash my breakfast dishes Anon won't have clear counterspace to make lunch" might be stickier in his brain (and less hard to look at emotionally) than "this thing I forget to do upsets my partner so I should do it."

For the record, I think that people with ADHD should read up on Demand Avoidance and see if it might explain some of the issues that they have in their day-to-day life; I've seen some really unfortunate situations with friends where trying to do things that their partner needed became the subject of demand avoidance. *I* have experienced negative outcomes of demand avoidance. The solution to that, however, isn't to stop making attempts to do the thing OR to simply try harder to do as they're asked/told (which reinforces the demand), it's to work on setting up a situation where the partners' needs are not interpreted as a demand. This is fuck-off difficult and requires a lot of patience and care and many attempts to succeed and will be different for each person and relationship.

(Also for the record demand avoidance isn't *super* strongly linked to ADHD and it's not a definitive symptom; like Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, it is something that occurs in some number of people with ADHD and can be a useful lens through which to examine various behaviors; you don't need to have DA or RSD to have ADHD, and having DA or RSD also doesn't invalidate your diagnosis; they're symptoms. For me, DA often feels like "if I don't look at it, it can't get me" - If I ignore all the messages I've got they aren't real and don't have real consequences so I'll just ignore my texts. If I don't look at the vendor email about the order, the problem with the order isn't real and it won't get added to my task list. If I don't look at the requests in my inbox I can't let people down when I don't do them. It's a self-protective coping mechanism but it's *maladaptive* and I can't just ignore the vendor email or all my texts. I need to work on a way of doing the stuff that I'm avoiding in a way that makes it less stressful and doesn't hurt the people relying on me. That takes a lot of effort, personal insight, trial and error, and )

But before I dive into specifics I want to be really really clear about one thing: sometimes people are simply incompatible. Sometimes one person has such a low tolerance for "mess" and the other person has such a high threshold for "mess" that it can't be reconciled. It sucks that this can end up being a thing that people break up over, but it is MUCH better to acknowledge incompatibility as early as possible instead of spending years and years building resentment.

There used to be a great forum called MiL's Anonymous that I spent a lot of time on. It had a lot of people in a lot of difficult situations struggling to get by and hold their relationships together. The question that was used as a litmus test to approach each situation was simple: If you knew today that everything about living with this person would be the same in five years, would you stay?

Because you can't control your partner. You can't control the future. You can only control yourself and your proximity to situations that are harmful to you. If you knew, 100%, that things wouldn't get better in five years, would you be okay with staying in this relationship? If the answer is "no," then that's that. Don't worry about questions of whether or not your boyfriend is a shithead, start the process of ending the relationship because there's a good chance the situation is going to be exactly the same in five years.

If the answer is "yes," and you'd stay in the relationship regardless of whether or not things changed, then it's time to take actions to improve your life within the context of the relationship.

(No judgement on that yes or no, btw. If you would hate living like this for another five years, and you would feel like you'd wasted your time and hadn't done the things you wanted to with your life, get out. Bail. Go. It will be better for you and better for your partner if you split instead of spending half a decade building resentments and and problems that you'll have to spend another half a decade healing from.)

Also, a note: you describe your boyfriend's mess as borderline hoarding - is the issue *mess* or is the issue *clutter*? I have friends who are very tidy, but whose homes are very cluttered. They like things, they have many things, they keep many things around, but their houses are always clean and well-dusted and orderly, just with a tremendous amount of *stuff.* I am addressing all of this as though the issue is mess, not clutter. If your boyfriend's situation is clutter (the space is busy and packed with things but it is functional and clean) and your issue isn't with *mess* (things out of place, things not having a place, things that need to be cleaned up gathering in stacks, falling behind on regular chores like laundry and dishes and taking out the trash) then you definitely need to assess whether or not you are compatible.

For instance here's a room that is messy but not cluttered compared to a room that is cluttered but not messy:

That first room is a *mess* but it would be very easy to clean up in under an hour. The second room is fairly tidy, but would take significant effort to pare down and declutter. BOTH of these can be difficult to live with but the second one is not dangerous or threatening to anyone's health. (The second one is QUITE cluttered and if every room in a house looks like this it can be overwhelming to live with; this is actually harder to deal with in a relationship than the first one in a lot of ways. I don't have a lot of advice for what to do if your partner is a high degree of tidy-but-cluttered because I don't actually think it's a problem or wrong to have thousands of books or bins full of lego or a million kitchen appliances as long as you have the space and can keep it safe and well-maintained; this is a really significant compatibility issue)

Okay, all that out of the way, here's the hard work.

Talk about this shit

Talk to your partner and define "mess." Make sure you are on the same page about what you mean when you're talking about what a messy room looks like versus what a tidy room looks like. Gather reference pictures. DRAW reference pictures.

Explain not just that the mess upsets you, but *why* and *how* it upsets you. In this context don't think of it as your boyfriend's mess, think of it as an unpleasant roommate. Discuss this using "I-statements". "When I have to pick up laundry all over the apartment, I feel like a parent more than a partner." "When there are piles of miniatures all over the table, I feel like I don't have anywhere to do things I'm interested in." "When there are dishes in the sink, I feel frustrated because I have to clean before I can feed myself."

Discuss, frankly and openly, whether he knows how to clean. I'm not trying to make excuses for him here but a lot of people with ADHD have a lot of stress and avoidance around cleaning because they spent a lot of time getting yelled at for not knowing how to clean properly.

Discuss your needs, be firm about what you require but willing to compromise. You *need* some spaces to be clean, and some spaces may be harder for him to keep clean than others. It may be MUCH harder for him to keep a bedroom tidy than it is to keep a kitchen tidy; if you need a clean and empty bedroom with everything put away and he simply cannot do that, that is a compatibility issue. But perhaps you need *your* side of the bedroom to be very orderly and can tolerate a moderate level of mess and clutter on his side. Maybe you're really really bothered by a messy kitchen, but it doesn't bug you if the dining table is covered with projects and papers. Figure out something more workable than "his mess goes everywhere and i live with it because he's incapable of cleaning" because he probably is not incapable of cleaning and you deserve to have places in your home that are comfortable for you.

Reduce friction for cleaning

Sometimes the problem isn't cleaning, the problem is the many many steps before cleaning, or not knowing where something should go when you are done cleaning. One of the absolute best things I've done for myself for cleaning my space is getting a broom holder and mounting the broom to the wall. Sweeping is now essentially thoughtless. I don't have to find the broom or pull it out from a pile of fans or go scrounging around for a dustpan it's right there on the wall, frictionless. So here are some ways to reduce the barriers to cleaning:

Make sure you and your partner both know how to use your cleaning supplies and know where those supplies are. When I switched dishwasher soap I had to re-show Large Bastard where I was storing it and how it was used, because to him what happened was the dishwasher tabs just vanished one day and he didn't know what I was putting in the machine or the process I used. He sometimes puts tools away in places that I can't see (he's more than a foot taller than me) so sometimes I can't get started on a maintenance project until he shows me where he put the battery pack for the drill.

Consider making a how-to chart to or having him make a how-to chart to keep someplace accessible so he can reference it while cleaning. Goblin.Tools Magic ToDo is great for this. Basically a lot of the time people with ADHD have trouble knowing what to do from step to step even if they've done something before, so having a step by step guide can make it easier (I have notebooks full of step-by-step guides for everything from paying for my tuition to removing licenses for my customers to weeding my yard)

Remove obstacles; don't keep cleaning chemicals in the garage in a box that's behind a stack of parts, keep them in the room you'll be cleaning. Don't keep the cleaning supplies that you use to clean the bathroom in the kitchen. Sometimes this means buying two bottles of bleach solution and two scrubbers and two sets of cleaning gloves but having fewer steps (fetch the windex, fetch the paper towels, fetch the gloves) is often the key to getting things done (open under-sink cabinet and grab windex, gloves, and paper towels that are there instead of in the kitchen).

This sort of overlaps with the next category, which is:

Create Dump Zones

One thing that I've found that seems very different between people with ADHD cleaning and neurotypical people cleaning is that neurotypical people are good at getting to a point where the cleaning is "done." They have checked off their tasks and they have finished and it is over. There are *SOME* chores that are like this (taking out the trash is a binary state, the trash has been taken out or it has not) and some chores are perpetual (horrid cursed dishes) but I think with people with ADHD, some chores that are binary for neurotypicals are actually perpetual chores. For instance "clean off the counter" is not a one and done for me. "Clean off the counter" may involve a three day reorganization project. "Clean off the counter" does not mean "wipe down the tile and put dishes away" it means assessing whether or not I need to make vegetable stock and bleaching three tea containers and reconsidering whether or not the sharps container should live somewhere else and going through the mail and figuring out what needs to be responded to and taking out the recycling and on and on and on.

We have had company at the house for the last two weeks, so I asked large bastard to clean off the dining room table, which is largely a project zone for him. Cleaning off the dining room table meant putting away his meds (and since he's a transplant patient that involves a 30 gallon rubbermade tote), throwing away some trash, and totally reorganizing his workshop. It also incidentally involved picking up a table from facebook marketplace and moving my plants, which has now involved moving my former plant rack outside (moving buckets, finding and organizing planters and gardening tools) and taking the former table to the thrift store (not done yet) and cleaning the rug that was under the former table. So "either the table is clean, or it isn't" isn't really true for us.

HOWEVER "hang on we can't eat until the table is clear so let's drive to Pico Rivera to get that console table right now" isn't a workable plan, so you create dumpzones as areas of holding between the start and the finish of the chore.

A dump zone can be a laundry basket. It can be a craft bin. It can be a back room or under your bed. It is a place to put things that you are going to deal with later because if you deal with them now it is going to derail the thing you are actually trying to do, which is set the table for dinner.

Dump zones are vital to cleaning with ADHD and I recommend them for day-to-day cleaning as well. The day-to-day dump zones might be more for you than for your boyfriend. For instance, Large Bastard works with bullets and he sheds bullets all over the house. I used to get stressed when I found bullets when I was cleaning because are these work bullets? Are these recreational bullets? Are they in testing? Do they need to be pulled? Do they go in the workshop or the office or the garage or does he need these today so they have to stay on the counter? And the answer now is "that's not my problem naughty bullets go in the jar." Which is perfectly sensible because he gets to say "mystery yarn goes in the bin" and "art supplies go in the bucket."

I feel helpless when cleaning a lot of the time. I'm frustrated and lost and I don't know where stuff goes and everything I pick up spins off into three projects in my head and every step feels like a wall to scale. Dump zones help me with that when there's pressure or a reason for cleaning beyond day to day home maintenance. People are coming over? The bedroom is a dump zone, I'll deal with that later. I'm just cleaning up because I need to? Okay I can find a permanent home for this new dish soap.

AS A VERY IMPORTANT COROLLARY TO THIS:

Active projects do not go in dump zones while you or your partner are cleaning. This may mean designating a project sanctuary area like a corner of the table or one particular chair in your main room where a project can be placed so as not to be disturbed. (if my current crochet project ends up in the yarn bin, that may mean that I don't pick the project up for another three months, it lives on the windowsill behind the couch because that's where it'll get worked on)

Do not put things away for your partner, put them in the dump zone for your partner. Your partner has to be the one to put their own stuff away in a way that works for them. I tend to find that this naturally puts a limit on the time stuff sits in the dump zone, because eventually you'll go "hey where's my thing?" and will put stuff away. If that doesn't happen, it's still generally better to have stuff in a dump zone than all over the home.

Do not decide you know what things go together from your partner's stuff and try to "put like things together." The neurotypical urge to put like things together is the mindkiller(j/k). You do not know which things are "similar" in your partner's organization schema and attempting to organize things on your own is going to end up with all of the things "organized" being functionally lost forever from your partner's perspective. Large Bastard's mom would do this and it was infuriating, she'd say "oh I put all the electronics stuff in one box" and she would mean soldering irons, transistors, ham radios, HDMI cables, and cellphone chargers. We are *still* going through boxes of stuff that she "tidied up" when he was hospitalized in 2020 and 2021.

To prevent the need for quite so many dump zones over time, you can work on setting up landing zones and "homes" for projects and tools.

Landing Zones

Landing zones are places where things go when you come inside from doing various things. Sometimes your landing zone only needs to be a tray for your wallet and keys, sometimes your landing zone needs to be a place to take off muddy boots and put a trowel and gloves down before you shower.

To make an effective landing zone, consider what behaviors you're trying to minimize and whether the people using it are ACTUALLY going to use it. For instance I was tired of the corner of my hearth getting cluttered with random junk so I hung up some hooks and put a shelf and a basket there and it became a really effective landing zone for my bag and keys and the mail, but it was VERY ineffective for Large Bastard because it's by a door that isn't the primary door he uses to enter the house. As a result I always know where my keys and bag are but he has trouble finding his keys and wallet. He tends to enter the house through our bedroom and has an overloaded valet next to the door and that's usually where his wallet ends up. Mounting a shelf to the wall above the valet and putting a basket and a hook on it will be a better place for his stuff to land. It's not that he's not using the first zone because he doesn't know that it's there, or because he doesn't care about lost time when I'm searching for my car keys after he borrows them, he's not using it because it's not by the door he uses. That's all.

I have a landing space for when I come in for gardening that's different than the one when I come in from grocery shopping. I have a landing space for when I walk into the dining room instead of the kitchen when I get home.

Landing spaces prevent stuff from piling up all over the place because they are a limited functional space that should be used frequently. Mail ONLY goes in the landing zone. If you have mystery mail or if you're not sure it's safe to toss, you put it in the landing zone. You can't let the mail get piled up too high or you won't have a space for your keys. You can't let the change in your wallet tray get too deep or your wallet is going to slide off, etc., but you also don't just put change on the coffee table or your nightstand because the landing zone is right there.

Homes for items are just what they sound like. They're the place the item goes. It lives there. My meds live on my nightstand. You would not believe how poorly I did with taking my meds on my vacation because they weren't on my nightstand. A while back large bastard lost one of his sets of sorted meds and we tore the house up looking for them because he couldn't find them in his nightstand, which is where they live. *I* found them in his nightstand because I emptied out the entire top drawer (he had only looked on the top layer) and found them underneath a radio and a hammock. Even though they were *hidden* they were in their home, so they were findable. I recently needed ink for an art class. Art supplies live in a dresser by my desk. Ink lives in the art bin or the top left drawer. The ink was not in either of these places (it was on a cabinet in the dining room behind a teacup) so it took me weeks to find it.

Sometimes the reason that ADHD spaces are so messy is because objects have been assigned homes in places that are visible and if they get moved they get lost. This is a genuinely difficult problem that requires a lot of effort to solve and can involve a lot of trial and error for creating a tidy living space. For some people, open shelving and visible storage might be a good solution. For some people, assigning a VERY clear home and inculcating that location by habit is the only way to clean up a space. For some people one very cluttered corner to at least isolate the chaos does the trick (for me and large bastard open shelving doesn't work because anything in one place for too long becomes invisible; that means that I rely on assigning things homes and large bastard relies on having contained chaos and a general idea of where to search but what that DOES NOT mean is that he is clean or tidy. His spaces look like an explosion. But he can mostly find his stuff and do what he needs to do and as long as that's limited to specific places in shared spaces I can live with it; the dining room table can be a disaster, the kitchen cannot).

People organize things differently. It often takes a while for neurotypical adults to settle into an organizational style that works for them and ADHD adults may need to settle into a new system every few months for it to continue working. The cleanup and declutter is most likely going to be a permanent project that is always going to demand some level of attention from everyone in a shared space, but "my ADHD means I can't do it" is not really going to fly. Maybe his ADHD means that he can't keep his space tidy, but it doesn't mean you can't move stuff from shared spaces into dump zones or that he can't do stuff around the house.

If he's insisting that his ADHD means that he can't clean it is possible that he's not being a shithead, he just feels helpless and doesn't know where to start and has adopted the belief that he's a useless piece of shit who can't even keep a tidy space like a grownup because he's internalized a lot of shitty attitudes (hello, my internal monologue about keeping a clean house). But it's also possible that he's just being a shithead.

It's something that's worthwhile to investigate with him. If he's unwilling to make an attempt, then he's being a shithead.

It is also not your responsibility to rehabilitate another person. If he wants to clean and it's something he feels bad about and needs some help and support with the way that someone might need help or support for learning to use a mobility aid, that is fine but you don't have to be the one who gives him that support if it's detrimental to your health, and you don't have to be the one to teach him that stuff if it's not something you're capable of. And if he is NOT interested in working on making your shared living space more accessible for you, that is not your suitcase to unpack and you just have to ask yourself the question from the start: would I stay with this person if I knew the situation was never going to change?

IDK, I'm sure a lot of this reads like "anon you must take on the emotional labor of training your partner to be an adult" but it's really meant to be more of a way of assessing yourself and your relationship. If you created landing zones do you think he'd use them? Would he get angry if you assigned a laundry basket as a dump zone for his stuff while you tidy the living room? Is living with him long-term going to be comfortable for you if nothing changes? Do you have enough of a shared definition of "mess" that you're at least in the ballpark for what counts as a clean house?

anyway good luck, and a reminder to folks that I'm compiling a bunch of adhd resources and other information on my personal website, ms-demeanor.com. It's coming along slowly but it will eventually include stuff like ADHD cleaning tips and how to tackle a hoard, so maybe keep your eye on that space.

[raksh-writes]

<beware, self reflection post incoming>

So. This year has been a tough one.

Feels like it has been tougher than all of those before, ngl, but it's hard to tell how much of it is skeved memory and how much just how strong those feelings are today. But it has been an awful year -- the first half was kind of alright, but the second? Yeah, everything went downhill there.

I slid into one of the worst depression holes ever. I quit my job two months ago, because it has been contributing strongly to that, but remained unemployed and stressed out of my mind because of that and feeling completely listless since. Unmoored. With no purpose whatsoever. It's... not a good place to be. On top of that, I got real sick with covid this week and barely started feeling somewhat better today. Guess it's a suficiently shitty end to an awful year, huh? What hurts, too, is the heart breaking writer's block I got in that second half of the year too.

I wrote barely anything this year, posted even less. Got very disconnected from that part of myself that carried me through the rough times of the previous years -- and maybe that's why it feels worse than ever now, when I had at least that joy back then but it feels like it's been taken from me. It's... rough.

I've always been in the middle of something before too. Always going back to classes, to uni, got a job last year, but now? Well...

I did start taking steps to crawl back to life. Trying to at least. Baby steps.

So, I wanna make a list of those baby steps. The ones Ive already started taking, the ones Im gonna soon, the ones I wanna try to make. Make a path out of them, maybe. So:

Im back to therapy, that's good. Working through new and old stuff, it's definitely helping, but... there's a lot more to work through than I imagined. It's okay, though. I can already tell some of it helped, it's been a good helping hand in digging myself out of this hole - or at least starting to dig myself out.

Im also starting an internship at the job office on monday (hopefully most of my symptoms are gonna be gone by then 🤞). It's a 6 months one, not as well paid as a full job, of course, but it's experience, it's a start, and I can always search for smth different in the meantime. And it's stability a dearly need.

I want to go back to studying too. I found I miss it a lot, having that goal, broadening my mind, etc. I wanna sign for some post-diploma library studies classes in the city where I intern, near where I live. It might not open up, but if it doesn’t, I think I'll try going back for actual Masters. It's something Im actually sort of looking forward too, even if it makes me a lil' anxious.

Been idly thinking about maybe going back to the city. Trying to live on my own again. Study, find a job to pay for it. Might not be quite possible, though, with prices of pretty much everything going up to 3x what they were and still going up. It's an idea for the later part of the year, though, if Id actually try going for it.

Maybe the most obvious one -- I want to write again. And post, too. I miss interacting with readers. Seeing that someone Gets it. That it brings people joy. I miss it a lot. These last months, even if I managed to write a little, I didn't even had the drive to post. No drive for anything, really. Feels like death to a creative soul 😔 So I want to write. And I want to share it. Im still thinking of my Beauty and the Beast Voiles AU -- I have a couple chapters of it done, maybe I could start posting and see where it goes, even if I dont manage to finish it? Then I got obsessed with VegasPete, an amazing ship I recommend to all that like Voiles or just enemies to lovers! I even managed to write some lil bits of them, some I Could post even, but I can’t get myself to... maybe it's a goal for the near future. To break through that block and engage with new fandom beyond just reading and commenting, but trying to contribute some of my own. It's scary, but it might do me good? It'd be nice..

I want to try and do more typesetting this year too, and properly, since Ive been thinking I could maybe do it part time in the future, do a project here and there, but for that I'd have to polish up my skills. Maybe do some smaller projects, that wont take me months to finish like the fics I did lately.

Have my eyes peeled for opportunities and have the courage to reach for them. I want to do library studies and Id love to work in a library one day, but its hard to get into one, so I gotta have my eyes open for any possibility. Or working in a book store, Id love that too. Anything with books, tbh. So, be on the look out. And work on having the courage to reach for it and battling down my anxiety.

Go out and meet with friends I haven't seen in a long time. I think Ive isolated myself a bit too much this year and it definitely hasn’t helped. So I need to try more to get out of the easy, lazy way and go out to meet people.

And that's it, for now, I think. Goals for the new year? Maybe, but being in the place I am, baby steps feel better. Im sure Im not the only one that had an awful year and if you're reading this, feeling the same, I see you. Can’t promise it's gonna get better, but we gotta have hope and try taking those baby steps towards making it better. So, Im not gonna go into elaborate wishes, Im just gonna be simple.

I wish you all good health, because it's so important and yet we don’t appreciate it enough, and also wish all of us courage, especially those struggling. To reach for what we want. To reach for what we fear. To get out of our comfort zones, one baby step at a time. To put ourselves out there. To win over our anxieties. To live.

Im slowly, very slowly, trying to take those baby steps. To crawl back to life. It's hard. And slow. But I hope it's gonna be worth it. It's gotta be better than the misery of last months. So, that's what I hope for in the next year. Taking the baby steps to a better future.

Happy New Year, everyone, and I hope y'all have a lovely last day of 2022 💗