#can we please just buy tumblr and run it like ao3

[justagalwhowrites]

Holly Jolly - Ch. 2: It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

You and Joel get the girls together for a playdate. A continuation of Holly Jolly, a modern no-outbreak TLOU fic found on Tumblr here.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings: None really!

Length: 4.1k

AO3 | Main Master List | First Chapter | Next Chapter

Sarah, it seemed, had become president of the Sharon fan club. 

She talked about her the whole ride home. She talked about her as Joel got Sarah ready for school the next morning. She talked about her all through dinner. 

“Hey Dad,” she said as he read her a story and tucked her into bed. “Can I play with Sharon tomorrow maybe?” 

Joel sighed. 

“Wouldn’t you rather go play with Mackenzie?” He asked. “Or maybe we can watch a movie, just you and me?” 

“But I like Sharon,” she said, whining a little. “Please?” 

He sighed again. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “But you have to go to sleep, OK?” 

“OK!” She said quickly, snapping her eyes shut. Joel laughed a little. She opened one eye ever so slightly to make sure Joel was watching and closed it again. 

“Alright, Kiddo,” he laughed again. “Sleep tight.” 

“I’m trying to, Daddy, but you keep talking,” she scrunched her nose. 

“Sorry,” he smiled and kissed her forehead before turning out her lamp. “Goodnight, Baby Girl.” 

“Night, Dad!” 

He closed the door quietly behind him and went to the living room, all but collapsing on the couch and pinching the bridge of his nose. 

Joel really didn’t want to text you. He wasn’t exactly eager to talk to you just after meeting you let alone after you saw his card get declined and decided to take pity on him to buy the fucking picture. And then he was a bit of a dick about it. Something else he wasn’t exactly proud of. 

But he didn’t want to disappoint Sarah more. So he gritted his teeth, found your text from yesterday, and typed out a message. 

Hey, it’s Joel, Sarah’s dad. She’s been talking about Sharon non-stop, would you like to try to get them together this weekend? 

He almost hoped you didn’t respond. If you didn’t, it wouldn’t be Joel’s fault that Sarah didn’t get to see Sharon again. She’d be disappointed but she’d understand and Joel could feel like he’d done his job as her dad. 

But you responded almost immediately. Because of course you did. 

Hey Joel! Sharon’s been talking about Sarah a ton, too! Does tomorrow work? There’s a playground at our apartment complex and I can make lunch. 

Joel gritted his teeth. Were you trying to feed them because you didn’t think he could feed his kid? Or were you just being nice? He sighed. Sarah liked Sharon. He had to at least try to be nice.

Sounds great. What time?

Again, an almost instant reply. 

Noon OK? 

You added your address. 

Sure. See you then. 

Sarah was damn near giddy when he told her the plan the next morning. He’d never seen her run to brush her teeth quite that fast and she immediately went to her toy box to start trying to find things she wanted to bring over. 

“You can pick three things,” Joel said. “And it has to be stuff you want to share, OK?” 

She nodded seriously. Joel put her curls into springy pigtails and let her pick her clothes for the day - Sarah carefully selecting pink pants and a purple shirt with a lot of glitter before insisting on adding the ponytail holders with the pink, plastic balls to her hair. 

Joel stopped at the HEB on the way to your place and picked up some juice boxes and some cookies so he wasn’t showing up empty handed. The check and finally cleared so he pulled out cash to give you, too. There was a bright green wreath on your door and a doormat with a snowman and Joel tried to not cringe as he knocked. 

You answered quickly, smiling like you had been before but not completely covered in Christmas shit this time, at least. 

“Hi,” you said. “It’s good…” 

Sharon careened around the corner and almost fell into Sarah, eyes wide and excited. 

“You’re here!” She said, giddy, before grabbing Sarah’s hand. “Come on, I want to show you this sticker…” 

The two girls tore into the apartment and you laughed a little before stepping to the side and holding your arm out, welcoming Joel in. 

“Come on in!” You laughed a little. “Lunch is almost done. I decided to do something pretty basic, I hope that’s OK…” 

“Sure it’s great,” Joel said, holding out the juice boxes and cookies like an offering. “Thought we could contribute.” 

“Thank you,” you took them and headed inside, Joel trailing behind you. 

“Also, here,” he held out the money. “For the picture.” 

“Oh,” you looked at the cash for a second and then back up at him. “Really, don’t worry about it. Lord knows people have helped me out enough over the years. Just pick up the tab for someone next year or something.” 

He wanted to fight you on it but you were already headed to the kitchen, putting the juice boxes in the fridge. 

While you weren’t covered in Christmas stuff, your house sure as shit was. Paper chains hung from every doorway he could see, a Christmas tree in the corner twinkling with a small pile of gifts below it, a collection of wooden snowmen on your coffee table. It definitely made the four foot tree that was older than Sarah with nothing below it seem lacking. He tried not to resent that, too. 

You pulled something out of the oven as Joel hovered awkwardly in the entry to your small kitchen. 

“Oh, you can have a seat if you want,” you nodded to the breakfast bar. “We’ll give them a few minutes to check out the new stickers. Sharon’s school holiday party was yesterday and the kids all got goodie bags and she traded like everything in hers for as many stickers as she could get her little hands on. I don’t know what the obsession is…” 

“Thanks for havin’ us over,” Joel said, watching as you cut up the bread you’d just pulled out of the oven and he realized that you’d made little sandwiches. “I appreciate it, especially since I wasn’t exactly the friendliest the other day.” 

You looked up at him from the pan and he realized he could see your cleavage down the v-neck of your impossibly soft looking sweater, a sweater that looked like it was made to play off the color of your hair and skin and eyes. 

“Oh, it’s fine,” you waved him off and went for the fridge. “I’m sure you just had a long day. Why else would you be in line to see Santa at 8:30 on a Thursday night?” 

Joel laughed a little. You weren’t wrong.

“Yeah,” he said. “Fair enough. Still. You were being nice and I should’ve been nice back.” 

You shrugged and pulled some cut up vegetables and fruit out of the fridge and put them on the counter. 

“The holidays are hard,” you said. “Really, it’s OK.” 

“Don’t look like they’re hard for you,” he said, looking around. 

Your eyes looked a little wide. 

“Really?” You asked. “Oh, thank God. This is the first Christmas I’ve had a kid in my house, I keep worrying I’m not doing it right…” 

“Looks like you’re doin’ good to me,” Joel said. 

“Thank you,” you said. “Really, that means a lot.” 

Joel looked at a picture on a nearby wall, you with Sharon and a woman who looked a little like you. 

“Is that Sharon’s mom?” He asked, nodding at the photo. You leaned over the breakfast bar to see where he was looking and he resisted the uncomfortable urge to get a better look below your sweater. 

“Yeah,” you nodded with a sigh. “My sister. She was a single mom and she died in February.”

“Shit,” Joel said. “I’m sorry, that’s… that’s hard.” 

“It really is,” you said, eyes a little wide. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Sharon. That kid is my whole world. But I was only ever supposed to be the cool aunt who took her to Europe when she turned 16 and went with her for her first tattoo because her mom would hate it and she wanted support. I’m not supposed to be a mom.” 

“Is it just you?” Joel asked on impulse before he realized that he was prying into the life of a virtual stranger. “Sorry, you don’t have to answer…” 

“It’s fine,” you waved him off. “And yeah, just me. Before wild child in there I wasn’t really interested in much tying me down so I haven’t had a real boyfriend or anything in years. Our parents died a few years ago and we didn’t have any other siblings so it’s just me and Sharon. She’s a great kid, though. So much like her mom, it’s all so worth it. I just hope I’m doing right by her, you know? 

“Her mom would go all out at Christmas,” you continued. “Like that house looked like Buddy the Elf went to town on it every year. Meanwhile, I had like three ornaments I’d gotten as gifts before this year. I always went to her place for the holidays, it seemed silly to decorate mine.” 

“Looks like you’ve got it down already,” Joel said. “Just bought a house a few months ago, haven’t had the chance to really decorate anything yet. I just keep hoping she doesn’t really notice.” 

“Seems like you’re the kind of dad who spends a lot of time with her,” you said. “That’s the important part.” 

You called the girls over for lunch and you and Joel just watched as the two of the chattered about Frozen between bites of carrot sticks and sandwich. 

At one point you made eye contact with Joel when Sharon talked about trading for all the stickers yesterday at school and Joel had to fight not to laugh when he realized that he actually liked you. When he wasn’t in a shit mood and having his card declined by the mall Santa, you were just a kind person who, for some reason, wanted to be kind to him. Even after he’d been rude to you. He hadn’t thought you’d be his kind of person but he liked you.

“So ladies,” you said as plates were cleaned and leftovers put in the fridge. “Playground?” 

Sarah’s face lit up and the two of you got the girls into their jackets before walking over to the park, the kids immediately running for the slide, giggling manically. You sat on a bench and Joel joined you, the two of you silently watching them play for a moment before you glanced over at him. 

“So,” you said. “When you’re not shepherding a five-year-old girl through the mall Santa line, what do you do?” 

“I’m a contractor,” Joel said. “Mostly small to mid-sized jobs, just wrapped up one and I’ve got something small to run through the holidays before the next bigger one starts… You?” 

“I’m a teacher,” you said. “Physics, at the high school down the road.”

Joel smiled a little. 

“I went to that school.” 

“Really?” Your face lit up. “It’s a small world!”

“Or I just never made it far from where I finished school,” Joel said, looking back at the girls. “You like it there?” 

“I guess,” you shrugged. “I’m still getting the hang of it. I never planned to be a teacher, I was an architect before but I needed something that would work better for Sharon schedule wise so I got my teaching certification.” 

Joel frowned. 

“That’s a hell of a sacrifice.” 

You shrugged again. 

“She’s worth it. Besides, the kids are really fun. I have juniors and seniors and they’re so dramatic at that age, it’s like every little thing is the end of the world, and they care so passionately about things. It’s like living as an extra in a soap opera. That’s actually why I was dressed so crazy on Thursday, we had our holiday parties for the a-block classes but one of my kids was having some issues so I just stayed late and the next thing I knew I was late getting Sharon from daycare and everything was a mess… Anyway…” 

“You’re doin’ a good job,” Joel said, watching you, and you looked at him. Actually looked at him. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he said. “Trust me. Been doin’ this on my own since Sarah was four months old. You’re doin’ a good job.” 

The girls played for almost two hours before they wore themselves out and you all walked back to your apartment. 

“So, I hope I’m not overstepping by asking but… where are you at with Christmas shopping?” You asked. Joel just blinked at you for a moment but you kept going. “I’m only asking because there’s a thing some of the other teachers do where we take turns watching each other’s kids so we can run errands or go Christmas shopping and I’m dropping Sharon off tomorrow afternoon. They’re cool if I add another kid to the mix so if you need to get out for a few hours and cross some things off the to do list…” 

You looked worried and Joel, for a moment, wondered just how much of an asshole he’d been to you that you thought doing him a favor would piss him off. 

“That would be great, actually,” he said. “You’re sure they don’t mind?” 

“Not at all,” you smiled. “I’ve covered for some of the others a few times when stuff comes up with their other kids like sports tournaments and things, it’s really no problem. Besides, something tells me that Sarah’s a good kid. Don’t think she’s going to give them much trouble. If you text me your address, I can pick you up around 10 tomorrow morning? Drop the kids?” 

“Uh… sure,” Joel said, surprised that he was actually looking forward to it. “Thanks.” 

When he tucked Sarah in that night, he told her that she was going to see Sharon again the next day. She was giddy, kicking her little feet under her blankets. 

“I really like her, Daddy,” she smiled, that gap in her teeth one of the cutest damn things Joel had ever seen. “And her aunt is really nice.” 

“Yeah,” Joel said, tucking the blankets around her. “Yeah, she is.” 

***

“But can we ask them over to make cookies?” Sharon asked as you French braided her hair. 

“Maybe,” you said. “But it’s the holidays, girlie pop, they might already have plans. It would be very rude to try to monopolize their time.” 

“But I really like Sarah!” She said. “And she said they only do the cut out cookies and I told her about the peanut butter ones I made with you and mom last year and…” 

You still got a little choked up at the thought of your sister. You didn’t know it was going to be her last Christmas at the time but, in hindsight, it was like part of her had known she was going to be gone a few months later. 

It had been a picture perfect Christmas, filled with movie marathons and cookie baking and a Christmas light drive with a thermos of hot cocoa and extra marshmallows. You’d loved every second of it, loved that it felt like the three of you against the world. 

And now it was just you and Sharon and you were trying desperately to fill the massive shoes your sister had left behind while not replacing her. 

“We can make the peanut butter ones again,” you said, swallowing the tears that tightened in your throat. “And it will still be fun if it’s just you and me and not you and me and Joel and Sarah. Right?” 

“Yeah,” she sighed dramatically. 

“I know,” you tied off her braid and kissed the crown of her head. “I’m such a let down.” 

You made a face at her in the mirror and she giggled. 

“Come on,” you said, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “Let’s go get our new friends.” 

You tried to not be nervous about spending at least part of the day with Joel without the girls. You were pretty sure he didn’t like you much. You’d been positive about that at the mall. You knew you tended to come on a little strong and you’d been so flustered when you’d met him that you were sure it was worse than usual. You hadn’t expected him to actually reach out and you certainly weren’t going to text him unless Sharon was particularly eager to see Sarah and you felt like you had to. 

And then he texted you. 

Yesterday had gone better, at least. He was kinder than he’d been before and you’d enjoyed talking with him while the kids played. He was clearly such a dedicated father. Sarah fell off the play structure at one point with a small shriek and he jumped to his feet with a look of sheer panic on his face. But he stayed by the bench, giving her a second to get herself up before Dad rushed in. She did just that, brushing wood chips off her knees before immediately climbing the ladder to the slide again. 

It wasn’t something you were used to seeing from men. Sharon’s father hadn’t been anything like that. He’d stuck around for a few months after he’d proposed to your sister when he knocked her up. But by the time the baby shower rolled around, you could tell he was getting cold feet. Sharon wasn’t even a day old yet when he pulled you aside at the hospital and asked you to tell your sister to leave him off the birth certificate. You didn’t even get a chance to respond before he turned and left and that was the last time you’d seen him. 

Joel, clearly, had done the opposite. 

When you rang the door bell at the small house with peeling paint on the trim, it took almost a minute for Joel to answer the door. 

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “Come in, we’re havin’ a bit of a morning… Sarah didn’t sleep great so she didn’t want to eat breakfast and now we’re behind and…” 

“It’s fine,” you smiled. “We’ve got time.” 

You nudged Sharon in ahead of you and followed behind Joel, his dark curls wet. You sat down in the living room and peered around. There was a small artificial tree in the corner that looked a little threadbare and stockings held by push pins by the fireplace. A chunk of drywall had been cut out near the back door and there were some tools in slightly organized disarray on the floor nearby. 

“What’s that?” Sharon frowned, looking at the exposed pipe. 

“That is the current project,” Joel said, guiding Sarah into the room. “Some stuff in the house doesn’t work quite right…” 

“Hi Sharon!” Sarah waved frantically and Sharon’s face lit up. 

“Hi Sarah!” She waved back. “Sarah, I brought my favorite Barbie! The one with the red hair, it’s in the car!” 

“Cool!” Sarah said. “I asked Santa for a Barbie Dream House for Christmas! When I get it, you’ll have to bring your dolls over and they can be friends, too!” 

You caught a glimpse of Joel’s face at the mention of Barbie Dream House, almost like a wince. 

“You promised to sit still if you got to sit in the living room while I did your hair,” Joel said. “Sooner we do that, sooner you can go see that Barbie, let’s go.” 

Sarah sighed dramatically and flopped on the loveseat. Joel stood behind her and quickly gathered her hair into several small buns while Sarah did her best to hold still while talking animatedly to Sharon. 

It didn’t take long and soon, the four of you were piling in your SUV, Joel putting Sarah’s carseat in the back alongside Sharon’s. 

“I really appreciate this,” he said after you dropped the girls off and headed to the Target in town with the biggest toy selection. “I had no damn clue when I was going to try to get any Christmas shopping done…”

“Tell me about it,” you said. “If it wasn’t for this whole kid watching exchange, I was going to have to take a day off work. I’ve never had to try to do this before, it’s her first Christmas without her mom and I really can’t mess it up, you know?” 

“Can I ask what happened?” Joel asked after a moment. 

“Car accident,” you said. “On her way to get Sharon from daycare in February. Thank God she wasn’t in the car, too, or they’d both be gone…” 

“Jesus,” Joel said. “I’m sorry, that’s… that’s hard. Seems like you’re handling it well, though. Sharon seems to adore ya.” 

You shrugged. 

“I think I’m still just the cool aunt in a lot of ways,” you said. “Part of me thinks she still expects her mom to come back eventually. I don’t know. This isn’t how life was supposed to go for either of us.” 

Joel just nods slowly. 

“I get that. S’not what I expected for mine, either. It’s all worth it for Sarah but if you’d asked me what I was gonna be doing at 27 years old, shopping for a fuckin’ Barbie Dream House wouldn’t be it. Oh shit… crap, sorry. I try not to swear in front of Sarah or people I don’t really know, I don’t…” 

You laughed a little. 

“Don’t worry about it, I’m a big girl. Think I can handle a little adult language.” 

You parked at Target and the two of you headed inside, each grabbing a cart. 

“Did you want to split up or…” Joel asked. 

“Well, if you wouldn’t mind me tagging along?” You asked, a little sheepish. “This is the first Christmas and her birthday was just before her mom died, I’ve never done a big gift day with her. I could use some help. If you’re up for it, I don’t want to impose, it’s totally fine if you just don’t want…” 

“It’s fine,” Joel smiled just a little. “At this point, know a lot more about little girls’ toys than I have any right to. May as well put it to use.” 

The two of you started in the girls’ clothes section before heading on to the toys. Joel went straight for the Barbie aisle and he stopped in front of the Dream House, just staring at the box. You picked a Barbie for Sharon and stood next to him. 

“That thing is huge,” you said after a moment, glancing his way. “No way there’s room for it in my place. No one has room for something that big…” 

You chewed the inside of your cheek a bit, hoping that giving Joel some kind of out wasn’t too awkward. 

He didn’t take it, though. 

“It’s just outta my price range this year,” he sighed. “Keep tryin’ to do the math and I want to get it for her. I want to get everything for her. But shit, I’ve got maybe that much for all of Christmas. Can’t spend that on one toy.” 

You saw him tense his jaw for a moment when you had a thought. 

“What if you made her one?” You asked, looking up at him. He took his eyes off the box for the first time in more than a minute to frown at you. 

“Make a Barbie Dream House,” he said, skeptical. 

“Yeah,” you shrugged. “I mean, it wouldn’t look just like that but… I’m an architect. Or I was. You’re a contractor. I bet, between the two of us, we could come up with something that would cost like $50 in materials. I’ll design it for you and then you can build it and…” 

“You’d do that?” He asked, brows raised. “Just plan out a toy for my kid?” 

“Sure,” you shrugged and smiled. “I mean… it’s Christmas. Besides, it’ll give me a chance to practice at drawing up plans again. I could use the excuse, I miss it.” 

Joel looked at you for a moment and you thought - not for the first time - that he was one of the most beautiful people you’d ever seen. You’d thought it when you first saw him in line for Santa, you’d thought it when he’d showed up at your door the day before, you’d even thought it as you watched him style is daughter’s hair earlier that day. 

You looked at the box for something else to focus on. 

“We can do that,” you said. “Piece of cake.”

Next Chapter

[eerie-night]

i always like stumbling across fic rec lists so i thought about compiling a list of some of my favorites and linking the tumblrs of the authors (but if i cant find them ill link twitter or ao3) bc theyre all fucking awesome

BSD

and all i loved, i loved alone- @featherxs

“An ability?”

— on the past, present, and future of one Edgar Allan Poe.

SOOOO GOOD!! its what originally got me so into bsd and its such a good reread too

(don’t) stop the rain- miniekooki

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke finds himself taking care of the Twain family after an unfortunate turn of events.

And he also finds himself considering Mark Twain as more than just an annoying prick.

(ALTERNATIVE TITLE: the domestication of akutagawa ryuunosuke)

i loveeeeeeeeee this and how it goes about describing the family its sooooooooo good

Haikyuu

as bright as a blackhole; and twice as dense- cereal_whore

“Kageyama’s being bullied,” Yamaguchi grits, expression steeled.

Tsukishima lowers his book quietly, and stares, eyes wide.

“As if he has enough social competence to realise he’s being bullied.”

“Tsukki, please.”

Meant to be 5 times Tsukishima accidentally and very reluctantly saved Kageyama from his own social ineptness, and one time Kageyama does the same for him, but we ran into problems bc OP can't count.

(or: everyone is srsly stressed over kageyamas existence, but kageyama, despite having the common sense of a Five Minute Crafts video, is like those buff himbos within the tsundere category. so he somehow ends up wholly unscathed throughout this shit, while everyone else doesnt)

tldr: kageyama lacks forethought, and everyone but him suffers the consequences of it.

i eat this shit up omg omg its great its funny and it makes my day better read it

but not for spring to well up- tookumade

Miya Brothers

Sellers & Buyers of Antiques & Curiosities

Suna Rintarou squints at the small sign attached to the front door of the brick shopfront.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Something flashier? More brass? The Miya brothers could do with a pot plant out the front. The shopfront has one single large window that’s covered by a plain white curtain, so maybe they could open that up and have some of their antiques and such on display so people get an idea of what they buy and sell. Maybe a paint job for the door, which is the most boring brown Suna has ever seen. There is nothing he can say about it—it’s not nice nor ugly, it’s just boring.

Or, maybe Suna could stop giving any more of a damn about this shopfront and just get his appointment over and done with.

After ending a relationship with a fiancé, Suna returns home and tries to heal from heartbreak. Here, he finds friends in the form of the Miya brothers, and learns patience, forgiveness, and what happiness means to him.

this sounds repetitive but…..SOOOOOOOO GOOOOOD i love the emotion and how it deals with sunas ex and like everything about this fic is gold

JJK

“To Chase”- @diggingupgrave

Megumi has never thanked the man who raised him.

god…no words except read it you will not regret it

FE3H

A Fair Day’s Work- featherhearted

“I may have some coffee in the place for you,” said Prime Minister Aegir. “Let me show you how much better I have become at brewing it to your taste.”

“If you insist,” said Minister Vestra but he sounded pleased. To Delarivier, who had literally made it her profession to attune herself to his tone (usually ranging from sort-of-murder-y to extremely-murder-y), Minister Vestra sounded very pleased indeed.

Ferdinand and Hubert's long-suffering aides figure out a way to work fewer hours.

im a whore for outsider povs and this one takes the cake and does laps around my brain when i try and sleep

TMA

a glass essay- fairbanks

Right out of university Jon's run out of time to run from the Web. The only way he knows to escape one domain is to give yourself to another, and he's always been good at being alone.

He really wasn't imagining the Lukas family would take him in at all, let alone arrange him to marry some smarmy ass named Peter Lukas.

yet again something to reread till you memorize every word and still cant get enough

now for authors that i recommend HIGHLY and a fic or two from them:

@blackkatmagic

i recommend everything shes written but my top favorites currently are:

Cor Cordium

Fox dies. He wakes up. And then things start getting weird.

its so so good and kats soooo good at characterization and descriptions and could prob make paint drying interesting

out of night (out of nothing)

It's the duty of the Temple Guard to keep the Sacred Spire, the Force nexus at the heart of the Temple. Feemor's always done his duty gladly, kept it safe, kept the light burning. Order 66 changes everything. Changes him. Changes the Spire, too.

Hevy, Cutup, and Droidbait are just caught in the currents and trying to make the most of their second chances, but an unstable Jedi and new powers don't make anything easier.

the concept is so cool and the execution is even better she could probably sell me air and id go crazy for it

trade your heart for bones to know

A week after an attack that nearly killed him and his son, Jaster Mereel finds Mostross dead on a battlefield. His killer is a Jedi, grievously wounded, who Jaster takes into his care. By Mandalorian tradition, Jon Antilles owes him a life-debt, and Jaster is cunning enough not to let such a thing slip away.

It's meant to be an entirely political arrangement. It doesn't stay that way for long.

not to sound like broken record but god this is fucking fabulous

i totally recommend checking out ALL her works but these were the first ones i thought of out of the ones that are currently updating

@x-authorship-x

she has written sooo many good fics im just going to recommend my favorite series and you can go from there

Eyes

Shisui is way too strong to have his eye taken by Danzo

He's the only one smart enough to master the simplest of techniques to legendary proportions

He was sweet and kind and, despite everything he'd seen and all the things he'd done, he wasn't afraid to hope. To dream for something better.

A series for Shisui

the characters, the plots, the descriptions all add up to something amazing

llamallamaduck

do yourself a favor and check her out, you will not regret it. unfortunately, i will restrain myself to only recommending one fic but DO check the rest out

With no root in the land —(To keep my branches green)

He is not a human and he is not a beast and he is not a creature, but he is. He is a being, then. A being that changes and learns and lives. He thinks his name is Ani.

this is the fic that i first read by llamallamaduck and its a really good introduction to how fucking amazing she is at doing crossovers and writing in general

i hope you enjoy these as much as i have :)

[raccoonfallsharder]

✩࿐࿔ just buy the damn thing already. [new 1/1]

smut-free | no use of y/n | gn reader | drabbles | word count: 1,209.

✩࿐࿔ take what you need.

࿔ eat somethin. at least grab a frickin’ snack. (wc: 576) ࿔go to frickin bed already. (wc: 737) ࿔ get outta bed & get your shit done. & stop doomscrolling (wc: 925) ࿔ take a damn bath. (wc: 1,375) ࿔ leave your frickin skin alone. (wc: 1,579) ࿔ take a fuckin study break. (wc: 1,020) ࿔drink some goddamn water. (wc: 1,209) ࿔stop destroying your frickin clothes. (wc: 1,649) ࿔ just buy the damn thing already. (wc: 1,271) for sinikettu [NEW 1/1] ࿔ it's frickin laundry day for moonchhu [est 1/14] ࿔ get some goddamn sunshine ࿔ did you take your meds today?

token economies suck and late capitalism is worse. being broke is not a moral failing, and you still deserve to enjoy life.

this is about as wholesome as it gets (for me) i think. can be read platonically or romantically. mcu-based, meant to take place post-volume 3, but headcanon however you want ♡

“You ready? You’re frickin’ takin’ forever.” You drag your eyes away from the shelves of novelties, strange tools, and low-grade “luxury” items in Sanna Orix’s tiny corner-shop, wincing. “Sorry. Yeah, I’m ready.” Rocket tilts his head, arms shuffling a shabby cardboard box he’d apparently filled with various odds-and-ends, machine parts he’d found in dusty corners, bits of tech he hasn’t had a chance to get his paws on before. He studies you, that carnelian gaze flicking back and forth from you to the item you’d just been staring at. “You look at that frickin’ thing every time we come in here,” he observes dryly. “Better get it now f’you want it. It’s not gonna be there forever.” You roll your shoulders, then your eyes. “I don’t need it. If it’s gone by the next time we stop by, it’ll be one less temptation.” Rocket frowns and shuffles the box in his arms. “How much is it?” You don’t have to double-check — you already know. “Twenty-three units.” “Twenty-three units?” he repeats incredulously. “Twenty-three units and I gotta sit here and watch you pine over it every time I gotta run a goddamn errand?”

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(total word count: 9,061)

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Witches and Wizards Job 39-40-41-42-43

THIS IS IT.

As always, thank you so much for coming along for the ride. It always makes me wriggle a little in goblin-glee to see the little like and/or reblog notifications.

If you made it this far, and you have the patience to answer a few questions, I would appreciate it. If not, that's fine. Just please, bear in mind that reblogs heal my soul, and they cost you nothing. Also, you get a cookie if you can guess what creature the Dredgers are modeled after.

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THIRTY NINE

I woke up on a relatively soft surface, which was more than I'd expected. Someone had put a pillow under my head, and there were quiet voices nearby, much louder ones further away. The warmth of Mouse against my leg and on my stomach was a welcome presence, and I reached down to rub his ears. He licked my hand and I heard his tail thumping against something soft. "Did we win?"

"Harry." Parker's voice was nearby. She moved closer and my breath caught. She'd put on the spider gown, an exquisite half-sheath of peach and gold and salmon tones, she'd done up her hair and put on make-up. She looked like a bona-fide, invited, certified guest of the party. In the darkness of the room she gleamed faintly, like a fallen star, the spider silk reacting to my presence. Lights, blue and red and white, flashed through a nearby window.

"I take it the cops are here."

"Well, yeah, but we called them," she specified, sitting next to me. "They're keeping the news people out. Everyone's all over that tidal wave that came out of nowhere and no one can explain." She gave me a tiny, wicked, utterly delighted look. "That was magic. And I was there to see it."

"It was, you were," I agreed. It was hard to get down on myself when there was someone around who so wholeheartedly approved of what I was, what I could do, all the glory and the violence of it, the grit and the beauty. "Nothing else was strong enough to maybe kill the dragon."

"Oh, it did," she assured me, then gestured with her hands to mime something being torn in half. She even made a squelching sound.

I had to laugh, and found that, overall, I wasn't terribly sore or hurt. Bone-tired, yes, I felt like I'd scraped a bottom to my magic I didn't even know was there. But nothing was burn, broken, or bleeding. "The Blackbird? Grandmother?"

"We've got them. Nate said to wait for you, though. Can you stand?"

"Oh, for this I can stand, dance and run a marathon," I told her, sitting up. I rode out a wave of diziness and got to my bare feet, felt them sting a little. My mouth tasted of the sea, and I could feel salt and sand in places best left unmentioned. I was suddenly starved, and I would have loved to wash my mouth if nothing else, but I didn't care. I wanted to see how it ended between Koschei and Baba Yaga.

I'd been lying in a bed that dominated a small room, probably a guest bedroom. My duster had been tossed at the feet of it, and I snagged it as I went, Mouse jumping down lightly to follow Parker and me. On top of a chest of drawers that matched the bed were the rest of my things, and I gave her an amused look. "All together in the same place?"

She grinned at me. "Amateurs. Oh." She rushed back into the room, grabbed a small bundle from the bed, and brought it back to me as I shrugged on the duster. "Nate said you should have this."

I looked down at a familiar bundle wrapped in a plain tablecloth and a lot of duct tape, and a few things made sense. "Fried your bud when you read it, didn't it."

She nodded.

"I should've thought of that."

"Harry, we all should've thought of that. We didn't. I should've got a mirror piece anyways, but I didn't." She shrugged easily. "It still worked out. I stole your earclip," she informed me lightly as she opened the door. My staff was resting by it, and I grabbed it as I followed.

We stepped out onto a hallway and golden light; just past the door, Eliot and Hardison were talking to a man with ash-brown hair cut very short and sharp eyes, dressed casually except for the Red Sox jacket and the discreet bulge of a gun, and a woman with long blonde hair, keen blue eyes and strong, mobile features, dressed as if she'd thrown on the first thing she could find when she'd jumped out of bed, her badge and her gun worn on her belt. Both of them had that unmistakable set to their shoulders of a cop on the trail of something important. He asked them something in the thickest Boston accent I'd yet heard of anyone, and all four of them chuckled low.

Hardison handed him Wattsford's little black notebook. Eliot handed her the sheaf of folders.

"That him?" The man shuffled through the notebook, his face going hard, before he looked up and pointed at me, back to his casual, easy manner. Parker, ironically, didn't get more than an admiring look from both of them, and why should she? She wasn't wearing the skin-fitted black of a thief, she was dressed like someone who'd come to a party.

"I didn't do anything," I replied automatically.

"Yeah, that's him," the woman confirmed with a touch of dark humor to her voice.

I sputtered, vaguely insulted. What's the point of proclaiming your innocence if no one's gonna even pretend to believe you?

"Harry is a consultant," Eliot told them both mildly. "He'll be going home soon, and hopefully we won't be getting him in trouble for a while."

"Like you never get me in trouble?" the man shot back, all amusement, but they all shook hands and parted ways amicably enough.

Eliot and Hardison came over to meet us. The hacker could barely take his eyes off Parker, so it was the hitter who offered me his hand, his eyes dancing, his smile warm as ever. "Sir."

"Sir." I shook his hand back. "I swear I didn't do any of it on purpose."

"The hell you didn't." Eliot snorted in amusement. "I'm glad you're on our side, Harry."

"Til the day I die," I assured him.

"May it be long in coming," he replied as if he were reciting a prayer. "Now come on. Time to finish this."

I followed them down the hallway to the main area of the mansion. "So the van did work, or did you and my dog run all the way across the grounds?"

"I absolutely don't doubt Mouse could run the distance and carry me," Hardison admitted. "I don't run if I can help it, it's undignified. The van did work, it's still working, actually. As much as a seven hundred pound computer made of cathode tubes can be said to be working."

"Those were the original computers, no?"

"No! What I made was better, stronger and capable of carrying you around without fritzing or exploding, capable of hacking into the security cameras so I could see where to go without running into the security people, capable of gagging the electrical system without actually frying it so we could pretend you were being all magic-like while I did my job." The hacker looked entirely too pleased with himself. "You brought me a dedicated, single system OS and I hacked it."

"You hacked magic?"

"I damn well hacked magic."

I couldn't very well refute him. Aside from the spider's phone, every single bit of on-site tech had worked because Hardison had strong-armed it into working, no more, no less.

"You did not," Eliot protested wearily, face scrunched up.

"I did."

"He did."

"Don't enc- Harry, don't encourage him."

"But he did."

"He did not - you did not hack magic, man."

"I absolutely did. Tell me how I did not."

"I -" The hitter shot me a look.

I could only shrug. Eliot looked at Parker. "He kinda did a little," she murmured sheepishly, much to his wounded indignation, and we all went into the main receiving room.

FORTY

"Where's everyone?"

Nate turned from inspecting the small, elegant little clavichord in the room, sipping on a cup of very strong coffee, and examined Leverage's consulting wizard. There were deep shadows under Dresden's eyes, and his hair was going every which way, salt hardening it into peaks here and there. His clothing was singed and still faintly damp, and he smelled of the sea. Not for a minute did the mastermind doubt that he was ready for round two, three and twenty, if that was what it took.

Nate didn't believe in people, not overmuch. He believed in his people; he'd worked with them, he'd seen the steel in their souls often enough to know it ran true to the core of them. But of the average person he expected very little, or nothing at all; he'd seen them crumple far too often under the burdens of the world. He didn't hold it against them, not ever. He himself had crumpled once before, like cheap tin. It had been a labor of years to re-cast himself, to find his own steel. In Dresden, that core ran through and then some. What Leverage faced together, relying on one another, the wizard faced alone. His horrors weren't faceless or nameless; they were solid, real and truly monstrous, even if sometimes those monsters were on his side. Harry Dresden had drawn a line on the sand and he would defend it to his destruction, or that of his enemies.

Then again, he'd seen much the same thing when he'd accidentally Soulgazed the wizard. That, and more. For a while after Nate had kept looking down at himself, expecting to find himself spattered to the neck with blood and perplexed that, every time, he wasn't.

"Gone. None of them wanted to stay to talk to the police," he told Dresden. "We asked mister Stone to keep back only the ones that weren't liable to eat anyone." Over one shoulder he looked at a corner of the room. "And the ones that didn't want to leave."

As if summoned by those words, Classy and his people, six in number, rose from where they were sitting or slouching and drew lazily closer. "We're runnin' a legitimate business here," Classy told Nate mildly; he had never put his jacket back on, or rolled down his sleeves. "Ain't got no reason to run from no fuckin' terriers."

"Yes, well," the mastermind agreed in the same even tone. "You do have to admit that's not a common attitude."

Classy shoved his hands in his pockets and snorted in amusement. "Yeah, alright. I'll be fuckin' honest," he added, tipping his chin and grinning maliciously. "I woulda stayed to see how that ends, police or not." His people muttered in agreement.

Dresden turned to look at what Classy had pointed out. Koschei was sprawled on a chair, asleep, snoring faintly. There was a single, long, thin silver chain binding him to the chair, hardly looking like it would keep him there. What might do the job, however, was the immense bird-like creature hovering just behind him, long neck twisting this way and that, a woman's face at the end of it, its eyes a rich, dark gold with black pupils, like a bird's. She was stout and exceedingly fluffy, each feather three colors, red, black and white-tipped, her train made of iridescent black feathers. She was clucking cheerfully to herself like a contented hen.

All around them, the wizard suddenly realized, were the portraits, eight in total, seven fakes and one copy. "Did you have to bring them all?" he asked Nate.

"I wanted to make a point," the mastermind explained, giving him time to take in the rest of the room. Off by the bar, Vanya Fedorov and Nick flanked the woman from the portrait, who'd wrapped an exquisitely knotted blue shawl about her shoulders; it glowed like a piece of the night sky, dark blue studded with tiny winking dots. Grandmother herself looked far more put together, less fragile and wounded, though still as delicate as the cup full of tea in her hands. Nick had found a garishly colorful shirt and a pair of shorts, and no one had forced him to put on shoes, so he looked absolutely delighted at the proceedings, even if there were none currently ongoing to delight him. Next to him, holding onto a glass of something strong she had yet to sip, was Jessamine Lochlin.

By the door to the main drawing room, never taking his gaze off the shark, stood Stone. He was wearing a plain shirt that barely fit him, and his somewhat bedraggled pants, but otherwise looked implacably unharmed.

"What happened to Fedorov's uncle?" Harry asked quietly.

"Fedorov called his father. Hard to tell which one of them was angrier at the betrayal," Nate replied in the same quiet undertone before pitching his voice to carry. "Sophie, go ahead and wake him up."

Beautiful and radiant still despite the night's shenanigans, the grifter came close to the Russian wizard and pulled from his black hair a lacquered comb - the same comb Parker had originally stolen from the Blackbird's pockets. "That better be enough, I'm not kissing him," she warned Nate dryly. Classy and his people snickered, and the leader of the Dredgers cleared his throat with a muttered apology he absolutely didn't mean.

Koschei roused with a snort and a start, tried to lunge out of the chair, and nearly fell. The alkonost clamped a taloned foot on the back of the chair and forced it back down, and the wizard went with it, seething. He opened his mouth and snarled something, paused… and looked utterly stunned when nothing happened.

"Yeah, that." Nate saluted him with his cup. "I wouldn't bother."

"Release me!"

"Uh, no. Not yet anyways. I've got a couple of questions I was hoping -"

"Release me!"

"- you'd answer before we trade you for your heart."

Koschei went white, though it was hard to tell if it was fury or panic. "You cannot imagine what I can do for you, for all of you. All you know of magic is what that brute Dresden has shown you."

"Ouch," Harry muttered without heat.

"Release me. I will grant you anything you desire."

"Yeah, you already made that offer," Nate reminded him mildly. "You already got your answer. Or do you mean them?" He gestured to the Dredgers with his cup. "You guys want anything from the Blackbird?"

"His guts on a platter, his head on a bowl," Classy growled. His people hissed and chattered agreement, all of their eyes burning with a lambent red light. "His fingers and toes to bite and gnaw."

"Um. Need him alive. Sorry."

Classy shrugged, seamlessly going back to his easy mood. "No harm. Figured I'd ask just in case."

"Stone," Koschei began.

"I was fool enough to make one bad bargain with you, wizard. I will make no more," the golem replied calmly.

"You should ask Fedorov," Nate suggested. "I'm sure you've got many things he thinks he wants."

Koschei said nothing, glaring furiously at the mastermind, and Nate sipped at his coffee. "But it's not so easy, is it, to tempt a man who knows that what he wants and what he needs are two different things. Who knows that those things aren't always going to agree with one another." He pinned a level look on the Russian enforcer. "Or is this because he already made his choice, and there's some sort of prohibition between the two of you?" He gestured lightly at the hand gently squeezing Grandmother's shoulder. "When a Royal chooses one of you, the other can't interfere?"

Koschei exploded into profanities in Russian, as well as a couple of other languages that made Eliot's brows climb nearly to his hairline. Grandmother reached out to pat Fedorov's hand, but the enforcer looked nothing if not confused.

"You don't look like the men in your family," the mastermind told Fedorov. "I mean, obviously that's not an absolute, like genetic testing, but it's pretty telling when you don't look at all like any of the men in your family. We looked them up. Not one. You look like your mother, though. Same eyes, same hair. All the way back seven generations or so. The Sagorovs might have taken you in, but you're not a blood-relation."

"Yes, but -" Vanya hesitated. "My mother was… a casualty of the family's business. They made amends by taking care of me. What does that have to do with anything?"

"She wasn't a casualty, she was the target. His target." Nate gestured at the frothing wizard. "It left you alone, vulnerable at a young age. But then the family stepped in, and he saw the potential for an even bigger payout if he just waited. A high-ranking member of the Russian mafia and a Fyodorov? You don't find a lot of those lying around these days."

Fedorov pressed his mouth to a thin line.

"That's the problem with paper records," the mastermind pointed out mildly. "They tend to stick around for a long, long time."

"How did you know?"

"The invitation," Sophie murmured. "The coat of arms embossed on it was for the Russian Tsars. It just took me a little while to remember it, it hasn't been used for so long."

"I am not this thing. I am me. I am my own man."

"You just saved Grandmother from her greatest enemy in pitched battle." Dresden's voice was very calm, in spite of the surprises rolling out to smack everyone in the face. "Heroes do that. Princes do that."

"Do not call him that," Baba Yaga's voice crackled through the tension in the room. "He has chosen to be prince of a different empire, and that is his choice. As it should be." She leveled a cool, disappointed glare on Koschei. "How can this lesson not sink in after all these centuries, Kostya? We do not choose them, they choose us. Always."

"I don't have the patience for your maudlin beggary. They are mortal, and weak, and flawed. They are tools to be put to use, nothing else. They are power. My power."

"And you wonder why no one likes you," Fedorov commented, then crouched by Baba Yaga. "All I have ever wanted to be is my own man. I do not ask for favors easily." He shot Nate a look. "The price is always far more than one is willing to pay. I would ask only one thing of you, Grandmother." He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a bundled handkerchief. Unwrapping it, he offered her the small, oddly shaped, carved wooden cup, a chicken bone tucked neatly inside it. "I would know what you think of me."

She gasped, and took the cup with wrinkled fingers. Then she looked up and smiled at him. "You already know, little prince. I think you are more than worthy. I think any path you choose should be proud to have you." She touched his cheek lightly and, Russian enforcer or not, he flushed faintly under her praise.

Koschei strained against his bonds with a high-pitched, strangled howl, before going limp in the chair. "So," he growled at Nate. "You win. You would make an enemy of me for all the days of your miserable mortal life. I hope it was worth it."

"Sort of," the mastermind replied. "See, Dresden is supposed to just be our consultant. Answer questions, provide information, that sort of thing. Things, eh, escalated, but he still made time for the information bit, and one thing he made real clear is that you like to carry grudges. You really do. So part of doing all this was also making sure you can't do that to my people, or to him."

"And what will you do, kill me?" Koschei laughed darkly at him.

"We could, I suppose, but we really don't kill people unless we have to."

"I am immortal," the wizard laughed.

"No," Dresden countered. "You just hid your heart so well even death couldn't find it. But then you went and dug it out." He rapped his staff lightly on the floor, and one of the portraits began to glow faintly, as if illuminated by a light behind it. "Worse, you went and dug up the keys to open your little magical lockbox, the same keys where you trapped your death. You might not be a necromancer, but man," Dresden shook his head. "I've walked the edge, and I thought I was close, but you make it look like I was hiking fifty miles from the Damocles Doom."

"A feeble threat from a feeble pack of feeble old men."

"You've been out of the loop. They've got women and everything in the Council these days. Real modern of them."

"You don't have the keys, I stole them back from Dresden's home."

"You made the most basic of mistakes." Sophie came up behind Koschei, just close enough to purr against his ear with Ekaterina's Russian accent before she straightened up and abandoned the persona altogether. "You forgot the first rule of the grift: always keep your eyes on the mark." She moved to stand by Nate.

"You kept looking for heroes," the mastermind sipped at his cup, "because you're used to fighting heroes. But the one hero you found, you kinda. Well. Brought him on yourself." He saluted Fedorov with his cup before giving Koschei his attention once again. "But we're not heroes. We're conmen. And you just fell for the oldest con: the shell game. " He moved to his feet and reached into his pocket, pulling from it the plastic chess piece. "In a tower."

The frame of the portrait began to glow with its own light, as it had back in the vault of the MFA. There, among the gilt and the filigree in the ancient wood, Nate found the carving of the tower, pressed the chess piece against it, and was unsurprised at last to see it sink in seamlessly.

"In a box," Eliot said, reaching for the box of matches Harry had thrown at him so carelessly. It had a treasure chest painted on top, and it was still half-full of matches. The little drawing led the hitter to the right place on the frame.

"I stole those from you," Koschei sounded strangled.

"Did you?" Nate asked casually. "Because we had a set at the safehouse, a set at the pub -"

"A set in Lucille," Hardison pointed out.

"And in the u-Haul," Eliot added, stepping aside for Parker, who frowned minutely at the frame until she found the carving of a rabbit missing a foot, and grinned victoriously as she did magic all on her own. "Inside a rabbit."

Hardison came up behind her. "You look absolutely glorious doing magic," he murmured, blindly shoving the duck-shaped whistle at the frame.

She beamed at him. "I do magic all the time," she replied just as quietly. "Pay at- Hardison, pay attention!"

"Hardison!" Eliot hissed, forcing the hacker to actually focus.

"Alright, ok! Messing up my rhythm here," he grumbled. He was one of the few people present who could reach the top of the frame and return the duck to its graven, flying flock.

"You see, our consultant explained something to us called a Mirror-Mask. When you bind several items together to make it look like they're all the real thing." Nate looked pointedly around. "I think you might have heard of it. Of course you were going to try and steal the keys, that's just common sense. All we had to do was make you think you'd succeeded. Make it, ah," he glanced at Dresden, "believable."

"The real set was never together, not after the first time," Sophie told Koschei mildly. "The best way to keep a magical item from being tracked is to have it always on the move. Harry taught us that too." She grinned at him. "And your own magic to hide the items did the rest of the job." From her purse she pulled the egg, and pressed it lightly to the bottom of the frame.

The painted emerald brooch burst into radiant color, bright enough to dazzle everyone present for a moment. Sophie brought out the key and bit her lip. "Are you sure, Harry?"

"You won't damage it," the wizard assured her.

She lifted the key and put it lightly against the brooch. It sank into the light as if into a lock. The grifter tested it one way, then the other, and slid it around a quarter turn, then another, before pulling it out.

With it came a black velvet bag the size of a man's head, secured with a golden cord, weighted at the ends with cabochon diamonds, each as big as a quarter, one pure, one black. Eliot caught the bag by the strings before it could drop from the key. "Heavy," he commented, his expression full of uncertain anticipation.

Sophie reached for the bag, hesitated, reached again and then took a full step back. "Parker."

"Dresden," Nate added.

"Mister Act," Harry said at once.

"The hell d'yer want me for, wizard?" Classy exclaimed, caught completely by surprise.

"To find out if it's booby-trapped," the wizard replied evenly.

"… Oh."

The bag was set on a small lacquered table, and all three bend down to stare curiously at it. Classy sniffed it lightly. "Dust. Time. Magic. No poison, no bugs, nothin' that bites or stings." He leaned even closer and licked the black velvet, then spat off to one side. "Night's breath and rowan ash. Their power's wore off with time, 's nothing but crap tea and soot."

"No hexes, no curses," Harry agreed. At Classy's dictum he gingerly laid a gentle hand on the velvet, then pulled it back, wriggling his fingers.

"Don't trust me, wizard?" Classy challenged.

"I do," Dresden replied evenly, then shrugged in the direction of the bar. "But I just spend a whole evening sneaking suppression potions into people's drinks. I made sure not to get you or your people, but you say rowan ash and I get paranoid."

The Dredger stared at him open-mouthed before he started cackling. "The Witchwell. That's how you made it work."

Parker ran her hands smoothly over the rich velvet. "There's nothing here but the one thing." She untied the cord and reached in.

The jewel filled both her hands. The emerald was immense, the same vitriolic green of its owner's eyes, flawless, shaped into an oval and set into a frame of platinum that made one dizzy if stared at for too long. Parker turned it this way and that, held it up to the light. Behind her, Sophie breathed out in disbelief. The thief suddenly shuddered and put it down abruptly. "It's wriggling," she declared tightly.

Sophie put her fingertips to it. "The Emerald Heart of Koschei the Deathless," she murmured. She could just feel the faint tremors of a heartbeat against her skin. "It's real."

"And untouchable," Koschei told them smugly. "Go on. Ask mister Stone to break it. Ask Grandmother to grind it up in her mortar. Ask. You do not have the final key, you did not find it, did you. You cannot touch me."

"We did not find it," Nate admitted readily. "We're just conmen. But you brought a hero into the mix," he told the Russian wizard mildly. "And he did find it, rattling around inside a chicken bone. Or what, did you think when you stole it, that we somehow miraculously found another chicken bone with a needle in it?" The mastermind's tone suddenly went to lethal ice. "Dresden."

Without hesitation, Harry pulled off the pin secured to the top of his shirt and flicked off the little mirror shard at the top.

"You cannot kill me." Koschei's panicked voice was a wheeze. "Your Council will murder you for it."

Dresden seemed to consider that. "True. Hey, Fedorov -"

"Wait!" Koschei shrieked. "What do you want, you must want something, everyone wants something. There is always something!"

"There is," Nate agreed, and gestured to the painting. "Tonight you were going to lock Grandmother in there with your heart, and finally do what you couldn't pull off all those centuries ago. You'd taken all the tools she uses for her magic, the mortar, the pestle, the shawl - left her her house, though, that's nice of you." He nodded at the alkonost who curtsied gracefully back. "You were going to lock her in there, and let the curse on the heart do what it was always meant to do. Sell the painting and wash your hands of her fate while you stole her power. So, instead, you're going to step in that cage. We're going to throw your heart in with you and we're going to lock the door. And then that lovely lady over there," he pointed at Jessamine, "is going to take you back to her museum. And if you're lucky, by the time you get out, your heart will have left you enough magic to fill up a thimble." He leaned back, once again the harmless, slightly rumpled, friendly man he could pretend to be so flawlessly. "But you'll be alive, though."

"There must be something you want," Koschei croaked, his eyes gone to rolling green pebbles in his corpse-white face.

"Probably lots of things," Nate admitted. "But I know the difference between what I want and what I need. And since we dosed you with a full suppression potion before we started this conversation, I don't think you're in any shape to offer me either."

FORTY ONE

The Dredgers boxed up the portrait after Dresden pulled the keys back out, and Eliot and Parker carried it out for Jess. The hitter excused himself discreetly, and both young women stared uncomfortably at anything but one another in the dark next to the u-Haul van.

"So you're a thief?"

"Sort of."

"Were you gonna - 'cuz I mean. I never got that vibe from you, that you were using me to steal from me."

"No!" Parker exclaimed. "No, I was, I wanted to work with you, 'cuz it was fun, and you were fun, and we could make plans, and then take 'em apart, and that was so much fun and that's what you're supposed to do with friends, have fun, except now I ruined everything and, and-"

"Alright!" Jess threw her hands out to try and stave off the deluge. She chewed angrily on her lip. "You don't have a lot of friends, do you."

Parker shrugged. "You just met them all but one."

"Oh my gosh," Jess tugged on her curling hair. "I mean, I'm not saying it wasn't fun, but you lied to me. Like, big lies! Important lies!"

"I know. I just… You wouldn't have wanted to make friends with a thief."

"Well… No, I guess not."

"But it was fun?" Parker asked tentatively.

Jess, flustered, wriggled uncomfortably in place. "So what's your real name?"

"Parker."

"Parker what?"

"No, just Parker."

"Well, there goes your free membership," Jess told her sternly.

"Ok, that's fair," the thief agreed, crestfallen.

The silence lingered and grew.

"So you're an art thief."

"Thief-thief, mostly."

"You wouldn't happen to know, you know. The Dutch Gallery."

"I know who did it, but they don't have them anymore, they sold them."

Jess let out an irate little squeal, stomping a foot. "I don't suppose that you'd want to. Do like a. Counter… heist?"

Parker's glum expression shattered under a burst of sunny, delighted surprise. "Would I ever."

"Well, good!" Jess nodded stoutly, then offered a hand. "Hello. I'm Jessamine Lochlin, and I've got a proposition for you."

Parker reached out to shake the young curator's hand. "Hi. I'm Parker, and I'm all ears."

FORTY TWO

"Wizard."

I turned to find myself nose to chest with Stone. "Oh, good," I said in a tone that implied the golem's presence was anything but.

"We made a bargain, you and I, back at the boat-house. That the building is no longer there is not a valid excuse to welsh on it."

"I'm not welshing on it. I'm just not keeping up all that well with local events. The boat-house's gone?"

"You tore multiple holes into the building and then called up a tidal wave, wizard," Stone gave me a look as deadpan as his tone. "What did you expect would happen to it?"

I shrugged. I hadn't exactly been planning ahead beyond getting rid of the zmei. "Come with me. Hey, Ford, a word?"

The mastermind turned to look at me, then up at the golem. "I don't know that I have the energy to deal with your friends tonight, Dresden," he declared wearily.

"Well, you're in luck because this one actually is a friend. Did Eliot and Hardison ever talk to you about the moonlighting I did with them?"

"Yes, briefly. But they also mentioned it was not likely to happen again once you go home."

"To you, no. You're human. But it occurs to me, what if you had a group of non-humans doing what you do?"

Ford opened his mouth. He said nothing, closed it. Looked up at Stone.

"I don't follow," the golem admitted.

"Ford and his people run a small operation. Very neat, very tidy, very challenging," I explained, hoping the mastermind would catch the emphasis on the last word.

"We help people," Ford jumped in. "We help people who have lost the war. We come into a situation when the odds are entirely against us. When our customers have had hope and spirit crushed out of them by companies, by governments, by forces that seem too big, to powerful for any one person to challenge, let alone defeat. Our monsters aren't solid," he gestured at the painting, "but they are real. And so are the challenges."

The golem looked most definitely intrigued. "I don't see how this applies to me. Are you offering me a job?"

"Not exactly," Ford demurred. "You see, while we were working on Grandmother's case, a couple of people approached us. One was a seal-woman."

"Looking for her skin?"

"Looking for her fourteen-year-old daughter's skin."

The golem straightened up sharply. "Was it found?"

I liked him for asking that question. Never mind what he might say about ethics or morals, Stone still had, somewhere under the granite exterior, an awareness of right and wrong.

"We did, and we also managed to sneak in some information to the authorities that won't compromise any other potential seal-women out there, but that will make the lives of the men involved very, very difficult." Nate gestured. "Abstract enemy. Lost fight. We still pulled a win. But… they aren't going to come to us anymore."

"You're human," the golem said thoughtfully.

"You aren't," the mastermind pointed out. "We could, in theory, provide you with the infrastructure, with training, with advice come from our experience fighting these fights. While you, and your team, can reach out to Boston's supernatural community in a way we can't. You can provide them with the… leverage they lack."

Stone was silent a long, long time, looking deeply thoughtful. "I have no team. I would not involve my security people in this matter. They are good at what they do, but that is very much all they are good at."

"Can I make a suggestion about that?" I raised my hand.

"This was your idea and your bargain, wizard. Suggest."

"Nick!"

The shark, who'd been demolishing what was left of the buffet, came trotting over. "Wizard! Tell me you have more fights to offer. This has been the best night since I came to your world."

"No," Stone said stiffly.

"Uh, well, you know," Ford spoke before I could. "Nick's the one who sniffed out Dresden for the seal-woman. He's been nothing but good about following directions tonight, on nearly no notice. And you know he'll never be afraid to call you out if he thinks you're going about a job the wrong way." His eyes strayed to Sophie. "Personal experience talking here, that is incredibly important to the job."

Stone looked down at the niuhi, frowning. Nick beamed up at him, then at me. "Lots of seal-women out there who need help, Nick," I told him casually. "Lots of other people, too, and no one's helping them."

The shark snorted. "You think I could help anyone, wizard? Biting makes as many problems as it solves!"

"Untrue," Stone said. "Biting can absolutely solve many problems without creating more, as long as they are the right problems."

"I'm not very good at telling the difference."

The golem sighed. "I am." He faced Ford. "Perhaps we should speak after all, you and the shark and I."

The three of them walked away and I breathed a sigh of relief. Was the night over yet? I wanted nothing more than a blessedly hot shower, a fresh change of clothes, and a bed, any bed. Maybe just a couch. A sleeping bag. Or a couple of blank-

"You got somethin' of mine, wizard."

I turned. Classy had approached me alone, and I knew his people well enough to recognize the respect and deference he was showing me. Unfortunately, that didn't help me understand what he was saying, and I stared at him with what I knew was a blank, dumb expression on my face. "I do?"

The Dredger stopped playing with the thin silver chain he'd loaned Ford to contain Koschei. It looked like nothing but a silvery piece of jewelry in his hands. He cocked a brow at me. "Ford said you had it."

"He did?"

Classy peered curiously at my face, and broke into low snickers. "Long night, wizard?"

I could only groan in reply. "I feel like I've been put through a wringer and run over a few miles of bad road until all the soft bits are raw -" It hit me then, with the unpleasant mental image. "Oh, I do have something of yours!"

"There you are, found the one thinky bit ain't fallin' down tired," the Dredger cheered me on as I groped around inside my trenchcoat.

"You guys coming out alright out of this one?"

"Well enough." He shrugged, then pointed to where Sophie was having an animated conversation with his people. "Learning about this thing called a Zanzibar market. Humans are fuckin' brilliant, wizard. You think you got one up on them and they're a fucking dozen steps ahead already. Ah, there's my beauty."

I handed over the Burning Witchwell. "You know the thing's nearly empty, right?"

"I know. Blackbird promised he'd empty it for us, lying crow's arsehole. Ain't in the business of killing me own fuckin' customers, wizard. The Witchwell's what I want, not the poison innit."

"Well, hell, if that's all you want I can empty it for you."

"Right?" The Dredger brightened up. "What's yer fee?"

"You know the Bag of Winds Ying Ying Amarin wanted?"

He grinned and winked at me. "You want a stitch or three should come loose on it?"

"That sounds perfect, unless it's gonna get you in trouble."

He cackled. "Caveat emptor, wizard. We're Dredgers. We find what's not to be found. We get into places and things we don't got no business puttin' our hands an' our mouths an' our teeth on. Ain't no one better'n us at what we do. You do business with us at your own risk an' peril." He gave me a yellow-toothed grin and offered me a hand to shake.

I took it without hesitation. "You mind if I do it tomorrow after I get enough sleep to maybe not kill myself and everyone else around?"

He laughed merrily and walked away.

FORTY THREE

The morning of the day after the party broke sunny, warm and beautiful, the sort that promised a hot, breezy summer noon, a perfect day to head down to the beach. Boston stirred under the clattering of the T and the scent of hundreds of little coffee shops, and the tidal wave was no longer the biggest bit of news.

Nate and Hardison met Stone on the steps of the Back Bay Station. Hardison handed the golem the spider's phone. Stone, once again dressed impeccably in a custom-tailored turtleneck and dress slacks, took it with care and tapped his thumb lightly on it. His surprise when the screen actually lit up was very obvious. "I was unaware such a thing was possible," he admitted. "You're giving me a very rare treasure, mister Hardison."

"You're gonna need it. At least until you can get a different setup. You can do tech and magic, you just gotta be willing to, you know. Compromise."

"You do understand this is temporary?" Nate told the golem. "We're not going to handhold you. You don't answer to us. We'll help you set up, but the job's yours, you and your people."

Stone seemed to think very carefully on his answer. "I have worked for someone or another for nearly all of my existence," he explained. "My security firm is the first attempt I have ever made at others working for me, and yet… it was still me, working for someone else. I think this opportunity you offer me, mister Ford - I think it is everything the wizard promised." He smiled thinly. "And I do have the shark to keep me honest."

Nate couldn't help but be a little amused at that. "In that case, here's something to remember today by." He handed over the plain plastic chess tower.

Stone stared at it, then pocketed it. "It will be kept safe as long as I can do such a thing."

Across the Concourse, Harry Dresden, professional wizard, was staring at the growing rivers of people coming and going, a trickle quickly turning into a flood. Boston was beautiful, alive, a city as worthy of attention and devotion as any other.

He couldn't wait to go home.

"Wizard," Classy's rough voice called out, and Harry turned. The Dredger, flanked by two of his people, came up to the wizard sedately, blinking a bit in the bright morning light. The wizard offered him the wrapped-up bundle of the Witchwell, sans duct-tape; Classy dug the small cylinder out and shook it. "Not a fuckin' drop. You do good work, wizard."

"Well, you know. When someone's not trying to kill me."

Classy chuckled. "All said, I'm glad this ain't your turf. Don't fancy the fight if we had to go up against you."

"Nicest thing anyone's said about me in a while," Harry assured the Dredger, and they shook hands. "Stay alive, mister Act."

"Same, mister Dresden. Safe travels and all that crap." The Dredgers turned and walked away, pausing briefly to nod politely at Sophie as they crossed paths.

The grifter was leading Parker and Eliot, and she hugged Harry without hesitation. "Oh, I feel like we ought to keep you here for a month, just to give all those bruises a chance to heal," she protested mildly.

"Believe me, I'm going home in one piece. That's more than I usually get," Harry assured her sheepishly.

"I really did mean it, you know. You were only supposed to be a consultant."

"I did consult," he replied with a lopsided grin. "This is the easiest consulting I've ever done. You told me everything I needed to know, you let me sleep, you fed me. Watered me. Watered me a lot." She had to grin at that. "Hot showers every day, dang. Doesn't get much better than that."

She pulled away, and Eliot offered his hand. "It's all the hot showers, huh?"

"I have no idea what your water heater's made of, but you should invest in the company."

Eliot, who wasn't about to tell Harry the water heaters at both the loft and the safehouse had been replaced three times, merely beamed at the wizard as they shook hands. "Sir."

"Sir."

"You're a good man, Harry. Violence doesn't make you a bad man." He shrugged a little. "It's just a thing we have to do sometimes. You're not responsible for other people's choices, no one is but them."

The wizard's grin stuttered. "You make it sound like it's easy."

"Hardest thing in the world, my man," the hitter admitted. "Because you gotta convince yourself of it every day, every time you get up and look in the mirror. Just remember: forehead to nose, not nose to nose."

"Elbow, not wrist," Harry repeated dutifully, his grin returning. "Or I just hit them with magic really, really hard."

Eliot laughed. "Or that." He bent down to ruffle Mouse's ears and ruff roughly, much to the young dog's delight, while Parker came to stand before Harry.

"Are you really going to be alright?"

"I mean, I'm probably gonna get some version of yelled at for not reporting the Blackbird thing," he admitted, punctiliously honest with her as he'd tried to be all along. "Are you? With Jess, I mean?"

"Oh, yeah, we're good. We're gonna be - we've got plans. We're good. Harry? Thank for you asking."

"Thank you for accepting me. Me, and what I am."

"But it's magic," she protested. "Who wouldn't?"

The wizard didn't say anything, he merely cut his gaze to one side. She turned and looked. "Oh. Right."

Nate and Hardison joined the little group, and the hacker offered his hand with a grin. "Mister Hacker," he said solemnly.

A snort of laughter burst out of Harry, and he offered his hand. "Mister Wizard," he replied.

"I am," Hardison agreed. "And you are. You know, I had the theory in my head, the thought that we were just two sides of the same coin. I'm glad I was right."

"I am super envious of everything you can accomplish," Dresden admitted readily. "Let's start there. But mostly I'm also so mad that we can't do more. If you ever figure out how we can work together without me frying all your equipment, I'll be the first one there."

"Holding you to that, Dresden."

"You bet."

Nate stared very levelly at the wizard. Harry stared just as levelly back.

"Walk with me, Dresden."

"My train -"

"- doesn't leave until Hardison lets it."

The two men walked across one edge of the Concourse, with the mastermind lost in thought. After a few moments, he reached into his jacket and offered Harry a plain white envelope. "Your pay. Plus incidentals, and so on."

"Jeez," Harry stared at the envelope, then pocketed it inside his duster. "Thank you."

Nate stopped and turned to face the wizard. "You did magic."

"I did."

The mastermind shook his head. "You know, after the MFA, Sophie was explaining it to me. She described it as being sheep in a pen facing a man with a shotgun."

"It's not… entirely wrong. But also not completely right."

"No?"

Dresden smiled thinly. "Sometimes the sheep have shotguns, too."

Nate made a faintly amused sound. "Sometimes the sheep hire a wizard."

"And now you know where ninety percent of my work comes from. Congratulations, another puzzle solved," Dresden teased.

"Yes, but -"

"But you don't like the shape of it?" The wizard shrugged. "Neither does most of the world. Give it time, Ford. In a few months you'll be looking for explanations, twisting your memories into things that fit your reality better. In a year you won't think twice about it."

"You make it sound so easy."

"That's because I've seen it happen most of my adult life, and all of my professional life."

Nate thought very carefully on that. "I don't like that. I don't like thinking that the only way this works is if I lie to myself. I'm not interested in being comfortable, or I wouldn't do what I do. I don't want, I don't need the world to be in order, Dresden. I need it to be fair."

"That's our job, not the world's," the wizard replied simply. "We make it fair."

Nate chewed on that. "So it is."

"Besides, I doubt Parker's gonna let you forget that magic's a thing that happens. And hell, there's Sophie right there with you, Ford. If you don't look at her and see what she does is magic, I'm not sure I can help you. I'm not sure anyone can."

That did make the mastermind grin, however crookedly. He turned and offered his hand. "Pleasure doing business with you, mister Dresden. Can I add your number to our Rolodex?"

Harry shook it amicably. "Absolutely. Unless it's Portland."

"Worse than Boston?" They started walking back to the team.

"You have no idea. Besides, you'd have local help there if you needed it."

"Another wizard?"

"No." Harry gestured vaguely, as if to organize his thoughts before he spoke. "Do you happen to know what a Grimm is?"

[hekateinhell]

Tell me abt preggers armand please. I have a fic im working on and need 2 hear other peoples opinions on this topic 😈

🥹🥹🥹

okay so first of all i'm so upset i didn't see this ask until i checked my askbox on my phone which i almost NEVER do anymore since i'm getting old and prefer to just answer things via laptop where i can keyboard smash at full capacity raw and unfiltered but like MY DMS ARE OPEN I'M NOT ALWAYS THE FASTEST RESPONDER BECAUSE I'M IN GRAD SCHOOL AND LIFE AND WHATEVER BUT I DON'T TRUST TUMBLR ANYMORE BECAUSE I DIDN'T SEE THIS UNTIL YESTERDAY ON DESKTOP TUMBLR PLS DON'T DEPRIVE ME OF MY PEOPLE

now that that's out of the way:

it depends! you have to be more specific, like are we talking vampires? human AU? BECAUSE I'VE GOT SOMETHING FOR EACH

canon verse/vampire:

don't ask me to explain the science or whatever lol i don't care, i just skip to the pregnancy part!

i think armand would be SO FUCKING FERAL and defensive, like he's lost so much and been so traumatized in so many ways, the idea of anything happening to his baby would have him in full gremlin mode. imagine a feral cat hissing and spitting and clawing and biting (not for food but for violence)!

on the other hand, he'd be obsessively bonded to his baby daddy (daddies, if there's multiple babies). he is not letting them out of his sight (i default to lestat here LMAO listen i want them to knock each other up so bad--separate universes obviously)

HE WOULD NEST SO FUCKING HARD!!! i was going to say i apologize for my brain but then i realized that i don't actually but i want him to nest on a pile of lestat's clothes and give birth right there like a fucking cat 🥹

ALTERNATIVELY THOUGH: i also had this idea that's like louis impregnates lestat and armand at the same time and they get to go through their pregnancies together and it's every bit as horny, hellish, and sweet as you'd imagine 🫶🏻 i've said it before and i'll say it again--lestat would be the WORST pregnant person ever dead or alive!!

now for human AUs:

i guess my thoughts here primarily but not exclusively exist within the same universe as I Feel You (sorry idk if you read that fic but tl;dr- IT'S PWP OF TRANS!ARMAND 2/3RDS OF THE WAY INTO GETTING A TRAIN RUN ON HIM BY HIS BOYFRIENDS LESTAT, LOUIS, AND DANIEL AND HE'S YOUNG DUMB AND FULL OF CUM SO YOU KNOW IT'S JUST A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE HE'S GOTTA PEE ON A STICK RIP BOYS)

i think each of his boyfriends would handle the whole thing differently! lestat would be so over the moon because he's careless (clearly) but also so damaged from his own childhood he would just see it as a chance for a do-over, reality and responsibility be damned. lestat's on sex and backrub duty, and he's good at it (the backrubs i mean, sex is a 50/50 but you know what, at least he's enthusiastic and good at manhandling armand so that's 70% of it right now and the 30% is absolutely ridiculous horny pregnancy hormones)

louis panics internally as he immediately starts creating a spreadsheet of their finances. outwardly though, he's very calm and supportive and he's the one who's most able to comfort armand the most and settle him down during his crazy mood swings. armand basically lives in louis's baggy sweaters during the last trimester

daniel panics outwardly (listen LOL the whole premise of Our House is that human!daniel molloy is not ready for children and i find it hard to budge from that mindset, but he could ease into the Cool Uncle role quite nicely). he handles distractions and food cravings, and he might not be down to be a dad yet but he does buy very thoughtful and sentimental baby gifts every now and then that make armand tear up

i was gonna add mermaid AU thoughts but then i remembered armand's laying eggs instead (he's feral during that whole process too so i guess it's similar to the vampire version. i just love him so much okay!!!)

OH ONE LAST VERY IMPORTANT THING

pregnant!armand fics on ao3 I'M CRAZY ABOUT AND HAVE REREAD AT LEAST 10 TIMES:

shelter by @rainbowcarousels

it must be the clouds in my eyes and everything in that series by @its-ness-ness

[staceymcgillicuddy]

Day 2: Fake Dating

Eddie hates dealing at frat parties. Except, strike the “dealing at” part, and it’s a more accurate summation of his feelings about frats in general. 

Don’t get him wrong; he has no problem with regular college kids. Isn’t one—thanks, single semester of community college that sent him screaming for the exit—but finds them a valuable source of income as a loser townie with no prospects outside of shifting weed and pills for whoever’ll buy them. 

Frat parties, on the other hand, contain the lowest forms of life. Sweaty, drunken idiot manchildren, high on their own sense of superiority, so why the fuck do they need the weed? Probably gonna legislate against it when they’re the Senators and Governors and Fuckadillos running Indiana, and Eddie’s still selling ditch weed to teenagers.

But his van needs a new muffler, and his amp has a new hiss and pop, and the trailer’s heating isn’t working anymore, so there he is. Baggies in his pocket and a fake smile on his face as he negotiates a sale with Satan’s perfect idiot, otherwise known as this fuckin’ guy, otherwise known as Andy, he thinks. He’s not sure; he never really learns their names.

Cute girls at this party, at least. He enjoys the view between customers, having dismissed Andy with a wave. 

Very cute tonight, actually. One in particular. Blonde. Bouncy. He’s seen her before—sold her a joint last time, maybe. There’s a smile on her face as she heads his direction, and now that she’s closer, he sees it’s less a smile and more a rictus grimace. This girl looks pissed, and suddenly she’s got an arm around his waist, and he can smell booze on her breath, and she whispers, “please just play along.” 

“Uh.” Eddie looks down at her, this short little thing with her fingers clamped like a vice to his side. “What?” 

“Chrissy!” 

The name is shouted sharply over the din by someone silhouetted on the stairs, and the girl—Chrissy—stiffens. 

“Look, sweetheart,” he says, and she’s cute, but he has rules for a reason. “I’m not looking to get beat up by your boyfriend—”

“Not my boyfriend. We broke up a month ago. I told him I had a date, and he said to prove it. You were the first person I saw, and you’re nice and… please? I won’t let him hurt you.”

Fuck. He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. But she said he was nice. Nice! 

“Chrissy!” echoes again, and she tucks her head against his chest.

Yeah, alright. She smells good, she thinks he’s nice, and Eddie’s a simple man. Besides, it’s been a while since he got punched by a frat boy. 

Thanks again to @amandaashplease for wrangling these!

Check out my fic on AO3 or follow me on Tumblr for more.

[autisticlancemcclain]

full fic masterlist 2

most of these are over 1000 words, stand on their own, and are posted to ao3. any major warnings will be stated. apparently tumblr only allows 100 links per post, so here’s the second list. i imagine there will be more.

cleanse me with fire ‘cause I am the prodigal daughter ch 1 ch 2 [ao3]

an apple somewhere (in somebody’s eyes) [ao3]

your touch was a dream (your absence a nightmare) [ao3]

why does my heart cry (feelings i can’t fight) ch1 ch 2 [ao3]

how long will I need you? (as long as the seasons need to follow their plan) [ao3]

but you're tracin' every line of my tattoos (wastin' all our time in your bedroom) [ao3]

i found myself a cheerleader (always right there when i need ya) [ao3]

call up all our friends (go hard this weekend) [ao3]

does anyone know where the love of god goes (when the waves turn the minutes to hours) [ao3]

so wake me up when it’s all over (when i’m wiser and i’m older) [ao3]

i’d sell my own bones for sapphire stones (’cause blue is your favourite colour) [ao3]

the more that i push him away (the more that he’s stuck in my brain) [ao3]

sit with me (in the silence) [ao3]

you give me cause for love that i can’t hide (for you i know i’d even try to turn the tide) [ao3]

candy crush [ao3]

starboy [ao3]

though i may speak (some tongue of old) [ao3]

little shoes, little socks (please, kill me, i’m serious) [ao3]

i sit by myself (talking to the moon) [ao3]

that’s my best friend (if you need a freak) [ao3]

don’t you worry about the distance (i’m right there if you get lonely) [ao3]

cat and mouse for a month (or two or three) [ao3]

that’s what you get (for waking up in vegas) [ao3]

did i mention (that i’m in love with you) [ao3]

he’s told us not to blow it (’cause he knows it’s all worthwhile) [ao3]

romeo, romeo (wherefore art thou romeo) [ao3]

i know it’s pretty stupid (but i’m much too shy to tell him) [ao3]

i’m gonna buy you flowers (and hold your hands) [ao3]

when the working day is done (girls just wanna have fun) [ao3]

you break down my walls (with the strength of your love) [ao3]

you with the dark curls (you with the watercolour eyes) [ao3]

you’re from a whole ‘nother world (a different dimension) ch 1 ch 2 [ao3]

now will it matter (after i’m gone) ch 1 ch 2 [ao3]

pullin’ pigtails [ao3]

if the sky comes falling down (for you) there’s nothing in this world i wouldn’t do [ao3]

good luck charms [ao3]

taste test [ao3]

and if i may just take your breath away (i don’t mind if there’s not much to say) [ao3]

as the world (as my world) caves in [ao3]

you got my heart (you got my mind) ch 1 ch 2 [ao3]

it started with a whisper (and that was when i kissed ya) [ao3]

he was a skater boy (he said see you later boy) [ao3]

what’s the worst that i can say? (things are better if i stay) [ao3]

they’ve got the bad boy (on the run) [ao3]

ain’t no river wide enough (to keep me from getting to you, babe) ch 1 ch 2 [ao3]

we’ll play nintendo (thought i always lose) [ao3]

when does a ripple become a tidal wave (when does the reason become the blame) [ao3]

so, darling (save the last dance for me) [ao3]

shots of patron (and it’s on) [ao3]

you’re the most presumin’ dog (that a human could know)  ch 2 [ao3]

brought you to tears again (we are the very hurt you sold) [ao3]

summer dreams, ripped at the seams (but oh, those summer nights) [ao3]

let the stars keep you here (many decapheobes more) [ao3]

i’ve said too much (you promise i can’t ever say enough) [ao3]

how shall i win back your heart (which was mine) [ao3]

no one knows (how hard i tried) [ao3]

however big, however small (let me be part of it all) [ao3]

i know it’s only human nature (to survive) [ao3]

if we can count on you (scoubidou) [ao3]

but someday i’ll be perfect (and i’ll make up for it all) [ao3]

how can i help it (if i think you’re funny when you’re mad) [ao3]

at the same time i wanna hug you (i wanna wrap my hands around your neck) [ao3]

don’t leave me like this (i thought i had you figured out) [ao3]

made my decision (to test your limits) [ao3]

to ten million fireflies (i’m weird cause i hate goodbyes) [ao3]

and i’ll be lmho with the rest (’cause idk what’s coming next) [ao3]

maybe when i’m older it’ll all calm down (but it’s killin’ me now) [ao3]

i want your drama (the touch of your hand) [ao3]

by your side (i’ll be with you) [ao3]

so go on let the rain pour (i’ll be all you need and more) [ao3]

and the words are stuck in my throat (but you hear them anyway) [ao3]

i wanna dig in your heart (take away your hurting) [ao3]

and you know that i know (that i can’t live without you) [ao3]

hands gripping my collar (fingers twisted in my hair) [ao3]

tonight all the monsters gonna dance (we’re comin’ to get you) [ao3]

hey soul sister (i don’t want to miss ya) [ao3]

if you promise not to cry (i’ll tell you just what i would say) [ao3]

seeking faith and speaking words (i’d never thought i’d say) [ao3]

i should be playing in the winter snow (but i’ma be under the mistetoe) [ao3]

my ballerina (sway me side to side) [ao3]

if i say jump, you just say "how high?" i think you might love me to death pt 2 pt 3 [ao3]

you and me (and the kid makes three) [ao3]

[lovebugs-and-snakecharmers]

LBSC Sprint Challenge May 2023

The LBSC Sprint Challenge is now open for writers and artists! The prompts are:

1. Luka, coming home with something expensive: "Okay before you say anything I just want to remind you how much you spent on fabric last month." Marinette, Not Buying It: "Before YOU say anything I would like to remind you that invoice was for YOUR stage costume." 2. Marinette making a wedding dress, maybe for a competition or showcase or something, and has to try it on. Orders takeout because she's working late. Cue Luka delivering the takeout & Marinette answering the door in the dress. (Luka proposes on the spot.) 3. Motorcycle riding class meet cute 4. Things I didn’t expect to be explaining to a two year old: 1. Traffic laws, 2. Punctuation, 3. Why she can smell chocolate on my breath when she didn’t get any 5. “I got 99 problems and you cuddling me could solve all of them.” 6. Wildcard - pick any of the prompts available from our sister blog, @mlweeklyprompts, or any previous challenge prompt.

You have until Wednesday, May 31 to complete your 3 15-minute sprints/45 minute art sprint and post the results. Once you’ve completed the sprints, you have 24 hours to edit (which can include some new writing to smooth transitions and make it feel complete, and whatever work you feel appropriate to get your art to a state you consider ‘finished’).

Please note you may sprint in the language of your choice, and you can either translate the final fic before posting, post it in the original language, or both as you choose. You can join us on the LBSC discord or sprint on your own! Just be sure to tag @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers in your final post so we will see it and reblog it. The rest of the rules can be found here under the cut.

Rules!

We’ll post a beginning and end date to the challenge, and a prompt.

Writers, If you choose to participate in the event, write for that prompt in up to three 15 minute sprints. No writing outside the sprints until you have completed all three! After the 3 sprints are complete, you have 24 hours to edit (which can include some new writing to smooth transitions, etc). You can also choose to break that 45 minutes up differently if you find a different split works better for you.  After those 24 hours, post what you’ve got. Tag your posts with @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers so we can reblog it to the LBSC blog. If you post your work on AO3 or somewhere other than Tumblr, you can leave a link in our ask box or in the appropriate discord channel so we can be sure to promote it. After the designated challenge end date, we’ll compile a listing of the submissions and post it to the LBSC blog.

Feel free to sprint in whatever language is most comfortable to you! You can post it in your own language or translate it before posting, or both!

Artists, you have 45 minutes to sketch and 24 hours to do any cleanup or coloring you’d like to complete. You can split your 45 minutes up however you like, or not at all. There’s no requirements on your finished piece, just aim for whatever goal seems challenging but achievable to you.  Tag your posts with @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers so we can reblog it to the LBSC blog. If you post your work on Instagram or somewhere other than Tumblr, you can leave a link in our ask box or in the appropriate discord channel so we can be sure to promote it. After the designated challenge end date, we’ll compile a listing of the submissions and post it to the LBSC blog.

If you’re wavering as to whether or not you think you can accomplish anything in 45 minutes, we really encourage you to give the challenge a try. You may be surprised what you can do! Feel free to join us in the discord linked above so we can encourage and cheer you on.

Obviously, this has to run a bit on the honor system and we won’t be tracking your times, but please do your best to honor the spirit of the challenge! If your sprint fic becomes an Entire Thing (these things happen sometimes) and you want to continue it, feel free! However, please still post whatever you’ve got after your 3 sprints with the tag. No fair busting out a fully polished fic or art without showing us what it looked like at the challenge stage!

We want to keep this a positive space and event! This does NOT mean that you can’t write or draw anything critical of a character or episode, but it isn’t the space for character bashing or hate either. Please keep the characters in character and save the more speculative work for another time. NSFW sprint works are permitted but must be tagged appropriately (please use “NSFW LBSC sprint challenge” for easy filtering on the blog) and with appropriate warnings.  (More FAQ about the process here)

This is a Lukanette blog and a Lukanette event, so while Lukanette does not need to be the main ship, it needs to at least be included or referenced and considered endgame (in other words, they don’t have to be together by the end of your work, but the intent is that they’re headed in that direction). The decision about what qualifies for reblog rests solely with the LBSC moderators. If a piece hasn’t been reblogged within a couple of days, either the mods felt the piece didn’t meet the criteria or it was simply missed; you are welcome to reach out in the asks to inquire which. There are plenty of other spaces out there for other ships and OT3s, and people are welcome to use the challenge rules and prompts to write for their own ships! They just won’t be reblogged to the LBSC blog, and we ask that you please not use the event tag (a modified form is fine - “InsertAlternateShipName sprint challenge” instead of “LBSC sprint challenge,” for example).

Happy sprinting!

[solalunar-eclipse]

Strings Neither Green Nor Red

Chapter title: Blue Mending (Magson I. Addison)

AO3 Link

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Spamton belongs to Toby Fox, all other characters belong to @brightgoat on Tumblr and Twitter.

“Thank you all for meeting here on such short notice.” Mags said tersely, surveying the other three members of his department from his seat. Pay was sitting in the chair next to him, his back ramrod straight and his hands folded tightly in his lap. Click was lounging in a chair across the table, inspecting the tips of his fingers in a clear show of boredom, while Video was leaning back precariously in his own seat next to Click, keeping himself balanced with only one hand.

“Now then, I would like to ask you two specifically, Video and Click, about your…strange behavior lately.”

Vid rocked his chair back into all four legs with a loud slam, making Pay jump. The yellow Addison rested his elbows on the table casually, seemingly unperturbed.

“What’re you talking about? I’d say we’ve been more normal than ever!” Video said lightly.

“Yes,” Mags replied through gritted teeth, “but there is absolutely no reason for this to have happened. It doesn’t make sense, is what I’m getting at.”

“Makes perfect sense to me!” Vid chirped annoyingly. “Didn’t you ever think I just finally got used to things as they are, instead of how I wanted them to be?”

“Well, see, I don’t buy that. But even if you’re telling the truth, this sudden of a change—that has zero explanation—would really only happen if you know something I don’t, right?” Mags said, refusing to dance around the topic for even one second. 

At that, Click stepped in, putting a hand on Video’s arm carefully. “But you’re the one who takes care of all the things like files and information these days, correct?” he asked, his voice saccharinely sweet. “If that’s the case, and you’re in control of everything, how could we know something you don’t?”

The blue Addison’s hands curled into fists on the table, trembling. “Information doesn’t just come in files, you know. It can come through words, actions…or people…”

Mags could see that they both knew that he might know. It showed in Vid’s expression of poorly-masked fear and Click’s determination. “Well then, if you’re so interested in our supposed sources, why don’t you just say what you’re getting at?” the latter said, his voice eerily calm. “Be honest here, don’t hide behind little wordplay games.”

“Have you been talking to Spamton?” Mags snapped.

Video’s grip tightened on the table to the point where its surface began to splinter. “You don’t get to say that name anymore.” he snarled, his eyes flaring with yellow electricity.

Mags felt a shock run through him as his suspicions were confirmed.

“Vid, please, wait just a moment—!” Pay cried, but it was Click who stopped him before he could charge at the blue Addi. 

“Don’t.” he said quietly. “This isn’t how you gain the upper hand.”

“Since when do liars have the upper hand at all?” Mags cried, his expression furious. “How long have you been hiding this from me?!”

Click looked over at him. “I don’t think that’s the question you should be asking. The real question is, why didn’t we tell you about this?”

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll play along. Why didn’t you tell me about this?” the blue Addison asked, rolling his eyes.

“Vid?” Click said, turning the answer over to him.

Video looked Mags in the eye, but aside from that, he was completely, uncharacteristically still. “Because I don’t trust you to watch out for us anymore.” he said, his voice broken and tired.

Mags reeled backwards, stunned. “What? But all I’ve ever been doing is—”

“Watching out for yourself.” Video said firmly, his fury returning in full force. “You told me you didn’t care if I left, you threw away Spamton like he was nothing, all because you were so scared of someone on the other end of a phone! Aren’t blue Addis supposed to help the people in their departments? Is that really what you’ve been doing all this time, Mags?”

The blue Addison found himself unable to speak, shaken by Vid’s words. That…wasn’t what he’d expected to hear.

“All I’ve ever been trying to do was keep everyone safe! I was fighting for our jobs—for our lives—and that meant I needed to do what had to be done!” he shot back, but his voice sounded weak even to his own ears.

“What had to be done?” Vid exploded, pained tears welling up in his eyes. “Are we all really that expendable to you?! That…that unimportant??”

…what?

Up until this very moment, Mags had thought he knew what his role was in life. Blue Addisons were always supposed to help ease any interpersonal difficulties in their personal workplace. Whether it was an overly uptight Orange, a hyperactive Yellow, or a truly messed-up Pink, Blues were there to smooth out the rough patches and get everyone working together. It was their purpose (aside from sales), their reason for being.

They weren’t supposed to be the catalyst for fights. The fact that Click and Vid had formed an alliance opposed to him and Pay with the sole purpose of doing what they probably thought was defending Spamton from him rocked him to his very core. 

Whether or not he had actually been in the wrong, his attempts to salvage this department seemed to have—driven them apart further, but—

He was a blue Addison! He couldn’t be a danger to his own department!

…except…Vid and Click thought he already was……

Mags had never felt so alone in his life.

“Oh, God.” he breathed, pressing a hand to his mouth. “Oh my god, you—you really feel that way? But I…all I ever wanted was…”

“Whoa, hey, easy there!” Vid cried, his rage melting away at the sight of the blue Addi’s face. He dashed around the table and hovered around Mags nervously. “Geez, man, you look like you’re gonna pass out!”

“I...” he whispered. “I…I don’t…I just…”

“Uh, guys?” Video said nervously, his voice sounding far away and muffled. “I think he’s, like, going into shock or something.”

…

The next thing Mags became aware of was a mug of his favorite tea being pressed into his hands. A blanket was draped around his shoulders, and he was somehow sitting in the living room, even though last he remembered, he’d definitely been at his dinner table.

“What…?” he murmured. “How did I….”

“Hey, hey, can you hear us?” Vid said, leaning into his field of vision. “You back with us now, Mags?”

“What do you mean, ‘back with you’?” he asked, confused.

Pay sat down on his other side, his smile pained. “It’s a phenomenon that isn’t very well-documented, but I’ve heard about it before. Essentially, you tried to process too much at once and then shut down because of it. You were completely unresponsive to anything we said or did for—” he checked the time— “approximately fifteen minutes. However, you were still physically mobile, as evidenced by the fact that we were able to bring you over here without having to forcibly move you.”

“It was really creepy.” Click said, from his position on the other couch. “You were just staring off into space without moving or blinking or anything.”

Mags shuddered. “The last thing I remember is Video talking to me in the dining room…and then nothing.”

Pay frowned. “Well, it might be best if you exercise caution when thinking about…whatever it was you were thinking about before it happened. We don’t want you to experience a second shutdown—that doesn’t seem healthy.”

“What was I…?” Mags tried to recall what had caused it—and then paled. 

“What did I just say?!” Pay cried. “Don’t think too hard about it!”

“But I—I—” he stammered, his hands shaking enough that some tea spilled over the brim of his mug.

“Hey, look at me, okay, Mags?” Video said gently. “Just look at me.”

The blue Addison could barely bring himself to do it, fear of what he might see weighing him down. But when he looked up, all he saw was concern and kindness in Vid’s eyes.

“How did you do it?” Mags said weakly. “How did you keep caring about him and keep going, even after losing him?”

Video blinked, surprised. “It hurt. A lot. Especially since it felt like I was the only one for so long. And I’m not gonna say I did it well—you saw my sales drop! But not caring would’ve felt worse, because for me it would’ve meant abandoning someone who meant the world to me.”

Mags sighed. “I felt like…I either could keep caring or make sure everybody was safe. So I tried to do both, kind of—care about the people I could protect and not worry about those I couldn’t. But…I think I hurt you all because I was so scared of being hurt again. He was…someone I cared about. So much. And when he was gone, I knew I had to make sure it’d never happen again, no matter what it took. That way we and our livelihoods would be safe.

“I didn’t know I was doing it wrong. I didn’t know…I was making the problem worse. Because if you’d been Called, either of you…” He looked up at Video and Click. “You wouldn’t have told me, would you? You’d have listened to the person on the other end.”

Neither of them could meet his eyes.

Mags shuddered, cold terror creeping through his whole body. “I thought I was saving us…doing what was right despite everyone fighting me…but we were so close to ruin, weren’t we? We were so close to losing it all.” 

“But we haven’t lost it yet.” Vid said, putting an arm around Mags’s shoulders. “It’d be pretty tough and really awkward, but I think we can fix this.”

“How?” the blue Addison asked weakly.

“Look at us now!” Video gestured around the room. “We all put everything aside and helped you when you needed it, right?”

“You…you did.” Mags said, sitting up a little straighter. “Thank you.”

“But right now, I think there’s someone out there who needs all four of us to help him.” Video continued, their eyes flashing with determination.

“He needs us?” Pay said, his voice quiet and small.

“Pay, I don’t know exactly what he’s been through, but I know it’s been rough.” Video said emphatically. “And he spent all that time thinking every last one of us never wanted to see his face again.”

Mags jolted in his seat. “I want to see him again.” he said, the words flying out of his mouth before he had time to register them.

“You really were missing him all this time too, huh?” Click said, sounding surprised.

“It’s more complicated…” Mags confessed. “I couldn’t let myself miss him, or else I would’ve been as distressed as Vid. And I felt like I needed to take charge…but apparently it’s not all that good for me to be in a leadership position.” He laughed humorlessly.

“Hey. Remember, we’re gonna fix this. All of it.” Video repeated insistently.

“Does that start with talking to Spam?” Mags asked shakily.

Vid started in surprise at that, recognizing what Mags was doing—surrendering control.

“Yeah.” they said, smiling reassuringly. “Yeah, it does.”

…

After that, Video had stepped outside to make a brief call to Spamton, leaving the other three alone in the room.

Pay looked very nervous at being left with Click and Mags, especially when the former spoke up after a moment of silence.

“So what are you gonna do when you see him?” Click said, looking intently over at the blue Addison.

Mags tightened his grip on his mug slightly. “Does he know…about us? What happened after he disappeared?”

“Yeah.” Click replied simply, but that single word held a lot of weight.

“But,” he added, “I don’t know how it happened, but he seems like he’s in a pretty forgiving mood these days. I mean, he accepted my apology really fast, and we were never as close as you and he were…so you’ll probably be fine.”

“I wonder why he’s so prepared to take us all back?” Pay said quietly. “None of us treated him very well—except for Video and maybe Mags, of course.”

“Perhaps it had something to do with those Lightners that came through recently.” the blue Addison said. “They helped unite everyone else throughout the city very easily, and they all got along quite well. Maybe they had an effect on him, too?”

Click blinked. “Yeah, now that you mention it—he seemed to know who all of them were whenever Vid or I mentioned them. But he’s never said anything about them on his own…actually, I think he’s been keeping a lot from us.”

Just then, Video came back into the room. “Oof, that was…intense.”

Mags winced. “Is he mad?”

“Not mad, just more…stunned? That we failed to keep his secret this badly. I think he’s actually kind of relieved that he’ll be able to stop hiding and just get this over with, so he finally knows how you two feel.”

“So, what did he say?” Click asked.

Video gave them a half-smile. “He says he’ll meet with all of us tomorrow, but only in the alley by my store.”

“Why in an alleyway?” Pay wondered, bewildered.

Vid shrugged. “I dunno. My guess is, as much as Click and I have been hanging out with him, it’s still four of us going to meet with only one of him, so he wants to be on his own ground when it happens.”

Mags’s face fell. “You mean he’s scared of us.”

“Wouldn’t you be scared too?” Click asked, looking a little pained. “After everything we said to him, and everything that’s happened?”

Video sighed. “Yeah, I know. Hopefully that’ll start changing tomorrow!” he added, pushing himself to perk up a little.

Mags gave him a smile in return, but secretly, he felt a sense of dread beginning to build inside him.

…

The next day, exactly at noon, the four Addisons gathered together at the entrance to the alleyway. Vid and Click walked in with confidence, while Pay and Mags trailed after, one more visibly nervous than the other.

Despite his expertise at externally tamping down his feelings, however, the blue Addison was just as nervous as Pay, if not more so. Pay had simply been a willing participant in the plans he’d laid out. He feared that if there was anyone Spamton might reject now, it would be him.

Once the group had gone about two-thirds of the way in, they heard footsteps behind them, making Mags’s spine stiffen and Pay let out a small scream.

“Hey!!” Video cried, looking back the way he’d come. He dashed past the other three, sliding to his knees and hugging the person who had appeared suddenly in the entrance to the alley.

When he stepped back, the person was revealed to be none other (as Mags had suspected) than Spamton himself.

“HEYA, VID!” he said, seeming genuinely pleased to see the yellow Addison. That joy faded considerably, however, when he faced the other three. He still managed to greet Click with a modicum of friendliness, but was notably wary when it came to the other two.

“SO, UH, ARE WE JUST GONNA [Stay Right Here!] IN [[Awkward Silence]], OR…?” he prompted, when neither Mags nor Pay moved.

Slowly, carefully, the blue Addi walked forward and knelt down in front of Spam. “I’m so glad to know that you’re alive.” he said softly. “And I’m sorry for everything I did that made you think I wouldn’t be. But I am, truly.”

Pay smiled nervously. “Seconded from here.” he added, a bit awkwardly. “Things haven’t been the same without you—specifically, they’ve been a lot worse. And I’m also sorry for the part I played in driving you away from us.”

Click dragged a hand down his face furiously. “Why couldn’t my apology have been like that?!?” he cried.

Spamton snickered. “YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN A [[Man of the theater]], CLICK.”

“It’s true, you really have.” Video said, smirking. 

“Shut up. Shut up right now, Vid, or else I will skewer you. I mean it.” Click grumbled.

“OH YEAH! THAT REMINDS ME, [[Clickbait]], I BROUGHT YOU A [Free Gifts]!”

The pink Addison hesitated. “….what’s that supposed to mean?”

Spam tossed something at Click, who caught it—and then jolted slightly once he realized it was a pipis. He managed to grit his teeth and hold onto it, luckily enough. Spamton snickered at the sight of his face, twisted with something like determination and disgust blended together into one strange mix.

Its shell began to crack slowly, bit by bit…and then a little angel-Spam leapt out, patting him on the head before disappearing.

The pink Addi smiled wryly. “Better than a bunch of goddamn heads biting me, that’s for sure.” he muttered.

“Spamton, I should explain—” Mags began, his hands shaking. But the former Addison cut him off quickly.

“[Video player] ALREADY TOLD ME [[The Whole Story]] OVER THE [Touch-Tone Telephone]. THEY SAID YOU WERE [just trying to protect the rest of us, really] AND [he was scared of telephones for ages afterwards, you know] AND [he still misses you a lot, he just didn’t know how to handle it, none of us did, honestly].”

Vid’s eyes widened at hearing their own voice spill out of Spamton’s mouth. “Geez, that’s wild!” they exclaimed, a little shocked.

“…do you believe him?” Mags asked nervously.

“YEAH, I THINK SO. YOU WERE [[Always And Forever]] [The Mom Friend], YOU KNOW.” Spamton said, but he still didn’t look fully pleased with everything.

“I came to your room.” Mags said abruptly, unable to stop himself from speaking. “The day you were…evicted. I wanted to check on you, invite you back. But…you were gone, and I heard the strange noises on the other end of the phone…I feared the worst.

“So that’s why I did what I did. I didn’t want anyone else to vanish, or for us to be deemed unfit to continue on because we had lost you. I don’t know if that makes any of it justifiable now that I know you didn’t…you weren’t gone forever…but that’s what I did.”

After a minute of thinking, Spam beckoned Mags closer. He obliged, kneeling down right in front of his old friend, bracing himself for some kind of yelling—maybe even a physical attack.

Instead, small arms wrapped around his shoulders as Spamton pulled him into the most awkward yet welcome hug he’d ever had.

Silently, Mags began to weep into his shoulder, his whole body shaking. “I never thought I’d see you again…” he breathed.

“Me either.” Spam said quietly, his own voice a little choked up as well.

Once he withdrew and they’d both made themselves presentable once again, Mags clasped his hands together, going over something in his head. Cautiously, he looked at Spamton and asked, “Would you like to come home with us tonight?”

“HUH? I MEAN…ARE YOU [[100% Guaranteed]] SURE?”

The blue Addison gave him a reassuring smile. “Absolutely. If it makes it easier, you can consider it like a…seven-day free trial?” he offered.

Spamton looked up at him, clearly back on steadier ground with that kind of terminology. “IS THERE AN [Auto-renewal] FOR MY [[Subscription]]?”

“If you decide you like it? Of course.” Mags said.

“Wait, really?! You’re gonna come back?!?” Vid exclaimed, nearly vibrating in place with excitement.

“I CAN TRY.” Spam said, still seeming a little wary, yet also willing.

Even Click was smiling at that, clearly relieved and maybe even happy at that prospect

Suddenly, Video dragged everyone into a group hug. “Agh—Vid, what are you doing?” Pay cried.

“Affection! None of you can escape it!” the yellow Addi cried, pulling them all even closer.

Mags accepted it wholeheartedly, as did Spam. Pay resigned himself to the hug with a weary smile, while Click refused to play nice and squirmed in embarrassment until it was over.

“Spoilsport.” Video huffed.

“Sugar addict.” Click shot back.

“TALK ABOUT [[The pot and the kettle]], CLICK!” Spam said, his voice light yet accusatory.

“Alright, that’s it. I’m going back to work now.” he scoffed, stalking out of the alleyway. “See you later, I guess.” He shot a semi-genuine smile at Spamton, though, to which the latter grinned right back.

Pay checked the time, his eyes widening. “Oh, it’s late! I’ll have to hurry and get lunch now before my next shift starts.”

Spam looked over at Mags. “I’VE MADE A [[Daily Workout Routine]] OF CRASHING AT LEAST ONE SHIFT A [Workday]. MIND IF I COME WITH YOU TODAY?”

The blue Addison smiled warmly. “I’d love that, actually.”

Video squeezed Spamton’s shoulder affectionately as they walked by. “Guess I’ll see you tonight, then!” they said, clearly still excited.

“I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO IT.” Spam replied, and for the first time, it seemed like he might mean it.

And with that, the three of them left the alleyway, heading out to face the rest of the day together.

[mylittlesyn]

Miniseries:

These works are posted on tumblr and AO3. They’re around or less than 10 chapters. Also organized by fandom.

Yuuji and the Tutor: Masterpost

You're a graduate student who tutors other students for a little extra money. Your student, Yuuji Itadori, constantly makes passes at you and as a professional you ignore them. Until one day... He looks a little too irresistible and you find out about the Demon hidden within him after rewarding him.

Tarot Toji: Part one

While being forced into an arranged marriage with Toji as part of a unification of clans, you learn that your soon to be husband actually has plans to escape and run away. When he tells you his plan, he asks if you want to come with him... So you do.

Reconciliation: Master post

How do you confess to Father Sukuna that you're having lustful thoughts... About them?

Night Out: MasterPost

Yuuji and you are both happily married with a two year old son and another on the way. Just because you're both married with kids doesn't mean you can't enjoy a Night Out, even one that's a little more taboo... Perhaps involving his older brother Sukuna.

The Kindergarten Teacher: MasterPost

You're an erotic fiction novelist and single mother to Megumi... Mostly single mother with absentee father Toji finally trying to fight for you. Only thing is, you've laid your eyes now on your son's young hot teacher, Yuuji Itadori.

The Other Woman: MasterPost

This is a series of oneshots across various fandoms that all share the same concept: You are the other woman.

TigerPrince: MasterPost

Yuuji and you were both once rebellious angry teens in one of Tokyo's many bosozoku gangs. You have since opened a bike shop where you help other young bosozoku girls choose their bike and help repair them. As a passion project, you're rebuilding a bike and scouring for a part that just so happens to be sold by someone with the username: TigerPrince.

One Shots

Cookies and Milk with a Yandere:

You reconnect with your childhood friend Itadori Yuji as both of you are home for the holidays. Only these aren’t so happy holidays, and the hallmark movie is a little darker than may appear.

CW: yandere, drugging, noncon, violence (to people other than reader or Yuji)

Fame at the Price of a Fortune:

You were a semi-successful actress who was dating someone who turned out to be a married man. The wife found out and you were blacklisted. Desperate times call for desperate measure, and you find yourself calling upon a demon named Toji to try to get your chance at fame, but it seems it might cost you a fortune.

CW: Dubcon, noncon creampie, squirting, literal demon fucking, belly bulge, cervix fucking, pussyjob

Nanami and the Baker: *contains manga spoilers*

You work at a bakery and everyday for lunch a tall blond man comes to buy the same exact sandwich.

Nanami's Secret Wife v1: *contains manga spoilers*

Nanami likes to keep his home life and work life separate, so of course his best friend Gojo knows nothing about him having a secret wife.

Nanami's Secret Wife v2: *contains manga spoilers*

Nanami likes to keep his home life and work life separate, so of course his best friend Gojo knows nothing about him having a secret wife. This version is much much fluffier than the one above.

Alabama Nanami:

Southern gentleman Nanami might not be as much of a southern gentleman as we thought when he finds you injured in the woods while out on his white horse.

CW: yandere, noncon, virginity loss, corruption, heavy manipulation

Head canons, Imagines, Drabbles:

Requests:

Gojo and the Librarian:

Can you please write something with Gojo trying to pick up someone at the library or maybe the librarian?

Desert Rose:

could write imagine with the music lolo zuaï desert rose with Nanami x reader fem.pleases

Virgin Yuuji:

What- what if little virgin!Yuuji just get so excited when you finally touch him that he creams his pants ;-;

My Patience is Unruly:

how daddy!toji would react/punishment reader if he found out that she opened one or more of her Christmas gifts early after telling her no numerous times.. probably even getting caught in the act

Welcome Home:

do you think you could write a Gojo, Sukuna, or Toji X fem reader that talks in her sleep like incoherent dirty talk or shit talking?

[labomi]

selfish | one (18+)

Summary: You're a former coworker of Kento Nanami back when he was just an office worker. You accidentally run into him at a bakery many years later which gives you a second chance at getting to know the man who had always caught your eye.

Pairing: Kento Nanami x f!Reader

Words: 11.1k+

Warnings: Explicit sexual content, vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, oral sex, creampie, explicit language, attempted sexual assault, kidnapping, canon-typical violence, alcohol

Note: Read on ao3 here! I’ve been on tumblr on and off for about 10 years at this point (yikes), but I recently decided to start a new one as sort of a writing blog with a lot of anime gif reblogging on the side as well haha. Kind of nervous to post my first fic on tumblr for some reason, so I hope you enjoy! Thank you for reading!

Index: [Part One] [Part Two]

“Nanami? Kento Nanami? Is that you?”

You couldn’t believe your eyes. It had been years! Was that really him?

---

The night you accidentally ran into Kento Nanami started off like any other night in your life. After an exhausting day of work, you decided to treat yourself to some sweets at a nearby bakery. The small chime on the door signaled your entrance with the lone employee warmly greeting you.

“Welcome!”

There was only one other customer in the small shop. A tall man stood at the cash register. 

Hmm.

There was something strangely familiar about the man’s demeanor. Curious, you drifted over to the display case next to the register to try and sneak a peek at his face. While admiring the delicious-looking pastries on the counter, you listened in on the conversation between him and the cashier.

“That will be 2000 yen,” the lady said.

“I’ll pay with card.”

You stiffened slightly, eyes widening in surprise. 

That voice!  

You recognized that voice!

The man shifted his face towards you as he reached to grab his wallet from his pocket. You were finally able to get a glimpse of his face. 

You gasped.

“It is you!” you exclaimed in surprise. “Nanami!”

He looked as prim and proper as ever. The man still wore a suit and tie with his hair neatly parted. The only major difference in his appearance was the sunglasses that now completely shielded his eyes.

“It’s good to see you again! How have you been?” you asked eagerly.

Nanami looked at you silently, trying to recall where he had seen your familiar face before.

Then he remembered.

A flood of memories from a different life overcame him. The man hesitantly said your name, like he couldn’t quite believe your unexpected appearance before him. You nodded enthusiastically while he absentmindedly handed his credit card to the cashier.

“Oh wow,” you breathed, feeling a little giddy. “I haven’t seen you since you quit all those years ago. What are you doing now?”

Nanami seemed to pause for a second, adjusting his sunglasses. “I work at a school.”

“Oh! As a teacher?” 

“No, just as staff.”

“That sounds nice. What school?”

“It’s a private religious school in the mountains. It’s not particularly well-known,” the man replied vaguely. 

“Oh, I see.”

A loud beep of a cell phone interrupted the conversation. Nanami reached into his other pocket and took out his phone. He frowned, looking at the device. “I apologize, but I have to go immediately.”

“Oh, uh, ok,” you said, feeling slightly disappointed. You barely had any time to catch up with your former coworker. Nanami grabbed the bag from the counter and swiftly exited the store. You watched him walk away with a sigh. What were the chances that you would bump into him again? You pouted, upset that the circumstances hadn’t exactly worked out in your favor.

“Oh no!” the cashier suddenly cried out. “He forgot his card!” She pointed at the blue credit card on the counter.

“Lemme see if I can catch him!” you responded, already running out of the bakery. You pushed open the door and ran in the direction you saw the man leave. “Nanami!” you shouted. Other pedestrians looked at you curiously, but you couldn’t see the tall man anywhere. You walked around a bit further out, continuing to call his name but to no avail. Sighing, you headed back to the bakery.

“No luck,” you said to the cashier. “He’s gone already. I have no idea how he disappeared so quickly.” Crossing your arms against your chest, you looked at the forgotten card in frustration. “What should we do now?” If only you had his number! 

“I guess I can keep it here in case he comes back,” the lady reasoned.

Hmm.  

An idea popped in your head. 

A selfish one.

“Wait! How about I take it and return it to him?” you asked. Then you realized that your request might come off as suspicious. “We used to work together, I promise I’m not trying to steal it or anything.”

The cashier smiled at you softly. “I trust you. You come in here quite a lot and that man did say your name, so I know you’re not lying.”

You sighed in relief.

Thank goodness.

After buying some pastries for yourself, you walked out of the bakery holding Nanami’s credit card in your hand. You carefully stored it in your bag before beginning the walk back to your apartment.

A private religious school in the mountains, huh?

It shouldn’t be too hard to find.

---

You groaned, fighting the urge to pull your hair in frustration. 

How hard was it to find this damn school?!

You were sitting at your desk in the dark. The only light in the bedroom came from your laptop screen which was full of search engine results for “tokyo private religious school”. You were on page 15. Not a promising sign.

Recalling your conversation with Nanami, you remembered the man said he worked at a religious school in the mountains. However, none of the private schools you had found so far were located in the mountains. You frowned. Had Nanami been lying?

You shook your head to yourself.

No. 

He’s not the type to lie. He did say it wasn’t well-known.

You scrolled further down and clicked on the next page. Quickly skimming the results, you finally found something that caught your eye. 

Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College.

Huh. What a strange name for a school.  

You clicked on the link. It brought you to a strange forum that looked somewhat sketchy and unreliable, but someone had at least posted an address for the school. You grabbed your phone and immediately plugged the address into the map app.

You punched the air in triumph.

“Yes!” The dot was located in the mountains by some Tokyo suburbs. 

This has to be the place!

Luckily, tomorrow was Friday which meant you had no classes, and you weren’t scheduled for a shift at work. You were free to find the school and return the card to Nanami in person. 

“Ok!” you said to yourself, rubbing your hands together. “Now to find out how to get there.”

---

You looked at the dot of your current location on your phone and then back at the vast empty woods in front of you.

This can’t be it!

You groaned out loud in frustration, stamping your feet in a little tantrum. 

Why is it still so hard to find this damn school?!  

Looking at your phone again, you double-checked the map to see that you were in fact at the exact location of the address you inputted, but nothing was here. It was just trees!

You sighed in disappointment but refused to give up right away. Maybe your phone’s GPS was off because you were so high up in the mountains and the signal was bad. You decided to follow the road that led up the mountain with the hope that you might accidentally stumble across the school. If there was a road, it had to lead somewhere! But strangely enough, you hadn’t seen any cars, buildings, or pedestrians since entering the area. 

After walking around for almost an hour, you decided to take a break. Sitting in the shade of some trees by the side of the road, you took your water bottle out of your bag for a quick sip. You admired the beautiful, quiet scenery in front of you.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

You were currently lost in the mountains of Tokyo looking for a school you weren’t quite sure actually existed. And it was all because you were selfish and wanted to see Nanami again. Your old coworker.

You hadn’t been particularly close to him at work, though he didn’t seem overly friendly with anyone in the office. Nanami was the stoic and serious type. He didn’t talk much with the team, but you could tell he worked hard. He was always one of the last people to leave the office for the night, if he did leave. On many occasions, you found him dozing at his desk in the morning when you arrived early to work before everyone else with the sneaking suspicion that he had spent the entire night in the office.

Unlike most of the other employees and especially your boss, Nanami seemed to still care about the clients instead of just the company’s profits, judging from the small snippets of conversations you overheard from him. You had always wanted to get to know him better, but he didn’t particularly have an approachable demeanor. At the time, you were just a young, newly graduated woman who was afraid of everything and everyone. So you often just kept to yourself.

You sighed, looking down at the ground. Taking Nanami’s credit card hostage was a pathetic way of trying to rekindle a relationship that never existed in the first place. You made up your mind. It was time to head back home and drop off the card at the bakery so he could pick it up himself. Today’s excursion was just a giant waste of time much to your disappointment.

“Excuse me, miss. What are you doing here?”

“Huh?” A man was hovering over you. You swore he hadn’t been there a second ago.

You screamed. “P-please don’t hurt me!” You put your arms out in front of you, shielding yourself from any potential harm. “I don’t have much money, but you can have it all!”

The man burst out laughing. You slowly lowered your arms, hoping that his laughter meant he wasn’t going to attack you.

“I’m not going to hurt you, and I especially don’t want your money.”

You let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.” No longer afraid, you took a closer look at the stranger. He was tall. Very tall. Wearing a black outfit and a matching blindfold that spiked up his white hair.

What a strange appearance.

“Well, I won’t hurt you as long as you tell me what you’re doing here.” You gulped, hearing the silent threat in his words.

“Umm, umm, well, you see I-I got a bit lost and w-was just taking a rest,” you stuttered nervously, fiddling with your hands. “I heard there’s a private school around here and I’m trying to find it, because I know someone who works there. His name is Kento Nanami and we used to work together many many years ago and I just happened to run into him last night at a bakery but he left his credit card there and I wanted to give it back to him in person, so I thought it was a good idea to deliver it at his workplace but this school is so hard to find I have no idea where I’m going and-and I think I’m just going to leave now actually.” You realized you were rambling, so you forcibly shut your mouth to stop yourself from looking like a complete fool in front of the stranger.

The man hummed in thought for several seconds before suddenly grinning and chuckling to himself. His demeanor no longer felt threatening.

“Kento Nanami, huh,” the man said, still smiling happily.

“Oh, you know him?” You perked up, suddenly hopeful.

Maybe they work together!

“Leave it to me!” the stranger cheered, giving you a thumbs up. “I’ll escort you to the school and make sure you hand-deliver that credit card to Nanami!”

You felt relieved, tears almost prickling your eyes. “Oh thank you so much!”

---

“Satoru.”

“Mm.”

“Can’t you tell there’s a human who has been wandering near the barrier for quite a while now? It looks like they’re trying to find a way in,” Yaga commented.

“Well, they can’t. Isn’t that the whole point of the barrier?”

“I know that!” the principal grunted angrily. “But since you’re just lounging here around doing nothing, go check it out.”

“Fine.” Gojo got off the couch and headed outside, wondering how a human accidentally wandered this close to the school so far up the mountains.

---

It only took several minutes before you and the strange man found a path leading to the school. You blinked in surprise. You felt like you had walked by this part of the road earlier but had seen nothing.

Walking alongside the man quietly, you suddenly realized you had completely forgotten your manners. Quickly bowing to your escort, you introduced yourself and thanked him for taking the time to safely bring you to the school.

“It’s no problem. Any friend of Nanami is a friend of mine. Oh, and I’m Satoru Gojo by the way. I’m the first-year teacher here.”

He was a teacher? This man wearing a blindfold in broad daylight? You swallowed nervously. You wondered what kind of school Nanami was working for exactly.

Once you finally reached the main school grounds, all of your reservations immediately melted away. “Wow!” you breathed. The campus was absolutely gorgeous with beautiful statues, shrines, and gates. You couldn’t help but stop and admire your surroundings. “This school is beautiful.”

Gojo brought you to the teacher’s lounge and gestured for you to sit down. “So, tell me again how you know our dear Nanami?”

---

Nanami had just finished a mission when his phone chimed, signaling a text. He finished wiping his blade clean before grabbing the device. The message was from Gojo.

Gojo: Come back to Jujutsu Tech. Your girlfriend is here ;)

The sorcerer stared at the message. 

Nanami: I have no idea what you mean.

Gojo: ( ˘ ³˘)♥

He angrily shoved his phone back in his pocket and walked over to the car where Ijichi was waiting. He entered the back seat before closing the door behind him. “Hurry up. I need to find a certain white-haired idiot and destroy him.”

---

Nanami was walking towards the teacher’s lounge when he heard your bright laughter. He froze for a couple of seconds.

What were you doing here?

He picked up the pace, quickly entering the lounge to see you giggling on the couch next to Gojo. For some reason, it bothered him to see how close the idiot was to you and how happy you looked in his presence.

“Nanami! You’re here!” Gojo exclaimed, immediately noticing the other sorcerer’s presence. 

You turned your head quickly towards the doorway with a bright grin. “Oh, Nanami! Hi again!”

Nanami observed the scene, trying to figure out what was going on, but he was drawing a blank. 

First of all, you weren’t a sorcerer. How did you enter the school grounds? 

Second, did you know Gojo? The two of you seemed quite friendly on the couch together. 

Third, was Gojo implying that you were his girlfriend? That was absolutely ridiculous.

“What are you doing here?” Nanami asked you cautiously, adjusting his sunglasses. 

“Oh!” You dug around in your bag, pulling out your wallet. You removed a blue credit card. “You left this behind at the bakery yesterday. I tried to chase after you, but you disappeared so quickly. I had the day off today, so I thought I would try to find your workplace and give your card back to you.�� You got off the couch, approaching Nanami and handing him the card.

Nanami took the card from you before placing it back in his own wallet. “You didn’t have to do this. How did you even find your way here?”

“I found her wandering nearby!” Gojo jumped in, grinning at the other sorcerer. “Imagine my surprise when she said the two of you used to work together back when you were just a salaryman. I just had to invite her back here. You never mentioned you used to work with such a lovely lady.”

You visibly blushed at Gojo’s words which just bothered Nanami even more. “Thank you for returning my card, but I think it’s about time y—”

“Nanami. Nanami. Namami,” Gojo said in a singsong voice. “You’re all work and no fun. It’s been years since the two of you have seen each other, and you’re already trying to get rid of her? Don’t you want to catch up a little bit?”

You played with your hair, a little nervous. “I mean if you’re busy Nanami, I can go. But I was hoping we could talk a little bit.” You looked up at him with bright eyes. “I want to hear how you’ve been doing.”

Nanami took one look at your hopeful face and immediately gave in. “Alright.” He gestured for you to sit back down as he walked over to one of the armchairs. The sorcerer pretended like he didn’t see your little jump of excitement as you hurried back to the couch with Gojo.

Once the three of you were all seated comfortably, you brought up what you had been previously discussing with Gojo. “I didn’t know you’re teaching at the same high school you went to as a student. That’s pretty cool!”

“He was one of the few students who graduated and decided to leave the community,” Gojo pointed out. “Most of us stay here and continue working for the school.” Nanami subtly glared at the white-haired sorcerer, wondering how much he had told you about the jujutsu world.

“Why did you decide to come back then?” you asked curiously.

“I changed my mind,” Nanami simply stated. “I realized I would find my career slightly more rewarding if I worked for the school than that company.”

You nodded in agreement. “That makes sense. I’m glad we eventually both left that job.” You slightly grimaced, just thinking about your past. It didn’t go unnoticed by Nanami.

“When did you leave?” he asked.

You hummed, recalling the past. “It was probably a couple of months after you left. I, uh, messed up something really badly and I got fired.”

Nanami raised his eyebrows in surprise. You didn’t seem like the type to make big mistakes. He remembered you as quite the careful and diligent worker. He narrowed his eyes slightly, wondering if you were being deceitful.

“It’s ok though,” you continued. “I worked a couple of odd jobs afterward to keep up with the bills until I decided I wanted to become a nurse! So I’m actually back in school now and working part-time to help pay tuition.”

“A nurse, huh,” Gojo remarked. “What a noble career choice.”

“Ahh, I wouldn’t say I’m noble or anything. I just think I would find my life more fulfilling if I was actively helping people,” you explained. “Probably similar to how you felt when you switched careers, Nanami.”

He nodded at your words.

uThe three of you chatted amicably the rest of the day. Gojo and you mostly carried the conversation, but Nanami would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy listening to your voice. After he ran into you at the bakery last night, he couldn’t stop thinking about you. It was the first time he was confronted with his old life after deciding to become a sorcerer again. Part of Nanami wanted to never look back on that phase of his life again, but perhaps it wasn’t all bad. Sure, he hadn't particularly liked anyone from that office, but he didn’t mind you. You had always been quiet, polite, and hardworking. 

Nanami still remembered his last day at the office. You had organized a surprise farewell party just for him with a cake, balloons, and everything. After everyone had their fill of free food and left the conference room, you had shyly wished him luck in the future and said you would miss seeing him in the office. All those memories came rushing back after encountering you in that bakery.

The sun started to set when you finally noticed the time.

“Ah! I should probably go,” you announced, checking your phone. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to overstay my welcome.”

“No, no,” Gojo assured. “You are very much welcome here. Like I said earlier, any friend of Nanami is a friend of mine and all my friends are welcome here!”

“How do you plan on getting home?” Nanami asked, mildly concerned.

“Don’t worry!” Gojo said. “I got it handled. Ijichi will drive her back.”

“Huh? No, it’s fine,” you tried to argue. “I can get back by myself. It’s not a problem.”

“What kind of gentlemen would we be if we didn’t ensure you got home safely? Ijichi is our finest chauffeur,” the blindfolded man insisted. “He will take care of you.”

You looked at Nanami who simply nodded at you, encouraging you to accept Gojo’s offer. Sighing, you crossed your arms over your chest with a pout. “Alright. Thank you.”

The two men waved goodbye as you left in Ijichi’s car to head back home.

“Was it really wise to have her on the school grounds?” Nanami asked.

Gojo hummed. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not. Normal humans aren’t allowed here for a reason.”

The blindfolded sorcerer didn’t reply. Instead, he took out his phone and started tapping on the screen. Nanami’s phone chimed. It was a text from Gojo. Opening it, he saw it was a string of numbers.

A phone number.

“You should call her sometime,” Gojo said. “She likes you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. What kind of woman travels to the mountains on her day off to try and find a publically non-existent school to return a credit card to someone she doesn’t like?”

Nanami remained silent.

“Just because we’re adults and jujutsu sorcerers doesn’t mean we aren’t allowed to have some normal fun. It’s alright to be selfish every once in a while.”

How badly Nanami wanted to believe Gojo’s words.

---

You heard the door open and close.

“Hello! How many I help y—Gojo?”

You blinked in surprise, not expecting to see the teacher at your workplace. While taking classes to become a nurse, you worked part-time at a small boba tea shop. You had just finished serving the flurry of college students who needed a midday pick-me-up when Gojo appeared. Several of the seated patrons whispered and pointed at him, wondering why he was wearing a blindfold and how he could see.

“Thought I would drop by and say hi,” he said with an easy grin.

You returned his smile. “Is Nanami with you too?” you asked, trying to sound casual.

“No, not today, unfortunately,” he replied. You tried to ignore the flash of disappointment you felt. “I’ll bring him next time.”

You perked up at Gojo’s promise, nodding eagerly. “Sounds good. So, would you like something to drink?” 

The man ordered a large brown sugar milk tea with extra sugar. You looked at him, mildly concerned. “You sure you want 120% sugar? It’s pretty sweet to begin with. Trust me.”

Gojo nodded. “Yup!”

“Alright,” you said with a shrug. You did try to warn him. 

You finished preparing Gojo’s drink and handed it to him along with a straw.

“Hey, do you mind if I borrow your phone for a second?” the teacher asked.

“Oh, sure,” you said, grabbing your phone from your back pocket.

Gojo took the device and opened the camera app. “Smile!” That was the only warning you got. He had taken a selfie of the two of you together. You weren’t even smiling in the photo, completely caught off guard. But Gojo was at least prepared, grinning happily and showing off his milk tea in one hand. You watched as the man repeatedly tapped on your phone screen.

“What are you doing?” you asked hesitantly.

“Here!” Gojo handed the phone back to you. Looking at the screen, you saw that he had sent the selfie of the two of you to a random number with a text that said “Having fun without you!”

“Um. Who did you send this to Gojo?”

“Nanami, of course!”

“Oh,” you said quietly, feeling butterflies in your stomach.

Nanami’s number!

You finally had it! 

Gojo chuckled to himself as he saw the way your eyes lit up.

“Oh, by the way,” you said, looking up from the phone. “It’s my birthday next weekend. I’m going out with a couple of friends on Saturday at 8pm at the bar around the corner, and I was wondering if you and Nanami would like to join? You should bring Ijichi too and anyone else from the school! Only if you want though. It’s ok if you don’t want to come or you’re worried about being awkward with my other friends even though they’re super cool and encouraged me to invite you guys and I promise I won’t be upset if you can’t make it because this is kind of last minute and I—”

“Sounds great!” Gojo interrupted your rambling. “I’ll be sure to pass along the information. We'll be there.”

“Really?” You grinned at the teacher. “Awesome! I guess I’ll see you then!”

Gojo waved at you goodbye as you tried to compose yourself before the next wave of customers arrived.

---

“Ahh!! You guys actually came!” you squealed as a group of individuals approached your table in the bar. You stumbled out of the large booth where your other friends were seated, already several shots in for the night. You clumsily hugged Gojo without thinking. Releasing him, you took in his new appearance.

“You look so different!” you commented. “But not in a bad way!” The man had traded in his signature blindfold for a pair of sunglasses that still hid his eye. His hair was lying down flat instead of its usual spiked-up look.

Behind Gojo, you saw Ijichi with a woman you didn’t recognize. 

“That’s Shoko Ieiri,” Gojo said, following your gaze. “She’s the doctor at our school.”

You happily greeted both of them, thanking them for coming. 

And finally, you saw the person you were looking forward to seeing the most. Nanami looked good as always. He was dressed a little more casually for the night without his signature jacket, tie, and sunglasses. Instead, he wore a crisp, blue button-up shirt with the top few buttons undone. You tried not to stare too much at his revealed skin.

As you approached Nanami, you reached out to hug him but you managed to stop yourself in time. You were worried about coming on too strong and opted for a small wave instead.

“Thanks for coming, Nanami! I’m so glad you came!”

Sitting at the table altogether, your other friends immediately fawned over Gojo. One of them grabbed you and whispered in your ear.

“What the hell? You didn’t tell me one of your friends was incredibly hot?”

You shrugged and ordered another round of shots for the whole table. Gojo ended up passing because he didn’t drink, so you took it upon yourself to finish it for him.

Nanami quietly nursed a beer as he observed the scene. He didn’t typically like crowded, loud bars like this, but he would make an exception for you. Gojo had also been extremely intent on making sure everyone from the school attended your little celebration. He managed to get Ijichi to come along only after getting Shoko to agree by bribing her with free alcohol.

Nanami was currently sitting across the booth from you, watching as you chatted with your friends. You were wearing a dark red dress that perfectly showed off your curves. The left strap of your dress was a little loose and it kept falling down the entire night despite you constantly readjusting it, not that Nanami had noticed. 

You looked so carefree and lively in this atmosphere. Every once in a while, you caught Nanami’s gaze and beamed at him happily.

At some point during the night, you left the table to go to the bathroom. It was only once you tried walking back to everyone that you realized how drunk you were. Stumbling a bit in your high heels, you leaned against the wall by the bathrooms for stability.

“Excuse me miss, are you alright?”

A man approached you, but you instantly waved him off. “Mmm, I’m good,” you replied. “Thanks though.” You were determined to make it back to your friends on your own, but as soon as you took a step away from the wall, you tripped. The man caught you before you could hit the ground. He had a tight grip on your waist.

 “You don’t seem good,” he chuckled softly. “How about I help you?” You could feel his hands starting to go lower, and you quickly latched onto them and tried to pry them off you.

“I said no,” you said firmly, but the man ignored you and pressed you against the wall. “Get off!” You struggled against him but to no avail.

Suddenly, the weight of the man was lifted and you felt like you could breathe again.

“Are you alright?” a smooth voice asked. 

You looked up to see Nanami in front of you. You nodded silently and admired his strong jawline and sharp eyes in the bar’s dark lighting. 

“Can you walk?”

You nodded again. Taking a step away from the wall, you immediately staggered again much to your embarrassment. Nanami grabbed your arm and lifted you up until you were half leaning on him for support. Inhibitions suddenly gone from all the alcohol in your system, you wrapped your arms around his broad shoulders and gave him a hug. The man tried to ignore the shiver that went up his spine when he felt your warm, soft body pressed up against him. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was quite jealous that you had hugged Gojo when they first arrived. What was so special about that idiot anyway? Nanami slowly wrapped his arms around you, indulging himself for once and returning the hug.

“I’m so glad you came,” you mumbled against his chest. “I was so happy that I ran into you at the bakery that one night. But I was afraid I would never see you again.” You paused. “I really wanted to see you again.”

Nanami didn’t know how to respond to your words, so he gently rubbed your back instead. You leaned into his touch happily.

“Let’s get back to the others,” he said gently. You sighed and reluctantly removed yourself from the embrace. Nanami half-carried you back to the table and carefully deposited you next to your friends. To your disappointment, he didn’t sit down next to you and instead headed towards the front doors.

“Nanami? Where are you going?” Gojo asked, eyebrows raised.

“I’ll be back.”

When Nanami exited the bar, he was greeted by several couples who were taking a smoke break. He walked a bit further away, so he could be alone. The sorcerer leaned against a random building, taking a deep breath and trying to calm himself down. 

Nanami felt quite ashamed of himself. Acting like a hormonal teenage boy just because he briefly held you while you were wearing that damn dress. He tried to ignore the way his cock was straining in his pants. Gritting his teeth, he willed his body to relax. Nanami refused to let you see him so worked like this. He especially couldn’t let Gojo see. He could only imagine the endless teasing he would endure from the blindfolded idiot.

Inside the bar, you watched sadly as Nanami left. You wondered if it was something you did to scare him away.

Gojo sat next to you and handed you a glass of water. “Drink,” he commanded.

You did as you were told, keeping an eye on the doors to see if Nanami had come back in yet. “Does Nanami not like me?” you asked Gojo quietly with a pout.

The man chuckled. “I assure you that’s not the case.”

You turned to look at him. “How do you know?”

Gojo lowered his sunglasses slightly, and you were able to get a glimpse of his gorgeous blue eyes for the first time. “Trust me. I have good eyes.”

---

Nanami ended the call with Ijichi. He leaned against the wall of the bathroom with a grimace. He was still applying pressure to the wound he had received from Mahito. The sorcerer scrolled through the contacts list on his phone. He found himself hovering over your name.

Yes, he did save your number from Gojo’s text. Why wouldn’t he? It would be frivolous to ignore that kind of contact information.

Nanami grabbed another wad of paper towel to replace the one that was already drenched in blood. He grunted in pain.

A nurse, huh.

He wondered what you would do if you saw him right now. If you fuss over him and take care of his injuries yourself. Nanami sighed. He wouldn’t mind that. Would you carefully unbutton his shirt to get a better look at the wound? He could almost imagine the way your fingers would ghost over his stomach.

With a groan, Nanami banged his head against the wall. He couldn’t believe he was fantasizing about you while profusely bleeding in a public restroom.

The sorcerer cleaned up his blood all over the sink and threw out the dirty wads of paper towels. He went outside to wait for Ijichi to bring him back to school for proper treatment.

---

“I’m going to take my break!” you announced to your coworkers as you exited the bubble tea shop. You decided to go outside for a quick breather because it was such a nice, sunny day. Avoiding the crowds, you headed over to the alleyways near the shop to scroll through Twitter in peace.

You were so engrossed by your phone that you didn’t notice the presence of someone next to you. It was only when you heard them clear their throat that you looked next to you to see a man wearing sunglasses and a hat.

“Oh, sorry. Am I in your way? I can move.”

In the blink of an eye, he held a knife to your neck. You felt the cool blade lightly press into your skin. You held your breath, afraid to react in any way.

“Don’t scream. Don’t move,” he hissed.

Your eyes widened in shock.

That voice.

You recognized that voice.

The man grabbed you by the back of the neck and pulled you in the opposite direction of the busy street where unaware pedestrians were still walking by. He pressed the knife against your side now, digging it into the thin t-shirt you had to wear for work.

“Walk.”

He led you to an abandoned building several minutes away. Once you were inside and the door closed shut, he roughly shoved you to the ground.

You landed in a heap, groaning in pain. Turning around, you finally faced your captor.

“It’s you, isn’t you,” you said evenly. “Boss.”

The man chuckled, removing the hat and sunglasses. It was your former boss from the company where you and Nanami had once worked together. You dug your nails in the palms of your hands. If he was here, you knew you were in trouble.

“You called the cops, didn’t you!” he yelled at you, pointing the knife at you menacingly.

Cops? What was he talking about?

“No, I didn’t,” you replied honestly.

“You BITCH! Don’t lie to me.” He waved the knife closer at you.

“I promise! I didn’t tell anyone!”

With a shout, the man grabbed your hair and held the knife to your neck again. You squeezed your eyes shut and couldn’t help but let a small whimper leave your lips.

The truth was you weren't just fired from your job. You were threatened. When numbers weren’t adding up, you realized that your boss was embezzling money and had been doing so for a long time. He found out that you knew the truth and protected himself by forcibly ousting you from the company. As a young professional, you knew better than to fight against a big shot financial executive. When he warned you to stay quiet or face his wrath, you were wise enough to shut your mouth, clean your desk, and leave the building immediately. True to your word, you had never mentioned your boss’s crimes to anyone. You thought you were safe to move on with the rest of your life but apparently, that was not the case.

The man spat at you before roughly kicking you away. He started pacing as you wiped his spit off your cheek with a disgusted groan.

“This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. I’m about to lose everything. EVERYTHING!”

As he muttered to himself, you tried to survey your surroundings and determine if there was a way you could safely escape. Before you could figure anything out, your old boss approached you again, knife still in hand. He seemed to have made up his mind about what he was going to do.

“You’re going to fix this. Yea. This is your fault. I’ll pin it all on you. You’ll go down for this, not me!”

As the man ranted and raved at you, something appeared in the shadows behind him. There was some movement. You blinked your eyes, wondering if it was just a trick of your imagination. But to your horror, a green creature grew larger and larger in the background. It had three heads, each with multiple eyes and giant drooling mouths with huge teeth. The monster raised its multiple arms, hovering over your boss with all eyes fixed on him like he was a piece of prey.

“Scared, aren’t you?” the man commented with a chuckle. He was misinterpreting the horrified look on your face. “This is what you get for messing with the wrong man.”

You shook your head slowly and lifted a shaky finger to point behind him.

He turned around, dropping the knife in shock.

The weapon clattered to the ground.

Your boss screamed. He immediately tried to run away, but one of the monster’s arms snatched him in a tight grip. The three heads fought with each other as if deciding which one of them would get to swallow the prize. You took that as a cue to start running.

The monster was blocking the way you entered, so you ran towards the only other door you saw, which led to a stairwell. You ran up a couple of floors before hiding in a small closet you found. It was cramped and dusty but you hoped it was enough to hide you from that creature.

Sitting on the ground, you took out your phone shakily and called the police.

“Hello, what is your emergency?”

“I’m trapped in an abandoned building, and there’s a monster here.” You realized it sounded ridiculous, but you didn’t know what else to say in the moment.

The dispatcher groaned. “This is the last time! You kids have to stop with the prank calls. This line is for emergencies only!”

They hung up on you.

You stared at your cell phone in disbelief.

Shit.

Instinctively, you scrolled through your contacts list until you found who you were looking for. You pressed the call button.

Please pick up. Please pick up.

It went to voicemail.

You cursed to yourself again.

“Nanami,” you whispered quietly, voice quivering. “I don’t know when you’ll listen to this, but you have to believe me. I’m in an abandoned building near my job, and I swear there’s a monster here. I-I think it might have killed our old boss. I don’t know what to do, I tri—”

There was a loud bang. You quickly hung up and pressed the phone into your chest while you covered your mouth and nose with your other hand to quiet your harsh breathing. The sounds got closer and closer until it sounded like it was right outside the closet door. Your heart was beating so loudly you were worried the monster would hear it. But luckily, the noises started to become fainter. Eventually, you heard nothing even after a long time of terrified waiting.

Once you were reasonably convinced the coast was clear, you quietly opened the closet door and peeked out. The hallway was empty. Maybe this was your chance to finally escape the building.

You carefully climbed to your feet and tiptoed your way back to the stairwell. 

Your phone loudly chimed. The noise echoed throughout the empty building. It was a text message from your coworker asking where you went. You had forgotten to turn your phone on silent.

Almost instantaneously, the monster started roaring from the floor beneath you. You barely caught a glimpse of it before running up the stairs again until you reached the top floor. Exiting the stairway, you ran through the hallways until you reached a dead end.

Back pressed up against the wall, you watched in horror as the monster let out a sharp laugh as it approached you. There was blood dripping out of the mouths of all three heads. You didn’t want to think about where it came from. With no other options left, you weakly held your arms up in front of your face and squeezed your eyes shut with a whimper.

Suddenly, there was an angry shout and a loud splat.

You felt some sort of liquid splash all over you. Lowering your arms, an unexpected sight greeted you. It was the body of the monster all chopped up into pieces. You realized you were covered in its blood.

Behind the monster’s corpse stood Nanami. He had a covered blade in his hand that was also stained with the creature’s purple blood.

“N-Nanami?” you whispered hoarsely.

You couldn’t believe your eyes. Did he take down that monster? With a sword?

Nanami wiped the blood off his weapon, putting it away in its holster. He approached you as you shuddered violently, still in shock.

“Are you hurt?” he asked gently.

You shook your head no, wrapping your arms around yourself.

He kneeled down in front of you, taking out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping the droplets of blood from your face.

“What was that thing?” you whispered.

Nanami sighed, twisting the handkerchief in his hands once your face was relatively clean.

“A curse.”

You gave him a confused look.

“It’s a long explanation.”

“Yo!”

You flinched as Gojo suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the hallway. You instinctively grabbed onto Nanami’s arm in fear. He glared at the blindfolded sorcerer in anger for startling you.

“Oh, you’re already done here? I thought I’d check up on you two to make sure everything’s okay.”

First, your boss had threatened you with a knife. Then, a giant monster, no, curse appeared and attacked both of you. Nanami killed said curse. And now Gojo had appeared out of thin air. Your brain was officially broken. You just wanted to go to sleep. Surely this had to be a dream. You would wake up and everything would be normal again.

“We should probably bring her to Shoko just to make sure she’s fine and clean her up,” Gojo said, observing how your eyes were starting to glaze over.

Nanami nodded in agreement. He lightly touched your shoulder, but you hardly reacted. He said your name quietly. Blinking slowly, you finally turned to acknowledge him. “I’m tired,” you mumbled.

“I know,” Nanami said gently. He picked you up in his arms. “You can go to sleep. I’ll keep you safe.” With a sigh of relief, you closed your eyes and surrendered to the darkness.

You woke up in a small room, tucked under the covers in a warm bed. Nanami was silently sitting in a chair next to you. You let out a deep breath and turned towards the man. The rustling of the covers alerted him that you were finally awake.

“Why was the boss with you?” Nanami asked suddenly.

So it wasn't a dream.

“Oh. He was trying to threaten me,” you explained. “I didn’t lose my job because I made a mistake. I found out he was embezzling money. He said the cops were starting to question him, so he accused me of reporting him.”

Nanami clenched his fists in anger. That bastard.

“Is he alive?” you asked.

“No.”

“I figured.”

You quietly observed Nanami. He had taken off his sunglasses and blazer. You admired his wide shoulders and the way his tie was slightly loosened. 

“Nanami. What do you actually do?”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to tell you.”

You gripped the covers. “Why not?”

“Because,” Nanami sighed. “It’s a dangerous profession. You don’t need to be dragged into this world for no good reason.”

“What do you mean?” You didn’t understand what he was saying. “I do have a reason. It’s you.”

The man didn’t respond.

You sat up in bed suddenly. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll ask Gojo.” You started to climb out of bed, but Nanami stopped you.

“Fine. Fine. I’ll tell you. Sit back down.” He let out of a deep breath, rubbing his face.

You silently listened as Nanami discussed the existence of curses, the theories behind cursed energy, and the role of jujutsu sorcerers. He explained how the school’s true purpose was to train the next generation of sorcerers and act as the main headquarters for all jujutsu-related activities. 

You only asked one question. “Why was I able to see that curse?”

“Regular humans can see them in life or death situations.”

“I see.”

Nanami was surprised at your reaction to learning about cursed spirits thus far. He expected you to ask more questions, to be more doubtful, to laugh and call him an idiot, or to scream and accuse him of being crazy. But you did none of those things. You just listened quietly and accepted everything he said as true. 

In your heart, you knew there was no reason to doubt Nanami. You were trying to wrap your brain around the existence of curses you couldn’t see, but you didn’t consider that the sorcerer was lying to you for a single second. He wasn’t that kind of person.

Nanami abruptly stood up. “Ijichi will drive you back home.” He started to walk away from you, but you quickly grabbed his wrist.

“Wait, don’t go,” you pleaded, eyes wide. “I haven’t thanked you for saving me yet. Thank you, Nanami.” You didn't want him to leave you. Not yet. You didn't want to be alone.

The sorcerer refused to look at you. “I think it’s best if you kept your distance from Gojo, me, and this school.”

“What?” you breathed. “What are you saying? I-I won’t tell anyone about curses or that you’re a sorcerer if that’s what you’re worried about. I promise.”

“That’s not it. I already told you. This world is dangerous. You should stay away.” He paused. “Stay away from me.”

You flinched, releasing Nanami’s wrist. The sorcerer walked out of the room without another word. You didn’t call out after him.

As Nanami walked away, he knew he made the right decision. There was no reason for you to get involved with the jujutsu world. He wanted you to live a normal life, not one plagued by constant death and despair. He was doing this for you. For your future and your safety.

“It’s alright to be selfish every once in a while.”

Gojo’s words echoed in his mind.

No. This wasn’t about him. It was about you. It wasn’t right for him to drag you into his world. He should be happy. Happy that you would eventually move on and live a long, successful life.

But why did he feel so sad instead?

---

Numerous opened textbooks and notebooks were scattered around you on your bed. You had an upcoming exam at the end of next week and were in the midst of cramming a semester’s worth of information in your head.

There was a knock on the door.

You frowned, carefully getting off the bed and walking over to the door. You weren’t expecting any visitors or a delivery today. Looking through the peephole, you gasped. You clutched your hands against your chest, trying to calm your frantically beating heart.

What was he doing here?

You hadn’t talked to or seen Nanami since your last conversation with him at Jujutsu Tech. And that hadn't ended well. You respected his request to stay away from him and Gojo, making no attempts to contact either of the two sorcerers. Instead, you had thrown yourself into your schoolwork and picked up some extra shifts at the boba shop. The less free time you had to think about your emotions, the better.

But now the man who still weighed heavily on your heart was at your doorstep. You wondered whether or not to pretend you weren’t home, but you couldn’t bring yourself to turn him away. He had clearly come here for a good reason and you wanted to know why, especially because he was the one that told you to keep your distance from him.

You unlocked the door and opened it slightly.

“Nanami.”

He said your name quietly.

The two of you looked at each other in complete silence. You waited for him to say something, but the man just continued to stand there without a word.

“Umm, well, I have an exam I need to study for, so if you have nothing to say I’m just going to g—”

Nanami suddenly pushed the door open wider, shoving you into your apartment. You stood there in shock as the door slammed shut behind the sorcerer. His unusually aggressive behavior had you baffled.

“What’s wrong with you?” you asked sharply. The man told you to leave him alone but then showed up at your apartment and invited himself inside without a word. You couldn’t help but feel a little irritated. “What are you do— mmph!”

Nanami had pushed you against the wall and kissed you.

You froze in surprise for a second before immediately kissing him back fervently.

One of his hands had settled on your waist while the other was pressed against the wall by your head. You wrapped your arms around his neck and pressed him closer to you, unable to get enough of this man. Nanami eventually left your lips, causing you to groan in frustration before he attacked your neck with wet kisses. You panted heavily, brain suddenly fuzzy as you tried to process that this was actually happening.

“W-what happened to staying away?” you breathed as Nanami sucked on a particularly sensitive spot that left you weak.

“I changed my mind,” he muttered against your skin before continuing to attack your neck.

After Itadori had saved him from Mahito’s domain, Nanami realized he had been given a second chance. He didn’t want to live a life without regret, especially as a sorcerer. So he decided to heed Gojo’s advice for once. 

He wanted to be a little selfish. 

He wanted you.

Nanami pressed his forehead against yours as he rubbed his hands up and down your soft curves. You breathed heavily, trying to catch your breath as you got lost in his dark gaze. 

“Bedroom,” you whispered. Nanami nodded and quickly released you, so you could guide him to your room. 

As soon as you entered the bedroom, you inwardly cursed. In the heat of the moment, you had completely forgotten what you had been doing before Nanami arrived. “Uh, sorry, let me clean up real quick.”

What a way to kill the mood!

Nanami didn’t seem to mind. He looked fairly amused as you swiftly closed all the books on your bed and haphazardly tossed them on the ground. Once the bed was finally cleared, you turned around to face Nanami, but he was already one step ahead of you. He gently pushed you on the bed, so you landed on your back as he hovered over you. Your breath caught in your throat as you admired the man in front of you. He was absolutely perfect. 

Nanami played with the hem of your shirt. Taking the hint, you sat up a little and swiftly removed your shirt and bra, throwing them in the corner of your room. Nanami let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding as you took in your body. You fought the urge to cover yourself, feeling slightly embarrassed at how intensely the man was looking at you.

“You’re beautiful,” he breathed as you flushed in response. He reached out with both his hands to start kneading your breasts. You moaned as he began playing with your nipples that were already hard from excitement. Nanami removed his hand from your left breast and replaced it with his mouth. You squirmed underneath him in pleasure as he lapped and sucked on your nipple. Once he was satisfied with his work, the sorcerer switched to your other breast to give it the same treatment. With every flick of his tongue, you could feel electricity run through your body. You only craved his touch more and more.

Nanami started kissing down the valley of your breasts to your stomach. He eventually reached the hem of your shorts. “May I?” he asked.

You nodded, unable to trust your voice at the moment.

As he started tugging down your shorts, you lifted your hips to assist him. The garment was carelessly tossed to the ground. Immediately, Nanami could see how soaked your underwear was with your own arousal. His dick twitched in his pants. The sight of you so wet and eager from his touch alone only heightened his lust for you.

You practically sighed in relief when Nanami removed your underwear, fully exposing yourself to him. The heat from your core was overwhelming. You needed him to touch you and relieve some of that pressure before you lost your mind. A single finger stroked your folds, already slick with arousal. You gasped while Nanami groaned, enjoying how wet you already were for him.

“I’ve barely touched you and you’re like this already,” Nanami teased. You panted, trying to grind yourself on his hand for more friction, more pressure, more anything. He chuckled seeing how desperate you were for his touch. The sorcerer finally reached your swollen nub and rubbed it leisurely. You immediately cried out, arching your hips into man’s touch.

“Fuck,” you cursed as pleasure surged throughout your veins. Your eyes were squeezed tight as Nanami continued to play with your clit. You were so distracted by his fingers that you barely registered the hot breath near your entrance. It was only when a wet tongue began to prod into you that you realized what was happening.

With a gasp, your eyes flew upon to see Nanami’s head comfortably settled between your legs as he licked at your cunt without restraint. The sight of him eating you out only stoked the raging fire inside you. You buried one of your hands in Nanami’s hair as he worked diligently to get you off. The way he lapped at your fluids and sucked at your entrance had you moaning and quivering uncontrollably. 

“You taste so good,” he groaned against your folds as you barely registered his words.

A familiar pressure was building in your body. As it got stronger and stronger, you couldn’t stop your legs from thrashing about. With a growl, Nanami locked his arms around your legs to keep them as still. It only took a gentle suck to your swollen clit for the tension in your body to finally snap. Mouth opened wide in a silent scream, you writhed around on the bed as you finally reached your peak. 

Your mind was completely emptied while white-hot pleasure overtook your entire body. You swore you could see stars behind your eyes. As you rode out the last waves of your orgasm, Nanami eagerly slurped up your release, refusing to let a single drop go to waste.

Once you came down from your high, you released Nanami’s hair and laid back on the bed with a sigh. He removed himself from between your legs. Your fluids still covered his face, and his normally styled hair was a complete mess from your grip. Just the sight of him was enough to cause another spark of desire to flare between your legs. This man was going to be the death of you.

“Holy fuck, Nanami,” you breathed.

“Kento,” he replied, wiping his mouth clean on his sleeve. “Call me Kento.”

You flushed. Saying his first name felt incredibly intimate. 

“Kento.” 

He grunted with approval and then began to unbutton his shirt. You licked your lips as his broad shoulders and wide chest were finally revealed to you. He was incredibly well-built with defined muscles and abs, but a number of scars littered his body. Some looked quite fresh while others were old and almost completely faded.

This was the body of a jujutsu sorcerer.

You now understood why Nanami warned you that the jujutsu world was unsafe. You couldn’t imagine the suffering behind all those wounds. Perhaps one day he would be willing to share his pain with you, so you could understand his world.

You wanted to rub your hands up and down Nanami’s bare chest, but he moved out of your reach to start fiddling with his belt. Eyes lowering, you swallowed nervously as you stared at the large bulge that greeted you. Nanami slid down his pants and underwear in one go, erect cock finally released from its confines and bobbing in the air slightly.

The sight of him was both mouthwatering and intimidating. You admired the bulging veins and the bits of pre-cum that were already leaking out from the tip. He wasn’t excessively long, but he was incredibly thick. You nervously wondered if you would be able to handle his impressive girth.

You wanted to touch and taste him, but Nanami wasn’t interested. He gently pushed away your eager hands and instead spread open your legs once again. At the moment, he was more concerned about prepping you than chasing after his own pleasure.

He pressed one finger into your entrance, groaning as your walls greedily sucked him inside. You gasped, clenching around him. With how easily you were able to take one finger, Nanami slipped a second into you. It didn’t hurt, but you could feel your cunt stretching around them as they thrust in and out of you. Nanami’s fingers were so thick and long that you already felt so full.

“You’re so tight,” Nanami hissed as you got lost in pleasure once again. He pushed those two fingers in and out of you, occasionally scissoring them to loosen you up. You could hear how wet you were as he continued prepping you to take his cock. Nanami moved his fingers at just the right angle to hit a spot that had you instantly moaning and clenching around him. But he suddenly removed himself from you which had you whining at the sudden loss of contact, feeling empty. However, you stopped complaining as you watched Nanami stroke his dick, spreading your fluids and his pre-cum all over himself.

“Are you on birth control or do I need a con—”

“I’m on birth control,” you cut him off impatiently. “Hurry up. I want you inside me.”

Nanami didn’t keep you waiting much longer. He lined himself at your entrance and slowly began to push in. It wasn’t painful, but you still gasped as your walls stretched to accommodate his girth. The sorcerer immediately cursed when his tip entered you. You were so hot and tight around his cock that it took all his self-restraint not to immediately ram his full length into you. With slow, shallow strokes, you were able to accommodate more and more until his entire cock was buried inside you.

You felt so incredibly full. Your hand gripped the blanket on your bed to anchor yourself as you tried to get used to the sensation of being stuffed with Nanami’s dick. He tried to remain still above you, waiting for your signal. Eventually, you met his gaze and gave a little nod. He sweetly kissed you on the lips before he started to move.

Nanami started at a slow pace afraid to hurt you at first, but he eventually settled into a rhythm that had you moaning his name over and over again. You were so wet that he slid in and out of you effortlessly, rubbing against your walls in a way that had you seeing stars again. You had wrapped your legs against his waist, allowing him to enter you even deeper. 

You were almost babbling nonsense at this point, unaware of exactly what you were saying as your mind was just consumed by pleasure. “Fuck. Kento. You’re so big,” you whined. “Faster. Harder. D-don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

Nanami adjusted the angle of his thrusts until he finally found the spot that had you gasping and clenching down on him again. He groaned, making sure to continue hitting the same exact spot with strong, fast thrusts at just the right tempo. “You’re so perfect. Looking at you, taking my cock so well,” he growled.

The pressure was building again. Everything was so overwhelming. The lewd, wet noises of your bodies moving together. The way Nanami growled praises of you in your ear. The muscles on his back rippling with exertion underneath your wandering hands. You just needed that one final push.

One of your hands sneaked down to rub your clit, but Nanami pushed it away and pressed his thumb against your swollen nub instead. Just a couple of strokes had you reaching your peak again. You clenched down so hard around Nanami that his hips stuttered, groaning loudly in your ear. You were completely consumed by wave after wave of pleasure. You couldn’t think. You couldn’t hear. You couldn’t see. All you could register was the pure bliss that racked your entire body, leaving you gasping and shuddering.

Nanami continued to fuck you through your orgasm, ramming his cock into you over and over again. His thrusts had become more frantic and uneven, chasing his own climax after you started to come down from yours.

“Where should I cum?” he groaned with gritted teeth.

You wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him down closer to you.

“Cum inside me,” you panted against his ear.

He groaned. You were perfect. Absolutely perfect.

With a couple of more thrusts, Nanami completely buried himself inside you when he flooded your cunt with his cum. He remained inside for several more moments to catch his breath before finally removing himself from you. You slightly winced as his cock brushed past your sensitive walls. Nanami couldn’t help but admire the way his cum slowly dribbled out of you.

He laid down next to you as you both began to calm down. No words were needed between the two of you. The silence was comfortable as you cuddled against his chest. Nanami rubbed your back absentmindedly as you hummed in delight.

Eventually, the two of you got out of bed and cleaned up. The textbooks and notebooks haphazardly thrown on your floor were ignored for the rest of the day. You thought you deserved a break anyways. The two of you ate dinner together, cuddled on the couch while watching a movie, and went at it again for another round before settling down to go to sleep.

You were passed out next to Nanami, completely worn out from the day’s activities and normal sleep deprivation you had as a student. Your heavy breathing was the only sound in the tiny apartment. It strangely calmed Nanami just listening to you. He turned towards you and stroked your hair affectionately. 

A part of Nanami still worried if he had made the right choice with you. He was still concerned about your safety and well-being. Would he only bring you more grief if you constantly agonized over his dangerous missions as a jujutsu sorcerer? 

He let out a quiet sigh. He knew he would have regretted it if he continued to push you away. And if he was going to be a sorcerer, he wanted to be a sorcerer with no regrets. 

Nanami only hoped that he would never cause you any pain and anguish because of his profession. It was rare for sorcerers and non-sorcerers to find happiness as a couple. But perhaps the two of you would be an exception.

He prayed the two of you would be an exception.

---

“Welcome! How may I help y—oh!” You blinked in surprise as three individuals walked into the small boba shop.

Gojo waved at you with an easy grin. Nanami stood next to him as handsome and stoic as ever, but there was a new face behind them. He looked like a high schooler.

The blindfolded teacher wrapped his arms around the boy’s shoulder and pointed at him. “Meet Yuji Itadori! One of our first-year students!”

“Oh, it’s nice to meet you,” you said introducing yourself.

The boy tilted his head, looking at you curiously. “How do you know Gojo-sensei and Nanamin?”

Nanamin?

You chuckled at the cute nickname. 

“I told you to stop calling me that, Itadori,” Nanami replied, clearly bothered.

“Well, I’m…” you hesitated. You didn’t know what to say. A friend? An ex-coworker? A normal person who couldn't see curses but knew about their existence?

“She’s Nanami’s girlfriend!” Gojo exclaimed to your horror. You immediately flushed and looked to Nanami for him to clarify, but he didn’t react. He glared at the blindfolded sorcerer as per usual but didn’t refute the statement. Your eyes widened in realization. 

“Uh, y-yeah,” you stammered. “I guess I am.”

“Nanamin has a girlfriend!?” Itadori gasped. He had even more respect for his mentor now.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Nanami growled much to your amusement.

You took their orders and began to prepare the drinks. Nanami and Idatori were talking in the corner while Gojo hung out at the counter near you. You had just finished sealing the drinks when the teacher explained something to you.

“Oh, by the way, Yuji is supposed to be dead so be sure to not mention his existence to anyone else.”

You almost dropped the drink you were holding. “Um, okay.” You thought it was better not to ask questions.

Gojo thanked you as he took his drink from your hand and grabbed a straw for himself. “Yo! Nanami! Yuji! Grab your drinks and let’s head out!”

Itadori followed Gojo out the door once he had his milk tea, but Nanami stayed behind.

“I meant it.”

“Huh?” you asked, cleaning the counter with a rag.

“I want you to be my girlfriend.”

You blinked, processing his words. A bright smile grew on your face. “Well, according to Gojo, I’m already your girlfriend.”

Nanami let out a rare chuckle and flashed you a small smile. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Goodbye!” You waved as he left the shop.

Your coworker came out of the back room, looking at you suspiciously. “Why are you so smiley?” She looked around the empty shop. “There’s no one here.”

“Oh, no reason," you replied with a hum.

[mementomoriifics]

Office Hours - Sanemi x Reader (NSFW)

Tags: Student/Teacher, college au, pwp, praise kink, cunnilingus, blowjob, over the desk, reader is cis female

Wordcount: 3965

Author's note: This one was weirdly insanely popular on my ao3 account so lets see if Tumblr appreciates it too!

AO3 link

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The campus had been deserted for a while now, students either having gone home or were about to, as you walked down the hallway with the professor's offices. You fidgeted nervously with the papers you were carrying, a little scared of being in a relatively small space with your professor, Sanemi-sensei.

Sanemi-sensei was well known around campus for all the wrong reasons. He was abrasive, had a temper, refused to button up his shirt (though depending on who you asked, this was far from a problem),... A rumor had even made the rounds that he defenestrated a student once for pissing him off! So you felt like your worry was justified.

Kind of.

And you had to be completely honest with yourself, the fear of being hurled out of a window wasn't the only cause of your nerves. In fact, despite his brash personality, you had foolishly developed a crush of him. He was easy on the eyes in a rough kind of way, his chest was nearly always on display and the cause of plenty of distractions during class and he just... God you shouldn't even be thinking about this.

You turned the corner that would inevitably lead to your professor's office, nerves flaring up something fierce. You swallowed hard as you passed the door to Kanae-sensei's office, then Giyuu-sensei until you halted in front of a plain wooden door that had a plaque reading “Shinazugawa Sanemi”.

Your mouth felt like the Sahara as you raised your hand, rapping your knuckles against the smooth surface of the door. You heard shuffling on the other side before hearing a muffled:

“Enter.”

Steeling yourself, you opened the door, seeing Sanemi-sensei sitting behind his desk. His shirt was open, as always, and his hair a little messier than usual. On his nose perched a thin, wire frame pair of glasses and he looked... tired.

“Can I help you?” He asked, staring you down as you entered the office further, closing the door behind you. The second it closed, your nerves flared up again.

You watched as Sanemi-sensei leaned back in his chair, scarred arms crossing as he impatiently waited for you to find your voice.

“Ah, yes. Sorry for bothering you professor, but I was having trouble with today's lecture. I wasn't sure when your open office hours were so I thought...” You trailed off, holding your notes tighter as Sanemi-sensei stared at you. He seemed to be thinking, suddenly pointing at the chair across from his desk.

“Sit down. I have two more assignments to grade. When I'm done, I'll get to you.”

Rude, but better than what you were fearing.

Silently, you grabbed the chair, pulling it out from under the desk as Sanemi-sensei went back to his work. You put your papers on the desk, folding your hands in your lap as a silence fell in the small room. Sanemi-sensei was pretty much ignoring you as he continued grading the assignments, mumbling under his breath something about 'stupid' and 'this is high school level, for fucks sake'. You tried not to smile, instead busying yourself with subtly looking around.

Sanemi-sensei's office was pretty bare, void of most decoration and personal belongings. There was a desk, a few filing cabinets, a computer and that was about it. The only thing that seemed to be his addition were two pictures on his desk. You could just about make out one of them.

In the picture, you saw a beautiful woman with long, black hair. She was surrounded by children all bearing some resemblance to her. Next to her stood a much younger and scar-less Sanemi, less than pleased to be part of what you assumed to be a family photo.

The sudden clearing of a throat tore you from your snooping, eyes locking with your teacher who seemed less than pleased.

“If you're done sticking your nose where it doesn't belong,” You felt your face flush with embarrassment. “what did you need help with?”

You cleared your throat in turn, grabbing your notes again and scooting a little closer to the desk. Sanemi watched you, some of the hostility leaving his body as you started talking.

“Well, I didn't quite understood this formula.” You started, pointing at the long, difficult formula Sanemi-sensei had explained in class. “I don't quite understand how-”

Sanemi took your notes from you, reading them over. You stayed quiet as you watched him, his basically translucent eyebrows furrowing.

To avoid feeling self conscious, you let your eyes wander, accidentally – or maybe subconsciously on purpose – letting them linger on your professor's chest. He was very in shape and you couldn't help but wonder where all of the scars on him came from. And just how much time he spent at the gym to develop a body like that.

“You wrote down the method of solving it wrong.”

Your notes were put down in front of you a little louder than he should have, pointing a finger at your writing. You blinked a few times, staring owlishly at your teacher.

“I did?”

Sanemi-sensei snorted, nodding.

“Yeah, you did. You're supposed to-” He interrupted himself, standing and rounding the desk. You felt heat creep up to your face as he stood next to you, one hand on the back rest of your chair as he leaned in.

“Right here.” He pointed a finger again. “We talked about-”

You listened, or at least tried to, as Sanemi-sensei explained your mistake.

His presence next to you was intimidating, to say the least. You could feel the warmth coming off of him accompanied by the scent of... red bean paste?

You'd be a liar if you denied that Sanemi-sensei was attractive. And at least on some level, he seemed to be aware of it. Sure he may be an asshole but he looked good in a dangerous sort of way and the fact he was your teacher made the idea even more alluring. Like wanting to eat some sort of forbidden fruit. And in all honesty you wanted him to eat-

“-and then you...” Sanemi trailed off, looking back at you through his glasses. You briefly looked up at him, a little dazed.

“Are you even paying attention?”

You flinched, basically caught in the act. Nodding your head perhaps a little too enthusiastically, you prayed your teacher would ignore the fact you basically just spaced out in the favor of daydreaming about him doing ungodly things to you.

“Yeah, I'm not buying it.” Sanemi-sensei said, standing up straight and crossing his arms again. Your mouth suddenly felt really dry again and you wrung your hands together. God, could you made yourself look even more guitly?

“Sorry, professor, I just... am a little tired.” You lied through your teeth. Sanemi scoffed, staring you down further and making you shrink back in your seat.

“Again, not buying it. Why are you here?”

You felt panic creep up on you, looking up at your teacher. Your mind – uncooperative as ever – painted the picture of him staring down at you in a very different scenario. With you on your knees in front of him, his cheeks tainted faint pink as you-

“I didn't understand the lesson.” you spoke, voice soft. You looked away from Sanemi, not having the nerve to keep looking at your teacher. “It's just been a long day and-”

You felt his hand on your shoulder, freezing as he gave it a gentle squeeze. You willed yourself to look up at him again, seeing him look at you with a certain calculated gaze. As if he was weighing his options or something. He rounded the desk again, sitting down and looking even more tired than before as he removed his glasses.

“Go home. Come back tomorrow when you can pay attention. I'm done with you wasting my time.”

The words made your stomach drop. You didn't want to leave, you still needed help. If only you could keep your mind out of the gutter you'd-

“No, I'll be fine! I jus-”

“It's not up for debate” Sanemi spoke, his voice carrying authority you didn't want to go against. But you did anyway.

“But sir-!”

You watched Sanemi-sensei's eyes widen a touch, his jaw tightening before he stood again and brought his palm down on the surface of his desk.

“Do not call me that,” he said, giving you a stern look that made a shiver run down your spine and settle between your thighs. “And if you're really so keen on staying here, tell me what the fuck you were thinking of. What was so much more important than your education, huh?”

You swallowed hard, regretting pushing back as much as you had. If the earth split open below your feet and swallowed you whole, you'd be grateful for it. Alas, no such thing happened and you were simply faced with Sanemi-sensei staring you down. You opened your mouth a few times, no sound leaving you. Your professor's temper didn't improve.

“C'mon! Out with it!”

“I was thinking about you!” You spat out, squeezing your eyes shut and digging your face in the palms of your hands, dreading the reaction to follow. But instead of laughter, mockery or a demand you leave, you were met with silence.

“About me?” Sanemi-sensei asked. “What about me?”

Oh fuck.

You swallowed hard, refusing to lower your hands.

“A-about you,” you started, shaking slightly. “About you doing... things... to me...”

Your voice was barely above a whisper as you finished the sentiment, wondering if it was humanly possible to die from embarrassment. If it was, you were sure that you'd meet your inevitable demise here in your professor's office.

Silence hung in the room for a moment before you hear your professor move. You peeked through your fingers, seeing him sitting on the desk in front of you. His thighs were spread, his feet finding purchase on the seat either side of you, caging you in. You lowered your hands as he rested his arms on his thighs and leaned in.

You were confused and couldn't quite decipher the expression on his face, watching at his eyes bore into you. He seemed to be considering something again, taking a moment before he spoke again.

“What things.”

This just kept getting worse, didn't it?

You took in a deep breath, holding Sanemi-sensei's gaze for a moment before willing yourself to speak.

“Sexual things, si- Professor.” you corrected yourself. You heard Sanemi hum, the wood of his desk protesting under his weight as he leaned back on his palms. A small part of your brain wondered if maybe he was showing off for you, but you were quick to dismiss that. He couldn't be, right? He shoudln't.

“I'm your professor.” He stated, cocking his head as he gave you a stern look. “You're my student. If something happened between us, It'd cost me my job.”

You cringed slightly.

“I know, it's why I- It's why-” You started, trying to justify your fantasizing about your teacher. “It's why it's all just-”

“Thoughts?” he completed. You nodded, feeling a little bit of your tension easing away as you looked up at your professor again who was still sitting on his desk, holding you hostage. “I'm not so sure about that.”

You gave him a confused look, your professor continuing his reasoning as his eyes bore into yours.

“You think you're subtle, huh? I've noticed you staring. And that skirt you wore the other day barely covered you. Did you hope to catch my attention? Because you did.”

Wait.

Wait wait wait.

What was happening. What on earth was happening.

You swallowed hard again, confusion apparently obvious on your face as Sanemi-sensei kept talking, one of his hands settling on a strong thigh. You watched said hand, how it rested on muscle that seemed a strain for the slacks he was wearing.

“What? Didn't expect me to notice? Well you're wrong. Now c'mon. I wanna know what's going on in your head that you couldn't focus.”

You hesitated, looking down at your hands in your lap as you found the courage to confess. You knew very well that you shouldn't, but the fact your professor seemed to be on board with everything made you perhaps bolder than you should be.

“I was daydreaming about... Being on my knees for you, professor.” You said, hearing him hum again.

“And making you... Feel good.”

You looked up, eyes widening as you saw that the hand on his thigh had migrated to his crotch. He was shamelessly groping himself in front of you. You could see the bulge of his arousal and your mouth started watering at the thought of seeing it uncovered.

“Did I tell you to stop talking?”

You shook your head, eyes still glued to the display in front of you as you kept talking.

“I was thinking about having your,” you paused for a moment. “cock in my mouth. To suck on it.”

Okay you could've phrased that a little better but Sanemi-sensei didn't seem to mind. His hand gripped his length through the fabric of his pants, squeezing for a moment.

“So you couldn't focus on school work because of his?” He spoke, voice a little lower and breathier. The sound of it made you squirm in your seat and wonder what other noises he'd make.

“Yes, professor.” You admitted, past the point of shame. “I think about it a lot.”

Sanemi-sensei chuckled, his hands moving to his belt, your heart skipping a beat as you watched your professor give in. This was happening. He was going to-

He stopped, making you look up at him in confusion. He gave you a stern look again, tongue darting out to wet his lips before he spoke.

“Whatever happens in this office, stays in this office, you understand? If I find out you've been blabbing to anyone, I'll make you fail my class. Understood?”

You nodded eagerly.

“I won't tell a soul, professor. I promise.”

He flinched slightly.

“Just call me Sanemi, please. This is already fucked up enough.”

Your heart started beating faster as you nodded again. Wetness grew between your thighs as it sank in that Sanemi was going to give you exactly what you'd been dreaming of. You couldn't believe that this was actually happening. You were convinced you got sucked into a fanfic or something. You had to be!

“Good. Now,” His hands started moving again, the clinking of his belt sounding so loud to you. You watched with baited breath as he undid his pants, popping the button and pulling the zipper down before leaning back on his hands again. “Go ahead.”

Your previous anxiety was all but forgotten as you reached for his pants. You carefully peeled the fabric of his plain, grey boxers down, gasping as you finally freed his erection from layers of constricting fabric.

He was a little bigger than average, the tip of it flushed a dark red with arousal. A vein ran along the side and before you could stop yourself, you ran your tongue over it. Your professor cursed above you, his thighs tensing as your tongue grazed the head of his pretty cock. You watched his face as you took him into your mouth, his eyes half lidded and his cheeks tinted the lightest dusting of pink.

He looked even better than in you daydreams.

You slowly took more of him into your mouth; eager to please him, when he started talking.

“Is this what you daydream about in class?” His voice was strained, as if he was holding himself back. “Sucking my cock instead of doing what you're supposed to. I wonder, do you fantasize about me fucking you too?”

You nodded, mouth still full of him.

“Good, because I do too.”

The confession made you moan around his dick, Sanemi cursing as he put a hand on the back of your head, making you bob your head at a faster pace.

“You've been driving me fucking mad. Those skirts you wear? Your staring? That pen you keep puttin' in your mouth? Fuck, I've been wanting to bend you over my desk for months now.”

You moaned again as the head of Sanemi's dick grazed the back of your throat. The grip he had on your hair tightened as he slowly made you take more of him. You fought your gag reflex as you heard your teacher groan loudly.

“Thassit.” He mumbled, speech a little slurred. “That's a good girl. Just like that.”

The praise made your heart soar. Your nose pressed against the white hair above his dick, your eyes watering slightly. You forced yourself to swallow, Sanemi cursing loudly above you. A few second later, he let go of you, you pulling off his dick and coughing into your hands. It was the first time you'd managed to take something like that and the reactions it had gotten made any discomfort more than worth it.

“Shit,” Sanemi cursed, wrapping a hand around himself and stroking himself slowly. His eyes were on you, carrying an intensity that almost made you moan. “take of your pants. Bend over my desk.”

He got of his desk, giving you room to complete his request. With trembling fingers, you unbuttoned your jeans, sliding them and your panties down in one go. You bent over at the waist, letting your upper body rest on the desk. Sanemi took place behind you, warm hands settling on your behind, the tips of his fingers digging into your skin a bit. You looked over your shoulder, seeing your professor stare down at your pussy as if transfixed.

“I need to taste you.”

Before the words sank in, Sanemi was on his knees, his mouth on you. You let out a gasp and a whimper, feeling his tongue lap at you like a man possessed. He circled your clit with the tip of his tongue, wrapping his lips around it and sucking harshly, making you arch your back. His hands groped your behind eagerly as he ate you out.

The noises reaching your ears were beyond obscene, the feeling of his tongue making your head spin. You still couldn't wrap your head fully around the fact that your mathematics professor was on his knees behind you but it felt too good to care. And you wanted more.

“Sanemi- 'nemi, please. Fuck me.” You breathed out as Sanemi dragged the flat of his tongue over your slit before sinking it inside of you. Your fingers dug into the desk as best they could, your legs shaking.

Sanemi drew back, rising to his feet again.

“You on something?” He asked, voice thick with lust. You nodded, thanking your lucky stars your parents insisted on you taking the pill when you went off to college. You never knew, after all.

“Good.”

You kept watching as Sanemi spat in his hand, jacking himself off for a moment before he lined himself up with your entrance. He was breathing heavily, his mouth and chin still shiny with your slick. It was the hottest thing you'd ever seen.

Painfully slow, he pushed into you. He stretched you out deliciously, making your toes curl the more he gave you. Your mouth dropped open in a soundless moan as he moved his hands to your hips, thrusting the last few inches into you with a sharp snap of his hips.

“Fuck you're tight.” He breathed, reveling in the feeling of you around him for a moment before he started to thrust. The pace he set was slow but hard and made your head spin.

“You have no fuckin' idea how often I've thought about this.” Sanemi spoke, gritting his teeth. “How often I've jacked off to the thought of you bent over my desk exactly like this.”

You whimpered, moving your hips to meet Sanemi's thrusts, making the man groan. He sped up, his talking continuing much to your happiness.

“How often I – fuck – have thought about just... Keepin' you back after class to fuck you on the lectern. Right there were everyone is gonna look the next day. And you knowin' that's where I finally had my-” you yelped as his arms wrapped around you, forcing you up as he dragged you down into the chair with him. You sat on his lap, his cock impossibly deeper in you now. “way with you.”

Sanemi ground his cock into you, hands shamelessly crawling under your shirt, cupping your breasts and roughly squeezing them.

“Just as soft as I thought they'd be.” He muttered, more to himself than to you. You bit your bottom lip, rolling your hips as you tried to fuck yourself on your teachers cock. He seemed to appreciate that, thrusting up in you as best he could.

“Good girl. That's a real good girl.” He half moaned as he dug his face in your neck, teeth grazing over the sensitive skin there. “My good girl.”

You let out a pornographic moan, your climax nearing far too fast. You reached a hand down, rubbing your clit to chase that feeling none the less. You felt Sanemi move his head, hooking his chin over your shoulder so he could watch.

“You gonna cum?” He asked, breathlessly. His thrusts got faster, his grip on your breasts almost bruising. You nodded. “C'mon. Cum for me. Cum like a good girl. Cum for Sir.”

His words were enough to send you over the edge, moaning as you threw your head back against his shoulder. Your walls pulsing around Sanemi's dick seemed to be enough to make him cum as well, twitching as he spilled himself inside of you.

The both of you were breathing hard as you came down from your high, your professor pressing a lazy kiss against your cheek, babbling barely coherent praises to you. It was also him who finally broke the spell, ushering you surprisingly gentle to stand. Wordlessly, he pulled up your panties and pants, giving your ass a playful spank before he started dressing himself as well. You flushed red as you slowly felt your teachers cum leak out of you onto the fabric of your underwear, a little reminder of what had just happened.

When the both of you were fully dressed and presentable again, Sanemi turned to you, silently handing you your notes back.

“Thanks, professor.” You said, giving him a sheepish smile before taking them. He 'hm'd in reply. You hesitated a moment, not wanting to leave yet but the clock on the wall made it pretty obvious it was getting late. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“Don't worry about it.” Sanemi said, watching you turn to leave. In a move that surprised you both, he reached out and grabbed your arm, stopping you. He drew you in, pressing his lips hard to yours. You let out a surprised noise, it taking you a moment to kiss him back. When you parted, he grinned at you.

“I have some free time this friday, to help you.” He said, you knowing full well what he was implying. “Does four o' clock work for you?”

You nodded, unable to stop the smile spreading on your face. Sanemi smiled back in turn, pressing another bruising kiss on your lips.

“Good. Don't be late.”

“I won't be, Sir.”

[raccoonfallsharder]

✩࿐࿔ get some sunshine, sunshine. [new 2/1]

fluff (smut-free) | gn reader | no use of y/n | drabble | word count: 1,614.

rocket reminds you to get outdoors and get some sunshine — for your physical and mental health. especially in winter. (take your vitamins too!)

pro-tip: light therapy devices (aka “SAD lamps”) can be purchased pretty reasonably and (at least in the US) are often available for free through public libraries for cardholding members and university student services (health centers, counseling centers, student wellness orgs, etc) for campus community members. read the instructions before usage.

“We are excited to have you back home soon!” “I’m excited to be home soon,” you tell Cosmo, watching the pale blue shape of her projected image as she runs in a tight circle and lets out a bark. “You takin’ care of yourself?” Kraglin asks, his narrow face pinched with worry. “You know the Cap’n won’t like it if you’re not—” “I’m taking care of myself just fine,” you cut him off, rolling your eyes. “The Captain couldn’t even bother to be on this call, so he can suck my—” “Your what?” You wince. You know that gravelly rumble as well as the bridge on your favorite song. Goddammit. Still, you manage to hold it together and stick out your tongue as he comes into view on the holovid.  “Better late than never, Captain.” He raises a brow at you. “Brat. You look like shit.”

read more on ao3 ✩࿐࿔

need more reminders from rocket?

the world is hard, and sometimes it's difficult to complete daily tasks & take care of yourself (aka rocket bullies you for your own damn good).

this is about as wholesome as it gets (for me) i think. can be read platonically or romantically. mcu-based, meant to take place post-volume-3, but headcanon however you want ♡

✩࿐࿔ take what you need masterlist

࿔ eat somethin. (wc: 576) ࿔ go to frickin bed already. (wc: 737) ࿔ get outta bed & get your shit done. (wc: 925) ࿔ take a damn bath. (wc: 1,375) ࿔ leave your frickin skin alone. (wc: 1,579) ࿔ take a fuckin study break.(wc: 1,020) ࿔ drink some goddamn water. (wc: 1,209) ࿔ stop destroying your frickin clothes.(wc: 1,609) ࿔ just buy the damn thing already. (wc: 1,271) ࿔ it's frickin laundry day. (wc: 1,923) ࿔ get some sunshine, sunshine. (wc: 1,614) ࿔ did you take your damn meds today? [est 2/12] ࿔ schedule your fuckin' appointments. [est 2/26] for LunaAfton♡

if you find any of these at all helpful, they're meant for you.

feel free to ✩ request reminders ✩ via reblogs, asks, and tumblr or ao3 comments if they would be helpful for you. it may take me a hot minute to get to them depending on life n stuff, but i will do my best. currently backlogged till march ~ feel free to continue sending your requests in the meantime!

if you’d like to join my fanfiction taglist, please comment or send me a message or ask! ♡

@suicidalshitstick ✩ @glow-autumz ✩ @evolvingchaoswitch ✩ @wren-phoenix ✩ @pretty-chips

total word-count: 13,878

[donutloverxo]

Vanilla

Kinktober day 21 - Vanilla

Please note that my work is not to be reposted or published anywhere other than my Tumblr or AO3 account without my permission. Reblogs are most welcome though!

Note - @stargazingfangirl18 asked for soft ransom! Thanks @sweater-daddiesdumbdork and @whateveriwant for their advice! Also for @finleyjayne 's rainbow writing challenge with the prompt 'white lie'. Hope y'all like it💖

Dividers by @whimsicalrogers

Summary - When you find out Ransom's been lying, you can't help but assume the worst.

Warnings - 18+ only please!, smut (m/f), ooc Ransom.

Pairing - Ransom Drysdale x reader

Word count - 2k

Masterlist is linked in the bio!

You sighed as a tear rolled down your cheek, looking at an old photo strip of you and Ransom. You had taken it in a photo booth at the fall fair, he was reluctant, calling them dumb and cheesy but he gave in when you gave him your puppy eyes.

He looked stoic in the first two, with you perched up on his lap, your arms around his neck but then he was laughing boisterously because you started tickling you. The last one was of him biting your neck as revenge.

Happy times. But they seem to be taunting you now.

Your family, even your friends, weren’t huge fans of Ransom. Your mother was actually scared he’d hit you or hurt you. But they didn’t know him like you did.

He was never cruel to you. Not even when he didn’t know you and had nothing to gain from being nice to you. Surprisingly, he was quite the gentlemen, holding the door for you, paying for your meals, even waiting for over a month before making love - you knew then you could never let go of him, no one would ever give it to you like him.

He did tend to be a bit judgmental and cynical, entitled and maybe a bit spoilt. But you accepted that as a part of him, encouraging him to work on himself. Sure, he’ll never be everyone's cup of tea, but he’d always be yours.

Or so you thought.

Dealing with Ransom required some finesse and patience that you were willing to put up because it was worth it. But you’d never put up with lies, or worse... that’s not who you were.

Ransom had told you he was going to meet up with his published to talk about his new project. Your gut told you that something was wrong. When he was late you took it upon yourself to call the publishing house only to find out he didn’t have a meeting today at all.

He didn’t have one that Sunday either, where he was for over four hours you didn’t know.

You let out a humorless chuckle at your own naiveté - who the fuck has a meeting on the weekend anyway?

You only saw what your heart wanted to show you. Maybe, he never loved you. Maybe everything you both shared for the past two years was a lie - an act.

You yelped a bit when you heard the door being slammed shut, putting the photo down you quickly composed yourself.

“Hey, babe,” he greeted you, kissing the top of your head before scavenging for a beer in your fridge.

“Hey,” your voice hoarse and croaky, you cleared your throat, “how was your meeting?” you spat. Unable to keep the contempt from your voice.

“So and so. They don’t know shit,” he twisted the cap off before he taking a long drag of it.

You gulped when you looked at his pale throat bobbing and swallowing the liquid down. He took his coat off, throwing it over the counter.

You watched his muscles flex under his tight sweater, his curious eyes watching you, your traitorous body still found him attractive. Which he was, objectively so, some might even argue that he was out of your league and not the other way around.

“Like what you see, doll?” he smirked, catching you staring at him. He stood before you, holding onto your hips.

You blinked, pushing him away and putting some distance between you, “I want to know more about the meeting.” you insisted.

“What the hell are you going on about?” He ran a hand through his perfectly groomed hair - messing it up. You knew it was a nervous tick of his.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about! You weren’t at any meeting were you? You were probably with some bitch,” you yelled, jabbing him in his chest with your finger, “No,” you laughed, “Wasn’t her fault. She’s not the one cheating. I should’ve known better.” you shook your head, “Everybody warned me.”

He had the audacity to roll his eyes, “God, you women - ”

“Shut the fuck up, Ransom. Now is not the time for your boring jokes. Where were you?”

“Why would you jump to the worse conclusion?!” he yelled back, his face turning red and a couple of veins popping on his forehead. “Do I not get benefit the doubt? Don’t you trust me?”

He walked towards you, making you take a few steps back until you hit the counter, tall and imposing above you. His jaw clenched shut as he stared you down.

You gulped, “I did trust you. But what explanation could you possibly have? You lied, didn’t you? Where were you?”

You watched him as he dug through his discarded coat, taking out a box and handing it to you. You knew what it was as soon as you saw it, the familiar burgundy color with the words ‘cartier’ written on top in golden cursive.

“I’m sorry,” you choked, your heart clenched in guilt. You accused him of the worst when he was just out getting you jewellery. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I’m sorry.”

“Bit to late to be sorry when you already said your part.” he gritted.

“Sorry,” you gave him a nervous smile, “I really don’t deserve this, I don’t know what to say...”

“I was with Meg, since she’s the only girl I know, who’d be of any use. She just gave a lecture about how buying diamonds is so unethical or something, I don’t know I tuned out,” he shuddered at just the thought of it, “So, it’s not final. We can exchange it if you don’t like it,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

You frowned, “Why would I need to exchange it? I’m sure it’s very pretty,” you opened the box and gasped, your jaw dropping, “Ransom... this is...” the most beautiful diamond ring you’ve ever seen. “Wait a minute, does that mean..”

“Yep,” he snatched it away from you, taking the ring out of it and then sliding it on your ring finger, “I was going to go the whole nine yards. Get down on a knee, act like a fucking Disney Prince but you don’t get that now,” he smirked, the diamond looking so pretty on your hand. “You’re stuck with me, forever.”

“Well, I’m sad that I missed out on a proper proposal but I suppose I deserve it. It really is so pretty,” you beamed at the ring.

“Don’t you dare take it off.” He held onto your hand possessively. Glad to have some sort of claim on you now that would let any unworthy asshole know that you’re taken.

You giggled, placing a quick smooch on his lips, “I won’t. I’ll protect it with my life,” holding the hand close to your heart. “I’m still so sorry. I should’ve known better.”

“That’s right, you should’ve.” he grumbled

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes. He’d have no problem assuming the worst if the roles were reversed. “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?” Jutting your lower lip out and looking at him with your big doe eyes.

Pulling you by your waist and holding you tightly against him, “I can think of a couple of things, pumpkin.”

He captured your lips in a salacious kiss that was all teeth and tongue, running his thumb over the diamond.

***

“Look so pretty with your mouth stuffed, pumpkin,” he praised, choking on a moan, pushing your hot, eager mouth further down on his length.

You let out a muffled whimper, relaxing your throat so you could take all of him. Which was quite a task but you powered through, swallowing him down until your nose touched the brown patch of hair above his length.

He let out a loud, primal moan, holding onto your head and trying his best not to bust his load too soon. He pulled you off of him, getting off of the mattress, putting his hands below your arms and hauling you up and pushing you down on it. It was always fun to manhandle you like that, what with you being so small and plaint. Always ready to serve him and let him have his way with you.

You blinked up at him with unsure eyes, almost wanting to cover yourself from his predatory gaze. “St - stop looking at me like that.”

He chuckled, “You’re mine now. I’ll look at you however I like.”

He knelt on the floor, pulling you till you were on the edge of the bed, nudging your intimate lips apart with his nose. He took a long breath in, your unique scent never failed to make him hot.

Placing a flurry of kisses up and down your inner thighs, giving your a nick and a bite here and there till you were going crazy with need. Need to have his mouth on you.

“Please, Ransom,” you sniffled exaggeratedly, “Just want your mouth on me.”

“You’ve got no patience, doll.” Which was rich, coming from him.

He shook his head, teasing your entrance with his tongue. Before finally, wrapping his mouth around your bundle of nerves, sucking at it leisurely.

You pulled at his hair, pushing him closer to your heat because you needed more.

He took the hint, plunging two fingers inside you, pumping them in and out till he felt you clamping down on them. He pulled right away when he felt you getting too close to your climax.

No, he needed to look at your face as you fell apart with him.

Ignoring your whines and curses he hovered above you, pushing his tip against your entrance, coating it with your juices.

You were out of it, barely there with him, your hands loosely holding onto his broad shoulders, “I love you,” you murmured and then yelped, your eyes scrunched shut as he thursted his entire length inside you. Your nails digging into his biceps and drawing blood.

There was that delicious familiar ache at first, but you willed yourself to ride through it. It’ll feel good in no time. Except.... he didn’t move.

You opened your eyes and looked up at him to see him staring at you. You called out his name, caressing his cheek.

“Say it again,” he panted.

“Say what?” you yelped again as he lifted your hips up, his tip brushing against your spongy spot, “Oh.. uh... I love you.” you repeated.

He stayed still for a moment or longer. Still not used to hearing those words, especially said so sincerely by you. They often caught him off guard and overwhelmed him.

His hips bucked into yours as he started thrusting into you properly, his fingers digging into your hips.

You pulled him down and pressed your lips to his, swirling your tongue against his, spilling your moans in his mouths, only pulling away when you could barely breath. He did have a way of always leaving you breathless.

Propping himself on his elbows, he watched you writhe under him, your face scrunching up in untethered pleasure as you kept asking him for more. It's where you belonged, wrapped up around him. And your cavern was his rightful place, especially now that you'll be married.

“You’ve always been a, tight little thing. Squeezing the shit outta me,” he grunted as you pulsed and fluttered around him your body seized up and fell back.

He kept driving his hips into you, riding out your orgasm till ropes of his seed coated your walls, he didn’t let up till he was sure he gave you every last drop of him.

He collapsed on top of you, nipping at the shell of your ear, “Again,” he pleaded, his voice wavering with his cock softening inside you.

“I love you, baby, more than you’ll ever know,” you said, cradling his head close to you.

He hummed, pulling himself out of you, laying beside you, he admired your ring as you struggled to stay away, your eyes already dozing off.

He was proud to have bought it with his own hard earned money with the book you inspired him to write, it was sort of poetic in a way. But you didn’t need to know that or you’d accuse him of going soft for you - which to be fair he was. As his mother always says every marriage has its secrets.

Tags will be in the reblog!

Comments and reblogs are really appreciated! ❤❤

[robininthelabyrinth]

Same River Twice (aka Time Travel Nie Bros) - part 4 - see ao3 or tumblr part 1, part 2, part 3

-

“You know what,” Nie Mingjue said, several shichen into the most awkward conversation he’d ever been forced to overhear in his life, “I think Wei Wuxian needs more friends.”

His father stopped contemplating the window with an expression that suggested he was considering throwing himself out of it and looked at him. “So you’ve mentioned before.”

“Yes, I know,” Nie Mingjue said, because he had in fact brought it up after Nie Huaisang’s no doubt unintentionally apt suggestion. “But on second thought, he needs them urgently. As does Huaisang. You don’t want them growing up barbaric and unsocialized, do you?”

His father mouthed the words ‘barbaric and unsocialized’ to himself, looking delighted. “By which you mean that you’d like to take them to visit the Lan sect, I assume?” he asked, not bothering to hide his amusement. “To learn good habits from them there?”

“To avoid learning bad habits here,” Nie Mingjue said. “Alternatively, you could always kick all of them out so that all of us can stop getting the loud and dramatic rendition of all the different types of bad decisions adults can make, courtesy of our friends in the Jiang sect and our new guest disciples.”

“…take Zonghui with you,” his father said. “Have a nice trip. Enjoy the quiet.”

There was a better than decent chance that he was being sarcastic, but Nie Mingjue wasn’t going to wait around long enough to find out – he saluted and turned to run away at once.

“Don’t get into too much trouble!” his father shouted after him.

That was ridiculous. What sort of trouble could Nie Mingjue get into in Gusu, of all places?

-

“Nie-gongzi, has anyone ever told you that you have really weird taste in rewards?” Nie Zonghui said, looking long-suffering as always.

Wei Wuxian, who was riding on his shoulders, craned his head down to look at him. “Rewards? What is Nie-da-ge getting rewarded for?”

“He performed especially well on his first ever night hunt,” Nie Zonghui told him, while Nie Mingjue flushed red and Nie Huaisang, who was riding on his shoulders, giggled. “His father wanted to reward him, and determined to do so by granting the first request he made.”

“He didn’t tell me he was planning on doing that,” Nie Mingjue hissed. If he had, he might’ve asked to visit Yunping City to collect Meng Yao – finding a reason to go there was much harder to achieve than arranging a simple visit to the Lan sect, which would’ve happened sooner or later anyway.

His thoughts hadn’t been focused on reward at all. He’d only really, truly desperately wanted to get away from any further discussion of Sect Leader Jiang’s sex life.

(Cangse Sanren was blunt and straightforward in her speech, something Nie Mingjue greatly appreciated right up until she was shouting things about size and shape and performance and also her husband…it was absolutely mortifying, even just as a spectator, except possibly Jiang Fengmian was into things like that because he just kept on arguing. In his past-future life, Nie Mingjue had had to sit across the table from Jiang Fengmian for years, and might yet have to do so again if he was not successful in adverting his father’s death, which was something he wouldn’t be able to if he kept hearing things like this! He didn’t want to know things like this!)

No, Nie Mingjue hadn’t thought about rewards at all – had already put away all thoughts of that particular night-hunt in favor of showing of his improvement with Baxia, who practically purred in his hands when he wielded her, so that he could win his independence sooner rather than later.

Even picking Gusu as their destination had been primarily motivated by seizing on the last place anyone had mentioned to him as a plausible destination that could be sold to his father.

Nie Huaisang had asked him, all big and wide-eyed and adorable, why they were going to somewhere as far away from the Unclean Realm as the Cloud Recesses, and Nie Mingjue had blamed Nie Huaisang’s suggestion of introducing Wei Wuxian to the Lan sect.

Nie Huaisang had also asked why they were going now and Nie Mingjue had explained in a rush of tangled words that sometimes grown-ups liked to talk about private things very loudly and maybe it would be better to leave them to it.

Nie Huaisang had found that dreadfully funny for some reason, giggling until both he and Wei Wuxian were rolling around on the ground laughing their heads off at the idea of going to Gusu –

Nie Mingjue didn’t care. As long as they went, and with them his excuse to go as well!

(Besides, it would be nice to see Lan Xichen.)

“Of course he didn’t tell you about it, Nie-gongzi,” Nie Zonghui said patiently. “It was meant to be a surprise. Wouldn’t have been much of a surprise if you knew about it, would it?”

Nie Mingjue sighed. Nie Zonghui was a half-generation above him – older than him by over a decade, entitling him (if only technically) to be called uncle rather than cousin, but young enough that he sometimes felt more like a peer. Certainly once Nie Mingjue himself had become sect leader, having someone like him to help figure out how to communicate with the elders had been priceless.

That didn’t mean he didn’t want to punch the man in the face on a regular basis.

Stupid sense of humor.

“Wouldn’t da-ge be happier if he could pick what he got?” Nie Huaisang asked. “What if he’d asked for something stupid, like a map?”

Nie Mingjue reached up to one of the legs currently dangling next to his ear and pinched him lightly, making his little brother squeak and then giggle again. He wasn’t sure why Nie Huaisang was still so worried about his offer to buy him a map – he hadn’t even known that the under-five age group could have a sense of financial economy, much less guilt over it, but then again he didn’t know much about kids that age anyway – but no matter what he wasn’t having any of it.

In this life, his brother would be happy for as long as Nie Mingjue could give him.

-

Of course, making Nie Huaisang happy would be easier if he wasn’t so picky.

“Didi, didi, it’s all right,” he said, trying to be soothing and not really remembering how. “You don’t need to be afraid - Lan Xichen is a friend…I’m sorry, Xichen, I really don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“It’s no problem,” Lan Xichen said, looking exactly as one would expect a nine-year-old being addressed as a peer by a twelve-year-old that his guardian routinely praised as a role model would be – which was to say, a little pleased, a little uncertain, and mostly confused. The shrieking four-year-old wasn’t helping matters, either. “I don’t think I’ve done anything to offend him...?”

“You’re blind,” Nie Huaisang hissed at him, tears still streaming down his face. “Blind, blind, blind!”

“No, Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue said helplessly. He had no idea where Nie Huaisang got these ideas into his head, was it a feature of early childhood or something? “He’s not – look, the bandage is around his forehead, right? Not his eyes. And since when do you have something against blind people anyway?”

Nie Huaisang buried his face into his side. “Stupid da-ge.”

Nie Mingjue patted him on the back. “Sorry,” he said to Lan Xichen again. “This isn’t exactly the first impression I was hoping for.”

Lan Xichen abruptly grinned, looking for a moment like a regular child rather than the polite and reserved young man Nie Mingjue had known for so many years – it reminded him a little of the boy from the future timeline that he’d only seen brief glimpses of through the pieces of his soul that were attached to the pieces of his body, the loud and irreverent one called Lan Jingyi.

Back then he'd wondered abstractly how exactly such a boy could be related to the Lan clan, stately and elegant even when they acted radically, and now all of a sudden he saw that boy staring out of him from Lan Xichen’s immature face.

“Bet you thought you’d look a lot more dashing, didn’t you?” Lan Xichen asked merrily. “Flying in on your swords, jumping down for a perfect landing, and then – waaaaaaah!”

Nie Mingjue laughed, because it really had happened a bit like that.

“Don’t forget the domino effect,” he said wryly, glancing over at where Wei Wuxian was being plied with treats from a bag pulled from Nie Zonghui’s sleeve – he’d started sympathy crying when Nie Huaisang had inexplicably started wailing, and was having trouble stopping even though he admitted that nothing was actually wrong with him other than having feelings. “They’re probably just over-tired from the trip.”

“Did you really fly all the way from Qinghe?” Lan Xichen asked eagerly. “All by yourself?”

“We made a lot of stops –”

“But you were on your own sword, right? Just you?”

“It’s a saber and I was carrying Huaisang, but yes, in terms of who was in charge of propulsion, it was just me.”

Lan Xichen heaved a sigh full of obvious envy, and Nie Mingjue smiled. “If you want, I can petition your uncle that you act as my guide to the surrounding environs as well as the Cloud Recesses itself? He’d have to let you fly by yourself if that was the case.”

“Oh, would you?” Lan Xichen enthused. “That would be great! I’m not that good yet, but I’m not going to get good if I don’t have a chance to practice, except Uncle is always saying that – oh, wait, I’m not supposed to say –”

“Speaking of others behind their back is prohibited,” Nie Mingjue said solemnly, then cracked up at the dumbfounded expression on Lan Xichen’s face. “No, I’m sorry, I won’t quote your sect rules at you, I promise, it was just a joke…”

“You’d better!”

He rather liked this enthusiastic version of Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue thought.

Even Nie Huaisang seemed to have gotten over his initial fright to start begrudgingly enjoying all of Lan Xichen’s chattering and bustling around – Nie Mingjue thought he might, given that Lan Xichen currently reminded him immensely of an extremely chatty blue-breasted quail and Nie Huaisang had always liked those. There was so much life in Lan Xichen, good humor and cheer filling him up until he was practically bursting with it; he hadn’t yet had to learn how to hold back his feelings and hide them, hadn’t yet learned that the only acceptable way to interact with others was through a carefully practiced smile.

Perhaps what was why Lan Xichen had been so drawn to Meng Yao, Nie Mingjue reflected – Meng Yao had hidden himself underneath a smile, too. Where he himself had admired Meng Yao for what he had thought was his strength of character, his ability to ignore the jibes and the slights he faced in favor of carrying on and doing what must be done, just as Nie Mingjue longed to be able to do, perhaps Lan Xichen had from the very first moment seen Meng Yao as someone in need of sympathy and affection. Perhaps it had been his own suffering projected onto Meng Yao’s open, facile face that had so tugged on his heartstrings.

It was a little odd, though.

It was a long time ago, but Nie Mingjue recalled meeting Lan Xichen when they were both quite young, and if he put his mind to thinking about it, he was pretty sure they would have met in about two years’ time – his fourteen to Lan Xichen’s eleven, with Nie Huaisang nearly six and Lan Wangji nearly seven. And yet the Lan Xichen he had met had been so very different from this, far more serious and reserved, quiet more often than not, that practiced smile already on his face and only with great reluctance melting into something real…

He wondered why there had been such a great change.

In the meantime, Nie Mingjue relieved Nie Zonghui of his duties on account of their safety – the older man had been to Gusu before for discussion conferences, and looked extremely bored – and took Nie Huaisang’s hand in one hand and Wei Wuxian’s in the other, and the three of them followed Lan Xichen around as he pointed out all the things he liked best.

Wei Wuxian broke away at one point and sped into the brush, shrieking something about a rabbit, and when they gave chase and found him again, he’d somehow bumped into Lan Wangji, who with his white clothing and solemn expression resembled nothing so much a bunny himself.

“Nie-da-ge, this is my friend!” Wei Wuxian hollered, even though they couldn’t have been talking for more than a few minutes before the rest of them caught up. “His name’s Lan Zhan! I’m keeping him forever!”

Nie Huaisang sniggered, and Nie Mingjue poked him – it was rude to laugh at other people’s earnestness.

“That’s nice, Wuxian,” he said, and formally saluted Lan Wangji, knowing how much the other boy liked rules and things being done right. “I’m pleased to meet you, Wangji. I hope we can be friends as well.”

Lan Wangji stared at him mutely for a long moment, and then his entire face slowly turned bright red as if he were boiling.

Nie Mingjue blinked, unsure about the reason for such an extreme reaction, but standing beside him Lan Xichen cackled. “Oh, oh, this is great,” he crowed. “Wait till I tell Mom!”

Lan Wangji attempted to bite him, which naturally made Wei Wuxian leap to his friend’s assistance, and somehow Nie Huaisang ended up wading into the fray with a stick that he waved around like a war-fan, seeking inexplicably to defend Lan Xichen despite having previously displayed no fondness for him at all.

Nie Mingjue waded in as well, of course, trying to separate them and somehow ending up as everyone’s target when they realized that he was strong enough to pick them all up and toss them (lightly) into the piles of soft grass that covered the meadow, even Lan Xichen, and at that point they all threw themselves at him eagerly in order to be throw back.

Nie Mingjue wasn’t really thinking about that, though. He was thinking about what Lan Xichen had said.

He was thinking about – Mom.

Not Nie Mingjue’s own, naturally. She’d been gone since he was younger than Nie Huaisang was now. Perhaps it was because Nie Mingjue had his father and his aunts and his uncles, but he had never really felt the lack of her all that much, except maybe when he needed to learn some etiquette he didn’t know or when his peers spoke fondly of their own mothers. Nor was he thinking of Nie Huaisang’s mother, who had been very nice and whose untimely death had upset him immensely; he honestly hadn’t thought of either of them in years and years by the time he’d died.

But rather, he thought about Lan Xichen’s mother – Lan Wangji’s mother –

Nie Mingjue hadn’t learned the story of her fate until much, much later in life, when he was very nearly an adult. The Lan sect had always kept their secrets very well, and he might never have learned the details if it hadn’t been for Lan Xichen willingly divulging them. He’d told him the whole awful story of how his mother had not loved his father even though he loved her, how she had killed someone dear to him, how he had married her to save her and gone into seclusion to punish himself, how the Lan sect, ever concerned with its face, had covered it all up by forcing her into permanent seclusion…

The story had never really sat right with him. A punishment was one thing, entirely justifiable; murder was murder, and life imprisonment was a valid sentence, a valid commutation of the death sentence that she probably ought to have received. It was not Nie Mingjue’s place to question how the Lan sect selected and imposed punishments…

And yet, something about it had always felt rotten.

Maybe it was only that the Nie sect didn’t believe in solitary imprisonment. Or, well, really solitary anything, with even seclusion being done in a relatively well-traveled area so that those inside could, if they wished, open a one-sided window to hear the noise and know that their family was around them. Even their tombs, their saber halls, were joined together into what was practically a necropolis – even in death, the Nie sect would rather be together than apart.

If he recalled correctly, Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji’s mother would soon be taken away from them for good. She’d died when Lan Xichen was – ten? Ten to Lan Wangji’s six, yes, that sounded right.

A year from now, then. Less, maybe.

“– xiongzhang is da-ge, not er-ge!”

“No, you don’t understand, my da-ge is older – and bigger – so he’s da-ge, and your xiongzhang is er-ge, and that means you’d be san-ge, and Wei-gege is – wait, which one of you is older?”

“Huaisang, it doesn’t work that way, we’re not the same family –”

“What are you even talking about?” Nie Mingjue asked, abruptly coming out of his thoughts. They’d continued playing while he daydreamed, and now Lan Xichen was perched on his back like a monkey, with Nie Huaisang on one of Nie Mingjue’s shoulder while Wei Wuxian hung off the other arm’s bicep and Lan Wangi clung to his neck in front like a sloth on a branch, as Nie Mingjue demonstrated that he could, in fact, keep walking with all of them attached. Every single one of them seemed to think this was the absolute height of entertainment. “Who’s related to what now? Huaisang, can’t you just call Xichen Xichen-ge or something?”

“Oh, fine. Xichen-gege! Xichen-gege!”

“Nie-didi! Nie-didi!”

“Too loud,” Lan Wangji sniffed.

“Didn’t you hear Lan Zhan?!” Wei Wuxian promptly hollered at the top of his lungs. “You’re all being too loud!”

“I’m going to throw each and every one of you into a pond,” Nie Mingjue said. “One by one, if I have to.”

“Do you promise?” Lan Xichen giggled in his ear. “That sounds like fun!”

“Actually,” Nie Mingjue said, “I had a different thought. How about we play hide-and-seek?”

-

The advantage of future knowledge, Nie Mingjue thought, was that he knew exactly where Madame Lan’s home was and how to get there within the time period he’d suggested for the initial hiding.

The disadvantage was that he was so focused on achieving his goal that he forgot that what implications might be taken from a twelve-year-old boy breaking into a woman’s home, especially at a time when she wasn’t expecting visitors.

“I’m so sorry!” he all but shrieked, covering his eyes even though he had already turned his back. “Please put on clothing!”

“Oh, your face –” Madame Lan was guffawing. “You’re so red – boy, you don’t have to throw yourself out the window in penance or anything. I’m still wearing my inner robe, you can’t even see anything.”

“It’s still inappropriate!”

“Could be worse. I could’ve been –”

“Please don’t finish that sentence,” he begged. “I swear I’m not actually doing this because I have a crush on you, so please, please, please don’t give me any details about what you do in the privacy of your own home, okay? And stop offering me your under-things! I don’t want them!”

“I was only doing laundry,” she said, almost crying with laughter. “I didn’t mean to throw my underwear at your face, it was really just the closest thing to hand…who are you, anyway? Shouldn’t you be introducing yourself to me?”

“I’ll introduce myself when you’re dressed and not a moment earlier.”

“Oh, all right, have it your way. Give me a moment.” There was some rustling. “All right, turn around.”

He peeked and sighed with relief: Madame Lan was, in fact, appropriately dressed in a lovely white silk dress, adorned with the typical Lan sect cloud embroidery and everything. The style was a little freer and less conservative than he might have expected to see the mistress of a Great Sect wearing, but then again he supposed she’d never actually had to do the work associated with it. It was hard to host a society party from seclusion…

“Qinghe Nie’s Nie Mingjue greets He Kexin, Madame Lan,” he said, saluting properly. “I’m a visitor to your sect.”

“I hadn’t realized that we were anticipating visitors from another Great Sect,” she remarked. “Normally there’s a great deal more hustle and bustle involved with preparing to receive a visit.”

“It’s an informal one,” Nie Mingjue explained. “Somewhat, uh, abrupt. We didn’t send word in advance. You see, we recently accepted Cangse Sanren and her husband as guest disciples, and shortly thereafter the Jiang sect paid us an unexpected visit…”

Madame Lan had clearly heard about that disaster, if the way she put her hand over her mouth in a futile attempt to stifle her chortling was any indication.

“I think I see the issue, being as I happen to remember Cangse Sanren very well,” she said, her eyes dancing. “What a troublemaker. She even shaved off Qiren-xiaoshuzi’s beard one time! I’m guessing based on the way you turned into a boiled crayfish that she scared you out of your own home?”

Nie Mingjue opened his mouth to protest, except, well, that wasn’t entirely inaccurate…

“What a charming little egg you are! You’re such a rotten liar that you can’t even do it to save face.”

“Being dishonest isn’t saving face,” Nie Mingjue said, even though his face felt like it was burning and he was probably just as red as she said he was. “The truth is what the truth is, that’s all. You’re not wrong, that’s more or less what happened – I brought Huaisang and Wuxian here so that we could get away from all the yelling.”

“You picked a good place for that,” Madame Lan said, and there was a dull look in her eye all of a sudden. Nothing like the liveliness from a few moments before. “There’s nowhere like the Cloud Recesses for quiet.”

Nie Mingjue bit his lip, not quite sure how to say what he wanted to say. Right up until that moment, she hadn’t seemed at all sick, the way he’d thought she’d be – less than a year before she died, from what he remembered of Lan Xichen’s stories. He’d assumed she’d already be ill with the early stages whatever it was that had eventually taken her from her sons.

But now, he didn’t think she was sick, not really, only…bored.

Dreadfully, horribly bored. The sort of bored that drained your life away bit by bit.

Formal training in swordsmanship and scholarship began at six at the Cloud Recesses, Nie Mingjue abruptly remembered. There were plenty of lessons prior to that, of course, but at age six they would become formalized, the children shifting over from the realm of babies to proper young-adults-to-be. Once Lan Wangji turned six, Madame Lan would have had nothing to look forward to in life.

Nothing, except for her children starting to drift further and further away from her: nothing to do, no purpose, no friends…

Just boredom.

“The Unclean Realm has a communal prison,” he blurted out, and then smacked his hands into his face to hide his shame for being such an inconsiderate ass. Why had he thought he could do this by himself?

He wasn’t even sure what he’d originally come here to accomplish, other than to let Madame Lan know that she ought to see a doctor sooner rather than later in the hopes that they would be able to catch and stymie whatever disease it had been that had killed her, except now of course Nie Mingjue understood that it was no disease at all.

“…what?” she said blankly.

It was too late to retreat, so Nie Mingjue gathered up every bit of courage he’d ever had and barreled onwards.

“I just mean,” he said, tripping over his words, “if you’d like to be – a bit less quiet. Even if your sentence is life imprisonment, surely you don’t have to necessarily serve it here, right?”

Madame Lan stared at him. His shoulders started creeping up to his ears.

“Actually,” she said abruptly, “I was never sentenced.”

He gaped at her. “You – what?”

“Qiren-xiaoshuzi pushed for it, said it was only fair that I knew the exact contours of my punishment, but the sect elders refused,” she explained. “They didn’t want to lose face by having a trial at all, not even privately.”

“But – but if you haven’t been sentenced, you can’t be imprisoned!”

“Is that so?” she asked, looking amused.

“You can’t,” Nie Mingjue insisted, horrified. “The laws of war say that someone can be executed on the spot for committing a crime, but in peacetime they have to be sentenced first even if you catch them red-handed. What if your accuser recants his accusation, whether because he was wrong or because he decided not to press charges? If they recant, you can’t be tried; if you can’t be tried, even if everyone knows you’ve done wrong, you still must be released. No trial, no sentence, no imprisonment!”

“Tell that to the Lan sect,” she said dryly. “Not even my husband could do more than he did to forestall my punishment, and he’s sect leader. Nominally, anyway.”

This did seem to be a problem of the Lan sect. Of all sects, really – he had his own share of old men causing issues and sticking their noses into things – but he’d never had anywhere near the problem with the sect elders as Lan Xichen had had with his Lan sect.

“Why should I?” Nie Mingjue asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t see why we have to tell them anything at all.”

-

“Why are we doing this?” Nie Huaisang asked, tugging on Nie Mingjue’s sleeve.

“I already explained,” Nie Mingjue said, which he had. He’d also explained that he’d run in there by accident while looking for a place to hide, and he’d tried to look as much like a stupid twelve-year-old as possible when he said it. “About the lack of a trial –”

Nie Huaisang tugged again. “Not that. Why are we rescuing her?”

“Because she might die if we don’t,” Nie Mingjue said. “She’s very bored in there all by herself.”

“So?”

“What do you mean, so? It’d make Xichen and Wangji sad if she died.”

“So?”

“So they shouldn’t be sad if they don’t have to be! I don’t want them to be sad because they lost a parent…don’t you remember being sad about your mom having died, Huaisang?”

“No,” Nie Huaisang said. “I had da-ge.”

Nie Mingjue sighed. He’d keep this conversation in mind for later when Nie Huaisang was old enough to actually understand the concept of death, and then he’d use it to torment him forever.

“Wouldn’t you be sad if da-ge died, then?” he asked, and felt Nie Huaisang’s hands abruptly clutch tight on his arms. “There you go. That’s why we’re doing this.”

Nie Huaisang nodded, but he was still scowling a little in his adorable childhood way, and Nie Mingjue thought for a second that he heard him murmuring something about inviting unnecessary trouble under his voice, but…whatever, it wasn’t important.

What was more important was that Lan Xichen had arrived with what Nie Mingjue had asked him to fetch for him, his cheeks bright pink with excitement. “Nie-da-ge,” he hissed even though there wasn’t anyone in the area, thrusting the package into Nie Mingjue’s arms. “I got it!”

“Good,” Nie Mingjue said, then paused. “Er, you don’t mind, do you?”

“Mind? Mind what?”

“That I’m kind of, uh, well – I mean, I’m kidnapping your mother. You won’t be able to see her as often as you do now if this works…”

“She’ll be free,” Lan Wangji, trailing behind Lan Xichen as always, said solemnly. Then he stuck his thumb in his mouth, which somewhat ruined the effect.

Wei Wuxian, who’d rushed over to stand next to him as soon as he’d seen him, hugged him tightly. “You’ll come over all the time,” he assured him. “My mom will like your mom, and we’ll all go outside and play all the time. We’ll be really happy!”

Lan Wangji sniffed and buried his face into Wei Wuxian’s shoulder.

“It’s like Wangji said,” Lan Xichen said. His eyes were intense. “She’s not happy here, she’s not free here, and we only see her once a month anyway – less, in the future, once we’re both busy with lessons all the time. If she can be free somewhere else…you will let us come visit, right?”

“As often as you’re allowed,” Nie Mingjue promised, as it was about all he could do. “I’ll talk to my father about it…”

His father would probably have a fit.

Still, this was an injustice. Even if his father disagreed, it was something he had to do. He’d justify it with reference to their sect principles, and take any punishment duty his father chose to impose.

“It doesn’t matter, he’ll agree,” he said firmly. “You’ll definitely be able to visit.”

“Can I raise an objection?” Nie Zonghui said mournfully from where he was hovering by the side of the clearing. “Possibly two – no, three objections.”

Nie Mingjue looked at him and tilted his head to the side in silent question.

“One, your father said not to get into trouble, if you’ll trouble yourself to remember back that far,” he said, raising a finger. “Two, how exactly do you plan to break the array keeping Madame Lan imprisoned? And three, even if you do break it, how do you plan to get her out?”

The first was irrelevant. The other two…

“We’re going to walk out the front gate,” Nie Mingjue said, and opened up the package Lan Xichen had gotten him – as he’d suspected, there had been spare robes for Qinghe Nie disciples left behind from the previous discussion conference, and sure enough the Lan sect had kept hold of them as a courtesy to the owners. “The Lan sect has never affirmatively stated that Madame Lan wasn’t allowed to leave; they just said she was too sickly to do so. Therefore, if we leave with a Nie sect disciple who is clearly capable of walking out, there’s nothing they can do to stop us without admitting that it’s her and that she’s a prisoner – which they won’t do, because then they’d lose face.”

“That barely counts as a plan,” Nie Zonghui said, and for some reason Nie Huaisang nodded in agreement. “But sadly I think it might actually work.”

Nie Huaisang looked betrayed.

“It will work,” Lan Xichen said. “Especially if you insist that she’s one of yours. They won’t be able to call you out without calling you a liar, and they wouldn’t want to do that. Not publicly, not about this.”

“Won’t there be a problem that she’s a girl wearing boy’s clothing?” Wei Wuxian asked, patting Lan Wangji’s head.

“No, that’s not a problem in Qinghe,” Nie Huaisang told him. “You’re new, so you’re not used to it, but it really isn’t. I mean, she could be misaligned or something, it’s not our business.”

“And we won’t be lying about her being one of ours,” Nie Mingjue said. “Since I’ve offered her sanctuary in our sect, it’s even technically true.”

Nie Zonghui sighed. “And if they ask Lan-gongzi and Lan-er-gongzi if she’s their mother?”

“Wangji won’t say anything,” Lan Xichen said at once. “And I’ll – I’ll lie if I have to.”

He was truly unbearably cute at this age.

Nie Zonghui appeared to be suffering from a similar problem, reaching over and patting him lightly on the head in helpless amusement. “Okay, okay. Let’s hope they don’t ask,” he said. “But – Nie-gongzi, we still have the second problem. How do you intend to get Madame Lan out of the imprisonment array?”

Nie Mingjue patted his cousin – who he knew from his future experience was one of the finest array breakers in their sect, a charming side-effect courtesy of his dual-wielded saber cultivation style – on the shoulder. “I intend to delegate.”

Nie Zonghui blinked, then glared. “I walked myself into that one, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Nie Mingjue said peaceably. “Can you break it? I can use Baxia, if it’ll help.”

“Hmph. Yes, it would help a great deal, but will she agree to consume an array for you? That’s fairly high-grade work, and talent or no talent, you’re still fairly new to mastering the saber.”

Nie Mingjue put his hand on Baxia’s blade, which felt warm and pleased. Practically purring. At some point he would need to investigate why she was so happy all the time – she’d never been this compliant in his first life, and he’d expected her to be more vicious, not less. “Yes, she’ll be happy to help.”

“Fine. Let’s go.” Nie Zonghui paused briefly. “Also, if your father asks, you held Baxia to my throat and made me do it. It was definitely not me being curious about whether or not I could break such a complicated array.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” Nie Mingjue said understandingly, and drew Baxia. “All right. Let’s go get ourselves banned from the Cloud Recesses.”

[doomstypewriter]

Excuse me while I panic

New chapter, yay! Didn't I tell you I'd be faster?

Thanks for all of the lovely comments and interest, it really motivates me to write more.

Word count: 3041 | AO3 | <<Previous

Summary: Roman gets to work. Wooing Virgil will be a piece of cake!

Right?

CW: Swearing, anxiety, mild angst, maybe unsympathetic Janus (I don't really think so but it could somehow be interpreted as such because of Virgil and Roman talking about him, so I might as well give a warning). I don't think there's anything else, but, if you spot it, do tell.

Be yourself and let things develop naturally... that's just boring

Once he returned to the main living area, the noises of arguing and Logan’s screams could not be heard anymore. They were instead replaced by the clicking of spoons against teacups and mugs.

The moment the three noticed him they looked upwards at the same time. Patton, Logan and Janus were sitting at the table, drinking hot chocolate, coffee and tea respectively. The lights in the kitchen were on, illuminating them partially.

Logan nodded at him.

“How did it go?” he asked.

Meanwhile, Patton smiled and Janus stared at him inquisitively.

Roman went fully downstairs, hurrying to move a chair back. With his hands still on the backrest, he began to speak.

----

“Haha… I actually wanted to ask you…”

“Did something happen?” Virgil held his breath. “Is it about me?”

Roman could not stand the tension emanating from every pore of Virgil’s body. Thinking optimistically, he probably had no idea about his real motivations to come there, still, the thought of it eliciting such a reaction made Roman feel even more frozen in place.

“No!” he answered all too fast.

His body language went even stiffer with worry, to the point where he raised a hand to his mouth and began to nibble on the sides of the tip of his thumb.

“Then…”

“Everything is fine, Pierce the Nerves, I promise”.

“Okay… hmm what’s up with the rose?”

“It’s… uh…” Roman looked at it and began to felt ridiculous. “I just picked it up and it’s the same red as my sash!” he laughed as he placed it on the lapel of his suit.

“No comments. What did you want to ask me?”

----

Janus looked at him with a mix of horror and disbelief as Roman finished his recollection of the events.

“So I panicked and then I said that you had decided to help Patton bake something and now we need to make cookies this instant because Virgil will suspect something if we don’t!”

For a moment there was silence. Then, Janus ran his hands over his face.

“Roman, please take a seat already or put the chair back in place”, said Logan.

“Yeah, right” Roman sat down.

“Brilliant idea, Roman, there’s no way Virgil won’t buy that I’m making cookies and, of all things, invited him to try them. Why would you get me directly involved in it?”

Roman stood up, earning an exasperated eye roll from Logan.

“I drew a blank! I cannot come up with perfect stories on the spot while under pressure!”

“So you thought putting me in it would just magically fix how terrible you are at talking to your crush?”

“He’s not my--” Roman went deadly quiet, rethinking his life in a matter of microseconds. “Look, if I can trust you to do something is lie. So when Virgil comes down those stairs you need to help me fix this! You were the one who insisted I talk to him, so it’s your problem too”.

“Can I trust YOU not to mess up any of my--”

“Hey”.

“Aaaah!” Roman and Janus screamed in unison.

One sigh later, Virgil added:

“You invited me to have cookies”.

“Oh, yeah, well… about that…” Roman began saying. “Patton and Janus haven’t started--”

“Kiddo, we already got them ready while you went to call Virgil” Patton interrupted him. “They’re cooling in the kitchen” he pointed.

“If you had paid attention you would have noticed the bowls in the sink” Logan added without bothering to look at him.

“Roman, close your mouth, you’ll catch flies” Janus finished the series of comments directed at him.

----

Virgil’s chair moved back as he stood up.

“Well, uh…” he said. “Thanks for the cookies. Hmm…”

A frown appeared on Virgil’s face as he was leaving. His feet stopped all of a sudden and he turned around.

“Janus?” it sounded like saying the name itself pained him.

The side in question raised his head, looking openly confused. Or was it an act?

“Yeah?”

“Hmm… Roman told me you invited me. And that’s… em…” he bought time, wondering what to say. Whether to lie or not. “Suspicious. So, a word?”

Janus raised his eyebrows, not buying it, but he followed him nonetheless.

They left the room, both walking at a distance from each other. For a second, Roman thought he saw worry in Janus’ face.

“What the hell was that?” Roman asked no one in particular.

“He’s trying to be nice” Patton smiled. “I’m so proud of him!” his tone was ecstatic.

“I guess… hey, padre, how did you know I’d ask you for the cookies?”

“Patton anticipated a few outcomes from your confession attempt and decided cookies would serve as a suitable response for either” Logan replied matter-of-factly.

“Yes…” he grimaced apologetically. “I thought that if everything went well we could celebrate, and if it didn’t… well, we’d be there for you, so the cookies might cheer you up”.

----

A few days after the confession fiasco, Roman decided to try again and woo him a little before pouring his heart out.

He popped into the living room, only to find Virgil and Janus sitting six feet apart. One was listening to music and, presumably, checking out Tumblr, while the other read a thick book.

With the volume of the music, Virgil didn’t notice him, Janus on the other hand…

His face stopped being obscured by the wing of his hat as he looked up at him.

Janus shook his wrist, making Logan’s watch appear on it. The other side wouldn’t be happy about that, but if Janus had survived stealing his crofters, Roman figured he could get away with pretty much anything.

“Well, look at the time!” he said theatrically as he stared at the watch. “I need to take care of other things, pitty to miss out on your company”.

Virgil moved his headphone to the side, managing to listen to the last part of what Janus had said.

“At least he doesn’t make it awkward”.

“What?” Roman asked.

“Yeah, you’re still angry with each other, right? I can ignore him, but having the two of us in the same room with him would be like asking for an argument”.

One short stare later, Virgil spoke again, a bit unsure.

“Do you want me to move so you can sit here too?”

“No”

“Oh, okay”

“I mean, I didn’t come here to be on the couch, actually I came to see you”.

“Miss me that much?” he teased.

And it was too good of a bait to just let go without reply.

“Terribly, I’ve been swooning and mopping because I didn’t have someone blasting Paramore around me!” Roman answered draping a hand over his forehead.

“Truly tragic”.

“I know. Anyhow, I was wondering…”

Virgil raised one of his hands to stop him right there.

“If you want me to do something stupid and dangerous in the imagination with you, I’ll pass”.

“Afraid you won’t be able to keep up?”

“No, it’s more like I don’t want to have to drag your ass back here when you get hurt”.

“Hey, I’ll have you know I’m the best swordsman in there”.

“So is it like, empty then?”

Roman gasped.

“Tss. It seems like it is”.

“No it’s not!”

“Well, if you keep inviting me, I guess it isn’t, even if we are the only people in there”.

“Virgil, you have seen my servants”.

“Hmm… yeah” he looked to the ceiling playfully, then back at Roman,

“I don’t seem to remember about it”.

“Okay, well, I guess I won’t ask the royal artisans to frame your painting, since they don’t exist”.

“What painting? Are you also hallucinating art?”

“No. I was about to ask you if I could paint you!”

“Wha-- really? You want to paint ME?” Virgil pointed at himself as if to make it somehow clearer.

“If you’re willing”.

----

The whole painting idea had gone well. Still, Roman wasn’t able to get the right atmosphere to confess with Virgil constantly teasing them. To be honest, he ended up forgetting about it once they began to get caught up in the conversation.

He had tried other things, of course.

None had gone as planned.

Writing poems would just make Virgil uncomfortable or even correct him, because, apparently, listening to all of those lyrics from obscure indie bands had made him a better poet than him.

Then there was the whole incident with the ukelele.

Roman had been trying to play something to catch his attention, set the tone and just tell him, but the string snapped and hit him in the face. Now he had an ugly cut and some bruising on his cheek.

He felt stuck.

Worse than all of that, Janus kept lurking around Virgil. Pretending to be nice and reformed.

But never mind about everything else. He needed to keep trying.

Eventually, Roman would manage to get it right.

-----

Finally, he had a plan!

The last time Roman had gone to Virgil’s room to confess, he had panicked and let the effect of the room get to him. But, none of that could happen if he didn’t speak.

This would be perfect because Virgil would love it. Roman had recorded a playlist of their favourite songs into a vinyl record, just to make it a bit fancier. He’ll gift it to him and Virgil would understand.

Maybe he’d even ask him to dance to it!

Roman crossed the darkness of the entrance almost running.

This could work!

His mood deflated instantly when he emerged into the room.

Virgil was sitting on his bed, knees to his chest, hiding all of his upper body inside his hoodie. He left the vinyl on Virgil’s desk and walked up to the bed, making sure to be a bit noisy so Virgil wouldn’t be caught by surprise.

The other let a long breath out in some kind of acknowledgement.

Eventually, Roman sat next to him.

“What’s wrong?”

Virgil sighed and let his face come out of the cocoon of his hood.

“It’s not that something’s wrong per se. I…”

Without thinking, Roman placed his hand on top of Virgil’s. The contact made him feel like nothing bad could happen to Virgil as long as he held onto him.

Roman got the sudden realisation that he would be willing to protect him from anything. Which wasn’t too groundbreaking of a concept. He’d try to save pretty much everyone if given the chance, but that was his need to be the hero, to be “good”, whatever that eventually entailed. With Virgil, though… he just didn’t know what he’d do without him.

“Whatever it is, I’m here and I’ll make sure you’re okay” Roman promised.

Virgil chuckled. It stung a little.

“You can’t just say those things so seriously when I’m feeling bad, Princey, I never know how to react when you’re being so…”

“Annoying?” Roman tried to complete the sentence.

His head turned to the other side. He still didn’t let go of Virgil’s hand, but he could afford to, at least, not let him see how self-conscious he felt right now.

“Princey, look at me”.

“I’m not sure I want to, Virge”.

“Hey, I’m the one who’s feeling low. Don’t try to steal the spotlight, it’s kind of an asshole move…”

Hearing that only made him feel worse, now adding guilt to the mix.

“Especially since”, Virgil continued, “I was about to say you’re nice”.

“I’m sorry I reacted poorly” Roman finally managed to stare at him, “here you are, feeling like crap and I’m only thinking about myself. I can be very selfish sometimes. I apologise”.

Virgil frowned.

“Okay. Fuck off”.

“Did I--”

“No. Listen to me. Whatever you’re thinking I’m thinking right now is wrong. I know what you’re doing because I do it all the time. I’m not mad. And you’re not selfish. Not one bit. You’re self-centred, very much so, but not selfish”.

“Virge, I’m pretty sure those are the same thing”.

Virgil shook his head.

“You can be annoying when you make everything about yourself and try to be the centre of attention. But you never ignore people when they need you, even if that doesn’t benefit you. You’re willing to give up things you want just to do what you think is right. Hell, Princey, you let go of your pride just to be friends with me. How could anyone think you’re selfish when you’re so stupidly wonderful?”

“I--”

“Don’t get too smug about it” Virgil cut him.

It got quiet for a second. Roman savoured the moment and squeezed Virgil’s hand. His smile began to return to him a little bit.

“Thank you. It means a lot, you have no idea” Roman muttered.

Virgil visibly relaxed. He slumped a bit more, letting himself fall against Roman’s side. The dark hair tickled his collarbone, but Roman wouldn’t ever dream of complaining about it.

“Yeah I do” Virgil whispered, so quietly Roman could have imagined it.

Having Virgil’s head on his shoulder made sense. Like it was meant to be there all along.

“What were you sulking about?” Roman asked.

“Not sulking”.

“Sure thing, All the time low”.

He felt Virgil muffle a laugh against the shoulder pads of his suit.

The laugher died down soon after a long sigh.

“I’ve been thinking about doing something”.

Roman stayed quiet for once, leaving him room to breathe and let things out at his own pace.

“I… I am considering forgiving Janus”, Virgil paused, twisting his neck to see Roman’s expression. “Maybe be friends again if it comes to it”.

A sigh.

His thumb started to move in circles, caressing the back of Virgil’s hand. Roman swallowed.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” he asked tentatively.

“You’re not mad?”

“I don’t know. Should I be? It’s not like I’ve exactly forgotten about all of the bad blood between us. But… he makes Patton very happy and it seems like he’s trying to help, so I don’t know what to feel about it”.

“Roman, I know he hurt you”.

“Is that what you’re worried about?”

“In part. There’s more to it. But I can’t just go and bury the hatchet with him if that would hurt you again”.

A small part of Roman felt good knowing Virgil would keep on being angry with Janus if he wanted him to. In a way, it showed his willingness to stay by his side.

That’s why Roman couldn’t ask him that.

Besides, Janus had been helping him too. It wouldn’t be right for him either, as much as it stung to admit it.

“If that makes you happy, I will be happy too”.

“Yeah, but that’s not what I’m asking. I don’t want to know if you would ignore your issues with Janus for my sake”.

“I really don’t mind--”

“And I know that. But… fuck, Roman, you shouldn’t be constantly forced to put everyone first just to make things better for everybody else except you”.

That was… a lot to take in. Roman didn’t know very well what to respond. Eventually, Virgil must have interpreted his silence as him doing something wrong.

“You’re my friend. I… I care about you. I won’t do something you’re not okay with. You’re more important”.

“No need. It’s okay. Getting over my stuff with Janus is my own

problem. I also care about you, a lot. If you want to be friends with him I’ll support you, it has nothing to do with my problems. You won’t hurt me. I promise”.

“That’s good to hear. I mean, I’m still struggling with the decision and I don’t think I’ll be making up my mind anytime soon. But knowing that helps a lot”.

“Do you want to talk about it more?”

“Hmm. It’s… it’s so confusing. I thought nothing he did could rub off how angry I’ve been at him, make me want to trust him again. Before… well, no need to get into the specifics, but it made me feel very betrayed” his voice trembled a little. “The problem is, he didn’t exactly betray me, so I guess the doubts about whether or not things could go back to what they were, remained”.

Virgil swallowed, trying to compose himself.

“And it sucks because there’s a part of me that can’t tell if this is all part of a big scheme and he’s just trying so hard to be nice to me because he wants something, or because he actually cares. I’m scared of letting my guard down and have him ruin everything I’ve tried to achieve. What if I go back to how I used to be?”

“I won’t let that happen”.

“How can you be sure? How can we be sure of anything when it comes to him?”

“We can’t. But I have no doubts that, no matter what happens, we’ll figure it out. Even if it gets to the worst, you know me and I know you. Most importantly, I believe in you, Virge. I’m not going to tell you, of all people, that there’s nothing to be afraid of. But if you’re scared, know that you can trust me and you can trust who you’ve become. We’ll be fine”.

“Roman…”

For a second, it seemed like Virgil was going to cry, or worse, do something like hug him AND cry.

“To be fair, though”, Roman went back to his usual self. Both would welcome the respite after… well, big conversation to unpack. “I honestly don’t think Janus is planning anything. He’s even trying to get on my good side just to make you happy. I’m not the best side for him to manipulate anymore, not after everything, and he isn’t that stupid. So I’d say the bitch is being sincere. That being clear, it would still be a pleasure to punch him if you asked”.

Virgil shifted a bit.

“Ouch!” Roman shouted after Virgil elbowed him. “What did I do now?”

“You’re dumb”.

“So are you, emo, what’s your excuse?”

“I’m friends with you and I think it might be starting to affect me”.

“Well, it’s about time. I knew even you weren’t impervious to my dashing good looks”.

Oh. Perhaps he had let on too much. Roman tensed up the slightest bit.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever lets you sleep at night, Princey”.

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