#t shirt made from plastic bottles

[jacketssupplier]

Collect Wholesale Organic And Sustainable T-shirts From Recycle Clothing

As a reliable sustainable apparel supplier, Recycle Clothing curates recycle and sustainable t-shirts to make them the canvas of your selected shades and artwork. Provide your custom inputs!

[fe12uer]

T-Shirt Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles | T-Shirt Made from Plastic Bottles - Fe Brand Fe Brand Supports a Closed Loop by Recycling Plastic Water Bottles into High Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles. Recycle Polyester Made from Plastic Bottles Are Used as Part of the Material.

[bunnys-kisses]

hi bunny!!! if the bakery isn’t too busy, maybe i could get some sausage rolls with a side of cider for me and my bf John Price :D

bakery menu

want to submit your own order? then hit up the menu! there is all kinds of stuff to pick from!! as for this lovely person, thank you for the submission! i am so happy that you picked john price, i love him. he is my sweet big bear and i want him to smother me with his biceps <3333. thank you for ordering!

sausage rolls ("i wonder how much i could get for photos of this cunt.") + cider (body worship) served by capt. john price (call of duty)!!

cw: smut/pwp, body worship, age gap (20s/40s), older!price, size kink & difference, outdoor sex, fuckin' on a plastic lawn chair, husband!price, naked reader/clothed price

"baby girl." he said, his voice a low drawl as he leaned back in the plastic chair in the back garden.

you looked over after tending to the tomato plants by the fence. you were bent over to look at the soil, with your gardening gloves on and big floppy hat to keep the sun off your face. you smiled, "yes, honey!"

he took a sip of his beer and shifted in his seat a little, "c'mere."

you raised your eyebrows, "c'mere? why don't you come here, since you're just sitting there."

price chuckled and said, "please, baby girl. i'm just so comfy right now."

you chuckled, "comfy? on that plastic chair? sure.' you took off the gloves and walked towards him. you felt price's eyes linger across you form. your husband's gaze made you hot all over.

he took another sip of his beer and said, "you're the most beautiful thing out here." he smiled against the rim of the beer bottle. he loved the sight of you now perched on his knee. he drank in your beauty.

you were in shorts and a t-shirt that price kept in the back of the closet, from his early days in the military. one of his large hands came and pushed up the shirt a little, exposing your body to him.

he licked his lips, "always so beautiful." he chuckled before you leaned in for a gentle kiss on his lips. he shifted a little more in his seat as he got his hand onto the button of shorts you wore. once that was undone, his hand dipped in between your legs and rubbed against your panty-clad cunt. he groaned a little against your skin, "someone feels good, huh beautiful?"

you said, "please, john. we were supposed to be gardening."

he chuckled, "the plants will be there when we're done. so why doesn't my beautiful wife get undressed and let me see all it." he licked his lips once more.

you took off your top and price's large hands palmed at your breasts. you squirmed a little bit and felt the stutter in your pulse. your husband's grasp on you made you feel warm all over.

price grabbed at your thighs to get your shorts off of you, and you squirmed in his lap to get them off along with your panties. price then took the motion to take off your bra as well, leaving you naked in the private backyard you had.

the high fences would keep from any prying eyes on your love making. price held you by one hip as with his other hand he got his cock out of his basketball shorts.

he looked hot in the grey pair and a tight white t-shirt. and only the sight of his cock made you more aroused. and then when he placed you onto his cock and leaned back into the lawn chair for you to work on his length.

"oh you're beautiful." he purred. his smile large as he held onto you soft hips, "so beautiful." he ran his hands up and down, "i'm the luckiest man in the world because i get to sink my cock into this every night. you playfully smacked his chest and he laughed, "i'm jokin', baby girl. i love you."

"i love you too, honey." you replied as you tried to meet his thrusts as the two of you made love in your backyard.

it was the god's honest truth. you loved him, he made you feel warm all over and deeply loved. his affection for you was not limited to physical intimacy. you heard and felt how he worshiped your body, that you were the highest creation ever made. more beautiful than roses, and sweeter than honey.

you moved up and down price's cock and took his face in your hands once more. the two of you began to kiss softly, his hands continued to roam your curves.

"my beautiful wife."

you giggled, "i'm not that beautiful."

he rested his hands on your hips and moved up against your pussy. the drooling head pressed against your cervix. price was a big man all over, and he made you feel good. he looked into your eyes and said, "i'm not lyin', love. you are the most beautiful thing i've ever seen. everythin' about ya drives me crazy."

you moaned a little louder and he basked in the feeling of you. you held onto his shoulders tightly, feeling the well loved t-shirt under your fingertips as you continued to move against him even more.

price continued to meet your pace, he felt the rush through his body. you were just so perfect for him. he loved you, you had captured his whole heart. and he'd love you forever.

"mmm, john." you panted.

he replied in that gruff voice, "i know, baby girl. i love you too. always and forever." he panted heavily.

you held onto him tightly, your breasts in his face to get the best angle. you arched your back a little bit and let out a loud moan. you came around your husband's cock

price bit gently into the flesh of your breasts, bruising it all up.

you panted wildly, knowing your husband was close too. you raked your nails across his shoulders, "fuck, price."

he finished inside of his sweet beloved with ease. he could feel at rest knowing that he made you both feel good. he held onto your hips and helped you into a different position so you didn't slip off the chair by your knees.

he panted a little bit before he took your face in his hands. he then pulled you in for a hot kiss that made a shudder run through you. when he parted the kiss soon after he said, "why don't we get ya dressed and inside. i don't want you to get a sunburn." then kissed the apple of your cheek.

price's other hand groped your ass and you giggled. the feeling was euphoric, your husband's touch was like a current. he'd help you put your clothes on, he'd even help you tend the garden after with his cum running down your leg <3

[honeekyuu]

genius. [akaashi keiji x f!reader] chapter two.

>>You struggle to pay rent on your limited graduate student salary, and your worst enemy agrees to help you out.

or

You realize you need to find a partner for your faceless porn account, and Akaashi Keiji is the only man who meets all your requirements.<<

series status: [ongoing]

taglist: [open]

@kodsuken @onlytendoguesses @kakeru-eem @itslawful @rikari0913

tumblr didnt let me tag some of you -- please check your settings and let me know :'))

previous. || masterlist. || next.

a/n: im never writing a 30k chapter ever again in my entire life. i hope you like it :))))

[feel free to buy me a cup of coffee!]

---------------------------------------

Akaashi arrives on Saturday morning at 8am. You’re making coffee when he knocks.

It feels almost illegal to be filming porn so early in the morning, but Bokuto had texted a large group of people at 2am, inviting everyone to a party that same day, and you’d sleepily texted Akaashi instead of responding to the group message.

“Come over at 8 if you plan on going to Kou’s thing,” you’d said. It’s the only text you’d sent him after his impromptu video message, and you’d hoped at the time that he wouldn’t be offended by it. “Otherwise, come at 11 like we planned.”

“8,” is all he’d responded, and you’d gotten the feeling Bokuto’s text had woken him, too.

He looks exhausted when you open the door, and you latch onto that so as to not be overcome by the weird tingling feeling that’s starting to swirl in your stomach at the sight of him.

“Hi,” you say plainly, looking him over. He’s wearing a pair of grey sweats – a different pair than last night’s, you hope – and a black t-shirt, his hair falling into his eyes and his glasses barely staying on his nose. He’s got a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. You point to it now. “What’s that?”

“Three changes of clothes, so all the videos are different,” he mumbles, his voice tense. “Do you have coffee?”

You can’t help the smile that breaks out on your face. “Akaashi Keiji, are you a crabass in the morning?”

He rolls his eyes. “Do you have coffee or not, Y/n? Because I need to go to the shop downstairs if-” He points over his shoulder in the direction of the elevator, but you wrench the door open, waving him in with a laugh.

“I made it, I made it.”

He gives you a snippy hum and makes his way through the foyer, leaving his shoes behind as he moves to drop his bag by the couch. He goes straight to your kitchen, and you wonder if his usual polite tendencies only show themselves post-caffeination.

“Cup?” he calls from the other side of the wall, and you follow him in there, seeing that he’s opening all of your cabinets. 

You laugh. “I’ve never seen you not be a good guest-”

“Cup, please, Y/n – I’m dying.”

“Last one on the right.” You chuckle to yourself and open the fridge, pulling a bottle of cream out and leaving it on the counter. He meets you halfway, setting two mugs between you and reaching for the pot of coffee just as the machine is beeping its completion.

“Breakfast?” you ask, already reaching for the fridge again while he pours a heavy cup for each of you. You have eggs, and you’re sure there’s bacon in there-

“Do you have pop-tarts?” is all he says. You stay silent, just staring at him. He cuts you a tired glare. “Don’t look at me like that. I can’t be perfect all the time.”

You let out a breathless laugh. “Does anyone else know you’re this humble?” He takes a defiant sip of his coffee instead of answering you, sighing contently afterward. You move to your pantry, extracting a variety pack of pop-tarts. “Here,” you say, sliding it to him.

“Thanks,” he grumbles, poking through it and deciding quickly on the smores flavor. “I’ll get lunch. Chinese?”

“Free food is good food,” you respond, mixing your coffee with cream and sugar from the little jar on the counter. You watch him rip the plastic open with his teeth. “Do you need… I don’t know, a toaster or something?”

“Nope.” He talks through a mouth full of smores pop-tart and walks off, disappearing into the living room. You stare after him, laughing in shock as he goes. You’ve never seen Akaashi Keiji like this.

You move to the couch with your own pop-tart (strawberry) and sit on the opposite side. He already looks better, his fingers tangled in his hair as he chugs coffee that’s scalding hot.

You feel odd starting right away with a conversation about the filming plan, so you take a quiet sip of coffee. “So… how was your night?”

Akaashi chokes on pop-tart crumbs.

Your face burns with realization. “Oh– I…”

He shakes his head, laughing while he coughs. “You did that on purpose.”

“I didn’t!”

“How was your night?” he asks, meeting your eyes. You purse your lips – you hadn’t responded to his text, after all.

“It was… fine.”

“Fine, good? Or fine, bad?” You don’t answer, and he gives you a meaningful lift of his brows. “Some feedback would be nice.”

“Well, you let me know when you make your own porn account,” you joke. “I’ll be sure to leave a comment.”

“Hey, now.” He tuts and shakes his head. “I showed you what I thought of your video. I think a little reciprocity’s fair.”

“I’m about to take my clothes off for you,” you argue. “I think that’s your reciprocity.”

He hides his smile behind his hand. “Fair enough.” He downs the rest of his coffee and then sighs, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I needed that.”

“Clearly,” you mumble, leaving your own drink and pop-tart on the coffee table. “Better, crabass?”

“Better,” he says plainly, accepting the nickname. “What’s the plan?”

That quiet tingle returns, prickling in your fingertips and toes. “Uh…” You stand, moving toward your bedroom. “I suppose I should figure out what I’m wearing, but… generally, I was thinking we could film enough for three or four videos? I can fill the rest of the week in with solo videos.”

“Okay,” he says behind you, and you hear him stand and move to the hallway. “Is what I’m wearing now okay for the first one?”

You leave the door cracked while you change. “Yeah, that looks good!” you call, pulling out a yellow crop top and a black, lacy thong. You grimace down at the set. You usually don’t put much thought into your outfits, but having Akaashi here makes you a little self-conscious. “Which video should we do first?”

“Well, I’m not sure that 8am is the best time for freaky, screaming, headboard-slamming sex, Y/n.” 

You laugh to yourself. “Something softer? With the morning sunlight coming in through the window?”

“That sounds better. I’ll get the windows in the room.” 

You change into the set quickly and stand in front of your mirror, fixing your hair. You look down at yourself, turning back and forth, and decide to forgo the bra. There’s no point in it, but you do feel a lot more exposed now. “Are we gonna talk for any amount of time, or are we starting?” you say, a little louder so he can hear.

“We should probably figure out the order of the videos,” he responds, back in the living room now.

“Okay, then I’ll get a sweater.”

What you walk out in is more of a moomoo than a sweater, and Akaashi tells you as much.

“You look stupid,” he says, amused, when you stop outside your bedroom door.

“Be quiet – wearing nothing is a cold affair.” You scoop your coffee from the table and follow him toward the hall, but he stops before you can get there. You have a whiteboard hanging on the wall in the living room, one with your research ideas and spare thoughts. He takes the marker now, hovering over an empty spot, and looks down at you expectantly.

“Order?”

“Not on my precious board,” you complain, and he rolls his eyes.

“Fingering for the first one? And then I was thinking something with the desk,” he says, writing down the first point quickly.

“I think oral’s probably good. Both kinds.” When he grimaces, you nudge him. “Would you rather do isolated videos, or have me give oral as foreplay in every video-”

“Isolated sounds lovely,” he says quickly, starting to jot that, too, but you stop him with a slight laugh.

“Why don’t you like having your dick sucked, Akaashi? Is something wrong?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he argues. “The attention’s just a little weird. I prefer doing other things with the time.”

You tilt your head at him, brows furrowed. “You feel weird about the attention?” He meets your eyes briefly, and you spot the scowl forming. “Sorry, have you never gotten good head before?”

“Shut up,” he bites. “I just get a little lost in my head. Makes it hard to enjoy it.”

You blink. You think you can understand that – having an overactive mind must make it hard to relax. You can’t say you don’t know what that’s like.

“Okay, then,” you say, taking the marker from him. “You just need to get out of your head.” You write ‘Give Akaashi Good Head’ under his first point, and he snorts.

“Good luck,” he mumbles.

“I don’t need luck,” you beam at him, confident. “What’s next? The desk?”

“I can eat you out there,” he says plainly, taking the marker back, and you’re suddenly caught off guard again by his jarring language, as though you hadn’t just done the same. You blink rapidly.

“O…kay. And then?”

He shrugs. “Bed? Sex?”

“Right,” you say, nodding. “Sex. Sure.”

He eyes you while he writes. “You’re getting nervous.”

“It registered while you were talking.”

“Registered for me last night,” he says, capping the marker and replacing it. “I’ll take over while you process.”

“Shut up,” you say weakly, letting him lead you down the hall anyway. “When’d you process? When you were coming to a video of me?”

He has the decency to blush. “Somewhere around there, yeah.”

You snicker, leaving your coffee on the dresser. “Shall we? Before I get cold feet?”

“Does your rent due date get cold feet?” he asks, moving to the chest. He extracts a small vibrator and a dildo, and then, after careful consideration, he puts the dildo back. He moves to the couch with the vibrator and settles down with a sigh. 

You nod at his question. Right. You’re here to make rent. This is a business arrangement. You can do this.

Your eyes scan the room. He’d popped one of the windows open and raised the blinds for all of them, making the room just a little chilly but overall comfortable and sunny. There’s a golden glow in the room, birds chirping peacefully, and you smile, pleased with the environment. 

“Okay!” You say, mostly to hype yourself up, and strip from the moomoo. You leave it on the bed, shivering slightly, and turn toward Akaashi. He’s looking at you blankly, but you can see a pink tinge in the tips of his ears. You take your phone to the tripod, bending at the waist to set the camera up. You change all the settings the way you like them, keeping him in frame to position the phone right. 

You realize upon glancing at him in the front view that he’s got his eyes on you.

“Are you staring at my ass?”

He jumps, meeting your eyes in the camera. And then he scowls. “Don’t scold me. I’m processing again.”

You snicker, shaking your head and pressing record before joining him on the couch, a good foot or two of space between you. “I’m just fucking with you.”

He eyes the camera, seeing both of your faces in frame. “You’ll crop it?”

“Zoom and crop,” you reassure. “I’ll even send you the login to my account so you can review the videos before they post.”

He nods, seemingly comforted by that. “‘Kay.” 

You swallow. “... ‘Kay.” 

It hits you in this moment that you haven’t been with a man in three years – and that Akaashi Keiji is one very handsome man.

He looks at you expectantly, lifting his brows. “Wanna start?” he asks, in a voice gentler than before – you’re struck with the thought that Akaashi is one of those men whose soft features make him all the more masculine. Long eyelashes that make his eyes darker, a lean frame that makes him tower over you, a voice so soft that the depth of it is striking.

You like men like that.

“Right.” You blink rapidly, panicking at the realization that he might just be your type. Panicking because you hadn’t noticed it before. “Okay. Uhm-” Your face warms, worsened when he starts to smirk. “Oh!” You say, an idea coming to you. “Music! Maybe music will help-” You rise, starting to question where you’d left your speaker, but Akaashi’s hand wraps tight around your wrist, warm and secure.

“God,” he says, laughing slightly. His grip drags you down, your knees hitting the couch and your body slumping against his. You yelp when you land, and he releases you in favor of sliding one hand around your waist and the other around the back of your neck, fingers tangling in your hair. “You’re a mess,” he jokes, his voice suddenly a lot closer than you’d prepared for.

When his lips touch your throat, the room starts to spin.

Your whole body breaks out in goosebumps, starting from the crown of your head and melting down over you.

“Oh,” you breathe, your head falling to the side all on its own, resting against his hand and giving him better access. He drags his lips across your throat, kissing the skin quietly and easing the tension in your muscles. You slide trembling fingers into his hair, holding tight as he uses the hand on your hip to pull you half onto him, your legs dangling between his knees. 

There are a hundred different sensations you’re struggling to come to terms with. Every touch of Akaashi’s skin to yours is new, because there’s never been a situation where you’d needed to make physical contact with him. His hands are large and his fingers are warm. His mouth is warmer, and his tongue and teeth send shockwaves down your spine with every pass and nip of your skin. His body is hard against yours, and, when your free hand searches for somewhere to anchor and lands on his bicep, you realize that Akaashi’s endless wardrobe of cardigans, sweater vests, and button-downs has done remarkable things to hide his physique. 

He’s strong, strong enough to hold you steady as you all but go limp in his arms. And his hair tickles against your skin, but it smells nice. He smells nice – he hadn’t put cologne on this morning, but he smells nice. And his eyes are dangerously blue when he pulls back to look at you, that deep blue that’s close enough to a dark green to be confusing in the golden light of the morning.

“Princess,” he whispers, and you start, staring down at his lips. They’re pink and look soft – they are soft, you register. You know that now. You know what his lips feel like. “Do you plan on doing anything at any point?” he asks, and you blink, meeting those blue-green eyes again.

Oh, right.

Right.

“Sorry,” you mumble. “Just… took me a second to get used to it.” 

He doesn’t quite smile, but it’s close enough. “Second’s up, darling. Take your shirt off.” 

You nearly laugh, your face warm, and then you shift, using your fingers in his hair to tilt his head away. “Gimme one more second.”

It is way too satisfying to hear the way his breath hitches when you press your lips to his throat. His skin tastes the way you imagined it might – like soap and salt, clean and chilled against your tongue. You let your hand roam his body while you kiss him, your teeth sucking marks into his skin while your fingers curve over his shoulder and across his chest. You wonder if he’s as affected by all of this as you are. If he’s as confused, if his nerves are as electrified by the newness of it. 

His fingers leave your hair to latch onto your leg instead, fingertips sliding across the skin as he runs his hand slowly up and down your thigh. When your hand drops to front of his sweats, he manages not to jump. His fingers dig into your skin, and he lets out a rough breath, but he manages to not make it look like you’ve never touched each other before. You palm him slowly, doing your best not to react when his cock jumps under your fingertips. You keep kissing him, palm tracing the outline of him as he grows hard at your touch, his breath short in your ears.

He doesn’t say anything else to you, only anchoring both hands to your waist after a moment and hauling you up. You gasp quietly, lifted and turned until you’re on your knees, straddling his thighs. He looks up at you, and you see that his eyes have darkened since you’d last looked at them.

“Take your shirt off,” he says again, and it’s not a joke this time. You cross your arms over your chest and hook trembling fingers under the hem of your crop top. Your stomach flips in a moment of nerves and anticipation, but you brush it aside, lifting your shirt clean over your head and dropping it to the couch. 

Akaashi’s fingers tighten on your waist, and you only have time to slide both hands into his hair before he leans forward and takes one nipple in his mouth. You gasp loudly, a quiet moan leaving you. He takes the other breast with one hand, sucking and dragging his teeth over one nipple while his thumb tweaks at the other. You moan louder, fingers tightening in his hair, and your thighs shake. You lose the strength to hold yourself up when, eyes shut and eyelashes fluttering prettily against his cheeks as he suckles you, he slides his hand blindly up your body and pushes his thumb against the seam of your lips.

Your knees give out, and you collapse into his lap with a breathy moan, the sound parting your lips and granting him the room to slide the pad of his thumb against the flat of your tongue. His head stays nestled against your chest, his ministrations never stopping, and you moan loud around his thumb – for the camera, because you realize suddenly that all that’s visible is your back and the supporting hand Akaashi has pressed to the center of your spine.

When the sound leaves you, admittedly a little performative, the rest of his fingers tighten around your jaw, and he releases your nipple from his mouth with a quiet pop. He lifts his head to meet your eyes, lips pink and wet, and he uses the thumb in your mouth and the fingers on your jaw to grip you, pulling you close.

“It’s annoying when you fake sounds like that,” he whispers, eyes hazy but piercing straight through yours. You stare back, your own eyes wide. He lifts a brow. “Understand?”

You nod back dumbly, and he pulls his thumb from your mouth. Both hands fall to your waist, and he mumbles ‘turn’ close to your ear. You let him turn you around, settling between his thighs with your back to his chest, your heart beating loud in your ears after the way he’d spoken to you.

“Do you need to fix the camera?” he murmurs against the shell of your ear, and you lean forward shakily, pulling the tripod closer and lowering it so only your mouth and below are showing. You relax your head against his shoulder, sighing nervously when he cups both breasts in his hands.

You arch your back a little dramatically, glad that he seems to realize that some things need to be performative, and spread your thighs, hooking them over each of his. He slides his hand up your chest and pushes the middle two fingers into your mouth. You wrap your lips around them, tongue swirling around the tips, and you hear his breath stutter in your ear. His hips push against your ass, and you realize with a rush of heat and a flip of your stomach that he’s properly hard now. 

You twist one of your arms behind your back and slide your palm against him carefully. He groans low against the side your head, pulling his fingers from your mouth. His hand falls to your pantyline, and he slips his fingers past while you’re distracted with touching him.

You jump when his wet fingers, cold from the air, make contact with your heated core. “Oh, my-” He swipes two tight circles over your clit before sliding his fingers through your folds, repeating the motion a few times – just the way you like it. 

He’d paid attention during that video last night, then.

“Mm,” you groan, feeling his middle finger push gently against your entrance. You grip him harder behind your back, and he shudders against you, his teeth grazing the tip of your ear.

“You’re really wet,” he breathes, teasing weakly. “How long’s it been, again? Three years?”

You arch your back, nearly distracted by the way he pushes his fingers through your folds. “Take your pants off, then. Let’s see how long you last.” 

You feel him grin against your ear, and that does something to the flip of your stomach and makes you twitch when he swipes the pads of his fingers over your clit. His free hand pushes at the lace of your panties.

“You first, princess,” he breathes, and you lift your hips in compliance. “Your viewers are gonna wanna see how you look with two of my fingers buried inside you.” 

Your heart explodes in your ears, and you go limp against his chest, your head turned and your face pressed to his neck when you moan weakly. He laughs quietly, jostling you and the million tiny needles pricking your skin as his comment sinks into you.

Akaashi gets your underwear off of you with very little help from you, and then he pries your thighs open with both hands, your whole body on display while he holds you, still fully clothed. “Shit,” he whispers to himself, fingers hooked behind your knees and pulling your legs open a little further. Your eyes flutter open, and you find his gaze flicking between the camera and your body, his lips parted as he looks down at you.

“Like what you see?” you whisper, pulling your arm out from behind your back and wincing when it aches. He adjusts you, sliding one arm around your waist and pulling you tight against him. The other lifts, the same fingers from before finding your mouth. You let him in, whining when you taste yourself on the pads of his fingers and shivering when he murmurs ‘there you go’ against your ear.

When his fingers find your core this time, all you can do is breathe out shakily and relax against him. He swipes twice and dips toward your entrance. You manage to keep the video in mind, arching your back and cupping your hands over your breasts, kneading and touching yourself for the camera. Akaashi nudges the tip of his middle finger past your entrance, and the moan that falls past your lips is breathless and shocked.

You purse your lips, your body trembling as it realizes that someone who’s not you is doing this. Akaashi pushes his lips to the crook of your neck and tries again, using two fingers to work you open carefully. Your breath is shallow and harsh in your chest by the time he gets both fingers inside you comfortably, his cock twitching against your back.

“God, you’re tight,” he breathes in your ear. The pads of his fingers brush up against the spongy spot that’s normally so hard for you to reach on your own. “You need to relax.”

“Trying,” you bite, breathing hard. “Your hands are a lot bigger than mi-mm-” You jerk when he starts to move, thrusting his fingers slowly and curling them inside you. “Fuck,” you breathe sharply, a rush of heat washing over you. He picks up the pace, flicking his wrist and snapping his palm against your skin. Your mouth falls open, breathy, high-pitched moans tumbling out with every push of his fingers into you, and your hips start to roll against his hand, entirely unconscious. You can’t remember the last time you’d gotten a stretch like this, and there’s a brief moment of insanity where you imagine calling Akaashi Keiji any time you need to get off.

It should be embarrassing, the way your body’s reacting, but your brain is full of static, and you can’t hear much aside from your own breathing and the low moans buried in Akaashi’s throat, quiet with each push of your core against his hand. He’s rocking his hips slightly against your ass, his fingers stalling and stuttering after a moment. He lets out a harsh breath on your skin, and you manage to crack your eyes open enough to see he’s got his eyes squeezed shut and his forehead pressed to the side of your head. His lips are parted, breath warm on your sweat-chilled skin, and, when your walls flutter around his fingers, his hips jerk against you, breath hitching on his inhale.

“Fuck,” he breathes to himself, his chest rising and falling faster now. “Fuck, fuck-” 

He reaches out blindly with his other hand, patting the couch frantically. You don’t have the energy to look, but the buzz of the vibrator coming close makes you whine. When it touches your skin, his fingers finding your clit with ease, your back arches and you cry out, the extra sensation too much.

“Oh, I’m- I’m gonna-”

Akaashi holds you tight, his lips brushing the shell of your ear as he whispers, “Come on, come on, come on, com-”

You gasp loud, twitching and jerking against him while you come around his fingers. There’s a warmth that spreads over your lower back, but you pay it no mind, your ears ringing too hard and your body shivering too much against him. 

Your hand clamps onto his wrist, pushing the vibrator just far enough away from your body that you can catch your breath. Heart thundering in your chest and throat, you focus on regaining control of your limbs, your fingers and toes numb.

You’re not sure how long you lie there, splayed open on Akaashi’s lap as you try to remember your own name, but you do shiver and whine when he pulls his fingers out of you slowly. He runs them through your folds one more time, the touch to your clit making you twitch against him again. He breathes a shaky laugh into your ear and rests his hand on your inner thigh, sighing quietly.

“How was that?” he asks roughly, his breath as unsteady as yours.

“Mhm,” you hum. “‘s good. Nice. Well done.” His laugh is delirious, and it draws your own spare breath into a tired chuckle. “Dude, I can’t feel my toes.”

He laughs harder. “I just came in my pants.”

“Is that what that was?” you ask, turning your head enough to look up at him. His cheeks are flushed a pretty red, and his eyes are glazed over slightly. You reach lazily behind you, fingers dipping into the wet warmth on your lower back. He gives a pained groan when you whisper ‘nice’ in a voice that’s horribly smug, and he scrubs the bottom of his shirt over your skin to wipe it away.

“I haven’t done that since I was a teenager,” he complains, dropping the vibrator on the couch and reaching for your panties. He helps you put them on, propping you up while you complain about being lifted. When you pull away from him, sitting up properly between his legs, he laughs down at himself. You look back, finding a wet spot on his sweats and his t-shirt stained with cum. 

He meets your eyes, ears burning. “You can’t give me head today. This is embarrassing.”

You laugh loudly, turning to reach for your phone and end the recording. “Okay, fine. You got off easy this time.”

“Yeah, you can say that again,” he mutters, and you drop your face to your hands, groaning. 

“Can we take a small break?” you ask. “I dunno if I can handle more right now.”

“Yeah, I should change anyway.” He climbs out from behind you, taking your coffee cup with him as he heads back to the main room. You pull your shirt back on and then stand on shaky legs, padding over to the bed for your cover-up. Sitting on the couch in your Bokuto-sized onesie and going through your phone, you send the video to the locked photo album in your camera roll and try to recover from the small shockwaves still sparking through your body.

Akaashi returns in fresh clothes a few minutes later, black jeans slung low on his hips and a white t-shirt hanging over the hook of his forearm. You realize, by the wet edges of his hairline and the few wet strands that hang over his eyes, that he’d washed his face and freshened up. You also realize, with a sneaky peek at his lean build, that you hadn’t been wrong about the physique he’s been hiding.

“Couple questions,” he asks, holding both cups of coffee as he makes his way to you carefully, the open pop-tart packs pinched precariously between his knuckles. You sit up, taking yours and thanking him quietly. He sits beside you, sipping happily at his fresh coffee and letting out a large sigh when he’s done. “First, when do you want to eat lunch? Because, by the time we’re done, I’m gonna be crabby again.”

You snort, checking your phone. It’s already 9:15, you realize with surprise.

“Oh. Well, if we keep this pace…” You blink a few times, thinking. “We could order around 11?”

“Between the desk scene and the bed scene?” He lifts his mug to his lips again, and you lift a brow.

“Why? You think it’ll only take thirty minutes to fuck me? Just in time for delivery?”

He coughs into the cup, splashing hot coffee all over his face. “Fuck-” He tosses his clean white shirt in your lap and wipes at his face with a wince. “That’s not what I meant-”

You bite your lip, laughing quietly. “Sure, we can order before the bed scene.”

“You’re such a-” He shakes his head, cleaning his hands on his jeans.

“A what?” you tease, leaning toward him with a smile. He leans toward you, too, his brows lifting. 

“A brat.” He leans away, leaving you with warm cheeks and a set of rapid blinks. “May I continue, or do you need more time to be annoying?”

“The floor is yours, Your Highness,” you say, picking at your pop-tart before leaving it on the little coffee table to your left.

He gestures to his jeans. “I put on a real outfit because I was thinking we could make it more… roleplay-ish.”

You hear his intended question. “I can find an outfit for that. What’s the vibe you’re going for?”

“I don’t really know. Something… spontaneous. Like you invited me over and things got out of hand, or something.”

You squint playfully at him. “I can’t tell if you read a lot of smut or watch a lot of porn.”

“I have an active mind.” He shrugs, rolling his eyes when you make fake gagging sounds.

“You want me in a school-girl skirt?” you joke, but he cuts a glance at you.

“You have one?” He laughs when you smack him on the arm. “I’m just saying – I’ve never seen it.”

You throw your hands up in exasperation. “When would you have seen it?!”

“We run the same circles!” he tries. “I see a lot of you on a daily basis.”

You groan, turning away from him and giving your coffee extra attention. “I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a schoolgirl miniskirt to Bokuto’s biweekly parties, Akaashi. Use that brain of yours.”

There’s a pause, and then he chuckles to himself. “Oh, I get it – I should have scrolled a little longer on your account last night.”

“You’re so irritating,” you say, standing. “Is that what I’m wearing? I need to change.”

“Let’s see it, then,” he says, waving a polite hand at the door.

You pad to your room, your head swimming slightly. It’s weird, you think as you search your closet – you’d spent an hour reveling in new discoveries of Akaashi Keiji, but the moment things had ended, you’d gone back to normal. Is it the continued absurdity? Is it some weird, twisted form of suspended disbelief – where, when the camera’s rolling, you’re allowed to forget who you are with him? And, when it’s done, you’re able to snap back to reality without issue?

And does he feel the same?

You choose an outfit while hyper-analyzing him, sliding on a matching bra-panty set while wondering if he’s thinking the same about you. Zipping your plaid miniskirt while considering if things would be this easy with Bokuto or Kuroo, or if things are easy because it’s Akaashi – because of that strange sense of detachment you’d noted before. Tying your hair up and tucking a white button-down into the skirt, the first three buttons undone, while secretly hoping that things continue to be this strange and simple.

You’re still messing with your hair by the time you head back to the spare room, and you barely notice the way Akaashi’s eyes go wide when he sees how short your skirt is.

“Okay, I see what you mean.”

“Oh, yeah?” you laugh. “Think I should wear this to the party tonight?”

“Sure, if you want to put on a live show.”

You roll your eyes, straightening your clothes. “Slutty schoolgirl enough for you?”

“Incredibly,” he says, standing and pulling his shirt over his head. “Shall we?”

You move the tripod toward the desk by the windows, setting your phone up so it’s level with your chest. “I think we should probably walk into frame if we’re going for roleplay.”

“Okay.” Akaashi stands at the open window nearest the desk, peering down to the ground level and then out across the way. You hadn’t lied about your balcony yesterday – your apartment doesn’t face the street, because your residential high-rise looks out to water. The nearest building this tall is across the river. Still, he glances at you. “Do you close these when you film here or leave them open?” You don’t answer, your face warming instead. His lips split in a knowing grin. “I see.”

“It’s not what you think-”

“So, you’re not an exhibitionist?”

“Not a big one!”

He turns away, backing out of frame and waiting for you next to the end of the bed. “I don’t know about the degrees of exhibitionism, but I’d say leaving your windows open while I eat you out is pretty up there. Freak.”

“Do you always have to talk?!” you snap, embarrassed and a little warm from the way he’d called you a freak. “Always talk, talk, talking. Some of us like our windows open, Akaashi. It’s not like anyone can actually see.” You press record angrily and stomp over to him. “You can never just shut the fuck up-”

His hand flies out, latching onto your waist and dragging you the rest of the way to him. You gasp, hands landing on his chest as he pulls you flush to him.

You’re no less unprepared for his mouth on your throat this time around. You stumble back, grabbing onto his t-shirt to keep yourself standing while he sucks on a spot under your ear.

“‘m I still talking too much?” he murmurs, walking you slowly into frame. You card your fingers through his hair and trust him to not let you fall on your ass.

“Always,” you breathe, that strange suspension of disbelief setting in when you bump against the desk and Akaashi slips his fingers around the backs of your thighs to hoist you up. You lean up, pressing your lips to his jaw and kissing carefully down the line of it. He tugs your shirt free of the skirt and undoes two of the buttons with one hand, the other hooked under your knee so he can slot his hips between yours. Then he nudges you away, taking over.

You let him touch you, his fingers fondling and groping your body while you lean back on your hands with a sigh. His mouth finds the hollow of your throat, teeth nipping at your collarbones while his hands slide your skirt under the curve of your ass. The material bunches at your waist, and he slips your panties off of you and throws them somewhere behind him. When he meets your eyes, you catch the glint in them.

“Maybe you should do something about that. Since you want to be a freak.”

You narrow a glare at him, heart skipping a beat when he says that stupid name. You let him pull your thighs open, and then you reach between for the button on his jeans. He lifts a brow, interest piqued, as you undo his pants and push them past his hips. You slide your palm against his boxers, smiling up at him when he sucks in a breath.

“You like that, baby?” you ask, your grin widening when he narrows his eyes. “Even though someone could see?” His cock jumps under your hand, and your eyebrows fly to your hairline. He has the decency to look embarrassed. “Oh?”

“Shut up,” he mumbles, knocking your hand away. You shrug it off, pushing that hand into his hair.

“Then say I’m not a freak,” you say, pulling tight. He doesn’t seem to mind it, but he does narrow a glare and an irritated grin at you.

“You’re not a freak, sweetheart,” he whispers, voice saccharine. “But you love it when I call you one.” He lifts his brows when you say nothing. “So what does that make you?”

You glower and push down on his head, and he drops to his knees with a snicker. You check the camera quickly, making sure that his face is hidden behind your thigh. Keeping your hand on the side of his head to provide more coverage, you try not to shiver when Akaashi presses his lips to the inside of your thigh. When he hooks both your legs over his shoulders and holds on tight, you whimper quietly.

And then the bickering and the nerves all fall away. The flat of his tongue presses to your core, and you make the mistake of looking at him with wide eyes. 

Akaashi’s eyes are a lot bluer when he’s got his face between your thighs.

You suck in a sharp inhale, legs trembling when he drags his tongue over your folds, slow and torturous. You’re unable to keep eye contact with him, a flush rising to your cheeks and your stomach flipping with nerves every time you glance down, because he’s staring right back at you.

Finally, he lets his eyes slide shut, his movements more intense now that he’s not focused on anything else. Your fingers shake in his hair, and your chest rises and falls with something akin to a live wire straight to the veins. Akaashi’s fingers tighten on the tops of your thighs, and he shuffles closer on his knees, his head bobbing as he slides his tongue, velvety and searing hot, through your folds before latching onto your clit.

“Oh, my God-” Your body twitches when he suckles gently, his lips soft around the nub. Your grip tightens on him, and your hips rock forward of their own accord. He follows your lead, finding his timing within the rhythmic cant of your body’s response, and soon, he has you gasping and moaning audibly. 

His glasses sit knocked askew and pushed up against his forehead the more certain he becomes between your thighs. You feel the cold metal on your skin and glance down blearily. A fresh wave of heat washes over you when you realize that they’re smeared with dewy drops of you, and you move them shakily off his face and set them beside you on the desk. Akaashi’s hands respond, sliding up and over your hips, reaching for you. He finds the last button on your shirt and undoes it with a flick of two fingers, and there’s something about the way he moves, skilled and smooth, that makes you shiver visibly in front of the camera.

One of Akaashi’s hands slides up your torso, and he cups your breast firmly through your bra, squeezing and twisting at your nipple until you start to squirm, a whine building in your throat.

“Too much,” you whisper, and he pulls his mouth away from you with a warm huff, his lips wet and glistening when he looks up at you.

“Color?” he murmurs, his breath sharp against your core with each ragged exhale.

You purse your lips. “Green.”

“Then stop complaining,” he says, already lowering his head again. When he pinches your nipple this time, it comes with the aid of the tip of his tongue, pushing carefully against your entrance.

“Holy shit,” you gasp, eyes wide and fingers tugging his hair tight enough to hurt. He pushes once more and then relents, sliding up to suck hard on your clit. You choke, your body arching and trembling against him when he lowers his head and tries again, slipping gently in this time and moaning against you when you squeeze your thighs around his head. He uses both hands to hold tight to your waist, grounding you against him and keeping you from wriggling too much while he fucks you with his tongue. Your skin burns with every drag of his tongue against your walls, and you reach the summit alarmingly fast. “Wait, wait, wait-” 

He slides out of you, and your chest bursts with air, gasps coming to you in choked breaths and shaking thighs. But then he leans up, wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking hard, his teeth brushing against the nub in a way that feels a lot like Akaashi putting his hand on your back and shoving you right off the cliff with no warning.

You scream, your head thrown back and your back arching painfully as you see stars. You feel a slight pain in the back of your head, but you don’t register that you’d hit your head on the wall until much later, when the stars are gone and your vision isn’t blacked out any longer. When all that’s left is the camera rolling and your fingers aching where they��re clenched in Akaashi’s hair.

He’s pressing kisses along your thighs slowly, thumbs rubbing circles into your hips. He glances up when your lungs finally relax, your breaths much longer and drawn out now as you find yourself again.

“You okay?” he mumbles against the inside of your knee, examining you through long, dark eyelashes. “You hit your head.”

You nod dumbly and meet his eyes, flames licking up your navel when you catch the thinly veiled heat in his expression. “It can’t be fair that I’ve come twice and you haven’t come at all.”

“I came once,” he reminds you quietly, the breath of his whisper seductive on your thigh. His lips brush over your skin, feather-light and wonderfully soft, and his tongue tracks the path of his mouth, too, warm and wet and drawing your breath short in your chest again. “But I wouldn’t mind taking you up on a second time.”

Your skin heats, the air buzzing in your ears and your heartbeat audible in the silence between you. You nod shallowly, your lips parted, and his eyes flit around your face, searching you. He must like whatever he finds, because he doesn’t respond. He only stands slowly and towers over you, his shirt pulled swiftly over his head and dropped on the desk next to his glasses. He leans down and wraps his arms around your waist, hoisting you up.

You gasp, wrapping yourself tight around him as he crosses the three steps to the bed, the tripod with your phone dangling between his knuckles. He sets it down on the end of the bed, and then he drops you unceremoniously on the mattress. You bounce lightly on it, staring up at him with wide eyes, and he nods at the camera.

“Need to set up?”

“O-Oh. Right-” You blink rapidly, crawling over to the edge and adjusting it quickly while he comes to stand at the side of the bed. You scoot back after, your head facing the top of the bed, and make sure you’re centered in the frame before looking up at him with wide eyes. You purse your lips, skin buzzing with anticipation. “Okay – ready.”

Akaashi lets his eyes roam your body – they land on your shirt, lying open uselessly on your shoulders and showing off your pretty, black bra. Then down to your skirt, bunched up against the tops of your thighs when your knees are bent like that. You do the same, shamelessly – drinking in his body, lean and lanky but muscular all the same. With those black jeans sitting so low on his hips that you can trace the dark trail of hair that disappears into his boxers, an invitation.

You take it, sitting up on your knees and reaching hesitantly for his unbuttoned jeans, your eyes on his. He says nothing, but his lips part when you hook your thumbs into his boxers and start to push them down.

“Shit,” he sighs under his breath when you get his pants down, his cock hard and smeared with precum. You inhale sharply, staring at the pretty curve of it – pretty like his long fingers and his warm lips and his piercing blue eyes. Pretty like the thumb he’d put in your mouth. You want to put this in your mouth, too – your mouth is already watering, funnily enough – but he’s already told you no.

So you settle for wrapping your fingers around him instead, satisfied with the quiet hiss he lets out. You stroke him a few times, twisting your wrist and running your thumb over the slit slowly, the way you’d seen him do it last night. He cards his fingers through your hair, holding loosely.

“How many times did you watch that video?” he asks quietly, the teasing edge in his voice lost to the breathless sigh he lets out after. “You’re doing it the way I like.”

That makes your heart swell with pride, and you can’t help the smile you give him, bright and giddy. “What can I say? I’m a fast learner.”

He chuckles back. “The academic uses her gifts for good.”

“You callin’ me smart, baby?”

He rolls his eyes, taking your chin between his fingers and tilting your head up. “How about you focus, huh? I’ll admit you’re smart when you get me off.”

You sit up a little straighter at that, pursing your lips and mimicking how he’d touched himself last night, flicking your wrist hard around the base and softening your touch at the tip. He swallows when you repeat the motion, his grip on your hair tightening, but he gives you nothing else, his eyes devoid of emotion otherwise. It spurs you on, targets the piece of you that seeks validation. He’d only given it to you once, but you’re eager to hear it again.

“How’s this?”

He just lifts his brows. “What’s wrong? Already need my approval?”

You scowl, returning to the task at hand. It doesn’t take long, not with the way the muscles in his abdomen keep tightening, or the way he’s breathing shallowly through his nose, or the way his hips start to push up to meet your fist halfway. No, it doesn’t take long at all.

But before you can get him off – before you can have the satisfaction of him swearing over you as he comes on your skin – he wraps a hand around your wrist, stopping you.

Your eyes fly up to his, alarmed and disappointed. “What?”

His cheeks are flushed, lips a little swollen from what you can only guess is biting, but he just moves your hand and reaches down to remove his pants. “Lie down. Shirt off.”

You strip from the button-down and toss it uncaringly off the edge, scrambling back to where you were before and leaning back on your elbows with growing anticipation. Your stomach flips when he starts to climb over you, his eyes searching yours. There’s a glint in his eye that seems to signal that he’s processing this, too – that you’re about to have sex. That, out of everyone – out of everyone you actually like – you had decided to come to the one person you don’t like. To the one person you hate most days, because of the way he is and the way he treats you.

But it’s the way he is and the way he treats you that had made him perfect for this.

So, out of everyone, it’s Akaashi Keiji that you’re getting into bed with.

Your tongue darts out when he settles between your legs, your skirt falling up to your hips when your thighs open for him. He glances back and checks the camera frame once before leaning down over you. His brow is furrowed as he slides his cock through your folds, his Adam’s apple bobbing when he feels you. He pushes his hips forward once, twice, and then re-angles himself on the third, his fingers lining the head of his cock up against your entrance.

You watch him when he finally slides into you, the rest of the world lost in a dull buzz that fill your brain.

When he nudges the tip past your entrance, gliding slowly past your walls, his chest rises and falls with the breaths he’s keeping trapped inside, but he’s short of breath nonetheless. His skin is radiating warmth in that way that you find pretty, just like the rest of him, and his eyes are dark when they meet yours. His eyebrows twitch the further he sinks into you, and his lips – pink and wet and pretty – are parting as he bottoms out, and he lets out a soft sigh.

The dull buzz is cleared away like smoke, and you realize there’s a needy moaning echoing in the room, one that can only be coming from you.

“Oh, my God,” you cry, falling back on the mattress when he starts to thrust into you. “Oh, my God, holy shit-” Your heart is pounding hard in your ears and throat and veins, and you’re caught between wanting to claw at the comforter desperately and wanting to hide your face behind your hands.

Akaashi drops down over you, caging you in with one arm as the other bends back, his hand tight on the underside of your thigh as he picks up his pace. You gasp, unable to find enough air in the room to fill your lungs. One of your hands finds his wrist by your head, clamping on tight, and the other smacks down over your eyes – you can’t look at him, not when you’re like this. Not when you’re sweating and breathless, not when your stomach is fluttering with some unfamiliar mix of nerves and desire with every bump of his hips against yours.

Not when you’re realizing that no one else has ever made you feel this way before.

“Look at me, princess,” he grunts, and your stomach flips at the ragged sway of his voice. 

“I-fuck – I can’t-” you whine, but the sound catches in your throat when he angles his hips and the head of his cock smacks right up against your g-spot. You gasp loud, your grip on his wrist tightening with all your strength. “Oh, my God-please-” 

“There?” he asks quietly, and he drives his hips forward at that angle once more. You cry out when he hits it again, but then he stops.

He stops, just hovering over you silently.

The hand on your face drops in shock, and you stare up at him. “What-”

“I told you to look at me.”

“You-” You want to smack him so badly. “You can’t just stop-”

“Can’t I?” He tilts his head, eyes filling with disinterest, despite the breathy quality of his voice. “You weren’t listening to me.”

You remember now, the things he’d said yesterday.

‘Is it alright if I’m a little mean?’

Fuck.

“Uh-fuck,” you laugh pitifully. “Fuck. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.” Your chest starts to fill with a strange feeling, a clawing that reaches for your throat when he only stares, dissatisfied. He doesn’t seem happy with you, and – for every piece of you that doesn’t give a fuck what Akaashi Keiji thinks in any other situation – there’s a panic that’s starting to swirl in you at this very moment. “I’m sorry, please don’t stop-”

He draws his hips back, and the panic forms into a knot all at once when you realize he’s pulling out.

“No, no, no-” You dig your nails into his shoulders, keeping him close and staring up at him with wide, terrified eyes. “No, please, I really am sorry.” The clawing in your throat starts to burn, and your eyes sting at the thought that he’s decidedly finished with you. There’s a rational part of your brain that knows he isn’t. He can’t be. You’re still filming. But the part of you that’s very rapidly become addicted to the feeling of Akaashi fucking you is panicking hard enough to make tears fill your eyes.

His cock twitches inside you when you start to sniffle, and the word ‘dacryphilia’ floats through your brain, the ghost of a memory.

If he wants you to cry, you’ll cry.

“Please, baby,” you murmur, your head falling back on the mattress and your nails clinging to him. You let yourself sink into that panic and your vision blurs, the tears hot and embarrassing as they stream down the sides of your cheeks onto the bed. “Please don’t stop.” 

You don’t see his reaction when you give in to him, but you hear his shaky breath. And you certainly feel when he relents, because he’s pushing slowly back into you. You find yourself whispering ‘yes, yes, yes’ as he’s coming back to you, and the tightness in your throat starts to loosen.

“You gonna listen?” he murmurs, and you nod again. “Because I’ll stop. I’m fine either way.”

He’s bluffing, your brain tries to tell you, but fresh tears are burning your eyes and you’re choking on the lump that’s reforming at the base of your throat. He can’t stop, he can’t. You don’t know what you’ll do if he stops.

“Please, don’t-” you sob, shaking your head. “I swear I’ll listen.” 

Your heart jumps when the mattress dips by your head again as he cages you in. When his other hand finds the underside of your thigh again, the bruises his grip had left the first time ache as his fingers fill those prints once more. He leans down toward you, and you blink through the tears just enough to meet his eyes.

“Cover your mouth,” he whispers, staring down at you with a dangerous glint in his eye. You’re quick to slap your hands over your mouth, terrified of taking too long and testing his patience. He doesn’t smile at your obedience or give you any visual signal of satisfaction, but his eyes do trace your face meaningfully. “Well, if you’re gonna be that good for me, I guess I can let you have it.”

He thrusts his hips forward sharply before you have any time to process what he means. You scream, your back arching when he slams up against your g-spot, and you’re distantly grateful that he’s minding the noise limits on your apartment while he decidedly fucks you into oblivion. He keeps that pace and that angle, and his head drops down beside yours as he does.

“Let’s make a deal,” he says, breathless and rough in your ear. “You listen to me when I talk to you, and I’ll abuse your tight little cunt as much as you want.” Your eyes roll into the back of your head, your body starting to go numb as the pressure builds in your navel for the third time in one morning. “Sound good?” he whispers, swallowing hard after. You nod frantically, and his panting becomes audible in your ear. “Fuck, I’m close. Where should I-” He starts to pull his hips away, but your hands fly off of your mouth and grip hard on his biceps.

“If you pull out right now, I’m going to fucking kill you,” you say, staring straight into his eyes. Your eyes burn, and you’re sticky and warm, and you know you look like a mess, but you keep your eyes directly on his. “We just made a deal.”

He stares, wide-eyed, and then breathes out a laugh. “Okay. I hear you.” When his hips touch yours again, it comes with him dropping down to his elbow and carding his fingers through your hair tight. “But I want you looking at me.”

You’re surprised by that, because it feels oddly intimate for him to chase an orgasm while looking into your eyes – but then he finds that special pace and angle, and you can’t think of anything but giving him what he wants, just so he doesn’t take away what you want. 

You look right into those blue-green eyes as your navel curls and twists, despite every urge to let your eyes roll back and your mouth hang open. You slide your arms around his neck and look into his eyes, clinging tight as he takes full control of your body – prying you open and kissing that particular spot inside you that no one else has ever found before. You look into his eyes up until the very moment you find that summit, the morning light golden and warm and blinding. You find him there, too.

You won’t realize it for a long, long time, but something slides into place and locks tight when your body registers that the last thing you see before falling off the edge is the dark cyan of Akaashi Keiji’s eyes. When it registers that the last thing that he sees – before his eyes roll back and his forehead drops to yours, his hips stuttering and stalling as he fills you – is you.

You think you might have fallen asleep in that spot, because you’re not sure if it’s been minutes or hours since you moved. Your body trembles under him, and you feel him starting to release you achingly slow – his elbow cracks when he lifts off of it, and his breath is taxed and heavy while he pulls out of you. He holds you like that for a minute, just long enough for the creampie to be visible to the camera, and then he sets your thigh down gently. But you whine anyway, because there’s a horrible soreness that’s starting to set into your muscles and bones.

“Shit,” he whispers. “That was-”

You let out a weak laugh, immediately groaning at how it rattles your body. “This Chinese food is going to be the most glorious meal I’ve ever earned.”

He laughs back, that delirious one that comes when he’s struggling to find himself. “I forgot to order it between the desk and the bed.”

“I don’t think we would have made the thirty-minute deadline.”

He laughs harder, collapsing back down on his elbows. “God, I think I’m dying. I don’t know if I have the stamina to be a porn star.”

You groan, planting both hands on his chest and pushing him slowly off of you. He hits the mattress beside you with a sigh, and you curl up in place. “This was hard. I’m tired.”

“There’s no time to be tired. It’s already-” He sits up slowly, reaching for your phone to end the video and check the time. “-noon, apparently.”

“Noon?!” You dig the heels of your hands into your eyes. “Four hours, holy shit.”

“I need food,” Akaashi mumbles to himself, rising off the bed with a groan and searching the floor for his boxers. He finds and trips into them on his way to the door, muttering ‘phone, need my phone’ as he goes. You roll off the side of the bed unceremoniously, swiping your shirt and underwear off of the rug and slipping them back on.

“We were supposed to change,” he calls from the other room. “You’re a slutty schoolgirl in two videos.”

“I don’t care,” you whine, stumbling back into bed and lying flat on your face, your voice muffled. “Let me be a slutty schoolgirl, fuck.”

“Do you still have your pop-tart?” he asks, back in the room and completely ignoring your complaints. “What do you want for takeout?” You hear him snatch the plastic package off the little coffee table by the couch. “I’m eating your pop-tart-”

“Oh, my God, Akaashi, just eat the fucking pop-tart,” you snap, growing crabby. There’s silence, and then he flops down on the bed beside you. 

“Maybe you should eat the pop-tart.”

A laugh bubbles and bursts in your throat, and you start to giggle uncontrollably. “What the fuck did we just do?”

“Burn a lot of calories,” he jokes through a mouth full of your strawberry pop-tart. You turn your head toward him, watching as, half-naked beside you, he scrolls through the delivery menu of the nearest Chinese takeout place. “I’m getting kung pao chicken.”

“Ew.” You wrinkle your nose. “Peanuts.”

He looks at you in confusion. “You’re allergic to peanuts?”

“No. I just don’t like them.”

“Oh,” he grumbles, turning back to his phone. “That’s stupid.”

“You’re stupid-”

He flaps the silvery plastic of the pop-tart in your face. “Eat this and tell me what you want before I get double kung pao-”

You snatch the stupid pastry away from him, watching him lift his hand in defeat and whisper ‘okay, crabass’ as you stuff your mouth with sugary nothingness. “I want beef and broccoli.”

He grimaces. “Boring.”

“Get out of my house, Akaashi-”

“I got it, look-” He brandishes the screen at you, showing your food in the online cart. “What else?”

“Egg rolls. Crab rangoon. Maybe some pot-stickers, too-”

“You’re just trying to spend my money,” he complains, adding it all anyway.

“We’ll make it back soon enough.”

He meets your eyes, and you both seem to re-realize how you’ve just spent a full Saturday morning. It settles in then, the arrangement you’ve made with Akaashi Keiji. Saturday mornings and weekday evenings, a suspended disbelief that you’ll never be able to explain to your friends. Pop-tarts in your slutty schoolgirl skirt, Chinese food in his boxers. A series of life experiences that can never leave this apartment, shared with the singular person you’d tried so long to keep out of your life entirely.

Akaashi blinks, and you blink back, infinite realizations passing by all at once.

He turns his head back to his phone. “Fried or steamed pot-stickers?”

You turn your face back into the mattress, your voice muffled. “Fried.”

–

While the food’s on its way, you leave Akaashi to wash up in your bathroom. You disappear into your bedroom and change, hearing when the sink stops running and the door opens. 

“In here,” you call, pulling your hair back as you head to your desk that’s pushed against the wall shared with the living room. He appears in the doorway in a pair of athletic shorts and a hoodie, his hair and face damp and his glasses a little foggy from the moisture on his skin. 

“Should be ten more minutes,” he says, checking his phone. And then he glances around your room in a way that appears casual, but you can tell he’s curious. 

“You can come in,” you joke, waving him in. You take a seat at your desk, shaking the mouse attached to your monitor to wake the computer up. “I’m gonna give you account access now before I forget.”

He hums, wandering your room slowly and taking it all in. The photos of your friends on top of your dresser, the plushies on your bed that would be embarrassing to show anyone that’s not him. The bookshelf in the corner, filled with fun novels and academic textbooks alike. 

“I have a few of these,” he murmurs, crouching and thumbing through the volumes. You smile to yourself, logging into your account while you respond.

“The smutty romance novels? No wonder you’re such a creative porn star.”

“You’re funny,” he says, not an ounce of humor in his voice. “You’re missing the Cambridge handbook on Korean morphosyntax.”

“‘s here,” you nod at the small pile of books on your desk, spines facing outward. “I keep the best ones close.” You hear him approach behind you, your eyes busy locating his own account and inviting him as a collaborator. 

But then his hand reaches past your head, and you realize with a drop of your stomach that he’s plucking a paper off the top of a pile that you keep next to your books.

A paper with his name on it, published in Syntax last year, on Korean case marking. It’s full of pen, highlighter, and sticky tabs – your thoughts on his work.

“Oh?” he says, his voice dreadfully smug. “You keep the best ones close, you said?”

“Shut up,” you say, shaking your head. “Research is research-”

“Good research gets cited. You gonna cite me, Y/n?”

“I’m sure you’re no stranger to good research, Akaashi Keiji. I’d be stupid not to.”

“So-” He steps closer, and your lift your eyes to his reluctantly. He looks excited. “-you’re including the case marking, then? In the dissertation.”

You roll your eyes. “Would you like me to say ‘thank you, Akaashi, oh Brilliant One’?” 

He lifts his brows with a smirk. “Yes, actually. I would.”

“Kiss my ass,” you say with a laugh, shaking your head and returning to the task at hand. “Now that I don’t have to find a second job, I might actually have the time to include it.”

“You would have made the time anyway,” he says confidently, and you give an exhausted sigh.

“Okay, I gave you access. Can we-” You stand, snatching the paper back and dropping it on the pile. “-exit the research chat, please?”

“Why?” he prods, following you out the room. “Worried I’ll make good points without our referee around to keep me in check?”

“The fact that you need to be kept in check in the first place is a bad sign.” You flop down on the couch with a sigh, and he follows. “You’re so abrasive.”

“Being gentle doesn’t get you published,” he argues, and you snap back quick.

“Shockingly, I still managed it.”

“You got published?” He lifts his brows, turning to you with interest. “Where? When?”

You sigh. “Language and Cognition,” you mutter, watching his eyes go slightly wide before flattening out again. “End of the month.”

“Holy shit,” he says, nodding and looking away. “Language and Cognition. That’s top-shelf stuff.” You think that might be a compliment. The first he’s ever paid you. “It’s about time.”

The compliment is magically negated.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You say, heated.

“Nothing!” he laughs, shaking his head. “I wasn’t trying to be mean.”

“You’re saying it took me a long time to publish-”

“Considering your skillset,” he argues pointedly. “Yes. I’d say I’m surprised it took this long.”

“Are you insulting me or complimenting me?” You throw your hands out. “Choose, Akaashi.”

“Don’t wanna,” he says childishly, smiling in a way that’s intentionally irritating. You scoff, but his phone pings with the delivery notification before you can pick a fight. He stands, disappearing out the door to get it, and you take a long, deep breath to relax yourself. You turn the TV on, flicking through the options before landing on the nature channel.

He slips back in after a few minutes, bag dangling from his fingers. “What are we watching?”

“Squirrels fighting for their territory,” you say, completely entranced by the action happening on the screen.

“Seriously?” he asks, stopping by the couch briefly to look at the TV. 

“Look at them go,” you whisper in amazement, shaking your head as you watch two squirrels positively tear each other apart.

“Are you in the habit of watching the nature channel?” He wanders to the kitchen while he asks, and you let him struggle to find bowls and unpack the food.

“Every night,” you say, distracted. “Relaxes my brain.”

“God, you’re insane,” he mumbles from across the room.

“Well, what do you do to relax?” you ask. There’s silence in the kitchen, and your attention’s torn from the screen as you look over your shoulder at him. He’s frowning slightly down at the food while he serves it, and you grin smugly. “Oh, I get it. The stick in your ass is there for a reason.”

“Fuck off,” he breathes with a shake of his head. He carries both plates to the couch, handing you one and staring with skepticism at the TV. “We’re really watching this?”

“Look how that one stands on his hind legs and asserts his dominance!” you exclaim, pointing excitedly at the TV before stuffing your mouth full of beef and broccoli. “The other one’s totally gotta give up his acorns now.”

Akaashi sighs, digging into his food with a shake of his head. “Squirrel social dynamics and Chinese food. My Saturday morning.”

You eat in relative silence, the only comments coming from your enthusiasm about nature and his quiet, exasperated laughter. Finally, he sighs, setting his empty plate on the coffee table.

“I should go.”

You nod, reaching to mute the TV. “I gotta edit these videos and draft one to post tonight. What time’s the party?”

“Starts at 9,” he says, standing slowly. You purse your lips, realizing that you’ll have to see him again today – in public, where you’ll have to pretend you hadn’t spent the morning together. 

“Okay.” You nod. “See you then.”

There’s a moment of silence, where he seems to realize the same thing you had, and then he just nods, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Kay. See ya.”

The apartment echoes with the click of the door behind him.

You stare at it, feeling a bit weird, as though the entire affair is finally starting to crash down over you now that he’s gone. Your phone buzzes on the table, and you shake off the feeling, snatching it up. Your heart beats a strange little rhythm at the sight of his name.

[1:24 PM]

Akaashi: dont forget to cover your hickies tonight

“What?” You stand, padding to the bathroom quickly. The reflection in the mirror is horrid, your throat already bruising on both sides. “This motherfu-”

You: youre such a dick.

He sends back a shrugging emoji and nothing else, and you move around the apartment with a little more stomp than usual, minimally annoyed as you clean up the tables and put the leftovers away before returning to your desk to edit the videos.

–

Keiji arrives at Bokuto’s townhouse at 9 o’clock on the dot, knocking quietly. It’s Tsukishima who opens the door, just lifting his brows in greeting before leading him back through the living room. There’s no one else here, and Bokuto is filling bowls with chips in the kitchen.

“Hey!” he calls excitedly. “I’m so ready to be trashed!”

Keiji sets two handles of vodka and a case of Coke on the counter. “In a good way or a bad way?”

“Good, of course! Life is good!” The kinesiology student starts organizing the bowls by color, smiling to himself while he talks. “Research is good, friends are good, life is good!”

There’s a knock on the door, and Keiji’s heart jumps without his permission. He glances at the new arrivals that enter when the host yells ‘it’s open!’, and he’s oddly disappointed to see it’s just some of the people in Bokuto’s cohort.

Tsukishima dims the lights in the main room and connects his phone to the speaker, and Bokuto starts to dance while he chats up his friends and preps the kitchen with more food. Keiji stands off to the side, pouring himself a drink and nodding politely when a guy he recognizes greets him.

Thirty minutes go by like that, with Keiji standing in sight of the door and glancing up, a little nervous, every time it opens. He doesn’t know why he feels this way, but he does know it’s your fault.

He’d felt it when you’d texted him a couple hours ago, too – it was only to let him know that the video for tonight had been edited, but he’d still gotten a strange twinge of anxiety when your name had popped up on his phone. He had watched the video back, impressed at how you’d edited the tattoos out and muffled both your voices – creating what’s essentially a quiet, faceless video with only your moans to show for his performance. He’d also refrained from watching the video in too much detail, because even just skimming through it, he’d felt renewed desire stream through his veins.

He wonders if it would be too much to go back and watch it later tonight, when he has too much alcohol in his system to worry if it’s weird.

Tsukishima finds him again after a while, lingering with him in the corner. “Research?”

“‘s good,” Keiji says, lifting his drink to his lips – the second in half an hour. “Finally started writing the dissertation chapters. Should be done next year.”

“God, I’m jealous,” the blond laughs quietly. “With working at the museum, everything takes twice as long for me.”

Keiji hates that his first thought is you – that that could have been you, too. “Did your advisor tell you when you’re s’posed t’finish?” He should slow down. Water, maybe.

“Two years,” Tsukishima groans, emptying his cup and then reaching for the vodka again.

“That’s what Kuroo has left, too.”

The blond shoots him a side glance. “So?” Keiji sees the tinge of pink at the tips of his ears, so he shrugs.

“Just an observation.” The door opens behind Tsukishima, and his eyes flit to it, just over the blond’s shoulder. 

It’s a couple he doesn’t recognize, but Bokuto clearly does, his ‘hey, hey, hey!’ audible from here.

“Who are you lookin’ for?” Tsukishima dips his head into Keiji’s way, an eyebrow arched and his words slower than usual from the alcohol. “You keep doin’ that.”

Keiji blinks and clears his throat. “No one. It just-” The door opens again, and you walk through it with Kuroo and Yachi. Keiji’s throat dries up. “-catches my attention.”

Tsukishima glances back, but if he notices that you’re clearly what Keiji had been waiting for, he doesn’t say anything. He just whips his head back around, swallowing hard and taking an aggressive swig of his drink.

God bless Kuroo Tetsurou.

Keiji watches you greet Bokuto and some of his friends, your smile wide and your hugs generous. His eyes scan you carefully. You’re wearing a pair of black jeans that hugs you in all the right places – places he knows now – and red long-sleeve shirt with a v-cut so low that his mouth waters slightly. You’d covered the bruises on your throat, and there’s a piece of him – small but troublesome – that’s a little dissatisfied to see the skin smooth and mark-free. Especially with the way you giggle at something Bokuto says, the taller man smiling down at you and holding your waist in a friendly way. Keiji swallows and brushes that odd little feeling away.

His heart flips over itself when you turn in his general direction, and he’s quick to turn back to Tsukishima, blinking rapidly. He feels weird – he wants you to notice him there, wants you to say something to him, even though you’d both agreed not to act any different. You’ve never spoken to him at these parties unless absolutely necessary, so he shouldn’t be wishing for anything of the sort. 

But he wants to know that you feel weird, too. That you want his attention, too. That you don’t know why, either.

“So,” he clears his throat, getting the history student’s attention. “The museum. Have they gotten back to you about the full-time position?”

“Not explicitly,” Tsukishima responds, seeming equally grateful for the distraction. “But they basically said it’s mine whenever I’m done.”

“That’s good. Makes things a little less stressful,” Keiji says, pointedly looking down into his cup, because he feels you behind him, passing by. Your perfume makes his nostrils flare, and a shiver – traitorous and laced with want – runs down his spine. 

“Hey, Tsukishima,” you say, brushing past the taller man. “Good weekend so far?”

The blond nods. “A little pissed to get a 2am text of Bokuto screaming, but otherwise, yeah.”

You laugh gently, and Keiji’s skin floods with goosebumps. He looks at you without meaning to, and a white-hot heat sears through his stomach, because you’re already looking back. You don’t greet him or betray any visible emotion when he makes eye contact, but he sees your breathing change, and there’s a warmth that makes your skin glow in the dim light. 

You’re nervous. He’s making you nervous.

And that’s a dangerous little piece of information for him to have access to.

“Y/n,” he says, rolling your name around on his tongue like he’s tasting it for the first time. He’s glad that Tsukishima’s distractedly looking over his shoulder at Kuroo, because he doesn’t see the way your breath catches or the way your spine straightens.

“Akaashi.” It’s weak, and your voice wavers on the last syllable, cutting out and filling with the breath that you draw in sharply. His body hums when he hears it, and the urge to hear it again – the urge to witness your poorly concealed emotions – grows to the point of being unbearable.

He wants to make you nervous.

“Get started on those case marking materials yet?” He’s careful to reference the LEM meeting only, not the things you’d talked about this morning. Still, it makes you swallow, and you pluck a red solo cup from the stack before reaching for the vodka. 

“Do you really want to talk about research here?” you ask, mixing it with some of the orange juice that Yachi had dropped off a few minutes ago.

“Why not?” he says. “Tsukishima and I are.”

You level a grin at the blond, who’s tuned back in at the sound of his name. “Don’t you want a night off, Tsukishima?”

Keiji doesn’t hear what his friend’s answer is. He’s too busy dragging his gaze slowly down the length of your body while the taller man’s talking to you. You shift slightly, and his eyes find yours. You’re flitting your gaze between his and Tsukishima’s, trying to stay engaged with the conversation but also clearly distracted. Keiji just stares, his eyes unyielding on yours whenever you meet them. You drink urgently from your cup, chugging until it’s empty and then reaching back to make another, a grimace tugging on your lips.

He looks away, because he can hear Bokuto storming into the kitchen.

“Hey, my favorite pals!” He slings his arms around Keiji’s and Tsukishima’s shoulders, and Keiji tips forward into you. You yelp, barely managing to steady your drink on the counter. He slips his arm around your waist to catch himself – definitely not for any other reason – and he hears you gasp in his ear at the contact. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, head swimming with alcohol.

“No, you’re not,” you whisper back heatedly. But Keiji can feel you leaning into him, too, your fingers brushing on his arm. 

It fills his chest with a giddy excitement – the realization that you can’t help yourself, either. 

He decides in that moment – in the mere milliseconds where Bokuto’s straightening and exclaiming in Tsukishima’s ear that the friend group should collect by the couches in the living room, the two of you completely unnoticed – that he doesn’t want to stop doing this. He doesn’t want to stop provoking you, even though he very well should. Because he can see that you don’t want it to stop, either. Because you’re searching him with wide eyes and the kind of attention that he could get high off of.

Because, in a single morning alone, Keiji’s learned to recognize when you’re turned on. 

The flush of your cheeks and the tug of your bottom lip between your teeth. The way you hug yourself, like you’re worried you might do something with those hands if you don’t. The uneven pattern of your breathing, your chest rising and falling with attempted recovery.

God, he thinks he’s turned on, too.

He swallows, leaning away and letting Bokuto sweep the three of you away into the living room. You’re still pressed to his side unwillingly, your body heat making him shiver with excitement – you smell the way you did this morning, like warmth and the laundry detergent of the sheets he’d fucked you into. Like the memory of your tears and the way you’d begged him not to stop, the memory of your walls fluttering around him and the way your back had arched when you’d come–

He scrubs drunkenly at his scrunched eyebrows, stumbling to wherever Bokuto had guided him and throwing himself down on the couch. Even with his eyes closed, he knows that the body that lands next to him is yours.

When he opens his eyes, the world a little blurry and tilted, Kuroo and Yachi have joined the group – Hitoka’s on his other side, and Bokuto’s taken the armchair, Tsukishima and Kuroo sitting awfully close together on the floor. It always happens this way – the group of you always end up in your own corner, the rest of the party carrying on without the host needing to entertain. The music is always thumping just loud enough that everyone has to raise their voices to be heard, but it’s never annoying. Never too much, never overwhelming. It’s why all these people always come back – Bokuto Koutarou’s parties are always the perfect escape.

He’s starting to understand why, tonight.

The night goes on like any other. Yachi rambles about her current dissertation progress, clearly excited to talk about her graphic design and marketing ideas. Bokuto engages her excitedly, asking if she could help him make some recruitment flyers for the volleyball class he’ll be teaching next semester. Kuroo whispers things to Tsukishima, the smirk on his lips pressed to the blond’s ear and Tsukishima’s cheeks burning with a cherry-red blush.

Which leaves Keiji with you. Surrounded by friends who are much too drunk and distracted to care what he does.

So he settles into the couch, spreading his legs to get comfortable – at least, that’s what it looks like. No one questions why he never intrudes on Yachi’s space, why he angles his body toward yours, why his knee bumps yours and then stays there. No one asks why you suddenly look nervous or why you silently decide to let his thigh press against yours. Why your own thigh, radiating gentle warmth, presses back after a moment – although it’d be completely in character for you to make some snappish remark about respecting personal space. 

No one asks why your fingers twitch on your leg, your pinky brushing up against his leg, stretching toward him and then retracting.

No one asks about the slight bulge in his jeans. Or the arm he stretches across the back of the couch – in your direction, not Yachi’s.

Your breath catches, and you lift your cup to your mouth quickly. “Cut it out,” you hiss, hidden, and he smiles down at nothing.

“‘m not doing anything,” he breathes back, unheard over the music.

“Bullshit.” 

He laughs softly, but he knows you’re right. So he extracts himself, standing carefully and pointing in explanation toward the hall when Bokuto looks up at him curiously. He pushes through the crowd, rounding the corner and taking the stairs up to the second floor. The music is quieter here, and he knows that no one else would venture this far – because everyone knows Bokuto, but no one knows Bokuto. Not like the group of you.

He disappears into the bathroom by Bokuto’s bedroom, clean and uncrowded. His phone screen reads 11:08 when he checks it – endless parties just like this, and tonight, he’s barely managing an hour and a half in the same room as you. He stares at his reflection in the mirror, breathing deep. His vision’s still a little blurry, and his head is still swimming. His cheeks are flushed, and his eyes are heated, betraying how you’re affecting him. 

He fixes himself in his jeans so it’s a little less obvious and then runs his fingers through his hair with a sigh. Now that he’s alone, he can see that he definitely needs to sober up a bit. He needs to act right, because he knows the stakes are high. His brain feels clearer, and it’s sinking in that he’s pushing the line with you. That there’s something about you – something about this morning – that makes him want to forget the rules, when he really shouldn’t.

Maybe he’s just too drunk. Maybe he’ll be better about this when he’s sober.

The memory of you crying under him flashes in his mind, and he has to shake his head, leaning his hands on the counter. Maybe those memories won’t come when he’s in control enough to stop them. He has to hope that they won’t, because right now, his mental faculties aren’t listening to him.

Right now, he’s thinking about how you’d squirmed in his lap when he’d fingered you. About how your head had knocked back lightly against the wall when you’d come on his tongue, sweet and warm and wet enough to make him just a little bit obsessed with you. About how you’d looked up at him with wide eyes while you’d jerked him off, asking if you were doing okay. Asking for his approval. 

Keiji’s breath comes hard now, and he shakes his head again in a weak attempt to clear it.

The way you’d moaned like a proper porn star when he’d pushed into you for the first time.

The way you’d felt around him, velvety and tight and like no one he’d ever been with before you.

The way you’d clung to him, desperate and scared when he’d threatened to pull away – pleas on those plush, pink lips and tears in those pretty little eyes. Bullying him rudely to his orgasm.

“Fuck,” he breathes. He needs to get it together.

He thumps himself lightly on the head a few times with the heel of his hand, silently begging his boner to go away as he turns to leave the bathroom.

You’re standing on the other side of the door, a frown on your face as you lean against the wall.

Fuck.

“What’re you up to, Akaashi?” you demand drunkenly, your lips pushing out in a whiny pout that makes his cock twitch in his jeans.

Fuck.

“What?” he says, trying to slip past you toward the stairs. You get in his way.

“We decided t’be normal,” you slur, stepping close to him. Your perfume clouds his brain. “You’re not bein’ normal.”

Your chest bumps against his when he tries to move past again, and he finds his hands on your waist before he can think it through.

“And you decided t’follow me up here,” he breathes tightly, walking you back quickly into the wall. Your eyes go wide when your back bumps against it, but the gasp that falls past your lips is because he’s pushing his hips against yours, still half-hard. “You did this.”

“I didn’t-I haven’ done anything,” you try, glancing down in hazy surprise at where he’s pressed against you. “You’re the one who keeps touchin’ me and– and teasing me.”

“Yeah? Is it fucking with you?” he coos, mocking. “Welcome t’the club.”

Your eyes search his. “'Kaashi,” you whisper, slurred. His eyes drop to your lips.

He doesn’t like it when you say his name like that. Soft and pleading. 

It makes him want to do terrible things to you.

“Careful, Y/n.”

He doesn’t mean to say it like that. He’s actually asking you to be careful, because he’s not in his right mind and you’re making it worse. You’re making everything worse, and he’s more than happy to blame this on you. But the way it comes out – the way he talks to you – is with a tone he knows better than to use outside the bedroom.

He watches the tension leave your body, and you start to blink up at him rapidly, your face burning and radiating heat into the very limited space between you. He watches your demeanor change – watches you swallow nervously and break eye contact, watches you purse your lips and breathe shallowly – and something in him aches for you.

For the first time all day, he regrets sleeping with you. Because now he’s not sure he can ever recover.

“Uhm,” you start, voice shaky. “Maybe we should go back-”

“Akaashi! Y/n!” 

You gasp, and your hands find his chest. You shove hard, and he stumbles back toward the opposite wall with wide eyes. You both turn toward the stairs, watching Bokuto trip and fall up the last few steps. He looks down the hall with wide eyes, giggling loudly when he sees you.

“There you are!” And then he narrows his gaze at you dramatically, examining the situation as he stands. “Oh, no-” He pouts, crossing his arms. “Are you two fighting? This is a party! We’re with friends!”

Keiji sobers instantly, eyes flying to yours as the reality of the night hits him. As he realizes how close you’d come to getting caught, and on the very first day at that. You look just as alarmed as he feels. He doesn’t know how he could ever have explained what’s just happened to anyone else. How things had gotten that far.

He turns without a word and brushes past Bokuto. He barrels down the stairs, ignoring Bokuto’s cry of ‘eh?! where’s he going?!’ and heading straight for the door. It slams behind him, and he races out of the building and toward the street.

He swears loudly on the entire walk home.

–

It isn’t until noon on Sunday that you wake up, groggy and disoriented. You slap your hand around on your bed blindly for your phone, the sunlight that’s streaming through the window making the room feel hot and making you groan. You retrieve your phone from the depths of your bed, squinting at it with a growing headache and a serious case of dry-mouth.

There are some texts from Kuroo and Yachi, asking if you feel as positively terrible as they do, and an all-caps text from Bokuto to the massive group chat, thanking everyone for coming to the party. There’s even a text from Tsukishima, asking if you got home alright and if you know where Akaashi had gone.

Akaashi.

You roll over and bury your face in the pillow, groaning loudly. He’d left so abruptly, and you’d even texted him – multiple times – to drunkenly ask where he’d gone and if he was okay. You check those texts now, clicking into the thread.

[11:16 PM]

You: whewred yiu go>?!?!

You: are yoim okai???

[11:59 PM]

You: akaaaaaashiiiii

You: whyaw didn yoo leave so sunddnly?

[12:39 AM]

You: at lest tellme if tju got ahaome safew

[9:19 AM]

Akaashi: im fine thanks

Your lips twist into a scowl, and you throw your phone down, minorly annoyed by his response. He’d run out of the party without a single word, after teasing you all night and then pinning you up against the wall and fucking with your head. And now he’s going to act cold to you, like he hadn’t admitted to wanting you last night?

Whatever.

You kick your legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the throbbing pain in your head as you stumble down the hallway to shower and get ready for the day. You make a pot of coffee and rummage through your fridge for something that’ll fix your hangover, and then you settle down at your desk and check your personal email, just to see if the new video with Akaashi had been received well.

There’s a string of emails sitting right at the top of your inbox, the last received at 10am.

[10:00 AM] Account Updates (Oct. 22) – New Followers: 2,139; New Comments: 608; New Video View Count: 87,903

[9:36 AM] Congratulations! Your new video has made over $500.

[5:02 AM] Congratulations! Your new video has made over $400.

[3:47 AM] Congratulations! Your new video has made over $300.

[1:59 AM] Congratulations! Your new video has made over $200.

[10:29 PM] Congratulations! Your new video has made over $100.

You stare at the subject lines, your head swimming.

“Holy shit.”

You log into your account in a rush of adrenaline, unable to believe this is really happening. You click quickly into your profile and scroll down to the section for profit information.

$529 dollars, made off of the video of Akaashi fingering you.

That’s almost everything you have in your bank account – doubled in one night.

That’s rent.

That’s rent.

“Holy shit.” You sit back and stare at the number for ten minutes, watching in growing shock as it flicks to $535 and then to $541 in that span of time. You’ve got 137 message requests sitting in the top right corner – 137 more opportunities to make money, if you just dedicate an hour or two a day to sending off quick and flirty one-liners to the horny men flooding your inbox.

Your hand reaches for your phone, because you have to tell Akaashi the amazing news – but then you remember how odd his last text had been. You frown slightly and put your phone back down. You don’t have anyone else to talk to about this – and you want to talk about this, to marvel and wonder at how this could have happened – but you don’t want him to ruin your mood, either.

So you don’t. You don’t tell him – if he wants to know how the video did, he can look for himself. He’s a collaborator on the account now. 

You just roll your shoulders back and pull up your video editing software, getting to work.

You have money to make.

–

“Are you okay?” Yachi says the next morning, watching you with thin amusement as you yawn so wide that your jaw cracks. You nod sleepily, following her into the coffee shop.

“Just a long night. ‘m okay.” You scrub at your brow, suppressing another yawn while you wait in line. You’d spent most of yesterday editing the other two videos and responding to messages, and then you’d taken three hours to record solo content, staying up until nearly 3am editing those videos, too. You’d hoped that the solo content wouldn’t lose you followers, actually, since it had been clear just how well-received the partner content is.

But the work had been worth it, because you’d posted one of the solo videos last night and woken up to 500 more followers and another $300 in profit, both from the video with Akaashi and from the spillover of the new followers going back through your old videos and the new solo video. It turns out your solo content is good; it just hadn’t gotten enough traction to make any money. Now, there’s a lot of traffic to even your first couple videos, and every video is bringing in money.

So, even though you’re falling asleep while standing in a coffee shop at 9am, you feel that every moment of sleep lost was a moment of incoming financial peace.

“D’you know what you want yet?” Yachi asks, peering at the menu. “I’m not sure.”

“You get the same thing every time,” you state simply, only smiling when she shoots you a sideways glance. “But I can go first, if you’re totally not sold yet on your medium almond milk vanilla latte.”

“Yes, please,” she says brightly, and you cut past her to get to the counter. You order your drink and a breakfast sandwich, feeling for the first time in weeks that there’s no crippling guilt when you spend the money. It feels nice, being able to give yourself even this small treat.

“Y/n!” 

You flinch at the booming voice, already identifying its owner. You turn, stepping off to the side to let Yachi order while you smile at an excited Bokuto. The man bounds up to you, arms swinging, and you’re left wondering how he could possibly have any energy this early.

“Hi, Kou – How was your Sunday?”

“Oh, you know.” He shrugs. “Spent it cleaning vomit out of my rug. But I slept like a little baby, so I feel great today!” He glances past you. “Hitoka!”

The little blond woman flinches at the volume, much like you had, and turns after she pays, joining you with a grin. “Kou! Still on to talk about those recruitment flyers later?”

“Oh, God, yes! I need you!” Bokuto seems to almost vibrate in place, and you let them talk, keeping an ear out for your order while you shut your eyes to let out a deep yawn.

“Hi, Yachi.”

The yawn dissipates in your throat. You snap your head around, finding Akaashi hovering at Bokuto’s shoulder. He’s smiling politely down at Yachi, one hand tucked into his fall coat and the other gripping an extra-large coffee cup. The tired look in his eye tells you he’d lost sleep over something, even though neither Bokuto nor Yachi comment on it.

“Hi, Akaashi,” Yachi says. “We missed you at the party after you left.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he laughs quietly. “I started to feel pretty sick, so I left.”

“Aw, that’s unfortunate,” she commiserates. “Are you feeling better?”

“I am, thank you.” He nods, his body language and manners betraying that well-spoken, gentle demeanor that everyone speaks so highly about. You wonder how many people know that Akaashi’s a complete mess before he’s had coffee and anything but gentle in bed.

He turns to Bokuto now, speaking softly. “Ready? I have to teach.”

The silver-haired man nods happily, waving at you and Yachi. “Gotta go! See you lovely ladies at lunch!”

You wave him off, flicking your eyes to Akaashi. He’s got his gaze on you as he passes, emotionless and bordering on disinterest. He doesn’t say a word to you, and then he’s gone, leaving you in the wake of his silence and his annoyingly attractive cologne.

You frown slightly, only pulled away by the sound of your name at the counter. You collect your drink and breakfast, finding Yachi scowling deeply beside you as she stares out the door.

“What an asshole,” she grumbles, only shrugging when you bite out a surprised laugh. “He didn’t even say hi to you! That’s so rude.”

“That’s just how he is,” you mutter, staring down at the lid of your cup.

That’s just how he’s always been. So why does it feel so much worse now?

–

It happens again, only twenty minutes later.

You’d left Yachi at the crossroads separating the Linguistics building and the Marketing building, waving and wishing her good luck with her morning of teaching and dissertation work. You’d trekked up to your office, dropping your things off and heading back down to the first floor quickly in order to make some copies of the handout for your Syntax discussion. You stand in the administrative office while the copies print, and then – after a full minute of arguing with yourself – you make the copies for Akaashi’s section, too. Because the two of you had always had that system, and you wouldn’t allow him to see that he’s affected you enough to impact your professional relationship.

You leave them in both mailboxes and head to the elevator, your coffee sipped slowly as you make your way down the long hallway. There’s an open classroom door on your left, a quiet voice slipping out and echoing in the empty hall.

“...the exponence of morphological features will arise differently depending on the language and its family – take agglutinating languages, for example-”

You glance toward the room, knowing that soft, steady voice anywhere.

Akaashi’s turning his back to the classroom, lifting his right hand toward the chalkboard, when you see him. He’s shed his fall coat, folded over the back of his chair now, and you take him in properly as you pass, as though in slow motion. He’s wearing his standard black slacks and white button-down, but there’s no accompanying sweater vest on top today, completely changing his cozy, boy-next-door vibe into something much more flustering. 

He’s got the top two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled haphazardly up to his elbows, which you know is a public speaking habit of his. His left hand sits tucked into the pocket of his slacks, a few thin, silver bracelets stacked on that wrist and his tattoo easy to spot on his right forearm as he lifts it to the board. His hair falls into his eyes a bit, and his glasses sit neatly on his face, perfectly completing the dreadfully sexy professorial energy he’s exuding.

You’re hit with a wave of attraction, worsened when his gaze finds yours through the open doorway. He holds the eye contact as he turns, and you see it’s that same, detached look he’s giving you. But whatever he’s seeing on your face – likely mortifying, given the warmth flooding your face – has one of his eyebrows lifting, a scowl pulling on his lips. He tears his eyes from yours, finally pressing the chalk in his hand to the board in front of him.

“Languages like Korean, Japanese, and Turkish – although in different language families – bear their exponence in a transparent manner, with morphemes stacking in a particular way depending on how the morphological features are assigned and collected…”

You pause just past the door, out of sight, and feel entirely out of place with the strange gnawing sensation that’s beginning to form in your chest. 

–

You try your best not to let him get to you throughout the day, but you still find yourself sitting in your office half an hour before lunch, anyway, wondering if you should try talking to him. You know he’s across the hall, and you wonder if maybe you just need a few minutes alone with him to figure out why he’s acting so strange. Had the party really screwed things up that much between you?

You stand and head to the door, stepping into the hall and even making it as far as the single step to his door, your hand raised to knock, before you stop. You hesitate. Maybe he’s upset with you, for whatever reason. Had you done anything bad at the party? No, you don’t think so. It had mostly been his doing, even though he’d blamed you for it outside the bathroom. You don’t think you’d actually done anything except be there, and he can’t really be mad at you for that.

Still, you turn back to your office, suddenly uncertain about confronting him. You return to your desk, settling down with a conflicted sigh and opening your laptop to keep working until lunch.

Your phone buzzes on the desk.

[1:45 PM]

Akaashi: what is it?

Your heart jumps, and you type quickly.

You: nothing

Akaashi: you were going to knock

You: it’s fine

Akaashi: just tell me.

You groan, trying to figure out what to say. ‘I wanted to see if we’re okay’ is completely unhinged and a little bit crazy, and ‘Just checking on you after the party’ is entirely out of character for you. So you just sigh and type up the best excuse you can.

You: was just gonna tell you the first video made over 500

You: and my other stuff is making money now too

You: my rent for november is covered

You: so.. thanks ig

There’s a minute or two of silence before he answers, a minute or two that feel distinctly longer.

Akaashi: …

Akaashi: you were seriously coming to say that to me?

Akaashi: out loud? here?

Akaashi: really, y/n?

You bristle, filled with an irrational anger. Obviously, that’s not what you’d been going to his office to talk about, because obviously you know better. But you hadn’t been able to come up with anything better to tell him, and now you’re being scolded for it.

And how dare he say that to you, after he’d been all over you on Saturday night? In front of all your friends, no less?

You type an angry response.

You: well i didnt DO it, did i?

You: unlike you, i have decent judgment of what should and shouldnt be done in public.

Akaashi: excuse me?

Akaashi: wtf is that supposed to mean??????

You: use that brain of yours and figure it tf out.

Akaashi: you have decent judgment of what shouldnt be done in public?

Akaashi: yet you just LOVE to keep your windows open

Akaashi: dont you, y/n

There’s a piece of you, larger than you’d ever admit, that loves to be the person who makes Akaashi Keiji’s perfect little walls come crashing down.

You: at least thats done in the privacy of my own home

You: not the privacy of someone else’s 

You: especially not with all our friends right around the corner

Akaashi: oh go to hell

You: see you there, freak.

You throw your phone down and let out an irritated scream that echoes off the walls of your office. You’re certain Akaashi’d heard it, but you can’t bring yourself to care what he thinks or doesn’t think of you today.

You work until lunch, distracted and angry while you respond to emails and grade a few assignments. When Bokuto texts your small group chat asking about lunch, Kuroo’s expected response of ‘We meet every SINGLE day, Bokuto!’ coming in only seconds later, you slam your laptop shut and pack up.

Akaashi’s leaving his office at the same time as you. He frowns instantly when he sees you, and you scowl openly at him.

“Think you might have a banshee in your office,” he says tightly, pulling his door closed and walking off ahead of you. “There was a demonic scream echoing in the hall earlier.”

You roll your eyes, following him to the elevator. “Worry about your own office, Akaashi. There’s an icy bitch inhabiting your desk.”

He snorts, jamming his finger against the down button. “That’s real classy, Y/n. Can you afford lunch today, or do you need a loaner?”

You whip your head around, staring up at him in shock. His eyes slide shut right away, jaw clenched, and he lets out a deep sigh. When he looks at you again, his gaze is full of regret.

“Sorr-”

“I’ll take the stairs,” you snap, turning on your heel and marching toward the stairwell.

“Y/n-” You hear him follow behind you, even as the elevator dings with its arrival. You throw the door open, ignoring as it slams against the wall, and stomp down the five flights of stairs. He barely stops the door from shutting in his face, his voice echoing in the empty hallway as he flies down the steps after you. “Y/n, come on-”

“Fuck you,” you spit, refusing to look at him even as he’s catching up to you on the landing between the third and fourth floors.

He wraps his hand around your bicep, spinning you around to him. “I’m sorry, okay? That was fucked up-”

You snatch your arm back. “Why did you follow me, Akaashi? You want your 20% now or something? Sorry, I have to transfer it over to my bank first, if that’s fucking okay with you.”

His face scrunches up in irritation. “That’s not what I was saying-”

“You want me to cover your lunch? How’s that? You worried I’m not good for my word?” You spin back around, continuing your march. He sighs angrily behind you.

“You’re so fucking insufferable sometimes,” he snaps.

“Then cut your losses and get out while you can, asshole.”

He’s silent for a moment as he follows you, and then he’s bitter with his response. “You need me.”

You whirl around, cornering him against the wall by the fire exit on the first floor. Your voice drops to a hiss, rage seething in your veins as you lean up into his face. “I’d rather be homeless than fuck you again, Akaashi Keiji.”

He grits his teeth, and he takes your face in one hand, fingertips digging into your cheeks and squeezing tight. You let out a quiet noise of surprise, eyes widening marginally. His eyes are dead of emotion now, but you can see in the fluttering clench of his jaw that he’s angry with you.

“Don’t-” He squeezes your face and pulls you closer, breath fanning out over your lips. “-make threats you can’t follow through on, Y/n.” He lifts his brows knowingly. “You need me.”

You shudder in his grasp, eyes flicking between his and chest heaving with angry breaths. There’s a moment of panic in your chest, because you do need him. You do need him, but he doesn’t need you.

Then why is he so adamant about keeping you?

You scan him quickly, realizing that his chest is heaving, too. That he looks just as frustrated – that his eyebrow is twitching and that his eyes are searching yours. That he’s swallowing hard, waiting for your response.

He needs this, too. You don’t know why, but that much is clear to you. And it’s enough.

“What’s wrong, Akaashi?” you murmur, watching his eyes drop to your lips when you respond. “Worried I’ll find someone else to fuck and throw you away?” 

His fingers tighten on your face, but you see it – the panic that you feel, reflected in his eyes. It makes your chest swell with satisfaction, and something else you can’t place. Something like relief.

“Shut up,” he hisses. “Shut up, Y/n-”

His phone rings in his coat pocket, loud and jarring and ripping you right out of this moment with him. His eyes widen, and you raise a hand to smack his arm away, and then you stumble back as he fumbles for his phone.

It’s Bokuto, if the muffled screaming on the other end is enough to tell you anything.

“Hi, Bokuto,” Akaashi mutters, the heat in his voice gone – the polite, sweet, soft-spoken walls coming right back up, brick by brick. “Yeah. I’m on my way.” His eyes flick to you, empty. “Yeah. She’s with me.” He stares right into your eyes, that dead expression solidifying on his face. “Yes. I’ll tell her to check her many messages.”

You pat your pockets quickly, wondering how you could have been so caught up with Akaashi that you’d missed something. Your eyes go wide when you look at the screen – it’s been ten minutes since you’d said you’d meet them for lunch, and Bokuto’s spam-called you six times.

[2:36 PM]

Kou: Y/N!!!!!!! ARE YOU OKAYYYYYYY??????

You type back a quick response.

[2:41 PM]

You: yes omg sorry im omw now

Kou: PLEASE DONT BE FIGHTING WITH AKAASHIIIIII

You: we’re not i promise!!! be there soon

“We’re not gonna have time to eat,” you mumble to yourself – you both need to be in Syntax in twenty minutes. Akaashi brushes past you, heading out the fire exit door.

“Walk fast and eat faster, then.”

You follow behind, sighing heatedly. “I hate you,” you bite under your breath.

“Yeah, well-” His long strides don’t have any intention of accommodating you as he heads to the dining hall. “-I’m not so fucking fond of you, either.”

By the time lunch is over, even Kuroo’s texting you asking if something had happened.

–

Tuesday morning doesn’t go much better.

You’re still angry from the day before, short of patience as you get ready to bike to the LEM meeting and already itching for another fight by the time you settle into one of the chairs in the lab room. Other people file in slowly, and you manage to mask your anger long enough to smile at everyone and ask about their weekend. Your advisor pats you on the shoulder in a fatherly way when he enters, sighing deep as he settles in beside you.

“You’re not presenting today, right?” he asks, checking his phone for emails idly.

“No, I don’t have the pilot data yet,” you mumble regretfully. He just shrugs, shaking his head.

“You have a lot going on. No need to stress about it just yet.” And then he eyes you over his bifocals. “Have you figured something out, though?”

You warm, because Akaashi’s cologne is drifting into the room, just over your shoulder. You know that he’s heard it, because he lingers for just long enough before moving to the TV that you can tell he’d been caught off guard.

“Yes,” you say under your breath, your ears burning. “I figured something out, thank you. I should be good to start data collection next week.”

“Good to hear.” Your advisor nods, and you let out a steadying breath. “Okay,” he says, louder and to the group, clapping his hands. “We have Keiji for updates first, and then-” he points between two of your other cohort-mates. “-you two can fight over who goes next.”

You watch Akaashi go straight into his 20-minute run, explaining some updates he’d made to his theoretical framing and some more thoughts he has for his dissertation. You, as usual, are convinced of his logic, but there’s something about the way he refuses to look at you – cyan eyes passing over you like you’re a ghost – that makes your blood boil. Something about the way he nearly rolls his eyes when he accidentally does meet your gaze, because he can certainly see the burning anger all over your face.

Maybe that’s why – even though you don’t have a single piece of criticism to give him – you open your mouth when he asks ‘Any questions?’ in that gentle tone you hate so much.

“I have one.”

Everyone’s head whips around to you, because you never speak during Akaashi Keiji’s Q&A session. 

But it’s Akaashi’s reaction that spurs you on. His eyes fly to yours when he hears your voice, and you watch shock, confusion, irritation, and – finally – vague interest flit across his face in a matter of milliseconds.

“Okay?” he says, the confusion slipping through in the uptick of his voice.

“Your proposed analysis – what are the implications it has for research testing native Korean speakers?”

He lifts one eyebrow, and you feel the room shift. 

“You’re asking me-” The other brow joins in now. “-how my research applies to yours?”

You clench your jaw, searching his gaze. He’d said it like he was offended, but you can see he’s pushing you. “I’m asking how your analysis can be used by other linguists in the field – not just to study the grammar of native Korean speakers theoretically, but to study the grammar empirically. With real data-”

“I have data-”

“You have judgments,” you snap. “Native Korean speaker judgments from your consultants. Two consultants, yes?” He nods, and you nod back. “Right. And you expect your two consultants’ individual grammars to speak systematically for the whole of the Korean grammar?”

It’s a cheap shot, but a valid one – for someone else. Not for Akaashi. You know this well enough, that the primary job of theoretical syntacticians is to formulate analyses and proposals of a language’s grammar. You know well enough that it’s not his job to figure out if his analysis will make the cut if tested with a large sample of speakers.

That’s your job. And the job of experimentalists more broadly. It’s your job to take his theory and prove it right or wrong. It’s only his job to craft his logic and evidence in a way that makes the argument worth proving.

And Akaashi knows that, too.

“What would you like me to do, Y/n?” he asks tightly. “Would you like me to run the experiment myself and put you out of a job?”

“Okay-” your advisor starts to cut in, but you speak over him.

“What about all the previous research, Akaashi? The research that’s tested syntactic analyses which differ from yours but still find supporting results? Would you like the field to throw all that away and believe you instead? How do you account for those findings? What’s the bigger picture?”

His eyes light up, molten hot. “What I’d like is a unified syntax of Korean case marking, which the field has been missing for decades. It’s up to someone like you to test my theory; it’s up to someone like me to take your results and update my analysis, over and over and over again until we get it right. That’s what linguistics is about.”

You lean forward, elbows digging into the wooden table. It’s quiet enough in the room that you can hear him breathing across the room, ragged and rough and irritated.

“If you want someone like me to go through the trouble of testing your theory, you should do a better job of convincing me it’s worth my time.” You glare hard at him, your heart skipping when you watch that wall come down. He looks exactly the same, poised and perfect and well-mannered, but his eyes betray how badly he wants to tell you exactly what’s on his mind. 

So you smile at him, cold and mocking, and push him over the edge. “Or else linguistics will move on without you.”

“Okay!” you advisor says, looking between you and Akaashi with wide eyes. “I think we get it, you two. Let’s move on to someone else, please – I’m too old for this.”

You stand quickly, the chair scraping across the floor, and barge from the room. 

“Y/n!” your advisor calls just as the door is slamming behind you. A moment later, you hear his voice again, muffled. “Keiji!”

The door swings open, and the sound of the lab erupting in chaos echoes through the hall, your advisor’s ‘okay, okay, settle down everyone-’ muted by the door shutting again.

“What the hell is your problem?” Akaashi bites behind you, and you glance back while you walk, finding him stalking after you. You roll your eyes, heading for your office. 

“You heard my problem. Your research is isolated and inapplicable-”

“Inapplicable-”

“Goodbye, Akaashi,” you snap, unlocking the door and shouldering your way inside. You throw it shut behind you, but his hand slams down on the wood, startling you. You whirl around with wide eyes and watch him slam the door, the frosted glass window rattling from the force. The two of you are left in the silence of your office, both of your breaths audible in the space between you.

“Inapplicable?” he hisses again, eyes glinting.

“What do you want me to say, Akaashi?” you bark, letting him get in your face. “You want me to just ignore that you’re not thinking about the consequences of your own research?” You poke him hard in the chest. “If you don’t take responsibility for the work you’re putting out into the field, then don’t expect me to be okay with fumbling to use your grammar to explain my data.”

He pushes forward, cornering you against your desk. “That’s exactly what your job is, Y/n. It’s your responsibility to figure out what speakers are doing, just like it’s my responsibility to figure out how to explain that. And you’re not stupid enough to believe otherwise. We need each other-”

“No, what I need-” You stand tall, feeling his breath mingle with yours in the space between your lips. “-is to not be handed another ‘grammar of Korean’ that’s been decreed into a fucking void.”

He doesn’t say a word, just letting his eyes flit between yours angrily. He’s breathing hard, just as hard as you are, and his eyebrows are twitching as he glares down at you. You hold your ground, whispering an admission to him.

“You might be a genius, Akaashi, but you really need to be put in your place sometimes.”

You watch in real time as his demeanor changes.

The anger drains from his body language and his face, leaving him with shock and a lip that’s curling in amusement as he stares down at you with wide eyes.

“Oh, is that right?” he breathes. “And-what? You think you’re gonna do that for me?” You start to protest, but he just takes a step forward, sudden and forceful, and you take a surprised seat on the desk with a gasp. He towers over you, that smile dangerous. “You really think you can do that, Y/n? When you aren’t even confident enough in your own work?”

Your brows furrow, offended. “What-”

“With your shy little smile and your uncertain little laugh when you present to the lab-” he whispers, breath fanning over you as you stare up at him. “With that fucking look you get in your eye,” he growls under his breath. “Like you don’t know what to make of your own research. Of your own skills. Makes me fucking sick.”

You try to stand, but he just leans down, planting his hands on either side of you. His nose brushes yours, and his eyes fill with a heat that isn’t anger. It’s something else, and you can’t place it.

He lifts his eyebrows. “You think you can put me in my place? That would mean we’re on the same level, wouldn’t it? Is that what you’re saying?” When you don’t respond, he speaks slower, like he’s talking down to you. 

“Are you a genius, too, Y/n?”

You scowl at him. “I’m not beneath you, Akaashi. I never have been.”

He shifts, and you finally place it – that heat in his eyes, the one that burns through you and makes your heart race.

It’s excitement.

It excites him to fight with you like this.

And the smile that stretches across his face, tinged with what you can only describe as pride, is starting to excite you, too. Because fighting with him feels good. Because you can see that it makes him feel good, too. It feels good to be pushed like this, to show someone else who you really are and be accepted for that, good or bad. 

Especially the bad. 

This may be the first time you’ve ever been glad that Akaashi Keiji treats you differently.

He steps impossibly closer to you, and you find your thighs parting to let him into the space before you can realize it. His smile grows, and his breath hitches in time with the lurch of anticipation that fills you, because he’s leaning down over you, forcing you to collapse back onto your elbows.

“If you’re a genius, Y/n,” he whispers, carding his fingers ever so gently through your hair. You shudder, chest heaving with a gasp when he pulls taut, fisting your hair painfully in his hand. His eyes twinkle with that terrifying excitement that makes your veins sing for him, and you’re distantly aware that he’s hard against your inner thigh. “Then I want you to fucking act like it.”

The shaky breath you let out is laced with a moan, and his gaze flies down to your lips, his smile stretching into something wild and wicked. He meets your eyes again, that blue-green gaze piercing when he asks–

“Do you think you can do that?”

You shiver, the reaction visceral and entirely visible to him. He smiles and whispers ‘I thought so’, his breath forming goosebumps on your skin.

And then there’s a hard knock on your office door.

“Y/n?” your advisor calls, his blurry shadow visible through the window as he stands just on the other side of the door – on the other side of the terribly compromising position Akaashi has you in on your desk.

Your breath catches, and you struggle against him. “Akaashi-”

He pulls you up quickly with wide eyes, and you both frantically fix your appearances in silence for the half-second it takes you to call ‘It’s open!’ to the door. Akaashi latches onto your arm and drags you forward in a panic, stepping behind you to partially shield himself from view – you have to keep from snickering, because the door’s being pushed open cautiously. 

Your advisor stands in the doorway, examining the two of you with wary eyes. “Are you both alive and in one piece?”

You and Akaashi nod. “Sorry for storming out like that,” you say. “I was… a bit heated.”

The old man snorts. “Oh, really? I couldn’t tell. We had to end early because no one could focus.” He looks over your head at Akaashi. “And you left all your stuff in the lab. Were you heated, too?”

Akaashi clears his throat. “Uh… a bit?”

Your advisor sighs and shakes his head. “I’m gonna start putting you two through hell if you don’t cut it out. Force you to say nice things about each other, or look into each other’s eyes for a full minute, or something.” 

You laugh nervously. “We’re fine. Sorry.”

He rolls his eyes but moves on. “Did you both apply for Ling Expo? We talked about it in the meeting, but some members of the group went missing.”

You flush, shifting your weight. Akaashi’s fingers find the back of your shirt, tugging you back to where you were so he can remained covered. 

“Yes,” he says behind you. “I submitted the abstract last week.” 

You nod in agreement. “Me, too.”

The man sighs, nodding back. “We’re all going again this year, so make sure to block the weekend of November 15th off.” You both make noises of understanding, and he takes a moment to look between you. His eyes narrow as he examines you, and then Akaashi over your head, and then you again. He purses his lips and hums. “There’s something about this situation that makes me want to make you leave this door open, but I’m not your father, so…” 

A rush of heat washes over you, and Akaashi coughs awkwardly behind you. 

“Are you allowed to say that?” he mumbles, and your advisor throws his head back, giving a belly laugh as he shakes his head. 

“It’s none of my business what you two get up to in your free time.”

You chuckle nervously. “Are you allowed to say that?”

His laugh, loud and booming and satisfied, can be heard down the hall long after he’s gone.

–

Keiji collapses into his chair, slumping down over his desk and burying his face in his folded arms.

“Fuck,” he groans, muffled and inaudible outside of himself. He thumps a fist on the desk twice, overwhelming embarrassment flooding every cell in his body.

What the hell was he thinking, cornering you against your desk like that? Why is he entirely incapable of containing himself when he’s alone with you? What had you done to him – what witchcraft has taken hold over him?

When he’d woken up on Sunday, he’d spent several hours in a puddle of dread, unmoving from his bed as he’d stared at the ceiling and contemplated what to do. He’d chalked most of his behavior from the party up to the alcohol, but he also knows himself well enough to know that he’d only acted that way because those feelings – those desires that had been threaded under his skin – were lingering somewhere unreachable inside him.

He’d decided by the end of the day that he would need to overcompensate in order to keep your mutual friends from catching on to the fact that there’s a live wire inside him that sparks dangerously every time he even so much as thinks about you. He would need to be more detached than ever if he were to stand any chance of keeping this arrangement with you a secret.

And then he’d overdone it, in that cafe yesterday morning. He’d ignored you deliberately, and he could feel almost instantly when your energy had shifted. And when he’d seen you pass by his class, he’d been a mix of surprised – because seeing you had thrown his heart into his throat and had scattered his thoughts like loose paper – and desperate not to let his students see that he’d lost his train of thought. So he’d scowled at you like you were the last thing he’d ever want to see, and, in the midst of rattling off knowledge that’s been sitting idly in the back of his mind for years, he’d felt a twinge of regret that he’d reacted that way.

And he’d known that you were coming to check in on him. He’d known – by the way you’d lingered at his door, by the way your weight had shifted, by the way your steps had sounded so uncertain – that you were confused. That you wanted to know why he was acting this way. But he’d felt an overwhelming panic at the idea that you might be able to sense his real feelings for what they are – that you’d be able to see just by looking at him that he’s almost concerningly attracted to you. So he’d lashed out over text, and then he’d lashed out at the elevator bay, because even when you’d called him an ‘icy bitch’, all he could focus on was the snarky edge to your voice and how badly he’d wanted to smother it.

When you’d threatened – emptily, but anxiety-inducing nonetheless – to put this arrangement to bed and move on from him, he’d lost his mind in that stairwell. He’d lost his mind, and he’d let his nerves show. And you’d latched onto them instantly, because, as he’s coming to learn, you can read him a little too well.

And that’s terrifying.

It’s terrifying to wonder, in a room full of all of Keiji’s peers – in front of his own advisor, for fuck’s sake – if his attraction to you when you level him with that challenging glare is as palpable to everyone else as it is to him.

It’s terrifying to wonder if you can see what a confused, muddled mess of a man he’s become since sleeping with you. Ricocheting between wanting you and hating you and somewhere right in the middle, where he feels both.

He’s found himself in that middle ground often over the last 48 hours.

And then he’d cornered you against your desk, not even ten minutes ago, and bullied you to your limit – forcing the admission of your own capabilities from your lips like psychological torture, entirely unable to hide how much that had excited him. How much it had affected him, watching you fold like that for him. 

But you’d shown yourself to him, too. You’d shown him how excited you’d gotten when you’d realized how he was feeling. You’d shown him that this terrible, confusing knot of uncontainable want that twists in his gut when he meets your eyes– 

It’s mutual.

And that – that is more dangerous than anything before it.

Keiji sits up, hands shaking slightly as he presses circles into his temples and leans back in his chair. He slides his laptop in front of him and opens it, navigating to the site for Ling Expo in order to clear his thoughts.

A small part of a much larger conference event that hosts multiple different departments all engaging in their own specialized events for three days straight, Ling Expo is held every year in mid-November and boasts the largest gathering of linguistic scholars in the whole of Japan.

At least, that’s what it says on the home page when he scrolls through it.

In reality, the LEM members – all students of his advisor – are carted away for a weekend to Tokyo’s largest hotel and conference center, regardless of whether or not any of them are presenting. He gets out of a Friday of teaching and spends three days networking, and – luckily – hanging out with his friends, because every department at this university has a group that goes.

Thankfully, it’s all paid for by the university. And, hopefully, he might not find himself in any weird academic standoffs with you this year. The two of you had always been careful not to let your rivalry become clear externally, because that reeks of a lack of professionalism, but there was always something that would tip the weekend into a mess of underhanded comments and awkward encounters in the extensive buffet line.

Maybe this time, things would be different.

Well, things are already different, so he’s not really fooling himself with this positive thinking. Because different could be good or bad.

His phone buzzes in his back pocket, and he closes the tab for Ling Expo while he extracts it. It’s a text sent to the group chat of the larger friend group, only ever used when Bokuto’s too impatient to text both of his smaller groups.

[12:17 PM]

Bokuto: DID YOU GUYS SEE THERES A NEW CLUB OPENING TODAY???? 

Bokuto: WE H A V E TO GO!!!!

Keiji sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. The last thing he needs is to get caught in another terrifying encounter with you, especially at some crowded club with all his friends there to witness it, but he knows how Bokuto can get when he’s told no. So he just opens his calendar, checking what else he would have had planned tonight.

There’s nothing, but there is something for tomorrow night that catches his eye and makes his heart lurch.

‘Research Updates’ is blocked off from 8pm to midnight, seemingly innocuous. Just as it had been on Saturday morning, from 8am to noon.

He sighs, staring down at the scheduled time. Is that still happening? Surely, it would be, right? 

But, things between you the last two days had been anything but cordial. And you had threatened to end the arrangement, even if it had been empty. 

You text the group chat back, an agreement to go, and he sighs quietly.

He supposes he can go, too.

–

The booming music pounds in Keiji’s head as he squints around in the dark. There’s a pair of hands on his shoulders, guiding him through a sea of people he would rather not be pressed into at the moment. He’s glad he’d decided to change into jeans and a t-shirt, because the slacks-button-down combo would have him soaked in sweat already.

And he’s especially glad you decided to change into a slinky black dress that he never would have guessed that you would own. You’re pushing through the crowd just in front of him now, and he’s sneaking glances down at you as the group fights to find an empty booth.

“There!” Bokuto eventually yells, stretching one of the hands on Keiji’s shoulder out over the distance, locating a singular empty booth. Keiji flinches at the noise, but he follows after you, anyway. You’ve got two hands on Yachi, who has two hands on Kuroo, who has two hands on Tsukishima, who’s complaining while he parts the crowd with his massive frame and leads the group to the table.

Keiji contemplates putting two hands on you, too, because it’s objectively most efficient for keeping the group together. But he doesn’t know how you’ll react – not after his total lapse in judgment in your office earlier. He doesn’t know if you even want him to touch you, now that your head’s probably a bit clearer than it’d been while you’d been trapped under him.

But then there’s a rush of people bumping into him, and he loses you for a moment, so he reaches out as soon as he finds you again – he justifies it as listening to instructions, because Bokuto’s screaming ‘Grab onto her, Akaashi!’ in his ear.

His hands slide across your waist, and a shiver runs down his spine at how you feel under his fingers. You jump at the contact and glance back in panic, probably thinking he’s some weird stranger trying to make a move. When you see it’s just him, you relax a little, but then your eyes fill with nerves, and you’re whipping your head back around to face away from him.

The crowd sways and shifts, forcing the line of you to bunch up in order to not be separated. Bokuto stumbles forward at some point, propelling Keiji right into you. You yelp, tripping, but he catches you, hauling you back against his chest. His breath catches and his heart rate picks up at the feeling of you pressed against him – your perfume wafts over him, and he finds himself leaning down close to your shoulder to breathe it in.

“What are you doing?” you hiss, tensing when his left hand subtly leaves the safety of your waist and slides around you, nestling you back against him more.

“Nothing,” he mumbles back, swallowing and retracting his hand back to your waist. “Just-nothing.”

You glance up at him, hearing his fumble, but it must be too dark to see the flush that spreads across his cheeks, because you only look forward again and focus on following Yachi. He examines you while the group nears the shockingly still-empty booth – he realizes your dress is riding up your thighs, likely from the stumbling and shoving that’s happening in this crowd right now. It rides up enough that he can see the lace edge of your pantyline, and he has to swallow hard, distracted by a memory of lace in other ways.

He reaches down, shielded by the dark, and tugs on the hem of your dress, pulling it back down over your ass. You yelp, looking up at him with alarm.

“Akaashi!” 

He shakes his head tightly, turning you back to the front and leaning down toward you. “Your ass was out – I was fixing it-”

You sigh loudly, turning your mouth to his ear. “You can’t just put your hands on me like that-”

“I can’t?” he bites, not an ounce of heat behind it. “You were fine with it earlier-” He grunts, because you’re driving an elbow into his gut.

“Dumbass,” you grumble, but he sees the warmth in your ears, and he smiles despite himself. 

Tsukishima reaches the table, and the six of you pile into the rounded booth that’s certainly not meant for six. Keiji’s chest presses against your shoulder, and you’re kind enough to angle your body with his so that you’re not digging into his chest painfully. Bokuto calls out across the table.

“I’ll get drinks!” He disappears back into the crowd, and Keiji wonders for a moment if Bokuto can carry enough drinks for six people. Kuroo seems to have the same thought, the man smacking Tsukishima on the arm and pointing out into the ocean of bodies.

“Go with him!”

The blond shakes his head forcefully. “No fucking way – you go!”

Kuroo groans but pushes Tsukishima out of the booth so he can stumble back into the crowd. Keiji relaxes with a sigh as the four of you left fill the booth more comfortably. Yachi starts rambling brightly to Tsukishima about the club, making comments about the music and the dancing. The blond just blinks back at her with empty, unseeing eyes, nodding occasionally. Keiji gets the feeling he can’t hear a word she’s saying.

You shift next to Keiji, your thigh bumping against his, and he finds himself tracing his gaze over your body while you look out at the dance floor. You feel him looking, and you glance up at him with a raised eyebrow. 

“Don’t tell me you’re about to ask me to dance,” you say, your voice barely audible to him. He just tilts his head and gives you a knowing look.

“I don’t dance, Y/n.”

“Oh, you’re so cool,” you mock, cooing at him. He narrows his eyes at you, excitement spilling into his body when he sees how you tense at the glare. It makes him feeler bold – bold, like he’d been in your office, even though he’d sworn to himself only moments after that he wouldn’t do that again.

He swears you’ve cast some sort of curse on him.

He brushes two fingers over your thigh, tugging at the hem of the dress before letting it snap back to your skin. “Where’d you get this?”

You warm, looking up at him with practiced disinterest, but he can feel when your breath changes. “I’ve had it forever.”

“I like it.”

You purse your lips, frowning up at him. “You’re being weird.”

“Am I?” he asks, letting those two fingers trace circles into your thigh and smiling when he feels the goosebumps on your skin. Your eyes flit around his face, and he can see that, under the confusion, there’s anticipation. You’re waiting for him to do something.

“Y/n, look!” Yachi yells next to you, and Keiji pulls his hand back into his lap. He watches as you try, still flustered by him, to follow your friend’s excited pointing into crowd. He tampers a satisfied smile, only pulling his gaze away from you.

It lands on Tsukishima, who’s watching Keiji blankly.

Keiji’s heart drops to his stomach.

The blond flicks his eyes between the two of suspiciously, and then his gaze drops to Keiji’s throat, because he’s swallowing nervously. Tsukishima lifts both eyebrows and then looks away, returning to Yachi’s excited monologue about the well-planned design of the club architecture and decor.

Keiji’s skin hums with adrenaline and anxiety. What is he supposed to do if Tsukishima questions him? Or worse – tells Kuroo?

As if summoned by the devil, Bokuto and Kuroo reappear – they’re holding two trays of shot glasses each, and Keiji stares in shock as Bokuto lines up five shots in front of Keiji.

“Those are for you!” his friend exclaims, doing the same for you. Keiji stares at the shots.

“This’ll put me in the hospital, Bokuto-”

“I have to teach tomorrow,” you add, giving a laugh of exasperation. Bokuto waves it off.

“A problem for tomorrow!” he yells, already picking up one of his own shot glasses. He holds it out toward the middle of the table. “To new experiences!”

Keiji sighs, lifting one of his up, too, to clink against Bokuto’s, and the rest of the table follows.

“To new experiences,” he mumbles, knocking the shot back.

–

Well, Bokuto hadn’t been lying about new experiences, Keiji thinks drunkenly.

His head swims as he stares down at the five empty shot glasses in front of him, wondering where his drinks had gone. You sway beside him, holding a cocktail in both hands as you sip at it – your shot glasses are equally empty, and Keiji’s not exactly sure where you’d pulled an extra drink from.

He watches through blurry vision as Yachi and Bokuto wriggle wildly on the dance floor together, far away enough that he can only tell it’s them by their ridiculous height difference. Kuroo and Tsukishima sit huddled on the other end of the booth, heads bent together as they whisper likely obscene things to each other.

Keiji had worried for about thirty minutes that Tsukishima would tell Kuroo what he’d seen, but the blond seems to have decided that it’s none of his business what happens in this club tonight. Keiji’s grateful for it, especially now that he can see Tsukishima slipping out of the booth, his hand tight in Kuroo’s and both their faces flushed from whatever they’d just talked about. They disappear in the direction of the bathroom, and Keiji snorts to himself.

“‘s one way to do it,” he mumbles, and you lean toward him heavily.

“Hah?” you say, your body pressed against his. “What’dya say?”

“Nothin’,” he slurs, shaking his head. And then he looks down at you, taking you in. Taking in the fact that the two of you have been left alone here in the dark, still visible but not noticeable. He shifts his body toward yours, pressing your sides together while he reaches to pluck your drink from your hands. “What’s this?”

“Hey,” you pout, reaching for it, but he just holds it behind him, forcing you to lean up into his face. Your eyes go wide when you realize how close his are, and he grins down at you, open and unfiltered.

“What is it, Y/n? Can I try?”

“No!” you complain, pressing your body against his as you stretch for the drink. Keiji slips his free arm around your waist, pulling you close.

“Just one sip?”

Your outstretched hand drops to his shoulder, and you say nothing about the arm he has around you. “You’re annoying,” you mumble, glaring hazily up at him. “Get yer own drink.”

He tilts his head toward you, the tequila in his breath mixing with the vodka in yours. “But I wanna taste yours,” he whispers, and your cheeks warm – he hadn’t meant anything sexual by it, but he’s not complaining if you’re taking it that way.

He lifts your drink to his lips, keeping his eyes on you and reveling in the way yours drop to his mouth, and takes a sip. It’s just a Vodka Cranberry, which he’d already guessed by the scent of your breath. He puts it back down on the table, letting you have it again. “Thank you,” he jokes.

“Whatever,” you mutter, cradling the drink again. “Why’ve you been so mean to me this week?”

“Aw,” he coos. “Did I hurt your feelings?”

“Yeah,” you say plainly, pouting. “You made me mad. Made me wanna do bad things.”

Desire spikes in Keiji’s body. “What kinda bad things?”

“Made me wanna be mean to you, too,” you say, oblivious to the way Keiji’s looking at you now. “Made me wanna hurt your feelings, too.”

“You did do that,” he says, laughing at you. “You were so mean.”

“Not mean enough!” you argue, leaning comfortably against him as he holds you. His hand gravitates from his lap to yours, the fingers he’d just had on your drink now cold and damp against your heated skin. You shiver at his touch, and he feels his jeans start to tighten. He draws small circles into your thigh with the pad of his middle finger, his intentions plausibly deniable even though his knuckles brush up against the hem of your dress every time.

“You don’t think calling my work ‘isolated and inapplicable’ is mean enough?” he coos down at you, watching with satisfaction as your lips part and you let out a shaky breath, because his middle finger is slipping once under the hem of your dress before completing the circle. He feels a shock of excitement fly down his spine and spread out across his skin, that live wire sparking in his chest.

He glances out briefly at the dance floor, confirming that Bokuto and Yachi are still jumping around and that Kuroo and Tsukishima have completely disappeared. He’s glad to know that he has more time with you. More time to slide his cold fingers across your flushed skin, more time to feel your body press tight to his. The thought of getting caught like this – with his arm wrapped around you and his fingers hidden under your dress – passes through his mind, and he can’t help that the live wire crackles dangerously, or that his jeans are uncomfortably tight on him now. But, still, he’s glad that no one’s seeing what’s going on over here.

He doesn’t want to share this with anyone else quite yet.

“Hey,” you grumble in his ear, low and whiny enough to make his cock twitch painfully. You grip his face with one hand, turning him back to you. Keiji stares down at you with wide eyes, his breath caught in his chest when you glare up at him and mumble, “You’re not payin’ attention t’me.”

He lets out a weak laugh. “Oh, I’m sorry – were you saying somethin’ important?”

Your pout deepens, and Keiji feels himself leaning toward you, his eyes fixated on your mouth.

“Yeah,” you say, nodding. “I was talkin’ about how you deserve to be bullied.”

He huffs in amused disbelief, just staring down at you. “Y/n.”

“Hm?”

“I have a question.”

“Mm?” You tilt your head, attention his. He starts running his fingers over your skin again, watching when you shiver.

“Are we still meeting tomorrow? Or was I too mean this week?” He swallows hard, hoping you’ll understand what he’s asking. If things are too tense between you – if the arrangement can’t be recovered, after all of his screw-ups this week. 

Your eyes widen, flitting between his, and he grows a little nervous. But then your face warms, and you shift under his fingers, and your eyes drop quickly to his mouth before lifting again.

“I thought we were…” you breathe. “Are we not?”

His skin hums with the need to feel you underneath him again, the possibility of having that tomorrow night no longer hanging in the balance. But still, he has to check. “Not gonna find someone else to fuck ‘n throw me away?”

You giggle at his quote of your own words, and you shake your head. “Unfortunately for me, there’s no one else who meets all my requirements.” You grin up at him, your eyes full of humor, as though what you say next is stupidly obvious.

“‘s gotta be you, 'Kaashi.”

Keiji really regrets sleeping with you.

–

On Wednesday at 7:30pm, you find yourself slapping your hand around on the bedside table for the alarm that’s going off. You find your phone, shutting it off and tossing it down on the bed next to you. 

You’d woken up at 7am this morning, dreadfully hungover, and dragged yourself to campus to teach. You’d stayed in the department until the very first moment that you were no longer needed, and then you’d Uber’d home, throwing your stuff on the floor in your foyer and climbing back into bed.

You repeat the process now, but you feel significantly better after the extra sleep. Instead of the hangover, however, your brain is burdened by the knowledge that Akaashi will be showing up at your door in thirty minutes. You groan, not for the first time today, at the memory of the humiliating things you’d said and done last night. At the way you’d draped yourself all over him and pouted up at him like an idiot, admitting that he’d gotten to you with his behavior this week.

At the way you’d admitted that there can be no one but him in this stupid arrangement.

You grumble the entire time you wait, stomping around the apartment until you hear his knock at your door.

When you wrench the door open, he looks mildly unsettled, and you know that means he’s as nervous as you.

“Hi.” He shifts his weight awkwardly, hoisting his duffel bag high on his shoulder. He flits his eyes around your face and then down to your pajamas, brows lifting. “Did you just wake up?”

“I took a five-hour nap,” you sigh, letting him in.

“Did you not eat dinner?” he asks, setting his bag down in the spot by the couch that’s slowly becoming his.

“No,” you mumble, wandering into the kitchen and digging through the pantry. “Not super hungry, anyway – just hungover.”

“Oh.” His voice sounds a bit tense, and you realize belatedly that he might have been asking if you wanted to eat dinner with him. You purse your lips, groaning to yourself. Things are still uncomfortable with him – how could they not be? You’ve spent the week bouncing back and forth between being insatiably furious with him and completely folding whenever he gets too close. Even if he seems to have reciprocated some of the confusing feelings wracking your brain lately, it can’t be easy to be dragged back and forth by your mood swings.

You emerge from the kitchen holding out a packet of smores pop-tarts to him, the strawberry flavor open in your other hand. He stares down at it and then takes it, eyes on yours. “Thanks.”

“Your leftovers from Saturday are still there,” you offer, nodding back to the kitchen. “If you want them.”

“Man, you really do hate kung pao chicken,” he jokes lamely, swallowing hard as he opens the silver packaging. You wander toward your room with an awkward sigh. 

“Uhm… how many videos should we film today?” You flick your lights on and move to the closet, leaving your pop-tarts on the dresser. There’s a creak in your doorway, and you glance back to find Akaashi leaning against the door frame, his fingers tapping on the crinkly wrapper while he chews slow and drags his eyes around your room.

“Dunno… Three? Four?” He flicks his eyes to you and then away again. “Same deal as last time? Foreplay first, then sex?”

You nod, digging through your drawer full of lingerie. You look him over briefly, ignoring when he tenses under your gaze. He’s wearing baggy, light blue jeans and a form-fitting black t-shirt, tucked into his belt. You hum, plucking a simple white set from the dresser and then reaching into your closet for a pair of shorts and a baby pink graphic tee, a cute strawberry drawn on the front. You brandish the clothes at him in question.

“Girl-next-door enough?”

He nods, eyes lingering on the white lace in your left hand. “Sweet and innocent.”

You shrug jokingly. “Just like me.”

“Yeah, okay,” he snorts, shaking his head. You don’t move, and he lifts his brows at you as he’s lifting the chocolate-filled pastry to his mouth. “What?”

“Uh…” You give him an expectant look. “I have to change.”

“Oh–” He lifts off the door frame and turns in place, staring out into your living room. “Is this good?”

You roll your eyes and strip from your pajamas, tossing your shirt at the back of his head. He chokes on his snack upon contact, and you laugh while you pull the lingerie on. He clears his throat quietly.

“So… you think my research is inapplicable-”

You groan, your shoulders tensing in preparation for a fight. “Please, not now, Akaashi-”

“I’m just wondering if you meant that, or…” His voice is joking, and you know he’s just talking shit in order to fill the silence, but you’re still a little rough when you brush past him, fully dressed now.

“You know I didn’t,” you admit quietly, padding over to the spare room and hearing when he follows. “You said it yourself  – I’m not stupid enough to believe that.”

“But you said it.”

“You say a lot of things, too.” You glance at him while you fluff the pillows on the bed. “What is this? Why are you picking a fight right now?”

He shakes his head simply. “Just making conversation.”

“Well, can you make conversation about anything else-”

“Like what?” he argues. “We can talk about research, or we can talk about what positions you want me to fuck you in today-”

“Okay,” you say, flushing. And then you swallow. “What… positions are we doing?”

Any heat that had been in his eyes melts away, and he lets out a breathless laugh. “Seriously?” When you shrug, a smile crosses his lips briefly before he’s smothering it. “Which one’s your favorite?”

Your eyes go wide, and you start to fluff the pillows more aggressively now, your face burning. “They’re all fine.”

“No,” he jokes, stepping close. You’d left your phone on the dresser by the door, and he brings it with him when he approaches you. “You definitely have a favorite.” He slips the device into your awaiting hand. “Tell me.”

You square your shoulders, scrolling through your apps to dim the string lights and change the color, bathing the room in a soft, pink glow. “It’s doggy,” you say without looking at him. “But they’re all fine.”

“Doggy,” he breathes back, nodding. “Understood.”

“Whatever,” you bite, gesturing to the bed in embarrassment. “Can we–?” 

He lifts his brows with a grin, waving you toward it. “By all means.”

You sigh, climbing onto the bed and pointing toward the selfie stick you keep on the desk. “I’ll just hold the phone for this first part.” Akaashi goes to get it, and you slot the phone into it with ease. “Okay. Ready.”

He props himself up next to you, both of you leaning against the headboard. You click record and fix the zoom, centering yourself in the frame.

“Okay,” you breathe, settling for looking at him in the camera, because you don’t know if you’re brave enough to meet his eye right now. “We’re good. Uhm…” You think quickly about how this should go. “Just look at something on your phone, maybe, and then come in whenever you think you should.” He reaches for his phone on the bedside table, and you joke nervously. “Not your email, though. Nerd.”

He scoffs, shaking his head with a hint of a smile. “Dumbass.”

You smile, refocusing the camera until neither of your faces are visible. You mess with your hair, watching the ends of it flutter on the screen, and trail your hand down your chest, kneading your breasts slowly and letting out slightly performative sighs. Your fingers dance along your thighs and between your legs briefly, and you see in the frame that Akaashi’s thumb has stopped scrolling. You don’t turn to look at him, but you do smile to yourself, watching his wrist start to go limp as he watches you, distracted. 

When you slide your hands under your shirt, your fingers moving the fabric as you squeeze and touch, Akaashi slowly moves to put his phone on the table. He shifts closer, turning his body toward yours, and his hand slides across your thigh. The touch makes you shiver, his palm searing hot on your skin and his fingers kneading at the inside of your thigh appreciatively. You hear him breathe in sharply, and then he presses his chest to your shoulder and drops his head to your neck.

The feeling of his lips on your skin is more intense than it had been on Saturday. You have no idea how, but you’re impossibly more sensitive tonight, and even the breath that fans over your throat between kisses has you panting. He sets two fingers on the wrist that you have hidden under your shirt, tugging your arm away from your body and angling you so he can fill the space.

His hand disappears under your top, and a quiet moan falls past your lips – because he’s cupping your breast, his palm warmer and larger than yours. You start to tremble, your stomach flipping with anticipation and desire every time his fingers move against you. You don’t know why everything feels so different tonight than it had only four days ago, but it feels like Akaashi’s experiencing the same.

His breath is ragged in your ear, and his lips are shaking slightly on your skin, even though all he’s done is touch you. His hand moves over your body almost nervously, fingers exploring in a way that falsely reminds you of anxious inexperience.

You turn toward him. “What’s with you?” you whisper, looking him over with wide eyes. He lifts his head, and you see that his pupils are blown wide. His cheeks are flushed slightly, and his lips are parted and wet. 

“Nothing,” he says, shaking his head. And then he tugs on your shirt. “Take this off.”

You hand him the camera stick, and he makes sure to keep you in frame when you peel your shirt off and toss it to the end of the bed. You kick your shorts off, too, while you’re at it, leaving you in your matching lingerie. He hands the camera back and scoots ever closer to you, his hand sliding across your body impatiently while he presses himself to you. You let your head drop and lean your weight against the headboard, letting him explore as he pleases.

When his fingers start to dip curiously between your thighs, that nervous anticipation is firing up. You spread your legs, breathing hard as you struggle to keep everything in frame, and he wastes no time, his middle two fingers sliding over your clothed core.

“Oh-” you moan loudly, much louder than you’d expected, given that he’s barely touched you.

Akaashi notices it too, it seems, because he lifts his head to stare at you, wide-eyed. “What was that?” he breathes, and you shake your head, your lips pursed in embarrassment.

“I was faking it,” you try, despite knowing what he’d told you last time about that.

He lifts his brows, and you see that it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t buy it. “Liar.” He touches you again, circling your clit roughly through your panties. Your eyes widen, and your lips tremble when your breath comes out. He stares down at you in wonder, watching with a growing smile as you react much more intensely than you had on Saturday. “You’re sensitive today,” he notes quietly, a little satisfied.

You don’t bother denying it, not when he can clearly see how your body is reacting to him. “So are you,” you just whisper, eyes dropping to the front of his jeans. He’s already hard. “I haven’t touched you at all.”

He shakes his head, his fingers massaging into the wet spot in your panties with purpose. “‘s not a prerequisite.”

You lift your brows at the admission. “Good to know.”

He rolls his eyes. “Not like you’re gonna do anything with that information.” He pushes your panties to the side and touches his fingers to your soaked core, and you both gasp at the feeling. He breathes hard, eyes heated as he stares down at you. “You’re not brave enough.”

“Don’t-” you hiss through gritted teeth, resisting the urge to moan when his fingers push experimentally against your entrance. “-tempt me.” You reach your free hand toward his jeans, fully intent on unzipping them and touching him, but his hand comes down on your wrist – a smack of admonishment, gentle but firm. He narrows his eyes at you when you look at him in shock.

“I’m not gonna make it that easy for you, princess.” He pulls your thigh open over his legs to free up more space for himself, and then he’s dropping his head back to your neck and nudging against your entrance more seriously.

You’re wet enough that it only takes one try for both fingers to push into you, pressed against your walls and stretching you out. 

You gasp, your head falling back and bumping against the wall. “Oh, my God-”

Akaashi’s no better, his mouth open against your throat and his breath sharp and jagged. “Oh, fuck,” he breathes, his voice distracted and stunned. “Fuck.” 

“I’m,” you start, swallowing hard when he starts to move. “I’m not gonna last long-”

He groans, curling his fingers inside you and pressing hard against that spongy spot that makes you nervous. “I want you to squirt for me,” he breathes into your ear.

Your heart jumps into your throat. “What?” you say, high-pitched and shaky. “It’s-That’s not easy-”

You’re lying. It is easy for you, scarily so. And with the length of Akaashi’s fingers – with the way he knows how to press up against that spot every single time – it’s going to be so embarrassingly easy that you’re worried you might never live it down.

“I want it,” he breathes, persistent. He sounds a little urgent, bordering on desperate. “I want you to make a mess on my fingers.”

You whine, squirming against him as he picks up speed. You feel it forming, that pressure that’s different from the normal coil in your navel. “Uhm-I-” Your breath picks up, and his palm slaps against your skin when he slams his fingers into you again. The sting of it, repeated twice more, shoves you closer and closer to that dangerous pressure. “Mm-I’m gonna-” you heave, your body trembling in his arms and your hands struggling to keep the camera straight.

“Give it to me,” he whispers, groaning when your walls start to tighten around his fingers. “Be good and give it to me.”

You black out.

You black out, and you have no idea what happens when you do. You can’t feel anything, your entire body numb and light, floating on nothing. You feel your muscles spasm sporadically with the aftershocks, but you have no idea what had happened to get you here. Your hands are limp on the bed, but you can’t bring yourself to care if the camera had captured the moment. You feel Akaashi’s fingers still inside you – still moving – but you can’t do much more than listen as he pants in your ear and whispers ‘fuck, fuck, fuck,’ against the side of your head.

When you finally come to, you realize that you’re lying in a puddle. And Akaashi is hovering over you, his face flushed and his eyes full of disbelief and a burning heat.

“‘zzat good?” you slur, your head slumping against his shoulder, and he laughs against you, shaking his head.

“Holy shit, Y/n,” he breathes, laughing harder. “That was-fuck.” He jostles you gently. “Are you… Let me get you some water,” he says, shifting you, but you groan in protest.

“Did you come?” you breathe, dazed, and peel your eyes open to look at him.

“No.” 

“Then take your pants off,” you say, plain and direct. He looks into your eyes for just another moment, gaze tracking you and analyzing your energy, but you just level a frown at him. “Do you want to come or not, Akaashi?”

His brows lift, and his eyes flick down to the soaked blanket under you. When his gaze finds yours again, that heat is back.

He stands quickly, leaving you to shake the numbness out of your bones as he strips and moves impatiently to get the tripod. He sets your phone up with practiced fingers, and you sit up, shaking your head to clear it and sliding your panties and bra off.

“God, that was intense,” you breathe with a laugh. He glances back at you, a smile tugging at his lips. 

“You sure you’re good?”

“Super good.” You nod once, and then you beckon him toward you. “Hurry up, before I start to care what you think again and get embarrassed that that just happened.”

His burst of laughter echoes off the walls, and you feel pride at having drawn it out of him.

And then he climbs over you, and everything that’s not him fades into the background.

His eyes are steady on yours, but he moves with a decided lack of control, and that – his urgency – makes you more nervous than anything else. You lie back against the pillow and spread your legs for him, watching with bated breath as he shoves his boxers off impatiently and slots himself between your thighs. He leans over you, and one of his hands clamps down over your mouth while he lines himself up at your entrance.

He takes a breath, eyes flicking to yours, and you see the anticipation in them. Like he’d been waiting for this all week.

You’d been waiting, too, you realize.

He sinks into you in one press of his hips, and your back bows off the mattress. You moan loud against his palm, your eyes rolling back, and the groan he lets out – unfiltered, desperate – embeds itself into your skin. You struggle to breathe, to find your lungs when all you can feel is Akaashi inside you.

Your eyes focus and unfocus, searching uselessly for him while he slams his other hand down on the headboard to steady himself before setting a pace that makes your vision flicker. Your hands fly up, too, pressing back against the headboard to keep you from crashing into it. 

Akaashi’s hand falls from your mouth when he realizes that you’re not making noise, and it becomes clear that you can’t. Your mouth just hangs open, breath ragged and short while you gasp. Your eyes meet his, and he grins down at you.

“How’s that, princess?” he teases, panting tightly. “Still wanna find someone else to fuck? Or am I really the only one?”

He’s taunting you, torturing you. It makes some part of you angry – the part that hates him, so distant right now – and you try to argue.

“You’re only bitching-” You gasp sharply when the head of his cock bumps against your g-spot, scarily accurate like last time. “-because you got what you wanted-”

His next breath comes in a low growl, and he angles his hips so that he can hit your weak spot more easily. Your body shakes with each slam of his hips against yours, but you hold onto a shred of your sanity.

“You talk a lot of shit for someone who’s so needy for me-”

“Look in the mirror, asshole,” you bite, using every ounce of your energy to keep this up. But he presses two fingers against the seam of your lips, shoving them into your mouth. You choke around them, and he moans, because your walls flutter tightly around his cock at the feeling of his fingertips hitting the back of your throat.

“How ‘bout you shut the fuck up and get me off,” he snaps, gritting his teeth when your tongue curls wantonly around his fingers. “Maybe if you’re good at it, I’ll let you come again.”

You whine, despite yourself, and feel that twinge of need – the one that had reared its ugly head on Saturday. The need to give him what he wants, to fold for him and do what he says.

And then it hits you–

That this is what you’d felt all week.

That the gnawing in your chest and the frustration in your bones and the disorienting need to get his attention – good or bad – is exactly this. This need to bend to Akaashi Keiji’s will, because he’s got you wrapped around his finger.

You’re filled with an overwhelming rage, and you nip your teeth against his fingers – not hard enough to hurt, but definitely enough to shock his system.

Akaashi’s eyes go wide, and he hisses and draws his fingers from your mouth, wet and dripping saliva on your skin. “What the fuck?”

“You’re doing this on purpose,” you snarl, one of your hands leaving the headboard to shove against his chest. He stops moving, sitting up on his knees and staring down at you in confusion.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

You shove him again, and he catches your wrist, his eyebrows furrowing.

“You’ve been messing with me all week on purpose,” you spit, and then you sit up, startling him. You use the moment to latch onto him and roll him onto his back, swinging your leg over his waist and straddling him. He stares up at you, wide-eyed, as you try to take control of this. “You’ve been hot and cold, and rude and flirty,” you snap, lifting your hips just enough to sink down onto him. Your breath catches in your throat, and you watch his eyes roll back briefly, a quiet moan slipping past his lips. You plant your hands on his chest, finding a rhythm in his lap that has him gripping your waist tight. You grit your teeth and talk through the waves of pleasure, the ones that start in the crown of your head and make it hard to focus.

“You teased me at the party. And then you acted like I didn’t exist at the coffee shop.” You struggle to keep your breath, your movements growing unstable. His eyes search yours, alarmed.

“What-”

“You acted like I was a burden all day on Monday, and then you fucked with my head in the stairwell.” You glare down at him, hating wide-eyed way he’s watching you. “You fought with me in my office – you liked fighting with me-” You thump your fist weakly down on his chest while you bounce in his lap, angry – but not angry enough. It’s starting to fade into something else. Frustration that he’d played you, and confusion that he looks so confused. “And then you treated me like I was the only thing you could see at that stupid fucking club last night.”

The humilation creeps in – the embarrassment that you’d let this happen. You’d let him humiliate you. It makes your eyes prickle, and you squeeze them shut angrily. Akaashi slides his fingers roughly into your hair, holding tight when you try to shove him away.

“I hate you,” you say, choked and upset and refusing to look at him.

“Listen to me-”

“I hate you-”

“Listen to me.” He fists your hair tighter, jostling your head with enough urgency that your eyes fly open to find his. He’s glaring up at you now. “I’m not doing any of this on purpose.” You’d stopped moving in his lap at some point, too overwhelmed, but he bends his knees now, angling you against his thighs. You gasp when he starts to move, thrusting his hips up and using his one-handed grip on your waist to keep you steady.

“You think I wanted this?” he barks, snapping his hips up and bouncing you roughly against him. “You think I wanted to lose face at that fucking meeting? You think I wanted to fight in the stairwell like that?” His face twists into an angry scowl, and it’s your turn to be confused. “You think I want to get drunk and be unable to keep my hands off you? Huh?”

What-

What?

Akaashi’s hand slides out of your hair, dropping to the base of your throat. His fingers wrap around your neck, and your stomach flips with desire when he squeezes tight. You sigh in relief, the feeling of his palm against your throat when you swallow heavenly. He uses his grip to pull you close, until your nose brushes his. He sets a brutal pace with his hips, fucking up into you while he stares you down angrily.

“You know better than that,” he hisses. 

You start to shake over him, your desire mounting. “I-”

“You do know better, don’t you?” he whispers, his voice dangerously even. His eyes burn with anger. “Why are you acting like that? You told me you were smart.” His voice shakes a little, and you can see him struggling to keep up – his cheeks flush and his ears burn red, and he’s starting to pant, broken in a way that makes your stomach flip.

“I am,” you whisper, a bit whiny now. “I am smart – you’re just too confusing.”

The anger in his eyes solidifies into something worse. Something cruel and wicked.

“Then stop trying so fucking hard,” he snarls, slamming his hips up into you. You dig your nails into his shoulders, his sharp inhale clear in your ears. “Stop trying to figure this out.”

You shake your head hard. “I won’t. I can’t-”

“Oh, you can’t?” He mocks, and the edge in his voice kicks and shoves you right to your orgasm. “You won’t, is that it? Even though I just told you I’m not doing this on purpose?”

You squeeze your eyes shut. The idea that Akaashi’s just as affected as you are – just as much a victim to whatever this is as you are – fills you with a terrifying feeling. A feeling close to freedom, close to something that makes you want to throw everything away and give in to him. Because it’s not his fault, either, then. Because – if he’s not doing this intentionally – then there’s no one to blame.

And if there’s no one to blame, then you’re going to stop fighting the way you feel around him.

“Look at me.”

Your eyes open without your permission. Cyan stares back.

“You think I’m doing this on purpose?” He’s breathless and frustrated, searching your face. “Look at me.” His eyes are filled with emotion – that same caution you feel, not wanting to give into this if you’re not going to give in with him. His grip tightens on your throat, and he pulls you close, whispering into the breath of space between your lips.

“You know me better than that.”

When he falls, he takes you with him. And, as much as you want to fight it – kicking and screaming – you don’t. 

You just wrap yourself around him and fall.

[inf3ct3dd]

ellie headcanons ..!

warnings : literally none, perfectly sfw 😍😍

content: loser!ellie x reader, more ellie-focused than relationship focused (sorryyyy 😞😞)

authors note: i’ve literally never done headcanons omg 😓 this is js my random ramblings 🔥🔥🔥

pt. 2 ! taglist!!!! masterlist!!

- send you an excessive amount of reels. every 5 seconds. cute cats, random facts about space, stuff she thinks is funny, it all goes to you.

- definitely had a “rock collection” when she was little, but she was so ???? excessive with it??? like every time she saw a rock she picked it up. she walked so weird bc her pockets were just FULL OF ROCKS.

- also, was literally the grimiest kid ever. playing in ROLLING IN the mud, going snail hunting when it rained!!! she was the kid that would go in the bushes and mess w rolly pollies all the time for NO REASON.

- is weirdly good at fishing?? joel took her all the time, and shes a self proclaimed “fishing master”

- WAYYY clumsy. always running into a wall, tripping on air, or missing steps on the stairs (smh its cuz of that damn phone 😒😒)

- im so into the whole “adam sandler” fits cuz its so true. esp during the summer, its some stupid t shirt that says “master baiter” and a pair of old basketball shorts.

- speaking of t shirts, she’s def the type to own an absurd amount of dumb t shirts.

- gets all her clothes from like, walmart and goodwill. she does not CARE!!!

- cuts her own hair too 🤞🏽🤞🏽 shes soooo self sufficient 😍😍😍

- bites. she is such a biter.

- speaking of, i feel like she js has to have something in her mouth constantly. gum, random pieces of plastic, bottle caps, pens, anything 😞

- speaking of mouths (wow sierra so many connections!!!) she def had braces , but she hates wearing her retainer so her teeth are like ever-so-slightly fucked up

- is AMAZING at committing to the bit. she will drag it for DAYSSS if you don’t tell her to stop. once did a (awful) british accent for 4 days until you threw something at her and told her to shut the fuck up

- definitely not shy, just kind of…odd. she’ll talk to anyone that talks to her, she just doesn’t really approach people.

- weird obsession with pickles. has a pickle stuffed animal with a mustache and glasses that she bought from goodwill

- hangs up so much stuff on her walls!!!! tickets, old notes, cards, pictures of people, drawings, old tickets, literally anything she thinks looks cool

- obsessed with rollercoasters!!! she took you to the fair for your first date

- also like- very good at fair games. she’s so cocky about it too, you’ll go home with like 20 stuffed animals she won for you and she’ll carry ALL OF THEM with the stupidest smile on her face

- wears all of joels old contractor-workwear clothes during the colder months

- trys so hard to be “mysterious” but she’s never actually doing anything so she just does stuff like not telling you what movie she’s watching or what she’s eating

- also just texts you 24-7!!! like every time she’s doing something she’s like “i made a quesadilla” “i went to the store” “i took a shower” she just looooves keeping you updated

- tries to raise one eyebrow but ends up just squinting one eye. so funny 😞😞

- really good at solving rubix cubes???

- definitely had a fuck ass bob at one point

- GLASSES. that is all. glasses.

- listens to so much dad rock, midwest emo, indie, she LOVES male manipulator music!! but like she isn’t like thatttt shes so niceeee 😞😞

- mostly calls you babe/baby, she’ll call you really dumb pet names as a joke like “pookie” 😭😭

[inkonparchment]

sentinel - re4r bodyguard!Leon x college student!reader.

Leon offers you a piggyback ride.

The ache in your heels feels so good, hands gripping Mia's with a huge smile plastered on your face as you bounce off beat to the music. The atmosphere is lovely; conversation drowned out by the music, bodies huddled together in someone's house, a makeshift bar standing in almost every corner.

You stifle a giggle when you notice a flash of Leon's blond mop, obscured from your view with the expanse of the makeshift dancing floor between you. You know he's not happy to be here, something about being "too old for this kind of crowd" that had made you roll your eyes, reminding him that he was barely even thirty and also without a choice.

He blended in well enough, a black ensemble of t-shirt - god were all his shirts so tight - and pants and his leather jacket that was probably hanging around somewhere. Leon would blend in better if he lost that permanent scowl on his face, offering you one whenever you would give him the suggestion.

Mia pulled you towards her, helping you avoid crashing into a particularly drunk person stumbling behind your back. You shared a look with her before dissolving into a fit of giggles, the alcohol finally catching up to you, not so much to plaster you but enough to make the world fall away a little.

"Here you are ladies," Johnny greeted cheerfully, red solo cups in both hands and a plastic water bottle stowed under his arm.

"Oh thank god," Mia groaned, taking one of the solo cups and immediately taking a swig. "All this dancing is killing me."

You laugh at your friend, wiping her lip as some of her drink dribbles out, "God Mia, I raised you with better manners than that."

Johnny gives you a kind smile, handing off the water bottle to you. You like him, he's nice, good company, makes Mia laugh louder than anyone else and always makes sure she's okay. "Hey uh, I don't know how this fits in your whole situation but I think your guy may be in need of some rescuing," He nods behind you.

You turn, confusion etched on your face. 'Your guy'? Leon and him needing rescuing? What a laughable sentiment. The ball drops in your stomach when you finally spot him, Johnny's words making sense.

Leon's practically pressed up against the wall, defiantly looking anywhere but at the trio of girls that have him surrounded. All pretty nails, giggling forms and trying their hardest to take him home. Anywhere is more fun than here, they say to him, batting their eyelashes.

You want to laugh, so bad, but something stops you, maybe it's the acidic sensation that's beginning to pool in your stomach. His face drops down, locking eyes with you across the room, the crease in his forehead flattening. The rumble of the music falls away, the ache in your feet fading into the background.

Your eyes flicker to the swipe of one of the girls hands across his chest and you find yourself moving, muttering a "I'm gonna head out" to Mia. Leon's gaze doesn't stray from you, keeping you in sight as you approach.

It fills you with satisfaction when he straightens, shuffling away from the girls and coming to meet you halfway. You can practically see the "Are you okay?" lingering on his lips but you beat him to the punch. "Let's get out of here."

And it doesn't take long for the two of you to exit, smirking at the girls who can only watch you walk away with Leon, jackets on and beginning the walk back to the dorms. It's a nice night, quiet with no one around as you walk through campus grounds, your heels clip-clopping satisfyingly against the ground.

Leon strays behind you, not too far but not too close, his presence a comfortable warmth in the cool breeze. Your heel catches in one of the cracks, making you stumble with pathetic grace thanks to your drinking. But before you meet the cold pavement, a hand steadies you on your forearm, calloused fingers gentle against your skin.

You look up, nose only a hairs breadth away from Leon, your stomach lurching at his close proximity, the cerulean blue irises focused fully on you, searching your face.

"Are you drunk?"

"What are you a cop?" You shoot back.

The corners of his lips twitch upwards. He sighs, guiding you to one of the benches and gingerly making you sit down. You blink at your hands, finally remembering the bottle of water that you were holding. You go to open it, only to have it swiftly plucked from your grip, a quick twist of the cap and then thrust back in your palms, Leon's own encouraging you to take a few sips.

He crouches down infront of you, looking distastefully at your footwear. "I'm surprised you haven't started complaining about your feet yet."

You hold away the bottle from your lips, offering it to Leon silently, unable to find the cap. His palm comes up, wrapping around the bottle, engulfing your hand in it's warmth, the sensation shooting up your arm, making you avert your eyes from his.

You focus on the ground, hand still in his as he twists the cap shut. "I was just warming up. What would you like for me to start with?"

Leon's fingers brush over your thigh, lingering for a second, the feeling electric under his touch, as he stuffs them back into the pockets of his leather jacket. "Your bad choice in choosing shoes."

You gasp offended, straightening your leg to show him your heels, "These are designer! How dare you?"

"And how do your feet feel?"

You huff, folding your arms over your chest defensively, mumbling, "They hurt."

"What's that?" God, that teasing tone.

With a harsh roll of your eyes, you say again but louder, "They. Hurt." You shake your head, "We're still a long way from the dorm and you best bet I'm gonna chew your ear off about- what the fuck are you doing?"

Leon's turned away from you, back to you as he's still leaning. He gestures to him. "Hop on?"

"Excuse me?" You ask incredulously.

"You said it yourself," He shrugs, "We're a long way from the dorm. And I'd rather not explain to your father that the reason his daughter has a beat up face is because she got plastered at a party and fell on the ground face first."

Fury rises in your chest, "I am not plastered!" He doesn't respond. And you don't relent. "I weigh a lot."

At that he turns around with a raise of his eyebrow, an unimpressed look on his face. You grow heated under it, fingers fiddling your thumb. "I can walk by myself."

Leon sighs, turning fully to face you again, looking up from his bent position. He puts one hand beside your thigh, other hand coming up to fix the collar of your jacket, making it more tighter around your body. "I know," He hums, taking a softer approach, like you're a deer ready to scamper off at any moment. "But you don't have to do everything by yourself."

You gulp, almost wanting to curse the celestial beings hung up on the sky and how they always soften Leon under their glow; the sun, the moon and the stars united in their agenda. The iridescence of the moon almost offers him a halo, deepening the shade of his baby blues. And it all makes it so hard to say no.

"Okay," You whisper.

Leon positions himself again, your heart beating quicker as you slide your hands over his shoulders, feeling the ripple of muscles underneath. His big palms come to rest on your thighs, pulling them firmly against his waist and locking them. Leon airily asks if you're ready, you tighten your grip around him and nod. And he stands, without any hesitance, without any stagger. Your rock.

You rest your chin on his shoulder, his hair strands tickling your face, caressing your cheeks with the scent of his vanilla shampoo. He feels warm, back sturdy on your chest and fingers secure under your thighs. You thaw under his heat, unravelling defiance from your form, settling comfortably in his assuring grip.

"Thank you," You mumble against his ear, the ache in your feet a memory of the past.

[another-lost-mc]

taking the boys to see barbie‼️‼️🔥😫💯🤩🫨🫶🏻

A/N: I just got home from seeing Oppenheimer so this is like, perfect timing. These are some general movie outing headcanons for the group!

Going To the Movies

THE DEMON BROTHERS & THE DATEABLES

0.8k words | SFW | gn!Reader

Content: Luke is mentioned in a platonic sense only, the other relationships can be read as platonic or romantic.

You suggest a matinee show time because you figure it'll be less disruptive and chaotic for everyone.

Levi and Satan are the only ones that bother to look up the movie beforehand.

Levi wanted to read the early critic reviews, but he's careful not to complain about how stupid the plot sounds because he knows you want to see it.

(If it's a pop culture franchise Akuzon sells, Levi will order a t-shirt or sweater to wear on the day of the movie outing.)

Satan looked up the film's plot/backstory because you've been eager to talk about it.

(He likes knowing more about your interests than Lucifer his brothers do.)

Diavolo caught wind of your plans somehow (probably from Lucifer) and managed to convince Barbatos that they could both use an afternoon off to have some fun in the human world too.

When you show up at the theatre, Solomon and the angels from Purgatory Hall are already waiting near the concession stand.

(Barbatos admits to you that he might've told Luke about the movie plans in passing.)

Ordering food at the snack bar is interesting.

Lucifer orders himself a drink but no snacks. He opts for wine if the theatre sells it, or coffee if they don't serve alcohol, and he finally settles on bottled sparkling water if nothing else is available.

Mammon orders a popcorn combo that comes with a bag of candy. He asks you very casually what kind you like best before he just happens to choose that for himself.

Levi orders the popcorn combo that comes with the plastic collectible cup, and he browses the small display of plushies and toys near the snack bar too.

Satan orders popcorn and a drink and reminds you that there's plenty if you want to share with him.

Asmo buys a bottle of vitamin water and says he doesn't want anything to eat.

(Later he'll sneak some popcorn or nachos and candy from whoever he sits beside.)

Beel just points to all the popcorn poppers behind the counter and says he'll buy all of it.

(He grabs bags of candy off the display and drops those on the counter too.)

Belphie clarifies to the poor staff working behind the counter that they'll take two large bags of popcorn with lots of butter—and two bags of candy each, and two of the largest soft drink size they have...

Barbatos heads to another part of the concession stand to look at their frozen yogurt flavours and toppings.

While Barbatos is distracted, Diavolo orders the kid's popcorn combo because he wanted the collectible cup and toy it comes with.

Simeon buys a kid's popcorn combo for Luke and a frozen yogurt cup for himself.

(He gets two spoons so Luke can share it with him.)

Solomon orders popcorn with butter for himself, and everyone is relieved that he didn't try to sneak in any of his own homemade snacks.

He pulls out a salt shaker filled with something he claims he made himself and sprinkles it all over his popcorn.

(Unsurprisingly, no one else wants to try any when he offers it.)

Your entire group could fill an entire row of the theatre, and seating arrangements are the next big hurdle.

It surprises no one that Mammon, Asmo, Belphie, and Solomon all want to sit beside you.

(You absolutely forbid them from playing rock-paper-scissors in the theatre to solve that squabble.)

There are some obvious allowances in the seating arrangements: your BFF/lover(s) naturally claim the seats beside or closest to you.

If the seat's not already taken, Lucifer wants to sit on your right hand side.

(He smiles when you offer him some of your own snacks during the film.)

Satan and Belphie are not allowed to sit in the row behind Lucifer's seat—he already knows they'll kick the back of his chair (or his head) if they do.

Beel and Belphie usually sit next to each other. If Belphie falls asleep, he'll lean on Beel's shoulder so he doesn't disturb anyone else.

Levi complains that he's not in the seat that will give him the "best viewer experience," whatever that means, but he will sit close to you or Mammon if he can.

Solomon, Simeon and Luke move up a row and sit behind you if they can't sit beside you.

(Luke will tap your shoulder during the movie and offer you some of the candy from his kid's combo.)

Diavolo likes to sit beside or close to Lucifer.

(You can hear Diavolo comment excitedly about things throughout the movie while Lucifer reminds him to hush, which leads to both of them bickering loud enough for everyone else to hear.)

Barbatos likes to sit near Satan because they both enjoy watching the film quietly and won't bother each other.

(Barbatos doesn't mind sitting apart from Diavolo because he's always mindful of what his Young Master is up to.)

m.list | Taglist: @l-d-8 @mithrakira @your-next-daydream @haezen @xpixie @meggsngrits @flemmingbamse @tortibomb @amberrskiies @a-hidden-gem @lust--on--my--lips @meiloorun-tea @beelsjuicytitties @goldenglow149 @callmesaya @cosmicstarlatte @alexxncl @sirimirihiro @i-am-empress-irish @ezraiix @bizarrebankai @devildomd0ll @todothedodo @gaychaosgremlin @alexxavicry @moon-i-v @ablondehoe @thewisteriarchives @vinsmouke @kiirschtein @halaxia @bookoffracturedescapes

[marlsswrites]

Summer camp AU, part 7!!

July 7th <3

Neutral - @jegulus-microfic - words: 731

First part Previous part

Leg bouncing up and down, Regulus sat on the side of the bench as he waited for James to finish talking to a red haired girl.

She was pretty, really pretty, and James looked really happy. Both smiling, both talking, they looked like a couple. They could be a couple, maybe they are.

She was laughing, brushing a hand through her hair and touching his shoulder. Touching him, that’s not fair. He doesn’t have an excuse for why it’s not fair, it just isn’t.

Get off, Regulus wants to hiss like a jealous snake.

Regulus knew that the fiery haired and freckly cheeked girl went by Lily Evans, courtesy of Pandora. The only reason he was feeling sour about the two talking was because of Pandora being upset, nothing more.

Definitely nothing more, his eyes weren’t locked on James’ lips as he spoke, totally.

His lips moved animatedly, he would press them together and stretch them out into grins. He would bite down on the bottom one, turning the flesh a darker shade of pink before he let it go and blinked with her dark fluttery eyelashes.

Fuck.

-

Regulus examined the way James’ tight black t-shirt clung to his skin, slightly cropping to show a slither of dark skin on his waist as he filled up two water bottles for them at the water fountain, giving the kids a minute to chat before they started up.

“Here you go.” James grunted out as he slid a plastic bottle in front of Regulus.

“Thank you.” He nodded, smiling.

He took notice to the way James’ eyes held a certain light in them, of admiration and curiosity, he wanted to seek deeper into those hazel irises and know exactly why he’s looking at him like that.

“Are you ready to start in a minute?”

“Yeah-“ Regulus paused for a thought. “What are we doing today?”

“Climbing.” James snorted as he tucked his lips away into a smirk, Regulus groaning.

“Please don’t tell me I’ll have to climb one of those things.” Regulus pointed to a towering wooden frame peeking out from the tops of the trees. “Because I swear I would rather jump off it.” He deadpanned.

James let out a laugh, a sweet, kindred, angelic laugh that made Regulus’ heart feel like it was growing two sizes too big for his chest and rising up into his throat.

“That won’t be necessary, I like you a lot better alive and in one piece.” Still smiling, James jumped up and pulled on his elbow, Regulus’ skin warming at the touch. “Come on, I’ll do all the climbing.” He watched as Regulus stood up. “Keep your pretty face safe.”

And then he jogged off, just left. The man left with that. That’s so- Regulus let out a frustrated groan, which was more directed at the bright pink splashes on his hot cheeks.

“That stupid man.” Regulus grumbled and followed after him.

-

Regulus did try very hard to keep a neutral face as James attempted to abseil down a wall, but he failed miserably, so much so he had to cover his mouth to stifle the smile and laughs threatening to come out.

The big strong James Potter, who would normally say this was easy, was walking down ever so slowly, squeaking and yelling every few seconds.

“Go on!” A teen yelled.

“Yeah, go on you idiot.” Regulus shouted down. He was stood atop the tower, where he was required to be so he could comfort the kids, he make so ended up comforting James.

James looked up at him, his wide eyes and his shaky smile. Regulus couldn’t help but smugly smile back, the man looks like he was on the verge of tears, yet he offered Regulus a smile.

Two pairs of eyes met, full of want and wonder, twisted with the unknown and sharp silence.

That’s when Regulus decided, a bit of light teasing couldn’t hurt. He gave a wink, short and quick but enough.

Slipping with a yell, Regulus watched as James slowly went sliding to the floor, only just balancing himself back onto the wall. “That was mean!” He hollered up.

Regulus let his facade break, bursting out into laughter as he bit his lip to stop it. The corners of his mouth high and his eyes brighter than ever before, even brighter than his star some may say.

Next part

[ewanmitchellcrumbs]

The Hand That Feeds

Pairing: Ettore (High Life) x f!reader (physical attributes such as large breasts and alternative appearance described) Warnings: DEAD DOVE; DO NOT EAT. Mentions of child neglect, prostitution, substance abuse, death, murder. Dark and obsessive behaviour, attempted sexual assault, sub/dom dynamics, male masturbation, smut. Word count: ~3.7k

Summary: Ettore is used to having to take women by force - it's how he ended up on death row, and now a suicide mission in outer space. However, when a fellow crew member catches his eye and becomes the object of his twisted fantasies, he soon learns that the touch of a woman feels more satisfying when he's made to work for it. Based on this request.

Author's note: For @orcaunionleader. No tag list. Please follow @fics-by-ewanmitchellcrumbs and turn on post notifications. Community labels are for cops.

Ettore screws his eyes shut. Strapped into the seat of the spaceship as it hurtles upwards, plunged suddenly into darkness when the lights fail, he feels trapped. It must have been twenty years, at least, since he has felt so vulnerable.

His earliest memory is sobbing as he is shut in the cupboard, the pitch blackness terrifying and too much to bear, but the sight of what he sees when he bursts out is so much worse.

The man on top of his mother, the noises they’re making, he feels strange, a combination of wanting to watch but also a churning in his tummy that makes him feel unwell. He retreats back into the dark, closing the door and hugs his knees to his chest until it all goes quiet again. 

Ettore soon learns it is better to enter a room head first - if he is able to see exactly what is happening then he knows quickly whether it’s safe to come out, or whether he needs to retreat. Not placing his entire body in the way reduces the likelihood of being grabbed, hit, shouted at.

There’s a different man each time, and every time they leave there’s always money on the bedside table of the small studio flat, and his mother is asleep. It’s then that he crawls into bed beside her, cuddling into her warmth, tracing his fingers over the marks that litter her inner elbow creases.

He doesn’t recall his mother ever having hugged him, when she is still like this is the only time he is able to get close to her, and he wraps his arms around her until the rumbling in his stomach gets too much to bear. He is always hungry.

His bare feet crunch against spilled Rice Krispies on the dirty kitchenette floor. Sometimes there is bread to eat, if he picks around the mold, sometimes there isn’t. He sees through the window that there is a place across the road that his mother goes to every few days. She always comes back with glass bottles that clink against each other in the plastic bag, but sometimes there is bread, and less often there are Rice Krispies. He likes those, though he often spills them.

The hunger pangs in his stomach grow so bad he begins to cry. His mother no longer feels warm when he cuddles against her. He is not sure when she last woke up, why she won’t wake up now. Maybe she is just really tired.

He can see the place where she goes to get food from the window, it is not very far, perhaps she’ll wake up by the time he gets back, and so he wanders out of the flat, not closing the door behind him, and walks across the road.

Ettore’s eyes light up the moment he sees the familiar blue box of Rice Krispies, clutching it tightly in both hands. It’s only then that he looks up into the horrified face of the woman standing over him, unable to comprehend why she’s looking at him like that, as she takes in the sight of the malnourished, barefoot child before her, wearing only a t-shirt and a dirty nappy.

There are a flurry of adults around him after that, and he’s taken to live somewhere else. He never sees his mother again. He hears the phrase “non verbal” used a lot, and learns that someone of his age should be able to speak. He doesn’t know how to, and so slowly he is taught how to communicate with words.

Even when Ettore has mastered the power of speech, he prefers not to use it. He finds watching people is far better than talking to them. Most people tend to talk a lot even when they have nothing to say. He prefers the quiet.

There are lots of other children his age at the facility he’s placed in, but slowly they leave, one by one, when adults come to look around. He never leaves though, he supposes it has something to do with the way he has overheard the staff describe his eyes as “haunted” and how strange it is that he has no interest in playing. Grown ups don’t want to share their homes with children that aren’t happy. Ettore doesn’t feel he has much at all to be happy about, when he curls his lips into a smile it feels strange against his face.

As Ettore grows older, he learns of what actually happened to him. His mother had been a heroin addict, she had prostituted herself to fund her habit, and he had been a victim of her extreme neglect. She had died of an overdose and he had laid beside her body for days, until his own hunger had gotten the better of him and he’d wandered into the local corner shop in search of food. He feels nothing upon finding this out, if anything he yearns for the simpler time of huddling against the warmth of his mother as she’d slept off her fix. No one will touch him now, he craves physical contact but doesn’t know how to ask for it.

He’s placed into a foster home when he’s a teenager, though it is a placement that’s short lived. The woman has a daughter, she’s a similar age to Ettore and he longs for her touch. He knows all too well from the way that she squirms under the intensity of his gaze and leaves the room whenever they are alone together that the feeling is not reciprocated.

To Ettore it does not matter. He always waited until his mother was asleep before cuddling her, he reasons that he can simply do the same here. And he does just that; waiting until night falls and the house is quiet, he sneaks into her room, laying down upon the bed beside her.

He breathes in deeply, a delicate floral scent filling his nostrils as he runs the tip of his nose over the softness of her hair. His fingertips creep beneath her pyjama top, and he exhales a shaky breath at how silky smooth her skin feels to touch.

It’s then that she wakes up and lets out a loud scream, he topples from the bed, startled by her outburst and her mother rushes into the room. That is Ettore’s first and only foster care placement, another term is now used to describe him; “maladaptive”.

But he takes away a valuable lesson from the situation - if he wishes to touch a woman then he needs to ensure she stays asleep.

He watches couples with resentment, knowing that no woman will ever kiss or caress him with any semblance of love, not willingly anyway. Women don’t want men that are haunted and maladaptive, but that’s fine with Ettore. If it’s not freely given then he knows precisely how to take it.

Ettore preys upon those that are fumbling with their keys in the lock as they try to return home, women under the influence who spend just a little too long on their phones while trying to get a cab, and the ones that walk hurriedly towards their cars in empty, darkened parking garages.

He moves slowly, carefully, his body only moving in sync with where his head is looking once he’s certain of the target he’s selected. He is unhurried in his movements, and so he goes utterly undetected until it’s too late.

It starts as simply knocking them out and then using their bodies however he sees fit, but it  rapidly escalates when he accidentally kills one of them, it happens twice more before he’s finally apprehended.

He doesn’t try to fight it, pleads guilty in court and is sent to prison. Even with good behaviour, his sentence is such that he’ll be elderly before he’s ever free. But any opportunity for eventual freedom is snuffed out when he gets into a scuffle with another prisoner.

Threats of solitary confinement hang heavily over him as he’s dragged away, and something inside of him snaps. He won’t go back to being locked away in the dark, he can’t. So he lashes out, and as he’s stomping upon the guard’s head he is reminded of the crunching of Rice Krispies beneath his feet from when he was a child.

The death penalty doesn’t exist within the United Kingdom’s judicial system, but he knows he’s being served a death sentence when he is given the news that he has been assigned to board a spaceship with other prisoners on a mission to extract alternative energy from a black hole. There is no coming back from that, he’s not foolish enough to believe otherwise, yet he readily accepts it. There is no other alternative for him, truthfully, there never has been.

When the lights eventually flicker back on and they are alerted they can unfasten their seatbelts, Ettore finally opens his eyes, looking at the prisoners that are seated around him. He’s surprised and intrigued to find there are women as well as men on board. He hasn’t encountered a woman since being sent to prison.

The scrubs they are given to wear are baggy and conceal much of their bodies, so to his disappointment he is unable to admire the feminine curves of the women on board - except one. She is shorter than he is, the remnants of a long since faded colour adorns the ends of her hair. Both her arms are full sleeved with tattoos. He wants to tear away her uniform and see what other artwork decorates her flesh. If he were a normal person, he’d strike up a conversation and ask, but Ettore is not one for words, so he simply stares, watching her every movement as a silent storm builds inside of him.

Though she is slenderly built, he can clearly see the way the baggy top half of her clothing curves over the ample swell of her breasts. His eyes linger there whenever he passes her in the corridor, picturing what it would be like to run his hands over them and squeeze their softness.

It’s these thoughts that are the cause of his every visit to The Box, the ship’s masturbatory aid. It’s used gratuitously by all crew mates, as sexual conduct between prisoners is prohibited on board, so he spills over his knuckles every chance he gets, imagining it’s inside of her. Would she claw at his shoulders and slap at him to get away, or simply lay still and take it?

Occasionally he deposits a sample into a plastic cup, taken away by Dibs, a supposed doctor on board who seems to be the main authority figure. She never fully explains what is to be done with his specimens, but once he has taken the reward he’s provided afterwards - usually a sedative - he cannot find it in himself to care.

He has heard whispers that she is conducting fertility experiments on the ship, attempting to artificially inseminate the female inmates. If that’s the case, he is thankful that his involvement is far less invasive than theirs must be, but ultimately it’s not his problem. He keeps to himself, ever watchful of those around him.

At least there is structure and routine; he goes to sleep and wakes up at the same time each day, participates in mandatory exercise regimes, eats regular meals and is assigned maintenance work duty.

Getting to know his own schedule means becoming familiar with other people’s, and that includes her’s. There is a sense of both excitement and comfort in knowing exactly where she is and exactly what she’s doing at all times.

The first time he encounters her coming out of the Box, he’s struck by how beautiful she is, pupils dilated, skin glowing with a light sheen of perspiration, her lips slightly parted as she attempts to calm her breathing. The heady aroma of her arousal lingers faintly as he goes in after her and he has never come harder in his life than he does on that day. He makes a point to go in after her every day after that.

If she were any other woman and these were any other circumstances, he’d have forced himself upon her by now, but they are in a confined space together and there’s no way for him to act upon his urges without there being almost immediate consequences for it. Every day it feels as though a coil inside of him is wound tighter, and every day he is left wondering if that will be the day when it finally snaps and he brings everything crashing down for both of them.

Despite his internalised conflict, she seems utterly unperplexed by him, which is confusing for Ettore. He is used to women regarding him with unease and disgust, so for her to be completely unphased by his presence is disarming. She is a criminal too though, he reasons, and for her to have been served what is effectively a death sentence she must have done something terrible. The thought makes her all the more alluring to him.

He is on cleaning duty today, tasked with scrubbing down the shower tiles. He enters the showers slowly, deliberately, unable to hear water running, so assumes that there’s no one in there.

But then he spots her, her hair wet and sticking to her bare shoulders, the tops of her breasts just about visible. She hasn’t seen him, yet. His eyes roam slowly over the greyscale body art that adorns her arms and thighs, wondering if there's more hidden beneath the towel that clings to her svelte figure. 

Absent-mindedly his fingers move over the triangular motif that's tattooed on his right forearm; though the scar is no longer visible he still feels the indentations of teeth. If he closes his eyes he still remembers the way that girl had fought, biting into his flesh as he'd wrapped his arm around her throat. He can never recall their faces, but he remembers the marks they left upon him - each one now covered by the same tattoo - a target so that he never forgets - a slash of a broken bottle against his bicep, acrylic nails gouging into his neck. They're never quite strong enough, though they fight to the end. He wonders if her ink serves the purpose of covering or reminding, what sinister deeds have led her down a path of such finality. He intends to find out.

Her head snaps up to look at him and he sucks in a harsh breath as she makes eye contact with him. She doesn’t scream or shy away, simply returns his unblinking stare and his fingers flex at his sides, mouth running dry as he considers whether he’ll need to silence her or not.

“Like what you see?” She whispers, letting the towel fall slowly away.

Ettore remains unblinking, though he feels shaken to his core on the inside. He drinks in the sight of her bare flesh, her full rounded breasts, the dip of her waist, her curvaceous hips, feeling his cock twitch in his scrubs.

What the fuck is she playing at?

“Fuckin’ cock tease,” he spits out, before turning and walking away to the Box.

He reaches his peak embarrassingly quickly, brow furrowed and jaw slack as sweat rolls down his temples.

Once the feeling of euphoria has worn off it is replaced by anger and confusion. Had she been trying to get him into trouble? Did she actually want him? Was she making a mockery of him?

His mood darkens at the thought and as his mind races after lights out that night, unable to find sleep. He slips out of his bunk and walks slowly, silently, along the corridor towards her cell.

He can see the outline of her body beneath the covers, and is suddenly unsure of what he came here to do. Torn between wanting to lunge for her, grab her by the throat and make her pay for her earlier indiscretion, or simply slip beneath the covers beside her and allow his hands to roam freely, he stands and does nothing, watching her.

“Come inside, if you want,” she calls out quietly to him in the darkness, making him startle, “bunkmates are all sleeping.”

Ettore hesitates, remaining rooted to the spot, unable to believe that a woman is actually inviting him into her space, that she wants to be near him.

“You gonna pussy out again like you did earlier?” She questions playfully.

He feels embarrassment flush his cheeks and allows it to propel him forward, over the threshold, into her space. He won’t let a woman get the better of him.

She shuffles back against the wall, lifting the blanket and patting the space beside her.

He hasn’t laid beside a woman since the night he was kicked out of his foster placement for getting into bed with the host’s teenage daughter, the only other times before that were when he huddled beside his passed out mother.

Ettore swallows thickly, not wanting to show weakness and quickly slips in beside her.

She smells of the ship’s standard issue soap, yet somehow on her flesh it has an utterly different scent, it’s sweet and intoxicating and has him longing to bury his face in the crook of her neck. He inhales deeply, feeling himself grow hard from her proximity and the warmth of her soft skin against his bare torso.

Apparently she feels it too, as she eagerly snakes a hand between them, palming at him through his shorts. 

A woman has never touched him like that before, not willingly. Usually he’s the one in control. It feels too much, too fast, bile rises in his throat and he jerks away from her, stalking silently back to his own cell, shame blooming hot and heavy in his chest as he feels tears burn beneath his eyelids.

What the fuck was that?

For the first time in Ettore’s life a woman had wanted to touch him, and he’d freaked out and run away. Does she not realise what he could do to her, what he’s capable of? He is supposed to inspire fear, not lust.

He wants to storm back to her cell and smash her head against the wall. She’s made him feel weak, inferior, yet despite that he can’t shake the feeling of her hand between his legs.

Unable to help himself, he waits for her as she exits the Box the next day, the telltale signs of her having just climaxed etched all over her features as she steps out. Her expression hardens when she sees him, rolling her eyes and side stepping him, until he grabs her wrist, stopping her from going anywhere.

“Let go of me, Ettore,” she says threateningly.

“How d’you know my name?” He asks, pulling her close so he can stare down into her eyes.

She smirks. “You’re not the only one that can skulk around the ship finding things out. Dibs left your file out the last time she had me up on the table, so I snooped. I know your name, your blood type, your sperm count–”

“Do you know what I’m serving time for?” He narrows his eyes as he asks this.

“No, I figure if we’re gonna explore whatever this is,” she gestures between them, “it’s better we don’t know that about each other.”

Ettore scoffs, quirking his lips as he eyes her carefully. “And what is this?”

She shrugs. “I dunno. Clearly you’re not comfortable letting me touch you…yet. So how about you touch me instead?”

He keeps a neutral expression, despite the surprise he feels once again that a woman would willingly let him touch her. “How would that work?”

“You’re about to use the Box, right? Take me in. Touch me while you touch yourself.”

Her words send an aching pulse straight to his balls and he nods, walking into the Box, not checking to see if she’s following. He knows she will be.

“Take it off, take it all off,” he orders quietly, gesturing to her clothes.

She pulls off her top and slips off her bottoms and his gaze rakes appreciatively over her form, only this time his hand slides into his trousers as he does so, his hand wrapping around his steadily hardening length.

Her lips are parted, eyes wide as she stares up at him, her breathing almost matching the intensity of his. Tentatively he leans down, inhaling her scent. The sweetness fills his nostrils and something inside of him snaps.

Pulling his erection free, he moves his fist over it in quick, aggressive strokes, biting at her pulsepoint, before moving his lips downwards towards her tits, pressing his face into their soft warmth, mouthing at them without restraint.

True to her word, she doesn’t touch him, keeping her hands balled into tight fists at her sides, though he can tell she is desperate to reach for him, her breaths erratic as she arches into his touch.

His stomach muscles contract, pressure building at the base of his spine as droplets of pre-cum help to guide his rapid, successive jerks of his cock.

Reaching between her legs, he groans at feeling how wet she is, a combination of her previous orgasm and how aroused she is from what’s currently happening between them.

He buries his face in her chest, sinking two fingers inside of her. There is no scratching, no slapping, no disassociating. She is soft and pliant against him, willing, and as often as he has fantasised about taking her by force, this feels better than anything he has ever experienced previously, better than anything he could have imagined.

As the pressure reaches its apex and he finally climaxes with a groan and a shudder, releasing white hot ropes of his seed across her lower belly, she reaches up with shaky, tentative hands to gently run her fingers through his hair.

“Good boy,” she coos, “did so well for me.”

He sighs, leaning over her, resting his head against the wall behind her. Next time he wants to sink inside of her, to feel what it’s like to be touched, wanted, needed. Because as haunted and maladapted as he is, as he opens his eyes and stares into hers he sees that she is too. Her darkness plays well with his, and in a cold and sterile environment Ettore has finally found the warmth he’s always craved.

[bellysoupset]

Some LukeBell emeto cuteness because Why Not.

-------------------

"Hey," Bella opened a lazy smile, lowering her nintendo switch and removing her headphones, "how was work?"

"Uhm," Luke groaned, walking to the bed and kicking off his shoes. He didn't bother with the buttons of his shirt, pulling it off like a normal t-shirt and falling on the bed, "my head hurts."

"Migraine?" Bella froze, cringing in sympathy. He hadn't had a migraine in quite a while and was overdue one. Luke shook his head, pushing his wife's knees apart and slotting himself between her legs, using her chest as a pillow.

"No, just a headache," he let out a big sigh as Bell started to pet his hair, "the shelter food made my belly feel all gross, I think I'll have to start bringing my own."

"The food was bad?" Bella scoffed, "that's fucked up! They're serving that to people who really need-"

"No, the food was fine," Luke snuggled up even more, "but it had a bit of pepper and ugh," as if to corroborate his point, his belly let out an unhappy gurgle and he shifted, muffling a burp against his wife's oversized shirt.

Bella wrinkled her nose in disgust as the hot air of the thick belch warmed up the spot, but she continued to pet his hair, "you're so painfully white, Lucas."

He let out a groan, pressing his forehead to her collarbone and slumping down. After a couple more minutes of no talking, Bella retrieved her Switch and put on a silly game, just to have something to do.

Upon hearing a sound effect Luke raised his head and squinted at her, pouting "I'm dying, give me attention!"

Bella snorted, lowering the Switch again, "you have a tummyache, you're not dying," nonetheless she leaned in, pulling him to fully drape himself over her and Lucas let out a pleased noise, burying his face on her neck. She rolled her eyes, turning her face to press a kiss to his cheek, "you're such a huge baby, Atwood."

He didn't even bother sounding offended, wrapping his arms around Bella's waist and breathing out softly. With Lucas lying on top of her like that, Bell was struggling to breathe, but she could also feel all of the upset churns and gurgles of her husband's stomach.

Bell started to scratch his back and Luke melted, all tension leaving him, his breathing slowing down as he started to doze off. She was starting to get sleepy herself, when Lucas' belly let out another upset growl and he groaned, the gross feeling pulling him out of his almost slumber.

"Urgh," Luke moaned softly, squirming until he wasn't so much as draped on top of Bell, but only his head resting on her stomach, lying diagonally on the bed, "it's been hours and I still feel queasy..." he finished it off with another burp, barely muffling it with his hand.

Bella sighed, "would medicine help? We have Pepto and TUMS..."

"Maybe Pepto...?" He sat up correctly on the bed as Bella crawled out of it to grab the pink bottle. Luke hung his head between his knees, planting a hand to his stomach and groaning as he felt the hot, acidic liquid inside, "gross..."

"Here, bottom's up," Bella handed him the little plastic bottle and moved so she was sitting behind him once again, planting her hands on Luke's naked shoulders and rubbing her thumbs in deep circles, trying to massage some of the tension off.

He gulped down the chalky strawberry liquid and wrinkled his nose, planting the bottle on their bedside table and rubbing uneasily at his stomach, "it's like... Burning."

"The pepto will help," Bella nuzzled the side of his head, continuing to rub his back. Luke let out a groan as he felt a gurgle inside his stomach, acid tickling the back of his throat.

Turning his face away from Bell's, he muffled a thick burp against his fist and wrapped an arm around his middle.

Bella's massage felt nice and normally he'd have melted into a puddle by now, but the discomfort in his stomach seemed to only grow. He leaned forward on his knees, staring at their ugly beige carpet and trying to ignore the burning inside and how sloshy his belly felt, "I hate this carpet."

Bella snorted, planting a kiss on his shoulder, "not enough reason to puke on it, Atwood. You're looking a little green around the gills, wanna move to the bathroom?"

Luke squeezed his eyes shut, gulping down, "no, don't think I'm gonna throw up..." his belly chose this moment to let out a loud whine, loud enough it made his wife muffle a snort against his back, but she didn't say anything, continuing to try and press the tension off his shoulders.

Lucas swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth, shuddering as a particularly hard cramp hit him. His leg started to bounce up and down as he tried to fight off the nausea, the weird churning inside him.

"Lu," Bella pressed a kiss to his temple, "baby, c'mon," she grabbed his bicep, ushering him up, "don't puke on the carpet, its gonna be hell to clean."

"We should... Should get rid of it," Luke groaned, but didn't fight her as Bella pushed him inside the bathroom. He lowered himself in front of the toilet, pushing the lid up, but not leaning over it. He was still hopeful it would pass on its own.

"It's a rental, Atwood. Means we can't rip parts of it off, no matter how ugly we find them," Bella chuckled quietly, grabbing a bath towel and folding it, so Luke could kneel on that instead of on the cold tiles.

She could see there was no way he was winning this fight, but telling him it was useless would only have him try harder. Competitive prick. He was coated in a thin layer of sweat and normally Luke's belly was pretty quiet unless he was hungry, but now she could hear the gurgles and whines loud and clear.

Lucas let out a groan, opening a hand flat on top of his belly. He was slightly bloated, she could tell as his fingers dug into his abdomen, the faint traces of his abs had faded away - less than she expected, but more than she'd have liked. He leaned forward, spitting in the clear water and resting his forehead to the porcelain.

"Bell, it fucking hurts," Luke moaned, making her heart squeeze. Bella scooted closer, planting a hand on his forehead to help with the aim and with how heavy his head felt, then put her opposite hand on his stomach.

"Okay, get it up, babe," she instructed, straightening up so she was taller than him in his hunched position over the toilet, "force up a burp."

Lucas must've been in too much pain, because instead of fighting the nausea as he normally would've done, he nodded weakly and she heard the shallow noises of him swallowing air. His stomach let out another upset gurgle and Luke pitched forward with an airy burp, with none of the potency that his belches normally had.

"C'mon," Bella rolled her eyes fondly, patting his back, "you can do better. Get up a big one, babe-"

With an almost annoyed grunt, Luke scrambled forward with a huge burp, that turned wet halfway through. He buried his head in the bowl, arms shooting out to grab on the porcelain and Bella cringed in sympathy, keeping her hand put in his forehead to stop him from hitting the toilet bowl as the violent heaves wrecked him.

After what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a couple minutes, Luke coughed and pulled back, panting like crazy. There was drool clinging to his bottom lip and bits and pieces to his chin, his green eyes all teary.

"Fuck..."

"Blow your nose," Bell passed him a wad of toilet paper and got up to get him a glass of water. She heard Luke blowing his nose, then spitting a couple times and flushing the toilet, "here," she passed him the glass of water and offered her husband a sad smile.

He was incredibly pale and leaning against their cramped bathtub, with his eyes closed, taking measured breaths. Luke cracked his eyes open to take the glass, but didn't bring it to his mouth.

"Rinse your mouth off and take a sip, Luke, it's going to help," Bella bargained, kneeling down next to him. He nodded in agreement, but made no movement to drink, causing her to sigh.

"Lucas?"

"Give me a minute," his voice was thick and his eyes squeezed shut once more, lips pressing into a thin line. Bella sat down on the cold floor, staring at him expectantly and as if he could feel her stare, still with his eyes closed, Luke groaned, "stop gawking."

"You're just too handsome, I can't help it," Bell teased him lightly, causing the corner of his mouth to turn up just a bit. His stomach let out another sickly groan and Lucas squirmed, passing her the full glass of water again, nearly causing it to splash, and hugging the toilet once more.

He didn't puke, only hung over it, mouth open and drooling, clearly feeling like hell. There was nothing Bella could say to make him feel better, so instead she just sat next to him awkwardly, planting a hand in the middle of his back and waiting to see if he was gonna be sick or not.

A minute passed, no noise, no nothing... "Luke, let's go ba-"

The second she started to speak, his back curled and Lucas coughed up another mouthful of bright red vomit, groaning loudly. Bella grimaced, moving closer enough she could push his hair back and away from his sweaty forehead.

"You're almost done, get it up," she said, worriedly biting her lip. It was crazy that just a bit of spice could reduce a man of his size to a pathetic puddle.

He sniffled, burping again, the sound echoing in the bowl, then clumsily reached for the flush, putting his entire weight on it, "think... Think I'm done."

His voice was husky, scratchy thanks to all the acid.

"You sure?"

"No," Luke pressed his forehead to his forearm still resting on the toilet, "can I have some water, please?"

"Here," Bella reached behind her, near their laundry basket and grabbed the abandoned glass, keeping her hands over his in a concerned way since Luke was shaking so much.

He swished the water around, then spat it in the toilet and drank a small sip, blowing out a soft burp, "I'm fine now..." Luke rubbed a hand over his face, "Geez..."

Bella squinted at him, before nodding, "wanna take a shower? You're drenched with sweat."

"Uhm, yeah, help me up-" Luke moved at a snail's pace, wrapping an arm around his stomach, "never let me eat at the shelter again."

"Noted," Bella chuckled, hugging him close as Luke swayed and stripped down his pants. She tried to pull back, but he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, crushing the ginger to his chest and stepped back, pulling them both under the warm water spray, "Lucas!"

"Don't yell at me, I'm dying," Luke whined, hugging her closer and Bella sighed, rolling her eyes and sinking into his arms, despite the water sipping through her shirt and pants.

[jacketssupplier]

Enjoy Special Offers On Organic And Sustainable T-shirts From Recycle Clothing

Being a recognized sustainable t-shirt manufacturer, Recycle Clothing offers sustainable and eco-friendly tees tailored with 100% natural fabrics. Purchase these durable tees in bulk!

[fe12uer]

T-Shirt Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles | T-Shirt Made from Plastic Bottles - Fe Brand Fe Brand Supports a Closed Loop by Recycling Plastic Water Bottles into High Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles. Recycle Polyester Made from Plastic Bottles Are Used as Part of the Material.

[girlwithamissingpearl]

I understand things have been dry in Outlander land but even desert dry has me smh. Ladies, if you have to try that hard to shit all over SH, I’m not saying it makes you a hater but it sure as shit doesn’t make you a liker.

Back after a bit- admit it, we all need to occasionally take a break- I feel I needed to pace myself during the drought. But after a bit of scrolling, I felt compelled to dive right in. Isn’t this fandom about fun, entertainment and guilty pleasure? That’s why I’m here. So why the endless posts from the SH haters? Do people dislike SH, enjoy the snark or just think the man is stupid?

So just for fun (or insomnia) I thought I would play a short game of SH: Stupid, Smart or just SMH?

1. SH and Cons/Private events for $

Why do people have such a problem with SH trying to make a living? Most if not all actors part of a series or movie franchise participate. In my opinion SH is doing it now, so he won’t need to in his 60’s to pay the rent. While most fans are priced out of the more exclusive events, all I can say is the paying fans are the only ones that never complain. Supply and demand. If any charitable component is part of the deal, great. So can we finally put a line under this?

Verdict: Smart as hell

2. SH always “Shilling” SS to his Fans and on SM

Uhm, he is the brand. It’s his company. Can it be a bit much? Yes. Promotion to the fan base and the use of sm is marketing 101. In order for people to try the product they need to know about the product. We can disagree as to his methods or success to date, but fans are not the only ones buying bottles. As for the constant and consistent presence of AN with SH during events? Suddenly they are a couple? WTF. AN is a business partner. He owns part of the business. They both work hard promoting SS, and so far it looks like they will continue to release more SS. Ladies, don’t put your lawn chairs away yet!😉

Verdict: Smart

3. SH and boundaries with his fans

Regardless of the letter you attach to SH, he is a recognized actor around the world. Definitely a people pleaser, in imho, he will happily take a selfie with anyone. Obviously, he never wants to disappoint any fan, but his lack of boundaries and security at events can be cringe worthy at times. If a female actor was touched, mauled, or asked to sign fans boobs or t-shirts it would be a #me too moment. Someone, anyone in security or a handler needs to be bad cop if he won’t. How far is too far?

Verdict: Stupid with a side of SMH

4. SH as a Philanthropist and Charitable Causes

This one really bugs me. MPC has raised over $6m for charity. SH’s name attached to any cause raises awareness and $. The BS from the haters who discount this based on the fact SH apparently never donates his own money is petty nonsense. Gentleman’s ride is one example. Agree it was his female fans that made it happen. And? This is my only fandom but SH is held to an impossible standard. Apparently he is a hypocrite in his support for clean oceans because someone on his team had a catered lunch using single use plastics. Great topic for discussion, but the man didn’t throw the containers in the ocean. Also let’s not judge a person’s commitment based on sm posts. SH can literally, yes ladies literally never win. Thankfully the causes he supports do. I dare you to disagree.

Verdict: Smart

5A. SH’s dating life

According to an extremely ardent part of this fandom, SH has dated😉 every fit blonde 👱‍♀️ within a 250 mile radius of everywhere. I wish that someone would keep track of all the mysterious initials and lack of any literal proof of these women. This is where I separate the snark from the hater’s. While I’m in owe of the investigative skills of some, and enjoy the gossip-even though mom thought gossip was a sin, sorry mom- not all women aka initials welcome the attention. Any woman save CB that SH is remotely warranted or not attached to, has an avalanche of hate comments and 💩emoji in their future, welcome or not. Personally, I believe SH, goes out of his way to protect the people he cares about, and perhaps even those he may not. I think we can agree he is not a monk. However an actor is entitled to privacy. Ginger Jesus included.

5B. SH ‘s Sexuality

From the beginning, 3 years for me, I’ve read posts about someone who knew a friend of a friend of a bartender’s friend who knew for a fact SH had a boyfriend. WTF. You know the drought is real when this bullshit gets recycled. We all know the question has been asked and answered by SH. More than once. Next.

Verdict: SH keeping his private life private: Smart as hell.

6. SH and the use of all things Outlander related

If you don’t get it, I don’t have the time and am too lazy to explain it to you.

Verdict: Smart. Smart as hell

7. SH and CB

The only real problem here is obvious. And I don’t know why the fans or even the haters- btw, I use the term haters like I do profanity- perhaps not the best word, but like GFY, FU, MF, C, etc. I’m lazy and it saves time and no confusion to whom I address. So where the actual f&ck is the audition tape we all want to see? You know the part of which I speak. If only the fandom investigators could put aside any petty differences and uncover the SH, CB chemistry kiss tape? I’m not saying it will be a unifying and CTJ moment, but it would give SH fans something to make the drought less….thirsty.

No verdict necessary. 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨😚😉

And last but definitely not least…

8. SH and Thirst Traps

Ladies, because of Outlander and all things Outlander related, we’ve had the pleasure to observe SH from every view and lovely angle. Come on, if you 👀 closely it’s all there. Why the actual f&ck people in this fandom have a problem with his shirtless posts is beyond me. Not only is he promoting the results a good fitness regime can produce, he is literally, yes literally giving his fans something they want. And don’t even try me with- you’re treating him like an object. This is a 100% consensual relationship. And if the word “hater” seems harsh about the same gang that complains and shits all over his shirtless thirst traps, then please find me a better name.

Verdict: Smart as hell and thank you

So for those who may not get it, this post is silly and something for my handful of friends or any SH fan to have a laugh. If anyone has the patience to read the entire thing😉 So any comments are welcome, but to the people or person sending awful and cowardly anon messages: save your time. Or GFY. See what I did there?🤓

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Comet Donati [Chapter 4: Temporary Fix]

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+), drugs, alcohol, smoking, crepes, mental health struggles, the Cookie Monster pajama pants are removed...😏

Selected Chapter Quote: “I will push you off the Eiffel Tower.”

Word count: 6.7k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: ​@doingfondue​ @catalina-howard​ @randomdragonfires​ @myspotofcraziness​ @arcielee​ @fan-goddess​ @talesofoldandnew​ @marvelescvpe​ @tinykryptonitewerewolf​ @mariahossain​ @chainsawsangel​ @darkenchantress​ @not-a-glad-gladiator​ @gemini-mama​ @trifoliumviridi​ @herfantasyworldd​ @babyblue711​ @namelesslosers​ @thelittleswanao3​ @daenysx​ @moonlightfoxx​ @libroparaiso​ @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics​ @mizfortuna​ @florent1s​ @heimtathurs​ @bhanclegane​ @poohxlove​ @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @heavenly1927​ @mariahossain​ @echos-muses​ @padfooteyes​ @minttea07​ @queenofshinigamis​ @juliavilu1​ @amiraisgoingthruit​ 

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! 💜

“Our father never cared about us,” Aegon says at the rooftop bar in Kansas City, a full year before you meet Aemond, a full year before you know him as anything other than a face to be printed on t-shirts and keychains like profiles stamped into coins at a mint, things to be acquired, traded, hoarded, lost. Aegon is swirling the ice cubes in his Salty Dog with a green plastic stirrer shaped like a pirate’s sword. He’s glowing from his sunburn, but he glows from within too; you have the sudden and distinct impression that he’s made of weightless luminance, slice a vein and he’d bleed daylight. A year later, you’ll find yourself thinking that if you cut Aemond, storms and rogue waves would come pouring out.

“I’m so sorry,” you offer, knowing it will not help. But it can’t hurt either, unlike those platitudes that well-meaning but ignorant people like to besiege him with: Of course your parents love you. I’m sure they did their best. You’ll understand how hard it is when you’re a dad someday.

“I figured it out pretty early on. How much he preferred Rhaenyra. How I was the antithesis of everything he could have wanted in a son.” Aegon shrugs; it can’t be changed, it’s like trying to stop the rain. He sips his Salty Dog. Ice clinks; he licks his lips. “It took Aemond a little longer. Helaena was always with Grandpa and Daeron was mother’s favorite, but I remember Aemond trailing after our father like a duckling, asking him about history and books and whatever else, just desperate with this need to be noticed, to be loved. If my father was leafing through a biography at the kitchen table, Aemond would spend hours on Google trying to come up with a fact he hadn’t read yet. If my father mentioned a movie, Aemond would watch it over and over again until he had the lines memorized. I remember one Christmas, Aemond wanted the Helm’s Deep Lego set because my father liked the Lord of the Rings. Then he kept asking Dad to help him put it together. ‘We’ll do it this weekend.’ ‘We’ll do it after I get off this conference call.’ ‘We’ll do it tomorrow.’ ‘We’ll do it for your birthday.’ Never happened. Well summer rolled around and I guess Aemond figured he might as well just do it himself. So he stayed up all night putting that fucking Lego castle together and left it on the kitchen table where my father couldn’t miss it. So the old man comes downstairs the next morning for breakfast and we’re all sitting there with our waffles and orange juice, and Aemond is trying not to act too proud but he is, he’s literally shaking with impatience for Dad’s praise, even a crumb, even just a few words, the maple syrup bottle was trembling in his hands. And my father strolls into the kitchen, glances at this meticulously constructed replica of Helm’s Deep—I mean it’s like a sculpture in a museum, it’s goddamn perfect—and he gives this little snort of a laugh. He says: ‘Wow, look at that.’ And then he sits down at the table, opens his biography of King George V, and never mentions it again.”

This moment is real but it isn’t. Sitting outside in the warm, windswept Missouri midnight with a popstar you’ll never see again (an incorrect assumption) and stories you have no right to hear (so you believe).

Aegon takes another sip of his Salty Dog. “Not me,” he says with a puckish, sad half-smile. “I was never going to beg for someone to want me. I go wherever, I’m with whoever. No strings. No anchors. Nothing stays the same except the band, and that’s what bought me my freedom to begin with, so I don’t mind it so much. Me father is disgusted by me. But this is who I am. And I’d rather force him to watch me torch his legacy than break my back trying to earn love that was given away long before I was born.”

“Do you think that’s a part of why you have no interest in settling down?” you say. “I mean, commitment is a two-way street. And if you commit to someone, you have to trust that they’ll commit to you back. That they love you now, sure, but also that they’ll keep loving you. Maybe that’s something that’s difficult for you to accept. That someone could love you for more than an hour, a night, a day.”

He taps his Salty Dog against the tabletop, considering you, perhaps even marveling: wind in his blond hair, blood in his cheeks. At last he asks, teasing: “What are you, some kind of therapist?”

“Well, actually…in a year from now…” You feel uneasy assigning such significance to yourself—it feels inevitably pretentious, over-confident, unearned—but you can’t help returning his smile. “I sort of will be.”

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re laying in your bed with the French doors that lead out onto the balcony wide open. The breeze—sunny and warm and smelling of the bakery next to the hotel, croissants and baguettes and half a million different sorts of pastries—breathes in through the semi-transparent linen curtains, a great inhale, a sighing exhale. You can hear footsteps and laughing on the sidewalk outside. The tourists are a cross-section of humanity, with languages from across the globe: a sprinkling of Portuguese here, Arabic there, Mandarin and Hindi and Russian. When the wind flutters the curtains aside, you can see the Eiffel Tower across the Seine. You should be out exploring Paris, but you’re not. You can’t seem to get out of bed. It’s been almost one week since the fight in Reykjavik. You don’t speak to Aemond and he doesn’t speak to you, and everyone knows this but they don’t know why. Not the whole story, anyway. They caught snippets through the sliding glass door, but they didn’t hear what Aemond said to you.

You’re just a groupie. You’re just a slut.

And now Aegon’s words come back to you too:  Whoever you are when you’re in high school…that’s sort of who you are forever, you know?

You pinch your eyes shut and roll onto your side away from the open balcony doors. Earlier you had gotten up, showered, deliberated leaving your room…and then immediately put back on your pajamas and crawled into bed. You have no idea where Aemond is now. He mopes around, he avoids you, he disappears on his 1960 Gold Star for hours, he takes notes in white ink, he takes calls on his iPhone.

There is the sound of a key—not a card, but a real, brass key, old and worthy of preservation just like the hotel—jangling in the lock of your door. Aegon steps inside. He’s FaceTiming someone in extremely poor Spanish.

“Adiós mi amor! Sí, te extraño. Claro que sí. Te extraño mucho. Vale, adiós. Hablamos pronto.” He hangs up and slips his iPhone into the pocket of his neon yellow cargo shorts. He’s wearing matching Crocs and a black Comet Donati band tank top. He pushes his aviator sunglasses up into his hair. “Hey.”

“Hey. Who were you talking to?”

“Camila Cabello. But she can wait.” He kicks off his Crocs and walks over to the bed, looking down at you quizzically. He tosses the brass key back and forth between his hands; Criston keeps the second copy of each one, so Aegon must have borrowed it from him. More likely, he thieved it. “You okay, Stargirl? You look stressed.”

“I am stressed.”

He grins, an eyebrow raised, sunburn on his shoulders. “Anything I can do to help with that?”

And you remember what he said to you back in Kansas City last June, a lifetime ago: I don’t think my worth is determined by who or how I fuck. I don’t think yours is either.

Aegon would never call you a slut. And even if he said it, he wouldn’t mean it in the way Aemond did. It wouldn’t be an insult, a belittlement, a curse. You watch him as he stands in the golden afternoon light, caring for you, wanting you in a way that is pure but not innocent. Do you want him too? Sure; Aegon’s beautiful, and you already know you have chemistry, and more than either of those things he is safe. But he’s not the one who keeps you up at night. He’s not the reason you thought, fleetingly and poisonously as you swallowed your birth control pill this morning: What a goddamn waste.

“Actually,” you say, peering up at him, your lips curling into a drowsy smile. “There might be.”

“Yeah?” He’s a little surprised but very enthused.

“Yeah.”

He whips his sunglasses out of his hair and sets them on the nightstand next to your souvenirs: the Colosseum pencil sharpener, the alabaster Apollo, the fighting bull refrigerator magnet, Portuguese soap and Austrian chocolate, the moose snow globe, the silica mud mask, the stuffed comet, the Eiffel Tower keychain you bought yesterday here in Paris, and if that’s cliché then so be it. The mattress shifts when Aegon climbs over to you, pushing up your oversized Jonas Brothers t-shirt. He touches his lips to the softness of your belly, bites lightly and playfully, gazing up at you through his shaggy hair as he works his way down to the waistline of your Cookie Monster pajama pants. And suddenly, you’re back in Kansas City a year ago, feeling the comforting, harmless heat of him in the downstairs bathroom of a rooftop bar, drenched in glowing florescence like moonlight, your back to a red wall and his mouth all over you, first above and then below, coaxing the darkness out of your veins like a shot of penicillin cures sepsis. He’s antivenom, he’s white magic, he’s a spell.

“You sure?” Aegon asks now, pausing as his fingers unravel the blue drawstring on your pajama pants like the bow of a Christmas present.

You reach down to knot a hand in his hair, wanting to be closer to him, and he smiles, knowing what you’re going to say before you say it. “I am so fucking sure.”

A resistless tug and your pajama pants have vanished. Aegon positions himself between your thighs and buries his face in the thin strip of fabric that still separates you, black lace you didn’t buy while thinking of him. Aegon inhales deep and slow. “Oh God,” he moans. “You smell just as incredible as I remember.”

His thumbs slip beneath the lace and whisk it away: the coolness of sudden air, the warmth of his tongue. You gasp, drowning in the best kind of sea, waves that cover splintering piers and razor-sharp barnacles, currents that erase memory. It’s exactly like it was before. It will always be this way with him, you know, you feel in your blood that carries all the same elements as his: iron, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen that builds DNA, hydrogen that ignites and burns. And just like that red-walled night in Kansas City, you are amazed by how quickly the ecstasy blooms in you, wispy and yet unbearably powerful, clearing thoughts and uncoiling muscles.

“Good girl,” Aegon murmurs with your wetness dripping from his lips, watching your face as he slides two fingers into you; his own eyes—murky blue puddles that hold few secrets—are entranced, rapturous. “Now come in my mouth, baby. I want to taste all of you again. I want to drown in it. Come in my mouth, can you do that for me?”

You can, and almost immediately: he plunges his fingers into you as he strokes you with his tongue and the rush is bliss yet superficial somehow, sunbeams on wave crests, without the kind of miles-deep tragedy, pining, promises that poets like to write about. Aegon notices the towel you’d draped over the desk chair after your shower and reaches for it to wipe his face with, but you stop him, drawing him to you by his tank top; and you drag your tongue up his chin and over his lips, tasting yourself on him, licking him clean. Then you take his fingers into your mouth and suck them until he looks like he’s going to pass out, like he’s going to forget how to breathe.

“Fuck,” he whimpers, and he kisses you just like he did a year ago, with an intense sort of need and his hand against your face, his flesh and blood hot and pressed to yours, palm lines on your cheekbone. He wants you in a way that is unburdened by pasts or futures; and who is anyone to condemn that? Perhaps that is the most painless form love can take.

And as the high dissipates, fog burned away at noon only to creep back in the next morning, Aemond returns to you: his words, his wrath, his flawed yet flawless face. You feel unexpectedly, overwhelmingly low. But this is not the time or place for tears; Aegon is still here.

Now I have to get him off too. Now I have to repay him. That’s fair, right?

“Just do it.” You fling one arm across your face as you look towards the balcony, breathing in Paris and daylight, spreading your thighs wider for him, anticipating the faint pressure-pain that will blossom into pleasure as his body melds with yours. “It’s fine. Go ahead. Just fuck me.”

But when your eyes drift back to him, Aegon still has his clothes on. He sits upright and traces the line of your jaw with his fingertips, studying you with uncommon quietness. “No,” he says softly. “No, I don’t think so. You look sad.”

You nod, unable to trust yourself to speak without your voice breaking.

Aegon sighs and flops down beside you on the bed, pulling you against him, whispering as his fingers twist in your hair: “Come here. Shh, shh. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t help.”

“You helped, Aegon.” Just not quite enough.

He kisses your forehead, and then your cheek, and then he looks at you expectantly. “Are you finally going to tell me what he said? That night in Reykjavik? I heard you screaming something about Missouri, but I don’t think that’s what fucked you up so bad.”

You hesitate as you lie together in the sunlit stillness threaded with distant footsteps and passing cars, Aegon twirling strands of your hair, fondness and familiarity and longing that he is politely trying to ignore. Beneath his neon yellow shorts, he is rock hard.

“Now I’m really curious,” Aegon says, smiling has he kisses your forehead again, entangled with you like tendrils of grapevines, morning glory, ivy. “Aemond’s fucked up too. He’s been lying on his bedroom floor and listening to The Script. He hasn’t done that since he and Shelby split.”

Shelby, you think desolately, flinching. “You warned me about Aemond. You told me he was full of demons.”

“Yup. I’m glad I can’t read minds. It’s gotta be like Poltergeist in there.”

But everyone has a few skeletons in their closet, don’t they? Bones that won’t stop rattling. Teeth that gnash and crave. “He called me a slut.”

Aegon pulls back, brow furrowed. He looks at you, trying to decipher which nerve Aemond hit. It is not a word that Aegon considers to be derogatory.

“But it wasn’t really what he said, it was how he said it, like…like…like because of what I’d done with you a year ago, I didn’t matter anymore. Nothing about me mattered. That he could never respect someone like me. That I had deceived him into thinking I was someone worth wanting.”

Abruptly, Aegon leaves the bed. He grabs his sunglasses off the nightstand and pads across the hardwood floor in his bare feet, steps into his Crocs, slides his sunglasses over his eyes, fluffs his blond hair that hangs in chaotic waves.

“Aegon…?”

“Come with me,” he says, nodding towards the door. He pulls a piece of cotton candy flavored Bubble Yum out of his cargo shorts and tosses it into his mouth. “Right now. Put some clothes on and let’s go.”

“Go where?”

Aegon does not elaborate. He only repeats while chomping noisily on his gum: “Let’s go.”

You rush to the bathroom and are ready in five minutes: flip flops, tousled hair, a flowing turquoise sundress you bought yesterday while shopping at Hermès with Baela and Rhaena. “Okay, seriously, where are we going?”

“Out,” Aegon says simply. You follow him through the doorway and down the corridor; like a bloodhound after evidence, Aegon tracks laughter that drifts through the hallway to Daeron’s room. The youngest Targaryen brother is playing Uno with Jace and Baela; Daeron has just made Jace draw four.

Aegon smacks Daeron’s shoulder and demands: “Where is he?”

Daeron is startled. “Huh? What? Who?”

“Aemond. Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

Aegon smacks Daeron again. “Where is he?!”

“I don’t know!” Daeron wails.

Mercifully, Baela intervenes. “Luke and Rhaena said they were going to the Eiffel Tower. Maybe Aemond went too…?”

“Cool,” Aegon replies. And when he sails out of the room, it’s not just you that goes with him; Baela, Jace, and Daeron file after Aegon as well, chattering conspiratorially. Aegon doesn’t wait for the elevator. He races down the grand staircase to the lobby: white marble floors and Oriental rugs, velvet armchairs and chandeliers, butlers scuttling and women hauling poodles around on taut leashes. Aegon strides past all of it without any interest. You follow him into the street outside and then across it, dodging taxis and limousines. Aegon believes crosswalks are optional. Next he locates the closest bridge over the Siene and traverses it.

“Are they gonna fight?” Jace asks Daeron excitedly. “You think they’re really gonna fight?!”

You plead as you hurry across the bridge, riverboats and swans gliding by below: “Aegon, I don’t want you to say anything to him.”

“I’m not going to say anything.”

“I don’t want you to shout anything either.”

Aegon peeks back at you, smirking wickedly. You know him too well. His pace picks up as he exits the bridge; next comes the vast stretch of gardens that surround the Eiffel Tower, strewn with picnicking tourists, fountains, ferns, lilies, roses, shrubs and trees and waddling ducks.

Jace gasps, euphoric: “Oh my God, they’re gonna fight!”

“Do you really see that ending well?!” Baela hisses back. “Aegon has to be on stage tonight! That’s not going to happen if Aemond snaps him in half like a KitKat!”

“Aegon, you can’t fight him,” you say, petrified. Aemond would win. Easily. Everyone knows that.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Aegon, please!”

“What the hell happened?!” Baela puffs as she jogs up beside you, clutching your arm, bewildered and alarmed. You shake your head. Too long a story, not one you wish to share, not one you entirely feel you have a right to disclose. You’ve only told Aegon, and how is that going to turn out? You don’t want people to hate Aemond. You don’t want to alienate him from the band any further. That might seem contradictory given his recent disregard for your own wellbeing, but it’s—however regrettably—true.

“This is going to be so fucking epic,” Jace says. “Wait, do I have time to get popcorn? I think I should grab some popcorn. Wait, wait, there’s a crepe stand right over there, just give me five minutes. Aegon? Aegon?! Man, please, just postpone the beatdown for five minutes!”

“I hope you can sing Aegon’s parts too,” Daeron tells Jace. “I don’t have them memorized.”

“Cregan can do it.”

“Cregan is going to flay you alive if he sees you encouraging this.”

“He can’t sing all our parts,” Jace replies sensibly.

Aegon battles his way to the front of the long line of people waiting to purchase tickets to go up into the Eiffel Tower. They grimace and jeer at him, hurling swears in a myriad of languages. When he reaches the ticket counter, an aghast employee begins to implore Aegon—“S'il vous plait, Monsieur, vous devez attendre votre tour!”—until she gets a better look at him. Her mouth pops open; her sky blue eyes go impossibly wide. “Oh mon Dieu…”

“You know who I am, right?” Aegon says impatiently. “Yeah, you recognize me. Okay. I need to get up there right now. Me and my friends. What can I do to make that happen? I have lots of credit cards. I can also sign your arm or tits or whatever. What do you want?”

The employee settles for a selfie with Aegon, Jace, and Daeron. Daeron smiles dazzlingly and poses with two thumbs up. Jace gives Aegon bunny ears. Then the five of you receive your tickets. This time, Aegon is willing to wait for the elevator; it’s over 600 steps to the second floor alone, and you’re all already winded from the walk here. Aegon gets off at the first level, does a lap around the tower—tall glass barriers and metal cages around the balcony, a café and a gift shop—and then reboards the elevator to ascend to the next floor. The second level is more open. There is a railing around the edge of the walkway of course, but it only comes up to your waist. Next to one of the tower viewers is who Aegon is searching for: Luke, Rhaena, Cregan, Criston…and Aemond. He’s wearing dark jeans, a black Calvin Klein t-shirt, vintage Adidas sneakers like the ones Freddie Mercury had at Live Aid, sunglasses to shield his damaged eye from photographers, and a fanny pack. He’s biting into a Golden Delicious, round and shiny; juice glistens on his lips. None of them have spotted you yet.

You hear Luke ask Aemond: “Bruh, this is really embarrassing. You’re worth like $100 million. Why are you eating apples and pecans out of a fanny pack?”

“Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find vegan food in Paris?”

Criston spies Aegon just as he’s closing in. He reads the fury on his face, his outstretched hand. “Don’t—!”

Aegon thrusts his palms against Aemond’s chest, hard, hard enough to force him back a couple of steps towards the railing. “Apologize,” he orders.

Aemond looks at you—for a moment, only a moment—and then back at Aegon. “For what?”

“You know what you did. Apologize.”

Everyone has gathered around. Criston’s dark eyes dart between Aemond and Aegon. He has a grip on Aegon’s shoulder, but he hasn’t dragged him away yet. He doesn’t know what this is about, and though he would never admit it…he’s intrigued. Cregan hovers close by; he lights a cigarette, taking advantage of Criston’s momentary preoccupation. Baela and Rhaena are gossiping in hushed voices. From behind his black sunglasses, Aemond stares at his brother, the wheels in his mind spinning. He doesn’t hit him, though he easily could. He doesn’t seem to have the spirit for it.

“Whoo!” Jace shouts, pumping his fist in the air. “Fight, fight, fight!”

Daeron mutters to Luke: “Are we taking bets?”

“Um, no?!”

“Right now,” Aegon tells Aemond, and shoves him again. “I mean it. I will push you off the Eiffel Tower.”

“Whoa, illegal!” Jace hoots. Cregan hooks a hand into the collar of Jace’s polo and yanks him back. “Hey, referee abuse over here—!”

“I will break your fucking arm,” Cregan growls.

“Okay,” Jace says. “Got it. No problem. I’m done now.”

“Apologize,” Aegon commands again, as if you’re the only people here: him, you, Aemond.

You are mortified. “Aegon, please don’t—”

“I’m sorry,” Aemond says. He’s looking at you again, and this time he doesn’t turn away. You wish you could see his eyes: windows to the soul, however clouded they might be. It’s the first time he’s spoken to you since Reykjavik. The gravity of it—his voice, his steady gaze, the gut-punch realization of how much you still want him—knocks all the words out of your skull. You sweep them up like a child collecting spilled coins in cupped hands.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.” Aemond’s tone is benign, calm, like he’s already rehearsed this and has just been waiting for the opportune moment. “I shouldn’t have said that. I was speaking out of anger. It was impulsive of me, it was indecorous.”

What the fuck? Indecorous…? Who uses words like that in casual conversation? Incurably pretentious Aemond Targaryen, that’s who. “Thanks, I guess. You must spend a lot of time with your thesaurus.”

“Well, I write lyrics, so.”

“Yeah.” You wait for Aemond to add the most important part: that he was wrong about what he said, that it wasn’t true. But he doesn’t go there. He only apologizes for speaking it into existence, for vibrating the air with its treacherous molecules. “Okay,” you tell Aegon. “I think you got what you wanted. Can we go now?”

“Sure.” Aegon slaps Aemond across the back and gives him one final glare, swift but cutting.

“What’s a thesaurus?” Daeron whispers to Luke, who shrugs.

“Some kind of dinosaur…?”

“That’s alright, boys!” Jace says, clapping his hands. “Walk it off! Take a breather! Plenty of time for Round 2 later!” Cregan bends one arm behind his back. “Ow—!”

“No smoking,” Criston snaps, ripping the cigarette out of Cregan’s mouth and stomping it into ash.

~~~~~~~~~~

Hours later, after soundcheck, eating dinner in the gardens under the lengthening shadow of the Eiffel Tower, dark stripes that swallow up daylight like bathwater sucked down a drain. Everyone has a crepe that’s rolled up in wax paper, as Europeans serve it…everyone except Aemond, of course. He’s sitting by himself under a 200-year-old sycamore tree and gnawing morosely on a plain baguette that’s as long as his own forearm. His iPhone rings; he checks who it is and then silences the call. Luke goes over to sit with him, dripping whipped cream from his banana and Nutella crepe all over his white shorts speckled with sailboats. You keep trying not to look at Aemond. Each time you see him is like poking a bruise; it’s nothing but pain, but you can’t seem to stop.

“Oh wow!” Baela cries, beaming as she scrolls through her phone. “The Paris Opera Ballet is performing Romeo and Juliette this season!”

“Neat!” Rhaena says. “Like right now?”

“Yeah. We could catch a show before we leave next week.” She turns to Jace. “Baby?” And when he ignores her, she rubs his shoulder, her voice honeyed. “Jace?”

He groans. “Really? Ballet?”

Baela frowns. “I think it would be fun.”

“I think you can go without me.” Jace points to Aemond, grinning. “Take him, he likes archaic things. Hell, he is one now.” New lines appear in Aemond’s brow, but he gives no other indication that he’s heard this.

“You can’t spare one afternoon for me?” Baela says; and her words have turned from honey to battery acid. “Are you fucking serious? Do you know what I’ve given up for you?”

Jace sighs heavily. “I knew you were going to make this into a thing.”

“Me?! You’re the person who’s being unfair here, I’m asking for one afternoon—!”

“There’s literally no reason why you can’t go with someone who won’t feel like they’re being tortured for three hours.”

“Torture? That’s what my life’s work is to you? Torture?!”

“Well now I definitely don’t want to go anywhere with you if you’re going to act like this—”

“Act like what, like I want my boyfriend to occasionally show even a vague interest in something I care about—?!”

As they go back and forth, everyone else stares down at their dinner, actively dissociating.

Baela asks you: “You want to weigh in on this?” It’s not really a question.

You take a cagy bite of your baked apple crepe. “Um, honestly, I don’t really have much experience with couples counseling.”

“Great. Now’s your chance to acquire some.”

“Uh…” You eat some more of your crepe, slurp your citron pressé, a sort of do-it-yourself lemonade. Baela waits. Jace smirks at you, attentive but not for the right reasons. “Well. I guess what I can say is that it’s important for both people to have their interests valued and their needs met. So for every activity that Jace chooses, there should be roughly the same amount of time spent on something that Baela wants to do.”

“Yeah but I have a lot less free time,” Jace says. “Since…you know…I happen to be in a world-famous boy band in the midst of their third global tour.”

Baela pitches back: “Exactly, which has completely taken over my life, so I think if I could get just one fucking afternoon where you show me some minuscule amount of appreciation then that might be kind of nice, you know?”

“Jace,” you say gently. You can see on the periphery of your vision that Aemond is watching you, once again hidden behind sunglasses that you know he wishes he didn’t feel the need to wear. “It sounds like this is really important to Baela.”

He sighs again. “Baela, Baela, ballerina,” Jace muses, somewhat affectionately but without respect. “Okay. We’ll see. We might have time tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Baela agrees; but already she looks defeated. And she is not a woman who defeat comes naturally to. She’s been worn down by weeks, months, years of the same rote disappointment. She glances at a street vendor who’s selling falafel. “Hey,” she says to Rhaena. “Go get us some wraps.”

“Me?” Rhaena peers nervously at the falafel cart. “What if he only speaks French? Or some other language I don’t know?”

“Then point to the sign, you’ll figure it out,” Baela replies testily.

“I’ll go too, Rhaena,” you offer. “And you can order but I’ll stand there with you and help if any charades need to be done. Will that make it easier?”

“Sure,” Rhaena says. “Okay. Deal.”

And when you return ten minutes later, along with all the other food you have one order of plain falafel: no yogurt sauce, no wrap. You bring it to Aemond, who is stunned. “What’s this?”

“It’s vegan. Falafel is vegan. So here, your dinner just got a little more exciting.”

“Well…thanks.” He takes it with tentative hands.

“That’s so thoughtful of you!” Luke says cheerfully. “Do they have falafel in Kansas?”

“Missouri,” you correct. “And not really. But I ate a lot of it when I was at UChicago.”

This captures Aemond’s interest. “You went to UChicago?”

“Yes, Aemond. Shockingly, liking sex does not make women stupid.”

His iPhone rings: Mr. Brightside. Less than ideal timing. He rejects the call.

“Who was that?” Criston yells over.

“No one,” Aemond responds irritably.

“Your mom?”

“No, Criston.”

“How’s she doing?”

“She wasn’t the one calling, Criston!”

“Okay but I’m just asking, how is she doing like in general…?”

Back at the hotel, Comet Donati is getting ready for their first show in Paris: drinks in glasses, white lines on tables, hair and makeup, cigarettes and pills. You soak in your massive jacuzzi tub and stare up at the ceiling wondering: What am I doing here? What the hell am I still doing here?

But the thought of actually boarding a plane back to Kansas City is terrifying. Never seeing Aegon again? Never seeing Aemond again? Never seeing any of them except on YouTube or Spotify? You don’t want to leave their orbit. You don’t want to zoom off to the other end of the solar system just yet.

You wrap a towel around yourself and mosey out into the bedroom to get dressed. He’s there inspecting the souvenirs on your nightstand, chuckling and pushing them around with his knuckles, wearing a sequined blazer and skin full of ink: not Aegon, not Aemond, not Cregan, but Jace. You squeal, startled, and clutch your towel tighter around yourself. Unfortunately, it’s a very small towel. A very very small towel.

“These are neat,” Jace says. “So I collect tattoos and you collect souvenirs. We have so much in common.”

“We have exceptionally little in common. What do you want?”

He smiles, but never quite kindly. “What do you want?”

“I want you to take Baela to the ballet,” you say. “And I want you to get out of my room now.”

He turns all the way around to face you. He flings your moose snow globe from Stockholm into the air and then catches it, again, again. “Do you really?”

“Yes, Jace.”

And for a minute, or two, or what feels like forever, he doesn’t move. He just stands there staring at you, not moving any closer but not leaving either. Not listening to you. Not hearing you because he doesn’t want to. And you think, your heart hammering in your chest: At what point should I scream for Aegon or Criston? Will they hear me? Will they help me?

“Alright,” Jace says at last. He sets your moose snow globe back down on the nightstand, roughly, with a loud clunk. Then he walks across your room; but before he disappears through the doorway, he throws you a brass room key. Instinctively, you move to catch it, almost dropping your towel in the process. You snatch it back into place just in time. Jace is amused. Perhaps he planned it that way. “Aegon left that lying around,” Jace says, meaning the key. “Maybe you should be more discriminating when choosing who you give it to.”

“I didn’t give it to him. He took it from Criston.”

“Sure he did.” And finally, Jace leaves, as unwelcome as a funnel cloud or a hailstorm.

Aemond spends the concert in the shadows: pacing, taking his notes, ruminating over his many grudges. You spend it in the front row with Baela and Rhaena, wearing the neon yellow gown you found in Reykjavik. You try not to scan the arena for glimpses of Aemond. You fail miserably. Comet opens their concert with an interesting choice, an upbeat cover of Third Eye Blind’s How’s It Going To Be. When you ask Rhaena about it, she says it was Luke’s idea, which in your experience means it was almost certainly Aemond’s, or at least one that he enthusiastically endorsed. Daeron begins, peppy and animated, strutting across the stage:

“I’m only pretty sure that I can’t take anymore

Before you take a swing

I wonder, what are we fighting for?”

Aegon is next, characteristically a little sloppy, a little shaky, yet getting colossal cheers:

“When I say out loud

I want to get out of this

I wonder is there anything

I’m going to miss?”

Cregan’s voice is deep, sensuous, inviting yet with an edge like a blade:

“I wonder how it’s going to be

When you don’t know me?

How’s it going to be

When you’re sure I’m not there?”

Jace is technically the best singer, rich and smooth and nearly always pitch-perfect:

“How’s it going to be

When there’s no one there to talk to?

Between you and me

‘Cause I don’t care…”

And Luke leads the harmony as guitar notes pluck out of the monstrous speakers:

“How’s it going to be?

How’s it going to be?”

Aside from the cover, the setlist is the same as it’s always been since you joined the tour in Rome…but you’re experiencing it in a new way. You are needled by jealously every time you wonder what woman, moment, day, night inspired one of Aemond’s songs; you are nauseous with envy for everyone who’s ever been able to touch him. When they perform A Girl Named After A Car—which had previously always struck you as fun, light, unserious, perhaps satirical—you are consumed by a specific conspiracy theory. After fighting it for half of the song, you Google two words with your iPhone: Shelby car. Sure enough, there’s a vintage Mustang model called a Shelby. It’s gorgeous. It’s perfect for Aemond.

“Great,” you mutter to yourself.

“You okay?” Rhaena asks.

“Yeah,” you reply, slamming your phone back into your purse. “I’m awesome. I’ve literally never been better.”

“You don’t look awesome,” Baela says, smiling. “That’s okay. I’m not so awesome either at the moment.” She takes your hands and starts spinning you around the floor. “We can be hot bitter bitches together.”

It’s tradition for everyone to hang out after the concert, but you’re in no hurry to get to Jace’s suite; you certainly don’t want to be one of the first people to arrive. You don’t want to be alone with him. You walk very slowly, taking a detour to touch up your hair and makeup. As you are wandering a quiet section of the hallway, you observe that Aemond’s door has been left ever so slightly ajar. You peer inside to find it empty…but his notebook is on his nightstand.

No way, you tell yourself. No no no. Huge violation of privacy and respect.

“Oh yeah?” you object, barely audible. “And what would you call what he said to me?”

You go to the notebook and flip it open. Matte black pages slip beneath your fingertips.

“Just the first page,” you swear to yourself. “That’s all. Then I’m leaving.”

There’s a song written there; or, rather, partially written. He’s only worked out a verse and the chorus so far. Your eyes skim over it with lightning-flash quickness, cognizant that you cannot allow yourself to be caught. At the top of the page is one word in pale gleaming ink like pearls, opal, moonstone: Magic.

(Ver1) You walk into the room and I think:

How am I going to get you out of me?

Are you an infection, a lethal connection,

Or are you a fire to burn me clean?

“Nice,” you breathe, with hushed awe you wish you didn’t have.

(Chorus) Are you a witch or are you a spell,

Is loving you gonna be heaven or hell?

Black cats and white salt, ladders and doorframes

I think of magic every time you look my way

There are drunken, giggling voices and the sound of doors opening and closing in the hallway. You scurry out of Aemond’s suite and proceed to Jace’s before anyone thinks to come searching for you.

The room is thick with label executives and hangers-on, smoke and music; Watch by Maisie Peters is playing. She’s a friend of the band. You’re reasonably sure Aegon has hooked up with her, or at least aspires to. Speaking of Aegon, he is currently flitting around with Cregan. He stops briefly to say hi to you, a chilled emerald bottle of Kronenbourg 1664 in one hand, white powder on the other. He’s there and then he’s gone again. He might as well have been slingshotted to the other end of the galaxy. Criston is standing by the open balcony doors and talking to Daeron. Jace is at the bar laughing loudly—obnoxiously, hyena-like—with some mid-twenties guys you don’t recognize. Baela is glaring at him from one of the couches, seated next to Rhaena and Luke. But when she sees you, the rage vanishes from her face. She waves you over rather frantically.

“Look, I know this probably isn’t going to help your situation, but I just wanted to let you know that I am really, really hoping you’ll be willing to stay with us a little longer—”

“Yes! Totally!” Luke seconds, nodding.

“—And it’s not like we’re going to forget about you or prefer her over you or anything—”

“No, definitely not,” Luke says.

“What are you talking about?” you ask them. “Prefer who?”

Rhaena grabs your hand and squeezes it. You follow her eyeline across the room to the opposite couch, a mirage through warm smoke and icy dread. And you think: I should have known. I shouldn’t be surprised. Of course it would be here—in this city of Instagram models and Hallmark-card romance—that she would reappear like the moon growing large again after fading to a sliver, everything back in its rightful place, nature restored to harmony.

Sitting beside Aemond—on his good side, his unscarred side—is Shelby.

[souperbloom]

sweet tooth. [A.I.]

had this one floating around in the noggin for a bit. shoutout to @ipreferthedrummer for making it happen. ;)

🍫 fwb!ash

a night in with Ashton never tasted so sweet.

a/n: just wanted to get a little somethin’ out before my next project :3 keeping ash lanes fed is my only job.

CONTENT WARNINGS: !smut (kinda just drops ya right in, whoops.), fingering (f!receiving), insinuates unprotected sex, dirty talk, praise, the use of food in an unholy scenario (lolz).

WORDCOUNT: 2k

⋆⭒˚｡⋆

"Can we try something?"

Ashton pops his head up from the crook of your neck, his hands still feeling you up as he hovered over you, your bodies splayed haphazardly across his living room couch.

You’d be lying if you said you hadn’t been thinking about this something since the moment you stepped through Ashton’s front door.

Originally, the plan for the evening was to make ice cream sundaes, watch a movie, and leave before the clock struck midnight.

You stopped at the grocery store on your way over, grabbing any and every ice cream related thing on the shelves, per Ashton’s request. Whipped cream, hot fudge, toasted peanuts, sprinkles; and about four different flavors of ice cream.

When you brought up the idea, Ashton didn’t hesitate. An impromptu hangout to make ice cream sundaes? Who could say no to that?

But now, your mind was clouded— and after an unsuccessful 15 minutes of trying to assemble these monstrous sundae creations, you and Ashton had gotten a bit distracted. The only thing left of your clothes now were a pair of lacy panties and the oversized t-shirt on your back.

"What is it?" Ashton asks breathlessly, a rogue black curl falling over his forehead. He was already half-naked, which you found amusing, speaking on the fact that you had only been at his house for an hour.

"Here," You start to lift yourself from beneath him, bringing him to flop backwards on the couch as you rise to your feet, "I’ll just… show you."

You weren’t exactly sure how to bring up what you wanted. Would it have been weird to ask for such a thing? God, you hoped not. You knew Ashton was down for just about anything you asked for— you guys worked well in that way.

Across the living room were the contents of an unmade ice cream sundae, sitting out on the counter and taunting you with their presence. The whipped cream can on its side, the chocolate syrup, a plastic container of sprinkles; untouched. It was like a sweet crime scene.

You walk to them with your hands on your hips, as Ashton just sits there quietly.

"You hungry? I know we didn’t really get to the sundaes but— you could’ve just said somethin’."

"No, no— I’m not hungry…" Covering up your newfound nervousness with a chuckle, you reach for the bottle of chocolate syrup.

"Oh."

You glance over your shoulder at Ashton, who was clearly trying to get a read on what you were doing.

"Can we try something with this?"

Ashton’s eyes widen at the bottle in your hand, a sneaky smile spreading across his face that made you just want to melt into a puddle on the floor.

"You want me to lick it off of you, don’t you?"

The condescension in his voice was more prominent than ever.

"You don’t have to—"

"Y/N, you know I’ll do anything once…" The way he responds so calmly makes your stomach turn.

"…Just tell me whatcha’ need."

You bite back a smile, walking back over to the couch with more confidence than before. Ashton shifts in his seat, spreading his legs comfortably and inviting you to straddle his lap.

All of your actions are unspoken, the only thing occupying the room around you were the sounds of a jazzy, blues guitar. You return to him, and he holds out his hand to you.

"M’lady," he jokes, reinstating that charm of his as you use his hand as leverage to straddle him.

"You’re so dumb."

He scrunches his nose. "You love it."

With the bottle in one hand, and his hand in the other, you get comfortable on his lap. His hands find your waist again instantly, index fingers toying at the hemline of your t-shirt.

Well, his t-shirt.

Unsure of how to resume what you had started, you crash your lips into his, and drop the syrup bottle at your side, in hopes he’d get the memo.

And, of course, he did. He knew you a lot better than you thought.

"Let’s get you out of this, hm?" He mumbles into your lips, not long before pulling the shirt over your head. You lift your arms to aid him in undressing you.

"I’ve been looking everywhere for that shirt, by the way," He chuckles, but doesn’t waste any time finding his blistered hands on your waist.

You just smile at him, running your tongue across your bottom lip. "Found it."

As your lips reconnect, you can already feel the wetness pooling in your panties, grinding down into the hardened length held captive by his briefs. His tongue explores your mouth, while your hands wrap around the nape of his neck.

You start a rhythm of swiveling your hips; his hands traveling down your waist to cup your ass, taking it in a handful.

"Fuck this grinding shit… ‘Need to fuckin’ feel you…" He speaks sloppily through bated breaths, but you nod in agreement. An hour spent teasing was an hour too long.

Your hand moves to his hair, pulling back his head so you could leave a trail of sultry kisses down his exposed neck and chest. He whines at the contact of your lips on his skin.

"Wanna ride me, baby?"

Your head pops up, taking your bottom lip between your teeth with a nod. "Yes please."

He wastes no time lifting your hips off of his to free his cock from the button on his briefs. You do the same, taking your hand between your bodies and pushing your panties to the side.

Moving with such haste was typical for you and Ashton; since half of the times you’ve fucked have either been rushed, or at a place where you really shouldn’t have been so needy for each other.

"Fuck yes, baby— always so ready f’me…" He palms his cock, brushing the tip against your wet folds. All you could do was whine, already fuck-drunk by the slightest feeling of him.

But before you were able to lower yourself onto him, he stops you in your tracks with a grab at your sides.

"Eager now, are we? Aren’t we missing something here?"

You were already so dazed by the thought of riding him that you had completely forgotten what you had asked for.

"Mmm, shit, you’re right." You nod, closing your eyes and settling yourself onto his thighs.

He reaches beside you for the chocolate syrup bottle, holding it between your bodies. A wave of excitement rolls down your spine, watching eagerly as he pops the lid.

"Where do you want me?" He asks, his eyes flicking between the bottle and your chest.

"Everywhere."

With a shake of his head and a bite of his lip, he tips the bottle. You take in a deep breath, watching the chocolatey mixture pour out and trickle down your bare chest.

You weren’t sure how much he’d let drip down the front of your body, how far he’d actually go with your request. But the only thing you could do was watch with a slack jaw as he continued to pour it onto you.

His eyes flicker with lust as he watches the gooey trail lead down towards your bellybutton, practically salivating at the sight of you covered in something edible. Something so sweet.

"Y’look fuckin’ delicious, Y/N. Wonder how good you taste—" he mumbles, satisfied with his artwork as he pops the lid closed.

"’Guess there’s only one way to find out."

Your head was reeling. Spinning at a mile per minute. You didn’t think you’d enjoy this as much as you were about to, and you’d only realized it the moment his tongue licked a slow stripe up your chest.

"Shit—"

You whine and writhe, arching your back to allow better access to the chocolate that had gone too low to reach.

Ashton hums in delight at the taste of you on his tongue, those bright green eyes popping up only upon hearing your voice.

He seemed to enjoy watching how he ruined you, almost as much as you enjoyed letting him.

Expletives and more moans croak out of you as he starts another pass up to your chest, this time starting just above your belly button.

You wanted to scream in ecstasy, but couldn’t find it in you to make a sound louder than the satisfied groans coming from him. His tongue moved intricately across your body, collecting every last bit of that sweet nectar on his tongue.

Ashton then swallows, and gives one last pass of his tongue between the valley of your tits before stopping up to your eye level.

"Wanna taste?" He asks, licking at the left over chocolate on the corner of his mouth.

"Thought you’d never ask."

In a second, his lips are hungrily slotting against yours. Your tongues swirl together; the rich, earthy flavor meshing into something even sweeter than before.

Just as you thought you couldn’t get enough of him, he reaches down between your bodies, attaching his index finger to your clit.

"That’s it, baby—" says Ashton, messily attempting to keep your lips interlocked as his motions cause you to jump out of your skin, "— bein’ so good. So sweet. Gonna’ cum for me, sweet girl?"

"Yes, Ash— Please—" You beg, an empty plea, as his fingers continue to chip away at your decorum and any part of you that was left on this Earth.

His middle finger was now brushing against your slit, but you were feeling far too greedy.

"Please, Ash— Need t’feel you, oh—"

Your forehead knocks against his, hips gyrating with force and practically begging for release. He listens to the signs, as always, now with one finger inside of you and the other still playing with your clit.

"That’s it, darlin’. Just like that—"

He coaches you through every single fleeting moan that rips through your throat, nodding at you. Giving you all of the conformation you needed to completely let go.

"Give it to me, Y/N. Fuckin’ give it t’ me."

"Fuck, Ash!"

Your heart rate doubles, triples; it’s climbing and climbing with each curl of his fingers. You watch his face contort as he takes his time pleasuring you, noticing his teeth sunk into his bottom lip so deeply that he was close to drawing blood.

"Ash, I’m close—"

You gasp for air, bracing your hands on his shoulders as you begin to hurdle towards the brink of your orgasm. But all he does is peer at you with that familiar, sultry smile.

"Kiss me."

Following his eager instruction, you slam your lips onto his. The both of you let out a collective sigh as your tongues entwine once again, singing sweet nothings into each other’s mouths while his fingers fuck up into you.

You could still taste the remnants of chocolate, the syrupy flavor ghosting around in your mind right before stars are fogging your vision. You completely let go, releasing yourself onto his fingertips with a loud cry.

"Yes, fuck— give it t’ me."

Ashton coaches you one last time as your orgasm rips through your limbs, rendering every single organ of yours absolutely useless. The butterflies once encaged in your stomach had set finally set free, and fluttered along your insides.

As your orgasm fades out into a shaky pair of legs and a heightened heart rate, you think about what Ashton had said right before he was spilling chocolate sauce onto your bare chest. How willing, how eager he was to try this with you.

To taste you.

You pinch your eyes closed, before collapsing onto the front of his chest with a long sigh.

"Fuckin’ hell, Ashton," You mean to sound stern, but it comes out as more of a giggle as your thoughts bounce around in your brain, "And to think I thought you were gonna say no…"

As his hand reaches up to comb through your hair, his head leans down to whisper in your ear. You could tell he was smiling.

It was always so obvious.

"Well, Y/N— when it comes to you, I’ve got a fuckin’ sweet tooth."

⋆⭒˚｡⋆

[247-diaperboy]

Matt and Mark

Matt woke up before the alarm clock went off. He knew Mark didn't have to go to work today, so he flipped the switch so the alarm wouldn't wake his brother up. He slipped out of his wet pajamas and dried himself off with a dry area of the leg. He grabbed a pair of boxer shorts and a tshirt off the floor and went to the kitchen. It was Friday morning, so Matt had to get to get ready for school. He tossed two Pop Tarts in the toaster and ran for the shower.

He showered quickly, dried off, then quietly went back in the room he shared with his brother. He put the towels on the bed and quietly went to the dresser to get his underwear and socks, pulling out a pair of white socks and red plaid boxers. Mark turned over in bed at the noise Matt was making, and went back to sleep. Matt got dressed in a pair of blue jeans, a t-shirt and a yellow and blue checkered shirt on top. He grabbed his yellow Abercrombie & Fitch visor and ducked into the bathroom to gel his hair. Once everything was spiked perfectly above the visor, Matt grabbed his backpack, Pop Tarts and a YooHoo from the fridge and ran out the door to his car and drove off to school.

An hour later, Mark finally woke up. Even though its Friday, he had taken the day off from work to relax a bit. He got up, put on a pair of his gym shorts, and up and looked over at Matt's bed. He knew his little brother had wet the bed that night. He grabbed the towels and pulled the sheet off and carried the damp bundle down to the laundry room.

While everything was in the washing machine, Mark went up to the kitchen and started a fresh pot of coffee brewing. He turned on the TV and started flipping through the channels. After a few minutes, he settled on one of the courtroom type shows and got a box of Frosted Flakes out of the cabinet. He put the last of the milk in his cereal bowl and added some sugar and half and half to his coffee. The current case was a landlord suing his tenant for $250 of past due rent.

Mark finished his frosted flakes and first cup of coffee. He went to the bedroom and cleaned off his brother's mattress, then went the basement to get the sheets and towels out of the washing machine and put them in the dryer. Returning to his bedroom, he grabbed a tank top, his wallet and keys, and headed for the door.

The drugstore was just down the street and around the corner, so it was a short drive. He parked in front and walked inside, grabbing a shopping cart on the way in. He walked over to the baby aisle and started to look around. He quickly found a nice large pacifier in blue, intended for toddlers, but would do nicely. He put it in the cart, and followed by a pacifier holder with a bear on it, four blue plastic baby bottles, some scented baby wipes, diaper rash creme, and a large bottle of baby powder. He walked two aisles over to the incontenence section. He found a bag that would fit Matt, labled "fitted briefs" on the front. Mark smiled to himself - they were now "little brother diapers".

He proceeded to the checkout and swiped his ATM card as the cashier started to ring up his items. The cashier bagged everything, he entered his PIN, took his receipt and headed for Sears. He pulled in to the parking lot and went inside. Bedding was on the second floor, so he headed up the escalator and looked around for the vinyl sheet his little brother would be sleeping on from now on. A store clerk found the right size for the bed, and rang him up. Mark stopped in the food court for a slice of pizza before he went home.

It was nearly 11:30 when he got back to the house. The sheets were dry, so he took them out of the dryer and folded them and watched The Price Is Right. As usual, some "nobody" who'd "never won anything before" won a new car. Some day he'd win one too. But not today - he had to get everthing ready before Matt got home.

The vinyl sheet fit perfectly, and made a soft crinkle under the freshly washed sheets. Mark went to Matt's dresser and removed the pile of boxer shorts and briefs from inside. He put them in the trunk next to his bed and locked it for safe keeping. Matt wouldn't be needing them for a while. He went back to the kitchen and retrieved the diapers and baby items he'd purchased from the drug store. He opened the bag of diapers and put some in Matt's dresser where his boxer shorts used to be. He then put the baby wipes and powder on the floor between his brother's bed and the night stand.

Mark went back to the kitchen with the baby bottles and the pacifier. He put them in the dishwasher with the remaining dishes from the sink and started the wash cycle. Matt hadn't done his laundry yet, so Mark went back to the bedroom and picked up all the clothes and started another wash running.

Matt wouldn't be home for another four hours, so Mark played around online while the dishes and laundry were washing. The washing machine buzzed and he moved everything into the dryer. Mark decided to go to the gym while he still had time for a quick workout. He drove over to the gym for a short workout, then showered. While he was there he ran into Justin, a guy he'd been interested in for a while. They'd first met at a local night club, but had seen eachother around before. Feeling a bit adventerous, Matt asked Justin if he'd like to come over later and hang out since he "had to babysit his little brother" that night. Justin smiled and agreed as they swapped phone numbers.

The clock in his car said 2:00. Mark stopped at a smoothie shop on his way back to the house. He got home and finished his smoothie while he folded the rest of the laundry, locking the rest of Matt's regular underwear in the trunk. He put all the remaining clothes away and played online untill his brother got home.

"Hey there," Matt said as he walked in. He sat down in a chair and took off his shoes.

"Hey," his brother said as he logged off the chat rooms. "Go take a shower, and leave your clothes here."

"What?" Matt asked. "I took one this morning."

"Yeah, and I'm sick of having to clean up your wet beds for you. Now go take a shower before I get really pissed off."

"Fine," Matt said in a huff as he took off his socks, shirt and pants. He started to walk out the door.

"Hold it. I said ALL your clothes stay here."

Matt grumbled and took off his shorts and threw them at Mark. Mark caught them and proceeded to put the clothes his brother had just left on the floor into the laundry basket. He then put the boxers in the trunk with the others, then went to the closet and took out a diaper. He sat down on his bed and put the diaper next to him. While he waited for Matt to get out of the shower, he picked up a magazine and read.

Matt walked back into the room with a towel wrapped around him. He walked over to his dresser and pulled out a tshirt and tossed it on the bed. He opened the drawer that formerly held his underwear and socks, and stopped.

"Where are my boxers?" he asked.

"You won't be needing them anymore." Mark replied.

"What do you mean? And what are these?"

"I'm sick of having to wash your sheets and clothes. So I've decided to do something about it. Until you learn to control yourself, you will wear diapers," said Mark.

"Oh no. No way. I'm SIXTEEN YEARS OLD."

"That's debatable. You have a drivers license, but you can't stop wetting your bed. Anyway, you don't have a choice in the matter. Lie down on your bed."

"No way. Give me my underwear back," Matt whined.

"Sorry bud, no can do. Now lie down before I make you," Mark said.

"No!" said Matt.

Mark walked over to Matt, yanked his towel off, picked him up and put him down on the bed.

"Hey, that's not fair!" Matt yelled as he got up off his bed.

Mark sat down on Matt's bed, grabbed him by the waist and pulled him over his knee. With his left hand, Mark grabbed Matt's wrists and held them down against his back and proceeded to spank his little brother, harder and harder each time.

"Ow! Stop that! Hey! Get off me!" he started to scream. "Stop it! he yelled as tears started to well up in his eyes. "Okay, I'll wear the stupid diaper!" he said as he started to bawl in his brother's lap.

"Good. Glad you saw things my way. Now lie down on your bed." Mark said.

Matt got on his bed and laid down in front of his brother, tears still dripping down his cheeks. Mark picked up the diaper rash creme and put some in his right hand. He lifted his little brother's legs in the air and gently rubbed it all over the redness he'd just created and around where the diapers were about to be placed. Mark wiped his hands of on a towel and picked the diaper up off his bed. Matt looked over and started to cry while Mark unfolded the diaper above him. Mark lifted his brother's legs in the air and placed the diaper under him. He put Matt's legs down on the bed and pulled the diaper up and taped the sides in place. He picked up the tshirt his brother had pulled out after his shower and put it on him.

"You are not to touch your diapers. If you have to go to the bathroom, you are to use your diapers. If you need a change, you ask me. If I catch you messing with them I'm going to give you a worse spanking than what you just got. Do you understand?" said Mark.

"Yeah, I got it," Matt said softly. As he sat up, the plastic of his diaper crinkled. He went over to the chair where his pants were laying and picked them up.

"Oh no you don't. I want to be able to see when you wet. As long as you're in the house, its just a diaper and tshirt for you," Mark explained.

"That's not fair - what if someone comes over?" his brother asked.

"They'll just find out how much of a little kid you really are then. Well, maybe I'll let you wear shorts on top - MAYBE," Mark said. "Oh yeah, and Justin is coming over to hang out tonight. I expect you to behave yourself. You can do what you want now. Call me if you need a change."

Matt went over to the computer and logged on. He checked his e-mail while Mark showered. Mark came back in, grabbed a tshirt and a pair of khaki shorts from his dresser. He dressed and watched Matt. He seemed to be behaving, so Mark went out to the living room to watch TV. He called Justin and they agreed to get together for pizza in an hour.

Forty five minutes later, Mark went back to their bedroom. "Justin is coming over in ten minutes. You can wear these if you want." He handed a pair of basketball shorts to his little brother.

Matt put them on and sat back down. "Mark, you can hear my diaper under these things! Can't I at least wear my jeans?"

"Nope. We're going to order pizza - you want some?" Mark asked.

"Yeah," Matt said quietly. "Cheese."

Mark walked back to the tv and sat down. Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang. Mark opened the door. "Hey there," he said.

"Hello," Justin replied.

"Come in ... I was just watching TV. You want something to drink?" Mark asked.

"Yeah, a soda or something. You know what kind of pizza you want?" said Justin.

"I was thinkin extra cheese - it's what Matt wanted."

"Oh yeah, your brother. Where is he anyway?" Justin asked.

"He's up in our room on the computer, as usual," Mark replied. "Hey Matt, get down here!" he yelled.

Matt yelled back, "Just a second!"

Justin sipped his soda while they waited. Mark walked over and picked up the cordless phone and fumbled for the pizza delivery phone number. Matt walked in the kitchen carefully, but his diapers crinkled softly under his basketball shorts anyway. "Hi," he said, "I'm Matt."

Justin extended his hand, "I'm Justin. I've seen you around somewhere. The gym maybe?"

Matt nodded and shook hands. "Yeah, I go sometimes."

Mark finally located the phone number for the pizza delivery place and ordered two large cheese pizzas and two bottles of Mountain Dew. He hung up and went to the refrigerator and grabbed two sodas and tossed one to Matt.

"Thanks," Matt said as he opened his can and took a drink.

They went to the living room and watched TV. Matt sat on the couch carefully, consious of the noise his diaper made when he moved. The other two sat down near him and started flipping through the channels looking for something to watch. After a while, Matt couldn't wait any longer.

"Mark, I gotta go to the bathroom," said Matt.

"And what did I tell you about that?" Mark asked.

"Yeah, I know, but I can't," Matt complained.

"And that's your problem. You got yourself into your situation, and you're gonna have to deal with it," Mark replied.

"Situation?" asked Justin.

Mark smiled. "Yeah, this little guy has a bit of a bedwetting problem, so I decided to keep him in diapers until he can learn to control himself."

"Ahhh, I thought I heard something under there. Don't worry, I had the same problem when I was little. You'll get over it," Justin said.

"Yeah, but until then he's treating me like a little kid!" Matt said.

"Comes with the territory kid. You're the little brother, remember?" Mark chimed in.

"Grrrr. I'm not a kid!" Matt growled.

Mark laughed as he got up off the couch. "Right. Whatever." Just as Matt was about to argue, Matt reached down and yanked Matt's shorts off from under him.

"Hey, what are you doing?! Give those back!" Matt cried.

Justin laughed. "You do look cute in them."

"Shut up!" Matt said.

"Hey, that's not nice. What did I tell you about behaving yourself tonight?" said Mark as he tossed the shorts next to the television.

"He's making fun of me! That's not fair!"

"I've got an idea," Mark whispered to Justin. They planned it out, then tackled Matt and started to tickle him. Mark pulled Matt's tshirt up around his chest and held his arms behind his body while Justin tickled Matt all over.

"Hey that tickles! Stop it!" he yelled as he squirmed around in his big brother's grip. "You're going to make me pee all over myself!"

"Now you've got the idea," Mark whispered in his brother's ear.

"No fair!" he said as he started to wet his diaper, still struggling against his brother's tight grasp. Justin continued to tickle untill well after Matt had stopped wetting. "Hey, okay, I give up!" he cried.

Justing stepped back and smiled. "Aww, you wet your diaper!"

"No shit Sherlock." he said.

"Hey, what did I tell you about behaving?" Mark pulled Matt's shirt over his head and trapped his arms inside, then flipped him over on his stomach and smacked him five times very hard through the soaked diaper.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Matt yelped from under his tshirt.

Mark removed the tshirt from his little brother who was now blushing a bright red. "Awww, come on. Let's get you changed." Mark got up and helped his little brother stand up. All three walked into the bedroom.

"Lay down," said Mark as he took a clean diaper from Matt's dresser drawer.

Matt sat down on the bed and leaned back. "Hey, what about him? Does he have to be here too?"

Justin laughed. "Fine, if you're embarassed about it, I won't watch."

Mark walked over to his little brother and picked up the baby powder and wipes. He untaped the diaper and pulled it down. Matt started to turn red as his brother wiped him off with the baby wipes. "You know, this hair is going to cause diaper rash. Justin, could you hand me a pair of scissors from the desk?"

"WHAT?" Matt yelled. "NO WAY. ITS BAD ENOUGH I HAVE TO WEAR A DIAPER." Mark lifted Matt's legs in the air and smacked his rear end.

"Behave," Mark said as he put Matt's legs back down on the bed. He took the scissors from Justin and trimmed the hair that was growing between his little brother's legs. "I'm not taking it all off, just enough to keep you from having diaper rash."

Mark put the handfull of dark hair he'd just trimmed off in the wet diaper and rolled it up. He then proceeded to rub baby powder on his brother, then taped up the diaper. "You're done."

Justin turned around and smiled at the little boy on the bed. "I still say you look cute in those." Matt blushed again.

"Come on. Back to the living room," Mark said as he pulled Matt up. Matt walked to the door then turned back and reached for the tshirt.

"Nope. Keep walking."

Mat didn't fight this time and kept walking to the living room. All three sat down on the couch and watched TV while they waited for the pizza. Two minutes later, the doorbell rang. Mark got his wallet out and pulled out $15, which he handed to Matt. Go get the pizza, would ya?

"What? No way. I'm not gonna have people see me in a diaper!" Matt exclaimed.

"Get used to it," said Mark with a smile.

Matt got up, took the money and went to the door. He opened the door, gave the delivery man the money and took the pizzas and sodas. The delivery man said nothing about the diaper. Mark went to the kitchen and grabbed some paper plates and plastic cups and headed back to the living room. He passed them around and grabbed a slice of pizza.

Mark flipped through the channels and finally found a movie that had just started. He poured drinks for everyone and sat down to eat. All through the movie, Mark made sure everyone's cups were full, especially Matt's. Mark sat on the couch with Justin, while Matt sat on the floor. The movie ended, and Justin was getting ready to go home. Matt got up to say goodbye, but sat back down and soaked his diaper again before finally being able to stand up again.

"See ya diaper boy," Justin said as he ruffled Matt's hair. Matt blushed again. "Call me sometime - maybe we can get together again or something," Justin said to Mark, "See ya, guys."

Mark took Matt back to their bedroom and changed his diaper for a second time, making sure his little brother was nice and dry for the night. He handed Matt the pajamas he'd washed earlier that day. Mark went to go brush his teeth, then Matt did the same. As he passed his brother, Mark smiled when he saw the top of the diaper sticking out the top of the pajama pants.

Mark crawled in bed while Matt was brushing his teeth. When Matt got in his bed, he noticed the vinyl sheet underneath. "Mark, you put a plastic sheet on my bed too? I thought the diapers were enough."

"It's just in case. You'll get used to it," Mark said sleepily. "Gnight."

"Goodnight," Matt said softly as he fell asleep too.