#just wanted to write fluff

[ryukatters]

bf!bkg ignoring you because you won’t call him baby or handsome or whatever nickname you usually call him

“Katsuki— have you seen my charger? I can’t find it anywhere.”

You call out as you make your way down the hall from your bedroom. Your boyfriend is sitting on the couch, having a rotting party all by his lonesome to really live out his day off. It’s a rare occurrence for him to be so inactive, but you surmise even pro heroes can be lazy every once in a while.

“Kats?”

Still nothing. You know for a fact that he can hear you, because you can see the way he subconsciously perks up the minute you say something. Definitely charming, but not enough to quell the growing mix of irritation and worry (mostly worry) brewing inside the pits of your stomach.

You make your way across the living room, standing in front of his place on the couch. He’s still not looking at you. No matter, you just decide to straddle him instead. His hands automatically find purchase on your hips, fingers just a few millimeters shy of your ass.

“Katsuki. What’s wrong?”

“Dunno who that is,” he huffs, head turning to the side so you can’t see the way his lips quirk down into a pout. (Because he swears up and down that’s something he never does.)

“Kats?”

“No.”

“‘Suki?”

“Close, but still no.”

“Baby?”

“Yeah, baby?”

"Have you seen my charger, handsome?"

"In your desk drawer on the right."

You smile. You press an innocent kiss to the tip of his nose. He pulls you flush against him before you can pull away, capturing your lips with his, appreciating the way the two of you meld against each other. He tries not to look too disappointed when you lift yourself off him and stand up. You lean down to give him a fleeting kiss on the cheek.

"Love you, Katsuki."

"Think you've got the wrong guy, sweetheart."

[kentopedia]

nanami kento, who hates dating, and didn’t do much of it in his early twenties. but now, he’s almost thirty, watching all the people he works with settle down, have kids, and he thinks he wants that. so he might as well try.

so satoru sets him up on a few dates — friends of friends, he calls them. and at the end of every one of the dinners, kento goes home empty, exhausted, because he knows what they want is not the same.

still; he thinks maybe he’s being a little self-destructive, maybe too picky, maybe he just got so used to being alone. with satoru’s insistence, he gives all the women another call, invites them over to his apartment.

the first time was a disaster… kento had barely set the dinner on the table before his cat had hissed at her, scratched her down the arm in a thin gash. and though it did draw blood, it was hardly enough to warrant that reaction.

he didn’t even try to stop her as she picked up her bag and left, huffing like she’d been morally offend. kento, though, could only smile to himself in amusement.

because maybe kento was a poor judge of character, a man who was secretly hoping nothing would pan out — but his cat could certainly tell the good from the bad.

it became a little game to him, after that. seeing if anyone could win his pet over, and if they could, perhaps they were the one. his darling animal was a fickle thing anyway. a bit too defensive, quick to bite anything threatening after years on the streets.

naturally, no one came back twice.

he was close to giving up, accepting his solitude because he was tired of empty conversations over dinner. but then, he ventured out over the weekend to a new coffee shop, during hours he normally didn’t spend out of his home, and met you.

though you only talked for a moment, kento felt like maybe he’d known you in a past life. a part of him thought maybe it was strange, the way he kept coming back to talk to you, catching you at the end of your shift to see if you wanted to grab a coffee sometime.

by the second date, kento started to think you could turn out to be his best friend.

by the third date, kento wondered if soulmates were real.

on the fourth date, almost two months later, an appropriate time to get to know someone when you were as reserved as kento, he invited you over for dinner. it was, perhaps, the final confirmation he needed to let himself be with you.

he let you through the door, smiling softly as you told him about the book you were reading, and hung his coat on the rack. a moment later, you stopped, distracted, hands covering your mouth in a gasp.

“kento! she’s the cutest cat i’ve ever seen, you didn’t even show me pictures!” you exclaim, and, a few feet away, crouched down. “look at her pretty eyes…”

“careful,” kento said, “she’s not very—“

but the cat approached your outstretched hand, sniffed once, before letting you scratch her under her chin, purring loud enough for kento to hear across the room.

“shes such a sweetheart, you told me she was mean!” you smiled, making a cooing noise as you threaded your fingers through her fur. “kento’s a liar, isn’t he… you’re so precious.”

a few moments later, she snapped her jaw at you in a biting motion, and you only laughed, withdrawing your hand. “alright, i get it, i won’t bother you anymore.”

though she still brushed against your legs, just as she did kento’s, and seemed to communicate some sort of message to him.

“do you want any help cooking?” you ask, tucking your hair behind your ears. “i’m a disaster in the kitchen, but—“

“sure,” kento said, his chest tightening as he blinked back at you, only in his apartment for minutes and already looking as at home there. he wondered if it was possible to fall in love so quickly. “but only if you want to.”

[supercutszns]

a place with you; luke castellan

wc: 2.8k (got a little carried away whoops)

pairing: luke castellan x f! reader

synopsis: luke is used to people coming in and out of hermes’ cabin without a second thought. so when you’re having a hard time adjusting to camp life, he doesn’t expect you to stick by his side, even after you’re claimed.

warnings/notes: shy reader going through a tough time, hurt/comfort, pining, kisses, fluff, potential ooc luke i don’t know what i’m doing, most of this is prob inaccurate lol, i got wayyy too attatched to this i am sorry, title inspired by dragon eyes by adrianne lenker

Luke Castellan is the son of a messenger. He’s used to delivering, passing things along, letting them enter his life and leave him. Sometimes it makes him angry. At his father, at the world, at himself.

So when you passed through the Hermes cabin for the inevitable few weeks before getting claimed by your Godly parent, the last thing Luke expected was for you to stay.

When you first got to camp you were terrified. Luke remembers that much. He can still picture you in Chiron’s towering shadow as he led you up to Hermes cabin. He gave you the usual spiel about the cabin, the land of the unclaimed, but it clearly hadn’t quelled your nerves. You were wringing your fingers together when Luke first spotted you, your eyes blown wide in what he knew as shock and a sort of . . . grief. For a life you’d left for what Luke knows as a life you’d never really have. He’d seen it in so many campers before you. He’d see it many times after.

“This is Luke, Hermes’ head counsellor and one of Camp Half-Blood’s finest,” Chiron pointed him out to you at the entrance. After Chiron introduced you, Luke held your name in his memory. Not because there was anything particularly intriguing about you at first, to be honest, because he’d seen a lot of people like you that needed help settling in (although maybe not many his age). It was harder for some people to adjust than most. He knew that better than anyone.

“Nice to meet you,” he stuck out his hand for you to shake after Chiron left. “I’m Luke.”

You sniffed, shaking it without looking at him. You were so, so embarrassed. This whole time you’d been too stupidly overwhelmed to process anything. Why was this so hard for you? Was it this hard for everyone? “Hi,” you managed, and that was it.

Now, weeks after your first meeting, you’ve concluded that it was not, in fact, this hard for everyone. The camp is crowded but full of life. You’ve never seen more happy kids in your life. There’s a sense of community on the wind.

So why can’t you feel it? Why is it so hard to connect with people? To participate in the fun? Everywhere you look there’s people but it’s all just so . . . lonely. You don’t fit. You’re lost.

Luke wakes up at night when the cabin door creaks open. He’s already tossing, so it’s no surprise he catches it. Unfortunately, he’s supposed to be a good counsellor—sneaking out at night is against the rules, and you’ve gotta reign the strays back in before they cause a ruckus. Sure, Luke’s not exactly a stickler for the law, but the least he owes is to make sure everyone’s safe.

Groaning, he draws himself out of the comfort of his bunk but doesn’t get far when he spots a familiar silhouette slipping out the door. He knows it’s you. He’s been hearing crying at night, and this is confirming his suspicions. It makes him ache in a million different places. Every time he thought about approaching you he shut himself down almost instantly, because who the hell wants some random guy coming up to them in the middle of the night and drawing attention?

This time, though, he’s a little worried.

It’s chilly tonight but not too bad, especially when you’re huddled up in a ball on a hill in front of the lake, grass tickling your ankles. Your tears keep you warm.

It’s a sorrow that feels bottomless. You don’t know what’s gotten into you. You don’t know why everything’s so hard.

There’s a scuffling of shoes, and your name is carried to you on the heels of a breeze. Oh God. There’s someone else here.

You sniff and smear your tears on the palms of your hands the best you can but a little part of you only wants to cry more now that you’re all anxious, and you only have a few seconds to collect yourself before you turn around and see Luke, your cabin leader, with furrowed brows. “Oh, h-hi, Luke.” It’s hard to ignore the splinter in your voice. You curse yourself a thousand times.

“Hey,” he says hesitantly, eyeing you in a way that makes you feel entirely exposed. “You, uh, you know you’re not technically supposed to be out here, right?”

You start to scramble to your feet with an apology on your tongue but surprisingly he laughs, a gentle sound, and beckons you to sit back down. “No, no, I’m not gonna get you in trouble or anything, just . . . letting you know.”

It’s uncertain if you should keep sitting, but you decide to because well, you’re already down here, and things can’t go lower than this. Luke comes to sit next to you and you stare out into the sea like your life depends on it. “Wanna talk about why you’re out here?”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean,” Luke sighs, scooting a little closer to you. “Most people don’t up and leave in the middle of the night because they’re having a great time.”

The answer is too hard to say so you don’t reply.

Again, Luke sighs, and you try not to look at the shadow the moon casts on his admittedly handsome face. “It’s hard settling in, I know. It happens to a lot of people. I’ve . . . I’ve seen a lot of them, and it doesn’t get any easier.”

“Well it sure seems easier,” you snap, and your self-control flies away before you can stop it. “I have no idea why I can’t just suck it up and fit in here. Everyone seems so happy and it’s driving me nuts because I’m just so confused on why I can’t—why I can’t—process any of it.” Tears burn your eyes. “I’m just miserable. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

In the corner of your view, Luke’s face falls. “I’m your guide, you know that, right? I can help you.”

You sniff, embarrassingly pathetic. “I know.”

He comes even closer. “So why didn’t you ask?”

“Because I—I don’t know, you’re busy all the time with all the people in there, so I’m sure your job’s already stressful as is, so—”

“My job is to help you,” he says, a hand on your shoulder. “That’s what I signed up for. If you need something, I’m the one to ask.”

“I’m not sure you signed up for me crying like a baby,” you swallow, the ripples of the lake blurring together. “I mean, I’m like, older than half the kids here, and they’re all so much better than me. I’m not good at a—anything, and I’ve tried it all, and nobody’s claimed me yet, and I feel so weird and old and alone and . . .” It’s too much to think about so you dig the heels of your palms into your eyes, hoping the sting wards off the thoughts. “What if I’m nothing? Why am I here?”

You’re crying again, hiccuping into your hands. Shame sears into you. Luke’s arm curls around your shoulders and you realize how cold you are when he’s warm, so warm, and you want to cry even harder. You don’t even know him, but it’s the most tenderness you’ve received in what feels like years. “Hey, deep breaths,” he murmurs, rubbing your arm with his other hand. “It’s okay. Look at me.”

It takes a ridiculous amount of strength to heed him. His hand catches your cheek and you can’t bear to pull away. Something strange rustles in your stomach.

Luke’s taught instinct when faced with situations like these is to reassure that the Gods always have a plan. But he doesn’t feel like much of a liar tonight. Both his hands steady your face towards his, your skin damp and cold beneath his thumb. “It's not your fault. It always takes a little bit of time for people to get claimed, it’s never . . . well, you can never tell.”

“What if I don’t get claimed?” You say it so quiet you can pretend it was imaginary.

His eyes crinkle at the sides when he says, “Well, Hermes’ll always have a place for you.”

I’ll, Luke wants to say, I’ll. His father is not responsible for his cabin’s kindness.

“No one really prepares you for how overwhelming this is,” he continues, thumb rubbing the apple of your cheek. Your vision is clearer now, and Gods, he is handsome, isn’t he? Even when his eyes are forlorn. “It’s harder in a way when you’re older. More to leave behind. Less to look forward to. It’s easier when you have a friend. Or a great cabin head.” He tilts his head with a faint smile, “Lucky for you, I’m both.”

It almost makes you laugh, and that’s enough. “It’ll get easier,” he promises softly. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Your cheeks burn. It’s hard to keep his gaze, so you blot at your eyes with your hands as Luke gently slides his off your face. “Thank you. Sorry for, um, all that. And the crying.”

He chuckles, “Don’t even worry about it.” You watch him rise in the throes of starlight. He offers you a hand. “Aren’t you cold?” He asks after pulling you up, and you sheepishly nod your head. He tosses you a sweater he’s been wearing, and it smells like firewood. Nostalgic, in a way. “I’m gonna poke around for some tea. Wait for me back at the cabin.”

Before he leaves, he squeezes your arm and that thing happens again in your stomach. “No need to be embarrassed, by the way. You can come to me anytime. I’m probably less busy than I look.” As he walked away, he added, “And don’t worry about the crying. You’re pretty either way.”

Either way. The tea doesn’t seem important anymore because your face is on fire.

Time reveals that Luke is right. He is a great cabin leader and a friend, and it’s hard to tell which he’s better at. You fall in with him right away. Soon enough, you’re drawn into your new life, so slowly you barely realize it’s happening. The days get shorter and you start wishing they were longer. The nights get easier. And when they’re not, Luke tucks you into his bunk and folds you in his arms until you drift off. You pick up a bow. A sword. Luke tells you to straighten your shoulders with a hand on the small of your back, and you swear it always lingers. You braid garlands of carnations for your cabin mates and they wear them with pride. It’s warm, your cheeks hurt from smiling, and things start to feel like home.

Until you’re claimed.

Now you’re a ghost in Hermes cabin, another empty bunk to be filled, and Luke stares at it until he can remember every last detail of what it looked like when it was yours. A beautiful, gentle daughter of Demeter, no longer in arms’ reach. He should’ve seen it coming.

He sees you with your siblings all the time. You’re so happy and he envies it. You belong there, he knows that, the way your face lights up at the dinner table and how you giggle when your half-sister presents you a flower. But sometimes your eyes wander, and something inside them dulls, until you look at him, too.

Luke’s place at camp is to be nothing but a funnel for lost campers to find their home. He’s a temporary stop in everybody’s journey. He’d made peace with it a long time ago. But here you are, messing it all up, because you still don’t leave him.

You beg him to give you another sword-fighting lesson. You sit next to him at bonfires. You pick him for partner camp activities. It doesn’t matter how many younger boys want to latch onto him for guidance—he sees you heading towards him, and he can’t imagine choosing anyone else.

But you’re always whisked away by your siblings, separated at meals and in sleep and in activities so it’s never, ever enough. Why did he delude himself into thinking you’d stay forever?

After weeks of distance from you, he’s elated when you have even a fraction of a conversation. “Hey, Luke!” You call out to him, and he finds you instantly. You’ve broken away from your siblings to get to him.

“Hey,” he smiles, and hopes he doesn’t look too pleased.

You lean a little towards his ear, and you smell like every wonderful thing in the world. “Can we hang out tonight? On the hill?” You’re a little bashful when you say it and it’s entirely endearing. Even now, you’re still so unsure. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” he says almost instantly, and it makes you look less nervous. “Yes. Absolutely. But don’t get caught breaking curfew now, you hooligan.”

Someone calls your name and you give a curt, playful nod. “Yes sir, camp counsellor sir!” He carries your laugh close to his heart until night falls.

You’re already there when he arrives, a vision in the moonlight before he even sees your face. “Hey, angel.”

When you turn around you look flustered. He won’t pretend like it doesn’t flatter him. “H—hi, uh, hello.”

There’s a moment where the world is still. The two of you, alone, for the first time in ages.

He sits down next to you, and it’s like the first time all over again. You get to talking, about your days, your anecdotes, your cabins. The strangeness of it all. “It’s so weird waking up in the morning and not having you yapping in my ear,” you remark, and he teasingly pushes your shoulder.

“Well, one of us has to be the talker, and it’s clearly not you,” he retorts.

You fiddle with blades of grass between your fingertips, weaving them together. “I’ll have you know I had a cabin-wide conversation about Capture The Flag yesterday, and I contributed greatly.”

“Oh, really?” He grins, knocking your elbow to steal your attention. “Look at you, coming out of your shell. I’m so proud.”

It’s hard to hold his gaze for more than a second. You’re afraid you’ll do something stupid if he keeps looking at you like that, but you almost want to. “Oh, shut up.”

He puts a hand on your shoulder. “No, I’m serious. I’m proud.” His eyes rake over your face. “You’re flourishing. You found your place.”

You can’t stop yourself from saying, “I kind of miss my old one.”

There’s a way he studies your expression that makes you feel utterly helpless. You wish you could dish it back to him, but you know you just look awestruck whenever you stare at him for so long. He’s quieter when he replies, “I miss it, too. A lot. Sometimes, I—” His face scrunches up like he just tasted something sour. “Nevermind.”

Frowning, you prod, “What? What is it?”

He sighs and turns to the horizon. This is the first time you’ve ever seen him struggle. “Sometimes, I wish you hadn’t been claimed. Sorry, that’s . . . that’s awful, I know.”

His surprise is evident when you say, “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t either.”

He turns back to you. “Really?”

“Really,” you nod, staring at the beads on his necklace. “You’re the only reason I’ve adjusted here at all.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

“It’s true. And I miss you.” A few months ago you would’ve kicked yourself for saying this. But Luke has a way of inspiring confidence in people.

“I miss you, too. So much.” He gently prys the grass you’ve been weaving out of your hands, now a small necklace. “But look at how talented you are. I’ll tell you, I’m lucky you’re still sticking around. For most people, Hermes is touch-and-go.”

Luke leans forward to tie the garland around your neck, and your pulse picks up. “This isn’t about Hermes, Luke,” you try to be firm but it comes out soft. “It’s about you.”

His hands stop fiddling and rest on your neck. When he speaks, you can feel his breath on you. And you have no idea that he’s been waiting to hear that his whole life. “What’s about me?”

It’s not fair, your inability to string sentences together only worsens right when a beautiful boy is this close to you. “Hermes isn’t—it’s not special because of your father, it’s special because of you.”

There is nothing else you can possibly think of saying with the way his fingers trace up your neck and hold your jaw. “Yeah, well,” he murmurs, “The only reason anything in my life is special is because of you.”

You don’t know if it’s a lie or not; you don’t care. His nose nudges yours. There’s a moment where you wonder if this is as close to Elysium you’ll ever get. Then he slips a hand to the back of your neck and pulls you to his mouth.

He kisses you in a near fury, then when he knows you’re not going anywhere, it’s the gentlest thing you know. It’s hard to believe this is even happening. Your hands weave through his curls but he holds you steady, and thank the Gods for that because you’re pretty sure you’re melting. You kiss again, and again, and again, until you genuinely think you’re going to pass out and you have to pull away.

“Aw, look at you,” he murmurs when you can’t meet his eyes, a playful lilt in his voice. “Still so nervous.”

“Would you shut up?” You press your face into the crook of his neck with a huge smile.

He kisses the top of your head. “Love to, angel.”

Luke Castellan is the son of a messenger. He’s supposed to believe he’s bringing the best of humanity to the Gods and glory above.

But screw the Gods. He’s keeping this one for himself.

[vanderlesbian]

dating simon riley means constant clinginess. large arms wrapped around your waist at any given moment, simon is most comfortable when he's holding you. after being away from a long mission, he'll find you wherever you are in your shared apartment and silently crawl into your arms like a puppy. he'll bury his face into the crook of your neck, slowly inhaling to bask in your scent that he missed more than anything. with an amused chuckle, you'll wrap your arms around his warm torso, gently rubbing his back. "no hello?" you'll tease, to which you always earn a content hum in response, along with simon's hold tightening ever so slightly.

dating simon riley means lots of playful teasing. if you make a typo in a text message, he'll begin spelling the word as your typo for the rest of the day. if you believed in a silly fact, he'd bring it up for the rest of your life. "this is like when you thought our blood was actually blue" he'd snicker, which would cause you to whine for him to stop and swat his arm.

dating simon riley means constantly being cared for. simon is a man who can do everything, or at least tries to. he somehow manages to get to all the chores before you do, which has ended in you reassuring him that you can handle it many, many times. when doing something potentially dangerous like standing on a ladder, handling a knife or using tools, simon will constantly glance in your direction to make sure something won't slip and injure you. like a spidey sense, he's quick to pull you away or come to your rescue if you're in a situation where you're about to hurt yourself. "you alright?" he'll mumble softly, dark eyes laced with worry that is a rare sight to be seen by anyone else.

dating simon riley means you have a second wardrobe. his large clothes are just too comfortable to resist, and he's often left searching the apartment for a shirt that you had placed amongst your own clothes. though, he makes no effort to steal them back from you, as seeing you in his tshirt, his boxers and his hoodie fills him with a loving possessiveness. he'll walk into the kitchen to see you turned away as you wash dishes, wearing one of his shirts as a short dress. managing to silently sneak behind you even with his bulky frame, he'll wrap his arms around you from behind and place a kiss against the nape of your neck. "you look so pretty in my shirt, love." he'll then purr into your ear.

dating simon riley means seeing a side of him that many never do. whether it be physically or personality wise, you see so much of simon that you can't remember the last time you referred to him as ghost. his large pointy nose, his dirty blonde hair that he always forgets to fix in the mornings, and his lopsided smile that appears when you tell the corniest of jokes are all things that many have never seen and never will. he speaks so softly to you; a low tone that you can feel reverberating in his chest when you lay against him. simon is kind, patient and vulnerable with you, and will mutter the words "i love you" against your lips, just loud enough for only you to hear.

dating simon riley means being friends with the rest of the 141. you were the one who wished to host hangouts at your apartment, wanting those closest to simon to like you. despite their intimidating demeanors, you quickly realized just how kind they were. they know just how important you are to simon, which is a rare feat in itself, so they would never treat you in an ill manner. soap will always refer to you as "the missus" when speaking to simon, which never fails to make you giggle when you overhear their conversations.

masterlist

[ffsg0jo]

yeah manwhore gojo is great but what about touch starved gojo who fantasises holding your hand. spends his nights dreaming about the way you would feel cuddled in his arms. his entire face red and blushing at the mere thought of your lips chastely pressing against his. he can't stay thinking about that too long though because it'll result in him giggling and kicking his feet all night and getting no sleep.

gojo who sits downs next to you and almost combusts feeling your soft thigh lightly pressing against his. he just yearns to be close to you in any way possible. his leg wrapped around yours whilst you're sitting opposite each other, his pinkie always reaching for you. he's always blushy and giggly around you and it's the most adorable thing ever. this man loves you so much and he's not afraid to show it at all. he wears the simp title like a badge of honour.

it's not just physically either. he no longer thinks in his own voice. his entire brain has literally been rewired ever since meeting you. your voice is always replaying in his head, the way you say his name is on repeat 24/7. the sweet little nicknames you give him too.

like yes, he is your sweet little cuddlebug and he is your cutie patootie blue eyes white dragon. and he's so proud of it. yk those titles people have after their names like DClinPsy and MBBS, he has that in his bio too, but it's just silly little nicknames you've given him.

this man is a true loverboy through and through.

[sukunasteeth]

Taking Care of a Tired Sukuna

Sukuna has had a long day.

Well, night.

Morning.

Fuck.

Working construction had been twisting up his sleeping schedule. At this point, Sukuna was starting to feel it in his body; in the strain in his muscle, and the aches and pains that randomly gripped him.  

They had him working on a new project that could only be done at night, while the public was off the main roads, and that meant his new work hours were starting from sometime in the middle of the evening and ending in the morning or the mid-afternoon. Being nocturnal wouldn't be so bad if his commute home wasn't during rush hour. The traffic was always worse when he just wanted to crawl onto his couch and fall asleep there. And when he does come home at the end of the day - he's aching, exhausted, and every bone in his body is vibrating with the noise from a jackhammer or the hum of a forklift.

Sukuna has always liked something that keeps him busy, interested, something that tests his strengths. So, he can't say that he hates the job, but he does wish that it wouldn't occupy so much of his time. He's wont to forget things when he's so wrapped up in a new task.

Like today, for example, when he finally swings his truck around the front of his apartment building, barely making it off the freeway without murdering someone, and he spots your car parked there in his spot.

He starts a bit, his sleep deprived brain suddenly spinning as memory serves him. 

That's right. You were supposed to come over today after he got off of work and spend the night- and he didn't plan a damn thing. There's no flowers in the backseat, he didn't stop to grab lunch for the two of you, he doesn't even have anything in his fridge for dinner tonight, besides a few forgotten beers tucked away in the side door.

As Sukuna searches for a parking spot much further down the street, he knows he should be disappointed with himself, but he can't help the touch of excitement that's suddenly dissolving the exhaustion from his muscles. Sometimes, Sukuna resents the fact that you manage to reduce him to this. He hates that he can't control that his heart skips a beat at the thought of seeing you again, like he's in some sappy romance novel.

But it was the hold you had on him, and he was starting to accept it.

~

You got to Sukuna's apartment about two hours before he was scheduled to be home. It was a day off for you, and you woke up with butterflies fluttering around in your chest.

You were giddy to see him. You always were. And not a single butterfly has died in your heart-space for him since the moment you met Sukuna, around two years ago. He has tended to each of them since then with his gentle but stubborn touch, although, he would never admit it.

You adored him for that.

It's still early in the morning when you use the key he had made for you to unlock his front door. Immediately upon stepping in, you're hit with how dark his studio is. The sun had risen over the horizon hours ago, and yet, the only hint of its light came from a small gap in Sukuna's blackout curtains. When you pull them back, you turn around and wince at the room behind you.

Yep, he's working too hard.

There's construction tools all over the house; sitting on the counter, in the sink, on his bed-stand, there's even a huge oil covered machine beside the front door that you nearly trip on in your trek over to the curtain. His coveralls and work clothes are strewn across the living room like he's been too exhausted to even make it to his bed at the end of his days, which is not very far from the couch. Meanwhile, his bedroom and the kitchen look nearly immaculate, telling you he hasn't cooked in days and confirming your suspicions about his sleeping arrangements. You wander over to his fridge and pop it open, sighing hopelessly when you're greeted with nothing inside.

Good thing he has you. 

~

By the time he makes it home, it's around one in the afternoon. You've got his laundry hanging on the clothesline outside, more in the washing machine, and all of his tools and odds and ends have been sorted and dusted clean. You've opened every window he has, and cool, fresh air sweeps away the oppressed darkness his apartment held before. Everything was back in equilibrium. 

When his keys jingle outside the door, you're just finishing up the last of folding his laundry. Sukuna steps inside, and your heart aches at how drained he looks despite the way his eyes widen as he peers around the room in surprise. His clothes are covered in dust from the construction site, and there's a smear of dirt on his cheek that makes him look like a chimney sweep. There's a tool in his hand that looks rather heavy, straining the muscles in his arm, but he seems to have momentarily forgotten to put it down. Half moon circles are embedded under his eyes, but they only bring out the intensity of his gaze. 

"Hi 'Kuna?" You chime, calling his attention to rest on you.

He blinks, taking a moment to process the situation. You don't recognize the glimmer in his eyes then, and part of you starts to sweat at the thought of him taking this all wrong. Sukuna had never been particularly picky with you, but vice versa, you had never done something like this for him before. He never gave you the opportunity, after all. Out of the two of you, Sukuna was usually the one who was always effortlessly put together.

"You... cleaned..." He notes. 

You swallow, "I did but I didn't move things around though. Just tried to put things back. Your laundry is right outside and I got you some groceries-" Sukuna drops the tool in his hand without warning, and you start talking faster, your voice raising a pitch as he starts towards you. "Okay, thinking back, I guess I should have asked. Maybe texted- no, you hate texting. Maybe called-"

“Did you clean the paint specks off of my air compressor?” He was standing in front of the machine beside the front door, which you painstakingly made sure not to ruin in your cleansing, despite having no idea what it was. 

When he looks at you for an answer, continuing to close the distance between the two of you. You swallow the rock in your throat. “Too much?” 

He’s made his way across the room and his surprised expression finally settles into a familiar hungry grin. He grabs you by the hem of your jeans, yanking you roughly towards him. You catch yourself on his chest, making a small noise of surprise. When you look up to scold him, Sukuna is an inch away from your face, his lips almost brushing yours, save for half a centimeter of space between them. He smells like sawdust and menthol, you can taste it in the close proximity as he greedily takes your breath away. 

“Off. Now.” He growls, but his fingers are already undoing the button clasped in the front of your pants. “I’m about to fuckin’ eat you, sweet thing.” 

~

You end up skipping lunch, but you're well satisfied a few hours later. A certain hunger: satiated. Sukuna is resting peacefully beside you. You can hear his even breathing against the sound of the cicadas outside, screaming in through the windows. Seeing him so content, sets your heart at ease and you release a sigh of relief. 

Now, to end the night, it was time to slip out of bed without him noticing to finish folding his laundry. 

Or so you thought. 

As you carefully peel back the blankets and try to sneak off the side of the mattress, a warm pair of fingers loop themselves around your panty line, effectively preventing you from going anywhere. Guiltily, you peek over your shoulder to see Sukuna glaring at you with half of his face still smushed into his pillow, genuinely disgruntled with the fact that you were trying to leave his bed. You can't help but chuckle.

"I'm just gonna go grab your laundry." You reassure him, brushing a tousled tuft of his hair out of his eyes. The knot between his brows deepens.

"Let me do that later. C'mere. " He tugs on your panty line, confident that you'll be submissive for him.

The sun outside was casting tall shadows on the walls of his bedroom and the glow was now deep and rich, telling you that it was preparing to set. You didn't want Sukuna's laundry on the balcony all night, which is what you were sure would happen if you didn't go and grab it now.

You hear a thread rip in your panty line interrupting your contemplation and, quickly, you grab his wrist, squeezing it as a signal for him to let go.

He continues to hold fast, his brow cocking in a silent dare.

"'Kuna, come on." You try, "Lemme take care of you-"

"You've been doing nothing but take care of me all day." He scoffs, like the idea of it is absurd to him. Rarely does Sukuna allow you the opportunity to show him as much care and adoration as you have today. Being doted on was not typically something he enjoyed. You knew that, and that's how you also knew that he was exhausted to his bones that day. "Get your ass back here."

There's a tug again, and another thread snaps somewhere. You pout at him, already having the foresight that this pair of panties wasn't going to last you long either. Your partner had the tendency to rip them off of you, and this wouldn't be the first pair to become a shred of what they once were. To be fair, he was also known for giving you his credit card and telling you to go buy "some things for him to see you in", so it would be at no cost to you. But, you happened to like this pair.

Sukuna watches you consider your options silently, unrelenting in his hold on your lace. When you peek up at his gaze, testing one more time, you know you've already lost.

"Don't make me chase after you." He warns, the promise of your inevitable surrender is evident in the predatory glint of his eyes. If Sukuna had a tail at that moment, it would be swaying back and forth, preparing for a pounce. "It's been a while since the last time I had you tied up. I do miss those sweet little bruises we left on your wrists."

You feel the hair on the back of your neck stand at attention upon his recollection. The last time Sukuna had you in ropes, you had to call off of work the next day. Your backside stings with the memory, but half of you can't help but ache for it too. Tied up in Sukuna's bed while he was forced to care for the boneless pile that was his girlfriend, drunk off of his lovemaking? That wasn't the worst place to be.

But, on the other hand, you could tell how exhausted he was with the new construction project at his job. You have a flashback of showering with him at the end of the night and scrubbing sawdust out of his hair. Having to gently prod and kiss him awake as he fell asleep standing up in front of you. You were adamant that you weren't going to do anything to tire him further tonight. 

Before you can properly give in, Sukuna must have decided that you were taking much too long to obey him. 

His other hand reaches over and winds around your lower waist, pulling you backwards into the soft cushion of the pillows and easily flipping the two of you so that he’s mounted above you. In your surprised stupor, he collects both of your wrists in one of his hands and pins them above your head. 

"You've forgotten how to follow directions again, kitten." His murmur is like velvet against your ear. His teeth graze over his favorite spot on the nape of your neck, where he’s already tortured it with his teeth and hickies. You didn’t realize how raw the skin was until he bites you there, drawing a whimper from your throat. 

 "Let's remind you."

[cashmoneyyysstuff]

this is loosely based off of @emmyrosee 's messing with sukuna post bc i just love the idea of messing with your whiny baby dramatic boyfriend and i immediately thought about katsuki ! if you want this taken down lmk !

katsuki is hilarious to mess with.

you've only been staring at him for about 5 seconds when he turns to you.

"whaddya want ?" he asks with a raised brow. you're still all smiles, resting your head into your palm

"nothing." you hum, he grumbles a bit but doesn't pay it any mind. until you keep staring. he's trying to focus on his phone but you can tell he's about to snap when he starts squinting at the device.

"what ?" he grumbles, red eyes narrow at your smile widening.

"nothing !"

"yn. don't fuck with me."

"i'm not !" you giggle " i'm just looking at you, am i not allowed to ?"

you know exactly what to say to fluster him without fail every time, it's something you're most proud of when you see the tips of his ears turn a light shade of pink.

"..no."

you snort "no ?"

"shaddup." he says through gritted teeth "so what, you're just lookin' at me ?"

"yeah." you shrug "i like lookin' at my pretty boyfriend." you prop your head against the couch and sigh dreamingly to sell the lovesick act. katsuki inhales through his nose, chest puffing like he's upset and he tsks, ears and cheeks beet red.

"weirdo." he scoffs, then grabs the back of your head to pull you in and press his lips to yours roughly.

you're both breathing heavy when you pull away. he looks at you, mouth slightly agape as he heaves lightly, eyeing you from your eyes to your lips. and then he huffs through his nose like a bull and roughly pulls you into in chest, causing you to release an 'oomph !' at the force when he flops down onto the couch, pulling you with him.

"m'not pretty." he mocks your voice and you huff a laugh into his collarbone. you wiggle around and your boyfriend loosens his hold a bit so you can look up at him.

"you so are !" you argue, he won't look at you but narrows his eyes at the tv he'd turned to to distract himself from your gaze.

"nah, that's you, babe." he switches through the channels "thought you said i was handsome last week."

"you can be pretty and handsome at the same time, the proof is right in front of me." you flirt, he looks at your from the corner of his eye and his mouth curls up like he smelled something nasty when you wink at him.

"gross."

"you're blushing~" you sing, closing your eyes and laying your head onto his chest, you sigh happily when he starts rubbing up and down your back instinctively.

"go to sleep. m'tired of listening to you." he pushes your head down into his chest jokingly and you giggle. you can't see the smirk growing on his face from where your being shoved into.

you wrestle out of his hold to look at him to see he's already staring at you, half smirk on his face and he scoffs at your expression, you huff through your nose and your smile widens.

"you love me." you whisper knowingly, katsuki takes the hand off of your back to pinch at your side and he snorts when you squeal.

"unfortunately."

you yelp when he wets his lips and he captures yours in a sloppy wet kiss.

[kiss-inthekitchen]

no vacancy | spencer reid

pairing: spencer reid x reader

set sometime in early s2; you get stuck sharing a room with your favorite boy genius who absolutely cannot know that you have feelings for him. and also, there’s only one bed. fluff, f!reader (i think there's only two usages of gender markers)

word count: 4.7k

notes: this is a rework of a very old fic i used to have up on ao3. i'm thinking i'll do more of these, i've got a few spencer fics in the vault and it was fun to rework this and see how my style has changed :)

You shivered against the cold desert air. Twirling a keyring around your finger, you headed for the door marked 3. You were exhausted from the day and so, so ready to collapse into bed as soon as you got inside your room. 

You turned the key in the lock while Spencer waited behind you. It was late, and you and the team had pulled into a motel for the night, having been dragged out to a tiny rural town by the unsub after days of tracking him through surrounding areas. He’d been apprehended, finally, and handed over to local police around midnight. You all had decided it best to spend the night before driving back into town in the morning for take off. 

So here you were, at one of those single story motels that still used actual keys instead of key cards. Given the time of night, you knew vacancies would be scarce, so you’d already expected to have to double up on rooms. Gideon had stayed behind at Quantico, leaving Hotch and Morgan in one room and JJ and Prentiss in another, with you and Spencer sharing the last room. You’d hung back while JJ got everything figured out with the concierge (who was just a bored looking kid posted at the desk), and then she’d passed you your key with its little keyring attachment listing the room number and you all bade each other goodnight.

You’d been on the team nearly a year already, but you were still the rookie compared to everyone else. Even Spence had two years on you. But seeing as you two were the youngest, and the least inclined toward the more physical parts of your job– the chasing, tackling, firing your weapon parts– you were paired off with him more often than not. 

You weren’t complaining. You’d come to know Spencer pretty well, and you didn’t feel much apprehension at the thought of sharing a room with him for one night. 

That is, until you opened the door. 

“Oh,” you said involuntarily.  

"There's only one bed,” Spencer said. 

“Sure looks that way.” 

"At least it's a queen?" 

There was a brief pause before you both started speaking at the same time. 

"Maybe we can go back to the concierge–" Spencer began. 

"I mean, I guess I don't really–" 

"–although, JJ did say we got the last–" 

"–mind as long as you–" 

You cut yourself off this time. It’s not like there was another good option, unless one of you wanted to sleep in the car. "This is fine?" it came out as a question rather than a statement. 

"I think so? I wouldn't want to– to make you uncomfortable or anything."

"This is fine," you repeated, more sure of yourself this time. “And you don’t make me uncomfortable.”  

It was only kind of a lie. You trusted Spencer with your life, of course. But he also made you nervous. He was sweet, kind, always seeming genuinely interested in anything you had to say. And of course, anyone could see that he was attractive. You were developing feelings for him, and in a job where your coworkers and your crush himself were all adept at reading people, it really wasn’t a good position for you to be in. You just hoped Spencer was as oblivious with women as Derek made him out to be. 

"We should get out of the doorway," Spencer suggested, and you realized you'd been standing in the threshold this whole time.

"Right."

The two of you walked in, Spencer closing and locking the door behind you. It was a modest room in a tiny town; your standard ugly-patterned, faded bedspread draped over the queen bed in the center, a window looking out into the parking lot, and a dresser that didn’t even have a TV on top of it. You headed straight for the bed, sitting on the edge and removing your shoes while Spencer stood by with his hands in his pockets.

"You know, if it's a problem I can sleep on the cou– uh, the chair," Spencer offered, looking back mid-sentence and realizing that the only additional furniture this motel offered was one rigid looking armchair by the window. 

"No, you're not doing that."

"What?" he asked, taken aback by the quickness of your response.

"You're not sleeping in that chair. It looks horribly uncomfortable and I’m sure it’s never been cleaned, and I know how you’d feel about that.” 

Spencer grimaced, not having thought about that particular detail. “Yeah, but, I mean… I’d do it for you.” 

God, why did he have to say stuff like that? Like you were something special. And why now, when you were stuck in the same room with him until morning? It probably didn’t even mean the same thing to him as it meant to you. He was one of the most caring people you’d ever met. He’d probably say that to any one of you on the team. 

Or maybe sleeping in a chair meant nothing to him at all. Maybe he actually didn’t want to share the bed with you and that’s why he was trying so hard to avoid it. 

Ugh. You just wanted this day to be over. It was late, the case had been a week long, and now you were probably in for a fun night of overthinking and second guessing when you’d been expecting silence and easy, dreamless sleep. 

Okay, maybe that last part was never really an option, but still. 

“Look,” you sighed, “I know this isn't an ideal situation but there's a perfectly good bed here, so let’s just share it. If you’re okay with that. It's just one night and tomorrow we'll be back home and nobody has to know about it."

You had to fight from squeezing your eyes shut in regret. You wished that had come out differently. You chanced a look at Spencer, realizing that you’d been staring down at the faded carpet pattern while you spoke. 

The look on his face was one you hadn’t seen before, and you almost couldn't place it. He seemed sort of disappointed. Disappointed that he had to share a bed with you? Or that you'd made it sound like you didn't want to share a bed with him? Nope, you could not go down that road tonight. You shook your head once as if it would clear the thoughts from your tired mind. 

“I’m okay with that," he said, casually enough that you could almost convince yourself that you’d just imagined the look on his face before. "So, do you want the shower first, or...?" Spencer asked.

"No, I can wait, you go ahead," you said. You desperately needed the moment to yourself anyway.  

You started rifling through your bag for pajamas, toiletries, and your charger as an excuse to look busy while Spencer made his way into the bathroom with his things. As soon as the door closed behind him, you flopped back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as if it might hold all the answers. 

Spencer couldn't know about your feelings. For one thing, you were pretty sure there was a rule against dating your colleagues in the BAU. If not, there probably should be. You were such a close knit team, and if anything went wrong… you couldn’t imagine how difficult that would be. But then, the evil and uncooperative part of you also couldn’t help but think that things might go right. 

From the beginning of your time at the BAU, you’d been drawn to Spencer. It just kind of made sense. You’d gotten through school at an accelerated pace– though not as quickly as him, the man was on another fucking level when it came to academics– and you were one of the only people who found his fact dropping actually interesting, often asking him follow up questions. He’d looked adorably shocked the first few times you’d done that. 

He listened intently to your passionate rants about your favorite films and tv shows, even though he hadn’t seen any of them. When the two of you had discovered a shared interest in mythology and folklore, Hotch nearly had to separate you so you would actually get some work done. It was like you were a kid in school again, and you might’ve been embarrassed if you didn’t find it so funny, if you weren’t so giddy at the idea of a friendship that could make you feel like a kid again. 

Spencer understood you in a way that other people didn’t, laughing at your jokes even when they didn’t land for anybody else. When people interrupted or spoke over you, he always paid attention, and in situations where you were trying to add details to the profile he’d bring the conversation back around to you. 

Throughout your life you’d learned– through painstaking trial and error– to fit in pretty well in most any group you found yourself in, but you’d always considered yourself to be a little weird. A little too different. But when you were with Spencer, you felt like you didn’t have to try so hard. You could both be a little different, together. 

Spencer opened the bathroom door then, startling you. You’d been so lost in thought you hadn’t even noticed the water turn off. You looked over to see him wearing a loose white t-shirt and pajama pants, his hair still damp. And now you knew what Spencer looked like fresh out of a shower. And of course it was endearing as hell. 

“If that’s how you’re planning to sleep,” Spencer began, referencing how you were laid out in the dead center of the bed, your arms fully outstretched and hands hanging off the mattress, “then I think we might have a slight problem after all.”  

You walked out of the bathroom a short while later, dressed in your usual sleepwear of shorts and an oversized shirt. You’d put your hair up in a bun to protect it while you showered, and now it hung loose around your shoulders. You simultaneously wished your outfit was cuter and uglier; knowing your giant t-shirt wasn’t flattering your figure while also feeling like you had too much skin exposed. Not that it mattered. You were just going to get some sleep and then wake up in the morning and head home. Everything would be back to normal. 

Spencer’s in bed already. He’d turned off the big light while you were showering, the lamps on either side of the bed casting him in a softer, warmer glow. He looked up from his book to find you standing there, and the soft, familiar look in his big brown eyes had you rooted to the spot. 

“Hey,” he said softly, patting the space next to him in invitation. 

You conceded, finding your legs again and sliding into bed beside him. “Hey.” 

He fidgeted with the pages of his book, ultimately shutting it closed on his index finger to mark the page. “So, uh, are we okay?” 

“Yeah, of course,” you answered genuinely, feeling bad that your internal struggle had manifested in a way that worried him. 

“Okay, cool,” he said. He paused long enough to let you explain if you wanted to, another invitation. You knew he wouldn’t push it if you didn’t offer something up. You wanted to give him an explanation, but you couldn’t bring yourself to. 

“Sorry,” you managed. 

“For what?” 

“I don’t know… acting weird, I guess. It’s just been a long day.” 

“Oh, well, you don’t need to be sorry about that. You’re always weird.” 

Your mouth dropped open as you looked at him. “Look who’s fucking talking,” you scoffed. Some of the tension dropped from your shoulders, glad he hadn’t questioned you further. 

“Language, please,” he held up a hand to stop you. “I’m delicate.” 

“Wha–?” you let out a surprised little laugh. “You’re an idiot!” 

“Yeah okay, tell that to my I–.” 

“Oh, my IQ of 187,” you finished for him, rolling your eyes. Even that was full of endearment. “God, you are so annoying.” 

“Hm. Y’know, this might be a long night for you. I’d hate to keep you up with my annoyingness.” 

“I feel like you could’ve come up with a better word than annoyingness, Mr. 187,” you tilted your head where it rested against the headboard, looking up at him. 

“Oh, she’s being a smartass now!” he split into a surprised grin, and you could swear your heart skipped a beat. 

“You just said ass.” 

“Wow. How quickly you’ve corrupted me.” 

“Right, of course. It’s my fault.” 

“I knew you’d agree.” 

“Shut the fuck up,” you laughed. 

Things felt a little bit more normal after that, joking around with Spencer like you normally did made the rest of the night feel less daunting. 

Shortly after that, the two of you agreed that you should get some sleep, each reaching over to turn out the light on your respective sides of the bed. 

You let yourself sink into your pillow, the exhaustion you had been feeling giving way to a hyper awareness of Reid’s body next to you. You were kept awake, completely overcome by the foot of space between you and Spencer; the consequences of crossing that space, the way it might feel, the curiosity over whether he was laying awake too, thinking the same thoughts as you. Even with that foot of space separating you, you could feel his body heat. You longed to move closer to him, to touch him, to let his warmth seep into you and lull you to sleep. 

But you didn’t, and you wouldn’t, because this was just an unfortunate booking mishap. It didn’t mean anything. Tomorrow it would be over, and you could more easily go back to hiding your feelings from everyone else and yourself. 

Eventually, exhaustion won out. 

You woke what could’ve been a few minutes or a few hours later, the sky still dark. You couldn’t tell what exactly had woken you up, only the sense that you’d moved, almost like you’d fallen. But fallen from what? 

You blinked in the dark, the street lamps in the parking lot providing enough residual light to keep the room from being pitch black. 

Reid was sitting up. He must’ve bolted upright, you thought. Had that been what moved you? Were you lying on him?! 

“Hey, you okay?” 

“Sorry. Just a nightmare,” he said as if it was nothing. “Sorry to wake you.” 

“What was it about?” you ignored his apologies, sitting up as well. 

“I don't really even remember,” he breathed, almost like it was funny. “Just having a physiological reaction to whatever it was, I guess.” 

You had nightmares too, of course. You all did. You hated remembering them, but you also hated the times when you woke up in the dark, dazed and inexplicably scared. Without thinking, you reached for his hand. 

He turned to look at you then. “I really didn't mean to wake you,” he reiterated. 

“I figured,” you smiled slightly. You noticed his breathing was just a bit too fast. You rubbed your thumb over the back of his hand, leaning over to rest your weight against his side, your head on his shoulder. His nervous system would regulate itself quicker this way. 

“You were on my pillow, by the way.” 

“What?” you ask, your head jerking back from him. 

“I totally called it. You rolled right into the center of the bed in your sleep. Total bed hog.” 

“Hey!” you protested, pulling your hand back from his in embarrassment. So you had been lying on top of him. Or at least really close to him. His hand chased after yours, finding you again. 

“That wasn’t me complaining about it.” 

“Oh,” was all you could think to say back. 

It was quiet for a minute. You let your head fall back onto Spencer’s shoulder, but your heart raced in your chest. 

“Can I ask you something?” he questioned, his tone becoming more serious. 

“Oh– of course,” you answered, your brow creasing. 

“What did you mean when you said ‘it’s not ideal’ and ‘nobody has to know about it’?” 

“Wh– I– Spencer, come on.” 

He didn’t give you an out this time. Just waited for an answer. 

“I don’t even really know,” you sighed.  

“I believe you’re being partially truthful about that.” 

“Don’t profile me.” 

“I’m not. I just know you.” 

You sighed. “You know, sometimes I hate that stupid memory of yours.” 

“I don’t need an eidetic memory to remember that. It was a weird thing to say, and it happened like four hours ago.” 

“You’re guesstimating. And it wasn’t that weird.” 

“Maybe not, but the way you said it was. And you’re avoiding my question.” 

You continued to avoid it, biting down on your bottom lip. 

“And you stuttered when I brought it up.” 

“I told you to stop profiling me.” 

This time, he just hummed in response. 

“And so what if I stuttered?” 

“Stuttering is usually more my thing. A nervousness thing.” 

Maybe this was actually your nightmare. Maybe you’d wake up soon and none of this would’ve been real, and you wouldn’t have had to explain to Spencer that the reason you’d had an attitude was because the situation tonight had made it harder to hide your feelings for him. Big feelings that became a lot harder to ignore when he was this close to you, still holding your hand, the mix of scents from his detergent and deodorant clouding your judgment. Of all the embarrassing scenarios that you could’ve imagined playing out tonight, this was very high up on the list. 

“I said ‘it’s not ideal’ because it’s not, just by definition. We were supposed to get a double room and we didn’t. Not ideal. And I said no one has to find out because I can already see Morgan having a field day with it and I know the exact expression that’ll be on his face–” 

“The eyebrows,” he nodded, lips pursed. 

“And then everyone else will get in on it and I just figured…” you sighed. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to deal with that.” 

“That all makes total sense.” 

“Good,” you breathed. Too relieved. 

“Now tell me the rest of it.” 

“God, Spencer–” you huffed out, frustrated. He knew you too well. 

You wanted to run. Maybe you could go sleep in the car after all. And then ignore Spencer for the rest of the day, and then the year, and your life, and– 

“Don’t make me say it,” you breathed. This had to be a dream. 

“But there is something to be said?” he questioned, his tone hushed, almost reverent. 

It was just vague enough. You could pretend it was nothing. 

“Yes.” 

You felt like you’d just blown your life up with one word. 

Spencer took a deep breath, your body cresting and falling with the movement of it. 

“You make me feel better about being myself,” he confessed.  

You shut your eyes. You had a constricting feeling in your throat suddenly, and the awful realization that you might cry. 

He spoke again, because you couldn’t. “I haven’t always felt good about it, you know? And then you joined the team, and, well– you changed a lot of things for me. And you’re beautiful, obviously, and I was scared to mess up what we have, because it’s special, I think–” 

“It is.” 

“–and then you started freaking out when you saw the bed,” he was smiling now, you could hear it, “and I thought, maybe it wouldn’t be so crazy… maybe I could make you feel that way too.” 

“You do. Of course you do. I feel like I can be my full self with you. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt like that before.” 

Spencer laughed, a little delirious giggle, and squeezed your hand in his. You’d managed to avoid crying, thankfully, and you grinned along with him, looking down at your joined hands as you squeezed him back. 

Things seemed to still for a beat, the two of you sitting with this moment and letting it stretch out. You still couldn’t really believe this was happening. You might have to tell Spencer to pinch you. 

“So what does that mean for us now?” you asked. 

“Well, for right now at least, I think it just means that we can go back to sleep without overthinking things into oblivion.” 

“I was not–”

“Okay, this time I am profiling you, and you’re lying,” he cut you off, his smile still evident.  

“Oh, this was such a mistake.”

He continued like you hadn’t spoken, laughing a little as he went. “I could practically hear it. It’s like, you know when a computer is trying to use too much processing power and the fan starts whirring really loud? Like that but just like right next to me, like tangible—“  

“Okay! Thank you so much, I actually totally got it, you can stop now.” 

He laughed, and your cheeks warmed. 

“For the record, I meant we could both stop overthinking.” Then he shifted a little, facing you a bit more. With the hand that wasn’t holding yours, he brushed a strand of hair from your face, a fake pout on his lips. “Sorry I make you nervous.” 

You cackled at that, if it was possible to cackle in hushed tones. “Oh, I bet you are. Besides, I know you like me now, so you’ve lost that card.” 

“Are you certain of that?” 

“Certain that you like me or certain that you can’t make me nervous?” 

“The latter. I do like you, if that was unclear.” 

Your heart sped up, contradicting you as you answered, “Then I’m certain you can’t make me nervous.” 

He titled your face up to his then, using his index finger underneath your chin to make you look at him. “You’re an awful liar.” 

You just shrugged, watching triumphantly as Spencer’s gaze fell to your lips.“It’s been working out pretty well for me so far.” 

“I guess it has,” he murmured, closing the distance between you and finally kissing you. 

After so many months of imagining (and berating yourself for imagining) what Spencer’s lips might feel like on yours, you weren’t disappointed. 

For once you didn’t have to think at all, the chemistry between you and him drowning out everything else. His hand fell to your waist, and yours moved to the curve of his jaw, pulling him closer as his mouth moved against yours. Your teeth grazed his bottom lip and he gasped, and your skin felt like it was lit up from the inside. 

You pulled away to breathe, and to process, and to try and stop your head from swimming. You were rewarded with the awestruck look in Spencer’s eyes as he opened them again. 

“Okay, was it just me, or–” 

“That was crazy,” you breathed.

“Crazy,” he agreed. 

“Spence?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I don’t think we’re getting back to sleep tonight.” Your eyes widened at the implication of saying those words at that time. “Not, like, in the sex way, though,” you hurried to correct yourself. “I need like, 4-5 business days to process things first, and I– well, I just meant, like– you know?” 

Spencer was nodding at you even as his eyebrows pulled together in a frown. “Can I still kiss you during those 4-5 business days?” 

“Oh, yeah,” you said, sounding breathless. 

“Cool,” he agreed. “You seem really nervous, by the way.” 

“Well, you kissed me.” 

“I did.”  

“How were you not nervous?” you breathed. 

“Oh, I was. Your reaction is making me feel a whole lot better about it though.” 

You scoffed half-heartedly. “I do so much for you.” 

“You do,” he replied earnestly, letting go of your hand to wrap his arm around your shoulders as he pressed a kiss to your forehead. “We could lie back down, if you want. Like we were before I so rudely woke you up.” 

“Yeah, I’m super mad about that,” you joked. “Anyway, I was asleep for that, so you’ll have to show me what I was doing.” 

He seemed all too pleased to do so. “Okay, so you were basically like,” he leaned back against the pillows, pulling you down with him, moving his hand to the side of your head to guide you to the place where his shoulder met his chest, “Like that, and then your arm was over here,” he picked up your arm and guided it around his waist. 

“Oh god, that’s so embarrassing,” you said, realizing that he must’ve been awake when you’d done it. 

“Yeah, I know. Really terrible time for me.” 

“I can imagine. I can scoot back over to my side of the bed, just say the word.” 

“Don’t you dare,” he said, squeezing you closer. 

You trailed your fingers up and down his waist, feeling more content than you had in ages. 

“I can’t believe you’d suggest that I would have sex with you right after confessing my feelings. Like, take me to dinner first at least.” 

“Oh my god,” you half-exclaimed, half-laughed. You felt your cheeks heat up again, grateful it was still too dark in the room to be noticeable. “You’re right, I’m so sorry. How’s next Friday?” 

“Hmm, I don’t know. My work schedule is kind of unpredictable. I’ll have to get back to you.” 

“You’re such an ass.” 

A few short hours later, you were back on the jet with the rest of the team. You were lying on the couch while Spencer sat in a seat one row up and across from you, both to avoid suspicion and so you could try to catch up on sleep. He sat facing away from you, but with the angle you were at you could still see one side of his face if you tilted your head up. 

You were just beginning to fade when your phone buzzed next to you. 

Spencer: I have to tell you something, coworker to coworker. 

You looked up to see him blank faced, looking down at the book in his right hand, holding his phone in the left. 

You text back: okay? 

Spencer: My crush asked me out last night. 

You’re exceptionally glad no one was sitting close enough to see you. Spencer had caught you off guard, and you felt an infatuated grin spreading across your face. 

You: what did u say? 

Spencer: Wanted to get your opinion first. 

You: i think u should say yes, obviously. 

Spencer: Idk, I’m kinda nervous. I think she’s trying to jump me on the first date.

You just barely managed to refrain from laughing out loud. You looked up at Spencer again, and he’s looking at his phone as if it contained nothing more than a weather report. You’re astounded. 

You: one could argue that technically you’ve already slept together, so there’s less to be nervous abt

You saw his eyebrows raise just slightly. Success. 

Spencer: You’re trouble, you know that? See you Friday night

You: i promise i won’t try to jump you 

Spencer: Oh

Spencer: I fear I may have shot myself in the foot here

You: i wouldn’t worry about it too much

Spencer: That’s rich coming from you 

You rolled your eyes even though he couldn't see you. 

You: whatever. wear something sexy ;) 

You heard him blow air out of his nose, an almost laugh. 

“Something funny?” you heard Derek ask. 

Shit. 

“This book contains a historical inaccuracy that was proven incorrect eight years before its publishing date,” Spencer replied without missing a beat. 

Unbelievable.

You: you’re unhinged :*

Spencer: Go to sleep already, would you? 

You: coworker to coworker? my crush keeps interrupting my beauty sleep 

Spencer: He’s probably worried about the worldwide implications of you becoming any more beautiful 

You: i guess that’s why the universe gave you insomnia :( too pretty 

Spencer: Stop flirting with me

You: bc you’re too delicate?? 

Spencer: Yes 

You snapped your phone shut, feeling dazed. You watched the clouds go by in the window across from you, and you couldn’t help letting your gaze slide over to Spencer. He’d put his phone down as well, concentrating on his book. Or pretending to concentrate. He was turning the pages much too slowly for his actual pace. 

You: you have got to do a better job of fake reading than that

You heard a page turn. 

You looked up again to see the ghost of a smile threatening the corner of his mouth. 

This was going to be fun. And also, you were so screwed. 

[eloquent-edits]

🗡️ “I’m all for platonic intimacy but this…?”

the subtext of romance is really peeking through 🗡️ friends to lovers scenarios

Person A going to person B’s house to watch a movie but getting looped into playing drunk card games with B and their parents

Working out together and A insisting on spotting B and adjusting their form

B playfully poking A in public and promptly getting tackled

B patting A’s cheek only to accidentally linger as they notice how the light catches in A’s eyes (A is DESPERATELY trying to not blush)

“Here’s the garage code.” “… Why am I receiving this information?” “You’re already over here a lot. My parents think it’s better than a key.”

Forced close proximity at a LAN party because there’s not much room at the table (and A’s arm keeps brushing against B’s, messing up their aim, but if anything the space between them decreases as the night goes on)

The “Oh, is B coming too?” to “A kidnapped me to come here and hang out” pipeline

Going from quick and funny head scratches to absentmindedly stroking/detangling their hair while chatting with friends

“Do I smell okay?” “You smell normal.” “Which is…?” “Like lilac and gooseberry.”

A melting into B’s hug after a long and stressful week

B helping A deal with a major headache by rubbing/scratching their back

A heating up B’s ears with their hands because B forgot ear muffs in winter

“My mom thinks you’re really pretty/handsome.” “My mom thinks you look like Adonis/Aphrodite.” “Can you ever take a compliment?”

Candid pictures give away the softness in B’s eyes when they look at A goofing around

B not minding when A gives them a long hug in public, even though they aren’t big on PDA in general

B drawing a shitpost and sending it to A, A setting it as their lockscreen, and months later B realizes that A still hasn’t changed it

B’s family automatically assuming that A might join for any family function and making A’s favorite dish accordingly

“I have to go into the office this week. Can I crash at your place since it’s closer?”

Hanging out for hours —> “I don’t want you to drive home this late.” —> waking up in each other’s arms because they both refused to let the other sleep on the floor/couch

“My clothes reek of you.” “You could’ve just told me to take a shower.”

[gardenofnoah]

“you’re going to hurt yourself like that, my love.”

you startle at the voice over you, having been nearly asleep.

“—uh?”

you turn your head to see Nanami looming over your side of the bed. if you were fully conscious, you would see the tiny look of mischief in his eyes as they roam your body, but you’re not, so you take it as his tendency to mother hen you.

and then he’s pushing you to the middle of the bed despite your whining, climbing in beside you. you try to settle in and find you’re still being moved—he’s on his back, shuffling himself down the bed and pulling one of your legs over his chest. you feel him turn his face into your belly in a move that feels suspiciously like nuzzling.

“what’re y’doin,” you slur, a little petulant at being woken up like this, despite it being well past the time you meant to rejoin the living and despite your own desire to seek out the warmth he’s emitting next to you.

“you’re going to hurt your hip, laying like that,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. he runs a hand up the back of your thigh and over your hip, and you sigh a little bit, comforted by the feeling of him.

“i don’t know how you sleep like that,” he continues, absentmindedly dragging his fingers over your skin, making you shiver every now and then.

“feels good,” you grumble, face shoved into the pillow. talking about your bizarre sleeping position and maybe also the way the rough pads of his fingers leave a trail of warmth in their wake. you think you hear him chuckle softly, and you feel him press a kiss to the skin of your belly, right above the hem of your sleep shorts.

it’s soft, chaste—and then it’s not, and you suck in a breath when you feel him kiss you there again, feeling the tip of his tongue drag along the skin that stretches over your hip bone.

and evidently he hears your sharp inhale, because you feel a strong arm sneak around your lower back, pulling you closer to him.

“was still sleeping, you know,” but it’s lost all of its bite and you’re a little breathless now, fixated on the way his free hand slides up the back of your thigh to brush over the sensitive spot just under the curve of your ass.

“go to sleep then,” he says into the soft of your belly, pressing another kiss, opening his mouth a little wider to catch the skin of it between his teeth. he’s turned into you now, and despite yourself, you drag your leg up from his chest so it’s over his shoulder.

he moves to rest his head against your thigh that’s trapped underneath him, and distantly you think that it is more comfortable like this— his head squeezed between your legs having alleviated some of the pressure against your hip from laying on your side. that thought quickly becomes muddled in your head when you feel him latch on to the skin of your inner thigh that rests against his face.

you whine, hips bucking weakly as you squirm under tongue and teeth—both leaning into and trying to get away from the sting of his bite.

“my sweet love,” he coos, running his tongue over the fresh bruise, placating you. you shiver, pressing your face further into the pillow to try to breathe—to ground yourself despite the heat that curls up your spine. he stops, then, and you peak down at him to find that he’s staring back up at you.

“hi,” you whisper, fighting another shudder at the way his lips pull at the corners into a smirk that looks absolutely sinful on him.

“good morning,” he drawls, deep and far too awake. he rests his chin in the space between your hips, pressing a quick kiss above your pubic bone. your hips buck toward him a tiny bit, and his smirk widens when he feels it.

you bring a hand down to run it through his hair, tangling in the blond strands and scratching at his scalp. he closes his eyes and hums, deep in his chest, nuzzling into your thigh. it makes you smile, and it makes you ache.

“want you, ken,” you murmur, squeezing him gently between your thighs and reveling in the groan he lets out.

“i know, sweetheart,” he coos, hands coming up again to grope whatever skin he can reach and pressing a tiny kiss through your shorts, “i can smell you.”

[satoruhour]

a/n: not sure if other countries have rubbish chutes but my country does! i have to get out of my house to go to the common floor chute to throw my rubbish so this is just a little drabble based on that + spider-man!gojo :) / tagging @osaemu @jabamin @shotorus @hyomagiri @mysugu ✶

“yes, yes! i’ll take out the trash—” you’re shouting to your mom when you’re called upon again, the third time within ten minutes to take the trash out. through your one-sided airpods (your left one always dies first), you can hear your mom tying the plastic bag and cleaning up at the sink.

it’s always been her bringing it to the chute outside your house; occasionally, you’d help but routine has never really let you do it, so later when you’re awkwardly tucking your phone into your pocket and listening to charlie burg’s voice through the right airpod, you can’t help the grimace that takes over your features at the wetness all over the trash bag.

“oh, it’s just water; stop being dramatic!” your mom chastises whilst on her nightly cup of water, gulping down the beverage before nodding towards the master bedroom, “i’m gonna go to sleep first.”

you hum in a half-hearted response, a little annoyed that you were interrupted from your lazing around but you still manage a soft goodnight when she disappears into the room and the house falls quiet. apart from the background classical music that plays from the stereo in the room and the laughter of the older kids downstairs outside, you’re living in a world of both music and silence, feeling a little disoriented by the one-sided song.

the walk to the outdoor chute is short in your oversized puffer jacket, flip-flops seemingly slapping against the floor in attempts of waking up all your neighbours beside you but thankfully they don’t seem to mind when you walk past their homes. it’s cold, feeling the snow that beats into the open corridors that lead to the rubbish chute. beside it, there’s a ledge that overlooks the other buildings, too.

with one swift step to the foot lever, the chute opens and you’re dumping the trash bag into the dirty, stained metal device and with a listening ear, you grin when you hear the bag travel through the tunnel and reach the bottom with a big plunk!, not really realising the ledge now held something.

or someone.

“h—”

if your slippers didn’t wake the neighbours up, your scream definitely did when spiderman himself hops off the ledge and leaps forward to place his palm over your mouth. it only fuels your desire to scream even more before you remember that your damn boyfriend is the vigilante that the police are looking for and citizens are rooting for more and more and that calms your racing heart just a bit.

but you still give him his due treatment . .

“what!” smack. “the!” smack. “fuck!” smack. “were!” smack. “you!” smack. “thinking?!” smack.

. . even if the widening of his spider-man mask eyes were adorable.

“sorry! sorry, sorry—” spider-man!gojo only continues to apologise but you can tell he’s enjoying it at least a little, hands gripping your biceps to help you to centre yourself. and as you predicted, once your boyfriend pulls off his mask, there’s a shit-eating grin and a cheeky glint in his eyes.

you muster the most unimpressed face you can — “really? i’m starting to think you’re not really sorry,” your mouth twists when you roll your eyes, getting ready to make a show of heading back into your house before he brings you into his arms. even with a hint of faux protest from you, you’re melting into his embrace, grumbling into his chest.

there’s a hint of wetness along his suit that you feel against your body, probably from the snow outside, but mostly you can feel the cold air against your hair and laboured breaths in your ear.

“i am! i missed you . .” he mumbles, suited fingers gripping your body tight against him like you were an apparition, “i just wanted to, uhm—”

it’s rare that you see your boyfriend having such a hard time with words, but it’s a cute sight when he pulls away and stumbles in his sentences and quickly removes the backpack that he’s webbed to the wall outside. there’s a noise of surprise from you as you watch him crawl outside on all fours and rip the backpack, scrambling to remove something from it.

and you’re so caught off-guard — in his hands are a ruined bouquet of flowers and a mixtape he’s put together for you — that you giggle at the state of it and coo at his downcast expression. he’s looking in the bag, outside, anywhere for what might’ve been the culprit to make the flowers turn out that way until he realises he had bought them a tad bit early and had been swinging around with it the whole day.

“aw . . satoru, they’re still pretty!” you take the gift with grateful hands, something you cherish despite his busy schedule of school and fighting villains. “but maybe don’t go on missions when you’ve got fresh flowers in your bag?”

satoru whines at that as he instinctively webs his backpack again, sulking until you’re leaping forward to give him another tight hug. alas, you would’ve preferred the comfort of his familiar hoodie but you can settle for the spandex of his suit as you squeeze him tight, ignoring the cold air that seeps into your bones.

“thank you, thank you ’toru . .” you smile, pulling away slightly before you take in the state of him. you didn’t have much time before, but now you can fully appreciate his white stark hair that matches the snow outside and the blue of his eyes that mirror his suit.

“it’s the thought that counts right?” he asks awkwardly, scratching his head with the hand that clutches his mask.

you burst out laughing, “yes. yes it indeed is,” you smoothen out his hair, but not before you’re forming an idea, “i’ll— i’ll go put these in water and see if i can salvage them. you, stay here.”

with one peck to his cheek, you’re off back to your house but the bouquet of flowers is only left on your bedside table. in your hands are something else, a scarf and beanie that you take back to the area of the rubbish chute.

it’s not a place you deem romantic, but you’d never pass up a surprise visit from your superhero boyfriend. when you get back he’s removing the fallen petals from his bag, interrupting his activity when you place the scarf around his neck.

“here,” you smile, wrapping it around once and tucking in the ends, “it’s cold.”

satoru looks at you like everything good in the world, a bright grin breaking through when your eyes meet his in the midst of your adjusting.

“just so you know, you might not see this scarf ever again, sweetness.”

you laugh, “why? cause it’s got my scent all over it?”

gojo shrugs and gestures, “partially, but also it might fall off while i’m doing big boy things and swingin’ around in the neighbourhood.”

you push his shoulder lightly and joke, “if my scarf touches the city ground, you’re never hearing from me again.”

and all he does is cross his heart and hold out his hand, “i humbly hold your promise to my heart, your royal highness.”

gently you pull him towards you with the scarf ends, careful not to choke him. there, your lips collide with his glossed ones that manage to stay like that despite the cold weather, while your chapped ones only surprise him. but he swallows the shock soon enough, humming into the kiss softly as he wraps his suited arms around you. you’re so warm, puffer jacket and all and his neck is already heating up from the scarf and his flustered state, enough heat to fuel him through the night.

when oxygen becomes scarce you find that you need to pull away, met again with his pretty eyes that soften just by looking at you, but you both know that he needs to go when the notifications on his phone don’t stop. it’s probably his trackers notifying him about the villain, so you help him put on his mask, making sure the eye holes fit exactly where it needs to go and the sewing lines up with the rest of his suit. the beanie goes on last.

“baby— i . . i just needed to come see you before i fight green goblin,” he mumbles, brushing hair from your face and even with the barrier between the both of you, you know he’s smiling under, “some good luck would suffice, don’t ya think?”

“it would. now, go.” you pat his cheek, pulling away reluctantly as he slings his backpack and you suddenly feel cold again. “stay safe, spider-man.”

satoru cannot wait until he’s in your arms again, so he lunges forward and pulls his mask up just to his nose to give you one last kiss and you indulge him; when your eyes open, he’s already on the ledge.

“merry christmas, baby.” you can see the familiar stunning smile and a soft confession before he’s hopping off and you’re running to it to watch him swing away with a loud, lovesick laugh that sounds a little too much like the star student, gojo satoru, but it doesn’t matter when you know you’re the only one who knows his secret.

part two

[bloodsuckingfiends]

Cuddling up to Astarion in his tent, curled up against his side with your head on his chest while he reads. The soft rumble of his voice in his chest, and the long fingers of his free hand softly playing with your hair, lulls you to sleep.

[zephyrchama]

Asmodeus being overly expectant that MC is going to propose to him any day now for no reason.

It’s a quiet evening and the two are lazing around on the bed in Asmodeus’s room. New skin mask pouches have been opened and applied. New issues of each of the Devildom’s most popular fashion magazines lay scattered around.

MC rolls over until they bump into Asmodeus’ thigh and raise their magazine. “Hey, Asmo. What do you think of--” ”Yes.” There is no hesitation. “Yes, I think we should.”

Asmodeus throws down the magazine he was looking at to lean over and pepper MC’s face with kisses. “Let’s get engaged, right now!”

“Oh, okay, cool. I was just wondering what you thought of this top.”

“Oh... It’s kind of tacky. You’re not wearing that to our wedding, right?”

----

It’s dinnertime and, as usual, everyone is gathered around the large dining room table. MC is across the table and several seats down from Asmodeus, with most of his brothers seated between them.

MC’s plate is almost empty. They give the table a once-over look before deciding on a course of action that requires interrupting the current conversation.

“Pardon me, Asmo, will you-”

Asmodeus squeals and kicks his feet. “Yes! A thousand times, yes! Of course I’ll marry you!”

“Wait, no that’s not what--”

“What!?” Mammon shouts, much to the chagrin of Lucifer next to him.

“In your dreams, maybe,” Belphegor quips.

Leviathan looks like he’s about to start crying.

Satan and Beelzebub, sane enough to not jump to conclusions, seem to piece together the situation. Together they work to pass MC a plate of dinner rolls that had been in front of Asmodeus.

“This what you wanted?” Satan asks.

“Yes, I was just asking for these,” MC sighs. Bread will serve nicely to sop up the remaining sauce on their plate. “Thanks.”

Asmodeus responds, “we can serve them at the reception, I think that’s fine.”

Mammon tells him to “get yer head out of the clouds, Asmo, nobody’s marrying you.”

Their mutual glares practically send sparks across the table.

“Pass them back this way,” Beelzebub requests, wanting three more for himself.

----

It’s the middle of the school day. MC pops their head into a classroom. This time they've mentally prepared.

“Asmo, do you wanna-”

"Yes? Yes! I’ll marry you.” As predicted, Asmodeus runs over and winds his arms around MC’s waist. He presses his forehead against theirs and leans them back into a dip. Several students clap. “Proposing to me at school? How brazen.”

“Well, maybe this time I’ll actually think about it, but you have to take me out for lunch first. Deal?”

Asmodeus looks somewhat stunned. He parts his lips and thinks over the proposition while staring into MC’s eyes, searching for any hint of a lie.

“Wait… Really?” He pulls MC back up and takes them by the wrist. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”

[deus-lapidis]

Imagine

After hundreds of years, since you've died, Zhongli's wedding ring breaks.

He has taken great care of it, but time thinned it out, for he has worn it every day since you two have pledged yourself to each other. He's heartbroken, his voice wavering, every time he looks at the imprint it left on his ring finger. The band was well worn, worn with pride and solemn, but now nothing more than a mark and reminder of your wedding.

And once again, he's lost a small bit of you, that he misses so dearly.

[lighteyed]

can it be easy this once? / steve harrington

summary: steve accidentally gives a stupid answer to your honest question. (best friends with benefits pining idiots to lovers, fem!reader)

unedited we die like men & title from the alcott by the national ft taylor swift hehehe enjoy

It started as a means of comfort after Starcourt, when he was bloody and bruised up but you took him home and got closer, closer, closer, until it turned into a mess of blurred lines and panting breaths, lips swollen for reasons other than being hurt, for better reasons, reasons that brought forth safety and relief for the two of you. You both tend to hunger for such things. It’d been good, easy, for a bit there. Lately it’d felt like the intimacy was threatening to choke you. Like you’d never met a form of  closeness you didn’t cling to. And God, did it feel like you were clinging. Craving an unwarranted change. Was it so unwarranted? You weren’t sure, you could never tell.

    The air in his room is hot and sticky with summer, the ceiling fan providing the barest relief, your bare skin providing the slightest bit more. You stare all around his room, taking in all the stark traces of him, though in truth it doesn’t betray much, just as he attempts to. It’s a plain room, plaid walls, matching curtains, his desk messy and cluttered, all the dresser’s drawers slightly ajar like he spent a touch too long shuffling through all his clothes to determine which outfit would be best, which, knowing him in the way you do, he probably did. You knew he wasn’t as secure as he liked everyone to believe. Steve Harrington tried his best, but sometimes you saw right through him.

     Other times he was harder to read. It was probably purposeful, layers of protection built around himself. Don’t love anyone, don’t let anyone love you, and you won’t get hurt. People can only hurt you if you let them. Steve wasn’t letting anyone anymore. Definitely not his parents, definitely not Nancy Wheeler, definitely not random girls who would inevitably end up disappointed with him. He swore it all off. He was a hopeless romantic who never wanted to be in love again. You understood it for the most part. Or you attempted to. It was hard when you were halfway (maybe more than halfway) in love with the guy, in his bed most nights, in his company most days, acting like a couple without being an established couple because he was too hesitant and you were too gentle to be pushy.

    He nudges you lightly, naked chest peeking up from his covers, naked everything else kept firmly underneath. “You okay? You’re quiet.” He sits up so he’s level with you, and you avoid eye contact by leaning down toward the floor to grasp for the shirt he let you borrow, a faded Spider-Man one he insisted was from middle school. You didn’t entirely believe him, but maybe it was just funny, and kind of sweet, to picture Steve sleeping in a Spider-Man shirt and keeping it a secret just for himself. You pull the shirt on over your head, and before you can do it for yourself, he reaches for your hair and takes it out from where it’s caught under the shirt. The familiarity of it makes you flinch. You can have sex with him all you want but God forbid he’s the slightest bit loving outside of that. It confuses you, the softness in the touches that aren’t in bed with him. If he holds your hand in any context other than bringing you as into him as possible while he slips himself in and out, you lose all sense of normalcy between the two of you. You can’t be normal when he’s holding your hand and stroking your cheeks and being kind, soft, adoring Steve, without being your Steve.

     “I’m fine, I’m just…” You reach for your shorts at the end of the bed. Steve watches you get dressed with his eyebrows scrunched together, confused. You’re not usually in a rush to leave after you have sex. Not that he wants you to. He likes that you stay until day sinks into night and he drives you home and waits to repeat it all again. Waits to see you, generally. And it’s not sex every single time. You drag him to see whatever’s playing at the Hawk and he makes you sit with him at Family Video on slow days when it’s just him on the clock and a single tumbleweed blows through the store instead of any customers. He drives you just about anywhere you ask and he lets you put on any cassettes you want in his car even if he hates what’s playing. It’s nice, the friendship part of all of it. If you had to give everything else up and just keep the friendship you’d be willing. He’d be willing. You consider it. “Nothing, just tired, probably gonna head home,” you smile at him over your shoulder before pulling on your socks and it’s half-hearted and he knows it.

    “What? You can sleep here, you know that,” he waves a hand around the room, trying to catch your gaze, but you avoid his eyes again. Descending light slants in through the curtains and envelopes him in gold. He glows, he’s so pretty. His hair is messy from where you heatedly ran your hands through it, but it still looks nearly perfect. The fact that he always looks so good infuriates you.

    “No yeah, I know, I wanna like shower and stuff too, and I left my new book at home and I wanted to do some reading,” you bluff calmly, standing up from tangled bedsheets and roaming the room in search of your sneakers.

   “That Stephen King scary clown book? I’ll take you home and you can come back and read it here, so you don’t get scared,” and he knows you won’t get scared and that you love horror far more than he ever could but he just really, really doesn’t want to be alone. Why would you go when everything’s right here? His parents aren’t home and something about you leaving makes him antsy and desperate. When you still refuse to look at him he feels himself, his confidence, growing smaller and smaller. “Did I- did I do something?” He doesn’t mean for it to sound as pathetic as it does.

   You whip around to face him, finally, finally, and touch a hand to his face. Relief floods through him at the heat of your fingers. “No, of course not, it’s all me, okay? I’m all sweaty and awful.”

    “You look beautiful, I swear,” he squeezes your hand and you feel like you’re drowning. It’s hard to breathe, your chest tight. “Are you sure you’re okay? You can talk to me, it’s me.” He scoots closer, if that’s possible. “You’re one of my best friends, we tell each other everything.” You look up toward the ceiling, inwardly groaning. Best friend.

   “You do this with all your best friends?”  

    “Well, no, Robin wouldn’t touch me even if she didn’t like girls-“ He feels himself starting to grin, teasing smile lilting at his lips.

     “Steve!” You’re laughing a little and so is he as you push his arm back. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

    “What’d you mean, then?” He’s still smiling, that entrancing, deliberately pouty, lazy smile. Vaguely smirky. You don’t know if it’s deliberate, a ploy to distract you, con you into staying, make you less prone to saying what you want to say, but you press anyway, even though he’s making you want to lean forward and endlessly kiss the smirk off his mouth.

   “I just think, I don’t know… you’re not seeing anyone else, right?”

   “’Course not, why, you got other plans after this?” He grins again. You roll your eyes. He makes it so hard sometimes.

    “Steve,” you whine, “I’m so serious right now.”

    “Okay, okay. No, you’re the only one for me.” He means it. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever heard. “Are you seeing anyone else?” He asks you like it’s the easiest question in the world for him to ask but honestly he’s shitting his pants a little. He’s not sure what’d he say if you said yes, I am, and I think we should end this, which is where he’s assuming the conversation is going. You’ve got we shouldn’t do this anymore written all over you in his eyes and he’s steeling himself for the heartbreak.

     “Does it look like I am?”

     “Does it look like I am?” He repeats back, and he reaches for your hand in that too intimate way of his, takes it all careful and slow. “What’s this about?”

     “I just, I just think, that, you know, I’m not seeing anyone, and you’re not seeing anyone, but we’re sorta… seeing each other, yeah?” You gesture between the two of you. He nods. He’s staring at you very intensely, waiting for you to get your words out. He’s still waiting for you to say you think this whole thing has been a very bad mistake, a miscalculated judgement on your part, you should go back to the way things were, so he’s not expecting what comes out of you next. “Shouldn’t we be, like, official, then?”

     And instead of throwing up all the ways he so badly would love for that to happen, he chokes out, because he’s stupid and speechless, “Official?” And the way he says it, like it’s a curse when it’s only his disbelief that you’d want that with him after all this time, makes you immediately go into panic mode.

    He quite literally sees the way you lose any sense of confidence in your question and he immediately tries to take it back as you stand from his side and start trying to force your words back in your mouth, too. “Fuck, forget I said anything,” you mumble, spying your shoes shoved under his desk where you’d comfortably kicked them off. You hasten to put them on as Steve scrambles up from the bed and starts dressing, matching your frantic speed.

    “Hey, wait, that’s not what I- I didn’t mean it like that-“

     “It’s fine, Steve, I get it, I totally do, this isn’t that for you, it’s fine-“

      “It is, it is-“ but you’re not hearing him, your mind is already elsewhere. It’s in your own bed in the quiet, alone with your thoughts and not with him, mercifully not with him. You need this one mercy, “I’ll drive you home, babe, c’mon, I’ll explain everything, please-“

    “I got it, it’s fine, I’m fine, you don’t have to explain, okay? I got it,” and you don’t just walk out of his house and down the block to yours, you absolutely flee. You take Steve’s heart with you.

      He’s pacing the floor behind the register at Family Video three days and three shifts later, practically clawing at the walls of the place, and Robin is pulling her hair out at the sight of him in distress this way.

     “What did you do?” She finally breaks, flipping her magazine shut.

      “What? How do you know it was me?” He stops pacing. He hadn’t even noticed he was doing it.

       “You’ve had three shifts and she hasn’t visited one single time. She always visits. And I know I didn’t do anything wrong, because I never do anything wrong, so, what’d you do?” Robin places her hand under his chin and stares at him expectantly.

      He huffs, his hands on hips. “Maybe she did something, Robin, did you ever think of that?”

     “Definitely not,” Robin retorts, waiting for Steve to be serious.

      He deflates. “Okay, it was me.”

      “I know that, now continue.”

      “We were, you know,” he tilts his head down and raises his eyebrows and widens his eyes.

     “Having sex, sure,” Robin bobs her head. A customer in the nearest aisle frowns and shuffles toward a different section further away from the two of them.

     Steve shushes her. “I wasn’t trying to say it so loud.”

    “Having sex,” Robin repeats, louder this time, not bothering to fight back a laugh at Steve’s exasperated expression, “continue.”

      “Well, after that, she started asking if, if I was seeing anyone, which of course I’m not, because, you know, I’m into her, obviously, so I told her I wasn’t, and she said she wasn’t, so she said maybe we should be official.” Steve hesitates to say the rest of what happened. He still can’t believe all he could do when you said the words was repeat them back to you with that stupid look on his face instead of giving you the biggest, loudest declaration of love in a big, messy, pathetic, devoted way, the way he pictures himself when it comes to you, messy and pathetic and devoted, and he replays that moment back to himself all day long, thinking of everything else he could’ve said to make you understand.

    “That’s what you want, isn’t it? She’s all you talk about all day long, you want to be with her, don’t you?”

    “Of course I do!” He snaps, dragging a hand across his face. “But when she said it I just couldn’t get the words out and she got, she got so sad and she left without me being able to explain anything and she hasn’t answered the phone which, yes, I’ve been calling, and I don’t know how to do this.” He’d never been good at school but he knew he’d get a Grade A in Pitiful.

    “Do what? Tell a girl you love her? You’ve been in relationships before, Steve.”

    “I know, but…” he sighs. “I’m different now, like, it’s not as easy anymore, for me, and I- I don’t want her to get hurt, and I don’t want to get hurt, it’s like, everything used to be my fault, and I wasn’t as good as I could have been, and I don’t want to break anything, I don’t want it to get fucked up, because it’ll be my fault, and I can’t do that again. Not to her.” He swallows, the words harder to come by than he would care to admit. “I’m a little… I’m a little in love with her, I think.” This is said quietly. It frightens him to say it out loud. He’s gone over it in his head, those words, so few of them, but they say so much, and it’s scary. He hasn’t said them to someone in years. The last time he did he got so brutally hurt he thought he’d never recover. But he had. So why was it still so scary?

    “A little bit?” Robin teases, but it’s all love for him, truly.

    “Alright, a lot in love,” he concedes. He wants to get used to saying it. He wants to say it to you. For real. Loudly. “I still don’t know how to do this, though. Not anymore.”

   “Come on!” Robin gets up from her stool and places her hands on his shoulders. “You’re supposed to be Steve Harrington. You were using those…” she pauses for a beat and then, “charms,” the word is said with the smallest hint of sarcasm but she persists nonetheless, “on tons of girls in high school and at Scoops! Now whip them out again for our very nice friend that you sometimes go to town with!”

   “When did any of those charms,” he says it with a matching sarcastic tone, “work aside from when I was sixteen and an idiot?”

   “You might not be sixteen anymore but you’re still an idiot, if that helps.”

    “It doesn’t but thank you for the encouragement.”

    “I’m just saying!” She exclaims, throwing her hands up and returning back to her seat. “Putting yourself out there is always gonna be scary, but you can’t let that stop you. You’d actually be an idiot if you let that stop you. Are you just never gonna see her again? No, because you’d go insane. It’s not like what you did was all that bad anyway.”

    “You really think so?” He perks up a bit, needing that confirmation that he isn’t a totally awful and irredeemable person. It’s easy for him to fall headfirst into that spiral of thinking. It was a trap set with the most accessible, perfect bait and he somehow always found himself walking straight into it without stopping to think if he was being fair to himself.

    “You’ve both been in bad spots, you reacted the way you did and she reacted the way she did out of what was most likely panic and embarrassment. She’s definitely not even mad at you. Probably just, again, embarrassed. If you explain I think it’ll all be okay, Steve, I swear.” Robin can’t take much more of this conversation circling around, as much as she loves Steve and wants to be there for him, she would love him even more if he acted on his feelings and allowed himself some happiness for once.  “So do you think you can you, like, maybe go tell her so she can keep visiting us at work? I need more company than just you and Keith and these customers with no taste,” she complains, glaring at the closed door that hides Keith, in all his absolute glory. The customer from before hears her comment and storms out. Robin rolls her eyes.

    “Right, yeah, tell her I love her, tell my best friend I love her,” he frowns, nerves creeping up the back of his neck. “Maybe you could just call her first and ask-“

     “Steve! I am not meddling in your love life like that when you already know everything there is to know!” She throws her magazine at him. “She said she wants to be with you, go be with her!”

    “Alright, alright!” He waves his hands dismissively. He begins to pace again, this time his eyes held to the clock. Robin groans. There’s still three hours left of their shift.

     You’re in your room wallowing, or doing what’d you call attempting not to wallow but failing at it miserably. You haven’t touched a single page of your book, mostly content to just listen to sad records and more or less stare at the wall. It was stupid, you knew, to behave in such a way over some guy. But it didn’t feel like some guy. It was Steve, after all. It all felt deeper than just some guy. You two had been through a lot together, more than most people have been, and if you’d just ruined your friendship with someone you always felt safe, felt at home with, over feelings you couldn’t control and probably would be better off not having, you were going to need some serious therapy.

     It probably was silly of the two of you to start this thing up anyway, you reason, fighting back your urge to do any further crying into a pillow. You try to focus on painting your nails a nice shade of dark blue but it reminds you of Steve’s old Scoops uniform and of that night (and all that nights that followed) so you stop in the middle of your second thumb and grab nail polish remover and start scrubbing away at your finished right hand.

“Fuckin’ ridiculous,” you mutter, the cotton ball in your hand soaked through with blue and your nails discolored and muddy. “I am ridiculous,” you say to yourself, shaking off your wet hand. Your room is filled with the smell of acetone and disappointment. You think about lighting a candle when your doorbell rings. You debate answering it before it rings again. And then again. And again, more frenzied this time.

    You open the door to a distressed Steve. His cheeks are red and he’s breathing like he can’t anymore. He’s not the multi-star athlete he was in high school, he realizes in this moment. “Did you- did you just run here from work?” You ask him, but he’s already too close to you, not answering your question, gazing at you because simply looking isn’t enough and has never been enough. He is gazing. He is flush with adoration. It’s hard not to bloom under that radiance. He makes you want to forget everything and go back to plush lips on hot skin and the quiet contentment that came alongside being with him in those first few months. You back up a little into your doorway but he steps up to you, following your steps. “Where’s your car-“

    “Forget that for a sec,” he says, and you stop talking out of surprise. “Just, just tell me if we do this it’ll be okay, and we won’t be terrible for each other, and we’ll be good,” because he needs to hear it, even if it’s ridiculous and he’s jinxing it before it’s begun he needs to know you’re right there with him. “Like, just tell me it can be easy this once. If you broke my heart I don’t know if I’d be able to handle it. ‘Cause I love you. I do. And I want this.” And you get it. He’s letting you get it. He’s letting you all the way in. You realize, flustered and basking in it, that he’s the first one to say those words. That you hadn’t even said them when you posed your first question. But he’s saying them out loud and it’s brilliant and beautiful. He is beautiful.

    It makes you want to weep, the love that swells here, out in the open. “Fuck, Steve, what type of girl do you think I am, breaking the heart of the guy I’ve been in love with since he started sneaking into my bedroom?” He smiles. He glows. It’s so beautifully Steve. Maybe it can be easy.

    When he kisses you, he proves it: the ease, the tranquility. He is fervent and burning. Everything is urgent with Steve. Especially kissing. He captures every bit of you immediately. His touch is light when he urges you out of your doorway and into your living room so he can shut your front door and quit giving the neighbors what he’s sure is the show of a lifetime. It is for him, at least.

[mcdynamite]

Eddie always tries to be as quiet as he can when he gets home from late shifts at the bar – holding his keys tightly so they don’t jangle too much and avoiding turning on lights if he can help it. Steve is usually asleep by the time he makes it home smelling of greasy bar food and whatever beer blew its keg that evening all over his uniform tee, and Eddie hates waking him. His boyfriend doesn’t get much sleep as it is. The last thing he needs is for Eddie to come tumbling through the door and interrupting the precious few hours he gets every night.

So every time Eddie gets home from work in the earliest hours of the new day, he tries to be as quiet as possible.

And every time, Steve wakes up anyways.

Contrary to what most people might assume, it’s actually not Eddie’s fault that Steve can never sleep through his homecomings. (Years of living in a thin-walled trailer with a man who worked nights and slept during the days made him a master of moving stealthily through his home, after all.) It’s just that Steve Harrington is the lightest sleeper who’s ever lived.

According to Steve, he wasn’t always this way – he used to sleep through alarm clocks and his mother banging on his bedroom door to get him up for school, when he was younger. No, the light sleeper thing didn’t start until after Steve learned that monsters were real, and it only got worse after Upside Down Part 2: Electric Boogaloo, when suddenly he had a whole troupe of children to worry about all night. Every little creak of the floorboards could be a demogorgon, or a preteen in need of help fighting off a pack of demodogs. Faint police sirens in the distance could be headed to Steve’s house, where some uniformed cop would come knock on the door and tell him that something had happened to one of the kids.

It sounds like a nightmare, in Eddie’s opinion – not being able to sleep more than a handful of hours a night – but Steve always shrugs it off, like he’s already gotten so used to it that he hardly notices it anymore, and Eddie thinks that might be the case. It makes him feel horribly guilty (and maybe a little sad) whenever Eddie is the cause of Steve’s late-night wakefulness, but despite his desire for his boyfriend to get the sleep he needs, Eddie can never quite force himself to be too upset whenever Steve stirs as Eddie tiptoes into their shared bedroom.

Because sleepy Steve Harrington is, frankly, infuriatingly adorable, and tonight is no exception.

He hears, rather than sees, Steve wake up in the darkness of their room. It starts with a little snuffle, then a rustling of bedsheets, and finally – like always – a gravelly, endearingly hopeful, “Eds?”

Eddie’s heart warms in his chest, melting away the ice left there by a long shift dealing with drunk idiots and coworkers who would rather bitch about their jobs than actually do them. His job is exhausting at the best of times, and downright soul-sucking at the worst, but it’s okay, because at least at the end of the day, he gets to come home to this.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he sighs tiredly, ignoring the part of him that balks at being foiled again in his quest to let Steve get some sleep. Carefully, he toes off his shoes and makes his way to the edge of the bed so he can brush a few messy strands of hair from Steve’s forehead.

Steve instantly tilts his head to press into the touch, and Eddie can’t help but smile. “Wha’time s’it?” Steve slurs.

Eddie glances at the clock on their bedside table and nearly winces when he sees just how late it is. “Almost two,” he murmurs guiltily. He can see Steve’s mouth turn down into a frown now that his eyes have adjusted to the lack of light.

“S’late,” Steve mumbles. He rolls onto his side and reaches blindly for Eddie, hand eventually wrapping around Eddie’s bony wrist and squeezing gently in a mostly subconscious show of sympathy. His eyes blink open – bleary and unfocused – and scan over Eddie’s face. “Everything ‘kay?” Even half-asleep, he’s a worrier. Eddie finds it both endearing and a little heartbreaking.

He smiles, despite himself, and begins to card his fingers through Steve’s sleep-mussed hair, an unbearably fond feeling settling in his belly when Steve lets his eyes flutter shut again. “Yeah, sweetheart, everything’s fine,” he assures his tired boyfriend. “Just a long night. Pacers game a few blocks down, y’know? Spent a whole extra hour after close catching up on bar dishes.”

Steve furrows his brow and makes a discontented noise. “Gross,” he mutters, and Eddie huffs out a laugh. God, he is so stupidly in love with this beautiful, bitchy man.

“Very,” he hums in agreement.

“Y’should come to bed,” Steve says, and his voice is almost whiny, just like it always is when he tries to coax Eddie into their bed without a proper shower. He does it almost every night, and it almost never works. It’s certainly not going to work tonight, with Eddie smelling of shitty beer and grease.

“In a bit,” Eddie sighs, bending to press a kiss to Steve’s temple. “Gotta shower first.”

Steve properly whines at that, petulantly mumbling something incoherent.

“Baby, I’m covered in Miller and fryer grease. Do you really want me getting that shit all over our pillowcases?” Eddie says fondly.

“I want you to come cuddle with me,” Steve grumbles.

It takes more effort than is probably reasonable for Eddie to stifle the cackle threatening to burst from his chest. “In a few minutes, ‘kay? Just gonna go wash off real quick, and then I’ll come cuddle, you needy little bastard.”

“You’d better,” Steve says not at all threateningly. Eddie just laughs and kisses his forehead again before dragging himself away and into their little apartment bathroom for a quick shower. There’s a ninety percent chance Steve will be asleep again by the time Eddie makes it into bed, in ten minutes, so he can’t really bring himself to feel too guilty.

Still, true to his word, he showers quickly – rinsing all of the greasy smell out of his hair and scrubbing the spilled beer from his skin. He uses the bergamot soap Steve got him for Christmas, because he knows Steve likes it, and Eddie likes when Steve likes things. (And he’ll never admit this, but he doesn’t hate the smell of bergamot, either.)

When he’s finished, he quickly towels himself off and slips on the pair of plaid boxers Steve left out on the bathroom counter for him earlier (just one of those little, caring things that Steve does every day that make Eddie love him all the more). He plaits his wet curls so he doesn’t wake up with hair worse than Doc from Back to the Future, then he finally, finally, makes his way to bed.

Steve’s breathing is a slow, steady rhythm, but the way he instantly shifts closer to Eddie the moment he climbs into bed is a clear indicator that he hasn’t quite managed to fall back to sleep yet. Eddie has hardly had a chance to pull the covers up before Steve is pushing back into him, silently demanding the safety of his arms.

Eddie is all too happy to oblige.

It’s automatic and achingly familiar when Eddie rolls onto his side and wraps his arms around Steve, pulling his boyfriend close so Steve’s back is pressed to his front. Even then, it doesn’t seem to be close enough for Steve, who wiggles back even further until it nearly becomes impossible to tell where he ends and Eddie begins. It’s so disgustingly sweet that Eddie sort of wants to cry. Instead, he buries his nose in the crook of Steve’s neck and leaves a soft kiss just behind his ear.

“Hi, baby,” Eddie breathes as Steve rests one of his hands atop the one Eddie has tucked under his side and laces their fingers together. He leans forward slightly to kiss Steve’s cheek, just because he can, and before he can pull away to settle against the pillow, Steve turns his head to capture Eddie’s lips in a soft, barely-there kiss. The kind of kiss that instantly settles even the most frantic parts of Eddie’s soul.

“Hey,” Steve murmurs, lips still brushing together, and Eddie can both hear and feel the way his mouth has curved upwards into a smile. Eddie gives him one more peck on the lips before they both fall into their pillows again. “Missed you,” Steve whispers. It makes Eddie smile and shake his head with tired amusement.

“Missed you, too,” he whispers, even though it’s only been ten or so hours since they last saw each other. Christ, when did he become such a goddamn sap?

(He knows the answer to that question, obviously. Eddie “The Freak” became Eddie “The Sap” the first time Steve Harrington looked at him with that secret little smile on his face – the one he reserves for Eddie and Eddie alone, these days. The one that silently says, I love you.)

Steve hums contentedly and snuggles deeper into Eddie. God, he’s so fucking sweet like this. Eddie loves him so fucking much.

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart,” Eddie says softly, moving his free hand to run his fingers through Steve’s hair, because he knows it helps his baby sleep.

Steve’s voice is already sleepy again when he murmurs, “’kay,” and then, even softer: “Love you.”

Eddie smiles. Holds Steve just a little bit tighter. Gives Steve’s hand an extra little squeeze and marvels at the fact that after everything – after murder accusations and monsters and government payouts and three fucking years as a senior at Hawkins High – he gets to have this. And sure, maybe he’s feeling a little extra sappy because of the simple ring he’s got buried in his guitar case – the one Robin helped him pick out just a few days ago, even though they can’t technically get married in the state of Indiana. Maybe that’s why he smiles a bit wider tonight with Steve in his arms…why his heart thumps a bit harder at every sleepy snuffle his boyfriend makes…

But the sappiness stopped bothering him a long time ago, when his sharpest edges were sanded out by the presence of the little family he found in the aftermath of the Upside Down, so Eddie doesn’t mind. Soon, he’ll be able to fall asleep next to his fiancé, instead of his boyfriend. They’ll get to call all of their adoptive rugrats and tell them the news, and Steve will be beaming so brightly it might just blind him. And it’ll be perfect.

For now, Eddie just lets himself sink into the warmth of having Steve Harrington in his arms.

And he sleeps.

This is for @steddie-week Day 5: Established Relationship. Just a little ficlet that popped into my head at literally 2 in the morning. I hope y'all enjoy!