#it’s pretty rare for us to even have events like this actually

[astrxealis]

damn i never thought i'd get into stardew valley this much but here we are !! makes perfect sense tho

[arabriddler]

important ! In recent years especially this year I’ve noticed a lot that the internet language picked up so many Islamic phrases and, from a muslim perspective, it makes the internet a little more welcoming. the thing is, a lot of the time with Islamic phrases you have to be careful about when and where to say them they hold their own weight and demand their own respect so here is a list explaining each phrase and some notes about it.

In sha allah

It means “ If God wills “. It’s mostly a response that can mean yes or no. If someone asks you to do something you can say in sha allah as in “ I heard you and I’ll try to do itc but I can’t claim that It will happen “ . Muslims say it because we’re unaware of what future holds it’s actually blasphemous to claim to know the future, so saying so means “ If it’s the will of god it will happen if not it won’t “ and you’d also say it about future events.

Ma sha allah

It means “ this is what god intended “ and it’s a compliment. Saying so is like saying WOW! But it’s also kind of a prayer of protection? If I see someone with pretty hair I should say “ Ma sha allah your hair is very pretty “ the ma sha allah protects the person from the evil eye. By saying that I’m also saying I’m not jealous I’m genuinely enamored and I don’t wish any harm to go to it.

Astagfurullah

it means “ to god I repent “ or “ from god I seek forgiveness” it’s usually used when you make a mistake but people also use it when they see something bad or when they want to avoid saying something bad. Like once my card refused to work and I’d say that so I won’t say any curse words and to calm down my anger

wallah/wallahi

okay this one is important. This one shouldn’t be used so lightly. It means “ by god’s name “ and it’s basically swearing in Allah’s name. You are only supposed to say it if you genuinely mean what you’re saying. It’s such a heavy word that I only say it very rarely and if you say it and don’t follow up on what you said you have to fast for three days as repentance.

ya allah

ya is an addressing word? Like talking to someone or calling them? Like saying O’ ( someone ) so ya allah means O’ god

Al hamdullilah // hamdullilah

it means ‘ praise/thanks to god ‘ said when something good happens or when you feel relieved about something— for example, my shirt is stained badly and I’m worried it won’t clean well. I clean it and the stain is gone so I say “ al hamdullilah “ kind of like phew!. Sometimes people say it as an answer when they’re asked how they are it can either mean things are good or bad but we preserve .

One more note is that with the name of Allah you should also be careful it’s not supposed to be written on papers that’ll get stepped on or lightly used in art because it also has its own weight it’s regarded heavily. Like even in home decorations it should be elevated and not overshadowed. If I have to throw away a paper I have to sit down and color over the name of Allah or burn the papers so it won’t get thrown in trash.

another note is that those phrases aren’t Muslim exclusive. Some Arab non-Muslims use them as well. This is only my explanation from a Muslim perspective.

Another another note is this is what I can remember at the moment but if you have additions or enquiries let me know

[bbyseok]

at first sight? — GOJO SATORU

pairing: gojo satoru x gn!reader

word count: 10k (idek i was possessed)

banner by @/bbyseok , dividers by @/bunnysrph !!

a/n: um hi. its finally here ! thanks to all who liked the teaser, this is my first jjk/gojo fic ever but i really think everyone needs some comfort after jjk chap 261.. and fuck u gege !!

content: soulmate au, gender neutral reader, minimal use of they/them pronouns for reader but gender is not specified, sorcerer reader, nicknames ‘sweetheart’, ‘pretty’, ‘baby’, fluff, mild angst with a happy ending, slowburn??, several pov switches, suggestive/implied nsfw at the end but nothing explicit, brief swearing/explicit language, brief violence/injuries, alcohol consumption, reader gets mildly drunk but nothing else, implied satosugu as past soulmates: can be interpreted as either romantic or platonic, fic takes place after jjk 0 but before the show starts

analysis: this is a world filled not only with curses, but soulmates—in which you know someone is your soulmate when you first make eye contact with them. but for your case, things can get a bit complicated when someone is wearing a blindfold.

here, in this universe, you can tell that someone is your soulmate by simply looking at them. so with that, the saying of “love at first sight” is actually pretty accurate here. you see them for the very first time and barely know the person and yet, somehow, they’re the one you’re destined to be with.

with that, you’d think it’d be pretty common for two random people to run into each other while crossing the street or something and bam! suddenly you’ve found the supposed love of your life!

and you? well, for you, that hasn’t happened yet.

to be fair, it’s not like you’re actively trying to look for your soulmate. handling curses as a jujutsu sorcerer is difficult enough. (maybe you’ll run into them one day after saving them from a curse or something. how romantic!)

it’s better to leave it up to fate. it’s fate who decided your pairing anyway, right?

your transfer to jujutsu tech had been fairly smooth. after being stationed in kyoto for a while, tokyo was a nice change of pace.

coincidentally, you had been out of the country during the incident known as the night parade of a hundred demons. a scary event that proved the threat of curse users to be formidable.

because of that, your decision to transfer to tokyo seemed like the right thing to do. and so far, it’s been decent.

it’s a nice change of scenery. the students are aspiring; while maki and megumi aren’t the friendliest, they’re warming up to you. toge and panda are gradually improving.

nanami’s pessimistic outlook on jujutsu society and shoko’s overall unenthusiastic demeanor are certainly interesting for the most part, but your coworkers are pleasant to be around.

well. except for one.

gojo satoru knows that you are his soulmate. he has indeed known this fact right from the very start, ever since your first meeting.

even with his blindfold on, he could see your own eyes before him. his six eyes can see everything. the thing is.. he didn’t know he could have another soulmate.

his situation with geto suguru is something he doesn’t talk about with anyone. maybe shoko at times, but even then, it’s rare. it’s not that he doesn’t want to, but it’s pretty hard to talk about.

after suguru defected, gojo could still obviously feel their bond. even though they were no longer together as the strongest duo, did it really matter when their souls were still connected to one another? it was a factor that played in avoiding (and perhaps meeting up with) each other as the years went by.

satoru felt their bond die that day after the events with okkotsu and rika. and it had frightened him. that lingering presence of the bond was no longer there.

so imagine his surprise when he sees you.

a new sorcerer in kyoto, now transferred to tokyo. normally, gojo doesn’t seek out the new recruits, but yaga had dragged him over regardless. besides, he might as well get to know his possible assistant teacher that would be helping him out with the new first years.

“i guess i can check out some new faces,” he relented with a sigh, adjusting his blindfold and looking to the side as yaga’s steps slowed as they approached you.

gojo rolled his eyes–not that you’d see it anyway–as yaga introduced you with your name and your sorcerer grade. he stopped to stand next to the principal.

you extended your hand to offer a handshake, and gojo finally turned his head.

that feeling as his gaze fell upon yours beneath the blindfold was familiar—frighteningly so—and unfamiliar at the same time. as if he could breathe for the first time in ages. your eyes are unaware, but they’re so revealing to him.

satoru stuttered in his movements, reluctantly taking your hand. the skin that touched yours felt like it was on fire. he briefly held on to see if you felt it too.

but you simply smiled up at him.

“it’s nice to meet you, gojo,” you said, blissfully unaware of the revelation currently dawning on the man before you and the turmoil it brought as he abruptly retracted his arm back.

gojo stiffened. he merely offered a curt nod before turning on heel and walking away briskly. he could faintly hear yaga protest about his sudden departure before apologizing to you hastily. satoru shook his head.

how was this be possible? how could the universe give him two soulmates? he didn’t even know that was a thing that could happen. he wondered if there had been a similar occurrence before.

gojo couldn’t help but feel nauseous. was this the world playing some sort of sick, cruel joke on him? or was it perhaps giving him a second chance?

and truthfully, it wasn’t like gojo even wanted another soulmate. not after what he had been through with suguru. he hadn’t given it much thought.

was it really worth it?

what if he couldn’t protect you too?

so satoru had decided on one thing that day: the blindfold stays on. concealing his eyes from the world not only for him, but for your sake too. he was certain in his choice; he would never tell you the truth.

as far as you were concerned, you haven’t met your soulmate yet.

and never will.

your first meeting with gojo wasn’t exactly unpleasant, but it wasn’t something you could describe as good either. you’ve been left with the impression that he’s cocky and indifferent.

and that he doesn’t like you.

it’s been around.. two? three weeks? it’s been a while since your encounter with the white-haired sorcerer, and you’ve only seen a few glimpses of him here and there on campus.

okay, he doesn’t display any outright mean or ill intention towards you. on the very rare times the two of you do interact, he is obviously curt and clipped. seems like he’s deemed you worthy of the only either nods or one word responses.

you’ve yet to actually participate in a lesson or mission with gojo, but you prefer it that way. providing individual training and advice for the upcoming second years has been going great. at this point, you’re sure it’d only be awkward.

besides, the strongest sorcerer alive doesn’t necessarily need assistance in dealing with curses after all. that much is understandable.

you’re currently in the teachers’ lounge room with nanami. even though he isn’t actually a teacher, he pays visits sometimes. he’s good company anyway.

“it’s nice to hear that you’re settling in well,” the blonde says with a nod. he loosens his necktie absentmindedly as he adjusts the newspaper in his lap. “especially with that gojo around. he can be a pain in the ass sometimes.”

you frown at the mention of the sorcerer, crossing your arms. you’re seated across from nanami, watching him idly look through the newspaper.

“oh, well, actually, he isn’t too much trouble. for me, at least,” you reply, brows furrowing, “he barely talks to me.” (in fact, he seems to avoid you like you’re carrying the plague or something.)

nanami looks up, raising a brow. “huh. you should be grateful then.” he then hums, “but maybe that’ll change once there’s actually new first year students to teach. you both are assigned to them after all.”

you lean back in your seat, your shoulders committing to a halfhearted shrug. “maybe. it’s not like i never did anything bad to him though..”

nanami sighs gruffly. “don’t think about it too much.” before he can continue, there’s the sound of footsteps. nanami brings his newspaper back up, muttering, “speak of the devil.”

“nanamiiii!” gojo’s voice sounds from around the corner. it almost startles you how lively he sounds. you realize you’ve never actually heard or seen how he acts without you around.

nanami doesn’t respond, rolling his eyes.

gojo strolls in enthusiastically, blindfold on. “heyy, nanami, we should-” he cuts off when he presumably sees you, falling quiet and stopping short.

you blink, a bit hurt. does he dislike you that much? but you don’t let it show, resorting to greeting him politely like you usually do when you occasionally pass each other.

“good afternoon, gojo,” you muse, offering a little wave.

nanami notices his reaction too, but doesn’t comment on it. he continues to ignore the sorcerer’s presence in fact, eyes still roaming over the newspaper.

gojo clears his throat and resumes his pace. “afternoon,” he responds, focusing his attention back on nanami. he reaches the two of you, giving you no further acknowledgment.

you don’t care if he can see you looking at him, you opt to stare at the black blindfold covering his face. you have a hunch that he can see, or at least feel, you staring at him.

“can i borrow you for a sec, nanami?”

nanami emits an exasperated sigh, but stands nonetheless to follow gojo out of the room for some discussion not meant for your ears apparently, leaving you alone with your thoughts.

do you make gojo uncomfortable? you don’t know what you could’ve possibly done so though. from what you’ve heard from the others, he can be rather eccentric and overbearing.

does he just not like you? perhaps he views you as inferior, too below his level and power to actually converse with you. while it seems a bit of a stretch, you’re sure it’s not out of the possibility also based on what you’ve heard about him from others.

your frown returns. before you can dwell on it any longer, nanami comes back into the room. “well, i certainly see what you mean from what you said about gojo earlier,” he announces.

his words do nothing to falter your frown. “right.” you then shrug once more, “it’s okay. it’s just a bit.. strange.” you then shake your head, trying to be a bit optimistic. “but also like you said earlier, that might change! who knows?”

who knows, indeed.

megumi tucks the cursed tools inside their designated box and closes the lid. he moves on to the next one right as gojo enters the shed, beaming a smile.

“hey, megumi. you almost done wrapping up things here?” satoru asks, undoing his blindfold naturally. there’s a pair of glasses in his hand ready for use.

the teen nods. they had used a few cursed tools during training session today, and the storage did need a bit of tidying up. “almost done.”

satoru makes a noise of approval as he places his glasses on. “great! do you need help setting up your dorm room?” he looks excited at the idea, still grinning.

meanwhile, megumi looks disinterested at his offer. “no thanks. i think it’ll be easy enough. it’s not like i’m decorating it anyway.”

“oh, boo.” but gojo doesn’t insist on it any further. he actually falls strangely quiet, which causes megumi to glance at him curiously.

his teacher looks.. distraught. it’s hard to actually tell, but he seems to be looking at the floor, maybe lost in thought. before megumi can say anything, gojo’s expression changes and he starts talking again.

“you’re, uh, with the new teacher for tomorrow,” gojo then informs. he shoves his hands into his pockets and kicks at the floor absentmindedly. (he’s fidgeting. subtly.) “it’ll just be you two, i think, on a small mission. so they can get used to actually working with students on field. it’ll be good for the both of you.”

megumi nods. he tilts his head afterward. “you can say their name, you know. it won’t kill you,” he says a bit pointedly, “and they’re not technically new anymore. it has been a few weeks now since they’ve joined the school.”

“right, right.” megumi’s face scrunches up as gojo’s hand comes down to ruffle his hair gently. (a habit that has not died since his younger days.) “whatever you say, megumi.”

despite your minimal interactions and his rather closed off demeanor, megumi is actually one of your favorite students. (and yeah, maybe you shouldn’t have favorites, but oh well.)

your mission with megumi, or rather, the mission you’ve been assigned to supervise the student on, is rather simple.

there’s been reports of a low grade curse roaming the premises of a supermarket neighboring a nearby cemetery, so megumi is to obviously exorcise it under your watch. the area has been closed off with a small veil. megumi had decided to check the parking lot first for any lingering traces, so here you are.

“i think we’re good here,” the teenager confirms as his demon dogs return to his feet, seemingly in the clear. you nod and let him lead the way towards the inside of the store.

as the two of you begin to walk down each aisle with one of the demon dogs trailing behind, megumi says your name in an inquisitive tone. “what do you think of gojo-sensei?”

the sudden question has you blinking in surprise. your eyes scan megumi as you both continue to trek down the aisle. “what makes you ask?”

“no reason.” he doesn’t meet your gaze.

you bite down on your lip in contemplation. you’re not sure what brings this question to mind for him, but you’re willing to indulge him for now. “well.. i think he’s.. alright.” you pause. “as a sorcerer, i admire his strength. though, i think a lot of people think that obviously.”

“and as a person?” megumi presses, turning to investigate the next aisle. he still doesn’t glance over to you, still preoccupied with searching for the curse.

(hell, for a teenager, he sure is perceptive.)

you choose your words carefully, thinking it over with a brief pause.

“i’ll admit, i don’t think i know him well enough to be sure. as a person, i think he’s.. self-centered and rude. sometimes, i see him act very carefree in a way. he’s.. obscure, i guess.” you clear your throat and reiterate, “but again, i don’t really... know him.”

you can see megumi go over your words silently. the quiet continues. the conversation seems to be dying, but it doesn’t matter when monstrous gurgling sounds up ahead.

a curse appears in front of you, the shelving of the aisles toppling over as it gargles some unintelligible roar. megumi doesn’t hesitate, using his technique to summon his demon dogs once more to swiftly engage in combat.

the fight is easily handled in three minutes top. (they weren’t kidding when they said it’d be easy.)

after the commotion has settled, you allow megumi to do one more check up around the store just in case. just as you are prepared to exit and bring down the veil, you decide it’s your turn to ask him now.

“and what about you, megumi?” you inquire lightly, giving one of the demon dogs a few head pats for their good work. “what exactly do you think of gojo?”

megumi hums.

“i agree with most of what you said actually,” he answers honestly, causing you to chuckle in amusement. the teenager tilts his head and finally looks at you. “but i also think he’s kind when he wants to be.”

his frontward honesty surprises you once more. this kid sure is something. you believe his words; he has no reason to lie to you, especially about gojo of all things. still, you poke at him teasingly, “really now?”

you don’t really expect him to answer, but then megumi says in a mumble so quiet that you nearly miss it.

“well, he did sort of raise me after all.”

“i just don’t think he likes me, shoko,” you puff out a sigh, watching as she puffs out smoke. “i’ve seen the way he is around other people, and he’s not like that with me.”

she’s on break right now, so you thought you could talk to her about a certain blindfolded sorcerer who’s been plaguing your thoughts.

it’s interesting to hear about the different sides of gojo satoru from your peers. from nanami, you’ve learned that he’s pretentious and troublesome. from megumi, that he can be caring in his own way. and shoko?

“he’s crazy.” the doctor waves her cigarette at you with a shrug of her shoulders. “but it beats me on why he doesn’t particularly like you.”

you groan, slouching in one of the chairs set up in the infirmary. “maybe i should’ve stayed in kyoto,” you mumble. it’s more of a joke than anything; your.. weird terms with gojo isn’t enough to actually deter you.

but shoko puts the cigarette back to her lips and tilts her head. “want me to ask him about it?”

you straighten your posture abruptly and look at her. “what? you don’t have to. he might think i asked you to or something.”

she shrugs again. “your call.”

your brows furrow. “maybe we just got off on the wrong foot somehow. even though all i did was shake his hand.” you snort. “maybe i can get him something to break the ice. what does he like?”

shoko doesn’t even hesitate. “sweets. he likes his sweets.”

oh. oh, okay! you blink and nod. who would’ve thought? the strongest sorcerer in the world likes sweets. “i can handle sweets.”

you, in fact, cannot handle sweets.

why are there so many? you’re at a local bakery staring at the rows and rows of pastries they have on display, looking as if you’re trying the decipher the world’s hardest math problem.

shoko never specified what kind of sweets he liked during your conversation with her a couple days ago. cake? ice cream? cookies? you might as well buy the whole damn store at this point with your luck. the last thing you want is to buy him something he won’t actually eat.

“oh, fuck it,” you mutter and finally decide on a small piece of cake. it happens to be your favorite kind of cake, but oh well. if he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t like it! it’s the thought that matters anyway, right?

as you exit the shop with your newly acquired dessert, you try to devise a way to give it to him. do you just.. hand it to him? or maybe it’ll be better to leave it in his office. or have shoko give it to him!

ughh, who knew how hard it’d be to give a man a cake? okay, okay. you’ll simply give it to him in person since he’ll know it’s directly from you. problem solved.

well, actually, problem is not solved. how are you supposed to give the cake to gojo in person when you have absolutely no clue where he is right now? after returning to the school, he’s no where to be found, so you eventually turn to yaga for help.

“he’s on a mission where??”

you stare at yaga with wide eyes as he names some city so far away you’re pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to find an affordable ride to get you there in a reasonable amount of time.

“oh, alright,” you say, feeling a little disappointed. the cake suddenly feels a little too big and heavy in your hands.

the principal’s gaze flickers down to your little intended treat for his former student. “these kinds of missions are no trouble for satoru. i’m sure he’ll be back soon, so you can leave that in his office.”

you brighten up at that and nod. “thank you, yaga.” you then dismiss yourself with a polite bow after he informs you where gojo’s office is exactly, and you start to make your way there.

it’s only a few minutes until you get there. you open the door and catch sight of a desk. it looks rather plain, which is understandable since it doesn’t seem like he uses this space often. (though, there is a chair that looks more expensive than your entire rent.)

either way, you walk inside and set the container down on the desk with a small sigh. hopefully the gesture is appreciated! if he really does have a sweet tooth like shoko says, you’re not sure why he’d turn it down. again, you can only hope.

you sigh again and turn to leave when the sound of the door creaking open sounds again. you freeze in place when it swings out fully, revealing the very man you were thinking about.

(yaga was not kidding when he said that gojo finishes his missions pretty fast.)

gojo perks up at the sight of you in his office, and even with his blindfold on, you can tell he’s got a surprised look on his face. “can i help you.. or do you have a reason on why you’re snooping around in my office?” he inquires, walking in.

while not evidently hostile, his appearance and words suddenly have you anxious. “oh, well, i-’’ you want to mentally smack yourself for fumbling over your words. “i’m sorry for intruding. i, uh, just wanted to leave you a little something.”

it’s only then does gojo look past you and makes a small noise. you can’t really decipher it, but you watch as he walks by you to open the small packaging to see the slice of cake meant for him.

and when he makes a small noise again, you can tell it’s one of delight. “you got me.. cake?” he asks, looking to you again questioningly.

“i did,” you clarify with a small nod, summoning a small smile and rubbing the back of your neck a bit sheepishly, “i didn’t know what kind of sweet you would like, so i just ended up choosing my favorite cake. um, i really hope you don’t mind the flavor, but if you don’t you really don’t have to eat it so-”

“kikufuku.”

you stare at him, confused. “what?”

“kikufuku,” satoru reiterates, and it’s his turn to smile. (it nearly catches you off guard because although very small, it’s pretty.) “s’my favorite. or.. one of my favorite sweets. crepes are good too.”

his newfound friendliness has you smiling a bit more evidently, pleased that this interaction is your most pleasant one with him so far in the weeks you’ve been here. “oh, okay,” you chuckle, “noted.”

gojo opens the container and unwraps the plastic fork that had came with it. he takes a bite of the cake and hums in approval. “can see why it’s your favorite. it’s not bad.”

your face lightens up at that. “oh, i’m glad.”

he hums, popping another slice of cake into his mouth. “any particular reason on why you’ve decided to give me cake, if i may ask?”

you falter once more, now nervous in telling that you’re hoping to.. resolve this one-sided tension with you. ultimately, you decide to be straightforward, inhaling deeply and looking at him. (well, his blindfold.)

“well, i’m not an idiot, gojo. you haven’t exactly been.. friendly to me. i’m not trying to win you over or anything, but if we’re going to work together with the first year students, consider this a gift for a truce. or um, a peace offering so we can act somewhat decent with each other.”

the white-haired sorcerer falls silent at your confrontation. you’re half expecting him to brush you off and walk out of the room entirely. especially since he seems to have stiffen up (similarly to the way when you first met, you had noticed).

he seems to contemplate for a bit. you don’t know where he’s looking at; the floor, the cake in his hands, you? it’s suddenly nerve-wracking.

“you’re right,” he finally speaks up, “i.. i’m sorry for my previous behavior towards you. can we start over?” he places the cake aside and walks back over to you to hold out his hand.

“gojo satoru.”

your eyes flicker to his blindfold to his hand, then back to where his eyes are hidden underneath. the rumored powerful and breaktaking six eyes concealed from your ever so curious sight.

against your better judgment, you repeat your name and take his hand.

“it’s nice to meet you, gojo.”

your new relationship with gojo is steadily becoming better. he’s no longer curt with you, and actually engages in conversations even with no other people around.

though, you can’t help but feel like he’d avoiding looking at you for some reason. which is pretty far off since you can’t technically see where he’s looking, but it’s a hunch you have nonetheless.

but hey, it’s progress, progress that you’re somewhat happy about.

like now, as satoru leans over your shoulder to peer at the clipboard in your hands. you’ve just finished wrapping up a lesson with the soon-to-be second years out on the field.

“ooh, what’s on the agenda for tomorrow, teach?” he pries.

“assistant teach,” you remind him teasingly, going over the contents of the clipboard. “more sparring. oh, and the registration for that new first year.”

“the one from the countryside?” gojo hums.

you nod. “yep. a.. kugasaki nobara. we won’t actually get to meet her, but arrangements for her arrival are getting finalized.”

“oh, boo. s’just more paperwork,” the sorcerer beside you whines, kicking at the grass.

“at least megumi isn’t the only one now,” you point out and finally turn to him.

just as you expected, satoru glances away to look at panda and toge finishing up. you squint at him narrowly but don’t comment on it.

“that’s true. not like that kid cares anyway, but it’ll be good for him,” gojo agrees airily, shoving his hands into his pockets.

you eye him. “hey, gojo?”

“yeah?” his head remains turned to the students. (further proving your point! you feel like you’re collecting evidence here; the gojo satoru cannot look at you in the eye!)

you hesitate. “wanna grab some kikufuku?”

he perks up at that. (like a puppy, really. it almost makes you laugh.) “mm, whatever happened to not trying to win me over with sweets?” he teases.

you laugh at that then, shaking your head in soft denial. “no- that’s not what i-”

“well, you did said kikufuku.." satoru interrupts you with a dramatic sigh and heave of his shoulders, “so how could i ever possibly resist?”

satoru doesn’t dare to look down at you.

“care to join me?”

but you smile up at him cheekily, and he hates the way the sunlight is hitting your features just right. it looks like the color of your eyes is glistening.

you’re just.. lying down on the grass of one of the training fields, admiring the drifting formations of white clouds on the blue canvas that is the sky.

satoru keeps telling himself that shouldn’t be doing this. his first mistake was accepting your cake. allowing himself to get closer to you. but when you look at him like that, he feels like he can do anything. which is odd, becaues really, he can do anything. it goes without saying as his status as the strongest.

but with you, it’s starting to feel a bit different.

when he doesn’t give you an immediate answer, you tilt your head and continue to blink up at him. “you can see the sky even with your blindfold on, right?”

he snorts. “yeah, i can.”

you pat the space on the grass next to you welcomingly, a beckoning that he just can’t resist again. “well, come on and join me,” you persist.

he hesitates, shifting his weight on his legs for a moment. against his better judgement, he joins you. it’s surprisingly comfortable, he finds, as he kicks out his legs and sighs.

it’s a comfortable silence that it’s almost startling. how easy it is just to be around you. (which is the exact reason why he had been avoiding you in the start, in fear of slipping up around you. he still might.)

“you get headaches, right? if you don’t cover your eyes.”

he chuckles at your question. “yeah.” it’s a half truth, half lie. he does get headaches, but for another reason now. you can’t get out of his head. (he’s got a suspicious feeling it’s because the soulmate bond is incomplete. but again, that’s just a theory of his.)

“‘m’sorry. that sucks.” you pout subconscously, still looking up at the sky to admire it.

he scoffs fondly, clapsing his hands over his stomach. “it’s no biggie. you think headaches can take down gojo satoru?”

“hey now, tough guy. they can take down me sometimes.”

(he’d fight off headaches from you if he could.) his heart is thudding against his ribcage, warning him. but he doesn’t heed the warning, and continues to lay down with you on the grass.

it’s a nice feeling. he doesn’t feel like the greatest sorcerer in the world with his colleague. it feels like he’s just satoru, pointing out the different shapes and animals you can spot in the sky with his soulmate.

“hey, that one looks like you!”

“hah?!”

“i’m guessing you and gojo-sensei are getting along now,” megumi bluntly comments.

it catches you off guard slightly, and you can’t help but laugh. (of course he had noticed how the both of you interacted from the beginning.) “oh, uh, yeah.”

and as you watch satoru go down the steps of the stairs to head over to you both whilst waving an arm with much more enthusiam than needed, you can’t help but smile.

“yeah, we are.”

this is a mistake. he shouldn’t be doing this.

but satoru can’t help but be so selfish, selfish in indulging in your looks, in your scarce touches. when you had confronted him with your peace offering as you had so called it, he had given in.

and now he’s spending more time with you. be it after lessons with the students, on random days where you have nothing to do, during weekends when there’s no authorities to bother him—he can’t help it.

was it the bond wanting to be complete? you were still unaware of his true identity, of what he could possibly mean to you, so why does he feel like he needs to be so close? he gets antsy at times when you’re not in his sight. it’s starting to affect him.

the soulmate bond, or lack of it—that has to be the only explanation for it. because he knows that you’re his soulmate, he’s subconsciously drawn to you and your presence. (it’s definitely not because he likes the way you smile, or laugh, or-)

fuck.

after a relatively tough mission, you’re obviously sent to see shoko. you’re not fatally harmed, maybe a scratch here and there. and okay, maybe a gash on your shoulder..

it had been enough to sort of knock you off your feet, but you’re fine. totally. exorcising a semi grade two curse at 1 a.m. in the morning was no biggie at this point.

once she’s finished tending to your wound, she dusts off her hands and places them on her hips. “you’re all set.”

you smile gratefully. “thanks, sho. can always count you to patch me up.”

she snorts. “well, it is my job.”

gojo suddenly appears right next to the table and you yelp, startled by his teleportation. shoko, on the other hand, looks unfazed, as if she’s used to this.

“gojo!” you blink, your voice taking a scolding tone soon after, “geez, you scared me! what’re you still doing awake??”

the blindfolded man falters, looking apologetic. “sorry. heard you got back from your mission.” he sounds worried, but before he can voice his concern, shoko rolls her eyes.

“they’ll be fine,” she says.

gojo’s shoulders finally drop down and he plays off his previous display of concern with a laugh. “ahaha, yeahhh, i knew that,” he scoffs with a wave of his hand, “i can’t bless you two with my presence?”

shoko gives him a displeased look before she turns around to tidy up her tools. you chuckle at her annoyance. “thanks for checking up on me, satoru,” you say sincerely. your eyes go over his appearance; he’s dressed more casually: a pair of dark slacks and shirt that expose his collarbones. not that you’re.. particularly looking.

but his shoulders seem tense again at your words and he hums quietly. (huh, strange. at least he’s not refusing to look at you anymore, you think.)

“well, i say this calls for a little celebration,” satoru suddenly purrs in delight, waving his hands in the air.

“celebration? for me getting kinda beat up?” you blow a raspberry at him, only for him to blow one at you right back. even though you had done it first, you can’t help but giggle at his childish antics.

he grins at that, then shakes his head. “heyy, i heard you beat up a semi grade two curse!” he says, “i think that does call for a celebration, does it not?”

you stare at him, unsure on whether he’s joking or not. wait, how did he even know that? well, maybe he had gone through the mission reports and assignments. still, you’re surprised that he knows. “you can wipe those out in less than a minute, gojo,” you point out with a raised brow, “don’t try and humor me.”

his grin lessens. “well, yeah, s’kinda easy for me, but i think that goes without saying. you’re telling me don’t wanna celebrate an accomplishment of yours?”

you look to shoko who is almost finished with cleaning up. she just shrugs. you look back to satoru and shrug yourself whilst rolling your eyes. “alright, we can celebrate.”

gojo fist bumps the air. and here you are again, giggling at him.

eventually, when he leads you out of the infirmary and to the teachers’ lounge. he digs through one of the fridges and hands you a bottle of what seems to be alcohol.

“i didn’t even know this was allowed here,” you mumble, settling down on what of the high chairs near the counter. you wiggle in your seat to get comfortable as gojo takes the one next to you.

you offer it to him but he shakes his head, nose scrunching up a little. “i don’t drink.”

“wasn’t this your idea?” you blink. “suit yourself, more for me.” you shrug and open the bottle to pour yourself a glass. and another. and another. and then another.

(you don’t know what particularly drives you to keep drinking as you talk with him, but perhaps it’s the way you know that satoru’s eyes are lingering just underneath the blindfold. you can practically feel his stare.)

and gojo watches you gradually drink yourself to being mildly drunk.

“okay, no more for you,” he laughs as he takes the bottle away from you and holding it above your head when you try to reach for it.

“awh, man.” you pout and rest your head on your arms on the table, looking at him the best you can. “you meanie. you got me drunk on purpose. give it back.”

he snickers, amused and endeared by your drunk antics as he pushes the bottle aside. “sorry. you’ll thank me later, pretty.”

pretty. he’s never called you that before. you wanna hear him say it again. (amongst some other things.)

“pretty.. you’re pretty. i bet your eyes are pretty too,” you say into your sleeve, your other hand reaching out to his blindfold, “everyone else says they’re v’ry pretty.”

he leans back to avoid your hand, heart pounding in his chest a little too loud for his liking. he wonders if you can hear it. “sure. i guess they are,” he says softly with a small chuckle.

“i wonder who my soulmate is,” you then mumble out. maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s your incoherent slurring, but you sound.. sad.

before he can dwell on it, you’re slurring out another question that has come to your head.

“d’you have a soulmate?”

satoru’s eyes widen under the blindfold. he knows that you’re drunk. that you’re just saying things. but your hazy eyes stare up at him with a glint that makes his heart lurch.

and you won’t remember a thing in the morning, right?

before he can answer, you’re out like a light.

you wake up in the morning with a splitting headache.

with a groan, you sit up in what seems to be a bed that seems way to be to be your own, legs kicking the sheets that had been draped over you in alarm.

you have no idea where you are, but there’s a glass of water along with some painkillers on the nightstand beside you, which you down gratefully. there’s also the smell of food coming from outside the room.

you can piece two and two together that you’re probably in the home of someone you know.. your brain racks for information of what had happened last night but it’s only causing it to ache even more.

gojo.

you shake your head and make your way to what seems to be the bathroom to tidy yourself up. you notice that your’re still clad in your clothes of last night, so gojo had done the courtesy of tucking you in.

after you’re done, you take a deep breath and head outside.

you navigate your way down the hallway and follow the smell of food. as you turn the corner, you catch the sight of satoru in the kitchen. not that you doubted that the greatest sorcerer could cook, but for some reason, he looks so domestic.

he’s simply wearing sweats and a loose fitting shirt, your back turned to you as he tends to the stove, but the mere sight of it has your heart leaping into your throat. you have a feeling that it’s a sight meant for you, for you to see.

you don’t no how long you stand there, but suddenly a laugh rings through the kitchen from satoru teasingly. “take a picture, sweetheart, it’ll last longer.”

you yelp, embarrassed. (sweetheart? you try not to think about it, but you hate the way it makes your heart leap again. he’s just.. messing with you.) “erm.. sorry. good morning, gojo.” you approach the kitchen and take a seat at the counter.

when he finally turns to you, he’s not wearing his usual black blindfold, but instead what seems to be white bandages. you haven’t seen it on him before, but you don’t comment on it though.

he says good morning back before serving you some food, which you thank him for gratefully. “thank you for the painkillers too. i didn’t do anything embarrassing last night, did i?” you inquire, half jokingly.

you try to remember what had happened last night, but your memories are still a bit hazy. all you can recall is talking with him about things and staring at him. (you’re not going to tell him that though.)

“nah,” he waves off, “just told me your darkest secrets, s'all.”

you straighten up. “what?”

“kidding, kidding!” he snickers.

you groan and drag your plate to you. “i didn’t know you could cook.”

satoru looks mildly offended, emitting a dramatic gasp as he waves the spatula at you in a petulant manner. “hey now, i’m no expert. but i can at least make some sort of breakfast.”

(he totally did not look up a tutorial on how to cook for you. definitely not. but he’s a natural at everything, so at least his naturally gifted skill is in his favor this time.)

“thank you, gojo.” a smile tugs at the edges of your mouth.

“satoru.”

“what?”

“c’mon, you’re literally eating breakfast in my kitchen,” he laughs, sliding a mug of coffee (probably with extra cream and sugar because it’s gojo) towards you across the counter. “satoru’s fine.”

you test the name on your tongue, paying little attention to the way it makes the man before you stiffen up as you grab the coffee. “satoru.. thanks, satoru.” you think you can get used to saying that.

(he does too.)

satoru turns away back to the stove. “you’re welcome.”

“hey satoru, what did you say what you wanted again? i’m thinking bubble tea but i dunno..”

he likes the way his name sounds from you.

“uh, satoru? satoru? helloo, earth to gojo satoru? satoru!”

oh.

fuck, he hadn’t realized he had spaced out. gojo lifts his head in a sudden motion, making a surprised noise. he smiles sheepishly. “what’s up?”

“you feeling alright, satoru?” you tilt your head.

keep saying his name.

“awhh, i’m feeling more than alright, sweetheart.” he shoots you a grin, liking the way your eyes reflect the café lights, giving it a warm hue. “i’ll have whatever you’re having.”

“you seem to be in a good mood lately,” megumi points out. ijichi, in the front see, looks at the two of them through the rear view in silent agreement.

(a lot of people have noticed actually.)

gojo pauses, halfway through unwrapping the plastic of a popsicle. it’s the same one he used to consume during his youth, but his taste really hasn’t changed after all this time. “oh?”

the teenager eyes him narrowly. “yeah.”

gojo merely hums and pops the icy treat into his mouth.

“heh, i guess i am.”

you can hear gojo and shoko’s voices coming from the infirmary, causing you to smile absentmindedly. you didn’t think you’d be enjoying their company this much in the recent months—especially satoru’s.

(strangely, it feels so natural to be around him, you can’t help but wonder if he feels the same. you try to write it off as spending so much time together for a while now, but you can’t lie when you say he doesn’t make the stomach churn with butterflies.)

you turn the corner and announce your presence to the two with a smile and wave. you catch sight of them when they glance over to you, noticing something different.

shoko is wearing her usual white coat with a cigarette in hand, but she’s got her hair tied up in a rare bun to keep any strands from her face.

but that’s not what’s different as your gaze strays to the man next to her, the familiar frame of gojo catching you a bit off guard.

he’s wearing his glasses.

you’ve never seen him wear anything but his blindfold.

how does he look even more breathtaking than without it? you can’t see his eyes still, no—it’s a deep, deep shade of blue that still blocks his gaze from anyone else. but it’s a more casual look, seeing as his hair isn’t being help up and a few strands fall down and you can see his sharp facial features a bit more and-

and then he’s gone.

you audibly make a sound of confusion and hurt, because one moment he’s there and the next he’s no where to be seen. he had vanished without a single world.

he’s fucking avoiding you again; the realization of it makes your throat close up. after all you had been through with satoru.

“what the fuck was that?”

shoko stares at the space gojo had just been standing, just as lost as you.

there’s a distance between the two of you again. it’s painstakingly familiar to when you had first met gojo and he had kept himself strictly professional with you.

and you don’t know why.

it’s back to the cold shoulder from him; you’re seeing him less and less around campus, and those times where you did hang out off duty are practically a thing of the past now.

satoru is going to be the death of you one day, you’re sure of it.

and you and satoru aren’t even.. a thing.

then again, you’re not even sure what you are. you’re friends, yes, that’s much more than clear, but why does it feel so much more intimate than that despite the fact that the two of you have never even done anything?

however.. a part of you knows that you want more. more of those days lying in the grass with him, more of those mornings eating breakfast with him in his home, more of those afternoon café runs, more of everything with satoru.

is that why does it hurts so much now that he’s pushed you away again?

satoru is praying that you’re not in there with shoko as he approaches the infirmary a week later. she had called him over, and though he could’ve easily refused, he found himself obliging anyway.

“hey, what was that the other day?”

shoko is blunt and straight to the point once he arrived, striking him with a petulant and expectant gaze with her tired eyes.

gojo blinks innocently, tilting his head at shoko. “what was what?”

shoko then rolls her eyes. “you know what i’m talking about. what was that. you just- walked out like they we’re going to kill you or something.”

that’s the thing. you just might.

the white-haired man frowns and continues to feign innocence. he’s starting to wonder why he bothered coming here. “i have no idea what you’re talking about.”

his avoidance causes shoko to frown as well and she crosses her arms. “you’re doing the same thing that you did with them when they first joined here.”

when he doesn’t say anything, she continues, “avoiding them, pushing them away. i thought you didn’t have any problems with them. at this point, make up your mind because you’re just toying with their feelings and it’s not going to-”

“we’re soulmates,” satoru blurts out.

shoko is cut off, staring at him all wide-eyed for once. “you’re kidding.”

satoru falters. “i’m not. s’why i always wear the blindfold. and that’s why i.. i ran that night. just my glasses was too risky.”

what if he had angled his head the wrong way, what if you saw his eyes, what if you finally realized that you were fated to be together at the whims of the universe? he couldn’t do that to you.

“how long have you-”

“since we first met. i.. i could see it because of six eyes,” he explains, running a hand through his hair. “i don’t know why. i didn’t think i could have another one after-”

the two fall quiet at the mention of suguru, a heavy feeling hanging in the air between them.

“what are you going to do?” shoko asks quietly.

satoru sounds wrecked. “..i don’t know.”

“well.” shoko smushes her cigarette against the surface of the metal table. “you better do something before it’s too late.”

unfortunately, the higher ups have also noticed.

(the push and pull that has been going on between the pride of the gojo clan and a random transferred sorcerer from kyoto. nothing goes unseen by their tight hold on jujutsu society.)

and you are none the wiser when you’re an assigned a mission late so at night, at a secluded edge of tokyo. you would’ve questioned it, but after looking over the details, it seems easy enough since it was a low level curse.

ijichi drops you off near the location and bids you luck. the night is dark, with the shape of the moon only peaking out every now and then due to the clouds to offer minimum light, and then the veil is coming up.

it’s fine though, as you start walking to get this over with. the faster, the better.

what the fuck? the cursed energy here is much stronger than you had anticipated, almost as if it’s suffocating. now uneasy, you continue your search with more caution.

a low growl sounds from somewhere behind you, and you turn on heel to brace yourself in case the curse decides to catch you off guard with an unexpected attack.

your heart drops.

it’s a grade one curse.

something’s not right.

satoru can feel it. he can sense it in the air. something is lingering, a presence that makes even him feel uneasy, and he doesn’t know why. nothing makes him feel uneasy. but it’s a gut feeling, it’s the bond tugging and tugging and-

you.

something’s not right.

and then gojo is teleporting and finding ijichi in record time, giving the poor man a scare. gojo’s voice is on edge and leaves no room for argument as he demands the assistant director where he had driven you minutes prior. the veil still stands, undisturbed.

fuck, fuck, fuck- shoko was right. he should’ve done something before it was too late, because now it might actually be too late as he steps through the veil.

it’s too quiet for his liking, but the lingering silence only lasts for a few heartbeats before he hears you scream.

you’re going to die.

you don’t want to think that, but you’re definitely not going to make it out of this unscathed as you dodge the curse’s scarily accurate attacks, as if it knows where you’re going to move and land.

the curse screeches out something ugly, and you’re too stunned to react in time as one of its malformed limbs swings down with a speed that you can’t comprehend.

your throat cries for help even as the air out of your lungs, but then there’s the sudden brilliant flash of red that blinds your vision.

satoru?

you can’t see and your body aches everywhere while the sounds of the curse fade out. it’s replaced by the sound of someone speaking frantically. it is satoru as he crouches down at you, hands coming to lift you up gently. his infinity is off. “hey, hey it’s me,” he voices, “it’s me, sweetheart.”

satoru, it’s satoru. satoru is here.

you emit a sigh of relief, cloudy vision gradually focusing. you try and focus it on satoru, tracing over his features repeatedly, trying to engrave it into your memory.

“shit. those damn higher ups,” gojo grits his teeth into an angered scowl. the higher ups? were they behind this? you don’t know, but you know that you’ve ever seen him this furious before. “i am going to rip those old geezers apart limb from li-”

“satoru, we need to head back.”

he looks dazed, tufts of snowy hair now hanging a bit loosely over his blindfold compared to when it’s normally pushed upright. he even sounds dazed, the great gojo satoru, when he says, “yeah. yeah, okay.”

he’s holding on to you tight and suddenly everything seems to get blurry for less than a second before you blink. you realize he’s teleported you both not to the school, not to shoko’s infirmary, but to his penthouse.

the interior is at least familiar: white walls, a little messy, a couple of decorations, and—

“my place,” he clarifies, as if he had read your thoughts. he sets you down on his couch, uncaring if you’re staining the color of the cushions. but he doesn’t let go, hands still cradling your form so tight that you don’t know if you’re still shaking or that he is.

“are you okay?” you utter out weakly and scan him for any injuries while clutching at his arms, which is ridiculous because he’s untouchable. but you’re not in the right mind right now, and you have a feeling he isn’t either.

“i should be the one asking you that,” he retorts, and you also have the feeling he’s doing the same thing with you with the help of his six eyes.

“i’m alright,” you try to reassure him with a small shake of your head. it only aids you in wincing, but the pain is the last thing on your mind. especially with him here. “it’s fine.”

“it’s not fine,” he argues, his hold tightening even more on you, if that was even possible. is that a slight tremor in his voice? “you almost died.”

“and why do you care?” it’s not a malicious question from you. it’s more of confusion, of genuine. after all you’ve been through with satoru, you’re not sure where he stands. what he feels.

he seems startled by your question, like he can’t believe you could ask such a thing. “of course i care! why-”

you clench your fists in your lap, eyes tracing over his face repeatedly. “i don’t know what you want anymore from me, satoru! you’re not- you’re not telling me the truth.”

“i didn’t want to hurt you,” he tells you hoarsely. god, you wish you could see what he’s thinking. what’s going on in that head of his.

“you did hurt me.”

gojo trembles. “i know.”

“you seem to know a lot of things.” your voice sounds tired. your hand goes to rest on his chest, where you can faintly feel his heartbeat underneath. (oh, to be the only one who can touch gojo satoru like this.) “what are you hiding from me?”

“i can’t hide anything from you.” he draws a slow intake of breath. he then whispers,

“but how am i supposed to tell you that we’re soulmates?”

your heart skips a beat.

gojo satoru is your soulmate?

astonished, you now stare at him with wide eyes. “why- why didn’t you tell me??” you ask, voice cracking. to think, all this time, your soulmate had been right there, right beside you, right in front of you.

then it all clicks. his off-standish behavior, his reluctant interactions, his avoidance. his blindfold. he didn’t want you to see his eyes.

he’s known all this time somehow—and oh, oh. his six eyes. your lips part in realization as you stare hard, as if you could see his damned eyes beneath the cloth that hides you from the truth.

“i thought that if you knew that we were soulmates, you’d-” satoru shakes his head. “something always happens to the people i love.” he hesitates, “you still have a chance. you can find someone else.”

“what if i don’t want someone else??” you say out softly in protest, gripping the lapels of his uniform.

gojo shakes his head again. despite this, he doesn’t let you go. like he can’t, like he doesn’t want to. “we’re not bonded yet,” he says your name shakily, “please.”

still gripping the collar of his uniform, you tug him closer to you desperately. it’s so clear, so obvious that he wanted this.

“satoru, have you thought about what i wanted?” you breathe out, feeling tears well up in your eyes, “that maybe, there’s a chance that i want to take the risk? that i want to be bonded to you?”

your eyes flicker down to his lips momentarily. “that i want you too?”

satoru’s breath stutters.

“you haven’t seen my eyes.”

you cup satoru’s face in your hands, swiping your thumb under the space where his eye is hidden with a fierce tenderness that makes him listen.

“satoru, i didn’t need to see your eyes to fall in love with you.”

your confession has him stilling.

(all the times he had stiffened up in your presence, he had been falling for you, bit by bit. you know that now.)

his hand comes to cover yours, the one that’s still resting on his cheek, fingers smoothing over your knuckles. and then his hand continues to go up, up, up, and-

he tugs the blindfold up and over his head, revealing his eyes to you at last.

his eyes are gorgeous, a blue that seems to spill into your vision and take over your senses. a blue that you can get lost in, a blue that reminds you of the summer sky, a blue that tethers your soul to his, and you both can feel it.

the bond between you is so electrifying that you nearly forget how to breathe.

and then satoru is surging forward, closer, even closer, until your breath is his and you forget how to breathe for a whole different reason entirely.

he’s kissing you.

he kisses you like you might disappear right before him, his head angling into yours to capture your lips with a force that makes your world spin.

and you return it tenfold, one hand still cradling his face while the other sneaks to dig its fingers into his undercut, and he’s making a noise into your mouth with fervor.

you’re all too aware of his heat against you, the frantic touches he’s now giving into as he draws you closer. the surface of the sofa dissipates into nothingness and then-

suddenly he’s teleporting you both again—or maybe he’s kissing you dizzy. but you realize you’re now in space that’s not overly familiar with you, but you can tell it’s most likely his bedroom based off of the feel of the lush satin sheets underneath you.

less than an hour ago you were fighting for your life, and now you’re fighting for your life on gojo satoru’s bed.

“satoru, s’toru, wait-” you’re gasping for air, for something as he engulfs you with his presence. he’s everywhere all at once, and it feels as if the bond is intensifying everything he’s doing to you.

“nuh uh. think we’ve both waited long enough for this, baby,” he gasps against your lips, like it’s impossible to be separated from you again, “don’t know how much i wanted this, wanted you. drove me crazy.”

his words makes your head all fuzzy. you don’t even know if it’s the bond anymore, or just the way he makes you feel. maybe even both. your lungs feeling like they’re burning, but even then, you manage to get out,

“you have me, ‘toru, you have me.”

“yeah?” when he pulls back, it’s not even a few inches, his nose brushing against yours. his alluring eyes glimmer in the darkness of the room, and you’re almost so mad that you feel like kissing him again because he’s kept them from you for so long.

your hands hook over his neck again. when your fingers run over his undercut again, you can actually feel him shiver, causing you to giggle in delight. “yeah, ‘toru.”

“yeah, pretty,” he sighs out and he’s losing himself in everything that is you once more so willingly. your eyes, your very being, compels him to give you everything, so he does. “y’have me too. all of me.”

his confession rings through your ears before he’s kissing you again, kissing you breathless. it’s a blur on what happens next; feverish touches and passionate symphonies, but one thing’s for sure,

the magnetic glow of his eyes in the dark of that night is something that you’ll never forget.

as your stir amongst the tousled bedsheets, you can feel the warmth of a certain someone creeping over you, like a cozy cat searching for cuddles.

your eyes peer open to meet the blurry sight of the ceiling, along with the sight of messy white hair tickling your chin.

“good morning to you, sweetheart,” a voice says cheekily, followed by cascading kisses down your jawline, prompting you to giggle softly.

you watch sunlight spill over into the bedroom, engulfing the man above you in an angelic glow as he finally pulls back to look down at you.

so maybe you didn’t fall in love at first sight with gojo satoru.

that’s okay.

cause as you stare up into your soulmate’s pretty ceruleans in the morning light, you think you can fall in love with him like this a little more.

BONUS!

“you owe me.”

nanami drags a hand over his face as he digs into his pocket for his wallet. “this is the first and last time i make a bet with you,” he grumbles.

shoko merely smirks. “you have such little faith in gojo.”

“bet or not, can we go back to before they were together?” nanami looks like he’s close to investing in a pair of one of gojo’s glasses that can block any normal person’s vision.

satoru is clinging onto you like a sloth.

“babyyyyy,” your boyfriend whines, resting his chin on your shoulder with his arms wrapped around your torso. you can’t help but giggle, endeared by his clinginess. (he had claimed it was to make up for the way he had acted in the past and for lost time.)

he’s like another part of you now. not that you mind. being his soulmate is everything and more—from the tender touches to the passionate ones, to the talks of everything: to the mundane to the serious. after all, your soul is his, and his soul is yours.

(and then his hands are sneaking off to places they shouldn’t be.)

“‘toru, not here!”

nanami heaves out another sigh as his hand comes to pinch the bridge of his nose. “is it too late to quit being a sorcerer again?”

TAGLIST : @spn-obession , @deepestartisanhumanoidshark , @scarasw1f3 , @kalopsia-flaneur , @90s-belladonna , @peachipeachy , @chrystinaamanda , @kalulakunundrum , @hunnyheavenn , @dekusdante , @dontmindmelove , @cherries-lostgirls , @rv19 , @etherealstarlightqueen

+ a/n: this fic ended up being way no longer than i expected omg.. but thanks to all who asked to be on the taglist !! some didnt work so im sorry about that </3

like this fic? feel free to go ahead and check out my other works here! -> masterlist

[moonsaver]

Imagine instead of 4ggravate being a kpop boy group and reader being the fangirl, its the other way around

4ggravate forms a groupchat particularly because of you, their bias, who is also the least recognized in your group and is often overshadowed by others, leading to a desperate convergence of your fans in finding out the itty bitty stuff about you that's all on blast when it comes to the other idols in your group. They're like detectives trying to figure out whether you liked the specific flavor of ice cream on a show you participated in with your group. Each of them keep tabs on any official updates about you, recording and clipping parts of your group's lives in the tidbits where you come in, and forming a wall trying to defend you from majority of the fandom when you get backlash from false rumors. That's just how the group came to be.

Kaveh is the oldest fan amongst them – he's been there since day 1. Claims he knows the most out of all of them and tries to prove it via quizzes and guessing games. Sometimes he wins, most times he doesn't. Also the poorest of the four. He spent so much on buying your specific merchandise he didn't plan for the future concert you group was holding in his area, and ever since then he's had to tearfully decide constantly between buying albums, your photocards, new lightstick versions, etc.. and your concert that may or may not even be held in the area.

In the rare chance that he does attend your concert – he tries to get the most out of it. Front row, headbands, fanchant at the top of his head, lightsticks in both hands. When you notice him and exchange a few words over the loud crowd, he swears he's going to pass out, looking up at your crouched figure on the stage makes you look almost like an angel to him, the light highlighting your figure perfectly. Suffice to say, he eventually made an impression on you at least.. because he passed out and the crowd had to surf him to a security guard. He's deeply embarassed about it, and can't really escape it now that he's become a bit of an inside joke in your fandom

Cyno is the second older fan. Like Kaveh, he prides himself over having a good amount of knowledge about you that's not exactly easy to find – old, old, old images of other kpop idols in which you appear for a fraction of a second, spotting the products you use in your lives and being able to find out the brands is his specialty. If Kaveh has the knowledge, Cyno at least has the detective skills. He has his own individually run fanpage where most other fanpages, even your group's fanpages, refer to as a trusted source. Has also managed to create several fancams of you that were incredibly hard to get ahold of. He's those fanpages on twitter who thoroughly collect evidence and manage to pinpoint future events you're going to take part in before they're announced, and he manages to predict it correctly almost all the time. He's well known within the fandom, but due to how busy he is in 4ggravate trying to form a cumulative plan almost all the time, rarely does he find the time to respond to other fans and fanpages, and most other admins don't usually approach him either.

If anything, at least he's got more resources and money than Kaveh. I imagine he actually also is in a lot of other groups besides 4ggravate.

Alhaitham, out of everyone, is the one who's actually talked to you the most. He was originally just interested in the music, didn't really care until he realized how less and less your lines became the more songs your group churned out. So in his mind, to "make up for" the lack of lines on your end, he decides to simply just pay extra attention to your solo activities. It's not soon before you become his bias. Unlike Kaveh, he was pretty strategic and managed to plan ahead for scheduled fancalls, fanmeetings, appearances in public, etc..

he leaves a lasting impression because.. he doesn't show his appearance. At all. There's many fans out there who get your attention by doing strange things with their appearance, but Alhaitham refuses to even take off his mask just to talk to you. In fancalls, he decides to cover the cameras, always wears hoodies that cover him completely when he meets you in public. At some point, the fandom falls in love with him instead (which drives Kaveh insane), and it's not soon before there's all sorts of rumors about you two. The rumors get more wild when he only ever takes his hoodie off once when you meet him face to face. Personality wise, he sticks out because of how easily he's able to spot changes in choreography, voice, pitch, writing style, etc.. and even more so, because of how upfront about it he is, without actually being creepy about it. He gives good advice without making it sound like unwelcome criticism.

Tighnari is actually the normal one. He just generally likes the music and likes your voice specifically because he thinks your voice suits the concept the best, but because of a few injustices (which he sarcastically comments on many fancams, to which also many fans agree), he finds himself doing something similar to Alhaitham. Albeit, less.. detailed? Is what he thinks. He's actually a bit of a keyboard warrior when it comes down to it – replying to group threads that intentionally leave you out, having the sassiest comebacks to mean or rude comments about you, piecing together timelines and locations to prove false rumors wrong, working especially close with Cyno in these kinds of cases. If there's a fancam of you, Tighnari is under it fighting some or the other hater, or just blatantly commenting on the event itself that intentionally disrespects you or your group.

He's probably the only one who actually leaves a long lasting impression on you. When your car drives by a bunch of your excited fans, he's the normal one who's looking on calmly and waving to you with a stoic face. Whenever he comes to fanmeetings with Alhaitham, or has fancalls with you – it's fun! His humor is easy to accustom to, conversation goes lightly, and overall he's the tamest out of everyone. He gives you some skincare advice which you gladly accept, and somehow, despite not being as incriminating as the others when it came to detail, they're salty about how he seems to be the one who's closest to you. It's not unnoticeable the way out of all four of them, you recognize him by a first name basis. Ohhh boy.

[lacrimosathedark]

Bat-Family Nicknames and Insults

So I went off the other day because fans keep having people who aren't Roy Harper call Jason Todd "Jaybird" and now I'm thinking about all the other nickname misconceptions so here's a probably non-comprehensive list of nicknames among the Bat Fam.

(Special thanks to @sohotthateveryonedied for a bunch of my data, she made a whole powerpoint with actual comic panels! Go check that out! Also got some info from @kiragecko who was writing some lists with more specific references.)

This list is an active document and will be edited in the event I find more nicknames or have more to say

Addendum note: I'm more than willing to add something I forgot, but you must have receipts. I'm not just going off of memory. Nothing will be added to this list without proof. If you don't have a source, please don't make a suggestion.

This is aside from assorted common insults and nicknames like jerk, ass, shorty, dude, idiot, etc.. Sidenote, every not-Steph Robin has been called “Little Bird”, “Birdboy” and/or “Wonder Boy” at some point. It’s kinda part of the job lol Secondary side-note, the only ones who REALLY use nicknames for people are Barbara and Jason. And Tim specifically in reference to Damian. Everyone else pretty much uses their names 98% of the time. Final note (sorryyyyyy) generally unless they're funny to me, I'm not including things used only once unless I have gotten vibes that it's a trend. This is an attempt to compile recurring nicknames. So ones noted to be used once are either I can only confirm it happened once but could happen multiple times, or I think it's hilarious.

Alfred Pennyworth

Al/Alf Seems to be a common nickname among the boys.

Alfie Dick, Tim, and Jason have all called him this.

Alfredo Jason called him this at least once and I think that’s funny. Not sure it’s exclusive though.

Mom Dick seems to have referred to him as such once…I’m sorry but that’s so funny.

Alfred also has specific ways of referring to everyone: Bruce: Master Bruce, Mister Wayne, Lad, Bruce, My Son Barbara: Mistress Barbara, Miss Barbara, Miss Gordon, Miss Oracle Dick: Master Dick, Master Richard, Master Grayson, Dear Boy, Young Sir, Young Man, Richard, Dick Cassandra: Miss Cassandra, Young Cassandra, My Dear Jason: Master Jason, Young Sir, Lad, Jason Tim: Master Tim, Master Timothy, Young Master Tim, Lad, Young Sir, Young Man, Timothy, Tim Damian: Master Damian, Young Master Damian, Young Sir, Young Man, Son, Damian

Bruce Wayne

Spooky Oliver Queen calls him this, others might as well but I legitimately have no idea.

Batsy Everyone and their goddamn dog, but Joker uses this notably a lot.

Detective RA'S AL GHUL EXCLUSIVE. I think? But this is how Ra's generally refers to Bruce.

B-Man HARLEY QUINN EXCLUSIVE...I think. She calls him this a lot though.

While Dick and Jason will internally think of Bruce as their father, Dick rarely says so and extremely rarely calls him “Dad”. Jason would only say so mockingly or under pain of a second death. Tim rarely even thinks of Bruce as his father (he didn’t become Robin to be Bruce’s kid, and he doesn’t want to replace his own father—much the same way Dana didn’t replace Janet) and never refers to him as such outside of WE work (where he very much uses that to his advantage). Damian almost exclusively refers to Bruce as “Father” but has called him "Dad". Steph sometimes calls him “Boss”. Everyone usually calls him "Bruce".

He refers to ALL of the boys as “chum” and “lad” at some point. It’s just how he used to talk honestly. He DOES NOT call them “sweetie” or “honey” or anything like that. He DOES, however, speak to small children this way. There are multiple instances of him using "sweetheart" and similar terms when dealing with young children. This differentiation I think is for two reasons. One, Bruce is emotionally stunted and being open with anyone outside of actively comforting is difficult for him, and two, the youngest child he has ever had himself was 9 years old so he's never had a small child he'd be likely more inclined to be extra super soft with.

Barbara Gordon

Babs Most people call her this. Bruce doesn’t seem to though, oddly enough.

Babsy/Babsie Both Dick and Jim Gordon have called her this. Very cute.

Barb/Barbie Nearly exclusive to Jason Todd, actually. I think her dad calls her this once in a while, but specifically Jason calls her this.

Babes A few of her friends call her this, but mostly Luke Fox when they were dating.

Red A few people call her this, but mostly Jason and not real often. Probably cuz we already have a red-head often referred to as “Red” (Pam Isely by Harley) and as to not be confused with the other two Reds in the family (Red Hood and Red Robin).

The High Priestess of Tech More of a reference than a nickname, but I think it’s funny. Dick referred to her as such.

O For Oracle!

Dick Grayson Exclusives because Boyfriend Baby Love Beautiful

Richard Grayson

Dick Everyone calls him this. Almost no one calls him Richard.

Dickie His parents also called him this, along with other people who knew him from Haly’s Circus, but otherwise it’s mostly just Jason.

Dickster I…hate that this is canon lmao. Dick has thought this one in his inner monologue, but Jason has also said it at least once. It’s…Something.

Circus Boy Common insult, Jason uses it a few times.

Tight Ass No comment.

Rob Kinda rare for him and more a Tim thing, but his Titans team call him this sometimes. I specifically remember Wally doing so, and Roy too I think.

Boy Wonderful Not marking this as exclusive because Babs probably used it at one point but, shockingly (or not) this comes from Wally West! Wally has also called his Titans team as a group “Dear Hearts” at least once which is just so fucking cute. Neeeeeerd.

Kid Not exclusive to him, but consistently called this by Slade Wilson/Deathstroke over most anything else.

Marcia TIM DRAKE EXCLUSIVE. A joke between him and Tim, assigning each Bat-boy a Brady Bunch member.

Little Robin MARY GRAYSON EXCLUSIVE. This is where the hero name Robin came from; Dick’s mom used to call him this.

Dickie-Bird JASON TODD EXCLUSIVE. Jason calls Dick this a lot during his weird appearances in Nightwing that I pretend never happened because it was weird and dumb. But it is a canonical nickname. And it’s funny.

Amy Rohrbach Exclusives because Partner Rookie Stud Cowboy Sherlock Mr. Confident

Barbara Gordon Exclusives because Girlfriend (and because she’s funny) Flatterer Boyfriend The Brightest, Sweetest, Most Handsome, Wealthiest Young Bachelor on the Entire East Coast Buckaroo Bucko Candy-Gram Darling Lover Love Hunk Wonder Man Wonder Hound Wonder Former Teen Wonder Twenty Something Wonder Blue Wonder Poor Lovable Naïve Dope Pixie Boots

Cassandra Cain

Cass Pretty much everyone calls her this.

Cassie Some people call her this, specifically the people closest to her; Stephanie, Tim, Barbara, Bruce, and Duke. It’s generally used sparingly, especially considering Tim is close to ANOTHER Cassandra who goes by “Cassie” almost exclusively, so Cass is generally preferred to avoid confusion. But Cassie is tossed around.

Batghoul Possibly Stephanie Brown exclusive, though easy enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if others called her that. She is notoriously spooky.

Bat-Babe KON-EL/CONNER KENT EXCLUSIVE. These two are actually good friends and dated for a short time. They’re very cute. And they met at the time Kon was just…Like That.

Jason Todd

Jay Literally everyone calls him this sometimes. It’s a common nickname.

Jace/Jase Also pretty common, but seems to mostly be among family. Dick and Bruce have at least both called him this.

The Toddster Was called such by Danny Chase, implying they were friends somehow? (Jason didn't have many Titans missions so idk how they were close enough for him to call him that). He calls him that when he discovers Jason’s status in the system is “unknown”, leading him to find out he’s dead.

Rojo Referred to himself as this once while he was still a crime boss, so presumably some of his gang called him this too. Obviously Spanish for red because Red Hood.

Little Bird Possibly exclusive to Barbara Gordon, she called him this in a flashback.

Jan That Dick and Tim Brady Bunch joke. Just imagine one of them looking Jason dead in the eye and saying “Sure, Jan.”

Little Wing DICK GRAYSON EXCLUSIVE. Called Robin Jason this in Nightwing Year 1 and it’s very cute.

Jaybird ROY HARPER EXCLUSIVE. The reason I’m making this post because no one seems to remember that Roy and only Roy has ever called Jason this. But any time these two appear together, it’s usually said at least once.

Stephanie Brown

Steph Pretty much everyone calls her this at one point.

Stephie A few people if I recall, but I know Tim’s called her that.

Blondie Pretty sure a few people call her this, but notably Harper Row.

Damian Wayne Exclusives because He Was A Brat Wench Fatgirl Girl Blunder

Timothy Drake

Tim Everyone to the point where it’s just his name.

Timmy A lot of people call him this pretty teasingly. Dick, Jason, and Babs do it consistently, but that’s older siblings for ya. Bernard has done it too.

Timbo Dick and Jason as well as his friend Ives have called Tim this at the very least. Tim notably doesn't seem to like it, though he has used it himself in a derogatory way in his inner monologue.

Timbers I’ve only ever seen Jason call him this, but I could be missing things. Would not be surprised if Dick did too, but it’s very Jason.

Rob Most of Young Justice called him that up until he revealed his name (which took a while because Bruce was being controlling and overprotective, as he does). Short for “Robin”, obviously, which is all they knew him as.

My Robin I’m pretty sure each member of Young Justice has said this about Tim, though Conner does it the most and has the biggest negative reaction to literally anyone but Tim being Robin.

Cindy DICK GRAYSON EXCLUSIVE. It’s that Brady Bunch joke again!

Little Brother DICK GRAYSON EXCLUSIVE. I didn't originally include it because it had the same vibes as like "dude" or "jerk"; something that's easily tossed around, y'know? And it feels like a descriptor, but it is actually used as a title/nickname several times, especially when Dick is messing with Tim.

Pretender JASON TODD EXCLUSIVE. Though it should be noted, he only directly called him this one time. Aside from that, he more refers to Tim as A pretender, not as like a nickname or title. It’s a description. (like “replacement” was but fandom made that a nickname yes I am in fact bitter)

Duckboy HARLEY QUINN EXCLUSIVE. She says this once, but it’s hilarious so I’m keeping it.

Detective RA’S AL GHUL EXCLUSIVE. Ra’s is very particular about titles. The only other person he refers to as “Detective” is Bruce, and Dick one time in his internal monologue, so he is acknowledging Tim’s competence. And then proceeds to get a large portion of his resources obliterated by Tim <3

Stephanie Brown Exclusives because Girlfriend Sweetie Muffin Boy Virgin

Duke Thomas

Narrows Almost Jason exclusively, though I think Harper has called him this once or twice. In reference to the neighborhood he grew up in, as opposed to Jason and Harper's Park Row aka Crime Alley upbringing.

Newbie Jason calls him this frequently, though it's likely the others have too.

Baby Bird ELAINE THOMAS EXCLUSIVE. Yeah, surprisingly Duke is actually called this by his mom.

Damian Wayne

Gremlin Mostly exclusive to Tim, but Jason has called him this too. This also seems to be Tim’s go-to for Damian when not using his name or codename.

Dami Used by Jon Kent and Talia al Ghul, so presumably those closest to him.

Little D I think Barbara Gordon exclusive but I’m not sure.

Cousin Oliver Not said to his face to my knowledge, but the Brady Bunch in-joke between Dick and Tim.

Prince/Your Highness (other royal variations) A common way to mock Damian for his haughty air and stuck-up attitude. More common in the past because Damian was The Worst and never shut up about being the heir to Batman and the Demon's Head. He's grown a lot since then and this kind of joke is used less. He is still pretty snooty though.

D JON KENT EXCLUSIVE. I have yet to see anyone else call him this at least, and this is how Jon almost always refers to him.

Baby Bird TALIA AL GHUL EXCLUSIVE. I’ve seen her call him this once, and I don’t recall ever seeing anyone else call him this. Just wanted it known that Talia is the only one to call Damian this.

Tim Drake Exclusives because Tim is Petty and Damian was a Brat Little Monster Hobbit Homunculus Little snot Spoiled, vicious and homicidal little punk Heir to the Kingdom of the Damned

Note on how Damian refers to others: Damian usually uses full first names or surnames, depending on circumstance and closeness. He occasionally calls Dick “Dick” or “Richard”, but often calls him “Grayson”. He almost always refers to Tim as “Drake”, but occasionally as “Timothy”.

Fanon names that I dislike

Replacement Jason never once calls Tim this, and refers to Tim as A replacement about as much as Dick did about Jason (Yes Dick has at least once when talking to Bruce referred to Jason as his replacement). How common it is in this fandom to call Tim "Replacement" (with a capital R like it's a name or title!!!) drives me absolutely insane. It's not canon and tbh you can do better. Hell, "pretender" is right there! And Jason's a nerd, he would do better.

Baby Bird Like…it’s cute, but given it’s used in fanon almost exclusively for Tim, and POST DAMIAN, it just feels infantalizing. Especially when the only canon uses are mothers towards their kids. I see this a lot with Dick and Jason using it, which is...just no. Like, Dick, I get it, but he's more likely to call Tim "Little Brother". Jason would never allow himself to be seen as this soft to Tim. If he were trying to be gentle with him, he'd probably call him "kid". He's done that before.

Baby Bat(s) I have seen this used literally twice. Once where a goon mockingly called Tim that, and once in an AU where Harley said it to Damian. "Baby Bat" isn't a thing. Sorry.

Big Bird More amusing than anything but a little annoying. No one ever calls Dick that in canon and whenever I read it all I can think of is Sesame Street so unless a giant yellow muppet bird is what you're going for, maybe don't do that lol

Demon Brat/Demon Spawn Not the most egregious thing, especially considering the numerous nicknames Tim comes up with, but the consistency of its usage in fanon is a little frustrating. This is never used in-canon, and if you want to use it in your fanworks, just maybe intersperse it with other more creative nicknames, yeah? It's just unoriginal at this point.

Jaylad I don’t hate this one, but it’s such a huge misconception that it’s canon. Bruce has said “Jay, lad” a couple times because he calls like every boy he meets “lad” and people made up “Jaylad”. Not the worst thing ever, but it's not canon.

Golden Boy I don't actually have a problem with this one, but I may as well clear up that this is canon as a descriptor but not as a nickname for Dick. Like calling Jason "the dead Robin". Like, people have said that about him in-canon, but they haven't called him that. The common derivative "Goldie" is entirely fanon.

Non-canon nicknames I think are funny

Dick-face/Dickhead I’m sorry, I find it hilarious whenever someone (usually Jason) in fanfic calls him this. It’s also to me just a silly exaggeration of the obvious joke that has been made at least once (but probably several times by now) in canon about someone being about to call Nightwing a dick and someone else reminding them not to use names in the field. I think it’s hilarious.

Timberly I can’t tell you why this specific deviation of Tim is funny to me but it is. And I'm surprised I haven't seen Jason call Tim this in canon.

[nathaslosthershit]

A Little White Chapel Wedding (LS18)

(Part 3 of the Blind Item Series) Summary: Lance and his now wife had their reasons for eloping, he just hopes his dad will understand.

Lance and his girlfriend, now wife, had always wanted to keep their relationship out of the spotlight. Given how much hate and controversy surrounded Lance due to his father’s ownership of the team, he had already taken a major step back from social media. He knew that dating another heir apparent would piss many fans off, even if it was solely for love that they were together. Both of their families knew and greatly approved of the relationship but once Lance had proposed it seemed their families wanted to take over fully. Wedding preparations had been started without any input from the groom and bride-to-be. Seeing all these decisions made without the two’s consent had put a ton of stress on them. This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives and they had absolutely no say in the matter. Guest lists full of investors and other business partners took away from the intimacy of the event. No detail was left unscrutinized and it was going to be far too extravagant, as this was going to be the first time they announced their relationship and the families joining together.

When Lance and his fiancee had gotten to Vegas, they had no plans of getting married that weekend. The thought only crossed Lance’s mind after the race.

“P5 Lance! Oh honey I couldn’t be more proud.” She said as she ran up and hugged him. She had been waiting what felt like forever to congratulate him, as he had been so surrounded the minute the race ended. 

Pulling away from the hug, Lance put his hands on her cheeks as he said “let's get married”

“We are, Lance.” She responded, perplexed. 

“Tonight. Let's elope and have an actual wedding about the two of us. No one else.”

“Honey, our families would kill us if we did that.” While the idea sounded wonderfully romantic and gave her butterflies just thinking about it, it just couldn’t work with the way things were.

“Who cares? We don’t have to tell them right away. We get married now, take an extra long honeymoon over break and then tell them once the season starts.”

“I don’t know Lance.”

“Please? It is unfair we don’t get to have the wedding we want. Who gives a shit about the guestlist with a million business partners we’ve never met. If they still need a wedding then we will do it their way but let's have our way first.” 

She took a minute to respond, thinking the idea over before she finally gave her answer. “Okay, Lance. Let's get married.”

Lance had never envisioned his wedding going the way it did, but he also never saw it the way his family planned it to be.

Although as happy as he was, he felt so guilty when he thought of how his family would feel knowing that he got married without them there to see it. As important as business was to Lawrence Stroll, he knew his dad valued and loved his family above all else. 

Over break, the newlyweds had gone on a bit of a delayed honeymoon, posed as just a really nice vacation.

They only got the honeymoon suit because they really wanted to go all out. No other reason…

They thought they had made it out unscathed, planning on telling their family in a week when they had gotten back from their vacation. Too bad they didn’t get to.

Lance’s wife saw the post first. He barely checked socials anymore. When the photos of them confirmed that the Blind Items post was about them, she felt a chill run through her body. Their families had to have known already, public image was important to both of them so they definitely had PR teams constantly checking what was going on. And she was correct.

“Honey, I just got a call from my Dad. He sounded pretty upset, and said we had to come home quickly and meet with him.” Lance said, confused and worried. His dad rarely sounded as serious as he did on the phone. 

Wordlesy, she passed her phone to Lance with the tweet pulled up. She could see the color drain from his face as he read through replies. Fuck this wasn’t good.

What was probably the most stressful plane ride of Lance’s life was also painstakingly long. He couldn’t swallow the guilt building in his throat at how upset his father must be.

The once welcoming and happy house was now cold and silent as the couple walked inside. His father didn’t greet them, just told the two of them to follow him into his office. Lance just held his wife’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly as they made their way up there. 

Lawrence still remained silent as he sat in his chair, looking at his married son and new daughter-in-law for the first time.

Lance was the one to break the silence.

“Dad, I know this is a lot but please-” He was cut off by the simple raise of his father’s hand to silence him.

“Why, Lance? We spend all this time planning the two of you a beautiful wedding just for you both to throw it away? For what?”

“Dad, you dont under-”

“No, Lance, I don’t. I mean how could you be so stupid?”

“Please if you just listen, Dad-”

“I have never been more disrespected by yo-”

 “Stop!” Lance’s wife spoke up. She finally had to butt in. “You tell Lance you don’t understand and when he tries to explain you cut him off! How are we supposed to have a conversation when you won’t let anyone else speak?”

Silence spread across the room as no one dared to respond. She could practically feel the smoke coming out of her ears.

“Dad. We eloped because we wanted something that was for us. The wedding you were planning wasn’t ours. We didn’t have a say in anything. From guest list to menu, you all controlled that. We wanted to get married on our own terms. While I will forever be sorry you weren’t with us, I am not sorry for getting married the way I did, to the girl I love.” Lance grabbed your hand once again to squeeze, to remind him why he did what he did. 

His father didn’t say anything for a few moments. The newlyweds waited patiently, praying Lawrence wouldn’t fly off the handle again. 

Finally he said, “Then I owe you both an apology. I understand that you both had expectations for your wedding and not having any say in the matter didn’t feel good. I wish you both said something. At the end of the day though, this is still a big deal for our families business-wise. You are my only son though, Lance, I wish I could have seen you get married.”

“We can still have the wedding, Mr.Stoll. Our plan was just to have something for ourselves, then have the main event be for everyone else.”

Lawrence smiled at that. Happy he would still get to see his son get married, even if it is the second time.

This time luckily, the couple got a bit more of a say in wedding preparations. With no comment from either family, the Vegas elopement was quickly forgotten once more pressing gossip reached the public. 

While it still wasn’t what Lance and his wife had envisioned, having their families there this time was all they could ask for. 

lance_stroll

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lance_stroll One for us and one for them

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[thelastofhyde]

i. the likeability paradox.

pairing. joel miller x fem!reader

synopsis. joel miller is not a man who strives to be liked, with a chip on his shoulder and a scowl on his face, until his world is flipped on its axis when the pretty young thing living under bill and frank's roof, with an irritatingly unwavering smile and the literal sun shinning out her ass, says those five damned words: i don't like you, joel.

warnings. no use of y/n, enemies to lovers, slow burn ( i have several oneshots planned for this couple ), unrequited love ( except you will never catch joel miller admitting he feels anything beyond grief, hunger and exhaustion ), pining, poor communication no communication, no seriously joel is down bad it's actually disgusting and highkey 🚩toxic🚩 but luckily red is your favourite colour, sunshine!reader, grumpy!joel aka canon joel, kinda perv!joel ( if you squint ), implied queer!tess, undefined age gap ( reader implied late-20s ), descriptions of canon-typical violence, smut ( oral- f receiving, fingering, degradation, panty stealing, hair pulling, dirty talk, dubcon due to intoxication, joel kinda gives her a wedgie at some point and honestly i don’t know what i was hoping to achieve with that, discussions of a lacklustre sex-life pre-apocalypse ). reader is a) hinted at being shorter than joel but it’s not central to the plot and b) described as lithe but the meaning intended is graceful, not thin!

word count. 12.9k

hyde’s input. half-way through, the regret of choosing to write this from joel's pov started to settle in but lmao i was too far in to not commit to the bit. don't come at me for the fact the timeline or events may not seem plausible with canon, i just wanna write this silly little depraved fic about joel in peace :( anyway, enjoy my first attempt at writing for tlou, forming a prayer circle rn in hopes that this doesn't flop because i will cry and you will hear about it

taglist. @kayleezra​​ @newavenger + add yourself to the taglist here !​

read on ao3 ! ( capitalization available )

distaste is not new in the life of joel miller.

in particular, one that is loaded, aimed and fired directly at him. he is not a likeable guy, often by choice and rarely by accident. the years of pain from a bleeding wound have now scarred over into nothing but an empty shell of the man that once was, from a world that no longer is, and he’s tried little to fill himself back up.

if anything, he’s made himself more empty.

rid himself of feelings, that which saves him the weakness of appearing sympathetic. discarded the need for luxuries, for which he’d scarcely cared for prior to his world ending. lay to rest what was left of the optimist inside him, leaving behind the danger of hope for it to rot with the rest of the infected.

an apocalyptic world brings out all sides of man that one would never dare to engage with in normal civilisation. joel learned swiftly that he was built to endure, quick to evolve and adapt to the new world order. the man who once worked his hardest to keep the peace among his neighbours, smiling that little bit wider on days he’d catch them scowling to themselves in hopes of brightening one part of their day for even a simple moment, would be at odds with the man who wears a heavy layer of enjoyment when met with the scowling glances and the hushed voices, all the watch out for that miller guys passed between cowardly members of fedra and the keep away from mr. miller's lawns spoken harshly from mother to child becoming music to his failing ears.

this plague of fear-driven dislike keeps him alone, how he likes to be, no one to lose and nothing to be taken. somewhere along the years the idea of safety in numbers has morphed into an illusion, something people say and never truly mean, to distract themselves from a reality more bitter than a snowstorm: in times of survival, people become dead-weight.

“so that’s all i am to ya, huh? dead-fucking-weight?” his brother’s voice still echoes in that damned space he calls a home, weeks or months or years since the day he’d departed for something else, somewhere else, leaving joel to do what joel does best: endure.

somehow, silence was easier than telling the man he’d taught to tie a shoelace, to shave his beard, to tune a guitar that he was the dead-weight, doomed to drag all those who remained too close down into his pit of despair.

she was an exception, his tess, buried 5-feet-under in her own swell of darkness, nothing but the tips of her fingers stretched out above her head to feel the sun upon her skin and keep her from going that last foot deeper. they’d made a home for themselves in one another, one where he keeps them fed, and she keeps them safe, and neither of them keeps the place clean.

she never asks for more, and he never offers it, both content to survive without the weight of affection smothering them. contrary to the belief of any misfortunate soul who’s encountered the pair within the quarantine zone, she is the one who holds the leash, tugging joel along close by her heel and keeping him from wandering off into the wild to surrender himself to a feral lifestyle.

which lands him here, sat at a table playing happy family, each time he dares to snark out a few words being met with the sharp kick of tess’ foot against his shin.

“... and then,” frank struggles over a cough, so excited in his story-telling that he fails to separate taking a breath from taking a sip of his wine. with a roll of eyes and a disapproving grunt, bill’s no more than two seconds away from clapping down on his back, urging the other man’s wind-pipes to unblock and welcome back airflow. “otis dragged his muddied self over the whole house. we were finding paw-prints for days!”

joel’s unamused, too keen to think of what a nuisance that would be. as if incapable of feeling the buzzing energy of disinterest, the german shepherd drops its head further up his lap, begging for a morsel of anything that sits atop the table.

“which means i was cleaning paw-prints for days.” bill, the only one at the table besides himself who wears the looks of a cynic, grumbles out before shovelling what remains on his plate into his mouth.

frank is quick to shush him.

“i’m sorry, again, bill,” he doesn’t mean to break eye-contact from the mutt at his thigh, but the voice calls to him like a siren calls to a ship in the night, like a flame dances and seduces a moth into its brightly burning touch of death, a spotlight in the dark which promises- or threatens- more light to come. “i’d no clue there was a storm coming till we were already a good few miles away, and there was nowhere to take cover to wait it out.”

there you sit, parallel to him.

the sun rests lower in the sky as time carries you all into the late noon, its rays a beacon of light bursting out just behind your head, painting you in the glow of the golden hour and staining a mockery of a halo above you. it hurts his eyes, this brightness that you so easily bask in, forcing him to squint and deepen the frown on his face.

you catch him with his sights on you, at some point, and the smile you meet his scowl with has him cursing at the sun, and the moon, and every star that sits between.

the threat of a great war looms in the air as you rush to rise up and help clear the table of the remnants left behind- none of which joel can account for, mouth to keen and body too starved to skip out on enjoying the mundane luxury of a fresh, home-cooked meal. the battle ends swiftly as you surrender to bill’s hardened stare, and frank’s disapproving head-shakes, and tess’ own plan of action to simply force you down back into the seat you’d been sat in- the one you always sit in.

“you, sit. no one should have to clean up the food they made.”

they get no fight out of him when they insist he’d done enough catching the so-called food.

silence casts its shadow over the table, dampening the light and painting you both in a mockery of greyed tones- truthfully, it is the disappearance of the sun hind a large cloud that causes such a thing.

being alone, with you, is something joel’s never mastered. the affliction of your presence is so much greater when there’s no one else to balance out your natural shine- the kind that has his head spinning and his cock aching-, no one but him.

were he not a sick bastard, he’d try harder to not make you sad.

something bumps his hands, ripping him out of his moral self-condemnation. the dog meets his gaze, eyes a widened mess of puppy-dog pleading that punctuates its existence with an impatient whine.

just like your owner, he finds himself thinking and not saying- never saying-, yet to find your bark.

the ball’s a sticky mess of slobber and dirt, and joel touches it all the same, throwing it up in the air once, then twice, before tossing it across the yard. he’s slumped back in his chair by the time he registers the dog’s departure, a ball of dark fluff bouncing its way across the garden, and all the man can think is fuck, he’ll be feeling the effect of that throw on his shoulder come the morning.

the pain is not enough to stop him from tossing the ball again, and once more, and then yet again, sending the dog in a never ending loop of chase, grab, retrieve- a parallel to his life of wake, survive, sleep.

“he likes you,” you never leave things the way he wishes them to be, bursting his bubble with the vocal reminder of your presence.

as if on queue, prompted by your addressing of it, the dog drops its interest in joel, and the ball, and the chasing, tail wagging uncontrollably by the time it reaches your side. standing on its hind legs, it collapses the front of itself into your waiting lap, and joel watches how you wrap your arms so easily around something that could cause you harm.

to envy a creature that licks it own shit off its ass is a new low for joel.

“thinkin’ he might like ya more, sol.” the nickname rolls off his tongue with ease, the safer option than uttering your name, a vice and virtue he’s only permitted himself in idealistic fantasies that play out in his own troubled thoughts.

“most people do,” whether you mean to make it seem like you’re degrading his very existence or not, he’s unsure, but it rouses a chuckle out of him.

he takes note of how you don’t protest the name he’s branded you with, not like how you’d fought tooth and nail against it every other visit he and tess have made.

“you’ve got a whole load in common, you know? i think that’s got something to do with his fascination-”

“how the hell’s a man like me got somethin’ in common with a four-legged mutt?” there he goes again, making that smile slip down your cheeks with a simple use of his voice. it helps as much as it hurts, frown loosening up and eyes no longer strained beneath the bright shine of your visceral optimism.

“well, you’re both... hairy,” he restrains himself from reacting, washing down a laugh with the help of the dregs of wine that lay collecting at the bottom of his glass. he’s let his appearance grow more rugged over the past few months and your noticing of this brings an unwanted warmth to his aching bones. “and have the most kickass women in your lives to stop you from dying.”

he’s interested to know what life would be like under your protection.

discovering the answer brings the threat of pain, and loss, and an openness to vulnerability he can not afford himself, so he takes the safer option: “‘s easy stayin’ safe when you live in this fantasy land. doubt your mutt’d last any longer than a day out in reality.”

with you as its protector.

he doesn’t say it and, still, it somehow hovers in the space between you both, a heavy, syrupy implication that slips down your throats and threatens to suffocate you. he watches you choke on it, coughing on his cruelty and feigning it to be a simple clearing of your throat. your eyes glue themselves on the dog, delicate fingers smoothing over the well-groomed hairs down its back.

survival has turned him into a man who knows when to seize an opportunity, and this is one he takes with both hands, basking in the simplicity of staring, watching, observing you without the crime of being caught.

but i could keep you safe.

he toys with the danger of uttering such a thing aloud. it’s not the first time he’s thought it. truthfully, he’s unsure when it first nestled its way into his mind.

his memory, which ails him more than it aids him these past years, would have him believe it was way before the dog had even appeared, back when it was just bill, frank and you. a few whiskeys in and a campfire lit for you all to gather for warmth around- why you’d all chosen to sit out in the gardens on a winter’s night joel remains unsure of to this day-, it was frank who’d prompted the question. “where were you all when... this started?” tess went first, braver than most people he knows, sharing stories of a version of herself he’ll never meet. 

he never imagined her working in a bank.

bill, with reluctance, took the next step, keeping his account factual and to the point. “was shit-faced drunk and getting my stomach pumped.” he’d been quick to skim over the story of the young nurse who’d guided him to safety out the hospital, losing her own life in exchange for his survival. she was barely out of school. “i knew her dad, bit of an asshole, but boy, was he proud of his baby for graduating.” frank couldn’t let him swim too deep in his thoughts, afraid a current of guilt would trap him and drown him in the depths of it, and so he raised his own voice and began his tale.

joel had always been a good listener. being a single parent to a teenage girl required him to be, or so... she would have had him believe, nights at the table set for two spent listening to the playground he-said-she-said gossip. years later and he at last prefers things this way, a rare gem of safety found in the act of saying nothing and hearing everything- that his hearing will allow. all this to say, he’d tried his best to pay attention to frank’s impassioned retelling of his heroic misadventures that had lead him to the unintentional arms of bill.

but you weren’t smiling.

he watched you, you watched the dancing flames, face stoic and drained of that natural shine his eyes had only just started to be able to gaze upon without the threat of being blinded by such light.

the desire crept up on him like a tiger to it’s prey, hiding in the far off bushes until the opportunity to strike presented itself and the feeling lunged for joel’s back, gripping him in its claws and piercing his ribcage with its gnashing teeth. with each bite, it plagued him with the delusions of a wandering mind, imagination left free to run laps around his head with visions of you from another life, another time, another set of people gathered round a dining table. he’d wanted to hear about the ones you’d lost, and comfort you with all the things he hated hearing (“you’ll keep ‘em alive, in spirit and memory!” “those we remember never truly die!”). he’d needed to bend a knee and swear a vow to be the one to stand between you and death, to fight for your survival on your behalf. ‘could keep you safe. there, then, the thought did cross his mind.

he’d washed it down with a swig of lukewarm, flat beer.

“-could fix it, you know. i’m good with my hands.”

he almost chokes on his own breath.

i'm good with my hands, it swims in circles round his mind, replaying and echoing off the walls of his skull. and he knows- oh, how he knows- that he’ll be replaying it in those moments of solitude for the next few nights, weeks, months- however long it may take till he forgets the way such thought-provoking words sound on your lips.

“what?” the question leaves him harsher than he intends, drawing an enemy line between you both with the foul sound of it. in the corner of his eye, he swears he sees you flinch backwards, physically recoiling from the disdain-filled bullet he fires in your direction.

the mutt in your lap retreats, hackles rising as it turns to face joel once more.

he sees it, in the dog’s brutal protectiveness over you, this similarity you claim exists.

“your watch, it’s broken.”

“hadn’t noticed,” he’s retreating into his own space now, mentally and physically, scraping the legs of his chair against the ground as his mind works to strengthen those walls that threaten to crumble so often in your presence. “don’t need ya to fix it.”

you pull a face, brows furrowing and lips pouting. confusion.

“don’t you want to know the time?” you ask, as if time could ever be relevant in a rotten world where down is up, and up is down, and joel miller is not the overprotective father to the most delicate creature the god he’d stopped believing in had gifted him, just to force him to watch as life snatched her away.

“i don’t keep it for the time.”

you smile, and this one’s a killer, piercing straight through the cages of his ribs to carve itself into his withered heart.

the german shepherd relaxes with the rebrightening of your aura, shaking out the tension from its body before sauntering its way back over to joel, ball in mouth and tail wagging excitedly, as if it hadn’t just contemplated having its first taste of human flesh.

he’s throwing the toy in a matter of minutes, enjoying the repeated run and retrieve game, and the renewed silence that comes along with it. nature sings its tune with rustling leaves, cawing crows, and pounding paws. it’s almost so easy to leave your offer, your words, his broken watch in the rearview mirror of this otherwise pleasant afterno-

“ooh, so there’s a story to tell!” you’re blinding him with your excitement, lithe limbs leaning forward in your own chair in an attempt to reach closer, table between you be damned. “i’ve never heard any of the joel miller backstory, this should be-”

“i get that likin’ everyone is your thing, but would’ya give it a rest?”

nature falls silent.

skies grow dull.

you juggle sadness.

there’s a crash that comes from within the house, followed by the unmistakable sound of tess’ sailor mouth, cursing whichever delicate dish she’s broken into smithereens with the help of her accident prone hands. the dog’s lain itself down upon the grass, ball between it’s paws as it begins to bite, and chew, and break it under the pressure of its canines.

joel wonders what the mutt’s practicing for.

“sure,” then, with the return of your voice, all sounds resume, harmony upon planet earth once more. only, the gates have been shut in his face and joel finds himself forced to watch as everything unfolds from the outside, an unwelcome visitor forced out into exile with the fungal freaks and the inhumane. “but you’re wrong. i don’t like everyone.”

“‘s that so.” his eyes roll. the hole he’s dug for himself sinks deeper, casting you higher up on the pedestal joel will always be wiling to place you on.

“yeah,” you’ve risen out your chair, gifting him the view of how the fabric of your dress dances above your knee, a final twist of the knife in his heart that he lets you pierce his flesh with each time he surrenders himself to your existence. “i don’t like you, joel.”

the hours come and go, but your words linger like a bad tattoo, shamefully engraved into his skin and banning him to a life of noticing the horrendous thing each time he passes by his own reflection.

we’re staying, for tonight. tess had called the shots, and he’s been learning not to argue when she gives him one of her stern looks, biting down on the comments he’d wanted to make of the dangers of being out of the qz for too long, which would likely earn him nothing but a shrug and the reminder that they both were off duty the following day

the nights are beginning to grow darker as winter grows nearer, leading bill and frank- mostly frank- to excuse themselves to bed, bidding the two visitors with a final reminder to make themselves comfortable in whichever room they can find. if only joel could remember which door leads to yours.

the two women in his life remain awakened, passing a bottle of wine between each other as you both converse back and forth, catching each other up on one another’s life, satiating that craving for mundane gossip.

tess recounts the scandal of the poor boy who’d been caught sleeping with a fedra agent’s wife, you whisper that frank and bill had been fighting again recently. the memory of being ambushed by raiders- now dead raiders- comes to life once more with the help of tess’ voice, while the promise to uncover what exactly bill and frank were hiding from you as of late is sealed in your words.

at some point, he lays himself to rest atop the couch, legs stretched out and arms crossed over his chest, ignoring the squeeze of the fabric over his forearms as the too-small flannel struggles to contain the muscles forged by the need to survive. at another point, he’s lulled to sleep by the lullaby of your mingling voices, a safety blanket draping itself over his tired body and enveloping him in the comforts of having that which he struggles to care so little for, so near him once more.

-n’t tell me you’re a virgin.

the words are muffled as the man slips back into consciousness, a frown coming to rest on his forehead as he battles against the demons urging him awake, the nightmarish memories of car crashes, and soldiers, and so much red chasing him away from the sleep he longs for so badly.

a protest rings true in his head and his ears.

was gonna say. knew you were young, but not that young.

it’s the sound of your laughter that awakens him fully, saving him from the tortures of his own mind.

“god, no! me and my ex, we... a few times. it was alright, i guess. i just, yeah, there’s not much to miss.”

he’s unwilling, unable to reopen his eyes, curling in on himself as he rolls over onto his side. a groan slips past his lips, one he’s hoping tess and you will dismiss as nothing more than the sleep-filled rambles of a dreaming man.

neither of you make any acknowledgement of him.

“not much to miss?! sweet christ, you’re breaking my fuckin’ heart.” he’s learnt over time the common traits of a drunken tess. each word becoming an exclamation, curses becoming more frequent, and that irritating habit she’s picked up of imitating his own accent. there’s no need to bother opening his eyes, joel’s already sure he’ll find his companion with flushed cheeks and glassy eyes. “i’d give up a hand for some head!”

you must do something, pull a face or shake your head, for the sound of tess’ renewed shock fills the room. he wonders, as the sound bounces off the walls, how late into the night it’s grown.

late enough that the cicadas singing outside the window are now accompanied by the hoots of an owl.

“you’ve got to be shittin’ me.”

“it bores me!”

“it bores you!?”

the couch beneath joel creaks as he shifts once more, turning his back on you both as the ability to contain his laughter grows harder with each word you exchange and each gasp tess gives. the last thing he needs is to be caught eavesdropping on your sex life like some dirty old pervert.

the crueler part of his mind replays your voice, i don’t like you, and the knife twists in his guts this time.

you like tess. love her, even. it’s been that way since the first time you’d met the duo, eyes giving one look over the woman before the smile on your face grew even wider, voice as sweet as honey sighing out finally someone with a pair of boobs, i’m bored of the sight of my own. joel’d gotten caught up in the thought of how he’d never tire of such a sight that he’d failed to acknowledge your greeting towards him, catching just the moment you drew your outstretched hand back to your side and offered him an understanding smile.

maybe that was the moment you decided you didn’t like him.

“must not have been doin’ ya right,” the bottle of southern comfort is working its wonders on the older woman, accent growing further and further from its true nature with each glass she nurses. joel hears the faint sound of ice smacking against glass and knows it must be yours. you’ve always struggled with liquors, slipping as many ice cubes as you can manage into a glass in hopes that they’ll eventually melt and water the alcohol down. it’s oddly endearing, you think no one has noticed. “this fella of yours.”

joel has no right to despise the idea of you and some fella.

he does so, regardless.

“well,” he imagines the shape of your meek smile and the way you shrug your shoulders. “we were each others firsts.”

“that’s no excuse! trust i left mine cryin’ into her pillow the first time i went down.” tess and he have a silent agreement to never speak of the nights joel would take refuge on their beaten-up couch while tess indulges herself between someone’s thighs in the bedroom. no discussing the sounds she pulls from her concubines, no addressing the wet patches left behind to stain their shared sheets, and definitely no speaking on how his hand winds up stained in his own cum.

you scoff and follow it up with a saccharine laced giggle, so sweet its bound to rot your teeth if you even attempt to hold it in. “what, are you offering your services?”

this he likes less than the image of you with some fella, the thought of having to lay upon a mattress on which tess had raised you to heaven while he once again remained locked out in the dark leaving his skin crawling with unwarranted rage.

“‘as sure as i am that you’re sweet all over, ‘fraid to tell you i like my women a little older than you.”

he knows he should do the same, should lust after those women his own age who shoot him carnal looks in the streets of the qz. it should be skin his own age that he longs to taste, and eyes who’ve seen as much as his own he wants to stare into, and lips as cruel as the ones he owns that he fights off the urges to kiss. but he can’t, and he won’t.

and you’re the one to blame.

you, with the glow of a thousand suns. you, with the hands that tend to flowers instead of corpses. you, with the gentle nature he’d have to spend the rest of his days fighting off every other living thing just to protect.

his own self being the first he’d need fight.

joel wonders what he’d missed in his hours- if it had even been so long- of rest, how the playground gossiping dissipated into reminiscing the pleasures of supple flesh and the sins of unfulfilling lovers. sleep steals him away once more before he can find the answers.

the next time he awakens, he’s drowning in a plight of cruel memories, a cold and brutal ocean of faces, places, and traces of the ephemeral sentiment of happiness he’d possessed once upon a time, back when the price of letting one’s guard down was not so high.

he’s learnt, with time, that losing her comes in waves. some small, meaningless little things, that ripple joel’s surface and coast gently over his dirt ridden skin. others, tsunamis. big, angry, all imposing. they’re born in ground-shaking explosions of grief, building speed, and height, and weight the closer they grow to crashing over him.

amidst the passing of time, he’s tried to keep himself busy in his awakened hours, to keep his mind occupied and avoid thinking about her too much. but the waves always come back, no matter how hard he tries to fight them or swim away from them. they catch him off guard, crashing over him when he least expects it. in the middle of a raid, lost in thought and standing ten inches deep in grime, blood, infected, and suddenly the weight of her absence will hit him like a ton of bricks.

the currents grow more violent whenever he closes his eyes.

this evening, it had been a minuscule wave, yet it’s damage still leaves him with sweat slicked skin. he reenters the land of the living choking on his own fear and shooting up-right, hardly registering his surroundings till his feet hit solid ground. the gentle, barely-there croon of a sinatra record punctuates the room alongside the dim glow of a lightbulb which flickers with the threat of expiring and leaving naught but the moonlight to wash over the dark of the night. across from him is tess, nursing a half-emptied cup against her chest and wearing tired eyes. snoring comes from below him, where joel finds he’s a mere foot away from having stepped upon the sleeping dog, curled in on itself and laying soundly by his side.

you take up no space of this room.

neither the dog nor the drunk pay him any mind as he pushes up onto his creaking knees, stretching out his limbs in a fight to undo the tension in his aching bod. languid steps carry him out into the hall, where he freezes under the self-questioning of where he’s going.

there are three answer to this: where he should, where he could, and where he would.

he should find himself a bedroom, perhaps be ostentatious enough to rid himself of those stale clothes and let the warmth of running water wash away the sins he’d committed throughout the day. a good night’s sleep, atop a mattress where springs do not dig into his back and the sheets are clean as could be, it would do him good.

he could head towards the kitchen, quench that thirst that he’s awoken with, cottonmouth and a headache to go with it too. perhaps he’ll find himself something to eat, indulge in the luxury of readily available food just this once, he’s sure frank wouldn’t mind. bill definitely would, but that’s not something he’ll need care about when he’s miles out and heading back to the qz.

he would try find you, open whichever door it is that leads into the haven that must be your bedroom. he imagines its clean, and organised, and smells of some syrupy lavender that is bound to nauseate him as he smothers his face into your bedsheets, eyes shut, and mind relaxed, the threat of those violent waves no concern to him as he anchors himself with an arm around your warm skin. skin he’s never felt, yet he stands firm in his belief it must be the most soothing thing to touch, as gentle and inviting as the heart it keeps safe within it.

i don’t like you, joel.

those words stop him from trying.

he tells himself it’s for the best.

with a mind of their own, his legs have made the choice for him and deliver him outside the opening to the kitchen. he swallows down a gulp of his own saliva at the prospect of a glass of water. the door’s already half-opened, and joel nearly thanks christ for it as the fear of waking anyone with the squeaking of the handle is eliminated. the darkness of the night encompasses the room, even with the moon’s shine reflecting off every surface it touches: the counters, the knife stand, the metal drawer handles, the refrigerator.

the refrigerator.

it’s open, a blue light shining out of it and illuminating anything it its proximity. a subtle beeping noise rings from it, and suddenly joel’s back in his thirties, dead-beat yet well-intentioned brother stealing the food off his own plate as he beckons his pre-teen daughter back into the kitchen.

keep leavin’ this open and it’s a job you’ll be gettin’ this summer, not a dog.

she never lived long enough to get either.

he catches something move beneath the artificial light. cautious at first, it’s all the more startling to find the object of his ire and the embodiment of his desire stood leaning back against the countertop, a glass full of orange liquid pressed to a mouth that parts and welcomes in the sugary sweet delight.

“why aren’t ya sleepin’?” the words rasp out his throat, catching and scratching on the parts of him that still yearn for something to wet his tongue with.

beneath the light, you shrug, “could ask you the same thing, texas.”

he curses tess for teaching you such a nickname.

he curses himself more for the way you saying it twists up his insides.

you’re teasing him, smile a little looser and eyes less focused than he’s used to seeing. whether you’re tipsy or simply delirious with exhaustion, joel remains unaware.

he grunts, daring to take a few steps further into the kitchen. the door behind him closes over and give the illusion of the space becoming smaller, tighter, more compact.

“i asked first.” you laugh, at him. full on chest-rumbling, hand over your belly, head thrown back- so abruptly it nearly crashes against the corner of the opened cabinet door. the corner of his mouth is curling upwards before he can catch himself. he hopes the refrigerator light shows less of him than it shows of you, bare legs, and messed hair, and pointed nipples all on display for his undeserving eyes. “‘s so funny, huh?”

“nothing, nothing,” he successfully fights off the urge to follow the drop of orange juice that spills down the side of your mouth, over your chin, down your neck, disappearing beneath the collar of your dress. perhaps he is not as successful as he believes. “just never heard the joel miller say something so childish. you’ve usually got your panties all in a bunch if someone so much as looks at you for too long.”

you make way as he inches closer, sliding yourself over to rest against the island counter. a fragrance of things he can’t quite pinpoint, but enjoys nonetheless, wafts in his face as he travels down the path to the sink. uncouth and unbothered, joel opens the tap and cups his hands beneath the stream of water.

“you know there’s a cupboard full of glasses right next to you, right?” you call out behind him as the man brings water to his dry lips, splashing and just about guiding his head beneath the stream. the thirst does not budge. he hums an acknowledgement of you, yet continues with his method.

by the time he switches the water off, you’ve made yourself busy, back facing him while you work at something atop the counter, a consistent chop-chop-chop filling the silence that settles between you both.

“i’m making soup,” you state, like there’s nothing quite more logical you could be doing at whatever-o’clock in the morning it is. “make sure you take some with you when you leave. tess said she’s been fighting off a cold the past few days, need you to keep her warm and fed for me.”

would you do the same for him, if you knew he’d been the one to catch that damned cold in the first place? four days of just about coughing up his lungs, and not a single soul- not even his tess- had offered soup, nor warmth, nor sympathy. he’d not needed it, until now, when he hears you gifting it to someone else.

i don’t like you, joel.

of course you would do the same. not because you care, nor because doing otherwise would way heavy on your conscious, but because you’re nice. nice in a way he’ll never be, has never been. patient, welcoming, comforting, warm. all words that spring to mind when one thinks of you. they violently oppose the closed-off, angry, dark cloud that had rolled in years ago and casted it’s shadow over joel’s entire persona.

he straightens his back, weight shifting from one foot to another as he contemplates you from behind. the sway of your dress as you move has him in a trance, beckoning him closer before he can even realise he’s taken a step. his hands drip water onto the floor in a rhythm, and the record player sings in the distance as a reminder of tess, and your sweet out-of-tune humming fills the empty kitchen with a brightness greater than the moon, but that’s not what joel hears.

i don’t like you, joel.

i don’t like you, joel.

i don’t like you, joel.

i don’t like you, joel.

over and over, you taunt him without even trying, nailing the words into his head and heart, impaling him with your sweet condemnation. you’re not the first to say it, to his face or otherwise, yet you’re the first to evoke such a reaction out of him, to leave a lasting impression hours after you’d declared such a thing.

and, suddenly, joel’s angry. at you, at himself, at the sound of that damned knife in your hand slicing down onto the chopping board. the fog of his ire blurs his vision, rendering him to move blindly through the night.

only when he finds himself looming over you from behind does his vision clear.

a hand meets the curve of your hip and you gasp, leaving joel to wonder if it’s because the shock of his cold, damp touch or, simply, because it’s his touch. without a thought spared, he firms his grip, fingers squeezing tight enough he feels your flesh bulge between each one, a bruising promise joel gifts you.

you may leave your marks emotionally, but joel’s will always be physical.

“why,” he pulls in a breath, loading up the will to keep his voice a low rumble, a quiet disturbance in the night for no ears but your own to hear. “don’t ya like me?”

if not for the pause in your practiced movements, knife stilling midway through slicing a carrot, he’d believe you’re unaffected by his proximity. “why do you care?” 

he scoffs, “i don’t.”

“hmm,” this hum is far less delightful than the way you’d been following along to whatever melody tess was playing in the living room. “sure sounds like you do.”

“yeah, well, i don’t,” he insists, and he swears he almost feels the way it only digs deeper the hole he’s created for himself.

joel knows he cares. it’s been burning at his skin and itching on his mind since the moment you’d welcomed yourself to a little bit of unfiltered honesty, dropping the perfectly poised and eternally polite mask you’d worn since the moment he’d first met you, an attitude he loathes as much as he anticipates surrounding himself with it each time he’s tugged along for the trek to bill and frank’s. 

what joel doesn’t know is why he cares. there’s nothing to be desired about him, no traits to respect and certainly no looks to admire. he’s near crafted his entire being in a way that makes sure of this, the more undesirable his presence is, the less likely he is to be approached, be it by other people or fate itself.

maybe there was a part of him that had wrongfully imagined you being the exception.

instead, you’re stood barefoot in the latest of hours, knife working away the vegetables in front of you, dress sticking to skin beneath his damp hand, and you don’t like him.

not one bit.

joel grabs at your hips harder, his free hand curling round the shape of your left forearm. his feet shuffle forwards, until there comes a point where one would struggle to make out where you end and he begins. his chest pressed to your back, his muscular legs trapping your soft thighs, his forehead digging into the side of your head so intensely it threatens to shatter both your craniums and leave nothing but dust made by bones blown into smithereens.

he inhales, and finds you don’t smell of lavender.

“for the record,” he watches your movements over your shoulder, entranced with the back and forth sawing of the knife through unidentified vegetables. ‘s like how i sliced that raider’s throat, he thinks, and instantly regrets it. no part of him should ever be compared to you. “i don’t like ya either.”

he’s lying through his teeth, hoping you don’t notice.

the knife never ceases its movement. back and forth, back and forth. chop, chop, chop. blurs of greens, and oranges, and more greens cover the counter before you. it’s oddly soothing, this repeated and unbroken pattern, reminding joel of times he’d found comfort in the mundaneness of cooking a meal after an emotionally exhausting day. perhaps, this has the same affect on you, a momentary lifejacket to keep yourself afloat amongst the waves that haunt you awake.

the hand on your forearm travels, mind of its own, drawing up the shape of your shoulder with featherlight touches that contradict the way his nails dig deeper into the the skin you hide beneath the waistline of your dress.

“that’s not news,” you must think he’s blind to the hitch in your breath when his fingers slip over your pulse-point. 

it’s his turn to respond with a hum.

“you only like yourself,” words more untrue have never been spoken before the man who’s every moment is spent drowning in his loses. his wandering touch halts. “a little selfish, if you ask me. but, that’s just what i think.”

this strikes a nerve. fury commands his hand into a fist and fingers find themselves tangled in the tresses of your hair. the realisation of how surprisingly soft it feels barely finishes registering when he’s pulling on it, dragging your head along with, till it lays flat on his puffing chest and your eyes stare up at him. “d’ya know what i think?”

even upside down, your beauty is striking.

“no, unlike you i don’t care what you think about-” joel tugs on your hair once more.

“i think you’re a brat. a silly little girl who thinks she can smile and get away with murder.” you could. he’d forgive you as you soak your hands in the blood you draw from him. knife in the heart, bullet through the brain, bat to the face, he’d slip away easily from this life if only to have you smile as he goes.

 “you’re hurting me,” you whine, joel growls.

animalistic, beastly, a rabid animal sinking its claws into its defenceless prey. his gaze dances over your features, catching himself before he can sink deep into your captivating eyes, tracing the shape of your mouth, slipping down the peaks of your collarbones.

your dress- red, a colour joel miller will no longer associate with bleeding wounds and stained weapons- sits tight on your chest, squeezing the swell of your chest beneath the fabric, and gives away all your secrets.

“you like it,” he speaks in awe, unable to pull his eyes off the two stiff buds that poke against the red fabric.

“no, i don’-” dampness follows wherever his hand goes, fleeting as he makes the journey around your waist and up your side, crawling higher and higher to where he can feel your heart beating from within your chest. “joel.”

he retightens his grip on your hair, aiding you with the way your curve your spine and force yourself deeper into his uncaring, ungentle, enamoured touch. whoever joel had been in a past life must have moved mountains or performed miracles to grant him the luck to be holding you this way, the fingers he’d gifted with nothing but the cocking of guns and the feel of his own pulsating lust now expertly tweaking at one of your stiff nipples, all thoughts of the fabric scratching at your sensitive skin dissipating into the abyss as he realises you’re enjoying the pain.

“heard ya, earlier, in the living room,” at the time, he’d been mortified to be overhearing such intimate words between you and tess. the blood that insists on rushing to his crotch now wants you to know, to hear the admission of guilt be spoken from his own mouth. “ talkin’ bout your past.”

he doesn’t specify.

he doesn’t need to.

you give away your shock with parted lips, widened eyes, frozen eyelashes, pupils staring up at him like a wounded fawn he’s about to take his first bite out of and, hopefully, it won’t be the last one.

“tess turned you down,” the hand on your chest switches sides, donning your other breast with some much needed attention. his hand must still carry residue of the water, for you gasp and shut your eyes in the shock of his touch, your own fingers shooting up to scratch at his wrist. near convinced you mean to push him away, the pressure against his hand that pushes deeper into his unholy affection has him realising otherwise. “i wouldn’t.”

you say nothing. joel pulls harder.

“too bad i’m-” you cut yourself off as he presses himself closer to you, your poor hips bound to awaken with bruises from the counter he’s got you pressed against. with a distance so small he can hear your teeth grind, joel watches you like a hawk. the twitch in your brow, the flutter of your eyelids, the bobbing of your throat as you silence what he imagines would be an otherworldly kind of moan, a whine he’d let kiss his ears and wind up poisoning himself with the torture of it replaying in his head each waking moment till he kicks the bucket, once and for all. the want to see you fall apart evolves into a need. “too bad i’m not offering you the chance.”

joel miller is a hot blooded man, at his core, weak to emotions and vulnerable to the warmths of flesh. with notches on his bedpost and a tally of lives beneath his belt, he sees little wrong with taking what he needs.

“who said anything about an offer?”

the descent to the floor is far from graceful, with bitten back groans of pain as clicking noises resound throughout the room while his joints bend and break in an effort to get him where he needs to be, where he’s needed to be for far longer than merely this exchange on kitchen grounds: on his knees for you.

a part of him would prefer it if you weren’t wielding a butchers knife.

the other part wishes you were facing him, eyes full of that repressed anger, hatred and discontent you likely harbour for him as you point the blade down at him and threaten to paint the floors with his blood. you’ve yet to do that, and so he takes it as his queue to progress.

smoothing his hands up your legs, he admires the landscapes of your body from this angle, with legs longer than any tree in the amazonian jungle and curves with peaks that resemble the mountains of the himalayas. arriving at the top of your knees, the hem of your dress both welcomes and conceals his touch, inviting him into the wonderful world it hides beneath it yet denying him the privilege of feasting his eyes on your paradise, an island of safety amongst the open ocean of his mind.

your breathing is measured, precise, too rhythmical to be natural, the subconscious action now turned into a practiced routine you mean to maintain nonchalance with. perhaps you’re yet to realise that, while he may remain indifferent to those that surround him, joel knows how to read people. and, right now, you’re a whole novel of lust, awaiting for someone to open up your pages and drink in every lyrical prose you promise to tell.

joel finds purchase mid-way up your thighs, hands sliding around to the front of them to grip the buttery smooth skin and ground himself in the reality he kneels before.

you breathe in, you breathe out.

one knee buckles, ever so slightly, the weight of you collapsing into his welcoming hold. he revels in the feeling of supporting you, in every meaning of the word, thumbs not even waiting on a command from his consciousness to begin soothing your tingling skin with a gentle back and forth movement to match the knife in your hand.

inhale, exhale.

your legs straighten once more, a hand of his winds its way back out from under your skirt and shoots up to grab your free one, dragging it down his pits of desire.

“hold,” he’s parched all over again, mouth drier than the texan wastelands on a hot summer’s day. all he can do to survive is peel up that infuriatingly soft, red fabric of your dress, skin unveiling itself to his hunger struck eyes. with the skirt bunched up, he shoves it into your awaiting palms, pinning your hand against your own waist. “don’t move.”

where he expects protest, he receives more breathing.

lace covers your skin, a delicate shade of a colour his eyes can’t quite distinguish in the dark of the night. one flicker of his sight to the very core of your body and he notices it, that tell-tale sign that you’re enjoying this little display of attention, despite what your measured breaths may have him believe. a wet patch, your wetness. the stickiest, sweetest of honeys that only a woman like you can possess, and a man like him should never bare himself witness to.

curiosity gets the better of him- one day, joel hopes, this will get him killed- and his touch is reaching for the lacy fabric, fingers curling themselves in the waistband of your panties and the fabric that covers your right asscheek before curling his hand into a fist, tugging upwards.

in and out, shaky breathing comes from above.

the lace pulls tight on your delicate skin, no choice but to nestle itself in the slit of your cunt as two pretty soaked lips peak out from each side. a heady smell he can only begin to describe as stiflingly sweet, tongue-tingling tanginess hits his nose. he makes sure to take a deep breath, letting the blood rush straight to his head- the one that sits packed uncomfortably in his tightened trousers.

delectable as sin, you keen back into his fist, back curving ever so slightly. there’s a tremor in the hold you have on the fabric of your dress. joel basks in the visual affect he’s beginning to have on you, no need to doubt if the fabric of your underwear rubs at your likely aching clit. he wonders if the sting of the lace digging into your skin hurts. he thinks it must hurt.

his fist curls tighter, pulls higher.

“ah,” at last, a ripple in your surface. though you still wield a knife, the carrot you’d been failing to chop rolls off the counter and onto the floor, lost somewhere in joel’s peripheral vision.

“shut up,” he grunts, like it doesn’t make his balls throb to hear you whine. “people are tryin’ to sleep.”

you scoff, and for a moment you seem to have rediscovered your composure. “tess is drunk as a sailor, and the old men could sleep through nuclear warfare.”

“‘s that an invitation to see how loud i can get ya,” he’s still caught in the way you mold against the lace, slickened skin carrying a reflection of the moonlight. this, he thinks, is what all them poets were writing about in their prose of love and beauty. “or a challenge?”

“it’s an invitation to stop lecturing me on volume control,-” you catch yourself, he realises, right before you can gift him some nickname a sweet girl like you would never use. asshole, dickhead, bastard, he’s heard them all and, still, he wants them on your tongue, in his mouth, condemning him for all the brutish, oafish ways he masks his obsession for you.

as coquettish as it may be, painting a picture worthy of a front-page on some playboy magazine, the sight of lace becomes a nuisance he no longer holds the patience for. so he strips you of it, hand moving to pull the garment down, down, down the length of you, till it hits your ankles. he awaits no movement of your own, taking it upon himself to lift each of your feet individually out the leg-holes.

it’s merely impulse that has him shoving the soiled lace into his back pocket, though he’s sure he’ll make use of them on lonely nights.

“you’re drippin’” his proclamation is ego-driven, pride swelling in his chest as he takes in the full sight of your bare heat. the view is a little obscured from behind you, but with the right amount of tilting of your hips at a certain angle and the widening of your legs, he’s bound to sit front row and centre for your private show. “‘s actually a little pathetic, sweetheart. is it cause ya like it when men get mean wit’ ya?”

he can imagine the way you’d roll your eyes at his words, and it has him thinking about how you’d look with your eyes rolling back for different reasons, reasons he’s about to gift you.

but first, he curls one hand around your ankle and tugs the limb along as far as he wants it. much better, he now faces no blockage in the path up to your slit, freely letting his wandering hands ascend to his newfound heaven. perhaps he’ll revisit the life of gospel, if you promise to be the altar he prays before.

cool fingers to warm skin, you swallow a gasp a little too late for joel to not notice as he drags the tips of his middle finger up the length of your slit. soft, puffy lips part for him, until he presses against that special button that’s bound to turn on your engines.

rolling his finger over your clit a few times, he refamiliarises himself with the female anatomy, with your anatomy, memorising each soft bump and meaty lump he finds along the way.

it happens so sudden, and unwillingly, the way his mind switches to thinking of tess. he wonders what exactly it is she does to those poor things she sends home on shaky legs, where she even begins to touch them. joel imagines she makes use of what she has and starts with her fingers.

so he does the same.

working over your slippery wetness, he coats the tip of his middle finger with it, till he finds what he’s been searching for: the gateways to your heaven, your entrance. he breaches your walls with that single digit and somehow that’s enough to have you squeezing around him so tightly he wonders if blood still manages to flow to his digit.

two, three, four pumps of his hand and he’s introducing his pointer finger too, pressing them both into you to witness the ways you mould around this wider stretch, the lips of your cunt a pair of cushions his knuckles collide against each time he fucks his fingers in.

“so now you shut up. ‘s the matter, huh?” he’s contradicting himself and he doesn’t even care, too busy focusing on curling his fingers inside you, delighting in the feel of that spongy tissue they press against. “am i too borin’ for ya?”

“you’re the most infuriating man i’ve ever- oh!”

a tongue meets skin.

the knife clatters onto the counter.

you lurch forward.

his hand pulls you back.

“tess was right, ya know?” he can still taste you on his tongue, nothing more than a simple lick over your slit and your salty pleasure already seeps deep into his veins, staining his very being with the memory of his new favourite flavour. he pulls his fingers out, slipping them up to your clit. three little taps to the pulsing bud- tap, tap, tap- and he’s slipping them into his mouth, tongue working overtime to clean up every last drop of you that coats him. “that boy of yours wasn’t doin’ ya right.”

the common sense that screams at him to not feel envy over some ex-lover, someone who was likely barely even an adult at the time and no longer appears to be around, is no match for the green eyed beast that commands him to tell you, without using words, that he can do better- touch you better, protect you better, fuck you better, if you’d just let him.

‘could keep ya satisfied.

that’s a new thought, one he’s never needed before yet never wanted more, a burning ache to be worthy of your trust, affection, lust. he’ll never forget the first time he thinks it, mouth salivating at the sight of you.

“is this the part you say some cheesy line straight out a porno? what ya need is a man, a man like me!” the softness of your giggle is still sharp enough to cut through the tension, god it’s never sounded sweet, and joel finds himself freely smiling into the darkness, yet still too stubborn to laugh at the deep voice you attempt to imitate him with.

“well, was you who said it,” his mouth finds it’s way back onto your soaked heat, taking his time to work his tongue up the length of it, his saliva mixing itself in a nasty cocktail with your wetness. he imagines the air is cold against your skin, and that you like it, memory of those hardened nipples hidden beneath the fabric of your dress. “but if ya insist.”

diving in head first had always been his style, from his first lover to his last, and to now, knees aching on the kitchen floor. the tip of his tongue dances round your clit, tantalising you to grind your hips to the rhythm of his sinful touches.

licking into you, he’s reminded how much he enjoys that swelling in the chest that only comes from bringing another pleasure. 

he’d not been a perfect lover, far from it, but he’d liked to believe at one point he’d been trained by only experience that comes with age, years of touching wrong and kissing badly to learn the right ways to make those he shared a bed- or a counter, or a backseat, or a club bathroom- with see angelic white as they writhed and squirmed under his touch. you’re lucky to have him now, matured by past lovers and broadened by age, with all the knowledge he needs to open your eyes to how a man pleasures, kisses, loves.

he’s out of practice, sure, with recent years adding notches to his belt that were merely frantic, unexpected, barely undressed run-ins with strangers, in strange places, cock barely getting a moments affection before he’d be spilling his seed and tucking it, limp, back into the confines of his trousers and locking it away beneath a zip.

what a perfect excuse you are, for joel to remaster the arts of lust.

it’s messy, wet dripping down his chin and staining itself into the stubble of his growing facial hair. it’s noisy, his mouth openly groaning depraved joy into your warmth as you sing him a song of sweet euphoria, slowly building towards that crescendo on the horizon. it’s animalistic, barely human as he revokes all earthly needs such as rest, and food, and socialising, his mind, and soul, and heart, and cock all screaming in unison to spend whatever days he shall possess on his knees before you.

and all the while you writhe and wriggle, some times running away from him touch, other times rutting so far back into him that you threaten to suffocate him somewhere between your warm thighs, and sugar sweet cunt, and the two well-rounded globes of your ass. 

his only saving grace is that he can’t see you.

hearing your pretty whines, and hand-muffled moans, and heavy intakes of breath is enough to curse him for the rest of his waking days, condemned to wander the wastelands of earth knowing the noises you make on the brinks of pleasure, with a touch-starved man satiating his hunger for flesh and blood with the sugary sins of your soaked cunt.

burrowing deeper into you, his consciousness rips through the fog of his lust to curse out his perversions as the tip of his hooked nose bumps against the puckered entrance of your ass. it does nothing to stop him tearing his tongue away from your clit, flattened as he drags it over the expanse of your cunt, and over your taint, and up the crack of your behind.

“n- ah,” you can’t deny him while sounding so eager for more, the tip of his tongue now circling your back entrance, mimicking the treatment previously given to your little pearl. “no, don’t, not there.”

next time, he thinks, we’ll try that next time.

sights returned to his previous desires, he works to rip every sigh, and every whine, and every dirty little song you’ll grace him with. the sound of whatever record tess has put on in the other room becomes a safety blanket, dousing you both in the warm protection of not being overheard.

and, then, he does it, he makes the ultimate mistake.

his eyes flicker to the left and he finds himself faced with the stove that sits within bill and frank’s- and, by an extension he does not enjoy to remember, your- kitchen. there’s little that’s remarkable about the appliance, just your standard, everyday oven that he’s sure you’ve spent countless hours cooking up those comforting meals he’s come to anticipate each time tess tells him they’re due a visit.

except, the oven door is made of glass.

glass which now paints the most pornographic masterpiece for no eyes but his own. you, with hands gripping the island’s counter like your life depends on it, and the skirt of that goddamn dress he’s envied all evening for the way it got to rest against the warmth of your thighs now bunched up in your tight grip, and your head thrown back, curving your spine in a way that has him wondering about the other ways he’d be able to bend and break you beneath his touch.

 and then there’s him, down on his knees like a devotee laying himself down to worship his goddess, face burrowed in the space between your legs, mouth devouring you from behind with the help of his hands, the same ones that had strangled a man less than a day before and reigned fire down on countless others for years, that now grip the meat of your thighs to pull you back onto him, fucking his tongue into your sopping heat.

the image will haunt him more than the face of any man he’s killed.

“d’ya touch yourself, sol?” you don’t answer him, but that’s okay. in a sweet change of pace, joel miller’s perfectly fine with talking enough for the both of you. “yeah, bet ya do. late at night, right? once you’re all alone in bed. ya seem like the kind who can make herself scream.”

you back into him, smothering him under the weigh of your body. becoming his holy grail, he drinks from you like it’s the key to eternal life, and what a way of living this would be, time disregarded as nothing but meaningless while your bodies melt together in the heat of passion.

fucking his fingers back inside, he becomes frantic beneath the need to make you cry, fall completely apart with only his hands to hold you together. “let me do the honours this time though.”

you don’t scream, can’t scream, hand over mouth muffling whatever profanities and theatrical proclamations he rips from within you with the stroke of his agile tongue, the only muscle of his that’s yet to develop aches and pains. he imagines that will no longer ring true once he awakens past sunrise.

he’s unsure how much longer he works his tongue over you, slipping and sliding through the liquid pleasure, but it ends with fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him away and tilting his head up.

you’ve never looked more holy, moon casting it’s shine around you, eyes glossed with unshed tears, lips parted and swollen from the pressure your own teeth had bitten down on them with. your expression, he can’t quite read. not sad, not happy, not mad.

your eyes catch on something, abandoning his own for something closer to the floor, to which he follows and finds exactly what you’re staring at: the evidently dark patch that now stains the front of his jeans.

the discomfort of trekking back to the qz will now be tenfolds worse in the stains of his own pleasure.

“joel...” his name is nearly a beg, a prayer, an invitation. hand still in his hair, you tug, pulling him upwards off the ground. legs open wider and back arches deeper, a seductive sight that your body pleas for him with.

he swallows a groan, knees alleviated at last from the floor, and presses himself against you once more. strong arms crush you in an embrace, pulling you back into him as his head slips to rest against your shoulder. he’s capricious with the way he lets himself litter a few wet kisses over your neck, breathing in the smell of you.

“that,” you grind back into him, a torturer who takes his aged body as her victim and toys with his barely recovered cock, the cum in his trousers sticking uncomfortably to his skin. he pulls tighter on your body, grounding himself in the weight of it against his own to find the sanity to finish his sentence. “shouldn’t have happened.”

joel hopes no one awakens as he slams the door on the way out of the kitchen.

people once spoke of how the only certainties in life were death and taxes but, nowadays, the words don’t ring as true and the guarantee of life with taxes has morphed into something else entirely; a reality where death and time go hand in hand. as sure as tomorrow will arrive, death will come too, eventually. not today, however, and joel miller finds himself stood throwing a ball back and forth for a dog.

it chases and retrieves, trailing it’s happy self all the way back to him only to spit the ball down at his feet, siting and waiting to repeat the process once more. there’d been a time where this is all he’d wanted: white picket fence, dog in the yard, home-cooked meals filling a house with warmth.

that dream seems so far away now, even as he stands within it.

he cracks his back, huffing out a groan. “no, not again. my back’s fucked as it is, buddy,” with no one around to witness, joel lets himself crouch down onto his knees- both popping obnoxiously as he does so- and rakes his hand over the german shepherd’s head. it whines and makes an attempt to nudge the ball against him, protesting in the only way it can. a scratch to the ear does the trick to distract the animal, to which it tilts its head and forces itself deeper into his blunt nails. “not so bad, are ya? huh?” never in a million years did joel think he’d be talking to a dog when him and tess had set out for their routinely visit to the bill and frank’s. never would he have thought that would be the least shocking event to unfold on this trip.

he hears you before he sees you.

“you planning to make your knees familiar with every surface of this place, texas?”

he tries to rise, he truly does, but the four-legged foe he’d been petting mere seconds ago betrays him the instant it catches sight of you, charging past him and knocking him over in the process, ass to floor and head to sky.

the world above is a storm of greys, clouds swallowing one another with a looming threat of danger on the horizon and not a lick of the sun’s warmth seems to make its way through.

so instead, it sends you.

peering over him from above, hair a tangled mess, eyes a wreck of under-bags and sleepless tears, the collar of your jumper lowered just enough at this angle that he can see a tease of cleavage, you radiate a brightness like no other, more dangerous to his naked eyes than uv ray could ever be. he’s squinting again, frown etching itself on his forehead with the threat of becoming permanent soon. a few more years and his face will be nothing but frown lines and crows feet. at the very least, he considers, i’ve survived long enough to wrinkle.

the smile above him is worth a million laugh lines, a kindness laced within it that matches perfectly with the hand you hold out. when he does nothing but stare at it, you wriggle your fingers, enticing him to take a hold. he does most of the work, truthfully, but you play a part in pulling him back to his feet. upright once more, he can’t help but bask in the way he’s able to physically look down on you.

“thanks for tiring him out,” you’re the first to talk. you’re always the first to talk, and he curses you for it. “won’t need to walk him as far tonight.”

a queasy feeling overtakes him at the thought of you walking the dog alone at night, nothing but the moon to light your way. he’ll need to remember to tire the dog out next time he visits. “no problem, thanks... for feeding tess and i.”

“no worries!” you’re so kind, so good, smiling at him with a cheerful chirp in your voice. he can’t wrap his head around how you can bring yourself to treat him this way. “oh, actually, that’s why i came out here, i was looking for tess-” of course you were, when would you ever be looking for him? “hold on!”

you shoot off back inside so quickly that otis just reaches the doorway by the time you return. with an idle pet to his head as you pass by, joel once again sees, in the way such little affection can have the dog so elated, that resemblance between them you’d spoke of. in your hands, you carry an array of containers full of food- soup- each filled to the brim.

“i wanted to give you these, before you guys leave,” you’re explaining yourself, and joel wonders if it’s nerves that bring you to need constant babbling to fill any gaps of silence. he can’t imagine how he could make you nervous and therefore that thought is quick to be discarded. “i know the journey up here and back can be long, consider them a token of my appreciation towards you both for-”

“why don’t ya like me?” he cuts you off.

pathetic, he knows, but he can not stop himself, a deer caught in the headlights of your brightly burning, too-good-to-be-true, too-pure-to-be-fake personality.

you show no signs of hearing him, smile unwavering as you continue to hold out the boxes to him, “there should be enough to last you a few days, if you watch your proportions.”

it’s too much for him to handle- the food, the smiles, the sweetly glistening eyes-, and joel just has to know, needs an answer before the heat of his confusion consumes him entirely in its flames and leaves nothing but his smoking remains.

so he tries again, louder.

“why don’t ya like me?”

“and i’d probably say you’re best to heat it up, especially for tess,” you ignore him, again, lips stretching what can only be described as uncomfortably wider. “winter is sure coming in faster than last year, isn’t it?”

he grabs at your arm, fingers curling round the swell of your bicep as he speaks through gritted teeth, "answer me." like a frightened dog backed into a corner, he bares his teeth and yells his bark.

"for someone who doesn't care,” you try his patience, knowingly or not, and his grip tightens. you don’t flinch, welcoming the sting of his blunt and bitten nails against your flesh. “you sure do talk about my opinion a lot."

"answer the damn question, girl.”

“or, what?” you’ve got him there, he’ll admit, holding no real plan as to how to punish your silence. “you gonna give me the same treatment as last night?”

had he known you’d be so unabashed to mention the events on the kitchen floor so flippantly, as casually as one would speak about the weather, he’d never have dared to get on his knees. truthfully, he’d not given things a second thought, disregarding the later for the now, living in the moment with caution thrown to the wind over what the morning would bring. perhaps he’d hoped you’d been intoxicated enough to dismiss the memory as a nightmare, maybe he’d wished you’d keep away from him to free him of the volatile grip you have on his soul.

instead, you stand tall, proud, eyes fiercely staring back at his own as you challenge him to retaliate, mock you with none of those saccharine smiles you hide harsh tones behind.

joel says nothing.

“how about this, let’s make a deal, like the ones you and bill make.” inching closer, crowding in on his space and forcing him to take note of the smell of freshly cleaned clothes mixed in with your own fragrance. clean, warm, inviting, scents he’d never given meaning to before now. “you get me something, i’ll tell you what you want to know.”

he grunts out a response, hands meeting his hips as he juts out one knee, the shifting of weight between feet a perfect distraction to the rising tension in his worn-out jeans. “what d’ya want? ‘cause if it’s somethin’ like a gun, think again. i ain’t messing with none of bill’s strange politics on you havin’-”

“a dress.”

“a dress?” the statement has him quirking his brow, burning questions swimming in the depths of his eyes as he stares back at you.

“yes, and don’t look at me like that!” it’s hypocritical, he believes, for you to berate him for the looks he sends you when all you do is cast stones his way with your gaze yet shake him to his very core each time you smile. “i need a new one, my favourite one got ruined whilst making soup.”

unaware he’d even began to lean closer, joel’s quick to recoil, as if your words are bullets and his skin the target you hit on the bullseye every time. 

“joel!” his name resonates from somewhere in the house.

neither of you dare to break eye contact. again, his name is yelled. this time, he manages to identify tess as the owner of the voice. habits have him used to running to her whenever she calls, but habits have never been caught between the choice of tess or you. 

his feet remain glued to the ground.

tess yells once more and, though you speak up, you don’t dare look away. “think you might be needed inside, macho man. your missus is calling.”

“she ain’t my-”

“you two just gonna stand and stare at each other all day, or will you help a woman out already?” tess enters the scene somewhere behind you, a blur of her familiar shape standing out the front door.

only when your head spins and he no longer finds himself lost in the black of your eyes does joel take her in completely, hair clearly damp and complexion a little paled by her hungover body. in her arms, she struggles with the weight of a folded table. you approach first, he follows, his two hands aiding in carrying it out into the front yard as you retighten your grip on the boxes of soup in your arms. 

“i should probably,” laying the containers down on the now unfolded table, you fidget with the sleeves in your hands, eyes downcast with something he can only read as guilt. he decides he much prefers the fire they hold when you berate him. “go check on the food, before it burns.”

you’re in the door and out his sight before he can so much as ask you to stay.

tess and him hit the road by noon. earlier than predicted, later than he’d wished for. the bite of cold already marks the air, despite the sun heating the world with its rays. he walks a little ahead, feigning ignorance to the repeated coughing coming from tess and racking his brain for answers.

answers to why he’d never noticed how hoarse she’d been sounding till you pointed it out. answers to what awaited them both upon returning to the qz. answers to when will be their next chance to visit the safe haven bill’s created. answers to why you don’t like him.

i don’t like you, joel.

it motivates him to walk quicker, faster, racing to put as much distance between himself and that damn kitchen floor, miles upon miles not enough to rid him of the dull ache in his knees that goes hand in hand with the throb within his too-tight-jeans. if he were alone, he’d break out in a sprint. but tess is here, he’s not alone, and home will simply have to wait on the passing of time to drag him back to it.

till then, he needs to find a dress.​

[bluehoodiewoozi]

If You Want Me

Lee Jihoon x fem!Reader

Genre: fluff

Word Count: 1,881

Warnings: lots of crying. (y/n)’s not the sharpest tool.

[Established Relationship AU] You find a strange box in your boyfriend’s drawer and it brings forth a life-changing event.

You were buzzing with unburnt energy, itching for something – anything – to do.

It was just one of those days where you couldn’t sit still. It wasn’t that you hadn’t already done much: the standard 8-hour work day was already finished and you still felt like you needed to be useful. There was so much to do and you were excited to get to it.

It was a blur of productivity. The speakers filled the apartment with the melodies of a playlist Jihoon had once made for you (you had lost track of what he made the playlist for; he had simply made you so many) as you practically waltzed around, finishing chore after chore at near magical speeds: the dishes, the laundry, the windows, the curtains. You watered the plants and gave their big green leaves a good wipe-down.

Around 11 pm, a text chimed on your phone. It was Jihoon, a heart emoji proudly on display by his contact name. 

“Want anything to eat?” he asked, ever so thoughtful – or perhaps trying to avoid the awkwardness of eating alone.

You gladly replied to him, practically begging for your favourite noodle dish, and returned to organising your wardrobe. Even that task was done soon and you were once again left with a strange itch to just do something else. Literally any chore. But you had done them all already.

Well. Except Jihoon’s side of the wardrobe. 

The half-wrinkled black and white t-shirts on the shelves and a random pair of sandals shoved in there was an eyesore compared to your perfectly folded blouses. He wasn’t the messiest person you had met, but he rarely had time to actually keep his closet as neat as he or you would’ve liked.

Usually you left his side for him to deal with, but – you thought to yourself – there’s no harm in helping out.

You folded his shirts properly, throwing a few stained ones to the laundry bin. You organised his jackets and sweaters by colour. You began organising his underwear drawer – the messiest of them all – when you found something curious. 

It was a box. A very small one, covered in a velvety material. You thought, perhaps in a tired daze, it looked like something a piece of jewellery might come in. Earrings? Or a ring perhaps? 

But why would he keep his rings in a box? He had a perfectly good jewellery tray on the nightstand – one you had handmade for him in a pottery class on a double date night. And the box couldn’t have been for you either – you rarely wore rings or jewellery of any kind and he knew that.

So what was in this box?

You tried so hard to fight the curiosity and just leave it be. You loved and trusted your boyfriend. You knew he wouldn’t hide things from you. Maybe it was a gift from someone. Maybe the box was empty and he had simply forgotten to throw it out.

But you had come this far and you were getting tired and you just had to find out. One little peek wouldn’t hurt, right? It surely couldn’t.

Against the warnings of your last rational braincells, you opened the box. Your jaw dropped in surprise. 

It was, indeed, a ring. A pretty one at that. With an intricate golden band and a heart-shaped ruby in the middle. You thought to yourself that even you wouldn’t mind wearing something as beautiful as this.

But it wasn’t your ring. And, frankly, you wondered if it was really his either. Suspicions and curiosity grew and when you snapped back to reality you had already sent a photo to your friends’ chat, asking what they thought it was.

The answer was immediate and loud: “??? THAT’S CLEARLY AN ENGAGEMENT RING, YOU IDIOT?!”

Your heart dropped. Your body felt hot all over. You worried you might faint from shock. 

Could it be? Was this really what they thought it was? Had you just accidentally ruined your boyfriend’s plans to propose? 

And even more importantly – you thought, brain fully going into overdrive now, not even caring that the box sharply closed on your thumb as you clutched it to your chest and sunk to sit on the floor, tears burning in your eyes –, your boyfriend was going to propose? He actually wanted to marry you? It wasn’t just a tired fantasy he joked about with you late at night, giggling and joking about growing old together. He had bought a ring – an engagement ring.

Overwhelmed by your joyous feelings and the guilt of ruining what was clearly meant to be a surprise, you began to cry. Tears blurred your vision, mascara you should’ve washed off hours ago was smudging off your lashes, snot ran down your nose – you were certain you looked absolutely horrendous but you had bigger things to worry about for now.

Practically sobbing, you didn’t hear the front door opening and closing or Jihoon calling out to you from the front door, his melodious voice so full of love as he greeted you. You didn’t notice the rustling of the takeout bag or tired footsteps echoing in the apartment, nearing your location.

He walked into the bedroom, expecting to find you soundly asleep or maybe scrolling on Tiktok, ready to show him some nonsensical meme again. Even if he made fun of you for showing them to him, he greatly cherished the fact that your first thought was to share these things with him. 

Instead he found you curled up in front of the closet, sobbing with a velvet box in hand. He froze. "Fuck."

Realising he’d come home, you scrambled to put the box back where you had found it and wiped your tears and runny mascara and apologised and hid your face and said, "Sorry. Don’t look at me. I’m a mess."

Jihoon only chuckled somewhat uneasily and slowly came closer, reaching out a hand to place it onto your shoulder before pulling you into a gentle hug. It was comforting. He was always comforting. 

“Why are you crying?” he asked as if he wasn’t fully aware already.

"I–"

"You found the ring, right?"

"How'd you know?" you worried, eyes wide. Was he upset with you? Was he disappointed? Angry? Sad? You couldn’t live with yourself if you had made him feel bad when he had put so much thought into a future with you.

"I saw you put it away,” he pointed out so calmly that it almost lulled you into a false sense of serenity.

"Oh. That was something else,” you lied horribly. You were never a great liar, at least not to him. “What ring? I don’t know about any ring–"

"I think I know what the box of the ring I had made for you looks like, baby," he told you with a slight laugh before reaching into the drawer with his free hand and taking out the very box. Hesitating for just a moment, he then held it out for you, nodding for you to take it.

With shaking hands, you did as told. "It's for me?"

"If you want it," he shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant but his bright red ears and oddly glimmering eyes say he's about five seconds away from a mental breakdown of his own. He coughed to clear his throat before adding, "If you want me."

"What?"

"I– This wasn't how I planned this but," Jihoon ran a hand through his hair, “but I guess the cat's out of the bag.”

He let out a nervous laugh – the one he always did when Soonyoung or Jeonghan convinced him to do something dumb or embarrassing – before dropping to one knee right there, in front of the closet, in front of you – his girlfriend who he thought looked like a sad panda in the best way possible. 

He closed his eyes and took a deep calming breath as you waited, holding your own breath. When he spoke again, his voice was hushed and gentle, as if he feared speaking any louder would give away how nervous he was feeling. 

“I know this is kind of sudden and you probably weren’t expecting it,” he started, voice wavering, “but I feel like I’ll go crazy if I avoid my feelings for much longer. When I first met you, I knew I’d want you in my life for a long time – whether as a friend or as something more I didn’t know yet.

“But now I know,” Jihoon had begun crying, wiping his tears between anxious giggles when he saw your tear-stained but bright smile – an encouragement –, “I want you as my home, as my everything, as my wife. I’d sooner go insane than live a single day without calling you mine and myself yours. So,” he took the ring in one hand and your hand in his other, “I'm asking you to make me the happiest man alive and accept this ring and marry me. Will you have me?"

There was not a single doubt or even an echo of one in your mind. 

“Yes. Yes!” 

Nodding rapidly, almost frantically even, you semi-patiently watched him smile the brightest you had seen him do in weeks and gently place the ring around your finger. Before he could even admire the jewellery on your hand, your arms were wrapped around him, lips reaching for his to kiss him as flustered and silly as he had made you with his words. 

“I love you,” you heard him whisper against your lips as he pulled you closer until there wasn’t even a molecule of air between the two of you.

You hummed and pulled back just enough to whisper back, “I love you too, future husband.”

He groaned at the words, a dumb grin on his face. “I can’t wait to marry you, seriously.”

“There’s a chapel down the street,” you half-joked (half- because you were so overcome with love for him that you wouldn’t have even mildly protested if he had gone along with the joke and made it a reality).

To your amusement, he was the one to protest, a grumpy frown taking over his previously bright and awestruck face. “I had an entire picnic planned with fairy lights and cake and live music and I even had Mingyu convinced to take photos for us, and instead  I ended up proposing to you,” he glanced around the room almost judgmentally, “crying in front of the closet in our apartment, with my underwear drawer open.” He forcefully shut the offending drawer, earning a chuckle from you, before letting out a firm loud hum of protest and pulling you back into a tight hug. “I’m not letting the same happen to our wedding. You deserve the world and I’ll give it to you.”

“... So we’re not eloping then?”

“Not a chance,” he insisted, face scrunching up as if the very idea was offensive, and pressed a kiss to your forehead. “We’re already missing out on engagement photos. Imagine how upset our moms will be if they don’t even get wedding photos.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” you chuckled, pausing before adding on, “future husband.”

He tensed for a moment. Then he spoke, “So about that chapel – do you think they take last minute walk-ins, or…?”

[vivwritesfics]

Norris Reader and Carlos together but Norris gets jealous cause he thinks Carlos is taking up his time with his twin and he never gets to see her. Lando jealous of Carlos

from this ask, I'm guessing the reader is Lando's twin? I can work with that (and if this isn't what you meant, just send over another ask and I'll do it again)

Y/N's phone background used to be her sat on her little sisters horse, Flo holding the reins as she walked her around the arena. And then it was her in Lando's racing overalls. And then it was she and Lando stood together, wearing the same short, sparkly dress. Lando looked miserable while Y/N couldn't hold back her grin.

And now her phone background was her boyfriend. Laying in the sun with his dog laying on his chest while he looked at the camera. It was one of Y/N's favourite pictures, but her other favourite picture wouldn't be an appropriate phone background.

On the grid, Y/N used to follow Lando around like a lost puppy. She'd spent years going with her brothers and parents karting events, and, thought she wasn't karting herself, Y/N fell in love with it. She knew she wanted to work in the motorsport industry.

Y/N was at university when Lando got signed for McLaren. She took some time out and followed him for his first season, meeting the McLaren team and getting herself an internship. She didn't drop out of university, instead going on a placement year to complete her internship.

Her internship with McLaren meant she got to spend time with the McLaren drivers. One was her brother; she could see him any time, but the other? Well, sexy spanish men did something to her.

It was just before Carlos signed with Ferrari that they had their first date. Now they lived together.

Lando didn't mind his sister being in love with his best friend. They were cute together, even if Lando did pull a face whenever Carlos kissed her or wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her ass. But he rarely got to see her now and, although he'd never admit it, he missed her.

Y/N had spent the entirety of winter break in Spain, spending time with her husband to be. She was meant to go home, but then Carlos had proposed and... well they didn't leave their bed for a few days. The couple wanted to be around nobody but each other, and, although her family missed her, they accepted it.

But when Y/N and Lando returned to the paddock, Lando couldn't stop himself from saying something. "I rarely get to see you," he said to Y/N as she worked, still for McLaren. "I mean, you didn't even come home for Christmas - you always come home for Christmas!"

"Sorry, Lan," she muttered as she scribbled in her notebook. "But something happened," she held up her hand, showing off the ring to Lando.

Lando who immediately grabbed her hand for a closer look. "No fucking way!" He said, touching the stone. "Carlos actually proposed?! And you didn't tell any of us?!"

"Well, no, I told mum. And I told dad. And Flo, Cisca and Oliver."

"So, everyone but me?"

"Pretty much," she answered, pulling hand away from him.

Lando let out a huff. "So, now that you're engaged, I can't say anything to Carlos about stealing you from us?"

"He's part of the family now, Lan." She lifted her note book. "You have to play nice." With every word she gently hit his head with the notebook.

Lando scowled. And maybe fought Carlos on track. It was just hazing, the sort of thing a big brother did for his little sister (even if he was only a few minutes older).

[enden-agolor]

i fucking LOVE the way you draw/write jesse, as someone with a chubby/buff build i kind of struggle with insecurities about my size but the way you draw him makes me feel very good. idk im describing it badly but i wanted to ask if your design for him is more chubby or muscly?

Dude thank you 🥺🩵 You described it very well.

It really depends on which time frame I'm drawing Jesse in actually.

In the beginning, I imagine Jesse is quite scrawny. I mean did you see his work out routine in the beginning? He was was doing sit ups and punching flowers. He was definitely lacking muscle (but had enough to be able to lift Reuben up and down that ladder) and as the first couple episodes progress, he stays scrawny but progressively becomes more scarred up until the Portal Hallway episodes.

The Portal Hallway episodes, it takes place many months after the events of the Witherstorm. Jesse and his friends are going on many more adventures, really honing their skills that they acquired over the past few months. Jesse is much more built now. He's buff and tough with the true heart of a hero. Although, once he and his friends get stuck in the Portal Hall, that's when things take a really devastating turn for him. Feeling hopeless and lost for weeks on end, he begins to feel withdrawn from the positivity he was feeling before he ended up stuck here. Traumatic events keep occuring, and with these events, Jesse is of course drawn to remember and replay the events of Reuben's death in his head. He keeps the most of these feelings to himself because his group is already feeling so disheartened about their current situation that the last thing he'd want for them is to know that he's breaking emotionally, so he ends up taking less care of himself. He starts eating with the idea that he has to stay strong for his friends, but even those moments are rare. Food is scarce depending on what portal they are in, so when he finds food, he'll take anything that will keep his energy and strengths up.

By the end of it all, he's actually put on a significant amount of muscle. But it's kind of like a 'at what cost?' scenario.

Things get a bit better for him between then and Season 2 where he's eating better again and keeping all that muscle, but once Season 2 comes and goes, and with everything that happens in the Sunshine Institute and the Underneath, he loses a lot of weight.

It's only after Season 2, where he stays in BeaconTown and eventually finds a love life with Lukas when he really begins putting on weight once again. He's done with hero work. He's done with going on crazy life threatening adventures. Now he just wants to live life for himself rather than putting others first. Lukas helps him a lot through this, with body positivity and lots of love and affectionate touch, it's all the reassurance Jesse has ever needed to feel okay with being himself again. So he ends up putting on that happy weight that couples typically adopt over time when they're in a healthy relationship. Lukas treats him so, so unbelievably well. Finally Jesse gets to eat food for himself without the idea of needing to keep himself strong and powerful once he's finally retired. He indulges himself in his sweet tooth and loves to eat cookies, cakes, and other baked goods that Lukas will bake or bring home. He also really enjoys the fact that he doesn't have to eat alone anymore. He loves sitting at the table and enjoying a meal with his hubby. And the best part, which is something Jesse was horribly self conscious about, is that Lukas loves and adores his pudge. He is so supportive of Jesse's eating habits, but he doesn't hesitate to sneak veggies and fruits into Jesse's lunch box for work.

So yeah uh Jesse is chubby, buff and loved at the end of it all 😍

Here's some lil doodles of him I have lying around. The first one is pretty old and could probably use a touch up since now I don't see much of a difference, but you get the point ☠️

[etfrin]

❝ꜱᴏᴜʟꜱ ᴛᴏ ᴄʀᴜꜱʜ❞ — chapter twenty-three | coriolanus snow

「ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢ:」 NSFW | coriolanus snow, canon typical violence, canon typical death, oral sex (m. receiving), implication of committing murder | lmk if I forgot anything

「ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ:」 young! Coriolanus Snow x fem! Reader

「ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ:」 coriolanus gets more blood on his hands, he also gets his cock sucked.

「ᴀ/ɴ:」 two more exams to go!! can't wait for it to finish! Make sure to reblog and give your feedback! <33

beta read by the birthday girl @nowitsmissing

masterlist | navigation

The next days of Coriolanus Snow are spent in constant paranoia. He avoided you and refused to make eye contact. He was simply so afraid of what was going to happen. Before him, you were much closer to Sejanus. Snow briefly wondered if you interacted with Sejanus because of the power his family held. But he quickly dismissed that thought. Surely you wouldn't have been so calculating since childhood.

District 12 was in chaos trying to find out what happened with Mayfair and Billy Taupe. Spruce had kept his lips sealed. However, he knew that won't be the case for long.

Sejanus Plinth would be dead. And Spruce would know exactly who is responsible. But Coriolanus thought that he would escape to the north before it happened. Lucy Gray was in a hurry too. She was the lead suspect as Mayfair was the reason she was in the games.

Today was the day the bodies were found. Rotten. It was a miracle it was hidden for so long. He had an inkling it was due to you. Because the bodies weren't found at the original place of murder but on the outskirts of District 12. People rarely go there.

The Peacekeepers were talking about it right now. Coriolanus carefully listened, trying to see if anyone had any knowledge of what had actually happened.

“They’re both locals, but one of them is the mayor’s daughter. The other one’s a musician or something, but not one that we’ve seen. They were shot dead.”

“Did they find who did it?” asked a Peacekeeper.

“Not yet. These people aren’t even supposed to have guns, but like I told you, they’re floating around out there,” another replied. “Killed by one of their own, though.”

“How do they know that?” asked Sejanus.

‘Shut up!’ thought Coriolanus. Knowing Sejanus, he could be one step away from confessing to a crime he didn’t even commit.

“Well, she said they think the girl was shot with a Peacekeeper’s rifle, probably an old one that got stolen during the war. And the musician was killed by some sort of shotgun the locals used for hunting. Probably two shooters,” Smiley reported. “They searched the surrounding area and couldn’t find the weapons. Long gone with the murderers, if you ask me.”

Coriolanus’s nerves unwound a bit, and he ate a forkful of pancakes. “Who found the bodies?”

“That little girl singer — you know, the one in the pink dress,” said Smiley.

“Maude Ivory,” said Sejanus.

“I think that’s it. Anyway, she freaked out. They questioned the band, but when would they have had time to do it? No guns were found, no prints either,” Smiley told them. “Shook them up pretty good, though. I guess they knew the musician guy somehow or other.”

Because of the past night’s events, the commander locked down the base for the day.

He and Sejanus floated around, trying to look normal. Playing cards, writing letters, cleaning their boots. As they knocked the mud from the treads, Coriolanus whispered, “What about the escape plan? Is it still on?”

“I’ve no idea,” Sejanus said. “The commander’s birthday isn’t until next weekend. That was the night we were supposed to go. Coryo, what if they arrest an innocent person for the murders?”

‘Then our troubles are over’, thought Coriolanus, but he only said, “I think it’s highly unlikely, with no guns. But let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Coriolanus came into your room that night. Ready to confess his sins and come clean. His mouth went dry when you opened the door. Your lips stretched into a lazy grin. “Hi, Coryo,” you said, as your hand was on the shirt, getting a grip on the fabric to pull him inside of the room.

“What did you do?” you asked him as you pushed him down onto the bed. You stood at the side, towering over him. Your arms crossed in front of your chest.

“I- I didn't do anything,” he said, “I missed you.”

You raised your eyebrows. “You fucked up. Real or not?”

“Real,” he muttered.

“Worse than murder?”

Coriolanus winces.

“Do you care about Sejanus?” He asked, hoping that the answer would be in his favor. He could feel his palms sweating, and he pressed his hands onto the sheets.

“No.”

Coriolanus blinks in shock. “No?” He questions, visibly confused, “But- but-”

“Is this about you sending the jabberjays to Dr. Gaul?”

Coriolanus managed a nod. In truth, he had suspected you would find out as Dr. Gaul seems to trust you. Which was one of the main reasons he wanted to come clean beforehand.

You let out a harsh chuckle, “Yeah, Dr. Gaul told me to keep an eye on the boy. I told her he murdered innocent citizens who were against the rebellion. You presented a death warrant to her, I signed it.”

You eye Coriolanus with a smirk. “You should know you can't keep secrets from me, baby,” you shake your head, “I don't know why you try when it's so obvious.”

“Sejanus Plinth and Spruce, the leader of the rebellion, will be dead soon. No need to worry about them, Coryo. Good job, Dr. Gaul is impressed, she sees your potential even more so than before.” you add.

“Is there anything else or…?”

Your eyes turn lustful as you begin to slowly check him out. His heart starts to beat faster, his blood rushing downwards. A tent quickly forms in his pants. It was from your heated gaze alone.

You tease him with a smile, “You're such a boy.”

“Shu- shut up! It's on you- it's because you're looking at me like that,” he whispered.

“Like what?”

“Like you'll eat me up,” he replied.

“That's the plan,” you whispered, as you went on your knees in front of him.

He lets out a desperate, needy noise at the sight. You looked so pretty like this. He spreads his legs, making up space for you. You bite your lip in anticipation. Your mouth salivating for his taste.

“Holy shit, dove,” he whines when your hand presses into his bulge. You palm him through his pants.

“So needy,” you murmur. “Do you want my mouth on you that bad?”

“Yes,” he gasps out, willing to beg. “Please.”

“That's a good boy.”

You unzip his pants, dragging them down around his knees. His dick is strained against his boxers. A wet spot on the fabric. It was clear how much pre-cum he was leaking. It was pathetic too. But you didn't blame him for it. You pressed your thumb on his clothed tip, and gently slid your fingertip back and forth, letting his sensitive slit feel the slick texture of the fabric.

“Fuck,” he curses, “Don't tease me.”

“I am not teasing,” you lie.

You pull his boxers down, letting his cock spring free from its confines. The tip is red, the veins on his length popping out, just waiting to be traced with your tongue. You don't let a second go to waste as you let yourself lick his slit. You hold his cock by the base, as you make sure to enjoy his taste like it's a lollipop.

You lick all over, slathering his cock with your saliva. You make sure to trace his veins before you find your way back to his tip. You take his cockhead inside the warmth of your mouth. Coriolanus groans, it took him an iron of will not cum right then and there.

You slowly take more of his length inside and he lets out a whimper. His hand rests on your head, trying so hard not to pull you forward and make you choke on his cock like you were supposed to.

His free hand fists the sheet, as he bites his lower lip to stop a groan from escaping. He could feel that he was getting close to snapping. “Fu-fuck,” he lets out, “Dove… that's so good.”

You continue to suck his cock. You hollow your mouth and he lets out a whimper, his hips bucking up. His cockhead reaches the back of your throat. Surprisingly you don't choke. With a moan of your name, Coriolanus could feel himself cum inside of your mouth.

You taste his salty, thick cum. Letting it coat on your tongue, some of it escapes from the corner of your lips. You pull away as his cock softens and wipe your mouth.

You sit down beside Coriolanus who is trying to catch his breath. He tucks himself in. “Thank you,” he said, “that was good.” You smile at him. Your hand on his cheek. You caress his face.

“You needed to relax, after all, you need to have more blood on your hands,” you said, your smile turning cruel.

“Lucy Gray?” He questions.

“Lucy Gray,” you confirm.

Coriolanus nods, “Yeah, I understand. She will be the only witness left except us.” Coriolanus takes a deep breath. “We'll need to find a way.”

“Let Sejanus die first. I can stay here for a few more days. I'll help you figure it out.”

Coriolanus agrees with you and turns to leave. Before you shut the door, you say to him,

“I was only friends with Sejanus because of you. Because you seemed to be close to him and I wanted to be closer to you.”

After everything, that's not a surprise to him. Though he feels his heart flutter. He falls asleep on his bed with a stupid, lovesick smile, momentarily forgetting about how red his hands are.

✧ ▬▭▬ ▬▭▬ ✦✧✦ ▬▭▬ ▬▭▬ ✧

The next day Coriolanus was instructed to stand in a squad flanking the hanging tree. Coriolanus knew why. He had already seen Spruce being dragged into the base. Likely to be tortured for information. Coriolanus knew he was protected by you, so there wasn't much to worry about. Sejanus has been missing since morning. He knew what that meant. Dr. Gaul had nailed his coffin.

The Peacekeeper van arrived and both Sejanus and Lil stumbled out in their chains. Sejanus Plinth was accused of treason. He was caught.

Arlo, an ex-soldier toughened by years in the mines, had managed a fairly restrained end, at least until he’d heard Lil in the crowd. But Sejanus and Lil, weak with terror, looked far younger than their years and only reinforced the impression that two innocent children were being dragged to the gallows. Lil, her shaking legs unable to bear her weight, was hauled forward by a pair of grim-faced Peacekeepers who would probably spend the following night trying to obliterate this memory with white liquor.

As they passed him, Coriolanus locked eyes with Sejanus, and all he could see was the eight-year-old boy on the playground, the bag of gumdrops clenched in his fist. Only this boy was much, much more frightened. Sejanus’s lips formed his name, Coryo, and his face contorted in pain. But whether it was a plea for help or an accusation of his betrayal he couldn’t tell.

The Peacekeepers positioned the condemned side by side on the trapdoors. Another tried to read out the list of charges over the shrieks of the crowd, but all Coriolanus could catch was the word treason.

He averted his eyes as the Peacekeepers moved in with the nooses, and he found himself looking at Lucy Gray’s stricken face. She stood near the front in an old gray dress, her hair hidden in a black scarf, tears running down her cheeks as she stared up at Sejanus.

As the drumroll began, Coriolanus squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could block out the sound as well. But he could not, and he heard it all. Sejanus’s cry, the bang of the trapdoors, and the jabberjays picking up Sejanus’s last word, screaming it over and over into the dazzling sun.

“Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma!”

Sejanus Plinth is dead.

It's Lucy Gray's turn now.

NEXT PART

[demonvibez]

[Yandere] Mammon ♡

Rating: Mature [MDNI] Tags: dark content, possessiveness, fighting, stalking, implied murder, smut, gn body parts, penetration mentions, cock warming, semi public sex, changed canon events Word Count: 1.4k+ A/N: I love yans and I love Mams soooo...here we are lol. Happy Birthday to my favorite greedy demon ♡ Mammoney!

♡ Yandere Mammon, who has been by your side since the very first day you dropped into the Devildom.

-> He didn't think much of you at first - a mere hassle dropped onto his plate by his Prideful elder brother. But it doesn't take long for the Avatar of Greed to become completely obsessed with you.

-> He actually made Lucifer give him your file ahead of time, wanting to size up how much trouble you'd be and see what kinda wealth you'd be bringing him. When his golden eyes landed on your picture though, a new sense of greed wrapped itself around his heart, and he knew he just had to have you.

♡ Yandere Mammon, who is a hell of a lot smarter than his brothers give him credit for.

-> He's the one that actually planted the seed in Leviathan's mind that you should make a pact with Mammon in the first place. Paying his debt to the Third Born was worth having the chance to cement himself as your first pact mate - which he always uses to his advantage.

-> Any situation you find yourself in, Mammon manipulates his way to get access to you - whether it's his usual antics (like him 'whining' about being your first man), or even some of his more greedy tricks like bribery, you'll always find him right next to you. There are even times he uses the pact to summon himself to you, and convinces you that it was subconsciously your idea because you always need him by your side - 'Ya know I was tasked to protect ya after all, treasure.'

-> On the rare occasion that Mammon can't be with you at the moment, he sends his murder of crows to look after you - especially even when you're with one of his brothers. His feathered familiars keep an eye on you no matter the realm, and they diligently report back to their Master with any findings.

♡ Yandere Mammon, whose greed for you knows no bounds.

-> Whenever you're with one of his brothers, he finds a way to squeeze himself in. He gives them a look of warning - he wouldn't necessarily kill one of his brothers, but they might find themselves befalling serious misfortune if they don't back off from you. 

-> He doesn't afford that same luxury to strangers, though. Sure, he may start off with the warning of bad luck, each demon that gets too close to you suddenly finding themselves penniless. But if they still don't get the hint between that and Mammon's death glare, then he'll be sure to follow them home and have a nice chat with them later - just be sure to kiss his bruised and bloody knuckles when he comes home and lies about it.

♡ Yandere Mammon, who wants nothing more than to hoard you to himself like a rare Devildom treasure - because that's what you are to him.

-> He absolutely took Beelzebub's custard on purpose, knowing your room would get demolished in the process. Before Lucifer could make you move into Beel's room however, Mammon spots Satan and ropes him into the scene, knowing he would get triggered by the First Born and escalate the situation worse. Fists get thrown between Pride and Wrath, and Mammon uses the opportunity to steal you away to his room.

-> You pretty much live in his room now - he's replaced your destroyed belongings and given you space in his own closet. You don't notice a few of your things still going missing occasionally - and you definitely don't notice the secret door in the back of his closet, leading to the shrine he's made of you, your missing items adorning the altar.

-> Something else you fail to notice, is how he prolongs the reconstruction of your bedroom. It first started with him just tearing down the current work being done to rebuild it - that is, until he got the idea that if he started picking off the construction demons one by one, it'd surely slow down production. It was quite messy work at first, until he remembered his little brother was the Avatar of Gluttony who has never left a scrap of food behind.

♡ Yandere Mammon, who despite wanting you all for himself, still loves to show you off as 'His' to any and everyone.

-> He may be the Avatar of Greed, but he absolutely loves making people jealous - he wants them to covet what he owns, especially when it comes to you. He buys you revealing outfits that cost a pretty Grimm, just to dress you up and parade you around the city on his arm.

-> His public displays of affection for you are constant - there's not a single being in the Devildom that hasn't seen the way his hands grab your body, the way he presses his lips to your neck. And when he gives you gifts, he makes sure to do it in front of other people, so they can see the way you look at him and kiss him on the lips so lovingly. 

♡ Yandere Mammon, who toys with how much luck you have in order to keep himself as close to you as possible.

-> Some days Mammon feels you aren't giving him enough attention, and you suddenly find yourself having the worst luck - bad grades, failed cooking, accidental injuries. And there Mammon is, right there by your side with open arms, ready to care for you like the perfect boyfriend that he is.

-> Other days, Mammon spoils the hell outta you - with all that good luck on your side, you suddenly find that you won a ton of Grimm from some Devilgram contest you don't remember entering, and he's convincing you to go away to the beach for a week, just the two of you.

♡ Yandere Mammon, who infects those around him with greed in order to move along his own hidden agenda.

-> He talks his way into going to your meeting with Lord Diavolo, despite Lucifer also being there. All it took was a little greed and a few well placed words to convince them to give you a permanent citizenship in the Devildom, despite all of their earlier reservations. The elder demons later side eye Mammon, but he just throws his hands up, insisting he couldn't possibly be that powerful and doing his best to hide his smugness.

-> He uses this ability on his brothers as well - usually either on Satan, Asmodeus or Belphegor. Whenever he isn't getting his way, he infects one (or multiple) of them with his greed, standing back with an arm around your shoulder and his signature smirk on his face as he hears his brothers argue with Lucifer for him - his brothers already love you, so they don't think too much about it.

♡ Yandere Mammon, whose obsession with you fills him with an inherent need to mark you as his.

-> He needs everyone to see that you belong to him. It starts off innocently, with him giving you gifts of jewelry and insisting you wear them. Some of the jewelry very obviously brandish his sigil and symbols, but little did you know, the other pieces have secret inscriptions to let other demons know that you're his.

-> And of course he put his pact mark somewhere obvious, in a spot you couldn't hide it. 'Why would ya wanna hide it, anyways?!'

-> He also loves to bite - why wouldn't ya want his adorable fang marks on the side of your neck? He'll take any chance he can get to add another permanent little mark of his on you - without hurting you too much, of course.

♡ Yandere Mammon, whose greed seeps into every fiber of his being as he passionately fucks you into his mattress.

-> You don't miss the way he chants 'Mine' over and over like a prayer as he roughly thrusts into you - the way his rings dig into your flesh as he holds you too tightly through your shared orgasms, silently vowing to never let you go.

-> He pours greed into your pact in order to hear you beg for him - your own avarice causing you to cock warm him even after you've both fallen asleep, so full of his sin you can't stand the thought of separating.

-> Sometimes he's so needy for you that he can't wait until the two of you get home - he'll pull you into a storage closet or an empty classroom and start having his way with you - he doesn't even care if someone hears the two of you, in fact he almost wishes they would. Knowing he's the only one that can have you this way makes him want to pound you against the wall that much harder.

♡ Yandere Mammon, who will stop at nothing to keep you forever.

"Ya don't know just how much ya mean to me, treasure. I'm never lettin' ya go."

· demonvibez ♡ 2023 · do not copy, repost or modify · · likes, comments and reblogs are deeply appreciated! ♡ ·

[yumeka-sxf]

It's been a few months since my last merch haul post, so time for another one! As usual, acrylic stands are my main purchases, with the below set being one of the rarest I've found 💖

The reason these are so rare is because I couldn't get them from my usual places on Amiami and Mercari JP. They're from a company called Ultrizon and are currently only sold in China. I saw them advertised on Twitter from a shop in Thailand and decided to reach out on the off chance that the shop would ship to the US. And much to my pleasant surprise, the shop, Chibishiba, replied and said that they would ship to me 😃 I was a bit concerned because they seemed to be just a small "mom and pop" shop, with only Twitter DMs as their form of communication and they kept track of everyone's orders in a google sheet. But I looked around on their social media and they seemed legit, so I placed an order (a few other fanatics I know on Discord did as well!) And thankfully, they were totally legit! They ordered the items from China, then once they shipped to Thailand, they then shipped to me in the US! Only took a few weeks 😁

Here's some more photos because they're so lovely~ For some reason the two Twiyor sets make me think of a scenario where they're going to a dance or other fancy event together (the left ones), but then something happens and they have to switch to "action mode" to stop a villain, save Anya, etc (the right ones).

Bond looks so adorable in his suit~ Also the one of Anya on the left is her totally thinking "Papa and Mama are so cool 🤩"

Even though I typically only buy merch with the Forgers, Yuri, Damian, and Franky were also part of this set. Lol, when I made the below photo of the three of them, I laughed because it looks like they're posing for a photo, with only Damian having fun…Yuri's like "whatever" and Franky's like "how long will this take, I have a date!" 😂

Besides the Ultrizon acrylics, the other ones I was most looking forward to getting were these chibi ones from the cruise arc (two different sets)

Between all of these, I now have acrylics of the Forgers' full wardrobe from the cruise arc 😅 My favorites are suit Yor, "I won't stop fighting" Yor, and Fun Dad Loid!

I really liked these Twiyor acrylics from the recent Tsukuba collab. It's like they're going on a hiking date ❤️

I also got these chibi "famous scene" acrylics from the Waku Waku Park event.

I've been trying so hard to get the complete set of these big acrylics for a few months now...I managed to find Loid and Anya, but no one is selling Yor 😭 (or Bond). I won't stop looking though!

As for non-acrylic figures, I've been looking forward to getting this Yor & Anya figure for over a year! It was actually one of the first SxF items I preordered, way back in November of 2022! Considering they had the colored prototype available way back then, I'm surprised it wasn't officially released until March of 2024. But worth the wait ❤️

For Code White's release, I got the set of Luminasta figures (all three for a good price on eBay).

Also chibi Loid & Yor~ I know there's a ton of chibi Loid and Yor figures out there, but I really liked these for some reason.

Last month I went back to Kura Sushi for the last merch from their recent collab: this nice shirt~ You were able to get it if your bill was at least $70, which isn't hard to do if you bring a friend with you and you both eat a bunch of sushi! (well, he did most of the eating, lol). I'm planning to wear it for the first time at Anime Expo in July 😁

They also had this little Anya dessert.

And miscellaneous items I recently got were these pretty picture cards that I plan to make scans of.

The McDonald's collab booklet, the season 2 complete set box, and the Loid & Anya cloth poster that came with the box. I also plan to make scans of these!

A mug from the Tobu Zoo collab.

And lastly, some new decals for my car! I found this set at Walmart of all places, lol. Found room for them among my other decals.

Since I bought so many new acrylics and figures lately, I had to do a major reorganization of my display shelves. But I'll save those photos for another post~

[raguiras]

Meet my Yumeship

Yay, the second part of my official Allen x Deuce ship introduction is here! (FIRST PART)

Reblogs are super appreciated teehee

The ship's blog (daily facts, rambles & more est. May 2024): @spade-of-storms

Explanation of the chart & the first part of the relationship timeline below the cut!

I've also been cooking something else up for the past few days, so please look forward to it!

The reason why Allen and Deuce's behaviour towards each other is so different in comparison to how they act with other people is actually quite simple.

These two have a ridiculous amount of kinship. Their experiences, wishes for the future, worries, opinions and morals are essentially the same despite being different, which allows Allen and Deuce to have an absolutely blind understanding and extremely easy communication with each other. Additionally, their experiences are reversed (former honor student with great self-control who's now a lowkey delinquent & former delinquent with little self-control aspiring to be a model student), which adds to them being able to efficiently help and understand each other entirely on a very deep, personal level.

Deuce is able to open up A LOT more to Allen than to anyone else due to their special intimacy. While everyone knows Deuce as a hardworking guy with regrets who wants to better himself, Allen has access to much deeper feelings because of how much Deuce trusts and relates to him. This not only sets Allen (who is my Yuu) apart from the canon Yuu, but also explains why the relationship timeline below talks about Deuce's feelings and struggles on a much more intense level than the game does.

But how did they reach this point? And how did their relationship get so intense? Here's a little bit of a relationship timeline!

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PROLOGUE

Allen and Deuce met on their first day of school when Allen was chasing Ace. For Deuce, it was pretty much love at first sight and he immediately knew he'd love to get to know this mysterious, mildly intimidating boy — Allen radiated an aura of intelligence, confidence, extreme toughness, ethereal beauty and utter determination. Deuce was pretty much just staring at him like "...woah".

Allen displayed a lot of these very characteristics (+ maturity) during the prologue and Deuce was already admiring him a ton. This guy really had all the attributes that made Deuce nervous around someone, huh...?

Due to Deuce's extreme determination to not get expelled, Allen immediately sensed that something was off. Teens (including Allen himself) weren't usually this keen on going to school... And Deuce, too, had his suspicions about Allen due to how this mature, composed and witty boy dressed like a rebel.

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BOOK 1

When Deuce first displayed his delinquent characteristics, Allen not only comforted him, but also opened up about his own tendencies and the fact that he used to be a model student before he became a lowkey delinquent himself. Deuce was a bit impressed that Allen was just like him in a way, so his kinship towards him immediately grew. However, the second Allen offered to help him with his impulse control and talk more about these topics, it was absolutely OVER for Deuce — not only was Allen pretty and smart, but also similar to him and willing to give him a safe space despite barely knowing him.

For Allen, this was a fairly unusual gesture as well. He's often apathetic and doesn't usually offer to help people nor relates to others. However, seeing that Deuce struggled with the exact same thing as him in a different way, Allen didn't even have to think about it and immediately knew that he wouldn't regret talking more to a rare person with similar experiences and thoughts. Maybe they could help each other in a way...?

Shortly after these events, they already started talking about their experiences together. However, it was mostly Allen asking questions about Deuce first, trying to keep his own past in wraps. Deuce's past and his regrets felt familiar to Allen, and he admired Deuce's aspirations to become a model student. He did, however, sense that something was off.

As they hung out more during Book 1, Allen's secret suspicion that Deuce tried too hard to be someone he naturally wasn't slowly confirmed itself already. Deuce expressed a dislike towards hard topics from class and struggled heavily with his homework, yet kept saying that he had to do well. What came off as someone being ambitious and working hard to others was the beginning of self-destruction in the eyes of burnt-out former honor student Allen, and he decided to keep an eye on Deuce. Additionally, Allen offered to tutor him, which Deuce excitedly accepted.

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BOOK 2

Between Book 1 and Book 2, Allen's brain decided to randomly let him relive the pain he had experienced as a bullying victim back in his world in great detail. That exact night, Deuce came to Ramshackle after a fight with Ace, wanting to ask Allen if he could stay over. This was when a violently crying Allen opened the door... and Deuce's suspicion that something was wrong with Allen was confirmed, too. When Deuce asked him about what had happened, Allen decided to finally open up about his past — after all, the other boy had done the same — and it only made Deuce's feelings grow. Allen assumed that he was being perceived as weak for crying, but to Deuce, it only made him even stronger. Enduring all that unjustified hatred and still carrying on with confidence... it was nothing short of admirable to Deuce. Additionally, he felt both saddened and incredibly angered hearing how Allen was severely bullied and almost driven over the edge because of something he couldn't control. This boy was so beautiful and special... why did he have to suffer? Was he doing better these days...? That night, Deuce made a silent promise to himself that he'd protect Allen.

The two kept spending lots of time with each other, talking and developing more and more trust with every sentence. They were so similar... two delinquents perceived as scary who both wanted to prove others wrong, be admired, craved meaningful relationships, hated bullies, had experiences with anger issues, wanted justice to prevail, and struggled with school in some way... and this wasn't even everything yet. Additionally, Allen started showing Deuce some effective ways of handling impulsiveness that worked on himself, too, and Deuce was intrigued. The two also didn't hesitate to rant together, which allowed both of them to let off steam and be angry in a safe environment while being fully understood by the person in front of them.

Allen also helped Deuce with his studies more often. However, Deuce sometimes kindly declined his offers and simply asked Allen to supervise him instead, wanting to learn and study by himself in order to prove himself that he could indeed achieve better grades through his own effort. Allen silently watched out for Deuce not pushing himself too hard because he could sense that what looked like hard work on the outside was tied to something much deeper on the inside...

When Deuce walked in on an annoyed Allen one day, he found out that the blonde boy had "messed up" a drawing and blamed himself for not being a good artist. Deuce comforted him and thought that Allen's art was genuinely amazing, but what the boy said next shattered Deuce's heart. "I don't care if I'm good... apparently I can only be someone if I'm the best at something. And I'm far from being best at anything. I'm doomed to be a nobody, I guess." Never in a thousand years did Deuce expect the current Allen — the seemingly perfect, confident, calm, tough and effortlessly beautiful Allen who often had a sly smirk on his face — to think about himself like this. After asking if this was the only thing Allen felt insecure about, the boy decided to open up further and tell Deuce how he also despised his own appearance. The blue-haired boy was genuinely shocked because to him, Allen was the most beautiful person he had ever seen, and he couldn't care less about Allen's rather unique body either. How could he show Allen that he was actually stunning...?

In return, Deuce also opened up about his own insecurities to Allen on a deep level — something he had never done before out of fear of being made fun of. While the Ramshackle student wasn't surprised, it still hurt him to hear just how lowly Deuce thought he was... What sounded like a motivated "I don't have a lot going for me, but I'm doing my best!" to everyone else had always been a "It hurts to have nothing other than negative traits going for me and I hate myself for the fact that I don't improve at anything no matter how hard I work" in Allen's eyes, and here was the direct confirmation. If only Deuce could see that all those 'negative' traits he had were actually admirable and useful...

The two ended up having an extremely heartfelt talk that mostly consisted of them showering each other in genuine compliments and admiration. Deuce had never been able to see the things he hated about himself in such a positive light... and his heart was yet again beating like crazy.

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BOOK 3

When finding out that Deuce had made a contract in order to get better grades, Allen got even more concerned due to the boy's desperation and decided to finally have a heart-to-heart talk with him about how hard he was pushing himself. Allen knew that being a model student was a role Deuce was forcing himself into too hard and that it was prone to go wrong, especially considering how Deuce's natural self was quite different from it. Since part of Allen's trauma stemmed from being an honor student himself, overworking himself a ton, and having to deal with a ridiculous amount of highly unrealistic expectations and passion, he didn't want the same to happen to his friend — but if Deuce neglected himself and paid attention to nothing but his honor student persona, it was prone to happen one day. Allen told Deuce that there was no shame in accepting help, and the Heartslabyul student eventually saw that relying on himself only wouldn't help with improving his grades. As a result, Deuce started accepting Allen's offers to assist him fully, and Allen immediately came up with some original study methods and mnemonic bridges tailored specifically for Deuce. Additionally, Allen wasted no opportunity to tell Deuce yet again that he didn't have to change the core of his being in order to become the person he aspired to be, and that Deuce's "negative traits" were actually helpful assets.

Whenever Deuce wasn't busy at the Mostro Lounge, they would study together. Allen made sure that it was enjoyable and fun for the already stressed Deuce and paid great attention to his wellbeing. Every time Deuce was about to fall back into his old behaviours due to the stress and feeling of betrayal stemming from the entire Octavinelle situation, Allen reminded him of the impulse control methods or introduced Deuce to new ones. At other times, they would find a secluded place where Deuce could safely let off steam... Slowly but surely, the Heartslabyul freshman was able to get his anger under control.

The second it was obvious that Allen needed a new temporary residence, Deuce immediately knew that he wanted to share a bed with him. He accidentally mentioned this thought to Ace, who then teased Deuce about a possible crush on Allen. Deuce obviously denied everything and said that Allen was merely his best friend, but deep down, he knew that Ace was completely right. When Ace later suggested that Allen shared a bed with either him or Deuce and Allen denied in order to stay at Savanaclaw, Deuce's heart ached a little and he simply laughed it off.

By now, Deuce and Allen were much more touchy, too. Allen usually hated it when people touched him, but Deuce was an exception due to how close him and Allen already were at this point. And every time Allen touched Deuce, a firework went off within the Heartslabyul student's heart...

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BOOK 4

Allen didn't understand why he was suddenly feeling empty at the knowledge that Deuce left for home during the holidays. He was merely a friend, right? Why did his two-week departure sadden Allen...?

The second Deuce read Allen's SOS message, he immediately packed his things and stormed off. He would've done the same for other friends, but certainly not reacted this impulsively... and knowing that Allen was in a tricky situation literally freaked him out. When his mom asked Deuce why he was leaving for school in the middle of the holidays, the teenager explained everything to her... and finally admitted that he loved Allen. Dylla was the first person to know about Deuce's massive crush and immediately pulled him into a hug.

Deuce was extremely fidgety and nervous during the entire travel back to NRC and Ace couldn't miss it. When he said that "Allen was merely in a difficult situation, you should chill", Deuce verbally lashed out at him and went on about how great Allen was. Ace then brought up his suspicion that Deuce liked Allen as more than a friend again, and Deuce simply replied with "So what if I do?!" this time. Needless to say, the rest of the ride was packed full of teasing and jokes at Deuce's cost...

The minute Allen and Deuce reunited, they shared a lung-crushing hug and felt their hearts race like crazy. Deuce was incredibly happy to see that Allen was doing okay, and Allen suddenly felt much happier...

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That's it for now! The happenings from Book 5-7 and everything after that up until they finally start dating are going to covered in my next Allen x Deuce post. I hope you liked it! ♠️🌪

If you have any questions about the ship or want to draw them, please do not hesitate!

[bbyseok]

at first sight? — GOJO SATORU [TEASER]

pairing: gojo satoru x gn!reader

word count: TBA (looking to be around 5k-ish??)

RELEASE DATE: NOW POSTED

content: soulmate au, gender neutral reader, minimal use of they/them pronouns for reader, but gender is not specified, sorcerer reader, fluff, angst with a happy ending, brief swearing/explicit language, implied satosugu as past soulmates: can be interpreted as either romantic or platonic, fic takes place after jjk 0 but before the show starts

analysis: this is a world filled not only with curses, but soulmates too—in which you know someone is your soulmate when you first make eye contact with them. but for your case, things can get a bit complicated when someone is wearing a blindfold.

here, in this universe, you can tell that someone is your soulmate by simply looking at them. so with that, the saying of “love at first sight” is actually pretty accurate here. you see them for the very first time and barely know the person and yet, somehow, they’re the one you’re destined to be with.

with that, you’d think it’d be pretty common for two random people to run into each other while crossing the street or something and bam! suddenly you’ve found the supposed love of your life!

and you? well, for you, that hasn’t happened yet.

to be fair, it’s not like you’re actively trying to look for your soulmate. handling curses as a jujutsu sorcerer is difficult enough. (maybe you’ll run into them one day after saving them from a curse or something. how romantic.)

it’s better to leave it up to fate. it’s fate who decided your pairing anyway, right?

your transfer to jujutsu tech had been fairly smooth. after being stationed in kyoto for a while, tokyo was a nice change of pace.

coincidentally, you had been out of the country during the incident known as the night parade of a thousand demons. a scary event that proved the threat of curse users to be formidable.

because of that, your decision to transfer to tokyo seemed like the right thing to do. and so far, it’s been decent.

it’s a nice change of scenery. the students are aspiring; while maki and megumi aren’t the friendliest, they’re warming up to you. toge and panda are gradually improving.

nanami’s pessimistic outlook on jujutsu society and shoko’s overall unenthusiastic demeanor are certainly interesting for the most part, but your coworkers are pleasant to be around.

well. except for one.

꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎

gojo satoru knows that you are his soulmate. he has indeed known this fact right from the very start, ever since your first meeting.

even with his blindfold on, he could see your own eyes before him. his six eyes can see everything. the thing is.. he didn’t know he could have another soulmate.

his situation with geto suguru is something he doesn’t talk about with anyone. maybe shoko at times, but even then, it’s rare. it’s not that he doesn’t want to, but it’s pretty hard to talk about.

after suguru defected, gojo could still obviously feel their bond. even though they were no longer together as the strongest duo, did it really matter when their souls were still connected to one another? it was a factor that played in avoiding (and perhaps meeting up with) each other as the years went by.

satoru felt their bond die that day after the events with okkotsu and rika. and it had frightened him. that lingering presence of the bond was no longer there.

so imagine his surprise when he sees you.

a new sorcerer in kyoto, now transferred to tokyo. normally, gojo doesn’t seek out the new recruits, but yaga had dragged him over regardless. besides, he might as well get to know his possible assistant teacher that would be helping him out with the new first years.

“i guess i can check out some new faces,” he relented with a sigh, adjusting his blindfold and looking to the side as yaga’s steps slowed as they approached you.

gojo rolled his eyes–not that you’d see it anyway–as yaga introduced you with your name and your sorcerer grade. he stopped to stand next to the principal.

you extended your hand to offer a handshake, and gojo finally turned his head.

that feeling as his gaze fell upon yours beneath the blindfold was familiar—frighteningly so—and unfamiliar at the same time. as if he could breathe for the first time in ages. your eyes are unaware, but they’re so revealing to him.

satoru stuttered in his movements, reluctantly taking your hand. the skin that touched yours felt like it was on fire. he briefly held on to see if you felt it too.

but you simply smiled up at him.

“it’s nice to meet you, gojo,” you said, blissfully unaware of the revelation currently dawning on the man before you and the turmoil it brought as he abruptly retracted his arm back.

gojo stiffened. he merely offered a curt nod before turning on heel and walking away briskly. he could faintly hear yaga protest about his sudden departure before apologizing to you hastily. satoru shook his head.

how was this be possible? how could the universe give him two soulmates? he didn’t even know that was a thing that could happen. he wondered if there had been a similar occurrence before.

gojo couldn’t help but feel nauseous. was this the world playing some sort of sick, cruel joke on him? or was it perhaps giving him a second chance?

and truthfully, it wasn’t like gojo even wanted another soulmate. not after what he had been through with suguru. he hadn’t given it much thought.

was it really worth it?

what if he couldn’t protect you too?

so satoru had decided on one thing that day. the blindfold stays on. concealing his eyes from the world not only for him, but for your sake too. he was certain in his choice; he would never tell you the truth.

as far as you were concerned, you haven’t met your soulmate yet.

and never will.

[END OF TEASER]

a/n: hi ! thanks for reading the teaser !! this is my first jjk/gojo fic so im excited to post it soon. im thinking about adding a tag list since a few people were suggesting it, so feel free comment if you want to be included <33

[taniahylian]

Who is Bessmert

So, I bet all of us have wondered, since the "Notes on Shouri" event trrailer was announced, who exactly is Bessmert. After all, being an important character, but not playable, and with a very mysterious past and abilities, Bessmert is quite intriguing indeed. And now I'm gonna tell you who I think she is.

Fair warning though, this is a bit long, but I promise it's worth the read, so please stick with me until the end!

Let's start with the most basic evidence: Her appearence. She's tall, has grey hair, dresses in a typical exlorer garment with a big black coat over it, and has her eyes covered with a white cloth. But, most importantly, she looks quite similar to Vertin, and that's just where the similarities start.

Their accents are pretty much the same, as well as the calm way in which they talk most of the time, and they are very smooth talkers; able to convince people of almost anything.

Bessmert's team seems to be aware of this as well, since Krolik even requests she doesn't speak before they vote about going back, no doubt fearing she'll convince them to keep going.

Later on we also see her use this ability to convince Getian to help them solve the Lushu situation instead of running away, similar to what Vertin has done with Druvis and Jessica, for example.

Now, aside from this almost supernatural manner of speach, Bessmert is also similar to Vertin when it comes to her arcane abilities; she also doesn't fight directly, but is able to sense arcanum in various ocassions, something we've only seen Vertin do in canon, and that other characters have remarked how rare of an ability it is.

However, unlike Vertin, she can sense even more than just arcane skills, like nature-related phenomena, the environment around her, and even the intent behind other people's actions. To the point that she's able to walk around freely without having her sight.

I believe this might be because Bessmert is an adult, more experienced arcanist, but also because her blindness might amplify her abilities, since she uses it to make up for her lack of sight.

Although of course here there's the issue if she's even an arcanist at all... or perhaps something else entirely.

Getian tells her, as they are waiting for the miracle of "Ask and acquire", that the pattern he saw in her bones is unlike anything he's ever seen and, therefore, he can't read them. He also said tit unnerved him to the point of wanting to run away. This makes me think that Bessmert might be especial in some way, perhaps in the same way Vertin is; being immune to the storm, and there is evidence for this, surprisingly.

First of all; most of the places we know about that are a "safe zone" to the storm have one common feature; a fog or something that makes people hallucinate, get exited and/or pass out. These features are all present in Vertin's suitcase, the Uluru stadium and the Aperion cave. Not only that, but we can assume the agent responsible for this effect is Asymetric Nucleide R, a compound that is also found on the Manus masks and on the storm raindrops.

Why is this relevent to Bessmert? Well, it seems like Pei City is actually surrounded by the same kind of fog as that in Aperion and Vertin's suitcase, and the origin of it is the temple where people used to go for the Divination.

Now, Bessmert acts surprised when hearing this explanations from Jiu, and we can especulate that it's because she has been to one of such places before, but regardless, we know she and her team encountered such fog before arriving to Pei City.

After following the direction Yenisei's skill tells them has the strongest arcane energy in the area, they arrive to a place where everything suddenly changes; it's different, odd, surrounded by a weird fog and, most importantly, makes them very tired to the point of almost passing out.

However, Bessmert remains unaffected by it all. She especulates it might be because she's used to high altitudes, but they're going downhill, so I doubt that's the case. Plus, even when we see Yenisei's vision getting cloudy and that she almost can't go on anymore, Bessmert remains compleatly unaffected.

This is all reminiscent of Vertin being compleatly unaffected in the suitcase's spinning wheel area, the Aperion cave and the Uluru Stadium, while others pass out pretty quickly, and it leads me to think that Bessmert, very likely, is also immune to the storm.

And there's one last piece of evidence here: Bessmert's name, which in Russian means "Without Death" or "Immortal", and likely has something to do with her ability to survive even the ends of multiple eras. Although I also think this isn't her real name for two reasons: firstly it'd be far too convinient, and also she's very likely not Russian, but Britlish. Why? Because every other Russian character has a Russian accent, while Bessmert's accent is distinctively British.

So what does all this evidence point towards? I think we all know the answer, right? Bessmert is, very likely, Vertin's mother, or at the very least related to Vertin in some way. But considering Vertin is searching for her mother since the beginning of the prologue, and all we know about that woman is that she's "special" (Constantine's words) and the Foundation tried to cover up her existance, this mysterious woman with a lot of characteristics similar to Vertin's seems like the prime candidate.

But that's not all. I'm about to tell u some other theories about who Bessmert is that, although might not be as impressive as being Vertin's mom, are also interesting.

First: She's Urd. Yes, the explorer that went to Aperion and then wrote a travel note about it. First of all because it really seems something that Bessmert would do; travel to a remote island in search of a mysterious cave that grants answers (like Ask and Acquire). But also because Urd is very likely a pseudonym, since Urd is a type of *bean* from Asia.

And finally... Notes on Shouri isn't Bessmert's debut on the R1999 events. In fact, she appeared at the start of the very first event; The theft of the rimet cup.

In case you need a refresher, the event starts up with the newspaper boy trying to sell a newspaper to a "lady in black", who then turns around and the boy notices she's blind.

At this point, the lady asks him to read the news for her, promising to pay for it, which he obliges. Now, we never see her face, but we hear her voice, and it's eerily similar to Bessmert's.

Not only that, but that same voice finishes up the event, apparently dictating an article about the events we see unfold thoughout the story for the UTTU magazine.

Now, of course Pandora Wilson is the main editor of UTTU, but I wouldn't be surprised if Bessmert sometimes wrote articles for it as well, since she's so knowledgable about arcanists, and has traveled all over the world.

So yeah, I believe Bessmert is this mysterious voice in the rimet cup event as well.

But what do you think? Am I overthinking about this one npc way too much? XD. Let me know in the comments!