#but he did enjoy it and see it as come back because few years earlier Antonio knocked out one of his front teeth | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

erwinsvow · 8 months

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𝐜𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐞, 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤, 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐬

summary: aaron hotchner is a lot of things. in love with you is one that you never saw coming.

word count: 7.1k

author's note: bau!reader + hotch is my favorite combo ever. i haven't written and posted in, like, two years so please be nice :) i've written so many other versions of hotch but this one just wrote itself. inspired by the amazing @luveline and so many breathtaking hotch stories and isabel (alisdas on ao3, not on here anymore i think :( ) who wrote of terrible coffee and late-night rides which i think started all of this and my immense aaron brain rot when i read that fic, like, three years ago. enjoy!

This was wrong, Aaron thought to himself. He seldom committed acts that others might say were wrong, or argue they could potentially be wrong, but this was different. Aaron felt wrong, a feeling he was not used to.

“I’m worried about you, that’s all,” you had said quietly on the jet early one morning. You two were sitting across from each other on the flight back from the team’s latest solved case, an excruciating long ride home from the coast of Oregon.

Your book laid open on your lap, unread and a bookmark tucked between the earlier pages. The spine was cracked, like you’d read it a hundred times before. He knew that wasn’t true though, it was just a used novel probably from the thrift store around the corner of your apartment.

You had told him once, back when you first started—back when he was still married and you were less affected by this job—that you liked finding used (pre-loved, you call it) books and picking the most worn out ones to take home. You said it means that someone used to love this book.

It felt wrong because you were too young for him, and too innocent to be mixed up in his life. What could you know about his thoughts? About the love of his life that divorced him and his son he only sees once in a while.

The rest of the team makes jokes with you, in particular JJ and Penelope. He’s even heard Emily pitch in, about your not-so-secret fondness for your boss. For him.

Back when you had first started, it was nothing. Passing glances, working extra hard to please him and earn his praise—which was never given out generously. He hadn’t even taken the time to notice, never paid more attention than any other member of the team. What he did notice was your work ethic.

Being among the youngest of the team had instilled a drive in you to prove your worth. You always stayed an hour extra, came early, and spent nights working the case even when you were yawning every few minutes. The most attention he’d given you back then was commenting that you’d had a good insight into the unsub, commending you on well-written reports and briefs, and offering you a cup of coffee when it was just you and him left in the sheriff’s office. He’d be rereading seemingly endless pages of the case reports and you’d be diving headfirst into the victim’s lives.

Your specialty was always understanding why the victims did what they did, figuring out their routines and ascertaining important details from their personal belongings. He was used to you flicking through diaries and boxes of mementos that were once treasured by another young girl, not so much older than yourself.

He’d be lying if he hadn’t thought it was impacting you—reading through the journals of dead women who had been very similar to yourself, with similar hopes and dreams. It was depressing, he knew, and yet if you were bothered by it, you didn’t show it in the slightest. At least not to him.

And back then, he’d never notice the sweet smile that always graced your face when he was asking you if you’d like coffee. You’d shake your head no, and take sips of water between your yawns. You didn’t even tell him that you don’t drink coffee until a few months later, after he asked if you’d ever like a cup when he offered. He can remember it clearly even now.

“Actually, Hotch, I don’t drink coffee.” Your cheeks were tinged with color like you were embarrassed to even be admitting this to him.

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner? I would have stopped asking three months ago.” If he sounded stern, he didn't mean to. The burning on your face deepened.

“I didn’t want to be rude. I drink tea though, but I didn’t think to mention it. It’s not as easy to make.”

“Well, let me know if you need a cup of hot water then.”

You had smiled at that, and he had turned around to take another picture on the bulletin board. He smiled a little too.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” he said, maybe a little too gruffly. He didn’t mean it, again, but it just came out that way. He thinks some part of him is trying to warn you to stay away before you get too close.

“We’re all worried. You went through something really big and didn’t tell any of us and even if you don’t care about us like that, I care about you. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Aaron’s gaze casts around the rest of the jet. Derek has his headphones in, staring out the window and trying to resist sleep. JJ and Emily are playing cards—they should be sleeping, but they had a little too much espresso a few hours before. They’re too far away to hear you and Aaron speaking, but he notices JJ’s eyes darting over every once in a while. Spence is asleep, and he realizes that’s why it’s so quiet. Dave is reading a book, too, but he’ll stop and interject into JJ and Emily’s conversation.

He looks back at you, sleepy-eyed and wrapped in a warm, boxy pullover from your alma mater. He thinks a little bit too much about you these days, and he can’t get it to stop. He shouldn’t profile anyone on the team, they have a strict moratorium on that, but especially not you.

You, who never fails to try to make anyone feel better when they’re down. You, who doesn’t make it seem like you’re analyzing their behavior, but rather observing and offering comfort in hard times. You remember everything the team tells you about their likes and dislikes, never forgetting a birthday or special occasion. He can distinctly recall fresh chocolate chip cookies on Derek’s birthday, carrot cake from the Italian bakery Rossi loves to celebrate when his latest book became a bestseller, and a new knick knack for Penelope’s office after a particularly brutal case.

You say it’s all in passing, but he knows it’s not. You’re trying your hardest to keep the team together in the little ways, strengthening bonds that extend beyond coworkers. You want to fit in and be accepted, and you worry so much that you won’t. This is your way of trying to show that you’re a part of this team too, not just the new girl and one of the young ones.

Aaron blinks twice. You’re looking at him expectantly, and he wishes you wouldn’t. All he’ll do is disappoint you.

“You don’t need to worry,” he repeats. “I’ll be fine.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say that. Why is it so bad for us to worry about you?” You look like you’re starting to get upset—it hurts Aaron more than he realized it would. It’s not bad for the others to worry, it’s bad for you. If you get attached, if he lets this get unprofessional, he doesn’t think he’ll ever forgive himself. Hurting himself is one thing; hurting you is another entirely.

“Let it go, Agent. Try to get some rest.” He looks out the window. He can see the sun coming up, and realizes he hasn’t slept since the night before last. He still needs to drive home—not really home, he remembers sadly, his empty apartment— and work on reports before he can even see Jack. He doesn’t think resting now is a good idea, and yet his body is so tired.

When he looks back, you’re reading your book again but your eyes are really paying attention to the words on the page. You’re just skimming, and blinking rapidly, and he realizes then he’s made you tear up.

His phone goes off—Haley, and he feels guilt building up in his chest, almost overwhelming him. He steps away to answer and talks quietly. He doesn’t want you to overhear and worry even more. When he comes back to his seat, you’ve fallen asleep. He takes the book from your hands gently and puts the bookmark in, closing it and resting it on the seat beside you. He watches you sleep and wonders if he’s making a mistake trying to hide from you. He thinks, and not for the first time, that you see right through him.

The plane lands an hour and a half later, and everyone is beyond exhausted. Even Spencer, who normally doesn’t need much energy or caffeine to start talking fast about something interesting he noticed about this case and this unsub, is unusually quiet. They’re all running on fumes, staying up two nights in a row profiling and then catching the unsub with the latest victim at one in the morning, and then boarding the jet soon after.

Aaron makes a decision, everyone can work on their notes from home and the report is due no later than day after next. Derek pats him on the shoulder and says no one is to call him for the next twenty-four hours. JJ and Emily exchange a laugh. Y

ou, he notices, though he wishes he wouldn’t, go up to Spencer and talk with him quietly. When you’re done, he beams at you and you at him. He wonders what you two talked about when they’re all heading out, listening to Spencer ramble about how the unsub’s use of his childhood spots as disposal sites offers insight into the abuse of his youth. Prentiss tells him to save it for the report.

He and Rossi are walking back to their cars when Dave speaks up for the first time.

“You’re wondering what she said to him, aren’t you?”

Aaron stops for a moment.

“You should know better than to profile me.”

“Oh, I’m not profiling. This is just me being observant. You should stop fiddling with your ring finger when you talk to her. It’s a dead giveaway.”

“Dave, I don’t need to tell you that this conversation—“

“I know, I know. I won’t mention it again if you don’t want me to.”

“Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“See you tomorrow, Aaron. And by the way, she offered to write his notes for him if he wanted. He said it’s hard for him to write about unsubs with schizophrenic tendencies and she said she can try to help, if he wants. That’s all. Let me know when you’re ready to talk about this.”

Aaron gets in his car and doesn’t stop thinking about you the entire ride home.

You wish you could make it stop. The way you feel about your boss. It started so long ago, it’s almost a part of you now. Aaron is stern and his disposition is frightening, to the say the least. But only at first, you’ve realized, after so many late evenings spent discussing the case with him, breaking down the tiniest details, and him paying attention to your every word when you discuss the victim’s demeanor and behavior to try to figure out what had really happened.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, you thought. You had gone to the overpopulated state school with the hopes of entering the medical field. You were a true empath, and there was no one’s suffering you couldn’t relate to, no one that you wouldn’t try to make feel better. All your life, people cried on your shoulder while you offered up words of comfort. And because of this, everyone thought you were a shoo-in for nursing or medical school, where you could help people through the worst days of their life.

All it took was a few days at the hospital where you had been working, a string of murder victims being wheeled in one after another, for you to reconsider your life’s work. None had survived the incident, but the killer let them live just long enough to be seen by the doctor, who then had to declare them legally dead.

Something about the victims seemed familiar to you, how they’d all come from wealthy families and were sliced up in their expensive clothing, expensive jewelry and watches smashed to bits instead of being stolen. You mentioned it to one of the officiers, who told someone else, and somewhere in that chain of events, your insight helped them catch the killer.

It was then, you thought, that maybe you should be working on the other side of these situations. Stopping the killer before it ever got to this.

Then you’d done a one-hundred and eighty degree spin on your career, electing to pursue becoming an agent. You had been young, and motivated, and you chose to overlook when everyone told you this job might become your whole life, leaving no time for a husband and kids and a family.

You had ignored it all, working your way up from the local field office to child crimes in just a year and a half. The transition out of sex crimes to homicide was disturbingly hard, because at least before you’d had a victim to interview. You were no expert, not yet, but a unique asset altogether, combining a true mission to uncover the best in each victim, and figuring out their behavior patterns from bedrooms and diaries.

It was a unique skill-set, acquired mostly because a lot of traumatized children didn’t offer much to go off of. You had to turn to their childhood homes, toys, and scribbles to figure out what had been going on in the first place.

You reflect often on why you decided to leave child homicide when news spread that the BAU had an opening for one more agent. Truthfully, you hadn’t considered it at all, since you were more than happy with your current position and coworkers. You were solving cases, delivering justice, and bringing whatever comfort you could bring to grieving families.

In fact, you had been requested specifically. You, out of a hundred or more well-established, intelligent agents that could be a huge asset to the team. You were never special, and you didn’t like to think of yourself in that way either, but you couldn’t deny how good it felt to hear that the team wanted you.

And when you transferred over, everyone was so nice. The team was inviting, they respected your opinion, and especially in cases with younger victims, they revered your knowledge. You felt included, and invaluable, and as hard as you worked, you wanted to work even harder.

Your boss was a brilliant agent and profiler, and so hardworking that you wanted to do anything you could to make his workload a little easier. You wrote the most detailed reports, so he would have to edit them as much.. You offered to pick up extra briefs, so he took home a couple less papers. And no matter what you did, acknowledged or not, you knew you were making the kind of difference you’d always dreamed you would.

Aaron—he was only ever Aaron in your head, and Hotch the rest of the time—liked you as an agent, and it made you happy. A little happier than you should be, considering he was happily married with a toddler and a perfect life outside of work. It was almost wrong, but it didn’t stop you from trying to impress him with your work ethic.

You always put aside your other feelings and focused on the team, and somehow in all of that, you felt like you were finally making your difference. You were close with the team and close enough with Aaron, that you hadn’t been worried to start that conversation on the jet now that all these circumstances were changing. Haley had asked for a divorce and he hadn’t muttered a word of it to anyone.

He’s so tired, you can see. You wonder if everyone else notices it too, or if it’s just you observing so closely. He has dark circles now, because he never sleeps, always working, and the furrows on his forehead are seemingly etched in and permanent. He misses his wife and his son, and you know it, and maybe it’s wrong to care about your boss so much that your heart hurts when you see him glancing at the framed photos of his family on his desk, or the tiny polaroids in his wallet, but you do. You think you’re in love with Aaron Hotchner, and you don’t know how to make it stop.

You’re gonna get hurt, you remind yourself every now and then.

Aaron and Spence have just come back from the prison, where they had an encounter with Chester Hardwick that they won’t really talk about. You’d been with the rest of the team in Indiana, and then two days later in Oregon.

Aaron and Haley were divorcing, and it hurt him so much, you knew, because it wasn't for a lack of love. It was a lack of time, a shortness of hours in the day. He couldn’t be the husband Haley wanted and the father he thought Jack needed while being an agent for eighteen hours a day. It hurt you too, seeing him like this. You wish he felt better.

The days and weeks seemed to blend into months. Somewhere in between Hotch’s divorce and JJ’s pregnancy, you had become complacent with your relationship with Aaron. Walking in together from the parking lot, leaving together at the end of a long day—usually alone and sometimes joined by Emily or David. Sometimes you’d have a frothy drink from a nearby coffee shop in your hand—to which you always hear, “My coffee’s not better than that stuff?”

“It’s not coffee, remember-”

“I know, you don’t drink coffee. That stuff is full of sugar. I don’t need you bouncing off the walls like Reid and Garcia too.”

You laugh, and then you wonder if it’s because he really cares or if it was just a passing comment. You share a lot of little moments like that.

When his eardrum was nearly blown out after New York, you almost offered to drive back with him from Ohio to Virginia. It was instinct, because you just didn’t want him to be alone. You had exchanged a glance when he handed you the plate of brownies from the victim’s mother, and you knew he had read your mind. But he didn’t say anything, and you left it at that. You’re not nearly stupid enough to think that your boss reciprocates your feelings for him. Hell, most days you don’t even know what feelings you have for him.

Your seats on the jet are almost permanently fixed; near the coffee machine towards the cockpit. You sit across from each other, and sometimes you don’t even speak. He’ll bring you a cup of hot water, and he doesn’t ask if you need a tea bag from the make-shift coffee station, because knows they’re in your go-bag.

When it’s his weekend with Jack after two weeks of back-to-back cases, Aaron is always working on the reports on the jet. It’s because he’s trying to reduce how much work he has to do at home, and even when everyone’s fallen asleep and your eyes are close to shutting, you get up and make him a cup of coffee. He’s never once told you how he takes it, and he doesn’t know if you’ve seen him make it either, but somehow you know, and it’s always right. When you offer him the steaming paper cup, he looks up at you with an entirely new look—something you’ve never seen before. You two don’t exchange so many words.

He says it all with his eyes, sometimes, even when you’re not looking. It’s gratitude. (When you get off the jet a few hours later, you tease Morgan about his snoring. Derek asks you where his cup of coffee is, and you shove his arm so hard he almost drops his bag.

In the end, it was you who had figured out there was something wrong with the Reaper’s last few victims.

“Why would a nineteen year old girl date her teaching assistant?” You had questioned, looking through a file that everyone’s eyes had already seen. “An honors student, a freshman, I mean, none of this points to an illicit affair with faculty. She knew it was against the rules and her roommates said she’s never so much as skipped class.”

“That could have been because she wants to see him,” Derek interjects. “If they were truly in love like Foyet said, she’d take every opportunity to be with him.”

“But in an environment where no one can know you two are together? I mean, if she was in love and close to getting engaged, wouldn’t she tell her best friends? Her parents? How many teenage girls keep something like that just to themselves?”

The pieces of the puzzle that had once fit together so nicely were coming undone. It felt like the blink of an eye, from catching Foyet to him escaping. Everyone was on edge, no one more than Aaron, and your empathy still knew no bounds. Where you had once been able to focus on work and dedicate all your thoughts to the cases, you now were distracted and distant. Every other thought was about Aaron, as wrong as that might be.

Canada had been something else entirely. It was difficult for the entire team to fathom, but nearly impossible for you. You had lost your temper twice—something you’d never done before— and thrown up when the team discovered all the shoes. JJ had run after you but in the end, Aaron was the one who found you outside.

“I’m sorry, JJ, I’ll be fine—I-I just need a minute,” you breath out, chest heaving and tears brimming.

“It’s okay,” Aaron says, “take your time.”

You turn around so fast, your breath catching, and you hate this situation. You could never hate Aaron but you hate this, you hate that he followed you and that he’s seeing you like this. You look weak, after two and a half years of trying to prove to him that you’re strong—strong enough to handle this job, do what needs to be done, and not cry at a crime scene.

“I-I’m sorry, I-”

“Why are you apologizing?” He doesn’t sound mad, or like he’s belittling you, and you don’t know why that’s what you expected. This is Aaron, your Aaron, and even though he’s not really yours it doesn't seem to matter much right now.

“I’m making a scene. I-I shouldn’t be throwing up on the job or screaming at those unsubs or anything else-”

“It’s okay. It happens.” Aaron says it so concisely, you almost feel better for a second. Isn’t this what it’s always come down to? You need Aaron like air, and somehow he always knows what you need to hear. He doesn’t treat you any differently compared to the others but it feels different today. You can’t describe it in words. If JJ or Morgan had followed you out here, you would have said the same things, but you wouldn’t have felt this way. Like if you crumble here today, Aaron will be there to pick you up.

“Take your time, please,” he repeats. “I know you think you have something to prove to me, but you don’t. You’ve proven it already, to all of us. Admitting that all of this gets to you isn’t a bad thing. That’s what separates us from them.”

At that moment, a dam bursts. Tears flow down your face like they haven’t in so long, as long as you can remember. You think you should feel embarrassed, crying in front of your boss, but Aaron takes you into his arms and you can’t remember the last time you felt this safe. Cheesy, you think, but this is everything I thought it would be and more.

You’re not sure how long he holds you there, but eventually once the front of his shirt is covered in your tears and he offers you a tissue (Does he just carry this around waiting for one of us to cry?) and you head back together. This is the embarrassing part, you think, bracing yourself and biting your inner cheek. But if the team is judging you at this moment, they certainly don’t show it.

You join JJ and Emily inside the house, who ask you if you’re okay when you sniffle for the last time. Spencer asks you later, on the way home. Derek tells you to call him if you need anything. Dave tells you, “You’ll be okay, kid,” and somehow, you believe him. Penelope texts you once on your phone, checking in and promising a distracting, gossip filled girl’s night out soon.

Aaron walks you to your car, and says goodnight. You’re delusional, you think, once you're back at home. You’ve taken the longest, hottest shower imaginable and your record player is emitting the scratchy sound of your favorite Beatles album. You’re in a big shirt that’s getting wet while you brush your freshly cleaned hair and all you can think about is how it felt to be wrapped in Aaron’s arms a couple hours ago.

You are delusional, you remind yourself. You’re checking your phone every couple minutes like a love-sick teenager. You think Aaron’s going to call you to check in, you almost feel it in your bones. You leave the ringer on incase he calls later—maybe he showered and sat down to work on some reports before sleeping. You fall asleep thirty minutes later, exhausted down to your bones, and wake up startled by your phone going off. In your sleepy delirium, you answer without looking who it is—assuming it’s Aaron.

“Hotch?”

“Hey, sorry it’s JJ. We have another case, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, JJ, um, okay, I-I’ll be there in ten. Text the address, okay?” Your cheeks burn at the slip.

“I sent it just now. Listen, I’m sorry, but can you try Hotch’s cell? I called and texted and he’s not answering.” You feel your stomach turn, first because Aaron isn’t answering and he always answers, and second because JJ thinks he’ll answer if you call.

“I’ll try him now. I’ll call you back.”

You try him twice while changing and another time in the car. Your only explanation is that maybe he went to see Jack and put his phone away, but even that doesn’t check out.

When you get to the scene, you inform the others about Aaron not answering.

“Alright, let’s split up for now and I’ll keep trying Hotch,” Derek says. They don’t seem that worried, and maybe that lulls you into not worrying either. After all, they’ve known him a lot longer than you have.

You end up with Spencer and Emily at the doctor’s house, combing through patient files Garcia sent over. There’s tens of dozens, and even though you want to go with Emily to Aaron’s place to get him, you know your experience with kids and in the hospital is vital. You and Spencer start working, but something feels off. You just can’t place it.

In the end, you attribute it to your nerves from the last case. Your fear of embarrassing yourself carried into today, and even though you know no one judged you for losing it in Canada, the feeling lingers. Spencer answers the phone from Emily and says that Hotch was busy with something at the bureau that now requires Emily too. In the end, you and Spence figure it out just in time. Your body is so tired, it hurts, and then on top of that, Spencer gets hurt. You can barely process what’s happening, and you don’t feel better until the doctor says it’s through-and-through.

“God, Spencer, never do that again,” you say, your hands wet with the blood from his wound. You wipe it on your clothes, thinking you’ll change soon.

“Guys, guys listen to me, something’s happened to Hotch.” The blood drains from your face and your breath stops in your throat.

“What?”

“Emily told me not to say anything until we got the unsub, but he’s in the hospital.”

The next hour is a blur. You all show up to the hospital, and Emily is talking to a bunch of agents. Their faces are blurred because you can hardly think straight.

“Em? Is he okay?” your words must be coming out frantically because everyone’s looking at you like you’re about to crumble.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t say anything because I knew we wouldn’t be able to think straight about the case, I know it’s wrong but-”

“Is he okay?” You didn’t mean to cut her off, it just happened like that. Your mind is so clouded right now with a petrifying vision of Aaron dying alone on the floor of his new apartment that he hates so much, while you were waiting for a call for him.

“He-he hasn’t woken up yet.”

You sit on a chair by Aaron’s bed. He looks like he’s sleeping, and a part of you had always wanted to see him like this. It would be comforting, if he actually was sleeping. You’d imagined it a little differently—you thought for sure he snores and sleeps on his side. You always notice sleep lines only on one arm when you guys have just woken up and continue working on the case. You stare extra hard when he rolls up the sleeves of his dress shirt on particularly hot days. Everyone would moan and groan about another case in the heat of Texas or Arizona, but not you.

It seems like those memories were a million years ago.

When he wakes up, everyone pours in and it distracts you for a few heartbeats. When they realize what Foyet is actually after, the terror is apparent on everyone's faces. You realize how long it’s been since you last saw Haley and Jack when they finally step into the room. You and Emily leave to give them privacy.

Later that night, you’re back in that chair. Aaron wakes up for a few minutes at a time, and when he finally stays awake, he notices you.

“How long have I been out?”

“Thirty minutes. Give or take.”

“Is there water?”

“Yeah, yeah.” You scramble up to get the pitcher and pour him a glass. There’s a straw too, which you put in the cup and hold still for a second so he can drink.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah.” He can see all your emotions on your face. It doesn’t take him long at all, not anymore. You’ve been crying and your clothes have blood on them. He’s alarmed again.

“Is that your blood?” he asks, swallowing hard.

“No, no, Hotch. We had a case, the-the unsub shot Spence. He’s okay though, it just got on me and I haven’t been back home to change yet.”

“Why don’t you? Go home?”

“I didn’t want to leave you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I let you go home alone yesterday and look what happened.” You smile meekly at your own joke, hoping he appreciates it. He lies still though, not smiling.

“I think you should go home. Get some rest after everything.”

“You know, Hotch, only you would tell me to go home and rest up when you’re the one who’s currently in the hospital.”

“I just think-”

“Do you want me to leave? If you do, I will. I swear.” There’s silence between you two for a moment.

“No.”

“Good, because I wasn’t going to.” The corners of his mouth turn up a little. You barely even notice it. “I can’t leave now. I don’t want you to sit alone here.” You should stop talking, you think to yourself. But you don’t. “You know yesterday, I got home and the whole time I sat there wondering if you were gonna call my cell. I even turned the ringer up all the way so I didn’t miss it. And I know that’s stupid because why would you call me? But I had this feeling. And now all I can think is why didn’t I call you?”

“Don’t think like-”

“Don’t think like that? Yeah, I knew you would say that. But if I had called you like I wanted to, and asked you to come over like I wanted to, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. But I didn’t because I was scared and I don’t want to be scared anymore. And I know this is the last thing you need to hear right now, but I guess I can’t hold it in any longer.”

You want to clamp your hand over your mouth. Your favorite cheesy rom-coms have infiltrated your brain, and you can’t fathom how stupid you must sound right now to Aaron. He’s just almost died and the kid who was the last to join his team is declaring love for him on his hospital bed. But it won’t stop coming out.

“Can I tell you something Aaron? I mean, more than I already have? Emily said she didn’t tell me you were hurt because she knew I wouldn’t be able to think straight about the case anymore. About anything, anymore, if I knew you were missing or that you were hurt or dead. And I’ve been trying to hide it for so long, because I know you don’t need any more complications in your life right now, but, I think I have feelings for you, Aaron.” Hot tears stream down your face. You try to stop them but you can’t. They’ve been building up for two years.

“Please don’t cry. I don’t have a tissue for you this time.” You smile through your tears, but your entire body is still tense. It’s because you’re still expecting bad news, still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Do you want me to leave? I can call Emily, she’ll sit with you if you don’t want to be alone.”

“I don’t want you to leave. And you don’t have to tell me these things, I already knew them.” Another few tears drip down your face. Aaron’s chest hurts more than it has ever before. He thinks back to your conversation on the jet that day, when you told him you cared about him and he hadn’t said much of anything at all. “I hope you know that I have feelings for you, too.”

“You mean you care about me and the team?” you question half-heartedly. You think you’ve already gotten your answer. “I mean I care about the team a lot. And I care about you more than I should, more than what’s right. More than a superior should care about one of their agents. And I think if this hadn’t happened, I would have called you last night. Not because of the case, because of you. Because I need to make sure you’re okay.”

Your heart thumps uncomfortably in your chest. Aaron reaches out his hand a little, and you take it into yours. You sit like that for a long time, and you know there’s so much else going on, but a small part of you sighs in relief. Aaron is okay, and he feels about you how you do about him, and maybe everything will be okay in the end.

The months after Haley’s funeral are tough for everyone. It’s weird going to work and not seeing Aaron. Sometimes you inadvertently make a cup of coffee how he likes it and have no one to give it to. You started drinking some, even though it tastes bitter and terrible, it makes you feel close to him.

How stupid is that, you wonder one day, sipping the coffee and looking over files with JJ. If the rest of the team thinks you're stupid, they haven’t shown any signs of it yet. You’re sure they mostly feel bad for you and your pathetic behavior. You’ve gotten sloppy because you can’t stop thinking about how Aaron is doing.

You and the team will go visit him and Jack at his new place. You make cookies, snickerdoodle for Aaron and oatmeal raisin for Jack.

“What kind of a kid are you?” you questioned, helping Jack scribble in his Captain America coloring book. He’s munching on a cookie while you try to figure out what part of the shield is blue and what part is red. “I mean, who likes oatmeal raisin cookies at the tender age of 5?”

“I did,” Spencer says, taking another one out of the tin.

“You don’t count, genius,” Morgan says, and then directs his gaze at you. “And I mean come on, no chocolate chip for me? None at all? That hurts.”

“I made you some like two weeks ago! I have a job, you know,” you fire back. Aaron laughs, eating the snickerdoodle after dipping it in milk. It’s so domestic, you feel yourself staring. You only turn away when he catches you looking.

When he comes back, you wonder if it’ll ever feel normal again. That silly routine you two had, the chairs on the jet near the coffee machine that you still sit in, walks to your car.

At first, it just feels strange. So much has changed yet the team’s dynamic remains the same. You get through cases with the same ferocity you had when you first started, eager to prove your worth again. Your reports detail every detail and then some, and you stay even later than Aaron some nights. You need something to focus on, and your cases seem like the best option. The other option is to have another conversation with Aaron about your feelings and you think you might die if that happens.

When it finally does happen, it’s plenty embarrassing. You were so sure about your theory about this unsub, so sure that he would confess if he was confronted about his crimes and reminded of the humanity of his victims—three little kids, all under ten. Maybe that’s why it bothered you so much, and that’s why you stormed into the residence even though the rest of the team was screaming at you not to. In the end, you talk him down, but Aaron runs in behind you anyways and nearly spooks the unsub into suicide.

“You do not have the authorization to make calls like that,” Aaron yells at you, and though you had once thought you would die if he yelled at you, it’s all too easy to yell back.

In that moment, when you had known what would happen, dealing with your area of expertise, he stormed in and questioned you and your abilities as an agent and as a profiler.

“I don’t need authorization, I knew what would happen, and I knew how to talk him down without this ending in gunfire—”

“I don’t care what you think you knew. This is a team, and we don’t make decisions that jeopardize a case without agreeing on it!” “You mean you have to agree with every decision I make? I had it handled, Hotch, you almost blew that whole thing up because you didn’t believe in me!”

“That’s not what this is about,” he fires back, and it feels strange to be yelling at you. He can’t recall the last time he’s ever done this. The rest of the team is just packing up in the police station, trying not to overhear but not really having any choice in the matter.

“Yes it is! You don’t trust me! Not to make decisions for this team and for our cases, or for anything. You just proved that back there. You don’t trust me.” It’s happening again. Tears brew in your eyes. They spill down before you can stop it. Aaron softens before your very eyes at the sight of them. “Stop! Stop feeling bad just because now I’m crying, they’re not tears for you, they’re angry tears and I can’t control it-”

“Of course, I trust you.” His voice has dropped from a yell to just above a whisper. “How could you think that I don’t?”

“I’m not stupid, Aaron. I know what I’m doing. My plan was going to work and you shot me down in front of everyone because you didn’t believe in me,” you say between tears. “Nothing’s changed.”

“And what do you think would happen if you stormed in there and I lost you too?” His voice is gentle. You hadn’t noticed that he was so close to you now. You can see the eyelash on his cheek and feel the heat radiating from his body.

“That’s not what this is about.”

“That is exactly what this is about. You think I don’t trust you, so I won’t let you walk into a confrontation alone? That I think you don’t know how to profile, how to handle these unsubs, so I get into a screaming match outside a crime scene? Tell me, does that check with any of my behavior in the years I’ve known you?”

“I don’t know, Hotch, I don’t profile you.”

“You call me Hotch in front of everyone, and especially when you’re upset with me. When it’s just us you use Aaron. You know how I take my coffee even though I’ve never told you, because you pay attention even when no one else is looking. Cases with children affect you the most, especially when it takes us longer to work them, because you think you should be quicker and figure out the unsub faster since you worked with kids before joining the team. You remember the little things everyone says because you don’t want them to think you’re not paying attention to them. You cry about cases when you feel like there’s something more you should have done, even though there’s nothing else any of us can do. And you cry about me the most of all, that time on the jet, in the hospital, and just now because you think I don’t share your feelings. You think I know all this because I’m profiling you, but it’s not. It’s because I pay attention to those whom I love.”

Shell shocked. You are shell shocked at Aaron’s speech, eyes wide and mouth open. You’re sure the rest of the team, hidden behind a bulletin board and the conference table is much the same.

“I’m going to kiss you now. And that’s the end of the conversation about me not trusting you, okay?” You nod dumbly. Aaron’s lips are sweet and taste like his coffee—black, with two sugars. You feel another tear falling but it’s only because you hadn’t expected any of that.

“That took long enough,” David says from behind the partition.

and voila <3

#spent my sunday writing this while rewatching season 3 #putting off prep for my grad school interview b/c this is so much better <3 #hope everyone likes it #criminal minds #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotcher imagine #hotch #hotch imagine #aaron hotch fanfiction

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stxrvel · 21 days

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the one where everything changes (1)

series summary. the holy grail of the seven men who ruled the country's entertainment used to be your friends at school. now, ten years later and between successes and failures, what reason would they have to want to come back into your life? pairing. eventually ot7 x f!reader. content. first of all, english is not my first language so sorry for any mistakes! curse words, fangirling a lot and some self-deprecation. no proofread. this is just silly writing, we're on the safe zone for now. a/n. hi guys! i was gonna wait a little bit but i'm really excited about this one so you're gonna have earlier! thank u all for the support and i really hope you enjoy this 🫶🏻

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You met them all at school. Each with their own ambitions, their different dreams, but so similar in the nature of their core. It was almost funny how everyone with their dissimilar personalities fit so strangely well into one school group. There were times when you could still remember how you used to tell them that all together they could rule the world.

Maybe that's why you didn't see them years ago.

Jeon Jungkook was an idol. There wasn't an hour in the day or a screen in the city where you weren't watching him. He was so popular around the world that you suspected that not even one person didn't know him. His voice was on every radio station, on every cell phone of the people you passed on the street and on the buses, his face on the TV sets with the last interview he had done, as if it were a national achievement. You even saw him in restaurants, chefs naming dishes after him, production companies releasing collaborations with his company. There wasn't an object in that city that didn't have Jungkook's face on its forehead. It was impossible to escape him.

He was closely followed by Kim Taehyung and Park Jimin, two of the most promising models of the last decade, a national pride hand in hand with Jungkook. You didn't see them as often as Jungkook, but they still swept the international public and there was hardly anyone who didn't talk about them. Invited to catwalks in Paris, choosing their contracts and collaborations, wearing the most expensive clothes that you wouldn't even think of buying, wearing beautiful matching jewelry, expensive enough that a single outfit from each of them could buy you five houses in the small town they all came from. Taehyung and Jimin were known as the Siamese twins of modeling. Wherever one went, the other always had to be. Their exclusivity was incomparable.

In levels of recognition, Min Yoongi followed them in line. A great rapper who was well received by the general populace. Yoongi had managed to captivate a large audience thanks to his incredible command of the production of his music and his ease and gift for writing his own lyrics. His growth was gradual, but when he touched the sky he never went down again. His popularity was not low even though his presentation to the public was not that high compared to the other three. Still, Yoongi had enough charisma and talent to stand out, especially when his fans were obsessed with highlighting the duality he had when he was on stage and when he did those seventy question interviews with Vogue or whatever… that had made him one of the best rappers of his generation and probably of the last century.

Kim Namjoon was the owner of the company that made Jungkook's debut and welcomed Yoongi with total creative freedom. If he were not solely focused on music, he would surely also be Taehyung and Jimin's agent. Namjoon had inherited a company from his parents, but the success he had turned it into over the past few years, into one of the most profitable businesses in the country, was entirely to his credit and effort. His popularity was also high, because everyone said he was too handsome to be a mere businessman; not knowing, of course, that everything involved in maintaining such a business required much more than a pretty face. Of Namjoon the public didn't know too much, not probably like the other guys and you, if he was still half the person he was before.

Hand in hand with Namjoon were Jung Hoseok and Kim Seokjin. Hoseok was and still is to this day a national pride as he passionately played tennis since school and turned professional, reaching to participate in major international tournaments representing his country and winning one of them. However, two years after that great feat, an accident involving one of his hands prevented him from continuing to play. No one knows exactly what happened during the more than a year and a half that he almost completely disappeared from the public eye, but when he returned with his huge smile he announced that he would dedicate himself to dance, opening his own academy throughout the center of the city. Although he was not a recurrent teacher, his academy was one of the best in the country, and of course, it was financed by Namjoon's company. At one time Hoseok became Namjoon's associate.

Seokjin, on the other hand, was the one who kept the lowest profile. He was a great doctor, cardiovascular if you were not mistaken. In addition to being an amazing surgeon, his research projects were the ones everyone looked forward to the most at the end of each year. You didn't know much about the subject, but he was almost like the guru of medicine in his field specifically. The only reason he was so much in the public eye being a doctor was because he was regularly seen in the company of Namjoon, Hoseok and Yoongi. The four of them made up the holy grail of dilfs.

They had all had incredibly successful careers and you were glad that they had been able to accomplish everything they once talked about on the rooftop of Namjoon's house, with sneaky steps so their parents wouldn't scold them when they sneaked out in the wee hours of the morning.

You didn't know exactly what it was - or you didn't want to acknowledge it - that succumbed inside you every time you saw or heard about any of them on the news or on social media. Because yeah, no matter how low media exposure any of them had, always the faces of all seven appeared on your TikTok every week.

It was amazing how they had all moved on and you… well, you-

“Weren't you supossed to leave?”

You lifted your head from your phone, trying to hide it with trembling hands as you let Taehyung's face next to Jungkook's plunge into the darkness of your apron pocket.

“Huh?”

You tried to look distracted, returning your gaze between your boss and the notes next to the cash register. She had a soft gaze, between amused and sisterly. Her brown eyes shifted from your eyes and hot cheeks to the notes you held upside down in your hands, pretending to work as if she herself hadn't seen you completely frozen and gawking at the pair of the country's great casanovas.

“I thought you were leaving earlier today,” your boss shifted, settling her trench coat and long brown strap bag over her shoulder. At that moment she was leaving to walk around to each of the locations she had in town, just to do follow-ups. “Don't tell me you forgot.”

You followed her index finger until it landed on the red circle you had drawn on the calendar placed in your little cubicle a couple of weeks ago, with hearts surrounding it and exclamation points. Yes you remembered, of course you remembered, but at the point where you were at the time no one was going to miss you if you didn't attend.

“I didn't forget…” your voice trailed off as you looked down, your fingers finding the tips of the pages more entertaining than your boss's worried expression.

“y/n, you asked me to leave earlier this day from four months ago,” her high-pitched voice echoed in your head, reminding you how excited you had been a while ago for this day to come. “You can't just give up like that. Come on. You still have time.”

You began to shake your head, releasing your grip on the woman who was looking at you with the same worried eyes of a mother. Your boss had been one of the most encouraging people you'd ever had in your life, besides the handful of friends you had stored in your phone's contacts.

“It was a bust last time. I don't plan on going through that again.”

“But hadn't you told me afterwards that you weren't going to let that stop you? You said… what was it? I can't drown in this glass of water.”

You grudgingly resisted the urge to roll your eyes. Really you of four months ago was a deluded fool.

“I had no idea about life at the time.”

Your boss clicked her tongue, dropping her hands on your shoulders, giving little squeezes whose familiarity stole your breath.

“I'll leave Patrick waiting for you in case you change your mind.”

You shook your head, evading the memories. The man outside the store shook his head in greeting as the two of you turned to look at him, as if he knew you were talking about him.

“Don't miss this opportunity because you're afraid. It may change your life.”

You watched her leave, the clacking of her low heels drawing the attention of everyone in the store, earning every possible stare as she did every time she entered any room. Her chauffeur, Patrick, greeted her with a similar nod of his head as before and stood leaning against the black car parked right where he could get a perfect view of your nervous face.

You, unlike the great and successful lives of your high school friends whose company you still used to miss like a fool, had not had such a great and successful life.

You were a writer. Well, an attempted writer and, worse, part-time. The other part-time was this job behind the cash register at the largest pastry chain in the country. Or sometimes as a waitress, it depended on the day. There was good pay, mind you, at least it allowed you to make up for the losses you took every time you tried to sell a book and then had to market it on your own, only to have five purchases once every seven months and three of them were from your parents and brother. The other two were from your friends.

Four months ago you had been invited to a sort of convention for readers, how they had found you and why? You had no idea, but the idea of being considered in that way drove you crazy at the time. You were so excited that you had more copies of your failed books printed and prepared your booth several days in advance to present them to the horde of people who, you were sure at the time, would come to meet you.

Only one person came by to ask you about the bathroom.

You never recovered from that.

Even with all that failure, that same day you were invited to another convention and, for a while, you were excited to attend. Everyone goes through those kinds of bumps at some point in their life, right? You have to work hard to earn that kind of fame, you kept telling yourself. But as time went on and your networks didn't grow and your videos didn't get more than ten views, or fifty views at most in a week, you began to lose that spark of excitement you held for your dream. Your parents had never turned your back on what you wanted to do, but it was too demotivating and discouraging to have spent so many years at it, so many headaches and tears invested for you to just keep losing and losing money.

That was why you were sure you wouldn't go to that convention if you had to go through that mockery again. You hadn't even bothered to go and fix your booth so surely they already knew you weren't going.

“Have you seen them yet??????”

The female voice coming from the wine cellar made you jump up on your chair.

“Jesus, Yuna, you almost killed me here.”

“I don't care! We could die right now for all we care!”

“Wow, speak for yourself.”

“Haven't you seen theeeem?”

Yuna held up her phone, the screen at full brightness blinding you for a moment. The blurry dots you saw from the proximity of the device told you nothing, as your friend jumped excitedly beside you.

“God, hold still.”

Grabbing her wrist, you leveled the phone to see her TikTok and a picture of three men.

Namjoon, Yoongi and Jungkook coming out of a building. From Namjoon's building.

“They look amazing, don't they? They just came out! That means their car will pass in front of us any minute!”

Yes, Namjoon's building was just a few blocks away from your boss's place. In fact, your boss knew him and many times they would prepare large orders for parties at his company. You had never seen him set foot in this place or any other in the country, but every time he went to celebrate something he had to dial your boss's personal number and you would work until your backs burned because everything had to be perfect for the big businessman.

“Are you going out to greet them or what?” you frowned, letting go of her wrist and returning your gaze to the notebook next to the cash register.

Yuna let out an excited exclamation.

“Ohhhh~, should I? Should I?”

You grabbed her by the collar of her uniform as she tried to pass behind you.

“We're still on business hours.”

“I'm sure Sol wouldn't mind,” her almost heart pupil eyes stared down the street, her hands moving in front of her like she was a zombie. She almost seemed possessed by her fanaticism. Though of course you didn't blame her, if you didn't know any of the seven knights of the underworld you would surely be as excited as she was.

“Don't put words in her mouth. You'd better tell me if the lady's batch of cakes is out yet-”

Commotion erupted throughout the room. You almost saw in slow motion how all the people in the premises got up and running in the direction of the glass doors when you heard the screams coming from far away.

“They're comiiiiiiiiiiiing!!!”

Sometimes you wondered how they dealt with this level of fanaticism.

The ground almost shook with the amount of people running after a black car, where the three men who were causing such a furor so early that day were most likely to be, and the commotion was not tiny inside the venue where the screams erupted.

Having to deal with that on a daily basis would easily turn someone into a hater. Not that you were one... strictly...

“God, for a moment we breathed the same air,” Yuna plopped down on the table, her body doubled over with her eyes lost. You resisted the urge to smack her forehead.

“Their car windows were up.”

“So you saw them, right?????”

“Argh.”

You had to drag her back to work as the excitement in the store dissipated. You attended to another batch of consumers while Yuna fixed the display case and, in a moment of lapse you could almost tell, her back suddenly straightened and she turned to look at you with her eyes a little too wide. You passed the change to the man in front of you, who barely sent you a confused glance before continuing to claim his order at the other corner of the store.

“What's wrong with you?”

“You shouldn't be here.”

“Don't say that with that face. You look creepy,” you pulled out the bill to tuck it under the cash register as Yuna approached, leaving the frightened face behind.

“Wasn't that convention today?”

You sighed. “Yes.”

“Then why aren't you there?”

“Do I look like I want to be there?”

“Y/n! It's a great opportunity. You should-”

“A great opportunity for what, to be a laughingstock again?”

Yuna pursed her lips, looking almost pained that you would remember in that way the experience that was supposed to change your life. She had been one of the ones who had accompanied you to set up the booth and she was sure she had never seen you smile so much during all the time the two of you had known each other. Yuna was aware of how over time you seemed to have lost interest in this new convention, but she didn't think you would finally decide not to go.

On the sly, she had prepared your booth with the help of your mother and Sol, your boss.

“You were never a laughingstock! Don't say that,” Yuna patted your forearm harder than necessary. “Besides, I recently logged some purchases on the site! How do you-?”

“I know it was you and mom,” you raised your voice to interrupt her, stepping archly away from her body.

“What the… Of course not, ha, ha!”

“You're the only fools who would write down celebrity names to register purchases. Besides, the addresses don't even exist.”

“Fuck, I told her that wouldn't work.”

Under your heavy gaze, Yuna had the decency to look embarrassed.

“Okay, I'm sorry! We wanted to motivate you to go to the convention.”

“Can't you just let me do my own thing? If I don't want to go, I won't go.”

“Even if you leave Patrick waiting there?”

You followed his gaze, watching the man pull an umbrella out of the trunk of the car as the slightest breeze brushed against his body and the water droplets were smaller than a dew that the two of you had to squint to see them on the glass of the entrance.

“Whatever it is, I'm not going.”

“y/n…” Yuna pleaded, coming closer with her puppy dog eyes.

“No.”

“y/n, please…”

“No and stop doing that. You look weird.”

“I don't,” Yuna pulled away to frown at you. “I once heard you agreed with Seoyeon about my puppy face being cute.”

“I never agreed with that!”

“Seojun told me so!”

“Your first mistake is believing Seojun.”

“Do you blame me if the reason is your demonstration of love for me?”

“That was your second mistake.”

“Y/n!”

_____________________

That day you arrived home a little later than usual. Since Patrick had been waiting for you all day in the sun and mini rain and refused to let you take a cab on direct instructions from Sol, you asked him to take a ride downtown so you could buy the teokkboki your mom loved and incidentally bought some for him, even though he didn't want to accept it at first.

“y/n, dear, how did it go?”

Your parents were in the living room when you arrived playing Go. Your father left the table when he saw you carrying the bag of food and came over to take it from you.

“What does our little writer bring here, a contract by any chance?”

You watched out of the corner of your eye as your mother tried to get your father's attention by wildly waving her fan, while the man rummaged through the bag to find something warm and delicious smelling.

“Oh, it's teokkboki.”

Your mother stopped waving her arm to stare at the bag with sparkling eyes.

“The ones from the center? From Mrs. Wang?”

You nodded in her direction, taking a seat in their midst on the floor. Your parents started a pitched battle to see who would break the bag first to try the first batch of teokkboki and you could only watch them with a smile on your face. The day may have been difficult, but being home at the end of the day always made you feel so much better.

Amidst laughter and anecdotes, trying to avoid the elephant in the room because you knew your mother's furtive glances weren't for nothing, the three of you ate teokkboki until you were bursting at the seams. You organized the kitchen with your father while your mother grumbled from the living room whatever he said about her. You watched the three of you favorite soap opera on the fixed schedule and finally got ready for bed.

With your body more relaxed and lighter, you let yourself sink into the softness of the sheets, completely ignoring the messages Yuna had sent earlier and the stupid questions your brother asked at the most inopportune moments.

How do I unclog a bath?

Do I add salt to the rice???

Where do I get the kimchi mom makes?????

His independence was probably one of the worst things that could happen. You being the older sister thought you would leave home first. Even according to your twelve year old diary, you should have been married by then or at least planning your amazing, mega giant wedding, complete with helicopters and puppy dogs carrying drinks through the reception. You didn't know what kind of crazy dreams you had when you were younger, but up to that point you hadn't been able to fulfill any of your inner child's desires except to study for a career you were passionate about.

Still, what good had that done in the end? Maybe you should've listened to your grandparents to study medicine. Maybe your parents should've been a little more conservative instead of libertarian, which your grandparents always complained about when they had the chance. If you were a disgrace to anyone in the family, it was to them.

Ah, what a long day.

You didn't know at what point you fell asleep, but the incessant sound of your phone vibrating next to your pillow woke you up. With a grunt, you moved your hands to put the device in front of one of your half-open eyes to find Yuna on caller ID. Your eyes moved upward.

It was one in the morning!

“What the fuck are you doing calling at this hour? It better be an emergency because-”

“WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING THAT YOU DON'T CHECK YOUR MESSAGES?”

“WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT? IT'S ONE IN THE MORNING! WHY WOULD I BE DOING ANYTHING ELSE BUT SLEEPING?”

“I'VE BEEN TEXTING YOU FOR A WHILE NOW, Y/N!”

“YUNA HOW CAN I NOT FUCKING SLEEP-?”

“Well, whatever!”

You let out an exasperated snort, giving her time to say what she had to say.

“You're going to fall on your ass.”

“I'm lying down.”

“Your books have sold a thousand copies in the last hour!”

Silence. Absorbing silence…

“Yuna, if you really woke me up to play a fucking prank on me I'm going all the way to your house to pull out every single one of your hairs with a fucking tweezer.”

“First of all, gross. Second of all, I'm not kidding! Get on your fucking Instagram! What's worse is that's not the most shocking news. Well… depends on how you look at it.”

“Yuna, I don't think I'm following you.”

“Fucking Kim Taehyung was at the reader convention and he took a picture of your books and UPLOADED IT TO HIS INSTAGRAM STORIES!!!!! AN HOUR AGO! The damn shopping notifications woke me up and I think I took too much time trying to process what was going on because they already tripled!”

“What the fuck are you talking about, did you start smoking weed?”

“Ugh, why are you so insufferable? Just look at fucking Instagram!”

You didn't want to believe Yuna, but a part of you was vibrating in anticipation. You'd already seen her text messages, her exclamations and voice notes, you'd barely processed the images she'd sent you. You logged on to Instagram. The first thing you noticed was the exorbitant amount of notifications and direct messages.

You had to search for Taehyung's account because you weren't following him.

There was the colorful arc around his profile picture. The story.

You clicked on his picture on the screen.

Your books were all over his story, with his hand holding one of them.

It jumped out at you that there was a stand of your books that you had no idea where it had come from.

A description loomed between the image.

One of the best fantasy books I've read in recent years. And by one of the best writers I've ever met in my life.

Your user was next to the description. You had no idea how fucking Kim Taehyung had gotten your user when it wasn't even something related to your name. You hadn't even uploaded pictures of yourself once in all the time that account had been open.

“Did you see it?? Can you see I wasn't lying?”

With Yuna's malevolent laughter in the background, you felt your mind escape into an unknown mental space.

“You're going to be rich!!! And I'm going to meet Kim Taehyung!”

Your mind was racing a thousand miles an hour trying to make sense of what your eyes couldn't credit. His story was replaying on your screen. So many things you could say and just…

“What the fuck?”

tag: @rinkud @futuristicenemychaos @pastelpeachess @parapiop7

#bts x reader #bts angst #bts fluff #bts fanfic #bts imagines #bts scenarios #kim taehyung x reader #jungkook x reader #taehyung x reader #jimin x reader #seokjin x reader #namjoon x reader #hobi x reader #yoongi x reader #bts x you #bts x fem!reader #series: i can fix them

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sweetnans · 2 months

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I'm Still Your Boy

Pairing: f.reader/bakugo katsuki. tw: mention of break up, mention of violence but not described because bakugo isn't a bad boy, soft and persistent bakugo. a/n: a three part sequence between you and this boy who's sorry about letting you go.

You've been gone for a year. Bakugo tried to stay focused on his career and succeeded. He was the number one hero, after all. But you, you never left his mind.

He knows that he made a mistake. He scared the shit out of you the last time he saw you when you decided that the best for the both of you was leaving. And you did.

You made a career in another country, live the life that you never had the chance to live because of him. You were his best friend since you were kids, and then with the hormones, the changes, and the lack of reasoning, you became his girlfriend and that lasted for a few years, stealing all of your firsts.

You didn't blame him at all for taking away all the things that you loved because he was above them. And you didn't mind at all. He started his hero career after UA, trying in agencies, and after a couple of them, he made his own. You were happy for him. You wanted him to find the things that passionate him. But in the process, you lost yourself.

It happened one night, he was exhausted and the two of you started a fight. You said things that you regretted right after, and he became violent, not at you, but at everything that you made together. He had anger issues when you met him, but he never showed them when he was with you. That night, he was tired, and you were emotionally unstable because you had realized days prior that you were stuck and you didn't want your life to be someone's ornament.

So you left him and didn't look back.

Until today.

He knew from the moment that you gave your friends in common the news of you getting back to the landing of your plane. Kirishima wasn't so subtle when he was excited, and neither was Mina. They missed you too.

He has been pacing all day in his office thinking what he could do and how he could approach you without being so flagrant about it. He just needed to grow a pair and make a decision fast. He wanted you back, but he knew that it wouldn't be that easy. He knew that he fucked everything up, but never did anything to compensate his mistakes. He never called.

He, in fact, made a reckless decision that led him to the frontis of your house on a rainy night. The light on the first floor was lit, and he could see the shape of your figure through the blinds.

He could knock and sink in the ground when he sees you again.

You were in your kitchen, rearranging the food in the fridge that you bought earlier that day. You've made the cleaning and your laundry, so you were almost done for the day. The only task lingering in your list was putting the food in the fridge and in the pantry. You also bought some fast food to gain time. Once you were done, you'll go upstairs, cast some netflix, and enjoy it while eating french fries and a huge burger.

You were delusional. You didn't know what was coming.

A noise at the door startled you, making you drop the grapes in the kitchen counter. You could feel the presence of someone else in the house but when you turned around you didn't expect to be him.

"Bakugo," you said, looking at him half disconcerted and half scared.

Not by him, only by the fact that he was inside your house.

"Jeez, still hurts when you call me like that," he tried to dismiss the hurt in his voice by laughing a little. A sad laugh.

"How did you-"

You wanted to know a lot of things. How and why mostly.

"I taught you better than hide your spare key under the mat"

Yeah, that one was totally on you.

"I'll leave it in the flower pot next time." You tried to joke, but the atmosphere wasn't giving.

"And I taught you better than to eat that crap," he said, glancing at your food.

You tried to look offended, but he was right. The truth was that you never got the need to learn how to cook because he did the job just fine, and when he made up his mind about teaching you one thing or two about cooking, you were just used to his food so you never tried to even lit up the stove. When you left, you thanked Bakugo in your mind for teaching you how to cook, but it was a painful thing to do every day. You missed the bastard and hated him for getting you so used to him.

"It's late, what are you doing here?" You said grabbing your kitchen table to feel stable in your feet.

You thought about this moment. A thousand times, but you never imagined to be living it actually.

"I-" he stuttered. It wasn't easy for him either. "I wanted to see you"

"You better have an excuse better than that. You are dripping all over my floor, and I just moped it"

He looked at his boots. You were right. The rain was heavy outside, and he thought about knocking for about thirty minutes before he came with the great idea to home invade you.

"You're right," he said, determined to end his suffer and lift the permanent rock off his chest. "I missed you a lot. I was a fucking douchebag with you before you left. I know that you have made up your mind, but I made it worse. You could've left with me, I should have supported you like you did with me when I started this, " he pointed at his suit. "I was a shitty excuse of a boyfriend when you were everything to me" he sighed. His eyes started to get glossy before he noticed, yours as well.

You dreamed for the firsts months when you were outside the country that Bakugo would show up at your apartment and tell you that he fucked up and how much he missed having you around. You wanted this to happen, but right now, you could feel the turmoil in your head. You didn't know if him saying sorry after a year would change anything.

"I can't go back to what I made you feel, and I know that I fucked everything that we had, including our friendship, but I wouldn't be here if I wasn't sure that you are what I want and that I can make things right again, after all this time" he said after a long silence filled with your sobs.

Your silence made him uncomfortable. In a way that he, for the first time, felt scared. Scared of losing you forever.

"I-" you grabbed your head with your hands while he made his way to you, crossing the kitchen and closing the distance to put one of his fingers under your chin.

You lifted your head to look at him. Everything was happening in those crimson eyes. Every emotion, sadness, fear, expectation, and the most important of all, hope.

"I can't be without you," He needed you. He needed to be yours.

You weren't sure. You were scared, too. You didn't want to get hurt again.

You grabbed his hand, joining his fingers with yours. And made your decision.

"I'm sorry"

He felt his heart sink. It was a possibility, but in his mind, you've missed him the same that he missed you.

He wasn't a man that would accept a no from anyone, but with you, it was different. He told you everything that he needed to tell you, he exposed his heart to you and he was convinced that everything he was feeling, you felt it too.

It wasn't a rotund, no.

That night, after he discarded his damp clothes and laid in bed looking at the ceiling, he remembered the first time that he knew that he had feelings for you. He gave you a shitty speech about his feelings. He was only seventeen, and he was rough, didn't have any tact to tell people mundane things, much less speaking about his feelings. He remembered your face, pretty disconcerted at the beginning, but in the end, you were trying to contain your tears from falling. That time, he didn't tease you for crying. He remembered what cracked you up, the last part of his speech of how much he wanted to be with you.

"Brat, I know nothing about love, but I better be yours."

Part 2

#bnha bakugou #bakugou smut #bakugo smut #bakugo x reader #bakugo headcanons #mha bakugou #bakugou katsuki #bakugou x reader #mha bakugo katsuki #mha #mha x reader #my hero academy fanfiction #my hero academia #katsuki bakugou #katsuki bakugo x reader

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marvelsmylife · 3 months

Text

Too late

Pairing: Azriel x reader, Eris Vanserra x reader

Plot: you were Azriel's friends with benefits for the past five hundred years. Throughout that time, you developed feelings for him. Unfortunately, his heart belonged to Mor and then Elain shortly after. Will you allow yourself to suffer as he pines for another, or will you cut off your arrangement?

A/n I know I was supposed to write the other Azriel story but this idea popped up in my head and had to write it. Btw I’m accepting Eris Vanserra requests.

Warning: Straight-up angst (Sorry, not sorry).

Azriel has had dozens, if not hundreds, of lovers in the past five hundred years. Yet you were the one he loved to visit the most. It was mainly because you never begged him for anything more like his previous lovers. But just because you never asked him for anything more didn’t mean you didn’t want more than just sex.

You loved him so much, but you knew Azriel was in love with Mor. From whispers on the streets, they would say he would drop anything and anyone just so he could be with her. You often wondered if he would picture her while you two fucked. That, in turn, would cause your heart to break.

You thought for sure Mor would come around. Azriel was an attractive male, and any female would be a fool to reject him. You were proven when Azriel appeared at your door one night looking somber, saying he accepted the fact that he and Mor would be nothing more than friends. You were going to try and comfort him when he stocked over to you and pulled you into a passionate kiss. Every fiber of your body was telling you to pull away and turn him away. He was in a very vulnerable state, but as soon as his scared hands landed on your lower back, pulling you towards him, you gave in and let him have his way.

And he did, for six glorious months. Every night after finishing business for Rhysand, Azriel would appear at your door and stay until the early morning. You relished in the love and adoration Azriel would give you during sex that you thought he was starting to develop feelings for you.

Unfortunately, one night, he let it slip that he had been spending time with Elain for the past few months and hoped something might blossom between them. “Yes, I know she has a mate, but what if the cauldron was wrong. I mean, her two sisters were mated to my two brothers. I just feel like we’re meant to be together,” Azriel explained as he ran his fingers through your hair.

“You have a point,” you tried not to sound hurt at Azriel’s explanation, “You should go for it. Maybe she feels the same way.”

“I will, but first-” Azriel moved so he was on top of you again, “How about we continue what we started earlier.” You allowed yourself to enjoy this moment because you knew it was going to be the last time you would be together.

Since that night, you tried to avoid Azriel as much as possible. Always telling him you were busy or that you weren’t in the mood to do anything.

While he was hurt, Azriel understood and left you alone.

You didn’t see Azriel for three months. In that time, Azriel tried to get closer to Elain. He thought something might finally happen between them when she summoned him to her garden.

Unfortunately, she called him to let him know she had accepted the mating bond with Lucien and was moving to the spring court. “I love him,” Elain explained, “I was scared about accepting the bond at first because I wanted to decide on my own who I wanted to love, but the more I spent time with him, the more I started genuinely falling in love with him. I’m telling you all of this because I know about your crush on me,” Azriel stiffened at Elain’s words, “I don’t feel the same way. I need you to know that I only ever seen you as a friend.”

“I understand,” Azriel muttered, “I hope you and your mate have a happy life together,” and left before Elain had a chance to respond.

Azriel needed to get away. He needed to go somewhere where he felt the safest, and that’s when he decided to go to your apartment. He knew there was a strong possibility that you might not be home, seeing as you weren't the last few times he tried to visit.

To his surprise, you opened the door after he knocked. “Azriel. What are you doing here?” you asked, placing your hand against your chest.

“I just needed to see you,” Azriel replied while he took in your appearance. Your hair was messy. Your cheeks were flush, and you were wearing a satin robe, “I-were you in the middle of something?”

“Yes, we were,” Azriel heard a familiar, irritating voice behind your door.

Azriel felt rage as he noticed the heir to the autumn court standing inside your apartment shirtless. “Why is he here? Why is he shirtless in your apartment?” Azriel needed to know even though he was dreading your response.

“You interrupted us in the middle of sex,” Eris stepped forward and placed his arm around your waist, “What do you want?”

Azriel tried to calm down as he tried to process what was happening, “How long has this been going on?”

“Two months,” you replied, “We met when I visited the autumn court for Rhysand, and we’ve been seeing each other ever since.”

“How come you haven’t said anything to anyone about you two,” Azriel asked as he grew angrier.

“We’ve kept it quiet because I don’t want my father finding out about her. As soon as he knows there’s going to be a target on her back and use her as leverage against me,” Eris answered for the both of you, “Do you wish for her to be used or harmed?”

Azriel found himself growing more and more frustrated with the scene that was in front of him. You and Eris? No. Anyone but him. “Can I speak to y/n in private?”

You looked over at Eris and gave a nod. Eris placed a gentle kiss on your lips before looking back at Azriel’s, “Don’t keep her too long.”

As soon as he was gone, Azriel reached out, and cupped your face, “Why him? Why Eris of all males? Why him?”

“Why not him?” you got out of his grasp, “He’s kind and caring and has made me his number one priority ever since we met.”

“Because of what he did to Mor,” Azriel argued.

You found yourself rolling your eyes at the sound of the female's name, “I’ve heard Eris’ point of view of the incident, and I’m more inclined to believe his version of events. Now, if we’re done talking-”

“No, we’re not,” Azriel stopped you from closing your door, “Is he the reason you stopped seeing me? Has he isolated you from everyone? Tell me now so I can help you. I care about you too much-”

You let out a dry laugh at Azriel’s words, “You don’t care about me. You only cared about fucking me, and no, he isn’t isolating me from people. I still see my friends, and some have even met him. They approve of our relationship.”

“He doesn’t deserve you,” Azriel argued back, “You deserve someone who isn’t a snake, someone like-”

“Someone like you?” you now glared at the shadowsinger when you noticed his eyes soften at your words, “Unfortunately for you, I’m not in love with you anymore.”

Not anymore. Azriel froze at your words. You used to be in love with him, but not anymore. Azriel began to panic and tried to think of what to say to fix what he had unintentionally ruined.

Sadly, you just stared him down with nothing but hatred in your eyes, “Goodbye, Azriel,” With that, you slammed the door in Azriel’s face.

Azriel shuttered as he now felt a mating bond between the two of you. He cursed himself when he finally realized his mate was with him this entire time and realized he had damaged your relationship beyond repair.

@sleepylunarwolf @paankhaleyaar

#azriel imagine #azriel x reader #azriel x you #eris x reader #eris vanserra imagine #eris vanserra x reader #acotar imagine #acotar x reader

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tasteleeknow · 1 year

Text

ZIPPER

PAIRING: minho x fem!reader GENRE: smut. fluff. established relationship. CONTENT: 18+ only. shy reader. marking. desperation. mutual obsession. unprotected intercourse. biting. body worship. overstimulation. mention of violence. oral (m. rec). WORD COUNT: 4.3k

NOTE: yeah it’s my birthday tomorrow and i wrote this as a gift to myself. @lino-nyangi and @tasteracha encouraged this. no other comment at this time.

SUMMARY: when your boyfriend asks you what you want for your birthday, only one thing comes to mind. you want to dress him in an outfit of your choosing.

PART ONE | DRABBLE: SWEAT | PART TWO

You’re backed up against the wall when the door opens, mentally preparing yourself for seeing him in the outfit you’d picked out. He’d laughed as you’d explained what you wanted for your birthday, eyes on the floor at the embarrassment of it all. You wanted to go out and pick an outfit and have him wear it for you. He only ever wore baggy pants, t-shirts and hoodies. You love him in whatever he wore but he never showed off all the work he’d put in at the gym. Despite his relentless teasing at your request, he’d agreed. Of course he agreed. He always did. He might act like everything was the biggest inconvenience he’d ever faced in his life, but he hadn’t turned you down once since you’d been together. You’d learned that’s just how he was. He never wanted anyone to know how much he cared.

He looks up at you the moment the bedroom door shuts behind him, tugging his pants up his waist a little. You press your lips together as he looks at you expectantly.

“Well?” he prompts.

You say nothing, taking in the sight of him in the tight, black, short sleeve shirt. It clings to him just like you’d imagined. He’d whined and thrown his head back as you’d measured him a few weeks earlier, slipping the measuring tape around his bare chest and then around his biceps. You wanted to get this right. He’d made you give him a back massage in return for all his saintly patience. It was worth it now you’re taking in the results. Your eyes trail down his matching black pants to his big black boots, you can't make yourself regret the money you’d spent on them: despite it being the most you’d spent on shoes in a long time. Your cheeks warm as you fail to meet his eyes again, keeping your gaze on his boots as he makes his way over to you.

“No comment?” he questions. You can hear the smirk in his voice. He was in his comfort zone, despite the clothes unlike anything he’d tried before. You had always been a little timid, overwhelmed easily. He approached the world very differently, self assured and confident. Only the people closest to him ever got to know his weak points, his soft centre and secret insecurities.

He tilts your chin up when he reaches you, forcing you to meet his eyes. “Disappointed?” he asks, well aware you weren’t. You knew he enjoyed it when you got shy, it boosted his ego.

“It’s pretty.”

He grins, tracing his finger down your neck to your clavicle. “That’s it?”

Your eyes drop to the zipper running down his chest. “You look nice. You look… better than I imagined. Thank you,” you say, offering him a small smile.

“This is all you wanted? For me to put some clothes on? I was hoping to spend the day without any at all.”

That’s how he’d asked to spend his birthday; locked in your bedroom until you’d been so exhausted you’d both passed out. “You think your dick is a gift?” you question.

His hand moves to your throat, fingers resting gently against your skin. “Only because you whine my name so sweetly when it’s inside you,” he answers, one corner of his mouth pulling up slightly as his eyes drop to your lips. He was lucky his ego only made him hotter. Still, it was fun to tease him.

“You think it’s special? A dick is a dick.”

His finger presses a little into your skin as he moves a little closer. “Oh, really?” he asks sweetly, a little condescension in his tone. “Is that why you get all shy on me? Even after living together for a year? Hm?”

“That’s just how I am.”

He shakes his head slightly, lips ghosting over yours. “I don’t think so, baby. I think it’s worse with me. I think you get all shy because you’re obsessed with me…” his lips brush yours as he speaks, breath tickling your skin. “Isn’t that right?”

You’re struggling to focus on his words, head tilting forward a little in an attempt to capture his lips. He only pulls away, keeping you pressed to the wall easily. “Answer me,” he whispers.

You blink as you attempt to regain your senses, reaching up to take his hand from your throat and intertwining your fingers instead. You find yourself staring at his lips again, watching as he huffs out a short breathy laugh. “Why’d you want me to wear this, hm? Can you answer that?” he asks.

Your eyes drop to the zip running down his chest. It feels involuntary and your eyes flick back up to his face so quick you’re hardly aware of the action yourself. He notices anyway, his lips pulling into a self-satisfied smirk. He reaches up to tug the zipper a little, moving it up and down slightly as he watches your expression. He lifts the hand intertwined with yours, pressing the back of your hand into the wall above your head. You’ve completely lost control of your breathing, uneven and much heavier than normal. You were easy to read. A stranger would be able to read your thoughts, but Minho? He knew you better than anyone else alive. You may as well have been screaming your internal commentary in his face.

“You wanna do it for me, baby? Tug it down a little?” he asks sweetly, lips hovering over yours again. When you lean forward, he doesn’t pull away this time, letting you press a little of your desperation into him. He hardly reacts, keeping your hand above your head as you moan against his lips. Your other hand moves to the back of his head, an attempt to ensure he doesn’t move away from you again until you're satisfied. It’s silly, the idea that you’d ever be satisfied, that you’ll at some point have had enough of him. You imagine pulling back, tapping him on the shoulder and announcing you’re all done. You giggle against his mouth.

“What?” he asks.

“I think you’re right,” you answer, a little breathless already.

“Mm?”

You don’t answer, attempting to pull him back towards you again instead. He takes your other hand in response, pinning you against the wall completely. “Right about what?” he asks, unsatisfied with your lack of response. He knows what you meant. You know he knows. He just wanted you to say it.

“What you said before,” you mutter, keeping your eyes off his own.

“I think you should say it,” he grins. “Say it and I’ll let you take over. I’ll let you unzip me.”

You can’t help looking into his eyes, big and brown as he waits for you to confess. If only he knew why you were so hesitant to say it. Sure, it was embarrassing. But it was more than that. You’d always felt a little like you loved him more. You were okay with it, or… you’d thought you were anyway. He loved you enough to stay, and that should have been enough. But confessing it to his face? Confessing that you felt like you were practically obsessed with him in a way he couldn’t possibly return? Your heart thumps hard against your chest at the thought of it.

His lips press to your forehead as your mind races, hands still held above your head. “I know it,” he whispers. “Whether you say it or not. That’s one of the things… one of the things I love. I fucking know it all, baby. You can’t hide from me.”

The way he’s leaning over you now causes the silver zipper to dangle directly in front of your face. You're sick of all this talk, especially when he’s dressed like this. With your hands occupied there’s only one plan of action that fills your mind. You duck a little, avoiding his head as you lean forward and catch the cold, silver zipper between your teeth. His chest moves with his laughter, then you’re tugging, pulling it down until a large portion of his chest is free. When you lean back again you don’t even look up at his face, eyes taking in the newly visible section of his smooth chest. You hadn’t been fighting him at all so far. You never did, letting him pin you to walls, to mattresses, move you around whichever way he pleased. It was your dynamic.

That’s why he isn’t expecting it, when you tug your hands free and practically lunge at him, wrapping your arms around his neck. He laughs as he stumbles back a step. Then he’s turning you around so he can use the wall as support while you climb him. Your lips are on his neck before his back has hit the wall, attempting to suck marks into his skin. He was usually the one doing it to you: marking you. He liked pulling your scarf down a little as you waited for the bus, inspecting some of the hickies he’d left on you the night before. “Okay, you like the clothes,” he laughs. “I get it.” His hands support your thighs as you cling to him.

He’s quiet as you work, even when you begin nipping at his skin. It’s satisfying, sucking and biting at him. You should do this more often, you tell yourself. When you tug the shirt aside a little to bite gently into his shoulder he drops his head back against the wall with a small thud. It spurs you on, completing the same treatment to the other side before dropping your legs back to the floor.

His chest has flushed a little since you climbed him, a pretty red colour starting at his neck and disappearing into his shirt. You press your hand to the centre of his chest as he lifts his head from the wall and looks down at you with a small slightly dazed smile. A single strand of hair falls across his forehead. You’d helped him style his hair before leaving him to get dressed. He rarely wore it up like this, off his forehead.

“I meant I’m obsessed with you,” you confess before you can overthink it, reaching up to thread your fingers into his hair. “When I said you were right. I meant about me being obsessed.”

His grin widens as he wraps his arms around you and pulls you against him. “Yeah?”

You nod, tracing your finger down his nose and then over his lips, ending at his chin. “Don’t hurt me, please,” you whisper, suddenly feeling incredibly vulnerable. He knew the power he had now.

“Why would I do that?” he asks, looking genuinely puzzled.

You shrug. “You might stop liking me.”

“No,” he answers simply.

“No?”

“No,” he repeats. “You wanna go grab a knife and stab me in the leg and then ask me if I still like you?”

You roll your eyes. “No.”

“Good, that’d hurt.”

You wrap your hands around the back of his neck, interlocking your fingers. “You’re stupid.”

“Is it embarrassing? To be obsessed with someone so stupid?”

“Yes.”

He grins. “You better stop then.”

Your eyes flick across his face. “I can’t.”

His smile softens a little before falling off his face completely. He suddenly looks serious, almost solemn. It catches you off guard. Before you can question him he’s tugging your mouth to his, distracting you with his soft lips. It works like a mind wiping spell, lulling you into a blissed out state that only breaks when he finally releases you.

Your finger brushes his zipper, reminding you of the clothes he was wearing. You take a small step back so you can take in the sight of him again. His chest is still a little red and you can just make out the marks you’ve left all over his neck. You want to make more.

He’s still as you move in again and tug the zipper down a little more. You move slowly, wanting to savour it. Your mind drifts to when you can ask him to wear it again. Anytime, you remind yourself. You could count the time’s he’d refused something you’d asked of him on one hand. You press your palms to his chest, sliding them into his shirt until you brush over his nipples. He’s warm, despite the low temperature of the apartment. You drop your head to his shoulder, hands slipping around his sides to rest on his back.

“I’m being very patient,” he says after a moment. “Are you going to keep feeling me up for another hour?”

“It’s my birthday.”

He sighs dramatically. You lift your head so you can see his face. “Is it really that bad?” you ask.

His lips press together into a straight line and two little lumps appear at the corners of his mouth. “Yes,” he answers, unconvincingly. You pull your hands from his shirt and take a small step back.

“Alright, I’ll stop then.”

He reaches for the zipper and tugs it all the way down, letting each side of the shirt fall open. “It’s your birthday,” he says. “So I'll let you continue.”

“No, no. I don’t wanna do anything you’re not enjoying.” You nod towards the kitchen. “You hungry?”

He steps towards you. “Continue,” he demands, no room in his tone for argument.

You wait a moment, letting him fret. Then you move. You nudge him back into the wall with a palm to his chest then trail your fingers from his collar bones down to the waistband of his pants, then back up again. You could lose yourself in this, touching him. Now that you’ve said it, confessed to him how you feel, it feels less heavy. It feels natural even. How could you not feel that way? When he made you laugh like he did… when he looked like this…

You find yourself pressing your lips to his pec, hand gripping his bicep to balance you as you trail messy kisses down his torso. You stop occasionally to leave marks, from sucking, biting, any mark you can leave against his skin feels like an accomplishment. This is mine, they say. Minho doesn’t seem to mind, one of his arms tanging in your hair at some point.

You eventually end up on your knees, looking up at him for permission as you play with another zipper, the one on his pants. “You haven’t marked me up enough?” he asks, his tone a little condescending again. You fucking loved when he spoke like that. His tone so sickly sweet and still so full of ego.

You shake your head and he reaches down, tugging his zipper down and dropping his pants before you can react. You can see him through his underwear, begging to be freed. He twitches a little as you brush over him when reaching for the waistband. Then you pause. His hips push off the wall when you take your hands away. You don’t look up, dropping your eyes to his thighs instead. Just a few marks, you tell yourself before attaching your lips to his skin. You start with his inner thighs, kissing and sucking your way up to the hem of his underwear where they wrap around the tops of his thighs. This wasn’t new to you. Just the other week you’d given him this treatment at the side of the salt water pool as he’d dangled his legs in the water. You’d taken in the sight of his swim shorts stuck to his skin, wet from his swim, and found yourself practically worshipping him—standing in the water between his legs as you kissed over his thighs.

By the time you finally tug his underwear down his legs, you can tell he’s close to snapping, to taking control. He wasn’t used to letting you have your way for this long. But then you’re kissing his tip, tasting the precum that leaks from his slit, and he forgets his impatience—a small gasp escaping his lips. His thighs are where you rest your hands. You can feel every tense of his muscles like this. You’re just preparing to sink down the length of him when he’s suddenly tugging you back and falling over you, pressing you into the floorboards. His mouth is on yours before you even process where you find yourself: on your back on your living room floor. He’s clearly had enough. The zipper on his shirt tickles your skin where your tank top rides up your stomach.

“Want me inside now? Tell me,” he says, barely pulling his lips from yours long enough to get the words out.

You hum in response, pushing at his chest until he detaches from you. “On your back,” you gasp. His brows pull a little together in confusion. He was rarely under you. Still, he obeys, settling himself on the floor beside you.

His pants are bunched around his calves, too difficult to remove with his boots still on. You kinda of like the idea of it, of him being inhibited a little. He’s a little vulnerable like this. Usually you loved the dynamic you had, his dominant role in bed making you feel protected and wanted. But something had burst free along with the confession of the depth of your feelings. You hadn’t realised you’d been holding anything else back. Not until now. You tug your cotton shorts down your legs and climb over him, pressing your palms to his chest as you settle yourself on his thighs. The open shirt frames his chest and biceps perfectly. You’re only running your hands over him for 30 seconds or so before he’s whining.

“Enough. Take me inside now.”

“It’s my birthday. Not yours.”

“You haven’t fondled me enough?”

You scrunch your nose, huffing out a small laugh. “Fondled?”

He gestures to where your palms rest over his pecs. “What else would you call this?”

“Admiring.”

He rolls his eyes. “You haven’t admired me enough?”

You shake your head, smiling. “No.”

“Get on with it then,” he says, a little strain in his voice.

You flick your eyes down to his cock. It’s twitching a little against his stomach. You brush your fingers up the length of him, fascinated. He grabs your wrist before you reach the head. “Don’t touch unless you want this to end.”

You stick out your bottom lip a little. “But it’s my birthday.”

He releases you. “Fine, you want me to cum on my stomach? Go ahead.” It did sound nice, seeing him lose it all over himself before you’d even fucked him. But he was right. You wanted him to fill you. You take him in your grasp and lift your hips off him so you can shuffle forward a little until your entrance rests over the tip. You take in the sight of him one last time, his flushed chest, his hair–a little messier than when you’d started—, the way the black shirt frames his biceps. Then you lower yourself, holding your breath as he stretches you out. His hips rise off the floor a little, like he can’t wait the few seconds it takes you to sink to his base.

You both still when you’re full, taking in the feeling of being as close to each other as it was possible to be. It’s the first time he’s been inside you since your confession. It feels freeing. Like you can let loose completely, let your mind slip and your body take over; hold nothing back. His lips part as you begin lifting yourself off him and sinking down again, slow at first.

You can’t help resuming where you’d left off, pressing your palms to his chest and admiring the way his pinkish skin looks between your fingers.

It isn’t long before his instincts take over, grasping your hips so he can move you to meet his hips as he thrusts up into you. You take in his expression as he uses you, rutting up into you. He was desperate much quicker than usual. He really hadn’t been lying. He must’ve been close to losing it before you’d even begun.

You watch his ears redden to match his chest and his lips. You fall forward to kiss him as he continues moving inside you. You keep your lips on his even as he loses focus, unable to match your kisses. You swallow down the noises he makes, the groans, the tiny sounds that almost sound like whimpers. It’s in moments like this that you feel maybe it’s possible he feels almost as intensely as you do. But then you remind yourself he’s just feeling good physically. That he could feel this way with anyone.

His eyes flutter closed as he stills. He hasn’t cum yet. He takes a few deep breaths before opening his eyes again. You can’t resist sitting back and lifting off him before sinking back down slowly, watching his expression as he tries to prevent himself from filling you. “Stop,” he gasps. “Fuck, stop.” You do.

You wait for him to catch his breath, chest rising and falling deeply. His ears are still pink and you resist the urge to lean forward and bite one of them.

“Why…” he starts, before pausing and taking one more deep breath. “Why are you doing this to me?”

You frown. “Doing what?”

He sits up, cock still buried inside you as he grasps the hair at the back of your head. His eyes flick over your face as his mouth opens and closes, like he’s struggling to find the words he wants to say. You’re unused to him being lost for words. It’s a little unsettling. Something must be wrong.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he snaps.

You attempt to wipe any expression from your face, waiting for whatever this was to pass. One minute you’re riding him on your living room floor, ready to feel him fill you with his cum. The next you’re attempting to dissect whatever the fuck he was attempting to say right now.

“We started living together a year ago today,” he says.

“...yes.”

“A year…” he repeats, almost like he’s talking to himself this time.

“Is something wrong?”

“I thought it’d pass,” he mutters.

“What would?” you ask, tucking a little hair behind his ear.

“Feeling like this. All fucking itchy and… desperate. Like if I let go of you or leave the apartment, you’ll just… disappear.”

You frown, attempting to process what he was saying. He almost sounded angry. Like you’d done something wrong. Or he had? His eyes flick across your face and then he sighs, releasing his grasp on your hair and falling down onto his back again.

You lay yourself down onto his chest, his cock slipping out of you in the process. “You don’t wanna live together anymore?” you ask.

His hands move to grab at your hips, attempting to lift you up again. You let him align his cock with your entrance before sinking back down. You resume your position over his chest, cradling his face in your palms. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment before looking at you again. “I wanna live here,” he breathes. “Right fucking here. Buried inside you like this.”

“You’re confusing me.”

He grunts as he pins you to his chest with his arms and fucks up into you hard. “Need it,” he mutters between thrusts. “Fucking need you.”

“You have me,” you soothe. “I told you I was fucking obsessed with you. You have me.”

He sighs, expression relaxing as he rolls his cock into you. It catches you by surprise when he suddenly lets out a drawn out moan and fills you, hips stuttering into you. Something about the way he finishes, the words it had taken to finally push him over the edge. It clicks into place, what he was trying to say. He feels the same. You sit back, watching him attempt to catch his breath as you start bouncing on him. His eyes flutter open as a high whine escapes his throat. You’d never done this before, kept using him after he’d finished. He’s clearly unprepared, throwing his arm over his eyes as his hips rise weakly off the floor. You practically shake as you cum, clenching around his sensitive cock and falling forward onto his chest.

“Fuck,” he gasps out.

His blushed ear catches your eye and you muster just enough energy to take it between your teeth briefly.

“Say it,” you murmur once you release him. “Say what you mean.”

His arms wrap around you, holding you against his chest, now sticky with sweat. “Do I need to say it?” he says, completely breathless.

“It’s my birthday,” you whisper.

His hands move to your head, lifting your face from his neck. “I love you,” he says, “It scares me how much.”

You’re pretty sure you understand him. That he meant something different to the previous time’s he’d said he loved you. There was something about his voice, a tiny wobble in the final syllable that convinced you maybe you weren’t alone in this.

“We’re keeping the shirt,” you say, offering him a small smile.

He laughs, letting you fall back into his shoulder. “I dunno if I can survive what it does to you.”

“You can pick an outfit for me?” you offer.

He’s quiet and it isn’t until you’ve both fully caught your breaths that he speaks again. “Anything?”

You lift your head and peck him on the lips. “Anything.”

He smiles.

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riverlikethelake · 1 year

Text

A Long Way Home

Aonung x Omatikayan!Fem!Reader

Summary – Leaving your life behind to move to the reefs wasn't your plan, all you really want is a peaceful life with your family, but one of the Metkayina boys keeps staring at you...

Contains: Mentions of death, slow burn (?), Spider is mentioned in a good light (please bear with me), complex parental relationships, heavy development on platonic/family relationships

pt.2 pt.3 pt.4 pt.5

Word count: 4k

“This is our home! This is my home!” Neytiri cried, you pulled away from the tent, pursing your lips. You sat back and watched as Tuk peeked under the tent, Neteyam and Lo’ak leaning in further. Kiri looked back at you but didn’t move from her place listening to the conversation.

You could hear Jake arguing back but you couldn’t make out the words, not that you needed to. As much as it pained you to admit it, Jake was right, the forest wasn’t safe for the Sully’s anymore, they already took your brother, and he knows everything about life here.

The weight on your chest only became heavier. Before anyone could notice, you stood up and quickly made your way to the edge of the cavern your clan had taken refuge in.

Spider wasn’t your biological brother, hell he wasn’t even the same species anymore but for a long time it felt like he was the only one you truly had.

You were almost a year younger than him and born after the humans left earth, your mother was allowed to stay behind on Pandora. Unfortunately, that meant medical supplies were stretched thin and your mother died soon after you were born. Ironically the Omatikaya were celebrating Neteyam’s birth only a few minutes earlier.

It wasn’t till you got older that Norm and Max noticed how sickly you were, scratches and bruises weren’t a problem on Spider, but for you they stayed and got infected easily. Staying outside after dark when it got cold was too risky, Neteyam and Lo’ak often had to piggyback you to Hell’s Gate because you lost track of time or ran out of stamina.

Everything changed when you turned 6, after a strenuous forest exploration and a bad injury you ended up bed ridden for days on the verge of death. Having been worrying about an event like this happening for almost all your life, Norm and Max had quietly prepared an Avatar body for you years ago in hopes the Omatikaya would accept another consciousness transfer.

Spider didn’t leave your side for weeks after that, he fussed over everything you did and insisted Neteyam or Kiri were around when traveling through the woods. You could tell that you now being Na’vi bothered him, you no longer had common ground, you were once alone together but you could tell he now just felt alone.

Neteyam also became overly protective after that, he seemed to be able to read your mind and emotions. Jake and Neytiri kept a close eye on you, now being Na’vi Neytiri accepted you into their family.

But now Spider was gone, he was taken by the humans and Jake wants to leave.

You called for your Ikran, Tsyía, it was getting late but you needed to clear your head. You weaved between the trees, slowing down once you made it past the thick of forest, you sat up and breathed in the air.

If Jake and Neytiri decided to leave this would be the last time you’d see the forest, explore the trees, race Neteyam and Lo’ak through Hallelujah mountains, take Tuk far above the tops of trees and to the stone pillars. Your entire life was this forest.

The wind blowing your hair always calmed you down, the way the sun shone on the rocks was your favorite site. You kept your hold on the saddle, but you let yourself sit back and enjoy the air, your other arm coming up and back with the wind. You closed your eyes. This was peace.

Your Ikran cried, alerting you that you were approaching the human camps, quickly you started ascending higher and higher before dropping. A trick you never did around Neteyam or Lo’ak knowing how their individual reactions would cause Jake and Neytiri to get word of it.

Freefalling for a few seconds, further and further before you grabbed on tight to the satchel and Tsyía leveled out just above the trees. You flew around for a while, memorizing your home before heading back.

You didn’t make much of a commotion when you came back but Tuk immediately an over and held onto your leg.

“Y/n you’re coming with us, right?!” She begged, you were taken a back and looked up to Neteyam and Kiri who were walking up to you.

“Mom and dad were discussing what they’d do if you wanted to stay behind” Neteyam explained, he looked nervous himself.

You smiled and bent down closer to Tuk, “Of course I'm coming with you” you glanced back up to Kiri and Neteyam. After you were able to soothe Tuk you noted how late it was and insisted she go to bed, Kiri followed her after simply placing a hand on your shoulder and telling you she was glad. It wasn’t much but you knew it meant a lot coming from Kiri.

You and Neteyam shared a look before you moved to sit next to the cave opening, Neteyam sitting next to you, your head falling on his shoulder.

“What made you change your mind?” he asked after a moment of silence. You frowned. “My mind was never made up, I just made my decision”

“I wonder what the ocean looks like” you thought out loud, fatigue growing. Neteyam chuckled “Was that your deciding factor?”

You frowned again, bickering with him about your poorly timed statements. Neteyam seemed satisfied with this even if it didn’t answer his question, talking about what it would be like to live on the reefs.

You don’t remember falling asleep, but you woke up cuddled with everyone else back in the tent.

By the time the reefs came into view you were exhausted, and so was Tsyía, you all came to a landing on the shore edge. It was unnerving with the crowd that surrounded you all, Tuk hid behind Neytiri’s leg, but you picked her up and cradled her in your arms when she looked back at you nervously.

Kiri and Lo’ak both moved so you’d all be closer together when who you assumed to be the Olo'eyktan and Tsahìk parted through the crowd. Your father explained how he sought safe refuge for his family, but you watched as Lo’ak struggled to tear his eyes away from a girl who rose from the water.

Your attention was drawn back to the situation when a couple of boys circled you and your siblings, grabbing at your brothers’ tail.

“Is this supposed to be a tail?”

“How will they swim?”

You held Tuk closer and watched as Lo’ak barely held himself together. You looked over your shoulder and glared at one of the boys who was seemingly going to poke at you too, you held his gaze for a moment, he lost his smirk, and simply stared at you. He looked you up and down and you could feel the urge to curl in on yourself, whether that be from the intensity of his gaze or not knowing what he was thinking.

Before he could say anything, the girl from before scolded the two boys before taking her place next to the Olo'eyktan. She must be his daughter. The two boys backed down as your father continued speaking, the boy you stared at taking his place on the other side of the Olo'eyktan. Oh great.

You tried to not be bothered when they pointed out the odd number of fingers you and your sibling possessed. You mostly focused on soothing Tuk until the Olo'eyktan, whom you learned was named Tonowari, announced that your family was welcome and his children, Ao’nung and Tsireya would teach you all how to adapt to the Metkayina way. The boy protested but shut up when his father shut him down, he locked eyes with you, an indescribable look on his face.

Ao’nung huh?

Tsireya showed you all the way to your Marui pod, Tuk practically jumped out of your arms to jump across the pathway.

You observed your surroundings as you walked, people casting out fishing nets, children swimming under the walkways and jumping off the docks, the animals swimming around peacefully and interacting with the people there. Everything was so different than what you were used to, but an excitement you hadn’t expected spurred into your body. You had adapted to the Na’vi way once before, you could do it again.

Tsireya officially introduced herself, and you didn’t miss how she kept her eyes trained on Lo’ak most of the time.

“I am Neteyam, and this is my twin Y/n-” You internally rolled your eyes at how he insists on that. “This is our youngest sister Tuk” he continued. He gestured to Lo’ak and Kiri. Kiri introducing herself warmly and Lo’ak mumbling sheepishly.

Tsireya smiled at Lo’ak then to everyone else, after you settled down in the hut, she guided you all towards the edge of the docks to start your first swimming lesson. She and Ao’nung dove into the water with Rotxo, Neteyam and Lo’ak following them. You and Kiri shared a look before Tuk jumped in, then finally you and Kiri.

Being in the water was strange at first but you were able to familiarize yourself fairly quickly, Kiri had no trouble holding her breath while the others seemed to struggle more.

Your siblings swam after Tsireya and her brother, Kiri, staying behind to admire the plants and animals, getting lost in it all.

You followed the group but took more time getting close to the plants and watching the fish swim by. Soon you had to swim up for air, you breached the surface just as Neteyam and Lo’ak did, taking in breaths of air.

“It's so beautiful here” You grinned. Neteyam and Lo’ak looked at each other then back to you, affirming their agreement.

Ao’nung and Tsireya re-surfaced in front of you guys, you took a deep breath before going under again, making your way back to be mesmerized by the scenery, after a second ao’nung appeared infront of you, he started to sign something, but you couldn’t understand so you both swam up to speak.

“What are you doing? Your brothers are learning to breathe right” he questioned as if saying ‘why aren’t you too?’

You simply glanced back down and shrugged, you looked him in the eye “the reef is beautiful” you smiled and dove back down before he could say anything else

The feeling of being fully submerged in the water was what you loved, the fish that swam around you and the light reflecting off the coral.

Before long, Neteyam insisted we all return to the pod, Jake and Neytiri sat on the floor and waited for everyone to settle down to start dinner.

The pod wasn’t like the hammocks you grew up on, but the sloshing of water and arms cuddled around you comforted you to sleep.

You were adjusting well; your breathing was getting better, and you were picking up their underwater language quickly. Ao’nung and his friends teased your siblings a lot which upset you,but you often found him drifting near you, showing up in the same part of the reef you were exploring.

He started telling you about the different plants and animals, guiding you to the best parts for that time of day but he always found soemthing to make fun of, pulling at your tail or how clumsy you were in the water.

When it came time to tame the ilu and he called for them, you found yourself intrigued in the noises he made but once there was one infront of you that was all you wanted to focus on.

You felt his eyes on you, your brothers were learning to mount their ilu, you just stroked the one in front of you, smiling as you took in the animal, their fins and their beauty.

“-Y/n” Tsireya’s voice pulled you out of your trance, you looked up to see them looking at you, Neteyam and Lo’ak already on their ilu’s back. “Are you not going to get on?” she asked.

You looked down, “I uh… I wasn’t paying attention, I’m sorry” your cheeks burned at the embarrassment. Tsireya giggled and asked Ao’nung to show you how to do it again.

Ao’nung swam over to you begrudgingly, you mounted your ilu and he guided your hands to the correct positions.

“Now body position is very important,” He started to explain. “If you don’t have it right you could go too slow or fall off.” You listened intently, but when he touched your leg or hand for the demonstration, you couldn’t help but avert your eyes. The way his voice lowered when asked if you were listening, almost demanding you to look at him, made you freeze. God he’s annoying

Your brother went first, flying off almost immediately, driving Ao’nung’s point home. You clenched your jaw as to not say anything when they made fun of your brothers when their attempts failed.

You moved forward to try, Rotxo saying something along the lines of ‘this should be good’.

You focused as your ilu dove under water, keeping a tight grip and correcting your positions accordingly. It was overwhelming moving so fast in the water, but after a second it started to feel familiar. Admittedly you didn’t have complete control, but no one criticized you when you came back, a smug look on your face and still on your ilu. Ao’nung smirking, raising his chin in a ‘told you so’ way

When you heard your sister yelling you wasted no time running over to the source of the commotion, you and Neteyam arriving at the same time. Ao’nung and his friends were picking at Lo’ak, but Neteyam broke it up, telling the boys to back off. You stood behind him closer to Kiri, Ao’nung’s glances towards you not going unnoticed.

“From now on I need you to respect my sister.” Neteyam pointed to Kiri, not taking his eyes off Ao’nung, He nodded, putting his hands up amused, Neteyam turned around, gathering Lo’ak and you to all leave.

“they're freaks... A whole family of them” Now that pissed you off, you were about to retort when Lo’ak beat you too it.

You knew something was up when he started showing off his hand, then suddenly Lo’ak was punching Ao’nung left and right. “It’s called a punch bitch.”

Ah there it is

The boy immediately tackled Lo’ak, punching him and pulling at his tail, you watched Neteyam rub the back of his head before jumping into the fight.

You and Kiri shared a look, you smirked and watched her grimace before you ran in, tackling Ao’nung off Neteyam. You two rolled in the sand, you landing on top and throwing a few punches in his face before pulling at his ears.

“You fight like a girl!” he yelled, pushing you off him and grabbing your tail. You scrambled up and threw yourself backwards at him knocking you both to the ground again. Even though your hip was now throbbing, you turned yourself on top of him, straddling his back.

“Good!” You grabbed him by his hair and pushed his face into the sand, “Now leave my fam-” you were cut off when he pushed up and you fell off him, your head slamming against the sand, you took the chance to kick him in the face as he stood up. He recoiled but grabbed hold of your ankle.

“This is stupid” you heard Kiri yell.

Ao’nung pulled you forward by the leg, instinctively you kicked his shin causing him to fall. He caught himself just before he slammed into you, his hand holding onto your ankle, moved to now holding the skin between your thigh and hip. Your breath hitched

You didn’t realize your eyes were closed until you opened them and realized how close Ao’nung was, you stared at each other for a moment before Neteyam grabbed Ao’nung by the hair and pulled him off you, Roxto rushing into drag you by your tail.

You don’t know who broke the fight up but before you knew it Jake had come to collect you all and dragged you back to the pod.

“What did I tell you guys?!” Jake yelled.

“It was my fault” Neteyam started but Jake cut him off. “No, it’s not, you need to stop taking the blame for your brother”

“It was me” You interjected, now this Lo’ak jumped at.

“No it wasn’t! They were picking on Kiri and called us freaks! I was defending my sister.” Lo’ak confessed, he never liked Neteyam taking the blame but after the incident, he was always quick to coddle or protect you.

Jake sighed, “You can’t be starting fights, we can’t afford to cause more trouble here. Now go apologize” Lo’ak tried to object but Jake shut him down. Lo’ak stormed out, but just as you and Neteyam were about to leave Jake spoke up. “What did the other guys look like?”

“Worse”

Jake nodded “Good”

A smile crept onto Neteyam’s face “A lot worse”

“Get out of here” he then turned to you

“Not worse but he didn’t get a punch in...” You muttered. He smiled and tussled your hair, nudging you out of the pod in the process.

Ao’nung didn’t know what to think, the forest freaks were nothing but a nuisance to him, but atleast he could tolerate you. Why? He couldn’t tell you.

From the beginning he couldn’t quite keep his eyes off you, the way you swam and seemingly became one with the flora was mesmerizing.

It was easy to ignore it, but you were around so much he thought he’d show you around the reef. Though a few times he purposely took you to places he knew would be difficult for you, just to get a laugh in, but you didn’t have to know that.

But then the breathing lesson came, even though you were doing well, his sister insisted that he coach you. He couldn’t even focus on your breathing; you looked so Intune and at peace when you closed your eyes. He felt like his palms were on fire, the contact with your skin was all he could think about

Even when your brothers failed miserably at taming the ilu you were still at the forefront of his mind. His skin felt on fire every time he touched you. The way you refused to look at him when he was teaching you felt disrespectful?

He didn’t even try to hide how he was staring at your face, thankfully you couldn’t see. He found himself lagging behind, watching you from afar, you and Kiri bonding with nature in a way he didn’t think was possible for forest people.

None of that stopped him from picking fights with your siblings though.

He honestly didn’t expect you to get involved, it was when you tackled him that he lost his guard, you were a good fighter too. He didn’t think much about it until he was right in your face, his hand holding just above your thigh, he saw every detail of your face and he just wanted to memorize it in that moment.

He didn’t like this but brushed it off quickly, you were new, and he was curious about you. Once he spent more time around you, he’d lose interest. He was sure of it.

You sat on top of one of the giant roots the village hung from weaving thread. You and Neteyam’s birthday was coming up and though it would be a small celebration, you still wanted to give him a good gift, an important human tradition apparently.

You sensed him before you saw him, but you made no effort to acknowledge him just yet. His presence should have put you on edge but oddly enough, it didn’t.

“You’re a good fighter.” He finally said, Ao’nung sat behind you on a different root.

“I thought I ‘fought like a girl’” You retorted, he chuckled

“I thought that was a good thing” he stood up and jumped over to the root you were on and sat in front of you. After a moment, he leaned in real close to your face and spoke, “What are you making?” He seemed curious but there was still that pompous attitude in his voice.

You thought for a moment, debating whether to answer his question. “It’s a Anurai for Neteyam” you made eye contact with him. “Our birthday is coming us soon and I suppose with all this change it would be nice”

When he didn’t answer you glanced up and saw that he was watching you weave the necklace, a small smile creeped onto your lips before you realized he was probably watching your hands

“They’re freaks. Not true Na’vi”

You scrunched your hands and necklace together before abruptly standing up, without a word you hopped down the root and walked towards the village, your pace only growing faster when you heard him call out to you.

As you approached your Marui pod you hid the necklace behind your back in case Neteyam or Tuk were inside, Tuk wasn’t good at keeping a secret.

You peaked inside and only saw Neytiri, you smiled and sat down next to her, she glanced over and asked about the necklace.

“It's for Neteyam. Our birthday is coming up.” You explained almost in a whisper, you loved Neytiri, she was your mother, but you still felt like you couldn’t breathe around her sometimes.

She guided your hands closer to her so she could get a better look, she examined it thoroughly, you held your breath. “It is beautiful Y/n, you are a loving sister” she stated gazing at you fondly.

You couldn’t help the smile that grew on your face, you scooted yourself closer to her as you continued to weave, wishing a little that she was watching. Her presence was demanding, but over time that grew to be a source of comfort for you, your need to please her only growing when she started to accept you into the family.

After a while you could hear Tuk calling for you outside the pod, you relented and hid the necklack in your bag. Smiling to Neytiri before you left you made your way to the edge of the dock, Tuk sat Infront of Kiri on her ilu, she started telling you about all the caverns Tsireya showed her. You sat on the edge of the dock listening and splashing your feet in the water.

Neteyam came up on his ilu, insisting you get in, Tuk quickly reiterating the sentiment. Before you can get in, Kiri looks around and asks where Lo’ak was

“Probably apologizing to Ao’nung or following Tsireya around” Neteyam teased

You smirked “Well I just saw Ao’nung so...” it had been obvious to everyone that Lo’ak was smitten with the Olo'eyktan’s daughter, you and your other siblings often poked fun at him for it, especially after she noted that his heart was beating fast while her hands were on his chest.

“I was just with Tsireya though...” Kiri commented, Tuk testifying the same.

You and Neteyam shared a look, he turned around and swam off with his ilu.

You comforted Tuk in the pod while she whined about wanting to go look for Lo’ak, you wanted to too, but you had to stay here, even when Kiri joined you in the pod you knew you'd be no help in the search. When Tuk got more restless you and Kiri took her into the water and tried to entertain her

When you heard he was back, you jumped on your ilu and followed the direction the people on the walkway went. When you arrived, you saw Lo’ak and Ao’nung talking, you didn’t care about what they were saying, you just rode up and jumped onto the docks.

“Lo’ak are you ok?” You placed a hand on his shoulder, looking him up and down before placing one on his face. most of the crowd had dispersed by now, leaving only you, Lo’ak, and Ao’nung.

“I’m fine sis” you could tell he was holding back. You scrunched your eyebrows in worry. “I just had a little trouble out at sea...” he confessed

“A little bit of trouble?!” You kept your voice down but the panic was still evident, you knew that what Lo’ak says is a ‘little trouble’ is not in fact little.

He places his hand on your shoulder, “Really sis. I’m fine.” He pulls you in for a hug, you nod and pull back. Before you can leave for the pod, you hear Ao’nung say your name.

His expression is hard to understand, a mix of guilt and embarrassment? You couldn’t place it.

All you do is turn your head and quickly walk away. You ignore the calls of your name.

Even that night when you all snuck off to a more secluded area to hear what happened to Lo’ak you ignored him, well you didn’t talk to him, you definitely glared more than necessary when Lo’ak talked about almost being killed by the Akula. You listened to Ao’nung as he spoke about the Tulkan but you never gave him more than a deadpan.

Befriending a deadly and killer Tulkan. Definitely seemed like something your brother would do.

“How long are you going to ignore him?” Lo’ak asked, clearly amused by the not-so-subtle distaste you showed for Ao’nung the while night. You rolled your eyes.

“He was staring at you a lot” Neteyam tartly pointed out.

“I was glaring at him a lot” you suggested

You ignored Ao’nung all morning, which for some reason made him follow you around even more. Instead of just being around, he was always right next to you or behind you. Once he realized you weren’t going to even listen to him, he just trailed behind.

This continued to the next day and eventually he got the hint and stopped bothering you.

“You know he apologized right?” Lo’ak asked while you were tending to your ilu.

“Yes.” you answered. “Doesn’t mean I want to talk to him; he got that through his thick skull eventually”

Kiri chucked, “It also helps that he and Neteyam caught on to his ogling and kept attempting to intimidate him” she mused, gesturing to Lo’ak.

“It’s weird! I don’t like it, Y/n is my sister” he defended, Kiri rolled her eyes as she retorted. “And Tsireya is his, by now you should be pummeled in the sand”

You ignore their bickering and swim to a more peaceful location on your ilu. You sat on your knees on the rock, your ilu’s head resting in your lap as you stroked her head and watched the scenery.

You were too caught up in the way the lowering sun reflected on the water to sense someone coming up behind you, suddenly you were lifted into the air and dropped slightly as they wrapped their arms around your waist, keeping you off the ground.

You screamed in surprise, ready to elbow the face of the person behind you.

“Got ya!” Ao’nung stepped back tightening his hold on you.

Relief washed over you before frustration took over. “Ao’nung let me go!” you yelled, adrenaline still rushing through you.

“No way, this is the only way I can get you to listen to me” he exclaimed, you could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Let me down.” you demanded.

“Only when you promise to hear me out” You could feel the smugness radiating from him, huffing you relented. Satisfied, he let you down but held onto your forearm when you turned around.

You glared at him to express your displeasure but he only smirked. “Listen, I’m sorry about what I did to your brother” his voice was genuine “But I realize it was wrong, I want to make it up to you.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t Lo’ak be the one getting compensated”

He thought, smiling “He gets a free punch on me anytime he wants” raising his eyebrows, asking if that was satisfactory.

You rolled your eyes. He leaned in closer, “I want to make it up to you for making you so distressed, and for making you uncomfortable up on the roots the other day.” he elaborated.

Oh, you didn’t think he’d assume he was the problem when you walked away. Sheepishly you nodded.

“Ok” he smiled. “Meet me here an hour past sunset” and with that he walked backwards, keeping his eyes trained on you before mounting his ilu and swimming away.

Biting your lip, you thought for a moment about whether this would be a good idea, you glanced around and got onto your ilu, swimming back to your pod.

4K notes · View notes

ddarker-dreams · 7 months

Text

Golden Girl.

Gojo Satoru x F Reader x Geto Suguru.

Warnings: The psychological damage inflicted from Gojo Satoru's presence, canon-typical violence, Gojo and Geto are both kinda questionable in their own ways. Word count: 16k.

-Index-

April 1st, 2005.

8:02 a.m.

You don’t get it.

This campus is huge. Unbelievably so. If someone said you’d waltzed into the Imperial Palace, you’d believe them, and not just because you’re gullible. Although, that’d certainly play a significant role.

Your suspicions strengthen after you walk over the third arched bridge. That’s an arched bridge too far. No school can have this many fancy-looking bridges, the schools back home are practically held together by chewed pieces of gum and scotch tape. Your jetlagged brain combs through the whirlwind you’ve endured in the past few hours. Did you give the wrong address to the taxi driver back at the airport?

He did look confused, but you hadn’t given it much thought then.

You go as still as a statue.

… What if this is the Imperial Palace? If that’s the case, you’re definitely trespassing, right?

How do you explain that to any guards that might happen by? You can envision the headlines now — Foreigner Extradited for Trespassing, Sentenced to Life, No Chance at Parole. All those hours you spent working on your student visa would be for nothing! And you’d be in prison, which is a bummer, because you’re not rich enough to weasel out of the criminal justice system.

You’ll have to join a prison gang, there’s no way around it. Would they let a fourteen-year-old in? In the event they don’t, you could always form one yourself. Leadership’s never been your thing, but it beats—

“Hey there,” a feminine voice calls out. “You lost?”

You whip your head around to the sound’s source. Instead of seeing an intimidating guard ready to haul you off, there’s a girl about your age. She has brunette hair styled in a bob, a beauty mark beneath her left eye, and an unlit cigarette hanging from her lips.

Unless the Emperor is issuing major budget cuts, this can’t be a guard.

You consider her uniform. The high collar, sheer tights, long sleeves, and brown shoes match yours, but the skirt’s different. Yours flares out and cuts off right above your knees. This minor discrepancy makes you wonder if you’re breaking the dress code on your first day. You push the concern aside for future you to deal with.

“That obvious, huh?” You laugh.

“Just a bit.”

She introduces herself as Ieiri Shoko, a first-year student like yourself. You respond in kind, offering up your own name and grade. It’s a relief to know you won’t be arrested or wandering this complex for an eternity. She walks by you and turns on her heel, tilting her head.

“Gonna come with?”

You nod and happily fall into step beside her. She doesn’t seem to be in a rush, not that you mind. It gives you time to admire the idyllic scenery around each turn. There are lush green forests, gardens, and more traditional buildings than you can count. The only detail you find odd is how empty the area is. Besides Ieiri, there isn’t a soul to be found.

“Ieiri-san, is today a holiday by any chance?”

“Just Shoko’s fine,” she says, feeling around her various pockets. “And I don’t think so. Why? Too quiet?”

“It’s almost like a ghost town.”

Shoko smiles. “Enjoy the quiet while you can.”

Well, that’s a bit ominous, but you’ve yet to meet anyone in the jujutsu world who is 100% normal. You think it might be an unspoken requirement at this point.

Shoko gives up on whatever she was searching for — a lighter, if you had to guess — and tucks the cigarette away. This reinforces your theory that those involved with jujutsu have one quirk at the bare minimum. By that logic, you must have some peculiar quirk of your own. Recalling your earlier Imperial Palace debacle, you realize it might be more than one…

“Oh, by the way. All our classes got canceled,” Shoko says.

You blink.

“On… the first day…?”

“Yeah. Something about a last-minute meeting,” she stretches her arms above her head and yawns. “I’m heading back to the dorms for a nap. I think yours is near mine, there are boxes with your name on them in the hallway.”

What a relief! There had been no word on the packages full of your personal belongings you shipped here ahead of time. The hellscape that is checked baggage had no bearing on you. Immensely pleased with this revelation, you set aside the urge to explore and accompany Shoko to where you’ll be living for the foreseeable future.

In keeping with the spirit of the rest of the school grounds, your room is spacious.

Shoko left you to your own devices. You can faintly discern her presence in the room beside yours, laying down as she said she would. You thought you’d want to do the same, but something about the crisp morning air sliced through your exhaustion. You’ll ride the high and crash later.

Adventure awaits — the exploration of the unknown, the sharpening of a faint, hazy image.

You’re back outside again. It’s amazing how, no matter where you are, you can feel the wind in your hair and the sun on your cheeks. This serves as a grounding reminder that you’re real. Reality and the ambiguous nature of jujutsu are often at odds with one other, fighting to occupy the same space. Each side spins a convincing speech about why you should give it credence while discounting the other.

Unlike a politician’s diatribe, there’s no changing the channel or turning down the volume. This invisible and perennial battle won’t ever gain total victory or retreat. There’s bound to be collateral, such is the nature of war. For some, it’s their life in a literal sense, for you, it’s sanity. Coherence. The incorrigible truth that two plus two equals four.

See, young kids aren’t given enough credit. They’re always watching, learning, and absorbing. They get the basic idea that two plus two equals four before they even know what numbers are. For instance, as a baby, you cry and writhe until your needs are met. There’s a framework. An adult in the vicinity plus wailing equals getting fed. Then later, it gets more complex. Not eating your vegetables plus getting mouthy equals timeout. So on and so forth.

You accrue this network of information that makes life navigable.

Then, while visiting some distant relative in the hospital, a massive hole gets blown into this previously steady network. Such was your experience.

Something strange sat atop the IV in the small, cramped hospital room. The adults exchanged well wishes for the man surrounded by beeping equipment and blinking screens. Everyone present focused on this man, except you. You observed this thing, about the size of a sparrow, that flitted to and fro. Whatever it was, it had too many eyes. Each rolled in a different direction, like a bowling ball that couldn’t stop spinning.

Eventually, a long yet thin appendage emerged from the unidentifiable creature. You stood petrified as it entered the man’s ear canal and sipped. The man groaned, beeps increased, and numbers flew high. It sipped harder. His screams grew louder. Everything got chaotic. People in white and blue entered the room. You heard words like ‘cardiac arrest’ and ‘defibrillation.’ Your parents dragged you away.

The creature continued to sip.

On the car ride home, you asked why no one stopped it. The creature plus its sipping equaled the man’s horrible pain. That’s what you figured, anyway. They asked for clarification. What creature? Where had it been? What did it look like? Since young kids are smarter than they’re given credit for, you recognized the tone that was directed toward you. Disbelief, but in a nice, adult way.

If you insisted on the creature’s existence, they grew worried. When you told your friends — who in turn, told their parents — their worry grew. If every drawing you scribbled tried to depict the creature’s likeness, their worry overflowed. You overheard words like ‘traumatic experience’ and ‘coping.’

So, you stopped mentioning it. This stopped the concerned murmurings you’d overhear. You tried really hard to believe what they said about nightmares and mean imaginary friends. This worked well enough until you noticed similar creatures everywhere. On the playground, bus, graveyards, and abandoned houses. They weren’t all the size of a sparrow either. Some were tiny enough to be mistaken for gnats. Others were huge and salivated large pools against the ground.

It was around this time that you developed a second shadow. A spinning golden ring that could fit in the palm of your hand followed you everywhere. No one else could see it, but unlike the creatures, this ring didn’t scare you. Just the opposite, in fact. You considered it a guardian angel.

If the gnats got too close, it’d slice through them.

When the huge, drooling ones reached out their mangled hand, it’d cut through their wrists.

Later on, you’d learn this ‘guardian angel’ was called a ‘cursed technique.’

Smiling, you descend a flight of stairs. From today onward, you’ll be surrounded by people who don’t discount the equation you spent your early years erasing. They’ll be around your age too! You already like Shoko, she’s pretty and has a calming presence. You wonder what the others in your class will be like. How many will there be? Twenty? Your social studies class topped out at thirty-four.

You hope you can befriend everyone.

The gears turning in your head grind to a halt upon noticing the view. Maybe it’s how the morning sun casts a soft glow upon the verdure, or maybe you’re just easily impressed. Whatever the case, the sight stokes awe inside you. Trees line both sides of the gravel path ahead, their canopies inclining as if leaning down to hear a whisper. Smudges of green streak through the air, accepting any destiny the wind bestows.

What an image, straight from the pages of a fairytale book!

You fish out your new phone, a hot pink Razr V3, recalling its camera feature. Even if the photograph isn’t award-winning, you want to preserve this moment.

You can’t explain it. This intuition isn’t rational, it doesn’t adhere to that ever so reliable two plus two. It transcends. The fall of a domino, a flap of a butterfly wing. Seemingly unrelated yet intimately interwoven by invisible lines.

Whether preordained or the consequence of chain reactions you’d have to trace since birth to understand, what happens next stains you its color. The soul grasps what logic dismisses. And right now, your soul says this moment in time and space should never be forgotten.

As for why, your soul suggests you uncover that for yourself.

Alas, you can’t actually stop time. Perception and reality don’t always agree. While it felt like everything came to a grinding halt, the wheels never stopped turning.

And so the powerful gust soaring from your right punches the air from your lungs.

Gritting your teeth, you dig your heels into the ground. The sheer force pushes you back some inches. Next comes a hail of debris. Chunks of soil, sediment, and splintered wood descend. Recognizing this threat, your mind yells at your body to move. Those earthly implements are soaring faster than a bullet. However, the baleful gale restricts precise movement. You’re nothing but a bag of flesh and viscera to the indifferent swell. It’ll send you tumbling the instant your feet lift off the ground.

Dodging isn’t an option.

Those rocks… your cursed technique could dice them up, but then you’d get pelted with shrapnel rather than stone.

Which is the better outcome? A body littered with numerous holes or a few craters?

Your arms fly up to protect your major organs. You’ll endure what you can.

Except, instead of enduring an onslaught, nothing happens. Nothing hurts, rips, or gets torn to shreds.

The wind hasn’t stopped, but it no longer touches you. You jump back, out of the line of impact. The debris parts like the Red Sea and grants you safe passage. From this vantage point, you’re a witness rather than an unwitting participant. The unrelenting force rages on. You gape at the path of destruction it’s left behind, indiscriminately swallowing trees, foliage, and the ground. It looks like a meteor surged in a straight line through the forest.

No matter what you’d chosen to do, if it weren’t for that abrupt opening, you would’ve died.

Heart thumping wildly, you snap your head toward the direction this miniature storm originated from. Was it a curse? If it is, then you’re hopelessly outclassed.

No, that doesn’t seem right, you think. You’re familiar with how it feels when a curse is nearby. Should it be close to your power level, it’s like getting splashed with frigid water. For curses above your abilities, that sensation gets amplified. It’s as if you’ve been plunged into the Arctic Ocean. Right now, you’re not experiencing either of those sensory nightmares.

A silhouette walks through the dusty haze that destructive force left behind.

“Whoops,” the person within says, “That was close.”

You run over, swatting the dust lingering in the air. Anyone close to that force could’ve gotten severely injured. Concern seeps into your being as the figure emerges.

“Are you okay?!”

The first thing you notice is a head of white hair. Next is this person’s height, you have to crane your neck to meet his eyes. Eyes that were, for some reason, covered by circular sunglasses. There’s a sideways grin on his face, the absolute last expression you were expecting. From his uniform, you guess he’s a student like yourself. His most prominent feature isn’t anything visible. It’s the sheer aura he exudes, you’ve never experienced anything similar. There’s no hostility, but it’s intense.

You inhale shakily.

“Never better. You?”

He sounds chipper.

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” you reply, giving yourself a once-over.

You pinch your eyebrows together while assessing your condition. The white-haired figure notices this and asks, “Ya sure? Nothing hit you, right?”

“That’s the weird thing, though,” you frown. “I should be covered in dust, but there’s not a single speck.”

His grin widens, like he’s in on some joke you aren’t. This plucks a cord of irritation within you. Narrowing your eyes, you take a step back. You focus on the cursed energy engulfing him, then compare it to residuals left behind by the force. The residuals in the path it carved out are too faint to properly discern. All you have implicating his involvement is a hunch.

You remember how the gust itself felt, though. The ferocity that had every nerve in your body ringing funeral bells.

Your eyes flit between the gaping maw and the sunglass-wearing stranger.

“Want a hint?” He asks. You don’t miss the teasing lilt in his voice.

“You caused that surge,” you deadpan.

“Close enough, I’ll give half credit. Next question! What stopped you from getting buried in layers of dust?”

You have no reason to play along, yet scampering off feels like you’d be conceding something. The competitive nature boiling in your blood refuses to admit defeat. Especially after he subjected you to that terror, without even apologizing! It’s the least he could do. What an inconsiderate jerk. You’ll knock him down from that high horse if it’s the last thing you do.

Crossing your arms over your chest, you consider the information you have to work with. Whatever he did had to involve his cursed technique. Did he apply a shield to you? It’s the most obvious answer, but that doesn’t explain everything. A shield would lessen the damage, not negate it entirely.

How did he pull that off…?

As you’re piecing this puzzle together, someone in the distance yells, “Satoru!” drawing out each syllable. The person before you winces but doesn’t lose his boyish smile. You sense another presence heading this way. After you turn around to face this new addition, two large hands settle on your shoulders from behind. You bristle and try shaking them off, but this weirdo doesn’t let go.

An older man with a severe expression stands atop the staircase. His uniform is pitch black, denoting a different status than a student, if you were to guess.

“One hour,” he huffs out, “One hour, I ask for you to sit still and behave. And what do I come back to? An entire tunnel running through the school grounds?”

“It was for good reason, sensei,” this ‘Satoru’ insists. He squeezes your shoulders. “[First] here mistook a bug for a curse and yelped, ‘Kya, there’s a curse!’ I, being the good samaritan I am, dispatched the threat with what I thought to be an appropriate amount of force at the time.”

You make a face. “Eh?”

“Huh?” Yaga must find this explanation as convincing as you do. His countenance filters through multiple emotions. Confusion, frustration, disbelief, and then, finally, exhaustion. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You couldn’t come up with anything better than that?”

“I didn’t come up with anything! Tell him, [First]! Are you going to abandon your savior when he needs you most?”

Yaga turns his attention to you, pity evident in his eyes.

“Satoru did… sort of protect me from something… in a way?” You mumble.

Satoru’s fingers twitch when you speak his recently learned name.

Yaga sighs. “We’ll discuss this later, Satoru.”

And with that, the first teacher you’ve met walks away, shaking his head. His demeanor reminds you of a disappointed parent. Suddenly cognizant of the unwelcome contact on your body, you jerk your shoulders forward. This time, he releases you. You get the sense he could’ve easily held on if he wanted to.

“Man, you suck at lying,” Satoru whines.

“Me? What sort of cover story was that? If you ever become a defense attorney, your clients are screwed.”

He throws his arms behind his head and grins. “You gotta admit, the impression was solid.”

“That was the most egregious part!”

“I thought it was a nice touch.”

You roll your eyes. Before this back-and-forth drags on, there’s a specific detail that’s nagging at you.

“By the way, how do you know my name—”

“Suguru, how long are you gonna sit back and watch? Voyeurism is frowned upon, y’know,” he cuts you off mid-sentence.

Your eyes practically bulge out of their sockets at his not-so-subtle implication. Thrown back into a weirded-out limbo, you start slinking off. Forget trying to understand how he knows your name despite never telling him. These are the types your parents warned you about, you need to flee! Hormonal high school boys should be sectioned off until they’re no longer threats to society. Nuclear warfare pales in comparison.

“She’ll never want to come near you again if you keep saying things like that.”��

Another student calmly strides out from behind a nearby tree. You squint, ensuring this isn’t an illusion. How long has this guy been here? Why couldn’t you sense his presence? Especially when he’s been so close, just a few measly feet back. The black-haired addition gives you a closed-mouth smile. Similar to Satoru, he’s rather tall. You’ll need a neck massage from all this looking up.

“Geto Suguru. It’s nice to meet you,” Geto greets.

You introduce yourself as well.

“It’s your first day here, correct? How are you finding everything? Have any questions?”

“None that I can think of, but thank you! It’s been uneventful, up to a certain point.”

Satoru yawns obnoxiously loud, interrupting your exchange. “Look what you did, Suguru. She’s all prim and proper now. I might fall asleep.”

You shoot him a scathing look but bite your tongue.

“What? No need to hold back. Say whatever you want, I can take it,” he asserts, tilting his head enough for his sunglasses to slide down. Two pools of frosty blues bore through you. You freeze up at the sight. Snowy eyelashes, glittering, gemstone-like eyes, why would he ever hide them? You’ve never seen such a bewitching color.

He strikes like a serpent at the opening you’ve given him.

“All this staring’s gonna make me shy. You can take a picture, if you want. I don’t mind.”

Any spell you were under withers and dies.

“Actually, I was just thinking that you remind me of a celebrity,” you say.

Satoru preens, interpreting your words as a compliment. Before his ego inflates enough for him to float away, however, you give him a smug smile of your own.

“Ever heard of Sanrio’s Cinnamoroll? You two could be twins! It’s adorable.”

His shoulders droop and Suguru chuckles, the sound coming out muffled from behind his hand. You spin around, content, humming to yourself as you walk up the stairs. You block out whatever Satoru shouts in retaliation. His words go in one ear and out the other. Something tells you this is the best strategy for dealing with him.

So far, you’ve met three classmates, and that was enough to exhaust you thoroughly.

You wonder what everyone else is like.

Later that evening, Shoko explains it’s just you four in your class.

You finish chewing your takeout, swallow, and then reply, “Eh? Seriously? But this place is crazy big.”

“Not many folks can use jujutsu,” Shoko says. She picks a mushroom up with her chopsticks and places it in your container. “Four students is a high amount, all things considered.”

You plop the mushroom into your mouth. Savory flavors coat your tongue, warming your heart and your soul. Delicious food is the antidote to all woes. Presently, your biggest woe happens to have white hair, unfairly pretty eyes, and a knack for getting under your skin. Recalling your previous encounter makes you grimace.

“Hey, Shoko. Would I get in trouble for spraying Satoru with water?”

Instead of responding, she stares at you, blinking owlishly.

“What’s up?”

“Haven’t heard any student but Geto call Gojo by his first name,” she explains. “We’ve only been here a few days though, so who knows.”

You tilt your head. “Who is Gojo?”

“Satoru. Gojo Satoru’s his full name.”

“... Ah.”

You swipe a pillow from Shoko’s bed and slam it into your face.

“I’ve been calling him by his first name?!” You whisper yell, heat rushing to your cheeks.

That’s far too intimate. This is awful, a tragedy, the end of your life that had just begun!

Shoko rubs your back reassuringly as you process the harrowing information.

This has been the first proper school day.

Teachers have come and gone depending on the class. You and Geto have been taking notes, Shoko’s fallen asleep, and Gojo occasionally throws a wadded-up note at the three of you. Shoko’s collection piles up on her desk, Geto throws his away after reading them, and you chuck yours back at Gojo when the teacher isn’t looking.

He catches it with a grin each time, as if you’re playing a friendly game of baseball.

This guy really irks you.

When it’s time to eat lunch, he’s the first to get up.

“What does everyone want from the vending machine?” Gojo asks while clapping, earning your attention. “It’s on me.”

Suguru requests Coca-Cola and Shoko, newly awake, says Oi Ocha.

“I’m okay, but thank you,” is your response.

Gojo swaggers over and you immediately regret sounding so polite.

“First you don’t open my notes and now you won’t accept my generosity? Is this what it’s like to get bullied?”

“I think bullying is typically worse than that,” you respond. His deep frown, although likely an act, still tugs on your heartstrings. Empathy is truly a double-edged sword. “... Georgia canned coffee, please.”

Gojo points a finger at you. “Aha! I knew it! Something about you struck me as a caffeine addict.”

(You throw a pen at him, which he easily sidesteps).

“Does the resident sugar addict have any room to talk?” Geto hums.

“Plenty. When you eat sweets, it’s to enjoy the flavor. In other words, an experience! When you drink coffee, though, you’re only torturing yourself to keep your eyes open.”

“Some people like coffee’s flavor,” Shoko chimes in. She rests her chin on her fist. “You would if it was sickeningly sweet.”

You take in the sight of your classmates bickering. It stirs a warm, pleasant feeling in your chest, like walking outside on the first day of spring. Such a simple exchange instills a sense of normalcy, no matter how fleeting. Gojo’s larger-than-life personality, Geto’s sneaky ways of goading him on, and Shoko’s occasional wry comment; you sear it into your memory.

There’s no real weight to the jabs everyone flings around, it’s like water off a duck’s back.

“You’ll meet lots of interesting folks, I’m sure,” your jujutsu mentor, Ishimoto Akane, had told you. “Make the most of each day. Forgetting to live is the worst injustice you can commit toward yourself.”

Smiling, you retrieve your pen/ammunition, intent on hitting Gojo with it eventually.

Drizzle and heat olive oil in a pan. Add grape tomatoes, seasoning, and minced garlic. Stir occasionally until the grape tomatoes break down.

A mouthwatering scent fills the dormitory’s kitchen. The clock reads 10:04 p.m, indicating how late this dinner is. You keep an eye on your pan as different shades of red smear together, forming the basis for your sauce. Content to leave it unsupervised for a spell, you walk to the drawer silverware is kept in.

The plates are up in an overhead cupboard. You stand on your tiptoes, straining your arm to grab a plate that has no business being up so high.

“Need help?”

You could recognize that voice in your sleep. Or, to be more specific, your nightmares.

“I’ve got it,” you insist.

“Yes, obviously, my sincerest apologies,” Gojo's cadence shifts to a somber, apologetic tone. “Please proceed.”

You stretch your body to its limits, the muscles in your arm crying out for reprieve. Your fingertips brush over the plate’s outer rim. Mistaking this for victory, you pull it out at an awkward angle. The porcelain comes tumbling down to its imminent demise. Out of instinct, you squeeze your eyes shut, bracing for impact.

In the moments that follow, you hear nothing shatter.

Confused, you reopen your eyes to see Gojo Satoru holding the still-intact plate.

You stare at him.

He stares at you (from behind his sunglasses, despite the sun not being out).

Remembering your manners, you say, “Thank you.”

Gojo hums. The low note injects dread throughout your system, as you can guess how the melody will continue. You reach for the troublesome plate. In accordance with your premonition, he takes sadistic glee in raising it high above your head. It stays up there as if it were a full moon.

You take a deep, deep breath.

“Gojo-san, can I have that back?”

“Say ‘Pretty please, Satoru,’ and I’ll think about it.”

“...”

He stares at you.

You stare at him.

“From this day forward, you cannot have any more of my cooking,” you announce as if you were a politician making a new law known.

In what’s an exceedingly rare occurrence, Gojo doesn’t have an immediate retort. You may be unable to see his eyes, but you can tell his expression fell at your proclamation by the muscles in his face.

“Wait, really?”

“Really.”

“Really really?”

“Really really.”

Gojo silently hands over the plate with a bow.

“For you, madam.”

His melancholic act is so convincing and disproportionate to the situation that you can’t hold back your laughter. Gojo’s true strength is his ability to annoy and endear in the same breath. For this reason, your irritation toward his antics never lasts long. You’re sure he’s aware of this and uses it to his advantage. So long as it remains innocuous, you’ll play along.

“Start helping by chopping that basil and I’ll reconsider your verdict.”

Gojo gives a hearty salute.

“Yes ma’am!”

Geto plucks the manilla folder you’re holding and says your name. Perplexed, you glance at him.

“This isn’t worth rereading a fourth time,” he explains. “It won’t be anything near as dangerous as it’s been made out to be.”

He closes it and slides it across the table. You watch through heavy eyelids, blinking off sleep’s seductive whisper. The contents within — census data, maps, photographs — each piece of information refuses to absorb into your weary brain. You’re amazed you had the cogency to slap some proper loungewear on and stumble to the dormitory’s shared living space.

“S’gotta be somewhat important, though, if we got woken up at three in the morning over it.”

Geto laughs airily at that. “You’d be surprised.”

“What do you mean?”

“He means that anything involving the Zenins gets a fast track to becoming everyone’s problem,” Gojo adds from the doorway.

You turn your head in the direction of his hoarse voice. He didn’t bother to fix his bedhead or put on anything half-decent. He’s wearing a gray v-neck and slacks, unlike Geto, who at least put on a pair of jeans. His trademark sunglasses sit ajar on his nose.

Despite yourself, your heart skips a beat. He’s kinda cute.

Gojo gives you a lazy wave and grin. “Wow, you’re actually awake. I thought we’d have to drag you out of bed.”

“In the spirit of maintaining harmony, I’m going to ignore that comment,” you grumble, getting up from the floor to sit on the couch. Gojo sits to your left, slouches into the armrest, and throws his legs on the table. What terrible posture. “Going back to what you said — who are the Zenins? Are they important or something?”

Gojo furrows his eyebrows.

Geto blinks.

You glance between the two of them, feeling increasingly out of the loop. “W-What?”

Gojo, being the fiend that he is, breaks out into unapologetic laughter. You gape at him, your cheeks going from cold to scorching. Geto shakes his head in disapproval over Gojo’s behavior. Still, a small smile works onto his face, further exacerbating your embarrassment. Gojo loudly poking fun at you is one thing, but you’re used to Geto having your back Or at least abstaining from either side.

Vexed, you shoot up, ready to storm off, but Gojo’s hand encircles your wrist.

“My bad, my bad,” he manages through the occasional chuckle. “Come back. We’ll explain it to you.”

You grumble beneath your breath yet ultimately acquiesce.

Gojo peers at you from above his sunglasses. “Ever heard of the Big Three Sorcerer Families?”

You shoot him an unimpressed look. “Would we be having this conversation if I had?”

“Man, that must be nice. I almost feel bad ruining your innocence like this,” Gojo sighs, ever the melodramatic performer. “Hm… let’s see… think of them as the lame, jujutsu versions of Zapdos, Articuno, and Moltres.”

Sitting patiently, you wait for him to elaborate.

He doesn’t.

“Geto-kun, care to translate?”

“With pleasure. So, since cursed techniques are inherited, families often want them passed on from one generation to the next. The Big Three come from bloodlines that hold some of the strongest techniques. As you can imagine, this has granted them lots of influence and power over the centuries. How they leverage these advantages, well…”

Geto trails off and clears his throat.

“—They use it to advance their own agendas and snuff out any meaningful change,” Gojo finishes for him.

You nod.

“Okay, I think I get it! So they’re like jujutsu lobbyists?”

Gojo bursts into another fit of laughter. “I like that! Yeah, let’s call them that. Most of those geezers aren’t even jujutsu sorcerers themselves. They just sit around in the dark and scheme. It’s pathetic.”

Gojo doesn’t care about mincing words. He’s the type to call it as he sees it, for better or for worse. Rarely do you sense such acrimony festering beneath the surface of his remarks. This matter is different. He’s smiling, but there’s a tense underpinning to how he sets his jaw.

“Wait, okay, so, there’s the Zenins, but… who are the other two?” You ask.

“The Kamo and Gojo families,” Geto answers.

Gojo, gojo… that name sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it?

This reveal doesn’t knock the breath from your lungs. You’ve been able to guess for some time now that Gojo came from money. How much exactly, you weren’t sure, but his designer clothes raised your estimates high. Your rich kid radar is as accurate as ever.

You point an accusatory finger toward the white-haired male beside you. “We have a double agent in our midst, Geto-kun.”

“It would appear so. How should we proceed?”

You stride over to Geto’s side, creating the appropriate distance between you and the traitor.

“Imprisonment without trial,” you declare, much to Gojo’s chagrin. “Solitary confinement too. Cosplaying as the working class is a federal offense.”

“Hah? What sort of kangaroo court is this?” Gojo complains. He removes his legs from the table and sits properly, then crosses his arms over his chest. Continuing your charade, you pay him no mind. Instead, you stand on your tiptoes, cup your hands, and whisper into Geto’s ear:

“The convict is disparaging our blameless judicial system. Shall we add ten years of hard labor?”

A malevolent gleam passes over Geto’s eyes.

“Let’s make it twenty,” he whispers back. You nod. Great minds think alike.

You return your attention to the couch, intending to update Gojo’s sentence, only to find he isn’t there. Yours and Geto’s deliberation couldn’t have lasted more than five seconds! Where did your prisoner run off to? His presence vanished as well, leaving not a single trace. It should unnerve you how in control he is of every aspect of his being. Maybe it would’ve had you not known him personally.

Warm breath fans against your ear from behind. “I’m taking this corrupt official hostage.”

With that, your legs give out faster than your brain can register. Your equilibrium is thrown into chaos as two arms lift you. The abruptness of it all has your limbs flailing for purchase and a squeak escaping your lips. Gojo takes care to ensure you don’t fall or harm yourself, but he doesn’t bother hiding his sadistic glee. You’re held bridal style against his firm chest.

Trying to wriggle loose is a meaningless endeavor. Accepting your fate, you go limp, but not without requesting assistance.

“Geto, are you really going to abandon me to the machinations of this criminal?”

Geto walks over, consideration etched into his countenance, stoking hope of rescue in your chest. He reaches for you. It’s almost imperceptible, but Gojo’s grip tightens ever so slightly. However, his hand doesn’t pry you from the jaws of the beast. He just pulls down your shirt, which has risen to reveal a sliver of your stomach.

Wow, what a gentleman.

“Did you ever consider that I might be a double agent?” Geto challenges, relishing in your visible frustration as much as Gojo. Such is the plight of those who wear their heart on their sleeve.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson alright,” you retort. The foreboding nature of your words isn’t lost on them. They await your next move, which you swiftly deliver. “Gojo-san, let me down. If you don’t, I will bite you.”

You can feel how he beams down at you. “Oh, I never would’ve guessed that’s what you’re into— ah, Suguru, a little help here…?”

Geto assesses the situation. After thinking it over, he helps steady you, then uses his newfound leverage to pull you free. He takes great care in putting you down, holding you steady until your feet are firmly on the floor. Your balance rushes to restore itself. In the meantime, Gojo clicks his tongue, processing the weight of Geto’s betrayal.

You give Geto a thumbs up. “Good work. No one ever sees a triple agent coming.”

“It was a split-second decision,” Gojo dismisses with a wave. His impassive expression morphs into a knowing smirk, like he just had a seismic revelation. “Ah, I get it.”

“You do?” Geto hums.

“He does?” You ask.

“Yes and yes. Suguru, you were holding out to see if she’d use her cursed technique, right?”

Geto doesn’t respond immediately, indicating Gojo’s theory holds some merit. Gojo stuffs his hands into his pockets and slinks back to the couch. His gait radiates smugness, although you can’t imagine why. Is that supposed to be a ‘gotcha!’ moment?

“I’ll admit, I am curious,” is what Geto settles on saying, his smile apologetic. Or it’s meant to come off as such.

“Why didn’t you say so sooner? It’s not like it’s a big secret or anything.”

Geto and Gojo exchange looks.

“You should be careful who you go about revealing information like that to,” Gojo warns. You’re not used to hearing this serious timbre in his voice. “Some cards should remain close to your chest.”

Even if he’s being sincere, you can’t help but feel patronized. You’ll be the first to admit it — certain nuances of jujutsu society are lost on you. Akane wasn’t the type to care for such details. She said worrying about all that bureaucracy would age you prematurely. You half agree with her. Certainly, you shouldn’t let that influence you in the areas it matters most, like combat. However, while you’re in Japan, you’re under their regulations. It wouldn’t be wise to forget that.

You purse your lips. “Obviously, yeah. I’m not going to go blabbering it off everywhere. But, I mean, you two are my friends. This’ll be our first time on the field together. Knowing what cards you have to deal with seems useful to me.”

Gojo turns his head to the side and a few seconds pass.

“Friends, huh?” Geto finally murmurs, testing the word on his tongue. His next smile reaches his eyes. “Who would’ve thought a little sincerity is all it takes to get you flustered?”

Gojo snaps his head back at Geto’s taunt. “Sorry, what was that? Aren’t you the one who—”

You clap to redirect their attention.

“Hey, hey, cut it out already. We’re going to be together for the next few days, right? Let’s all get along.”

“You just care about going back to sleep,” Gojo accuses.

“Yes. Exactly. That is all I care about right now. So, if it’s all the same to you, I’m headed to bed.”

You don’t wait for their response. As stealthily as you can, you sneak through the hallways, careful to avoid creaky floorboards. Upon returning to your room, you kick your house slippers off. The digital alarm clock on your nightstand says 3:53 p.m. Those two kept you up far later than necessary! If this assignment isn’t a big deal like Geto claims, you wish he would’ve said so sooner.

There’s always the option of sleeping during the car ride, but if there’s anything you know about Gojo, it’s that everything in his vicinity can be subjected to torment. You wouldn’t put it past him to draw on your face or blare the horn once you finally nod off.

Your head hits the pillow and you pray for rest to take you soon.

Meanwhile, back in the shared living space, Gojo stares at the spot you once occupied.

“Satoru.”

“Hm?”

“I think I get it now.”

“That so?” Gojo runs a hand through his hair. “As long as you don’t get it too much.”

Geto chuckles. After a pause, he muses, “Neither of us would be very good for her.”

“You gonna let someone else scoop her up?”

“Are you?”

“They can try,” Gojo smiles. There’s no kindness behind it.

Although this conversation could last well into the morning, in an unspoken understanding, they leave it at that.

“Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure.”

Ink blots descend from above as if the sky were weeping. The viscous teardrops curve downward, creating a dome that swallows the surrounding area. Geto and Suguru have gone ahead, leaving you to carry out basic protocol. You jog to catch up with them. Geto slows down enough to make rejoining them easier, unlike Gojo, who carries on.

“So, this is the stomping grounds of the mean ol’ curse that sent Kenji Zenin packing?” Gojo hums.

“He sustained some serious injuries,” you remind him. Gojo just shrugs. “A fractured sternum and twelve broken ribs… that’s not exactly a walk in the park.”

“A Grade One sorcerer getting whooped that bad by a Grade Two curse? Probably deserved it.”

You sigh, recognizing that Gojo won’t empathize no matter what you say.

The three of you were driven from Tokyo Jujutsu High to Kaizu for this assignment. According to Geto, the information you received likely exaggerated the curse’s capabilities as a way for Kenji Zenin to save face. It looks better for him if the higher-ups deem the threat he faced severe enough to ship off two of the school’s most promising students to handle it. Regarding your inclusion, Gojo so kindly said,

“You’re like the little garnish on top of the entrée.”

You can’t find the energy to get upset if he’s right.

There’s no denying the immense gap in your abilities compared to theirs. You could feel it in the air the instant you met Gojo. For Geto, all it took was hearing a description of his cursed technique. The potential for storing and controlling curses at will is beyond your comprehension. There are so many applications, and so many advantages… you’re utterly outclassed.

Should this demotivate you? Perhaps. You’ll never be as strong as them, it’s delusional to think otherwise. An individual’s proficiency with jujutsu is almost determined at birth. That doesn’t mean it’s static, it just means you have to find ways to excel with what you’re given. Envy is a waste of time. You want to learn from them and hone your abilities. For this reason, you’ve avoided an inferiority complex.

What could be better than learning from the best?

The atmosphere inside the curtain is dingy. It’s like a dark filter glazed over your eyes, maiming any bright or vibrant colors.

Grass crunches beneath your feet despite summer’s abundant rainfall. Nature itself flees the scene, retreating into the woods surrounding this derelict nursery. The briefing you were given went over the business’ murky past. In the seventies, there was an unprecedented boom in births around this area. Working parents needed proper childcare until their children were old enough to attend school. What few facilities existed nearby found themselves overwhelmed. Then an older, childless couple, Mikami and Fujikawa Tetsuo, purchased a plot of land outside the town with their retirement money. They cited the picturesque scenery as their reason for choosing this location, believing that the unpolluted air would be good for the children.

The nursery was built and opened. For years, parents entrusted their little ones with the tight-knit staff headed by the Tetsuo’s. Nothing of note occurred until early in the eighties. On March 24th, 1982, a child was hospitalized after crying ceaselessly for three hours straight. The mother reported that when she picked her daughter up from the daycare, her daughter had been unusually distraught. She didn’t think much of it at first. Toddlers are known for being emotional. However, as time went by and her screams became hoarse, she felt something was terribly wrong. The little girl was given mild sedatives and IV fluids as her body began to suffer from dehydration.

The next day, all seventeen children at the daycare suffered the same mysterious ailment.

Each child underwent tests ranging from bloodwork to brain MRIs to determine what the inexplicable cause of this nightmare could be. Professionals in every area, ranging from renowned neurologists to child psychiatrists flew in from around the world. Naturally, an investigation was opened into the nursery and its owners. No formal charges were made against Mikami and Fujikawa, since no evidence of foul play could be found. Regardless, the community ostracized them and any employees present during the incident.

Tragically, none of the eighteen children recovered. From the instant their sedatives wore off until they were administered again, they’d screech, thrash, and display aggressive behavior toward nurses and family members alike. Parents were faced with the impossible decision of keeping their child ‘alive’ through life support, holding out for a cure that may never come, or granting them a peaceful yet permanent rest.

Only one family kept their child on life support. He remained in a vegetative state and died from complications related to an infection two months later. The seventeen other families, who had grown close through the harrowing ordeal, turned the machines keeping their little ones alive at the same time.

This report might be one of the worst things you’ve read.

Scanning the area, you note faint residuals of cursed energy throughout the decrepit playground. The swings, slide, and both sides of the seesaw contain trace amounts. Did curses form as a consequence of what happened here, or did a curse initiate the disaster? It may not matter now, but all those families never receiving proper closure makes your chest feel tight.

Painfully so.

Considering the officials never found physical evidence, you believe a curse was the cause. What were the victims supposed to do? What could they do? Non-sorcerers can’t perceive curses, much less defend themselves. They have to be chewed, swallowed, and digested.

You kneel at the playground’s edge, inspecting the planks of rotten and peeling wood. It must’ve been assembled by hand. Each piece was planned, cut, and dutifully laid down. All to hold the wood chips that’d protect the kids as they ran, laughed, and played. This place should’ve been a fond memory for them to recall throughout their life.

Instead, it’s the reason they’d never got to have one.

“The cursed energy is concentrated in the nursery room itself,” Gojo determines.

You follow his line of sight and squint. You could tell the building was submerged in cursed energy, but you couldn’t pinpoint an exact location.

“It’s moving in the same pattern, like a grid,” Geto says. Another observation you couldn’t make. “Starting in the top left corner, ending in the bottom right, then starting the process all over again.”

Standing up, you dust the dirt off your skirt. “Why would a curse do that?”

From a tactical standpoint, moving predictably is reckless. Any combatants could use the knowledge to their advantage. Curses have some degree of self-preservation, hence why they don’t waltz everywhere without a care in the world. They’re intelligent enough to avoid spots that sorcerers frequent. Fly heads are the lone exception, but that’s because they lack the intellect necessary to care for their survival.

A curse capable of inflicting such serious wounds on a Grade One sorcerer can’t be that weak.

Gojo exchanges glances with Geto, a semblance of understanding connecting them. You’ve witnessed this wordless exchange before. No matter how much they bicker over conflicting values or petty non-issues, they maintain the ability to synchronize their thoughts and actions.

“What is it?” You snap. As soon as the acrid words leave your mouth, you regret it, although they don’t react. Taking a deep breath, you try again. “Communication is important for these missions, guys. Keep me in the loop… please?”

Geto parts his lips, but Gojo cuts him off. “There are eighteen cribs inside. The curse is fixing the blankets in each one.”

You shiver.

“... Oh.”

“How do you want to go about this, Satoru?” Geto asks. “It can’t be as simple as walking in and exorcising it.”

“Why not? Its cursed energy is consistent with what you’d expect of a Second Grade. We both know this job’s smoke and mirrors, anyway. Let’s wrap it up already and head home.”

“Isn’t it strange the curse hasn’t been drawn out, despite a curtain being cast?” You point out.

For the first time since exiting the car, Gojo looks at you. You stare back at the two black circles that obscure his omnipotent eyes. Something’s been off ever since you embarked on this mission. It’s like an itch you can’t scratch, as its location shifts elsewhere whenever you try. His words have had an edge to them when directed at you. You’re used to his lackluster manners, but this is different.

This cuts and it cuts deep.

Are you that incompetent to him…?

Gojo redirects his gaze toward the ramshackle building.

“I’m getting this over with,” he says. Simply, decisively. Leaving no room for argument.

Leaving no room for you.

Massive tendrils of cursed energy coil around him, flowing unimpeded like water through a rushing brook. You step back solely from reflex. Anticipation thrums through the air and ignites every nerve in your body. You’re left wide-eyed and breathless as it gathers and grows, its potency hundreds of times greater than anything you’ve been able to achieve. It feels as though minutes have dragged by, reacquainting you with the surreal sensation you underwent upon meeting Gojo Satoru that fateful day.

“Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue.”

Up until this point in your life, you thought you knew destruction. What hubris, what naivety. Gunfire, grenades, tanks, bombs, missiles; they are nothing but ants before the looming skyscraper that is Gojo Satoru.

This is destruction in its raw, purest form.

This is what it means to be the strongest.

… Somehow, you feel lesser than that ant.

A speck of dust would be a more fitting description.

You expect total disintegration when you reopen your eyes. You aren’t disappointed.

Concrete, wood, glass, steel, plastic, stone, and fabric alike were eviscerated. The ground where the nursery once stood is gone. A bygone era wrought with tragedy. The force behind this apex of energy blasted the wood partition around the playground, leaving nothing but a shadow to signify it ever existed.

Gojo lowers his hand and turns away from the wreckage.

“Don’t you think you went a bit overboard, Satoru?” Geto’s tone reminds you of the many scoldings Yaga has given the white-haired menace.

“Just wanted to ensure the threat was dealt with, so Kenji can sleep through the night without wetting himself,” Gojo replies, smirking. “Alrighty then, who wants to sightsee—”

“Naptime… naptime…” A garbled voice intones from the aftermath of Gojo’s attack.

The deformed curse lifts itself like a marionette fastened to invisible strings. It’s tall, with an emaciated build and haggard skin. Long clumps of thick hair emerge from its scalp, greasy and matted. Each feeble step it takes is accompanied by a snapping sound, as if its joints are begging for collapse. The humanoid shape disturbs you most of all. Cracked lips, bloodied eye sockets, chunks of deathly pale skin sloughing off brittle bones; this curse looks more like a corpse than anything else.

Most damning, however, is the sheer power it’s radiating.

“Do… they… slumber…?” It croaks.

Suguru assumes an offensive position, but Gojo puts an arm out, stopping him.

“Something’s off,” Gojo warns. If you thought he sounded serious before, that doesn’t compare to his timbre now. “Don’t attack it.”

The curse’s legs give out. That doesn’t stop it from crawling on. Lanky fingers claw at the rubble, searching desperately.

Geto summons a handful of curses in its radius. He keeps them on standby while the three of you track every movement, every ebb and flow of cursed energy. The curse grabs and cradles the sediment in its crooked hands, then rocks the amalgamation as if it were a baby.

“Did you hit it?” You whisper, knowing fully well the question is pointless. You don’t care. You need any semblance of control possible when confronted with the terrifying unknown.

“I did. The impact inflicted zero damage,” Gojo removes his sunglasses and tucks them away.

“A special condition, then?” Geto proposes. “One that makes it impervious to all harm until…”

You hear a sniffle.

Then a whimper.

And a gurgle.

“Hush, hush, hush, hush, hush, hush, hush—”

The curse repeats this mantra with increasing aggravation until its shrill voice is all you can hear. The cursed energy that enveloped it seconds prior flows out in multiple directions, like a heart pumping blood to the rest of the body. The energy is absorbed. Not a meager trace remains, every drop was sucked dry by multiple sources.

All is still.

All is silent.

A bloodcurdling wail reverberates throughout the curtain.

Eighteen appendages propel out of the curse in the middle, puncturing it from the inside out as if the limp mass was a cocoon.

There’s no need for deliberation.

The three of you scatter in different directions.

“Cursed Technique: Ophanim.”

Two glowing, golden rings the size of wheels manifest by your side. The outside surface is adorned with closed eyes, each arranged individually on top of the other rather than in pairs. The two rings work in tandem to slice through the appendage barreling toward you. You recall them to your side, running at a breakneck speed to avoid the five fleshy appendages still seeking your demise.

Gojo and Geto are in a similar predicament. Running, leaping, and dodging the seismic attacks that leave massive craters in its wake. A single hit from that would crush your body in an instant. Then there’s the disorienting wailing, originating from multiple locations throughout the curtain’s interior. You can’t pinpoint where the sounds are coming from.

Adrenaline pumps through your veins, oxygen rushes with each sharp inhale, and your muscles strain to keep up with the demands you make of them.

The sixth appendage, which your cursed technique cut through, lurches from above. Whole and better than ever. Unlike before, its momentum is lightning-fast. The change is so instantaneous that you have no time to respond accordingly. Death’s harbinger looms, engulfing your existence in its hungry shadow. Instead of slicing it off at the wrist, you propel your rings up, accelerating their spin at the cost of speed. Flesh and cartilage rips above you in the shape of a thin slit.

The appendage plummets down.

Through the ringing in your ears, you hear voices yelling out your name.

An unpleasant, viscous substance coats you from head to toe.

You grimace and wipe off what you can. Geto’s curses managed to cut the appendage off at the joint, preventing it from rising and trying to crush you again. Your rings barely managed to carve a hole big enough to span the width of your body. That doesn’t mean you’re safe just yet — the five remaining appendages that have you as their target are seconds away. Unlike the one you just faced, their speed is manageable.

The more damage inflicted, the faster they are after healing, you think. This must be why Gojo and Geto are dodging instead of going on the offense.

However, since you remained still to avoid getting crushed by what your rings hadn’t cut through, the other five appendages are inbound. They’ve fanned out, blocking any angle you’d use to dodge.

You dismiss your cursed technique.

What can be done here? This curse is easily a Grade One. The centermost part is invulnerable and the eighteen limbs growing off it speed up when damaged. Summoning more rings so you can escape this attack means the next will come swifter, building and building to unimaginable speeds. You know your limits. The second healed limb was a hair below the fastest you’ve ever run.

Gojo and Geto could handle the levels above that. Maybe there’s a limit to how many times the limbs can regenerate, reaching that could exorcise the curse. No curse is truly invincible, even if it seems like it in the moment. You must be the reason why they haven’t commenced a counterattack. They knew anything above a second regeneration would do you in.

Is that really the only way?

Something wet drips on your head.

You use what little time you have to glance up.

Suspended midair is a small outline, made visible by the viscera that spurted from your cursed technique’s earlier attack. Sluggishly, you blink, wiping the blood from your eyes to ensure you aren’t hallucinating. The outline’s edges wriggle and squirm. You realize that it’s doing so in time with the incessant wailing.

“What do you think you’re doing, spacing out in the middle of a fight?”

Gojo must’ve warped in front of you.

You recognize the hand motion he’s making, and cry out, “Don’t! That’ll only make it—”

“I know, I know,” Gojo launches a devastating blow that obliterates the five incoming appendages, reducing them to pitiful scraps. “I didn’t just run a marathon for you to give up and become a pancake.”

“I didn’t give up,” you snap back.

He glances over his shoulder and grins. “Good. Cause we need to hose you off as soon as possible.”

You let out a noise in between a laugh and a cry. How can he crack jokes under these dire circumstances?

“Gojo—”

“Ah ah ah,” The menace cuts you off, “Satoru. Call me anything else and I’m leaving you to handle this on your own.”

While speaking his untimely quips, he continuously forms and releases his Cursed Technique Lapse, Blue. This forces the broken appendages into a cycle of stitching themselves together only to get destroyed again. It stuns you, how he can casually hold a conversation while performing a technique that’d use all your cursed energy to execute once. Never mind countless times in rapid succession.

“Satoru,” you try again, to which he hums, “This… thing above me, do you think it’s…?”

“The weak spot for this Ju-On ripoff? Yeah. Just noticed that. Suguru’s curses are self-destructing near them, so their invisibility’s useless.”

The six appendages that tracked Satoru join the fray, granting Geto additional space to maneuver unhindered. Floating blobs covered in the innards of curses appear one by one like macabre lanterns in the night sky. You can’t stop yourself from admiring how effortless they make it look. It was all you could do to avoid the curses’ attacks, that required every ounce of your cognition. Meanwhile, they pieced together the curses’ gimmick and started countermeasures.

“Anything broken?” Satoru asks.

“Just a few sprains.”

“Great. Now, I’m about to ask for a lot, but it’s nothing I don’t think you can’t handle.”

You exhale shakily.

“There’s another application of your cursed technique, right?”

How does he know that?

You’ll worry about this oddity later.

“There is, but,” you stare down at your blood-soaked hands, “Why are you asking?”

Satoru takes a moment to consider his response. The gory splatters are reforming faster and faster, you’ve lost count of how many blasts he’s used to cut them down. It’s almost imperceptible, but you can tell he can’t keep this up forever. Each subsequent use of Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue requires more energy than the last. If he’s a sliver off in his calculations, then the appendages will heal instantaneously and skewer your body faster than death can claim you.

Geto leaps down from a hovering curse.

“There are seventeen sources, just like you said,” he huffs, wiping the perspiration trickling down his temple. “Each one is visible now.”

Seventeen sources?

“This eyesore’s a distraction. Those screaming curses — they’re the real target here,” Satoru says.

You consider the curse a few feet above your head. “So we should attack them, right?”

Geto shakes his head. “We tried that. They didn’t sustain any damage.”

“Seriously?”

“This is just a theory, but,” Satoru takes a deep breath, “Seventeen of the eighteen victims from this place had their life support pulled simultaneously, right?”

Huh. So he did read the briefing after all.

This conjecture prickles at your skin like tiny needles. The screaming, the small stature these curses have, every detail comes crashing down at once. Maggots writhing beneath your skin would be more pleasant.

It isn’t them, you tell yourself, because you have to. It’s an echo. The curse they left behind.

You steeple your fingers. Cursed energy thrums around and through you, reverberating in your bones, and crackling throughout your soul. Simultaneously. That’s the key here. These curses can pull off their various immunities by using conditions to their advantage.

The two warding off the original curses’ attacks before you are strong, yes, but this niche fits you well.

If you’re able to perform it properly, that is.

You accept every drop of cursed energy your body can handle. Once you’re filled to the brim, it’s expelled, rushing through the air like geysers.

“Cursed Technique: Null.”

Your ability is versatile if not simple.

You can call forth golden rings that perpetually spin clockwise. Their size, speed, and sharpness are determined by you. At this point in your training, you can maintain two of these rings without sacrificing speed or sharpness. Should you bring out any more, they will dull and slow down for each addition made. Two could slash through steel, four could cut the same slab halfway, six would make a sizable dent, eight would leave a scratch; so on and so forth.

There’s an additional application beyond this.

Cursed Technique: Null — the pinnacle of the innate ability you inherited, Ophanim.

The sorcerer creates three rings around any object or organism. One spins around the target horizontally. The other two slant left and right respectively, all spinning counterclockwise. The closed eyes adorning the ring’s outside fly open. Unblinking, hypervigilant. If what they’re enclosed around is significantly weaker than the sorcerer, it can halt the movements of whatever or whoever is within.

Your record is halting thirty mice for a total of two minutes and four seconds.

Afterward, you can either dispel the rings or pull them toward the epicenter. The rings then slash through the target like a fruit slicer.

You see the seventeen silhouettes emphasized with blood.

As you will it, three golden rings surround each one. The cursed energy swaddling them hisses and resists your designs. Their wailing crescendos, culminating at an ear-piercing pitch. The fussing stops abruptly as the eyes on each ring open wide. Seventeen different targets, fifty-one rings… it is draining cursed energy from you fast.

Four seconds. This is as long as you trust the halt to work.

That leaves the issue of cutting through them.

These aren’t the used soda cans you’ve practiced on. They are curses, Semi-Grade One if you were to guess. You’re a Grade Three sorcerer. The chasm here won’t be bridged by a miracle, you’ll have to risk catapulting across and plummeting to your demise. Satoru’s likely unaware of your technique’s specifics, as even you required trial and error to determine this much. You never found documentation on Ophanim. Every unraveled facet is owed to you.

These fifty-one rings are too dull. They won’t make so much as an indent.

What you need here is a binding vow. Your own strength isn’t enough. Risk, danger, and death breathing down your neck; these are the ingredients you require. There’s a chance it won’t work and you’re condemning yourself to an early grave. If you don’t try, though, you don’t know how long Satoru and Geto can keep those appendages down.

Time to leap across.

For every second I don’t exorcise these curses, ten of my bones will break, you think. Should I reach ten seconds, my heart will stop.

Cursed energy surges through you. It finds the prospect of your end tantalizing, but without providing itself, won’t have the opportunity to claim you.

One.

(The rings gain immeasurable speed).

Two.

(It hurts, but the curses will hurt too).

Three.

(Simultaneous incisions are made through seventeen curses).

The wailing stops.

…

So does your breathing.

August 15th, 2005. Grade One Curse ‘The Caretaker’ and Semi-Grade One Curses ‘Little Ones’ were exorcised at 9:34 p.m. in Kaizu.

Hospital rooms aren’t renowned for their interior design.

Flimsy pillows, scratchy gowns, thin blankets, bright yellow lights, ghostly white walls, it’s an affront to the eyes. You almost want to continue resting if that’s all you’ll get to look at. Considering how stiff your neck is and how your limbs feel heavier than a grand piano, you assume you’ve done enough sleeping.

You prop yourself up as much as you can. This slight shift makes your body complain, nice and loud.

Footsteps rush over to your bed. You hear your name spoken, intermixed with a relieved sigh.

“You don’t stay knocked down for long, do you?” Geto muses. His smile is gentle and his eyes crinkle in delight. “Welcome back. How do you feel?”

“Like I got run over by a train,” you rasp.

You’re in desperate need of some vocal warmups.

Geto grabs a water bottle from the windowsill and hands it over. While you gulp the heavenly elixir down, he continues speaking.

“You weren’t out for long — two days. Well, two and a half days. It’s noon now.”

You relax after hearing this. Geto knew how to assuage any worries you might have before you dared to voice them. Everyone has their own way of bringing kindness into the world, this happens to be his.

“Seriously? I was expecting you to say it’s the year 2010 or something. No flying cars yet?”

“None that I’ve seen,” Geto’s laugh sounds light and airy. “Shoko’s reversed cursed technique is truly a marvel. It accelerated your healing, but I imagine the pain will linger a while longer.”

You’ll have to cook Shoko one of her favorite dishes when you get back. You don’t want to think about how long it would’ve taken for you to heal naturally, much less if it’d heal right. Bones are finicky like that. You imagine yours weren’t happy at how you offered them up on a silver platter.

She spared your family so much pain. You’ll forever be indebted to her for that.

Glancing around, you notice three mismatched chairs surrounding your bed. Geto follows your line of sight.

“Shoko and I finally chased Satoru out about an hour ago. He’s lived in this room since you were admitted. Didn’t sleep a wink either,” Geto gives you an expression you can’t quite place. “Around the forty-two-hour mark, he started making strange suggestions.”

Heaviness seeps into the air, thick and palpable, like a noxious gas.

“What kind of suggestions?”

“Suggestions like killing the higher-ups, for starters.”

Your thudding heart leaps to your throat. “... Huh?”

“It’s not anything he hasn’t said in jest before. This time, however,” Geto fixates his attention on the intravenous line threaded into your arm. You can feel the weight of his stare. “He wasn’t joking.”

It feels like you’re in one of those dreams that mimics reality so well, the line separating the two becomes increasingly distorted. You entertain the theory briefly. A single sweep of the room dispels the illusion. The loose thread on Geto’s shoulder, the sounds of carts rolling down the long hospital corridors, the lemon-tinged scent from cleaning supplies; could a dream be this detailed?

You don’t think so.

Sensing your haziness, he clarifies, “I talked him out of it by speaking in your stead. I assumed you wouldn’t want that.”

“What… what do the higher-ups have to do with anything…?”

How do they factor into the two plus two equals four equation?

Geto pulls a chair over to your bedside, sits, and contemplates. Such a grave visage doesn’t belong on a fifteen-year-old’s face. It reminds you of a father preparing to explain why he and their mother are getting a divorce to their children.

He weighs his next words on a scale only he’s privy to.

“Satoru had a gut feeling that there was more to the Kaizu mission. He must not have wanted you to have that in the back of your mind out on the field, since all it takes is one mistake to—”

He cuts himself off. His complexion takes a pallid shade.

You give him a gentle smile. Geto is more considerate than you initially gave him credit for. Ignoring the dull ache, you lean forward, placing your hand over his.

“It’s okay. You can keep going.”

The tips of his ears turn red.

He blinks rapidly, clears his throat, and then soldiers on. “R-Right. Well, you saw how he acted. With his Six Eyes, he spotted the remains of another sorcerer when he looked at the nursery. The briefing conveniently omitted the fact that Kenji wasn’t alone. This confirmed Satoru’s suspicions. He wanted to wrap things up fast to get you out of there, but… that curse proved challenging.”

“I’m getting this over with.”

Ah. So that’s why he came off that way, you think. Still… couldn’t there have been a better way? Why is blocking people out his go-to?

“We believe the Zenins — those in Kenji’s immediate circle, to be specific — hoped that you’d be… killed, to emphasize how formidable the threat he faced was. Since this job was assigned through the school, some of the higher-ups must’ve known and granted their blessing.”

“... Oh.”

The room’s air conditioning whirrs to life, billowing the beige curtains draped over the closed window. Outside, a cicada crawls over the glass pane. It pauses to recite its buzzing melody. Since it’s summer, you can expect to see and hear these insects until autumn’s chill sweeps away the heat.

You hope Satoru witnessed a similarly trivial scene while sitting in this room.

It’s important to remember just because you feel stuck, the world won’t stop spinning onward.

“Would it be okay if I called you Suguru?”

He nods without hesitation.

“Suguru, earlier you said that you changed Satoru’s mind by voicing my perspective since I couldn’t,” you start, your cadence gentle. You handpick each word with great care. “Does this mean that, personally, you agreed with him?”

His countenance is like that of a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. This look doesn’t overstay its welcome. Once he assesses you, from your open posture to your soft stare, he’s back to his usual self.

“Busted, huh? And here I thought you’d be too groggy to pick up on anything incriminating.”

“A corrupt official such as myself must remain vigilant,” you reply with a cheeky grin. Then, you reorient yourself to communicate what’s been gnawing at you properly. “There’s a lot I don’t know about these ‘higher-ups’ or ‘Zenins,’ that you keep referring to. What little I do know doesn’t paint them in a favorable light. For all I know, they could be irredeemable in every sense of the word. But…”

“... Even though this is a selfish wish, I’m making it anyway. Say they do have to go. That it’s 100% certain they’re just that bad. I don’t want you or Satoru to be the ones to carry it out. Intentionally killing someone… could there be anything worse than that? Doesn’t a part of yourself die with them?”

A lump grows in your throat. You force it down.

“So, thank you for stopping him and yourself. Sorcerers are meant to fight curses, right? Protect those who can’t protect themselves. That sort of stuff.”

Suguru squeezes your hand gently, as if you were made of porcelain.

It stops you from shattering.

After a few minutes, your erratic breathing settles. He whispers your name like he’s making a promise.

“You’re right,” he says, a newfound resolve built into the very fabric of those two words. “Protecting the weak is what matters most. Tossing everything into disarray would threaten that. It’s easier to fix what’s broken than to demolish and rebuild from scratch.”

… Is that what you meant?

Exhaustion clouds your senses. You must’ve burnt through your scarce reserves of energy. You can vaguely discern Suguru running the pad of his thumb over your hand, before detaching himself. He readjusts your pillow so it supports your head better. After murmuring your gratitude, you sink into sleep’s warm embrace.

Right as you’re traipsing the fine line between wakefulness and the unconscious, there’s a light sensation of something brushing your hair back.

This unknown doesn’t inspire fear or outrage.

Instead, it lulls you further into the recesses of peace.

You’re discharged from the hospital later that day.

An auxiliary manager from Tokyo Jujutsu High drives you back. You spend the car ride staring out the passenger side window, taking in the bustle of busy citizens and dazzling lights. It never fails to amaze you how people wordlessly maneuver around each other to maintain the flow of traffic. It’s a tempo that can’t be instructed, rather, one must adapt in real time without a conductor.

Can non-sorcerers truly be considered weak?

The description torments you as if it were a thorn in your side.

Your fingers drum over the dashboard.

What does it mean to be strong, anyway?

The next time you activate your cursed technique, you can summon and maintain four rings without sacrificing sharpness or speed.

For the past few days, you’ve been playing around with different formations. Four rings orbiting your body provide considerable defense from projectiles and close combat. Then, if you let two out, you gain the means to attack. Lastly, ditching defense to pour everything into offense is a viable option as well. Your biggest obstacle is how mentally taxing it is to track and manipulate four rings at once.

It requires great concentration. This isn’t an issue if you’re alone, but you doubt that curses will play nice and let you stand perfectly still.

You flip your My Melody notebook to the next page and scribble down,

Two rings uptime — twelve hours.Four rings uptime — one hour. Four rings uptime w/ distractions — ten minutes. Maximum distance — one hundred meters. Maximum rings at once — sixty. Uptime on maximum rings — five seconds.

Thinking back to The Caretaker, you twist your lips.

If you’d been sent on that mission by yourself, would this have been enough to win the fight? You’re alive because you were with Satoru and Suguru. There’s no denying the infallible truth. You can’t always rely on reports to accurately grade a curse. There’s also the chance once certain conditions are met, the curse can gain strength throughout the fight, and—

“Cute handwriting.”

“Eek!”

Hugging your notebook to your chest, you jump back, indignation rushing through you like molten magma. Who snuck up on you? How did they do it? You can ascertain the presence of others in your vicinity well. You know when Shoko’s sneaking out through her window at night, if Suguru’s about to enter the room, or when Utahime is seconds away from busting into the classroom to lecture Satoru about levitating her lunch onto the roof again.

Squinting, you assess the assailant. Pearly white hair, round sunglasses, a lean and towering figure…

“Satoru? You’re back?”

According to Shoko, Satoru was called to Kyoto for business relating to the Big Three not long after they returned from the hospital. It’d been two weeks since then. You’ve gotten so used to having him around, that his absence felt pronounced. Shoko mainly lamented that her ‘walking free meal ticket’ was gone whereas Utahime rejoiced. You’ve never seen your upperclassman so ecstatic.

Her hopes and dreams will be dashed come morning.

“Just got in, yeah. Why? Oh! I know! You must’ve missed me terribly. Here, here. It’s alright. C’mere and tell me all about it— oof!”

There is a barrier that separates Satoru from everyone and everything.

‘Infinity,’ he calls it. The ability to slow down encroaching mass to such a degree that it appears as if it stopped. He can keep it activated for long lengths of time. One day, he intends to reach a level where he’ll never have to turn it off. Anyone else who proposed a goal like that would either be conceited or delusional. The amount of cursed energy necessary to pull that off is immeasurable.

Satoru isn’t just anyone, though.

So when he sets an impossible goal, it enters the realm of feasibility.

His infinity is active once you leap toward him, lasting up until the very last millisecond. When you breach the threshold that denies access to anyone else, it recedes, rushing away to accommodate your presence. Infinity remains present, molding itself around your shape. The top of your head, the slope of your shoulders, down to your soles; for a fleeting moment in time, infinity chooses you over Satoru’s parameters.

Your cheek hits his chest. He has to steady you so you don’t go tumbling back. While he does this, you snake your arms around him, squeezing him tight. In doing so, yet another anomaly occurs.

You’ve rendered Gojo Satoru speechless.

When you pull back, you notice his sunglasses are crooked. You straighten them out for him and nod in approval. Smiling ear to ear, you chirp,

“Welcome home, Satoru!”

He scratches the back of his neck, uncharacteristically quiet.

“... Isn’t this a school, though?” He finally manages to get out.

“Pfft, I didn’t think you were the type to get hung up on details like that,” you laugh. “Home’s anywhere you want it to be. For me, that’s here.”

You gesture to the surrounding area. Tall trees sway per the wind’s wishes, their green leaves painted blue and silver by the night sky. The moon overhead serves as your silent witness. No matter where you are, it will find and pursue you to the ends of the earth. Crickets chirp, cicadas buzz, and frogs croak by ponds rippling with their young. The night air is damp, but the coolness granted by the sun’s absence makes it tolerable.

“Honestly, I don’t know what to make of you sometimes,” Satoru tries painting a veneer of nonchalance over his words, but you can see through the cracks. You’re getting better at doing that. “Suguru said you were as peppy as ever; I didn’t believe him. They checked for brain damage, right? How many fingers am I holding up?”

(He holds up two).

“Ten,” you reply without missing a beat.

“Funny girl.”

“I learned from the best.”

You both silently size one another up. Or, in Satoru’s case, down, because he’s freakishly tall. You’re the first to break the supposed standoff. Laughter rings through the air, just yours at first, but it’s soon joined by his. The two of you stand in the middle of a forest at midnight cackling like a bunch of witches before a sabbath.

You feel absurd and giddy in a way that only comes from being around Satoru.

Some point after the laughter dies off, you can feel Satoru’s eyes scanning over every dip and curve of your being.

After reaching some conclusion, his shoulders droop. The dopey grin on his face shifts into something more neutral, more reserved. His hands find their way into his pockets. He kicks a pebble into the woods, and you both listen to it tumbling downhill until the sound fades away. The thickets shift from wildlife’s constant antics, accommodating what little fauna lives inside Tengen’s barrier.

“I’m not going to take back what I said, because I meant it,” Satoru asserts. He doesn’t have to elaborate — you know what he’s referring to. “Had you… had that mission gone as they intended, I wouldn’t have hesitated.”

An owl hoots on a distant tree branch.

Chills nibble all over your skin like little bug bites. You hug yourself to stave the sensation off.

“Even if you knew that isn’t what I’d want?”

“Even then.”

“So, you’re admitting it’d be for your sake?”

“Most things are.”

“I don’t buy that,” you frown. “You’re kinder than you realize.”

His eyebrows pinch together and his rosy lips part. It takes him a moment to dislodge the words stuck in his throat.

“... Not many people would agree,” he smiles thinly.

“Fine, just me then, since that’s easier to prove,” you hold up a single finger and raise another for each subsequent point. “One, you always leave my favorite coffee cans where you know I’ll find them. Two, whenever we’re facing a curse, you step in front to guard me. Three, if I look all sad and homesick, you make stupid jokes to take my mind off things. And four, there’s what happened in Kaizu. You—”

“I told you to use a technique you weren’t ready for.”

You blink.

He tucks his sunglasses away, removing yet another barrier. His crystalline eyes shimmer beneath the moon’s glow.

“How much do you know about your mentor’s history?”

Ah, yes, your mentor — Ishimoto Akane.

She stands at 5’8, boasts piercing green eyes, short, tousled black hair, and a tattoo of a thorny rose that envelops her entire left arm. When it came to reading the room, no one could fail as spectacularly as her. She never minced words, found basic tasks boring, and doted over her iguana named Wormwood like he was the second coming of Christ. When she wasn’t pampering Wormwood, she could be found in her very disorganized garage, tinkering with cars or motorcycles. Her neighbors filed numerous sound complaints thanks to her speakers blasting disco at unholy hours. Somehow, she never got caught.

For lack of a better word, your jujutsu mentor is eccentric.

Most notably, she saved you and your parent’s lives from a curse when you were six. You’ve been joined by the hip ever since.

As for her history…

“Um, well, I know that she’s from Omachi. She moved out of Japan in her late teens because ‘jujutsu sorcerers are an absolute drag,’ or something like that.”

“That’s a start,” Gojo hums. “Let me fill in the blanks. The Ishimoto family goes back a ways. They might not be as influential as the Big Three, but their connections are nothing to scoff at. They’re like little leeches, sustaining themselves off others. Arranged marriages are their whole thing. Akane was set to marry some third son of a Zenin bigwig. She dipped on the day of the wedding.”

That sounds like your mentor alright.

“Personally, I find that hilarious. Her family and the Zenins aren’t of the same opinion. They essentially disowned her. Anyway! Fast forward a few years. Rumors spread that the infamous Akane is popping up in Tokyo every now and then, with some kid by her side. Ring any bells?”

You point to yourself and he nods.

She took you on training trips under the guise of an ‘exchange student program’ in the summer, which your parents considered to be an excellent opportunity. You felt bad for deceiving them, but explaining the whole ‘fighting invisible monster things with emotion magic’ would’ve made for a rough conversation.

“It wasn’t until a couple of months back that I ran into her. I came right out and asked what I’d been curious about — why did she come back? She just shrugged and said she was done being a teacher. That answer didn’t satisfy me. She’s stubborn, I’ll give her that. I’m far worse though,” he boasts, fully looking and sounding the part. “In return for picking up her tab at an izakaya, she fessed up the truth.”

He steeples his fingers together, pantomiming a hand motion you’re intimately familiar with.

“Cursed Technique: Null, the advanced application of Ophanim. Akane’s convinced an ability like that, at its full potential, would be crazy strong.”

She never said anything like that to me, you think.

You shake your head. This isn’t the most pressing matter now.

“Satoru, what are you getting at here?”

“That you shouldn’t think I’m kind. I wanted to judge your technique’s potential for myself, so I had you take on more than you could handle.”

“You wouldn’t have let me die, though.”

He chuckles mirthlessly. “And what a hero I am for that.”

You purse your lips. You’ve never seen Satoru be this hard on himself. His cadence is the same — lighthearted, easygoing — but there’s an underlying acrimony to it. His smile doesn’t reach his brilliant eyes. He comes across as a spirit mimicking another’s likeness. This should unnerve you, maybe it will upon further reflection.

Right now, however, you just want him to get across that you aren’t upset. What’s done is done.

“It’s—”

Satoru puts a hand up, stopping you prematurely. “Oh no you don’t. Don’t forgive me, not yet, anyway. You need to get better at looking out for yourself. You’re nice to a fault.”

You glare at him halfheartedly. “What’s so wrong with being nice?”

“Living in a world like this, where there are people like me.”

“A world full of Gojo Satoru’s… that is a terrifying thought,” you murmur. His lips twitch upward, but he catches himself. “Bleh, what is it with you people and rejecting basic human decency! Akane was the same way. I’m fed up with it!”

You storm toward him, your eyes narrow and jaw set tight.

“I’m going to be who I want to be and that’s that. Maybe I’m naïve—”

“—Oh, it isn’t a maybe, you definitely are—”

You hush him by placing your finger to his lips, much to his surprise, if his wide eyes are of any indication.

“—But you don’t get to tell me how to act or think or feel. That’s my business. I forgive you, alright? Now cut it out with the brooding. Let’s be real here. Doing that’s for you, not for me.”

There’s an intensity to his stare you’ve never experienced prior. It makes your head feel light and hazy. Remembering yourself, you pull your hand back, heat rushing to your face. You may have gotten carried away. He isn’t wrong about you exercising more vigilance, but something about him critiquing a core aspect of your identity stings. The description ‘oversensitive’ can join the same limbo your ‘nice to a fault’ and ‘naïve’ proclivities hang out in.

Finding your current predicament too overwhelming, you break eye contact.

“Alright, alright, I get it, quit scowling. Remind me never to piss you off again, it’s scary,” he sounds more like himself, much to your relief. “I thought of a happy medium, just for you.”

Satoru compromising? Did you die during that fight after all? You never thought you’d see the day. Shoko isn’t going to believe you.

“And that happy medium is…?”

His dumb grin makes a triumphant return. He knows he’s got your attention, no matter how cool you try to play it.

“Keep being your sweet little self. If anyone tries taking advantage of that quality, and I mean anyone, come tell Suguru or myself. We’ll take care of it.”

What is he, a member of the mob?!

Whatever, it’s a step in the right direction. You think. Maybe.

“I’m not a snitch,” you huff.

“Fine, I’ll use my own discretion then.”

“You’re impossible.”

“And you’re gonna have to get used to it.”

You quirk an eyebrow. “How do you figure?”

“Call it intuition,” he hums, smoothly sliding his sunglasses back into place. It makes you angry how cool he looks while doing so. “Or, better yet, love at first sight. Yeah. Let’s go with that, actually.”

Wait, what?

Your heart thunders against your ribcage and you gape at him like a fish.

“You…! Y-You can’t just say something like that!”

“But I did.”

“Ugh, I’ve had enough. I’m headed to bed. Go find somebody else to mess with.”

Satoru pauses, considering the words you’ve spoken without any real bite. Then he smiles. Not in the cocky, arrogant manner he’s infamous for either. The curvature is gentle. Almost sentimental. It takes you aback and makes you wonder if your eyes are malfunctioning.

“I can’t,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “It has to be you.”

It has to be you, it has to be you, it has to be you…

These five damning words loop in your head like a mantra. Who gave him the right to sound so sincere?

“Sleep well. You get all grumpy if you don’t. Having one Utahime around is more than enough, I don’t need you getting on my case too.”

Satoru turns around, pulling one hand out from his pocket to wave halfheartedly. You observe his retreating figure before snapping out of your daze. He drops a cryptic line like that and dares to casually waltz away, whistling while he does so! The nerve! The audacity! The whistling is off-pitch too! Jujutsu Tech seriously needs to consider adding music theory to the curriculum.

You jog to catch up with him and his stupidly long legs.

“Hey, Satoru!” You call out.

He stops and looks at you from over his shoulder.

“If you’re gonna watch out for me, I plan to return the favor,” you say, your tone leaving no room to argue. “You hear me?”

He waits until he’s facing forward again to respond. For this reason, you can’t see his expression. All you can make out is the outline of him giving a thumbs up, the edges of his skin swathed in silvery moonlight.

“Mhm. Loud and clear.”

December 23rd, 2017.

8:02 p.m.

You assess the man in front of you.

Pearly white hair, bandages wrapped around his eyes, a lean and towering figure… it’s Satoru, alright. There’s no mistaking his remarkable cursed energy. You could sense it — sense him — even in your deepest sleep. Amongst those at Jujutsu Tech, you’re the only one who can tell when he’s about to warp out of thin air. It’s become a running joke of sorts. Gojo Satoru has the Six Eyes and you possess a sixth sense for him.

Or so you thought.

“Are you hearing yourself?”

He sighs and runs his hand through his hair. “Loud and clear, yeah.”

“This isn’t funny, Satoru!”

“I’m not laughing, am I?”

“No, but,” you inhale shakily, wisely taking a second to tame your tongue. “You’re not taking this seriously— not taking me seriously.”

He frowns. You come close to regretting your words, falling just a few inches short. Arguments aren’t your forte. Determining when to surrender ground, bolster your defenses, or charge into enemy territory; this is a skill that requires practice. Especially when facing Satoru. You don’t want to consider him an opponent, but that’s what he feels like right now. An imposing wall blocking you from the road you have to take.

You regret turning up the duplex’s heat. Chilly as it is outside in the throes of winter, the air in this room has become scorching.

“Is that genuinely what you think?”

And there it is. He already knows the answer, as do you. He simply wants you to have your confession on record.

You grab the water bottle you left on the kitchen countertop, drinking enough to help ease the lump in your throat. This isn’t the time to cry. Not yet. Not before anything major occurs. The crisis hasn’t taken the stage, Christmas Eve holds that honor. Illogical as it may be, you don’t think you’ve earned the emotional release crying brings. That should remain a consolation prize to you in the future.

The you who will witness the horrors Geto Suguru plans to orchestrate.

The you who will learn how this decade-long saga ends.

Can the human heart endure anguish worse than this?

Tomorrow, this question will receive an answer, whether you want it or not.

“... It isn’t.”

“Good,” he says, somehow soft and firm. He opens up his arms. “C’mere.”

You’re sinking into him before he finishes the word. He secures you against his chest and the two of you tangle together like you’d unravel should you part. Satoru rests his chin on the crown of your head, mindlessly tracing patterns into your back. Or so you think, until you recognize the distinct grooves and curves of the characters which form Gojo.

He engraves it into you over and over again as if casting a spell.

This action must soothe him. You count each thump of his heart, noting how it settles into a steadier rhythm as the seconds tick by. The world’s strongest sorcerer is made of flesh and blood just like you are. It’s easy to forget that those you love and admire are mortal, regardless of how well they hide it. Those close to godhood must act the part, lest their audience murmur in suspicion.

“I don’t think I could do it, Toru.”

He doesn’t need to ask what you mean.

“Intentionally killing someone… could there be anything worse than that?”

No, you desperately scream to your younger self, as if there were any way to make her hear you. There really isn’t.

“I know.”

“... Could you?”

Satoru’s muscles stiffen. From this alone, you can glean his answer. From your lack of prodding, he must piece this together too. Talkative as you both are, it’s in these pockets of total silence that your communication shines best. Everything from the subtle hitching of breath to the twitch of one another’s lips reveals streams of information to sift through.

You can tell he doesn’t want to let you go, but you manage to wriggle out of his vice-like grip, creating a few inches of distance.

Reaching up, you undo the bandages around his eyes. He leans down to aid you in your task. Once the last strip comes off, you fold the linen neatly and put it aside. Satoru’s pretty eyes follow your every movement. When your attention returns to him, it’s impossible to overlook how hard he’s straining to fight back a smile.

He quickly abandons the farce.

Large hands seek out yours. Subconsciously, you meet him halfway, automatically drawn to him as if you were both different ends of a magnet. His slender fingers interlace with yours. His countenance radiates such fondness, such unfiltered reverence, that you find yourself getting embarrassed.

“W-What?” You choke out.

“Just thinking about how I’m the luckiest guy alive, is all,” he hums. His grin widens at how his unabashed compliments fluster you. Shame isn’t in his lexicon. “You went from looking like you wanted to bite my head off to doting on me.”

You roll your eyes yet chuckle nonetheless. He visibly perks up at the sound. He must’ve made you laugh thousands of times over the years, but he still treats each instance as if he’d experienced the most delightful composition.

He whispers your name.

“You trust me, right?”

“Of course.”

“Then do this for me, baby.”

“But…” you trail off, unable and perhaps unwilling to reinforce your argument, “Everyone is going to be risking their lives. Nanamin, Ijichi, ours and Iori’s students; even Shoko’s going out on the field. How am I supposed to sit still knowing that?”

“You don’t have to sit still, my little energizer bunny.”

The deadpan look he receives has him (wisely) reconsidering his word choice.

“I’m not asking because I don’t trust you, I’m asking because there’s no one I trust more,” Satoru tries again. You bite your lower lip. It’s unfair how much his rare glimpses of sincerity move you.

“And this is all based on a hunch?”

“Mhm.”

Satoru lifts your left hand. He caresses your skin, his smile softening into something tender. An expression that’s exclusively for you.

“Historically, my hunches are rather reliable.”

You can’t argue with the truth.

Suguru appears to have some unknown design for Okkotsu Yuta, who is to remain at Jujutsu Tech during the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons. The special-grade curse Orimoto Rika poses too many risks for him to be on the battlefield alongside allies. Since everyone down to the Ainu society is being called upon to deal with this threat, you’ve been awaiting your assignment. There’s no way they wouldn’t utilize every resource available.

Satoru ruined this assumption.

He personally requested that you remain on standby at the school.

He didn’t even tell you this himself. You found out from Maki of all people, who earlier asked why you were stuck ‘babysitting the exchange student.’ You were confused. This made her confused. Then you both remembered the menace that is Gojo Satoru and everything started adding up.

His explanation upon answering the phone?

“Oh, I was just getting around to telling you about that!”

Needless to say, you didn’t share his enthusiasm.

“Alright,” you sigh. “I’ll keep an eye on Yuta until everything is finished.”

Content, he squeezes your hand. As he does so, the gemstone on your ring finger catches the light, mesmerizing you both.

You close your eyes and smile.

‘Call it intuition,’ huh?

#gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #satoru x reader #geto suguru x reader #geto x reader #suguru x reader #jujutsu kaisen #reader insert #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #golden girl #my stuff

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tomriddleslove · 5 months

Text

Pt 2 - The one that you want.

✩Theodore Nott x Reader

Pt 2 to Hey, trouble (DELETED)

Summary: The one where just as things are beginning to look up, everything comes crashing down. Alternatively: Tension, Fluff, Angst.

A/N: This fic was written very sleep deprived so I ask you to bear with me. The second part is my favourite so just stick with it.

Songs: The Way - Mac Miller, Ariana Grande

Lover, you should have come over - Jeff Buckley

Promise - Laufey

NOTE: I accidentally deleted my account and did not have the first part of this mini series saved! I will probably rewrite it but there is some context you should know, so i’ll try summarise it as concisely as possible:

You and Theodore used to be really good friends when you first joined Hogwarts. Naturally, as you both got older, you changed slightly. Theodore came back one summer and he seemed completely different, he was not only incredibly handsome but he had generally flourished as a person. The girls all loved him and he found a new set of friends, essentially forgetting about you. Time skip a few years and you become friends with Pansy, and the rest of the group. Theodore greets you as though nothing has changed. You habour a lot of resentment to him initially, but realise you really do love chilling with the group and so you set it to the side. In the fic, you’re at a party and you head up to the roof. Theodore appears and you chat for the first time in ages. It gets a bit tense when you subtly call him out but you try brush it off as a joke. He noticed you at their quidditch practice earlier on in the day with mattheos number painted on your face, and he sounds a bit jealous. You assure him it was only for jokes, though you’re confused as to why he’d be upset. Theodore (internally ) alludes to loving you and you’re both emotionally stunted idiots in love.

AND that brings us back to now. Enjoy xx

Friday had finally come, and you couldn't think of a word that could place just how relieved you were feeling. Don't get it wrong, you hugely valued your education, and took pride in working hard, but at the end of the day, there's only so much history of magic one could tolerate before their brain tuned out. The surprise quiz you took in class today told you that you had reached that point many months ago. But it was ok, that was an issue for the future.

You click open the door to your dorm room, tossing your bag haphazardly to the side as you undo your tie, pulling it loose with a groan of relief. Pansy is sprawled out comfortably on your bed because apparently, yours was comfier (they were the exact same thing, she just couldn't be bothered to make hers in the morning.)

You flick a strand of hair that fell in front of your face with a dramatic sigh as you flop down onto the bed, lying perpendicular to Pansy as you rest your head on her lap. She has a half smile of amusement as her hand comes down to pat your head, eyes trained on her book. You raise a brow and shuffle up slightly to catch a glimpse of what she was reading.

You see the word ‘shaft’ once and that's all you need to see as you gasp with fake indignation.

“Pansy… Whilst I'm sitting here?” You groan and she grins, her face slightly red as she shrugs, shameless.

I mean, come on. You weren't a stranger to smut, but right in front of you? You grab the book from her hand and toss it across the room.

“None of that whilst I'm here. Your amazing and beautiful friend is vying for attention so focus on me.’ You say and she playfully rolls her eyes as she lies back on her bed.

“It's disgustingly hot. I can't be bothered for this year anymore. The days are as hot as hell depths and the evening has me freezing my nonexistent balls off.” Pansy moans, and you hum in agreement.

You’re grateful for your friend and her seemingly never-ending talent of speaking because you currently couldn't even muster the energy to speak.

“Do we have to go watch the boys today? Lila told me Madam Pince has charmed the library with a cooling spell. We could go there instead.” Pansy says, sitting up, and the idea is incredibly tempting. You live for nothing more than to get out of this dastardly heat, especially in the comfort of the library (Pansy and yourself had mastered the art of smuggling snacks in. The key was in making sure you triple-checked what you bought in, which you learnt after Pansy had accidentally sat on a Fizzlebees Exploding Sherbet last winter. The poor 1st year who had sat next to you was sure that there was some kind of attack and leapt under the nearest table.)

The mention of practice has your mind thinking back to your most recent encounter with Theodore. Just thinking about it again elicited that strange feeling in your stomach. You were, perhaps, close to a path of redemption (though it was more Theodore redeeming himself.)

With a sigh, you shake your head.

“We promised them we'd come. Besides, imagine the absolute havoc Mattheo will cause when he finds out we ditched for the library of all places. He would get us banned for a month, at the very least.” You say, and Pansy grumbles but ultimately knows you’re right. She sighs, muttering.

“Yes yes, I suppose you're right.” She begrudgingly admits and you grin, sitting up. You walk over to your closet, looking for something else to wear as you felt as though you were positively melting in your uniform. You flick through your closet, cursing the endless void that conveniently was full of sweaters and thick jumpers now summer has come. You dig around and find a pair of black denim shorts towards the back. You don't even know when you got them, but they fit and they'll do the job. You're thankful for the fact that you love the feeling of freshly shaven legs on your bedsheets, because heaven knows you would not bother to shave your legs for a man. You manage to find a green shirt, and you slip it on. It's nothing special really, but you weren't dressing up for anyone. You were long past those days now, you found that it was lovely not giving two shits. Pansy called it alarming, but you liked to think of it as… eclectic.

Pansy brings over her signature red lipstick (which you're sure only she can pull off) and holds your cheek in place to draw a number 10 on it, as standard practice. You reach up to grab her hand.

“Wait. Do 7 instead.” You say. She widens her eyes slightly and wiggles her brows as she looks at you.

“Oh? And why is that?” She probes and you playfully swat her, rolling your eyes.

“Theodore just asked me to. Besides we shouldn't inflate Mattheo's ego too much.” You respond a bit too quickly, and she has a shit-eating grin on her face. Pansy knows you well though, and she knows probing any further will only give her a stinging hex and nothing more, so she simply looks at you with a pointed look as she draws the 7 on instead. You watch as she traces the number 7 on her face too, adjusting her hair as she pouts and blows a kiss at herself in the mirror. You pointedly roll your eyes to tease her and she throws a pillow at you.

“Alright alright, you humble lady. Let's go.” You muse, holding your arm out. The two of you link arms as you descend down to the quidditch pitch. The sun is shining blazing down on you, and you feel uncomfortably hot and sticky within a few seconds of being outside. You truly weren't built for warm weather.

The grass on the pitch is a beautiful rich green and the sky is so picturesquely blue that it seems more like a postcard as opposed to real life. You imagine that this must be their favourite season; you had entertained the idea of watching one match in the winter season and immediately stopped after a gust of wind sent a bird flying into the girl sitting above you (You were sure it had given her that scratch on her cheek.) You couldn't cope with watching a match in such harsh weather, and you couldn't even begin to imagine how it must be to play in such conditions.

Idiots, really. They brought it on themselves. They definitely came to that realisation when they would be dragged out of bed at 5:00 am to go play in the freezing cold whilst you remained blissfully asleep under your warm covers.

You clamber up the stairs of the stands and curse under your breath. For all the beauty and wonders the wizarding world had, was it really that damn hard to have a few escalators here and there? You wanted to watch a practice game, not train to have the thighs of Hercules. You finally reach the top and shimmy down the benches with Pansy, leaning against the railing, The team was already up in the air, circling around whilst tossing the ball to one another. For all the grace and elegance Draco exuded on the ground, you couldn’t help but snicker when you catch the sight of him looking like he had slathered himself in red paint, all sweaty and grimacing; strands of his blonde hair clinging to his face.

“You alright up there Draco? Mummy forget to send you some sun cream?” You call out teasingly, and he sneers at you as Mattheo cackles, swooping down on his broom to greet you and Pansy.

“There they are!” Blaise says, a small grin on his face as he flies down to your level, joining Mattheo. You don’t even have the time to greet him because a loud gasp escapes Mattheo's lips, his hand coming out to grip your chin, tilting your face to the side.

“Traitors!” Mattheo says, eyes flickering between Pansy and yourself. You can't keep the grin off your face as you pry your face out of Mattheo's hands.

“Oh come on Mattheo. We love you all equally and need to express that love as such.” Pansy drawls, a taunting grin on her face.

“Fuck off, I'm the only important one,” Mattheo responds, puffing out his chest as he points to himself.

Blaise has to hold back from rolling his eyes, looking over at you exasperatedly. You exchange a glance with him and you feel your lips curl up into a small smile as you stifle a laugh.

“This was your doing! What did you do to them? Now I'm going to play like shit!” Mattheo whines, as he turns to look up at Theodore.

Theodore.

Your eyes flicker up and sure enough there he is. And god, how dare he look so good in this disgusting heat. His eyes are (and you have the feeling they were like that for quite a bit) trained on you, an unreadable expression on his face. He keeps his gaze on you, and you're sure at that moment he was trying to seduce your soul or play some stupid kind of mind tricks on you to have you thinking of him all day (it was working.)

His lips curl up into that godforsaken smile that borders on a smug little smirk. It has you embarrassingly weak in the knees and suddenly you're very glad it's hot, for you could blame your red cheeks on the heat. He flies down, tearing his gaze away from you as he comes close to Mattheo.

“Come on Mattheo, I’ve got an audience so I need to make sure I beat you embarrassingly quickly today,” Theodore says, egging his friend on.

“Yeah fucking right,” Mattheo says, turning to Theodore as the two engage in the most awful, embarrassing trash talk. You and Pansy exchange a glance and the two of you side-eye them with disdain.

The simple mind of boys managed to amaze you every time. Their attention span was impressively short.

Proving your point, Mattheo flies up to poke fun at Draco and Lorenzo, who both didn't seem to be holding up too well with the heat. You lean your elbows on the railing and stiffen slightly when Theodore flies up next to you. He hovers on his broom mid-air, resting his elbow on the railing in front of you. His face is incredibly close to yours, analysing your face with those sinful eyes of him which should be illegal because

Fuck, you were deprived.

“You wore it.” He says, and he sounds oddly breathless. You were assured by Blaise mere minutes ago that they had barely started practising.

Why did it seem so hard to speak? Why did Theodore seem so surprised? Why did you feel so bashful?

“You asked.” You respond, and his eyes search yours for a second before a smile tugs at his lips. His hand reaches out to cup your face, tilting it to the side as he looks at the 7 on your cheek.

Was this all it took for Theodore to touch you?

You’d have to start drawing 7 everywhere.

His fingers brush against your jaw, and you let out a shaky breath as his thumb runs along your cheek.

His touch leaves a fiery trail in its wake, and you are sure he has to be doing some sort of nonverbal magic because you feel as though you are going crazy. You resist the urge to let your eyes flutter shut because Theodore Nott simply has that effect.

He turns your head back and you stare at one another for a second more before he pulls back, and your mouth feels awfully dry.

“Mattheo smudged it.” He says, and his voice sounds slightly strained as he says so. You can't keep the corners of your lips from lifting slightly as you nod.

“Right.” You breathe out, looking at him. He grins, and this time you have to be sure you have not secured yourself a one-way ticket to the Janus Thickey Ward of St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, because you swear his eyes flicker down to your lips for a brief second before he leans back like he's been forced to do so, wordlessly looking at you once more before he grips the broom with one hand, effortlessly flying up to start practice.

You don’t even have the time to process whatever that was because your ever-eloquent and insightful friend speaks the very thoughts running through your head.

“What in the ever-loving fuck was that?” Pansy utters, eyes wide as she stares at the spot where Theodore was standing.

Amen to that, Pansy. What in the ever-loving fuck was that?

Your hand hovers over your cheek, ghosting over the place Theodore had just touched.

You part your lips to say something, but can't even formulate the words, and Pansy recognises that.

“Holy Shit! He- That-” She says, hands grabbing your shoulders as she shakes you. You're ashamed to say you needed it because you were sure you were dreaming.

“What's going on between you two? First, you’re wearing his number to the match. Then he's practically eye fucking you and you're both literally about to make out.” Pansy babbles and you roll your eyes at her dramatics.

“Oh calm down, Pansy. He barely looked at me, and he was just fixing it because Mattheo had smudged it. There's nothing going on.” She says and Pansy narrows her eyes.

“Oh yes, and I’m fucking straight. We both know that's a lie.” She deadpans, and you shake your head with an exasperated smile.

You couldn't tell whether you wanted to crack up with laughter or strangle the shit out of her. With Pansy, the line blurred more often than not. It’s why you loved her so dearly.

“Genuinely Pansy, nothing’s going on between Theodore and me. We used to be really good friends. That's all.” You say, with a tone of finality. She sighs, mumbling under her breath.

“….Painfully obvious”

“Both know that's a lie…..”

“Hopeless idiot…”

You shoot her a glare at her mumbling and she returns the sentiment with a pointed smile, enough to make you roll your eyes with amusement. You rest your head on her shoulder as the two of you watch the match.

The day Theodore had walked past you like you simply didn't exist was the day you swore to yourself you'd never, EVER, let yourself be good friends with him again. You stuck to your word always, yet this was proving to be one time where you didn't.

You prayed you wouldn't regret this, but alas, the universe is cruel at times.

The news of Draco’s father cancelling their annual summer holiday trip came surprisingly as great news to your groups as you all lounged in the library (which was as packed as it had ever been thanks to Madam Pince’s cooling charm. You all begged her to teach you the spell but she refused, and you were sure she kept it hidden to make sure people came to the library. Luckily for the group, you were one of the most conscientious students in your year, so you'd all get away with things due to the teachers favouring you greatly. A few other groups were kicked out immediately.)You all sat in a cosy arrangement in the far back end of the library. Pansy sat on the floor beside you, whilst you lounged in an armchair, feet thrown over one arm. Blaise sat on the other arm of the chair, with Draco and Theodore sitting opposite you. Between the armchair and sofa facing one another was a third sofa and a small round table. Mattheo and Lorenzo sat on that third sofa. Lorenzo stretches, sprawled out as he props his feet up on the table. You reach out and slap him with the book you were reading, and he cowers sheepishly as he puts his feet down.

“I was looking forward to summer in Versailles,” Draco complains, and you sigh. Would be nice to be able to go on such trips.

“Actually…” Pansy says, sitting up as though she’s just had an idea. Knowing your friend, you can't help but feel terrified about what's about to come out of her mouth.

“My parents have a beautiful holiday home down in France and they're going to Australia this year, so it's not being used. Why don't we all spend a week there?” Pansy says.

It's actually a very clever Idea, and a chorus of murmurs of agreement and nods echo throughout the group.

“That actually sounds good” Lorenzo says, and Blaise hums in agreement.

“I have family who live in France so they could sort out travel for us when we are there. I'm sure I can go.” Baise says and Pansy claps her hands excitedly, rubbing them together like some kind of evil genius (sometimes you were sure she was.)

“Draco, Theo?” Pansy says, and the mention of Theo's name has your eyes flickering up from your book. He's looking at you but the second your eyes meet he quickly looks at Pansy and nods, clearing his throat.

“Huh? Oh, uh- yeah.Sounds good.” He says. You lightly smile to yourself as you look down at your book.

“ I suppose I’ll tolerate it.” Draco sighs, and a chorus of groans escapes the group at his melodramatic behaviour.

“Oh piss off Draco, just admit you like us,” Mattheo says and Draco scoffs.

The boys very quickly once again get into a semi-play fight, and a stern hush from Madam Pince as she glares at the group of you sends them both sheepishly quiet. She walks away and it’s your turn to glare at the two boys.

“She may like me now, but if you two don't shut up she sure as fuck won't, and ill set your robes on fire if you force me to get through the summer whilst being banned from the library.” You spit, scolding them.

Mattheo and Draco both look down like children being chastised and Blaise has to hide his amusement as he nudges your shoulder, getting up.

“Right well, that's our cue to leave anyway. Have the real match tomorrow so we need an early night.” Blaise says. One by one everyone gets up, Pansy pushing off the floor with a sigh as she dusts down her skirt.

She turns to you, raising a brow.

“You coming?” She asks, holding a hand out and you look up, shaking your head.

“Nah. Gonna stay here for a while. Finish reading this.” You say, holding up your book with a weak smile. Pansy shakes her head with a smile, ruffling your hair (much to your dismay).

“My little neek. Have fun!” She says, and you flip her off at the comment. She grins, blowing a fake kiss back at you as she manoeuvres past the wooden bookshelves and out of the library.

You sigh and feel as though you're sinking further into the plush armchair, a pillow held to your chest as you read your book. Everything about the library was so pleasantly calming. The dim lights that cast dancing shadows of the book spines across the wall. The bibliosmia that you inhaled deeply as you lay for what felt like hours, reading whatever you could get your hands on. You’re so caught up in the allure of the library (Pansy might have a point, you definitely were a neek), that you don't even notice the presence of someone coming to sit down on the sofa next to you until the sound of the leather cushions sagging under weight draws your attention up from the pages of the book.

Seriously? Were you actually that oblivious? It was extremely alarming if you were.

You look up and see Theodore moving to take a seat on the sofa next to you. He stretches out his legs, his large frame suddenly making the space seem a lot smaller.

“Hey.” He says, and your lips quirk up in a smile as you speak.

“Hey,” You respond, folding the corner of your book.

“What are you reading?” Theodore asks, and you raise a brow.

Did he really have an interest in the book you were reading? A few years ago the Theodore you knew would never touch a book (though he would listen to you ramble on about them for an hour.)

But Theodore has changed, And so have you. He’s no longer the Theodore you knew, and the reminder turns the feeling in your stomach unpleasant.

You hold up your book, weakly smiling as you show him the cover. It was rather beaten and bruised, but you had owned this copy since your first year. You’ve reread it more times than you can count.

“Little women,” Theodore says, a small smile of recognition on his face. He remembered you, always walking around with that book. Theodore couldn’t comprehend what half the words in the book meant, but he remembered hearing you talk about it and thinking you were truly the most incredible person he had ever met.

That hadn't really changed.

“Mhmm. Must be my 5th time rereading it this year.” You say, with a small smile, and Theodore lets out a low laugh.

He's looking down at the table, and you admire the way the dim light dances along his features, making them look surprisingly soft.

“Love Jo all your days, if you choose, but don't let it spoil you, for it's wicked to throw away so many good gifts…” Theodore starts, gaze trained ahead.

“......because you can't have the one you want” You finish, quietly.

Theodore's gaze drops to his hands, fiddling with the threads on his bag. The air is thick with unspoken words. A quiet dance of regrets lingers in the spaces between your words.

"Little Women," Theodore repeats, his fingers tracing the zip on his bag. "I remember how you used to quote passages from that book like they were sacred verses. It was almost like a religion for you."

You can sense the undertone in his words—the acknowledgement of a shared past that now exists as a distant echo.

The silence that follows hangs heavy.

You shift uncomfortably in your seat, the worn pages of the book suddenly feeling like a fragile shield against the currents of emotion. Theodore's eyes, once familiar and comforting, now carry a hint of regret and a touch of something unsaid.

"Jo March was always your favourite," he continues, his voice soft, almost hesitant.

“Still is,” you say, and he nods, looking up at you. His smile is tight-lipped, and you fight the urge to reach forward and massage the furrow of his brow. He reaches into the side pocket of his bag, pulling out a book.

Little women.

You frown as you take the copy from him, flicking through it. There are scribbles and annotations all over the pages.

You hate the way you instantly recognise his handwriting - another testament as to how Theodore was weaved into everything you did.

Theodore takes the book back, his fingers lingering on the worn cover. He opens the book, thumbing through the pages, his eyes fixing on the annotations.

"I've been reading it," he admits, his voice a low murmur. "Annotating it. I wanted to see it through your eyes, to understand why it meant so much to you."

You watch him, and your heart clenches at his voice. At his eyes, At the way he speaks, and the way he keeps his head down. The realisation that he held onto this piece of you, even as you both drifted apart, is enough to send you into a spiral.

"I see you in these pages," Theodore continues, his gaze locking onto the annotated paragraphs. "I see you in between the lines, and in the words. I see you in Jo, I see you in the witty comments. Every time I read this, It's like a piece of you is still here with me."

A lump forms in your throat, and you swallow hard, trying to push back the tears that threaten to spill over.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry

“Every time I read these words, I feel like I'm back with you, even if just for a moment." He admits, looking up at you.

The devastation in his eyes is surely mirrored in your own.

You want to cry. You want to shout, because how dare he sit here, and speak of you with such reverence, and act like he cares for you when he had forgotten about you so easily? How dare he say he sees you in everything he does when he looked right past you when you stood in front of him?

How dare he act like he missed you when he didn’t?

You can't say anything. You physically can't, because every time you open your mouth it hurts. Grief clings to the pipes, scratching at your throat. It restricts your breathing, it gnaws at you.

Theodore looks at you and clears his throat, quickly looking down. You fail to make out the fact that his own eyes are threatening to spill with tears, as your own teary eyes cloud your vision.

It was always like that with you and Theodore.

Amid your shared tears, the unspoken suddenly becomes the unsayable.

He gets up, and he can't bear to look at your face because every glance of those tears in your eyes eats away at his heart. He grabs his bag and throws it over his shoulder, rushing out for fear of what you might say.

“See you” He murmurs, walking away. You can’t tear your gaze away from where he walks away even as his form disappears, and you swear the boy had taken part of your heart with him.

The quote “Fate was a cruel mistress” Never made much sense to you. Fate was beautiful even in its destructive nature. Fate was unstoppable, she didn't wait for anyone or veer away. You used to admire that about her. You found it to be a beautiful thing. Of course, it's because you also believe that fate would only wait for you. Wait that one extra second. Then, perhaps, Theodore and you would be on the same path. Instead, you were two, walking the same path only a heartbeat apart. As if time itself conspires to teach that love can occur in the same book, but pages apart.

You cannot love the beauty of her tenacity and cower from it too.

#harry potter #slytherin #tom riddle #theodore nott #theodore nott x reader #theodore nott x you #theodore nott x y/n #theodore nott fic #lorenzo berkshire #mattheo riddle #draco malfoy #blaise zabini #pansy parkinson #slytherin boys fic #slytherin boys #theodore nott angst

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thewulf · 2 months

Text

Whispers in the Night || Jake "Hangman" Seresin

Summary: Request - Can i request a jake x reader where they're partners/married and she's pregnant (maybe like 6 months) and he has to go on a mission. when he gets back she's just super clingy because 1) she was worried and scared and 2) she just missed him. and maybe he snaps at her

A/N: TY for the request. Love Jake sm!! Enjoy!

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Female Reader

Word Count: 2.4k +

T/W : Angsty in the beginning

The house felt different without Jake. His absence echoed through the rooms leaving a void that seemed impossible to fill. As you sat on the couch the silence of the house felt deafening in Jake's absence. Your fingers absentmindedly traced patterns on your swollen belly seeking comfort in the life growing inside you. But despite the reassuring kicks and movements from your unborn child there was an undeniable sense of unease that settled deep within your heart.

Each day without Jake felt like an eternity. The minutes dragging on as you counted down the moments until his return. You tried to distract yourself with mundane tasks, but the worry and anticipation gnawed at your insides like a relentless tide. Jake made sure you weren’t completely alone though. His mom came to stay with you for a few weeks. Your mom popped over as she could as she lived a few hours away. Even friends would come over keeping you busy, and mind occupied when he wasn’t there. But the nights were always hard. Always when you craved his touch and sweet whispers. Six weeks was a long time for him to be away in the middle of your pregnancy, but you knew what you signed up for when you married him a few years ago.

Being accustomed to Jake's dangerous line of work did little to ease your anxiety this time around. If anything, the realization that you were six months pregnant only amplified your fears. Every news report, every phone call filled you with dread. You mind always seemed to imagine the worst-case scenarios playing out. To add insult to injury you couldn’t even call him or write him. They were on a no contact mission. Your least favorite.

You longed for his presence, his reassuring touch, his calming voice. But as the days turned into weeks, the void left by his absence only seemed to grow larger, consuming you with a sense of longing for the man you called your husband.

Perhaps it was just your maternal instinct kicking in, but the fear of the unknown loomed over you like a dark cloud. It cast a shadow over even the brightest moments. You tried to stay strong for yourself and for your unborn child, but deep down the uncertainty gnawed at your heart with every passing moment. Fortunately for you it was coming up on six weeks and thankfully it had been radio silent. That was the best-case scenario for these types of missions.

The familiar sound of the front door opening stirred you from your slumber though you remained in that hazy state between sleep and wakefulness. As you shifted slightly in bed you felt a pair of strong arms enveloping you pulling you into a warm embrace. Startled by the touch your eyes fluttered open. Y you were met with the sight of Jake, his beautiful face illuminated by the soft glow of the moonlight filtering through the window.

"Jake?" you murmured, your voice heavy with sleep and confusion.

He smiled over at you with his eyes filled with tenderness. "Hey, sweetheart. It's just me. Go back to sleep love." he reassured you. His voice a soothing melody in the quiet of the night.

You blinked trying to process the sudden appearance of your husband. "You're home early though," you observed, your heart fluttering with a mixture of surprise and joy. You were supposed to pick him up from the base in a few days’ time. This was a wonderful surprise though.

Jake nodded as he pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead. "The mission ended earlier than expected. Everyone was eager to get back home. We all voted on coming back. I just couldn’t wait to see my beautiful wife." he explained. His voice tinged with relief as he watched you with the utmost love in his eyes.

You melted into his embrace. Feeling the warmth of his body against yours, the familiar scent of his cologne enveloping you like a comforting blanket. Despite the initial shock of being awakened from your sleep there was no place you'd rather be than in Jake's arms. As you nestled closer to him you became acutely aware of the changes in your body since he had left. The baby had grown significantly in the six weeks of his absence. Evidence of the new life growing inside you.

He shifted slightly in bed his hand finding its way to your larger belly now. With a tender touch, he traced gentle circles on your skin, his touch sending shivers down your spine. "The little one has grown a lot," he whispered, his voice filled with wonder and awe as he held you close to him revealing in your heartbeat. It was always a silent comfort he craved and missed so dearly while deployed.

You smiled feeling a surge of affection for the man lying beside you. "Growing big and strong just like his or her daddy," you teased while running a hand through his now shaggy hair. The two of you opted to keep the gender a surprise.

He chuckled softly as he pressed another kiss to your forehead. "I missed you, angel" he murmured. His words a silent promise of his unwavering devotion. And as you lay entwined in each other's arms the worries and uncertainties of the world faded away leaving behind only the overwhelming love and warmth that bound you together.

As the next day wore on, Jake couldn't shake off the feeling of being overwhelmed by your presence. Not that it was your intention. But the sheer intensity of your need for him seemed to permeate the very air around them. You craved him, your every move mirroring his own as if you couldn't bear to let him out of your sight for even a moment.

At first Jake found your clinginess endearing. It was a testament to the depth of your love and longing. A quiet declaration of your desire to be close to him after his long absence. He welcomed your affection. Your constant need for his presence filling a void he hadn't even realized existed.

But as the hours stretched on your constant proximity began to grate on his nerves. Every time he turned around you were there watching him with worried eyes. Your need for him palpable in every touch, every word. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate your affection – far from it. But the intensity of your clinginess seemed to smother him leaving him gasping for air in the suffocating embrace of your love.

Jake's time on the carrier had left him overstimulated. He was constantly surrounded by noise and activity. Now back in the familiar confines of home the silence seemed deafening, yet your presence felt like an onslaught of sensory overload. He longed for solitude, for a moment of peace to collect his thoughts and decompress after the chaos of his mission.

Your concern for him only heightened the pressure he felt. The weight of your worry pressing down on him. He knew you meant well, that your clinginess was a manifestation of your love and longing for him. But right now, he just needed space. With every touch, every word, he felt the walls closing in around him. The need for air becoming more desperate with each passing moment. He tried to push down the rising tide of frustration. To swallow the bitter taste of guilt that lingered on his tongue. But it was a losing battle.

As he retreated into himself seeking solace in the quiet recesses of his mind, he couldn't help but feel a pang of remorse at the hurt he knew his words would cause you. But in that moment he couldn't bear to think about anything except the overwhelming need to be alone. To find respite from the constant barrage of emotions threatening to engulf him.

No sooner had he settled on the couch trying to catch up on some much-needed rest. He felt your presence hovering nearby. You stood at the edge of the room. Your eyes never leaving him. Your need for his attention a silent plea that echoed in the silence of the house.

"Y/N, can't you find something else to do?" Jake finally asked. Unable to contain his frustration any longer.

Your heart sank at the sharpness of his tone, the hurt evident in your eyes as you took a step back. A tear welled up in the corner of your eye showing him the hurt you felt inside at the words he just spoke.

"I'm so sorry, Jake," you whispered. Your voice trembling with emotion. "I think it's the hormones."

Jake's heart sank at the sound of your voice. The weight of your words hitting him like a ton of bricks. He could see the hurt etched on your face. The vulnerability in your eyes tugging at his heartstrings.

His expression softened at realization of the pain he had caused evident in his eyes. "No, angel, it's not your fault," he murmured. His voice filled with regret. "I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. I was just... overwhelmed."

He reached out to touch your hand, but you pulled away feeling self-conscious over your sudden clinginess to him. With a heavy heart you turned away walking out of the room despite his profuse apologies. Jake watched helplessly as you retreated into yourself. The distance between you growing with each passing moment.

Jake felt a heavy sense of regret weighing on his chest as he watched you retreat away. Despite his apologies he couldn't shake the feeling that he had let you down. That he had failed to provide the comfort and reassurance you needed in that moment of vulnerability. He wanted nothing more than to reach out to you. To wrap you in his arms and soothe away the hurt he had caused, but he knew that he had to give you the space you needed.

As the hours passed Jake found himself pacing the empty rooms of the house. The silence you had grown accustomed to weighing heavily on his shoulders. He tried to focus on the tasks at hand to distract himself from the gnawing sense of unease that lingered in the back of his mind. But no matter how hard he tried he couldn't shake the feeling of emptiness that seemed to permeate every corner of the house. Was this how you felt when he was gone?

Meanwhile, you lay curled up on the bed. Your thoughts consumed by the events of the day. Despite your best efforts to push them away the hurtful words and the sharpness of Jake's tone echoed in your mind. You couldn't help but feel self-conscious of your actions, second-guessing every word you had spoken and every tear you had shed. Even when Jake checked in on you with his concern evident in every word and gesture you couldn't bring yourself to face him. Your need for solitude outweighing the comfort of his presence. You were embarrassed. How could you not pick up on the signs? Of course, he needed space. Missions were a drag. You knew that better than anyone.

And so, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the darkness of night descended upon the house you remained cocooned in your own thoughts. The distance between you and Jake stretching on indefinitely.

But as night fell and the quiet of the house enveloped them, Jake couldn't bear it any longer. He found you in the bedroom where you’d been all day, curled up on the bed. Your tears staining the pillow beneath your head. Without a word he crossed the room and pulled you into his arms holding you close as he pressed a kiss to your forehead.

As Jake held you in his embrace he felt the tension in your body slowly begin to melt away, replaced by a sense of warmth and comfort that washed over him like a gentle tide. He knew that you were pretending to be asleep, your breathing steady and even, but he also knew you too well to be fooled by the facade.

"I know you're awake, angel," he murmured, his voice a soft whisper in the darkness of the room.

You remained silent. Your eyes closed as you listened to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. The warmth of his body enveloping you like a protective shield. Despite the hurt and the distance that had grown between you, you couldn't deny the overwhelming sense of relief that flooded through you at his touch. The knowledge that he was there by your side, ready to mend the cracks in your fragile heart.

"I'm so sorry, angel," Jake whispered, his voice filled with sincerity. "I never should have snapped at you. I shouldn’t have taken that out on you."

You opened your eyes meeting his gaze with a mixture of sadness and longing. "I'm sorry too," you replied. Your voice barely above a whisper. "I didn't mean to be so clingy. I don’t know what’s going on with me." And with that you felt more tears falling.

Jake shook his head. His expression softening as he cupped your face in his hands. "No, baby, you have nothing to apologize for," he insisted, his voice gentle but firm. "I love how much you care, how much you need me. It's what makes us work. I let my own stress get the better of me rather than talking about it with you. I should have leaned on you instead of pushing you away."

As his words washed over you, a sense of relief flooded through you, the weight of guilt lifting from your shoulders. You realized that despite the challenges you faced, the love and understanding between you were stronger than ever before.

Jake's thumb gently brushed away the tears that still lingered on your cheeks. His touch tender and reassuring. Pulling you close, he wrapped his arms around you, holding you as if he never wanted to let go. His hands drifted down to cup your growing belly, whispering sweet nothings to the baby growing inside. The sensation sent your heart into overdrive with a surge of warmth spreading through you at the sight of Jake's adoration for your little one.

And as Jake leaned in to capture your lips in a tender kiss, you felt the steady emotion of love wash over you. The barriers that had kept you apart crumbling away in the face of your shared love and forgiveness.

Jake Seresin/Top Gun: Permanent Taglist (If you'd like to be added to any or all works please fill out the form here: Taglist Sign Up) @loving-and-dreaming @kmc1989 @memeorydotcom @matisse556 @buckylov3r @taygrls @ah-blossom @mamachasesmayhem @hardballoonlove @rosiahills22 @djs8891 @illisea @jessicab1991 @guacam011y @dempy @mrsevans90 @il0vebeingdelulu @hiireadstuff @missxmav @kajjaka

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starsinthesky5 · 2 months

Text

every time i look at you || joe burrow x reader

description: who knew that an unexpected relationship with a guy you never thought you’d be with would be the happiest, healthiest, and most special relationship in your life? you feel like you’re in high school ;)

a/n: in honor of mr quarterback throwing for the first time since November (publicly). so excited to see him ball ;) this may or may not have been inspired by a song i recently fell in love with.. (cough so high school cough)

alot of flashbacks/reflections to certain moments in this fic because of how the song goes!

word count: 7 k

warnings: smut, language

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

You took a deep breath, taking in the salty aroma of your favorite beach as your feet were covered in sand. You and Joe had rented a beach house on your Hometown beach for a few weeks and had invited all your cousins over for a few days, so you were soaking up the last few moments in the sand before you had to get everything ready.

“Y/N, they said that they’re about 30 minutes out!” Joe yelled from the patio. “Come inside so we can get everything set up,”.

“Okay,” you yelled back, looking over at him. His hair was in its ‘post ocean water’ state, slightly messy but perfect at the same time. You both had taken a little dip in the ocean earlier together and he decided to let his hair be, which you approved of since you loved his beach hair. The golden sun was shining right onto him and he was practically glowing.

You got up off the sand and made your way inside the house, making sure to wipe your feet on the mat outside since you had just cleaned. Joe had his back to you as you walked into the kitchen. He had ordered some food, making sure to ask your cousins what they liked and only getting that, and was getting all of it ready for everyone.

“I’m just gonna put out the snack-type food for now so the rest doesn’t get cold,” he says.

“Okayy,” you sing song, admiring your boyfriend for a few moments and taking in all the little details. For starters, the atmosphere. Joe had gotten all the right foods, alcohol, and games for your little beach reunion. You and your older cousins used to go down to the beach for a few weeks every summer, but after everyone got too old and had adult responsibilities, it became very hard to schedule. So, when you told Joe about how you’d spend your previous summers, he was adamant about having your cousins over for a few days during your own beach trip, and that meant the world to you. He had taken the reigns and planned everything out based off of the things you told him, and he did great.

Secondly, Joe himself. Other than the fact that he looked like a Greek God right now, he was being the most perfect boyfriend and lover to you, and making you feel so giddy inside. You had been here for a week already and you felt like you were being transported back to high school. You would go on a beach trip every summer, but usually to Florida or Malibu, but this year Joe wanted to experience the summers you would non-stop talk about. So that’s exactly what you did. You took him to all your favorite spots such as the pier, the arcade, the cute shops, and the restaurants, and made sure he had some of the best boardwalk fries you have ever had. The entire week felt like you were back in high school, doing the same things with your friends, but this time with the most special person in the world and he was enjoying the hell out of it. He felt like he was 17 again and running off to the beach with his friends from sunrise to sunset (even if it was quite a few hours away), just like you would do.

You didn’t realize how long you were staring at him until he playfully threw a chip at your face, causing you to flinch.

“Did I lose you there?” he laughs while leaning against the oven.

“Yeah,” you smile. “Sorry, were you saying something?”.

“Oh, I just said we should hit the pier later tonight if we can. I remember you saying that you guys loved going down there at night since the rides would be the most fun in the dark,” he says.

“Oh it is a must,” you emphasize.

“Mhm. Also, quick question,”.

“Shoot,” you say back, eating the chip he threw at you.

“Why were you staring at me like that just now? Did you need to say something?” he says before launching off the oven and over to you.

“Oh, nooo reason,” you giggle as he wraps his arms around your waist, and your arms around his neck.

“Sureee,” he says while rolling his eyes.

“It was nothing important, I swear,” you say while pressing a kiss onto his nose.

“If you say so,” he says, repeating the action and kissing your nose. “You look gorgeous by the way,”.

You blushed at his words. You were wearing a pair of jean shorts and a lilac tank top, nothing crazy, but just enough for your boyfriend.

“Thank you, Joey,” you say as he pulls you in for a kiss. His hand slides up your waist and around to your back as he pushes you deeper into him. Your hands navigate to his hair as you begin to get lost in his embrace.

“Mm, Joe,” you whimper as you try to pull away, but his lips follow you, pulling you back into the heated kiss, and holding you tighter. He begins to suck on your bottom lip as his hands wander to your ass; you smile into the kiss as you knew exactly what this would lead to.

He pushes you against the counter and cups your ass to help you up onto the surface. You open up your legs to let him in between and hook them around his waist. Your tongues are tangled in your mouth and his hand moves down to unbutton your shorts.

“Joe, they’re gonna be here soon,” you say as you get him to break away by cradling his face. “We still have a lot to do,”.

“We can be quick,” he whispers against your lips.

“Mm, I doubt that. The fastest we’ve done it was probably 30 minutes,” you chuckle.

He stares into your eyes briefly before sighing, “Fine, but we are finishing this later. I don’t care if your family is under the roof, we’ll go outside if we have to,”.

“Deal,” you giggle, giving him a deep kiss to show your appreciation.

A few hours later, your cousins–Sydney, James, Bella, and Micheal–get settled into the house, and you all are gathered on the patio drinking and eating. Non-stop laughter echoes through the air as you all catch up and tell funny stories. You take another sip of your drink as you find yourself staring at your boyfriend once again. He was sitting next to you on the loveseat, your free-hands fingers entwined, as he was telling everyone a funny story about the first time he saw you. It was a pretty embarrassing but cute story, one that always showed off Joe’s adorable little crinkles around his eyes whenever he would tell it.

Flashback to LSU

You were in the library, cramming to finish your research paper on Metaphysics for your Philosophy class, and had completely lost track of time and forgot that you had to be at your best friend’s apartment to help her get ready for her date. Stacks of books were dispersed around your workspace and a big warm cup of coffee was the only thing keeping you sane. You glanced over to the clock and noticed that it was 2:30 and you were supposed to be at her apartment 10 minutes ago.

“Fuck,” you whispered, a feeling of panic washing over you.

You hurried to close your laptop and gathered your books to put them in your bag. You grabbed your cup of coffee and rushed to the stairs to head downstairs, but just your luck, you ran into a book cart on the way and spilled your coffee all over the extremely expensive college textbooks on it.

“Shit,” you said as you saw the librarian walk over to you, a scowl on her face.

“What on earth happened here,” the librarian said. The tone in her voice sends chills down your spine.

“I- I am so sorry,” you said while trying to salvage the textbooks, which was no use since the majority of them had coffee seeping through the pages.

“You college kids and your coffee. Do you realize how expensive these textbooks are?,” she lectured.

“I didn’t mean to spill my coffee on the books, I swear. I was in a rush because I have somewhere to be and completely missed the bookcart,” you explained.

“That’s what they all say,” she said as she cleaned up the spilled coffee. “There are at least 4 fully damaged books. You’re going to have to pay for these,”.

Your eyes widen, “That’s like 450 dollars!”.

“Should have thought about that before bringing coffee in here,” she said while pointing over to the big ‘no food or drinks allowed’ sign.

“Shit,” you mumbled.

“Come with me, we can get you billed for them at the front desk,” she said, motioning you to follow her.

How the fuck were you supposed to pay for these textbooks? Your paycheck from your job at the School Store doesn’t even hit until next week and it definitely was not enough to cover textbook fees since you had 50 other things to do with that money. You accepted your fate and were about to walk with the librarian until you felt a warm and muscular arm around your waist.

“That won’t be necessary Ms. Cindy,” he said. “You see, this is my girlfriend and she was on her way to meet me at the FroYo place down the street for our date,” he added.

“Punctuality was never her strong suit,” he whispered, causing the librarian to chuckle. “Anyways, that’s why she spilled her coffee on these books. It’s pretty much all my fault so if you’re going to charge someone, charge me,”.

You were too nervous to look up because that voice sounded all too familiar, a voice you had heard on screens across campus many times, and you refused to accept reality. There was no way this was actually happening.

“Oh! That won’t be necessary Joe,”.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend,” she smiled.

“Me either,” you whispered.

“What was that?” Joe said while gently squeezing your waist, making you look up at him.

“I- Um,” you stumbled while anxiously searching his eyes for an answer. Something about his eyes calmed you down and you went along with the act. “Yup, he’s my boyfriend,” you said while smiling at the librarian.

“Ahh, Joey finally got a girl,” she teased.

He laughed at her words and you laughed along. Why was he helping you? You don’t even know each other.

“I’ll come back later about the books, we’re a little late for our date. Right, Babe?” he said while giving you a wink.

“Yup! That FroYo is calling my name. Sorry about the books Ms. Cindy,” you say while giving her a sincere smile.

“Oh, no worries Dear! You both go on ahead and enjoy your date,” she says.

Joe gives her a nod and tells her goodbye as he leads you down the stairs and out of the library, still gripping your waist. He finally lets go and moves to face you.

“Thank You,” you quickly say, praying that he wouldn’t make fun of you.

“Anytime…I didn’t catch your name?” he says while putting his hands in the pockets of his purple LSU football shorts.

“Y/N,” you say.

“Anytime, Y/N,” he smiles. “You looked like you needed some saving and I am one of Ms. Cindy’s favorites so,” he says with a shrug.

“Yeah, I was wondering what that was about. She was quick to forget those 450 dollars,” you giggle.

“Me and Ms. Cindy go waaay back. She really helped me out when I transferred here from Ohio State and had literally no idea what the hell I was doing on Campus. She’s basically my Mom down here. I’m pretty much her favorite college student ever,” he laughed.

“Mmmm, that makes sense. Your charm is pretty hard to beat,” you blush.

“Thanks,” he replied while bouncing on his feet. Was he nervous? That was something you’d do whenever you’d get nervous.

“But seriously, thank you for saving my ass back there. How can I repay you?”.

“Hmm, how about that FroYo date girlfriend?” he smirks.

Your stomach fluttered at his question. There was no way in hell the quarterback of the LSU Tigers, the QB1, was asking you to get FroYo with him. You? Some random girl he helped at the library that he’d literally never seen before?

“Oh, um. Are you sure? I mean you probably have somewhere to be and-,”.

“Actually, I just got done film study. And I know that you are free too because you’re def late to wherever you were in a rush to go to,” he interrupts.

You stay silent and look at him for a few seconds. “And, I would love to know how we got to where we are right now,” he adds.

You think about his offer for a few seconds, contemplating if you should take the risk of doing whatever this was with him, but eventually, you say yes. “Okay, let’s get FroYo boyfriend,”.

An hour later

“So you really think aliens are real,” you laugh.

“1000%,” Joe says as he takes another bite of his frozen yogurt. “There is literally no way that we’re the only things in the universe. I refuse to believe it. They’re too advanced to accidentally expose themselves so we probably won’t see them for a while,”.

“Fair point,” you laugh. Joe had been going on about space and aliens for about 10 minutes, and he was absolutely set on convincing you that they existed. You felt high on his interesting thoughts and felt drunk on the feeling that was overcoming you, and it was all because of him. Where were the cameras because you felt like you were living in a teenage rom-com and just had a meet-cute. “Maybe you’re an alien? I mean, I can’t think of any other dude on Campus that would randomly help a random girl at the library like you did,”.

He smiles at you and says, “Maybe I am? I guess we’ll never know,” he shrugs. “What was all that about anyway?”.

“I was caught up writing my essay about Metaphysics and completely forgot that I had to help my friend get ready for her date,”.

“Ah, I see. Did she get ready for her date fine? Ya know, since I stole you away for an impromptu date?”.

“I didn’t know this was actually a date,” you teased.

“It can be if we want it to be,” he says while giving you a wink. “I know I want it to be,”.

You felt like screaming at that moment. He really was being serious about this being a date. You were pretty unlucky in the college dating pool, most guys you met only want to hook up or be FWB, but Joe wasn’t giving either of those vibes, which was shocking considering he’s a football player. He felt different from the other guys, and you loved the way he was making you feel; so silly, shy, and like you were 16 again and were living out the dream of having a football player boyfriend in high school. But him being a football player was the least interesting thing about him. His nerdiness, charm, and normalness shined through which separated him from most guys. This made the risk of starting something with him less scary.

“I do too,” you say while taking another bite of your custard.

He was silently praying you would. Even though you just met, he thought you were the most stunning, genuine, and honest girl he had ever come across. This entire date had felt so relaxed and comfortable, something that was uncommon for him when he would go on a date with a girl. Most of them seemingly just wanted bragging rights as the “quarterback’s girl” or to hook up, and he wanted a real girlfriend, and you gave him that vibe.

“Anyways, she was just fine. I told her why I was skipping out on her and she was more than happy to get ready alone considering why I bailed,”.

He lets out a soft laugh before asking you about your essay. “So your essay, Metaphysics, that’s…?” he says while trying to recall where he heard that from.

“Aristotle,” you answer.

“Right, Philosophy class,” he nods.

“Mhm. I love anything and everything psychology, sociology, and philosophy related,”.

“Nerdy, good to know,” he teases. “I think our second date should be at the art and science museum. I heard they have a pretty sick space exhibit right now and an impressive psych one,”.

Second date? He wanted to spend more time with you. Did he actually like you or was he just being nice?

“Second date?” you questioned.

“Uhh, Duh,” he said while putting his cup down and resting his arms on the table. “You’re super cool, funny, nerdy, and gorgeous. Why would I not want to do this again?”.

You blush at his words and your stomach has butterflies in it as he talks. You shake your head and say, “You’re not gonna let me go until I say yes, will you?”.

“Damn straight,” he says while raising his brows.

You let out a dramatic sigh, “Well, I suppose I’m free Friday night,”.

His face falls at your response. “Got a game that night. Quarterback duties,” he sighs.

You stay silent for a few seconds before he asks another question. “You could come to the game? I can snag you a ticket and one for your friend if you guys wanna sit front row in the stands on our side?”.

Your heart was beating so fast you thought it would pop out of your chest. He wanted you to come to his game and he was being serious. He was serious about all of it; a second date, spending more time with you, and even going to his game. Although you’ve been at LSU for longer than him, you have never attended a football game before. But maybe that should change.

“Sounds perfect. I would love to see you in action up close Mr. Quarterback. Gotta really make sure you know how to ball and that it’s not all talk,” you flirt.

“Oh, it’s not just talk,” he flirts back. “But that sounds good. We can do the museum on Saturday,”.

“Can’t wait,” you say.

Friday Night – Tiger Stadium

“Holy Shit, that was a dime!” You screamed while jumping up and down, and bringing your friend Sophia along with you.

“He is too damn good,” she smiled.

Joe had just thrown his 4th Touchdown pass of the game, and the entire stadium was electric. You felt adrenaline rushing through your veins as you watched Joe tear it up on the field. He knew how to ball, and he knew how to do it well. You had been screaming and cheering the entire time that you were about to lose your voice.

“I seriously cannot believe you two are dating,” Sophia said while squeezing your arm.

“Woah, It was 1 date and we’re not even officially official. We’ll see how it goes,” you blushed.

“Mhmmm. Did you pick a wedding date yet? Ya know, I would like to save the date ahead of time,”.

“Ha ha,” you said while rolling your eyes at her.

“Or did you guys already talk about baby names? You would make the cutest babies on the planet,” she teased.

You couldn’t help but smile at her antics and were caught up in teasing each other so you didn’t even realize that Joe was walking over to the barricade where you were seated in front of. The game had ended and he managed to figure out where you were sitting and wanted to talk to you.

“He’s walking over,” she notices.

You whip your head back around to the field and catch him jogging over to you, helmet in hand and a big smile on his gorgeous face.

“I’m gonna go pee, let me know what’s up Mrs. Quarterback,” she winks, quickly exiting the row you were sitting in and leaving you alone.

You shake your head and look back over and Joe is standing right in front of you on the ground below. “Did you have fun?” he panted.

You leaned down to get closer to him, “Are you fucking kidding me. That was so much fucking fun. I don't think I've ever had this much fun at a sporting event, you killed it,” you smiled.

“Thank you, and I’m glad,” he said. “You look really pretty, by the way, the LSU purple and ‘9’ looks amazing on you,”.

“I’m glad you like it, I could get used to this. Purple might just be my new favorite color,” you tease.

“I mean, you look absolutely gorgeous in purple,” he nods. “I’ll be wrapped up here in like 30 minutes. If you’re free, we can go get something to eat after,”.

“I’d love to,” you said while reaching down and pressing a kiss on his cheek, causing him to blush.

A half-hour later, you meet Joe outside the stadium and he has an Uber ready for you both. You texted Sophia to let her know that you and Joe were hanging out so you’d see her tomorrow before your date with him.

You walk over to him and the car as he opens your door for you, making sure you get inside first.

“Thank You,” you say at the sweet gesture as you climb into the backseat.

He climbs in next to you, shutting the door and immediately pushing a button to close off the little window in the car that separates the driver from you both since it was a fancier Uber than you were used to.

You’re a little confused as to why he did that but before you could ask him, he pulls you closer by your waist, your legs tangled, and he presses his lips against yours. You stay absolutely still for a few seconds before moving your hand to the back of his head, pushing him closer to you. He begins to suck on your lips as you press yourself closer to him. His tongue pushes against your lips, begging for entrance. You open up your mouth and his tongue begins to explore yours and you do the same with him. His grip around you tightens as you feel butterflies flutter in your belly, the kiss turning hotter and messier by the second. Pure electricity between you both.

“Joe,” you whimper as he begins to kiss down to your neck.

Eventually, he pulls away, leaving both of you a little breathless.

“I’ve been waiting to do that all week,” he confesses, his lips a little swollen from the kiss.

“Well, I’m glad you decided to do it,” you whisper, pulling him back to you as you kiss him again, both of you grinning into the fiery kiss.

End of flashback

“Oh my god, that was the most embarrassing moment of my life,” you cackled.

“But, it was also the best. Without that, we wouldn’t be here,” Joe says as he brings your hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to it.

“I mean, who knew that we would end up here? I seriously thought you were going to ditch me after you got drafted to the Bengals,” you joked, only partially though.

“Ditch you for what? I have everything I’ve ever wanted and need right here,” he says as he squeezes your leg.

Flashback to Draft Night- Athens, Ohio

It was currently Draft Night, also the night that Joe’s life, and yours, would change forever. He already knew he was going to be the first overall pick, also knowing he was ending up in Cincinnati. Joe had told you before you both graduated that wherever he ended up, he wanted you to go with him. You thought he was just messing around, but he was being so incredibly serious and you were feeling it for real now.

Flashback to Graduation

After the graduation ceremony, Joe had decided to take you back to the FroYo place where you both had you first unofficial official date. He had been meaning to talk to you about your future plans for a few weeks, but never found the right time to bring up such an important subject. He thought it would be best to talk to you about it today, and where better to do it than where it all started.

You had gotten your FroYo and sat down at the same table you usually sat at and started digging in.

“I want to talk to you about something,” Joe said, his voice a little shaky and nervous.

You notice his demenour, put your cup down, and reached over to grab his hand, stroking his skin for comfort. “What’s up?” You ask.

“We just graduated,” he says.

“That we did,” you smile.

“And I declared for the draft,” he adds. Your smile drops a bit at his next sentance.

“That you did,” you said back.

He didn’t really know how to approach the subject, so he just decided to let it out. “Come with me,” he said.

“Come with you where?” You giggled.

“Wherever I end up. Whichever team and city drafts me. Go with me,” he says.

Your stomach does a backflip as you listen to him talk. He wanted you to go with him? You didn’t really know what was going to happen to your relationship after you graduated. You knew he was going to declare for the draft, and knew he was going to get drafted; but what you didn’t know was what was going to happen with you. A thought in the back of your mind was that he would breakup with you, and that thought scared the shit out of you. The thought of that happening was killing you, but he clearly had other plans.

“Really?” You ask.

“Really.” He says, squeezing your hand. “I need you with me. I love you so much and the thought of us being so far away from each other is bullshit. I can’t do this without you, Y/N,”.

You stay silent for a few seconds to collect your thoughts. If you went with him, you’d be living together. You’d have to find a Job in whichever city you’d end up in. It didn’t sound so bad. Actually, it sounded like a dream. You’d get to stay with the love of your life and get to embark on this journey together.

“Okay,” you smile after thinking about his offer for a few moments.

“Seriously?” He asks.

“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.” You say while staring into his ocean blue eyes which are filled with promise and love.

Flashforward back to Draft Night

“Are you excited?” You ask Joe as you sit next to him on the couch. The draft was virtual for the most part this year due to COVID-19, so you were enjoying draft night from the comfort of his parent's house.

“Excited, nervous, and a bit scared,” he laughs.

“Sounds about right. Your life is about to change,” you say as you press a kiss onto his cheek.

“Our life,” he says.

Butterflies flutter in your belly, “Right, our life,” you say as you get a warm feeling in your stomach.

“Did you hear back from the job you applied to in Cincy?” He asked.

“Not yet. Should be hearing back tomorrow. Buttt, I talked to one of my connections there and they said to be expecting a positive answer,” you beam.

“That’s amazing, Y/N. I'm so proud of you,” he says as he pulls you in for a hug.

You let out a laugh as he pulls you in tighter, “I can’t wait,”.

“Me either. It’s starting to feel real,” he says.

“Oh, it will feel realer when we go house hunting in Cincy on Sunday,” you say as you pull away from the hug.

Joe lets out a sigh, “Mm I can’t wait for the fun experience that’ll be,”.

“It won’t be super fun, but at least we’re doing it together,” you say, gazing lovingly into his eyes.

“And I’m very glad we are,” he says, pressing a kiss to your soft lips.

End of flashback

“Aww, you guys are so cute,” Sydney says.

"Agreed. I’ve never seen Y/N happier and more free like she is with you, Joe,” James adds as he takes a sip of his drink.

Joe looks over at you with a big smile, “Well, I’m lucky to have her,”.

You look over at him with so much love and comfort. No one has truly ever had you like he has. He brings out the best in you, and he has since day 1. Everyone can see it, and everyone can feel it too.

A little later, you all go back inside and go your own ways for a little bit for some guy and girl time. The boys are sitting on the couch and getting the Xbox set up to play Grand Theft Auto, while You, Sydney, and Bella are sitting at the Kitchen Island drinking some wine and having girl talk.

You look back over to Joe, who seems to be incredibly excited to play GTA with your cousins.

“So high school,” you giggle as you remember a similar instance from a few years ago.

Flashback to a few years ago

You had just gotten back from lunch with your friends and were making your way into your and Joe’s house. You walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water and saw Joe sitting on the couch, seemingly playing video games with his high school friends, something he would usually do on weekends.

You walk over to him and he sees you, so he puts his headset down and mutes himself. “Hey Babe, how was lunch?”.

“It was good, just the usual,” you say as you sit next to him on the couch.

He looks back over to you, taking in everything about you. You looked absolutely sexy in your white top and flowy pink short skirt; your hair was in two cute braids. “You look beautiful,” he says as he goes back to his game.

“Thank youuu,” you say as you fall back against the couch cushion, your skirt riding up your legs. You move your hand to his lower back and slip it under his shirt, rubbing the soft golden skin. A smirk graces his face as he leans back against the cushions like you are. His hand moved to your thigh, slowly creeping up to your core.

“Joe,” you whisper.

“It’s alright, they can’t hear you. And I owe you for this morning,” he says as he puts his headset back on and unmutes himself. He was referring to the early morning head you gave him before you left for your lunch. He wanted a little more, but that was all you had time for.

His fingers move under your skirt and hover over your already damp-panties. He slides them over to the side and feels your wetness. You let out a quiet moan as you move your hips closer to his hand. Your wetness allows him to easily slide his finger inside your core, causing you to let out another moan.

“Joe, shit,” you quietly moan.

He begins to pump his finger in and out of your slick heat as your breaths come out in short gasps. You move your hand to grip his forearm as he picks up the pace of his fingers, eventually adding another which was driving you insane.

“Oh my god,” you moan as you squirm in your seat.

You look over at him, a smile on his face and he was so casually talking to his friends through the headset, and had you a complete mess right next to him. He continued to pump his fingers into your core as your grip on his forearm tightened.

“Ahh,” you quietly moan as you throw your head back into the cushion. Your breathing turned heavier as his thumb grazed your clit and he started to rub your sensitive sweet spot. A few seconds later, you felt your walls clenching around his fingers.

“I’m gonna cum,” you whimpered. And as if on cue, he pinched your clit with his thumb and pumped another finger into your core, ultimately sending you straight over the edge.

“Joee,” you moaned as you came around his fingers.

End of flashback

“Joe’s a really great guy,” Bella says as she takes a sip of her wine, snapping you back to the present.

“Mhm, he really meshes with everyone so well,” Sydney adds as she pops a chip into her mouth.

“Yup. Andd he is absolutely amazing to you. He’s like your real-life prince charming that you would dream about in high school,” Bella says.

A blush creeps up your face as they continue to tell you how amazing he is. “He’s so down to earth and normal even though he’s a millionaire quarterback, it never fails to amaze me. And he is absolutely head over heels in love with you” Sydney says while patting your thigh.

“Yeah, he really is,” you say as you take a sip of your wine.

“I mean, it’s been like what, 5 or 6 years?” Sydney asks.

“Yup,” Bella responds.

“5, almost 6 years of that everlasting blush and smile on your face. This is it, Y/N,” Sydney says, referring to what you had been dreaming about since you were little.

“Here comes the bride,” Bella Sing-Songs as she mimics a slow dance, causing you to break into a laugh.

“Bella’s right. Any wedding bells in the near future?” Sydney asks.

A smile creeps up your face as you look back over to Joe who is incredibly focused on the video game and chatting with your other cousins.

“Yeah actually. We have talked about it,” you say as you look back over to Sydney and Bella, a big smile on both of their faces.

Flashback to last summer

You and Joe had been laying out on the pool chairs on the deck, soaking in a bit of the sun and hoping for a nice tan. You were laying there with your eyes closed as you suddenly felt a dip in your pool chair. You opened your eyes and Joe was kneeling on the chair.

“Think you can make some room?” he smiles.

“Always,” you say as you spread open your legs. Joe lays down in between them, the back of his head resting against your belly and his arms caressing your legs. You move your hands into his soft golden hair and let out a relaxed sigh as you feel so much peace at that moment. You closed your eyes again, but suddenly opened them at Joe’s question.

“Do you wanna get married?” he asks so casually.

“What,” you say, feeling a bit dazed.

“I said, Do you want to get married?” he laughs as he turns around in between your legs, moving a bit higher so that his head is resting on your chest now and his arms around your waist.

“Is this your way of proposing?” you giggle as you look down at him.

“Well, No. I don’t have a ring yet and when I do propose, it will definitely be more memorable. But would you want to marry me?”.

You stay silent for a few seconds, a million thoughts in your head. Was this really happening? You had dreamt of your wedding since you were 5 years old, and now you had someone who wanted to make that a reality. And it wasn’t just any ‘someone’, it was Joe, your Joe. Your boyfriend, best friend, and favorite human.

“Of course I would,” You smile as he looks back up at you.

“Really?” he asks while raising his eyebrows.

“Really. I couldn’t think of a better person to spend my life with. You are quite literally my dream boy and I am so fucking glad I spilled that coffee on those textbooks in the Library at LSU. It brought me you,” you say as you rub his back.

“I love you,” he says as he presses kisses onto your chest.

“I know things are a bit crazy right now with football and everything and I want you to focus on your goals first, so whenever the time is right and the time comes, I’ll be right here,” you add.

Joe lifts his head off of your chest, moves to your face, and starts to press kisses all over your lips. “I love you so much,” he says in between kisses.

“I love you too, future husband,” you say.

End of flashback

“Awwww,” your cousins said in Unison.

“So yeah,” you breathe out. “It’s gonna happen when it happens,” you shrug.

“Well, I have a feeling it’s gonna happen soon. My intuition has never failed me,” Sydney says.

“Syd’s right. You remember when her intuition said that the Zipper ride at the pier was going to break down mid-ride and that we shouldn’t go on it? And then 15 minutes later what happened?”

“You guys are too much,” you giggle as you get off the barstool and put the empty glasses in the sink.

“Can’t help it. Baby Cousin is gonna be a Wifeyyyy,” Bella teases as she hops off the barstool and grabs your arms, and twirls you around.

“Shut up,” you laugh as she pulls you in for a hug.

“Yo, you guys ready to go to the pier?” Micheal asks from the living room.

You lift your head up and say, “Um, is that even a question,”.

“Joe, you and Y/N can go in your car, we all can take the other one,” Sydney says.

“Sounds good,” he says as he walks over to the counter to grab the keys and then grabbing your hand. He presses a kiss to your forehead as he leads you out to the driveway.

A few minutes later

You and Joe are in the car and on the way to the Boardwalk where the pier is. Joe’s hand rests on your thigh and your hands are playing with his soft fingers.

“You having fun?” he asks.

“I am,” you smile. “Thank you so much for doing this,”.

“Hey, they’re my family too,” he says while giving your thigh a soft squeeze.

You look over at Joe for a few moments. God, your life was perfect. You could not ask for anything more, it couldn’t get better than this. He was truly the best thing that could have ever happened to you. Your family loved him, your friends loved him, you loved him. The way he makes you feel cannot be replicated by anyone else. Truly one of a kind.

“Y/N, you’re staring at me again,” Joe laughs as he notices you gazing at him.

“I knoww,” you blush.

“Well… You gonna tell me why this time?” he asks, looking back over at you.

You let out a content sigh, “I just feel so high school every time I look at you,”.

“I’m gonna pretend like I know what you’re talking about,” he says while parking the car.

“I feel so high school with you, like I’m 16 again. I’m dating a quarterback who absolutely loves everything about me. I never thought I would be dating him, it was really unexpected. I never would have had the courage to make a move, but he did. You knew what you wanted and boy, you got her” you beam. "I'm living a teen rom-com right now,".

Joe turns off the car and looks at you, his mouth slightly open and his eyes filled with nothing but love. His heart fluttered at your words. You were it for him. He wanted nothing more and he felt at peace knowing you felt the same about him.

“Y/N,” he whispers as his hand cups your cheek.

“I love you, Joe. Thank you for making my dream a reality,” you say as you move closer to him.

He leans over the center console and slowly inches closer to your lips, eventually capturing them in a sweet kiss. The neon lights from the Ferris Wheel reflected onto the car, casting a glow on both of you. This felt like something straight out of high school. You were sitting in the car with the man of your dreams, at the beach where you would spend countless hours of your youth, a memory-filled place, and you were sharing it with your special person.

You pulled away after a few seconds, a smile bigger than ever before on your face. “You know how that felt?”.

“So High School,” he responded with a smile.

“So High School,” you nodded as you pulled him back to you for another kiss, both of you smiling into it.

Suddenly you heard a few smacks on the window and some yelling, causing you and Joe to pull away.

“What the-” you say.

“Come onnn Love-Birds!” James yells.

“We don’t have all night!” Bella screams as your Cousins walk over to the pier entrance.

“You guys can make babies later, that rollercoaster is calling our name!” Sydney yells.

“Let’s goooo,” Micheal adds, pointing to the Ferris Wheel.

You and Joe look at each other and start laughing at the scene. He gets out of the car and makes his way to your side, opening your door and helping you out of the car. He closes your door, grabs your hand, entwines your fingers, and leads you over to the entrance.

“This is gonna be epic,” Joe says. His cheeks were pink and his eyes twinkled in the light, a bounce present in his step. He looked like a little kid at the boardwalk for the first time.

“Yeah, this is so high school,” you laugh as Joe eagerly leads you to the entrance.

--The End--

#joe burrow x reader #joeburrow #joe burrow fic #nfl imagine #joe burrow imagine #joe burrow

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