#cielo's writing

[firein-thesky]

Godmaker - Masterlist

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Pairings: Satoru Gojo x f!reader

Summary: And the form leans down, closer, as their voice drops to a murmur, all honey and thorns, the promise of something far greater than you. A storm to come. The future that you will bear upon the slant of your shoulders. And when they speak, you know they’ve cursed you;

“I will teach you how to make a God.” 

(Arranged marriage, angst, hurt/comfort, dark content)

Warnings: Parental manipulation, parental abuse (verbal and some physical), toxic dynamics, unhealthy relationships, abusive relationships, manipulation, canon typical violence, gore, vague notes of sexism, smut in later chapters, hurt, and angst.

A/N: it is finally upon us :,) i've been working far too long on this and it isn't officially done but i am forcing myself to begin posting and hopefully everything will be done on time. mind all warnings, i will give more specific ones for each chapter with the chapter release. i hope you guys enjoy this one, it's drove me insane. find release dates below!!

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January 5th - Prologue: Godlings

January 12th - Chapter One: Swallow

January 19th - Chapter Two: Anything, Everything

February 2nd - Chapter Three: Anew

February 9th - Satoru's Interlude: Bigger God

February 23rd - Chapter Four: Serpents

Date TBD - Chapter Five: Title TBD

Date TBD - Epilogue: Title TBD

*please note that all release dates, chapter amount, titles, etc. are subject to change as this story is still in progress

[rush-the-stars]

cielo beloved do u happen to have any spare megumi thoughts mayhaps maybe perhaps

of course i do. of course i do.

um. don’t perceive me. PLS don't perceive me after this. this has been haunting me tbh.

pairing: aged up!megumi fushiguro x f!reader

wc: 3k WHAT IS MY PROBLEM IM SO ASHAMED. thought about turning this into a full fic but. it's too late. it's already typed in lower case. i'm done.

cw: smut, reader has her period, cramps, period sex, rough sex, unprotected sex, fingering, blood, probably grammar mistakes and typos.

***

the door to your apartment unlocks slowly, carefully, like your intruder is trying to be quiet in the hush of night.

it is late.

he must assume that you are asleep, curled beneath familiar bed sheets, sleeping soft and safe in the comfort of your own apartment.

perhaps it’s sweet, that he’s trying to be quiet.

you gave megumi a key to your apartment a long time ago–before whatever entanglement you have more recently began to develop. he just never gave it back. you’d never ask for it back. it belongs on his key chain now and in his hands, belongs in the lock, so that he can always get to you. you realized early on that megumi never wants you to be far from his reach or out of his grasp. he doesn’t want any locks or doors between you.

he reminds you of a dog you had as a child; scratched and howled and whined at your door at night until you let him in, until he could get to you.

megumi’s shadow haunts the arch of your bedroom door now.

he’s home from his mission early.

“you’re awake,” he says and he must know from your breathing or maybe something else entirely. strange, observant man that he is.

you hum, turning your head to get a better look at him; broad in the shoulders, tighter in the waist. so tall and looming, especially in this blue dark. his hair has grown out lately, shaggier than usual, coming up against the nape of his neck, curling behind his ears.

“you’re home early,” you say back.

“its late,” he responds.

in truth, you’d been awake with cramps, rolling around beneath your sheets and trying to find reprieve. your lower back aches something fierce, like you can feel your insides churning and twisting, slow like molasses, but painful and searing. beyond that, you feel bruised and tender, like a too-ripe fruit.

you hold your stomach like it might still your insides from all their contracting.

“cant sleep.” you respond to his silent question as he wanders deeper into the room. he sets his duffel bag down, begins to make himself at home again in your space.

for a moment, you’re so happy to have him back early, you could almost forget the pain. especially when he crawls into bed beside you, sidles as close as he can get himself, pressing all up against you, before slotting his mouth over yours in a rough little kiss. desperate man that he is. hungry.

you can feel the rasp of his stubble against your lips, coming up rough against your softness. your hands wind into his hair, pulling and tugging gently.

he makes a soft noise of relief, like coming home to your arms is what he needed, all he ever needs. you can feel his hands squeeze at your hips, grabbing at your curves appreciatively, eagerly.

he can’t say it first–he never can–so you do, “missed you.”

in response he makes another noise against your neck, ducking down to nuzzle into your throat, pressing wet kisses against your pulse. skimming his teeth against your skin.

he's always needy when he comes home from missions, sometimes half-frantic, sometimes painfully needy, painfully exhausted and craving whatever comfort you manage to provide him.

he feels your breath hitch when he hollows his cheeks to suck a pulsing little bruise into your throat.

fire catches to dry kindle with him, and suddenly he's fanned his desire into a flame. he has a habit of rushing, sometimes, like he's starved. touches and kisses you like you might flee from him at any moment.

sometimes, you think he sees you as a rabbit-hearted girl and his desire is too frightening a predator for you, too big for you to take, too vicious for you to survive. you think he considers his lust half-beast, half-cannibal, and able to maul you. devour you whole.

it'd be a fine way to go, you think, your hand tangling in his wild hair.

he hitches your leg up over his waist and you can feel the way he slots himself against you. you can feel the heat from him, the hardness that catches against where you’re tender and half-hurting.

you make a little noise of surprise and he encourages the rock of your hips, comes back up to kiss you hard again. to kiss you mean, teeth in your lip, fingers flexing possessively at your waist. to swallow any sounds you make now; you know he likes to feel them up against his mouth.

he's all raw man when he gets like this, maybe part animal, single-minded and wholly overwhelming. you can hardly catch your breath. and usually it's fine, it's good, but tonight–

his nimble fingers hook in the front of your little sleep shorts.

–you tense up, pulling away from his mouth and immediately grabbing for his wrist to stop him.

“not tonight,” you murmur and he tilts his head, so you add, “i got my period earlier.”

something passes over his face.

he keeps his fingers hooked in the material, frozen. stubborn.

he licks his lips.

you can’t see it fully in the dark, but you think his cheeks have darkened, flushed all scarlet.

“i don’t mind,” he finally manages to rasp.

his fingers twitch.

your heart trips up. this is new territory.

“no—megumi, that’s alright—“

“i want to.” he says this time and it’s so raw it almost startles you.

you freeze. you swallow hard.

“no, it’s okay—you don’t need to.”

“i want to.” he says again, this time more deliberate.

“i can help you out if you’re so pent up, you know?” you say it with a little laugh, like that might diffuse the tension. it doesn’t.

“no—“ he gets out, “no, i want to.”

“megumi,” you try to soothe, “you don’t understand. it’s—it’s gross, and—“

he swallows, “i don’t think it is.”

you blink at him in the soft dark, opening your mouth and then shutting it.

“are you in pain?” he then asks, softer now, voice just a rumble against your jaw. “do you have cramps?”

you nod dumbly.

slowly, carefully as not to spook you, he lets his hand fan out over your skin and slide to your lower back. he massages slow, works at the muscles gently, creeping higher up your back every few times, maybe dipping a little lower, too.

you groan softly, head falling back to reveal your throat.

“feels good,” you slur a little, arching into his touch like a preening cat.

he tucks his face back against your exposed neck to mouth and teethe gently, tongue dipping out in a blossom of wet heat.

you undulate your hips a little against him, against his large hand that flexes and circles at your aching muscles.

his hand slips lower on your back, fingers easing beneath the waist band of your shorts once more. but this time, he continues to massage, up and down, over and over against your cramping lower back. you squirm somewhat, but ultimately melt into his large hands.

until one of his hands finally plunges a little deeper into your shorts and you lock up.

“megumi—“ your voice is strained with warning.

“it’ll make you feel better.” he murmurs, pausing his hand, though, halfway down your little pajama shorts. and you know he's supposed to be soothing you, but his breath is lost, soft voice a little ragged at the thought.

“n-no. you don’t understand how messy it is or—“

“do you think i’m scared of blood?” he asks, perhaps a little too bluntly, “do you think i care?”

“yes-?”

his fingers move again, as if to prove you wrong, slipping beneath your panties now.

“megumi!” you gasp, you scold, you try to squirm away from him but he holds fast to you.

and it’s so—

horribly embarrassing. you can feel heat whip through you like a storm, burning your face, your chest, low in your stomach.

he doesn’t care about the pad you have on or how you try to twist away from him. it's horrible. you want to curl in on yourself. you want to cry. you want–

his fingers find where you’re burning and slippery.

he inhales a little sharp, off-kilter.

you’re fisting tight to the front of his shirt, head digging into his chest like you’re trying to disappear inside of him.

“megumi, i told you—“ your voice is high and thin and near breaking.

“it’s okay,” he hushes. and again, “i want to—want you. like this.”

and then he gently, carefully, dips his finger inside of you. and you’re sure he feels you constrict and flutter around him, feels your whine up against his throat, embarrassed and needy.

his own breath is tight, held in, as he slowly crooks his finger. then begins to massage, begins to stroke in a way that has your eyes fluttering.

it only takes a few strokes.

and then you lift your hips a little for him and he makes a strangled sound, half a groan as he begins to bolden, strengthen his fingers.

mindlessly, desperately, you realize how good it feels. your mouth parts in surprise, in pleasure, against your will. mortification is a serpent around your throat, holding fast to your voice, to any sound that might escape you. you choke on any pleas for more, wouldn't dare ask him for anything else, and dig our nails into him. you try to anchor yourself. you try to hide in his chest.

you don’t have to plead or ask, though, don't have to do a thing when he gently eases in a second finger. you feel yourself stretch around them, walls constricting, throbbing in a way that finally makes a keen rupture from you.

it makes megumi groan, raw, from his throat, fingers sinking in deeper.

"i want–" he gets out, "i want to taste–"

"megumi!" you gasp, cut him off, can't even hear him say it, squirming in his hold again. maybe out of further embarrassment, maybe out of–

arousal.

your head spins.

it's made even worse when he removes his fingers from you, suddenly shifts, and before you can protest or move, he's got your shorts and panties off, tossed in a bundled heap. and you're on your stomach, suddenly with your hips hitched up.

"you're gonna make a mess–" you try to warn him again, but you don't think he's concerned much, as he gets his pants down only low enough to free himself. you peek over your shoulder to see his hand stroking slowly over his cock, mouth slackened as he looks at you. his eyes are half wild, a little dazed, wholly enamored.

you feel heat scorch across your face and bury it into the pillow like you might be able to hide.

"i'll–" he swallows, inching forward until you feel the tip slip up against your folds. he groans a little, "i'll clean up after. we can take a shower."

you're surprised he even managed to answer you coherently; often, when he gets that look in his eye, he tends to lose all sensibility. for someone usually so rational, this is the one place it slips from him–or perhaps it's the one place he's able to let go of it. to just feel and be and take in a way he never allows himself to.

he finds reprieve, maybe, in getting lost in you.

you yelp when you feel him push the head of his cock just barely inside, splitting you open slowly. you try to inch away from him out of reflex, but one of his hands clamps down on your waist and forces you back. he can feel you fight him a little, pull against his hold, and you think if he wasn't so gone, it'd make him pause.

but then that hand begins to squeeze and massage, pushing up over your lower back again, moving in slow, firm circles.

"relax," he says, but his voice is tight. like he's a bow string pulled taught, ready to release. he holds himself on a sharp leash, though. he rubs soothingly at your back, works into the muscles with his thumbs, until you're easing up. settling back deeper into your hips, opening yourself up to him in a way that makes him slip deeper inside.

you can tell his restraint is threadbare.

"megumi–" you whimper helplessly, mortified, and needy.

it snaps with a firm push of his hips until you feel his thighs up against the back of yours.

he presses deeper into your lower back with his fingers, flexing, massaging, perhaps forcing you down into the bed and molding you to his hands like a sculptor to their art.

he drags himself out slowly and it makes you keenly aware of the stretch of him, of the way your walls flutter faintly, tender and aching.

you feel like an open wound, a live wire, an exposed nerve.

you hiccup a moan out, mewl into the pillow.

but he keeps the slow and deep pace, easing in and out of you, in and out, until you're arching into it–into his hands, into the feeling of him filling you.

you spread yourself for him more, sink down into it and feel your hips open in a way that brings relief–it gives more of yourself to him. you open for him, vulnerable and shaking, tentative and terrified. and when he realizes it, a sound crawls up his throat, a growl that tapers off into what could be a whine.

his hips snap forward this time and your answering cry sets him off. his thrusts turn harsher, deeper, more forceful. but it feels good, in the depths of you, where your insides are stirring. it feels–

exposing in a completely new way. raw. aching and open for him. 

animalistic—

you can feel the slippery, sticky mess against your thighs, against his navel, the desperate way your body keens towards him now. you arch yourself into a pretty bend just to get more, just feel him root down inside of you, desperate to get him deeper. harder. 

you feel his hand cascade over the arch, appreciative, up to the nape of your neck, around to your throat. fingers hooking around your jaw, and then prying into the heat of your mouth, which you eagerly open for. you close your lips around his middle finger with a tattered groan. you suck sweetly, whimpering behind his finger, eyes bleary and dazed.

when they slip from your mouth, he suddenly hauls you up, so your back is against his chest. your head tips onto his shoulder and he sinks so much deeper that you moan from from the pit of your chest, fingers squabbling for purchase on his muscled thighs.

once you’re this close, he’s got his arms around you, face tucked into your neck, huffing and growling against your skin.

“fuck—“ he spits out, pulling your hips down onto his cock, rutting up into you deep and hard.

“feels so good,” you babble, gasping in between, “you feel so good—it feels so good.”

the praise makes him whine, perhaps with less dignity than he’d like, but he buries his face into your throat. his hand suddenly moves, slips over your abdomen and—

it’s all stained from earlier. 

god, it’s humiliating. its terrifying. it makes your stomach flip sharply, like you’re at the top of the world looking down. 

your blood all over his hands as they slip back down to find your sensitive clit, swollen to the touch and desperate. your blood all over his body. over yours.

“so tight—“ megumi finally breaks, fingers decidedly slow even as his thrusts remain strong and deep, “and wet. and hot. and—“ he catches a groan behind his teeth, “and you needed this, didn’t you?” 

his other hand smoothes over your stomach, flattening out over your where he knows you're hurting so badly, “n-needed me in here, right?” he nips at your ear, tugs it between his teeth. 

he’s seeking reassurance, so you gasp out a yes. yes.

“fuck,” he curses again, low and biting, “thought about this all the time—and you, begging for it—for me—“ 

you can tell by the shakiness in his voice that it’s a horrifying admittance, that maybe he’s pulling teeth to get it out, or that maybe he’s so gone to your body and your walls squeezing tight and the—the blood all over his body. yours. that he doesn’t even realize he’s saying it. 

“wanna—“ he tucks his face away to hide again and you reach a hand behind you to tangle in his hair, to push him deeper into your body, to pull and claw a little. “wanna fuck you through the whole week. want to keep you bare and—and—“

his admittance cuts off into a groan, both yours and his, as his fingers work quicker finally.

as your body tightens and bows against his, mounting pleasure like pressure in the sky before a big storm. electricity under your skin. you’re just going to burst—

your gasp is torn from your throat, shattering so hard you almost curl forward, in on yourself, on your throbbing body, if it weren’t for megumi holding you up. 

the noise he makes is all animal, raw, when he feels your walls pulse and flutter desperately, wildly, deep pulls of your muscles that damn near make his eyes cross.

he reaches between your legs just to feel it, feel with his hands the way you throb deep and hard. can feel it constricting around his cock in a way that you know he won’t last long with.

his thrusts get erratic, rougher, a little meaner. tears bead at your eyes, breath ragged, as he finally buries himself in to the hilt and floods your already aching cunt with soothing heat.

this time he sits back on his haunches, takes you with him, let’s you lean back into the cradle of his body.

your both still panting, ragged, and you’re still shivering with aftershocks that he can feel. his hands twitch and squeeze around your hips.

his thumb digs back into the meat of your lower back, massaging in circles. another pulse makes him huff a little and messily, he plants kisses at your cheek, your temple.

he nuzzles into you like a cat. 

when you speak, your voice is barely a croak, “what got into you?” 

he dots kisses at a bite wound on your neck. 

“i’ve always wanted to do that.” he admits quietly. 

you can’t say you’re entirely surprised now, but—

“always?” you ask, turning your face a little as if you might catch a glimpse of his.

you can see his ears turn pink in the dark. 

he swallows, “yeah.”

and the honesty in it is enough to make heat rise to your own face now.

after a moment, he murmurs, “are you okay?” 

blearily, you laugh, “yeah. ‘m okay. i feel gross.” 

megumi kisses at your jaw, perhaps apologetically, “we can shower.”

“you’re cleaning the sheets.”

“i said i would,” he snips and you feel his teeth in your throat like a warning. “but for now,” he continues, voice low and soft and reverberating against your back, “just stay like this.”

and his hands squeeze again around your waist before slipping between your bodies to massage deeply.

another groan slides from you, honey slow and relieved.

and you have to admit, it feels good, with him still nestled deep inside you, and his hands on your lower back like that.

“want you to come to me from now on—“ he murmurs and it stirs something inside you all over again, “want you to come to me now when you’re hurting like this.”

and he can’t say it first, so you do, “i love you.” 

he turns your face towards his suddenly to catch you in a burning, sweet kiss. desperate man that he is. 

and against your mouth, he murmurs, “i love you, too.”

[shinene]

Finished!!!!!! 😌 once again this is beloved Fool who belongs to @venomous-qwille

YOU🫵 go read Ghost In The Machine, is good 😊 👍

[goatwithaplan]

[rae-gar-targaryen]

this is a lil thot here but excuse you the breeding kink and baby fever go brrr.. anyways imagine mickey like finding out you want kids and then going FERAL. i just- that image in my head is one i am PROUD of creating

But it is an IMPORTANT thot. This awakened something, I think. A lil nsfwish so 18+, and there's a cut. (Reference to their conversation about what they'd name their kids from "swallow you like sunshine") ahoy, ahoy this became a whole thing --

--

so deep in love with you (baby love) [mickey “fanboy” garcia x fem!civilian!reader, aka “cielo”]

Word Count: 1.3k (always a nerd, never a blurb) of nerves, honey-sweetness, and the eternity of love’s promise

Warnings: hints of smut, fingering, breeding kink (obvi) and comeplay. mildest of mild hints of choking. 18+, please.

Why were you so nervous?

No, seriously, why were you nervous? You and Mickey had had this conversation before. There was no reason for you to be this anxious, sitting silently during the dinner he had made for you, twirling spaghetti around your fork endlessly.

If Mickey found your silence disquieting, he had the good grace not to say anything, eyeing you with those bourbon-honey swirled eyes of his that drove you absolutely crazy.

You could do this. This is Mickey you were talking to. Mickey, who had stood in front of the censor so the sliding door at the grocery store stayed open while you tried not to slip in a puddle on your way in. Mickey, who wraps his hands around you and puts them in the pouch pocket of your hoodie while you wait for movie tickets. Mickey, who brought you coffee in bed this morning. Mickey, who plays with Bob's kids, talks to them like they're adults, and excitedly talks too fast when he spills to you all the new facts he's learned about cuttlefish after spending an afternoon with them.

You could tell him this.

"Ehm," you cleared your throat, putting down your fork that had a veritable hive of spaghetti twirled to the end of it by now. "M?" You ventured, waiting for his eyes to meet yours across the table before continuing.

"Yeah, Cielo?" He must sense your nerves. He put his fork down, too, waiting patiently for you to continue.

You cast your eyes down the smear of red sauce across your plate that looked vaguely like a bloated bear before, murmuring,

"Ithinkimreadytotry," you rushed.

Mickey cocked his head to the side, eyes swimming with questions, "Sorry?" He asked.

"I think," you exhaled, tilting your jaw to boldly (in your opinion) meet your husband's eye. "I think I'm ready? To start, you know, trying? Only if you are, I mean, I know you leave again soon, so we don't have a ton of time, and it doesn't have to be now, but I'm ready if you're ready and I just wanna have a baby with you, if that's cool--" you rambled, cutting yourself off when you saw Mickey's eyes widen, his hand reaching over the table to press his finger gently over your lips, rendering you silent.

"Baby," he chuckled. "A baby?"

You nodded, slumping back in your seat, deflated, at the toll your rant had taken on your body.

Mickey eyed you again, seemingly not eager to respond.

He nods, pushing his chair back and standing up, making his way around the table and over to you.

"So," he reaches for you, beckoning you up from your seat with the gentle tug of his warm arm around your waist. "Which one do we try for first, hm?" He asks as he nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, lips trailing the thrumming pulse along the column of your throat. "Vero or Valencia, boy or girl?"

Without giving you a chance to respond, Mickey hoists you over his shoulder, carrying you through the threshold to the living room, gently depositing you on the couch. You gasped at the feel of his fingers tugging at the waistband of your leggings, seemingly perpetually warm, something that emanates from him, tried and true.

And Mickey barely lets you get a word in edgewise, as you open your mouth to respond, he fuses his lips to yours, sliding his tongue into your mouth as his fingers continue to tug your leggings down your legs.

Like a heatwave on a summer's day, Mickey had overwhelmed you, sunshine and molten gold, his hips now rolling into yours on the couch.

"W-wait," you pushed his shoulders, his lips separating from yours, flushed, kiss-bitten, and honeyed. "Now?!"

"You just gave this whole spiel about how we don't have a ton of time," Mickey reasoned, his fingers trailing to your waist as he rolled his hips into yours again, causing you to buck at the feel of him through his sweatpants. "Why not now?"

"M!" You swatted his bicep lightly with the back of your hand, "I haven't showered today. I'm wearing ratty old leggings, for god's sake. I look a mess!"

Mickey hmm'd, a purring little hum of dissent lodged in his throat, like a perpetually displeased jungle cat.

"Agree to disagree, amor," he eyed you as though you were the meal he had been enjoying moments ago.

"First of all," he presses a kiss to your throat, one hand coming up to follow it, fingers lightly wrapping their way around your neck as he feels the effect he has on you in the blood rushing through your veins, beneath his fingers, heated and heady. "You aren't wearing your leggings ... Anymore."

He presses a kiss to your lips, following the gentle gesture with an intentional scraping of teeth, a little bite to his bark.

"Second of all," his other hand at your waist now slips between you to feel the now-soaked lace at the very center of you, plucking it aside to allow him to stroke the seam of your cunt, his touch causing your lips to part in a gasp, your eyes to flutter closed. "You look hot as fuck. Always do."

With that, Mickey slips a finger inside of you, pleased at the feel of your heated walls around him as he plays you to an unheard rhythm, rolling his thumb over your clit. Eagerly swallowing your breathy little moans as he kisses you through his attentions.

"M'gonna fuck you, Cielo," he murmurs, the heat of his body leaving yours as he rocks back on the couch to shuck his sweatpants down. "Gonna give you a baby. Gonna make you come first, though..."

"I want that," you sigh, twining your fingers through the curls you know will be shorn once he leaves, eager to tug, eager to capitalize. Eager to make him yours. "Want everything with you."

...

Later in the night, Mickey takes in the serenity of your features bathed in the white-blue glow of the television as you two take in "The Empire Strikes Back" with unseeing eyes, exhausted and high off of each other. He had put on the movie and grabbed you a chocolate bar after round ... Three, was it?

And he didn't know if it would take right away, really. But he was hell-bent on trying, having fucked you into the couch until you'd forgotten your own name, pushing his release back into you when he had withdrawn, fingers gently sweeping along your opening to urge you through another orgasm, while keeping his spend inside of you.

Now, he's admiring you, the curve of your waist. Imagining the way your stomach will swell someday, the genesis of your collective devotion.

So, really, he doesn't know what compels him to tell you, but he says it anyway --

"You know," your eyes meet his at his words, lips curled in a sweet, sleepy smile, encouraging him to continue. "If you get pregnant this year, Javy owes Payback twenty bucks."

"Excuse me, what?!" You cock an eyebrow at him, seated on your elbows the better to take in what your husband had just said.

"Ehm, yeah," Mickey was sheepish now, scrubbing the back of his neck with his hand. "They were teasing, you know how they are... And, well, I know that I've got it in me, so really, I don't know what they were trying to imply. Just giving me shit, I think."

You put your hand up to silence your husband, biting back a chuckle as you clarify,

"M, do you mean to tell me you wagered with your co-workers about how soon you could knock me up?"

And Mickey, expert at reading you though be was, was grasping to tell whether you were amused or upset. It's a fine line to walk, sometimes, truly...

"Uh, yeah, I guess I did..." He trailed off, glancing at you with apologetic doe eyes.

A laugh bubbled from your lips, a tipsy little thing, telling champagne bubbles as you laughed at your husband's ridiculous antics, tugging him toward you, and pressing your lips to his.

"Claro. C'mon then, daddy," you murmur, kissing him with each word. "We've gotta get Reuben that money."

--

tagging some fanboy girlies (so sorry): @joaquinwhorres @withahappyrefrain @thegirlwhowritesfics  @clints-lucky-arrow @inklore @phoenixhalliwell @ohmagawd-life @moonlight-prose  @levylovegood @thatredheadwriter @zombieaurora @shadeds-library @writercole @ijustwantedplums @justalonelyslytherin @gretagerwigsmuse @fanboysfangirl @siriusfahey @the-navistar-carol @jadore-andor @fanboygarcia @lavenderluna10 @thedaredevilsgirl @fluffyprettykitty @mickeyluvs @mothdruid  @maxmayfield @eagerforthesky @callmemana @mxgyver  @andrewrussgarfield @bioodforbiood  @the-purity-pen @luxuryberzatto @liz-allyn

[virtie333]

A 6K smutty one-shot for Christmas anyone!

I think I'm done!

[elendsessor]

i may be crucified for this opinion but

one of the many reasons i think dds deserves a remake is just how little impact some of the characters have and it’s really fucking sad. unless they’re party members or antagonistic forces they don’t get nearly as much screen time as they deserve and i think that hurts them as characters???

jinana and lupa especially. i get the setting of the first game is a battle royale that turned into a cannibal battle royale so of course not everyone could live but they kinda didn’t get as much screen time as they deserved. i mean think about it they kinda just exist to introduce their tribe, interact with the embryon for a bit, disappear, reappear once or twice, then next time you see them they’ve succumbed to hunger, you beat the shit out of them, and they end up dying. what little they are given does make you like them don’t get me wrong but a lot of that rides on dialogue which, as someone who loves seeing people experience certain plot stuff of games i enjoy, i kinda noticed that it was a really mixed result. it’s either “oh no anyways” with maybe the player getting a little melancholic when they get brought up again or the player doesn’t care. considering how important their struggles and mini arcs are that’s not good??? the fact that they exist solely to develop argilla and gale is a shame since unless you like the exchanges they have their deaths don’t have that big of an impact. they do get mentions and all that in 2 yet it kinda just. makes me question it more from the standpoint of what could’ve been done with them or the giant emotional aftermath that should’ve happened. this isn’t to say they can’t die or whatever but considering the interesting conflicts dds introduces and how it already struggled to explore it as much as it could’ve, jinana and lupa really did have the potential to help remedy some of those issues.

and then there’s fred aka the smokey of dds. i still don’t know why he exists except to explain why lupa somewhat knows what a child is and to introduce the existence of tiny humans to the gang. i’m sorry i straight up forget he was a character at points.

qds fixed a lot of this yes yet i still think it’s important to point out on a game standpoint, since most people who play dds don’t end up reading qds, and i really don’t think actual important contextual stuff or major aspects of a game’s themes should be exclusive to books. it’s not as bad as something like fnaf or other mascot horrors—that shit was over a decade later—but it is a major writing issue and i don’t think the fact that the original lead writer got sick and had to leave means there wasn’t a writing decline. you can tell there was stuff that was going to be built upon only to be abandoned or underdeveloped.

it’s extra sad because this is straight up one of the best instances of world-building the series has ever had, and the whole cannibalistic character drama mixed with spiritual and buddhist + hindu themes is something so inherently interesting while also being in some ways taboo??? there’s not a lot of games out there at least not made by indie developers that get that risky since it’s not marketable, and something like that is next to nonexistent now in the mainstream market. we fuckin need games like the dds duology that challenge the status quo and goddammit if it got expanded upon and had more development for side characters that would be actually perfect.

[chicacielogris]

2- Una historia que comience con "había una vez..."

4- Escribe sobre lo primero que viste al despertar

6- Escribe sobre algo que extrañes

8- Encuentra algo que escribiste hace mucho

10- Crea un personaje basado en tu signo zodiacal

12- Un recuerdo de tu niñez

14- Escribe sobre tu estación favorita

16- Elige una canción y escribe una historia al respecto

18- Escribe sobre una lección que hayas aprendido

20- Una historia que comience con "Estoy parada en la ventana de mi cocina..."

22- Abre un libro, elige una línea al azar y úsala para comenzar una historia

24- Escríbele una carta a tu Musa

26- Escribe una historia inspirada en tu libro favorito

28- Escribe desde la perspectiva de un objeto

30- Escribe sobre algún sueño que recuerdes

[kedsandtubesocks]

like yes i have ship lore with Gojo and he’s unfortunately always going to be my husband (derogatory) but the toxic lore i have with Shoko???

that shit brings me to my knees

[firein-thesky]

Chapter Three: Anew

Masterlist | <- Chapter Two: Anything, Everything | Satoru's Interlude: Bigger God -> | Read on Ao3

Pairings: Satoru Gojo x f!reader

Summary: And the form leans down, closer, as their voice drops to a murmur, all honey and thorns, the promise of something far greater than you. A storm to come. The future that you will bear upon the slant of your shoulders. And when they speak, you know they’ve cursed you;

“I will teach you how to make a God.” 

(Arranged marriage, angst, hurt/comfort, dark content)

Warnings (specifically for this chapter): Parental abuse (emotional and physical), possessive behavior, unhealthy relationships, toxic dynamics, parental death, manipulation, smut; specifically, loss of virginity, first times, pushy Gojo? (Gojo is not as slow or empathetic as he perhaps should be/pushes the reader a little, but there is consent), oral (f receiving), mentions of shame/guilt in regards to pleasure and sex. Please be wary of overarching story warnings, too. Let me know if you think I should add any other warnings! **Please mind warnings overall and for each chapter**

Word Count: 21k......i am mentally unwell.

A/N: a day late but my apology is a huge fucking chapter. i wrote all this before i saw the leaks. i have many thoughts. but first, a huuuuge thank you to @lorelune for beta-reading this beast of a chapter and helping me through it. i feel like i struggled awhile and their feedback helped so much, as always. i also really appreciate your feedback! and would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! thank you all for reading and thank you for waiting for this chapter!! enjoy!

· · ───────── ·𖥸· ──────── · ·

“Gods require isolation.” 

In your vision, colors bleed and bend together in a waterfall of light. You can hardly make out the shape in front of you, can hardly make out the voice. It almost aches, somewhere in your teeth, in the core of you, to try and focus on them.

“Gods cannot have equals, otherwise they wouldn’t be Gods. Do you understand?” 

“But there are so many–” you have a hard time getting out the words, chewing around them strangely, like cotton in your mouth. Your voice is just a croak, “there are so many Gods.” 

“No,” there is a shaking, as if they’re denying you, “forget what you previously knew. Those are myths, not Gods.” 

You blink hard, as if you could clear your vision. You feel like you might be sick, stomach turning over itself, twisting and churning–

“Gods are alone.” 

“Lonely?” 

A pause.

“Yes, lonely, at the top of their world.” The voice hums, like bees in your ears, like the vibrating of cursed energy that simmers low in your hearing, that sizzles to life when used. The person almost feels like–like a curse.

“Gods are lone stars that gaze down upon the earth, they shine brighter, they guide and shower and collapse inwards to become something else entirely.” 

“Stars?” You garble.

“Gods devour everyone around them, so they are the only ones left. Do you hear me?” 

“Yes,” you say and you think tears are pricking your eyes. 

“Don’t cry yet,” coos the voice, lullaby soft, the way a mother sounds, the way you wish a father would sound. “Do you understand, then?”

“Yes,” you hiccup, “Gods are lonely. Gods are very, very lonely.” 

***

You know you will devour Suguru as he walks to you in the garden for a final time. 

The last time you see him before his betrayal, he is in a strangely amiable mood, one that you aren’t often on the receiving end of.

And just as strangely, you allow yourself to indulge him. You aren’t as snappy or harsh, you aren’t posturing and snarling. 

You’re just a friend for him, in his last few hours as a sorcerer and not a curse user. 

“I think I’ll miss visiting you like this when you get married to Satoru.” He says. 

“Satoru wants a garden when we move out. He’s fond of it now, too.” You tell him, “you can visit me in that garden.” 

You know he never will.

(Well—once, he will. But he will not be himself anymore, not really, not ever again. Suguru has always been the type to grow out of his own skin, always chased divinity down until he was stumbling and panting for it, like a starved dog on a futile hunt. 

And when he finally gets it between his teeth, he will have had to die for it, and it will not be him at all, but someone else. 

He will just be the conduit. The possessed. The hollowed out. He’ll gorge himself on it only to still be left starving.

Because maybe that’s all divinity is; the empty stomach, the eternal hunger for something more than yourself. The emptiness of being more than just yourself.) 

“Hm, I won’t have to deal with your father.” Suguru says and he sinks a little heavier into some of the taller, heather soft grass by the pond.

“Tell me about it. I have wanted to escape him for my whole life.” You say.

“Will you?” He asks.

Eventually, you nod. 

Then you admit, “I’ll kill him one day.”

Suguru’s brows dart upwards and he turns his face towards you, towards the sun. He has to squint when he looks at you, he has to shield his eyes a little. The sun hallows you, swallowing you up in its honey bronzed light. 

“You will?” He asks and there’s a strange note in his voice. 

“After he kills my mother.” You don’t know exactly why you tell him this, only that it bubbles out of you, only that you know you are supposed to. 

“How long have you known?” Suguru’s voice is almost gentle for you. 

“Years now. I knew he would kill my mother the moment I received Foresight. And a year or so later, I looked into his future, too.” You lean back on your elbows, tip your face up to the light. 

Suguru swallows. “Is he–I’ve always known he was controlling but–to kill your mother–” 

“He knows.” 

“Knows what?” Suguru asks. 

“That I’ll kill him. I told him after he hit me the first time.” 

You say it so plainly that all Suguru can do is stare for a moment. 

But then he sits up and there is something dark in his eyes, unfathomable, “does Satoru know? And he just let’s this–for all of his fucking power and–” 

A crackling sort of anger spits to life inside him. You’re so surprised that for a moment, all you can do is stare at him now. 

“Suguru,” you say softly and you stop him from standing by catching his wrist in your slight hand, you stop him from going to do who knows what, “Satoru doesn’t know.” 

“Why doesn’t he know?” Suguru hisses, “does Ieri? Anyone?” 

You shake your head. 

“Satoru would kill him if he knew. There is a version where he kills him days before our wedding.” You say and your own voice has taken on a hushed quality, stilling him. 

“A version?” Suguru asks.

You nod. 

“But I want to do it myself.” You admit and the confession is so raw and unkept that it startles you with its truth. “I have wanted to do it myself for a long time, I think.”

Suguru looks at you strangely, changed. 

But when he says, “I always knew there was something horrible in you.” There isn’t any malice in it, rather he sounds deeply fond, a little heartbroken. You sidle up to his side, scoot in close so you can feel the warmth of him. 

He drops an arm around you. He tucks you into his side. 

“Don’t tell Satoru,” you nuzzle down into him, surprisingly compliant. Whenever Suguru has tried to touch you before, you have met him with teeth and nails and all sorts of fight. But now, you melt easily. “Don’t do a thing.” 

You feel his fingers dig into you. 

“How am I supposed to stand idly by and allow you to be–” 

You turn your head against his shoulder, look up at him through your lashes, “please? I don’t ask much of you, do I?” 

Suguru shakes his head. “I don’t like this. Why does it have to be this version? Isn’t there another? Where you’re safe? Where you aren’t–” 

“I don’t think I would be so horrible if there was a different version.” You admit softly to him.  

Suguru goes quiet. 

Then, “I wouldn’t have you any other way, you know.” 

The admittance is surprisingly tender. Your eyes sting with it. 

He catches your chin between large fingers, tilts you up so you can’t hide your shining eyes from him. “Wretched as you are–I think you’re perfect. I only wish–” 

“Suguru,” you almost don’t want him to say this part. You can feel it pulling at you, tugging and tearing at your tender heart, plucking at your insides. 

“There was a version where you were safe. And you didn’t have to be horrible. And I didn’t have to be horrible, either.” 

You’re startled by the tears that he catches, one with his thumb. “What’s this? Tears for me? But you hate me so terribly.” 

You shake your head a little into his hands, “I don’t–” 

“It’s alright,” he hushes, and you think he sees you in a different light now, you think something has shifted massively between you. And so close to the end. “Just tell me if there’s a version where we’re safe and–” 

You swallow hard around the prickly lump in your throat, the sob trapped there. You feel more tears escape from the corner of your eyes, especially as they crinkle up into your sad smile. 

Your vision blurs with him, with the man who wanted to be a god. 

The lie comes easily, almost wistfully, to your trembling lips;

“Yes–somewhere out there is a version where we are safe. My father doesn’t hurt me. And Satoru is more than just a God. Yu Haibara lives. A Zenin boy doesn’t lose his father. Two little girls are not locked in a cage. And you don’t have to be so horrible, either.” 

***

Ieri comes to you in the middle of the night. 

You have not slept, because you know, and you’ve been waiting for her. 

You padded out into the garden, barefoot, awhile ago. The night air has a nip to it. Moonless night. Starless night. Endlessly dark in the heavens tonight. The world seems to be hushed with the violence that’s happened, with the betrayal that has taken place. You wonder if every betrayal made the world go this silent; Set and Osiris, Caesar and Brutus, Jesus and Judas. 

Ieri knows where to find you, knows you’ll know, knows you too well, and she joins you now in your garden. 

She’s been crying. Eyes glassy and lined with red, makeup smeared halfway down her face. 

You fold her into your arms and you can feel her shudder as she holds back another sob.

“You knew,” she gets out, “you knew the whole time.” 

“Yes.” You whisper, holding her tighter to keep her from freeing herself, as if you could wrestle her anger or heartbreak still. 

“Why didn’t you tell anyone? Why wouldn’t you–”

“Was I supposed to condemn him?” 

“Couldn’t you have saved him? You knew–you know all of it.” Ieri is shaking, perhaps terrified, perhaps furious, “will you do this to all of us? What good is your technique if you don’t intervene?” 

“Not everything should be changed.” 

She grabs you by the shoulders suddenly, viciously, nails chipped with burgundy polished digging hard into your skin. She wants to leave torn little half moons. She wants to hurt you. But she’s a doctor. She’s a healer. 

Her eyes fly over your face, tears stream down her ruddy cheeks. Her gaze darkens, digs into you, tries to see what she perhaps missed in you. She tries to find her friend inside of you, tries to find your anguish or heartbreak, too. 

“What am I supposed to do with you?” She asks suddenly and it is not fond but, devastated, “how am I supposed to–” 

Her voice bites off into a strangled whine. 

“Trust me?” 

And when she says, “I don’t know how Gojo does it.” 

It isn’t heated or mean, it’s just–honest. Tired. 

And it hurts worse than you’re anticipating. The ache blossoms so fiercely that your breath catches with it, almost as if she’d struck you. It makes a lump form in your throat. Her eyes like dark moons look at you with a new form of disgust, mistrust. You want to seize her suddenly, you want to cry, you want to do what you do to Satoru where you cling and beg and whine. 

You know it won’t work on her, though.

So you swallow and say, “I loved him, too, you know.” 

And it’s the truth, more than you realized. 

“Then why didn’t you stop him? Why didn’t you save him?” 

Your mind catapults you into a memory of your own and you remember the ancestor of yours who looked too guilty to say he was trying to save you, but stop you. 

Perhaps it is the same, after all. 

“Ieri,” you whisper, strangled, “there was no stopping him.” 

There is no stopping me. 

“No,” she says and her eyes water, filling, “no. The Getou I know wouldn’t have–he killed his parents. He killed–” 

Her hand comes over her mouth and she turns away from you. She holds her stomach with her free hand like she’s trying to keep it all inside of her, like she’s trying to keep all her grief and anger from spilling out. 

You wonder how she will feel when you kill your father. 

Will she understand? Will she hold her stomach again like she’s going to be sick? 

Perhaps for both you and Suguru, you say, “I’m sorry.” 

Perhaps you are admitting to parts of it. “I’m sorry.” You say again and she finally turns to look at you. And then she is grabbing you and she is teetering in your arms as you whisper, “I am sorry. I’m sorry for all of it, I’m so, so–” 

A sob creaks out of her and she falls apart in your arms until Satoru walks to you on wary, unsteady feet, and does the same. 

The three of you don’t sleep and instead sit in a garden that once held four, and watch as the sun breaks over the sky like shattered, red glass reflecting hot and hazy. The day turns on.

Life continues, even if it feels like theirs have ended, even if it feels like you’ve lost something greater than you can name. 

Greater than you ever anticipated.

And you say to no one, perhaps the sky, your voice small like a child’s;

“I’m sorry–I’m sorry–” 

***

Suguru Getou is condemned to execution.

And for all his power, there is nothing that Satoru can do to stop any of this.

(To stop the future you have set into–)

When Suguru kills one hundred and twenty one people, you know why he does it. Maybe he even sees you in them, kept away out of fear of their technique, maybe he is just horrible. You think he must understand then, when you’d mentioned two, little girls. It must've all slid into place for him finally. 

You think he realized his fate in the blink of an eye, the inevitability; perhaps why you despised him and then loved him. He must realize what he is about to do to Satoru. 

Still, Satoru comes to tell you–to seek your counsel. You’ve never seen him quite so lost. So–

You know he won’t listen to you when you tell him, “you will have to kill him.” 

He looks at you hard and long, stricken like you’ve hit him or wounded him, like you’ve pulled a knife out and pushed into the tender parts of him. He looks at you like you’ve betrayed him. 

“How could you say that to me?” He hisses and you can hear it in his voice, thick with emotion, with tears.

“I don’t say it lightly,” you respond and you’re startled to find your own voice failing, the sudden tears you have for the man you apparently hated so badly are still fresh. You don’t know why you’re mourning him like this, why it hurts so bad when you knew–you planned–

“I’m sorry,” you tell him and when he sinks into your embrace, you go down with him, “I’m sorry.” you say again and again and maybe you sound like your mother. Maybe you sound like someone else. 

But you cradle his head to your beating heart, card your fingers through his hair, and let him be just a man in your arms. 

***

Everyone steps in to help Satoru with Megumi and Tsumiki. 

Nanami often is the one who stops by to drop them off to be with you in the morning or evenings, after the kids have gotten done with school. Sometimes Utahime, who is remarkably good with kids. She is also remarkably kind to you, more so than you’d ever imagined or thought. Ieri jokes that she pities you to have to marry Gojo, who is, to her, the most insufferable person alive.  

You think it’s something more, but you can’t place what yet. 

Megumi rushes past Nanami to disappear into the garden. Tsumiki lingers and greets you before loping after her brother.

“How were they?” You ask him.

Nanami pauses before saying, “they miss Gojo, I think. Megumi especially is–” 

His expression pinches for a moment, before he schools it. 

“Well, he’s acting out a little.” 

“I’ll talk to him.” You promise. “What has he done?” 

“He’s picking fights with classmates. His teacher told me and said–well, she said that it would do well for him to have a solid presence in his life and not,” Nanami is careful with what he says now, but it still comes out a little too bluntly, “rotating babysitters.” 

It stings a little, but you swallow, nod around it. You know it’s true. But as they say, it does take a village and you and Satoru are hardly adults yourself. 

You aren’t even yet, technically.

Still, you say, “I’ll see what I can do. Thank you, Nanami, I know it means a lot to Satoru, too.” 

Nanami’s usually stoic features soften barely, before he nods and says, “of course.” And then he inhales slow and asks, “how’s Gojo?” 

In truth, you’ve hardly seen him.

But you’d never let anyone know that, you’d never admit, in any way, that he is untouchable to you. So you look out into the garden to find the kid’s dark heads of shining hair under the sun, bobbing about, moving around the lush green.

The wind eases past you and finally, you say, “he’ll be okay.” 

Nanami seems to understand, so he swallows, and nods. “Tell the kids I’ll see them tomorrow.” 

“I will,” you promise and watch as he walks off, his figure in the spun gold light of the sun and seems to shine through him, almost, as if he were made of light entirely. 

It really is such a shame, you think, as tears prick your eyes, of what will happen to him. 

***

“The wedding is approaching,” your father says over dinner.

“And so is her birthday.” Your mother reminds him. 

They’re planned for the same day–the wedding has been planned for your eighteenth birthday since the vow was created. The days have unspooled before you and turned to years. You have seen how this wedding in too many little futures of others, have known and anticipated it the way hospitals often have temples and churches inside of them 

Your father pays her no mind.

“This is a huge moment for our clan,” he says, “and I have asked countlessly in the past but–” 

“I’ve already seen his future.” You say.

His eyes round with surprise and then hope. The sick sort of excitement that comes from a ravenous sort of hunger. 

“I can’t believe you–” he shakes his head, elated, “finally. What did you see? How can the clan–”

“Did you think I would tell you?” 

His face falters. 

“We want to destroy the clans. Why would I tell you anything that helps them?” 

Your father’s face goes pale. It goes slack with disbelief. And then anger sharpens his eyes, slicing to you. 

He stands from the table abruptly enough that your mother flinches so hard she nearly drops a bowl. “Don’t–” she whimpers, throwing her arm out in front of you to stop him, to keep him from grabbing you. 

It breaks your heart, to see her hand, outcast over you to protect you, trembling like a leaf in a violent wind. She is horrified, but she is still trying to protect you. 

You almost see red. You almost want to kill your father right now. 

“You cannot allow this.” Your father seethes, “did you hear her?” 

“She’s my daughter,” is your mother’s only response, half desperate, chest heaving. 

“Mom–” you beg, but it’s too late, because your father lunges for her first. When he grabs her, all of your world narrows, and her strangled, pained gasp is the only thing you hear. Your father throws her into the wall so harshly that it leaves a dent and he goes for her again, while she is a crumpled mass on the floor and–

And you reach for the knife at the table like it has always belonged in your palm

You grab your father by his hair and yank his head far enough back to expose the fluttering line of his vulnerable throat. You are certain you have looked like this to him before, eyes bugging with his fist in your hair, mouth agape. 

You put the knife to his throat and hiss, “I will do this now if you lay another hand on her.” 

Your father begins to tremble the way your mother did. The way you did as a child. 

“You won’t,” he croaks. 

He doesn’t mean it. 

“I will.” You vow. 

And you wonder how Suguru felt, with his parents or the others he killed in the name of trapped, hurt children, you wonder if it felt like this. If it will be worse or better. You want to run to him now, you think, and ask. Is it worth it? Was it worth it? Will I ever get the smell of blood out from under my nose? 

Your father goes slack, let’s you know he is done. Defeated for now, subdued enough that he will not hit her. 

Your mother watches in horror. 

He slinks away, muttering to himself, grasping at his head, his throat. You think you are driving him mad. You think you are haunting him, that you have grown into a curse and not a girl at all. 

You toss the knife away and throw your arms around your mother and you rock her the way she used to rock you as a child, trying to quiet her cries, trying to soothe what you know will never settle. 

***

Satoru hasn’t been the same since Suguru’s betrayal. 

Though you knew this would pain him, it bothers you that it is able to affect him so greatly. Still, you remain doting, loving. You let him lay with his head in your lap, on your chest. You let him squeeze you too tightly, you let him bruise you. 

Most importantly, you let him believe that you are all he can trust. Over and over again, you murmur it to him when he sleeps in the afternoon sun with his head in your lap, beneath you is a picnic blanket in the garden, you let it infect his mind. 

And still, he pulls away from you. 

He becomes more untouchable than ever. Distant to you the way that stars are, bright in your sky but unreachable, a thousand lightyears away. You sit by your window, waiting for him, hoping he’ll fall back down to earth sometime. 

You think he’s avoiding you. 

It makes you want to curse and scream and cry. It makes you want to throw a tantrum all over again and see if he’ll come running. It makes you want to tear down mountains and carve the moon from the sky. 

You know what you have to do; it will cause a great deal of trouble for you, but you will do it. You will take it for him. Always for him. 

You visit him at Jujutsu Tech for once. 

You show up in his dorm and are mildly surprised that Megumi or Tsumiki aren’t here. You thought you’d at least be able to see them, too.

So instead you sit and wait for him to return in the quiet of his empty room. One hour turns to two, then three. 

The sun settles high in the sky and then begins to sink. 

You doze on his twin bed, in the last rays of the sun that manage to steal through the window, cut through the blinds. 

When you wake, it’s to the shadow of Satoru in his doorway. You sit up, groggy, blinking sleep away. 

“Not that I’m mad to return to a girl in my bed, but, what are you doing here?” He asks and instantly, you can tell he’s tense, on guard. He shuts the door behind him, he wades into the room, avoiding you. He doesn’t greet you with a kiss to the cheek or a secret smile. He falls into the chair at the desk. 

“I haven’t seen you in over a week.” You tell him, voice still hushed with sleep. And then, “where are the kids?”

“With Shoko for a bit. She’s had them for the day, helping them study.” 

“You could’ve brought them to me.” You tell him and perhaps it pains you that he didn’t. 

“Your father let you out of the garden?” He asks in return, avoiding it. Avoiding you. You can feel the distance he is trying to force between you two. His voice is strange. 

You don’t heed his warning. You don’t bother to backtrack. 

“No. I snuck out. I’m sure they’re looking for me.” You tell him and in the dark lavender of evening, you catch a sliver of his smile. A ghost of himself. Your heart trips over itself in blind hope. You press on, “I missed you. I wanted to see you.” 

When he doesn’t respond to that, you add, “I’m worried about you.” 

Now he rises and finally comes to you. He stands, tall and towering over where you’ve sat up on his bed. He lifts a large hand, grown so large since you were kids, and carefully touches the apple of your cheek. 

“No reason to ever worry about me, darling.” He says, but you can tell, even with the blindfold, that his gaze has gone hollow, unseeing you. He pulls his hand away and your cheek tilts, chases after the warmth of his palm; he’s untouchable, so untouchable. “I’m the strongest. You should know better.” 

He turns away from you again, wanders to the window, gazes out at a dark courtyard. 

“Satoru,” you say as gently as you can. 

“I should get you back. Your father will be upset. I’ll take the blame.” 

“Satoru.” 

“I’ll smooth things over with him. I’m sorry to have worried you. Nothing’s wrong, though–” 

“Satoru.” You snap. 

He freezes, finally has the good sense to be quiet for a moment. 

You stand from his bed, rise like a ghost (maybe that’s all you are these days–a ghost of a girl, a vow he can’t shake, the pressing of time that he can only feel, but not see), and drift to him. Your touch doesn’t match your tone or your anger; you are gentle, when you put your hand on his back. 

“Look at me.” You tell him.

When he turns, your fingers skim over his ribs, all the way to his chest. 

You lift your hand to his face, to the blindfold and deftly, you pull at it. 

He frowns and for a moment, you think he might try to pull away and deny you, but he doesn't. 

He goes completely still. 

You tug gently, until the blindfold slips away and hangs uselessly around his neck. 

His eyes are much sadder than you remember, the blue of them all sapphire dark, nightened and deep. 

“Why have you been avoiding me?” You ask, now that you can see all of him. And he can see all of you. 

“I’ve been busy.” 

“Don’t lie to me.” 

A grimace drifts across his features. You have always been able to see through the lies, the masks, the godhood he wears. 

You wait with him, patient, and seemingly careful. You can feel the thrum of his heart beneath your palm, can feel the rise and fall of his chest, the simmer of his cursed energy. Of yours. You look at your hand, small against his broadening chest. 

“I’m not lying,” he murmurs, then tries to sweeten you to him by covering your hand with his. His hand has grown so large since he was young. It engulfs yours now. “I have been busy.” 

You think he realizes he wants affection, you can tell in the way he pulls closer. He’s deprived himself of it recently, so you aren’t surprised that a taste of it would make him suddenly hungry. But if he isn’t going to answer, you aren’t going to give into him. You won’t feed him. 

You slip away from him with a disappointed sigh. Coolness rushes between you, separating you, starving him. 

“You’ve always been busy. You always come to visit me.” 

His eyes flash in the darkness. 

“Have you considered that you can’t be the center of my life?” He asks and his voice is light, but barbed. He sounds like his mother. “That I have far more important responsibilities than visiting and playing house with you?” 

You don’t flinch. He’s being needlessly cruel. You know how this plays out. You always know. 

“Spare me,” you tell him, not particularly cruelly, but tired. “Don’t undermine me like that. And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.” 

He bristles. Opens his mouth like he might say something, then firmly shuts it. 

Speechless. 

(How did you do that? Suguru laughs, how did you get him speechless?)

The memory rushes to you, of that warm day. Satoru must think of it, too. It must settle over him like a phantom, because Satoru goes perfectly still. You watch any anger or frustration seep out of him, like it’d been punctured. It leaks from him now, so that he’s deflated, just a shell of himself. 

“Is this about Suguru?” You ask him gently, when you think he can stomach hearing his name out loud. 

His lashes flutter, a muscle in his jaw feathers, but otherwise he remains unmoved. 

“Don’t you know everything?” He asks, voice cool, trying to remain untouchable, trying to remain frozen and far from you. 

“You know I don’t.” You answer gently and it’s only half-true. You turn back towards him, step into his orbit once more. 

“But did you know this one?“

“Yes.” You answer honestly, tip your chin up to look into his eyes, all dark heaven. 

He moves so fast that you don’t even catch it. You think he may have even used his technique, caught you so fierce and quickly that you gasp, feel the muscles of his hand jump as he squeezes your face in his large palm. 

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” He begs and he’s trying to shroud himself in anger, but you can hear the grief in its footsteps. The heartache wells inside of you. “Why wouldn’t you try to stop it?” 

“You don’t understand.” You hiss, “You have no idea–” 

“You should’ve told me!” Satoru’s voice catches, “maybe I could’ve–” 

“You couldn’t have.” You tell him. 

“You don’t know that!” He snaps, “he–we–I would’ve done anything–” 

His eyes well with tears and your hands instantly go up to his shoulders, his neck. 

“Satoru–” you try to soothe, but he’s still gripping you so hard you’ll bruise. 

“I would’ve done anything to stop him–” 

When he falls apart, it is always you there to hold him, to put the pieces of a God back together again. You hold him tight around the middle and he curves over you like a drought-driven plant, desperate, bowed. 

And you tell him again and again, that you’re here. He has you. He’s always had you. He always will. A vow made as children that is still carved into the both of you, written into your fates, and imprinted on your beings. 

Your own religion. 

You lay with him on his little twin bed. You run your hands through his hair. He soothes under your touch. He mouths at your throat in a way that makes you flush darkly, that reminds you you’re alone with him, for once. You’re alone with him in a little twin bed made for one, now holding two. 

And when he admits, “I know you did what was best, but I can’t help but resent you a little.” you almost, almost feel guilty. You feel the lump in your throat, the splintering of your heart, that has always been so painfully, willfully, soft and vulnerable for him.

You have half a mind to start wailing, howling like you’re going to shake apart.

“Some days I loathe you so much that I love you more, or love you so much that I loathe you.” He admits, fingers bruising into your ripe skin, into the softest parts of you. 

Instead you curl around him tighter, like a little asp constricting around its prey. You curl around him and think, I did do what’s best. 

I did what’s best for us.

***

Your father is furious, but Satoru takes the blame, as he promised. 

Your father wouldn’t dare lay a hand on you around Satoru. 

But even after he leaves, your father doesn’t touch you. 

He can’t even look at you. 

He flinches when he does. 

And you stand at the end of the hallway like he used to and you wonder if this is how he always felt. 

You wonder if this is how it will always feel to surpass your parents, to take what they were and be more, to swallow them whole. You wonder if you should feel worse for garnering his fear. 

But then you think of yourself as a child, looking up at him, desperate for his love and acceptance, and in the same way that he could not find sympathy for his own daughter–

You have no sympathy for the father that raised her. 

***

Preparations for the wedding are a nightmare for both you and Satoru. Between dealing with higher ups that both of you would rather overthrow, your father, and his mother, the wedding hardly begins to feel like a wedding at all. Just a spectacle, a feat of the century. 

It doesn’t help that in the midst of this, Satoru is still grieving Suguru, who lives and festers and grows. More than that, Megumi and Tsumiki also demand his full attention. Megumi is picking fights in school. Tsumiki is struggling in other, quiet ways. 

You’ve told him to focus on buying a bigger space for the four of you, that you’ll handle the higher ups and the wedding planning and his mother.

You went many years rarely seeing her. As a child, she watched you and Satoru, always gazed at you a little too intensely, followed you the way a predator must watch prey. Or perhaps the way prey must watch a predator– you never know anymore, which you were. Maybe some horrible beast of both; a rabbit with jagged canines, antlers cut sharp and protruding from your poor head, a wolf with large ears and soft paws, a fox, if nothing else. Both hunted and the hunter.

You don’t know when you became accustomed to the taste of blood in your mouth.

But when his mother pushes, you finally push back. No longer a child, no longer fangless.

You’re taking tea with her, discussing further wedding plans, when she says, “you may have my son fooled, but I see right through you.”

She says this very casually, like she might be saying, the sky is blue, or I am the mother of a god. Both, you think, could ring softly in her melodic voice. She does seem like the mother of a god, all icy hair, now going silver, like a star. And oh, her eyes, her eyes are just like diamonds. Like her son’s, the god.

The tea is scalding, you cup it in your palm and let it warm against your skin, wait to bring it to your lips.

“Oh?”

“The moment I saw you, I knew.” She says, eyeing you over the rim of her own tea cup. “I knew you’d be his downfall. A shame, really. It’s too bad I didn’t have a daughter, sons can be so–”

“I have no intention of being Satoru’s downfall. Quite the contrary, I have done everything in my power to ensure that he will not have a downfall.” You respond coolly and you can feel her gaze, the way it tries to dig down into the tender parts of you, like a hawk sinking its talons around the fleshy bits of your heart.

She doesn’t particularly scare you except–

You don’t know this conversation. You know her fate, because Satoru will feel it and you know him. But this is new territory to you.

“I knew when I saw you,” she repeats, “but especially after your binding vow to him, that you were going to burrow yourself underneath his skin. You were going to be his own fault. The only mortal part of him. That’s why you will be his downfall.”

It strikes you as strange that she believes this. Besides, you know you have only seeded him, twisted and molded and shaped him into the boy-god he is now. You know who his real mortal parts are, know who they will always be, and it is the children in his care.Perhaps, Suguru Getou, too.

No, you were never lovely enough to be anything mortal. You were never normal enough to be anything so simple.

“I think you’re mistaken,” you say and the words come to you the way prophecy does, “I shaped him.”

Her eyes flash like the too-hot part of a flame and she says around her teeth, like she’s biting down into it, “I made him. And he almost killed me.” She collects herself then, but her mouth is twisted into this sickle curve of a grimace, “perhaps one day you will understand, what it’s like to be torn in two, and love them either way.”

You think you must know it already, at least a little.

“Do you love your husband?” You ask. “My mother does not love my father.”

Like your parents, she was arranged to marry Satoru’s father.

And easily, she says, “no. I never did. I learned him.”

“My mother fears my father.” You tell her.

“Many women do.” She responds, “I think we are more similar than you are to your own mother. She was always a little too sweet.”

You hum lightly and finally, dare to take a sip of tea.

“I don’t believe we are much alike at all.” You say before finally setting the tea cup down onto the table in front of you, palm still hot from it.

“You have been scheming your whole life. You were never content to be anything other than extraordinary. Trust me, I was once young and full of the same vigor.” She says dryly, gently tossing some of her long, silver hair over her shoulder. “The only thing that makes you special is that you will be Satoru’s wife.”

You can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of you.

“No,” you say.

“No?” she asks.

“Can you see the future?” You ask her. 

Silence. 

“I, too, have a technique–” 

“But can you see the future? Are you invincible?” 

She refuses to say no again. 

“You have a technique, but it’s not like ours. Satoru and I have always been different. I am not like you. I wish the only reason I am special is because of him. I wish all I had to do was learn him.” You think you must’ve always known him, anyways, some part of you. There was no need to learn, when you were so interwoven, so intertwined. 

“Spare me the self-pity, it’s unbecoming of a girl of your stature–”

“I love your son.” You say plainly, like one might say the sky is blue, or I am not only a god’s wife, but his godly wife. “And he loves me, too.”

“I didn’t think you were this naive–”

You set your hands against the table, lean forward in a way that must be vaguely threatening because her gaze sharpens. Predator or prey. Some wretched amalgamation of both.

“He’ll kill for me. That isn’t an exaggeration, that’s just a part of the future. He’ll do anything I ask of him. Would your husband, for you? Is he a god? Would a god do anything for you?” You watch her face carefully, the way it twists. 

“I’m his mother–”

Your voice drops to a hush and the light catches the mismatched color of your eyes;

“More than that, I have killed for him already and no one even knows it. I will again. And that is far, far worse than if I was just some scheming wife.”

She sits back in her chair with a look on her face that might be bitterness. You think she tries to swallow around it. Perhaps, it is more akin to hatred. Maybe even, fear.

“Now,” you continue, and with all the grace of a god, you sweep your tea cup into your hand and take another slow, easy sip. “You wanted to talk about the flowers for the wedding?”

And you think she is smarter than she looks because she does not look at you the same way again. If you thought there was contempt in her gaze before, you have never quite seen loathing like this.

You talk of flowers, like you didn’t just admit murder to her. You’d like something blue. It will look nice, you tell her, with gold and silver. 

When Satoru stops by later, with Megumi and Tsumiki in tow, you brush a kiss to his jaw in greeting in front of his mother. Perhaps to spite her. Tsumiki tucks herself up against your side and Megumi lets you smooth his wild hair down against his pouting face.

She gazes at the two dark haired children around you, at the way her son looks lovingly at the three of you and you smile, slow and knowing, asp-like.

“I will know, by the way, what it’s like to love them either way.” You tell her as Megumi tucks his face into your shoulder and you turn to kiss the top of his small head. 

Usurper that he is, you’ll love him either way.

***

Life keeps turning, but you find yourself clinging to the past in a way you aren’t prepared for. You know you must go on, with the wedding, with adulthood, with what you have made but–

But sometimes, when you touch Ieri or Satoru, you let it drag you into the past. Into sweeter memories and the ghost that now haunts the three of you. 

Suguru is there and he is lighter, before Haibara’s death, and he and Satoru toy and tease and play. 

They follow you and Ieri around the garden like shadows. You burn with these visions of him, can’t understand, couldn’t foresee, why you relive it so much. You knew you cared about him but–

You always thought it’d be easier, since you knew. 

You didn’t think you’d miss him or his half moon smiles. 

The past tastes sickly and in it, he holds a peach over your head and lets you reach and jump and squabble for it. He slyly nudges you right into the pond and then he follows you in a moment later. He stretches out in the tall grass beside you, he lays his arm over you, he laughs when you yell and huff and bite. He talks about your wedding and the bachelor party he will throw. A future you will never see. 

He simmers with a love for you and Satoru and Ieri that you feel as if you didn’t see in the present but can only see now, in Hindsight. 

He says things like, “you’re such a curse of a girl.” with the fondest smile on his lips. 

And he says–

In Satoru’s memories, he tells him–

Satoru asks him, “if anything ever happened to me. You’d look after her, wouldn’t you?”

And Suguru says, “of course. I’d do anything for her.” 

Satoru smiles, boyish, infinitely happy and it guts you so thoroughly for a moment that you forget how to breathe, you forget how to stomach this. 

“Careful,” Satoru laughs, “she is still my fiance.” 

Suguru laughs, low and soft and the memory is souring, curdling inside of you in a way that makes you want to throw it all up.

“I don’t think there’s anything in the world that could keep the two of you apart.” 

Except for you, you think, except for you, you wretch and cry and wail. 

***

Your wedding takes place on the eve of your eighteenth birthday. 

You wish you could say you’re prepared, in some way, for all of it. But you find that even a lifetime can’t prepare you for becoming the wife of a God. The ceremony itself is stuffy, rather tense, with uneasy truces between clans and political talk interwoven and murmured and laced into every other sentence. The only people there that you or Satoru genuinely want are his friends. Your mother. 

Who cried the day previous. She apologized again, that she couldn’t stop any of it for you, that it all turned out this way, like it was her fault at all. 

(Not your fault, it’s never your fault–you want to tell her, but don’t.) 

She said she’s only glad you’re marrying someone like Satoru, someone you know, someone you love. Who loves you. 

She said she takes great comfort in that, that at least you’ll know love like that. 

You have to bite back a laugh–love like this? Oh, what it’s done to you. And oh, what you’ve done for it. 

You are married beneath a setting sun on the top of their mortal world, high above the city. It is fit for what they believe are gods. 

“A monumental day, history being made in front of our very eyes. Two of the most extraordinary sorcerers in hundreds of years, now bound together.” The officiant rattles on and on. 

Satoru makes a face and even beneath the blindfold, you can tell it’s a rolling of his eyes. Your lips twist into a half smile. 

Vows are such a tricky thing, you think. 

There are the official ones they have you repeat. But then there are yours, his, ours that have always been there. The ones that have been etched onto your heart since you were a child. 

And the world as his witness, without an ounce of shame, like he is again a child, he vows;

“I will always have you.” 

And with a flash of your teeth, like you’re biting down into it, you repeat, you curse him, “I will always have you.” 

Easily, he promises, easily, he gives himself to you, “You will always have me.” 

Almost viciously, you vow, “you will always have me.” 

Murmurs ripple. His mother is white knuckled. Your father is lock-jawed in anger. Your clan worries and hushes. His does, too. But you don’t see any of it, just Satoru, when he leans down to seal his lips to yours. 

It’s a little harsh, vicious in the way that love is. In the way that your love is, horrible little thing you are, there is nothing and no one now–

Nothing and no one who will take him from you. Who will stop you now. 

***

The reception afterwards is mostly for politics. You and Satoru are supposed to play nice but–

He’s being a shit. Smarmy. You don’t ask him to stop, so he doesn’t. You don’t particularly care to be polite or good, to not frighten the other sorcerers and the clans. In fact, you think Satoru is flexing a little bit, as if to say ‘you wanted this, you wanted this our whole lives. As if to say, we will not be as obedient as you thought. As you hoped.’ 

In hindsight, you think they regret your arranged marriage. 

You don’t know what they expected, forcing two of the most powerful sorcerers together. Did they think you wouldn’t band together? Did they hope you would still hold loyalty to them above all else, and not each other? 

You spent your whole life being reared and raised to be their perfect weapon, their perfect wife, their perfect god. To fit alongside Satoru. Were you not groomed for this? Are you not perfect for it? 

You can’t fathom their shock. 

Still, you can tell he is trying to enjoy his evening, if only with you, if only for you. 

“It is our wedding,” he’d said to you just days prior. “It’s for us. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be,” he’d said, “but now it is.”

You can tell many disapprove of his blatant affection for you, disapprove of the way he’s teasing them to make you laugh. They hate that you laugh, that you won’t scold him. They hate what they have created. 

His arm has been around you nearly the entire evening. Whether on the crux of your waist or the small of your back, around your shoulders or fitting his fingers to the bend of your torso along the lines of your rib, he has clung impossibly close to you. 

“What do you say?” he asks, dropping kisses like falling stars over your cheek, your jaw, tickling along your neck playfully. “Should we find Shoko and Nanami and the kids? I don’t want to spend anymore time with these geezers.” 

“Yes,” you agree, letting him catch you in a fuller kiss, one that bleeds warmth into you, runs a thrill down your spine as you feel the soft brush of his teeth, a little tongue. 

You pull away before he can deepen and he grins at you, a little raucous, a little knowing, before you can pinch his side and get a little yelp from him, before you can spirit him away to where you know everyone waits for you.

“Finally,” Shoko says, leaning back in her chair, “I was going to die of boredom just watching you two greet all of them.” 

“It’s horrendous,” Satoru agrees before Tsumiki, who’d been in Nanami’s care for the evening, bounds straight into Satoru’s arms for a hug.

He laughs and catches her easily, picks her up even though she’s a little too old for it, and spins her around. 

Megumi leaves his seat next to Nanami to ease himself up to your side, wrap his arms around your waist and peer up at you with those eyes so deep. 

“You look nice,” he mutters into your hip and you know it means a lot coming from him. And then, he peeks up at you through his long lashes, “are you happy?” 

The question catches you by surprise, for some reason, and your heart suddenly swells. Tenderness bundles itself up, knots your heart over itself. You think about the question; are you happy? 

Can you be? 

Are you allowed to be? After everything you’ve done? After everything you will do? 

Tears prick your eyes. 

But you are happy, you decide, you are happy now. You are happy for tonight. 

And you nod to him, running your fingers through his unruly hair, “I’m very happy, Megumi.”  

He studies your face, squeezes just a little tighter around you, and says, “then I’m happy, too.” 

Satoru suddenly gets his big hand on the top of Megumi’s head. “Look at you, Megumi, you look so handsome in your suit.” 

Megumi starts to fuss, like he always does with Satoru, batting at his hand, trying to scrap with him, even when Satoru laughs. Perhaps especially when he laughs. Satrou pushes his little head around in his palm, tormenting him. 

Tsumiki eases up to your side as the boys scrap and you welcome her into your arms as if she could have always belonged there. 

When she looks up at you, you can tell she’s debating on saying something. You smooth out a piece of her hair, swiping it behind her ear, “what is it?” You ask and maybe you remind yourself of your own mother finally. 

“I don’t remember my mother’s wedding to Megumi’s father much. I was really young.” She frowns, “I wish–” 

“I wish I remembered more of it. Of them. I wish Megumi remembered them.” You can sense the tears in her before they even well. You can feel your own caught in the back of your throat for her. 

For everything inside of you, you cannot fathom how an unending well has opened inside of you for this child. For Megumi. You always thought, your whole life, the only space inside of you would be an infinite void and only the one who possesses Infinity could ever control that. 

But it’s as if they’ve made a new space. 

You swipe her tears away with your thumb before they can fall. “Tsumiki,” you try to soothe. What can you say? What would you want to hear? What will you want to hear when your own mother is gone? 

How do you not fall apart for her–for everything–of all that will happen to her, here and now? 

Instead, she says, “I hope we remember this one, at least.” And she gives you her best and brightest smile. The one that sparks and brightens a room. 

You hold her tight to you, you clutch to her, perhaps unsure if it’s her who needs this or you. You hold her until you feel as if you can pull away and won’t burst at the seams, until you are certain that you can smile back at her. 

“You will,” you assure her, voice thicker than you’d like, and then, “and it’s okay–Satoru has already taken far too many pictures.” 

She laughs then, overspilling from her in a way that is lovely and young and beautiful. 

You feel arms wind around you from behind, the smell of tobacco, of plum, and smile when you see Ieri’s manicured fingers fasten themselves around you.

She hooks her chin over your shoulder and smiles at Tsumiki, too. 

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” you respond, turning your cheek into hers. 

“What do you say, Tsumiki? Should we go dance the night away?” Ieri then says, her smile lazy but genuine and you think, perhaps, she sensed, or knew that Tsumiki was feeling tender. 

You find you are grateful for her, not for the first time in your life, but you realize how much and how grandly Ieri has been there. 

“I’d like to dance!” Tsumiki says and you smile as Ieri unwinds herself from you.

“I’ll get a glass of wine.” She says, “and then we can hit the dance floor.” 

“Do I hear dancing?” Satoru perks up, Megumi caught underneath his arm, kicking and thrashing a little. 

“Satoru, put him down,” you tell him.

“Oh, you’re lucky, Megumi, my wife has set you free.” And he sets the boy back down onto his feet, who looks ready to scrap again with the little scowl on his face, but you take hold of his wrist before he can.

“Come on, Megumi, we’re going to dance.” You say to him, tugging lightly and his frown deepens, but he does allow you to pull him towards the dance floor. 

No one is dancing because it’s a stuffy room of jujutsu higher ups, sycophants and clan leaders. There is music, but no one is dancing.

“Nanami, you too!” Satoru cries, throwing his arm around the poor young man. Freshly eighteen as well. 

“I’m going to need a drink,” he mutters and it makes you laugh, blossoming out of you. 

“Where’s Utahime?” Satoru then asks, “let’s get everyone.” 

It is a small struggle to grab everyone, but once done, the dance floor welcomes you. 

Nanami and Utahime need at least two drinks, before they give in and begin to dance, Nanami bobbing along and Utahime beginning to sway and move. Ieri, you think, has been tipsy this whole time and you don’t blame her. Megumi takes a little bit to drag out of his shell–

But you take his hand and you dance with him, letting him lead you, ducking beneath his arm when he spins you. You bring him out and back in, spin around the room with him until he’s cracking a smile, until you’re laughing, genuinely, with all the love inside of you. 

Murmurs spread around you, people gossiping, passing judgment at the group in the center. But Ieri pours wine into your mouth carefully, laughing when some gets on your chin, wiping it away quickly to not fall any further. You and Utahime work to get Nanami to loosen up–you make him dance with you, too, can see the flush of pink high on his cheeks as he looks to Satoru, who only laughs merrily in return.

 And suddenly two drinks have turned to four and perhaps people are scandalized.

By young people, being young for once. 

By the way the kids are running around, laughing, and screaming. Dancing and singing. You and Satoru let them terrorize the place. Satoru bends down to Megumi and tells him to go steal sweets for him, to go trip that man there, and go ahead and bump into her as well.  

They’re mortified by the way Satoru grabs you, curls a broad hand around your waist and pulls you close, sways with you to the upbeat music from the DJ Satoru specifically requested despite everyone’s disapproval. 

The night blooms. 

Your father tries to convince the DJ to stop. Satoru’s mother is scowling from across the room but–

When you catch your mother’s eye, she is smiling. Nodding her head along subtly. 

You pull away from Satoru suddenly.

It was never in your mother’s future, this moment, but you can’t help but feel like you need it now, more than anything. Maybe she needs it more than anything. There’s a questioning look on Satoru’s face, before he sees where you’re already headed off to.

And then your hands are in your mother’s and she’s shaking her head no a little, laughing nervously, but you don’t let her go. 

You don’t want to let her go. 

“I can’t–” she says to you but you don’t listen, dragging her out to the dance floor. 

You know her time is rapidly approaching, quicker than you could’ve ever realized. You’ve blinked and suddenly you are not just a child who knows what will happen to her, but a new adult, on the night of your wedding, not even a year out. 

All at once, you realize how rapidly everything has approached. The world turns and you just wish you could still it, place one hand over Time and capture it between your fingers, wrestle it still. 

Instead, you spin around the room with your mother. She’s shy and it occurs to you that she probably never got this at her own wedding.  

So you give it to her now. 

Satoru dances with her. Let's you dance with her until she laughs a little. 

And she tells you she loves you. She’s happy for you, if you’re happy. 

She still slips from your hands and recedes to the edges again, but she watches you with shining eyes, overjoyed and lovely.

You look at all of your friends as they dance and drink and shout and sing, watch Megumi and Tsumiki, and perhaps at the same time as Satoru, you realize there is one missing. 

(Perhaps three, in total, because you wonder about a future with Suguru and the two little girls. Two little girls like Megumi and Tsumiki. You think they should’ve been friends, that it would’ve been nice to have them around–)

You look at Satoru the moment his face falls a little, as his brows pinch into a sort of mourning that you know well. 

You slip your hand into his. 

“I wish–” he starts.

“I know.” You tell him, “me too.” 

He shudders a little, a rocky inhale, a slow exhale like he’s trying to stabilize himself. 

Grief lingers in both of you, stitched into your existences, melded down to your marrows. 

Perhaps for all gods, it is. Perhaps it is a requirement of godhood. 

You squeeze his hand. 

You pull him back into life, into your friends, and evermoving Time. The world spins and so do you, late into the night, when everyone has gone home.

When the stars sing and Nanami’s tie has been lost and Shoko’s hair is a mess and there are lipstick smudges on Satoru’s cheeks and the kids are tired.

Megumi is sleeping on two chairs put together and Tsumiki is trying her hardest not to nod off as well. 

“I’ll make sure everyone gets home safely,” Utahime promises, a little weary herself, but sober, and still walking. Which is more than the rest can say. And for once, she hugs Satoru and gives him a genuine smile. She tells him she’s happy for him; she’s glad he was able to have fun, at least, on his wedding night. She hugs you, too, and you don’t know Utahime well yet. 

But you will, when Satoru becomes a teacher alongside her. 

Nanami gently wakes Megumi, eases the drowsy boy into standing alongside his sister. Megumi is tired enough that he lets Nanami hold his hand to usher him out. Tsumiki tucks up next to him, too, and your heart aches watching them. 

Ieri kisses your cheek sloppily, and then Satoru’s, who laughs at her antics, who shoos her into Utahime’s waiting arms. 

Until they’re parading out and it is just you and Satoru, always just you and Satoru, at the end of a night. At the beginning of a day. 

Your shadows cast tall and wide behind you in the last lights of the venue. 

He looks at you and smiles and says;

“Let me take you home.” 

***

In front of you sprawls your new home. 

You have yet to see it in person, until tonight. 

Satoru had whined about wanting to surprise you, how it was impossible to do so, since you’d already seen the future.

I’ve already seen the home you will give me, you tell him and you want to tell him, I see it in my dreams. I see it in the softest, most shuddering parts of my heart. 

Still, it is hard to put into words what you feel as you gaze at the front door, at the windows that line the place; wide and glittering and will certainly let in enough light to drown the place in it. 

“Do you like it?” Satoru prompts, nervous, “the outside, anyways?” 

A laugh springs from you, “yes,” you gasp, “of course I do.” 

He unlocks the front door then and before you can take another step, you’re suddenly airborne. 

You yelp.

“It’s tradition somewhere, isn’t it? To carry you over the threshold of our new home?” 

This time your laugh is full and bursting, clutching tight to his neck, the silks of white that drape over your body flutter and twist in his big hands. It hikes up and you can feel the cool brush of night, just before Satoru kicks the door shut behind him.

And then he sets you down and–

You take a few, fawn-like steps, into your new home. It’s open with dark wood but he’s decorated it with soft creams and silky flowers on low tables. It’s surprisingly put together and surprisingly warm. 

Homey, almost. 

You think it looks nothing like his childhood home of marble and steel and clean, shocking white. Nor yours, brooding and stiff and vacant. It looks comfortable, like you build something here. 

It looks painfully, viciously, human.

Your chest tightens. Your vision blurs.

“There’s a garden out back, not quite as big as the one you grew up in but there’s a pond still and–and Tsumiki and Megumi finally have their own rooms upstairs.” Satoru says, watching, enamored, as you move about the space. 

It isn’t huge, not long and sprawling, but it isn’t small, either. And for this area, so close to the campus, you know it was no small lump of money. 

You have seen yourself here for awhile now, in Satoru’s future, living and sleeping and humming to yourself as you move about the space. You have seen your life here already but now it truly blossoms in your vision. 

You turn to him and you realize you’re crying, tears finally brimming over and onto your cheeks. This will be the first time away from your parents, from your garden, from the small world you’d been isolated to all your life. 

It will be your first night with Satoru, the first of many, of forever. 

“Don’t cry,” he hushes but you can tell, perhaps, that his voice has gotten thicker, tighter with emotion. He takes your face in his great, broad hand and curls it around you protectively. There’s an inkling of possession in the act, the sudden firmness, the way he guides your face up to his. 

Then, soft as midnight, dark as the sky, “I always told you I’d take you away, didn’t I?” 

You shiver, feel it race up your spine at the edge he has in his voice. Like he was always planning it, like he’d thought about it so often it turned him inside out, like it was an inevitable part of your future. 

You nod into the warmth of his hand, nuzzle into the cup of his palm. 

“And I have.” He says, “you don’t ever have to see your father again, if you don’t want to. Any of your clan.” 

You know you will see your father once more. 

Satoru swipes away a tear before it can fully cascade down your cheek. 

“Don’t cry,” he says again. 

You reach up to slip your fingers, cool and soft, against his cheek, to dip under the fabric of his blindfold. He wore it the whole night, you missed his eyes the whole night. 

You let your fingers explore the soft part of his under eye, careful as you feel his lashes tickle, as you creep up towards his brow bone. 

The blindfold comes off in a heap. 

His eyes are glassy, too, like he may cry. 

“I love you,” you say, perhaps for the first time so plainly. It falls from your mouth as easily as stars falling from the sky. 

He seems to shudder with it, before he eases forward, brings your face up like a flower seeking sun, and presses tender, little kisses to your cheek. 

I love you, too, they seem to say, to scatter like petals, I love you, too. I’ve always loved you. 

You turn your face, seeking, and his lips catch yours in a deeper kiss. Slow and warm like honey, ambrosia poured hot down the body of you, feeling it slither deeper. You have rarely been truly alone with Satoru throughout all your years; it didn’t stop you from kissing or touching, if not carefully, if not always with one eye open. 

But now there is no one but you two. 

And you feel confident in pressing closer, in tangling your hand in his hair, silky and soft between your fingers. You feel his hand flex, before sliding along your hips, pulling you closer still. 

A soft nip of your teeth, testing, letting you flex your nails in his shoulder. 

You feel his hitch of breath.

Your desire sharpens, digs its claws into you. You’ve always wanted him in some way; wanted him near and to be yours, wanted him weak and strong, wanted him desperate and assured. You have wanted him in the marrow of you, since you were a child. Since the moment he told you that he would always have you. 

“‘Toru,” you murmur and your voice is perhaps softer than you’ve ever heard it, higher in a way that is just shy of a whine. You flush with embarrassment. Heat burns your ears, your neck. 

For all your own strength, you are always rendered horrendously hopeless for him. It’s like an affliction, some illness you can’t shake, something that has overridden you your whole life.

“What is it?” He hushes back, lips hovering over yours, “what do you need?” 

It’s almost mocking, in that sweet, lullaby voice of his.

You seize him, by the hair, by the front of his clothes, “don’t be cruel.” 

Your voice wavers, though.

And he huffs out a laugh, reaches one hand up to untangle it from his shirt, soothes until you release the hold on his hair, too. “I’d never be.” He lies and then he ducks his face to the crook of your neck. 

You’ve felt him here before, felt him nuzzle and kiss softly, felt the tickle of his hair on your cheek. But now you feel the wet warmth of his mouth, open, tongue soft against your skin. The strike of teeth. You always knew he was holding back with you before; in fact he’d done so deliberately at points. 

If you’d crawled over him, he’d pause, and ease you off. His cheeks had always been so pink. He’d had to explain it wasn’t rejection but rather a thread of his control. 

Not to be a traditionalist, he’d say, but I’ll only have you when it’ll only be us and all the time in the world. 

You wish your technique was time bending, rather than sight. You wish you could manipulate it more than you do now, wish you could manipulate the actual length of it. Freeze it. Hold it. 

Rewind it. 

You push at him a little and for a moment, he doesn’t relent, and you are reminded of how strong he’s become. Broad and tall. Lean with muscles, grown into himself in a way that you have always known and yet, are still surprised to feel beneath your hands. 

Finally, he eases away from you and you step away, slip from him to wander further into the house without a word. 

He watches you for a moment, the way he always has, explore the garden, wander around a new place that is yours. His. Each other’s. It’s a strange dance you both know well, this sort of give and take, push and pull where you make him chase. You make him wait. You make him come to heel. 

You ease around the banister of the stairs and slowly begin to climb them when he finally moves from his spot. He comes to the side of the stairs and you are only just as tall as him, two steps up, with the railing between you. 

Just as he had earlier to you, you put your finger beneath his chin and lift his face, tilt it up into looking at you. Pretty boy that he is, he gazes at you from beneath lashes like snowflakes. 

“I want to see the rest of my house,” you say softly. 

His smile is fond, if not amused. 

“Yours?” He asks. 

“Mine.” You agree with a sharp, small smile of your own and his laugh is a welcome sound. 

“Everything is yours.” He agrees. 

“Mine,” you agree again and this time you kiss him soundly as a reward. 

Only briefly though, a lick of heat, before you slip from him and disappear up the stairs. Quicker than before, you take the stairs, as if to run from him. 

In the blink of an eye, Satoru shudders to life in front of your vision. 

(You know this moment, have cherished the memory in his future before it became a memory at all.) 

He catches you before you can get past him and you still yelp in surprise. 

Funny, you think, he’s never done that to you before. He usually lets you lead and run and stray from him. He follows dutifully. 

“Cheater,” you gasp, looking up at him in surprise. 

“I didn’t know there were rules.” He smiles, but you duck out from beneath his hold and he allows you to escape, wandering deeper into the hallway.

You know the first room on your left is Megumi’s. And then Tsumiki’s is on the right. You know they will share the bathroom beside Megumi’s room. And if you go straight down the hallway, at the end of it, will be your bedroom. 

So that is the first one you pick, it’s the first door you open. 

Dark wood and pale blue. Gold. Cream. The bed is set low into its frame, larger than you even thought they made. There is a balcony attached, draped with curtains of off-white, hiding the night sky from you, hiding the small table and chairs he’s placed out there, that you will spend many mornings and evenings on. The room is–

Perhaps a flex of his money, more than the other places of the house (despite the kid’s room, with all the toys in the world he could ever give them, with more than they know what to do with but Satoru has always been a spoiler, an indulger–)

And you can tell now that he is trying to spoil you. 

You turn to face him, just as he comes up behind you, and before he can ask another question, you pull him down into a fierce kiss. 

He makes a startled noise against your lips, before you taste the smile at the corners of his mouth, feel it, perhaps it’s smugness. Satisfaction that he’s pleased you. 

For a moment, you think you have the lead on him, but he suddenly nudges you backwards. Blindly, you let him lead you, steps tentative and small, but he demands more, and he takes the space that you relent eagerly. 

You pull away, to gain your footing, to slip from him again and this time, when you dart away–

You know he will warp in front of you, have seen this moment many times before, so you dance away from him, as if to prove something to him. 

He laughs, “cheater.” 

The smile you give him over your shoulder makes him follow, trail after you as you wander around the room. 

There is an attached bathroom, large and spacious. Luxurious. The tub is deep and wide, overlooking a window of the gardens. It’s beautiful. 

When you turn back to face Satoru once more, he’s seated on the edge of the bed. He’s loosened the top several buttons of his shirt. Opened himself up further to you. You keep away, as if to tempt him. 

“The bath is huge,” you say. 

“Needed to fit both of us.” He says so plainly it takes your breath clear from your lungs. The idea of it, the two of you, bare and in the tub together, force heat down into your face, your neck. 

He laughs a little and if his ears are pink, too, who's to say? 

“Are you shy about it?” He asks, and then, “are you scared?” 

Your fingers twist in the silk white of your kimono, the beading catching against your skin. Carefully, tentatively, you nod.

“Are you?” You ask.

“Not really.” And then, “a little. I want to please you.” 

For a heartbeat, you almost ask if it’s his first time, if he’s sure, since he’s not so nervous. But you know his future better than anyone. You know he means it when he says, “I want to–” 

He swallows around what could be glass or pride or rationality;

“I want to consume you.” 

He laughs but it seems strange, a little off kilter, “I want revenge, with how you make me feel, you know?” 

You can feel your chest quicken its cadence, rise and fall sharply, your heart squeezing and pumping as hard as it can inside of you. 

“I’m sorry,” he shakes his head, “I don’t mean to scare you more.” 

“I don’t believe you.” 

His left eye glints when he tilts his head back to regard you. 

A God will try to consume me tonight. 

A thrill goes through you, vicious and exciting in equal measure. 

“I’ll be good to you,” he promises. “I’d never hurt you.” 

You hum in acknowledgement, but you don’t promise it back, nor do you fully believe him. 

“Come here,” he says and he spreads his legs a little, perhaps subconsciously. 

You realize somewhere along the line he’d become a man. And he’s always kept his desires hidden from you previously, or perhaps far from you, almost untouchable. So to be confronted with them now, you feel a little unstable. Wobbly on your feet. 

You pull at your wedding garments, silky beneath your fingers, but aren’t brave enough to take it off. You swallow hard. You know if you go to him, you’ll be undone. 

“We don’t have to, either, if you don’t want. We’ve never done anything by the book, anyways.” He says and you feel as if he’s peering into you, into the squirming, soft, terrified parts of you. 

You realize you know intimacy with violence; you’ve only been able to express your desire for him with tooth and nail. You have never been able to melt or be delicate, but met his affections with violet bruises and tender-pink scrapes. 

You have never been able to swallow around gentle love. Or…pleasure. 

Shame seeps in at the idea of it, pleasure; your pleasure from him.

I want to please you. 

You always assumed when you had him, it would be a sort of claiming, you always saw it as another way to sink your claws into him. Of course, you want him, perhaps more than anything, but you never saw your own pleasure in it. Just, the pleasure of knowing he was yours, all yours. 

“No,” you blurt, “I want to. I want you.” 

“Then come here,” he says again, slower. 

And the way he says it, low and soft, lilting almost, turns you into just a girl. Disarms you so easily you almost sway with it. 

Instead, you drop to your knees, easy, and plant your hands on the floor. 

The moment you make the first move to crawl to him, he curses softly. You feel your cheeks burn and burn and burn. It isn’t like–

He’s seen you crawl a thousand times before, in the garden, over him and Ieri, roll around in grass and hill. He’s seen you be wild and untempered and free. 

But now you willingly follow his command, no less like this. You force yourself to pick your head up, to catch his eyes, to crawl easy and slow to him like you have a thousand times before. 

And when you get between his legs, he takes you by the face and kisses you fiercely, with more violence you’ve ever felt from him before. 

You rise up to twine your arms around his neck as arms band around your waist and just like that, you are in his lap once more. Just like that, you are kissing a god open mouthed and feeling it burn and twist inside of you. 

His hands slip up your sides, greedy in a way he has never allowed himself to be, catching on fabric and folds. He pulls you tighter to him, so you can feel that he’s–

You flush darkly. Moan softly with the realization and then feel the urge to hide in him, in the crook of his shoulder. He doesn’t let you, though, when you try to shy away, holds you still over him. So you have to feel him, so you have to try and keep from panting. 

“I had no idea you were so shy,” he breathes, almost laughing when you squirm, “I always saw you as unabashed.” 

“I never–” you don’t even know how to say it, and you hate how your voice pitches when you add, “I don’t have any experience with this.” 

“Neither do I, really.” He agrees, “but it’s just me.” He cooes, “it’s always been me.” 

This time he does allow you to hide in his neck, to duck down into him and let him soothe you with a big hand up and down your flank, your back. You’re near trembling with it and he must realize it, because he adds, “you really are nervous.” 

But he isn’t exactly being comforting. 

You sink your nails into him, “you’re enjoying this.” 

He laughs into your hair, “a little. I’ve never seen you this way before.” 

You nip at his throat a little, just the nick of your incisors, and feel him shudder beneath you. You feel his hips flex up into yours and with your legs spread, knees on other sides of his thighs, you can feel him, hot and hard at your center. 

You cling to him.

His hands flex around your waist, squeezing gently, before he suddenly urges the soft rock of your hips against his. 

It makes you gasp, it makes you terrified. 

Again, he moves your hips for you, guiding. Again, it’s startling to feel him, feel and know that there is so little fabric between you two. So little between you; no more clans or parents to stand in your way. 

He kisses you again, hard but sweet, still guiding you, moving your hips back and forth over him. Back and forth, until–

A moan startles out of you and this time, you feel yourself twitch your hips into him on your own accord. 

“That’s it,” he murmurs, “do what feels good. Doesn’t it feel good?” 

Another rock of your own hips, another push of his own and you nod, hovering above him slightly, lips parted over his. 

Then, you don’t need his hands at all, don’t need them to guide you at all. So he lets you learn and explore, lets his own hands wander over places he previously never allowed himself. He lets himself touch you in a way you have never felt; there is a sudden urgency to him now. 

You arch your back a little, encouraging, allowing, and his hands ease up onto your chest, all warmth from his palms seeping into you. It’s a surprise, almost, the heat of him, the way you fill his hands. 

He groans behind his teeth, squeezes lightly, as if afraid to hurt you and then bolder, harder. 

Your breath hitches when his thumb catches on the peaks of your breasts from over the fabric. So he does it again, firmer, and again, until you’re keening softly. Until you’re bucking a little more involuntarily against him. 

He suddenly pulls at the silk ribbon wrapped delicately around your waist, twists it around a hand until you feel the knot come away, feel the fabric give the way your stomach does, dropping slightly. 

You fist your hands in his shirt again, perhaps afraid. 

“Easy,” he murmurs, holding the front of your kimono closed still, if only for you, if only to give you a moment to adjust. The silk in his hands looks small, smaller than all of it swathed around you, drowning you in its starlight. 

When you’ve lessened your grip on him, he opens you up to him, painstakingly slow, bares you to him, pulls it down enough to pool at your waist. 

You feel the urge to hide again, to sink your nails into his skin, to fuss under his gaze. 

But then his bare palms are on your skin, warm hands, solid, real, burning hands that scorch up your torso to cup your breasts again. 

He watches your face now, lips parted, as his thumb sweeps over your nipples again, watches the way your features twist up. The feeling turns lightning hot, burns itself down to the wick inside of you, pooling low in your core. 

And Satoru is–enchanted. Enamored. Eyes a little rounded, hands eager. 

Without warning, he suddenly dips forward, lips parted, and fastens himself to the bud of your breast. 

Your hand disappears into his hair, shocked, fiending for an anchor and he groans against you when you tighten your hand into a fist. You pull, but it only encourages him, tongue laving over you, pink darting out against your flesh. 

You think he’s thought of this before, thought about doing this to you, wanted it for awhile now. You think it’s going to unravel you, as he drags his lips over to your other breast, as he latches on there, too. 

You can’t help but squirm in his embrace, pushing your hips into his, before arching your back into his seeking mouth. You can’t decide what you’d rather have, don’t think it matters because he’s the one in control now, holding you to his mouth, ducked down to your chest. 

You feel the graze of teeth. The sudden littering of kisses, nips. When his eyes flick back up to your face, he looks a little dazed, eyes all blue haze, glassy. 

He suddenly lays back, onto his elbows, hands falling back to your hips and you feel them squeeze, feel them guide you again. 

And he just watches a moment, with you on top of him, half bare, wedding silks petaled and pushed to your lower waist. His cheeks are flushed, lips stung pink, lashes fluttering as he watches you. 

He curses under his breath. 

You don’t think you’ve ever heard him curse this much before. 

“Angel,” he says, unbridled, from some deeper part of him, in a tone of voice that makes you flush. “Angel,” he says again, softer, more loving, breaking open on his lips like ripe fruit, “look at you, angel.” 

You tip forward, unable to keep from him, unable to remain up and so bare. So you press yourself to his chest, press your lips to his frantically, desperately seeking his solace, whatever comfort he’ll give you. Hide your bare chest to his, feel him hum against your lips, big hands all over your lower back, dipping lower still. 

“Lift your hips for me,” he says against you, rewards you by peppering kisses across your cheek, the corner of your mouth, your jaw, when you listen to him. He eases more of the fabric off of you, until his hands are running against pale lace, thumbing along the waist band of your panties. 

You shiver with more skin exposed, with your kimono gone. 

You pull at his own clothes desperately, if uncoordinated, just grabbing and fisting. You feel his laugh, taste it against your mouth, more than you even hear it. And his hands finally come up to help you, to ease off buttons, pull the fabric of his own out of the way until you can feel his bare chest. His bare arms. Muscled beneath soft skin. He’s so—

Sometimes you wonder, when he got so large. When did he become so strong? He was once so lanky. 

You keep pulling, until his entire torso is exposed to you, until you’re perched on his lap with your hands on his bare stomach. 

The dipping of his hips, the sculpted lines, draw your interest, eyes cast down as you finally take him in, too.

You inhale slow, grow brave enough to let your fingers brush against the button of his pants. 

“Go on,” he urges, watching you raptly. Eyes darting between your face and your nimble fingers.

You swallow hard and carefully pull the button through. Let it pop open easily with the tension there, can feel the heat of him, the hardness. Before you can falter, you take the zipper in hand and tug gently as well, until it reveals the dark briefs and—

The outline of him.

You look back up to him, perhaps for guidance, perhaps to gauge his own reaction, and he must sense your sudden uncertainty. 

“C’mere,” he soothes, bringing you to him in another kiss, heated and slow and deep. Tongue dipping against yours, licking softly into you until you’re distracted. 

Too distracted to notice where his hands are going, until you’re suddenly rolled onto your back, underneath him.

He slots his waist against yours. You can feel him more clearly through his briefs now, can feel the way he twitches as he pushes all tight up against you.

When he breaks from this kiss, it’s messier, spit dewy and wet between you. And his mouth eagerly trails down your jaw, sloppy kisses, and drags of his tongue down your throat, back to your chest.

He lingers here again, suckling, humming against you contently. Your hands sink back into his hair, moan bursting from you sweetly when he flicks his tongue just so. His eyes light up with the sound, working over the bud again and again, making your hips arch and ache.

He makes you sore with his own inexperience and eagerness, makes you fuss, until he relents and heads—

Lower.

“Satoru,” you call and the anxiety that picks up your voice doesn’t even make him pause. As if he’s expecting it.

His lips trail over your stomach, scattering wet little kisses.

You tug at his hair, trying to urge him back up, but he doesn’t listen.

He sidles down lower, manhandles you open so he can hook your legs over his shoulder. You try to shut your thighs but he easily keeps you parted, like you’re hardly trying at all.

“Satoru,” you say again, in warning, voice trembling, “don’t—please—“ 

He arches a brow, considers you, before completely disregarding you. 

You make a noise of irritation. 

“Stop being so shy,” he coos, “this is how I want you—this is—“

He glances down between your legs with a reverence that makes you hide your face in your hands, “this is what I’ve dreamt about.” 

He sets his lips to your inner thigh. 

“You’re so embarrassing!” You gasp between your fingers. 

He laughs and you can feel it, against the crux of your leg, so close to where you’re aching and hot and— “I haven’t even done anything yet.” 

He dots warm, open mouthed kisses to your skin, up and down your thighs. The sharp press of his teeth make you jump and squirm away from his hold, but he keeps you still and near. 

He takes his time, too much of it, as you begin to fuss again. You cry out to him, pull at his hair meanly, and all he does is muffle his laugh against you again. 

“I’m being cruel, aren’t I?” He says. 

You don’t know where he’s gotten his confidence, but it makes you want to hide or scream or drag your nails across his skin until it comes away torn and tattered. 

You think it’s something he’s always been rather content with, eager for, brave around—you. Your touch. Touching you. 

As if to say, since I am touchable to you, I will ruin you for any other touch. As if to say, well if I am not allowed to hide from you, you are certainly not allowed to hide from me.

You nod your head, bleary eyed.

“Okay,” he hushes, “okay.” 

The sudden hot press of his mouth to your core, through the pale blue panties, makes you gasp all strangled and tight.

“Satoru—“ you whimper in embarrassment, and you want to close your legs and just disappear. You want to twist away from him and hide. 

He hums against you, low and soft, and you can feel him mouthing and kissing over the fabric, where you’re most sensitive. 

He hooks a finger in the waistband of them and pulls, tugs gently and this time you really do sit up and try to get away from him.

“Calm down,” he says and there’s still an insufferably handsome smile at the corner of his lips, “it feels good, doesn’t it?”

“It’s so—“ 

Vulnerable, terrifying, horrible.

As if he can read your mind, as if he knows this moment the way you do, “what are you scared of?”

You swallow and look down at him and he peers back up at you, eyes all heaven blue, a little lovestruck, a little too hungry. 

You can’t even form the words, shaking your head a little, hands coming up to hide your face again. 

“Ah, come on now,” he muses and he sits up with you now, too. He pulls your hands away from your face and holds them in his, trapping them so you can’t run from him. “Tell me.” 

“Being bare.” You manage to get out, “being so—“

“Open to me?” He asks, “it’s a horrible feeling, isn’t it?” 

You realize he means that you have always been able to see every aspect of him; every aspect of his future and past and know it and have it and claim it. You know perhaps more about himself than he does at points. 

And maybe that’s all intimacy is, is knowing someone, very horribly, in ways that they may never know themselves.

You don’t know yourself like this, desire-driven, flayed open, a live wire of sensitive nerves and squishy, soft terror. You don’t know and won’t know what he sees or feels or tastes, you don’t know what he thinks.

In the same way that he has never known what you see or feel, what you tasted when you bit down on his future, what you think or know. 

I want revenge.

There’s a certain delight in his eyes, when he says, “I think you’ve gotten away with being very guarded for a long time. And I won’t have you guarded with me anymore.” 

You try to move your hands, take them back, or maybe suddenly cling to him and beg and simper and remain guarded. You want to try and manipulate him, you realize sharply, so that he’ll do this your way.

But he holds fast. 

“Lay back down,” 

“Satoru—“

“I’ll only ask once more.”

Tentatively, you lay back onto your elbows and he allows your hands to slip from his because you’ve obeyed him. 

You feel strange, experiencing this moment where you had previously only seen in the future, skipped over it almost, out of—

Shyness. 

He settles back down into the crux of your hips and this time, when he pulls the sweet, lace panties from your hips, all you do is let out a shuddering breath. Defeat, maybe, or anticipation, you can’t tell. 

His hand comes up, soothing, giving you the smallest comfort, before you feel his thumb, as careful as ever—

Slipping through ribbons of silky flesh, slick with desire, so sensitive that you squeeze your eyes shut.

He makes a soft noise, intrigue or affection, and adds a little more pressure.

“How do you touch yourself?” He asks and when you chance a glance down to him, you feel as if you’ll shake apart. 

His eyes are so dark and lust-blown, pools of blue ink. 

“I don’t know—“ you gasp.

His eyebrows quirk upwards in surprise, “you don’t know?” 

“Satoru—“ It comes out as a warning.

Don’t tease, don’t be mean, don’t be cruel.

“Don’t you touch yourself?” He asks and he glances back down to the way his thumb moves through you slowly, up and down, easy, with its slick glide.

In truth, not often. Or much at all. You explored, a little, you know, technically. 

But you just—neglected yourself. Your desire. You thought, in the scheme of things, there was so much more to worry about than pleasure. 

You don’t know when, but you became shy of your own body unless it was pain, unless it bloomed to bruise or fit to bleed or made you cry. You thought it strange to chase pleasure, especially at your own hands.

Did you even deserve it?

“Not really—“ you get out.

“You know what sex is, don’t you?” He teases and this time you flick his ear and make him laugh, warm and blossoming into the skin of your thigh. 

“I just didn’t—I don’t know!” You snap and now he sees that he’s pushing you perhaps a little too far because he softens. 

“Alright,” he says, “then we’ll find out.” And then his eyes catch yours, glittering in low light, “but you have to tell me what feels good. Can’t get shy on me.”

And then as gently as possible, you feel his thumb press fractionally inside you. His hands and fingers are bigger than yours so the sensation is strange and a little startling. 

You gasp.

He draws out, then gently back in. His eyes fixed on where your body swallows around his finger. 

Again, he repeats it and this time, pushes a little deeper.

To feel someone inside you is horribly vulnerable. Especially with his gaze fixed so squarely on where you’ve hardly seen yourself—

You always understood that this opening was a little unreachable. Even to yourself.

It’s why we keep our children there, isn’t it?

So as the feeling blossoms and Satoru murmurs softly to you, you find your hips twitching a little towards him. 

“There,” he coos, “does it feel good?” 

You nod, soft, small, and are rewarded by getting more of him. You throb, can feel it, the little pulse in your body and catch the cry that threatens to burst out of your throat behind your teeth. Trap it. You’re still scared to let it out or to give into pleasure. 

His thumb disappears to run outside of you again and you think he’s being a little indulgent now. He’s exploring, gently, watching, fixated.

Until he finds the bundle of nerves that makes you jolt.

He laughs a little, “right there?” 

“Yes,” you breathe, chest tight, knowing this is where, of any place you’ve felt pleasure, it was from here. And you know, technically, what he’s found and what he wants with how he sets his attention there now. 

Your body tenses but you don’t know—

When he dips forward to lave his tongue gently over your folds, you finally let go of that cry. 

You aren’t expecting it, can hardly process the wet heat of his mouth, as he makes another noise, low and needy and presses his mouth to you again.

Again, his tongue rolls out, and then he kisses, and then he’s open mouthed again and he’s experimenting. Tasting. Testing. And you’re just forced to bear it, your desire and his, in the small space between your legs.

You can tell he’s inexperienced, if not infinitely earnest and enthusiastic. And perhaps with your own inexperience and sensitivity, it makes it all worse. Or better. It feels—

You tangle a hand in his hair again and he groans against you when you pull on silver strands. You can feel the sound in your core and you tremble with it, shudder. 

His mouth is slick and shining and pink. 

He looks a little wrecked, a little uncertain and wobbly finally, too. 

“So good,” he murmurs, almost to himself, “you’re so good. Better than I imagined. How does it feel?” 

You whine a little, throwing your free arm over your eyes as you flop back onto the bed and he makes a displeased sound. You’re trying to hide from him. And he won’t stand for it, just like you never stood for it with him. 

“Use your words for me, angel.” He torments, he just about sings in that stupid, lovely voice of his. 

“It—“ you get out, “it feels good.” 

And then his mouth is back on you, bolder, a flash of wet tongue opening against you, messily devouring you as a reward. His eyes go soft lidded, desire-filled, all hazy newfound lust. 

You realize, dazedly, that his hips are pressing into the mattress, his own desire on a tight leash. 

“It feels good—“ your voice pitches, hips arching up into his grasp as everything turns molten and—and—

Good. 

It feels so good, you realize with a jolt, this strange heat. 

Like nothing you’ve ever felt before.

You feel his finger then, easy and slow, dip back inside you. Feel yourself cling to it. You can feel the way his tongue comes back up to that bundle of nerves to lick broad and slow over it.

Sloppy, but determined, eyes pitching back up to watch your face contort. 

You’re a fragile thing in his hands, you realize, teetering towards a precipice that frightens you, but that you know will—

It’ll feel good. 

“Toru—“ kitten soft, pulling fitfully at his hair, “I’m going to—“ you can’t even say it, can’t get the word to form in your mouth because it feels so strange there, but he groans against you and pushes a little deeper, gets a little more firm with you.

Your breath gets caught in the tangle of your throat, all knotted up, and the pleasure crashes on you swiftly and firmly. Takes you in it’s jaws and makes you squirm and cry out, whimpering as you feel—

You can feel the pulsing in your core against his eager mouth, feel the way it tightens and sucks at his finger. 

You try to shut your legs again, involuntarily, and he keeps you open.

Forces you open.

It is a horrible feeling.

Even worse when he’s being—lewd, licking broad stripes, letting translucent spit and, and—

Your desire drip and fall from his shining mouth.

You whimper, try to squirm away from him now as your pleasure gains a sharp edge and a vicious side to it. He must finally take enough pity on you or come out of his own haze, to notice, and finally draw away. 

And he looks at your face, perhaps disheveled, perhaps a little hazy in your own way, seeking and lost and desperate and he smiles. 

“Look at you,” he murmurs, coming up the length of your body, pressing his lips against yours before you can even think about it. Doubt it. Fret about it. You taste yourself on his mouth and it makes your heart trip up over itself, messy kiss that it is, it makes you shy again. But he doesn’t allow you to be. Still, you duck your face into his throat, peppering kisses there, nuzzling up against him, desperate for his affection suddenly. To be praised and stroked and adored. “So sweet when I strip you bare.” 

As if to counter him, you sink your teeth into his neck, and he laughs against your temple. 

You feel a little braver now or perhaps, needier, because you wrap your legs around his waist. Fix yourselves together like you were always meant to be, let him feel you, bare and warm and sticky, through the last bit of his clothes. 

He moans, a little shamelessly, and presses his hips into yours even more. 

And since he’s been so desperate for your desires, you murmur, “want you–I want you.” 

You can feel his chest heave a little with it, the weight, the sound of your voice against his ear. 

“How do you want me?” He murmurs back, though, as if to make it worse. “How did you think of this night?” 

In truth, you’ve always known it. So you know, when you twine your arms around his neck and hitch your legs a little higher on his waist, it will be just like this. 

Belly up and vulnerable, pliant on your back for him, for once in all your life. 

“Like this,” you murmur, pulling him in tighter, little vice grip that you’ve got, “just like this.” 

“Okay,” he breathes, maybe at the desperation in your voice, the sort of raw honesty that could break him apart, break him open. “Okay.” He says again, as if he could ever truly deny you. 

There’s some fumbling then, to get the rest of his clothes off, to reveal milky skin and the corded muscles of his thighs, his–

Your hands, uncertain, but desperate to please him, wrap delicately around his cock. 

He shudders a little, surprised, but hips push into your hand eagerly. 

He’s longer than you expected, but smooth in your palm, hot to the touch. 

“Getting brave?” He asks but you kiss at his jaw, his throat. 

“I want you to–” you unstick the words from your mouth, syrupy, and earnest, “I want you to feel good, too.” 

He makes a strangled noise, lets his head drop against your shoulder. 

“Listen,” he murmurs, “I’m not–” he laughs a little, trembling when you squeeze around him, when you fumble and stroke him. “I’m not going to last long.” 

And this time, you laugh, and it shakes some of  your fear off of you, opens you even further to him somehow. 

“That’s okay,” you sigh, wiggling your hips, suddenly eager to know he wants you this badly. You guide him until he’s found the heat of you, slippery and soft. “We have all night.” 

You can taste his smile, taste the groan, and can imagine the way his brows pinch together in pleasure. 

“We have our whole lives.” You tell him when he pulls away from the kiss.

“I have so much I want to do with you,” he says and though it makes you flush deeply, it also feels as if he’s saying–in life, I have so much I want to do with you. 

I have so much of you, and so much of life, and I want them both. I want it all. 

He takes himself in hand, lets your own hands fall away, slips himself, back and forth, between your legs. His face slackens a little, blissed out, and a higher noise gets pulled from him. 

“I’m really not gonna last long, angel.” He says again even as you let your head fall back, laughing, and his lips immediately follow to your throat. 

You buck your hips a little and the head of him catches and it makes you both freeze. 

You seize up. 

“Satoru–” you get out, nervous again, seeking, but this time he doesn’t deny you. 

“I know,” he hushes, “I know–you’re so tight. Just breathe.” 

You suck in a sharp breath as you feel his hips flex, feel the way you part around the tip of him, muscles so foreign, now being stretched, fitting snug around the shape of him. 

Your walls flutter.

“Relax,” he breathes, and it’s almost a hiss against your lips, and you don’t think it’s for you this time, but for himself. 

You try to breathe, though, in through your nose, try to loosen your legs a little around him enough to let himself press a little deeper. A hiccuped breath. 

Satoru kisses you hard, perhaps as a distraction, as you squeeze around him. As you feel the real burn and stretch of him, feel the way it carves inside of you and–

Tears prick your eyes. You don’t know how anyone does this easily or without someone like Satoru to you. Someone to call your own, who calls you his. Always has. 

He presses all the way into the hilt of him and you swear you can feel him in your stomach, feel your muscles clench and throb around him in painful little squeezes. He pulls away from your lips to let you breathe, to let his forehead drop to yours, his hair tickling against your cheeks. 

You whimper and he immediately coos at the sound, instinctive, as he’s done his whole life for you. You realize, perhaps dumbly, that this position is a familiar one in the sense that you bury yourself in the crooks of his body, cling to him like a child, and cry. And he has always soothed you. 

And right now seems, in many ways, no different. 

“Wrap your arms around me,” he murmurs and you wind yourself around his neck, wind yourself tight so that he might never untangle you. So that you might choke him.

And then he lifts you, sits back, and settles you gingerly in his lap. 

You’re stretched wide over him, holding yourself up desperately, and he’s aiding, hands at your waist. 

But then, gently, he lets you slip down. 

You hiss, but then find the back of your legs kissing his thighs, sitting snug.

“There,” he conjoles, letting you sit with him deep, deep inside you. Still. He kisses at your tear-stained cheeks, wet and soft, “that’s it. Just sit still for a moment.” 

You feel his tongue against your jaw, your throat, the flint strike of his teeth, of pain. You whimper into his shoulder and he continues to hush you, calm you, pull you closer so that he can run a broad hand over your sides, over your back. 

He pets through your hair, carefully, pushing it from your face to see your tears. The way you sniffle. He forces you to peer down your nose at him, lashes fluttering. 

You nuzzle into his cheek now, scattering wet, little kisses along his skin. He hums and you feel him twitch inside of you, feel the way his hands flex on your waist. 

“So sweet now, aren’t you? Usually so mean, suddenly so good for me.” He says against your jaw, “just falls apart in my arms, don’t you?” 

“Stop,” you mutter, pushing your face back into his neck to hide. 

“You just melt with my cock inside of you, huh? Is that it?” His voice goes soft and low and–

This time, you bury your nails in his shoulders. “Satoru!” 

But he can feel you flutter around him and he can feel the way your breath catches against his throat. 

“Why don’t you try moving, angel?” He coaxes, “just like earlier.” 

You shake your head, if only to spite him, so he begins to kiss you again. Hands dipping over your skin, moving up to your chest once more where he cups and squeezes. You can feel him again, deep inside you, throbbing. So desperate himself, held back by his own control. 

And then his mouth is again dipping down, to the peak of your breast, and he groans when he latches onto your nipple again. 

If you were braver, you’d have half a mind to comment on how he needs to keep his mouth busy. 

But for now, it only makes you loosen up finally, warmth a slow roll in the depths of you. 

You can feel yourself, dripping over him, rooted so deeply inside of you. It’s horrible but it’s–

It feels good, you tell yourself again, it feels good. 

Through the haze of the initial pain, there is pleasure that blooms. 

Your hips rock towards his, keeping him buried to the hilt, but you watch as his lashes flutter against your skin, cheeks hollowing with a suck that makes you keen and it’s–

It’s like lightning. 

You move again, squirm in his lap, until he pulls off your chest with a ragged groan, disheveled and half out of his mind. His hands help your hips, guide you slow, up and down over him until you’re dropping them all on your own. 

And he’s half mad with it, letting his head fall back, letting his hands grab and squeeze greedily. Greedy. 

Gods are greedy. And they will devour you.

You moan, clutching at his hair, his shoulders, feeling yourself become something else entirely–someone else entirely.

New being, new creature born out of something more than your pain, and the guilt, and the violence. New god, with the roll of your hips, and the way you feel him in the depths of you, all around you.

Satoru suddenly pushes you back again, so you’re belly up once more, finally sets his own pace and it’s a little more desperate. Teeth sink hard into your neck, capture you, make a high noise come out of you that you haven’t quite heard before. 

He grabs at you, pulls your hips up, hits somewhere deeper that makes you yelp. It makes tears well again and he can’t help himself anymore, hips beginning to stutter, lose their rhythm.

When you tip your head back, he suddenly grabs your face, bringing you back to face him. 

“Say it for more,” he gets out, voice wrecked and cracking at the end and–

Of course you know. 

“You will always have me,” you tell him, against his lips, spit slick and the whine caught in his throat. 

“You will always have me,” he promises.

You sink your nails into his shoulder as if to emphasize your next words, feel him keen now, “I will always have you.” 

And he gives you a harder thrust, as if to retaliate, just to feel you whimper, just to feel you cling to him. Settles himself deep inside of you, almost cruelly, as he gets out, his voice darker than you’ve ever heard it before;

“I will always have you.” 

Your cry is almost strangled, a hiccup of it, as you pulse and shatter around him like you were always meant to. 

He can’t help himself then, can’t help the bitten off groan that’s turned half into a whine, or the way he keeps himself buried, snuggly inside of you, as he fills you with warmth. 

It’s more soothing than you thought it’d be, the feeling of him like this. 

He leans heavier into you, mouths at your chest again, gentler now, more content. 

And he tips his head up, so you can see the catch of his starlight eyes, and he murmurs, “I love you. More than you’ll ever understand, I think. In a way I can’t even properly express.” 

But you sift your hands through his hair and look down at the man you’ve known all your life and think, I changed all of time for you. 

You smile softly, watery, and he leans up to clear your tears away again. And again. Like he always has. 

I did everything for you, you think.

Then you say, gently, and you think your voice has a newer quality to it, more honeyed–it almost sounds familiar to your own ears;

“I think I understand more than you’d know.” 

 And he laughs a little, but it’s off kilter all over again, and he’s kissing you and you swear you’ll let him devour you in every way he likes, for the rest of your life. 

You realize it isn’t so bad– to be devoured by a God. 

***

Your life has transformed before your eyes. 

At once, it was an endless cycle of your childhood home; your father’s violence and your mother’s scurrying and you, somewhere between them. You, some horrible form of both. 

But now you live with Satoru and Megumi and Tsumiki. And Ieri visits and Nanami pretends he doesn’t want to visit, but does, and Utahime brings flowers. 

Satoru and her become teachers together. 

And you walk Megumi and Tsumiki to school and walk them back home, too. You watch the sun in the sky and you think about trying to preserve this time forever. You think about trying to get the sun to stop. Or to swallow it whole. 

You fall into bed with Satoru, (in countless ways, over and over, like you’ve discovered a new world together, another part of yourself, of him, that yawns open inside of you), and miss him tremendously when he’s away. 

Megumi, as if he knows, always seems to ask for movie nights when Satoru’s gone, or perhaps he just misses him, too. You think Megumi struggles more than Tsumiki or Tsumiki is better at hiding it. You can only imagine, with what they’ve been through, how they’re doing. Their life has been unstable, uprooted, and now they finally have a home. A place that they will reside for longer than a few weeks, a few months, a few years. You know it might be hard, though, and you know they’ll struggle. You and Satoru watch them closely, perhaps too closely. 

“How do you think they’re doing?” You ask Satoru one night after putting them in bed, as you begin to strip your clothes of the day. Immediately, you feel Satoru’s hands sliding along your stomach, eagerly pulling you pack into his chest. He’s warm, his hands, his body. 

“I think Tsumiki is doing alright. Megumi is…” He trails off but you understand, “I don’t think he’s doing as well.” 

“He struggles with change.” You respond, “but I think it will be good for him, to finally have a stable home.” 

Satoru looks at you for a moment in his arms, against his chest, his eyes softened, before he says, “I never thanked you, you know.” 

“For what?” You ask, turning your face to find his eyes. 

“For taking them in, without a second thought.” 

“I’ve always known them, Satoru.” You tell him, “I’ve always known that we’d–”

He nods like he knows, but he still says, “it’s a lot to ask of you.” 

“It’s not a lot to ask to love them.” You tell him, “it’s hard not to.” 

“I know,” he agrees and he swallows around something. And then he asks, “you wouldn’t let anything happen to them, would you?” 

You tilt your head and hear the real question in his words, the way he trembles with it. 

“Never.” You agree. 

“Even over me?” He insists, “I want you to pick them–over me.” 

You think Satoru has always known more than he tends to let on. 

You swallow hard. You don’t even want to think of it, don’t want to think about–

“I won’t have to.” You tell him softly, shaking your head as if to clear your mind of the memory, the version of this life where you have to pick. But you’ve been so careful and you’ve played it all so well, so perfectly that there’s no way now. Is there?

You have the urge to suddenly reach for your necklace, swing the pendant in front of your gaze and tear through time, just to be sure. 

“Say you did,” he murmurs, “I want you to–I want you to say you’d pick them.”

“Okay,” you say, if only to get him to leave it, let it drop from you. You want to forget. You want to shake your head, harder, until it all rattles out of you.

“No,” Satoru says softly, holding you to him before you can dart away, “I need to hear you say it.” 

Something inside of you squirms. 

You glance upwards to find the mirror hanging across the room as decoration, catch the way he’s holding you, the look in his eyes. His reflection looks strange to you now, towering, darker than ever before. 

He fastens himself tighter to you, “I know that you’ve put me before everyone until now.” He says softly, “that between me or Suguru, it would always be me. If it came down to it, I think you would let everyone burn, so long as it saved me. I know it’s–” 

He stops himself. 

And then he says, “but it can’t be for them. Do you understand?”

You can feel tears welling in your eyes. 

“So just say it for me now,” he soothes, “promise me, you’ll put them first.” 

You feel as if two intrinsic things inside of you stretch and pull, struggle with one another. The urge to do as he asks, or the urge to finally, after everything, put others before him, when there’d been no one else. 

Both feel counterintuitive. Confusing. Your head begins to throb and if you didn’t know better, you’d think–it almost tastes like cursed energy, the air tangy with it, sharp. 

Satoru turns you towards him and he takes your chin in between his fingers delicately and forces you to look up at him. “Promise me,” he murmurs. 

You swallow around the hard lump forming in your throat. You don’t know why you’re crying. It’s not as if–

It’s not as if you don’t love Megumi or Tsumiki. 

It’s just–you’ve only ever known Satoru, in the deepest, most ruthless, most tender parts of you. 

“I promise,” you whisper, “I promise to put Megumi and Tsumiki before you.” 

“No matter what–” He urges. And even though it burns and aches, sticks like thorns in your throat, Satoru Gojo makes you give him your second binding vow;

“No matter what.” You choke out, “no matter what.” 

***

The day your mother dies, you spend the morning holding Tsumiki. She’d had a nightmare. She said she used to always sleep with her mother when she had this dream and now she is in your bed. And you are holding her the way your mother used to hold you when you had visions. 

Satoru has gone away on a mission. Your bed had been empty until she’d filled it. 

You try not to cry or let her know you’re crying, but you lay in bed with her beside you and you think of your own mother. 

And this was–the fixed point. The one you could never fix. In countless versions, you tried to stop this day, and in all, you failed.

You wonder then, if there are moments that are so certain, no one can touch. Not you, not fate, not a thing. 

You think the inception of you created her death, in the way that you are forcing it to create your father’s. 

If there is anyone truly damned, you think it must be your mother. 

You wonder if Tsumiki will think the same of you one day. If Megumi will look at you and realize, at some point, you were never going to be anything other than damned. 

After you walk the kids to school, you return to your childhood home. 

You stand outside its doors and know what will meet you beyond them. For a moment, you feel like screaming, screaming bloody and howling, wailing in the streets, crying out to the heavens. You think about what is on the other side of that door and you wish you’d never seen it all. Out of all the lives you’d peered into, you wish your mother was not one of them. You wish you had no idea what will meet you or what you will do.

You think of Suguru suddenly, if he stood outside his parents door and knew, too, that he brought death. That the creation of him, brought the death of them. 

You suddenly miss him so sharply and keenly that you want to run to him. You wonder if he would open his arms to you now, or if it’s all over, so torn to shreds that there is not anything he could want from you anymore. Perhaps not anything but your divinity. 

You stand outside their door like a reaper. 

You know you have to enter. And that time will not stop, you can never force it still. 

You inhale. 

You push open doors that have never felt heavier. 

The bloody tilt of your mother’s head makes you feel like a child again, terrified all over, and sick to your stomach. She is still alive now, gasping, and shaking. 

When she finds your eyes, she is almost relieved to see you, like you were the only and last thing she could’ve ever wanted to see. 

You feel something inside of you, already splitting, come away from its seams. 

“Mom,” you say, like you’re a child again, crawling to her on bloody floors. 

Still, she reaches her hand out to touch your cheek, as if she may comfort you. Even during death, she tries to comfort you. You choke hard on the sob working its way out of you. 

“You s-shouldn’t be here,” she whispers, mouth cut open with blood. “You need to–” 

She’s trying to save you from your father. 

But you couldn’t leave her like this, couldn’t leave her to die alone. 

You shake your head, cupping her palm to your face, keeping it there, “it’s okay, mom. I’ll be okay.” 

And I want you to be okay, you want to say, I want you to live longer. I want to have you for longer. You feel the tears rush hard and hot down your face.

At least you had longer than Tsumiki or Megumi. At least you had her this long. 

But for all your power, for everything that could’ve happened, you just couldn’t. Save. Her. 

You’ve known from the first moment you opened a gold bled eye. 

“I love you,” your mother gets out, as clearly as she can, as if she needs you to know, “I love you.” 

“I love you, too,” you whisper, squeezing tighter to her hand. 

You can hear your father’s footsteps, somewhere down the hall. As if you’ve heard them a thousand times and for this final time. 

“You are the best thing i-in my life. Always.” Her voice is hoarse, it looks like it hurts her, to get the words out, but for you, always for you, she does, “always.” 

Your mind burns and blurs and there are a thousand things you wish you could say to her now. A life that you wish you could unwind and reverse, a life you wish you could’ve saved, a child you wish you could’ve been. 

Your father opens the door to the living room for the final time.

And when he sees you, it’s as if he knows now, too, that it is the time. 

He doesn’t tell you he loves you, when you kill him, he doesn’t say a word, when you are covered in his blood, too. 

(You gut him, the way Zeus did to Kronos, and crawl back to your mother, bloodied.)

And all you can think to do is press up against her, like you are a child again in the home you grew up in. To be held by her for the last time of your entire life. 

You don’t know how long you stay like that, only that at some point, the sun is setting, and smolders bronze, casts all the world in a fiery glow. 

And eventually, your husband lifts you, bloody and silent, from your mother’s arms, to carry you out of that house for the final time.

You watch, quiet as the dead, in his arms, as it slowly rises to flames. 

(When the higher ups of the sorcery world investigate, they will say your father killed your mother, and then himself, by burning the place down. They will say he couldn’t handle your disgrace, that he was never well, anyways. He was a haunted man.)

And the garden you grew up in burns and the house you called a home cracks beneath hungry flame. Your father’s body burns away and releases you and your mother’s body falling to ash makes you want to tear out your own heart. 

It all burns and you watch, silent, knowing that your mother or father will never turn to curses now, they will never haunt you or hunt you again, knowing that you are the last curse left of that house. 

And it will be a long, long time until you are burned with them, too. No, now you are born anew, born again, covered once more in your mother's blood. You do not scream this time. The fire burns hot and bright in your vision.

Gods are very lonely, you think again, and you watch your childhood go up in flames.

***

Masterlist | <- Chapter Two: Anything, Everything | Satoru's Interlude: Bigger God ->

[rush-the-stars]

soulmate au with nai……cielo beloved…..

vic..............what if i just.....................................................,

cw: blood, gore, violence, self cutting-? the reader nicks themselves on nai's knives. yandere nai.

***

Blood, hot and thick, splatters across your face. You jolt and swipe at it quickly, try to wipe yourself clean, but smear it across your cheek further. You feel it tacky now, still too warm.

You wish it felt grosser than it does.

You wish you could make your legs move, unstick them from their place, and run. And run. And run.

You manage to stumble a little, backwards, as tendrils of glinting silver slither towards you like a snake through the blood and the gore.

Despite knowing, you aren't scared of them.

The blunt side of his knives, cool, and still hard and painful, slip around you like a constrictor. Carefully, the razors have been flipped away from you. Around your legs, your torso, up around your arms the metal winds and twists. They're as gentle as they can be, as gentle as a knife can be. They still dig into your skin, they'll still nick and give you lovecuts criss-crossed over your body in a strange pattern of hatching and dashing.

More marks from him; your soulmate. None more damning than the first, of course.

You're lifted like a doll towards him.

Nai appraises you.

You squirm in his hold. You feel a scrape of the sharp side, feel the blood well and rush to the surface, as if eager to see him. You go still. Limp, almost. (It's how he wants you, you know. It's what he'd said in the beginning; stop moving, stop squirming, and I won't hurt you.)

His eyes are cold, flints of ice.

He tilts his head fractionally. The bodies of all the people that attempted to help you lay scattered, dismembered, at his feet. Beneath you.

You cross your arms and rest them on the metal wrapped around your chest. You lay your head on them and look at him; a little guilty. Kicked puppy. A little resentful. Scolded, agitated kitten.

"Did you think you could run?" He finally asks.

You tilt your head and let it loll against your arm; exhaustion suddenly sweeps through you. Your hand swings lazily, fingertips skimming the sharp, outside edge of his knives. Even just that touch leaves blood gushing to the surface of your sensitive finger.

You let out a defeated sigh, tears blurring suddenly in your vision. You blame the sting. You blame your soulmate. You watch the blood run down the length of your finger and into your palm, pooling against the soulmate mark that you've had your whole life.

Still, you get out;

"I had to try at least once."

"You've learned your lesson, then?"

You nod, knocking a tear free to fall over the bend of your cheek.

In an instant, he's setting you back on your feet in front of him, wobbly, like a newborn fawn. Unsteady so that when he lifts you straight from the ground and cradles you to him like a child, you are almost grateful.

You go limp, just as he always wants you.

And you won't ever try to leave again.

[shinene]

PLS EXCUSE MY MESSY SKETCH this is honestly as clean as I can be. He is baby girl, to me

So. I am reading @venomous-qwille 's Ghost In The Machine and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA i love everyone. More dwawings to follow i just had to get Fool onto paper because he's been dancing around in my head all week. FIRSTLY I LOVE THE COSTUMING for like all the characters but especially Fool-!!!!!

Secondly, I want to ;_; kiss him and dance with him! Look at that outfit! It was made for dancing!!

thank you for this wonderful story i am so well fed 💖✨

[esuemmanuel]

Qué días tan grises me acechan y, aunque he amado el gris desde mi nacimiento, lo siento tan pesado sobre mí… Todo lo que queda es agua, un río trágico de amargura que se revuelve en mis mejillas mientras atraviesa de tajo a mi corazón, y yo, que necesito tanto de llorar, hoy las lágrimas me saben a nada.

What gray days lie in wait for me, and though I have loved gray since birth, I feel it so heavy upon me... All that is left is water, a tragic river of bitterness that churns in my cheeks as it slices through my heart, and I, who need so much to cry, today tears taste like nothing.

[rae-gar-targaryen]

mi media naranja [holiday!AU - mickey "fanboy" garcia x fem!reader, aka "cielo"]

A/N: For Fanboy’s fangirls - a holiday celebration with Fanboy y Cielo. Lots of callbacks to my original Fanboy HCs  – so if you’ve been following their journey thus far, there will be lots in here for you. Bonus points if you get the references! 

Pairing: Mickey ‘Fanboy’ Garcia x fem!civilian!reader (aka “Cielo;” as always no use of y/n – my readers are written ambiguous, but with a latina!reader in mind.)

Warnings: my writing is its own warning, smut, so 18+ ONLY – p in v sex, unprotected sex, v mild breeding kink, references to oral sex

Word Count: 5.8k of the warmth of a holiday spent together with your beloved, of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, of the cinnamon-orange passion of sharing half of yourself with someone else.

Summary: You spend your holidays with your sweet boyfriend. Mickey takes you home to visit his family, but of course, you make sure to indulge in the magic of the holiday, just the two of you [part of the Fanboy y Cielo ‘verse].

(moodboard courtesy of lovely @ouralcohol)

--

Divided holidays were a challenge. 

You and Mickey had opted to spend the few days preceding Christmas with his mother and his sisters, which meant, of course, holiday travel.

You'd left your beachside home in San Diego, packing gifts and luggage alike to make the trek to Mickey’s hometown. Artoo was set up with your friend for the few days you’d be gone. And it wasn’t as though you weren’t coming back in just a few days to celebrate Christmas with Mickey, just the two of you. It would go by in a flash. So why were you nervous?  

You had met his family before. And, of course, they’d never indicated anything other than that they’d liked you … Still, you’d felt the perpetual need to impress. To ensure that they still liked you, as though their opinion would have changed in the six months since you had seen them for the family’s summer beach weekend.

And the drive was pleasant enough, Mickey expressing to you ad nauseam that he was glad you were coming, 

“You don’t understand, cielo,” he urged. “Every time I talk to my tía it’s like – ‘¿Y tu novia? ¿Y tu novia?’” he parroted. “I swear, it’s like she’s convinced you don’t exist, even though my mom has literally met you.”

You patted his arm in comfort, offering him your coffee cup, which he eyed warily – all too familiar with your penchant for bitter brew. Politely shaking his head in refusal as he turned his eyes back to the road.

You shrugged.

“Oh, I’m familiar,” you assuaged. “My auntie is nosy, too, she does the same. Ever since I was in high school, always asking me where my boyfriend was, judging me if I didn’t bring anyone.”

“And?” Mickey’s eyes darted to you, drumming his hands on the steering wheel in time with the radio (and not at all nervously himself). 

You chuckled, quirking an eyebrow at your boyfriend’s a-little-too-curious tone.

“¿Estás celoso o algo así?” Are you jealous, or something? “Don’t worry, M, I don’t bring anyone around unless I think they’re worthwhile.”

You popped across the console on your elbows, enough to press a kiss to your boyfriend’s cheek, pleased at the blooming flush making its way across his finely-peaked, mole-dotted cheekbones. At his happy realization that you had brought him home to meet your family for nearly every Thanksgiving since you’d gotten together. 

That you had deemed him worthy.

And though Mickey had assured you that it would be a relatively quiet few days, a few meals and a gift exchange with his mom and his sisters, you couldn’t help but wonder – had Mickey deemed you worthy? Had the women in his life? 

So, yeah, you couldn’t help the little prickle of nerves that tingled their way through you as your playlist wound down, the dulcet tones of Sam Cooke’s “Any Day Now,” fading as Mickey turned into his driveway, his mother and sisters waiting to greet you with waving hands and identically-beaming faces. Their smiles were all-to familiar to you – a virtual carbon-copy of the one that regularly greeted you on the face of your beloved. 

And it was foolish to worry, really, you thought, as you were crushed with hugs and ushered inside by Mickey’s mother and his three shrieking, giggling sisters, all wearing variations of the same, slightly threadbare sweater (no doubt handmade and worn annually). Leaving Mickey to carry your bags and gifts into the home while his trio of sisters fawned over you,

“She looks gorgeous, no?” Said the eldest, Luci.

“I told you, she’s got that glow,” from Eiza, the youngest. 

And it was foolish to worry – when they had shoved a glass of ponche navideño in your hands and began filling you in on all the chisme as your boyfriend huffed his way up to his childhood bedroom, laden with bags. 

Hours later, you were packed into the hearth-warm kitchen, virtually up to your elbows in masa as you continued to knead, by hand, the sticky dough for enough tamales to feed an army under the approving (but ever-watchful eye) of your general – Mrs. Garcia. The way her lips had split into a smile when you’d refused the stand-mixer and opted to go manual was something you’d burn into your brain for eternity. 

Maybe approval wasn’t so far off. 

“Bien, mija,” she appraised, as Mickey sipped his punch from the corner he had been relegated to in the the kitchen, watching with honeymelt eyes as the women who shaped his past, his present, and – his eyes lingered over you – hopefully, his future, all worked in tandem to make homemade tamales. Gossipping away and giggling with each other as though you had been their friend for decades. 

“Ma,” Mickey piped up, “you’ve got her making all of this by hand? She’ll cramp up. She’ll have witch's hands by the time we leave. She’s an artist, you know, it’s how she makes her living. How many tamales do you need, anyway?” 

Mrs. Garcia whipped the dish towel that was draped over her shoulder at the back of her son’s head, effectively silencing him.

“Miguelito,” she hissed, “Tradicion. And your cousin Shawn says he’ll eat at least forty, and you know they’ll be here til New Year’s.” 

“Yeah? Well, cousin Shawn is full of shit.” 

Mickey’s sisters rolled their eyes at their brother’s antics, the middle sister, Olivia, bumping her hips against yours, her eyes full of playful mirth as she finished stirring the filling. 

And you could make out the living room through its swinging door to the kitchen, Vicente Fernández warbling away on the record player in the corner, as Eiza finished decorating their tree with a few of the ornaments that you and Mickey had brought – one, an orb with a photo of the two of you and Artoo on your couch at home, she displayed prominently at the center of the tree next to some that were clearly school projects from the kids’ elementary school years. 

It was nice, you thought – to be in a home that felt like a home for the holidays. To see these little pieces of your love’s life that had preceded you and that had shaped him. To let the magic of the season wash over your lives. 

After dinner, you helped Mickey’s sisters store the tamales for the long haul (and the arrival of the cousins) while Mickey did the dishes. 

Sliding on stockinged feet over the linoleum in their kitchen, you sheepishly produced a pink box tied in twine, with a tag that had a roughly-hewn, hand-drawn likeness of the Garcia household that you had seen in photographs, offering it to Mickey’s mother – a box stuffed full of pan dulce and Christmas cookies. 

“Mija, you made these?” She asked, hand hovering over the open flap, debating which to choose. “They all look so perfect.” 

“You should, like, have a baking insta,” Eiza agreed, words muffled by a mouth full of fluffy pink pan dulce. 

“They aren’t alla that,” you huffed, waving your hand as though to wave away the compliments.

“She’s modest,” Mickey assured, taking the box from your hands and setting it on the oaken kitchen table before lacing your fingers with his. “She loves to bake. She makes cookies for everyone in the squad for Christmas and birthdays.” 

“Really?” Mrs. Garcia appraised. “What did you make this year?” 

Rooster was positively gleeful at the sight of the red tin bedecked with snowflakes. 

“Are those what I think they are?” He bent down to kiss your cheek as you pressed the box into his hands. “Our Marigold’s famous Christmas gifts?” 

You had come down to the base to deliver the baked goods in person, on a day the squad had all agreed to meet for a holiday lunch. A cardboard box full of tins, each with their own personalized tag, awaited each of the Daggers. Javy had taken his – with its tag featuring a little drawing of a howling coyote – and absconded with it, thanking you through a sprinkling mouthful of crumbs and peppermint icing. 

Bradley’s, with its tag adorned with a strutting cartoon rooster with its tail feathers made of flames, was full of iced shortbread. Something he had confided to you that his mother had made on holidays past. You hoped he’d like them, not that the recipe you had found online could ever touch Carole Bradshaw's.

Mav had winked, thanking you for the classic chocolate chip, chuckling at the cartoonish aviator sunglasses on the tag.

Chocolate-chili cookies for Phoenix. Peanut butter for Jake. Cinnamon swirl for Bob. Lemon-lavender for Halo. Sweet mochi cookies for Reuben… and so on.

“If he doesn’t marry you, Marigold,” Rooster not-so-quietly announced, gesturing at Mickey with a cookie in his hand, “I will.” 

It was then that Mickey had swooped in, looping an arm around your waist and pressing a kiss to your cheek, waving Rooster away with a, 

“Yeah, yeah… she’ll definitely call you, buddy." Waving at the squad as he spun you and made to take your leave. "Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.” 

–

Mickey's childhood room was, like the rest of his family home, like the man himself, warm. Belying a coziness you cherished in all spaces, replete with a checkered quilt on the bed that you were certain his mother had made. Posters bedecked the walls, shining with the grins of baseball and soccer players whose names you'd recognized from the backs of jerseys hanging in Mickey's side of your shared closet. Star Trek DVD sets on the bookshelf, nestled next to Tom Clancy novels. Model planes, jets, and Lego sets were intact and displayed – proudly, you were sure –  on the desk. It was all so overwhelmingly Mickey, you were certain you were falling in love all over again, more pieces of himself falling into place in your heart. The nature of him, ensconced by his childhood, filling the gaps in your heart. 

"It's, ehhh," Mickey scrubbed the back of his neck, placing your bag at the foot of the bed on the side he knew you'd preferred af home. "A little geeky, I know. Ma insists on not changing it."

"She shouldn't," you clarified. "It's perfect. It's you."

Mickey beamed at that, coming to your side and surveying the room from your perspective before shrugging his shoulders.

"It's more perfect seeing you here. Honestly, a pretty girl in my room? My sisters never thought they'd see the day," he chuckled, sweeping an arm around your waist and pressing a kiss to your shoulder before gazing up at you through his lashes. "And I gotta say, cielo, it's doing a number on me, you being in here."

You batted your lashes at your beloved before patting his cheek, 

“Easy tiger,” you breathed. “I’m not trying to disrespect your mother, or anything. We can wait til we're back home.” 

"Yeah, about that," Mickey said, extricating himself from you and readying himself for bed. "My mom is probably still laughing at you for offering to sleep on the couch. They know we've been together for a while, babe. It's fine."

"Still," you hissed, shimmying out of your jeans and into your joggers, sliding beneath the covers. "It's… awkward, no? To be in your boyfriend's house, them thinking we’re like … hooking up in here?" 

"If you feel that strongly about it," Mickey slid in beside you, leveling you with his best serious gaze, "you really should make more of an effort to keep your hands off me. Like, damn. Let a man sleep in peace."

You swatted his arm with the back of your hand, scoffing at him as he turned to turn out the bedside light. 

"You're unbelievable."

"Tell me something I don't know, baby."

And it had to be some kind of record, really. How quickly you’d gone back on your own word.

As soon as you and Mickey had turned the lights out, he had wrapped his arms around you, and pressed a goodnight kiss to your lips, you were a goner. The rustle of sheets met your ears through the blanket of darkness that had fallen in Mickey’s room, his fingertips meeting the skin of your waist where your t-shirt had ridden up, his lips meeting yours in kind – a clandestine, weighted feeling that you often felt yourself lost in. 

Mickey would often tell you that he felt a sort of gravitational pull near you – when you kissed him. That he was helpless to your gravitational pull, like the crashing tides. No choice but to worship you.

It was utter bullshit.

Utter nonsense. Because there was no way he could feel that way about you, when it was exactly how you felt about him, as he trailed his lips along the skin of your neck, feeling his way across your skin, through you, over you, the very heart of you. Rendering you slavish, devoted, insane. No choice but to heed to his beck and call, like the routine surrounding the permanence of a rising and setting sun. 

At the breaking little whine shattering its way through your throat, Mickey smiles against your skin, knowing he’s won. His mouth is warm, kisses like rich cocoa against your silken skin as he slips his way down your body, a trail of teasing touches and toying temptations – leading with lips and tongue.  

 He presses his way down your body, pleased at the heavy sigh that pours from your throat like water in the desert as he slides the soft fabric of your t-shirt up your torso, allowing his lips to chase the mapping progress of his fingers – a path he’s travelled many times, but never feels the same, and never renders the exact same reaction from you. 

“Fuck, cielo,” Mickey murmurs in reverence, his tongue swirling your nipple, the heat of his mouth and honey of his lips following. His hands slipping down your waist as he peppers kisses to the ridges of your ribs, the softness of your stomach. Shucking the quilt down to the foot of the bed as he makes his way between your now-parted legs. 

His palms skated the skin of your thighs, your calves, your ankles, mumbling muffled endearments against your skin as his lips traversed to your hips, inching closer, closer, closer to your center. Your chest heaved with ragged breaths, with honeyed sighs, lashes fluttering and fingers lacing through Mickey’s curls as you acquiesced, always, to the pull of him, the swelling ocean tide sure to wash you away into the depths of him.

“You should feel how warm you are, amor,” Mickey’s lips were wistful and wanton, cruel yet comforting, as he pressed  open-mouthed kisses heating the insides of your thighs. A perpetual tease, as tongue followed. “I bet you’re sweet, too.”

Mickey’s eyes met yours as he glanced up at you from between your thighs, glimmering with the dance of mischief and amorous intent. Pleased at the hitch of your breath evident in your chest, the fluttering of your lashes, the part of your lips.

God, you were well on your way to looking as wrecked as he felt. 

Mickey smiled then, a splitting peal of glimmering happiness, before he endeavoured to shatter you – cheeky as he inclined his head to lick a firm stripe along the seam of you, through the dampened cotton of your underwear.

You yelped at the feeling, slapping your hand over your mouth to muffle the too-loud noise that had shattered the relative silence of the room (save for your collectively heavy breaths), eyes wide at the sound that had spilled from you.

You tugged Mickey’s curls, beckoning him up as you hurried to close your legs – the moment shattering as you realized that once again, you had lost sense of yourself. And under his mother’s roof, no less.

“M!” you hissed, shuffling to readjust your clothing as you gently swatted at his pec, the small thwacking sound vindicating to your own traitorous ears as you attempted to recover from the embarrassment flooding through your body, heating your chest and cheeks. “Y-you … I can’t believe you. Zorro. Baboso.” 

“H-hey,” Mickey was cupping his own pec where you had swatted at it, eyeing your fluster and bluster with barely-concealed mirth. “You wound me, baby. I was just trying to kiss you goodnight. I just wanted you to know I love you.” 

“Sneaky little good-for-nothing,” you hissed, no malice in your voice as it spilled from lips that were trying, against your better senses, to tug into a smile. Shaking your head. “What would Ken Griffey Jr. think?” You tugged your shirt down, beckoning with pointed finger to the larger-than-life splashed likeness on the poster of the hall of fame ballplayer, staring down at the both of you, frozen smile ever-affixed. Not judgmental, but not-not judgmental. 

“He’d high-five me for a home run?” Mickey shrugged.

“You’re shameless, you know?” You readjusted yourself under the covers, making a show of pulling them up to your chin, obscuring your body from his view.

“Well, what do you suggest we do instead,” Mickey queried.

“Um, sleep?” 

“Baby,” Mickey’s voice was low, lilting – a slip of a tease in the wintery-darkness of his room. “I don’t, uhhh, think I can go to sleep right now.” 

You arched an eyebrow at him, “I want to go on record as saying that this is a self-created problem, but because I love you …” you sat up, allowing the covers to fall to your waist, bending forward and cupping Mickey’s jaw, urging him to you to press a chaste kiss to his lips. 

“Lie on your stomach,” you eased. “Let’s play the word game.” 

The word game. Something you had invented with your siblings when you were little. When you were too hyper to sleep, filled with the sugar from Christmas cookies and hot cocoa, waiting for Santa Claus, urging the morning to come … you’d come up with the game to pass the time. A game you had passed on to friends at sleepovers, graduating to giggling wine-drunk iterations in college. And now to your beloved. 

One of you would lie on your stomach, while the person that was “it” would pick a word or phrase, drawing each letter on the expanse of the other’s back. If the guesser chose the letter correctly, you would move on to the next letter, until they’ve spelled the word and identified it. Then you would switch 

Now, with the twinkling of stars outside of Mickey’s window and the luminescent glow of the moon to light your way, you rubbed your palms along the smooth skin of his muscled back, perusing your mental catalog for your word. Mickey groaned beneath you, pleased at the feeling of your hands working their way along his skin, his contended exhalations leaving his lips like a purr. 

“Ah,” you began, “I’ve got one. Okay.” 

You traced an “R,” the curving bow of the letter causing a shiver to wrack through Mickey at the featherlight touch of your fingertip, the gentle scrape of your nail.

“Cielo, this is supposed to relax me, not turn me on,” he turned his head to the side, allowing it to rest on his arms so he could glare, balefully, at you through cocoa-swirled eyes. 

“I can’t be breaking the rules if everything I do turns you on. Control yourself,” you replied primly, easing the sting of your jest with a sweet kiss pressed to his tanned shoulder. “I’ll draw again.” 

“It’s an ‘R,’” he supplied, huffing. “Stupid, sexy ‘R.’” 

You beamed, nodding so that he could see, before drawing the next. E. 

As Mickey guessed each letter, you proceeded. Giggling at some of his mistakes, signaling wrong answers with a wiping, swirling motion along his spine, not unlike the sweeping shake of your head, until – 

“Regalo,” Mickey guessed. Present. 

“Bien,” you smiled. Rewarding your beloved with a sweet kiss to his lips, breezy and sweet like honeysuckle in spring. 

“And what present did you get me, my love?” 

“You’ll have to wait to find out,” you eased down next to him, cuddling into his side. “Or maybe my presence is the present. Either way, you’ll have to be good, or you get nothing.” 

“Always,” Mickey murmured, the facile lovingness of your touch, the game, having lulled him some, easing into the routine of relaxing by your side.

Whether he was referring to you always being a gift, or that he was always good, you weren’t sure. And you didn’t ask, his evening-breathing suggesting that he was well on his way to drifting off – one step closer to dancing dreams of swirling ardor. 

–

As you sat around in the morning with Mickey’s sisters in their matching sweaters, waiting to exchange gifts, they eyed you with something like mischief. A look you were all too used to seeing in their brother’s eyes. 

Mickey was in the kitchen, chipperly helping his mother plate the pan dulce you had baked and pouring coffee. The sunshiney nature of early-birdedness seemed to be a Garcia family trait, you thought, as Mickey’s mother greeted you with a million-watt smile and a kiss to your cheek before ushering you to be comfortable by the tree. 

“I heard the strangest thing last night,” Luci began, her lips curling into a grin. “Did you hear it, Oli?” She looked to the middle sister.

“Oh, yeah,” Olivia continued, knowingly. “Some noise coming from down the hall, like a strangled little cat. Very strange.”

“We don’t have a cat,” Eiza piped up, helpfully-unhelpful. 

And if your face didn’t bely your embarrassment at Mickey’s sisters clearly having heard your little yelp from down the hall, you were sure that the heat rushing through your body might melt you, like a shameful wave of lava, bent on your destruction. 

“Ehm,” you began, plucking intently at the very apparent little loose thread at the hem of your joggers… 

“We’re teasing you,” Luci appeased. “Don’t worry. Quite honestly, the fact that you’d choose to be with that little nerd is astounding –” 

“You’re too cool for him,” Eiza finished from her end of the couch. 

“He’s, uhm,” you smiled weakly at each of his sisters, still recovering from the mortifying ordeal of having been put on the spot. “He’s pretty great.” 

“Yeah,” Olivia rolled her eyes. “If you think Star Trek Christmas sweaters and talking about jets and G’s is cool.” 

You shrugged. “I do.” 

Mrs. Garcia and Mickey entered, then, distributing the steaming cups of coffee and reheated sweet breads. Your beloved pressing his lips to your temple as he pressed the warm mug into your hands.

“Buenas días, mija,” Mrs. Garcia greeted you, easing next to you on the couch. 

“Good morning, señora.” 

She knocked her shoulder gently into yours, smiling between you and Mickey, as he began to distribute gifts.

“Oh, M, give out mine first, please?” You urged, the little prickle of nerves from yesterday tickling at your throat (or maybe that was just the warm swallow of bitterly-strong coffee, just the way you liked it) as you were eagerly-anxious to see if his family liked your gifts.

Mickey nodded, passing soft wrapped packages to each sister – their names calligraphed on each tag in elegant, looping letters. Urging each sister to tear into the paper, an extra smile for Eiza as he passed her a firmer, square box. 

Luci cooed over the hand-knitted scarf and hoop earrings, assuring you they were just the pair she wanted.

Olivia had beamed at the hand-painted mug, admiring the white oleander blooms you had painted. Thanking you for the book of poems. 

Eiza shrieked at the pink gamer headset as she unwrapped it, looking up at you with awestruck, eager eyes. 

“Now you can join M, Reuben and me on our Call of Duty nights,” you smiled. “You’ll need some face masks, though. We multitask our self-care.” You nodded at the box, urging her to check as she pulled out a pack of Korean sheet masks (the same that you had separately gifted Reuben). She swept you in a hug, promising to set up a time to play with you. 

Mickey passed his mother a large, flat package, urging her to tear into the paper.

She ripped away the shining green, revealing a canvas with a watercolored likeness of your beachside home. The cerulean of the swirling ocean and the grapefruit-pink of the sunset stippled into in the background. 

“She painted it, mama,” Mickey gestured to you, eyes swimming as he took in the pleased smile on his mother’s face.

“I just wanted you to have something, a piece of our home in yours, until you can come visit us,” you eased. “I hope you like it.”

Mrs. Garcia nodded, reaching to clasp your hand in hers. “It’s beautiful, my darling girl.” 

Mickey’s sisters had gifted you with a stocking full of puppy goodies for Artoo. A set of bath bombs and a new sketchpad for you. Gifting Mickey with some games he had his eye on.

Senora eased her way up from the couch, pulling a small wooden box from beneath the tree and handing it to you. 

You admired the hewn wood, popping the lid on the box to find a handful of recipe cards in what you recognized form letters and cards to be Mrs. Garcia’s handwriting.

“Just a few recipes for you – so the two of you can have them for your home. And start some of your own traditions.”

You thanked her, with teary eyes and a warm hug, all vestiges of worry set aside as you enmeshed yourself into the warm welcome of the Garcia home.

"You make him better, no?" Mrs. Garcia was sitting with you as Mickey packed up the car, his sisters twittering around him about taking leftovers (seriously, Shawn did not need that many tamales) and promising to FaceTime them after you and Mickey opened the rest of your gifts. The snippets of their conversations meeting your ears as you visited with his mother.

“-- I swear, Miguelito, you better marry her,” Luci’s voice caused your heart to lurch a little. 

You turned your attention back to Mrs. Garcia,

"He makes me my best."

–

Artoo was overjoyed at your reunion. He leapt at your feet before you’d even had the chance to exit the car, his tail moving a mile a minute as he bowled over Mickey, licking at his face and his ears.

The two of you had settled into a lazy morning together, Artoo contentedly tearing into the stocking of gifts from Mickey’s sisters from his perch on the couch as you gifted Mickey with a plate of cheesy scrambled eggs – a Christmas morning breakfast tradition in your home.

“I like the shirt,” you acknowledged, beaming at the Mickey Mouse shirt that had been your birthday gift to him the prior year – a tradition of his own making, to wear the shirts you’d gifted him on Christmas. Each year a surprise as to which one he’d pick. 

This year’s – a grinning Mickey hugging Pluto – a splash of color adorning Mickey’s torso. A welcome sight painting the picture of your holiday backdrop while you made chili-spiced hot cocoa as your father had taught you, the sweet tickle playing on your lips as you grinned at your boyfriend.

And it was a cosmic, karmic collision – something in the stars, you think. Watching him play with Artoo, watching him eat his breakfast, watching him pluck packages from beneath the tree, ready to give to you. And maybe it was the magic of the holidays – that tinges everything in evergreen romance, warm and sweet and cinnamon. But you think, perhaps, that it will always feel this way with Mickey – as though he was the sunshine in your wintery sky, iridescent and luminous.

“Here,” you passed a package to your beloved, waiting with bated breath and eager eyes as he set his cocoa cup aside and ripped into the paper, marveling at the bound graphic novel in his hands – 

A full, illustrated edition of “The Adventures of Fanboy and Payback,” their space-exploration adventures that you had invented and drawn now captured fully, rather than in the piecemeal etchings you would stick into care packages when Mickey was away.

“Baby,” Mickey breathed, “you did all of this?”

“Well,” you worried your lower lip between your teeth. “The binding isn’t the best, but I tried. Do you like it?”

“Ah-mor,” he swept you off the couch and into his arms, his lips meeting yours, full and flush. “You literally made me a sci-fi hero. This is the best ever.” 

“I’m so glad,” you murmured, wrapping your arms around his tapered waist and squeezing. “You’re definitely my hero, M. Callsign: Romeo.” 

Mickey chuckled, disentangling himself from you and pressing another kiss to your lips. Assuring you he loved it as he gently set aside the book as though it were made of glass, turning to pick up your gift.

Mickey gazed at you expectantly as you held the small, unexpectedly dense box in your palm, searching his face for any hint as to what could be in the box,

“Don’t –” Mickey started, trailing off as you gently shook the box, “shake it… Fine.” 

You smirked, peeling the paper off the box and peering into it, met with the fiery hue of —

“An orange?” You query, lifting the small fruit from the box, its stippled rind leaving the pleasing, citrusy smell on your fingertips as you examined it. The blazing blue sticker on the side of the rind boasting the phrase, “Sweet Valencia.”

“Por supuesto, cielo.” Of course. 

“Well, you know I love oranges,” you smiled at him. “Thank you, my love.”

“Cieloooo,” he snickered. “If we were to share it. To peel it in half, what do you have?” He pressed you.

You gazed at him, glancing between the orange in your hand and your beloved’s shimmering eyes, dark and luminescent as the night sky.

“A half of an orange. Is this a riddle? What am I missing?” 

“Si, cielo, my brilliant, beautiful girl.” Mickey kneeled before you know, cradling your hand that held the orange in his palms. “An orange half. Mi media naranja.”

Your breath caught in your throat. 

And it was one of your favorite things about the Spanish language, your favorite endearment.  Embodied by the gift your boyfriend was handing to you now, the fiery-hued orb in your palms, perfect. The sweet smell of citrus tickling your nose. 

Mi media naranja. His soulmate. Literally translated, mi media naranja – “my orange half,” in reference to you.

Mickey dropped your hand, turning to pick up the box you had gently set aside, plucking something from the bottom of the box before picking up one of your hands. 

The coolness of metal slid along the ring finger of your right hand.

You tore your gaze down in time to see the coppery rosiness of a simple rose-gold band against the skin of your hand.

“I’m going to marry you one day, mi naranjita,” Mickey assured, looking between the ring on your hand and your starshine eyes. “Until then, consider this my promise to you.” 

With your artist's eyes, you can appreciate the watercolor brushstrokes of the moment, the way in which you saw the world, textured and swirling. Rosy and perpetually-perfect as your lips met Mickey’s, tugging him toward you with a finger crooked in his silly shirt.

“You’re perfect, M,” you murmured into his mouth. “Impetuous … but perfect.” 

You dragged Mickey down the hall, toward your bedroom, your lips fused to his as you made to peel the cartoonish shirt from his torso as you went, reveling in the firm feel of him beneath your fingertips. 

When had the script flipped? You were beneath Mickey now, him rolling his hips into you, the sweet, heavy drag of him inside of you sinfully sweet as you tipped your head back to watch your beloved watching you. The tight heat of you squeezing around him, causing him to roll his eyes back, bucking his hips into you harder. 

“Baby,” Mickey groaned, “you're so pretty it hurts.” He dragged his teeth over the column of your throat, soothing the stinging scrape of teeth with a pretty little brushstroke of his lips over the canvas of your neck. "I'll give it all to you – give you more, more, more …" he murmured into your skin as his thrusts became sloppy.

And watching you come apart, to shatter in his embrace, was the gift you kept on giving. One he’d never tire of as he spilled inside of you as you urged him to, “Please, baby, come inside me,” urging, urging. “I want it.”

He never stood a chance.

You draw your finger repeatedly along the curve of his nose, pressing kisses into his neck and begging him not to move from inside of you as Mickey rests his head on your shoulder, puffing exhalations evening into the deep, easy breathing of the satisfied. 

And as you glanced down at the rose gold band on your hand – the simple little gift that held so much weight, you drifted to the afternoon you had spent with Mickey before leaving his mother’s home. The tour he’d given you around town, narrating the lives of the ghosts of his hometown as you drove past the movie theater where he’d had his first date; the park where he and some friends had gotten drunk as teens. Stopping to climb to the roof of the school building, to watch the late-afternoon wintery sunset. 

"I wish you knew what it feels like," you sighed, carding your fingers through Mickey's curls, his head in your lap as the two of you watched the blaze of orange sunset turn purple like tufted cotton candy.

"What what feels like?" He asked tilting his chin to allow his eyes to prove your form, appreciating the fiery hues of the sky splashed against your skin.

"To love you," you glanced down, meeting your beloved's eyes with a smile.

Mickey's million-watt grin beamed back in response.

And perhaps that's the reason for the setting sun, you thought. It has no choice but to retreat in the face of something so radiant as your beloved's smile, a second fiddle at its own game.

"Oh, I have a pretty good idea, cielito" Mickey sat up, warm hands coming to cradle either side of your face, to appreciate the curve of your jaw as you smile at him -- little reminders how every part of you, delights in every part of him.

At your arching eyebrow, he continued, "After all, I know what it feels like to love you."

His lips met yours, the feel of his kiss like night-blooming jasmine, like petals against your wistful mouth -- eternal against the evening dusk of his hometown's little skyline.

Perhaps traveling for the holidays wasn't so bad.

--

some tags for my usual suspects: @joaquinwhorres @withahappyrefrain  @clints-lucky-arrow @inklore @phoenixhalliwell @ohmagawd-life @levylovegood @thatredheadwriter @zombieaurora @shadeds-library @writercole @ijustwantedplums @justalonelyslytherin @gretagerwigsmuse @fanboysfangirl @siriusfahey @the-navistar-carol @jadore-andor @fanboygarcia @lavenderluna10 @thedaredevilsgirl @fluffyprettykitty @mickeyluvs @mothdruid   @maxmayfield @eagerforthesky @callmemantha @mxgyver  @andrewrussgarfield @bioodforbiood @the-purity-pen @luxuryberzatto @liz-allyn  @moonlight-prose @thegirlwhowritesfics @phoebe-danvers ​@jadore-andor  @marvelousmermaid @spidervee ​@t-nd-rfoot​

[youssefguedira]

iron maiden joe prequel snippet for you all happy sunday (this takes place the morning immediately after nicky, andy and quynh find yusuf in the main fic)

At six twenty-five am – according to his watch, which runs two minutes slow, so it's probably more like six twenty-seven – Nicky gives up on the idea of trying to get more sleep. Yusuf has not stirred all night; or if he has, Nicky has not heard it. He's briefly worried about going too far, even though he knows, logically, there is no need for him to keep watch like this. But the kitchen is close enough to Yusuf's bedroom that Nicky will be able to hear it if he cries out, and if he is to get through today, he'll need something to eat, and probably coffee too. So it is with that in mind that he gets up and goes into the kitchen.

Nobody else is awake yet, and it is late enough in the year that the sun isn't quite up either, but the sky is beginning to grow light in anticipation of it. This safehouse is far enough from any other major settlement that the only sound outside is the wind, which hasn't let up all night, and the birds. Nicky turns the lights on and gets to work.

At seven thirty, Nile joins him in the kitchen. She doesn't ask how long he's been awake, and he doesn't volunteer the information. He offers her a cup of coffee, and she takes it, settling herself at the kitchen table.

At eight twenty-two, according to the clock above the kitchen counter, which is seemingly more reliable than Nicky's old watch, there are the first sounds of movement from Yusuf's bedroom. If Nile notices the way Nicky immediately looks up towards the sound, she doesn't say a word about it, nor does she give him the knowing look Andy or Quynh would have. There has been no sign of the two of them, yet.

To keep himself from straining to hear every single tiny sound coming from behind Yusuf's door, Nicky sets about making breakfast. There's not much in this safehouse – they'd come here in a rush after Copley had called – so he just makes oatmeal, adding sugar to Nile's and nothing to his own. Nile, normally, would make fun of him for this, but today she says nothing.

He reaches for the honey and cinnamon, setting it down on the counter next to the third bowl, but then pauses. He thinks that Yusuf has, or at least used to have, a sweet tooth to rival Andy's. He thinks that this is the way he would have made it a long time ago, when they had the luxury of being able to get the ingredients they needed. He thinks that he would not have thought twice before.

He does not remember any of this for certain. This is precious information that he has kept guarded in his memory for centuries, and yet at some point in the last four hundred and eighty two years, he has let it fade, and now he does not remember. He'd sworn to himself not to forget these things, small as they may be, out of desperate hope, and now he does not remember. It is such a tiny thing to forget. It feels like a monumental loss.

And who is he now to assume that things have not changed, when he knows that the man he'd found in that alleyway is not the same as the one they'd taken from him? How can anything be the same as it was, after so long? Nicky loves him still, so much he aches with it, but what if they are both too different, now? What if there is nothing left to repair?

He does not realise, until he goes to pass Nile her bowl, that his hands are trembling.

"Nicky," she says, but whatever would have followed is interrupted by the sound of the door opening.

Yusuf stands just in the doorway of the kitchen, not quite in, not quite out. This safehouse is not all that large; the distance between them is barely two meters, if that. It feels insurmountable.

"Are you-" Nicky begins and then reconsiders, clears his throat. "Will you eat something?" He'd barely eaten a thing at dinner last night, and Nicky is worried for him, though perhaps he'd just been too tired.

Yusuf doesn't say a word, just lingers there, lips slightly parted as if he'd wanted to say something but couldn't find the words. It does something funny to Nicky's brain, seeing him there in a hoodie and sweatpants that are just a little loose in the shoulders and thighs, a far cry from the clothes Nicky had last seen him in. His hair is shorter, too, though the cut isn't exactly neat. Nicky had done his best, but he'd gotten the sense Yusuf wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

Finally, after an eternity, Yusuf nods, shuffling forwards to sit at the table. His shoulders are hunched underneath the grey fabric of the hoodie. He looks – Nicky doesn't know. He looks tired.

Nicky offers him the bowl, and the honey and cinnamon with it, just in case. Yusuf doesn't look at him, or at Nile, while he eats, and that doesn't hurt. It doesn't.

It's slow, but at least he's eating something, even if he takes small bites and only finishes half the bowl. Nicky will take it.

Only when Yusuf finishes does he look at Nicky. "Thank you," he says quietly, still speaking the Arabic of his childhood, the version he'd taught Nicky painfully slowly, a hand offered in peace across the barrier between them, over the course of countless nights in the desert. This, at least, Nicky has not forgotten, making sure he spoke it at least with Andromache and Quynh, and with himself, too.

"Of course," Nicky responds, offering him a soft smile that he hopes looks more convincing than it feels. Yusuf doesn't quite smile back, but his eyes soften, and – it is small, perhaps.

It is enough to give Nicky hope, nonetheless.

[chicacielogris]

16/10 Una historia sobre una canción

Una tarde llegó cansado, un día largo. De esos días donde solo quería dormir y olvidarse de todo. Entró en su habitación y sé tiro en la cama, poco a poco el sueño lo venció.

Su respiración se ralentizo y la bruma de su corazón inundó su cabeza. Sus sueños se volvieron flashbacks de aquellos buenos tiempos...

Su bella sonrisa a la luz del atardecer cuando emprendían camino a casa. Los días en los que el tiempo se pasó volando mientras bailaban en la cocina, contando secretos, escuchando música o peleando con almohadas.

Aun en sueños se preguntó, ¿cómo pudo perderá? ¿cómo es qué la dejó ir?

Le había prometido nunca lastimarla y la tuvo que ver ahogada en su propia sangre, escarlata...

Escarlata como el atardecer que miraban cuando le prometió estar siempre con ella, escarlata como el labial que usaba la primera vez que la besó, escarlata como sus mejillas después de horas de risas juntos y escarlata como sus ojos cuando justificó su crueldad con honestidad, sus lágrimas le ardían en el rostro y no pudo responder, ellas no tenía nada que responder.

Aun en sueños, extrañaba esos labios que solía llamar hogar, esos brazos que le ayudaban a llevar sus peores cargas, esas piernas que se volvieron su almohada favorita y ese pecho cuyo corazón le arrullaba y le daba la paz que necesitaba para seguir viviendo.

Despertó y deseo volver a mirarla, con el escarlata del cielo sobre sus ojos, el escarlata en sus labios mientras ponía una canción lenta en su celular y bailaban a la luz del refrigerador, el escarlata de sus mejillas que le dolían de sonreír a su lado, el escarlata de su corazón, que tanto amor le regalo y él no supo conservar...