#but i end up a sobbing mess just thinking about it

[twinribbonz]

Inedible.

Cross tries to pick up his hobby again as a chimera. It goes well as you expect.

Shoutout to @toffeebrew and @zuzuelectricbugaloo for motivating me!!!!!

———————————————————————

Cooking is his passion. It should have been so easy.

Yet, everything is in disarray. The smoke alarm had gone off and frightened him. So, he smashed it into millions of pieces.

Broken shells of eggs litter the kitchen’s floor. Flour is all over the counter. Cake batter somehow ended up on the ceiling. Milk and oil are spilling out of the containers.

His creation is in the oven. Patiently, he sits next to it with his hands clasped together. Hoping that he didn’t screw it up too much. Already embarrassed by the mess he had made. Maneuvering a large body in a small area is a challenge.

Maybe, he should have asked for help. Absolutely not. He already has enough help due to his condition. Not wanting to pester anyone else for a while.

Attention seeking selfish crybaby.

The ding of the timer pulls Cross out of his doom spiraling thoughts. Bringing his full attention onto the oven. He grabs the door and yanks it open, ripping it straight off the hinges. He internally begins to cry at his brutal strength. Just another thing for Epic to fix. Way to go, idiot.

Not even bothering to put on mitts, he just pulls out the cake. It smells weird? It looks normal from the outside. Setting it upon the counter. Using a claw to slice the cake into uneven pieces. He inspects it closely. Still it looked normal.

Time for a taste test.

Cross brings up the largest slice to his open mouth. Chomping down into it for maximum flavor. It’s so moist yet dry. Heavy and light. Immediately, he spits into the garbage. It is repulsive and vile. Just like him.

What did he do wrong? He followed all the instructions correctly. Of course, it ended in failure. He always needs help now. How did he end up so useless?

Instantly, the tears begin flowing from Cross. He is quick to wipe them away. This is not the time for waterworks. The kitchen needs to be cleaned. And a cake needs to be thrown out.

Busying himself with cleanup, he misses that his best friend and kid had snuck into the kitchen. They retrieve the cake from the counter and retreat into his enclosure. Smiling in victory at the dessert. Consuming it without much care or thought.

They end up regretting it.

“That cake was straight up ass.” XChara brushes their teeth furiously. Trying to remove the leftover lingering flavor. They glare at Epic for convincing them to do this.

Epic gurgles mouthwash before spitting it into the sink. Wiping his mouth, “I never seen bruh apologize so much like that before. He genuinely seemed distraught.” Recalling the expression of his best friend. The hidden look of pain in his eyelights.

They lower the toothbrush for a moment. “I think a lot of things are getting to him…” Lowering their voice to barely a whisper. Never the type to show their concern outright. It caught him off guard a little. He had to nod in agreement with what they said.

The duo leave the bathroom afterwards. Looking around the enclosure for the chimera. They noticed he had settled down in his nest. A bunch of blankets haphazardly thrown over him, covering him up entirely from view.

“C, it’s alright! We’re not mad at you about the cake.” XChara tries to reassure their dad. Clambering over the amount of pillows. They sit next to the blanket lump that is Cross.

Epic joins them in the nest, sitting on the other side of the blanket lump. Patting the lump to comfort Cross. “The kiddo’s right. I can promise that.” Confirming their statement in hopes of not upsetting him further.

There’s no response from him but a guttural sob. The blankets are shifted around to reveal his face. A purple flush to his cheeks. His arms are quick to pull them closer to him. Surrounding them in a feathery embrace.

Cross hangs his head low as even more tears spill down. XChara squirms around as they glance to Epic to do something. Epic huffs inaudibly at that. Trying to embrace Cross back from the odd angle. Eventually, they join in hugging him back as well.

The trio remain like that for a while. Just sitting in each other’s presence in silence.

[madamechrissy]

Up in The Air

♡ ♡ Pairings ♡ ♡ Suguru Geto x Fem Reader

♡ ♡ Contents ♡ ♡ MDNI- Spanking, breeding kink, anal play, anal sex, oral (both receiving)

♡ ♡ Word Count ♡ ♡ this chap- 7.5k

♡ ♡ Summary ♡ ♡ You have been jilted at the altar by your groom, Mahito, who has led you on for years. Your best friends, Maki and Yuta, suggest to go on this Honeymoon alone, to get away and find yourself again. On the plane ride, you run into a gorgeous man on a business trip, who holds your hand when you say that you're terrified of planes, Suguru Geto. You all fall into easy conversation, and there's chemistry, he makes you feel better than you had in a long time. You think to ask his number, when he realizes that his room has fallen through.

Well, you have a big honeymoon suite, and you suggest he stays with you. What can go wrong? Not like you don't wanna straddle him or anything...

A/N- Just one more chapter after this!!! We are at the end <3

Chapter 12 - Masterlist - Playlist

Chapter 13

Suddenly, the pressure on your throat is gone, and you’re gasping, choking, coughing as air rushes back into your lungs, and you’re trying to look around as you come to, blinking with blurry vision. Your eyes finally focus as you see Suguru’s furious face above you, punching Mahito, his knuckles cracking against the man’s jaw, Mahito crashing into your glass table, breaking it with the force.

“Fuck!” Mahito moans out, as he’s now covered in blood, but Suguru continues, beating the fuck out of him as you hear sirens coming in the distance.

You watch, eyes wide, as Suguru gets Mahito by the throat, and you’re still trying to breathe, trying to sit up, but your body won’t cooperate. You’re so tired, so tired still, you feel so weak.

“You don’t fucking touch her!” Suguru’s snarling, and you can see his hand around Mahito’s throat, squeezing, and he’s turning blue damn near as he’s struggling, flopping like a fish. “You’re fucking dead, do you get it? Better hope the cops come in time before you’re a fucking corpse.”

“Suguru…” You whisper hoarsely, and he looks at you, fury all along his handsome face, he continues to choke Mahito as his face softens, chocolate eyes full of horror as he looks upon you.

“I should have known it wasn’t enough.” He looks back at Mahito now, who’s somehow got this psychotic toothy grin on his face, even as he’s covered in blood, his eye is busted, he smiles somehow. “Needed to fucking kill him.”

“You’ll get in trouble, please.” You shakily stand up then, and Mahito looks at you, but then you tremble as you recall it all, in bits and pieces, his disgusting fingers inside of you, his hands all over you. You’re shaking then as your numb fingers itch to punch him in his face, to choke him right with Suguru. “Let me.”

Suguru raises a brow, then grips Mahito’s long hair in his big hand, shoving his bloody face toward you, and you pop  his nose with a sickening crunch, making him scream out. You’re shaking as you do it, but it’s a start, and Suguru grins at you, swiping back his messy hair as Mahito cries out.

“Good girl, you broke his nose.” Suguru whispers, his voice soothing even as he’s so vicious, and you feel like you’re in a fucking haze, adrenaline running through your veins. You’re standing there in your torn skirt, your bruised throat, your mess of a living room, and your heart feels like it’s going to beat out of your chest, shaking a numb hand now.

“Why did you fucking do this? Why?” You demand then, sobbing, and he just coughs up blood, smirking now.

“It was fun.”

Fun?

Fun!?

Suguru picks him up then, and he’s punched him so hard he is flung across the room now. “Princess, I have to kill him. I’m sorry.”

“Sugu!” He’s shoving him through the glass of the damn window then, and you gasp, picturing him careening down the apartment building, but then your door crashes open, and in come the cops, guns drawn and they’re shouting, but Suguru’s still got his hand around Mahito’s throat, about to shove him out the window. “It’s okay, it’s okay, let go of him now, baby.” You whisper, and he looks back then sighs, scowling.

“You got lucky.” You watch as Suguru lets go on the ground with a thud, as Mahito coughs, spitting out blood, fuck he spits out teeth, and you feel a sick satisfaction at the sight, your cheek throbbing from the hit he gave you, your body still trembling from his touch.

The cops come in and cuff him, and it’s all a blur, but you know he’s being dragged away, and you’re falling into Suguru’s arms, shaking like a leaf. “Suguru?” You whisper out, and he’s rushing to you, pulling you into his arms, and you’re crying so hard, clutching onto him. “Why did he do this? Why?”

“Don’t worry about him, Princess. He’s not going to touch you again.” Suguru whispers, as Mahito is being handcuffed, and Suguru is stroking your hair. You can feel the tremble in his hands as he holds you tightly, and you’re just sobbing into his strong chest, inhaling his scent, feeling safe again.

“I thought- I thought I was going to die.” You whisper, and he tenses up, looking down at you with horror in his eyes.

“Never, baby. I’d never let that happen, never. I’m so sorry, I’m sorry he hurt you.” He’s kissing you all over now, and you can’t even breathe, you’re just shaking in his arms, as he looks you over now. “I was so consumed by hatred I didn’t even check on you, I’m so sorry-”

“Hush, you saved me. Again.” You whisper, in tears as you pull him down to you, into a fervent kiss, as your apartment is filled with chaos, as the neighbors are flipping out in the hallway, as Mahito is going into an ambulance outside now. It’s nothing but you and Suguru. “You saved me the day I met you.”

He’s crying softly, tears flowing from his dark eyes, gulping in emotion as he cups your face, thumb brushing over the forming bruise Mahito had left. “You saved me just as much. I’ll never let you get hurt again, I swear.”

“Sugu…” He’s kissing you over and over, pulling you close, when finally a couple of police officers interrupt politely.

“I know this is a lot, but can you both come with us so we can ask some questions? Also to get you medical attention.” A female cop says softly, and you nod then, clutching Suguru’s hand.

“Can he stay with me please?” You ask, they nod, and Suguru squeezes your hand tightly as your mind tries to make sense of your destroyed apartment.

After questioning, and a medical check, you’re outside of your apartment building, watching Mahito dragged, handcuffed to a hospital bed, but he was unconcious now from blood loss. Suguru puts his arms around you carefully, as the cops are leaving, and soon it’s quiet in the night.

“I got your call.” He says, and you blink through tears, shutting your eyes and letting him hold you.

“I’m so glad you did. I was so scared. Sugu I thought you were a dream.”

“No, Princess, right here.”

“How can I thank you for saving me?”

“Move in.” You blink up at him, as he turns you in his arms then, gripping you gently. “Please, move in. I’ll never fucking sleep again if you’re not in my arms.”

“I… are you sure, Sugu?” You ask softly, and he gives a sad smile, that doesn’t quite meet his eyes.

“I have never been more sure of anything. Please, let me know you’re where I am, that you’re safe. I’ll take you to work every day. I’ll do anything.”

“Oh Sugu you act as if I don’t want to.” You cup his face gently as he leans down, holding you so close. “Then take me home.”

Four months later

“How did it go Princess?” Suguru asks softly, as he picks you up from your therapy appointment. Yes, you did therapy twice monthly, and you were on something for anxiety now, but overall, you were good, you were strong. You had the best man in the world waiting for you, standing tall and handsome next to his car.

You eagerly run into his arms, as he picks you up, kissing you deeply. “It went so good. They said I can go to once a month.” You say, and he beams with happiness, smiling with those full lips, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“I am so proud of my girl.” You melt at that, giggling as he kisses you over and over, until it gets far too heated for you both, and you have to pull away a bit, to catch your breath. “I say this calls for a celebration.”

“Doing good in therapy?” You ask, giggling as Suguru seatbelts you in carefully, pecking a kiss on your forehead.

“I’ve been planning something tonight anyway. Indulge me?”

“A surprise!?” He grins, nodding, and then you snuggle to his arm as he zips through the streets. “How should I dress!”

“You act like I didn’t buy you a dress.” You flush at that, looking at his handsome profile as he drives.

“Fuck you’re perfect, you know.” He chuckles, shaking his head. “So humble for no damn reason. You are.” You peck kisses down his neck, earning his inhale, then his soft moan, eagerly pulsing through your body.

“Wait till tonight, you little hornball.”

“Hey!” You both laugh then, and soon you’re back home, and it’s fully your home as well now, you had been with Suguru since that night. He’d made you right at home, and you’re not sure anything could be better than living with your boyfriend. “I don’t wanna wait.” You pout, sliding down your top then, and he bites his lip, pausing you.

“Trust me, patience. I’ll make it so good for you tonight.” You pout again, batting your lashes, earning an eye roll. “No puppy dog eyes brat.”

“Mmhn, but Sugu…”

“Don’t you even. Go get ready for a special date.” You sigh, then you run off to your room and see it, a set of three pretty black boxes on your bed.

“Sugu what is all this? This can’t be a congrats for therapy bundle.” He snorts in laughter, hugging you from behind and kissing up your neck. “Go on, open them.”

You open the first, and it’s a breathtaking gown, covered in black glitter sequins, shimmering this way and that in the light, making you gasp. “Beautiful oh my goodness! Thank you so much!”

“More things, go on.” You take trembling hands as you open the next, and then your heart falters as you see it, a gorgeous necklace worth your entire art gallery, glimmering with diamonds.

“Sugu, I can’t!” You turn to him then, he’s got his hands casually in his pockets, smirking at you. “It’s worth way too much!”

“I’m rich, Princess. Let me spoil you.” You flush bright red as you finger the necklace carefully. “Plus there’s more reason to celebrate.”

“What is it!?”

“Check it out.” Suguru pulls his phone out then, showing you the headline, and you blink in shock.

“Life sentence how!? Usually it’s like nothing for assault.” You murmur, as you read the headlines. Suguru chuckles a bit.

“I made sure your lawyer was the best for a reason. But he actually asked for the death penalty, so I think this may be worse for him. Imagine the prison bitch he’ll be.” You giggle then, through tears that start, as you look back up.

“Is this why we’re celebrating? That makes more sense.” You say, handing him back his phone.

“Just one of the reasons. It’s a special day. Now, the next.” You take a shaky breath as you open the littlest box, and it’s matching earrings, glittering brightly under the soft lights of the room.

“Got me feeling like royalty, Sugu.” You murmur, and he chuckles, brushing your hair back off your neck, cupping your chin and tilting you too look up at him.

“You’re a Princess, remember?” You fucking melt, and you feel tears flowing freely down your cheeks, wrapping your arms around his neck.

“Sugu I need to suck your dick, now.” His mouth drops open, and then he glares, earning your giggle. “Come on, after all this!? Hour long blow job!”

“I can barely take five minutes, you fiend.” You both laugh, as he swipes your tears and kisses you, again and again. “Save it for later. Go get ready, I can’t wait to see how beautiful you’ll look in these.”

You practically squeak as you run off, and you start to get dressed, looking in the bathroom mirror as you slide into this beautiful dress. It had been a rough start at first, the amount of nightmares Suguru had to endure, holding you were rough, fuck they were brutal. The panic attacks, the endless tears, but he’d been by your side through every bit of it.

Maki, Yuta, your mom, and all of his friends had been heavily involved, constantly over with you, spending time and taking care, and soon you started smiling again, soon your nightmares eased. Suguru had stopped Mahito before he’d gone too far, and his touches and kisses eliminated any memory of that night.

His sweet words, his looks of adoration, everything about Suguru Geto had saved you, ever since you met him at your lowest, he’s done nothing but bring you up, and now you are thriving. You didn’t feel insecure anymore, those thoughts were long past, you feel beautiful and worthy being next to the man you adore.

What could get better than this?

You step out of the bathroom, and Suguru gets on his damn knees, you giggle at his dramatics. “I’m not worthy of this.”

“Shut it, before I put you to work.” You tease, stepping over to him, cupping his pretty face in your hands, as he holds your hips.

“Put me to work then, brat.” You slip up you dress, and he groans then. “No panties, hmm?”

“No panties. You’ll have to think of it all night.” He nips your thigh, groaning as you let it fall back down, and he stands then, holding your hand and making you do a pirouette in his arms.

“Such a tease. Fuck your ass in this!?”

“What about the rest of me, ass man!?” You both laugh again, fuck your cheeks hurt from how much you laugh with him.

“You’re absolutely breathtaking.” You exhale, as he runs a careful hand down your delicate neck. “Let’s get that necklace on.”

“Yes please! I feel like Pretty Woman.” You turn and lift your hair, as Suguru drapes the cool white gold on your throat, and that gorgeous necklace settles around your throat, draped on your collarbone now. “Oh my god it’s so beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as you.” Your heart aches, as your tummy clenches in desire, when doesn’t it for Suguru? You look at your reflection, with him so tall and handsome behind you, his long fingers against your bare shoulders.

“I love you so much, Suguru Geto.” You say softly, and he turns you to kiss him, his hard body pressed against your curves, you melt into his embrace, feeling empty when he pulls back then.

“I love you, my Princess. Do you wanna do the earrings?”

“Yes!” You eagerly put them in place, and they dangle down against you like two chandeliers, brilliant and stunning. “Oh if this is a random gift, my engagement ring will be like the hope diamond.” You tease and he gets serious for a moment, making you falter.

You all had not brought up marriage yet, though of course Suguru and you were damn near married already, you spend every moment together you can, you live together, you sleep together. He talks of getting you pregnant and those talks get you far too excited, but you hadn’t necessarily broached the subject yet.

“Suguru, please I didn’t mean to pressure you, it was a joke!” He clears his throat, eyes a bit distant, as he shakes his head.

“No love, you’re fine. Go get some pretty shoes, hmm?”

“Yes of course!” You feel slightly awkward then, hoping you had not put too much pressure on him, fuck he does the world for you, and you don’t expect more than he already has. His phone rings then, and he smiles.

“It’s Gojo, let me take this while you finish, I need to hear about our godbaby.” He says, and you giggle, nodding and kissing his cheek, a hand on his chest.

“Give them all the love!” He grins as he answers the phone, Gojo had just had his little baby, and Suguru just adored her to pieces, as did you. Nanami and his wife were now pregnant too, and married, it was as if it were in the water.

Some of that absolutely gave you baby fever, though you tried to play it cool, the thoughts of you as Suguru’s bride, and the mother of his children fill you with so much joy you can’t begin to describe. You’ve had just as many beautiful dreams lately as you ever have nightmares, it means so much to you to have him by your side, forever.

Whether it was ceremony and paper, or just a promise, you cannot wait for your lives together, especially now that you know Mahito is gone forever. Suguru frequently said he wished that he had in fact thrown him out that window, and you know it haunts Suguru, having seen you that way, but he stays so strong for you.

You slip on red bottom heels that Suguru had bought you last month, the man non stop buys you too much, and you complain but you secretly love it, you love falling back a bit, letting the art gallery be run without you mostly. You come in a couple times a week, the rest of the time you are almost something like a taken care of girl, as Suguru likes you.

You’ll let some feminism go for him, surely.

He walks out now, his hair brushed and tucked back, and he’s now got on his suit jacket and dress shoes, looking far too handsome in that black suit he’s wearing, making your mouth water. The sex with Suguru just gets better constantly, as you briefly remember being completely tied up just last night, as he’d licked and touched every part of you.

Suguru was the definition of freak in the sheets, gentleman in the streets. And still so very much to explore with him, you think, as you whistle at him, sauntering around and smacking his firm backside. He jumps at that, glaring at you, and he has you bent over the couch arm in a flash, yanking your dress up.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Ah!” You shout breathlessly, as he lands a hard, firm smack on your ass cheek, making you cry out in pain and pleasure.

“Sorry, what, Princess?” He smacks your other cheek, and you moan softly, making him laugh a bit. “Freaky Princess.”

“Sorry, Sir.” He sighs, caressing your ass cheeks then, teasing the wetness between your thighs just a bit, you grip the couch and moan. “Let’s go out later.”

“No, insatiable little thing. Mmm.” He moans when he slips his finger past that tight ring of muscles, inside your wetness, and you rock against his hand.

“Just a little late then.” You beg, and he groans, you expect protest, but he’s fingering you even more, and you hear his belt buckle. “Yes, please Sugu!”

“Fuck I can’t turn you down ever, how can I?” He whispers, then you cry out as he’s pushed his whole length inside you, and you both start moaning as he just sits there, you pulsing around him. “She’s too tight, fuck… relax, please.”

“S’good, please fuck me… ngh!” You beg now, and soon Suguru Geto is fucking you, in his fancy suit, while you’re in your gorgeous black dress, those expensive gems dangling with every thrust. “Sugu!”

“Princess… f-fuck…” He moans out, sliding that thick cock in and out of your tight entrance, as your walls flutter around him. You feel his grip tighten, as he’s fucking you harder, further into that couch, your head is just dangling forward, hair falling like a silk curtain now.

Your muscles are squeezing him, making him shiver with desire, with pleasure, as his leaky tip, just dripping with precum shoves against your cervix now, making you start to drool as your eyes roll back. He’s rolling his hips and grinding it against it now, pressing inside it damn near, you feel him in your stomach, you feel his cock wrecking your insides.

Suguru’s soft moans, that ‘ah ah’ noise he makes, mixes with your whimpers, with your light sobs at just how good his cock feels. One of his hands gently gathers your hair, until he’s pulling, at the base of your neck, giving you just that right amount of pain he knows you enjoy so much.

Your back is arched for more of his sure back shots, as he mercilessly drives that cock into your cunt, and soon you’re shattering, as your orgasm hits you, trembling and clinging to the couch, nails digging in to hold you firm. You start gushing to the point you’re making a mess of you both, and his soft moans urge you forward, as does his whisper in your ear when he bends down.

“Good girl.” You shiver, as your pussy pulses, and you look back at him, as he cups your neck in his sure hand.

“Love you, love you.” You whisper, breathlessly, and he presses in so deep you’re drooling down his hand, forcing you into another orgasm, one he fully watches on your pretty face.

“I love you… fuck I love you. Mine.” You nod eagerly, and he’s bent fully over you now, slowing his thrusts, sliding a hand down your spine, to grip an ass cheek, squeezing it and moaning. “M’close, Princess.”

“Lemme swallow… please. I’ll drip- ah- all night if not!” He chuckles, his chest shaking you, and he presses in even deeper, impossibly deep, his balls smacking your little clit as he does.

“Cum one more time, then I’ll give you my cum.” You eagerly nod, then he finds your clit with two fingers, flicking back and forth, and you scream out as you orgasm so hard you nearly black out, he pulls out then, turning you, and you drop to your knees. “Mouth open Princess.”

You open it wide, looking at his pretty, thick cock, covered in a mix of his precum and your slick. You hold your tongue out, as he caresses your face so lovingly, before guiding his cock inside, and you lap him up hungrily, sucking yourself off him. He’s gripping your hair, brows low over his eyes, his full lips parted as he gasps.

“Perfect girl, so good Princess, f-fuck. Can you swallow it all?” You nod, looking right up at him with fucked out eyes, and he starts spurting cum then, throwing his head back and moaning, as your cheeks hollow and you suck him up.

He’s so yummy, thick full spurts, so hot that go down your throat, you drink every bit of him up eagerly, and his eyes snap back down, as his cock presses even deeper in your mouth. He’s still spurting ever so lightly, pulling back and sighing in pleasure, and you continue to suck.

“Open up, let’s see.” You eagerly do, and he brushes your hair back slowly. “You’re such a good girl, you took it all for me?”

“All for you, daddy.” He pulls you up then, slamming his lips to yours, lapping you up, your mouth is a mix of both of your essence now, and he’s picked you up, pressing you against the wall.

“I could fuck again, jesus… what you do to me, Princess.” He huffs, and you cling to him desperately.

“I did good, Daddy?” You ask softly, looking to him with eager eyes.

“So good. Mmm. If we don’t go soon we won’t make this.” You giggle, as he helps you back together, and you do the same. “Who knew this virgin on a plane would be such a freak.”

“Hey now, I’ve learned from you!”

He chuckles, an arm on your back, you lean against him, feeling his heartbeat steady on your cheek. “Let’s go, promise you’ll love it.”

Suguru had gotten a beautiful limo for the night, and the quiet drive was scenic, passing the glowing lights of the city as you both snuggled, before pulling up to a private dock. A sleek, luxurious boat bobbed gently against the pier, adorned with fairy lights and at the entrance.

"What's this, Sugu?" You whispered, eyes wide with wonder at how pretty it all looks in the night.

“Well, if Satoru and Nanami have boats… why not us?” You gasp then, as you see the little insignia, it clearly says Princess, and you flush in the night, as everything starts to overwhelm you.

“You bought a boat!? And named it…”

“It’s ours, Princess.” He whispers, kissing your temple as he pulls you close, walking you further. “As everything will be I hope.”

“Oh, Sugu…” You can’t even form a word, as you feel yourself trembling, the cool breeze of the night flowing your pretty dress, and your hair around your shoulders. “It’s gorgeous! It’s really ours?”

“Absolutely. Do you remember that boat that night?” Your mind gets heated, as you remember how he’d been on his knees, how he’d licked you right over those lace panties. He chuckles now. “Oh, you remember.”

“I sure do… you were sure something, Suguru Geto. You still are. All of this is crazy!”

“There’s lots more, come on love.” He says softly, helping you down the gangplank and onto the boat.

The captain greeted you both with a nod and a smile, before setting sail into the moonlit ocean. The salty breeze played with your hair, and the gentle sway of the boat made you feel as though you were floating, but not as much as Suguru Geto himself made you feel that way.

Suguru leads you to the upper deck now, where a candlelit dinner for two was set up, complete with champagne chilling in an ice bucket. “Oh you went all out, oh my goodness!”

“Anything for you, love.” He says, and fuck you are a puddle for this man, as he lavishes you with his sweet whispers, his kisses.

“Nothing could be this perfect.” You say, as you take the seat he’s pulled out, and he sits right next to you. The meal was exquisite, filled with delicate flavors and tender textures that danced on your tongue. You could see the spark in Suguru's eyes as he watched you savor each bite, as he feeds you gently.

You take a bite off his fork now, moaning and shutting your eyes, then when you see him watching you, his desire is as strong as the warmth between your legs. The stars twinkled above you both as you ate, reflecting off the calm waters below, as the boat gently rocks.

“Dessert, Princess?” He offers, and you hold your tummy, whining.

“Yes but I’m so full!” He smiles softly.

“Just a bite then?” You nod, as the dessert was served, a rich chocolate cake that looks so good. “Here, shut your eyes.”

You do as he says, and you open your mouth, as he places a little morsel on your tongue, so sweet you sigh. You then get a soft kiss, before you feel him kneeling between your thighs. You moan, anticipating what is coming, spreading your legs, and licking your lower lip.

“Right here?” You tease, opening your eyes then, but Suguru is on one knee, holy fuck!? Suguru reaches into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box now, his hand shaking, usually so sure, and your breath caught in your throat “Suguru! What… you…”

“Shh, love.” He winks up at you, taking one of your delicate hands in his. “Princess," he says, his voice steady and husky despite the tremor in his hand, "will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

Your heart falters, pounding in your chest, as the love of your life is on bended knee, right between your thighs. You start sobbing then, profusely, thanking the lord for all your waterproof makeup, and you watch the emotion form on his face, as one of his hands brushes your cheek.

The world stopped for that moment, as he opens the box now, and you struggle to find your words, you struggle to focus. This can’t be real can it? Are you this lucky, to have the love of your life, with a ring in his hand? It all seems surreal as you stared at the ring, a stunning diamond that matches the ones in your earrings, the ones in your necklace.

You stare at it, glittering under the moonlight, your mouth dropped open, as you look to it, then look back up to him, tears streaming down your face. "Yes!” You managed to choke out, finally. "Yes, Suguru, yes! Oh my god yes!”

He slipped the ring onto your finger, a sharp white grin on his handsome face, the one you fell in love with when you first saw it, first saw his sweet chocolate eyes, that lush hair blowing around his face. You see the glittering of tears in his own gaze as he slides it up your finger, and it’s so beautiful you can’t take it.

“It’s so beautiful! It’s so stunning I… oh my god, Sugu, get up here!” You yank on him, and he cups your face, laughing softly then, pure joy mirrored on his features.

“Oh Princess, I was so fucking nervous.” You shake your head, as he is kissing you so tenderly, cradling you like a precious treasure.

“Suguru, I’ve always been yours. Always.” You whisper, and he moans softly, pulling you against him, kissing so hard your teeth are clinking, your tongues messy and desperate. You taste your tears in every kiss, mixed with that taste that is Suguru Geto, your… “Fiance, my fiance!”

“My beautiful fiance.” He whispers back, standing then and pulling you against him, and you shiver as the wind hits you both, and he’s pulling you back a bit, spinning you in his arms.

Music softly plays, and this was it, the moment you had dreamed of, and it was better than you could ever have imagined, a moment you weren’t sure you deserved for so long, but here he was, and here you were, in his arms. “Oh, Sugu… are we dancing?” You ask, and he nods, smiling down, the moonlight casting shadows on his gorgeous features.

“I’m dancing with my favorite person, the love of my life.”

“Sugu…”

“My fiance. Future wife.”  You danced barefoot on the deck, your dress swirling around your ankles as the boat cut through the water, one hand holding yours, the hand with this beautiful fucking ring, the other on your waist.

“My future husband. My gorgeous man. Forever.” You whisper, cupping his face now, and you kiss again, as he dips you over his arm, making you giggle through your endless tears.

“Future mother of my babies.” He says, even huskier, making you tremble with need then. Your eyes lock, as you feel that warmth spread, as he presses you against his hard body, you feel it like electrical sparks then.

“Maybe… I shouldn’t take the pill tonight.” You say softly, and he pauses, nearly tripping as he looks down, you wonder if it’s too far, but then he slams his lips down, picking you up, hands greedy as they grab you everywhere. Your arms wrap around his neck tightly.

“Yeah, Princess? You sure?” He murmurs, breath hot against your lips, and you nod, blushing under his gaze.

“I want to be a mommy. I want you…” You grab a hand, putting it on your flat tummy now. “To put babies in me.”

“Holy fuck…” He’s stupidly hard against you now, you watch him adjust himself with a wince as he peers down. “You’re killing me. You mean it?”

“Yes, Suguru. Or… Daddy.” You tease, then yelp as he’s picked you up, throwing you over his shoulder. “Oh my god, it’s too high up here!”

“I have a room all set up. Now.” He orders you as if you can follow, carrying you down steps, ducking down, and by the time you’re in the room, you’re both breathless, laughing like crazy, as he kisses you again. “I’m making you a mommy tonight.”

“Mmm, are you? Gonna have to try a lot. Put so much into me.” You whisper, then you’re thrown on the bed in the little room with a bounce, making you giggle like crazy, before those giggles are quieted by Suguru’s lips. You sigh into his kisses, hastily unbuttoning his shirt as he’s sliding that dress up your hips.

You sit up then, and he’s pulling the dress off your body, your breasts bounce out as he gets it off of you, and he’s kissing down your breasts while he slinks it down your hips. “You’re the most beautiful girl, you know that?”

“And you’re the most handsome man, Sugu. Ngh! Fuck…” He’s sucking on one of your breasts now, while his hands knead them gently, your back arches for more of his caresses, eyes fluttering shut in pleasure, as his hot mouth sucks.

“Can’t wait till these are so full.” He says softly, and you’re even wetter, grinding up eagerly against one of his thighs, still clad in those dress pants.

“Yeah, daddy, do you want them like that?” You say so softly, and he looks up at you with that seductive gaze, moaning his answer around your nipple. “And so full of you here…” You touch your stomach, making him feral now, as he yanks you by your hips, kissing down your tummy, making those muscles tighten, as you suck in from the intense sensations.

“I can’t wait for that, going to have my twins.” You giggle again, hand pulling his silky hair now, hips bucking up as he kisses down further, spreading your thighs.

“You really want twins hmm?”

“I really do. Gonna be so hot full of me.” You scream out as he slides a tongue up your slit, lapping you up now, and you can’t fucking take it, you’re shattering under him with just a few flicks. “You’ll be so sensitive too…” He murmurs, nipping your clit, your hips twitch in response, as shivers of desire run up you.

“And you’ll… still eat me out then hmm? When I can’t see your… face?” He groans, looking up and grinning from between your thighs.

“I sure will, Princess. I need you to cum on my face, can you baby?” You nod eagerly, and then he’s spreading your lips wide, fucking you with that long, talented tongue, his teeth bumping your clit, and you’re soaking him, wetter and wetter as he works you like he knows how.

You cry out his name as he softly whispers yours, your hands enwrapping as you lean up for more, more, more. And Suguru gives it to you, practically burying his face inside your eager cunt, drinking you up like you’re water, and fuck if you’re not, when your fiance is devouring you.

He’s relentless, pushing your thighs apart wider, his tongue fucking you deep and hard, until you’re shaking, until you’re screaming, until you’re cumming so hard your eyes roll back in your head, convulsing as he laps it all up. Your pussy is pulsing around that wet muscle, and then he is pulling back, sliding two fingers in, curling them just so and taking a breath as he watches you.

“Sugu, sensitive!” You whine, and he gives you that smirk, pressing up and sending you back over that edge.

“You can cum more for me, Princess, can’t you?” You feel your blood pressure rising, face hot, as your body's on fire from his touches. You nod weakly, then gasp, blacking out when he keeps hitting that spot, and he’s licking the underside of your clit now. You feel so much pressure so intense, as he keeps licking, keeps pressing, then it’s like some dam breaks.

You are screaming out, yanking on that dark silky hair as you cum so hard you’re squirting out, and you gasp at that, as Suguru leans back in surprise, before he’s grinning, lapping it up, continuing scissoring his fingers in you soppy cunt now. You’re so sensitive you clamp down on them, twitching.

“Sugu… what… I’m so… what’s that!?” He chuckles a bit, leaning up you now, covered in your slick and kissing you, sliding his pants down finally.

“You squirted, Princess. I didn’t know you could, that was so fucking hot.” He whispers, and you’re blushing furiously.

“That was messy!” He chuckles again, brushing your hair back as he spreads your thighs, leaning over you, settling his cock between your thighs.

“It was so sexy. It just means you really, really liked it is all. Don’t be embarrassed, I promise that was the hottest thing.” You exhale, as his handsome features are over you, soft light hitting them in the night, and you’re so sensitive you nearly cum again from his tip sliding up and down.

“You always make me feel so sexy.” You whisper, and he sighs, kissing you, and you taste yourself on his lips.

“I will every day. Are you ready for me Princess?” You nod, rolling your hips up and watching his eyes flutter shut for a moment, then he’s slipped inside of you, and he’s sliding into you so fucking slow, so gentle, savoring every moment, and so do you, nearly cumming then and there.

“Fuck, Sugu…” You whimper, then you do cum when he’s fully seated, and you’re so full you feel like you might just burst from that pressure, he moans, reaching down to find your clit, and it’s too much again.

“Mm, you feel so good, love. So tight, so hot… so wet.” He whispers, and your head sinks back into the pillow as you ride out an insane orgasm, eyes rolling back as he starts to move, setting a rhythm that’s slow and deep, making you feel every inch of him.

You hold onto his shoulders, your nails digging in, as he kisses down your neck, making you moan and whimper, making your body tighten around his cock. You’re so sensitive from that first orgasm where you’d squirted, that it doesn’t take long for a second one to build, for your body to start trembling again.

“You are sensitive, hmm?” He teases, and you just whine, pathetic as you bury your face against the hot skin of his chest.

“C-can’t take it. Fuck.” He’s so slow and gentle with you, but you can’t stop cumming now, like some aphrodisiac had been slipped into your damn dessert, and you get so wet he slips out when you cum again, muscles pushing on him. He hisses, then he’s against your ass, and you both pause, looking at each other.

He begins to rub against your little anal hole now, and you shiver from delight as he uses your slick to press against it, tip sliding in and making you gasp, as he groans out, leaning down on one arm. He looks at your face, pressing deeper now, and you’re hissing at the stretch, the burn, about to lose it.

“Get on your knees, Princess.” You eagerly obey Suguru Geto’s husky command, doing just as he asks, pressing your ass up in the air. “Play with that little clit.”

“Yes, Sir.” You whisper, and rub your sensitive clit, crying out as he presses your head gently into the mattress, fingering your pussy and then sliding it up to your ass and shoving in, making you scream.

“Do you want it, love? Me to finally fuck this tight little ass?” He asks, and you lean up on your arms, nodding as you look back, at his glistening hard body behind you, your eyes squeezing shut in pleasure when he’s fingering deeper.

“Please, take me there. Please. I want you to.” You say, Suguru always wants to make sure you’re okay, but this was one you all hadn’t done just yet.

“Loosen up for me, relax. I won’t hurt you.” He bends down then, lapping up you from your clit to your ass, tongue around the rim, the sensation kills you, as does the hot spit on it. You’re shivering in anticipation when he presses now, his thick tip popping in, feeling so good but so much pressure it’s hard to take. “You okay love?”

“Y-yes, it’s different… it’s good though. Mmm… I can do it.” He laughs a bit, then it stops in his throat when you press your ass back to him, taking more, and then he’s gripping your hips bruisingly, groaning out as you whimper in pleasure. “Oh fuck…”

“Oh fuck…” You both whisper, as he pulls out, then presses in more of his thick length, stretching your ass out so deliciously good, and he’s leaning over you, shoving in deeper, until he’s so deep you can’t take it. “You’re taking me so good, look at you, Princess.”

“It’s so much… I…” He takes your fingers now, pushing them back on your clit, as he’s slowly fucking you, and every inch feels like ten. You feel so full, so stretched, so good, that you can’t even think straight, he’s so gentle with you, but you keep backing up, craving it.

“Can you take more?”

“You’re not in fully!?”

“Half.”

“I thought I was… doing s’good too…” He’s letting out a breathy laugh, pressing over you, spreading your ass cheeks now and sighing as he watches your little hole stretched by his soaking wet cock.

“You want me to push in? Break this little ass hmm?” Fuck he’s hot, you’re pulsing around nothing now, nodding eagerly into your pillow. Then he’s fully inside of you, and the burn is so intense you’re cumming again, making such a mess, he is hissing as your muscles tighten around him. “Good girl.”

“Ngh! It's so good… more please.” You beg, and he smacks each ass cheek, before fucking into you harder now, and your toes are curling against the soft blankets, as you press up more and more, drinking up every bit of his moans.

You’re sobbing for more, your body begging, and he’s giving it to you, pulling out almost all the way before slamming back in, making you scream into the pillow, making that little room echo with your cries of pleasure. You rub that clit now, feeling it swollen and so sensitive, as he keeps hitting that spot inside you that you never knew, his balls smacking against your soppy cunt.

“Oh god, I’m gonna cum again, Suguru… fuck….” You whisper, and you can feel his cock swelling up inside you, so much it’s like he’s going to split you in half.

“You’re so naughty, aren’t you? Like it so much when I do this? Ha-” He taunts you, slapping your ass and shoving his cock in hard, and your back arches, hair falling back now. Then sliding his thumb in your pussy too, filling you up completely, making you scream out as you cum again, endlessly falling into him, blinking black and glittery stars now.

“Love it, love it.” He grips both your wrists, pinning them behind your back now, leaning you up on your knees as he takes you, his free hand reaching around, sliding two fingers in your tight entrance, as he rocks his cock all the way in your ass. “Oh my God!”

“Can you squirt again for me, huh Princess?” He whispers, and you look at him, at his eyes mirroring your own desire, and you just whine. His cheeks are flushed as he bucks his hips up, making you burn so damn good, as his fingers hit that spot, and he’s got complete control of you.

“I’ll… try… Daddy I’ll try!” You manage to speak, broken little sighs of pleasure, and he’s kissing you now, releasing your wrists, using a hand to slam your hips down, and he’s got you so full you’re getting wrecked. You kiss him back, as your hand goes back to your clit, then you’re getting filled by both your fingers in your pussy, as he fucks your ass harder and harder.

“That’s it, I feel her… let go.” He orders softly, then you’re squirting again, this time moreso, until it’s sprayed all over your thighs, his thighs, the fucking bed, and he’s so entranced, as he sucks it off his fingers, as he now lifts you up, slamming you down on his ass again. “Fuck… close… you’re so tight oh my-”

“Ngh… Sugu!” You can’t manage words anymore, and when he pushes you back forward, onto your tummy, and he’s stroking inside your ass more, you’re writhing under him, cunt a sticky mess.

“Said I’d make you pregnant. This won’t do.” He huffs now.

“Cum in my pussy next time.” You tease, breathy, and then he’s smiling against your neck, as he begins to pulse in your ass, and you feel every fucking bit of it, his hot sticky cum, and it sends you again, until you’re both sticky, hot messes. You’re filled with his cum, so deep, as he finally eases out, making you sore as fuck, spent. “Oh my god… what was that!?”

“Anal.” He answers simply, as he collapses, pulling you with him as you giggle in his arms. “Amazing as fuck. Holy shit. You took all of it.” He muses, caressing your overheated cheek.

“We have been playing for months, I think I was a bit afraid.” You snuggle up, as the odd sensation of his cum in your ass hits, and you’re a blushing mess.

“Sex is amazing in any way with you, fiance.” He murmurs, kissing you deeply, with his full lips, drinking in your happy sighs.

“I’m so glad you were my first, my only lover, Suguru Geto. I picked so damn good on those plane seats.” He grins, so pretty in the night, and you’re on him now, straddling as he grabs your ass cheeks, studying you intently.

“The ‘last virgin in Japan’.” He teases, you playfully smack at him, only to feel him harden against your tummy.

“You’re such a tease. You were then!”

“You’re too pretty when you’re being teased. I’m also glad you chose me, I’m so glad you’re with me, and now… forever.” He’s holding up your hand, looking at the rind in the night.

“Forever, Suguru. Now… you need to actually put a baby in me.” You reach down, and his eyes roll back as you stroke him. “I need a lot of cum, Daddy Sugu.”

“You’re such a brat, I’ll give you so much you won’t walk tomorrow.” He’s shoving his cock up in your cunt now, and you’re in for quite a damn night, aren’t you?

With your Fiance.

Ao3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/56577688/chapters/150980314

[ahomeganeyatsu]

Okay, so I'm sorting out the aftg fics I'm reading and I was wondering what the shipname is for Riko/Neil?

I greatly appreciate the help!

[averlym]

"bad decisions, that's alright; look, i'm still alive"

[dirtytransmasc]

Hi!!!!

Do you have any hcs for how Alicole would try and solve and argument with the kids? Like, their dynamic (especially Aegon with Alicole cause he’s the oldest) is just so interesting and I’ve always wondered how an argument/disagreement would play out with them

ooh, tasty concept.

with arguments amongst the children, they try and get them to take a step back. they'll each take a kid (or two if it involves all of them) and give them a hug or something of the like, easing the tensions, before helping them come to some sort of compromise or agreement.

when it comes to non petty arguments that every child has, the source of issues amongst the kids is the following;

with Aegon they have to settle his need to compensate for feeling as though he is lacking. he tends to pick on his siblings when he's feeling down on himself. so it's a lot of affirming words and hugs while also chiding his cruel behavior. he's definitely hard on himself about being cruel as well, he doesn't like being mean it just sorta comes out of him when he's not in good spirits about himself. he shoves his siblings away over little things when he's upset which only makes him feel worse in the long run. the whole situation makes it hard to parent, as it's not right how he treats his siblings at times, but it's also awful how he feels and how it presents itself. there's typically long talks after the fact. Aegon's usually in his dad's arms, more often than not, while he mom comforts him.

with Aemond it's cooling his temper and frustration, deep breaths and grounding. they remind him that he can't let every jab get a rise out of him, that he always had them to turn to when he needs help, that he's not alone to handle his anger. they try and learn more and more each time, what triggers his anger, what helps him calm down, what to avoid, etc. sometimes he needs to just be held other times he needs a moment alone to breathe. they also try and help him learn how to self regulate and also make his siblings aware that he's getting upset prior to him lashing out (they also talk to them about it).

with Helaena, arguments tend to be because she thinks so differently from her brothers. not only is she a girl in a house of boys, but also because she's autistic (I was the autistic 'sister' in a house of boys for most of my life, it definitely brewed some unique arguments, and I'm gonna project god damn it), their ways of thinking and doing are so different sometimes that she just loses it. so with her, they let her talk, they let her ramble and decompress until she can ground herself, then they have to try and explain the boys point of views, how they see may not be the right way, nor is hers, neither are, but they have to learn to agree. then it's hugs and kisses and talking it out, before they go back to hashing it out with the boys.

Daeron's the most agreeable with the siblings, very adhd coded in my mind (so I'm going to project my brother onto him cause they're very copy pasted in my mind) so when he gets into an argument it's because he's going too fast, too passionate, and/or too much. so again, like most of their children, it's grounding first talking later. like Helaena, they have to explain that the way he is isn't bad or wrong, but that's sometimes we need to slow down, take a breath, cool off, and than continue.

with arguments they take their kids separately, normally separated into different rooms and they visit them together. depending on the exact situation they may just offer hugs and softness, or they'll play a slight game of good cop/bad cop, though they're careful with it. the goal is to solve the problem, not slap a bandaid on it. they tend to each kids needs before handling the actual issue at hand and then being them together to find a solution.

they can both be soft and stern in their own ways. Cole is typically softer on them, as he gets to their levels, takes them close while talking, but he has a stern voice and makes it clear he's willing to put a foot down if need be. while Alicent tends to be a bit more formal and stereotypically authoritative, sitting at the table with them, even if she holds their hands in hers and pulls their chairs close so she can stroke their cheeks.

normally the kids can make right up, or at least come to peaceful terms, but if it doesn't, cause kids can hold grudges like no one's business, Alicent and Cole are forced to remain wholly neutral which is much harder than one would think. most of their fights that lead to grudges are very childish so it's really just waiting for them to crack and realize it was a stupid argument. this is made easier when they don't get involved, so they just laugh amongst themselves where the kids can't see them, and try and keep face in front of them (they can smell weakness and betrayal. send help. a 4 kids household isn't easy). they definitely have moments where they wave the white flag cause one of the kids accused them of siding. the "get along" shirt is also an active and well worn member of the family (Aegon and Aemond share it often)

this video is very much Aegon and Daeron. they feud often. they're either acting like Aegon is a second dad to him, or they are actually going to war and have been sworn enemies for generations, fighting a battle to honor their forefathers (Alicent and Criston are so tired). speaking of Aegon being a second dad, he definitely oversees a lot of arguments between Daeron and his friends... does he understand little kid drama? no. is it entertaining as all hell? you fucking bet, he wants to hear all about what little James did at daycare.

when the kids are arguing with them, which with the way they run the house is pretty rare, but not impossible, they first take a step back for themselves. they will never show anger or cruelty towards their kids, so they make sure they're ok before they even think about talking to their kids.

talking will always be their goal, they never want to use threats or punishments to get what they want from their kids, and they have different ways about it. because their kids know how their household works, that things work on their time, and that just being open and honest, they really just need a day or two to themselves, if the reason for arguing isn't time sensitive, and then they can just take it out.

Aegon is sulky, he just closes himself in his room or flees to a friend's house (which they let happen so long as he leaves a note, leaves his location on his phone, and checks in every few hours) if its really bad. he'll drag himself back to the kitchen table in 48 hours tops, wanting nothing more than for his mom and dad to love him again (they never stopped).

Aemond is just frustrated past reason, so he'll go out and fence with his dummy or just something physical, then he's more willing to listen to reason.

Helaena normally had a boundary or nerve pushed, which was normally accidental, either cause she was already frustrated with something or something changed and it just put both parties in bad positions. space is all she needs.

Daeron is a bit of all the above. he's sensitive, though hard to cross, its often more about other things, something his parent did just broke the camels back, so a long run brings everything back to reason.

Alicent and Criston care so much about their kids, every argument they have with their kids, typically one-sided as they refuse to truly yell, breaks their heart whether or not they did anything or not. they never plan to punish their kids for arguing, they were kids once and they know that its good that they feel safe enough to stand up and fight for what they believe to be true, that they feel safe to shout and disagree with them. they would rather that over anything else, cause they know their kids trust them.

while they aren't permissive with their kids, their are rules and hard limits, they don't count arguing as something to be punished, and their kids don't tend to strand into punishable territories. so resolving a fight is a long talk at the kitchen table, no man's land so to speak, where all parties air their grievances. the problem is discussed, apologies are said on all sides, and sometimes it doesn't always end in a hug, but it does end in feelings being soothed and bridges mended. no one walks away with hard feelings.

they're not perfect, but they make it work, and because they've put so much time and effort into making their home safe and sane, the whole family in therapy, making active efforts to be nothing like their first "home" true arguments are far and few between, and when they happen they're equipped to handle it. Alicent and Cole are such good parents, their kids love and trust them, theirs so much space to talk and negotiate and handle issues early on that there typically isn't any reason to fight. I think that's what makes them such a good family, cause its so hard for me to picture them actually fighting outside of petty things.

[thebigqueer]

i dont wanna eat anything or do anything and i just wanna lay around but i also dont wanna do that and i dont wanna watch anything or read anything and idk what i wanna do

[uselessnbee]

we need to talk more about the fact that Mike and El both idolise each other and love the versions of each other they have created in their minds not the true selves while byler love each other for exactly who they are

Mike and Will are in love with the true versions of the other. it may seem like they're idolising each other because they're so whipped but they're really not

it may seem like Will is idolising Mike with the whole "you're the heart" speech but he's not. no, he sees Mike for exactly who he is. he doesn't see Mike as this perfect hero he sees him as who he is. a kind and loyal boy who would do anything for his friends and the people he loves. he didn't have to create a perfect version of Mike in his mind because he loves him for exactly who he is. flaws and all.

it May seem like Mike is idolising Will with the way he worships all his art and sees him as the light. Will is the best thing in his life but he isn't ignoring his flaws and he doesn't have to create this perfect version in his mind. he isn't idolising him the way he is idolising El. he sees Will for exactly who he is and loves him for it

both El and Mike have created those versions of the other in their minds. they love the idea of each other not the real versions

but Will and Mike don't have to do that. they've known each other for so long and they see the other the way they really are. imperfect and human. and that's what they love about each other. they don't ignore the other's flaws they just love each other with them and and

[ninacarstairss]

THEY WENT ON A THREE MONTHS LONG VACATION THEY MOVED IN TOGETHER THEY LEARNED TO CARE FOR EACH OTHER ON BAD DAYS THEY FELL IN LOVE EVEN MORE WITH EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY THEY BOUGHT A CREDENZA AND A BED AND THEY BUILT A HOME THEY HELD CHRISTMAS AT THEIR PLACE THEY WOKE UP AND FELL ASLEEP TOGETHER HENRY LEARNED TO COOK TO FEED ALEX WHEN HE FORGOT TO EAT JUNE AND NORA KISSED AND HENRY GAVE UP HIS TITLE AND DECIDED HE NEVER WANTED TO GO BACK IF IT MEANT BEING AWAY FROM ALEX AND ALEX TALKED TO CATHERINE ABOUT MARRYING HENRY AND THEY BOTH HAD A RING READY TO PROPOSE AND HENRY WROTE A BOOK AND THEY GOT ENGAGED AND DECIDED TO MOVE TO TEXAS AND HAVE SOME QUIET THEY ARE SO IN LOVE AND SO HAPPY

[astriiformes]

Surely being this sad is enough, why does it have to come with other Symptoms

[aro-ortega]

thinking about how much i am going to make vanya (marta) cry <3

[tonycries]

I-T G-I-R-L!

Synopsis. Making big, powerful boys break beg and follow your every whim? Easy!

Pairings. [SEPARATE] Gojo x Reader, Sukuna x Reader, Choso x Reader, Geto x Reader, Nanami x Reader, Toji x Reader

Content. MDNI, fem! reader, NÉEDY boys, making them whine, bondagé, creampíes, GOJO’S POWERS, chokíng Geto, use of “good boy”, cúmplay, spítting, making them CRY, MAJOR overstím, bégging (THEM), pússy-slappíng, oraI (fem receiving), face-ríding, matíng presses, dry húmping, overspill, pet names, swearing.

Word count. 5.9k (whew)

A/N. Woke up n’ decided I wanna bully them so here we are. Have a lovely day <3

♡ TOJI FUSHIGURO - MR. AND MRS.

“P-please.”

“What was that?”

“Fuck you-”

It was low - begging - and for the first time, you have that syrupy sweet privilege of hearing Toji’s husky baritone break with such a whiny crack at the end. 

Smugly, you swipe an index right across where your puffy pussy was straddling his poor, overworked cock. Collecting the saturated mess along his furious length - still so swollen with the sheer volume he’d been gushing out tonight. All the way up, up, up to that messy puddle of seed glistening all over his flinching abs. “Then…I guess m’not letting you cum inside, Toji. Again.”

“No! No no no- oh.” Toji’s burst of pained moans are cut off when you shove your fingers between his bruised lips. Dewy, green eyes rolling to the back of his head with each suck and slurp at their milky white sheen. “Fuck- you little-” And despite how furious he sounds, you could feel the very tip of his fat head thicken, twitching a jagged pattern along your cervix. With a low growl, Toji narrows his gaze, biting down on your now-clean digits with his sharp canines, “I said- please, my girl.”

Just that simple plea has your boyfriend’s jaw clenching, teeth gritted so viciously at the way you’ve been oh-so-coyly denying him the one thing he’s wanted for what feels like hours now. 

“Louder.” your lips curl into a devilish grin, back arching in that perfect bow Toji loved so much. Only deepening the lingering rolls of your hips down his needy tip. “Didn’t hear ya.”

“F-fuck.” Toji’s throwing his head back, thick fingers coming down to splay out across your bent thighs. “Can you- please-” You could feel every minute flex of his muscled thighs when he efforts to buck your sloppy hips deeper - faster - down his fat cock. Only to be halted by ten mean fingernails of yours pinning him down by his curving pecs, “-please. Wan’ cum inside- let me cum inside goddammit, woman.”

Of course, you decide to tease him by slowing down your pace even more. Letting your sloppy pussy just stroll down every greedy inch of his dick. Trying to hold back your content giggle, “I dunno…”

And Toji thinks he could yell out in frustration, he thinks he could sob, “Fuck- I said please. Pretty please? What more do you fucking want?”

He sounded so devastated. And you swear you could spy wet, bulbous tears at the corners of his long lashes, the familiar scar along his lips wobbling with such precious need. 

“Hmm–” you’re letting out such a sultry drag of your voice, taking so much of your sweet sweet time that Toji thinks he’s about to lose his mind. About to just flip your bratty self over and shove his thoroughly teased cock into you until you forget about that looming threat of not letting him paint your insides white. Fuck, the things he does for you-

“Call me your wife.”

Shit - Toji’s darkened eyes widen at your little request, jaw hanging open in disbelief and-

“That’s it?” he laughs - laughs. Rumbling out of his broad chest in a hoarse rasp, and those two strong arms of his tug down your limp body to kiss teasingly at your jutted-out lips. Slipping his hot tongue between the seams, “S’all because my hah- baby wanted to be my- my pretty lil’ wife. Well-” Any and every retort is fucked out of your mind when Toji’s spearheading into your mushy g-spot with a harsh rut of his hips. “-what my wife wants, my wife gets.”

The bed is creaking with every riotous slam, smearing the velvety pool of cum even farther between your bodies. Sticking to you like a sloppy second skin, strings of lewd juices form and snap when his massive cock stretches your gummy walls until they gape. 

“Shit- shit shit shit, if I knew that was all you wanted-” you’re feeling the languid drag of Toji’s happy trail scratch your throbbing clit. “Please- I would’ve been fucking my wife for s-so long now. Silly girl, s’all I’ve ever wanted- would’ve begged, gotten on my knees-”

“Hngh! Fuck-” you’re squealing when you feel him drip with even more saturated precum to coat your snug channel. One calloused palm of his coming between the two of your slick bodies to smear across the mess from his sweet highs, deftly angling them so that the rounded tips of his fingers are stuffing your leaky pussy with sloppy globs of his seed every time you’re slamming down. 

“Now now–”  It’s all you can do to gulp in heaving breaths to make your tone sound warning, but even that sounds too breathless - and both of you know it. Babbling away, “-don’t get so cocky- might just- hah, change my mind, husband.”

And fuck. Oh fuck. 

Your poor cunt just throbs when in a split-second, Toji’s mouth slacks even further, wrenching out a guttural groan. 

And then your gushing walls are milking out every ribbon of velvety cum that splurges into your tight pussy. It’s so much - too much, painting your insides all white with his seed. Toji’s gasping at the feeling of it sloshing around your elastic walls in slow, clingy swivels coating the both of you. 

His breath hitches when he spies down at the obscenely white mess below, globs of his cum slobbering messily down your inner thigh. Fuck, he’s never - never - came before you. This was-

“This better be a proposal, y’know.” you hum in amusement. “Or it would be interesting that you came early just becaus-”

“The fuck else would it be?” Toji’s gruffing out, two warm hands gliding to grip onto the globes of your ass. Still irritated. Still embarrassed. 

Ignoring your titter, he rams your teasing hips down with a sharp smack! like he was branding all five fingers onto your skin. Plugging your ravaged entrance shut with his weepy dick to stop even more of that thick, gushing cum from trickling out. You mewl when you feel his swelteringly wet tip quirk at the very bottom of your spongy cervix in interest, “Now be quiet and let me fuck you properly as my wife.”

♡ NANAMI KENTO - Hands-on intervention…

“You really are trying to get us fired, huh, my love?” he’s murmuring gently, “What do you think you’re doing this late, hm?”

Now, Nanami knew he shouldn’t have taken on those extra documents, he knew he should’ve been back home by now. Wrapped up in you and your cute gossip about what happened in your department today.

But here he was, sitting at his empty office. With you - stubborn as you are - straddling him like such a slut on top of his heavily manspread, muscular thighs, his favorite late-night snack. His coworker. His wife. 

“I should hah- ask you the same thing, Ken.” you’re grinning, the sinfully tight satin of your skirt hiking up with each slow, teasing roll of your drooly cunt against his clothed erection. It’s so messy. Your syrupy saturated slick mixing in with Nanami’s steadily beading precum. “Didn’t we both agree to no more late nights?”

He’s heaving out a shaky sigh, running a warm hand up and down your arched spine, “I know, I know. I apologize.”

That frantically achy little pulse of your slick-glossed cunt on top of him told him that he wasn’t forgiven just yet. And Nanami gulps - loosening that yellow, speckled tie of his with the tight bobbing of his Adam’s apple. Rich tone shaky - shuddering, even, “How- how do you want me to make it up to you, darling?”

You’re batting your lashes at his expansive mahogany desk. “Well…”

Of course he should’ve seen where this was going - with your high-heel-clad feet swiveling high in the air, digging into his broad shoulders. Stitches in your poor skirt popping and tearing with each bullying thrust your husband’s planting on your ravaged in this tight mating press. 

“K-Ken—” you’re letting out such a sickly sweet moan when his fat, weepy tip collides with the very bullseye of your sensitive g-spot. Your fingers work deftly to reach into your skirt pocket - pulling out that familiar tiny hot-pink bullet vibrator.

“Walkin’ around with that during work?” Nanami gasps, barely tearing his eyes away from that heavenly sight of your swollen pussy entrance wrapped around his girthy shaft. “Such a dirty girl you-” 

“Oh s’not for me.” 

And fuck, Nanami can only watch - can only gape his clenched jaw open when your devious fingers dip the feverishly shaky vibrator down, down, down to kiss so delicately at his thick hilt. 

“Oh!” His towering body wracks with a shiver, full, heavy balls clenching so tightly. Hammering his rawly aching cock so thoroughly into you, hips pistoning forwards with the carnal need for more more more- “Wait- Fuck! M-my love?”

“Yes–?” you’re humming, low and sultry and oh Nanami already knows he’s gone. He can only pray he leaves with his sanity intact. 

Splaying out two large hands on the sides of your head, the documents on top rustle in sync with those saturatedly hypnotic squelches echoing from your ravishing cunt. “Is this- s’this oh, fuck- please.” Nanami screws his eyes shut when you’re holding down the device even harder onto his glistening shaft. “S’this- is it- because I broke our hah- promise?”

“Maybe.” you’re breathing out into his panting mouth. So enveloped by his weighty figure that it was almost difficult to work your little magic. “Maybe I just got tired of waitin’ around for you to finish overtime, Ken.”

“Please!”

Over and over. That tiny spark is enough to have him barrelling back into your dripping wetness with reckless abandon. 

He’s so utterly ruined - glasses sliding down his high nose-bridge, thighs quivering with sensitive need. And you could just feel every fresh wave of heated precum painting your cunt in a glossy new coat. “Fuck- tell me please. Please, darling, m’begging.”

“Promise me no more overtime.” You’re grinning, fingers still steady tracing his most sensitive spots. 

“P-promise…”

“N’ to always hurry home to me?”

“I promise! I promise- promise to always come home- to you- always. Please-” he’s startling you with a soft pad of his thumb rolling over your neglected clit. Such a low, broken keen leaving him at when you start drawing harsh, methodical circles on the sensitive spots along his length. “N-no more overtime. Please please please- feels too good- what do I do- what-”

Ah, success looked so pretty.

Nanami’s eyes were already so watery, stern lips trembling with little apologies about “never workin’ overtime again.” So uncharacteristically disheveled in a way that makes your mouth water.

“Shit-” you hiss when that pointed nub of the vibrator accidentally hits your widely stretched-out pussy. The velvety cling of your walls making him hiss furiously. Disrupting, fat tip nudging all those crevices along your snug channel. “Hah- don’t think I’d let you off so-”

Before you can react, he’s hiking a long leg up on the desk to angle his crashes with scary accuracy. Just colliding against your bulbous g-spot with no hesitation. Pushing, with the very edge of his weepy tip - far, so far that you could scream.

Over and over and over- So elastically stretching out your snug hole to your limits to take him in all his long, throbbing entirety. 

“Fuck- fuck fuck I know, I know.” He’s alternating between long, rough strokes to shove you further and further up the cool desk, and shallow lingering grinds to mold your pretty walls to the exact form of his swollen shaft. “I’ll do anything- anything, please just- cum.”

It only takes a few more calculated pistons of his hips, and a touchy, teasing smack! onto your weepy cunt before you’re crashing headfirst into your orgasm. Cumming all around his wildly twitching shaft, your velvety walls just mending all around the shape of his pretty cock. Your toes curl, back arching into such a bowing bend. And in the split-second your grip weakens, Nanami’s seizing that hot pink devil in your hand.

“F-fuck wait-” you squeal at at familiar bzzzt-bzzzt-bzzzt echoing across the filled-out walls of your cunt. Squeezing inside the tight fit where Nanami’s fat shaft was nestling, tremoring so deliciously against each and every one of your sweet spots. Stuffing you full. “What-”

“Don’t forget - you’re working overtime, too, my love.”

♡ GETO SUGURU - No need for air

“F-fuuuck, gorgeous.” Geto’s melodic moan makes your cunt throb, a fresh gush of your sweet sweet juices slobbering down to where he was slapping your puffed-up clit with his fat head. The angry divot of his tip smacking up once, twice onto the too-sensitive nub. 

“So fuckin’ wet f’me-” he whispers from behind, gliding a thumb across the glossy sheen trickling down from the corners of your slit. The sight of his glistening fingers makes him bare you with such a crazed, feral grin, feeding you inch by fucking in languid, bullying rams. “-almost makes me forget the hand around my throat.”

At this, your nails are digging in even deeper around the pale, long column of his throat. Leaving neat, red indents that stand out. And you swear you could spy his leering grin grow even wider at that sinful sting. 

“What about it, Sugu?” you’re grinning over your shoulder. Gasping for air at how relentlessly he was trying to squeeze his fat shaft through that tight, glossy ring of muscle. 

Each drag of his throbbing shaft has your fingers tightening more around his throat. Making Geto feel so woozy and lightheaded with each little grind into the glistening channel past your puffy folds. “Heh, really like fuck- it rough like this, huh?” A low groan drags at the back of his throat when you start pushing your limp hips back in a jerky little cadence to try and meet his. “Shit- shit shit shit s’too good. You’re suckin’ me up so tight s’almost hard to fuck into ya. Almost makes me wanna-”

“Cum inside?” 

This earns you a punishing smack! on your bulging cunt, cool metallic rings of his burning into your skin. So sopping wet and struggling to expand your gummy walls around his expanding girth. Drawing out a dark chuckle from the depths of his chest, “Real funny, gorgeous. You and I both hah- know s’jus’ your hngh! cockdrunk mind talking.”

“Nooo—” you’re tugging him in a desperate, vice-like grip to crash your lips against his. Whining against his lips, “S’not. Really really want you to cum inside, Sugu. F’me - please? Like a good boy?” 

It was a little slip of your tongue - really - and you didn’t expect anything more than another teasing slap to your cunt, maybe even a joke at your expense.

But what you didn’t expect was for the sloppy cadence of Geto’s hips to falter just a bit. You’re turning your head just in time to catch that glassy, far-away look in his eyes, jaw slacking open to let out a shocked gasp. You hear a sharp pop! from his toned hips before they’re surging forwards to barrel your poor cunt with every weighty inch of his girth. 

Over- and over and over- One large hand of his is catching around yours to squeeze - warningly. Letting out a strangled, “G-gorgeous…”

Oh? 

Brows quirking, you’re batting your lashes so syrupy slow, “Are you gonna be my good boy, Sugu? Make me a momma?”

Another lewd push and pull, having you bouncing back on Geto’s sharp hipbones with such loud smacks! of skin-on-skin. Ringing into the humid, heady air and wracking his body with almost-painful shivers. 

“F-fuck–” He’s struggling to find the words - to even think with his melty mess of a mind. Such a delicate blush burns at Geto’s scowling cheeks when you’re facing him with a surprised grin - one he hides by latching his lips onto the crook of your neck, hiding away the smile threatening at his plump lips. “God- you’re gonna be the death of me. Don’t you fuckin-”

Your firm grip grows even firmer, resolving to him choking in large, breathy exhales. “Good boy.” Craning your arm around deftly to cup his pretty cheek. “You’re gonna do what I say, right?”

Shit, he was a goner.

It has the same effect, and once again, your big bad boyfriend is reduced back into a whiny mess. He’s planting two strong legs on the drenched silken sheets to fully fuck his bullying cock all the way into the back of your plushy pussy. 

Usually sharp tongue so heavy and slurring. Babbling out little pleas into the rhymically jiggling valley of your breasts - “Ohhh yes- yes yes yes please let me- wanna- m’your good boy, right? Let me cum inside, hngh shit! Wan’ you to take it- ah- a-all, make you a momma.” 

He lets out wet, feverish pants when you drag him close enough to moan that dangerous little word into his mouth. “Please? Please let me?” Geto nuzzles his cheek into your soft palm, heady movements so slow. Syrupy - like he was moving through molasses. And it’s like he doesn’t even realize what he’s doing when he’s popping one of your fingers into his mouth. Delicate pink lips looking so pretty - depraved - wrapped around your ring finger. “Wanna knock you up- hah marry you.” His eyes roll to the back of his head, “Put a ring on this finger- n’ a baby in ya pretty pussy.”

Meeting that increasingly ruthless cadence by fucking back to memorize each thumping ridge, each prominent vein along his girthy shaft. Twitching. Angry. He’s nodding - nodding so feverishly - tears crinkling glisteningly at the corners of his lids. “Please- please call me that again. Let me make you a momma, please.”

You don’t get to hear the rest of his sentence, because it only takes a few more solid, thorough swallows of his rummaging cock before he’s speechless. So fucking pussydrunk he can’t piece together anything but your name followed by a slurred-out string of profanities. Close. Too close. 

Staring into Geto’s heavy, half-lidded gaze, you whisper such a saccharine sweet, “Then, cum inside f’me like a good boy, Sugu.”

♡ CHOSO KAMO - “Crybaby.”

It’s by the second orgasm that Choso feels a bit jittery, thighs quivering uncontrollably, chest heaving up and down in pained, ragged little gasps. 

It’s by the fourth that Choso feels nervous, he trusts you - of course, he does, you’re his sweet girl after all - and yet he can’t help that churning heat in his pulse. Heavy balls squeezing weakly with each glide of your soft palm down his red, achingly stimulated length. 

It’s only by the fifth that Choso is sobbing, big fat tears trailing down to his glossy lips. Such a rosy red and bitten in worry, hips fucking up in jagged, mindless little grinds. Oh, it takes everything in Choso to not cling on desperately to your feverish hand right now - dwarfed by his sheer girth, so glossy with a thick sheen of precum - yet still dragging up and down relentlessly. Treating him like some toy. 

“Baby–” your beloved boyfriend’s wet gasp catches in his throat when you swivel a curious thumb underneath his sensitive slit. Letting a fresh gush of his saturated precum glisten down to your wrist. “Baby baby baby- please. P-please, I don’t think I can- ngh- give y’anymore.”

“I think you can.” your leveled hum cuts through his frantic pleas. “Don’t you think? After all, you were so happy getting off to my panties like this, weren’t you? Ruining them?”

It’s like the very memory of his shameful act has Choso fucking his jerky hips up into your soft touch, arching his muscled back into a beautiful curve on your soaked bedsheets. Oh, how embarrassed he felt - how shameful, being caught in the very act by you, fingers deep in your panty drawer. 

Despite his very obvious need, he’s shaking his barely-lucid head. Damp, dark tresses sticking to his sweat-glossed forehead, curtaining those glassy eyes. Slurring out, “Fuck! Please m’sorry m’sorry I don’t think- can’t-”

So deceivingly innocently, you’re batting your lashes in a way that has his massive girth jolting ferally in your hand, “But that’s all I really want, Cho~?”

“...”

Leaning down, Choso could feel your mean smirk against his hotly flushed skin. Dragging up his salty trail of tears, kissing so gently meanwhile your next words made him think he’d pass out. Sultry, and whispered right against the shell of his ear, “Then we better make this last one count, right?”

“Ah!” he’s yelping, large hands scrambling for the sheets - the headboard - you when you seat yourself so prettily on his splayed-out lap. Greedy cunt feeding into every long, solid inch of his achy cock in an easy glide. It felt so good - it hurt so good. Fuck, he thinks he’s gonna-  “-die.” Choso rasps, jittery hands coming to rest at your waist. “Think m’gonna die- gonna- fuck fuck fuck-”

You didn’t even have to think of moving, yet - because all it takes is for Choso’s gushy tip to be swallowed up by your snug channel - the slightest taste of heaven, the slightest squeeze - before you’re being slammed down onto the plush mattress.

Breath puffing out of your lungs, gasping at the sheer stretch when your dangling legs are being thrown over Choso’s broad shoulders. Wrapping tight into a vice-like grip when he folds you in half, down, down, down into the meanest mating press you didn’t think either of you capable of.

But rationality was the last thing on Choso’s mind, right now. 

“Baby—” he’s hissing, fully sheathed inside your dripping cunt to that thick hilt of his. He gulps at the stars bursting behind his lids with each slow, lingering grind. Nuzzling into your touch, “Baby, can’t b-believe you’ve ahh- brought me to this state. M’sorry hah- please forgive me.”

And you almost feel bad - that is, until Choso’s swiping his fat tip against your spongy cervix. Still feeling every single pads of your fingers burning down his raw shaft every time your puffy cunt milks him tight. He’s jutting in jerky, unmethodical little humps - feeling less human than just sheer need. 

“W-well-” you’re gasping, when he gives such a ruthless smash into your bruisingly bulging g-spot. Bonelessly, you wrap your arms around his pale neck, tugging him in so close. A full-body shudder wracks through his entire body when you crane your glossy lips up to bite down on his ear lobe, “-how about you cum f’me again to make up for those three limited edition panties you stole.”

His jaw falls even more slack at your little sentence, a shiny trail of drool dripping from the corners of his ravaged lips. 

“Baby, please.” he’s hissing, moving pistoning even sloppier into you as if on autopilot. A cracking ah! ah! ah! leaves Choso’s mouth at every bullying crash against your g-spot, every dizzying thrust. “Anything else. Please please-”

Through his blurry vision, the blood roaring in his ears, Choso could make out your soft suckling kiss against his slack lips. “Cum f’me, Cho.”

Maybe it’s that honeyed little nickname, maybe the way the curve of your thumb glides away his mess of syrupy saliva. Or maybe it was the way your velvety walls come to form around him so tight - squeezing almost meanly. Once. Twice. 

Choso doesn’t know - nor does he fucking care right now.

“F-fuck I can’t believe-” his eyes snap so comically wide open, letting out such a long, drawn-out drawl of your name. Hips stuttering to smack forwards, “-m’cumming- shit, it hurts- it feels so good. M’cumming m’cumming-”

Choso cums - in ghosting, wispy streams of almost-translucent fluid. Withering out into nothing, until his poor, overworked cock is spurting out just blank heavals. Cumming dry, the only signs of him fucking you through his high being that shaking in his thighs, that frantic twitching of his shaft - flinching to nudge into each dripping sweet spot inside you. 

And his broken, pleading cries, “Fuck- m’buying you the hah- wh-whole store. Fuck- please, baby just-” Nudging his sobbing cock even deeper to brand at your cervix, “-just one more.”

♡ RYOMEN SUKUNA - TASTE

“You little-”

“What?” you’re leering down at the great Ryomen Sukuna. Pink locks splayed out across the decadent silk sheets, pretty face framed so perfectly by your thighs. “Cat got your tongue?”

“Not quite.” his long, rosy tongue licks a strip up your exposed skin. All the way up from about midway at your inner thigh to just the edges of your drippingly wet panties. Syrupy sweet, and see-through with all your juices. “You really think this is gonna make me say sorry for uh-”

You have to stifle a low laugh when Sukuna cuts himself off with a ragged hitch of his breath. Sharp, cursed eyes widening - just a fraction - honing in to let his greedy tongue loll out. It takes him only a split-second to catch that droopy ooze of your slick, beading through your sopping slit and right onto the middle of his tastebuds. 

“Mmm-” he’s licking that lewd little gloss all over his lips without even a shred of abashedness. “Where- uh where were we, brat?”

Without warning, you’re lacing your fingers through his surprisingly soft strands. Pulling - hard enough to make him groan - until the tip of Sukuna’s nose was just kissing at the lacy mound of your cunt. 

“I believe…” you’re smirking at the way that’s all it takes for him to slide the thick seam of his tongue between the thin fabric of your panties. Red - to match his eyes. Not wasting even a second when he lets your honeyed sweet cunt drool all the way down to the back of his throat. “Not gonnna make him say sorry” your ass. “-you were in the middle of apologizing for forgetting our little dinner date.”

You don’t think he hears you - you don’t even think he breathes. Because with one, final shuddering breath puffed out onto your quivering pussy, Sukuna is meshing his lips with yours in such a messy kiss. Fast, thirsty. Clashing against your swollen folds, slurping past your flimsy excuse of panties to latch around your throbbing clit. He’s hollowing out his cheeks to give them harsh, methodical little sucks. 

“Shit- mmpf- fuck I always forget how sweet you are.” he’s rasping, two large hands coming up to spread the globes of your ass. Pushing you up, up, up to slobber all your saturated slick down the lower half of his face - his cheekbones. “C’mon now, ride my nose- hah, use me with this cute cunt like you always do.”

Fuck, was it tempting. And it takes everything in you to tug away his salivating mouth with a loud squelch! And if you didn’t know any better, you’d have said that the infamous king of curses let out a whine - a whine - watching those delicate strings of spit and slick snap away when you hoist yourself off his greedy mouth.  

“What the fuck, woman?”

“I told you, Kuna.” you whine out, as scoldingly as you can. Wrangling against those big beefy arms trying to desperately pull you back down, “You hafta apologize.”

You’re teetering precariously when Sukuna’s entire chest rumbles with a groan, eyes rolling so sassily. “What did you want me to do?” he clicks his tongue. Baring you with such dangerous fangs that glisten with your juices in the dim light. “Had to kill off some scum curses, s’not my fault. M’not apologizing for- shit-”

Any and every retort is knocked out of his mean mouth at that heavenly sight of you running your trembly fingers between your puffed-up pussy lips. Pushing past your panties to run them up and down where your dripping wet cunt needed you most. 

“Oh?” you’re quirking a brow at how transfixed he was. Following that shuddering gulp when you roll your neglected clit between two fingers. “Cat got your tongue now?”

His jaw slacks open when you’re teasing your winking hole, glossed-up and already so pliant with where Sukuna had just dipped the edge of his soft tongue inside. His mouth waters at the memory, “I–”

“Or is it that you just don’t hah-” you’re arching your back even more to give him the perfect view. Fingers getting a bit more frenzied, circling around the very edge of that ring of muscle the way you knew he loved to do. “-want this-” Whining out, “-Kuna–?”

That was it.

“Fuck, sit-” Sukuna’s gritting out through clenched teeth. And when you’re only stagnating and hovering tempestuously in front of him, he wraps all four large arms around the small of your waist. “-fucking sit, woman.” 

You’re squealing at the force of his inhuman strength, dragging you down unceremoniously onto his awaiting mouth. With this, he’s spitting on your cunt. Once. Twice. Three whole times to add to the glistening gloss that collected down your folds. 

“M’sorry, see?” he goads pridefully. Oh, if anyone heard the cruel king of curses apologizing like this, they’d faint. Giving the fat of your ass a branding smack! Hard enough that he could feel all five bumps of his sweltering fingers on your skin. “Fuckin’ little- oh- spoiled little-” But Sukuna can’t even finish his sentence - can’t even think about it with his mind so saturated. Hot tongue mashing in to swerve and drag across those sweet spots hidden at your plushy walls. “Said m’sorry, s’this good enough for you?”

Your pussy such a sopping wet mess that Sukuna can’t help but kiss again. And again. And again and again and- “See m’sorry. M’so, so sorry- fuck just never take this pretty pussy away from me, little brat.” 

And now you’re sure he lets out a whimper - raspy, and a few octaves higher than his usual baritone. So deep now that he was just cinching your pulsing clit across his sharp nose. Murmuring, “Stop laughing- can feel ya shaking- before I cancel our dinner reservation for tomorrow. M’renting out the whole fuckin’ restaurant, so ya better give me my fill.”

♡ GOJO SATORU - Bed chem.

“It won’t-” If you didn’t know any better, you’d say that the great Gojo Satoru was pleading right now. Praying. Voice shot, pretty pink lips wobbly, pale hand raw and red from tugging on those fluffy handcuffs. He’s pouting, “Won’t work.”

He was so picture-perfect, restrained tight to the headboard with those customized handcuffs you’d ordered. Blinking his weepy, blue eyes droopily, slurring words that were all bark and no bite. 

You’re rolling your eyes, giving his spit-glossed lips a lingering little peck, “Didn’t think you were such a pussy, Toru?”

“F-fuck who are you calling a-” It makes your cunt absolutely drip with a fresh wave of honeyed juices when you give his sensitively overworked shaft another thorough glide of your drooling walls. Meshing your pussy lips with the very hilt of his angry, red cock. “Please- fuck when you’re riding me like that, sweetheart.” he’s yanking frantically on those restraints as if to hold onto your feverishly gliding body. “Think- hngh! Think I really will explode-”

“Oh?” you’re cutting through his babbles, eyes flitting over his powerful arms, those glassy eyes that just seemed to glow in the dim bedroom lighting. “I knew I wasn’t seeing things, so you do think that- ah- your powers are linked to you-”

Your thoughts are spiraling into a gooey mess when Gojo’s uncontrollably strengthened thighs leverage themselves on the silken mattress to just rut up into your squelching pussy. 

“Jus’ wanna see, Toru.” you’re huffing, reaching a hand behind your ruthless hips to palm at his painfully squeezing balls. Rolling the soft pad of your thumb over the curve of their straining texture - just the way he liked it, “Wan’ you to cum f’me. Just wanna see.”

“Using all your dirty tricks-” he’s spitting, mouth sagging open to let you plant a few somewhat apologetic kisses down Gojo’s face. “I can’t-” Another harsh buck of his hips, and with such a loudly pornographic mewl he’s bullying his overwhelmed cock up, up, up to swerve into your neverendingly sloppy staccato - right into your sweet spots. “Fine- fucking fine- hah- use me. Use me for whatever- just, please. Fuck I just wanna cum- please—”

You’re very quickly realizing that those handcuffs can do nothing to restrain Gojo Satoru. In fact, the only reason they’re still on him unscathed was purely out of indulging in your cute little play. 

Gifting you with such a sexily cocksure grin he tries to mask away his furious flush, his trembling voice with, “N-no, m’not a- hngh! M’not some grade 4 sorcerer. I’m the fuuuck- strongest, why would my powers go out of control when I cum- fuck-

Gojo’s blabbering mouth is cut off with each gripping slide down his achy cock. Molding your plushy walls to each of his eager twitches, so fucking massive that you had to balance your hands on your boyfriend’s broad deltoids to even have him reach each hidden deep spot inside you. 

It makes him throw his head back, it makes him cry out, it makes him whine. 

And it only takes a few more churning strokes of Gojo’s hips, a few more critical mashes into the spongy bullseye of your g-spot before you’re cumming. So hard that you don’t even realize it at first. 

Gojo does, though - of course, he does - fighting back against the velvety cling of your cunt to fuck you into the desk so deeply. So purposefully that he can almost feel every indented bruise of his fat tip hitting against your slick cervix, your bouncy g-spot. Wave after wave having you milking the fucking soul out of him and-

“Fuck m’gonna-” he’s whining, hips stuttering upwards like they’re pained to pull back from your heavenly pussy. If even just to thrust his greedy length all the way back in. Gojo’s breaths come out in ragged pants, chest heaving up and down. Somehow, the hairs on your body raise, and you can feel that familiar tension of pressurized atoms. “Can’t hah- last much longer. Fuck- please. M’close- gonna cum gonna-”

That sobbing little divot at the end of his angry, thick head just bursts with thick, long ribbons upon ribbons of sloshing white cum. Gliding across every inch of your tight pussy, coating all your insides in a creamy color that was so Gojo. 

It’s so much - dripping down the corners of your bulging slit in oozing little dredges, making such a mess of your rapidly overfilling cunt. Almost too much - it felt like you could explode. 

You’re almost missing that familiar little flash of blue lightning at the corner of Gojo’s pussydrunk eyes. Glowing and almost falling shut with just how fucking good it felt to have your milky cunt sloshing full of his seed. The thought- the thought makes him-

You’re gasping when the lamp by your sloppy bed starts flickering so dangerously, once. Twice. Before bursting into tiny shards that flick at the both of you - only to be stopped, falling to the surrounding blankets just a few centimeters short like they were hit by an invisible wall.

“T-Toru–” the sound of your voice makes something in Gojo’s heating body raise its dark, feral head. And he only wrenches out of those pathetic handcuffs to wrap two big, strong arms around your waist. Face burying into your skin, fucking up into you over and over and-

CREAK! 

The bed groans at his rough cadence, so loud even over the dragging wooden noises of some of the furniture nearby inching forward like they were briefly tugged by some magnetizing force - Gojo. 

Bingo.

And it’s like something snaps because you’re jolted with a sharp spark of electricity. White-hot pleasure blissing down your entire limp body, and suddenly your high feels like it’s being repeated over and over and-

“Hey- hey, sweetheart?” Gojo’s voice sounds so far away. Lazily, your heavy lids blink back your vision - when did it even become hazy? “...y’know how every science experiment has about five trials?”

“...”

A/N. I don’t want to write a longer version of Gojo’s but the demons in me want to write a longer version of Gojo’s…

Plagiarism not authorized.

[maddisandy]

well today was eventful. i spent a good portion of it sobbing my eyes out because i couldn't afford my seizure medicine copay and then being comforted by my rink friends before spending literally the entire rest of the day ice skating to try and get my mind off things. and now i just feel like jello from way overworking myself

[agnesandhilda]

never thought I'd be fantasizing about giving someone a blood transfusion but here we are

[peachdues]

COMPASS

bad boy!Sanemi • gang AU • NSFW

A/N: Peach?? Not having any self control when it comes to writing a fic?? It’s more likely than you think.

This was supposed to be a bad boy!Sanemi takes your virginity drabble that spiraled into a meta-analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred that then blew up into a fic with plot. All of those elements are still present but surprise!! Enjoy 24k words of my brain rot.

Inspired by @homo-homini-lupus-est-1701 ‘s wonderful meta analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred and his scars.

CW: 24k • explicit sexual content • MDNI • gang-related violence • mentions of blood and broken bones • mentions of murder/death • loss of virginity • creampie • vaginal fingering • some angst

I have plenty more of this AU written, so if y’all want more, just let me know 🫡

There are three rules to surviving life in the Corps.

The first is simple: once you’re in, you’re in.

Never outwardly confirm or deny rumors; let others talk, but don’t even think about opening your fucking mouth about the things you see or the whispers you hear.

And don’t be stupid enough to think you can cling onto any vestiges of your old life. There’s no splicing your life within the Corps with the one you’d had before. No separation. You’ve whored yourself to their cause, and for better or worse, you’re there until either someone important says otherwise or you end up in a morgue.

This is especially true for someone like Sanemi, so hopelessly entrenched within the organization that he’d allowed himself to be branded at the age of seventeen upon his ascension from rank-and-file street member to full-blown Hashira — the elite of the Corps, just short of the higher-ups who ran it.

The hot sear of iron between his shoulder blades had hurt like hell, but it was a welcome pain. A reminder that he’d not only outlived his father, but had actually made an impact, enough to be noticed and entrusted with more strenuous duties.

Each Hashira is assigned to a particular field. Uzui, silver haired, boisterous and extravagant, deals in bodies — mostly women, but men too, and he runs all of the strip clubs and escort services west of center city. Kocho, a child prodigy in chemistry, leads an intricate narcotics network.

And then there’s Sanemi: the debt collector.

Largely monetary debts — collecting on behalf of loan sharks, gambling debts, or that which is owed to his fellow Hashira, when their customers forget that there are no friends in business.

But the brand seared into his flesh has nothing to do with money — it is a reminder that above all, he is to ensure debts of another kind are paid.

Life debts.

In the three years since his initiation, Sanemi has only had to carry out this oath twice. Both had been scum, responsible for the deaths of innocents.

Their executions had been quick and without fuss — or much mess. A quick trip to an overpass abridging the Wisteria River. A march to the barrier in the dead of night, when no other cars were out and about to see or hear pleading sobs and bargains for their pathetic lives. A bullet to the head would quiet them, and Sanemi would let the rapids below take care of the clean up for him. Job done.

But even though the spray of their brains hadn’t touched him, their blood still stains Sanemi’s hands.

He will never be able to wash them clean.

But this is the life he chose, so Sanemi will endure the consequences — for the sake of his brother, the only living person on earth he gives a damn about. For whom he’ll do anything — be anyone — if it means Genya does not have to pick up a gun and sell himself to the very gang that owns his elder brother.

The second rule is simpler: no patterns. Patterns signal comfort and comfort may as well be a target on your back, begging for someone to come and take their shot (or several).

And finally, the third and arguably the most important rule, is don’t get attached. Keep your circle small so there’s less collateral to be used against you — against the organization that owns you.

This rule applies to both Corps members and civilians alike.

For the longest time, Sanemi Shinazugawa found Rule Three to be the easiest one to follow. He has his brother and no one else. His parents are dead; he has no friends beyond those in the Corps with him, and he knows better than to get overly invested in any of them. His inner circle is as tight as it can get.

But then he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in and that’s when everything falls apart.

“Fuckin’ Christ,” Sanemi mutters, anxious eyes tracking the large hand on his watch as it ticks the seconds by.

They were late.

The job was simple, and well within Sanemi’s capabilities. Maeda, a local dealer in stolen goods, had run up a sizeable bill at one of Uzui’s joints that he’d yet to pay. And while the slippery lech was quick to come sniffing whenever news spread that Iguro, a fellow Hashira, had managed to hijack a semi-truck full of luxury items, he was surprisingly difficult to connect with when it came time for him to pay for company he couldn’t get elsewhere.

He glanced down at his bruised, swollen knuckles and smirked. Sanemi couldn’t say he loved that his worth was measured in the number of bones he could break, or the amount of teeth he could punch out, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t relish the chance to smash the pervert’s face in whenever the opportunity arose. Nor could he deny the rush of satisfaction he’d felt when he’d thrown open the steel door of the Maeda’s small office, crowbar in hand, and watched the snot-nosed pervert piss himself, stumbling over his words as he’d begged for mercy Sanemi hadn’t been hired to give.

The stupid, greasy fuck.

By the time he’d finished, Maeda had been little more than a quivering, helpless lump curled in on himself on the sticky, slate floor. His office had been left in shambles, drawers yanked out and emptied, only to be thrown aside (or cracked over the vermin’s back as he sobbed). But he’d had found the money, right down to the last dollar, just as he knew he would.

And that’s how Sanemi finds himself standing in the alley tucked behind Maeda’s small warehouse, Uzui’s payment split into two rolls that he’d shoved down into boots. All that was left was for the two junior Corps members he’d brought along for watch to bring the car around, and then they’d return to the abandoned factory that served as their headquarters.

Normally, this would have been a solo job, and Sanemi would already be on his bike, speeding off to safety. But he’d received an order to take along two, new Hinoe so they could get experience with higher level jobs.

Conveniently, his instructions had omitted the part the fact that the two lugs were utterly useless, bumbling idiots, contrary to what their recent promotions otherwise suggested.

Because neither of the two juniors are anywhere to be found. Nor is there any sound signaling that his getaway ride is approaching.

Sharp, lavender eyes scan the alley before him, but to his dismay, it remains empty — disquietingly so.

Leave it to a couple of rookies to set his teeth on edge.

Sanemi’s eyes drop down to follow the large hand of his watch as yet another minute ticks by. It’s been six minutes and their window had only allowed for four.

He knows how to be patient when the circumstances call for it, but now is not one of those times.

One minute, he decides, shifting his weight between his feet. They get one more fucking minute and then he splits —

A sudden screech of tires at the opposite end of the alley makes his stomach flip. Sanemi looks up just in time to see his escape car grind to a sharp halt, its rear jolting up as the driver slams on the brakes.

The passenger door flings open, and one of the Hinoe stumbles out, his feet barely connecting with the pavement before the car guns away, the side door flapping open.

The familiar howl of police sirens accompanied by distant shouts is enough for Sanemi to know this simple little debt collection has now gone tits-up.

“Pigs!” The Hinoe who stumbled out of the getaway car calls to him. “Pigs!”

“Shit,” Sanemi growls. No doubt Maeda’s bruised ego sold them out. He should’ve taken the time to smash the asshole’s phone.

He’ll be dealt with later — and with relish. But right now, Sanemi needs to get the fuck away.

Part of following Rule Three means not worrying about your fellow comrades when the cops come. None of them are stupid enough to actually risk talking to law enforcement about the Corps’ operations, but the fewer of them who get caught, the better.

So Sanemi takes off, adrenaline pumping fast and jot in his veins as he hears the swine behind him split off. He can’t be sure, but he can make out two, maybe three pairs of footsteps trailing behind him.

He scowls; shaking one cop is a breeze; having to shake off three is a bitch.

He hurtles over a pile of wooden crates and shoves a stack of delivery pallets over behind him as he runs, darting down random alleys and side streets that he knows will eventually lead him to a safe house.

The backstreet he shoots down is a fork, but only the path straight through will lead him to a rust yard of abandoned warehouses and shipping containers that Sanemi knows like the back of his hand. He could lose them there, could vanish between freights and wait the bastards out, and once clear, he could slip back into the district marking the outer territory of the Silo and get back home.

Iron pumps hotly in his veins. Almost there, almost there —

A car skids to a stop at the end of the middle ting of the alley, police lights flashing and alarms blaring.

No good.

“Fuck.” It isn’t the end of the world, but the blocking of the alley meant he had to reevaluate his escape. While he’s familiar with the path now obstructed by the police cruiser ahead, he hadn’t the chance to fully scope out his only other two options — the side streets to the left and right.

Without much thought, Sanemi darts sharply left and prays to whatever deity is listening that he hasn’t fully fucked himself.

Only one shop remains open; a tiny hole in the wall, tucked in between two old apartment buildings at the end of the street — one that borders the city’s western wing.

It’ll have to do, he decides, especially as the police sirens grow louder with each passing second.

He explodes through the front door, wide eyed and panting. Vaguely, it registers to him that this is a bookshop — a thankfully empty, cluttered bookshop.

But his abrupt arrival does reveal that the shop is not totally empty. There is one other — the store’s lone employee, who startles out of her seat behind the clerk’s counter, nearly knocking over a small cup of coffee.

He regards her for a moment, and she him, with matching expressions of wariness and shock at the presence of the other.

Behind him, the police sirens grow louder; more urgent.

It’s now or never. And, because he’s desperate enough to try, he risks a move he knows better than to take.

“You got someplace I can hide?”

——-

You blink, stunned as you stare at the frantic, pleading man anxiously looking between you and the door behind him.

His name registers dimly in the back of your mind. Here. In your store. And, evidently, on the run, if the distant echoes of police sirens growing steadily closer to your store is any indication.

Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You know him; you’d known him most of your life, even if you’d never spoken to him. You’d gone to the same school in your youth — all thirteen years of it, in fact. He’d been an abrasive loudmouth in the hallways, but a quiet, even polite boy in the classroom.

You know he’s from the Silo — a worn down, derelict part of the City that housed only the poorest residents. A cruel nickname meant to mock the poverty of its population.

But the Silo was also well known for being the epicenter of operations for the notorious group known only as the Corps.

It was the Corps who owned a majority of the City, its reach extending from the Silo, through the West and East wings, and all the way into Midtown. And, as was the case with most leeches, the Corps relied on the most desperate and hungry to carry out its biddings, offering some level of protection and security for the poor souls who needed it most.

Hence, its presence in the Silo.

So you hadn’t been surprised when you’d heard Sanemi had joined the Corps. Most kids from the Silo did; what had surprised you were the rumors that he became a high-rank member by the ripe age of seventeen, before he’d even graduated high school.

You shudder to think what he had to have done — what he’d become — in order to achieve such status and notoriety.

If he’d been anyone else, you wouldn’t have helped; you would’ve screamed, alerted the police to his presence, maybe even outed him as a suspected Hashira.

But you owed him.

Years ago, before either you or your siblings could drive, you all relied on the city bus to get to and from school.

But one afternoon, when you’d had to stay late for a club meeting, your little sister accidentally got on the wrong bus. Rather than being dropped safe and sound a block away from home, she’d ended up in a bad part of town that just so happened to have been the stomping grounds of the scowling delinquent now shoved under your cabinet, contorted between boxes of blank receipt rolls and stacks of returns.

Had anyone else found your sister, there would be no telling what would have happened to her. The Silo was not a place known to be kind to lost little girls.

But it was Sanemi who discovered her, sniffling and red-faced at the dilapidated bus stop. And though he’d been nothing more than a scrawny ten year old, he’d put your sister on his back and carried her not just the six miles back to safe part of town, but the additional two that led right to the front doorstep of your parents’ home.

You’d watched him curiously from the stairs as your parents profusely thanked your sister’s white-haired savior. They’d offered Sanemi dinner, or at least some sort of reward for his efforts, but he’d only waved them off, briskly telling them it was “no big deal.” As though carrying a six-year-old nearly eight miles was par for the course, as far as he was concerned.

His eyes had flitted over to you once during the exchange, briefly lingering before he turned and left, a single hand held up in casual farewell.

You’d been ten at the time. And now, here you are, twenty years old, running a shabby bookstore, and the opportunity to pay him back has finally arrived. The chance to show your gratitude for sparing your sister of a fate he himself, had not been able to escape.

Quickly, you motion him to you and without explanation, you cram him under the clerk’s counter, holding the cabinet door shut with your knee just as the police burst through the store entrance.

There are three of them, and they do not bother announcing themselves to you. Instead, they begin to prowl through your aisles, flashlights out and guns drawn while they comb the quiet corners of the store, searching for signs of anything that did not belong; anything misplaced.

A bead of sweat slides down the back of your neck, but you keep your face and your stance casual. Below the counter you cross your fingers, hoping and praying that the criminal stuffed inside your cabinet isn’t stupid enough to try and shift.

One officer rounds back into the main part of the store and locks in on you, stiff and anxious behind the counter.“You haven’t seen anything suspicious?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what you mean.”

The cop grimaces. “You haven’t seen anyone who looks out of place? Maybe seems like they’re running?”

You feign an easy, sweet smile, even as the leg holding the cabinet door shut begins to tremble. “I’m afraid you’re my first customer of the day, sir.”

The officer grumbles under his breath something along the lines of not your customer, but he questions you no further. He only waves to his comrades and the three of them shuffle out through the door, one muttering into the walkie strapped to his shoulder.

Several moments pass, tense and thick. The silence is broken only by the sound of your heart hammering against your sternum. You remain still, fingers curled tight against the counter’s edge listening for any sound signaling the cops have returned, that their stiff departure had been a ruse to lull you into a false sense of security, as they waited for you to reveal your deception.

But all remains quiet. And you cannot stomach the silence any longer.

“They’re gone,” you mutter, finally moving aside to let the cabinet door below you swing open.

There’s a faint thumping and a few, muffled curses as the scar-speckled fugitive unfolds himself and spills free from the under-cabinet.

In a way, Sanemi still resembles the boy of your memories. His eyes and hair have always been distinctive: a shocking contrast of violet framed by thick, dark lashes that do not match the mop of silvery-white atop his head. But it’s the faint scowl he wears as he stands, the tinge of annoyance that tugs at the corners of his mouth, that scrunches his pale eyebrows, that feels familiar.

That expression, a portrait of vague irritation with the world around him, was one you came to know well — at least, at a distance. One that remained constant even as you grew; his default.

However, it is still not nearly as memorable as the shy embarrassment that had turned his cheeks slightly pink, had made him cast his eyes down as your parents showered him with gratitude.

But that earnest bashfulness is nowhere to be found now.

He wears a patterned, short-sleeved button down. Though rumpled and a tad dirty, you suspect the top three buttons were left open intentionally, rather than being the product of whatever scuffle he’d found himself in before he decided to make it your problem.

You try not to linger on the very obvious hint of the well-defined muscles revealed by his open collar. Nor do you let yourself consider the bulging mass of his biceps as he runs a hand through his cornsilk hair.

He has scars he’d not had in your youth — jagged, silvery lines that cut halfway across his cheek and forehead. Yet their presence does not dull his good looks.

A scrawny ten year old no longer; Sanemi Shinazugawa is now tall and roguishly handsome. But his infuriating good looks aside, your debt to him has been repaid; now, he needs to get the fuck away.

“Can’t thank ya enough,” he shoots you a devilish smile as he straightens his shirt. “You really saved my ass —“

“Get out of my store.” You order, your voice hard. “Take your trouble somewhere else and leave me out of it.”

Sanemi’s eyes narrow at your use of the word trouble, but he says nothing. Instead, he only rounds the counter with a loping, infuriating swagger, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“As you wish, Princess,” and you bristle at the sarcasm dropping from the word. He pauses to scan the shelf marked New Releases. “Just need somethin’ for the road.”

He snags a small novel — a fantasy story, judging by the cover - and he tucks it under his arm.

“Later,” he calls, waving a lazy hand over his shoulder.

You stare after him, slack-jawed and incensed. “You have to pay for —“

But the door bangs shut behind him, and Sanemi Shinazugawa disappears into the night.

—-

By the time Sanemi returns to his shabby apartment, it is well after midnight. He’d met up with Uzui and forked over Maeda’s payment. Though, the Corp’s head pimp hadn’t been particularly pleased that his money rolls had been shoved deep down in his boots, his nose wrinkling as Sanemi dropped the crumpled, slightly damp wads of cash into his waiting, magenta-nailed hands.

As it turned out, Maeda hadn’t sold them out. Rather, one of the Hinoe had stupidly gotten into a scuffle with some brash, young teenager and in his anger, pulled his gun on the kid.

Right in front of two, marked cop cars.

One of the idiots had been caught and cuffed, and was now spending his evening locked in the damp, cold jailhouse pending bond. The other — the driver — had managed to escape, though he’d been carted off to Iguro for punishment.

There’s a reason he prefers working alone, he thinks bitterly as he kicks his boots off. He fucking loathes incompetence.

He pulls his gun free from its place in his waistband and sets it gently atop his ratty kitchen table. Sanemi then trudges over to his futon, collapsing heavily on it with a groan. A shit day, he decides, pulling the stack of cash he’d received as his cut for the job free from his pocket, thumbing through it. A shit day with shit juniors.

He shifts against a lump that sits under his ass. Frowning, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the book he’d swiped from your store and turns it over in his hands. Surprisingly, it has managed to remain in pristine condition despite its rather unceremonious storage in his pocket.

Your face flashes in his mind, but before he can fully appreciate it, your words echo in his ears.

Take your trouble somewhere else.

Sanemi scowls, tossing the book onto his coffee table, annoyed. The implication underlying your use of trouble and the venom with which you’d spoken it is a thorn in his side he cannot ignore.

You know what — who — he is. In Sanemi’s world, that’s a liability.

Though, in fairness, he can’t really be surprised that you do. Gossip is a free commodity in this town, and it’s a coveted one. It wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude that you’d overheard one of the rumors about him and his ties to the Corps.

What concerns him is he doesn’t know what your connection is, if any, to his world. Maybe you’re really just a girl in a bookshop who paid back a decade-old favor.

Or maybe you’ve got an in with them.

The Corps isn’t the only gang operating within the city; there is another, crueler and far more violent that had arisen west of the Silo.

The Kizuki.

In the last six months, the Kizuki have managed to overtake the Western Wing, nearly expanding their reach into center city.

Their takeover had been swift; practically achieved overnight, following the systematic execution of every known Corps members in the area. And their violence hadn’t been limited to active members; the Kizuki had brutally maimed and murdered anyone tangentially connected to those Corps members.

Neither women nor their children were spared. And now, it seemed the Kizuki had set their sights on the Silo.

There are whispers that they’ve expanded into their operations into the neighborhood adjacent to the one in which the bookstore sits. That alone is enough to make Sanemi suspicious — perhaps you’re in league with them, and you’ll hand him over the moment it’s most convenient for you to do so.

Admittedly, that theory seems doubtful. You’re a bookseller. Not the kind of girl he knows is prone to becoming involved with the seedy underground world of organized crime. And your apparent disdain for him and his trouble only supports that theory.

But that’s an assumption, and in his line of work, assumptions are precarious; risky. Too much so for comfort.

Either way, he doesn’t know, and that uncertainty is a breeding ground for the parasite that is doubt. Toxic enough that were it to take root in his brain, his judgment could be compromised, leading him to mistakes he can’t afford to make.

Sanemi doesn’t tolerate blind spots. He will keep you on his radar until he determines the threat you pose and once he knows its severity, he’ll decide how to proceed.

He eyes the book he’d swiped from your store. He likes reading, though he hasn’t had much time for it lately (or, ever). But, if he’s going to hang around you while trying to identify the threat you pose, he might as well have a strategy for getting you to talk.

Sighing, he grabs the novel from his table and thumbs to the first page as he pads into his kitchen, in search of something to quell the grumble in his stomach.

—

His inquiries into you and your life reveal shockingly little.

You work at a bookstore. Your parents sold off your childhood home and retired to some beach down south. Your siblings are spread out across other cities and don’t visit home often, if ever.

Only you remain, abandoned by your family to fend for yourself in a crumbling city with only a shabby bookshop that sits on the furthest end of an otherwise safe street to keep you busy.

Truthfully, the bookstore probably is more interesting than you, at least on paper. But it’s that dirge of information that piques his interest; makes him look at you more as a mystery worth unraveling.

Besides, the smart thing for him would be to keep a tab on you until he can confirm you are in fact, as boring as you appear.

Or so he tells himself.

The image of a ten-year-old you peering at him from your parents’ stairwell flashes through his mind once more.

He’d felt your gaze burning a hole into his head, and shyly, he’d looked back at you, only to find himself unable to look away. Only your mother’s prodding about him joining your family for dinner had broken your temporary enchantment over him.

The memory of how you’d looked at him — a mixture of curiosity and awe highlighted by a faint blush in your cheeks when he’d met your stare head on — remained fixed in his brain for years after.

And though the two of you never spoke, you always smiled at him whenever you locked eyes in the school hallway or cafeteria. A real, genuine smile.

He wonders if he ever smiled back and finds himself irritated that he can’t remember if he had. He should’ve; especially now when it seems as though he’s unlikely to ever see that gentle, radiant smile again.

Sanemi’s phone pings and all thoughts of you come to a screeching halt. The message that flashes on his screen — instructions, only by way of an address and an amount — chase away the images of you and your sweet smile, like a hand scattering smoke.

With a sigh, Sanemi dials the number for two, lower-ranked Corps members to serve as scouts. With watch secured, he shoves his phone into his pocket and runs a tired hand over his face.

He wonders what will kill him first — whether it will be a bullet or whether it will be because there’s nothing left of him to whore out on the Corp’s behalf.

Ultimately, he knows it doesn’t really matter. He won’t die as himself; as Sanemi, the boy from the Silo who wants a life that’s anything but this. He’ll die only as Shinazugawa the Hashira. He’ll die under the mask he’s forced to wear so often, he wonders if it hasn’t yet bonded with his skin.

But as long as he remains in one piece, he must continue on as a puppet in this this tedious show. So, Sanemi grabs his gun from where he’d placed it on atop the cheap plastic of his kitchen table and he tucks it into his waistband.

And by the time his apartment door slams shut behind him, Sanemi has slipped the mask down over his face, and he is Shinazugawa once more.

—

Two weeks pass before he ends up back in front of your bookstore.

Sanemi doesn’t really remember how he got here. He awoke well before sunrise to his phone chiming with orders that he go collect on a sizeable gambling debt owed by one of Iguro’s regulars, an owner of some pawn shop.

The sun was already high overhead when he finally left the pawn shop, knuckles bruised and arm aching. He’d kicked his bike into gear in a familiar daze, one that always slipped over him after he completed a job. A kind of numb quiet that settled into his bones, a dull static in his brain that did not fade until the tremor in his hands subsided.

That paralysis needs to be broken. Contrary to popular belief, desensitization was not an ideal state of being for someone like him. It made him apathetic and careless to the world around him, and that was little better than painting a giant target on his back, begging his enemies to come and do their worst.

So, when the numbness still lingered by the time his bike roars past a rusted water tower that marks the outer limit of the Silo, Sanemi knows of only one cure. His go-to.

His bike is still hot by the time he lifts his phone to his ear, just outside his shithole of an apartment.

He doesn’t know her by name — only by description, as told by the series of emojis that accompany her number on his phone. But it’s surprisingly easy to charm her, though perhaps that’s because she’s looking for an escape just as much as he is.

Less than ten minutes later, the girl pulls up beside him in the parking lot.

Her hands are already roaming down his chest and playing with the buckle on his belt as Sanemi unlocks his door and pushes her inside.

At some point between the front door and his bedroom, the girl has stripped herself of her outer clothing, leaving her only in her undergarments as she tugs Sanemi down by his neck and into her kiss. She’s licking and nipping at his lips in a way he’s not sure he likes, but he allows it because his cock is painfully hard and throbbing where it strains against his pants.

And, after all, he’s the one desperate for relief.

“I’ve only got ten minutes,” she warns, kicking off her underwear as she falls back onto his bed. Sanemi only smirks as he slides his hand down the length of her leg, gripping her by the ankle and flipping her to her stomach.

He shifts away long enough to quickly wiggle free of his pants. He grabs a condom from his nightstand and rips the foil with his teeth. Fingers toying with the girl’s clit as she moans into his mattress, Sanemi rolls the latex down his cock. Protection secured, he reaches for her again, yanking her by her hips until her backside is flush against him. One hand pushes down between her shoulder blades while the other snakes up her neck, and Sanemi nudges the tip of his cock up against her entrance.

“Don’t worry, darlin’,” he winds the long tresses of her hair around his fist and gives her a sharp tug. “We’ll be done in five.”

—-

Even an hour after he tossed the girl her clothing and not so casually suggested she leave his apartment, Sanemi still feels restless.

He cannot shake the images of the afternoon from his mind, and so, Sanemi resorts to walking.

He does so without thought as to destination or the rapidly setting sun. Sanemi only focuses on the activity itself. One foot in front of the other; pace even and quick, each step accompanied by a flash of that day’s sins.

The crash of a garage door as it slammed back against the wall. Wide eyes that quickly filled with panic at the sight of him and the flash of metal tucked against his hip.

Step.

A plea; a desperate promise to pay, one that he’d heard a thousand times from a thousand different mouths. None of them ever seemed to understand their word wasn’t worth shit when they’d already defaulted on their obligations. Yet still, they begged.

Step.

The breaking of teeth beneath his fists.

Step.

The crush of bone under the iron pipe he’d found discarded on the garage floor. The agonized futility of trying to scoot back and away from him, despite a shattered leg.

Green; the color of the money he’d found stashed in a duffel, the debtor’s desperate attempt to hoard the wealth owed to the Corps.

Step. Step. Step. All the way down the street leading until he finds himself on a distantly familiar stretch of pavement that ends at the bookstore’s front steps.

For a moment, he lingers outside the shop, hesitant. He should turn around; there is no reason for him to be here. His investigation into you is not a priority by any means, especially where whatever poking he has done has revealed so little.

The book he lifted from the New Releases shelf is tucked carefully in his jacket pocket. He doesn’t know why he’s carried it around with him, all this time. Sanemi finished the novel the very night you’d helped hide him from the cops.

He should leave; but then his feet carry him up the walk leading to the store, and he’s pushing the door open.

His arrival is punctuated by a cheerful ring of the old bell nailed above the door. At first, the store appears deserted; but then you pop up from under the counter, surprise coloring your features.

That surprise melts quickly into cold disdain that makes something in his chest flutter as he strolls toward you. With every step, that numb haze of his disperses and instead, Sanemi feels himself returning to normal the closer he brings himself to you.

“This isn’t a library,” you chide when he plops his borrowed novel back down on your counter. “You have to pay for the books here.”

It’s incredible how easily he is able to slip back into the skin of the suave, smug playboy, and your adorable glare only makes him smirk. “I brought it back, didn’t I? Look — didn’t even crack the spine.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you reply coolly, snatching the book up and tossing it on a small cart marked Restock. “That loss came out of my paycheck — which is scant enough.”

That piques his attention. “Didn’t you say this was your store?”

His question makes you turn pink, and you’re quick to put your back to him, pretending to shuffle through new releases waiting to be shelved. “I work here,” you mutter quietly, but when you turn back around, you stick your chin out, defiant. “But I am the only employee, so it is my store, in a sense. The owner doesn’t ever come by.”

You wrinkle your nose. “So yes, lost profits affect me, and me alone, you thief.”

Sanemi cocks his head, his eyes running over you in consideration.

You’re beautiful; he’s always found you cute, even as a kid, but the transition between your teen years and adulthood have been kind. Even if you’re glaring at him like you would a crushed bug stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

But your words strike a chord in him. His job is to collect money from those greedy lowlifes who waste it; who use money to carry out their bad deeds, who use it to fuck over others.

He doesn’t take it from those who need it; from those who are barely scraping. by. Sanemi knows the agony of having to choose between keeping the lights on or feeding a hungry stomach far, far too well.

“Fine, here,” he tosses a random novel on your counter and a crumpled twenty dollar note. You ring him up, eyes flicking up to glare at him every so often as you count out his change.

He only continues to watch you, the heat of his stare ignites an itch under your skin that makes you squirm.

Your restlessness boils over. “What?”

“Nothin,” he shrugs. “Just think it’s interesting that you of all people are still lingering in this shit hole.”

Your head snaps up, your task of totaling out his change forgotten. “I live here, idiot.”

He snorts. “Didn’t you want outta here? Do somethin’ different?” He leans forward, elbows propped on your counter as he rests his chin on his fist.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” He’s dancing dangerously close to a sore spot of yours — that you are alone in your hometown, working at a failing bookshop, with no one and nothing to justify your stagnancy.

“This can’t be your dream life.”

You don’t have to answer; you know that. But his line of questioning is puzzling. Because, no matter how casual he manages to keep his tone, his nonchalance is betrayed by his eyes, sharp and inquisitive.

Like he’s waiting to dissect whatever answer you give him.

Sanemi continues. “It’s strange for people not to want for more — to not dream about somethin’ different.”

“And who are you to say I don’t?” You bristle, slamming your cash drawer shut with more force than necessary. “I have a dream of my own. Just because it’s not one you would pick for yourself doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

He blinks, taken aback. “Woah, woah, I never meant any offense.” He pushes back from the counter. “My bad.”

His response feels genuine but your ego is already bruised. Stiffly, you finish counting out his change and drop it into his waiting palm.

You slide his book across the counter. “Have the day you deserve.”

His surprise morphs into amusement at your iciness. So haughty, he winks. “You too, Princess.”

You turn aside in clear dismissal. He makes a show of taking out his wallet and stuffing his change inside, but your pointed ignorance of him means you don’t see him toss another note on the counter.

He’s already halfway out the door when you call after him, urgent. “Sir, you dropped your —“

“Nah, I didn’t,” he raises his hand in farewell as the bookstore door bangs shut behind him, leaving you to stare open-mouthed after him.

Clutched tightly in your hand is his crisp, one hundred dollar note.

—

His next visit is unplanned, but not in the way that Sanemi avoids routine. It’s unplanned in that he’s annoyed and it’s partially your fault, so that means the onus is on you to fix it.

You’re in the process of double checking delivery logs to ensure all your new inventory has arrived when a large thud against the clerk’s counter startles you.

You frown. It’s him again — all ivory hair and silvery facial scars that somehow are less imposing than the irritated scowl he wears.

“This book was shit,” he scoots the novel across the counter to you with distaste. “I want a refund.”

You level his pout with a frosty glare of your own. Wordlessly, you lean over the counter and tap a single finger against a laminated sign duck-taped to its edge.

Return-exchange only. No refunds.

“But it was shit,” he repeats, as though that will somehow spur you to change a policy you didn’t create. “You let me waste twenty bucks.”

“I did nothing,” you rustle the pages of your delivery log in pointed dismissal. “You’re the one who decided to buy a book before checking it out.”

You glance down at the discarded novel. “Figures,” you scoff. “He’s not even an author. He uses ghost writers and takes all the credit.”

“Woulda been nice if you’d told me that before you let me give him my money.”

You hum idly as you cross off the log’s boxes for new releases. “I suppose I was too stunned that you even knew how to read. Guess I wasn’t really paying attention to your shit choices.”

“Oh?” And you glance up to see Sanemi smirking at you. “The Princess has claws, does she?” He leans against the counter, propping his cheek under a loose fist. “So, what are your recommendations, gorgeous?”

“I’m not your Princess,” you snap imbuing the nickname with as much venom as you can muster. “Call me by my name or call me nothing at all.”

His eyes drop to your name-tag, pinned neatly on the front of your sweater. That insufferable smirk of his only widens. “Alright, alright. What are your recommendations, Y/N?”

The syllables sound rich and honeyed and suddenly, you wish you’d let him stick with Princess, as grating as it was.

Because your name should not sound so sweet, should not roll off his tongue so seamlessly, as it just did.

You’ve never been one to indulge in rumors. But in this city, as economically fractured as it is, gossip is a currency everyone keeps in their back pocket. And though you keep your head down and mind your own business, even you have heard the rumors swirling around town about the eldest Shinazugawa child.

Rumors that he has ascended the ranks of the same Mob that claimed the life of his deadbeat father long before the bastard was shived in the back for a debt he’d owed (their words, never yours).

Rumors that he holds a unique position within the gang, known clandestinely only as the Corps, and that position requires him to do things most won’t speak about.

But the rumor that screeches to the forefront of your mind has nothing to do with his alleged status with the Corps. It’s his reputation as a flirt; a rumored womanizer, through and through, that is a splinter under your skin.

Determined to pick him out, a wicked idea blossoms. “Fine, here.” You stalk purposefully to the section marked Literature. Your finger drags down a line of titles before finally settling on one. You pull it free with a soft grunt, the book sitting thick and heavy in your hand as you dump it into Sanemi’s.

“Read that.”

His eyes flick between its cover and you, incredulous. “This ain’t a book; it’s a brick.”

“It’s a classic,” you counter. “One that examines age-old question of destiny versus free will, generational curses.” Your head cocks to the side, a challenging smirk tugging at the corner of your mouth. “Love and lust.”

His eyebrow raises and you cross your fingers. If he falls for it and ultimately ends up hating the book, then perhaps he’ll decide your taste in reading material is indeed shit, and maybe then he’ll leave you alone.

Sanemi considers you for a moment but then he takes the bait. “If you say so,” he sighs. “But if it’s shit, I’m taking my refund.” And then he leans in close, so close that you can feel the warmth radiating off his body.

His breath is hot against your ear. “Regardless of your shitty little policy.”

You refuse to let him see how much he’s knocked you off-kilter. “So I can expect to be robbed? Will it be at gun or knifepoint? Just so I’m prepared.”

His chuckle, low and dark sends goosebumps skittering down your arms. “Worse,” he promises before he draws back. His grin is wolfish, all teeth and feral hunger. “You’ll owe me a date.”

He looses a low, appreciate whistle as he steps back and takes his eyes over your rigid form. “Though, I might just take you out anyway.”

“You assume I’ll say yes — or are you planning on kidnapping me? I’m sure you’re rather proficient at it, given your occupation.”

Something dark flashes across his face, and it’s enough to make you step back, a sudden fear creeping up the back of your spine.

Stupid, you chastise yourself. You never know when to keep your mouth shut.

But the shadows in his features recede as quickly as they appeared, and Sanemi’s mouth eases back into that same, cocky smile.

“You’ll say yes, Princess. You won’t be able to resist the temptation.”

“Temptation?” You force out a laugh. “And what makes you think I can’t?”

Sanemi’s eyes find your current read, open flipped over on the counter, marking your current page.

It’s a mystery novel. Your third of the month, born of a new hyperfixation on the genre.

You want nothing more than to wipe that smug grin of his clean from his face. He gives an affectionate snake of his head as he turns and makes his way toward the door. “Habits, Y/N. It all comes down to habits.”

You should throw it at his head, but Sanemi exits the store before your hand can find its spine.

——-

Over two weeks pass without so much as a whisper from the enigma that is Sanemi Shinazugawa.

Loath though you are to give him that sort of credit, you cannot deny that he utterly confounds you. He is everything you expected while simultaneously nothing at all what you’d imagined. He is brash and cocky, and he struts around with an insufferable self-importance that can only come from years of being at the top of his game (no matter how he got there).

Yet, he also reads. Enough to have opinions, even decent ones, about certain authors, and he’s open minded enough to accept your recommendation even if it feels as though he has an ulterior motive for doing so.

And, he’d been bothered by the dock in your pay as a result of his mischief; so much so, that he’d slipped you more than enough to make up the loss. That is the action that puzzles you the most, even weeks later. You’d assumed that someone like him, so used to ensnaring people into various schemes, wouldn’t have given two shits if he’d stolen money from some broke girl at a bookstore. After all, his business was all about money — and the lengths some would go to keep it.

Yet he’d paid you back — paid you more than you needed, if you were honest.

Since that day, you’ve had your ears tuned to any mention of his name, any whispers of the mysterious, scarred gang-member who has occupied nearly all the open space in your head. You’ve managed to glean small things here and there. That he’s a Hashira, and Hashira means he’s only one step below what is known ominously as the Master Family — the heads of the entire organization.

That he’s rather feared, even among seasoned Corps members; that he’s known for his swift brutality.

That he’s more than just a flirt; he’s a virile lover. Not picky in the slightest about who warms his bed, though no one has ever been able to pin him down longer than a handful of one-night stands.

You stop poking around after that particular revelation, embarrassed that you now know exactly what makes him so popular.

Apparently, his flexibility pairs well with his near inhuman stamina. And he’s said to be very well-endowed.

It’s more information than you care to know, but you can’t deny that your curiosity lingers.

You brush aside your inquisitiveness as nothing more than a natural side effect of your own inexperience. And you’ll be damned before admitting that your interest in Sanemi Shinazugawa isn’t limited to rumors of how good he is in bed. That, perhaps your curiosity stems from something deeper, from a desire to know if that bad boy persona is authentic or a mere facade, and boy on the stoop still lurks somewhere beneath his mask.

—

“You look like shit.”

You startle up from where you’d been resting your head on your arm, wavering between consciousness and sleep.

You know that gravelly voice before you lay your eyes on him, and your irritation is quick to flicker to life.

Nearly a month has passed since your last encounter, and for a moment, you’d thought you’d been freed from his nuisance. But now, Sanemi stands in your store, wearing a half-amused expression on his stupidly handsome face.

“Is that the only descriptor you know?” You ask miserably, hands working quickly to smooth down your mused hair. “Is everything either shit or not-shit to you?”

Sanemi shrugs. “Pretty much,” and he holds something out to you, waiting. “Here.”

It’s a to-go bag from a cafe two blocks away. One known for their almond croissants, for which you have a particular penchant.

Your stomach grumbles fiercely. You’d foregone eating breakfast when you realized you’d overslept your alarm, and had to rush out of your apartment to ensure you’d be here in time for the weekly delivery truck.

The sweet scent of butter and sugar wafting from the bag makes your mouth water.

But this is Sanemi Shinazugawa, and you should think to know better. “Is it poisoned?”

He rolls his eyes. “If I wanted to drug you, sweetheart, I’d pick a far more convenient way to do it — and one that didn’t involve me getting up at the ass crack of dawn for some overpriced pastries.”

Warily, you accept the paper bag, and Sanemi surprises you again by handing you a to-go cup of coffee. He watches as you, ever the dramatic, sniff tentatively at the lid and frown, apparently dissatisfied that you can discern nothing but the rich, aromatic scent of espresso.

Sanemi takes a deep drink from his own cup. “It’s a thank you. For that book you recommended,” He smirks. “It wasn’t shit. It was good.”

You fish a pastry out of the bag, and nearly drool as you behold its buttery, flaky goodness. “You sound surprised.”

“Maybe I was. Your success rate was only fifty-fifty. I had every right to be skeptical.”

“You’re the one who grabbed that last book,” you take a large bite out of your croissant and you fight to keep yourself from moaning. “That had nothing to do with me.” You swallow thickly before taking a large sip of coffee to wash down the pastry. “So, no date, then?”

The smile he gives you is almost apologetic. “Sorry, beautiful. I don’t actually date.” And you nearly double over at the bewildering taste of disappointment creeping sourly up the back of your throat. “Gotta keep things casual in my world.”

The once-over he gives you is razor-sharp. “And you don’t look like a casual girl.”

You resist the urge to cross your arms. “You seem awfully certain, Shinazugawa.”

“Experience,” he offers easily. “I know casual women.” He turns his head away before quietly adding, “And you ain’t one of ‘em.”

It’s odd; you know of his rather wild reputation among women, and yet he seems almost embarrassed by its acknowledgment. But as you’re slowly learning, Sanemi Shinazugawa is a conundrum you haven’t yet been able to pick apart.

You could throw it in his face; you could spew some barb about his experience, rub your salt right into his obvious wound. You have no reason to spare his feelings, not when he’s been such a consistent pain in your ass.

Your eyes drift to the empty pastry bag and coffee cup before they find him again, and suddenly, you don’t see the swaggering, cocky Corps member with a reputation for being just as dangerous and violent as he is flirtatious.

You see only the boy on your stoop; the one who’d gently removed your sister from her place on his back and handed her back to your tearful, relieved parents.

And it’s because you cannot stop seeing that boy, that you offer before you lose the courage to ask, “So, friends, then?”

Sanemi whips back to you, surprise coloring his features that quickly melts into a smile — a real, genuine smile.

And thus, Sanemi Shinazugawa, ruthless member of the Corps and a ranked Hashira, befriends a girl who runs a bookshop.

—-

In retrospect, Sanemi knows he’s probably fucked himself.

His only intention in visiting your shop after that first day had been to discern what level of threat you posed to him, if any, and to address it accordingly. Befriending you was never his goal. After all, he prided himself on his staunch ability in following the unspoken Rules of the Corps — number Three, in particular.

But he has always interpreted Three has a warning against forming bonds within the Corps. And though he knows it’s good practice to keep his circle outside its operations small as well, he rations he’s entitled to indulge his curiosity in you. He doesn’t have friends, not really. Just Genya, and his little brother lives well over an hour away, enrolled in a school in a far better — far safer — city.

It would be nice to have someone a little closer to home that he could relax around.

Yet, he can’t recall whether Rule Three would bar him from associating you outside work hours. Caution would dictate he shouldn’t, but Sanemi never claimed to be a careful man.

He never visits the same day or at the same time. Rule Two says no patterns, and though he’s steadily blurring the lines of Rule Three with each passing day, he convinces himself that as long as he abides by the first two, he won’t be in as deep shit as he, in theory, could be.

It starts out slow; tentative. Despite what he’d thought otherwise, you’re not nearly as prim and haughty as you’d tried to make him believe.

You’re sweet. Genuine, in a way that’s rare for him to encounter in his world.

Gradually, he begins spending more time with you. At first, your relationship is confined strictly to discussions of books. You swap favorites, debate which author is at the top of their genre, and you occasionally needle each other over your respective guilty pleasure: yours, bodice rippers. His, fairytales.

He spends a great deal of his free time at the bookstore, though he’s never consistent with his visits. You never ask him about it, and for that, he’s grateful. But eventually, your conversation turns to other interests — movies, shows, music — and each new mutual interest only further enamors him with you.

And when you invite him over one day after you close the shop to watch an old movie you’d swiped from the store’s limited collection, he can’t find it in him to tell you no.

The first time he visits your apartment, he is appalled.

For starters, the neighborhood you live in isn’t the safest. It’s not the Silo, by any means, but it’s an area he frequents as part of his job and that fact alone sets him on edge. He knows what kind of people linger here; knows that they tend to borrow cash that ends up in Uzui’s business — another Hashira.

And when he sees the shoebox you live in (a studio, you’d proudly boasted, as though the distraction of exposed brick and industrial piping made up for its shit location and shit security), Sanemi finds himself clutching his proverbial pearls.

He supposes he can see its appeal — you’ve certainly turned it into a home.

You’ve made a small living room out of a single couch, thrifted coffee table, and a faintly stained rug. Your TV is laughably small, but he supposes it gets the job done.

A small kitchen stands to the right of the entryway, and there is a bathroom to the left. You have a wall of closets with folding doors, and the wall directly opposite of him boasts three large, arched windows. Sanemi supposes during the day, they provide enough natural sunlight to negate any need for any overhead lighting, of which you have none. But he can’t tell if they open from the outside, so he resolves to furtively check once you’re distracted.

Your bed stands on the furthest wall, tucked into a corner and laden heavy with colorful pillows and plush throws. Books are stacked everywhere — in shelves, in corners, by plants and furniture. All well-worn and loved, their spines cracked and covers stained.

It’s lively; warm. And it has you written all over it. That alone is enough to slightly endear the place to him.

But it’s still a shit apartment in a shit neighborhood.

Worse, your door is little more than a flimsy piece of wood that latches with a single turn lock — the easiest to break, if someone was determined enough to try. He tells you as much and you roll your eyes, brushing aside his concerns as though he’s not precisely aware of what kind of filth might linger around the corner.

The next day, he brings over a deadbolt, a chain, and a drill. He bats off your indignant protests as he installs it on your door. And, because he’s petty, he forces you to sit through a painfully detailed demonstration of how to properly latch and unlatch the chain once he’s finished.

The weeks blend seamlessly into months, and Sanemi finds himself spending more and more of his free time with you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working at the bookstore or enjoying a night of brain-rotting entertainment on your shitty little television. He just wants to be near you, and he finds himself unable to stay away.

Four months into your friendship, you start a weekly movie night, though the date is always subject to change. Still, Sanemi finds himself craving more of that precious time with you. The hours spent in your store or at your apartment fill a void in his chest he hadn’t realized he’d been harboring, and it’s a fullness he quickly becomes addicted to.

It is an odd thing, this new ritual (never routine) of his. The alternation between visiting the scum indebted to the Corps, to feel bones crush and snap beneath his hands or the iron of a spare crowbar, or blood griming to his knuckles, only to return to your bookshop or apartment, cheap beer and greasy takeout in hand, isn’t the kind of switch he imagined he’d ever make. But you make taking off his Hashira mask so damn easy, and every time he leaves he finds it more difficult to slip back on.

With each passing day, he learns you more and more. He gathers information like a dragon hoards its jewels, each new tidbit a precious gem that he tucks safely away in a mental box labeled with your name.

He learns that, while he prefers tea, you prefer coffee, but you’re picky about your order. If it’s hot, you want it black or with only the faintest splash of cream. If it’s cold, however, you want every sweet syrup and topping known to man, even though it only makes you crash like a freight train once the sugar high wears off.

He learns you think cooking means pouring yourself a bowl of cereal and calling it a day, and it’s a revelation that makes him have to walk away and collect himself, lest he start lecturing you on the importance of proper nutrition, just as he does with his brother.

In exchange, he opens up about the more sacred aspects of his life — namely, Genya. He confides in you the great pride and adoration he has for his little brother, and admits his deep-seated fear that Genya will somehow be pulled into his violent, hostile world of his. And each time Sanemi begins to feel that anxiety rear its ugly head, threaten to settle into the marrow of his bones and send him into a spiral, you’re always there to pull him back.

Sometimes you ask questions, and Sanemi tries to answer them as best he can. But there are some subjects he can never touch. Never wants to.

He can’t tell you whose blood stains his knuckles or is splattered across his shoes. He can’t tell you where he goes when his phone vibrates late at night or at random during the day. He can’t tell you what his fellow Hashira do; the specialties they oversee.

Sanemi does make a point to assure you there is one sacred creed by which they all abide: no kids. This seems to put you at ease, as though this tepid moral line somehow absolves him of the other shit he’s guilty for.

It’s selfish, this thing he has created with you. He knows that. And his blossoming friendship with you likely breaks more than one of the sacred precepts of the Corps. But you’re the first person he’s met since his initiation who knows what he is and doesn’t cower in fear, and that makes him desperate to cling onto you. You know what an ugly, beastly creature he is, and yet you do not run away from him. Even when you probably should.

So, he makes a promise. He won’t show you the Shinazugawa who belongs to the Corps; a formidable member of the Hashira, known because of the things he can do to others to make sure they pay their debts. What he does to them when they don’t.

With you, he wants to be Sanemi; only Sanemi.

And so it goes, for the better part of a year, the two of you learning one another, pretending the ease you feel in the company of the other is merely the product of two people relieved to find a friend in a city that cautions against such ties, and not something in danger of becoming more.

As though the metamorphosis hasn’t already set in.

—

“You never told me what your dream was, y’know.” Sanemi says one night while you finish up inventory at the store.

“What dream?” You hum as you scan the shelves reserved for non-fiction releases, your lips pressed into a firm line as you run your pen down the entries of your log.

He leans against the bookshelf, arms folded across the considerable mass of his chest. “Your big dream — the one you bit my head off for insulting that one time.”

You look up long enough to roll your eyes at him. “Where’s this coming from?”

“Dunno. Curious.”

“Thought you’re not supposed to ask questions in your line of work.” And you shoot him a sly grin. “You ought to be careful.”

Sanemi snorts but he nudges your foot with his. “I’m serious.”

Your eyes dance back and forth between him and the log before you. There’s no real harm in it, you decide. After all, he’s the only friend you have. “I want my own bookstore.”

“Yeah?” He raises a pale brow and waves his hand vaguely around behind him. “Aren’t you practically running this one? That ain’t enough?”

“I don’t own it, though.” You frown, setting your clipboard down. “I just work here. You’ve seen my paycheck.”

And he had, having found a paystub when he’d gone snooping under your counter. You would’ve been furious at his invasion of your privacy had you not been so mortified at the way he’d stared in horror at the pitiful figure reflecting your earnings after two, grueling weeks of work.

His insistence on bringing you meals at any and every opportunity afterward only compounded your embarrassment.

“I want something that’s mine — that I own.” You continue. “I’ve begged the owner to let me organize author meet-and-greets as a way to promote the store for months, and he always says no. If I owned my own store, I wouldn’t need anyone’s permission.”

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth. “I wouldn’t have to live under anyone’s thumb.”

Something shifts in the way Sanemi watches you, a certain profundity creeping into his eyes.

Your cheeks heat. “I know it sounds stupid —“

“It doesn’t,” Sanemi says earnestly. “Wanting your freedom can never be stupid.”

You soften then, as understanding passes between you. Of course he would know all about that — arguably better than anyone you know.

Sanemi clears his throat. “So, a bookstore?” And he gives you a broad smile as he pulls out his wallet and tosses you a twenty dollar note. “Consider me your first investor.”

—

Sanemi spends the rest of the evening watching you work, fascinated by the way you meticulously organize your store shelves, and count the cash in your register. When it comes time for you to heave boxes of excess inventory to the back storeroom so they can be shipped back to their distributors, Sanemi plucks them from your hands, batting off your protests as he carries them for you.

By the time closing arrives, every new shipment has been unpacked and its contents have been shelved.

You flick off the overhead lights in the main store, relying on the backlight of the exit door to light your way out. You tug on your coat and find him watching you, expectantly. “Are you walking me home?”

“Tch. Don’t I always, when I can?”

You grin and it’s enough to chase away some of the sourness twisting in his gut. He shouldn’t do it, as often as he does. He’s risking enough as it is by constantly redrawing the lines around Rule Three to justify the way he’s beginning to bend the parameters around the rule against patterns. But it’s dark and late, and you don’t have a car, and he’ll be damned if he lets you brave the walk home alone.

Better he’s there to protect you from the dangers he can anticipate and see than to stick to his code and risk your harm from those he cannot.

Thankfully, the journey back to your apartment takes no more than fifteen minutes, even when he stops to thumb free a cigarette from the spare carton he keeps tucked in his jacket. You wrinkle your nose at him in mock-disgust as he lights it, the smoke curling out of his mouth reminiscent of a fire-breathing dragon.

He wouldn’t do it if he knew it truly bothered you. But you’d once shyly confessed you liked the faint smell of tobacco that clung to his jacket, especially in cold air like this. So he only shoots you a wink as he brings it to his lips and takes a long drag.

Besides, he thinks as he looses a slow exhale. He needs something to help him take the edge off; to guide him in making that transition between Hashira and Sanemi.

He escorts you all the way to your front door, the two of you trading quips and jokes. And Sanemi savors how utterly extraordinary something as ordinary as walking you to your door feels. Almost as if he’s ordinary, the way he so desperately wishes he could be.

You fidget with your keys, sliding them into your lock. “Did you finish that series I recommended?”

Sanemi grins. “Last night. I think it was your best suggestion yet.”

You duck your head, a bashful smile spreading across your pretty lips and its sight fills him with a golden warmth.

Your door gives way and you turn back to him. “‘Til next time?”

It was what you always said; you never asked him when you could expect to see him again, and he appreciated it. Appreciated not having to explain himself, when most outside his world would likely demand he try.

“‘Til next time,” he confirms, returning your smile with one of his own.

You hover in your doorway, fingers drumming on the frame, eyes roaming his.

“You never told me yours — what your dream is.”

He should leave. You’re treading in murky waters, ones made dangerous because he almost wants to tell you — tell you the truth, at that.

That he dreams of more. More life. More stability. More everything. He’d settle for anything, really; anything at all.

As long as it was more than this.

But Sanemi only responds with a wry grin. “To wake up in the morning, Princess. That’s all I can ask for.”

———

Sanemi’s answer lingers with you long after you emerge from your shower, warm and toweling your damp hair.

To wake up in the morning, Princess.

He’s full of shit and you know it.

Over the course of the last year, you’ve learned a handful of crucial details that make up Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You’ve learned he loves matcha, but he really loves the expensive kind. While you can’t afford to buy the high quality powder, you make do with what you can afford at the grocery, and you make it for him as often as you can.

He drinks it every time, bitter dregs and all.

More importantly, you’ve learned what it means to have a friend involved in the Corps. Not that he’s merely involved with the notorious gang — at least, not any more than the two of you are just “friends.”

Town gossip aside, Sanemi’s affiliation with the Corps is made obvious by his own actions. Like the way the two of you only ever hang out at the bookstore or your apartment; how he never invites you to visit his place, over in the Silo.

Or how he insists on scoping out your apartment every time he comes over, his eyes alert and sharp as his hand lingers at his hip, ready to pull out the gun you know he keeps tucked into his waistband at all times.

It’s evident in the way Sanemi never sticks to a consistent schedule. He varies the days and times of his visits at random, never allowing himself to settle into a routine, even if that means going an entire week or longer without seeing you.

But perhaps the most significant detail you’ve learned about Sanemi over the year of your friendship is this:

He wants out. Dreams of it, even.

This revelation does not come from the scarred Hashira himself. It is the product of months of observation, of studying how his face darkens when his phone pings! while you’re watching some sitcom on television, or when he sees a familiar face pass by your shop window, and suddenly he has to leave because he must be Shinazugawa again, and you won’t see him for the rest of the day.

It is evident in the way he talks of his younger brother, who, by all accounts is a star student and athlete, with a promising future in collegiate archery.

Sanemi is saving every penny he can to send his brother — Genya — to school, far, far away from the Silo. The conviction with which he speaks of Genya’s future, full of college and internships and promise, breaks your heart, because you know Sanemi hadn’t anyone to want those things for him.

Sanemi does not speak of any future of his. You suspect it’s because he doesn’t believe he will have one.

That has to be why he answered your question with his vague desire to wake up every morning. It was an easy answer. One that relied on you making certain connections between his life and his words and deduce that he truly had nothing more to live for other than life itself.

A cop-out, is what it is.

But his reading habits betray his darkest secret — betray the truth — and that’s exactly how you know his flippant answer is utter bullshit.

The book Sanemi carries around the most is a series of classic fairy tales, bought off your sale table a few months back. He’s read the whole thing cover to cover, but he keeps a bookmark on one specific page, and periodically, you catch him flipping back to it.

He made the mistake of leaving the book on your coffee table one night when he excused himself to use your bathroom. Realistically, you knew it was no big deal to flip through it, but somehow, the thought still felt like an invasion of his privacy.

But your curiosity got the better of you so you snatched it up, and thumb quickly to the bookmarked page, desperate to know which story has so captivated him.

You opened to the first page of of a tale — an old French story, about the daughter of a merchant who is sent to life with a beast in a distant castle, as penance for his theft of the beast’s rose.

You smiled to yourself; you were familiar with the story. You know how it goes — the beast everyone believes to be the villain is saved by the woman, and revealed to be a handsome prince. And the two live happily ever after.

Your smile faded as you recalled how the woman saved her Beast. True love’s kiss, or something along those lines.

True love.

And as Sanemi returned from the bathroom and plopped down next to you on your couch to watch a rerun of some old sitcom before he has to leave for the night, you mulled over Sanemi’s apparent fascination with the tale of the beast and the beauty.

And that’s how you drew the series of conclusions which enabled you to see right through his thin facade.

He wants out.

He wants a happily ever after. He doesn’t think he’ll get it.

And, above all, he dreams of love.

—

If any doubt lingered as to the magnitude of his ties to the Corps, it disintegrates one night, about eight months after he’d first burst into your bookstore.

It is well after midnight, but you are still awake, too engrossed in a new fantasy novel to pay particular attention to the lateness of the hour when your phone buzzes on your bedside table.

Sanemi’s name lingers above the notification, which reads simply, Outside.

You untangle yourself from your blankets and pad over to your front door, hastily tugging on a pair of sleep boxers over your underwear.

You open the door and the flutter of excitement you’d felt upon seeing his text is chased away by shock at the sight before you.

There is a bruise forming along Sanemi’s cheek that you almost would have mistaken for dirt if not for the swelling. His hair is rumpled, his clothes in disarray. Though it winks away the second he sets his gaze on you, you swear you were able a cold fury in his eyes; foreign, and violent.

The fury that belongs to a Hashira, not to the friend you know.

Wordlessly, you step back and allow him to limp past you.

“You got liniment?” He rasps, plopping heavily down in your kitchen chair. “And water?”

“You mean icy-hot?” You’re already filling a glass from the tap that you set on the table next to him before you retreat to your bathroom to rummage the cabinets.

You return a few moments later, tub of minty topical gel clutched in hand. You nearly drop it when you realize that Sanemi has stripped himself of his shirt already and is now bare from the waist-up, his forehead resting against his arms where they’re propped up on the back of your chair.

You’ve known for a long while that Sanemi is well-built (obscenely so).

Once, in the early days of your friendship, you’d snapped at him to button his shirt properly if he insisted on hanging around your store, dramatizing over how obscene it was for him to prance around with his chest half-exposed.

Sanemi had only grinned at you before he unbuttoned two more, revealing a generous glimpse of infuriatingly toned abs. Your open-mouthed, scandalized stare was met only with a wink.

He kept his shirt like that for the remainder of the day. You’d hardly been able to look at him without flushing a deep scarlet that only seemed to inflate his already generous ego even further.

But, you’re only human. And as the months passed by, and your friendship with the scarred mobster grew, you found yourself sneaking the odd peek every now and then. A glimpse of pectoral here; a hint of his rigid v-line when he stretched his arms over his head there.

And now, here he is, sitting in your small kitchen area awaiting the relief of the icy hot clutched in the tub that grew more slippery between your rapidly sweaty palms, every mouth watering inch of his upper body on display.

Beautiful. Your mouth goes dry at the sight of him. Sanemi is unbelievably beautiful.

“Need ya to rub it into my shoulder, if you don’t mind,” his voice is muffled against his arm. “I hate asking, but I dislocated the damn thing and had to reset it — fuckin’ hurts, now.”

You know better than to suggest he go get an x-ray. No hospitals, he’d once explained. Not unless you’re bleeding out.

You also know better than to ask how he dislocated it, and so you only pad silently over to him, grateful he’s turned away from you so he cannot see the tremble in your hands or the blush creeping across your cheeks.

Eager to give yourself something to do besides ogling, you focus on unscrewing the lid on the jar of liniment, your nose wrinkling under the burn of its stringent odor. You scoop a generous amount of the salve into your palms and warm it between your hands.

“Motherfucker,” Sanemi hisses as your hands spread gently across his shoulder, your fingers gingerly massaging the topical into his swollen joint. “Shit stings.”

“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” you chide, carefully prodding along the joint in search of anything that may be amiss — an odd lump or gap, signaling something hasn’t been reset properly. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

“Your medical expertise is astounding,” Sanemi drolls, but he winces again as your fingers press against a particularly tender spot. You step away from him with a huff and fish your phone out of your pocket, hands still slathered with ointment.

“I’m not a doctor,” you shoot back. “And since you refuse to go see one, the best I can do it give you the advice of the internet.”

You ignore his grumblings as you search for treatments for dislocated joints. You tap on the first link that appears and scroll, eyes narrowed as you read.

“You’re in luck. It seems like you won’t die,” you say dryly. “But you’re going to have a nasty bruise.” You purse your lips, eyes scanning the article on your phone. “And this says you’re supposed to rest — not overexert the joint.” You reach to tug playfully on a lock of his hair. “I don’t suppose you’re actually going to do that, though.”

He twists and flashes you a mischievous smirk over his shoulder. “You know me too well, Princess.”

You roll your eyes and snort, tossing your phone onto your table in favor of reaching for a discarded kitchen towel to wipe off the excess icy hot from your hands.

You’re about to tell him to put his shirt back on and stop flaunting the muscles he just can’t seem to help but show everyone he has when your eyes snag on a mark that rests squarely between his shoulder blades.

You wouldn’t have noticed it but for the shiny redness surrounding it, a clear contrast to the rest of his skin. But the longer your stare at it, the more clear its abnormality. The mark is puffy and raised, but there’s a distinct pattern to it that makes the hair on the back of your neck curl.

A brand, you realize with horror. Someone has branded him like cattle.

Your finger reaches to trace over the ridges seared into his skin before you can think the better of it. Sanemi twitches under your touch, a small shudder skirting down his spine as he tilts his head back toward you.

“Ugly, ain’t it?” His tone is unreadable. “Like a collar, ‘cept it’s permanent.”

Though he tends to err on the side of caution when it comes to discussing the Corps, you at least know what is role is within it. He told you: debt collector. Mostly monetary debts.

But the brand has nothing to do with money. No, the symbol burned into his skin — the one that stands for Kill — is a neon sign of a reminder that Sanemi’s duties can and do entail another kind of collection.

A chill snakes down your spine. You’d had your suspicions, of course, you’re not stupid. But seeing it confirmed by a brand of all things is a lightning rod through your chest.

Sanemi must sense your stare against his back, and you hear his rueful smile though you can’t see his face. “Guess it’s fitting, since I’m their dog.”

There it is; confirmation of what he is, as though it were possible to forget. You don’t know why you’d held out in letting its weight settle over you. Nor do you know why your brain had refused, for a moment, to reconcile the Sanemi who brought cheap beer and greasy fast food to your apartment for a night of trash television and book reviews with the one before you now, branded with inexorable reminder of what his duties are when he steps outside and debts go unpaid; when scores go uneven.

Your eyes slide to his gun, resting atop your table. It may has well have been smoking.

“It’s barbaric,” you murmur. You never offer much of an opinion on the tidbits of information about his life he shares with you, unwilling to make him feel as though you aren’t someone he can confide in.

But the sight of the brand scorched between his shoulder blades stokes something ugly and angry within you. You’re grateful his back is to you so you can furtively rub your hand over your prickling eyes before he can see you do something stupid, like cry.

He tilts his head back until it rests against your abdomen. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his eyes drifting shut.

You freeze for a moment, your anger temporarily suspended against your uncertainty of whether you should step back or remain. You’ve touched Sanemi a thousand different ways — you’ve grabbed his arm, smacked him upside his thick head, and elbowed him more times than you can count.

But this; this is something far different from your teasing nudges of the past. This small gesture feels infinitely more tender. Gentle.

Intimate.

Sanemi has never not been the picture of cocky brashness, especially around you. His priggish smirk was a constant, only ever dampened by the occasional alert on his phone — the one that meant he had to stop being yours for the night, and go be theirs.

But this Sanemi? This peaceful, eased, vulnerable version of your best friend is wholly uncharted territory. And perhaps it’s because he looks so unguarded this way, his face relaxed and his eyes closed, that you feel so flustered.

You brush his hair away from his forehead. At the first graze of your fingers along his scalp, Sanemi leans further into you with something akin to a moan.

Hot; everything feels so damn hot, the air in your apartment suddenly too thick. Too oppressive.

Yet, you don’t stop; your fingers keep raking through his hair, surprisingly silky.

You think he may have fallen asleep in your chair, but after another moment of your hands carding through his hair, Sanemi stands. You step away instantly, and you avert your eyes while he pulls his shirt back over his head, cursing softly as he works it over his injured shoulder.

Sanemi turns to you and clears his throat roughly. “Thanks again. Don’t know what I would’ve done without ya.”

You wave him off with an exaggerated eye roll, eager to conceal the redness in your cheeks. “Oh please, I’m just your neighborhood book supplier and occasional first aid nurse.”

A sudden sobriety passes over his features, clouding over that all too familiar smirk with something heavier.

“No,” he murmurs and his hand absently lifts to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “No, you’re more than that.” His palm lingers against your cheek and his voice quiets to a hoarse whisper. “Much more.”

For a moment, you wonder if he’ll lean in; if he’ll show you whether his lips are as warm as his touch.

His eyes drop briefly to your mouth and your stomach somersaults at the thought he might be considering it, too. But the clouds part and Sanemi withdraws from you with an affection flick against the tip of your nose.

And then he turns and leaves.

You sink back against your door after you close it behind him and slide to your floor. You remain there for a long while after, your mind little more than a gnarled tangle of brambles you can’t begin to pick through. But even despite the complicated mess of thoughts and emotions knotted together in your head, one thing stands clear: you’d wanted to kiss him.

And for a moment, you swear he’d wanted to, as well.

An old rumor, one you hadn’t considered since your very first interaction with him, resurfaces in your mind. The one that had less to do with him in the Corps, and more so involved his activities outside of it.

The rumor that he cycles through the bodies he uses to warm his bed more frequently than you change the sheets on yours.

Your cheeks heat, and you shake your head to clear away the sudden, intrusive images of Sanemi tangled in the throes of passion with some faceless stranger that fill your imagination. You don’t care what those blasted rumors claim; you know him. And what’s more, you know that what you feel for him is stronger than anything you’ve ever felt toward anyone.

You’re in love with Sanemi.

It is his face you see at night before you fall asleep; it’s his touch you imagine in those secret moments in your bed or in the shower, when you’re desperate and aching.

It’s he who makes you feel most at ease; the one person you feel truly sees you, thinks you’re actually worth something.

You’ve never really known love before. But it’s because you’re such a novice that you know your feelings are true; powerful. You know what he is — what he thinks he is. And you know that you will never want anyone else; you can’t.

You won’t.

—

Three rules. That’s all he had to do, was follow three simple fucking rules.

Don’t speak. No patterns. And don’t get overly attached.

It had been easy, so easy, to follow them. If there was one thing Sanemi believed he could pride himself on, it had been his steadfast adherence to the Corps’ rules. Number three, in particular.

Until you. Until the day he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in.

Because that was when Sanemi decided that those rules were really more like guidelines; malleable. He’d let himself cast them aside out of a desperation for human connection. And he’d justified his carelessness by convincing himself that as long as he maintained some semblance compliance with the unspoken code of the Corps.

Sanemi had built his own set of rules around the foundation of his friendship with you, a wall of stone around the glass castle meant to ensure you would not be cut by its shards should it ever shatter.

He would not be your liability, nor would you be his.

But now, he’s too deep; Sanemi knows he’s gotten in way too fucking deep with you.

Until this moment, he imagined he’d managed to toe the line of this internal code that applied only to his relationship with you, save a handful of instances when he’d let himself blur it.

As it turns out, he’d been dead fucking wrong. Because he’s pretty sure you just asked him to cross the last major boundary he’d set for himself when it came to you.

So, Sanemi only gapes at you. “What?”

You huff, impatient. “I want you to fuck me.”

You say it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world — as though you haven’t just ripped the floor out from beneath him and sent him falling directly on his ass.

If he didn’t know you were dead serious, he would’ve laughed in your face. And that’s how he knows he’s fucked.

You’re a virgin; he knows that, because you’d drunkenly confessed it to him two weeks prior, tipsy on the cheap beer he’d brought over for your weekly movie night together.

Admittedly, he’d been surprised. You were beautiful — not that beauty was a requirement for a good fuck, but you didn’t seem the type to go for random hookups, unlike him. Still, he would’ve thought you’d had some prior relationship where the opportunity would have arisen.

As it turned out, you’d never been in a relationship, either.

Between long gulps of your drink, you’d asked him to fix it and he’d turned you down — his tolerance for watery beer far surpassed your own, and Sanemi Shinazugawa wasn’t the type to sleep with someone who couldn’t fully consent.

So he’d let you down — but not before he kissed you. It was only once; soft, the way you deserved to be kissed. His lips met yours and suddenly, the gaping hole in his chest felt smaller; fuller. Kissing you felt like coming home, even though Sanemi was sure he’d never fully known what home truly felt like.

And then he parted from you with an affectionate flick on your nose to cover the way his heart clenched at the visible disappointment in your eyes.

He’d boldly kissed you twice more after that night — one a quick, cheeky peck when you went in to hug him, an act done more to fluster you than to sate any desire of his, no matter how he craved more of you.

The other happened only three nights prior, and it was anything but soft and sweet.

One of Sanemi’s fellow Hashira, Kanae, hadn’t been seen in several days, and no one had been able to get in touch with her. When she’d missed a scheduled patrol of one of the neighborhoods in the Silo, he and another member, Iguro, had been sent to check on her.

They’d found her in the kitchen of the small home she’d shared with her two sisters with a hole in her head and her brains splattered across the floor.

Curled under the protective stretch of her limp arms, had been her two sisters, both bearing matching bullet wounds to their skulls.

Kizuki, most likely. They were the only ones brave enough to target someone as high ranked as Kanae.

Their blood had still been fresh, and the stench of decay and rot hadn’t yet set in, which only told them that the girls had been held for several days, forced to endure unknown horrors at the hands of their murderers.

He hadn’t been particularly close with the woman, but as his rank equal, she’d had his respect. But now she and her adolescent sisters were nothing more than smears of brain matter and skull fragments to be scraped off the linoleum of their kitchen floor and quietly buried. Forgotten.

The hours passed by in a blur once Kocho’s death was called into the higher-ups, and Sanemi didn’t remember cleaning up the scene anymore than he remembered the solitary trek back. His mind and his body disconnected, and he only snapped back to reality when he realized he was standing in front of your apartment, unsure of how or when he’d begun walking in its direction.

He knew he should turn around and go home; there was nothing you could do for him right then, he shouldn’t bother you —

His fist was pounding on your door before he could think better of it.

Despite the late hour, you’d greeted him with a broad smile and a shy hi. Your hair had been damp, and he could smell the floral sweetness of your shampoo still mixed with the steam from your shower as it spilled into the hall.

Safe; you were safe.

Your door had still been hanging wide open as Sanemi surged forward, trapping your face in his hands to crash his lips down against yours, his kiss heavy and hot.

You’d broken away long enough to ask, “S-Sanemi — what —?”

“Shut up,” he’d snarled, slanting his mouth back over yours, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip. He’d half expected you to shove him away, perhaps to even aim a knee right at his crotch, yet you’d only buried your fingers in his hair and tugged him closer.

He backed you up against the wall opposite of your entryway, though he’d moved his hand to cup the back of your head to keep it from banging against the exposed brick.

You moaned into the kiss and Sanemi lost whatever shred of sense he’d managed to cling onto. His tongue swept along your bottom lip, and the hand cupping the back of your head loosely pulled at your hair, tugging your head to the side and signaling you to open up — to let him in.

And you did. And the first brush of his tongue against yours as he licked into your mouth ignited an inferno within him that he did not know how to tame.

His hands pushed under your sweatshirt, seeking out the comforting warmth of your skin. Higher and higher they rose, until they came to rest against your ribs, and Sanemi realized you were bare — completely bare — beneath your hoodie.

That you’d allowed him to toe so dangerously close to a line neither of you could cross had clouded every bit of his judgment. The thought that he’d only have to move his hands mere centimeters to touch you in a way no other had before had sent him reeling, and his hips were beyond his control when they pinned yours against the wall and ground into you.

But your single gasp into his mouth broke the spell, and with more regret than Sanemi knew he should feel, he broke away, leaving you both breathless and panting.

Without a word, he’d turned around and stalked right back out of your apartment, closing your door firmly behind him.

He’d sent a text only a few minutes later — a single, ominous reminder to you to lock your door, deadbolt and all.

He hadn’t the stomach to explain his cryptic warning; not as the sight of Kocho remained burned into his retinas.

So, yes, he’s blurred a few lines when it comes to you. But those had only been kisses; heavy touching aside, he’d never allowed himself to go further than that.

No matter how much he wanted to.

And it’s because he knows he can’t cross this last line — can’t open you up to risk more than he already has, that he meets your expectant stare with a rueful smile.

“You’re better off asking someone else, Princess. You don’t want to get tangled up with someone like me.”

Never mind that you’re already tangled up with him — but he’s managed to uphold this last boundary, and Sanemi has convinced himself that as long as it remains in place, he can’t ruin you the way Kocho and her young sisters were ruined.

“I don’t want to ask someone else,” you fold your arms across your chest and cock your hip out, defiant. Normally, Sanemi finds your stubbornness endearing, if not adorable, but not now; not when you should know better.

A low growl of your name is his warning. “You don’t know what you’re asking —“

“It’s you I want. I don’t care what the rumors say, I don’t care what anyone thinks — including you.”

The sincerity in your eyes nearly scalds him. “And I am not asking as a friend. You and I both know this is more than that.”

He wants to throttle you. Not literally of course, he could never — but he wants to shake the sense you’re so clearly lacking back into you until you see; until you understand.

Of course he wants you. He has wanted you for months — so much so, he hardly can focus on anything else. And he’s pent up. He hasn’t had the stomach to fuck anyone else. Not since he began falling asleep and waking up to thoughts of you and your touch, of how you might look under or above him, wanton and desperate. Or how you might feel in his arms; on his tongue.

Really, it’s been quite a blow to his rather wild reputation throughout the Silo. But God knows he has tried to fill the you-shaped void in his heart, but nothing — no one — has come close.

More than anything, he wants you to be his, and for him to be yours. He longs to be the Sanemi who takes you out on dates, who kisses you freely without the compulsive need to check over his shoulder, to make sure there aren’t any enemies watching and plotting to strike him right where he’s weak. He wants to be the Sanemi you come home to after a long day at the bookstore. The one with whom you plan a future, utterly and completely yours.

But he can never be just Sanemi. He is nothing more than the property of the very organization he’s sworn allegiance to; the group whose brand he bears on his skin.

He is not good. He is a curse that will infect you, a poison to your life.

He will rot you from the inside, out.

His friendship with you is selfish. He knows that — he’s always known that, and yet he did not stop. It is selfish because he deluded himself into believing he could actually be someone else when he was with you. Someone worth befriending; perhaps someone worth a little more.

You were right to call him a thief, that day. All he does is take your time and affection when he knows damn well he won’t give you anything in return, no matter how he wishes he could.

Sanemi won’t label that thing he holds deep inside his heart which is formed in the shape of your name; not when it could so easily doom you both. But he knows his feelings for you are dangerous, and he cannot allow you to sniff them out.

Because if he does, then this only ends one or two ways: either he lets you in only for you to abandon him once you realize the truth of what he is, or you’re used as a weapon against him.

In either event, he loses you. So it is better to cut this off now, to force you away before either of you become more invested than you already are.

He will not hurt you, but neither will he allow himself to be hurt by you.

You take a step toward him, and the soft whisper of his name sounds like a holy prayer on your lips and that’s how he knows this is wrong.

Your obstinate refusal to recognize him for what he is is a needle digging into his skin, one that whittles away at every wall he has managed to build around his heart, that damnable, soft, dangerous thing that he will not allow you to find; he cannot.

You’re confusing your roles. He is the vulture and you are his prey, not the other way around. he is not here to give. He is here only to take, and you will let him and then he will leave.

And he will not be the carcass you pick clean only to discard once you’ve had your fill.

(A lie, but it’s one Sanemi almost believes. Almost.)

But Sanemi knows you; he knows you better than he knows anything else. You are a constant he has become far too dependent upon, and you are precious — far too precious to him to continue to indulging.

He knows you are too good, too loyal in your feelings to forget about him, even if he disappeared from your life entirely.

A clean break. it is the only thing that will force you to forget him and move on, find another, someone good and whole and not a broken, misshapen thing like him.

He will show you who he really is. He will show you that he could never be just Sanemi, and he sure as hell can’t ever be yours.

Better; you deserve better, so he will become worse.

He advances on you, his step heavy and imposing, and you have enough sense to scurry back from him. But he is too quick and soon he has you caged against the wall of your studio, literally backed into a corner.

“You want me?” He is scathing and he loathes himself for it, but he can’t stop. Not when he’s desperate to save you from the blight of himself.

You shouldn’t; you can’t.

But you nod, damn you. Wide-eyed, you nod and he resents the certainty reflected in your gaze.

His mouth twists into a cruel sneer. “You want to say you’ve had a taste of the lowlife, huh?“

Your eyebrows knit together. “Sanemi, that’s not —“

But he can’t stop his venom. “Bragging rights, that’s all you’re after, right? You want to be like one of the characters in your stories — the good girl who makes an honest man outta the good-for-nothing villain.”

“Stop it,” you bite, and your eyes harden. “You’re acting like an asshole.”

You’re angry. Good. Sanemi knows how to deal in anger.

“Hate to break it to ya, sweetheart, but I’m not acting like an asshole. I am one.”

Your hackles raise, and you step away from the wall and toward him, bold in your fury. “I know you want to believe you are, but you’re not —“

Sanemi’s hand shoots out to grab a fistful of your hair. “Is that so?” You yelp as he wrenches your head back, your neck straining. “Then maybe I oughta bend you over and fuck you like I would any other cheap whore. Then you can tell me what you think I am.”

Your eyes water as the grip in your hair tightens.

Good, he thinks savagely. Let you see the monster he truly was, let you know he was his bastard father’s son, and that he’d be no different, no different at all. He’s a brute, and you don’t want that, you don’t want him —

“You can do whatever it is you want,” you manage, you throat tight. And Sanemi’s eyes blow wide at the soft, watery smile that forms on your lips despite the tears that escape the corners of your eyes. “Do to me what you like; I don’t mind, as long as it’s you.”

All at once, his ire with you and your bewildering devotion to him melts away, leaving nothing behind but a deep well of guilt, bitter and acerbic.

It isn’t that you think he might take you forcefully and harshly; after all, he’s only shown you he’s entirely capable of doing so.

It’s that you would let him. Without a shred of doubt, he knows you would offer yourself to him to use however he wants, and that you’d do it with a smile not unlike the one you’re wearing right now, soft and earnest.

Fuck, you just did.

And it’s that realization that has Sanemi’s hand loosening from your hair, his eyes softening. An errant tear escapes down your cheek and he moves to brush it away, but you close your eyes the moment you spy his knuckle nearing your face.

You do not flinch, but you are steeling yourself in anticipation of expected cruelty, and the front he’s put forth crumbles to dust.

He is a monster, but not for the reasons he’s used to justify this ugly display of his. He’s a monster because he has made you believe that this treatment is acceptable — an unavoidable cost of intimacy, no matter how fleeting.

Worse, he’s done the one thing he’d sworn never to do to any woman, let alone someone as good and as dear as you.

He’d only wanted to disgust you; enrage you, so that you would kick him out of both your apartment and your life, right out on his sorry ass like he deserved.

But this is worse. He has frightened you.

He recoils from you like a kicked dog. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He stands awkwardly as you stare at him, wide-eyed and uncertain, and each second that ticks silently by only amplifies the oily well of guilt in his stomach.

He clears his throat. “I’ll go,” he says roughly, too ashamed to meet your eyes. “‘M sorry, I didn’t —“

Your hand grabs his bicep, anchoring him in place. “I want you to stay.”

“You don’t owe me anything —“

“It’s not about owing you,” you interject, lifting your hands to take his face between your palms. “I want you. I want this.”

You prove your point by taking his hand and guiding it to your waist. You hold it there, mouth set in a determined line as you inch closer to him.

“You deserve someone else,” Sanemi can’t stop the admission from rolling off his tongue. “Better.”

But you’re already shaking your head, as though you somehow know different. “There is no one better; I only want you.”

Idiot, he thinks as you rise up on your tiptoes, your arms winding around his shoulders as the distance between your bodies grows narrower. You’re an idiot.

You can’t possibly believe he’s as good as it gets. He’s used you as a distraction this whole time, a chance to forget the things he’s done and what he’ll be required to do in the future. Surely, you must know that.

He will hurt you; it’s in his nature. It’s unavoidable. He can’t be what you deserve.

But then your lips brush gently against his and the last of his resolve crumbles.

Sanemi melts into your kiss. He brings one hand to cradle the side of your face as the one braced against your waist shorts, until he wraps his arms around you and tugs you closer to him.

This kiss is gentle in every way the last was not. Sanemi’s lips are soft moving against yours, his hands almost hesitant in how they hold you. For a moment, he imagines himself not as the selfish, hard brute he knows he is, but instead as the gentle, giving lover he wants so desperately to be. One who is worthy of someone as kind and vibrant as you, and not the trash you’d be better off leaving out on the street.

The tentativeness with which he kisses you tempers some as his tongue flicks out against your bottom lip. You answer his silent request with enthusiasm, your fingers burying themselves in his hair as you haul yourself closer. The moment Sanemi’s tongue sweeps into your waiting mouth, you buckle against him with the sweetest sigh he’s ever heard. One of pure relief, as though you’d been burning and he was your balm.

Ironic, considering he’s only adding gasoline to this fire between you.

But there’s nothing he can do now except allow the flames to consume you both.

Soon, the shy curiosity with which he explores your mouth gives way to a mutual hunger, evident by how he feels as though he’s boiling alive while you gasp and sigh into him, your fingers tugging pleadingly at his hair.

You want more, and he needs you, too.

His nose nuzzles against yours as he bends down, his hands running along the bare expanse of your legs. The ground beneath your feet disappears as Sanemi gathers you up easily into his arms.

One of your arms is looped around his neck while your other hand cups his face, turning it toward yours as he carries you to your bed. Your thumb smooths absently over the scar that cuts across his cheek and then your lips seek out his once more. His kiss is as gentle as the hand squeezing your waist, his fingers slotting into the gap between your sweatshirt and the top of your sleep shorts, stroking your skin.

He lays you out upon your mattress, grateful you’d at least purchased a full bed rather than some shitty twin. Your hands untangle themselves from his hair and instead seek out the waistband of your sleep shorts, but Sanemi covers them with his, halting you.

“Don’t,” he murmurs between quick, messy kisses. “Let me — please.”

Before you can respond, Sanemi sits back and grabs a fistful of his own shirt, yanking it over his head.

Your pupils blow wide at the sight of him and he feels himself hesitate. Sanemi has always felt an easy self confidence when it came to stripping in front of his partners for the night. He’d always been quite proud of his physique, relying on his considerable muscles to mask his deep loathing of his scars.

But in front of you, all sense of self-assuredness goes flying out the window, and suddenly he feels too exposed. His eyes drop to scour the planes of his chest — have his scars always been this prominent? This thick?

“Holy shit,” your soft sigh snaps his attention away from the howling inside his head. For one, petrifying moment, he thinks that you are as disgusted with his body as he is, but then he sees the pink flush staining your cheeks.

Your eyes roam hungrily over him and your tongue darts out to wet your lips. You meet his gaze and your pupils are blown wide with desire — rich, hot need for him.

Your voice is little more than a sultry whisper. “Come here.”

He moves eagerly to cover your body with his, his hair rumpled and his eyes bright as his lips press hurriedly against yours. Your hands smooth over his pectorals and tease down his abdomen until he’s panting, but the moment your nails rake along the skin on either side of his navel, Sanemi moans.

More. He needs more.

He hauls you up from the bed, straddling you across his lap, his hands notched behind your knees as they press into the mattress. You reconnect your lips in a heated kiss, one hand playing with the ends of his snowy hair, the other dropping down his back, settling over the brand seared between his shoulder blades. Covering it.

Yes, he thinks as he nips your bottom lip, urging your mouth to open so he can slide his tongue in to dance with yours. Yes, this is fitting. Because in his ideal world, his life with you would come before any other — including his with the Corps.

Sanemi’s lips begin trailing hotly down your jaw, pausing when he reaches your neck. He finds a particularly sensitive spot with a nip of his teeth that he soothes with his tongue, and he hums in approval at the faint, breathy whimpers that squeak past your lips as you tilt your head, offering more of yourself to him.

The ache burgeoning in his groin in response to your display is enough to drive him insane; he has never wanted anything in his life as badly as he wants this — you.

As his mouth continues its heated path, his hands find the hem of your hoodie. With a gentleness that surprises even him, Sanemi begins charting your skin with his fingers. With every new plane of your body he explores, he pushes your sweatshirt up, up, up, until he guides it over your head.

He tosses it to the side, not caring for where it lands. His attention is focused solely on you as you fall back against your bed, now bare from the waist up.

“Beautiful,” he marvels, eyes running over the slope of your shoulder and tracing the curve of your breasts. “So fuckin’ beautiful.”

He savors every hitched breath, every chill that ripples over your skin as he explores your body with his mouth and hands. Over the years, Sanemi has become well acquainted with the magic of the female body. He’s always liked how soft women were compared to him. He isn’t a picky man; he’ll celebrate them all, regardless of their shape or size.

But you? Celebration isn’t enough; you deserve nothing less than outright worship.

“You feel so damn good,” he mutters against your breast before closing his lips over your nipple and sucking hard. You bow off the bed with a keening moan that gutters out into something more ragged as his hand covers the other, pinching and rolling your stiffened bud between his fingers.

He could spend all night like this, lavishing your soft mounds with his mouth. But Sanemi knows that won’t be enough to satisfy the hunger gnawing at both of you, so with a tinge of regret, he forces himself to move on, descending your body in alternating kisses and nips.

He reaches the waistband of your shorts and his eyes flash to yours as he tugs on it with his teeth. The hot exhale of his breath below your navel sends goosebumps across your skin. Sanemi’s fingers inch below the hem of your shorts until he loops his hands around the waistband, and he yanks them down your legs in a single, fluid motion.

His eyes rake down your body, taking in every beautiful inch. A blush forms on his cheeks as he realizes all that separates you from him is your simple pair of black underwear.

He sits back, eager to join your near-nudity. His hands are quick, if not a little clumsy, as he finds his belt buckle. The instant the metal clicks and the leather around his hips loosens, Sanemi shoves off his pants, eagerly kicking them off your bed until he is left in nothing but his briefs.

Your eyes fall to where the evidence of his desire protrudes stiffly from between his legs. Sanemi watches your throat pulse as you try to stifle your small gulp, your thighs tensing beneath him in an effort to press together.

He can sense your nerves; can see by the way your eyes dart anxiously between his and the rigid tent in his briefs.

With a gentle smile, Sanemi leans in and soothes your unease with his lips. “We’ll take it as slow as you want. I’m not in any rush.”

“N-now?” You murmur between kisses, and he nearly seizes at the hesitant, questioning brush of your fingers against the underside of his shaft.

“Not yet,” he groans against your mouth. “I gotta make sure you’re ready first.”

“I am ready -“

“Not like that,” he cuts off your protest by ghosting his fingers up the covered seam of you. Sanemi circles his finger around where he thinks your clit is, and he smirks when your head tips back against your pillow, your mouth widening in a silent o.

“Found you,” he croons, repeating the movement again until your legs begin to twitch beneath him.

He makes quick work of your underwear, tossing them over the side of your bed without much thought. The sight of you bare beneath him nearly stops his heart dead in his chest. His eyes drop to the neat thatch of curls resting at the apex of your thighs, and his mouth waters.

You blush under the intensity of his appreciative stare, and your legs twitch, as though you mean to close them.

A hand sliding between your thighs restrains you from doing so. “Uh-uh,” he tuts. “Can’t hide from me now, sweetheart’.”

He smooths his hand down the length of your leg until it hovers just outside where he’s most eager to explore. The heat radiating from sends his pulse skyrocketing.

One, tentative finger circles your entrance, testing. Sanemi leans in to capture your lips with his as he pushes in, swallowing your soft gasp with his tongue that he slides into your parted mouth.

A moan vibrates in his chest in time with a faint whimper that sounds in the back of your throat as Sanemi begins exploring you. You’re tight; almost impossibly so, clenching and pulsing around the single finger he gradually sinks inside you, pushing deeper with every gentle pump of his hand.

The thought of your tight, wet heat constricting around the aching length of him just as you were around his finger makes him dizzy with want.

He won’t go down on you, he decides. Not tonight. Not when he’s throbbing this badly after just a couple of fingers; not when your breasts are so plush and soft pressed against his chest where you’re already arcing up into him, sending his mind wild with thoughts of how you’ll move under him; how you’ll moan.

His lips are hot against your neck, trailing down past your collarbone. Left behind are a series of purplish-maroon whorls blooming beneath his mouth, your skin quickly becoming a tapestry for him to display how badly he wants this. You.

You cling to him, one hand buried in his hair, pulling and tugging at him as the other clutches wildly at his shoulder, your fingers digging hard into his muscles. Your teeth are buried into your bottom lip in an effort to stifle your whimpers, but a needy whine slips out as Sanemi sucks one, soft breast into his mouth, his tongue flicking out across your pert nipple.

Another finger slides into your entrance as his thumb works your clit, and before long, you’re vibrating beneath him, unrestrained in how you moan and cry out for him so beautifully.

“Sanemi! I think — oh, I think I’m -“ but then he crooks his fingers, brushing against a rough spot deep within you that makes you writhe. You thrash back hard against the bed, your hips grinding against his hand with abandon.

He smothers a curse into your skin. You’re close and he knows it; can feel it in the way your walls flutter and pulse around him. And as desperate as he is to study how you fall apart, it’s too soon.

“Not yet,” he pants against your breast, circling your nipple with his tongue before imparting a final nip at the soft flesh and drawing back.

Remorseful, he pulls his fingers away from you, leaving you panting and flushed under him. But the hot, searing flames of desire burning beneath his skin intensify still, as he takes your hand and guides it between your legs.

“There. Feel how wet you are?” His voice is husky with want. You peer up at him through heavily lidded eyes as you nod, a whimper vibrating in your throat as Sanemi grinds your hand against your sensitive flesh.

“For you,” your voice is syrupy and warm, and damn if Sanemi doesn’t feel like he could get drunk on it. “It’s all for you.”

His tone sharpens into something possessive; hungry. “That’s right,” and he pushes your hand firmly against your clit and rotates it, eliciting a deep moan from you. “Because you’re mine.“

It’s not fair. But he wants to pretend like it’s true, if only for a while.

Once your fingers are sufficiently shiny with your own wetness, he brings your hand to his mouth, his tongue peeking out from between his lips. Slowly and languidly, he drags it up the side of your digits, and his eyes burn into yours as he slides your fingers into his mouth and sucks them clean.

It takes everything in him not to moan at the sweet taste of you that floods his tongue.

He’d made the right decision in not going down on you. If he had, he’d never be able to pull away; not until his face had become so adorned with your essence that he could not comprehend anything that wasn’t you. Not until you were trembling under him and begging for a break.

The first time you cum will be on him; with him. So as much as it pains him, he resists your temptation.

But not before you know; not before you understand exactly how wild you drive him. How much you threaten his sanity.

“Jesus Christ,” he rasps as he pulls your hand away from his mouth. “Here.”

His hand his gentle but firm as he grips your chin, squeezing your jaw until your mouth parts. The question in your gaze dissolves, your eyes instead rolling back into your head, as Sanemi slides the two fingers he’d just had between your thighs, still covered in your wetness, past your lips.

“Go on,” he orders, his other hand brushing your hair from your face. “Taste how fuckin’ perfect you are.”

The moan that slips free from your lips is one he wishes he could bottle up as your tongue caresses his fingers, your cheeks hollowing so fucking perfectly around him as you dutifully clean yourself from him.

Fuck, you’re trying to kill him.

But some of the burning he feels ebbs as the sobering weight of what’s to come settles over him; the magnitude of what he is about to do. Because no matter what happens after, nothing between you will be the same. Whatever else you are after tonight — whether that’s something or nothing — you will never be just friends again.

Sanemi supposes the punishment fits his crime; this is what he gets for getting in too deep with you, even if it means losing you entirely.

He chases away those thoughts by running his hands down your sides before he pulls back, leaving you in favor of shucking his briefs down his thighs.

Finally bare, he’s quick to drape his body over yours once more, his hands smoothing up and down your sides, unable to quench his need to feel your skin against his. But a foreign uncertainty stills him, and his eyes flash to yours, hesitant.

“Are you sure?”

You answer only by reaching to grip the back of his neck, tugging him down to meet your lips, your kiss feverish and urgent.

He doesn’t have a condom but he’s in too deep now to stop. In a way, what is about to happen is new to him as well. He’s never fucked anyone raw before. No matter who he’d had in his bed, no matter how much they begged him or assured him they were on birth control, he’d always been sure to have protection on hand.

Children are a gift, but he’d be damned if anyone tried to come after him and demand he raise one in his fucked up world. Either Sanemi got out or he never became a parent; there was no middle ground.

But once again, he is blurring boundaries where you were concerned, and Sanemi doesn’t think he knows how to stop himself from having the full taste in the indulgence that was you.

“It might hurt a moment,” he admits against your mouth, his voice raspy. “But I promise I’ll be gentle — as gentle as I can.”

You stretch to kiss him again, your lips soft and warm and everything he loves. “I trust you.”

You shouldn’t, he wants to say. You shouldn’t, and you should run far away from this — from me.

But Sanemi knows you won’t just as much as he knows he doesn’t have it in him to try and chase you away, and so he only kisses you back, slow and indulgent.

He breaks away from you with a soft groan and sits up on his knees. His back straight, Sanemi’s hands curl around your hips and he tugs you forward until your backside is flush against his thighs.

The heat radiating from you pulls him in like a magnet as he lines the tip of his cock up with your entrance. A vein above his brow ticks, the only outward sign of the battle raging within him as his self restraint wars with his tantalizing urge to impale you on the thick, throbbing length of him, desperate for the sweet relief only your body can give.

Every inch of him trembles as Sanemi presses his hips forward. “Fuck,” he exhales shakily, pushing his tip past your entrance. “Fuck.”

His head falls back and the muscles in his throat strain. Some small, needy sound leaves him and the fingers on your hip tighten nearly to the point of pain.

The noise registers in the back of your mind, and vaguely, you recognize it as a whimper. You wonder whether he makes that sound for the others; somehow you doubt it, given that he does it again, only now in the shape of your name.

The rumors always said he never asked for names; he was a one-and-done kind of man. A great fuck, but not someone to go to if you were looking for comfort; softness.

Once again, Sanemi is nothing but a collection of contradictions, especially where you’re concerned.

Sanemi hisses as he slowly eases into you. Despite your wetness, you’re impossibly tight, and your body is a live wire hell bent on pushing out his intrusion.

With a deep groan, he falls forward, one arm shooting out to land near your head to catch himself before he can crash into you. His weight carefully braced above you, Sanemi shifts, widening the stance of his knees. Your legs slide up his waist, locking at your ankles at the base of his spine.

His cock is barely a quarter of the way inside your heat when he pulls out. A whine of protest mounts in your throat, but it quickly flickers out when he presses his leaking tip to your clit and grinds. A soft moan slips out of you when he repeats the movement again, and your thighs widen, your hips tilting up to allow him easier access.

Sanemi circles the head of his cock once more against your sensitive nub, coating himself in more of your sticky wetness, before he slides back into your entrance. This time, your body parts more easily around him, sucking him in rather than trying to squeeze him out.

“There you go, that’s it,” his breath is hot against your ear, his lips trailing silkily across your jaw. “That’s my girl.”

Halfway in, Sanemi brushes against that thin barrier that separates him from the rest of you, and he stills.

He pulls his head back from your neck, and moves his hand out from between your legs to cup your cheek.

“Ready?” His thumb strokes over your cheekbone, tender and soft.

There is a tightness building in your abdomen, a foreign pressure that isn’t entirely unwelcome, but neither is it wholly comfortable. You brace a hand at your side, balling your sheets into your fist as you steady yourself, flushed and panting beneath the scar speckled man holding rigidly still above you.

Your eyes flick up once, and you see the tightness in his jaw; the tremble in his limbs as he fights against the urge to relief the friction mounting where you are joined.

You swallow around the lump of anticipation lodged in your throat. Your breath is shaky, but at last, you manage a single “Please.”

With a groan, he grips himself around his base and slowly, he presses forward. There is a sharp prick that shoots deep in your lower abdomen as Sanemi surges past that thin inner wall.

You cannot stop your cry of discomfort from ringing out anymore than you can stop the surprised tears which escape the corners of your eyes as the sharp pain between your legs intensifies.

But then Sanemi’s lips are there, kissing away your tears, and the hand he’d used to guide himself into your body skims along the outside of your thigh, hiking your leg higher up his waist before it drops to rub gentle circles into your hip.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between soothing caresses of his lips against your cheeks and across your eyelids. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He coos his string of apologies as his cock continues to push into you. On and on he sinks, his length endless, and you begin to think your body will split in two before you find the end of his.

Just before you reach your limit, Sanemi stills, fully embedded in your heat. He pants through gritted teeth, his jaw locked against the way you’re constricting around him so tightly it’s nearly painful.

It’s unreal; not only does Sanemi realize how much fucking better sex feels without the restriction of a condom, but he’s also bashed over the head with the realization that you were made for him. For nothing, no one has ever felt as incredible as you.

Nothing in his life has ever felt so right.

Sanemi has always been someone who fucks fast and hard. He’d had no objective other than to escape for a few, blissful moments in the body of another as he pretended not to feel the hollowness in his chest, or the throb of his own self-loathing.

With you, however, he wants nothing more than to relish every movement of your body against his, to savor your every gasp and sigh; to learn what makes you lose control.

You are no temporary distraction; he wants to know you.

He drops his forehead against yours and waits, allowing you to adjust to the intrusion of him.

He trails his lips across your collar bone and down to the twin swells of your breasts, sucking softly at your plush skin as you fidget and squirm beneath him. One broad hand skirts down the outside of your thigh until he finds your knee, and gently he guides your leg around his hips. The other he leaves relaxed against the bed, your foot resting somewhere against his calf.

When your eyes flutter open and find his, he knows you’re ready. So he moves his arm out from between your bodies and winds it instead around your waist, deepening the arch in your back until his chest is flush with yours.

His lips press to your forehead, a silent warning that he is about to move.

And then Sanemi begins molding your body to the shape of his.

He starts slow. He doesn’t withdraw far from you, instead focusing on rolling his hips against yours. Each churn of his groin pushes his cock deeper into your warmth, and soon, your timid whimpers melt into soft moans as your initial discomfort gives way to pleasure.

Encouraged by the way your body starts to relax in his embrace, Sanemi tests drawing his cock out a few inches before plunging back into you.

Before long, the room fills with the lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin, and Sanemi’s moans join yours as he rapidly becomes lost in the euphoria of your wet, tight heat.

One of your arms jumps to lock around his ribs, your nails sinking into his skin as you anchor yourself to him.

His hand snakes across the sheets in search of yours. When he finds it, fisted against your sheets, he pries your fingers loose, winding them with his and he wraps your arm around his shoulders.

“Tighter,” he gasps. “Hold me tighter. Please.”

Your fingers dig into the muscles of his back and Sanemi groans his approval.

And then he’s rolling to his side, pulling you along with him until you’re stretched out across the length of your mattress, chest to chest.

His hand grips under your thigh, tugging it over his hip as he rocks harder into you. “Talk to me, angel,” the hand under your thigh moves to splay across your rear, pushing and pulling your hips in time with his as he grinds. “Tell me how you feel — tell me what you want.”

You cry out, mournful, as Sanemi draws out his cock nearly to its tip before he plunges back into you.

The fullness you feel is overwhelming. You can’t stand that empty feeling, even for a moment. So you hitch your leg higher around his hip, and dig the heel of your foot into the firmness of his ass, limiting his movements.

“Closer!” You gasp. “I — I need you closer.”

He needs that too, he decides; craves it. He doesn’t want to feel any space between your bodies. He wants — he needs — to be so enraptured with you that there is no point in trying to separate. That way, he might get to keep you for just a little longer.

Sanemi’s hand massages your backside, his cock throbbing with every push into you. “Deeper,” he confirms between throaty groans. “You want me deeper?”

You bury your face into his shoulder. Your teeth sink into his skin and with a moan, you nod.

He can do that; is more than happy to, as a matter of fact.

So, with a faint snarl, Sanemi grips the fat of your ass and spreads you wide, and he begins thrusting, hard.

The new angle allows the tip of his cock to bump up against a sweet spot deep inside you. Sanemi’s eyes narrow at the way your head drops back, a loud cry tearing from your throat.

Determined to hit that point within you again and again, he shifts his hips under you while hiking your leg higher up his hip, his fingers digging into the curve of your ass.

It’s a success; soon, your wails echo throughout your studio, punctuated by every punishing slap of his skin against yours.

Really, he can’t give less of a damn at how thin your apartment walls are. The sounds pouring from your mouth are the prettiest fucking thing he’s ever heard.

Something hot and electric mounts quickly in your stomach with each of his frenetic movements. You’ve come before with your own hand, but this — this is something different. Something far more intense, something that threatens to rip you apart from your very sanity until you know nothing but him.

You try and tell him you’re losing control but all that comes out is a pitiful whimper.

But he knows; he knows exactly what you need.

“I’m here, baby, I’m here. I’ve got you.” And with that, Sanemi rolls you back underneath him, settling into the cradle of your thighs and pushing his cock faster and deeper into you. His arms gently unwind yours from his shoulders, and he brings them up over your head, one large hand pinning them down.

“I’ll take care of you, sweet girl,” he promises, and he weaves the fingers of the hand keeping you pressed against the mattress with your own. “Just keep your legs around me.”

Your thighs squeeze his waist in silent answer, your mind far too suspended in the throes of your pleasure to do anything else.

With his lips trailing along your neck leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses in its wake, his free hand slides between your sweat-slicked bodies. He wedges it between where his groin is pressed to yours, and he searches along your sensitive, swollen folds, seeking the spot between your thighs that made you tremble and whine for him earlier.

You jolt under him as his fingers find you again, that foreign, electric sensation sparking deep in your abdomen. “Sanemi —“

“It’s okay,” he murmurs sweetly, pressing down on your clit until you arch further into him with a gasp. “It’s gonna feel so good, baby, I promise. Just focus on me.”

Each rotation of his hand against your sensitive bead matched the deep, pointed roll of his groin, with Sanemi capping the end of every powerful thrust with alternating pulses of his thumb. The pressure he uses mounts with every churn of his hips, and the moan vibrating in your chest as another surge of sticky wetness gushes from your thighs is the sweetest sound he thinks he’s ever heard.

A broken chant of please please please stutters its way out of you, spurning him to go faster; hit deeper.

And Sanemi only knows how to oblige you.

“You’re doing so fucking good, sweetheart. Just keep letting me take care of you —- that’s it.” He curses as you clench down around him, crying out in approval at his praise. “Yeah, yeah. You’re my fuckin’ girl, aren’t you?”

A single wail of his name is your only response, but it’s enough of a confirmation to damn you both.

“You are,” he affirms, his voice taking on the timber of a growl. “Mine. You’re fuckin’ mine.”

His thrusts grow sloppier with every second, though each is punctuated by a silent, recurring chant of mine, mine, mine. Though your eyes are closed, Sanemi can spy a faint sliver of white peeking out from between your eyelids.

You’re close; he can feel it. And he knows, as the walls of your cunt flutter and tighten around him, that your climax will be his undoing.

The hands he has pinned against the mattress over your head flex as you twist and writhe beneath him. your head tosses from from side to side, and the vibrato of your cries rises octave by octave. Every muscle in your body is tense; you are a live wire thrumming with a need to come apart that he knows you do not fully understand.

Sanemi grunts as he fucks you harder into your bed, no longer concerned with keeping his weight off you. He will show you; he will show you how to shatter, and then he too, will break.

But he needs to see you, first.

“Look at me,” his voice beckons you back from the precipice of ruin. “Look at me, Y/N.”

Your eyes open to meet his and suddenly you’re right back at that edge, only this time, you’re falling freely over it, plummeting down a drop that has no end.

“S-Sanemi —!” It’s all you can manage before the knot steadily building in your stomach unravels. Your back arcs sharply away from your bed, and Sanemi ducks his head to smother his own cry against your breast as he takes its tip into his hot mouth.

Your hips jerk and twitch against his, your cunt seizing around him with force that threatens to squeeze the life out of him. Above you, your arms strain and pull against his grip as you writhe and sing for him.

“That’s it baby, that’s it,” Sanemi’s praise is muffled against your sternum, though it is strangled as he nears his own end. “Fuck!“

He’ll have to buy you the morning-after pill tomorrow, he realizes as you continue to come apart so beautifully on his cock, a soft chant of his name the only thing on your lips. He will not force you to bear the consequences of his own selfishness; he will not saddle you with his burden.

But he’s also not strong enough to pull out; not when your body feels like it was made for him, not when your sweet cunt is gripping him this hard, is this wet — all because of him.

He is selfish and he is weak; it’s a toxic combination, and yet he knows cannot stop.

Sanemi’s hips snap a final time against yours, pushing them up and away from the mattress, pressing deeper than he thought possible. His eyes roll back as his own orgasm rocks through him, powerful and blinding, and the growl that built in his throat melts into a strained groan.

He holds you in place, his cock pulsing in time with your cunt while the two of you ride out the waves of your climax together, his cum steadily filling you with his warmth. Your hands skirt down the length of his arms, blindly searching for his hips. When you find him, you pull and tug, a faint whine sounding from the back of your throat. Sanemi answers your plea with a broken moan of his own and he rocks against you, your hips circling with his until he finally lets you collapse against your mattress, limp-limbed and exhausted.

He follows you down, smothering you with his weight as he clings to you like a lifeline, his face buried in the crook of your neck.

“Fuck, you did so good, sweetheart. So fuckin’ good.” He moans into your ear before he pulls back, his eyes searching your face as he pants.

One hand cradles your jaw and his thumb strokes repeatedly over the flushed curve of your cheek. “You okay?”

You don’t answer right away, your eyes shut tight, and Sanemi feels panic bubble hot in his stomach. The hand cupping your face tightens with his worried call of your name, his fear rearing its ugly head, ready to rip him apart, to turn him into the horrid monster he’s always known he was —

“I love you,” and then you’re peering up at him, eyes round and shining with emotion he does not deserve to feel. “I love you, Sanemi.”

It would’ve hurt less if you’d shot him.

Whatever wall remained around his heart cracks and crumbles under the weight of your confession. Sanemi does not answer, cannot find the words to adequately capture the depth of his feelings.

Instead, he snatches you up into his arms, crushing your body against his.

He kisses your lips and then your cheek. One hand cups the back of your head, his fingers burying into your hair as he presses your face into his chest. His arms tremble as he holds you close, every hard ridge of him cradled against your soft curves. He feels your smile against his collarbone, and the way your fingers dance up and down his spine that makes him melt.

It hits him, then. You aren’t waiting for an answer — you said it only so he would know, and you’d not expected anything in return.

All you’d done was give while he took and took. Your body. Your love.

He doesn’t deserve any of it.

Whatever or whomever came after this would never compare to you. Truthfully, Sanemi doesn’t think it would be worth trying anything different. Everything now began and ended with you — including him.

He twists his head to kiss you again and again, your lips meeting his with a sleepy enthusiasm.

He pants as he breaks away. “‘M gonna pull out — might be uncomfortable for a second.”

You wince at the sudden stab of cold left behind by Sanemi’s retreating warmth. He shifts back onto his knees and slides his hands down your thighs, parting them.

A low whistle blows past his lips. “Damn, I made a mess outta you.”

For a moment, Sanemi can’t tear his eyes away from the sight between your legs; the sight of him trickling out you, staining the sheets below. But some of that hot, possessive pride that wells in his chest tempers at the small smear of blood staining your inner thigh.

His fingers massage your legs in silent apology. “Let me clean you up.”

Your hands shoot to grasp at his shoulders, a pleading whimper on your lips. “Don’t leave — not yet.” You bite your lip, your eyes wide and anxious. “Please, can you just hold me for a bit?”

Sanemi’s eyes soften and his heart throbs painfully in his chest. He can’t imagine leaving you; not now, not ever. No matter how stupid and selfish that makes him.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know the source of your anxiety — or that you didn’t have reason for it. Sanemi isn’t known for lingering.

But this is different — you’re different. You’re not some temporary distraction. You’re everything. His everything.

“Shhh,” he maneuvers you easily atop him, settling you in against the length of his torso, his hands smoothing up and down the column of your spine. “I’m staying right here, sweet girl. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

He seals his promise with a gentle kiss against your forehead before laying his cheek against your temple, cradling you to his chest.

Finally, you relax against him, convinced. He lays with you for a long time after, one hand on the back of your head, his fingers rubbing against your scalp until you fall asleep on against him, safe and sound and warm.

Minutes pass, or maybe hours. But Sanemi’s head does not quiet, not even under the soothing sounds of your deep, slow breaths as you dream.

He must have lost his mind. There is no other explanation for the way he’s disregarded every rule, every boundary he’s ever made sense of, all in the name of you. In a single evening, you managed to obliterate every last defense, every barricade he’d safely cowered behind, and now that the castle has fallen, he isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to do with the rubble.

What he does know is that there’s no putting things back to how they were.

His eyes search your sleeping face because if you were able to make him question nearly everything that made sense in his life, then surely you must also have the answers he needs to re-strike balance in his tilted world. Maybe they lie among the lashes that tickle your cheek, or in the occasional twitch of your mouth between your deep inhales.

But Sanemi is only left feeling more confused the longer he watches you. Because, despite the way he feels vulnerable and exposed at how easily he has been stripped of his guard, he can’t quite bring himself to believe it was entirely your doing.

His eyes widen. There’s his answer.

Perhaps you are not trying to sink your nails into his flesh to peel it back, to demand he be stripped to the bone for you to inspect, to scrutinize and use as you please.

Perhaps that is what you’ve done to yourself, and you’re waiting to see if you will join you; to know if he can volunteer his vulnerability, rather than wait for someone to come and force it from him.

He cannot make any promises. He has spent so much of his life cowering behind the armor he crafted out of his scars and his sneers and barks that were always more ferocious than his bite, that he does not know how to take it off. He does not know how to navigate the world without its weight, both his safety net and his chain. And there is an understanding in your eyes that signals you know that, too.

But he can try.

He mouths I love you against your hairline — he does not voice it, not yet, though it’s what he feels. But your love is a compass that just might point him down the road the leads to a life he so desperately wants; to you.

And he’ll get there, maybe.

In time.

LIKES, REBLOGS, COMMENTS APPRECIATED!

[scrawlingskribbles]

I know I hyperbolize about sobbing over media on a more-than-zero-sum basis but dear god that ending still manages to tear me up something fierce, no joke no lie lmao

[rowarn]

everyone stop what you're doing i just had an idea of simon who likes to edge himself.....omg....

afab!reader, no prns, edging obvi, ruined orgasm, simon being selfish <3 not edited oof

when he's fucking you, hips pumping in a rhythm that basically melts your brain. he's got you pinned beneath him in a press, legs spread obscenely wide so your knees are against the bed. he's got you stuck there under his massive weight. you can't do anything but stare up at him with wide eyes as he fucks you.

he looks so good above you, muscles flexing with every movement and his dark eyes lidded with pleasure that he's getting from working his fat cock into your dripping little cunt.

"fuck, that's good," he groans, blunt nails biting into the tender skin under your thighs, "feels so fuckin' good 'round me, love."

you clench around him at the sound of his voice and the corner of his lips twitches up at the blatant, shameless reaction you have to him. he brings one hand up to his mouth, meeting your eyes in a heated stare as he licks the pad of his thumb, quickly bringing it down to press against your swollen clit -- twitchy and sensitive from neglect since he'd just settled for fucking you so far.

"you gettin' close?" he practically coos, making you whimper. the sound goes straight to his cock and god, he loves the sounds you make, "yeah, i know, pretty thing...i treat you real good, don't i?"

you're tightening up around him and he practically feels the breath punch out of his lungs. you're getting close; he's learned all your tells by now. the way your back arches and your mouth open as you whimper his name. you get wetter and wetter, gooey cunt making a nice little mess for him to fuck into. it makes lewd, squelching noises as he sinks balls deep with a slow roll of his hips.

"s-so close, simon!" you cry out, blindly reaching your hands down to press against his hips.

you always do that -- it's adorable. you actually think that'll stop him from sinking deep, deep inside. his cock knocks against your back well, the little pang of pain making your body twitch. usually, he bats your hands away just to be mean and watch you whine. you really think your trembling hands would be enough to stop the powerful movements of his hips.

he's close to his own end. his cock throbs the closer he gets with every deep thrust he gives you. both of you racing to your ends -- it would be so sweet to cum together, he thinks.

but he knows that's not going to happen.

it's his favorite thing to do. he just can't explain what it is he loves about it.

just when his orgasm starts to crest he pulls his cock free from the hot clutch of your cunt. he feels a little bad, he knows you had just fallen over the edge as he did -- leaving you nothing to cum around, little pussy clenching and cumming all empty and no pleasure from it. a sob tears free from your chest and the sound goes straight to his cock. you squirm under his weight as he watches his own cock twitch against your drooling cunt from his own denial, willing himself not to cum untouched at the sight of you cryin' for him. he closes his eyes and waits for his orgasm to wane before he looks at you again.

"simon..." you practically wail in despair, drawing his gaze up to your face. and fuck, you're so sweet for him.

your eyes are teary and he clicks his tongue, "sorry, love...that was mean of me, huh?"

you nod your head, pouting up at him. despite the ruined orgasm, you're still sensitive enough to twitch beneath him when he sinks his cock back into you with a swift grind of his hips.

"let me make it up to you, yeah?"

your sweet, trusting eyes makes his heart melt and he almost feels bad. almost.

because he knows for the rest of the night, he's going to be edging himself using your pretty little pussy until he finally decides he's ready to cum. and he's not going to care if you actually properly cum or not, because this is gonna be about him using you.

by the end of the night, his cocks so hard that it fucking hurts. he'd edged himself more times than he could count, the more he did the less time he got in between. he started simply dipping his length into you and pulling it right back out, eyes rolling at the sticky strings that connected the head to your clenching hole.

"please, simon...please, please, please..." you're breathlessly begging. he has no clue if you'd even properly cum the entire night, he had practically entered a trance and become a mindless beast thinking only with his cock. theres tears on your cheeks, dried and new and the sight is so lovely that he wants to take a picture and keep it on him at all times.

he finally takes mercy, however. your pretty little clit is so swollen and he just has to press his fingers against it. it's so sensitive that you almost immediately start cumming -- this time around his cock, he makes sure of it.

you pull him over the edge with you, letting him dump a nice, hot load into your pussy while you cum nice and hard around him.

when you sag into the bed and sniffle, cutely reaching out for a hug, he can't help but press a kiss against your forehead <3