#it's a two way street and I'm part of the problem

[storiumemporium]

Terminal

Chapter 3 - Past is Present

| Word Count: 17.1k | Bob Reynolds x Fem!Reader | Chapter Tags: Slight Cliffhanger, Mild Panic Attacks, Trauma Talk, Fluff, Disgusting Amounts Of Cute Shit, New Nicknames, that's all I can think of for now folks |

You've made your very first friend in the entire world, and what that entails. Progress on Enmis is made, but not in the ways you'd like.

WHEN I TELL YOU THIS TOOK SO LONG TO WRITE BUT I'M SO HAPPY WITH IT, enjoy some very very cute shit between Bob and the reader 😌

You take a deep breath in, and stagnancy finds home in your lungs.

Dust, mildew. The air has crossed from humid to nearly wet even in the arid season. Tight clinging, almost physical in a way that made you anxious. That sensation of not being able to get enough, no matter how much you gulped down. It didn’t help that the four walls you sit in are as as small as your exposure to the world.

Around you, above you, a mountain of clothes and shoes. The constant stimuli of it against every inch of your body had once been deeply claustrophobic, to the point you’d cry out of frustration. Now it’s something of a comfort, insulated from anything that goes on beyond the door you face.

This peace, however, is interrupted by the culprit of the cling and the almost-stench that permeates from above. The house you live in - two story and hugging the water - is bordering on archaic, and at some point in the past year a leak had sprung. Festering, pouring through the bubbling plaster of the ceiling until being popped with a pair of scissors by your perpetually dour mother. The consequent drip was tolerated, a bucket placed beneath it to prevent further damage. But with the slow creeping malignancy of cancer it’d found a new festering point to break forth from. Now it was dripping onto your head - mildew, mold - dampening your hair and a shirt reaching antiquity in it’s age.

You’re wondering if they’ve forgotten you. Again.

It wasn’t an abnormal condition to your life. Days whittling away in the darkness, shrunk into a corner and waiting for some sign of life to finally reach you. A sound, shadows moving in the gap of the door. You are devoid of information, and attempting to ignore the steady discomfort of the leak above you. The need to empty the pail of water is growing, but the need to eat strongest of all.

Acknowledging the hunger sets it to bloom like flies, your stomach rattling without reprieve and knocking at your insides with the persistence of a Jehovah’s Witness. The worst part being, the proselytization occurring beneath your ribs is actually true this time.

You can feel the deceptive bite of fatigue setting in.

And wasn’t that the thing, in the end? That the hungrier and thirstier you got, the smaller any other punishment became. Being caught extended the punishment, which then shrunk beneath the gaze of your desperate basic needs.

You don’t realize it now, not for many years. But they were doing this to you on purpose.

The world remains as quiet as a held breath, and the hunger will not abate you any reprieve. You know that you have to do something, the same dance you’ve done countless times at this point. And the first steps start like this: Your face presses into the coats and sweaters and rugs gathered festering beneath you, your available eye peering from the gap under the door to see what the outside world looks like. You’re met with the dark, only cut through by the single dim light above the kitchen sink. Pressing your forehead harder into the door to turn and look reveals the street lights outside, the trees swaying on a gentle breeze. But no signs of movement, a sentiment shared when you look at the glass door that leads to the back porch.

Not even the television flickers with the corpselike presence of your father. Meaning it was either late enough that she’d gotten him to head up to bed with her-

Or they weren’t home.

Your mother has a bit of an unresolved hoarding problem. Things gathered across the house in these designated little zones that your father had deemed ‘acceptable cluster areas.’ One of those spaces, ironically, was here. The closet that you’d found yourself in countless times before. The entire cubby is overwhelmed with evidence of her penchant to take without letting go, absolutely drowning in shoes as it is. There are racks reaching up to where the coats hang, filled to the brim with pairs on pairs of loafers, sneakers, heels, boots, slippers, and the like. But even that wasn’t enough, and they spill down into an expensive waterfall all across the floor and cloistered into the corners. Too many for organization anymore, and yet remain untouched and unwilling to be parted with. It’s a graveyard of vanity. And even where the last bit of floor space remained, it’d been overtaken by coats, sweaters, jackets, and rugs.

The upside to this misfortune is that it made hiding things incredibly easy.

In the far back, sectioned away inside of a pair of boots she’d bought and then wrinkled her nose at no more than a week later. Down in the toe, easy enough for you to collect. A card and a bobby pin, already folded up and shaped for necessary use. You didn’t need to break the lock to get out. It wasn’t a very good one, repurposed from one of the other doors in the house. Which meant that if you jimmied the lock just far enough, you could slip the stolen credit card into the gap and force the door to unlatch.

It used to take you quite some time, you get it on the second shot.

The world is so very quiet right now. No birds, no cars. There’s the steady hum of dark hour insects, the breeze dragging fingers over the roof of the house. And yet stepping out into the quaint kitchen feels akin to walking the jungle at night. You feel unsafe. Watched and threatened by your trespass into the world. It’s without fail the most harrowing part of your journey. And with practiced spite you take your first few, cautious steps forward. Food calls ravenously from the posy pink fridge. Crooning in a tirade that threatens your sanity. But you know better, the world needs to be safe before food can be a thought. So, even with your stomach clenching in protest, you turn for the front door.

Nothing sits in the driveway, and you know that you are free.

Presented with as many options as your unknown time limit provides, you head first for the dingy yellow bathroom closest to the kitchen. It’s small, clean enough, and allows you to quell your protesting bladder. Your reflection is an unfortunate passerby on the way, and it reminds you of what you’ve become. Hair turned into greasy locks rather than individual strands, skin stretched across your body rather than laid upon it. Your teeth…

You brush your teeth the moment you finish relieving yourself.

They’ve yellowed - but that’s to be expected - and hit the stage where your gums are tender and sore as the bristles pass over them. That sort of feel good ache where you’re scratching something you probably shouldn’t be. It’s as upsetting as it is relieving, finally getting to clean them even as you wonder how bad off they are. When you spit into the sink, it comes away red.

Food follows this, any deliberation decided ages ago by trial and error. The quickest most satiating thing that makes little to no mess and can be kept in the closet with you with minimal issue. By that metric, you end up making eight PB&J’s to hold you over. The first four are eaten - until your stomach hurts and you’re queasy and ready to be sick - and the latter four are put in cling wrap to take with, all of it washed down on a colossal cup of orange juice. It doesn’t taste good, mind. It stings painfully at your teeth and has been painted in all sorts of wrong angles by the toothpaste you’d nearly flooded your mouth with earlier. In spite of this, you don’t even blink at it. Going and going until you’re truly certain you’ll be sick if you take even a sip more. You need your fill as quickly as possible, paranoid that you decided to leave your cell right as the wardens would be returning from wherever they went. It was always like this, and you didn’t know that you’d ever be able to stop.

Jelly smeared at the corner of your mouth, breathing heavy, flexing your hands and rubbing at the knuckles of your thumbs, you contemplate your next move. These things had an order in your mind, a necessity barometer that dictated to you the acceptability of failing that task. That’s why - instead of simply moving along with whatever you desired to do, you stood in the bathroom with a stack of ratty old clothes in your arms, contemplating your way into a true anxious paralysis. Do you have the time? Can you shower? Can you finally feel clean after ages otherwise?

You’d gotten the most of it out of the way, your bladder is empty and stomach full. You’d brushed your teeth. You’d empty the bucket right before you crawled back into your nest to wait out the remainder of your trial. Bathing would be nice, but beyond the itch and the ever present fine coat of grime you know you can last longer. You’d done it before.

Still, the greed of opportunity was licking at your ankles, beckoning you into reckless decision-making and a lack of time management. You wanted so badly to feel clean and maintained, and the offer was staring at you. You just had to turn the knob.

Your feet wiggle against the tile, stained by the ceiling light. You could have your shower, you just needed to put the clothes down and step into the tub. That’s it, all you had to do.

It feels like you’re stealing something precious, the moment you do.

The shower runs scalding, hot enough to sear like you were trying to burn off months of filth- maybe like you were trying to punish yourself for taking more than you absolutely needed to survive. You barely stay in long enough to lather and rinse yourself, drop the bar three times out of sheer nervous shakes, and aggressively wash your hair root to tip with shampoo. Conditioner is seriously considered being abandoned, but in the end that little whispering gluttony pushes you- just a little bit further, that’s all you needed.

In the end, no one finds you. The bathroom door isn’t beaten down, you aren’t hauled humiliated and naked back to your boot-laden cell. You wash, and you dry off, and you dress in fresh clothes. You feel clean. And when ever necessity is done, the urge to be out of the room doesn’t leave.

You stand at the center of the living room, paralyzed once more for all the options you’ve been handed, and wonder at what to do.

So, you just start picking at random.

Your father has an old record player, and a bunch of vinyls in a case sitting just beside it. It’s easy enough to peruse, to put something on that croons softly throughout the first floor of the house. You don’t eat more, though you’d like to - you fear the punishment that would come. You look at books, read a few lines before growing bored. You consider turning on the television and that inspires are sort of primitive fear in you that immediately rejects the notion. No movies, then.

You indulge in something mildly voyeuristic. Something that feels prohibited, utterly banned from your life.

You step out onto the front porch.

You don’t go further, and you take a pair of slippers with you. But you find yourself perched on the rickety old railing that lines the front of your home. With the door still open, the soft music of the record player still reaches you in whispers and hums. It’s joined in a comfortable companionship with the sound of distant water, and the rustle of the wind that makes your whole body shiver. Not with cold, but with stimulus. Your hair moves, fresh and light from being washed, and your eyes fall shut to the feeling of warmth in the dark. Summer hugging you lovingly, buying you a beautiful moment before you return to the same four walls. The same clothes. The deafening silence.

You know this will come to an end. It always does. But for a little bit, just a little bit, you get to pretend it lasts forever.

“No, no. I’m telling you— I’m serious, listen-” Bob is laughing. His voice crescendos across his own, wobbling giggles in a desperate war of attrition to get his point out over your own loud protests. You two have been going on like this for the past ten minutes, a cozy conversation that suddenly went awry in the best way possible the moment childhood media got involved. It turned out, you two were mortal enemies, even in the media you shared.

This is the third time you two have done this, and you feel a little strange.

“There’s no way in hell I am letting you - Bob - you aren’t telling me anything other than Silence in the Library is the best Doctor Who episode-”

“But Blink—!”

“I don’t - give - a damn about- about the Weeping Angels, Bob!”

And then you inhale, more like a desperate gasp for oxygen that rips through you loudly.

Followed by a snort.

The entire conversation ground to an abrupt halt. Bob’s gaze boring into the camera through which you watch him. And then, soft with near disbelief: “Did you just… make that noise?”

“…Shut up.”

It wasn’t the bad kind of strange, but it was a feeling you found yourself fundamentally unable to place the exact name of. A sort of squirrely warmth that made you want to hide, and yet the idea of not doing this every chance you got made you very, very crushingly sad. Bob was strange, but it was a flavor you’d had a thousand times- usually being the one carrying the label. Maybe it was why you got excited by the prospect of interacting with him, these brief interludes before returning to your fundamentally separate lives.

Against all irrationality you end up planting your face into your hands as if you could hide from him out of embarrassment, this deep seated urge to vanish from reality cropping up that only blooms more when - subsequently - Bob’s brows find his hairline and he only giggles harder.

“You- you snort when you laugh?”

“I said shut up,” though you put more force into it, you sound like a whiny teenager. And not entirely unintentionally. The way his shoulders had pulled up, smile so broad and unabashed wasn’t something you wanted to take away with a missed tone.

Even if it was killing you a little bit.

The second time you interacted hadn’t been quite so rambunctious as this. Rather, the conversation had comprised of long moments of silence interwoven with gentle small talk. Like you were reaching out for the first, probing touches of each other’s personalities. It was easy to fuck this part up, you knew. Even before you’d dashed everything with the others, you’d known.

“What other- uh- weird noises do you make?” Bob has turned now so that he’s sitting with his legs pretzeled, his hands in his lap as he stares earnestly into the camera that makes up your eyes. He’s slouched back down a bit since the moment passed, but he looks comfortable rather than reticent or somehow unsure. His head tilted, and you know that he’s just fishing for more bait to tease you with. You had learned, rather rapidly, that Bob could be lippy when he felt relaxed.

There’s a second where you contemplate sincerely running down the list of noises you habitually make throughout your life, or even the noises they make that you’ve passively grown used to over the many years they’ve been with you. But in the end, you go for something else-

“Well you see, there’s- there’s this thing…” you find yourself pausing for dramatic effect, your heart hammering with the excitement of getting to execute a joke.

“Yeah?”

And then, voice quivering with the inability to contain yourself, “There’s this string in my back, and for some reason when people pull it I just spout all these weird sentences?”

There’s a beat, anticipation.

“So you’re telling me if I tug on you, you start babbling?”

You think you might actually hear your mind slam directly into the gutter, a steel pipe on concrete. You know that gurgling noise when water goes down the drain? The remainder of your thoughts, arguably even the capacity to have a thought, washing away forever.

Bob, for what it was worth, appeared to be sharing the sentiment. The stages of grief were flying by on his face with the aggression of a bullet through silk.

And then, chaos.

“Oh… my god—”

“I’m- I’m sorry I didn’t even think-” his hands held out in front of him, as he stammers frantically through an excuse or explanation he just doesn’t have.

“Did that just come out of your mouth!?”

“I’m sorry, the joke was just right there and I didn’t even consider how it sounded-”

“You want to get on me about snorting-”

“I thought that was just funny-!”

“Robert Reynolds!” You finally declare, exasperated and grinning ear to ear. Too caught up in the absurdity of the situation to really care how embarrassing your joke might have truly been. “You dirty man.”

You watch him through the screen as you squirm about, entertained to the point that you can only get all of the energy out by wringing your hands and swaying back and forth. Otherwise you might start personally introducing him to all the other weird noises you can make without thinking.

“Did you expect anything else?” He finally settles on, and you can see the red all across his neck and face. One of his hands coming up to firmly clap his face as if he could will the warmth gone. “I didn’t end up here because I was a saint, you know?”

“Still,” you say, a little breathless. You watch Bob make twist his face subtly when he hears the amusement still hasn’t fled you entirely. “I don’t know, the way the others talk about you. I didn’t know you had that in you.”

“It’s hard not to when you keep saying things like that.”

“Like what?”

“That I want to get on you?”

“That’s a completely normal sentence!”

“I don’t think that it is! And besides, you’ve got me thinking about it and now I can’t stop—”

“Thinking about it huh?”

“Okay, I’m jumping off the Tower.” Bob’s voice has turned into a baleful moan, his eyes squeezing painfully tight.

You snort again, Bob’s embarrassed smile only grows more, and both of you are tumbling back into fits of giggles all over again. It’s easy, it’s so easy it’s terrifying. You can feel your consciousness slip back into you, reminding you that you’re not normal and this is an incredibly rare fluke afforded to you by Bob’s disarming oddity. Earnest to a fault that entirely defuses your capacity to feel like you don’t belong.

It doesn’t take the wind out of your sails, no. But you descend into a comfortable quiet as the two of you ruminate on the next path in conversation.

“Hey,” Bob’s voice, sliding through the speakers. Soft, conversational. Something is on his mind.

“Yeah?”

“Why are you called that, by the way?” And he pauses, “If it’s not offensive to phrase that- …that sentence like that.”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘that’?”

“Oh- right, uh… Terminal? Why?”

Though he cannot see it - an unfair one-sidedness of the senses - a solemn little smile comes to your face. Head tipping to the side as you ponder the best way to explain a story that’s never particularly comfortable to broach. You don’t need to tell him everything, not yet at least. That would be for another time, if you were so privileged the chance.

“Do you know what a computer terminal is?”

“I guess? Well enough.”

“Yeah… It’s sort- sort of a play on words? I wasn’t the one that came up with it. It just refers to the fact that I do the work that I do, and uh…

That I’m, y’know. I’m sort of a terminal case. No coming back from how bad off I am. So far in there’s no way out.” You laugh lightheartedly, even if the weight of the sentiment is heavy on your chest. Even if it pushes against your sternum like a big, cold hand.

Bob, however, doesn’t join you in laughing.

“What does that mean?” He sounds quietly incredulous, even. It’s a little… accusatory, in an odd way?

You don’t know why, but Bob is fixing the camera under his gaze unwaveringly. It’s uncomfortable, and you can perceive a very sudden shift in the atmosphere, the direction that the conversation is headed. It sends your anxiety creeping higher, anticipating some sort of confrontation with him, though you aren’t sure what you would have done to warrant it. Did you do something wrong? Again?

“I- I mean-” You take a shuddering breath, you’ve stopped swaying back and forth. The kinetic energy shifting from enthusiasm to nerves means that it is isolated into your leg, bouncing relentlessly as you try to explain in a way that won’t worsen the situation. “I- it’s just- just a funny name? I guess?

Like-” You know that you haven’t told Bob everything, who and what you are. The- none of it, really. And some part of you doesn’t want to. You like the way things are, and paranoia whispers that you might lose it if he knows. That he might change toward you. “I don’t know… I guess an, ‘abandon all hope ye who enter’ sort of thing? I mean, it’s not wrong, I’m… Not exactly the kind of person you put a vote of confidence in.”

“…Who gave you that name?”

His reply comes quickly enough that it nearly overlaps the petering, weak end of your own sentence. His voice is still soft, though you’ve not yet known it to be capable of true severity or force, instead there’s a seriousness that’s almost somber.

“…Valentina, some years ago. Why?”

“Because, it’s mean.”

It was such a simple response, and yet you will find yourself lingering on it days, even weeks later. Even your own response leaves a sour taste in your mouth, one that you see reflected in the subtle adjustment of posture from Bob.

“It’s okay… better that than my real name.”

Your attempt to assuage or deflect from his incredibly blunt opinion of your tag felt like you were scraping algae out of the bottom of a barrel with it’s weakness of efficacy, and you think maybe Bob did too.

“I know I’m… I’m not the best guy to be saying this to you but, uh- …if there’s anything the others taught me. That Yelena taught me.

You’re allowed to want more than just better.”

There’s a long moment where you just stare down at your soft, uncanny hued hands, then the desk. Your keyboard with it’s oil-worn keycaps, your slightly dusty microphone. The little gadgets that make your life so very comfortable in it’s isolation, well worn but well maintained. He doesn’t know, and that’s okay. It’s not his fault, it’s yours.

“…I don’t even know what I’d want that’s more than this, Bob.”

“Maybe… maybe take the time to figure it out? I’ll even brainstorm with you. Though- I can’t tell you that it’s going to be great coming from me... I don’t think the serum really unfried my brain from all the meth.”

Bob manages to squeak a little laugh out of you, and though you’re too self conscious to look at him, feeling watched even when he can’t see you, you notice the way his head droops to one side, as if happy to have lightened things a bit.

“Maybe I’ll take you up on that too, someday. If you don’t mind me being a little greedy.”

“Can’t say anything about that either. Larceny and robbery, remember?”

Amused grin, and a voice dipped soft and velvet. “How could I ever forget?”

You feel like a teenager sneaking around, grabbing alcohol to go to a party while your parents are asleep.

It’s strange, because it’s not like Bob and you aren’t adults. But there’s this feeling of a broach of conduct that grows stronger with each passing interaction, each stolen nighttime conversation. You’d relegated yourself to these specific, open areas of the Tower. You’d bound yourself to only show up when they were up and busy, afternoon interactions that teetered somewhere between completely professional and devastatingly awkward.

It wasn’t even that they were cruel to you, though they didn’t particularly like you. But the feeling of being the odd one out somehow managed to grow under the weight of the fact you could guarantee that none of the others realized just how much time Bob had begun to spend talking to you. It wasn’t like you were glued together, days and even weeks would pass without your long, late night conversations.

But still. So many instances of saying a soft goodnight to him after the others had left, seeing him give a lopsided grin and a returning call for good rest. It was something precious to you, and it happening without their knowledge made it feel precarious even in it’s total innocence. Maybe it’s because of one of the very first things Bob had ever told you, that they all had trust issues. Why wouldn’t they expect nefarious ends, they were already convinced you were a spy. And beyond that, it wouldn’t be Valentina’s first tactic to put Bob on her side- or at least under her control.

“I know you aren’t, by the way.” Comes Bobs voice one night, it’s three-thirty in the morning and he’s invited you to the communal area. The cold Bob is nearly immune to, but the wind makes it impossible to read a physical book and - he’d admitted to you - that heights terrified him even when it didn’t feel like it was trying to drag him off the edge.

Instead, your glass eye stares down upon the kitchen where Bob is perched at the counter. He’s eating a cereal concoction that you know he didn’t come up with in front of you, his movements practiced as he fished out the three different cereals that he’d poured into a large Tupperware bowl, nearly a quarter gallon of milk following. Initially upon mixing it he’d just been folding the contents over like eggs, but when you’d laughed and said he looked like a witch, he’d grabbed the large spoon in both hands and begun to stir it all together like a vat of potion. Muttering the fragments of words he remembered from watching Hocus Pocus years ago and only entirely unsober, a light shade of pink to his cheeks when he’s slur over or stammer across the parts he completely blanked out.

Now he’s shoveling it into his mouth, only stopping long enough to talk to you without spraying milk and bits of coco puffs everywhere.

“A spy, I mean. I know you aren’t. I know they think you are, but—” Bob cuts himself off with a noncommittal shrug of his free shoulder, shoveling yet another trough-full of cereal into his mouth to eat. You’re starting to piece together that maybe the super soldier appetite was another something he’d inherited off the Sentry serum.

“You sound awfully confident of that… Any reason why?”

“I mean… You did pretty terribly from day one.”

At this point, the casual calls to your error don’t sting from him anymore. It wasn’t intentional, you knew that. Rather, Bob was just an alarmingly straightforward person that you suspected might be as unaware of social cues as you were. A feat, really.

But truth be told, it helped to have him mention it. It wasn’t some scarlet letter you had to tiptoe around, you errored and this was how. Now do better, because you’re being given the space and the kind patience to do so.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, does it?” You’ve propped your elbow onto the laminate counter that makes your desk, one of the CRT monitors pulled free from it’s casing to sit closer to you than the rest. The arm you aren’t propped on fiddling around with Maruchan ramen, fresh out of the microwave. “I’d argue the best spies can manage to be awkward on purpose, right?”

“Yeah, I guess… But I- I don’t know. You don’t have that thing about you, I guess.”

You shovel a bite of noodles into your mouth, and unlike sweet Bob you lack the decency to not talk with your mouth full. Though he doesn’t seem to mind, you can see a grin as he goes to take a bite of his cereal when he hears you slur through your words. “What thing? Ominous, sexy badass woman vibes? Super murderer essence?”

You watch him tap the spoon against the bowl for a moment, those impossibly dark eyes staring straight ahead into the glamorously massive windows that overlook all of Manhattan. You don’t know this, but Bob wonders if you’re anywhere within sight. Or if you’re across the entire world from him, blocked by the turning horizon.

“Can’t say I’ve had experience with too many assassins or spies, you- you’ve met them all. But… I really don’t know. I’ve seen how they act when they’re trying to get something. Does that- that makes sense, right?

It’s not the same as you. You’re… I don’t know. You feel real.”

Real would be the last word you ever used for yourself, real people went outside. But he doesn’t know that you don’t, so you smile at the screen too close to your face anyways.

“Well… I’m glad you believe that. I know I don’t leave a lot of confidence to be seen that I’m not shady.”

“Valentina.”

“…What?”

“Valentina doesn’t. It’s not you. I mean— you didn’t do perfectly. But that’s not really your fault, is it? She pretty much set you up to fail.” He did that thing you’d begun to pick up on, those moments where- when he had a great deal of conviction about something he was saying, Bob would nod to himself as he spoke.

“I…” You hadn’t really thought of it like that. Sure, you’d been frustrated with her perpetual interference as you tried desperately to form even the most basic hospitable connections. But the onus of the failure had still been as it always was, on you. And you still didn’t believe it wasn’t. You were sure the others wouldn’t have failed so miserably. “I guess.”

It’s very difficult not to descend into a fidgeting sort of silence, placed in this inescapable box where your instinct disagrees vehemently with Bob’s kind reading of your circumstances. You could deny, and then he’d fight, and you’d feel that upset that clogs your throat when he tries so sincerely to be on your side even when you don’t deserve it. Or you agree and feel like you’re lying to him.

It seems - if the way his shoulders droop slightly are anything to go by - that Bob has read you on that.

“It’s okay if you think I’m wrong. I- I can believe it for both of us.”

A weak giggle, sincere but threadbare by the feelings you had to wrestle down like a furious crocodile. “Thanks, Bob… I’ll appreciate it for both of us.”

That managed a snort out of him, that little crooked closed mouth grin he’d do before he ducked back into the food he was eating. Which, alarmingly, was already nearly depleted. Truly, that serum had to do atrocious things to the body for that to be feasible while he remains looking the way he does.

“How’s the hunt going?”

Food has been eaten and discarded, an argument about whether or not Raisin Bran even deserved to be called a cereal has been left to an indomitable stalemate, and now you’ve bunched yourself into your desk. Your elbow serves as a pillow, leaving the rest of you to curve awkwardly off and onto your recliner-turned-desk-chair. You know you don’t have much longer before he leaves, the others beginning to rise with the sun.

You hum at his question, “Sluggish. A lot of leads, but they’re not the kind I can dig into personally. Or I could but— Valentina doesn’t like me going rogue, wants her eyes on everything.”

You notice something strange in Bob’s expression when you mention the limitations you have in place. But whatever crosses his mind you find you can watch get locked away someplace. Maybe to be broached later, when you had more time together.

“Anything I can do to help?”

You scoff a little, “Go knock on their door and ask them to be less elusive?”

“Sure. I’ll uh— set that right next to mastering my control over the Sentry.”

“Oh, could you? That’d be so helpful for us.”

He snorts, something a little acrid and dark- the way you liked him to be. It was fun, to get to know Robert Reynolds well enough to see his darker humor come out without the fear that someone was going to smash the glass and pull the nuclear fallout alarm because his life consisted of eggshells. Worse now than ever before.

“You should go… To bed, I mean.”

His eyes are back on the camera, then. Brows lifting a bit.

“Me and sleep aren’t friends, really.”

“I know… I’m not trying to mother you, just- you seem a little sleepy. Might be good to take advantage, especially with all that serum making you eat a median salary a week.”

You don’t know what expression you’re getting out of Bob. Not yet at least, in the future you come to realize it’s the same expression you get on your face— the one when you realize you’re a real flesh and blood person, and as a result people can learn your tics well enough to call on them. Not even as an accusation, just a natural part of you as you are.

“…Well maybe I don’t want to. I have to wait all day to get to talk to my- my friend in the ceiling, if I do.”

So what if you’re grinning ear to ear, huh?

“Don’t worry, she isn’t going anywhere. She’s quite cozy up here, the spiders are very polite.”

“Well that’s good, I- you know… I wouldn’t want you to feel like an unwelcome neighbor.”

He means it as a lighthearted joke, another awkward attempt at banter that you two hopelessly and unashamedly throw across the link. But it still hits you a bit sharper, a bit harder than that. Because he’s still sincere when he says it, he just doesn’t consider entirely the weight of that desire to you. It’s not like you’ve ever felt welcome before.

It’s not like anyone has ever wanted you to feel welcome before. It’s not that anyone has ever even considered it one way or the other. You don’t think about whether or not a chair likes to be sat in, after all.

“Believe me… It’s the most welcome I’ve ever felt.”

When Bob smiles, he looks a little proud.

You’ve begun to learn something interesting about Bob, the more time you spend talking with him.

It wasn’t one of those things where it was rare and required a particularly astute eye, so much as a symptom of your chronic people watching showing it’s face again. Sort of developed withdrawals from your favorite guilty pleasure, with how much time Bob has begun to take up.

Bob, who’s interesting little quirk is his cadence. His body language. It almost feels like he belongs on a boat, to you.

His voice does this perpetual thing, you’ve noted… No matter the mood that had struck him that day, hour, or conversation. His timbre sways. This winding, soft and self contained tempo that drifts up and down on the currents of whatever his thoughts were. At times he slows down all the more, lingers on these breathy pauses, little hums, eyes batting, head doing that charming little nod that you’d picked up on some time ago as he regains a more solid grasp of whatever it was he was trying to convey to you. It all fell in line with the way he moved. You remember the files on him, sparse as they were, and you remember the recordings from well before your arrival.

His posture had also changed quite a bit, and yet never lost it’s key component. The images from before he ever met the New Avengers, he’d curled entirely in on himself as if wilted- or maybe more adequately as if he was stuck in a perpetual state of anticipated violence. The way a person tries to cover their vitals, his body tense and retaliatory. Skin sallow, eyes so very dull. He was decaying on two feet, and it brokered no surprise that he would join something as drastic as the Sentry program, looking at him then.

The footage that followed had shown another aspect of him, not quite so defeated in the moment. The awkward slouch of his shoulders, the fidgeting of his hands, the perpetual flighty nervousness. Thrown out of his depth and dealing with - what they would all learn later - were the sort of endocrinological shifts that would be fatal in a typical human. Hormonal and chemical imbalances that far exceeded dangerous, metabolic adjustments that were Frankenstein-esque in their severity. His brain screaming out all manner of neurological signals that - frankly - Bob was in no mental or emotional state to even really register, much less address.

Being shot to (attempted) pieces, attacked by his new friends, and having his brainstem reduced to a vertebral slushie inside his nape didn’t help any of this.

And finally, the Bob you’d met now. His hands almost always sat firmly within his pockets, whether they were his pants or his hoodies. He still had that bow in his shoulders, but he stood like he wasn’t ashamed to take up the space of his own skin anymore. His head tucked to one side almost always.

And through it all, he still had that particular gait.

The way he would shift foot to foot, swaying the upper half of his body slightly. The way his shrug would always make him dip toward the right without fail. The way his head would swing when he was fond or bashful, and the rest of him would follow after the motion. He was painted in watercolor and moved like a current, steady and fluid. Summer rain when happy and midnight downpour when not.

He’s with the rest of his team in one of the areas you’d relegated yourself to when not invited by Bob during your late night rendezvous. He’s not dressed the way he normally does, he’s in trousers and a thin white t-shirt, a graphic splattered over the front and a faint discoloration at the collar you suspect to be a stain of some sort. His wrists are both decorated in little leather and bead bracelets, which you learned from prior… studying was a favored form of jewelry for the man.

It allowed him something to fidget, or stim with? That was socially acceptable. It reduced his self consciousness over the need to twist and rub an object between his fingers constantly the way he usually did. And it prevented the inevitable destruction of all his clothes from plucking them threadbare. If he wasn’t spinning the entire bracelet or repetitively tracing the texture on the tips of his fingers, he was pressing the ceramic beads together to listen to the hiss that the friction provided. They were passive things, you didn’t even know that he consciously realized he was doing it, anymore.

He has a calm smile right now, nodding along attentively to whatever Ava is telling him at the moment. She’s cross-legged, her arms draped over her knees with a nearly full large glass of orange juice in her hand. It dangles close to her finger tips, sweat beading down it’s side as the other hand gestures limply, articulating something.

You suspect that she’s recounting from the mission which they just returned, you’d not been needed for it and so stayed out. You didn’t… you didn’t want to intrude on something so incredibly sensitive while they weren’t aware or given ample time to consent to your presence. You knew Bob would end up telling you, it was another he’d himself gone on. He always came back looking a little more alive for a while after these assignments.

Something about getting to help, even if he’s not good at the fighting part of it. Not yet, at least.

That smile widens briefly, Bob nods with a touch of enthusiasm and you watch the way his throat moves. Ava responds with a smile - more like a shit eating grin about something. She makes a comment, Bob’s brows find his hair line and you watch.

You always watch.

That little motion he does again, his eyes blinking rapidly that reminds you of a hard drive reading off it’s data, head turning from side to side as he speaks- clearly considering whatever it was that Ava said. Whatever response it was, you can see Ava’s laughter. It’s not loud like the others, overly obvious, it’s in the rhythmic shake of her shoulders.

You found that everyone quite liked Bob, and vice versa, but that you weren’t alone in… well, in enjoying him alone.

Ava liked to talk to him when it was reduced to the two. You think she might struggle with the group, the noise. Growing easily overwhelmed by the loudness and the raucous behavior and the unpredictability. Bob, watercolor in motion, is a soothing balm. Too self contained to stand out amidst all these bright colors and loud personalities, but a refreshing voice once you’ve managed to escape them.

They have these conversations semi-frequently. Not for particularly long before Ava is directing her attentions to something else, mind. But you can see now like you did then how she’s physically unwinding as his head tilts to one side and he says something to her. Ava looks down, her smile is fond.

Then she’s standing, another hefty swig of the orange juice in her glass. When she passes she stops long enough to pat Bob on the shoulder, a brief pause, then his hair is being mussed before she disappears. Bob weakly swatting at her, though you can tell there’s no really desire for her to stop doing it. Especially with the smile he fires off toward her retreating back.

He stays there, just a little longer. He fidgets with one of his bracelets, presses his fingers into his chest for a moment. Dark eyes stare at the ground, at nothing. He hasn’t stopped smiling.

Then, much like Ava he retreats. Out of the room, and out of your area of sight.

The next time you get to talk is broad daylight, and Bob is in the lobby of the Tower.

You weren’t actually paying attention for once, your eyes preoccupied with a few offhand news articles describing unusual trade activity around Madripoor (already a place known for it’s odd activity) when that familiar voice meets your ears through the speakers clasped lovingly around your head.

“Terminal? You there?”

They react before even you do, the screens shuttering violently as they flick with a nauseating speed to the cameras inside the lobby of the Avengers’ Tower.

He’s standing there looking… well a little flustered, but good. His hair is more awry than usual, and he’s done up in layers. A t-shirt with a blue collar, a cheap cotton-y button up left entirely open. His trusty bracelets are on, and this week you notice a dark color on his nails that has never been there before. Something from Yelena you’d more than bet money on. He’s still in (nicer) sweatpants this time, and beneath are scuffed sneakers that he was ill inclined to part with.

His hand finds his face, rubbing aggressively at his eyes as his fingers twitch faintly. When it drops to his side he looks out into the light, approaches before slinking away. He’s nervous.

“Hey, Bob. I’m here.”

“Oh- oh okay… Good. Yeah- uh… It’s-”

You don’t remember the last time you’d seen Bob stammer this hard in conversation with you. It wasn’t beyond him to do so. Just usually under too many pairs of eyes, where he felt the weight of his words were reaching too far, or were being treated too importantly did he tend to fail at crisp speech. With you it was more that lulling, tidal cadence in his voice than any sort of tripping, scattered legibility.

“Sorry… I uh- it’s not an emergency or anything. I- I just…”

Articles, Madripoor, and Enmis all become background noise. You find yourself turning on your seat, pulling it closer to the desk so that your ribs meet the edge, the corner biting into you softly. His image is moved down to the closest screens to you, taking in the mildly nauseated, clearly restless way that he continues to approach the windows and then flee again. His eyes keep finding the camera you look at him with, and then darting to some unknown subject in the far distance.

“Bob, it’s okay. You don’t need it to be an emergency to talk to me in the daylight, you know?”

Bob nods aggressively, his throat and mouth working as if chewing up the thing he was trying to say.

“They’re uh… they’re having me go- go out into the city, today. I guess there’s this place they want me to try out but it doesn’t do delivery so…” His shrug is a little hopeless, and suddenly the less-comfy-than-normal attire are more understandable to you. He’s trying to make himself feel a little nicer before he steps so deeply out of his element.

“It’s been…. it’s been a long time since I’ve tried to do anything out in the public, or stay out there. So I’m just a little—”

You don’t need him to finish to understand the train of thought. He’s panicking a little bit. You can hazard a guess and assume that Bob had lured himself into a bit of a false sense of security, being able to talk so comfortably with you. You were a disembodied voice in his home, after all. But this is going out there, and you understand above all else the terror of out there.

“Hey… It’s okay to be scared. It’s- there’s a lot of different places and directions, and you’re expected to keep track of all of it, the sights and sounds. To address when people are talking to you, to register what they even said quickly enough to reply in a timely manner. Not to mention the fact it feels like eyes are on you constantly, don’t even know what you must look like to them when you’re just being yourself.”

His eyes once again have not left the camera since you rambled, fixing you with a gaze that holds something deep inside that you don’t quite place. A recognition of some sort, maybe camaraderie, but not quite so simple with the little furrow of his brows.

“Yeah… Exactly… How- how do you handle it?”

You don’t.

“Remember that the entire time you’re out there, you have an entire team on your side.” You pause for a moment, “And that lots of people are just as scared of looking out of place as you are. Let yourself laugh if it goes sideways, they’ll be as relieved as you. And the- the whole memory will feel softer. More bearable.”

You didn’t really know that, it felt like a bit of a falsehood to tell him. But you’d chewed through a good dozen self help books in your life trying to find some grasp on the outside world that would let you step out there. It may not be perfect, but they were the most practical scraps of information you’d gleaned out of what otherwise amounted to homework with generalized feel good platitudes interwoven.

Either way, it seemed to help. Not much, but you watched him mouth the words you’d just spoken. Turning them over in his mind like a mantra as he began to pace again. Less frantic, more like he was doing drills of a sort.

“Hey… Can I- I could make a suggestion?”

His gaze turns back to the camera.

“If… if you wanted- if it’d really help… Put in an earpiece. I can be there with you the entire time.”

You see the recognition of the offer shine in his dark eyes. It doesn’t take long either, the way an impact on still water causes it to fold out, in, then crash into itself a second time. The initial drop, the offer made, and the second-

Realizing that there’s no world in which Bob does this that they don’t notice the earpiece. Or him talking to himself. To you.

“If… If I do that…”

“I know, that’s why it’s your choice. They uh- they don’t really like me, anyway. You’re the one that will get all the shit for this. So… It’s just an offer, no pressure.

If you think it helps, I’m here.”

Bob seems caught by it, like his mind is rubber-banding aggressively back and forth. Enthusiasm at the thought, then terror at being caught, then guilt that he’d subject you to potential further ire. At the very least further scrutiny from a group of people that loved him enough to flank up like bodyguards and protect him from the scary voice in the ceiling.

In the end, he half takes you up on it.

A quick elevator ride has him plucking one of the dozens of ear pieces (many ended up collateral during missions, extra was just frugal) laid out in the armory, instructions from you leading him to the terminal nearby. Upon placing it there, his gaze expectant, you could feel as they rooted themselves inside- bonding until they and the wires were no different. You were now attached, nothing could prevent communication, save the electronics being destroyed somehow.

It ends up being crammed violently into his pocket - and some part of you wonders if they were destroyed just then - when the entire gaggle of aspiring heroes comes bulldozing out of the elevator like a party spills out onto the lawn in a college movie. They’re chattering loudly, their voices layered atop each other. Pieces are being removed and tossed aside, light armor shed. It was a local ordeal, and they were stopping by long enough to get out of the unnecessary pieces before ‘Adventures with Bob’ began. John is shoving Bucky, who elbows him in turn. Someone is cracking a joke, Alexei is laughing, Yelena is rolling her eyes.

Absolutely none of them had expected him to be there, his fists crammed tightly into his pockets while he stared at them like they shot his dog in front of him.

“Bob? You okay?”

You watch the exchange go down, mic slapped mute and your fingers perched over your lips. You didn’t want to be the cause of disaster for Bob before the day had even passed by, knowing that the man definitely needed to escape his cage for a little bit. Experience the world, enjoy the sun. Bask in all the things he’s training to protect, rather than holding himself othered from it.

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m- I’m good, I just-” his shoulders bunch aggressively as he looks off to the window. The nerves radiate off him nearly like vapor, and you know that the only saving grace he has right now is their understanding over his fear of heading out for an extended period. “I’ll be fine. I’m fine.”

Alexei is the first to him, enthusiastic with the temperament of a bulldozer. It doesn’t take long for poor Bob to suddenly have a massive arm dropped around his shoulders. He’s being pulled around like a ragdoll, and you see the way insane nervousness melts away into that sort of flustered alarm that only comes with true bewilderment.

Yelena is still watching him, suspicious and invested as she is in his well being. And as Alexei is dragging him by, he’s shooting a hand out to squeeze her bicep reassuringly.

It aches, the way you watch everything in her body soften from head-to-toe, in just one loving gesture.

“Do not worry! Avengerz will be with you! This will be occasion of fun and triumph for you! Feast like the Golden God you are!”

Underneath the chatter that begins to pick up as Bob is functionally kidnapped from where he was standing. You can hear him groan with long suffering weariness at the title. It’s been something he’s mentioned to you a few times, offhanded. The low intensity weight of expectation sitting on his shoulders constantly. The breakthrough that everyone wants him to have. None of them truly pressure Bob for it, he stresses every time you talk. But Alexei is the most vocal, and the feeling still sits there whether they’d like it to or not.

It’s his own expectation, too.

And you watch as Bob finds himself crushed like a sardine in a can, clustered into the very center of the gaggle of teammates as they head straight for the lobby. Yelena is talking to him while the others shout loudly, his head bent down conspiratorially so that her voice reaches him clearer than anyone else.

Then they’re crossing the threshold of the Tower, and Bob spares one last glance into your glass eye before he’s vanishing out of your grasp. You could chase, could haunt every single CCTV feed and doorbell camera they cross paths with like some digital phantom…

But you know this isn’t for you. You’ll be invited, or you won’t. That was for Bob to decide.

In the end, you do end up invited.

In the bathroom.

You can hear the panic in his voice the moment he blares through- so much louder than you’re used to with the microphone being next to his face. It makes you nearly leap out of your skin after an hour of dead silence and doomscrolling the internet under the guise of work.

“Terminal?”

It’s like this that you finally get to hear the gravelly nuances of his voice, not shredded away by poor microphone quality and immense distance. He speaks warmly and in his chest, and you hear the hiss of his teeth on certain words. It’s nice, you think. It suits him.

“Yeah! Yeah, hey. I’m here.”

“Hi. I’m not.” He doesn’t give you long enough to even question what that means, his voice warbles violently- so oddly disconnected from his environment without eyes on him. “I’m- I’m so far gone right now I think- think I’m losing my uh- my shit.”

He laughs then, a little insane and self deprecating and you know from that alone that he’s teetering the edge of a full blown panic attack.

“Okay, Bob? Honey? Listen to me, alright? I’m the only person you gotta worry about, is that okay?”

“…Yeah.”

“Where are you, are you alone? Can you remain that way?”

“Not- not for long. I uh… I stole the bathroom here because I thought I was about to vomit on the table.”

“That’s okay, that’s somewhere quiet. No one else exists right now but me, okay?”

Bob’s response this time is delayed, permeated by distressed panting. You don’t know if he was just having that hard of a time getting the words out, or if he’d nodded before remembering you can’t see him in a room with no cameras to steal.

“Okay.”

“What do you see around you?”

“Uh…” his pause is long again, but you give him a chance. He’s got this, you know he does. “Awf- awful yellow paint, like- like nacho cheese all over the walls? And these um- these really shitty mirrors that I think they got off of amazon or something. Sinks, but not the good ones with counter space. And these uh, these pink stalls. It’s really kind of awful in here.”

And you listen, you listen the entire time. He’s rambling, he’s panicking. But you buy him time. That’s all he needs, time. He can do this.

“Yeah that sounds absolutely abysmal… Are the urinals at least clean?”

“No idea… didn’t- uh, didn’t stay on my feet long enough to see them once I got in here.”

You snort, and you hear the crackle of the receiver at his own breath blowing out hard. “Probably disgusting, if the color scheme is anything to go by…” Then you take a breath, and dive for the worst, “Bob… What’s going on out there, huh? What’s got you so panicked?”

His breath hisses, and he hums out loud again, his brain buffering on how to answer.

“…There were too- too many options. The first order was fine, there was only like twelve things on the list and half of them I hate. So I thought- I thought I’d finally be normal and make it. But then the main courses came and- and there were so many and the nice waitress could come back any time. And they were- were all talking so I couldn’t just think and focus—”

He’s working himself back up into a frenzy he hasn’t even fully left yet. You can hear the ramble starting to trip over itself, too much steam for the rails.

“Okay, okay. That’s fine. Hey? Did you tell the others?”

“God, no… That’s- that’s why I decided to- to talk to you. I don’t want to disappoint them. And- and you already offered so I thought-”

“I’m glad you did, Bob… I’m not mad that you contacted me. I’m just wondering if you ask, maybe they can help? I mean- they clearly know the place. Maybe they’d have an idea of what you like?”

“…Maybe.” His voice sounds wet, hardly a whisper. You know he’s crying. “This is so fucking embarrassing. I’m a grown man and I can’t go out with my friends to order food.”

“It’s not embarrassing, Bob. It’s hard. There’s a difference.”

“Nobody else finds this hard.”

“I do.”

That’s enough to stop him. Not in the way someone who knows they’re being shut down does, but in this heavy, palpable sort of pause as if you’d accidentally revealed something huge. Not this time though. No. This was all you, for better or worse.

“…You do?”

“More than you even realize… And Bob. Those- those people out there. I’ve watched them with you for awhile now. They love you so much. Needing them to help you with this isn’t going to make them think less of you. They’re just happy you’re out and - up until this point at least - having a good time. It’s still progress, it’s just not the amount you wanted.”

There’s these long moments, the beats where all you hear is his breathing as it crackles through. You don’t know what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling. It’s a strange position, to be trying to offer this kind of advice to anyone. You don’t know if it’s great, you don’t know if it’s terrible.

“I didn’t used to struggle with this, you know?” It’s not what you expect to hear from him, and he pauses long enough to swallow, the click of his mouth opening audible even to you. “I- I mean I did but… But not like this. Mainly because- because meth makes it really hard to be scared of anything, when your default is just to get really pissed off. But even when I was on the comedown…

I don’t know. I didn’t- I was always scared it just didn’t- feel like I was dying like this.”

You take a moment, a soft, slow moment. Because you know what you say next will be very, very important for him.

“Bob…”

“Mhm?”

“It’s the first time in years that you’ve been entirely sober… and it’s the first time you’ve handled these feelings after being injected with something that’s- kinda notorious for exacerbating a persons feelings like a billion fold.

Of course you feel it’s so much worse. It’s because you’re so much more now. And it’ll take time, but you’ll adjust to the intensity. Everyone is here to help you shoulder it until then, okay?”

And for the first time since Bob’s panicked voice crossed over to you today, you hear the deep- heavy sigh that rattles out of his lungs. Not quite relieved, but like something was settling into his bones.

He doesn’t get to respond to you, for thanks or questioning or even to deny it outright. There’s the sound of thudding, and you hear a disgruntled voice muffled behind a door. It’s easy enough for you to grasp what’s happening even if you can’t understand the words.

“Shit… Okay- okay. I gotta go. Thank you for talking to me. I’m- I’m gonna try. I’m trying.”

You don’t hear from him again that day.

No, not until three in the morning. They tug violently at your mind until you break your self imposed rule and find yourself staring at the shape of Bob in his own bed in the perfect city-lit dark. One arm is hanging over the edge, vividly orange from the lights below, the other scrunched into the soft protection of his hoodie on his stomach. His eyes, though so very dark, glint off the lowlight. You’ve caught him in the middle of saying something, your timing allowing you to get the most important part:

“—Thank you, for this morning… It went better than I thought it would. And it’s because of you.

Have a great night, Terminal.”

You’re with Bob again, it’s the soft of night and you’ve been invited into the last space of your banishment since everything fell apart.

Dark, dark of night, and all the lanterns are turned on low- velvet like the rest. Everything about the space is hazy right now, it’s comfortable the way a womb would be and it cradles the moment just as gentle.

Bob is in his maximum comfort clothes, this massive ratty sweatshirt that swallows him up somehow. Pajama pants, socks, and a thick blanket pulled around him. He’s not even cold, but you learned that the addition of layers worked for him like compression. It made him feel more safe and more comforted.

Bob isn’t doing bad, per se. But it isn’t the same Bob who laughs at your unintended innuendos, who argues about tv shows with you, and who insists that all forms of diet soda are disgusting.

This one is quiet, and subdued. This one is lonely, and has invited you like an intrusion upon his wounds.

The New Avengers received an assignment, and they left. Three days ago.

Robert was okay at first, he’d even enjoyed the initial silence and the freedom to run around how he liked. Shirtless in the common areas, abominable food concoctions cooked gleefully, and whatever he wanted on the big TV.

But with each passing night that was also alone, each early morning without ritual and familiarity. As isolation droned on like a sermon, it had begun to quietly corrode him. His mind wandering into less pleasant territory, his boredom crawling. He wasn’t bad. But he wasn’t exactly doing good, either.

So, so very soft one night, he called after you. And as always, you answered.

There wasn’t much being discussed this time around, soft lulling things traded back and forth as he laid curled on the couch. He was watching the city, and you were watching him.

Then, sparingly, he states: “You’ve never called me that, before.”

“Called you what, before?” You don’t even hesitate to ask, you don’t even think to take the time to consider what he’s talking about until it’s too late and it’s all being put on the table.

“Honey.”

“Oh.”

The silence lingers on for a moment, speech is already slowed to a molasses state. The hour, the emotions, the slow fatigue that you let each other feel. But this goes longer than that, and he presses gently. Brave, but in the way that someone who cares is brave.

“Regret it?”

“No. Not really.”

Especially since it helped you.

“Are you uncomfortable with it?”

“…No. Not at all.”

Another space for the casual admission to sit. Falling like a leaf to the soil. It’s not laden with anything heavier. It’s just an admission of bold faced affection. You care about him, you cherish him, he’s sweet as honey to you. Whether that ever came with a declaration of ‘more than someone you wanted to smile at every day’, is a thing that hasn’t been decided at this point.

“…Do you like me calling you it?”

And for a moment his face furrows deep, those dark eyes are lit only by the glitter of windows and lamps in the street. It makes them look like they sparkle, glow. It makes them look like they’ve been filled with embers.

“…Yeah. Yeah I do.” His voice is colorful gravel, sweet rough instead of pained. You think maybe it’s frightening him to admit that to you. That maybe he yearns to be given a pet name by someone he cares for, to be more than Bob- the only name he goes by. Or Bobby- no- or Robert- court hearings, jail time, prison time, stern authority that never once tried to help.

He thinks it’s nice to be given something new, that the only history honey has is a scary moment in a restaurant that led to his friends clasping him gently on the neck and telling him he did good. He ate, and he enjoyed what he was eating, and he got to go home after a day of sun on his skin and plenty of laughter.

Honey feels good.

“Okay. Okay.” Reaffirmed, and trickling out of the scratchy speakers well above his head.

“I’ll keep calling you it, then. How about that?”

His smile still isn’t sunny, but it’s bright like fire this time. Happy, just in a tired way. “I’d like that.”

The last conversation you have with Bob before all hell breaks loose, you find yourself back at the start.

It’s blindingly sunny out, so much so that you lectured Bob about sunscreen until he laughed and reminded you - not unkindly - that bullets can’t damage his skin, so why would the sun?

It’s so blue it makes you envious, so colorful it makes you queasy with a sort of want that you’ve learned very well to push down and forget before ever taking a moment to acknowledge it. The recognition is what starts the spiral.

Instead, you enjoy how good Robert Reynolds looks in color. Drowning in the rainbow, damn near.

His clothes themselves aren’t that bright - as ever he prefers earthen or deeply subdued jewel tones - but the whole world rises to meet him. He traded a milkshake for a smoothie this time, mango pineapple and so yellow it makes you happy. His back is to that same tree, the thing that makes him safe so high up, and a new book gifted by Yelena sits with it’s bookmark next to his thigh.

In front of him, a half empty box of near-cold pizza. Robert is perfectly happy with this, cold pizza is like a delicacy to him and he’s frankly eaten far more horrifying things while in the depths of despair.

Besides, even if he were a madman that hated it, it’s not like he could ever forget how it came to him.

This is your last free day with him before the team returns, allowed to roam every inch of the building with him, to talk all day and all night entirely unbidden and without a lick of fear of discovery and ridicule. You’d chased him all across the place, had even made a game pseudo-’hide and seek’ where because you couldn’t physically be there you’d just intentionally trip systems and let him chase the noises down.

So, more like goose chase the game?

Anyway, hunger came to him quickly as it always did. Only this time it was a companion in you, so you decided to order pizza. But it’d have been rude to get something for yourself and nothing for your dear friend, so of course you had to share.

Robert had stared at the dinky little RC car with a pizza box strapped to it (and a post-it with shitty handwriting that proclaimed ‘happy lunch!’) for a solid twenty seconds before snapping out of his bafflement and delicately removing the food item. Only to have a solid giggle fit when the little electronic blasted off down the street, ripping around peoples legs aggressively enough to be a nuisance. He had no idea where it was going, and didn’t particularly care.

Now he was here, sharing a pizza with you while you both chattered away.

“Worst thing I ever saw was probably recon in Berlin. I did not need to witness the bare and wrinkled acne-prone ass of a fifty three year old Federal Minister.” You don’t even hesitate to take another bite of your slice, even if the memory makes you shudder violently.

The horror of course, is soothed by the hysterical giggles you’ve earned for your agonies.

“Oh yeah, I would not want to see that.” His head shakes aggressively, as if he were under sincere threat of being exposed to such a frightening image. His free hand taps away at his knee, the other folding up his slice before nearly putting half the entire damn thing in his mouth. He makes sure his mouth is free before continuing, “I think I’ll take accidentally vomiting on myself. At least then nobody was really surprised by me doing it.”

You snort, slouch back in your chair, feet kicked up and shaking away.

“You sure? Don’t want to hear all the awful sex noises geriatric politicians make when they think they’re good at what they do?”

“Okay so maybe I’m not hungry anymore.”

It’s said so despondently you’ve left with no choice but to bark out a loud laugh, one that has him grinning a bit shyly to himself as he reaches for yet another slice. The rate he’s eating, he’ll be done and destroying the smoothie before you’re halfway through.

“Got over the queasiness quickly.”

“What can I say, I’m uh- pretty adaptable where food is involved.”

Another bite, and then-

“I’m a little scared, right now.”

The pivot in conversation is so abrupt that you find yourself thrown into a stupor for a second. Brain blanking, whirring, their rhythmic croons rising as if turning to each other to question what the hell Bob is talking about.

“Why?”

“Because… I think I really like you, but you’re not- I didn’t meet you the way I did the others. We didn’t save each other’s lives, or go- go wandering around in each other’s brains. So it… it feels different. Like I could somehow fuck up being a friend.”

You laugh- and you really don’t mean to, you feel awful immediately. See the way his eyes catch on the lens when he hears it, you don’t know if that’s hurt bubbling up or something else. But you don’t wait long enough to find out, too panicked to find out how he took it.

“Bob. You can’t fuck it up. I promise. You’re a great friend and… and honestly..? My standards are kinda- beneath the dirt, really.

You’re knocking it out of the park as far as I’m concerned.”

“Oh yeah? Only had terrible friends, then?”

It’s a sunny day, and it’s warm, and Bob looks soft and open- and he is open. His heart has been laid in the grass this afternoon, and the team is coming back and who knows how long it’ll be before you get to speak with him again. With pizza and smoothies, with emergencies in restaurant bathrooms, with three-cereal-deluxe’s in the kitchen, with stolen moments of watching, with sad and soft and bundled up, honey and fumbling meanings.

“None. Never had even one.”

The quiet descends, and it’s easy because the pain is already there in the words. Even though there’s something disbelieving in his face, even though the shock of hearing that makes it somehow the sharper to bear.

“What..?”

And you shift before you speak. Adjust from reclining to the entire opposite, now you’re laid out with your chin on your forearms on your desk. The microphone is no longer precisely lined up with your mouth though you don’t mind, it gives you the more important angle.

Bob on the screen, as close as is comfortable for you.

“Can I… can I tell you something a little um… embarrassing?”

Pizza, smoothie, book all forgotten. Your little box of color that Bob shifts inside. Adjusting cross legged and directly facing you, his eyes boring into your eye.

Just a nod, a little one.

Your head tips to the side, face resting against arm. It feels heavy to admit, and you feel so tired before even getting the words out. You didn’t know if this will be a conversation, a talk. You didn’t know how much you’d need to clarify, what questions he would ask. But it made you tired. Tired and anxious.

And maybe it’s the exhaustion, the weariness, the anxiety, or something more that has wetness gathering in your eyes. Cloistering at lashes, walking together down a nose. Laying together in divots deep enough to stop gravity. Liquid pleas with no one nearby to help.

“…I… I don’t remember the last time I felt the sun on my skin.” A wet sniffle in, and when you blink your whole face goes hot with the scattering of grief. “Or the wind… I don’t- remember what the sea, or the city, or trees smell like. I don’t even- even remember the last time I ever felt grass beneath my feet. Or saw the sky without a screen…

I have um- I have a calendar up? In my room.” Your voice lifts awkwardly in places, lowers in others. You’re a poorly tuned violin, voice failing to strike harmony. “It only counts up to a single year, so I have tallies cut in beside it.”

As you speak, blurred mournful eyes settle on a flip clock not far off. It’s a shabby thing, all of the leaves have been dinted or scratched in some way. They’re that old, olive green with white typeface overtop, wooden stand. It doesn’t turn on it’s own anymore, so you do it yourself like a ritual each and every morning. The number displayed is eighty-three.

On the concrete wall of the bunker behind it, etched in shallow scratches:

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

“There’s seven of them now, Honey. I don’t remember what being human is like.”

And the response you get is utter silence.

It’s not deafening, it’s not shattering, it’s not cold or hostile, it’s blank and a bit warm. It’s Bob whose eyes have gone some sort of soft around the edges. It’s an expression you’ve never seen on him. It’s a man putting so many bizarre pieces together all at once. It’s the sympathetic gloss in his eyes. It’s the vague horror subdued by deep understanding. It’s sad. And it’s sweet.

“You know you could come here, right?”

Defcon one has gone off inside your chest. Everything singling down to his offer, to how sweet it is, to how terrifying it is, to how impossible it is, to how much you want to, to how much you can’t. You’d finally live your life, you’d die the moment you did it. They’d never accept you. You’d ruin Bob’s life. You’d ruin what little you have of your own life. You’d not get to come back home. You’d never be able to escape wherever they put you. You wouldn’t be able to control it. You wouldn’t know what to do—

“I- I can’t- I can’t do that, that’s- it’s too- there’s so much and it’s all- and I just-”

His eyes widen with alarm at the heel turn directly into panic that you do, but all Bob does is raise a single hand. Just one, his head pivoted to the side. He looks even sadder, his smile guilty and ashamed and aching.

“No, no. It’s okay. Don’t freak out. I wasn’t trying to scare you, or make you do anything you don’t want to or aren’t ready for. It’s just… it’s on the table, okay? I’ll never turn you away, and I wouldn’t let them either.”

And it’s just precious, and it makes you hurt so deeply inside. Like each word - well meaning and gentle - opened up and revealed a new inadequacy in you. The patience becomes as glass inside of you, and you feel it with each ragged breath you take, scraping at your bones. You’re hemorrhaging emotion.

He’s such a good friend, and such a good man. And he offers you everything you’ve ever wanted on a silver platter, ready for the taking.

And you don’t take it. Because you can’t.

“…Thanks… I’ll- I’ll consider it.”

Your tone doesn’t leave much hope for him, or yourself for that matter.

Yet he doesn’t really respond to it, not negatively. Just a little nod of his head. Another beat of silence, this time less strained or agonizing.

“Seven years..?”

Soft noise of amusement, not quite a laugh, like a sharp exhale.

“And eighty-three days.”

“How do you— I mean, food and-”

“I have my ways, like my little guy you met earlier. And using exorbitant amounts of money to keep people from asking questions. No- no one even knows this place exists, or how to get to it. I don’t even let people into the area where it’s at.”

He nods, and he still looks a little mystified. But you can also see the moment Bob chooses to put the entire conversation to the side for now. Maybe because he’s so shocked he needs to mull it over, or maybe because he can tell that it’s taken all of the wind out of your sails.

“So…” Another nod, “Weirdest thing you’ve ordered to your hide out?”

And it’s so easy, it’s just so easy. The conversation dissipating back into comfort and play, instead of shared moments of agony. Such is how it continues for hours, until exhaustion starts to itch at your eyes and the temperature drops enough that even Bob grows uncomfortable in his place. Book, box, and long empty cup are grabbed. Conversation lulls to a soft blur as he cleans up for the night, as you stretch in anticipation to finally get up.

Goodnights are said, and your worlds split from each other again.

In two different places, so far and yet so close, both of you find yourselves in your beds. Your minds consumed by the day, the week, the month, the months.

Robert feels all at once massive in his own body, like his bones were all too big for his skin. The mattress is soft, and sinking around him, and the sort of calm permeates the room that he doesn’t necessarily like. Not- not dislike. But discomfort. It’s unfamiliar to him, even the bed is a bit unfamiliar to him. He was used to couches, to damp brick, to unforgiving and splinter prone old wood. He’s been a squatter most of his life, Egyptian cotton isn’t exactly his norm.

Not yours either, he thinks.

He’s never even seen your face before, he realizes with a soft pang in his sternum. Suddenly finds himself… feeling a little awful?

But not- no- that’s not really the right word.

He’s mulling it over, Bucky had talked to him about how easy it is to get into patterns of- well he’d botched the term, something one of his old therapists had told him? Basically, Bucky thinks he reads his own emotions too negatively, and that makes it come true somehow?

So not. Not awful, not guilty.

No, sympathy maybe. Sad on your behalf.

He can still hear you those first days, when everything had gone so wrong for you. Your voice over the intercom, trembling and weak. You’d sounded unsure of yourself, and he had not idea just how right he was. Had wondered at the time if maybe you were just somewhat frail in general.

Two conversations. That’s all it took. Just two, for you to open up like a sunflower for him.

Loud, and obnoxious, snorting when you laugh, fighting him relentlessly about the best episodes of any show he’d ever happened to watch that you’d seen (it was nearly all of them). Robert refraining from telling you that he barely has a favorite, he just likes seeing you so comfortable that you’d get openly riled over his obstinance. He remembered very little of the things you’d both discussed together, snapshots and feelings. Usually high. Almost always high. Those images have new color to them, not so bleak or insignificant when you connected over them.

Made even brighter, but even bluer understanding why you knew them. Why you latched so hard to him knowing them. Because you had absolutely nothing else.

He mouths it to himself, to the open air, “seven years.”

Seven entire years, no sunlight? No wind, no nothing? Nothing? His mind careens back and forth restlessly between things like wondering who would be able to help you if you got hurt, how you hadn’t gotten sick from the isolation yet, how you got things to you- even if you gave him a vaguely ominous answer. He wonders if you’re comfortable, he knows you aren’t happy. He feels it in the way your voice- it never deflates, but it goes whisper soft when he has to leave. It’s like it pains you to be alone, now.

Of course it would. You lonely girl.

You were so nice to him, and it made him swallow thickly around the feeling of it. Talking him through his panic, offering it in the first place knowing damn well that Yelena would catch it. She notices everything about him, much less if he would have walked around with a piece of shiny metal in his ear… It’s why he didn’t, honestly. It would have been easier up front to have you play interception for him mid dinner. But doing that meant hurting you, and you were already hurting.

Now he knows. Now he knows and everything makes so much sense. That feeling in his sternum gets a little worse.

If this has been seven years… where were you before?

No wonder you were watching them, no wonder you were trying so hard to figure out how to blend in. Their sweet bug in the system.

You lay in a bed the same size as his, in a half dozen more blankets and a mountain of pillows that prevent you from touching the cold concrete walls. You’re on your side, half fetal, blinking out at the darkness. Barely any light is reaching you, from the dimmed overhead that often served as your only way of knowing whether it was day or night. On your mind is an incredibly soft man you’ve only ever seen through a screen.

You- don’t really know what to make of any of it anymore. That you’ve known him for months without chasing him off yet, that you’ve grown closer instead. That you’ve grown close enough to vomit out the secret of your reality. That you’re this pathetic thing in a dark box deep under the earth, and don’t remember what it’s like being with people anymore.

That he wasn’t disgusted, or mean. He was just… he was sad for you?

Even in the near pitch black, you cover your eyes with your hand. Feeling ashamed, feeling too exposed in a place no one else has seen in decades. You don’t want the tears to be visible, not to them, or the dust motes, or the light. Even as you sniffle and squeak sadly, and your body trembles where it lays.

He wanted you to stay with them.

God, why did you have to say no? Why are you like this?

The next three days come with a whirlwind of information, none of which makes you feel anything other than a sudden and deep seated horror.

Enmis is moving, and you’ve been given a good idea of what they want to do.

Over the many years, Earth has been invaded an absurd number of times. This in itself wasn’t the problem— not to downplay the horror and tragedy of the things that had befallen the world during. But frankly, the regular people learned quite quickly that the invasion itself wasn’t where things necessarily went wrong.

It was the aftermath. What was left.

The thing that continues to terrorize you is when the people who already hurt you get their hands on the things necessary to hurt you so much more. And with each invasion had come veritable mountains of materials far beyond Earth’s scope of technology. A bright enough mind, and god only knows what kind of horrors creeps out from the rubble.

That power plant? Easily forgotten in the mess surrounding? Myanmar had been among those to shake hands during the Accords, and one of the major economic keystones of the agreement had been to “share” whatever findings were made among the other governments following the Chitauri invasion (and then, later, the Blip). Naturally, this was bullshit. No one was willingly handing over all the nasty ugly things they had learned and built. But they’d given what they misguidedly believed to be useless scrap to Myanmar to appease their end of things.

Never underestimate a brilliant mind and a deep financial or political incentive.

They’d been on the brink of something, no one knows the exact details of what they were aiming for. But it’d been very good at compressing down and neutralizing highly unstable sources of energy. It’s believed that it might have been a component to an engine on one of the Chitauri speeders. This thing was being expanded upon massively. And now it was gone.

And it was believed it was likely meant to be a prison for your friend.

Or rather, a means to utilize him- like a tool, like a fuel source. Enmis has been hoarding space on the border between South Africa and Mozambique, swaths of uninhabited snatched up quickly enough to flag even for unskilled investigators who happened to trawl political channels in the southern axis of Africa. Materials shipped in at a nauseating pace, and reports of something alien - the same something alien from Myanmar - but much larger than it’d been originally.

They didn’t just want to replicate something similar to Bob’s serum. They just wanted him.

Of course the incredulity had been immense and immediate. They’d seen at least a fraction of what Bob can do once Sentry or - god forbid - the Void comes out to play. But that had been the point hadn’t it? And while you were in no way a scientist or engineer and therefore couldn’t verify the legitimacy of the idea… an alien machine intended to balance and suppress severely unstable energies certainly sounded like the silver bullet if created strong enough.

It wasn’t something you were comfortable making any sort of bets on.

None of them were, either.

It was as simple as that, and so you were suddenly thrown into your very first field mission.

The border between South Africa and Botswana held one of many abandoned outposts that had traded hands between private interests over the decades, the British Army, then HYDRA, then the Soviets, HYDRA again, then left entirely defunct. At least that’s how it should be.

You were familiar with overlooked facilities, though.

The place had seen an uptick in activity over the last seven months, sparse enough that no flags were raised to go stomp squatters out. Since your involvement in the New Avengers that activity had more than tripled, and it was the first good option the team had.

Bob was coming along.

You had been spectator to that fight as it went down. It was Bob’s idea, his desire to participate on the mission. Other things he’d done up until that point hadn’t been without danger, but had been of a considerably lesser caliber than people aspiring to trap - as Valentina had put it - a god in a box to turn into a miniature Dyson sphere. That had immediately been met with concerned resistance, what if they already had something in store for him? What if they had something much worse than guys with bullets ready? Was he prepared for the level of violence necessary, up until this point they’d never made him actually fight so much as remove obstacles with frightening efficiency. It’d been raucous, and you’d watched as they drowned him out of a conversation about him entirely.

And you’d watched the twitch in his hands, the way he squeezed them white and then diverted that energy to the leather straps faithfully bound around his wrists. The twitch of his nose and eye.

You don’t think anyone had heard him shout that loudly before, at least- none other than Valentina.

“Stop! Just- just… Stop. You- you don’t get to decide this for me. Maybe you’re right about all of it. Everything you’ve said, but that means I should be there. I know I’m not- not good with guns or fighting yet, but I’m not a child and this is about me now. I get to have a say in whether or not I go.

I’m- I’m going.”

And that had been the end of it.

He was still in crude armor, barely personally tailored to him in that it fit but nothing beyond that. You’d mustered the courage to ask, and were told there was conflict of interest occurring in the design department for Bob’s new uniform. A proper uniform, Yelena had emphasized.

She didn’t take particularly well to the gold spandex, then.

Now, they were all crawling within the guts of the South Africa-Botswana compound, seemingly abandoned and yet only recently. People had been here, and quite a few of them for an extended period of time. Pantries had been filled and then emptied, crates of supplies brought in and the shells abandoned. Parts for vehicles - both land and flying - and an ass load of the typical detritus you find from weapon assembly, use and maintenance.

You were all on target, you were just too late.

“Well, this was fun and pointless.” John’s voice crackles through into the headphones clasped around your ears. He sounds mildly annoyed, though you suspect most of the edge was taken off just by getting out into the field to do something. He wasn’t particularly the kind of guy who favored relaxation.

“We don’t know that yet, Walker. Keep looking.” Bucky, long suffering as ever.

“What are uh- what should we be looking for?” As sweet as ever.

“Most likely any files, even scraps of paper that seem important. Information tends to be the first and most sloppily destroyed when people are in a rush.” Ava was quite familiar with that particular error, considering her upbringing. Lazily flickering grayscale cameras reveal to you the way she turns her head at him, something like a reassuring look exchanged.

None of them were opposed to Bob’s presence, but you’d noticed that Ava was quietly enthusiastic to have him on board.

In a strange way… you’d found that Ava related to him the most.

Everyone here had their fair share of suffering, their reasons for attaching to Bob and to each other. All of them were equally important, and diverse enough to pique your interest. The thing about Ava and Bob…

They were the only two on the team with powers. The rest were just… people. Very deadly, very trained, stronger and faster, more exceptional. But they were still just people. They didn’t come with the struggles of having so much extra offloaded onto their shoulders compared to the rest.

For Bob, his mental state split rogue into their own entities. For Ava, her body ripping itself apart constantly.

You think in a way, much like she enjoys him most in the quiet moments- she finds some sense of camaraderie in their shared extracurricular struggles. Or maybe hope, that if he can handle it- even with all that’s wrong with him. There might be a day she can too, without a suit clinging to her body forever.

The furthermost room in the intelligence floor of the compound terminates on a central security room for all other areas long abandoned. It doesn’t take long for them to end up there, cursory scrawls of their crude medical and research wings had been more than enough for them to know it was a fruitless search, and left them with their final option here.

It was old, gray and yet browning with rust in places. It looked like there was an attempt to clean or update, parts of panels ripped up and the guts turned out for something new- but renovation had barely gotten off the ground before they made too much fuss and drove themselves out of the region. In all, it’s the most likely to still function and therefore is the best chance at any sort of progress beyond the fact that Bob might be in some sort of danger.

Bucky, Yelena, and you are left to be in control of this sequence of events. The two of them were well trained in espionage and as the decades turned over into the technological revolution, their skillsets needed to encompass the most basic understanding of electronics and their interfaces. It was a blessed revelation, because you were certain that aside from Ava absolutely no one else had any hope of helping. In John’s case, likely to break it.

“I need the central computer turned online, please. The- the entire system will run through it and I sh-should be able to handle the rest from here. If not I’ll tell you otherwise.” An awkward beat, “…Thanks.”

Bucky began to move without fanfare, a goal was given to him and he’d complete it. And frankly, you were counting your blessings that he wasn’t reacting to you beyond acquiescing to your needs. Yelena on the other hand- she wasn’t being obstinate. But you could see the face she made as you stammered over your words, whatever unreadable expression only deepening at your frankly depressing gratitude expressed.

She wasn’t particularly enthused by you, still. And- oddly- her eyes found Bob as she proceeded for the same place Bucky was poking at buttons and flipping switches.

You bit back a cringe of pain seeing the rapid increase of boredom in John and Alexei, who were both clearly itching for something more than playing a game of telephone with them in order to slowly break open a computer and maybe download some corrupted files to pick apart. You didn’t blame them, they were warriors through and through. It didn’t ease your anxiety about getting this done as efficiently as possible and escaping their hair, though.

“Bucky. Stop just pressing buttons, you don’t know what any of these do.”

“She told us to turn it on, I’m trying to figure it out.”

“Did you think it was just going to be some random button on the face with nothing marking it?”

“Well, Lena, villains in the real world don’t typically label their stuff with things like ‘button of self doom’ and ‘the sensitive details of our evil master plan’. So I’m trying to figure it out.”

“Are you kidding me!? That’s all they do. That’s- that’s like their favorite thing. Have you seen what HYDRA used to do back in the day? They had a stamp and everything!”

The two of them are mid-sibling argument as Yelena crosses around the backside of the terminal that holds the central computer of the entire compound. You watch her squat down, fidgeting around with something the camera doesn’t quite see. You don’t need to, though. You can see when the computer gutters, then comes crawling to life with the sort of weariness only an ancient computer stubbornly refusing to die can muster.

“Yes! Thank you, that’s perfect. Exactly what I needed.” Your enthusiastic cry is matched by the harmonic sing-song that explodes up your brainstem and rockets about inside your skull. Clattering enough to almost distract as you let them dive forth with abandon. A new task, like enrichment so they don’t start tormenting you out of boredom.

What you miss, in your enthusiasm, is the look of mild surprise the New Avengers share with each other. Somewhat knocked off kilter in a not unpleasant way by the abruptly loud sincerity.

Unfortunate how it would be cut short so quickly.

You can feel them being funneled into a labyrinth, and the way they blast forth with abandon- completely undeterred, and in no way exhausted by the clearly deliberate attempts to trap them and keep them from reaching their destination. They flood like endorphins, overwhelm coding with savagery. They squeak, chirp, coo as resistance breaks down around them.

And then, you are met with hot white agony.

The power in the bunker flickers, it dims then rises to a blinding sharpness. You can hear them all shriek and even from a world away it is piercing to your ears. You yourself scream, and beyond that you vaguely hear some sort of alarm.

It doesn’t matter, as you fold in fetal and clasp your hands around your ears.

It feels as if it lasts forever, and no time at all. And then you’re left with a deafening silence only broken by your ragged breathing and the pounding in your chest.

Sweating, clammy, your eyes open. Your screens are not your own anymore, and weakly you hear them chirp among themselves with despair. When you look up, you feel very alone, and very afraid.

WE SEE YOU.

[sinkat]

Publicly posting creative work when you have *severe* rejection sensitive dysphoria is such a bitch. I can't even look at chapter 2 of this new story without being upset, and all I have to do is edit it to post... but my brain won't stop with the "why bother?" and "no one wants this."

Scratch that, I can't even be excited about it or think positively about it at this point. The whole thing is tainted because I'm misdirecting mountains of very real IRL stress and frustration right into convincing myself that my creative work is shit, while using single digit engagement numbers on Twitter and AO3 evidence of that. (I gave up on tumblr a long time ago, and good thing, too, considering how much stuff I chuck here and get... literally zero response.)

And then, of course, there's the guilt associated with this blanket-statement kind of thinking - you know, "no one wants this" - when at least a couple of people like it. I know I'm being ungrateful and that the standard of "success" isn't how many internet strangers decided to click a like button.

But I still can't help thinking, like... at what point do you take a hint and just stop?

[miniaturesuitgladiator]

Quarter mile at a time.

Synopsis: Bruce finds out he has another biological kid ,and not only are they a girl but the best street racer in Gotham!!

Notes: reader is described as female and black, poc ,or in this case I guess she might be mixed. I do not hate cops I just wrote them like this for the fic. So please don't take anything to personally.

Warnings: Illegal things ofc. Drugs, mentions of sex and prostitution. Child abandonment. Underage drinking and smoking and prostitution. Not proofread!!

Part one. Part two.

Ride or die.

'Do you understand how much trouble your in kid?'

'Do you ever shut up?'

This was the third time this week you had gotten yourself in this position.

Handcuffed and seated infront of some cop who was writing down your statement.

Still being underaged meant you'd get away with more then adults would.

Sadly that also meant you were usually the one to take the fall for your so called 'friends'.

'You gotta help me out here kid. I'm trying to help you.'

You were sixteen. That age that people would consider 'young and dumb'.

But you knew better then to tell anything to the cops. People got hurt from doing that.

People got killed.

'Cmon kid. Your sixteen and I see you in here three times a week.'

'Don't remind me." You scoff rolling your eyes.

Cops like these almost make you feel bad. Almost. They always claim their just 'trying to do their job'. But you see through that.

You see the way they pin your friends down. Gun to their head. Cuffs tighter then needed and for what?

For power.

And with a gun to a scared kid's head they feel like they got it......

So you stay silent and give them headaches with your words.

'Well I guess all that's left to do is call your mom.'

'Go ahead and try it.'

You've seen this to many times to count. The cop tries to threaten you with him calling your mom. She doesn't answer.

They let you go. Because Gotham's got bigger problems then a kid who they don't have proof did something.

'Ya know kid. If you weren't so caught up with friends like yours you'd have a good life.'

Of course the cop would say that. By looking at your record. Your a straight A student good grades you even tutor for extra credits.

'Am I free to go?'

The cops sighs after getting nothing but a ring from you mother's phone.

'Yeah go ahead.'

You scoff standing up and grabbing your things. Smug like smile planted your face from finally being free.

'Wait.'

You hum turning back around to face the sitting cop.

'Kid, I say this with respect. Going the way your going you won't make it to twenty.'

You knew he was right. Your friends were living proof of that. Some of your friends were dead while others in prison.

More friends came but they never could beat the system.

You didn't blame them and you never would. They were trapped in a system were this felt like the only way out.

Just like you.

'Maybe that's the plan.'

Fear owned Gotham, consumed it like a virus.

Even the wealthy and powerful people slept with one eye open.

Everyone was afraid of something ,and in Gotham your worst fear was most likely to happen.

But your not really helping yourself when you go to places like this. But then again you didn't really care.

It's dark as you walk to suspiciously dark allies but you knew ever road in gotham.... just not like other people would....

By the time you reach your destination the place is already filled with people. Some drunk most high ,and more likely then not they were shit broke with nothing to lose.

So to say this place wasn't a place for a teenager was an understatement.

By now you knew who to stick around. The people who could protect got and the people who couldn't.

So you had no trouble as you walk around and greet your usual 'friends'.

It smells like smoke but not from cigarettes.

Smoke from tires rubbing against the harsh concrete. It's warm but that kind of from car engines and cigarettes.

Girls crowed around cars and boys do too. All looking for attention or money. They'd do just about anything to get cash.

Some of them were mean almost forcing men to sleep with them to get money , but others were soft much to shy to do anything like that.

You felt bad for them but you held your tongue, as both the men and women belittled them infront of you.

Most of them were older then you but some we're your age some even younger. They new you quite well.

Well just about everyone knew you.

You couldn't be seen with them though. No, you were too popular around this place to be seen with them.

You'd be considered a stupid kid to be seen with them. And in a place like this, if you're seen as a kid they'll treat you like one.

A loud voice breaks through the crowned and reaches your ears.

'Looks who's back.'

Mikey your so called 'boss' says. Mikey met you when you were dirt poor and took pity on you.

Instead of giving you money. He gave you a job. Claiming 'you gotta work for your money. Cause ain't shit free.'

Mikey owned a car shop and he taught you alot. Even stuff you shouldn't know. Like how to make a car go the fastest it can with blowing up.

Or how to hide drugs in car seats that even the best canines won't be able to smell.

Eventually he took you to your first street race and from there it clicked.

That was your passion, that was your thing.

You made him teach you stick and eventually you built your own car out of scraps.

And slowly by slowly you came up in ranks.

And bought a better car.

Thanks to Mikey of course. He got in you every race since he knew just about everyone, even the people you shouldn't know.

He started you with small races and moved you up inch by inch.

But the time you were twelve you were the best street racer in Gotham. But not everyone can take losing to a kid well.

So Mikey introduced you to his friends. So atleast you'd have their protection. Their older then you and did just about anything illegal you could think of.

But they were your protection so you didn't complain.

You smile as you see Mikeys crooked smile.

You knew he wasn't a Saint ,or anything but he was the closest thing you have as family.

He's all you got.

He used to pay your rent and bills for you until eventually you could pay them yourself.

Lord knows your mom never did....

'Hey Mikey. Where's my baby?'

'In the back. She's already ready.'

He points behind him and low and behold there she is. Your baby.

Your pink Honda S2000 covered in glitter and with rims that the moon illuminated off of.

She was perfect. The fastest thing in Gotham and it made your opponents even angrier to lose to such a feminine car.

Following Mikey to your car you walk past various people and their cars.

All different cars modified from their colors, to their shapes ,and designs that comstomize them to their owner.

It was easy walking past the cars some you admired for their creativity others you thought looked ridiculous.

Walking past the people wasn't so easy.

Some gave you a simple nod others looked you up and down clearly sizing you for the race.

Grazing your hands against the hood of your car you smile.

You never took your car home with you after a race. The cops would catch you before you could say 'shit'.

Mikey taught you that.

So instead you left it with Mikey ,and he took care of her when you weren't racing.

Opening your door and starting the engine you smile at the noise she makes. Everyone knew the sounds of your car by now. Loud, strong, and confident.

'You ready? They paying good this race.' Mikey says as he looks you over.

It was never about the money. You and Mikey new that. It was about the thrill.

The excitement of the race.

It was exhilaration you felt right before you won. It was feeling of not feeling anything for a moment.

It was the way your stomach dropped as you hit the gas half way through a curve. The way the moon shined on your dark skin and the way the chilly air felt against your face.

It was the fact that when you were racing you didn't worry about anything. Not school, not the cops, not your life, not your mom. Nothing.

It was just you and your car and that was enough....

'I'm always ready.'

The noise from the Crowed died down a bit when the racer girl announced the biggest race was about to begin. This was the most expensive race of the night so of course you were in it.

You new mostly everyone you were racing but their was one guy you didn't. No one did. You ignored that feeling that something was off about him. After all as long as he had money to pay that's all that mattered.

The race started of the same motorcycles went out and stopped the traffic and horns from the busy and annoyed people rang through the air as you raced through the city like you always did.

The roads were dark and this was definitely the fastest your car had ever gone.

You hanged in second place the unknown boy in front. But right he could pass that finish line you pushed your secret weapon. And just like always.

You won.

The Crowed was loud and people surrounded you touching you and your car. Compliments filled the air but your eyes weren't on them. No, your eyes were on the new guy.

He looked normal but something about how he acted gave him away. How he kept looking around but tried to act calm.

He wasn't a junky. No, he was dressed to nice and his car was nice enough to prove he wasn't.

He looks almost awkward but people continue talking to him. He doesn't fit In here that's clear as day when you notice how he talks. It's to nice, to cocky.

He's smart you'll give him that. Probably the best at what he does. That's probably why they sent him. He's got that kinda charm that he can smooth talk his way into anything and everything.

But if he was gonna come here he should've known what not to do. And most people are way to high and drunk to notice but you do.

His gaze always goes to people hands first.

People here didn't do that.

No, here you look at their eyes or If you like them their body.

Never their hands. People here throw their hands around but they usually don't mean any harm that's just how the express themselves.

Cops tried to read people by their hands to watch what they were gonna do before they did it.

You knew that from how much you were constantly arrested.

That's probably why most of your friends were treated harsher then necessary by cops when all they were trying to do was communicate.

'Only cops do that shit.' You mutter pushing off your car and walking over to Mikey trying to give him your keys.

'Leaving so soon?' Mikey ask his voice almost concerned but he hides that well.

You always stayed late. Because it was better then going home to empty apartment.

You nod your hands still holding your keys and eyeing the boy.

You don't say anything to Mikey about the boy being a cop incase you were wrong. But your not gonna stay here long enough incase you were right.

You toss your drink, your hand opening to give Mikey your keys but before you know it loud sirens fill the air and blue flashing lights are everywhere.

People scatters like cockroaches when you turn on the light.

Your quick to grip your keys and get in your car. Before you even know what your doing your already racing down the dark streets of Gotham.

You don't have time to count how many police cars follow behind you and for a moment you wonder if they only want you.

They probably did considering how many times you had gotten away from them.

You'd been running from cops since you started racing and on foot you weren't that fast but in your car?

They couldn't get close enough to scratch your paint.

You sigh turning off your engine and leaning your head on your steering wheel as you parked into a dark ally.

You had escaped all ten of the cops with ease but there was still that adrenaline rushing through your viens.

You don't have much time to rest though because before you can think of what to do there's a loud thumb against the top of your car.

'The fuck?' You whisper still out of breath and kinda scared.

Your head still slightly dizzy and your eyes have never been the best so this must he your imagination right?

Because there's no fucking way batman just landed on the back of your car.

You groan muttering a 'just my luck.' Under your breath and put up your hands in defeat.

Because of course your a good driver but your to tired and far to drunk to race against fucking batman himself.

He opens your door and his scowl is cold harsh.

Harsher then the criminals you face on the daily but it softens at the sight of you....

You look like a dream. Not the kind that he falls inlove with but the kind that he's supposed to know.

Someone he's supposed to remember but he cant.

He feels weird but still takes your arm and without a word puts you in the batmobil.

He decides to ignore the way you almost rip out his door handle by how hard your trying to open it.

'Even if you did get out. You won't make it far.' He says as his car automatically buckling up.

'Worth a shot.'

You huff annoyed about your situation and scared even though your trying to hide it.

'Whats your name?'

'Whats your name?' You repeat his question with a question. Ah, so you were that kinda kid.

The stubborn kind.

Well he can't judge he has a handful of stubborn kids of his own. And he thanks God for that on night like these.

It just makes it easier to talk to you.

'Tell me your name and I'll let you go.'

'Huh?'

Your surprised by the amazing deal he's offering you and really can't believe it.

He on the other hand had no real intention of handing you over to the police after all he had sent Dick their as an undercover cop to stop a big drug deal not stop a kid.

Little did he know you were the best street racer in Gotham. But he quickly figured that out as you escaped not one but ten trained cops.

You sigh telling him your name. Even if this was a trap it was worth a shot.

He unlocks the door and you uncross your arms open the door. Confused you look back at him.

'You really gonna let me go?' You ask trying to make sure that he wouldn't chase you down after this.

'A deals a deal ,kid.' He watches as you step out of the batmobil and his gaze locks onto yours as you close his door.

'See ya around, kid.' His dark voice says and something about the way he says it makes you believe it's more of a promise then just a saying.

'Hopefully not.' You mutter as you get in your car.

'Alfred I'm going to need you to check something for me.'

'B, everyone in my unit has been looking for that kid for years! Years! And you just let her go? The best street racer in Gotham and you let here go?! We didn't even know she was a girl until today!'

Dick voice echos through the batcave and Bruce's headache already forming from his sons distressed voice.

'Well being seeing her soon Dick. Calm down.'

He tries to reason with obviously irrated vigilantly.

'And how can you be so sure? What if this was are only chance?!'

Alfred sends him a knowing glance as he hands Bruce some life changing papers.

Bruce sighs rubbing his temples as he carefully reads the heavy papers in his hands.

Even going so far as rereading them just to make sure.

But eventually after reading enough and his headache intensifying he says.

'Because she's my daughter.'

💕Thanks for reading!!💕

Likes reblogs and comments are appreciated!!

[tpwrtrmnky]

clarification

[ID:

Three panel comic with crudely drawn stick people.

Panel 1: a lime green person and a grass green person wearing a baseball cap ang big, round glasses are walking down a street.

Grass: "Look. I get it. You think I'm paranoid. And that I need to touch grass. But this is my part of town. There is no grass here.

You think you know misoviridy, you haven't seen the half of it. It's fucked over here."

Lime: "Sure, in what way though"

Panel 2: Grass looks concerned as they explain to Lime.

Grass: "Well um. Some. And to be absolutely clear I do mean some, not all and not most, a subset, a particular, specific group of nongreen chromatic people in this area."

Lime: "Uh-"

Grass: "Those individuals in particular are prone to, sometimes, not as some intrinsic trait but rather as a behavioral tendency that they are actively choosing to partake in, um,

Misoviridic harassment. Over very, very little provocation."

Panel 3: A crowd of five people color picked from Tumblr's dashboard buttons surround the two. Grass Green lays in the fetal position while Lime keeps standing.

Photo Red: "Hey what the fuck is your problem, you raging æverthe?"

Video Pink: "I actually proudly hate green people. Just to be clear."

Audio Blue: "How dare you say all red and/or blue people are murderers?"

Chat Blue: "We're a very welcoming community fuck you!"

Quote Orange: "I just have some concerns about the thing you just said, such as the claim that all nongreen people are misoviridic. if you didn't mean that all nongreen people are misoviridic you should've clarified-"

Lime: "They did clarify that!"

Quote Orange: "It's actually very presumptuous of you to expect that I can know ahead of time that the words in the sentence are there on purpose? This is very primarist of you."

End ID.]

Start - Previous - Next

[underratedbreadcrust]

Chance Equals Fortune — Prologue

Squid Game | The Salesman x F!Reader

Summary: parasites. that is the only thing he thinks of when he meets the players he is meant to recruit. but what happens when he meets you and you are nothing of what he expects.

an au where the salesman lives and becomes a player.

Warnings: swearing and classist thinking. in the future there will probably be canon-typical violence and i'm still debating on smut.

a/n: happy new years! i'm sorry i couldn't upload this earlier i had to deal with some long distant relatives. however, due to popular demand here is the gong yoo fic as promised. this was originally supposed to be under 1k words...

Words: 2.1k

next part>>

Click. Click. Click

Those are the sounds of pristine perfectly polished black shoes on concrete. The soles of the shoes worn by a handsome-looking businessman echoed loudly, causing the sounds to reverberate into the jet-black sky. As he walked beneath the faint luminescence of street lights, case in hand and his head held high, his eyes searched for the next prey to fall victim to his silver tongue. The same mouth that twisted dark truths into sweet promises others couldn't dare reject. Never once has his articulate way of speaking failed to deliver the precise words necessary to provide his superiors with a new batch of fresh meat to satisfy their sadistic tendencies. To him, it was all the same. One less piece of vermin in the world, and more importantly, one less leech to drain the well-oiled machine that is society.

Today was no different as he strolled along the sidewalk of a small park near the outskirts of Seoul. While he walked, he felt indifferent towards the small details, like the light breeze swaying the tree branches above or the faint smell of dog shit wafting through the air. Having trained himself to ignore anything and everything that could be a possible distraction from his mission. What was his mission again? Ah yes, currently that would be you.

His steps immediately halted as he spotted your figure in the distance, a dark shadow looming over a bed of flowers and a trail of smoke emitting from the cigarette between your fingers. There you are. He squared his shoulders as he fixed his expression into one of casual ease. Now, all he had left to do was to convince you all of the problems that have stemmed from your pathetic life could be solved in the blink of an eye. That your worries could dissolve as quickly as skin in acid.

He began to move again, taking long strides to where you were standing. In the time he took to reach you, he jotted some quick mental notes.

One. Your relaxed stance oozed confidence and uninterest despite being a young lady positioned in one of the most crime-infested spots of the city in the dead of night. Meaning you either had a weapon on you or had sufficient defense skills, possibly both. He must tread carefully.

Two. You were positioned next to a tall fountain, atop stood a small marble figure of a gumiho. The spot infamously known for the shady transactions dealing with drugs and other nefarious crimes. Perhaps you were waiting for someone? He'd have to keep an eye out for any newcomers that could interrupt his process.

Three. Your mouth was...moving?

His steps faltered. There was no other person around within a 3-mile radius whom you could be conversing with, nor did you have a phone in hand. How odd. In his time as a recruiter, he has encountered all kinds of people. Drug addicts, the mentally ill, and one memorable case a delirious man on the brink of death, hallucinating from hunger. You, however, seemed perfectly sane. Keyword…seemed. He shook his head, quickly putting a halt to his thoughts. He had no time to ponder over whatever weird traits you may have, he came here to do one job. He resumed his trek towards you and was soon standing mere feet from you.

Show time.

“Excuse me miss, may I have a minute of your time?”

You remain standing still, making no indication that you had noticed him. Your eyes were distant while you continued to murmur but no sound came out. He wasn’t sure if you were ignoring him or if you really were that unaware of your surroundings. Now that won’t do.

“Miss?” He tried again tentatively, his head tilting curiously as he stepped in your line of sight. “Are you alright?”

Finally, your eyes shifted into focus, taking a moment to adjust. For a brief moment, it appeared as if you were lost. However, that moment soon passed and your eyes narrowed, annoyance filling your features.

“Why did you interrupt me?”

The bite in your tone was enough to make him raise an eyebrow. Perhaps you really weren’t in the right state of mind after all. “Interrupt?”

You scoffed, ignoring the question you brought the cigarette back to your lips. Taking in a long drag before you released the smoke right in his face. His mouth turned downward in displeasure.

“Do you need something?” You snapped, your jaw clenching as you slid your free hand in your pocket. He caught the way your finger twitched as you did so. Weapon it is then.

His face instantly changed back to that previous pleasant expression, his lips curving into a kind smile though with a lack of warmth in his eyes. Instead replaced by an empty, clinical look.

”I don’t mean to be a bother ma’am, but I’m here to offer you a proposal you’re sure to like,” he states in a neutral tone, having uttered a variation of those words dozens of times. “A way to better improve your current economic situation.”

Your body tenses as your eyes dart over his figure eyeing the suitcase, no doubt analyzing him as a threat. “Look I already said I’d pay him back!” He watches as you chuck the cigarette to the ground and stomp on it. “If he keeps rushing me like this then don’t expect to get a single won out of me! I don’t give a shit who he is!” Your volume rises as you take a step back, ready to sprint if needed.

He raises his arm in surrender. “That’s not what I’m here for. As I’ve stated, I only want to help.” His mind is conjuring up the best way to ease the tension.

He hesitantly takes a step forward.

Your eyes immediately look back down. “What’s in the case?”

Another step.

“I work for a group of people whose only interest is to help those who are struggling. Our objective being to ease the burden of the majority.” He swiftly places the case at the base of the fountain, unlocking the latch but leaving it closed. “See for yourself.”

You were the one to take the final step, closing the gap between the two of you. You gave him one more skeptical look before you focused all of your attention on what was in front of you. Slowly, both hands reached out and flipped the top wide open. Your eyes widened as you took in the contents of what was inside, or more specifically, the big wads of cash.

You remained silent, frozen as a statue as you simply stared. In an instant, you whipped your head in his direction. You took the time to study him, your mouth slightly agape and a certain look in your eye he couldn't quite place. A couple of seconds passed, you clamped your mouth shut and swallowed thickly, licking your lips before you finally managed to whisper, "What do you want?"

His mouth quirked upward in a smirk. Got you. "I'd like to play a game."

You belted out a high-pitched, contorted laugh. A childlike glee completely overcoming you. "Ab-so-fucking-lutely," you grinned from ear to ear, bouncing on the balls of your feet.

It dawned on him what that look in your gaze was...

Unstable.

A jolt of thrill shoots down his spine. "I'm sure you're familiar with the game ddakji," he reaches until he grabs the two colorful squares, carefully placing the red one on the ground, "for every time your square manages to flip mine, I will pay you 100,000 won."

You nod enthusiastically, your hand shooting out as he draws his hand in at the same time. "However, if you lose...you must pay me back the same amount."

You snatched the piece from him. “Deal.” You don't waste a single moment in hurling it, the force of the impact causing the sound to ricochet like a gunshot. The square goes flying, becoming a red blur. It stays in the air for a couple of seconds, but that time is enough for the experienced recruiter to know that you've already won. By the time it hits the ground, he doesn't even have to look to know it's flipped.

You look up expectantly at him.

He glances at her, jaw clenching. Well, this isn't how it usually goes. Before he can move to pay you, your voice cuts through the silence. "From the look on your face, you didn't want me to win, correct?" The lack of response on his part encourages you to continue. "How about, instead of doing whatever the hell you were thinking, I propose a new rule," you lean forward, your eyes sparkling with mirth, "we both keep throwing until one of us loses. If I win...you give me everything that's in that case."

"And what if I win?"

Your mouth twists into a devilish smirk. "Don't worry, you won't."

His eyes look you up and down, scanning you. His hands twitch in anticipation at the challenge, adrenaline manifesting itself as electricity in his veins. His bruised ego from losing the first round combined with his competitive nature was enough to make him agree. This was not part of the plan. He could just give you the money, the card, and go about his day like he has so many times before. He has no reason to play along other than he just wants to beat you.

"Alright," his previously fabricated smile now becoming genuine, "my turn."

With renewed vigor, he launches his square and as expected, it flips. He lets out an arrogant chuckle as he fixes his suit and stands up straight, his lips stretching into a satisfied smile.

This cycle continued for multiple rounds, the money long forgotten. The need to succeed fueled the violent fire between the two of you. After a while, he lost all track of time, fixating all of his attention solely on the game.

By now, his hair was disheveled and sweat dripped down his forehead. He panted as he recovered, his arm muscles aching from the consistent use. It was taking more energy than he was willing to admit in order to keep going but like hell if he'd let exhaustion be the cause of failing.

On his turn, he prepared himself to once again launch the disc. He readied himself, drawing his arm back and—

His eyes suddenly flickered to your lips, where your tongue darted out lick them. He watches intensely at your now damp, chapped lips, mouth slightly parted as you breathe heavily from fatigue.

In his moment of distraction, the square slips from his hand. He scrambles quickly to catch it but it's too late...

He's lost.

There is a long pause of silence, before your high-pitched cackle cuts through the air. His eyes widen in shock, the realization slowly setting in.

How...

He breathes out deeply through his nose, trying his best to compose himself. What the hell was that? How on earth could he have lost? He Never. Loses. He doesn't have any longer to dwell on the fact as you practically skip in joy to the case, already counting the amount. All of this because you managed to distract him.

Your voice soon interrupts his thoughts. "Maybe the next time you want to win, you might try not to let your eyes stray so far..." you say as you wink.

How did you even notice? Wait...was that on purpose? He clenches his fists until they turn white, the thought making his blood boil. He has half the mind to kill you and call it an accident just to quell his anger.

He closes his eyes in frustration. No, I can't ruin the games.

He takes in a couple of deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down. Once he knows that his voice won't betray any conflict he feels, he speaks again, "you know, there are other games such as the one we just played. And for much larger prizes as well."

He's back in his element, his persuasive tone of voice exuding reliability. He hands you the card, explaining how it works, how to enlist, and so on.

By the time he finishes his speech, you look mostly convinced. After inspecting the card more closely, your stare finds his, "I appreciate what you have done and thank you for the opportunity. I will consider your offer. If I do accept know it will only be due to a singular fact," your head leans closer, voice lowering to a whisper and your breath fanning over his, "I never lose"

On that note, you step back and walk away, never once turning to glance back at him. You soon disappear into the dark Seoul night, shadows blending with that of buildings and trees.

He lets out a small huff in amusement. If that is true, then he's excited to see how you'll fare in the games.

please don't be a silent reader i love reading comments and hearing your thoughts.

[nightingale-prompts]

Two for One deal- After Image AU- DCxDP

Original post

So would call him negligent but he called it teaching independence. Danny was a smart kid and had everything he needed. Harvey was satisfied with that. Who needed an adult constantly hanging over him? Besides the goons will handle it.

"Harv, are you sure you can handle this? I mean Dick and Tim were a cakewalk but even they were hard to handle." Bruce said stirring his coffee as his eyes wondered around the venue.

They were currently at a well-known and exclusive restaurant for their monthly brunch.

"Come on, it's one kid. I'm not going to start picking up random orphans off the street like you." Harvey said with his typical snark.

Let it not be said that Havery wasn't an asshole. He was. Narcissistic too. But he had a good heart or at least half of one.

"I don't know. Have you been taking your medicine?" Bruce asked his tone shifting to the more serious one he used rarely back in school. "If you want to take care of him you need to take care of yourself."

"Come on Bruce, both of us have had our share of trauma. I can handle this without you needling like a wife." Harvey joked.

Bruce didn't find it funny at all and slightly sexist. Harvey wasn't taking this seriously and his mask was slipping. He hadn't been taking his medication.

"So your son. What is he like?" Bruce shifted the conversation.

"He's polite...when he wants to be. Smarter than most adults I know. Likes to be left alone. Gets on my last nerve." Harvey laughed to himself.

Just then his phone rang.

On the other side a small voice pipped up.

"Mister Dent...I think I'm being kidnapped."

"Think or know?" Harvey said standing up from the table.

"Mr.Dent we have your son. If you want him to be safe you need to represent my client in his upcoming court case."

Harvey clenched his teeth. In internal battle had begun.

"We could let him kill the brat."

"Or we could do as he says. Or call in favor for help."

Harvey reflexively reached for his coin but realized quickly that he didn't want to. If he actually got tail that would mean Danny would be left to die. He'd be innocent but could he really let that happen.

"You don't really mean that. You don't really want him to die. Who'd you argue with other than me?"

"I don't need you and I don't need the boy hanging around."

"And who would understand you like him? He's like us. He is ours and he needs us."

"....fine."

Harvey stood from the table and quickly told Bruce he had to go.

From Wayne's perspective, he watched Harv freeze and his eyes widened in fear and anger.

****

Elsewhere a confused Danny sat tied up in a warehouse.

"I told you we should have stayed at home."

"But we needed to stretch our legs. Do you want to know what this part of the city looks like. Mister Harvey moved us all the way uptown and I wanted to see it."

"We were safer back in outskirts apparently. Come on let's get out of here. This place reeks."

"Yeah, we shouldn't worry Mister Harvey. Causing problems would get us kicked out."

****

The situation seemed to work itself out almost elegantly.

The news reported that Harvey Dent with the help of undercover police(goons) heroically rescued his adopted son (who had already beat the kidnappers bloody).

The news made sure to get a good shot of Harvey hugging the squirming teenage boy.

"You're crushing us!"

"Don't wander off alone then. Next time I'm tying you up."

[smutoperator]

Bad Bunny

Jung Eunbi (Eunha) x Male Reader

Kinkvember Chapter 2

Main kinks: public sex, free use, sex with a stranger, spanking

Word count: 5639.

Eunha is a bad bunny. She may look cute from the outside, but once she gets inside the walls of any bedroom, she transforms herself into the neediest slut ever known. However, in this month of November, you had decided you would abstain from having any sex with her and let her prepare for her group's comeback.

But Eunha's horniness knows no boundaries, and her comeback preparation couldn't go ahead without sex. And if you weren't going to give it to her, no problem; she would find it somewhere else.

Eunha invites a guy to your house for a hot night of sex. He fucks her in every possible way, giving her the relief she needs while you preach your abstinence. However, one little mistake ended up leading to her demise.

On the next day, you do your duty as a good boyfriend and collect the garbage to take it away. However, when you start separating it, you find a few condoms mixed in it. You noticed a few holes poked in them and quickly connected the dots. "Damn, that bunny is so horny she couldn't go over a day without sex," you say.

You take the garbage out but grab one of the condoms, waiting to confront Eunha when she arrives from the latest practice. It doesn't take long for her to come, and as soon as she does, you ask her.

"What is this, Eunha?" you say, pointing to the condom. "I don't know," she answers, clearly lying as you can see her pale skin blushing. "Eunha, did you have sex with another guy while preparing for your group's comeback? You ask her. "Sorry, baby, I couldn't resist; I'm just a horny bunny," she answers. "Please forgive me; I love you," she continues.

Eunha's needy face makes your heart melt. You truly want to forgive her. But first, you need to set some conditions. "I forgive you, baby, but you cannot disobey me anymore," you tell her. "Okay, baby, I promise I will be very obedient," Eunha answers. "Well, I will start enforcing it right now; you better obey every command I give you and let me do whatever I want to you," you answer her. "Yes, baby, do it as you please; I deserve to get punished; I'm a bad bunny," she says.

"Let's take a walk then," you tell Eunha. "Sure, baby," she says. But as soon as you two get out of your house, you cuff her hands. "Baby, what are you doing?" she asks. "Shhhh, you told me you would let me do whatever I wanted," you say to her. "Alright, do it," she says.

You walk Eunha across the street in the direction of the construction site on the other side of it. You walk her through it, making sure she doesn't trip over anything with those knee-high boots she's wearing. You get her towards one of the fences at the construction site, pushing her against it. "Punish me, baby," she says. And indeed you will.

You grab scissors and cut Eunha's top right at her boob area. "We can't do that, baby," she says. "Today we can, follow my lead, you cheating bunny," you say to her, groping her perfect pair of tits and giving them a few spankings in between. "Bad bunny," you say as you spank them.

You pin Eunha against the fence and bend her body over, showing off the part that made you fall in love with her: the perfect round cheeks of her butt. You do one of your favorite things to it: spank it a few times before you pick up the scissors to cut her panties off. "You won't need those today," you say to Eunha.

You stick your hands on Eunha's pink fuckholes and start massaging them. "We can't do that in public, baby; it's too risky," she says. "Of course we can, and if you stay quiet, nobody will see," you say to her as you keep fingering her pussy and anus in broad daylight.

You once again reach into your toolcase and push out a nipple clamp, and you use the chain coming out of it to tie Eunha to the fence. "Today you're Daddy's free use girl," you say to her. "Yes, daddy, please use me," she says.

"Arch that pretty butt for me, little bunny," you tell Eunha, who obliges. As soon as you do, you cut the remnants of her panties off, leaving her big ass out in the open for you to spank it unchallenged. A construction worker arrives from behind, leading you to instinciteively pull Eunha's skirt back to cover her ass.

"You can't stay here," the worker says to you, who obliges and takes Eunha along with you, but not before flashing her nipples to them. You walk Eunha across the street and then reach a very heavy traffic avenue, crossing it as the drivers stop and get greeted with more nipple-flahing from Eunha. On the other side of the avenue, some curious guys look at your girlfriend, wondering what kind of stuff you're doing to her, as they see her tied up with her torso fully exposed, some even perverted enough to try to touch her.

Eunha is now completely naked from her waist up, but you just don't care and take her across the crowd walking down the streets. In fact, you lift her skirt up too, offering them a glimpse of your girlfriend almost totally naked, with many guys turning their necks around to look at her big ass, even better when you spank it in front of those horny dudes and even get some drivers to honk at Eunha flashing them, while you keep greeting the people walking across the street with your girlfriend's hot body.

You get even bolder, bending Eunha's body and flashing her ass to the people on the street and the guys on the avenue. They really enjoy it. Indeed, that fat pale piece of ass is a marvel to look at: so plump, round, and already red from the spankings you gave her.

Eunha grinds herself on a street sign and puts up a little show for the drivers stopping at the red light. "I wish Yuju was there; she could easily do some pole dancing at that sign," you say to your girlfriend, who is basically naked except for the bar of her skirt wrapped around her waist. The transients can see everything from her: her pink pussy, her perky tits, and especially her fat ass.

You take Eunha to the parking lot of a supermarket nearby and decide it's time to start putting some heat up in her pussy, as you finger it while crossing the lot. "Don't squirt; you can only cum when Daddy tells you," you say to her. Eunha obliges, managing to keep herself uptight and not cum.

Eunha gets put on her knees as you unzip your pants and finally show her your cock. "You missed it, right?" you ask her. "A lot, daddy," she answers and then quickly dives to bob her head on it like a good horny bunny. You grab her head from behind and push her even deeper, slowly fucking her doll-esque face. "Oh yeah, you're such a good Barbie doll," you tell her as she takes your cock in her mouth with ease in that parking lot.

You push your pants back up and walk Eunha across the parking lot a little bit. "What do you say?" you ask her. "Thank you, Daddy," Eunha answers. "Good girl, I think you deserve some more of Daddy's cock in your mouth," you reply.

You pin Eunha towards a garage door and violently fuck her face. You don't care about her head slamming hard against it; in face, the more, the better. Your thrusts are filled with rage, ready to teach that cheating bunny a lesson as your cock bulges under her throat and her head keeps slamming the wall. You then walk her around a bit and switch to doing that against the door of one of the parked cars. God, it's so good using that slutty bunny's pretty face like a toy.

You toy with Eunha, slapping your cock against her naughty tongue. That only makes her even hornier, as she seizes the opportunity to bob her head against your cock. "Calm down, little bunny," you say to her, quickly regaining control and pushing her to gag on your cock. "You're such a bad bunny," you say to Eunha, slapping her face.

"Tell me you want more," you ask Eunha. "I want more, Daddy," she answers. "Again," you reply, spitting in her face. "Please, I want more, Daddy. Give me that big cock; I want it inside me," she says with more detail this time. You push your cock a bit more on Eunha's mouth, and she answers by quickly bobbing her head on it, getting it perfectly wet for her fuckholes. She doesn't care about the cars passing through the lot and watching; all she wants is to be a good girl full of cock.

"Where do you want it first, pussy or ass?" you ask Eunha. "Pussy, daddy," she says, and you follow. You truly missed that tight pink hole of hers, groaning as soon as you get in. "And how do you say it?" you ask her. "Please, daddy, fuck my pussy," Eunha answers.

You pump Eunha's pussy at a steady pace, her making tons of effort not to moan and get noticed by someone else. Instead, you're the one groaning as her tight hole squeezes your fat cock quite hard. "Say thank you, Daddy," you tell her, giving her ass another spank. "Thank you, Daddy, for having such a big cock for this little bunny," she answers.

"Such a good whore, getting daddy's cock for everyone in the street to watch; I hope they film us and sell the tape," you say to Eunha. "Oh, oh, oh, ohhhh," Eunha softly moans as you attack her little pussy. You keep groaning as Eunha's walls tighten around your shaft, more so when you spank her ass.

"Come here, clean it," you say after a while. "You made my cock very dirty with that slutty pussy," you continue. Eunha promptly follows your orders, ducking down to taste her juices. "Good girl," you say as she licks the side of your shaft and then takes it deep in her throat before you grab her head and speed up the process by fucking her face.

You lift Eunha's right legs up and spread them until her boots hit the door of the car on the opposite side. With her in prime position, you get back to fuck her pussy from behind while reaching to grab her hair. You fuck her harder this time, Eunha's legs barely able to stay at the car's door while her pussy feels the wrath of your cock. "Are you struggling, whore? Maybe you shouldn't have cheated on me, stupid bunny," you say to her, spitting on her face.

You completely dominate Eunha, now reaching one hand to finger her pussy as you pound it. You fuck her full of rage, punishing her nonstop for being such a bad bunny. You now even stretch her mouth with both hands, humilating her at any possible opportunity.

"Get down, bitch, you are getting too much fun from my cock; now clean it again," you say to Eunha, stopping fucking her pussy and going straight to more facefucking. "Filthy little whore," you say, spitting on her face before doing some cock slapping and then face slapping. "Time to get on your feet; this round is over; I'm taking you somewhere else," you tell her.

You walk Eunha across the neighborhood, never missing a chance to spank her pale butt and make it even redder. You two finally reach your destination, a shabby alleway in front of some long abandoned buildings. You keep spanking her pussy and tits at the alleway. "You like it?" you ask her. "Yes, daddy, spank me; I'm a bad bunny," Eunha says.

You follow what she asks, hitting Eunha's whole pale body with a whip. Her thicc thigs, her beautiful face, her perky tits, her pink pussy, nothing escapes your wrath. "Turn around," you say, delivering some pain to her ass next. "Look at you; you're all dirty," you tell her. 

"Eunha, I'm still being very soft to you; you know I can spank you much harder than that, right?" you ask her. "Of course, daddy, spank me harder, I beg," she says. "Alright, I won't deny it," you tell her, hitting her ass at full speed now. Eunha seems to take it fairly easy. Her pale skin has made her the target of much spanking over the course of her career, to the point that she's addicted to it. "Daddy, I think you're going to make me cum just by spanking me," she says.

"Not yet; you aren't clear to cum yet. And you know what? This filthy alleway is the perfect place to clean your dirty hole," you say to her. "But first, you have to beg it for me," you tell Eunha.

"Please, daddy, fuck my ass," Eunha answers. You like that she already knows what hole you were talking about. "Say it again," you tell Eunha, but you actually block her from answering by shoving your cock in her mouth once again. "Please, daddy, fuck my tight, dirty, slutty ass," she says as soon as your cock is out of her mouth.

You turn Eunha around at the alleway and put your cock in her ass, her tight hole making you struggle to put in there. Eunha clings her head against the wall, trying to cope with your thrusts. "Ohhhh, ohhhhh, ahhhhh, ahhhhh, yesss," Eunha moans as you pick up the speed. You also groan, trying to dig deeper in her anus and pushing really hard. "I'm so thankful for having a daddy that fucks me so good in the ass," Eunha says in between meany moans.

"Holy sh*t, you're such a fucking tight bitch even though you get fucked in the ass every day," you say to Eunha. "Yes, daddy, I always make sure to make things very difficult for your big fat cock or for other cocks when I'm being a bad bunny and cheating on you," Eunha answers, confessing last night wasn't the first time she did it.

"Let me sit; I want to see you bouncing on that cock," you say to Eunha, never pulling out of her at any second. You lie on the dirty sidewalk floor as she impales her dirty butthole on your cock and rides it like a champ, giving you a privileged view of her fat ass. "Come on, stupid bitch, just bounce," you tell her. Eunha follows and picks up the pace, getting your cock all the way inside her tight asshole.

"Good girl," you say to Eunha as the sounds of her cheeks clapping on your pants get louder. "Yeah," she moans, grinning her teeth as your big cock seems to be too much for her tiny butthole.

"Get up," you tell Eunha, asking her to pull out of your cock. "Now sit down and suck it clean; I want you to get your dirty anus off my cock," you say to her, shoving it in her face once more and pushing her head against your manhood. "Fuck yeah, you like being fucked in the ass like this?" you ask her. "Yes, daddy," Eunha answers.

"There you go," you say as you force your cock balls deep in Eunha's mouth until she gags. She goes insane and starts licking your balls. "You're such a nasty girl, aren't you?" you ask her, grabbing your cock and slapping in on her face while spitting on her.

You fuck Eunha's pussy hard and fast for a little bit, punishing the slutty bunny with a hard pounding as a guy appears on the street. "Turn around, against the wall," you order to Eunha, letting the guy grope her tits while you spank her. Eunha bends over and shows her ass to the dude as you hit her big butt.

"Dirty slut, your punishment is far from over," you say to her, lifting the bar of her skirt. You take Eunha to a playground, tying her up to one of the equipments and putting a blindfold in her eyes. Eunha's body is completely suspended as you put your cock back in her ass. "I'm ready to use that asshole a little more," you say to her, toying as your cock goes in and out of her anus. 

"Fuck, ahhhh," Eunha moans as you thurst your cock deep in her ass and finger her horny cunt, her legs fully spread and suspended in the air as you fuck her ass in a missionary position. "Please, daddy, keep fucking my ass," a blindfolded Eunha says as you increase the pace, finger-fucking her pussy as well at the same pace you attack her asshole. You spank her pale butt like always, leading to more moans from the porcelain princess.

"Dadddy, can you fuck my pussy too?" Eunha asks. You accept it and switch holes, taking her cunt even harder as her body jiggles all over the playground equipment with the speed of your thrusts. Some kids appear at the playground, but you just don't care; to you, they will just be having a free class of sex education. Besides them, a stranger appears and gets side by side with you, who lets him finger Eunha's pussycat and eventually gets inside it.

You step aside as the stranger fucks Eunha's pussy. "Have fun," you tell him. The guy seizes the opportunity, pounding Eunha hard as you spit in her blindfolded face. "Stupid slut, can't resist any cock that comes in your way, can't you?" you say to Eunha, jerking your cock off and slapping on her face while the stranger fucks her hard and spanks her butt too.

"You like his cock, don't you?" you ask Eunha. "Yes, daddy, I can't help myself; I'm a bad bunny that loves cock," she answers. "Do you want him to cum in your pussy?" you ask her. "Yes, Daddy, would you let him?" she asks.

But the authrorization doesn't even need to come, as you inserting a vibrator on Eunha's clit makes her walls clench harder, making the stranger unable to resist as he fills her pussy full of his cum. You uncover Eunha's eyes, letting her enoy her cunt getting stuffed to the brim of a stranger's semen, much to her glee.

You and the stranger take Eunha under a shabbed railway bridge in the worst part of the neighborhood as you three go down an access stairway full of graffiti defacements and dirty walls. "Let's have some fun," you say, stripping Eunha fully naked and offering her to the strange. "Make him happy, you dirty slut," you continue, spanking her ass with the whip once more.

Eunha unbuttons the stranger's shorts, jerking his cock off until it gets hard again. She can feel the remnants of his sperm still covering his shaft. You get Eunha on her knees and push her to suck his cock; all that while you spank her back, make things worse for the horny bunny. Eunha savors his shaft under your watch as the stranger gropes her tits.

After some jerking off, you take your cock back in Eunha's pussy, making her get spit-roasted alongside the stranger. You fuck her furiously, spanking her tits and making her pay for being such a cockslut. Eunha gets completely bent over as she pleases both cocks.

"Where do you want our cum, you fucking slut?" you ask her. "In my ass," Eunha answers, prompting you to pull out and deliver her a nice fat load in her pretty slutty face as the stranger can't also resist the warmth of her mouth and soon glazes it with his cum. "What a cum bunny you are, dirty bitch," you say to her, spitting on her cum-filled face once again. "Thank him, bitch," you say to her. "Thank you," Eunha politely says to the stranger as he leaves.

The humiliation isn't over for Eunha though, far from it. You make her walk her across the neighborhood with both of your cum in her face, taking Eunha to the busiest square at the place. Where you take the jacket you had put on her and strip her completely naked once again, taking her back home with no clothes on.

Or so she thought.

To punish Eunha, you decide to go back where it all began, tying her to the garbage can as the pickup truck comes to take the used condoms she wore yesterday, showing what you truly think about her: a filthy, dirty, worthless horny whore that is completely disposable after sex.

A few hours later

It's freezing cold outside, and Eunha remains tied to the trash can. You finally have mercy on the little bunny and bring her back inside your house. Her skin is so pale now she looks like Snow White.

Eunha gets tied up and her body suspended in the air as you start to ask her some questions, ready for a night of dominance. "You look like such an innocent bunny; why are you here?" you start. "I want Daddy to give me as much pain as possible," she answers. "You better be very obedient, because if you don't behave, I'll deliver double the pain," you say to her.

"Yes, daddy, I'm so addicted to the way you spank my porcelain skin," Eunha says. You tease her, touching her body from top to bottom, before pinning her against the wall hard. "Look me in the eye and say it," you tell Eunha. "I want to be spanked, Daddy," Eunha answers. "Why, bunny?" you ask her. "Because I deserve it for being a bad cheating bunny," you say.

You start touching Eunha's pussy, edging her, and then stopping it. "You see, baby, I can give you the pleasure, but I can also take it away," you tell her. "Whatever you want, Daddy," Eunha says. "Then let me do it, Bunny," you say, making her moan hard. "AHHHH, AHHHHH, AHHHHH," Eunha moans. "Are you going to cum?" you ask her. "Yes, daddy, I'm going to cum," she says.

"No, you're not," you tell Eunha, pulling your hands out of her pussy and denying her an orgasm. You bring out the vibrator and start stimulating her again, showing her your intentions. "I'm going to fuck your throat, your pussy and your ass; use you like a little toy; is that what you want?" you ask. "Yes, daddy," she answers.

"You wanna cum?" you ask her again. "DADDY, I'M GONNA CUM," she answers, begging for it as you put the vibrator in her pussy and spank her tits. "OHHHHH," she screams. "Is that what you want, little bunny? Then say it to me," you ask again. "I'M GONNA CUM, I'M GONNA CUM, I'M GONNA CUM, PLEASE DADDY LET ME CUM," she screams. "PLEASE DADDY, PLEASE," she keeps screaming, running out of breath.

You push Eunha's body down until her face gets lined up against your shaft, feeding her mouth with your cock. She bobs her head on it, but not for long as you take the initiative and fuck her throat until she gags, reaching it balls deep in her mouth. "Yes, daddy, feed me that big cock," Eunha begs and gets it as her face gets pounded like it's a second pussy and she chokes all over it.

"Open your fucking mouth, bunny," you say, spitting on Eunha's face. "Keep it open; I'll take it all the way down," you say as saliva comes out of Eunha's chin. You use it to lube your hands and massage her needy cunt until Eunha squirts all over the floor.

"Please, daddy, use me harder," Eunha says as you suspend her body back up, lining your cock to her pussy and inserting it inside her. "FUCK," Eunha gasps, already very sensitive from your edging session. "H YEAH, DADDY, USE MY PUSSY," Eunha says. "Beg harder," you tell her, pulling out after a couple thrusts. "PLEASE, DADDY, MAY I HAVE YOUR BIG FAT COCK IN MY SLUTTY BUNNY PUSSY?" Eunha screams.

"Do you think you're ready?" you say, spanking her pussy. "Yes, daddy, I'm more than ready," Eunha answers. You spank her butt and then go back in her pussy, grabbing her by the ass and fucking her hard, making her body shake as you clap hard against her cheeks. "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!" Eunha screams nonstop. "AHHHHHHH," she says as she squirts on your naked body.

"Fucking taste it, you bunny slut," you tell Eunha, feeding her juices straight into her mouth. "You want more?" you ask her. "Yes, daddy, please, give me more," Eunha answers as you do just that, fucking her pussy hard. "OHHHHH YESSSS, MAKE ME CUM, DADDY," she moans.

"No," you stop. "You will only cum when I say so," you say, smacking her pussy and enjoying the squirting coming out of it. "AHHHHHH," Eunha screams as she cums. "Thank you, Daddy," she says, looking like an utterly submissive bunny.

You give more hard thrusts into Eunha's sensitive cunt, enjoying the clapping sounds that come out of your bodies colliding against each other. You choke her and then turn her around, starting spanking her fat ass cheeks. "AHHHHH, DADDDY," she screams. "Thank you, Daddy," she then says as they turn red.

"I didn't tell you to speak," you say to Eunha, kissing the bunny and punishing her by jerking your cock off against her clit, making her squirt before pounding her like a crazy. "OH GOD, YES, YES, YES, DADDDY," Eunha screamed. "Thank you, Daddy," she says again as you pull out and stare at her.

You untie Eunha, dropping her at the stairs of your house and opening her legs, tying her up to the handrail before you insert your cock in her ass. "Yes, daddy, please, fuck my ass," she begs. "Yes, daddy, stretch my ass," Eunha begs as you go deeper in it and spank her tits. "You're such a bad bunny," you say.

You show no mercy to Eunha's tight butthole, making things harder for the little bunny as you play with her pussy. "OH FUCK DADDY!" Eunha screams. She whispers inaudible words to you as you keep spanking her whole body. "AHHHHH," Eunha screams as you hit her nipples hard. You tease her cunt with more rubbing. "Ohhh, daddy, please, make me squirt," Eunha begs as you resume the anal pounding, leading her to moan with her mouth wide open.

"Fuck, yes, daddy, yes, daddy," Eunha moans as you now choke her and destroy her butthole. "AHHHHHH," Eunha screams as your cock hits the depths of her anus. You look at your dirty bunny girlfriend calling you Daddy, her pale skin now completely red. "Take every inch of your cock inside me, AHHHHHHH," Eunha moans. 

"Spank my tits, daddy, choke me," Eunha begs as you fuck her harder, getting more and more animalesque. "OHHHHHH," she screams as the spanking never stops. Her tits, her cheeks, her face—everything is a target.

"I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna cum, please, daddy, let me cum again," Eunha says, but you ignore her, saying focused on fucking her ass. Her thicc thighs and big butt are now almost with her flesh exposed after so much spanking.

"Oh yes," you say as Eunha starts letting out a geyser of squirt out of her pussy. "AHHHHHH," the little bunny screams as you stare at her wasted face, never pulling out of her ass and pushing it deep, making her squirt again almost as if the tip of your cock had pressed some kind of button buried in her anus. 

Eunha squirts multiple times with the anal session you give her. "OH GOD, FUCK ME, DADDY," she screams and begs. "Daddy, it feels so good," she says as you can't stop destroying her butthole and enjoy her squirt all over the stairs steps. "Fuck daddy, you use my ass so good; I want more; I'm a needy bunny for daddy's cock," Eunha says.

"Then turn around," you tell her. Eunha obliges as you tie her knees to the stairs, and your cock quickly finds her already sore butthole for more fun. "Oh yeah, you're so deep, daddy," Eunha moans, more so when you turn her cheeky butt into your prime target of spankings. Eunha's cheeks get massacred, getting hit every time you hit deep in her ass. You enjoy seeing the exposed red flesh from so many hits you deliver on them, only pushing you to go harder. Despite all that pounding, her asshole is still as tight as ever and queefs with your cock inside it. 

Spank, spank, spank. That's all you do now. "Daddy, you're gonna make me cum with so much spanking," Eunha says as she gets used like a little toy. A fuckbunny. "Pull my hair, Daddy," she pleads, and you follow. "I'm your dirty little slut daddy; yes, daddy, treat me like a free use fuckhole," she begs, her body shaking with the speed of your poundings.

"Daddy, you like making bunny cum?" Eunha asks you. "Yes, I love using that bunny until she cums," you tell her, staying focused on pounding her ass. Eunha is completely wasted, but she doesn't want you to stop, jiggling her butt as you fuck it. "I'M CUMMING FOR YOU, DADDY," Eunha announces. You slow down, toying with her gaped anus going in and out of it, giving her sensitive hole a little stabbing. 

But your kindness is short-lived. You soon mount on top of Eunha and deliver her the most aggressive anal pounding of the night. "OH FUCK, YOU'RE HITTING ME SO DEEP, DADDY," she screams. Eunha's ass gets used hard as you are like a raging bull fucking a cow—I mean, a bunny. Your thrusts are full of energy and power, making Eunha roll her eyes as she struggles to cope with the heat.

"I'll do anything for you, Daddy," Eunha says. "Well, then let me use that big, fat, cheeky, red ass," you say, tossing all adjectives about her butt while pounding it hard. "I'm a bad bunny," Eunha says. "Yes, you are," you tell her, choking your slutty girlfriend.

"AHHHHHH," Eunha moans as she cums again. You spank her butt multiple times after pulling out of her ass. "Yes, daddy, harder," she begs. "You want more?" you ask her. "Yes," she answers. "Beg," you reply. "Yes, daddy, please, give me more; spank me like a bad bunny, harder," she says.

After beating Eunha's cheeks like a drum, you reach to finger her throbbing pussy, making her moan and then hitting her every time she screams. "Stay quiet, bitch, I'm going to punish you," you answer, getting back in Eunha's ass and fucking her like crazy, showing no mercy for her and not getting her feeling getting in the way of your anal destruction. "Oh yeah, daddy, you fuck that tight little asshole so well," she says.

The stairs creak as Eunha screams and groans. You finally stop as Eunha begs you to cum again, whispering like a needy bunny. "I need you; I need you; please, Daddy," she says, very out of breath.

"Then come here," you tell Eunha, tying her arms to the ceilling by a chain. "That's right, bunny, sit right down this cock," you command to her as Eunha drops down it with her ass. "OHHHHHHH," she gasps as your length impales her. "Ohhhhh, daddy, ahhhh," Eunha moans as she starts bouncing on it, her legs spread at 180 degrees. "Oh fuck, it feels so good in my ass," she moans.

"That's it, little bunny; now I'm taking control," you say, pounding her from down low. "AHHHHHHH," Eunha squeals as your cock drills her asshole one final time. You manhandle her queefing anus, groaning like a monster and massaging her cunt to make her squirt. "OHHHHHH FUCKKKK!" Eunha screams. She gets pounded to oblivion, losing sight of her surroundings.

"YES DADDY, YES, DADDY, YES DADDY, FUCK ME, FUCK ME, FUCK ME, I'M GONNA CUM," Eunha says, losing her breath and grinding on your cock. "Please, make me cum," Eunha moans as she's basically levitating with your thursts. "Take it all," you say, your balls smashing against her clit. "Yes, daddy, I will take all that cock in my a... fuck," Eunha moans. You and her reach orgasm at the same time as she squirts on your body and you explode inside her asshole.

Eunha grinds on your cock as your cum flows out of her asshole. You free her and start jerking your cock off against her face. "I think I'm going to cum again; you're just too sexy, Eunha," you say to her. "Cum for me, daddy, cum for your little bunny," she says, sticking her tongue out. Her pretty face begging for it makes you lose it again, covering her blonde hair and sexy face with your white seed shortly after again.

"Thank you, Daddy," Eunha says as she licks your shaft and cleans it one final time. You go to bed and leave Eunha lying on the floor at the stairs, her body full of cum as you finish punishing that bad bunny. "You'll be sleeping here tonight," you say to her.

"The next day you wake up and don't find Eunha there, until you go to the kitchen and find a scene that makes you spill your milk: Eunha upside down and completely tied up. As she sees you, she asks you something.

"Daddy, can you punish me again?"

[wildfairies]

things that are bothering me the most:

antaam stuff makes no sense, full stop. it's also explained poorly/insufficiently.

most of what we see of rivain is completely uninhabited. i also don't care about more warden shit there, i was looking forward to more lore on rivaini people and culture, especially the seers obviously, we've been dying to know more about them for three games.

every elf we've met is ok with the huge revelations that their gods aren't what they seemed and this process happened offscreen. i would think there would be many different reactions to the spread of info about the evanuris, and i would think it would be extremely important to make it clear that info had spread pre-game.

the venatori are the same nonsensical vague useless boring cult with the most nothing goals. as incredibly lame as they are, it's even stretching my suspension of disbelief that they'd serve elven gods for vague promises of 'power' given tevinter's extreme history with the elves. i would think this would come up at least one single time.

the past two points are part of an overarching issue. the contentious and complex political landscape of thedas that makes the setting interesting feels flat. i'm supposed to believe NO ONE in super-elf-racist tevinter would blame the elves for their gods terrorizing thedas? even inquisition acknowledged this, w solas/inky showing concern that revealing the orb was elven would lead to elf racism.

i'm supposed to believe NO elves who've been oppressed by humans for centuries would think 'fuck them' and join up? what happened to the elves who joined solas at the end of trespasser when they heard he was trying to bring back their empire? at least inquisition had wacky cults for every side.

walking down the street in minrathous as an elf or qunari with no difference is simply absurd, i would literally rather never visit tevinter if they were going to implement it so toothlessly. where is the immediate opinion hit for being a mage/elf the inky takes in orlais???

yes the tone is off and a little shallow. yes the companions communicate too healthily for my tastes. yes i was dreading 'evanuris are behind everything' lore reveals and that's what we got. but i honestly think i could overlook those things if the above problems were solved and it felt like the same immersive, problematic thedas.

i'm so completely infuriated by the worldstate choices i'm going to make a separate post about it. but yeah i was concerned but made no noise, i was willing to wait it out and see how the three choices played out in game. and it's absolutely ridiculous that so far two out of fucking three have basically no impact, and the last one idgaf about unless inky romanced solas. i'm so so so so mad and disappointed about this, especially after staying open-minded when it was initially revealed.

everyone loves companion quests, so i don't know why the game feels like it needs to sell you on their significance. why did we get two different scenes of varric spelling it out to rook: do the companion side quests, or else they won't be able to focus! it's such a weird and superfluous tie-in. i don't get why they went so out of their way to clarify this when it didn't need to be clarified, companion side quests are expected in rpgs and their relevance to the plot is very easily accepted/overlooked.

[kpop---scenarios]

Whispers of the Night (1)

Pairing: Stray Kids x Reader

Genre: Vampire! Au, College! Au

Warning: Cheating, Drinking, Shitty Boyfriend etc. This is an 18+ only story, there will contain alot of smut in later chapters

Summary: You just want to live a happy life, but currently, that wasn't happening. It's not until you meet 8 strangers who turn your life upside down and you discover what they are.

Word Count: 3.8k

A/N: If you want to be tagged in this series, please let me know! Comments, likes and reblogs with tags are strongly encouraged! Also a big thank you to @skzdust for reading it and helping with ideas!!

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@wife2straykidss @piscesrising01 @baby-stay92 @kisses-too-the-moon

@dwaekkiiracha @silly250 @rylea08 @imperfectlyperfectprincess1

@satosugu4l @gabriellamarie @tsunderelino @iovecb97

@1810cl @lordmaahes-nsc @sailorkoss @minh0scat

@pixie0627 @50-husbands @jinnies-muse @yaorzu-blog

@anskiiz @joyofbebbanburg @number1jeonginstan @skzooluvr

@jisunglyricist @ambersnowxxx @ayyonoona @31maze13

@stay-tiny-things @thegingerthatwaited @hoesheez @stayatinykatsy

@catlove83

A year ago, if someone asked you where you pictured yourself a year later, you would have blushed at the question and immediately began to gush about your boyfriend, Mark. Talking about how you'd be with him, you were going to marry him one day when you both graduated college, and live this blissful, happy life.

What a load of shit.

Here you were, having just had your second anniversary with Mark and you were more miserable than You had ever been in your life. Your relationship with Mark was nowhere near what it used to be, and you didn't know what to do. You had tried everything you could think of to bring that spark back between the two of you, to bring the happiness back but Mark seemed to be on such a downward spiral and he had no problem dragging you down alongside him.

“I'm going to class.” You murmur, walking out of your shared bedroom, not even waiting for him to respond. It was the first day of your sophomore year and he obviously wasn't getting up to go to his own class, but there was no chance in hell you were missing the first day, not since you changed your major at the end of last year and now you had almost all the hardest professors on campus. Your stomach was in knots as you clung to your notebook, your heavy backpack already making your back ache as you walked from your off campus apartment to the school. Luckily you were only a few blocks away, but fuck, if you had to carry this bag everyday, you swore your back might just break.

You stand at the lights, waiting for the walk signal when you feel a presence beside you. You felt calm, safe, almost tingly. It was the way Mark had made you feel in the beginning of your relationship, part of you thought that it was him beside you. You turn your head to look, seeing a tall man with dark hair and flawless skin. His jaw clenched as you took him in. Your eyes trailed down to his lips, where you swear you almost saw a smirk, he was one of the most handsome men you'd ever seen, and to be honest, something inside you was begging you to talk to him. Your mind races, and blanks all at the same time. You move your leg to step out onto the road when you're suddenly pulled back. A few seconds later, a car speeds past the two of you. Your mouth hangs open, as you stare at the man who just saved you.

Seconds later the walk light flashes, the beeping startles you. The man laughs, turning to glance at you. “Have a good day, y/n. And be careful.” He murmurs, hurriedly walking in front of you.

How did he know your name? How were his reflexes so fast? You would definitely have remembered if you'd ever seen him before. You quickly start walking, trying to catch up to the man but as you get across the street and look up, he's nowhere to be found. You shake your head, continuing on your journey towards your first class - psychology. You had reluctantly chosen this one last, unsure of how well you'd do in the class but alas, it was needed so you would try your best.

As you walk through campus you smile and nod your head to a few others who you had become acquaintances with last year. You walked towards your building, anxious to see if you knew anyone taking the class with you, it always made you feel better to have a friend. Mark was supposed to be in this class but when you had told him you signed up for it, he dropped it the next day. That stung quite a lot, he used to want to spend a lot of time with you. He loved hanging out, doing whatever random activity at any time. And now you were lucky if he was even in the same room as you. Your confidence took a hit with every interaction with him, and to be completely honest, you weren't sure how much longer you were going to be able to put up with his shit.

You walked into the already packed classroom, only a few random seats were left available.

“Note to self, get here really fucking early next time.” You murmur to yourself, heading to the front row, which was the only row where there were enough empty spots that you didn't have to sit next to anyone. You got nervous around strangers. There was too much word vomit on your part, and this year you really needed to buckle down.

No distractions, and you were confident in that. Until a very visible distraction walked into your class. Another overly handsome, flawless skin, body, smile, flawless everything man, who made his way towards you. You could feel the tingles jolting through your body as you watch him walk directly towards you, his face now stone cold as he sets his belongings down, taking the empty seat beside you.

Right beside you. Even though there were 3 others on each side of you he could have chosen from.

“HI.” He whispers, leaning over close to you. You turn your head, instantly getting a whiff of his cologne, he smelled so fucking good.

“Um, hi.” You whisper back, looking away. He made the butterflies in your stomach flutter.

“I'm Jeongin. It's nice to meet you, y/n.” He whispers. His voice is deep but not too deep, it's so velvety, it gives you shivers.

As you were about to turn and ask him how he knew your name, your professor walked in. Jeongin's face turned back to being stone cold as he looked straight ahead, listening to the introductions. Your head was spinning, your ears were ringing. Two equally attractive men talking to you in one day, had you flustered as fuck. You didn't say this often lately, but you couldn't wait to go home.

The rest of the day passed in the blink of an eye, with no more handsome strangers who knew your name coming up to you. You breathed a sigh of relief the second you stepped into your apartment. You set your belongings down, walking into the kitchen only to find Mark sitting in front of the TV, playing video games.

“How were your classes?” He asks, his eyes never leaving the screen.

“Fine. I'd ask you how yours were, but you didn't go.” You sigh.

“Yeah, listen, you have any money? I'm going to meet some friends later at the bar.” Mark says, still never looking away from the screen.

“No, my loans haven't come in yet.” You murmur. They did, but if Mark knew that, he'd drain you of all the money you had. He was extremely financially irresponsible. His parents sent him enough money for rent, utilities, groceries and some fun every month and every month he blew through it all like it was nothing, only paying a few things here and there, leaving everything else to fall on you.

“Fuck sakes.” He groans. “I guess I'll call my mom.” He murmurs.

He refused to get a job, but would happily call mommy and daddy to bail him out. And they would. You wished you had that luxury, you had been on your own since you were 16, and life had never been kind to you.

A little while later, Mark emerges from your shared room, dressed up, a smile on his face as he laughs at his phone. He slips it into his pocket after replying to a message, and casually leaves the apartment without saying a word to you.

This. This apparently was your new normal. You sighed loudly and deeply, going through the evening motions. Eating, watching a show, mindlessly scrolling through tiktok or Facebook, getting ready for bed, and falling asleep, dreaming of a happier life.

The next morning, you were up at 5:30am, mentally berating yourself for accepting a 7:00am class. Summertime you had been more confident in the fall you, to be able to get up and survive the day. You hated the summertime you.

Your eyes were still half closed as you made your early morning walk to campus. Mark hadn't even come home, and your heart was feeling a little shattered. You wandered around campus, realizing you had way more time before class. You decided to go to the bathroom and then grab a coffee from the campus shop. You groggily push the bathroom door open, closing your eyes as you walk in, just for a second, until you hear a man clearing his throat. Your eyes shoot open, seeing a handsome blonde man standing before you, washing his hands.

“Wrong bathroom, love.” He smiles.

“Oh my god… I'm so sorry.” You panic, turning around to grab the door and rush out of there. You pull the door open but before you leave, he says one last thing.

“It was nice to meet you, y/n.” He says, his voice even deeper than Jeongins. Your heart races. You don't turn around, you walk out of the bathroom, trying to breathe as your head spins. You completely forget about the fact you needed to use the bathroom and head straight for the coffee shop.

You stand in line, looking at the menu, trying to decide which one will wake you up the most because clearly you're in desperate need of it. When you decide, it's your turn at the counter. You look at the barista and are slightly taken aback. He's absolutely gorgeous, like the 3 other men you had seen over the last day or so. He's a little shorter but fucking muscular, with a dazzling smile.

“What can I get for you?” He smiles.

“Uh…um… iced americano, with a shot of espresso please.” You half mumble. He smiles at you, turning around to make your drink. You fumble in your bag for your wallet, grabbing your card while you wait for your drink and to pay. Not long later, he slides your drink towards you, his smile still there.

“It's on the house today.” He says.

“Oh… thank you.” You smile.

This was a good interaction. At least he didn't know your name.

“Have a good day, y/n.” He smiles. You look at him shocked but at that point he's already helping someone else.

What the fuck was going on?

The day continued to drag on, you wanted to doze off in all your classes, the coffee didn't help, not even a little bit. When your last class ended at 2pm, you sluggishly made your way back to your apartment, dreaming of your bed even more than you had this morning. You don't even care that when you get home Mark isn't home. You don't care that you haven't heard from him all night or all day. All you care about is the fact that you're home and you can nap without any interruptions and then make yourself a delicious meal when you wake up, but nothing in your life ever goes to plan.

You stretch a few times, feeling like you had slept for 12 hours at least but you knew it had only been a few, until you look at your phone.

“How the fuck is it 7:00am!?” You groan, crawling out of your bed. You hadn't eaten, showered, or done anything except slept for 16 hours and still, unsurprisingly hadn't heard a word from Mark. You quickly shuffle around the house, making yourself some breakfast and some coffee, considering the coffee you had gotten yesterday tasted like ass and did nothing for you. While that brewed you took a shower, washing the confusion of the last few days off of you, in hopes today would be a better day.

You were hypervigilant on your walk to campus, paranoid that there was going to be another man you didn't know but who somehow knew you coming out of the woodwork. There had been four already but there couldn't possibly be anymore. Right?

Wrong.

You wander through campus after your first two classes, not feeling very hungry for lunch. You look down at your phone, texting your friend Sam, who was due to return home from her holidays in a few days and you couldn't wait to see her. And tell her about all the shit Mark had put you through. She was going to love it. No one hated him more than she did, and she was proud of it. You laugh at her last text, moving to reply when you bump into something concrete, dropping your phone to the ground. You groan, bending down to pick it up when you see four legs standing in front of you.

Oh christ. “Here we go.” You mumble, picking up your phone, standing up. You felt almost breathless looking at the two men standing before you. One was so beautiful, his smiling face almost made you blush, whereas the other one, who was equally as handsome, had a stone cold face and a cold demeanor.

“You should watch where you're walking, y/n.” The stone cold man murmurs. “You never know who's going to be around.” He finishes. He gives you a small smirk, before stepping around you, leaving the other one there with you. “See you around, y/n.” He winks, walking away to catch up with the other one.

This week was way too fucking long already. You needed a goddamn drink.

Thursday rolled around, and nothing exciting, nothing out of the ordinary happened. It was finally a normal day and you were so unbelievably thankful for that but it also partially bummed you out. As weird as this entire week had been, you had been sort of looking forward to having the unexpected moments with the gorgeous strangers.

That evening you went home, and to your surprise, Mark was back.

“Where have you been?” You ask, setting your things down on the table.

“I was just with the boys, y/n. Christ, what's with the third degree?” He snaps.

“With the boys since Monday? And what? Unable to call or even text that you were okay?” You snap.

“Fuck, You always do this. I'm sorry I don't involve you in every single fucking plan I make, mom.” He spits. You just roll your eyes and walk away. It wasn't worth it, and once you got your shit sorted out, you'd be gone. You were done. You walk into your room, closing the door and locking it behind you. Sam was back tomorrow and you couldn't wait.

Friday afternoon, you skipped out of the lecture hall of your last class, ready to get home and get ready. You were meeting Sam at both of your favorite bars and you were over the moon excited. You probably should have slowed down, or at least watched where you skipped but for now it was too late. You didn't see the broken concrete in front of you, making you trip. You squeezed your eyes tightly, waiting for the impact between you and the ground but it didn't come. You open one eye, seeing a sexy man, smiling at you, holding you in his arms.

“Woah there.” He laughs. “That could have ended very badly.” He finishes, standing you up straight like it was nothing.

“You really need to be more careful, y/n.” Another voice chimes in. You turn to look to see another man, longer black hair, plump lips and a gorgeous face.

What the fuck were these men drinking here?

“H-how…” you begin but you're cut off.

“Pay attention, y/n.” The one who caught you says, before they walk but almost glide away. You shake your head, not wanting to let the interaction stop you from enjoying your night out with Sam. When you get home Mark is nowhere to be found and frankly, you were pretty happy about that. You quickly begin getting ready as your class had gotten out late and Sam was already at the bar waiting for you.

It took you seconds to spot her. The screech that came out of each of you had all the patrons glaring at the two of you as you hugged and jumped around. Not seeing her for three months had been exceptionally hard and you both had so much to fill each other in on.

Three hours and multiple drinks later, you were drunk, spilling your guts about Mark. “And he only came home yesterday! That fucking asshole.” You scoff.

“Wait… let me get this straight… you're telling me he went out and was gone for days without a word and got mad at you for being concerned!?” She yells.

“Yeah! Make that make sense!” You murmur.

“I'm telling you, y/n, there's much better options out there.” She sighs.

You knew there was. And when you were ready you were going to find those options. But first you needed to find somewhere to live and then you could move on. Luckily for you, the amount of money from your loans would be enough to cover a place for yourself for a while but having a roommate would be better. You couldn't tell her yet though, you needed to have everything organized first.

Hours and even more shots and drinks later, you and Sam stumble out of the bar, her holding you up and you attempting to hold her up. You're far more drunk than she is, with how your week had gone, you absolutely needed it but instead of sending you home alone, she brought you back to her parents house, where she was living so you could sleep it off. Her parents were strict and even though she was an adult, if she lived there she had to follow their rules which meant no drinking and no guests. Luckily for you, they were out of town until the next night so you were free to sleep peacefully. And you did, passing out the second your head hit the pillow.

The next morning, the two of you woke up, having breakfast. It helped your hangover and by the time you left her place to head back to your own apartment, you weren't feeling the effects of the night before. You were ready to have a good rest of your day, and you thought you would. You walked into your apartment and instantly something felt off. You looked down, seeing a pair of heels that definitely didn't belong to you.

“That motherfucker.” You mumble.

As quietly as you could, you tiptoed to your shared bedroom, pushing the door wide open. You see Mark laying there, a woman entangled with him as they both peacefully slept. How cute. It would be cuter if he wasn't supposed to remain faithful.

You quietly pull out your phone, snapping a few pictures of the two of them in bed together before you leave. Even though you were mentally checked out of the relationship, your heart was still very much in love with him. Or maybe it was in love with who he used to be. You always had a hope that a flip would switch and he would end up going back to how he was when you first started dating, but that guy… he would never have cheated on you.

You walked out of the apartment, unsure of where you were going to go. Sam was busy today with her parents returning in a few hours, and you didn't really have many other friends, at least not ones you were comfortable enough to call up and cry to. So you wandered. You wandered around the city for hours, until you ended up only a few blocks from campus and directly outside a bar you'd never been to before. As the sun sets, you pull open the door, ready to drink even more than you did the night before, needing to numb the pain in your heart.

After two doubles, you pulled out your phone to send Mark a text. You attached the picture you took of him and the woman, with the caption “I hope she was worth it. I'm done.” you pressed send, silencing your notifications, and turning your screen over onto the table. You didn't want to see his reply, or if he even did. You wanted to drink in complete peace. So that's what you did, until your head started to spin and you swore you started seeing things, like the man from your class who sat right next to you, Jeongin with the one who caught you when you tripped over the cement. You squint your eyes, just slightly, trying to stabilize your vision, but you weren't sure if it was working or not.

You stood up, ready to storm over there and demand answers. As you began to walk, someone grabbed onto your shoulder, pulling you and spinning you around.

“The fuck is this?” Mark spits, holding up his phone, showing the message you had sent him, along with all the texts he had sent back to you but you didn't know you got.

“That's you, laying in bed with a girl who isn't me!” You yell.

“So you're done. Just like that?” He asks.

“You fucking cheated on me! Yeah I'm fucking done.” You snap.

“You didn't come home! I didn't know what or who you were out doing! Excuse me for needing some physical touch and companionship!” He yells back.

“Are you kidding me? You were gone for four fucking days, and you know what I didn't do? I didn't cheat!” You scream. You can feel the eyes of everyone in the bar on the two of you. “I still had some hope that maybe you'd change and you'd be the guy I first fell in love with but that's gone now. He's gone. And so am I. I don't care, I'll move out, I'm just done.” You finish.

“Don't be so fucking dramatic, y/n.” He sighs, rolling his eyes. “Let's go. We're going home.” He says, grabbing onto your arm.

“I'm not going anywhere with you.” You say, trying to pull yourself out of his grip.

“Everything okay over here?” You hear from behind you, the voice is familiar.

“Who the fuck are you?” Mark yells. “Mind your business.”

“Well, when you're putting your hands on a woman, it kinda makes it our business.” The voice says.

“She's MY woman, so worry about someone else.” Mark replies.

“It doesn't sound like she is, so either let go of her, or we're gonna have a fucking problem.” The man snaps.

Mark doesn't let go. You turn your head, seeing Jeongin and the man who caught you, standing behind you, both of their faces stone cold and terrifying.

“Mark, you're hurting me.” You whisper, looking back at him.

“Chan…” Jeongin begins.

“You have no one. Nowhere to go, y/n. Don't be stupid.” Mark grunts.

“She does, actually.” Chan begins.

“She's coming home with us.”

[sugurusladyknightt]

➺ husband!sukuna x gn!reader (2/2).

• pt. 1

it's been quiet - the two days since your bloody midnight discovery in the bathroom. you'd taken him to the hospital the next morning to get checked and have his wound treated properly. you've been in the same car, you live in the same house, and yet sukuna feels like he hasn't heard your voice in years. only in passing have you addressed him and while he understands you're position, he will not allow himself to stand by idly as this goes on.

sukuna needs to speak to you, to hear you. to tease you and have you tease him back. he needs things to fall back into their rightful place, into the patterns yo both created, the the routine he's made himself so comfortable with.

but how can be complain? this is all of his own doing. his pride and ego have no place to interfere in this relationship, but that isn't even the problem anymore. he nervous and he's scared. what if he messes things up? what if he can't fix this? what if you finally decided he's too much?? what if he's really lost you now?? pushed you too far?

you hadn't let him do much, insisting he rests so the wound could heal properly and not risk it reopening. what if that's code for saying you don't want him around anymore?? that you don't need him? are you finally sick of him?

realistically, he should know that would never be the case, though he's so far into his own world of worries to think about the situation reasonably. his thoughts now only plagued with the possibility of his greatest fear being realized.

so when he hears your keys jingle and the front door open he panics. you hadn't said anything about leaving, so at the end of everything he isn't even afforded a goodbye??

without much thought given to the consequences his actions may have on his body, he's darting off your bed and down the stairs. sukuna catches your wrist right as you're going to open the car's door. when you turn to face him, confusion and annoyance evident in your expression, "sukuna, what the hell, you're gonna end up-"

he's looking at you so intensely when your eyes meet his. the towering pyjama clad form of your husband is accompanied by brows furrowed and bare feet on the gravel of your driveway in the middle of the quiet morning of your neighborhood street.

what a sight to behold.

he doesn't say anything for a long moment, still, you offer him time. always so damn patient with him it makes him feel like the only person in the world. there are butterflies fluttering around uninvited in his stomach when he thinks about it too much.

"where are you going." it comes off more like a statement than a question. in his mind he's already decided that he knows exactly what's going on, only waiting to hear you affirm it.

he feels a dull pain in his side but it's not difficult to ignore it with the ringing in his ears and loud thumping of his heart. he's scared, hiding behind his expression through a toughened exterior.

what a foolish man you've married.

"sukuna," your being your hand up to rest on the upper part of his tattooed armed, tracing the lines gently with the tips of your fingers. "i'm going grocery shopping. we need food, and gauze, some cleaning supplies, and... oh right! and laundry detergent. just sit tight for me, i'll be back soon."

the way his expression shifts to one of relief brings a smile to your face. he was so worried, too worried to even be embarrassed by the out of place reaction. his hand covered yours as it rests on his arm.

"i'll come with you?" this one he meant as a question. when you don't refuse, he takes your hand in his squeezing ever so gently; reassuring himself mostly "wait for me. i'll be quick."

sukuna's back inside your home, darting back up the stairs with different intentions this time around. as quickly as he can, he's dressing himself and making his way back down. now with a clear enough mind to actually slip on a pair of socks and shoes.

he's rushing, like there's an underlying fear you'll have already pulled out of the drive way when he gets there. a cruel joke you'll play as a final parting gift. you're not gone, he finds you there, leaning against the door to the drivers seat. waiting for him.

oh, the morning breeze has never felt so refreshing, the sun never so warm, and the world never so good.

this is you. he doesn't have to worry about cruel jokes, you're far to kind for that. he doesn't need his toughened exterior or towering posture when it's you. you won't play those torturous games with cruel intentions, won't leave without a goodbye. fear has no place between the two of you.

the drive starts of rather quiet, an air of awkward and nervous still lingers. you don't seem to feel it though, leading him to wonder if it's only one sided.

while he's debating on what's the right thing to say, your voice cuts through all the possible options, a familiar reminder you share with him every so often. this is a safe space. his words don't have to be perfect. they can come out choppy and incomplete so long as they're while in their honesty. so long as that's what he needs to say; what you need ti hear.

"i'm sorry."

a simple start, nothing spectacular, but it's a start nonetheless. your hands remain on the wheel as your eyes find his looking out the window. he's fidgeting with his hands like he doesn't know what they're for again; returning your focus on the road and let him continue.

"i-, i was reckless. again. and i'm sorry, i really didn't mean for it to happen it just — did. i'm sorry baby, i now i should avoid getting myself in situations like that. i honestly don't even know what really happened. i know it must be annoying and frustrating for you to always have to end up dealing with the aftermath of it. i understand that you're probably sick of it all by now, i'll do better. i'll be better. i promise."

he looks over to you from the passenger seat, expectant. almost inaudibly he adds, "don't leave."

you've made it to the grocery store by now, putting the car in park before you begin speaking.

"ryo, i appreciate your apology and i'll accept it, but baby, that's hardly what this is about. my anger, which really wasn't anger at all, came from a place of worry. of concern. not annoyance or frustration. much less directed at you! i love you. i love caring for you. i hate to see you hurt, but i'll never complain about treating you when you are. it means everything to me that your okay, healthy, safe. i was — i still am upset with how passive you are about those things when it comes to yourself. trying to treat such a serious wound like that?? be serious. i need you to prioritize these things more."

"you're my priority."

"to prioritize yourself is to prioritize me. we're married, dumbass. marr-ied. married. we're a team; that means that if one of us is compromised, so's the other. that how this works."

well, that's not at all what he was expecting. his mind had strayed so far in an entirely different direction. one where you finally tire of him. where you realize you could leave and go elsewhere — somewhere less bothersome. and he couldn't be any more wrong. sukuna has never considered that his actions won't raise feelings of annoyance but instead; worry for his wellbeing. worry because you care. because you love.

"i'll be better." he says.

"i believe you." you respond, so easily. as if trusting him is the easiest thing in the world to you. even when it was difficult for him to trust himself.

but why? he wants to ask. how are you so sure?

you only smile at him. just so damn patient, and the butterflies are back to spawning in his stomach again.

"okay cute, very nice. but we really have to go now. there's a sale and i know the lines are gonna be crazy."

god, those butterflies won't be stopping anytime soon.

~~

bonus(!!)

he's pushing the cart and leaning his still aching body over it to rest.

"you know, when you said that we're a team, the first thing to come to mind is those three-legged races"

"mhm, and we'd be falling all over the place thanks to you darling"

"please, we'd do great. in a worst case scenario, baby, i'll just drag you along. you're stuck with me"

"what-"

"not much you could do to stop me", a cheeky wolffish grin playing at his lips.

umm, alright then. psychopath.

[thebeast-dennis-etcetera]

Interference Part 2

Prompt: You run to your FBI neighbor when you and your boyfriend get into a fight.

Part 1

You shut your laptop with a frustrated sigh and crossed out the last address you had written down on your pad of paper. The last two days you had been searching for a place to rent, only to be turned down due to your bad credit or limited income. You didn’t have the privilege of asking your family for help, most of them had shunned you once you got into your relationship and the few that did still speak with you were in no position to lend you money.

Your phone rang again for the 3rd time in 30 minutes, a blocked number popping up on the screen. You had ignored it the last 2 times for the fear that it was your boyfriend, but he should still be in jail with no chance of making phone calls, right?

Deciding it wouldn’t really hurt to answer it, you slid the call open and instantly regretted it once the familiar devious voice spoke to you.

“Hello bird,” he greeted with fake sincerity, using the pet name he made for you as a jab at your eating habits. The fear shot through you just as hard as the other night, rendering you speechless.

“I’m out baby. I’ll be home soon and we can sit down and talk about everything. Hopefully you were able to get the house cleaned, it was a mess the last time I was there.”

He didn’t get a chance to say anything more before you ended the call. Anxiety and fear began creeping into your body, making you scramble to grab a luggage bag from the closet before shoving some clothes, toiletries, and your laptop in it. Running into the living room, you peeked out of the curtains, hoping to see Aaron’s car in the driveway. No such luck.

So grabbing your keys, you left the house, not even bothering to lock it and threw your luggage into the backseat of your car. You tore out of the driveway and down the street like a bat out hell, unsure exactly how far away your boyfriend was. As reckless as driving 50 in a residential was, you took your chances of being pulled over and put as much distance between you and that house before dialing Aaron’s number at a red light.

“Hotchner,” he answered professionally from the other line.

“Aaron. He got out. I don’t know how, maybe his mom paid his bail. He called me and said he was on his way to me.” Your words were fast and frantic. You would've continued rambling had Aaron not stopped you.

"Y/N. Just take a deep breath for me, alright?"

The light turned green and you did as he instructed, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, it doing very little to calm your frazzled nerves but appreciated it regardless.

"Now do you have anywhere you can go, maybe a friends house or family member? Somewhere you'd be safe?"

"No," you spoke. "I don't have any friends and most of my family disowned me when I got into this stupid relationship. The rest of them live on the West Coast."

There was a pause of silence as you felt him thinking over the phone. Most likely figuring out the easiest way to get rid of you and your problems.

"Alright. I have some down time before my meeting in an hour. Why don't you come by and we can figure out a plan. I'll send you the address, just take the elevator to the 4th floor."

A second later you felt the buzz of your phone from the incoming text message. "Ok. Thank you so much Aaron. And I'm so sorry for taking up your time." Tears threatened to fall but you held them back.

"Don't be sorry, Y/N. I want to help you. Don't worry, we'll get this all sorted out. Just text me when you arrive."

"I will," you replied before you both said goodbye and hung up. You put the address in your navigation and drove mindlessly through traffic, so many thoughts going through your head it made you want to scream.

The address wasn't too far from your own homes, arriving there in less than an hour and heading into the very drab looking building before taking the elevator, texting Aaron that you had arrived on the way up.

You had just made it to the front desk before seeing Aaron headed in your direction, giving the receptionist a small smile. "She's with me Lonnette, thank you."

You waited as Lonnette printed your visitor badge and handed it over with a friendly smile before following Aaron through the floor, passing by glass offices and cubicles. You were quiet, not really in the mood for small talk which you felt he sensed and didn't bother saying anything as he lead you up some stairs to an office that you presumed was his by the gold name plaque on his desk.

"Have a seat, please," he offered politely, closing the door and walking over to his side of the desk. "Would you like something to drink? Water? Coffee?"

You shook your head. "No thank you. I appreciate the offer though."

He unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat down, moving some files to the side. "So I'm genuinely surprised to hear that he's out of jail. You said you think his mother bailed him out?"

"Yeah. I don't think she knows anything about what happened but whenever he asks her for money, she just sends it to him. I think she feels guilty for never being in his life so giving him money when he needs it helps her feel better about it." You rung your hands together, anxious about the whole situation as well as being there, talking with a man that was pretty much a complete stranger, bugging him for help.

"And he called you afterwards, telling you that he was on his way? Did he seem upset?" His tone was curious as if trying to get every piece of puzzle to fit perfectly in order to build an accurate idea of who your boyfriend was. It made sense considering his profession.

"I don't know. He's really good at hiding his anger until he snaps. He was talking like nothing had happened and we were just going to go back to normal." Your head whipped towards the open window blinds where someone was just walking by, Aaron noticing your jumpy behavior immediately.

"You're safe here. No one knows anything about what happened except you and I," he reassured you, making you relax just a little. "I don't think he'll be out of jail for long though, at least until he sees the judge for arraignment. I will personally see to that."

His words brought you a bit of placidity and hope as you still wondered why he would go through such lengths to help you out.

"I do have a small flat not far from here that I use occasionally for late nights at the office when I don't want to drive all the way home. You can stay there for now, until you find a place of your own if you'd like. Completely up to you, I don't want you to feel pressured."

Your eyes looked up from the floor to meet his, surprised by his offer.

"I- uh. I couldn't impose on you like that-

"You wouldn't be. I barely use it anymore, I prefer to be at my home with my son whenever I can."

Son? He has a son. Of course he does. He probably also has a wife or at least a girlfriend since you didn't see a ring on his finger. The thought of him with a son didn't bother you, in fact it only gave you more of a reason to trust him.

"If you're sure you don't mind," you said, trying not to sound too excited, relieved that you wouldn't have to go back to your boyfriends house. "Please let me pay some sort of rent or something though. It's the least I can do."

He shook his head no, his expression soft and nonchalant. "Don't worry about it. You're gonna need the money for your new place. Just promise me that you won't contact him or go back to that house unless you have some sort of escort, preferably by law enforcement."

You could be my escort.

You nodded in agreement, ignoring your thoughts.

“Alright then. I can send you the address and give you the keys now. I'm not sure if the fridge is stocked but feel free to add or throw anything away. There is a washer and dryer there so you can wash the sheets and anything else you need." He pulled his keys from his desk drawer and removed a ring with a single key on it, holding it out for you.

You took it gratefully and stood with him as he buttoned his suit back up and checked his watch.

"Could I at least make you dinner or something?" you blurted, not sure where such confidence came from. "I mean, I just want to do something for you in return for your incredible generosity." You couldn't stop the blush from burning your cheeks, your words successfully embarrassing yourself.

A small smile played at the corner of his mouth, showing off just the slightest sight of dimples. "I'll be with my son tonight but maybe we could grab a coffee sometime tomorrow."

You smiled back, more than satisfied with his offer and followed him out of his office, feeling a few stares from people but avoided eye contact. Aaron walked you back to the receptionist and even had her add you as a contact so visiting would be an easier feat.

"Thank you again Aaron," you spoke, the anxiety you had been feeling for the last few hours, finally beginning to dissipate. He answered with a friendly nod and you entered the elevators. Once the doors closed and you were completely alone, you took in a deep breath. Maybe everything was going to be ok like he said.

[phyrestartr]

Icarus, I Am Devoted | Sukuna x M!Reader

Main Fic W/C: 5.9k Bonus Drabbles W/C: 1.6k

[#Modern AU, ABO dynamics, bottom!reader, top!sukuna, Mob Boss!Sukuna, Alpha!Sukuna, Street Doctor!Reader, Omega!Reader, toxic relationships, age gap, sukuna is mid 30s, yuuji gang and reader are mid 20s, sukuna and yuuji are brothers, sukuna has FEELINGS, but he is BAD AT FEELINGS, nsfw, fluff, hurt/comfort, I KINDA EDITED BUT I JUST WANT THIS TO BE YEETED INTO THE OPEN OK BYE SORRY IF PARTS ARE CLUNKY]

@better-imagination-9 I summon thee

--

Sukuna didn't like Yuuji getting caught up in his business. 

He was too brash, thought himself too badass for the world to take down, thought gang life wasn't as bad as it was made out to be, just because his older brother was involved. Sukuna didn't know where the fuck he got that idea–the tattooed menace had killed people, stolen money, sold shit that ruined lives. It was fun for him, sure, but not so much for bystanders. 

“You're an idiot,” Sukuna growled as he dragged his brother into his office and threw him at the chaise lounge while they waited for their doctor on demand. 

“H-hey, come on, man! It's, uh, it's not even that bad–” Yuuji grimaced, though, holding at the wound gushing blood from his arm. “You've had worse!”

Sukuna laughed bitterly as his henchmen flooded the room and made necessary preparations for their aid's arrival. “You and I are fucking built different, Yuuji--you’re too damn soft for–”

“I'm not,” Yuuji snapped, honeyed eyes blazing. “I'm not.” 

Sukuna laughed again, then ripped his plush, leather chair across the room, sending it hurtling into the expensive ebony walls he encased his place of business in. He roared in overwhelming fury as it clattered to the floor. 

“How hard is it for you to listen? How come you can never just fucking–” 

“Yelling won't solve things,” your cool voice interrupted as you hurried into the room, medical bag in hand. “I thought you learned that by now.” 

Sukuna whirled on his heel. His hands were still fisted in his hair and his blood boiled, but now, there existed an explosive tension with you in the room. 

You, his pretty little omega. The one he chased away. The one he still craved. The one that drove him insane. 

“Uraume,” Sukuna growled, crimson eyes locking onto his most devoted. 

“My apologies,” they said with a pensive look and deep bow, “he was the only one willing to come.” 

“So mind your manners, or I'll let your brother bleed out,” you said airily, so haughty and bitchy and annoying. But Sukuna knew you wouldn't let Yuuji die. You wouldn't let him suffer with a wound like that–you were too fond of the little brat. 

Sukuna snarled in frustration and fixed his jacket with sharp tugs. “Just fix him.”

He stalked away, ignoring the way Yuuji yelled at him before preening at you as you tended to him. Sukuna knew his brother had a bit of a thing for you, his bitch, which caused more than a handful of problems with the two arguing and fighting for your affections. Naturally, you chose Sukuna. Of course you would.

The alpha's frustrations boiled, reducing the rage in his gut into simmering desire. He leaned his head back against the elevator mirror with a sigh as it shot up toward the penthouse--the one you, too, used to occupy. The one where you'd spread your legs for him, drowning in expensive, black silk sheets while he bred you like the good little thing you were. The one where you'd cook for him if (when) you woke up before him the morning after. The one where you first whispered I love you against his skin when you thought he was asleep.

The elevator doors dinged open, and he stormed out, eager to rid himself of the tightness pulling at his slacks. A cigar and a drink sounded good, too. 

–

Ding. 

He knew it was you. It had to be you. You were a good person, willing to let Uraume rest while you gave your ex the update he needed about his brother. After all, you didn't fear him, nor did you yearn to please him. You were more than capable of delivering shit news and getting off scotch free. 

“So?” Sukuna took a deep puff from his cigar and leaned further into the balcony railing as you approached. 

You hummed as you sidled up next to him, tucking some of your hair behind your ear as the breeze tugged at it. “He'll be fine. Yuuji's tough. He's a bit shaken up now that the adrenaline’s worn off, though.” 

“Maybe that'll teach that idiot not to get shot.” 

“Probably not.” 

“Probably not,” Sukuna sighed, tapping off a dash of ash from the butt of his cigar just before it was plucked from his hands. “Oi.” 

“These things'll kill you,” you scolded airily. “So will that.” You tried reaching for the crystalline glass of amber, too, when Sukuna scoffed and took a sip to spite you. 

“Don't,” he snarled. Any normal omega would have backed away. Any normal omega would have keened. Any normal omega would have tried to please him up with a sweet scent of submission. But you were a different breed entirely. 

“Don't growl at me–” you gaped as Sukuna downed the expensive liquor before whipping the glass at the skyline. “Sukuna.”

He stalked back into his penthouse with heavy steps as he ran his hands through his hair. He had to busy his fingers, his palms, just so he wasn't tempted to touch you, to grab you like he was used to. It'd been years since you were properly together–properly engaged in fact–but he still couldn't shake those infuriating fucking habits. You were a cancer in his mind, plaguing his body and thoughts. 

But he didn't want you to leave. Maybe he liked the chase. Maybe he just liked how his entire, explosive world narrowed down to just one infuriating thing that he wanted so badly. He didn't know. Maybe he didn't need to know. 

Sukuna poured himself another drink and collapsed onto his soft leather couch with a deep sigh. His arms draped along the back, one hand still holding the glass by the rim. He let his head fall back, and stared at the ceiling. 

Thankfully, you wandered in. And you wandered toward him, not to the door like you usually did when his temper flared and he acted out. Something small and pathetic in him uncoiled and settled down, purring in content when you took a seat beside him. 

“What's going on?” you asked quietly. Your fingertips singed sparks of pleasure against his skin where you touched: his cheekbones, his hairline, his furrowed brow.

He lolled his head to the side to look at you, his stupid pretty boy. “Nothing.” Not even Sukuna believed that.

You brushed his hair back, and the stupid alpha in him rose to the surface and moaned. “Yuuji’s not behaving?” Your warm palm cupped his cheek, and he leaned into it. 

“That little shit never behaves,” he mumbled through the vibrato of purrs rumbling from his chest. “Gonna make me die young.” 

“Hm. Is that why you haven't slept?” 

“I'm sleeping.”

“How much?”

“Enough.”

“Sukuna.”

“I said–” 

“You and I have different definitions of ‘enough,’” you chided lightly, like you were scolding one of your cats. “You look tired.” 

“Maybe it's because my mate scampered off in the middle of the night.” 

“Don't blame this on me.” 

“Why not?” Wine-red eyes glowered at you, deciding whether he should dominate or decimate you. “It's your fault.” 

You recoiled the slightest bit, your top lip twitching in that oh-so familiar way it did whenever you were close to snarling and snapping at him. You had such a temper for such a calm thing. Sukuna would be lying if he said he didn't try to rile you up on purpose. 

“Ho? What,” he started, grinning wickedly when you made a move to get up, but his arms snaked around you and held like wrought iron. “Feelin’ guilty?” 

“No,” you hissed, half-pissed by his drink spilling on you, half-pissed by his accusation. “Let go. I'm leaving.” 

“Leaving?” He crooned. “You always get so pissy when I don't wanna talk, ‘n now that I'm in the mood, you're tryna leave? Come on, sweetheart, that's not fair.” 

“I don't feel like fucking fighting tonight,” you snapped, and Sukuna stayed quiet for a change. “Yuuji got shot. You look like shit. And we--I haven't–” you took a deep breath. “Can't we just be civil for a night? Can't we just talk about–”

“About what?”

“About whatever.” 

“Fine.”

“Alright. Okay.” 

Somewhere behind the haze of alcohol, Sukuna's consciousness celebrated–this could be his shot at starting to fix things. This was his moment to rebuild that lost relationship and maybe clean up a space in his life for you to sit safely in. Your expectant expression agreed with him. You looked quite cute, what with your big eyes and the way you leaned into him. But instead–

“Was it a boy or a girl?” Sukuna asked before taking a sip of whatever remained in his glass. 

You blinked and shook your head, eyes narrowing the slightest as you looked over his face. “What?” You asked. 

Sukuna snorted and turned to face you, one arm gesturing with his scotch glass while the other arm stayed slung across the back of the couch. “I said,” he started, gesturing to your stomach and chuckling through his low, bassy words, “boy or girl? If it was a girl, then maybe the world did you a favour. You know how it is for women in this day and age.” 

You stared blankly like you were shellshocked, and Sukuna bubbled with near-manic, reedy laughter until you got up and walked to the door. 

“Oi, where the hell are you going, huh?” He got up and followed you, hastening his steps when he saw you b-line for the door. “Omega.” He grabbed your wrist and pulled you back, purring into your ear as he pressed his chest to your back. “Come on, we can make another one. You'd like that, huh?” 

“Get off,” you barked, ripping his arms away from you. But he grabbed you again and spun you back to face him. You shoved him back, your mind whirling in a chaotic waltz drenched with grey thoughts and crimson rain that almost drowned out the words he barked at you until–

Whack. 

He hit you. Backhanded, fingers adorned with thick, bulky rings and knuckles that'd seen too many fights. A natural disaster contained in the vessel of a mortal man–sometimes, he didn't know his own capabilities.

“Shit,” Sukuna mumbled, scrambling to set down his glass to, what, tend to you? Rewind time? Sure. “Babe–” 

But you, too, were a natural disaster. The tsunami that came after an earthquake, raising tides high and staring down at split earth with a taunt: you think you're bad? Watch this.

Thwack. 

You snatched up that bottle of fancy scotch and hit a home run, watching Sukuna collapse to the floor.

–

Sukuna woke up with a concussion, his wallet missing, and one of his favourite cars torched. 

It got him riled up. He was too ready to hunt you down and make you rectify your mistakes–that is, until he remembered why you did what you did. 

Boy or girl?

Maybe the world did you a favour.

Fuck. He flew way too close to the sun this time.

He watched you stack up expenses on his card instead of hunting you. Your little rage-filled crime spree was kind of funny anyway, and he couldn’t help but hope it made you feel at least a little better. 

Though he knew it could never. Nothing could make it better. 

–

“You should quit messing around with him,” Ieiri said as she tended to the half-dead gangster laying on her operating table. “He's bad news. A kid like you shouldn’t be getting involved.” 

The one little, wiggly lucid part of Sukuna wanted to strangle Ieiri; you were young, sure, but not stupid. Sukuna wouldn't go so far as to say you were mature for your age, no, but you'd been beaten down by life and forced into the role of an adult for long enough that it'd changed your way of thinking, of perceiving the world. You could make your own choices–just as long as it involved him. 

“You're not the first person to tell me that,” you said softly, words rising with a small, warm chuckle. “Good guys try way too hard to put on a show, to hide how garbage they can be.” You squeezed Sukuna's hand and ran your thumb over his split knuckles. “Guys like him show you who they really are right away. Then, you get to figure out what his good side is like.” 

–

You were there again. In the elevator, looking a little pensive beyond your cool exterior. 

Sukuna took a drag from his cigarette as he stepped in beside you. The button for his penthouse leered at him and whispered, “you have time.” 

All he had to do was think of what to say. The right course of action was obvious, but–well, was it really his fault? He couldn't accept that 100%. You clocked him upside the head with a fucking glass bottle and stole his– 

“Those things'll kill you.” Your fingers snatched the smoke from his lips before he realized it. He caught you butting it out on the fancy gold railings. 

“I like things that can kill me,” he hummed, lighting another cigarette and chuckling when you snatched that one too. “What, scared of a little competition?” 

“Yes.” 

Oh. Sukuna liked that.

“I, uh,” you started, fumbling with your pockets before handing something over. “Found this.” 

Sukuna glanced your way finally. He couldn't help but laugh as he plucked the wallet from your hands. 

“Found it, huh?” 

“Mhm.” 

“Such a benevolent, pious thing. I would've kept it.” 

“Yeah, well. You're a dick. ‘Course you would.” 

“Where'd you find it?” 

“My pocket.” 

“No shit.” 

“Yeah. Weird.” 

The elevator doors dinged open, revealing the empty hall leading to the penthouse. He glanced down at the door before looking back down at you. 

“Have a drink with me.”

Your expression soured. 

Sukuna threw his arm against the doors to keep them open. “Coffee?” 

Your brows lifted, the creases smoothing from your face. “Coffee.” 

Sukuna's alpha bloomed with pleased content. He sidled up next to you and rested his broad hand on the small of your back, leading you down the hall. 

“With a bit of Baileys.”

“No Baileys.”

–

He let you try to sooth his stress while you waited for your favourite, poor-person coffee to brew. 

You straddled his thick thighs as you kissed at his neck. Your hands roamed and threaded through his gelled hair, your blunt nails dragged along his scalp, coaxing rumbling purrs out of your alpha.

“Shit,” he moaned, leaning back into your hands, digging his head into your digits and grumbling like an old dog. You hummed in sympathy, and gave him harsher scritches, making his knee bounce in double time like a dog getting the spot scratched.

You weren’t done, though. You licked at his neck’s scent gland and coaxed more of his natural musk to the surface to mix with yours–a classic way to get one’s partner to calm down. You were methodical as fuck about it, too, knowing how Sukuna’s stress abruptly blocked any good scents in favour of excreting foul, angry odors into the air when he was pissed. Or, sometimes, he’d shut down completely, the only scent coming from what clung to his skin and clothes. 

And so, he needed a little more TLC to get things flowing again, to make his body disarm and let the good vibes flow. 

You nipped the swollen spot lightly, eliciting a strangled growl from the man. “Too rough?” Your tongue pressed at the spot again, and pulled more of that deep purring out of him. “Maybe not.” 

“By all means, rough me up.” That was as close to a warning as you would get from a greedy bastard like Sukuna. He wanted you to bite harder, to break skin and set the wild tornado of a mating rut into motion. You were careful to avoid him when your unholy heats crashed down on you, but being in the presence of your estranged man when he was set off–well, it’d jumpstart your sex-crazed frenzy, too. 

“Raincheck,” you murmured. 

He huffed and rubbed circles in your hips before grabbing your ass and squeezing. “When's the last time–” 

The coffee maker sang a tune and you got off, saved from your warm, fuzzy marking daze. “Does it matter?”

Sukuna got up and stalked after you, rubbing the ache out of his shoulder. “Like it or not, we're stuck with our binding vow.” His chest pressed to your back, his arms slipping around your waist as he leaned down to nuzzle into your skin. “Mated for life.” He couldn't help the smile that branded into your neck. 

You cleared your throat and snatched up two mugs. “There're surgeries–”

“No.” 

“How do you take your coffee again?” Hah. You didn't even try to argue it.

Sukuna's ego boomed. His scent grew more dominating and demanding in tow. “You know how I like it. You know the way I like everything.”

You scoffed and slapped his hand away, the sweet, teasing omega that happily marked him up and scented him to high heaven gone, now replaced with your annoying, bratty self. Ugh. He loved it as much as he hated it.

“You used to be cuter,” Sukuna commented, quiet and breathy, so out of character. His hands retreated back to hold your waist instead of keeping you trapped against him. “What happened to–”

“You know what happened.” You sounded tired, too. Angry. But not at the Sukuna standing with you right then and there. 

Sukuna's old friend, unyielding frustration, bore down on him. He sucked his teeth and beat down the urge to snap, to yell and scream, claim it wasn't his fucking fault and that you never filled him in, so how could–

His forehead pressed against your shoulder. “I don't,” he sighed. “I don't fucking know, (Name). We lost our kid, I know that much, so what the fuck else is there?” 

For a moment, he thought he'd lost you again. He expected you to whirl around, throw a cup at his head and curse him to hell to start off another fight; instead, you slipped out of his hands gently, and replaced your warmth with a cup of coffee. 

“Come sit.” 

Sukuna complied. 

You tucked your legs up under you when you sat down. Your own mug was held snugly with both hands, yet your fingers fidgeted, twirling around whatever rings you had on while you thought of what to say. 

“So,” you started. “How much do you know?”

Sukuna leaned back and thought. “Uraume called. Said something was wrong.” He could remember their voice ringing in his ear, that usual, frigid demeanor exploding into something panicked and tortured as they tried to comfort you, order idiots around, and explain the situation. “They didn’t know what, but said you were bein’ taken to Ieiri. I met ‘em there, Gojo wouldn’t let me come in.” He sighed, the memories pricking his nerves. “Told me you miscarried, and–well, that’s more or less it.” 

You nodded a little, digesting the scraps of knowledge that’d been given to Sukuna. “I was alone,” you breathed. “I was–I’d been cramping. A lot. I thought–I didn't know–I just–I thought it was normal.” You cleared your throat, fidgeting more and only stilling when Sukuna's palm rested on your leg. You covered his hand with one of yours. “There was a lot of blood. I thought I was dying. Uraume and Yuuji took me to Ieiri.” 

Sukuna remembered that, too. He remembered catching sight of you just before his brother carried you away from him. It was hard to forget the sound of your wailing amidst all that red–that damned noise came from hell itself, from the burning, fetid pits of agony and despair and up through your beautiful voice. For something so foul to touch you was nothing but blasphemous.

Sukuna tried to follow you in, but that moron Gojo wouldn’t let him in, spouting some bullshit about how he’d make things worse. Needless to say, Sukuna snapped, and Ieiri suddenly had more than a mourning omega to deal with.

“I pinned it on you to cope. I didn’t know what else to do.” You spared a shy glance at him before staring down again. “...Uraume filled me in, though. You were dealing with so much shit. All that crap with the Zenins. And you didn’t even–you didn’t even know I was knocked up until I wasn’t.” You sighed and sipped your drink before setting it aside. “Guess it was easier to blame you for everything than it was to just accept I got unlucky.” 

“‘Unlucky’?” Sukuna repeated lowly, void of mirth for once.

You nodded. “Chromosome bullshit, garbage genetics, a shitty cervix. Coulda been anything.” Sukuna watched your expression shift from desolate to bitter. “And if you fuck up once and lose your pup, odds are it’ll happen again.”

“Says who?”

“Science. Doctors.”

“You really gonna take their word like that?” Your eyes met his, doey and expectant. “I'll gut ‘em myself if they say that shit next time you're knocked up.”

You looked a bit bashful then, looking away from him with pursed lips and glossy eyes. For a second, Sukuna thought you were about to snap and argue with him about how you vowed to never get pregnant again (which he'd indulge in), or maybe even bolt for the door (which he wouldn't allow), but instead, you grabbed the remote. 

“Tch. Don't say such stupid shit. It's annoying.” 

Sukuna could only grin to himself as you settled in beside him, tucking up against his side. Neither of you could swallow your pride enough to properly apologize for anything ever, but that wasn't necessarily needed–understanding was what was needed. Things had just become a little bit clearer. 

–

For once, the alpha found himself at ease. Sure, you had your petty and some less-than-petty spats, but there was a coil of contentment that stayed at the forefront of Sukuna's mind through it all. Now, he no longer fumed nor bristled, no longer wondered if you really belonged to him, no longer thought about how to trap you if he wanted to keep you around. 

Because you made more of an effort to see him, to call when you couldn't, to set his vicious wolf's heart at ease so he could rest soundly. He rested the most when you were so gracious as to curl up in those black, silken sheets with him, too.

Don't get too excited. It's just because we're mated; we'd go insane otherwise, Is how you rationalized it. And, honestly, it was cute to see you act so flippant and uncaring when Sukuna knew you were so the opposite. 

Little liar. Loves playing pretend. He gently tucked stray hairs behind your ear as you snoozed soundly beside him. It was unlike you to sleep in so late (“late” meaning past 6am), and it was unlike Sukuna to wake up before you, so it must have been kismet. 

Because this moment was the first in a long time where he got to touch you. Beyond the playful ass slaps and grabs at your hips, you never really let him feel you. Or did he just never try to touch you like this? Gently, just for the sake of feeling your skin and your warmth? 

Sukuna was a brutal man. He didn't often have a chance to be careful. If he'd had that kid, then he might've learned how; he could've learned not to throw glasses at skylines, not to lash out at his omega, not to expect you to still love you when he broke you. 

He brushed his thumb along your cheek and down to your jaw, admiring the soft skin and strong angle that led him to the curve of your chin, and your perfect lips. God, he wanted to kiss you. It'd been an eternity since he had a taste of you. Maybe if he was gentle–

I can do gentle. Sukuna shifted the slightest bit towards you until his nose lightly brushed against yours, until he felt your light breaths fan against his skin. Ah, why was his heart beating so fast now?

He did his best to ignore the way his pulse thundered in his ears when he brushed his lips against yours once more, before he kissed you softly. Gently. Perfectly. And he took his time parting. He had to savour the taste of your lips against his because who knew when he'd get to kiss you again? 

I love you, he heard echo in his memories when your lips parted. But he never heard himself reply. 

“Love you too, brat,” he murmured. “Don't you dare think otherwise.” 

Your eyes opened a moment later. “You mean that?” came your reply, just as light and whispered. Sukuna felt waves of heat come off your skin–were you blushing?

Crimson eyes flickered from your bashful look to the slight parting of your lips and back again. “Always.” Even though he never said it. But he let you get away with everything to show that love–credit card theft, cracking him upside the head with a bottle, abandoning him for months on end.

A soft ‘hm’ hummed through you. Your sleepy gaze melted from Sukuna’s, and down to his lips, too, while your own pursed, pensive. Thoughtful. Christ, you were really something else–just a single look from you had his mind reeling, his chest easing into a warmth so reminiscent of a campfire, the sort you both used to sit around when you’d bullied Sukuna into buying one for his too-big balcony. 

Back then, you were just “friends,” though the flirting and meaningful touches said otherwise. You were still a street doctor, introduced to him by Yuuji of all people, but you had more pep in your step, especially when you worked to try and swoon the hardened, deranged alpha you’d decided belonged to you. You’re mine, you said simply after shooting whatever whore the big, bad boss had hired for the night. The look in your eyes, cold and determined, got Sukuna achingly hard in an instant. He never wanted you to look at anyone else like that–your rage, your obsession, it could only ever be for him.

“‘M I still yours?” You still want me? You still love me? Am I still just for you?

You looked a little sentimental. A little sad, too, maybe. But maybe it was just the culmination of your fears and worries, your wants and desires finally breaking through your solemn being. 

“I'm a minimalist at heart. I've only got room for so much.”

“Don't tell me you're back on that Kondo Marie kick–” 

“But you're something I can't do without.” Yeah, I love you. I want you. I don't want much, but I want you. You're mine. “You bring me joy, or whatever the saying is. But I wanna beat the shit outta you sometimes for being a dumbass.” 

Sukuna laughed and nudged your nose with his–a small, primal gesture of fondness. “Yeah, yeah, I'm aware. Tch. You're gonna have to be careful--you're gonna send my old ass to an early grave if you keep up with all this fiery youth shit.”

“Then I can inherit your fortune,” you offered airily before kissing him teasingly. Sukuna growled when your small fangs dug into his bottom lip playfully. “That'd be nice.” 

“Hah. Everything's going to family–Yuuji, the old fart.” Sukuna pulled you in closer and purred as you complied. “You'd have to–”

“I'll marry you if that's what it takes,” you cooed, and Sukuna froze. You paused for a moment, too, before lifting yourself up to look down at his dumb face. “Oi.” You pat his cheek lightly but he scowled at you, half-cranky, half-defeated. “Eeeh? You mad?”

“Tch.”

“Awe, big alpha's mad.”

“Don't.” A command. A warning. One that had your subgender reeling and whimpering behind you, but your human side smiling, ready to mock. 

You slid on top of him, straddling his waist and splaying your hands out on his broad, solid chest. Sukuna still kept his gaze elsewhere. Honestly, you couldn't blame him--you were in a mood. 

“Oi,” you prodded, poking at his ridiculous pecs and tracing over the dark lines of his irezumi. “Hey. Don't pout.” But he grabbed your hands when your stupid fingers threatened to assault his nipples, and he continued to pout. “Come on, I said I'd marry you.” 

“Tch.” You've said that before. 

“I mean it.” 

“Tch.” You’ve said that before, too.

You leaned down, and nuzzled the hollow of his cheek while he grumbled and grumped. “You don't like the idea of breeding me anymore? You don't want me to yourself, all caught up in your bedsheets with you between my legs? Hm? You don't wanna fuck me through my heat, knock me up a few more times, make me bare your children for the world to see how I belong to Ryoumen Sukuna? You don't want me to be drenched in your scent–” 

You squeaked when your man flipped you around, pinning you before ripping off the sleep shorts keeping your skin from him. His rough fingers dove deep into your slicked up hole (apparently your long list of hypotheticals had worked you up into a soft, wet, pliant thing) and hurried to stretch you wide. 

“Such an annoying little shit,” Sukuna grumbled. And you laughed, lightly and so achingly genuinely through your fluttery mewls and moans. “If you try ‘n back out this time, I'll break your fucking legs and tie you down to the bed, you got that? I'm not gonna be so fucking nice this time.”

“Eh? You were being nice last–” you whined when his wet fingers jammed into your mouth. But you obediently sucked and bit at them, holding onto his muscled arm for leverage while he kicked off his bottoms and pressed his sweltering tip to your soft entrance. 

“You got no idea, princess.” Sukuna pushed in, groaning with ancient, cursed need as your insides welcomed him and obeyed, letting his uncomfortable size push you open. Seemed your body still remembered him. Wanted him as much as your stupid pretty mouth claimed. 

You were gasping, your molars chewing into his fingers as your missing piece slid back into place, filling you up until it hurt to breathe. Strong thighs clamped down against Sukuna’s sides as he dragged you down, forcing the last bits of his cock into your very depths, squeezing a reedy whine out of you, before he pulled out and slammed right back in again and again and again.

Your cry nearly sent him over the edge. It was a loud, bassy thing, something like a cello toppling or having its string plucked too hard by a callous touch–a sound Sukuna reveled in. You were the only partner he'd had that was like this, so demanding and bitchy, absolutely horrible and as poisonous as alphas were, and he loved it. He lived and died by your gospel, by the very life that thrummed underneath his touch.

And you promised to be all his. Sukuna could have everything, anything and anyone, and that apparently included trapping and claiming a god. One that only he prayed to. One that'd only smile upon him. One that only delivered to him divine blessings. 

What a divine gift.

He folded you in half with ease and blanketed your trembling body with his own. The fingers fucking into your mouth slipped out and down to your throat where they squeezed lightly; then, they traveled to the back of your neck, found your cute little nape, and squeezed. 

Your eyes rolled back as your body arched up into him. Words left you in some ancient tongue neither you nor Sukuna could decipher. But it was a language of love and pleasure, the sort that brought delicious submission coiling through your blood in offering to the lowly creature devouring your holiness. 

“Sukuna,” you choked out. Your fingers dug into his shoulder and fisted in his hair, pulling him closer to the old, scarred mark left there by him a decade ago. “‘Kuna, I need–” 

The boss laughed low, but with fluttery, manic high tones warped throughout. “Need me to bite you? Mark you mine again?” He taunted. His nails dug into your soft side as he fucked into you harder, lifting your waist up to meet his brutal angle as his base started to swell. “I wanna hear you say it–say you need it, you want it. Say you need me to fill your guts every fucking night. Say I'm the only one who can get you there. I'm the only one–” his other hand grabbed your nape harder, forcing your submission further, forcing your neck to the side to present it to him. 

Then, with a snarl, he added, “say ‘I do.’” 

Your arms wrapped around his shoulders as you murmured those very words into his ear. 

I do. 

Sukuna's heart howled with the beast living inside him. Blood flooded his mouth when he tore into your shoulder, digging deeper than needed to brand you his again just before his pulsing knot squeezed into you and locked into place, stilling his wild rampage and holding you hostage beneath his hulking body. 

You shifted and writhed against him, so obviously overwhelmed by such an archaic, crazed union–your omega must have been going wild, willing you to fight against the monster pouring his seed into you, locking you in place, taking away your autonomy. But a short, rough warning growl settled your inner self the slightest bit and straightened out your thoughts enough for your human pettiness to urge you, too, to sink teeth into flesh and mark up your alpha to complete the re-bonding. 

Good boy. Sukuna's hips rutted against you in light pulses, attempting to jam his knot further into you to ensure you'd take everything he so graciously offered you. But every little move your bodies made together tore more hot strings of cum out of him and into your core. Apparently an eternity of not having you was culminating into this one moment. 

You were the one to let go first. You collapsed onto your back with a loud sigh, and the crushing constriction of your thighs laxed just slightly. 

“Fuck,” you gasped, wholly content and pleased. Your hand wiggled between your bodies and rested on the still-inflating curve that your partner had oh-so loving built out of cum and obsessive dedication. “That's gonna make a mess.” 

Good. Sukuna's chainsaw purr reverberated against your bloodied skin. He chewed into you further and relished in the taste and smell of you, the way it mingled with his own scent of existence and made him feel so irrevocably whole. 

Your fingers laced through his hair as you laughed. “Oi, let go already. Your knot's not gonna go down for like thirty minutes. I'm not going anywhere.” 

Your mate obliged, dislodging his chunky fangs from you and lapping at the wound dutifully until the bleeding staunched. Next, he got to work leaving an array of dark hickies and light bites all over your neck and shoulder, just in case the gnarly bite mark wasn't enough to ward off idiots who thought they had a chance with you. He grumbled at the mere idea of it. 

“So?” You cooed, running your hands up and down his muscled shoulders. “What do we do for half an hour?”

Sukuna scoffed. He tried to pull out just a bit, just to see if he was seriously locked in there, and you spat a vile hiss his way, your nails digging into him at the same time. And, fuck, you were tight–

“Fuck.” He didn't think this through.

-- DRABBLES --

“You're dumb as fuck, you know that?” 

“Ah, such romantic words to hear from my wife.”

“Husband, jackass.” 

Sukuna managed to open his eyes through the pounding of his head. God, he felt like shit. But that probably came with the territory of getting shot point-blank before bailing out of a moving car on the highway. Honestly, he was lucky only one car hit him when he hit the pavement. 

Still, it was bad enough to warrant him a ticket to the hospital. Uraume worked behind the scenes, ensuring their boss got a private room and that the police would stay the fuck away if they knew what was good for them, and it all somehow worked out. Uraume was definitely a sorcerer of sorts.

“Can you save it for home? Fucking hell,” Sukuna groaned, letting his eyes fall shut again. “Too tired to argue.” 

“That's a first,” You huffed, and marched up to his side, sitting down in the cozy seat waiting for you. Your careful touch prodded at his hand gently, as if assessing the damage, guestimating if you could hold his hand without hurting him, but he made the choice for you. He caught your hand weakly, and you held him safe with both of yours. 

“Missed you,” he grumbled, squeezing back lamely. “Have fun on the trip at least?”

“Yeah, until I heard what happened.” You sighed, watery and warbled. “I shouldn't have left. You're too stupid to survive alone.”

Sukuna laughed, then coughed. He felt you tense. “F-Fuck you, little shit. I'm fine.”

“You got shot.”

“Been shot before.”

“Jumped out of a car.”

“I've jumped outta faster.”

“Then got hit by another car.”

“That was a first.”

You sighed to fight back either a sob or ill-placed laughter, or maybe both. “This is so fucking ridiculous. Never make me take a vacation again. I can't be off fucking around in Hawaii when my baby daddy's getting hit like it's GTA.” 

“Christ, I already–” he paused, though, and cracked an eye open to look at you. “What did you…” 

He lost his words when he saw you. Your skin glowed in a way he hadn't had the luxury to see before. Your face looked rounder, too, like you'd put on a little bit of weight since you'd been gone. But your scent–your usual sweet, full-bodied scent of flowery coffee was cranked up to a trillion. If Sukuna's nose wasn't busted, he would've noticed the way it filled up the room, and he might've noticed how his own scent rose to meet it in greeting. Something strange was happening. 

“Oh. Right. Uh…” you cleared your throat and hastily tucked some hair behind your ear. You looked a little bit lost for words too, in all honesty. “I’m pregn–”

Sukuna sat up. You barked at him to lay down, your voice rising a few octaves when something that was probably important dislodged from his wrist as he reached forward when you stood. And you froze when his palm pressed against your stomach–a natural, maternal thing to do. Sukuna remembered when he caught your cat for you when she was trying to dart out the door whilst pregnant, and how she froze dead in her tracks when his hand caught her by her kitten-filled stomach, and let him carry her back inside. 

But this was different. This wasn’t his partner’s cat’s kittens he was feeling, it was yours. His. A shared little nugget doing its best to grow big for its expectant mama–and now expectant papa. 

“How long?” Sukuna rasped. When did his throat get so dry? 

“Two months. Ish.” You rested your hands over his again despite the awkward angle he caught you at. “I didn’t know until last week. I tried to call, but–” You got obliterated and couldn’t answer your phone.

“I get it. Don’t gotta explain.” Sukuna gazed at your stomach a moment longer with droopy, half-lidded eyes before looking up at you as nurses burst into the room. “You’re moving in.”

And for once, you didn’t argue. 

–

“Dude, you guys can't fuck when he's pregnant! You'll crush the baby like a tin can!” 

You snorted and tried to cover your mouth as your tea shot out your nose. You coughed and wheezed, turning away and waving at the brothers in a desperate plea for them to not look and continue their petty argument.

Sukuna, caught between the urge to mock you and kick the shit out of his annoying little fucknut brother, sighed and rubbed his face before handing you his fancy handkerchief he kept tucked in the breast of his jacket for nothing but looks. These days, though, the damn thing had been paying its dues. 

“You think I'm gonna listen to a fuckin’ virgin about this kinda shit?” Sukuna quipped back as he watched you clean up before trying to take a sip of your drink again. 

“Hey, man, I'm just saying. Your dick is like a third leg.” 

You slammed your hand down on the table after spitting a mouthful of tea back into your cup. “Yuuji. Please. Why do you even know that?” 

Yuuji pouted and scooted closer to you under the kotatsu. “Wh--we're brothers! It's not even that weird!” 

“It's weird as shit,” Sukuna offered as he reached out to rub your back. 

“So not weird.” His honeyed eyes locked onto the small affection the older showed you. “Man, so not fair you guys are ganging up on me now that you're, like, a thing,” Yuuji whined and let his arms and chest flop across the table like a petulant child. 

Sukuna smirked. “Jealous?”

You grumbled. “Sukuna. Don't start.”

Yuuji's ears turned bright red. “Jea–what?! No! I like girls like Jennifer Lawrence, not--I don't–”

“N'awe, little pup's tryna cope with losing.” Sukuna grinned wildly when Yuuji's head snapped up, pinning a deadly stare onto the older alpha. “Oh? Finally grow a pair?” 

“Sukuna,” you warned again.

“You better shut it, dude,” Yuuji threatened next, and you knew it was a lost cause; two alpha brothers, both incredibly competitive, both pining for the same omega, spelled disaster. 

Your partner laughed that familiar, ugly laugh–the sort that was too genuine and sounded borderline insane. “Or what? You gonna make me cry–” 

Yuuji launched over the table in an instant, tackling his brother to the ground with a bratty snarl. You watched on, unimpressed, waiting for any signs of their wrestling turning into a serious fight, but it never came. So, you enjoyed it a bit. It wasn't everyday the two idiots played nice. 

You rested your hands on your curved stomach while the two growled and snarled half-heartedly in their dumb attempt to subdue the other. Sukuna could've won in an instant, you both knew that, but he'd let Yuuji think he had a fighting chance for a little bit. It was part of the fun for him, letting his little brother gnaw on him like it'd do anything, letting him try to use his horrible jiu-jitsu skills on his older, bigger brother. It reminded you of–

“Oh,” you peeped when a rowdy kick jostled your hand. It didn't come from the boys, no, it came from the tiny tot inside you. 

The boys froze and stared at you.

“Huh? What's ‘oh'?” Yuuji asked through his panting and straining. Sukuna had him in a headlock, one of his hands giving a brutal noogie to the younger's head. 

“No, just–I think she kicked. Maybe not, I don't–” but your expression brightened with delight when another little throw hit your hand. 

“No shit?” Sukuna grinned, waves of excited alpha scent rolling off of him. He face-shoved Yuuji away before sidling up next to you and pressing his palm against your stomach. You guided his touch to rest over the kicky hotspot, and sure enough–

Thump. Thump.

“Two kicks for your old man, hey?” Sukuna hummed, looking so damn triumphant. 

“Hey, hey, I wanna feel!” Yuuji scrambled over like a nightmare and wiggled up on your other side, pointedly ignoring the snarl Sukuna sent his way. “Come on, it's my niece, chill out.”

Sukuna growled again, but you pulled his hand off to let Yuuji feel the little life making herself known. His eyes, too, lit up when those tiny thwacks battered his palm. 

You looked up at Sukuna dreamily, making the other's ticked expression smooth down into just mildly-annoyed; if your omega wasn't threatened, then he wasn't going to threaten. Sukuna didn't think Yuuji would hurt you, absolutely not, but anyone who came near you, or so much as accidentally bumped into you, pissed Sukuna off, sending his over-protective instincts into overdrive. He always had to rely on you to know when not to react.

“That's so cool!” Yuuji squeaked. “She's seriously in there!” 

“Where the fuck else would she be,” Sukuna grumped.

“Don't ruin his fun, Sukuna.” 

“Yeah, don’t ruin my fun!” 

“Yuuji’s banned from the house.”

“WH–HEY!!”

“Sukuna.”

“Heh.”

“What about gramps, then?” 

Sukuna paused. His heart stopped for a long, long moment. 

“What about him?” He answered, nonchalantly as possible. “Old fuck cut me off years ago.”

“He still cares,” Yuuji offered with a shrug. “And I told him about the pup ‘n everything.”

Sukuna frowned. “Yuuji–”

“You seriously think he doesn't give a shit? Dude, be real, the guy raised us.” 

“That's generous.” 

“Didn't you say you were leaving everything to Yuuji and ‘the old fart’ originally?” You cooed, unhelpful as ever. 

Carmine eyes found yours. “...If he actually wants to meet her–” 

“Awesome, I’ll let him know!” 

“Oi, runt–”

But Yuuji jumped up and pulled his phone out, leaving Sukuna to wonder what he’d just gotten himself into while you laughed at his misery. 

[captainpriceslilwife]

pt. 3 of gaz x insecure!reader :)))))

[part 1, part 2, part 3]

He’s late.

He went through all that trouble of convincing you of how genuine he was about taking you on a date, just to be late. 

He just wanted to do something nice for you. Something to actually make you smile in his presence instead of tense up or cry, but the universe seems to work against him when it comes to making you happy. Which is how he ended up here – desperately trying to buy flowers from the old Scottish woman on the street corner that he’s certain has been around since the Cambrian age. He really needs to stop taking Johnny’s advice. 

“How much for the sunflowers, ma’am?” He’s been trying to be as polite as he can, but the poor woman doesn’t seem to notice how his hand is tapping nervously at his thigh or how he checks his watch every two seconds. She just hobbles around with a smile, pointing at all of the other flowers on her stand and telling him some long-winded story of her youth about each of them.

“Eh?” Oh, and she was deaf in one ear. Something that wouldn’t be a problem if he didn’t have to keep repeating himself every single time he asked a question. “Wha’ did ye say, luvie?”  “The sunflowers.” He enunciates impatiently as he leans towards her right ear, only for her to blink in confusion at him. “How much?”  A wide smile breaks out on her face as she gestures to the bucket of sunflower bouquets, and Kyle softens a bit now that he thinks he can finally finish this up. Maybe he might even make it on time if he really books it…

 “Ah, ye can take as many as ye’d like!” 

Christ.

“No, no-“ A tense sigh escapes his lips as he takes out his wallet, trying to get it in her frame of vision before he loses her attention again. “Money. How much money?” But she’s not even looking at him anymore. Her white, fluffy brows are furrowed like she’s deep in thought, and she’s got her eye on one of the giant displays of pink and red flowers next to him. “Say, didn’ ye say this is fer yer girl? Ah still think she’d like some roses instead…more romantic, ya ken? Ah’ve got plenty different ones for ye, just gimme a wee second. Ye really should take a look-”  “No, ma’am, please…I-I don’t have a second.” He’s starting to wonder if he should just give up, but the thought of showing up late and empty-handed makes him feel so guilty that it makes his stomach lurch. “Please, I just want to pay for the…” But it’s too late. She’s already toddled off behind the cart, hunched over and spouting some story about how her late husband bought her roses every Sunday. “…the sunflowers.” 

He can only imagine what you must be thinking right now. 

And then there’s you. 

You, who had gotten up embarrassingly early that morning to get ready for your date. You had cursed yourself for agreeing to meet him so early as you rushed around your room, trying to pick out an outfit and do your hair in a way that made you feel like you looked alright without drawing too much attention to yourself. You had changed five times – constantly questioning if you looked like you put too much effort in – so you put even more effort into dulling yourself down. 

You even had to give yourself a pep talk in the mirror before you could gather the courage to leave the house. 

You’re okay. This is okay. This is what normal people do. They go on dates. If he sucks, you can just leave! That’s allowed…yeah…yeah, I can just leave. And I look good…I look…great. It’s his loss! Well, he hasn’t lost anything yet, but-

And now here you were – poor thing. All alone at one of the tables in the corner with a cup of coffee in front of you.

You were already a ball of nervous energy when you had walked in – messing with your hair and fixing your outfit every couple of seconds as you hovered around the entrance, looking around and waiting for him. You lit up when you're phone dinged with a notification, but your smile fell as quickly as it came when you read the words. 'I'm running a bit late, but I'll be there soon, I swear'

Oh.

It really is a prank. He’s not coming.

You could feel your hands trembling as you looked down at your phone, feeling utterly betrayed as those tiny black words stared back at you. 

What’s even worse is the fact that you realize that you feel betrayed by yourself, not him. You should have known better; you should have known that this would happen. Your brain preens at the realization that it was right – you weren’t someone worth his time - but your heart begins to develop that familiar ache it's gotten so accustomed to.

‘I’m so sorry, love. I’m nearly there, I promise.’

You can feel your eyes begin to brim with tears, but you can hear a tiny little voice in the back of your head telling you to wait for him - just to see. Maybe he really is running late. Maybe something came up. Maybe he's just as nervous as you are and he took to long to get ready.

Maybe, maybe, maybe...

Maybe you're just the idiot that can't seem to learn her lesson.

You take in a sharp inhale, steeling yourself as much as you can as you slip your phone into your purse, ignoring the incessant buzzing coming from within as you make your way inside the coffee shop.

You had spent so long getting ready - you weren't about to go home and waste all of your hard work just because of some idiot guy. No...you'd get yourself the coffee that you had been excited for.

Because you're all you have.

All you'll ever have, apparently.

You try to seem casual as you place your order, but even the barista can hear the waver in your voice and the way you look around the coffee shop, like you're waiting for some hidden group of friends to come out and laugh at you - the punchline to some sick joke.

But nothing comes, except for your coffee, which you take and shuffle over to some secluded corner where you can wallow on your own. Luckily for you, nobody seems to pay you any mind, even when the tears you had been holding back finally begin to slip down your cheeks and you have to take a sip your coffee to stop the sob that threatens to escape from your lips.

You're so lost in your own thoughts that you don't notice his form sprinting past the window beside you, but your head snaps up when the bell above the door jangles abruptly and the door slams against the wall.

Your heart practically leaps from your chest when you see how disheveled he looks - chest heaving as he wipes the sweat from his forehead, and he has...flowers. Sunflowers, to be specific. Your favorite.

He brought you flowers?

He stands in the doorway - ignoring the disapproving look that the barista sends his way as his head swivels around to look for you.

You begin to wipe at your tears hastily, partially hiding yourself from view as you curse quietly to yourself for ruining the makeup you had worked so hard on that morning.

Once his eyes land on you, you can see his eyes flash with relief before he begins to make his way over to you - murmuring politely 'excuse me' 'sorry, love' 'right behind you, darling' as he pushes through the tables that lie between the two of you.

“You’re still here! Oh thank god…here.” He pants breathlessly, holding out the sunflowers, which you take hesitantly – and he tries not to fall to his knees to beg for forgiveness when he sees the red rim beneath your eyes, or when he hears you sniffle quietly. "Oh, god, love…I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, I-"

You wave your hand pathetically, trying to brush off the fact that you had been crying - but for some reason you can't stop your lip from wobbling once more, though this time it was because of something you've never felt before. Something you couldn't name. But it felt like some old version of you was finally getting what she deserved.

Someone who actually liked her.

And poor Kyle - he can see how you're eyes are growing glossy again, and he thinks he's ruined absolutely everything.

"Ah, shit…” He motions to the bouquet pathetically, silently trying to communicate why it took him so long to get there, but he feels more and more like an idiot the longer he looks at it. 

It’s not enough. 

Maybe if he was late because of a thousand bouquets, he’d feel less guilty, but right now? Seeing you with tears streaming down your pretty face? 

He wishes someone had run him over when he ran through oncoming traffic to get to you.

“Flowers. I was just trying to bring you flowers, a-and the woman – she was so old.” He blubbers, clearly still out of breath as he rests his hands against his hips, but he still scrambles over himself to try to explain the situation – honestly, he feels like he might faint with how flustered he is. “I wanted to do something nice for you, you know? Just to, you know...make up for everything. A-And I asked my idiot friend for advice, and I swear he must have it out for me – recommending a family friend…a bloody Mrs. Gillies-“

And the whole time he’s stumbling over his words, he’s just waiting for the moment where you stand up and throw those flowers right back in his face. Maybe your coffee for good measure. He feels like his heart is about to beat out of his chest, but his rambling immediately comes to a halt when he sees your wobbling lips stretch into a smile. 

You’re smiling. 

You’re smiling. 

Why on earth are you smiling?

He’s frozen in shock as he blinks down at you, and he swears his heart comes to a stop when you choke out a little laugh. 

Oh, god, he’s done it now. You’ve lost it. He’s gone and made you absolutely lose your mind. 

Your teary eyes meet his, and you give him a pitiful, watery smile that knocks the wind right out of him like a swift punch to the gut. It’s not until you open your mouth that his hands stop shaking, and he finally understands what mercy feels like.

“Mrs. Gillies?” You giggle out through your tears, bringing your hand up to wipe at your damp cheeks. You don’t seem like you’re mad at him. You should be, honestly – even he’s mad at himself. “Oh...well, no wonder you were late. She’s, uh…certainly a talker. I used to work with her when I was a teenager…surprised she’s still alive, honestly.”

He’s never felt himself relax so quickly in his life. 

His shoulders drop as he lets out a breathless chuckle, thanking whatever god was listening that he hasn’t entirely screwed this up. He rubs the back of his neck nervously before he sits down across from you, flashing you a smile that shows how guilty he’s still feeling.

“God, I feel like such a prick. She just kept going on and on and I was losing my head thinking of you waiting on me, so I just…I just left her fifty quid and took the flowers while her back was turned.” 

The laugh you let out is music to his ears, and he swears he must look like a love-struck puppy as he watches you lift your hand to cover up your sweet smile. One that he had worked so hard to try to pull out of you, even if you're still wiping the leftover tears away from your eyes.

He’ll get you to stop hiding it soon.

“You know, I bet she hasn’t even noticed that you left.” You keep your voice low as you lean in, like you’re scared she’ll somehow hear you speaking poorly of her, but it doesn’t stop you from giggling quietly to yourself. “She’s probably talking to a couple of lilies right now, thinking it’s you.” 

The corner of his mouth quirks up into a small smirk as his eyes roam over your face, trying to take in every detail of the gorgeous smile pulling at your lips - the one that he finally gets the privilege to see. “Lilies? I’ll be honest, love, I always struck myself as the rose type.”

It’s such a stupid joke – one that he silently curses himself for the second it leaves his mouth – but you laugh so genuinely that he feels like the sun has burrowed itself in his chest. He knows he's gone the moment he realizes he'd do anything in the world to hear that sound spill from your lips just one more time.

“You look gorgeous, by the way. Absolutely stunning. Did you- you curled your hair didn't you? It looks nice..."

And instead of tensing up like you did before when he tried to compliment you, your smile turns shy and you hide your blush behind your mug as you take a sip - murmuring a bashful 'thank you' in response.

He feels like he could take over the bloody world with the way his chest swells in pride.

But his eyes flit down to your drink as you place it back down on the table, tucking a piece of your hair behind your ear as you try to work up the courage to glance back up at him.

"That the drink I owe you?" He nudges his chin to gesture towards the coffee in your hands, still feeling a slight pang of guilt in his chest for being late and making you doubt yourself, and him.

But you just shrug your shoulders and give him a playful smile - one that makes his knees grow weak and his heart grow three sizes in his chest. "Should've been here on time."

Now it's his turn to laugh, and he shakes his head as he leans his arms against the table to tilt himself closer to you. "I should've. It's a shame, really...making an angel like you wait on me."

You let out a quiet scoff and roll your eyes, but there's no malice in it - especially when you sport another bright blush and supressed smile.

"Guess I still owe you, then." He murmurs softly, a bit more genuinely - just to show how serious he is about you.

He watches as you cast a glance over at the bright yellow bouquet you had propped up on the seat beside you, and he can see how hot your cheeks are, even as you hide your smile behind your hand - and he can’t help but smile along with you. He’d listen to that old woman talk for days just to fill every room in your place with sunflowers if it meant he could see that look on your face every time he saw you. 

"I guess you do." You nod coyly as you run your thumb over the lip of your mug, finally pulling your eyes up to meet his. "You'll have to make it up to me next time...and don't be late."

Next time.

He huffs out another relieved laugh, already melting under your gaze as he brings his eyes up to meet yours.

"Wouldn't dream of it, love."

A/N: I'm so sorry for the wait for this! I hit a block halfway through and was struggling to get my thoughts into words, but I hope this was okay! I’m not sure that there would be another part after this, unless some specific scenario between the two of them was requested. I also thought abt doing some random blurbs or headcannons with the two of them but idk! also the amount of Gaz + sunflower content I saw while writing this was insane. I’d like to think that everyone was blasted with a universal divine imagery of Gaz with sunflowers and everyone did their own thing and it’s all magical. Though, I also felt like I was going insane seeing everyone’s content bc I thought I was manifesting it. Anyway.

Taglist: @vixyyvix, @little-mini-me-world, @miyo-0oo, @milanriol, @z-wantstowrite, @nexthyperfix, @minminiie, @just-pure-trash, @the-ferret-of-fandoms, @my-anime-garden, @doinstime, @kaoyamamegami, @my-fandom-space   (I did keep the ppl from the first part tagged even though it wasn’t requested, hope that's ok :)!)

[thechaoticcherub]

A Problem (pt 1?)

Pairing: Dad!Joel x reader (and actually some Joel x Tess)

Summary: You are essentially a terror who's obsessed with your dad and HATES that Joel might fuck other people

Warnings: NSFW 18+, INCEST, DDDNE, age gap, reader is 18, sex, p in v, voyeurism, lying, feelings, not proof read or beta-ed oops, reader is a fucking terror and maybe a bad person idk, no actual sex between reader and joel(YET)

Notes: welll i'm dipping my toes back into writing more with some dad!joel i'm guessing i'll write a part two for this but tell me what you think.

You had a problem. It was a deep seated problem that wormed around in your subconscious, buried so far below the surface that half the time you couldn’t tell if it was real. It festered and burrowed in the back of your mind, wriggling in all those tight, uncomfortable places. It was your Dad. Joel Miller to the government. Mr. Miller to the kids on your street. Joel to Uncle Tommy. Daddy to you. You had never stopped calling him Daddy as you grew up and there was a part of you that began to wonder about that when you curiously started to google ‘daddy/daughter kissing’, watching your first clips of fake father and daughters…usually mitigated with the word ‘step’ in front of the words. 

Sometimes you wondered if Joel knew because you had never had a boyfriend, never talked about crushes like your friends did. But he was happy that you weren’t interested in boys, it made things easier for him. You never accused him of sexism because he had to scare away boys with threats of violence, because boys simply never happened. You barely spent time with girlfriends, squashing Joel’s considerations that maybe you were a lesbian. You wanted to spend most of your time with him. So you spent your teenage years close with your father. But your problem was growing all the time, gnawing on something inside of you, as if eating away at the wall you had put up to protect yourself from your problem. 

You had never even really been attracted to boys at school, or movie stars, or boy bands. No. The only person who had done anything to make your heart skip or your legs to quake was your dad. Ever since you were young. Back when he went on dates you would throw tantrums and be such a terror for the babysitter that he’d have to come home early. But you knew he had found ways around you to satiate his needs. You had seen the condoms in his bedside table drawers when you snooped in his room.  You had smelled lingering perfume on his pillow when you would lie down next to him in bed and request he read a chapter of your book to you. It infuriated you but you could never explain why, at least not to him and not really to yourself. 

You had thought for a while that he had stopped sleeping around, while you were in high school you never found condoms when you snooped, you never caught him with lipstick on his t-shirt but then only a week after your graduation party, curiosity had gotten the best of you so you stole his phone and read through his texts and got a rude wake up call. Messages to and from a woman named Tess. All similar and straight to the point:

 When can you come over?

Pick up condoms on your way.

My kids at a friends tonight, I’m off work now. 

I’m horny. Need you. 

Can’t tonight, watchin’ movies with my little girl. Tomorrow though, been thinking of that pussy. 

 Any normal girl would be gagging at the thought of her father in a sexual relationship. Not you. No. You were furious. How dare this woman feel entitled to any part of your daddy! You hated every time your name came up in the texts. Whether it was as a reason why  he couldn’t go fuck this Tess person or saying that you were gone so he could have her over. Jealousy burned through you. He wasn’t supposed to do this. You thought he was past that and you wouldn’t have to worry about someone getting him in the way you wanted. The thought slipped out in your anger. You had never let yourself really think about that but that was exactly what it was. You hated Tess for getting Joel in a way that you weren’t. 

You decided you would ruin their fun. Just like you ruined all those dates when you were younger. You were not going to allow this. That was how you ended up coming home “early” from a friends house the next night.  That’s how you ended up sneaking upstairs, not wanting to ruin their fun right away. You stood outside his bedroom door, listening for a moment. Voices. The slap of skin on skin. A high pitched, excited gasps. Then a deep rumble of a moan from your father.   You could practically imagine it. You had been unconsciously imagining your dad in those situations for as long as you had understood what that was. You knew that now and you were finally starting to admit it to yourself. Maybe he had his hands on her hips and was taking her from behind, maybe she was on top of him and his chest was slick with sweat. Maybe the hair on his tummy was wet with it. You let your imagination work out the scenario, but the faceless woman he fucked in your mind always turned into you. You swallowed, this was the first time you let these images swim to the forefront of your mind. That wall you had put up between you and the wrongness of your desire had been torn to shreds now. 

You knew you needed to make your entrance soon otherwise the plan would be ruined so you gave yourself a moment to collect yourself and then you shoved the door open as if you were just coming into the house and looking for your dad to announce your presence. 

“Dad, I decided to come-“ You cut yourself off from your fake entrance speech as you stared at the scene in front of you. Everything must have only lasted a couple seconds but it felt like everything hung in that moment for so long. Joel was on top of this woman, both completely naked, the blankets you wrapped yourself in most nights were shoved down around the base of the bed. He was between her legs, pumping himself in and out of her, her legs were wrapped around him, her head thrown back in ecstasy. You could see sheen of sweat over his back, the tightness of his thighs and ass as he pressed himself into her. You barely had a chance to register your father’s cock, buried to the hilt in this other woman when he jumped so bad and yanked the blankets back up around them. 

“What the FUCK!?” You shouted, it sounded completely believable because it was still how you felt, regardless of whether or not you knew what you were walking into. You hated this woman for what she was doing to your daddy. You were furious at your daddy for doing this in the bed you cuddled him in. 

“Jesus Christ, pumpkin, I thought-“ He started to talk as he wrapped the blankets around his waist. 

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my GOD!” You screeched, turning away from the bed. “How could you DO this!?” You shouted as you rushed out the door of the bedroom. 

“Wait-honey! Wait a second!” Joel let out an exasperated sigh and you heard Tess groan in frustration. You had to bite back a smile as you went to the stairs to run away. 

“Doesn’t she knock?”You heard Tess say and it infuriated you enough to wipe the smirk off your face. There was movement from upstairs and you started to put your shoes on, giving them time to get downstairs before you actually ran out the door. You feigned franticness as you heard steps on the stairs and Dad rushed down, followed by a very sheepish looking Tess who was working on putting her purse over her shoulder. 

You got your shoes shoved on and you started towards the front door, “No, please dont let me interrupt you!” You shouted sarcastically. 

“Honey, calm down!” Joel said, he reached out and grabbed your arm, stopping you from marching out the front door. Tess fumbled down the hallway, 

“I’m just going to go, see you, Joel.” She said to him, lifting her hand to him. The insinuation that she would be back and the way she knew her way around the house so easily sent you into another flurry of rage, 

“No you WON’T see him! Get out, fucking whore!” You shouted, sounding more and more like a child by the second. Joel’s hand tightened on your upper arm and he pulled you around to face him but you struggled, trying to rip out of his grip. When you couldn’t get out of his grip you started trying to hit him, around his shoulders, around his chest. 

“Hey! Quit it, kid!” You didn’t listen, you continued to try to pummel your father with your fists, even though one of your arms was trapped in his grip. You felt a sob rising in your chest. You had planned this whole thing but you hadn’t planned for how upset seeing it would make you. You wanted him more than anything else and seeing him give it to someone else made you sick. The sob escaped before you could hold it back, you feebly smacked at him again and he grabbed your other upper arm in his grip, now holding you by bother your arms and gave you a little shake, “What has gotten into you, honey?” he asked, sounding more worried than angry now. 

Your watery eyes met his brown ones, you didn’t know what to tell him. You were scared it was all going to tumble out of you without your permission if you opened your mouth without a plan. 

“You…why…” Your jaw jutted out. “You aren’t supposed to do that!” You said. Joel snorted, 

“How the fuck do you think you got here?” He asked and it made you even angrier.  You glowered at him,

“You aren’t supposed to do it anymore.” You clarified. It was Joel’s turn to look  little angry, he let go of you and took a  few awkward steps back. He had managed to get his jeans and a white t-shirt obut in the frenzy of getting dressed, his pants were still undone and it was obvious he wasn’t wearing any boxers.

 “I know it probably grosses you out to think of your old man…doing that…” He sounded uncomfortable, and God, if only he knew how little it grossed you out.  “Let alone…seein’ it the way you did, I’m sorry about that.” He avoided eye contact with you. 

Your cheeks heated up, your heart hammered in your chest and you found yourself longing to touch him. You watched as he uneasily reached down to do up his pants and your eyes lingered on the bit of pubic hair you could see until it was covered by his jeans. Your eyes flicked up to his and you watched something cross over his face. Had he noticed you look? Joel shifted where he stood. “But even I got needs, kiddo and…I know you don’t want to have this conversation-“ It was funny because you had orchestrated this very conversation. Forced it into being and here he was, thinking you were uncomfortable with it. You stared at him, your eyes on his, your tongue poked out and ran along your bottom lip as you watched him. “But what you saw was perfectly normal and uhh…I mean someday you’re goin to want to…with boys…like-“ he cleared his throat, “When you go to college.” You could tell how much he hated the idea of you having those feelings and you wished so badly that he understood that the only person you had ever wanted, ever needed like that was him. 

“No.” You said quietly, taking a step towards him, “No, Daddy. I’ll never want that from boys in college.” You were very clear about your wording.  

“Honey, we don’t gotta pretend you ain’t a maturing young woman-“ You watched his eyes flick down, you could have sworn they lingered momentarily on your breasts. Maybe that was just your hope. 

“Daddy,” you took another step towards him, looking up at him. “I hate that you were doin’ that with Tess.” You said, your lower lip stuck out in a pout. “I don’t want you to do that anymore,” You told him. Joel raised his eyebrows and leaned down towards you,

“Well, I’m sorry, sweetheart but you don’t get to make rules for your dad-wait, how did you know her name is Tess?” He asked. 

Part Two

[firewasabeast]

Make It Ours

aka the one where Tommy asks Buck to move in

It started a little ridiculously. Buck didn't usually decorate his place for Halloween, but in his excitement over Bobby being back he'd gotten way too much for the firehouse and had a lot left over. So he took some paper bats home and hung them from his ceiling.

That should have been the end of it.

“We've got enough candy for a small army, I'm sure,” Buck said, resting his head on Tommy's chest, a hand softly rubbing over his pec.

“We don't really have any kids that come out to Harbor. A few of the kids whose parents are on shift will stop by, but that's about it.”

“Were you a Halloween fan growing up?” Buck asked, chills running up his spine as Tommy's fingers massaged his scalp.

“Oh yeah. We didn't really have the money to afford costumes, but I'd make stuff from old sheets or clothes that didn't fit me anymore. There was one year where-” Tommy stopped suddenly, and Buck looked up at him to see him staring out over the loft. “Are your bats animatronic?” he asked.

Buck's eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

Tommy nodded his head in their direction. “They're moving.”

“Oh,” Buck glanced back briefly. “Probably the air coming on. Makes them swing sometimes.”

Tommy halfway settled back into the bed, but it didn't last very long, because soon enough one of those “decorations” started flying directly into the bedroom. Then there was another, and another.

“Evan, you have bats!” Tommy exclaimed.

“I- oh my God, I have bats!”

Ironically, Tommy did not love all things that flew. Buck had known this since they went to the zoo two months into their relationship and ventured into the butterfly exhibit. That's when he saw Tommy dripping with sweat, barely taking a breath and clutching Buck's hand until he asked what was wrong.

And now, watching a 6'2 man made mostly out of muscle race to put on a shirt and shorts, foregoing underwear completely, so he could duck out of the loft with a yelp was truly fascinating.

The fact that he only stopped briefly to give Buck a kiss and tell him to grab his things and meet him at his place was the icing on the cake.

That man was inside me twenty minutes ago, Buck thought, a baby bat swooping above him. He felt nothing but pride.

Within an hour, he was bringing a suitcase and work duffel into Tommy's place. Tommy, on his part, had emptied him two extra drawers to go along with the one he already had there. He'd made space for him in the bathroom as well, and cleared a section of the kitchen counter because, “I figured you'd bring some of your cooking stuff with you.”

He wasn't wrong.

It took a few weeks for the bat issue to be resolved, due to the fact that Buck's landlord was out of town and no one else seemed to know what to do.

Once the place had been cleared of the bats, it took extra time for Buck to be able to air out his place and clean the droppings that had been so graciously left behind.

It didn't help that he had a pretty busy schedule, taking extra shifts before he knew he'd have a bat problem.

Eventually, Buck ran out of reasons to keep himself at Tommy's place.

One morning, as he got ready for his 24 and Tommy got ready for his 48, he decided it was time. “I think my place is now free and clear of everything the bats left behind,” he said, pouring coffee into Tommy's travel mug, then swapping it out for his own. “I'll be able to pick up all my stuff after my shift and get out of your hair.”

“Hm," Tommy hummed. "You should just move in here." It was so nonchalant it sounded the same as when he ordered his usual from the taco bar down the street.

Buck froze mid pour. “I- I should what?”

“Move in with me,” he repeated with a shrug, “if you want.” He walked over to Buck and pressed a kiss to his temple. “Think about it, Babe. I gotta go. Love you.”

“Yeah, I- I... I love you too.”

Tommy grabbed his mug off the counter and headed out the door, leaving Buck feeling like a deer in headlights.

Part of him wanted to chase Tommy out the door and ask, “How dare you ask so casually?!” The other part was eternally grateful Tommy exited briskly and gave him time to think it over.

Because, wasn't it too soon? He'd only ever done this moving in together thing one other time, and that wasn't exactly for a good reason.

They'd only said I love you for the last couple months. The words still sounded new, still made his heart swell every time they came out of Tommy's mouth. Still blushed when he said it back.

And did Tommy actually mean it? He did have a dry sense of humor that was sometimes easy to miss. Maybe this was one of those times. It was just a joke and he was meant to brush it off with a laugh.

He wasn't sure how long he actually stood there with a half filled mug of coffee in front of him, but eventually his phone dinged and pulled him out of his thoughts.

Stop panicking. Yes, I meant it. Seriously, just think about it.

Buck rolled his eyes, but couldn't help the smile that rose on his face.

Hate you. Be safe.

He only had to wait a few seconds for a reply.

Love you too. You be safer.

*****

“I'm kind of freaking out,” Buck said as Maddie grabbed her lunch from the fridge.

“Why are you freaking out?”

“Tommy asked me to move in with him.”

She paused briefly, eyebrows going up as she stood at the counter. “Really?”

“Yeah, yeah. Wh- Why really? You think it's too soon, don't you? It's too soon. That's what I thought when he asked, well suggested is more like it. He suggested I move in, and then told me to think about it, and then he left for work and then I left for work. And he told me not to panic and that he actually meant it, but-”

“Buck, I didn't mean anything by my really,” she interrupted, reaching out and squeezing his hand. “Honestly, I figured that was gonna happen once you stayed with him during the whole bat thing.”

“Really?” he asked, surprised. “I- I mean, you did?”

“You already spend more time at his place than your own. The bats were taken care of, what, almost a week ago?”

“Yeah.”

“And how many nights have you stayed at your place since then?”

“Well... Well, I had to work a couple of those days,” he tried to reason, “and then it made more sense to go to his place because we wanted to see each other but we were both tired from work.”

“You don't have to explain yourself, Buck,” she assured him. “I'm only saying it's not actually all that surprising.”

When Buck didn't look any more relieved than when he'd come into the call center, Maddie continued, “Have you made a pro/con list?”

He pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket and laid it on the countertop for Maddie to take. “Of course I did.”

She picked it up and read it over. “Great butt is number three? Did not need to know that.”

“It- It's a very detailed list,” he replied seriously.

“I can see that,” she agreed. “Although I can't help but notice there are no actual cons on this list.” She slid the paper back to him.

“That's why I'm freaking out.”

“Is this a bi crisis?” Josh asked, walking into the break room. “Because, if so, I feel like I should be involved. Also, I've been listening and I have something to say. May I?”

Buck nodded his head, resting his hands on the countertop. “Please. I- I could use all the help I can get.”

“Great. First of all, why are you trying to talk yourself out of it?”

“Because... Because, seven months ago I didn't even know I was bi, and then there was Tommy. And it's been great. He's funny, and kind, and he listens, and he's so hot-"

"Okay," Maddie waved for him to move on.

"Even when we argued, you know, we stuck around and worked it out. It's the healthiest relationship I've ever been in. It's the happiest relationship I've ever been in.”

“God, this sounds awful,” Josh deadpanned.

“Yeah, listen, Buck, if you don't want him I'll take him,” Maddie added with a smile. “I don't think Howie would mind.”

Buck grinned. “I'm just saying, it all seems so fast. I keep trying to think of reasons to say no, or wait a few more months, but I- I can't.”

“Okay, maybe you can't think of a reason to say no, because there's no good reason to say no,” Josh replied. “How's it been staying with him while the bats took over your place?”

“It's... It's been great. I thought there would be a big adjustment, but there really wasn't. He hasn't seemed bothered by my stuff being there, and it's been nice having someone to, ya know, come home to,” he added, a blush rising on his cheeks.

“Have you had any of the big conversations yet?” Maddie asked. “You know, kids, marriage, stuff like that?”

“Mhm. We agree on everything.”

Josh glanced at Maddie before replying. “I really don't see the problem here, Buck.”

“You don't think it's too soon?”

“I think,” Josh sighed. “I think life is really short, which you probably know better than anybody. And if Tommy makes you as happy as it sounds like he does, then you're the only one stopping you from that happiness.”

Buck rubbed the back of his neck, letting out a deep breath. “Sometimes, I still feel like a fraud,” he admitted. “Like it all came too easy. You know, I- I've heard how rough it was for Tommy to come out and all the crap he went through for years. I figure out I like guys and get a boyfriend in the same day, six months later he's asking me to move in and I can picture my entire life with him.”

“I think that's your brain messing with you,” Josh said. “Because to me, it sounds like you've had thirty-three years of searching for something that feels real, and good, and settled. And you've found it with Tommy.”

Maddie nodded. “I agree. He's good to you, Evan. Everyone can see you two love each other. I can honestly say I've never seen you happier or more sure of yourself. You don't need to doubt that. You need to let yourself have a win.”

A smile started to grow on Buck's face. He was pretty sure he'd already made up his mind, but there was still one thing that worried him. “What if it doesn't work out?”

“Then you do the opposite of what you're about to do,” Josh answered simply, “and you move back out.”

*****

Tommy already knew Buck was at his place before he got inside. The giant Jeep in his driveway was always a dead giveaway.

Half of him expected Buck's things to be neatly packed up by the door, ready to move back into his loft until his lease was officially up.

The other half expected him to be sitting on the couch with a downcast look on his face that said I'm not ready to move in with you without having to actually say it.

What he didn't expect was the door to swing back on him due to it slamming into boxes.

Once he managed to hold the door open and scoot inside, he looked around at well over twenty boxes that were littered around the entryway of his place, leading into the living room.

“Evan?” he called out, a smile already on his face.

“Here!” he exclaimed, exiting Tommy's bedroom and hurrying down the hall. “Here, I'm here! So-” Buck paused briefly to give Tommy a peck on the lips, then continued through the maze of boxes as he headed for the kitchen, Tommy following behind. “This isn't everything, obviously, but I don't actually think I'll be bringing all that much from my place. The bats pooped on a lot. Like, a whole lot. Plus, I like your furniture. The kitchen will have to have some new appliances, but I already ordered what the bats, you know, pooped on. You need to let me know what appliances have a family history for you- if that's a thing- before I throw them out. Some of this stuff is, well, it's terrible. Why don't you sharpen your knives, Tommy? Mind blowing. I know the boxes are kinda a mess, but I didn't want to unpack without you because that feels like me just taking over, ya know, and I don't wanna-”

Buck was stopped by Tommy grabbing hold of his hand and pulling him in close. He wrapped his arms around Buck's waist, and Buck's arms rested over Tommy's shoulders.

“I'm guessing this is a yes to moving in?” Tommy asked, nose scrunching up in a smile.

Buck let out a deep breath, grinning back. “Yes. It- It's a yes.”

“You didn't freak out too much?”

“I didn't freak out at all,” Buck protested weakly.

“Evan.”

“Okay, I freaked out a little,” he replied, ducking his head, “but not for the reasons you think.”

Tommy tilted Buck's chin so their eyes met. “What reasons?”

“I... The fact there wasn't a reason to say no. I- I freaked because it felt like it should feel too soon, but it didn't. It doesn't. It feels right.”

That's when Tommy leaned in for a kiss far less chaste than the one Buck had given him when he opened the door.

“Do we have to start unpacking tonight?” Tommy asked when they parted, resting their foreheads against one another.

Buck shook his head. He brought his hands to the nape of Tommy's neck and drew him in again, his tongue parting Tommy's lips. Clumsily, they began making their way toward their bedroom without letting one another go.

“Maybe we could work on christening the place then?” Tommy suggested, his nose brushing up against Buck's cheek. “For good luck or whatever.”

“Mmm,” Buck moaned, grabbing at the hem of Tommy's shirt and pulling it over his head quickly, tossing it on top of a box. “You have the best ideas, roomie.”

Tommy snorted at that, his head tossing back in laughter. “God, I love you.”

Somehow, they managed to make it to the bedroom, and Buck gently pushed Tommy down before crawling over him, leaning down to whisper against his lips, “I love you too.”

[lalalychee-x]

"College boy." Rodrick Heffley x male!reader

THIS IS AN ABSOLUTELY GOATED request from 🌾🍞 anon!! I'M SORRY, ITS LATE!! Hope you enjoy though and feel free to give feedback!! Mwaaaaa asks always open guys, I love them!

cw: period-typical attitudes to being gay (not homophobia though), male/amab reader, older/college reader (21), kinda-rough making out, Rodrick in last year of highschool, so he's 18.

★ You are forced to come back home, stay at least a week during college break with your family. And you knew your sister had all the guys after her, but maybe leading on a guy who definitely was a joke to her was a bit much. You're just trying to help him out. You think so, anyway... click here for part 2

If you’d told Rodrick Heffley that he was gonna end up in the kitchen of a house that probably cost more than he’d make in his entire life — with another guy’s tongue in his mouth, no less — he’d have laughed in your face.

Not that he had a problem with gay people or anything. He was cool. Chill. Open-minded, in a way only someone who’d spent most of his life in a suburban basement with an eyeliner pencil and a drum kit could be. But him? Making out with some rich guy? Yeah, no way. Wasn’t gonna happen.

Except it was happening. Kinda. He just didn’t know it yet.

It all started when he got Heather’s number when he’d flirted with her outside the bowling alley, giggling behind their hands as they gave him the digits and told him to "swing by sometime." And he had. Of course he had. He was Rodrick Fucking Heffley. Girls loved him. Right?

So now here he was — standing on the porch of a massive house tucked into a dead-end road he didn’t even know existed until tonight. There was no answer when he rang the bell. No party. No Heather. Just silence, a pretty porch light, and a feeling that maybe, maybe, he was getting punk’d.

He was just about to leave — muttering under his breath about rich girls and their mean-girl cliques — when he heard that sleek convertible purr down the street.

You pulled up like you owned the whole goddamn block, engine shutting off with a smug little hum. You stepped out slow — lazy, bored — dressed in a leather jacket and black jeans that fit too well, rings on your fingers, hair still pushed back from your day, face unreadable.

Rodrick blinked.

You didn’t say anything right away. Just stood there on the sidewalk, one brow raised, keys jingling in your palm as you looked him over with the kind of stare that made his flannel and band tee feel suddenly...lame.

There was a second where you just stared at each other. He looked a bit like a washed up rat, sad, pouty and definitely trying to hide it. Then the guy let out a small scoff.

“You lost or something?”

Rodrick swallowed. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then shrugged, trying to sound like he totally had his shit together.

“I’m here to see Heather.”

The guy’s brows lifted slightly more. It was you, and you're honestly not going to let... what seemed to be a creep, stand outside and look for your sister. “Heather’s not home.”

“Right, yeah.” Rodrick scratched the back of his neck, voice dipping into that awkward fake-confident tone he always used when he felt like he was two seconds from being told to scram. “She invited me.”

A pause.

You gave him a look — something unreadable, amused maybe, maybe not — before stepping forward and sliding your keys into your back pocket.

“You’re Rodrick, huh.”

It wasn’t a question.

Rodrick stiffened. “…Yeah?”

You sighed like this was the most exhausting development in his week, then jerked his head toward the door. “C’mon. I’m not lettin’ you stand there like a creep all night.”

“What?”

You tipped your head, deadpan. “You’re just standing there. Staring at the door. Like a creep.”

“I’m not a creep, okay?” Rodrick shot back, bristling. “I’m here to see Heather.”

You gave a sharp little laugh under your breath — cold and amused.

“Right. Heather.”

Rodrick squinted, arms up in almost defence. “Wait. Who the fuck are you?”

You looked him dead in the eyes. "Her brother."

Rodrick's mouth opened. Closed. “…No the hell you're not.”

“Yeah. I fuckin’ am, hate this damn house so I barely come back from college,” you said, stepping past him like you lived there — because, well, you did. “And yeah, Heather’s a bitch. But you? You look like a fuckin’ Craigslist serial killer standing on my porch.”

Rodrick bristled again, like he wasn’t sure whether to be offended or impressed. “Dude. I’m just—”

“I know who you are, Rodrick,” you cut in, unlocking the front door. “She told me. Didn't expect you to be real, honestly.”

You pushed the door open and stared at him for a second too long. There was something sharp in your eyes. Not hostile. Just…assessing.

He wasn’t her type. Not even close. But something about the slouch, the messy eyeliner, the smug little grin trying to mask the awkward twitch at the corner of his mouth — it kinda was your type. Not that you were gonna admit that out loud.

You stepped aside, voice dry. “Well? You comin’ in or what?”

Rodrick swallowed and stepped past you, suddenly hyperaware of how much taller (even if not literally) you felt. How nice you smelled. How warm it was inside.

“…This is the weirdest fuckin’ day of my life.”

You just shut the door behind him with a little shrug. “Get used to it.”

You didn’t say anything else — just brushed past him, your shoulder knocking lightly against his as you headed down the hallway like you owned the place. Which, yeah, you did. Rodrick barely had time to adjust to how nice the fuckin’ hallway smelled before you were already halfway to the kitchen.

He followed, awkward and out of place, eyes darting to the high ceilings, the family photos, the spotless hardwood floors. The house looked like it came out of a magazine. He felt like he tracked in dirt just by existing.

You pointed at the dining table as you walked into the kitchen. “Wait in here.”

Rodrick paused in the doorway. “What am I, a dog?”

You didn’t even turn around. “I mean, you showed up uninvited and you look like you bite 'nd have rabies.”

He opened his mouth, ready with a half-assed comeback, but you were already at the fridge, grabbing a can of something cold and cracking it open without looking his way.

Rodrick lingered for a beat before making a decision. Slowly — maybe a little stubbornly — he pushed off the doorframe and leaned against the kitchen counter instead, folding his arms across his chest, doing that thing where he stared at the floor like he wasn’t affected by anything at all.

You turned slightly, side-eyeing him with an amused little smirk.

“Didn’t I tell you to wait at the table?”

Rodrick didn’t budge. “Yeah. And I didn’t.”

Your lips twitched.

Huh.

He really was that kind of kid. All bark, too much eyeliner, and barely enough spine to hold up the act — but he was trying. You could tell from the way his jaw flexed, how he refused to look at you, as if meeting your eyes would confirm something neither of you were ready to admit.

You took a slow sip of your drink, leaning against the opposite counter, just watching him.

“This how you usually get into people’s houses?” you asked, voice lazy, teasing. “Show up lookin’ like you rolled out of a Hot Topic clearance bin and challenge the older brother to a pissing match?”

Rodrick’s ears flushed red. “Didn’t know you’d be home.”

“Yeah,” you said, nodding once. “You look disappointed.”

“I’m not.”

That smirk turned into a grin. “Sure.”

You let the silence stretch for a second, your gaze dropping to the edge of his jaw, the way he clenched his fists a little tighter when he felt you looking.

He was cocky. Slouchy. Barely legal and probably running on Monster and the fumes of delusion.

But shit — cute.

And way more fun to mess with than Heather's last boyfriend. Not that you believed he was Heather's boyfriend at all because NO WAY.

You tilted the can back and let the last of the drink slurp loudly, obnoxiously, like you were doing it on purpose. Rodrick flinched at the sound.

Then you turned, casually tossing the empty into the recycling bin like you’d done it a hundred times (you had), and cracked open the cooler on the floor beside the counter. The soft hiss of ice shifting echoed as you rummaged through it, then pulled out something in a blue-and-silver can — cold and probably cheap. Smirnoff Ice. A college classic. Trashy, sugary, everywhere.

You straightened up and glanced at Rodrick.

“You eighteen?”

Rodrick blinked. “Uh—yeah.”

“You drink?”

He froze for half a second — just half — but it was enough.

You snorted, laughing as you popped the tab on your can. “Yeah, okay. That’s a no.”

He huffed, defensive. “Didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” You crouched again, this time deeper in the cooler, your hand pushing past bottles of water and chilled energy drinks until you found a can of orange soda and stood, tossing it across the kitchen.

“Catch.”

Rodrick’s eyes widened — he caught it, barely, fumbling for a second like it might’ve hit the floor and shattered his already-fragile pride. He cleared his throat and turned the can in his hands like it offended him.

You watched him with lazy amusement, sipping your drink, leaning one hip against the counter again. “You’re lucky. If you dropped it, I would’ve kicked you out.”

Rodrick scoffed. “No, you wouldn’t’ve.”

“Try me.”

The kitchen was quiet again, save for the fizz in your drink and the hum of the fridge.

Rodrick cracked the soda open, took a slow sip, and stared at you over the rim. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes did — a flicker, a shift. He was trying to place it. The way you talked, the way you stood. How old were you?

You let the moment linger before you said it.

“Twenty-one.”

Rodrick blinked, straightening a little.

“Just turned. Last month,” you added, tapping the top of your can. “Heather threw a fit ‘cause I wouldn’t let her come to the bar, y'know? Gotta tell her to stop whoring it.”

Rodrick flinched, taking another tentative sip.

You looked at him again, head tilted slightly. “That what you were thinkin’? How old I was?”

Rodrick choked on his soda a little. “What? No.”

You grinned into your drink. “Sure.”

Rodrick lingered near the kitchen counter, pretending like he wasn’t eyeballing everything in the room. The granite countertops, the fancy-ass stove that probably cost more than his van, the wine rack built into the wall. Who the hell lived like this?

You noticed him looking.

“Don’t steal anything,” you said, lazily sipping your drink.

“I wasn’t gonna.”

“Sure. You got that feral look. That ‘I eat cigarettes for breakfast’ vibe.”

Rodrick rolled his eyes. “At least I don’t drink Smirnoff Ice. What are you, a freshman girl at her first frat party?”

You barked a laugh, full and sharp. “That’s cute coming from the guy holding a Fanta like it’s a beer. You want a paper straw too, princess?”

“Do you ever shut up?”

“Only when my mouth’s full.”

Rodrick froze for a second. Your grin widened. He looked like a raccoon caught chewing drywall.

You leaned back against the counter again, arms crossed, casually sipping your drink like that hadn’t just slipped out on purpose. The tension in the room shifted — still playful, but tight, electric.

Rodrick huffed and looked away, muttering, “God, Heather’s whole family’s insane.”

You cocked a brow. “And yet you showed up.”

“Yeah, well—” He paused. “Thought she gave me her number.”

You smiled, slow and dangerous, and started walking toward him — not threatening, but steady. You placed your drink down on the counter and kept moving, until Rodrick backed up just slightly, hips bumping into the edge.

“You really believe she gave you her number?” you asked, both hands coming up to rest on either side of him, boxing him in. Not touching — yet. But close. Close enough to watch him squirm.

Rodrick faltered. His voice dropped a little. “...Well. I mean. Not anymore.”

You laughed again, warm and low. “Poor thing. Got punked by a couple of high school girls.”

He rolled his eyes and looked off to the side, trying not to look at you. “Whatever.”

You tilted your head, eyes flicking over him. “So what? You into her? That your type? Bitchy blondes who call you names and pretend you don’t exist in public?”

Rodrick scowled, brows furrowed and squinting. “Says the guy who is related to her.”

“Touché.”

There was a pause. Then—

“If it doesn’t work out with her,” you paused, “you could always get with me instead.”

Rodrick choked on nothing.

“I—What?! Dude, I’m not— I’m not gay.”

Your eyes glittered. “Didn’t say you were.”

He floundered. “I mean—not that there’s anything wrong with—whatever—but I’m not—”

“Relax, man.” You chuckled, real low and easy, tilting your head a little closer. “No one’s asking you to get on your knees.”

He swallowed. You could see the flush creeping up his neck, fighting the smirk he was trying not to let show.

You leaned in just a little more.

“...Unless you want to.”

Rodrick made a quiet noise in his throat — something between a scoff and a nervous cough — and set the Fanta can down behind him on the counter. Not because he was finished, but because he needed an excuse to look anywhere but at you. The fizz hissed faintly as it settled.

He scratched the back of his neck. “You’re messing with me.”

You smiled, real slow. “Am I?”

“You gotta be,” he muttered, eyes on the countertop now like it held all the secrets of the universe. “I mean. That’s what this is, right? You’re just fuckin’ with me.”

“Rodrick.”

You said his name like a joke and a promise in one breath. The way it dropped from your mouth made his stomach flip in a way he didn’t like. Or maybe he did. He wasn’t sure.

He looked up at you finally, jaw tense. “I’m not… like that.”

You shrugged. “Sure.”

“No, I mean— I’ve never—” He faltered. His hand made a vague gesture between the two of you. “This isn’t my thing.”

“But you’re still here.”

Rodrick’s mouth opened. Then closed. Like a fish. An angry fish. A flustered, horribly aware he might be into something fish.

You tilted your head, stepping in just a bit closer — still not touching, but you didn’t need to. The tension was thick enough to sink in.

“I’m just saying,” you murmured, voice low and amused, “if it doesn’t work out with Heather… you’ve got options.”

Rodrick cleared his throat. “Yeah, uh—well. I—I’m not…”

He trailed off. You waited. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, eyes flicking briefly to your mouth before he immediately looked back down at the floor like it burned him.

Then, quietly — barely audible:

“…Have you ever kissed a guy?”

You blinked. “Me?”

He nodded, sheepish. Still not looking at you. “Yeah.”

You raised a brow. “A couple times. Why?”

Rodrick didn’t answer. But he was chewing the inside of his cheek now, face pink, breath shallow. Hands shoved in his pockets like they might anchor him.

You stepped in just a fraction closer.

“…Wanna know what it’s like?”

If you’d told Rodrick Heffley that he’d lose his footing on his sexuality in the middle of a rich guy’s kitchen, with the house dead quiet and a guy’s mouth hot on his, he would’ve thrown a drink in your face.

Not because he was homophobic or anything — Jesus, no. He was punk, not a dick. It was just… him? Doing this? Never crossed his mind. Not until now. Not until you.

You were Heather’s brother. College-aged. Intimidatingly hot. Driving some sleek-ass convertible like you owned the damn moon. And now here you were, pushing him back against a cold marble counter, lips crashing into his like he was a fucking challenge.

And he liked it.

Rodrick grunted as his lower back smacked the edge of the counter, the sudden jolt making him gasp into your mouth. One of your hands slid down, rubbing over the spot gently in a rare flicker of comfort before it curled around his hip, pulling him back in.

It was messy.

Your mouth tasted like cheap spiked lemonade and something bitter. Beer, maybe. He’d never had alcohol before — not like this. Definitely not off the mouth of some guy he just met. It was a little weird. A little electric.

His hands fumbled awkwardly at first, catching the hem of your shirt, one sliding around your shoulder as if trying to find something solid to hold onto. Because he was TOO aware he looked like an idiot right now.

Your fingers found the edge of his studded belt, tugged him closer with a harsh yank that made him groan. His hips twitched. His whole body felt like it was catching fire.

He was… hard.

Embarrassingly so.

Rodrick stiffened, trying not to grind into you, but failing when your hand slipped lower to press at his back — guiding him in.

He gasped again. “Shit—fuck, uh, I didn't—”

“Relax,” you groaned actually annoyed with yourself when you should be feeling triumphant, as you kissed down to his neck, your own breath starting to hitch. “You’re not the only one.”

Rodrick's eyes widened slightly as he felt your crotch against his hip.

Oh.

Oh.

Well… shit.

You two stared at eachother a bit more until you slid your hands under his stupid band tee, both hands on his hips. You're surprised—you thought he would be a bit scrawnier. Not that he was built by any means,

Your mouth was back on his again — teeth catching his bottom lip this time, dragging until he hissed. Rodrick’s fingers clenched in your shirt, dragging you impossibly closer, hips twitching without meaning to.

“F-fuck,” he muttered against your mouth, shaky and stunned. “What the hell is this—what are we—”

You didn’t answer. Just kissed him again. Rougher. Meaner. Like you were trying to make up for every second wasted being normal around him.

“Look, do you want to do this or not?” Your hands were braced on his hips, and his belt buckle was digging into your palm. It was all metal and heat and confusion and want.

Rodrick's mouth opened, in nothing but a shakey breath.

Then— BANG BANG BANG.

A shrill, angry voice cut through the house: “HELLOOO? OPEN THE DOOR?? I FORGOT MY KEYS, WHERE'S MOM—”

You pulled back with a sigh, forehead dropping to Rodrick’s shoulder. His chest was rising and falling way too fast for how little space was between you.

He was flushed. Breathing hard. Lip red from biting. His hair was sticking up like he’d just been electrocuted and he looked fucking wrecked.

You grinned.

“Sounds like your little crush is home.”

Rodrick blinked at you, still half-dazed, lips parted. “Jesus Christ…”

You pushed off the counter slowly, casually fixing the hem of your shirt as if your dick wasn’t half-hard in your jeans and you hadn’t just kissed the guy your sister was supposed to be prank-dating.

“You comin’?” you asked, already walking down the hall.

Rodrick huffed, slamming back the last of the soda he’d left on the counter before following, muttering under his breath, “I fuckin’ hate rich people.”

And that was ironic because he was pretty well-off himself.

The door swung open and Heather practically exploded into the entryway, voice already halfway to a screech.

“Ugh, finally! I thought I was gonna get murdered out there, do you know how sketchy the suburbs are at—” She cut off mid-sentence, blinking hard. “Wait. Was that—was that fucking Heffley??”

You leaned against the doorframe, still slightly flushed, your knuckles brushing the curve of your bottom lip like you were trying to wipe away a smirk. Your eyes followed Rodrick’s retreating figure down the driveway, watching him fumble to get into his van like his legs forgot how to work.

You didn’t answer your sister. Just called out toward the driveway, voice syrup-smooth,

“Come back some time!”

Rodrick paused, mouthing what seemed suspiciously like 'fuck you' and then yanked the door shut behind him harder than necessary.

He was mumbling prayers and he barely even listened in church. I mean, he wasn't praying because he thought he had sinned or something — he was pretty sure Jesus would be fine with gay people.

No, he was praying because he was sure he just met the devil reincarnated.

Heather turned toward you slowly, eyebrows climbing toward her hairline. “Seriously. Seriously? What the hell was that?!”

You shrugged like it was nothing. Like you didn’t still taste him on your tongue.

“Dunno. Might stay back for the rest of the holiday.”

Heather blinked. “You’re deranged.”

You just grinned wider.

click here for part 2

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divider creds: @cursed-carmine