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cr4yolaas · 2 months

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the weight of words — alhaitham x mute! reader

notes: based off of this tiktok i found a long while ago featuring a poem that serves as the base for this fic <3 i feel like this is very poorly written / rushed and it lacks a good flow but i wanted to get it out asap bc i didn’t have any more energy to write it LOL

tags: italics represent handwritten notes, reader is implied to be rlly smart / top of the class, implied depressive episode (reader), self deprecation (reader), fluff → angst → fluff, may or may not be an inaccurate rep. of mute individuals, ooc alhaitham, not proofread

this was a little more irksome than he wanted to admit.

at the very top of the akademiya, far away from prying eyes, sat a student bathed in sunlight. from a distance, he observed. you held a book in one hand and an apple in the other, while your legs dangled off of the ledge. he couldn’t discern much from your backside.

but what bothered him the most was that you were seated in “his” spot. the spot he always crept away to during lunch, mainly for its isolation and breathtaking view.

without hesitation, alhaitham approached you. he tapped on your shoulder and stared with an intensity akin to the blazing sun in june. “excuse me,” he began. “i normally sit here. i would greatly appreciate it if you moved to another place, as i’m most accustomed to this spot.”

a silence washed over as you stared up at him. your lack of response left him annoyed — did you find this funny?

however, as you set down your book and snack gently, alhaitham found himself surprised for the first time in a while.

a notebook sat on your lap as you wrote rapidly. the man watched quietly.

i’m afraid not. there are countless other spots up here, and i just happened to get to this one first.

a sigh slipped from his lips. while he wasn’t unfamiliar with stubborn personalities around campus, this particular interaction seemed to interest him more than it irritated him. alhaitham nodded and sat beside you, much to your surprise.

he listened as you flipped your page and began writing again, this time taking up less space on the paper.

why do you like sitting here? you passed the notebook to him.

he wrote much slower in comparison to you, however, his handwriting bore an elegance you had not seen before, as if each letter carried a song in the ink. you found it beautiful.

the lack of noise.

his short response made you smile — simple and straight to the point. another thing you deemed wonderful.

he did not hand the notebook back to you, but instead, continued to write. i dislike unnecessary sounds. they serve as useless interruptions. up here, i find that in comparison to the chatter of students, the ambience is soothing. alhaitham placed the notebook in your lap gingerly and looked into the distance, his gaze absent yet his thoughts reverberating.

you continued this back and forth with him for the entirety of the lunch break. the lines engraved on your palms spilled over with ink smears, and you found your dominant arm growing weary. you did not write your goodbyes on the paper, therefore leaving your conversation unfinished. you left with a smidge of warmth in your heart and a smile on your face in hopes of meeting him again the next day.

from afar, you could see the way he sat leaning slightly more towards one side, and the occasional tapping of his fingers against the table as he wrote. he drank from a small mug of what you presumed to be coffee, but rather than holding the handle, he gripped the cup from its mouth. another intricacy that piqued your interest.

he noticed your stare after a few seconds, eyes of jade and clementine meeting yours. without a word, he relocated to your table, sitting directly across from you. “hello,” he greeted softly. “i didn’t know you frequented this place either.” his gaze flickered over to your notebook peeking out of your schoolbag, and when you pulled it out to respond to him, he found himself getting uncharacteristically excited.

i don’t, actually. i wanted a change of pace, but i’m not sure how much i’m enjoying it. you pushed the book across the table to him.

is it too loud to study? that’s surprising.

you looked up at him questioningly for a moment before jotting down your reply. i’m not studying. i’m just here to read. his lips upturned noticeably at your words, an expression you wished to carve into the crevices of your memory for eternity. he was painstakingly beautiful.

alhaitham didn’t respond for a handful of seconds, instead opting to look outside the window to his left. strands of sunlight draped themselves onto his perfectly crafted face and fell between each strand of hair. a view that compared to the one at the top of the akademiya.

a conversation of short responses — ranging from questions about your darshan, to your favorite season, to the books you enjoyed reading — ensued, the evidence splayed onto the paper. you appreciated his company, for it was rare that anyone sought to talk with you.

he asked another question, his curiosity seeping out endlessly. why do you communicate like this?

a thin-lipped smile etched itself onto your lips. the ink of your pen ghosted atop the paper, your hesitation evident. i was born mute. i have no voice, therefore i cannot communicate in a normal manner.

you grew increasingly anxious as he looked at you with an expression that was terrifyingly unreadable. your hands rested atop the notebook, keeping it away from him for reasons you didn’t understand quite yet.

“that’s okay,” he spoke, the baritone of his voice cutting through your shared silence. “i don’t mind it. actually, i think i prefer it. over the grating voices of the other scholars i know, at least.” he went on about his senior, a friend in kshahrewar who apparently could never keep his mouth shut in his presence. you merely listened, soaking in his words and absorbing each syllable that spilled out of the cracks between his teeth. your confession rendered you utterly silent, but seemingly, he paid no mind.

again, your conversation ended without a proper goodbye. your notebook sat still on the table. moments after his departure, you stayed in your seat, contemplating the complications of this newfound acquaintance.

alhaitham’s life revolved around routine and quiet. he needed both to go about his day in an efficient and satisfying manner; otherwise, he would end up feeling rather unfulfilled and bothered.

perhaps that is why he found himself so drawn to you. in comparison to many of his classmates, who were incessantly obnoxious and needlessly talkative, you were quiet, not just vocally, but in every other aspect. your handwriting was consistent and each letter looked just as neat as the other. your responses were similar to his in that they were direct and honest. and, oddly, you radiated a warmth that he could not see in anyone else.

his next encounter with you wouldn’t be for a handful of days. he knew you were a student, thus resulting in his confusion — he had never seen you around campus until that day.

he ran into you during one of his lectures. you sat right beside him in a seat that wasn’t usually occupied. he began to question you with pen and paper, as usual.

since when were you enrolled in this class?

i always have been. this isn’t a necessary class for my darshan, it’s just an extra period for me to increase my credits. i don’t come to class very often.

he quirked a brow up. you fiddled with your pen.

interesting how i haven’t heard of you until now. alhaitham smiled softly at your muffled giggle, one that he had not heard until then. the noise swarmed his chest with a lightness he could not replicate.

you might have fallen too soon.

alhaitham was a simple man, yet alluring all the same. you had snuck away his perfections and imperfections in a different notebook. for instance:

3 - straightforward and direct

21 - prefers tea over coffee

44 - can’t sleep without a weighted blanket

your ever-growing infatuation for him began to blossom in the cavities of your stomach, and soon, it would infect everything above. you could not bear it — nights spent in solitude, where he would discuss his interests (which were minimal) until you fell asleep; afternoons spent in comfort, where you would share a slice of cake to celebrating a particularly difficult exam. he consumed your very being, the neurons that invoked muscular response and the veins that carried your blood here and there; all of it was him. and yet, you could not meaningfully share this with him, your silence embedding your heart in a crevice far away.

it seemed that he got to it first, anyways.

alhaitham asked you a simple question — if you were capable of speaking for a day, what would you say? he had begun carrying his own memo book to conversate — another addition to the list.

you sat in silence for a brief period before writing, every thought and feeling and idea that has ever encountered my mind would leave my lips.

he wrote, then i will give you just that, and more.

when you began dating alhaitham, you found that he was much more eager to “speak” to you consistently. he would write in his same font and present to you a variety of inquiries, ranging from plans for the day to what you wanted for dinner. he was the epitome of a loving man, a far cry from the tales of coldheartedness and brutality you’ve heard of him. and yet, something began to gnaw at your lungs as he did so.

alhaitham was your voice to speak through — he was the monotonous ramblings, the heavy whispers, the gentle laughs; he held all of those for you. seemingly, life became far more breathable.

but your love was just as restricting as it was kind. to speak is to suffer, but to not speak at all is beyond that — it is torture. nights were spent staring at alhaitham’s sleeping figure, questioning whether he truly felt the affection you expressed. gifts, contact, quality time; what good was it if you could not do something as simple as converse with him? it extended beyond him, as well — for reasons unknown, it grew increasingly difficult to communicate with your new professors and classmates, the downturns of their lips as you pulled out a notebook gut-wrenching. you questioned if alhaitham felt the same.

you began to spiral.

a rapid set of knocks arrived at your door at a questionable hour. the sun hung high in the sky, albeit obscured by your curtains. a soft buzz rung in your room.

“i know you’re inside,” a voice spoke from the other side of the wood. he knocked again.

you made no move to open the door, nor to approach it, nor to get up from your bed. in response, the hinges creaked and heavy footsteps neared.

“why have you locked yourself in here?” alhaitham asked, his tone indiscernible. you didn’t see it, but you heard him shuffling around your bedroom. “where is your notebook?”

it was silly. he spoke as if you could respond, and you weren’t sure if you were supposed to be sorrowful or upset.

he pulled the blanket from off of your head, his face indifferent as he witnessed your disheveled state. “i’m not sure what’s going on, but i can assure you i will wait until you’re well enough to speak to me again. i will always wait.” alhaitham set his own memo book and pen beside your pillow. a warm hand held yours, a signal of reassurance. “please get better as soon as you can.”

he turned around to leave, and you could not bring yourself to reach out for him. what would you do? would the words crawl out of your throat, akin to a miracle? or would you plead at him with desperate eyes in hopes he’d read your mind? you did not know. every instance would inconvenience him in some way — that you could not bear.

you did not step foot outside for another week. alhaitham (and kaveh, much to your surprise) had left meals and gifts next to your door, all of which remained untouched. you were in stasis.

each thought had been replaced by a fog so asphyxiating that it had drowned every word the moment it rose to the surface. a bubbling exhaustion boiled in you. you wished to speak, to express anything at all, to apologize for inconveniencing those around you, and to apologize to alhaitham for putting him through such an obstacle.

as if sensing this desire, he arrived at your dorm again, this time with a more gentle appearance and a large bag behind him.

you reached out for the notebook he placed beside you a week prior. why are you here?

he kneeled down beside you, paying no mind to your disheveled appearance, and spoke softly, “i’m sorry.” if it were fitting, he would have laughed at the instantaneous furrow of your brows. “i should’ve realized. and in failing to do so, i have failed you.” alhaitham took the notebook and pen from your grasp, and with an unrivaled delicacy, he held you.

“i would give up my own voice if it meant i could spend an eternity with you,” he began. “i do not care if you lack a voice of your own. you’re still embedded in my heart all the same.”

you had not written to him for days. and yet, he understood everything. he read the words displayed in your features with a familiarity no one had demonstrated.

758 - willing to help me heal.

alhaitham sat across from you, his back hunched over his work and his face framed with a mix of feather-gray hair and wispy sunlight. he wrote with an unmatched fluidity, as if time were escaping him.

he let out a sigh as he set down his pencil and sat up straight. “why must you sit with me if you’ve finished this assignment weeks ago? it’s as if you’re mocking me.”

it’s entertaining. he grabbed the notebook from your side of the table and wrote haphazardly, contrasting his smooth technique before.

it’s really not. i feel as if i’m being ridiculed and observed under a microscrope. it’s horrible, he teased.

you’re smart, anyways. you’ll survive.

afternoons in the akademiya’s library were once suffocating and exhausting. to be surrounded by peers who could only sneer and misjudge and question was unpleasant. now, as you sat with your lover in a soft silence, you felt at peace.

#genshin impact #genshin #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin fanfic #genshin angst #genshin fluff #genshin smut #genshin impact angst #genshin alhaitham #alhaitham #alhaitham x reader #alhaitham fluff #alhaitham angst #alhaitham smut

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loveindefinitely · 5 months

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༊*·˚ YOUR PERFECT KISSES, HOLD ME SOFTLY — early morning cuddles with your boyfriends!

featuring. simon 'ghost' riley + johnny 'soap' mactavish

warnings. sfw, fem!reader, polyamory, kissing, non-sexual touching, soapghost, pre-established relationship

The morning sun filters in through the pale curtains of the window, brushing the three of you in strokes of soft oranges and yellows.

Ghost's arm is heavy around your waist, his chest pressed tightly to your back where you lay. He acts like a heated, comfortable anchor for your usually restless sleeps.

The smell of warm vanilla and musk is a familiar and safe one, Soap's head resting where your neck meets your shoulder. His leg is hooked over your hip, over Ghost's, too. He was always a koala when he slept, needing your touch, desperate for the feel of your bodies draped over his own.

"Go back to sleep," Ghost's gravelly voice murmurs next to your ear, sending shivers down your spine. His normal voice was a punch to the gut, but the tone, the depth of it when he had just woken up?

It makes your heart skip a beat, your breath come out just the slightest bit harsher.

You turn, just slightly, gently opening one of your eyes to look at Ghost. His deep brown eyes are half-closed with sleep, just the slightest bit glassy.

"Morning," you whisper, brushing your lips against the morning scruff of his chin, then moving up to plant a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.

His arm tightens around your torso, pulling you just the slightest bit closer, like a possessive cat with its milk. "Mornin' Princess," he responds with the slightest quirk to his lips.

Soap murmurs in his sleep, eyebrows scrunching the lightest bit as he presses closer into you, head burrowing even further into your neck.

When your gaze drifts back to Ghost, you find his adoring gaze focused on the man in your arms, before it returns to you. The emotion in them doesn't change. Not in the slightest.

"Pretty," he says, like it's an admonishment. The word settles in your mind, the way he says it, the weight of the syllables on his tongue, all kept as a memory to look back on in years to come. "My pretty girl."

You nod, gently, as not to stir Soap still asleep in your arms. "Yours, Simon. All yours."

He presses the kindest of kisses to your forehead, so delicate in comparison to the harm you know that the man can cause. The deaths on his hands, the thrill of it in his bones.

And yet.

Here, Ghost is, cradling his lovers like they're the most precious of cargos. Ghost. Legend of the military. The man with the mask that sparks recognition and fear in the soldiers unlucky enough to cross his path.

The Ghost.

And he was yours. Just as much as he was Soap's -- Johnny's --but yours, nonetheless.

"Thinkin' so loud," that memorable scottish lilt huffs, but there's no hostility in the words. With a soft bite at your neck, Soap leans back with a soft groan, looking at the both of you. "Good fuckin' mornin' to me, aye?"

You huff out a breath of a laugh, and Soap's mouth twists into an easy smirk, movements lethargic and slow.

Grabbing your chin with large, roughened hands, he tilts your face to slot against his own, deepening the kiss almost immediately. His tongue slides against your own, lazy in its strokes.

"Gross," Ghost mutters, with a half-assed roll of his eyes. "Mornin' breath. Brush your teeth."

You giggle against Soap's lips, and when you pull away, he bites at your bottom lip and plants a couple quick presses against your mouth before pulling away. His smirk only deepens, the light in his blue eyes dancing with half-awake joy.

"Jealous, Lt?" Soap taunts, without the usual teasing bite. You supposed that even he had to awake before the real energy began.

"Told you to stop callin' me that after hours," Ghost grumbles with a furrow of his brows. "'Nd no, 'm not. Just mindful of my hygiene."

You hum, melting between the two large men, fully ready for them to converse while you didn't have to think for a single moment. Ready to just live in the space between the two who held your deepest adorations.

The dream is short lived, however.

"C'mon, gorgeous," Soap goads, "Let's make sure we're all perfect for our boy."

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woso-dreamzzz · 2 months

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Power

Katie McCabe x Reader

Summary: You and Katie both know who really holds the power

It was always funny to see the two of you together, going back as far as your childhood.

Katie had always been the more tomboyish of the pair of you, always up to wrestle with the older kids or go careening down the hill on her bike. You were slower in comparison, taking your time and amusing yourself by playing clapping games or making daisy chains.

You shouldn't have worked as well as you did but it must have been fate.

When Katie moved to England, you came with her. There was never any debate about it. Wherever she went, you went.

Football was her passion and you were happy to go along for the ride. She'd found a home at Arsenal and you were more than happy to tag along.

You worked at the local florist, surrounded by flowers everyday. You had beehives at the back of the garden. Your backyard was picture perfect and you grew your own fruits and vegetables.

No one expected someone like you to be engaged to someone like Katie.

"Mate," Leah said as she relaxed back in her seat," Your girl's a dream. I mean, what can't she do?"

Katie tilted her head back so she could peer into the kitchen where you were sectioning out the cake you'd made earlier.

It wasn't often that you two hosted bonding nights but, when you did, everyone came along. Your Pa was a chef so you'd picked up a few things along the way.

Your meals were the stuff of legend between the Arsenal team, with the experience being passed down from older teammates to younger ones as they all sat waiting for the invitation.

"Nothing," Katie replied as you momentarily got distracted by rearranging the bouquet that lived on the windowsill.

"You hit the jackpot," Jen said," I mean, I don't know how you control yourself. If I had a girl like that to come home to everyday, I'd never leave the bed."

"Hey!" Katie said, shoving her friend," She's my fiancée! Not yours!"

Jen laughed, tipping her head back. "I'm just saying! Come on, Katie, you can't say that you've never considered just skipping practice."

Katie winked. "I never said that. I just said to stop fantasising about my girl!"

"So you would stay in bed with her all the time?" Leah teased.

Katie smirked. "You know I would but you know," She shrugged," One of us has to be the breadwinner." She flexed jokingly. "I make enough that she could be my pretty housewife if she really wanted to."

"Real macho, McCabe," Leah said," You're forgetting we once saw you drop a weight on your foot. You're not that smooth."

"I think y/n would disagree with you there." Katie winked. "I'm super smooth. It's why she fell in love with me."

"She fell in love with you because you seduced her, I reckon. All this power is going to your head. Occasional Arsenal captain, Ireland captain and now you're saying you're the man of the house."

"I'm absolutely saying that." Katie flexed again. "I mean, check out these muscles."

"Alright," Jen laughed," Put those guns away before you take someone's eye out."

Admittedly, Katie knew she was talking like she was some kind of hormonal uni boy but she couldn't help herself. She was completely relaxed here, in her own home with her teammates scattered around and you serving everyone cake. She was definitely bigging herself up here but she didn't want to lose face in front of her friends, especially as you breezed back into the room with pre-sliced cake and a pile of plates.

"I hope you're all able to eat this," You said," I know you're meant to be on diets but, surely, you can cheat for the day."

Katie grinned, drunk on the feeling of puffed up pride at everyone's compliments about you. She stood and rested her hand a little too low on your ass to be decent in public.

"Course we can, babe," She said, emboldened by the way you didn't say anything as she squeezed lightly," Everyone loves your baking."

You sent her an unreadable look but allowed her touching, helping everyone get a slice before settling on her lap in the loveseat.

Katie smirked at Jen and Leah, who were sending her similar cocky looks, and she finally moved her hand from your ass to rest splayed out on your hip, dragging you ever closer.

You fed Katie bites of your own slice automatically as she sat manspread on the loveseat, still talking amongst her teammates.

When there was a lull in the conversation, you brought your lips to her ear.

"Vey macho, Katie," You said, watching her throat bob in horror when she realised that you had heard everything," A real man of the house."

"Babe," She murmured back, eyes darting back and forth between everyone to make sure none of them were looking," I-"

"I'm not going to say anything," You said, shutting her up by pressing another forkful of cake into her mouth," I wouldn't want to embarrass you in front of all of the new signings."

"Babe," She said again, shifting a bit uncomfortably as you put more food into her mouth.

"Shh," You said softly," Don't talk just yet." You leaned a bit closer, putting the plate down on your lap so you had a hand free to push Katie's hand to grip your hip harder. "You have your fun showing off for your friends. You do whatever you want but let me make this clear. If you have to be reminded who's really in charge here then I will make sure to remind you. Understand?"

"I understand."

"Good." You smiled and drew away, picking up the plate and nudging Katie's lips with a cake filled fork again. "Open up, baby. I spent a lot of time on this. Make sure to eat your fill."

#woso x reader #katie mccabe x reader #katie mccabe #woso community #woso fanfics #woso imagine #woso

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paperultra · 5 months

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candy stripes.

Pairing: OPLA!Vinsmoke Sanji x Fem!Reader Word Count: 5,048 words Warnings: Swearing, hospital setting [A/n: Soulmate AU. :)]

sortiger (adjective): delivering prophecies of the future; having the qualities of being oracular

Nobody else can see the string but you.

You wish you didn’t. It has no texture, no weight, so you can’t understand why it can’t be invisible too. But the string demands attention with every use of your hands, seizes your eye when you wash dishes in the morning and brush your teeth at night, a garish and bloody red that matches the stripes of your uniform.

You hate your string and you hate the color red.

Miss Xinyu, the old lady in Room 30, has one too. At least, that’s what she had told you when you gained the courage to mention yours one day, not knowing what it meant and how much you would come to dread it.

“It’s your red string of fate,” she had explained. “It connects you to the person who understands you more than anyone else in the world.”

In other words, your soulmate. Your one and only.

Miss Xinyu says you’re a lucky ducky, knowing what your future holds.

Her string goes into the ground now. You don’t think being reminded of a dead person whenever you look at your pinkie is very lucky.

The biggest reason why you hate the string so much, though, is because you’ve always had a problem doing what you’re supposed to unless you want to, which causes a lot of trouble for a nine-year-old girl. You already have trouble being nice to patients who are mean to you, so how can you love and wait for someone you’ve never met? It makes you feel icky.

Why can’t you choose? How come you have to have one at all?

Your only source of comfort is that your string is very, very thin and runs out of the hospital. That means your soulmate, whoever they are, is very, very far away. You’d very much like it to stay that way.

But it doesn’t.

—

Nurse Taoh wants you to watch the patients in Room 8 while he finishes his charts. You don’t really want to, if only because it’s Nurse Taoh asking – he likes to order you around more than Dr. Gu – but you don’t want to get into trouble again, so you go.

(… And okay, you are just a little bit curious about the new inpatients. You only know three things about them: one, they were brought in together last night while you were in your room poking holes into your paper instead of correcting it; two, they’re a man and a boy, presumably father and son; and three, everyone says it’s a miracle they’re still alive.)

(Then again, you’ve seen many miracles here.)

The unit is quiet as you walk down the hallway. Quiet, but not silent, as your polished shoes squeak like little mice against the floor and you whisper the room numbers as you pass by them. Two, four, six – eight.

You stop and knock, three sharp raps against the brown wood.

“Hello?” You open the door and poke your head in. “My name is –”

The squiggly-patterned curtain that often separates patients for privacy is drawn, and you clamp your mouth shut as you realize the patient closest to you is asleep.

Shutting the door silently, you creep closer to the foot of his bed. The man underneath the sheets lies quietly; he is little more than a skeleton, eyes sunken and bones sticking out underneath blistered skin. His beard is long and scraggly, but it pales in comparison to his mustache, each side braided and sticking out to the sides.

He looks angry, even though he’s sleeping. You hope he’s not the type to wake up and yell at you as you tiptoe past to check on the boy.

You pass the curtain, catch a glimpse of the bed sheets, and see –

Red.

Your feet root themselves in place, the room suddenly devoid of air.

You stare. Blink hard, twice. Look again. Then, trembling, you look down at your hand.

Your eyes trace the string around your own finger, following down to the dip of it that barely touches the ground and back up over the blankets until it ends in a red loop around the boy’s pinkie, tied off with a little bow.

Your stomach turns.

Stumbling forward, you make your way to the visitor’s chair in the corner. You slump down into it and stare straight ahead at the curtain, refusing to look at the boy’s face.

He continues to sleep.

You don’t want him to wake up.

—

The boy does not stir during your first meeting, but that small mercy is quickly eclipsed two days later by a single bowl of chicken broth.

The look on your face is sour as you walk down the hallway again, the broth splashing up against the lid with each step. Because most of the patients in the hospital you live in are elderly, the staff have somehow gotten it into their heads that you simply must spend time with the boy in Room 8 because he is your age and you need to socialize with other kids. You very much don’t want to. Not with him, at least.

Dr. Gu is just leaving the room when you arrive. She gives you a quick smile, the corners of her eyes wrinkling, and pats your head.

“So you heard that the boy woke up, huh?”

You grunt, looking away with a pout. “Can’t you give this to him, Dr. Gu?”

“Nope. I have to finish my rounds,” she says. “Go in and have a chat. His name is Sanji. You’ll like him.”

“I doubt it,” you mumble underneath your breath.

Dr. Gu probably hears you, but she doesn’t scold you, merely patting your head one last time before you enter Room 8.

The dividing curtain is drawn this time. The window curtains are pulled back, too; it’s a somewhat cloudy day outside, but bright enough to sharpen the shadows on the walls and make the boy look even paler than you remember.

His eyes are closed as you approach. A sprout of hope that he might have fallen asleep again blooms in your chest – you’ll just leave the broth on the table, you think to yourself, and go about the rest of your day. Nobody said you had to watch him drink it.

You get about five feet away, already planning to drop some books off to the other rooms, when the boy’s nose suddenly twitches.

His eyes open to thin slits. Your hope shrivels like a weed in the desert as he speaks.

“What’s that?” His voice is quiet and raspy.

Your eyebrow twitches. “It’s just chicken broth,” you say tartly, setting the tray down on the overbed table and turning it around so that it’s over his lap. You take off the lid and steam bursts from the bowl.

The boy reaches up to rub his eyes. The red string dangles from his pinkie, and you quickly look away with a scowl.

“Who are you?” he asks, scooting back to sit up more as he gradually becomes more alert.

Reluctantly, you give him your name. “Will you need help with the soup?”

He shakes his head. His gaze latches onto the contents of his bowl, and he stops, transfixed.

You scramble to stop him as he suddenly grabs the bowl and attempts to gulp it all down in one go.

“Don’t do that! You’ll throw up!” Without thinking, you seize his hands and pry the bowl away from his mouth. A few drops of broth splash over the blankets and his gown, and your irritation grows. Now you’ll have to fix that. “Drink it slowly.”

“I haven’t eaten anything for weeks,” the boy complains. “What do you know?”

“I’ve been studying medicine since I was a little kid,” you retort. “So I know a lot.”

He frowns. “You are a little kid.”

“I’m nine years old!”

“No, I’m nine! You don’t look as old as me!”

There’s no way this … this brat is the same age as you! Fuming, you let go of the bowl and jab a finger at his face. “I am nine years old and I know more than you! You can’t drink the broth like that!”

You’re met with silence. The boy’s eyes are wider than saucers. Pride wells up inside you at your ability to shut him up.

But then he puts the bowl down and seizes your hand, and your pride gives way to horror as he folds down your index finger and lifts your pinkie – the pinkie with the red string wrapped around it.

He lifts his own pinkie, the rest of his fingers folded. Your jaw clenches when you see how the string has shortened to mere inches, bridging the space between his hand and yours.

“Holy shit,” the boy says. The largest grin spreads across his face, and it’s blinding and scary and you hate it, you hate it. “It’s you! You’re my soulmate, aren’t you?!”

“No,” you reply quickly, whipping your hand behind your back and backing away. “No, I’m not!”

“But you see the string too! I knew I’d meet you some day. How come you’re”— he pushes the table away, eagerly but just gentle enough so no more of the broth spills—“how come you’re hiding it behind your back?”

“I’m not your soulmate,” you bark, panic rising in your chest. “Don’t you ever say that!”

You only catch a glimpse of the hurt that flashes across the boy’s face before you turn around and dash out of the room.

Mrs. Hong finds you in the storage closet later, curled up behind the shelves of gauze and IV tubing. She coaxes you out with a promise of rice balls and no questions asked. You wish all the adults were more like her.

—

The next day, Miss Jaylee hoists you over her shoulder like a human sacrifice and brings you to Room 8.

“I don’t want to see him! You can’t make me!”

“He’s refusing treatment and food unless he sees you,” the woman answers briskly, each of her steps jostling you up and down. “You don’t want to be responsible if Sanji dies, do you?”

“I don’t care if he dies!”

Miss Jaylee clicks her tongue and walks faster.

You flail, feeling a little guilty for your cruel words but too proud to take them back. Sanji couldn’t have heard you, anyway, and nobody here is going to let him die no matter what he does or what you say.

You hear a door swing open. Miss Jaylee walks into Room 8 and turns around, and you lift your head, glaring at Sanji as his face lights up and his cheeks turn rosy.

“[Y/n]!”

Your own cheeks burn in embarrassment at the position you’re currently in. This, you only now realize, is way worse than walking into the room voluntarily.

“How come they’re carrying you? Are you okay?” he asks.

“Let them treat you,” you snap, arms limp and dangling. “And eat your stupid food or I’ll get in trouble.”

“Okay.” You nod, opening your mouth to speak again only for him to continue, “But only if I get to talk to you afterwards.”

What is he, a prince?! What makes it so easy for him to demand such things?

“That wasn’t what you told them,” you protest, squirming, but Miss Jaylee only tightens her arm around your waist.

(“Be nice,” she warns. You growl.)

“It’s important,” Sanji stresses, looking pointedly down at his hand and then back at you.

You bite down on your tongue as the red string glimmers in the light.

Dr. Gu and Nurse Taoh stare at you expectantly. Your neck is starting to ache from craning it, and there’s a feeling that you’ll never stand on your own two feet again unless you do what he wants.

“… Fine,” you hiss through gritted teeth.

Only once you promise to stay does Miss Jaylee let you slide off her shoulder. You stand to the side, arms crossed impatiently as they take Sanji’s vitals and ask him some questions. He’s only half paying attention, head turning to look at you more than once, which you merely turn up your nose at.

“All right, we’ll leave you two to chat now,” Dr. Gu says. “If you need anything, just let [Y/n] know, okay?”

“Okay,” Sanji says.

With that, the three adults leave, and you and Sanji are left alone once more.

“I’m glad you came. They were starting to get mad at me,” he says, then cuts straight to the chase. “How come you don’t want to be my soulmate?”

“Because I don’t want a soulmate,” you immediately reply.

“But why? It’s nice, isn’t it? Being special to each other?”

“You can’t be special to me. We’re not even friends.”

For the second time, Sanji looks hurt.

“…We’re not?” he asks. You shake your head. “But … you brought me food.”

You’re befuddled. “Because Dr. Gu made me,” you say, trying to ignore the disappointment on his face. “Besides, I yelled at you yesterday. Friends don’t yell at each other.”

“I thought that you were maybe just really surprised …” His voice gets smaller and smaller. “Some people get mad when they’re just surprised …”

“I wasn’t surprised. I saw it when you were still asleep.”

“Oh,” Sanji mumbles. He looks down at the sheets, scratching at the wrinkle in the thin white fabric. “Okay.”

He says nothing more. You fidget, wondering if he’s pretending to look like he’s about to cry or if he really is trying not to. You’re not good with people who start crying.

You chew on your bottom lip. Sanji tucks his hand with the string on it underneath his bed sheets, his eyes disappearing behind his tangled hair, and fine, you feel kind of bad whether he’s tricking you or not.

“I’ll only be friends with you if you don’t talk about being soulmates,” you finally tell him begrudgingly. “Not ever, okay?”

His head shoots back up. “Really?!”

“Only if you don’t talk about it! I’m serious.” You huff at Sanji’s sudden change in mood and click your tongue. “If you stay sad you might not get better. Don’t get the wrong idea!”

He nods, grinning bigger than ever.

Oh, dear, you think as he promises that he’ll be a really, really good friend, you might have made a mistake.

—

By the fifth day, Zeff, the man who was brought in with Sanji, is awake.

You hear them arguing before you see them, pushing a cart of books for Sanji to browse through as per your agreement the day before. They’re loud, and Sanji calls the man an old shitbag right as you knock and push the door open.

“I’m here,” you announce, and the two quiet down to look at you. You give Zeff a polite smile. “Hello, sir. I’m [Y/n].”

“Hello, little miss,” Zeff says, his features softening from the angry expression he’d directed towards Sanji a moment before.

“Why are you being nice to her and not me?” Sanji pipes up from his side of the room, all puffed-out cheeks and petulantly crossed arms.

“Because she don’t make my ears ring with nonstop whining,” the man answers sharply. “Now get a book and read so I can finally have some peace and quiet.”

“You get a book and read,” Sanji grumbles.

“What was that, boy?”

You cut in before they start bickering all over again. “Do you want a book too, Mr. Zeff?”

Zeff’s gaze flicks over to you once more, and your shoulders tense. The man takes a deep, calming breath, and then he sighs, reclining back into his pillow and closing his eyes. “No, thank you, little miss,” he mutters. “Reading’s no good for my head right now.”

“Do you have a headache?” He grunts in affirmation. “Do you want me to get a nurse?”

“No, no, don’t need any of that.”

“You didn’t tell me you had a headache,” Sanji accuses.

Zeff’s mustache twitches. “All you need to know is that you oughta stop yappin’ when a man wants peace and quiet!”

(Not again.)

As you give up and walk over to draw the curtains, Sanji says your name desperately. “Can we read somewhere else?” he pleads when you glance at him. “I don’t want to be stuck in here with him right now.”

Narrowing your eyes, you appraise his weak-looking frame, pointedly skimming past the red string that snakes over to you. “Can you even walk around yet?”

“Yeah,” he says defensively. He wriggles out of the bed sheets and swings his legs over the side of the bed. Holding onto the side rail, he stands up and grips the IV pole for support. Though he’s a little shaky, he shuffles a few steps towards you and smiles when he manages to do so. “See?”

Well, you think, if you and Sanji stay here, you’ll need to have some light in order to read. But it will probably help Zeff if the room is as dark as possible, so if you guys go somewhere else, Sanji’s lamp won’t need to be on.

“Okay,” you agree. “Wait here. I’ll get some slippers.”

Ten minutes later, with Sanji shuffling along in his slippers, IV pole in one hand and your arm in the other, the two of you arrive at the common room and find chairs in the corner to sit down in.

“These’re mostly history books and stories for old people,” you explain as you pull out the one cooking-related book you could find from the top basket of the cart. “This was the only food one I could find.”

“That’s okay.” Sanji takes the book from you and begins to flip through it. “Oh, this one’s about seafood in the South Blue! Have you ever had any?”

“No.”

“Me, neither. I’ll try it someday, though … hey, this fish looks like a fried egg!”

Against your will, you perk up. “… Really?”

For the next half-hour, Sanji fawns over the spices used on grilled Sea King meat and how to cook wine clams and the best fish for South Blue-style sushi. And it’s … not boring. He doesn’t hog the book, and the pictures are cool, and he asks you which ones you think are the coolest or would taste the best. Looking at a book with another kid is different from reading with an adult. It feels like you’re sharing, not like you’re being tested on your comprehension or how to pronounce long words.

Hanging out with Sanji is okay when the string doesn’t sour it.

“So you want to cook all of these one day?” you ask after scanning through a full-color page of steamed Ocean Hawk feet.

“I want to cook things from all four seas,” Sanji says. His legs bounce with excitement. “That’s why I’m gonna find the All Blue.”

“What’s that?”

The boy glows.

“It’s where the North, East, South, and West Blue seas all meet. Think about it – fresh-caught fish from all over the world all in one place! I’ll be able to cook dishes no one’s ever cooked or tasted before.”

You’ve never heard of such a place. But Sanji talks about it with such conviction, such resolve, that you figure the All Blue could really exist.

“I hope you find it,” you say, and you mean it.

“I will.” Sanji closes the book. “And when I do, I’ll cook something just for you. A-As a friend.”

He peeks over at you, his eyes even brighter and bluer than before, his cheeks flushing a familiar red. And you find yourself believing him, just a little bit.

—

Sanji keeps his promise.

You know he still likes you (blech) and so does most of the staff (double blech). Nurse Taoh thinks it’s funny and teases you about your little boyfriend in Room 8 who always asks where you are. Mrs. Hong reminds you to be sensitive whenever you stop by to pick up meals. Dr. Gu tells you to tell her right away if Sanji ever does something that makes you uncomfortable.

But he never does. Sometimes his words spill out clumsily like a broken faucet and other times he blushes and stutters, leaving you to wonder what he’s going on about, but he doesn’t try to kiss you or hold your hand, and he doesn’t say a word about the red string that is very much still there. If anything, he just annoys you at times, with how nice he is to you and how sunny he gets when you eat lunch with him sometimes.

You’ve never seen somebody so happy to be in a hospital before, even if it’s just because he wants you to like him. It’s weird.

It’s on the eighth day of Zeff and Sanji’s stay that you learn not everything is how it seems.

You’d gotten in trouble the night before for digging holes in the garden – you had kept the seed from your dinner plum and wanted to see if you could make it grow, but Miss Jaylee had caught you while taking Mr. Hu out for some air – so you’re somewhat grumpy on your way to Room 8, two notebooks in hand.

One of them is blank for Sanji. He wants to record all the meals he’s gotten and write down how he would make them. The second notebook is full of your notes that you need to study for your quiz tomorrow.

Zeff is sleeping again when you enter. You move quietly across the room to where Sanji is lying with his back to the door.

“Sanji.” You can see his shoulders tense underneath the sheets, but strangely, he does not roll over to face you. “I have your notebook.”

No answer. That is even stranger.

Frowning, you walk around to the other side of the bed. Sanji moves to bury his face into his pillow, but not before you hear a very soft, wet sniffle.

“Sanji?”

“Sorry.” His voice is high and so muffled you can barely understand him. “You can just leave it on the table.”

“Why are you crying?” In the back of your head, you know it is not the most sensitive thing to ask. But for some reason, you need to know. “I won’t laugh or tell anyone.”

You hear another sniffle from the mop of blond hair. It takes a long time for Sanji to answer, but he eventually does.

“I don’t like hospitals.”

Your brow furrows. “Oh,” you say, somewhat surprised. Most people don’t like being in a hospital, you’re pretty sure of that, but you didn’t know Sanji didn’t like it this much. “Why?”

Maybe he’s tired of getting poked all the time, or the bland food, or the hospital smell. Nobody here can change that. Maybe he’s homesick. The hospital can’t fix that, either.

Sanji turns his head slightly and takes in a small, shuddering breath. “’Cause it … it makes me remember my mum … when she was sick,” he mumbles, almost too quiet to hear.

“… Oh.”

You had assumed, upon learning that Zeff and Sanji were not at all related, that Sanji was like you and never knew his parents. He’d never talked about having any before, only his time on the Orbit and with Zeff. But he does know them – his mother, at least. And she was sick. The memory is what’s making him so sad, and it’s yet another thing that the hospital can’t help.

You don’t want him to be sad. You did make him your friend, after all, even if he does annoy you sometimes.

“I’m sorry,” you say, standing awkwardly with his notebook still in your possession. You remember what Miss Jaylee has told other patients before. “That, um, must have been really hard for you.”

Sanji squeezes his pillow more tightly.

Should you go? Should you talk to him some more?

“Please don’t tell anybody,” he whispers before you can decide. “Especially Zeff.”

“I won’t,” you reply firmly. “I said I wouldn’t, didn’t I?”

“I’m sorry I can’t hang out today. I really wanted to, but, um …”

“It’s okay. We can do it later.”

“Okay.”

You set his notebook and a pen on the bedside table. After some thought, you refill his water and, after even more hesitation, fix the bed sheets on him a bit so they’re not as twisted up. That is the best you can do.

The red string follows you as you quietly leave Room 8, and you don’t think about it at all.

—

“How do you spell necessary?”

“N-E-S-E-S-A-R-Y.”

“That doesn’t look right. I think it’s S-S-A-R-Y.”

“Maybe you can find it in the book,” Sanji suggests, kicking his feet as he lies on his belly next to you.

“Yeah, maybe.” You flip through the pages of your textbook, searching for the correct spelling lest you get marked off again.

It is the tenth day. Sanji is doing alright, and Zeff is up and about with his new leg. Dr. Gu says they’re good to go, so they’re leaving after Zeff finishes breakfast. You’re not sure how to feel about it.

In the meantime, Sanji is helping you with your essay about scurvy. He knows quite a bit about it, which makes sense since he’s lived at sea, and you hope the perspective he’s supplying will impress Dr. Gu.

(“That’s why every ship needs a good cook,” he tells you proudly. “We make sure everyone eats right so they stay healthy.”

“That’s why you and Mr. Zeff are going to have a restaurant ship, right?”

“Mmhm.”)

Sanji rests his face in his hands, cheeks squished against his palms while you continue to scan through your textbook. You finally find the word in a photo caption and, with a triumphant noise, jot it down correctly.

Someone knocks on your door. The two of you turn to face it simultaneously.

“[Y/n]?” It’s Mrs. Guo.

“Yeah?” you call, already slightly irritated.

“Is Sanji there? It’s time for him to leave.”

A frown presses down on your lips. Sanji sighs and gets up as slowly as possible, taking his notebook with him.

“Coming,” he says.

The two of you dawdle on your way to the hospital entrance. You pet Cabby the dog when you run into him and his handler and stop by the kitchen so Sanji can thank the cooks. There’s no rush, not really, but an uneasy feeling continues to well up in your stomach anyway.

Upon arriving at your destination, Zeff waiting at the double doors with a giant bag of treasure slung over his shoulder, Sanji stops and turns to face you.

“I’m – I’m going now,” he says, as if just realizing it.

“Okay,” you say.

You and Sanji stand in silence for a moment before Sanji’s bottom lip starts to wobble.

Yours starts to wobble too. The uneasy feeling in your stomach bubbles up into your throat and behind your eyes.

“I’ll write you,” he blurts, voice cracking. “You’ll come visit, won’t you?”

“I don’t know.” You don’t know if they’ll let you. The hospital is busy and the ocean is big, bigger than you, and you don’t know it at all like Zeff and Sanji do. “But I’ll write back.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

You are crying now.

For the first time, your arms wrap around Sanji, and he clings back as both of you bawl. Your tears and snot stain the shoulder of his brand-new clothes. Your uniform grows damp at the collar. It doesn’t matter at all.

“I don’t know if I’ll see you again,” you croak into his shirt, face hot and eyes blurry.

His grip tightens. “You will,” Sanji replies in between sniffles. “I know it. Even if it’s when we’re really old, we’ll see each other again.”

“Okay.”

You believe him. Not because of fate, but because you want to.

—

You write to each other every single week for the next ten years. You tell each other everything.

Well, almost everything.

—

“You seem nervous,” Nami says. “Don’t tell me a little bribery got under your skin?”

“No, no.” You wipe your hands on your thighs and try to relax against the back of the booth. “Just … not used to places like this, that’s all.”

The Baratie is nicer than you imagined. Sanji had kept you up to date over the years, sending newspaper clippings and recipe drafts as the restaurant he and Zeff founded grew in staff members and reputation, but seeing it in person is a whole different deal. You’re telling the truth when you said you’re not used to a place like this.

But it’s not why you’re nervous.

“Hey, look!” Usopp exclaims, pointing across the room. “I think those guys are gonna fight.”

The rest of you look. Near the kitchen, two men are arguing, and the pink-haired man sitting at the table stands up when the pirate shoves his food onto the floor.

Usopp sucks his teeth. “Yikes.”

Luffy leans forward in interest. Zoro simply stares, and Nami rolls her eyes.

One of the waiters approaches them. You watch as he tries to deescalate the situation, but neither party is having it.

The pink-haired man draws a gun.

Within seconds, the gun and both would-be brawlers are on the floor.

The waiter shoves his foot into the pink-haired man’s back to keep him down, then picks up the plate of bread rolls again, stepping over both groaning bodies with the ease of one who’s done it before.

He reassures the other customers as he approaches your booth. You’re not concerned about the fight so much as you are about the way that you know.

It’s been ten years, but you just know, even before he gets close enough for you to see the red string that trails up and disappears into the black of his pants pocket. Even before you see the blue of his eyes and the annoyed set of his brow, exactly the same as you remember.

He places the rolls down onto the table, and for the first time, you wonder what you want.

“Hi, welcome to our shitty restaurant where the only thing worse than the ambience is the food. My name is Sanji. What can I get for you?”

#aesthetic words prompt list #opla #one piece #sanji x reader #vinsmoke sanji x reader #vinsmoke sanji #sanji #opla sanji #one piece live action #opla fanfiction #one piece fanfiction #reader insert #fem!reader #soulmate au #woefully inaccurate portrayal of patient treatment and progression of recovery i'm sorry #usually i'd be more of a stickler but this is one piece where people don't die after 85 days eating nothing but their own leg #zeff and sanji definitely aren't ur typical patients anyway even in the opla universe lol

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earthtooz · 1 year

Text

clingy!gojo x gn!reader, fluff, use of pet names, a little bullying from reader but that's okay- it's gojo /j, he's annoying and probs ooc.

gojo satoru is as codependent as he is powerful and you came to realise that the hard way during the timeline of your relationship. what began as a peaceful saturday morning lying together in bed has now become a total wrestling match, one that you were drastically losing in in comparison to gojo's unmatched strength.

"get off me, 'toru, i need to go buy groceries before the shops begin getting busy!" you huff, your hand on his shoulder doing nothing to make him budge no matter how hard you tried.

he whines, loud and pathetic in your ear. "don't leave! i'll be all cold and miserable!"

"oh boohoo. move," as an afterthought, you add: "please?"

he shakes his head, white strands tickling your chin as the sorcerer shoves himself further into your warmth, holding you with a kind of fervour that spiders have to their webs.

you don't know how you can get out of this one.

"please, love?" gojo loves it when you bring out pet names for him; something you monopolise in hopes of lowering his defence. "i'll be quick too. just a trip to the grocery store and then i'll be back, is that such a demanding request?"

"yes. i don't know what could happen to you out there, what if a special grade curse appears? i'd never forgive myself."

"then come with me."

"too cold for that. i'm staying here."

you roll your eyes. chivalry is dead. "glad to know that you've got my back. whatever. i can handle myself, 'toru, you know that."

"okay, but i can't- that's why you need to stay!"

"you have more cursed energy in one finger than i do my whole body."

he hmphs.

"you can destroy buildings for miles."

he hmphs again.

"your birth literally shook the jujutsu world."

the white-haired hmphs one final time, his cutesy act only doing so much when the grip he has around you contradicts it. gojo's strength is not something to be messed with but you just hope that he stops squeezing you soon because it was getting harder and harder to breathe. paired with his weight on top of yours, you don't think you two can get any humanly closer.

"'satoru," you groan, utterly exasperated at his stubbornness. "you're acting very sweet and all but i'm serious. we don't have enough food. we ran out of milk for your daily mocha-"

the sorcerer places delicate kisses along your collarbone, cutting you off as you shiver from the sensation, especially when his lips brushes over a sensitive part of your skin.

"-don't care."

"gojo," you murmur in a warning tone, any hint of affection draining out of your voice.

bad idea. you knew what using his family name would result in and in your sleepy, yet frustrated haze, you hadn't considered the consequences. not until gojo's clinginess intensifies, his head rising from your chest whilst one of his hands pause midway through the heart he was tracing on your skin. he's looking at you with eyes that glisten with love, worry and fear. you now feel guilt washing over you, unable to muster the words to apologise before he speaks up.

"please don't be mad, i mean well," your lover whispers, the sunlight that snuck through your blinds illuminating him beautifully, deliciously sculpting the planes of his back. "i love you so much, don't you know? i thought you loved me too."

you sigh, flopping your head back into your pillow.

gojo continues littering kisses here and there, a new sense of desperation lingering with his actions. "at select times," you quip.

"babe, that's mean!"

"just as mean as you trapping me here. i'm hungry, gojo, and i have things i need to do."

"stop calling me that," he whines, pushing himself up only to crawl up higher, his head now fitting into your neck from where it rested against your sternum earlier.

great. now you can feel even more of his weight as he flops atop you.

tapping his shoulder in surrender, the best you can mutter is a breathy 'you're heavy' before he expertly manoeuvres the two of you, all pressure disappearing immediately as you now lie on your side.

gojo looks down at you with so much love and adoration, that it sends you reeling, regretting looking at him. your resolve cracks even more with the gentle kiss he presses against your forehead, lingering there for a moment before pulling away.

he seems to be even happier in this position, arms wrapping tight around your torso in a bone-crushing embrace, keeping you right against his exposed chest.

right against his heart.

this is a battle you've lost, you decide, surrendering by wrapping your arm around the white-haired's torso.

gojo doesn't miss the action, no, he revels in it and you don't even have to see him to know that he's smirking. smugness dripping in his tone when he asks, "oh? finally gave in to my charms, babe?"

"you're so annoying," you grunt, unwrapping yourself and shuffling around in gojo's hold to face away from your boyfriend.

once again, you don't even need to see him to see the astonished look he gives you, eyebrows furrowed and jaw dropped in disbelief. imagining it provides you with a little feeling of satisfaction.

"unbelievable!" gawks the sorcerer. "i am merely trying to show you my love and you do-"

"-'toru," you declare, the affectionate nickname only you use immediately silencing him. "go to sleep. or i'll leave your ass for everything you've put me through this morning."

detecting the airiness in your tone, he knows your threat cannot be farther from a lie. but still, he complies but not without murmuring a small 'unfair' before tucking himself into you, completely overwhelming you with his limbs.

"i love you," you confess, the words hovering into air, dissipating before long but gojo hears it. he always does. he's engraved the way you say those three words in his mind.

it sounds sweeter every time though, causing butterflies to erupt in his chest as gojo kisses your cheek. "i love you more," parting with a little bite, you swat him away as he sinks back into his position, laughing in amusement.

you end up going to the supermarket together that afternoon.

#i love delivering mediocre writing #gojo x reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #gojou satoru x reader #gojo satoru x reader #gojou x reader #gojo x reader fluff #gojo satoru x reader fluff #gojou satoru x reader fluff #jujutsu kaisen fluff

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dhampling · 3 months

Text

one fem!reader, 2k

“Mummy and Daddy’s evening off though, love? Really?”

“Oh shut up, you horrid thing. I know.”

astarion is a newly-minted girldad. that's it. that's the plot.

word count: 2,028

an: fluff, fluff n more fluff. no smut this time. soon. promise. parts ONE and TWO linked respectively but can be read alone.

“She’s asleep, Astarion!”

You are wide eyed, furious; speaking in a whispered shout at your husband.

His pale hands flit across the ties of your shirt, frisking every which way they turn. You slap them off like flies on fruit.

“Even more reason to take advantage of the situation, if you ask me.” He murmurs hungrily in your ear, hands now circling down to your waist to tug on your waistband.

“It’s a fine job I didn’t ask you then!” Gritted teeth. Eyes aflame. Cornered against the dresser.

The crib beside your bed holds your infant daughter - skittish and fresh to a world wholly unknown in every sense of the word. She rests rarely and wails often for company in these early months of being alive with you both. Pallid and red-eyed yet beautiful beyond comparison and entirely yours.

Seeing you together brings him joy unparalleled.

He has, genuinely; never been prouder of anything of his doing - saving the Sword Coast is a drop in the ocean that is completely and utterly awash with love for your youngling. The mistaken mess of his own bastard elven vampiric genetics now born unto another. This time it would be right. The hunger, the rot; the abuse and neglect, they were hundreds of miles away.

He would make it right.

But it was already so. She was here, and you all cried together in that dark, sweaty birth chamber. His great guttural sob at her birth, wracked with emotion he never knew he could possibly be permitted to feel on this immortal coil. Your genuinely feral howls of pain turned weeping with pure joy.

Two full days of agony unlike any you’ve ever endured and she had arrived, breathing; wailing; skin of a changeling in birthing viscera and lungs keen to rival any bellow of the Gods.

Astarion weakly clinging to you both; tears salting your lips and wetting her tiny head for hours on end.

The great weight of another being on your shoulders. His sincere - yet cliche - fervently whispered oath to her just moments after being placed in his arms.

She is home. She is loved beyond any unit of measure. She will want for nothing, and she will never know anguish like that of her parents and their complex lives. No matter who she is or what she becomes, she has two people who are in her corner. She will be fierce if she so desires. Cunning. Witty. Roguish. Barbaric. Horrid.

It didn’t matter. It never would.

She was yours, and his; and she would always have a choice.

He had spoken with her for hours, the nurse whispered to inform you once you had awoken from the deepest slumber of your life. Even then when you looked he was hanging over her small form in her cot, running his lithe fingers over her tiny hands and feet in a repetitive soothing pattern.

When you queried the topic of conversation he simply looked at you with a grin so lovesick it would flip your stomach completely. Butterflies.

“We deserve a bit of fun though, darling. Mummy and Daddy’s evening off? No?”

Astarion pouts, wrapping his arms around you - still pinned against the dresser - and inhaling your scent deeply.

You return the gesture and cough reactively.

“You stink of Noblestalk. I know your tricks.”

You playfully shove him away and tiptoe from your room to the landing, the pale elf hot on your heels.

“I have never stunk in my life, thank you.” He sulks.

You pointedly stop to look at him, before picking up a basket of waiting laundry and descending the stairs. He follows.

“I’m trying to fuck you, dear. Don’t make it weird.” He rolls his eyes and huffs.

You hum.

“Corpses tend to smell awful.”

“Warning.”

“You started it.”

“Touché.”

A beat of silence.

“Mummy and Daddy’s evening off though, love? Really?”

“Oh shut up, you horrid thing. I know.”

“You’re getting rusty.”

He captures you in a kiss as you reach the bottom of the stairs, slow and patient. Holding your free arm to keep you close.

“Look at me. I’m the epitome of the fatherly jester!’

Waggles his free hand.

‘I have been blessed with brains and humour anew by the birth of our daughter, clearly.’

He grimaces.

‘Not necessarily superior versions of either, but I - am - changed.”

From the moment of her conception you’d felt it. An old wives’ tale. The night you’d agreed to mother a brood alongside him, you knew she was there. That she was her. That she was brewing as something brilliant deep inside you and nothing would be as it was ever again.

He’d called it ridiculous, gestured wildly and rolled his eyes to the deepest hells, but a hazardous hope never left them until you’d far missed your bleed and it was confirmed to be true.

From that moment onwards, something shifted even further in Astarion.

The domestic tether to your townhouse in the city - no longer just a convenience to remain a steady base for you both, but a fundamental part of his scene setting, to plant roots and grow together. Two centuries of rot and abuse, and his reward was finally nearing completion.

His nesting phase began far earlier than yours and with greater intensity than you could’ve matched even without the issue of your later-heaving belly. Entire pinboards tacked with decadent fabric swatches for every occasion - be it swaddling or nursery curtains. Tailor’s tape around his neck each morning and notebook in hand to note your measurements and take inventory of your wardrobe; ensuring you never looked awry or felt anything less than wholly comfortable.

Because gods forbid ill-fitted clothing stand in the way of you and your brutal vomiting spells, obviously. A pointed click of his tongue as he fixes your sleeve.

In the middle months of your gestation, the typically discerning clientele who visited you and Astarion in your tailor’s store at the dead of night were the first to become privy to the news. Rounder by the week, flushed; brimming with a deep fatigue and yet somehow absolutely aglow.

Children to be fitted for yet another presentation evening placed sleepy hands on your belly with a saccharine softness. Their parents jostle you - sometimes in congratulations, sometimes to whisper in sheer curiosity. Dhampir are a notoriously rare breed, and you’re certain there were rumours of a third party involvement in the process.

‘No, no. We just tried really, really hard.’ You’d smile, as if in a blissful stupor from just the recollection. He’d turn to you with his ridiculously brilliant hearing; needle between teeth, brow raised; lips upturned in a slight quirk. Devilishly handsome, never anything less.

You drop the laundry basket in the kitchen corner. A stuffed bear falls from it. Clive.

A pause.

“You never asked what I did with that shirt, you know.”

It takes you a moment to recall which shirt he’s referring to. He sits at the table and watches you lazily.

“Which? The one for Mr. Chugley? I didn’t think it needed much by way of adjustment, at least?”

A stale piece of burnt toast sits on the counter untouched. You bite and chew and bite and chew like a woman who has never once tasted a morsel so divine; so untainted by the evils of hot butter and a filling bronze crunch.

“Oh - Bunt? Gods, no.’

He sips his stone-cold tea. A fresh film wobbles on top.

‘Bunt Chugley.”

A snort of laughter sends it straight back through his nose and out onto the table. You begin to choke on your toast.

“Bunt Chugley.” You giggle, crumbs spilling from your mouth.

Astarion stands to wipe himself down, creasing over with an escalating laughter.

“Bunt Chugley.”

He waggles his hands, eyes heavy lidded with lack of rest.

He looks purely maniacal.

“That’s- that’s what we should-’

You stop for breath, cackling now; hands over knees for a brief moment.

‘We should call the next one Bunt Chugley.”

He launches into a wheezing fit.

“How- How would that even work, darling? Like Bunt Chugley Ancunín, or- or-”

“No! No, no. Just that. Bunt Chugley.”

You hold both hands to your eye as if framing a canvas, looking through the gap at the ludicrous proposition in front of you.

He takes a moment to still. Smiles at you dopily.

Crosses the floor and brings both hands down to your waist with a gentle grasp.

“I am so sorry, my love.” He grins and holds his forehead against yours.

You look at him, dazed.

“Hmm?’

He simply looks up.

A profoundly gut-wrenching wail becomes apparent to you from above. Your face falls.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Astarion.”

He’s up the stairs before you can comment further, swiftly darting back into your chambers and grinning with an unbridled joy - though, you note, with lack of rest that grin is beginning to look more insane by the hour.

“Sweetheart! My darling girl. Shush now. You’re sounding something absolutely wicked.”

You watch on from the doorway, arms folded; stale toast in hand and jaws meeting in a firm chew.

He’s far too good with her.

It somewhat surprised you at first just how innately fatherhood came to him, but as he picks her up and cradles her intently it’s as if there are fractures of his own childhood coming back. How he was loved, how he was held.

A piece of him, now alive and breathing again after all these years of death.

He coos at her, bouncing her small frame gently in his arms and hushing her with each wail. It takes very little for soft mewls to take their place as she reaches aimlessly in his direction.

He leans towards her grasping fingers and allows her to take one of his ringlets from the front of his head as he kisses her tummy. She’s enthralled by him; recognises him. She wants to know more of him.

As he lifts his head her grasp remains firm.

“We have some work to do on your sleight of hand, I think. Not to worry.”

Ever so gently, he unpicks her fascinated fingers and kisses them all in tow. Her face looks almost ready to crumple before he reaches for one final kiss on the very top of her head.

“There, now. All better. Back to sleep?’

A gurgle. A puzzled blink.

‘Absolutely. Mummy does look particularly radiant today, doesn’t she? I’ll be sure to send your regards.”

He catches the smile on your face. Winks your way.

“You’re getting the baby to flirt on your behalf now?” You tease.

“That’s the lady of the house to you. She was simply passing on her praises.” He whispers as he places her back into her crib and steps back fondly. Sidles over to you as you finish the last bite of toast and pulls you in for a soft kiss.

“Stop playing coy. I know you feel the same way I do.’

He whispers down at you.

‘You want another one, don’t you?’

A kiss on the very top of your head.

“You’re projecting.” You smile.

You can’t deny him for long, he knows this. You don’t particularly want to.

Since becoming a mother you’ve taken to parenthood almost as naturally as he has; and when the topic has come up since you’ve struggled to say no and mean it.

“Think, though. The sooner we try again, the sooner we can begin building our little mercenary force.” He looks at you with the face of a man who thinks he’s just had a really good idea.

“Oh! Yes! You’ve sold me!’

You pull him into a long kiss, the kind that still makes you swoon after all this time together. He tastes like cold tea and smells so clinical you can’t help but laugh heartily as you pull away.

‘That Noblestalk is getting to me. Have a bath and try again with a little less?”

He scowls before narrowing his eyes in thought.

“Does that mean what I think it means?”

“It just might, my darling dearest.”

You wink this time.

The bath starts running before you’ve fully made it back down the stairs.

#astarion x reader #dadstarion #i LOVE HIM #my writing #fluff #no smut #yippee #astarion ancunin #afab reader

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suashii · 9 months

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୨♡୧ SWEET POTATO — iwaizumi hajime x f!reader. sfw. fluff. reader is pregnant.

“you know, i’m perfectly capable of going to the grocery store on my own,” you tell iwaizumi, lingering a step behind him as he walks down the aisle, scanning the items neatly lined up on the shelves. he only hums in acknowledgement. you click your tongue in mock annoyance because, despite your resistance to his assistance, you don’t mind having him around. still, you’re not used to being coddled like this. “being pregnant doesn’t mean i can’t walk. my feet aren’t defective.”

“just hush and let me help,” hajime speaks, resting one hand on the top of your head while the other reaches for a bag of brown rice. the weight on your head is comforting, a reminder of why iwaizumi is really here. ever since you read the positive test and the man who was meant to be with you walked out, iwaizumi, your best friend, stepped up and became your lifeline—attended all of your appointments, started reading baby books in his free time, calmed you down whenever you were feeling overwhelmed. he made sure you weren’t making this journey alone.

“can i at least push the cart?” you attempt to negotiate. you may not mind having him here with you, but you’d be lying if you said that following him around while he did all the work wasn’t getting boring. “wouldn’t it be safer to have something in front of me in case i trip?”

“how could you trip?” he asks, more humor in his voice than usual. “you just told me that your feet work fine.”

you groan at the way he twists your words, hands coming up to unconsciously rub at your belly. it’s become a habit of yours, caressing the steadily growing bump whenever you’re stressed or bored. it gives you something to do and floods you with an immeasurable amount of contentment.

“oh, congratulations, dear.” you turn at the sound of a frail voice. an elderly woman on the opposite side of the aisle looks at you through squinted eyes, a gentle smile pulling at her lips. you figure she’s referring to your stomach.

“thank you.”

“how far along are you?”

“eighteen weeks.” you smile. iwaizumi intently watches your interaction—the way your eyes light up and how your hands protectively cradle the little bulge. “this little one is the size of a sweet potato.”

the fruit and vegetable comparison was always a little silly to you but it came in handy during moments like these. this specific week actually helped you remember something that slipped your mind while you were making the list of items you needed.

“oh!” you snap and point at iwaizumi. “that’s what i forgot earlier. i’m going to go grab a few.”

“hold on, i’ll-” your hand shoots up, palm out, to stop him from finishing his sentence—one that you’re positive would include him insisting on joining you.

“hajime.” you’re more than grateful to have someone to lean on but at this rate, you’re going to forget how to live as an independent being. “i can walk a couple aisles down and bag some vegetables on my own.”

“right,” he curtly nods, “i’ll stay and wait for you here.”

you hurry off to grab the sweet potatoes your obstetrician recommended adding to your diet and leave iwaizumi to aimlessly shift back and forth on his feet.

“you must be excited.” the familiar voice catches the man’s attention, leading him to face the nice old woman.

“i’m sorry?”

“about becoming a father,” she clarifies.

his lips part in understanding and he nods. there’s no harm in letting one woman neither of you will see again think that he was the baby’s dad. it happened quite often but you always brush off the assumptions by jokingly saying “i wish.” it’s never bothered iwaizumi—people’s first thought being that he was the father or the fact that you corrected them. he expected as much when he offered a helping hand. what he didn’t expect was that his heart would jump every time he heard any variation of the word. he kept that to himself, though.

the woman slowly approaches iwaizumi and places a soothing hand on his arm. he has to look down to meet her eye but when he does, he’s met with nothing but warmth. her eyes crinkle with her smile. “i’m sure you and your wife will be great parents.”

she continues down the aisle, leaving iwaizumi with her words. his arms rest on the handle of the cart as the woman’s statement echoes in his head. parents. at the moment, hajime’s a support system—driving you around on errands and helping with chores around the house. the two of you haven’t discussed what his role will be after you’ve given birth, but, despite that, he knows he wants to be there for you and your baby every step of the way if you’ll have him.

“i’m back and bearing potatoes,” you announce your arrival, dropping the vegetables in the cart. your gaze falls to iwaizumi who’s staring ahead, his eyebrows knit together in deep thought. you reach out to smooth the crease between his brows with your thumb. “what’s wrong with you?”

“nothing.” what’s on his mind is a conversation better had not in a supermarket. “come on. let’s wrap this up and get you home for lunch.”

“gosh, you sound just like a dad,” you comment through a laugh, hooking your arm around one of his.

like clockwork, iwaizumi’s heart skips another beat. it feels different this time; he figures it’s because you’re the one who said it.

thanks for reading! consider commenting or reblogging if you enjoyed ❤︎

#₊˚ପ⊹ signed: haikyuu #iwaizumi hajime x reader #iwaizumi x reader #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #iwaizumi fluff #haikyuu fluff #iwaizumi drabble #haikyuu drabbles #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #iwaizumi x you #haikyuu x you

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doctorbeth · 1 year

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Muttsys

Have you ever seen muttsy dogs? I may have talked about some here. Most are a tannish color, about 15" long, with faux suede pawpads. They look like they're reaching their arms up to be hugged when they are young. They're never really plump... they're a skinnier breed. Well, today I thought I'd tell you the story of a Muttsy dog from Canada, with a bonus at the end of a giant Muttsy (the biggest I've seen at least) who went home last week.

First up, Joey the Muttsy from Canada. He was a pretty typical muttsy in size and shape, though no animal is typical in memory or history, and Joey was no exception there. Every animal holds the memories and stories of their person or people.

Here are Joey's diagnosis photos:

As you can see, he had some significant balding on his back and pawpads, a bit of balding in front, and quite a bit of weight loss from stuffing compression due to age and hugs. His person is one of you dear readers, and she was starting to worry about him.

Now given the localization of his balding, some people opt for fur transplants just on bald spots. But Joey's person felt, after 35 years, he deserved a full spa and a full new coat of fur, to make him sturdy and clean and plump and fluffy again. So that was the plan. We scheduled an appointment and he flew down from Canada.

The first step was the spa, so he of course had a bubble bath photo:

I think he kind of looks like he's doing a doggie paddle here. :-)

Once he was dry, it was time to choose his new fur. I wait till after the spa so you can see the fur in comparison to his own fur in a clean and as fluffy as possible condition. There were a couple of options:

His human opted for the slightly darker fur. I went ahead and started restuffing and recovering him. Of course he got a heart preserving a bit of his original stuffing. I like to think the hearts help them hold all the memories:

Now as I mentioned, Muttsy style dogs usually have a faux suede or faux leather (or sometimes real leather) footpad. Joey's surviving footpads showed they weren't real leather original, so these were the options for the soles of Joey's feet:

His person went for the faux suede. Here he is, all better and once more reaching out his arms for hugs:

Joey flew home to Canada, and his person wrote:

He just got home! Looks fantastic, thank you so much for your careful work!

But I did promise a bonus at the end of Joey's story. The largest Muttsy I've ever seen in the hospital.:-) This Muttsy is named Mutsie, and she is 28 inches long, 38" including her tail, which is also stuffed!

You can see her here next to her warm blooded sibling, which gives you an idea of both her size, and the compression of her stuffing and flattening of her fur which were concerning her person:

She was in pretty good shape otherwise, so her person was looking for a spa for her. Here she is starting her bubble bath:

Of course she got a heart with some original stuffing when she got restuffed:

And here she is getting her chubbiness approved: clean, stuffed, fur fluffed but with an open seam to adjust as needed:

Her person said:

Yes she looks perfect! It's so nice to see her all cleaned up and refreshed, thank you so much!

So I closed her up and she flew home to Arizona (in a much bigger box than she arrived in, because she was so much plumper and fluffier!).

#stuffed animal hospital #stuffed animal repair #stuffed animal cleaning #gund #gund Muttsy #toy dog #dog #stuffed dog #stuffed animal #stuffed animals

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macfrog · 6 months

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you'll hurt me if you don't trust me sex on fire chapter eight

super special sparkly shoutout to @chloeangelic ✨💛✨ whose influence inspired a whole load of intimacy in this. it is, unashamedly, eleven thousand words of sheer self-indulgence. so. love u guys. see u soon

pairing: ceo!joel x fem!reader

summary: you’re unwell. joel makes you feel better. until he doesn’t.

warnings: age gap (reader is late 20s, joel late 40s), workplace relationship, imbalanced power dynamic, cursing, sugardaddy!joel, softsoftsoft!joel, they eat chinese food together, reader has her period + mention/description of used tampon, discussion of abandonment/absent parents & parental death, discussion of cheating, lying, thigh riding, unprotected piv period shower sex (that is a mouthful thatswhatshesaid), VERY needy reader, SLIGHT dacryphilia (kinda not really?), creampie, aftercare joel, praise kink, daddy kink, angst & fluff & angst all over again

word count: 11k

series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 💚

Martha had been pretty good about it. She’d watched you near-doubled in pain most of yesterday, hobbling to the kitchen every four hours to top up on pain meds. She knew you weren’t making it up. She made a conservative two jokes about you calling in this morning, and then told you to rest up. She’d let Joel know you’d be back tomorrow.

“You owe me, though. Joel’s got that shareholders meeting today. If I’m forced to sit in with him ‘n his cronies talkin’ numbers and takin’ notes, sweetheart, all so you can catch up on The Bachelorette…”

Alright. Three jokes.

You hang up and slide the phone back across your nightstand; roll over and stuff a pillow between your thighs as if that’ll do anything against the dull throb gnawing at your belly. Your shades are tilted upward, shrinking your bedroom into a foggy gray save for the shards of light which split across the ceiling.

There’s a heavy ache tugging behind your eyes, an irritating weight which shoves you into the arms of sleep and then pulls you back by the hair before you’re taken off by it. You’re dozing, fingertips massaging your eyelids and stretching the skin back and forth when the doorbell slices the stillness of your apartment in two, shrill in your sleep-deprived ears.

You ignore it at first. Fuck that. Fuck whoever that is. You’re not planning on leaving your cocoon today unless it’s to go pee, grab a snack, or maybe if you lose the remote in your sheets.

But it rings out again. Twice, this time. And in a blur of hormonal rage, you whip the sheets back, throw yourself out of bed and stagger down the hallway. You straighten up only enough to peer through the peephole, your palms pressed to the back of the door, and that’s when you see him.

He’s cradling a brown bag in his left arm, a second dangling from his wrist. His head is huge in comparison to his body, owing to the distorted fisheye glass. He shifts from foot to foot impatiently, awkwardly glancing down the hall. You’d recognize that jawline fucking anywhere.

Your breath pushes nervously against the door. You click the lock and curl around the heavy wood, your fingers clamping on the edge.

The two of you eye one another up and down before Joel speaks.

“Hi, darlin’.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Martha said you were sick?”

You pause. Look down to the bunch of wild flowers sat in the crook of his elbow, and then back up to his face, painted with – what is it – concern? There are lines you rarely see when he’s looking at you, carved deep between his brows.

A fire strikes in your belly.

“…I’m fine. I’m – I’m all good. Just – feeling a little…”

“What is it? Is it the flu? I brought flu stuff.” He nods into the bag, and reaches inside for a box of cold tablets and a pack of tissues. He tosses them across the threshold and you catch them, holding them close against your shoulder.

You smile, trying to hold back on a laugh, but also because what the fuck? He’s so sweet. The flames lick at the bottom of your lungs.

“It’s not…it’s not the flu, no.”

Joel nods, looking back into the bag. “Good thing I also brought these, then.”

He tilts it forward and you unhook from the door, leaning over to peer in. A box of Tampax, two bottles of painkillers, green packets of face masks and floral sachets of herbal teas. You fish one out.

“Chamomile,” you muse, pouting.

He shrugs. “Lady at the store said it’s a good muscle relaxant, I don’t know.”

“Don’t you have a meeting today?”

“Cancelled it. You freaked me out.”

Your heart knocks on your chest wall. Did you fucking hear that? You freaked him out. You gulp in response. Swallow hard to shut it the hell up.

“So, Martha’s in the office by herself?”

“She’s a big girl. Told her she could leave early if she got my to-do list done. I give it until one,” he mutters, glancing down at his watch. “Oh,” he says then, spotting the brush of green and burst of purple in his arm, “got you these. I don’t know what you like yet, but…”

Yet. Yet yet yet.

You take the posy delicately between your fingers, as if it might fall apart at the mere touch of your hand. The brown paper crinkles as it lifts from Joel’s arm, and you tilt them in the hallway’s milky light.

The sprigs shoot in wild directions, tangling and twisting around one another. Daisies, lazy in their climb, swirling around the gentle brush of lavender, wrapped tightly to some other flower you don’t recognize. They’re tied together in a neat, white lace bow.

You imagine Joel stood in the middle of some fragrant florist, rotating on the spot. Dumbfounded before some assistant in a flowing skirt and tinkling bracelets sweeps over to him. I don’t know what she likes – yet, he tells them. And your heart screams into the pillow of muscle surrounding it.

“Thank you.” The smile on your lips threatens to break into a grin. At the same time, a shot of pain rips across your belly. “Come in,” you groan through a wince, taking his shirt in your fist and pulling him inside.

Your apartment is probably a couple years too small for you. You’ve accumulated so much in the time you’ve lived here that you could do with finding a bigger place – but you’re comfortable. It feels like home, when nowhere did for so long. It’s snug, and humble, and as you lead him down your hallway, you imagine you’re feeling how Joel probably did when he showed you around his childhood home.

Your cheeks flush with something a little blunter than embarrassment, but prickled with nerves. Your living room rolls its eyes inward, every object looking over in suspicion and wonder. Who the hell is this man, in your space, armed with toiletries and a ten-grand watch on his wrist?

You pause by the sink, filling a glass with water for the flowers. Your teeth bite down on your lip. There are dishes on the counter, there’s laundry piled on stools, blankets and cushions strewn messily across your couch. Joel shakes his head when you apologize, holds a palm up when you try to explain how you’d gotten home from work last night and gone straight to bed. I haven’t had the energy to clean.

He won’t hear it. Says he’s not here to see your clean apartment. Here to see you.

He sets the bags on the worktop and looks around the room. Blinks from the sheer curtains guarding the balcony doors, to the pastel candles on your coffee table. Smiles when he notices the Pretty Woman poster framed above the couch.

“What?” you ask, when his eyes finally land back on you. You tug at the hem of your shirt, pulling it further down your bare thighs.

“Nothin’. Just – knew there was somethin’ more to you.”

You fold your arms and rock forward gently on the balls of your feet. Your head tilts. Your brows knit.

Joel clarifies, “I knew you weren’t as put together as you pretend to be at work. This – looks like your place. That’s all.”

“Oh, yeah? ‘n what does my place look like?

His cheeks lift. “Little all over the place. Little surprising. But bright. Cozy. You.”

“Bright ‘n cozy,” you echo.

He nods. Purses his lips, then adds, “And great in bed.”

You cough a laugh, reach out to shove his arm, and he catches your hand. He reels you in against his body and cups your head, fixing some flyaway strands of hair. You stare up at him, eyelashes slowly blinking him in and out of focus. His mottled beard and hazel eyes. The flecks of honeydew and amber swimming around his pupil. His shirt wrinkles beneath your chin.

“You hungry?” he asks, voice rumbling through his chest. You seem to understand the vibrations sooner than the words, these days. He reaches for the handles of the white bag, sliding it over towards you. “I brought lunch.”

“You brought lunch.” You scoff, grinning to yourself. It quickly fades, though, when your hand lowers into the bag and meets a warm, flat surface – two halves of a folded lid. Your brows pull. “You brought…”

Joel smiles as you lift the box, popping it open. Hot steam escapes the minute the lid folds back.

“Chinese okay? I didn’t wanna ruin the surprise by callin’ to ask what you wanted. I can run out and grab somethin’ else if you’re not –”

“How did you know to get…?” Your voice whittles to nothing as you stare down at the fresh-cooked meal, the bed of greasy noodles mixed with fried vegetables. Your tongue swipes at the corners of your mouth.

“’cause I know you,” Joel says, digging for a second box from the bag. “Anytime you’re stressed with work, anytime I give you a hard day, that’s what you order in for lunch, right?” He nods to the container as he tosses an egg roll into his mouth.

You giggle, lifting the box to hide your swollen cheeks. Your heartbeat hammers below your jaw.

“Right?” Joel laughs. “Chow mein? I’m right, ain’t I? You know I’m right.”

He nudges against you, taking his own lunch from the bag, and casts a familiar glance – the same one you saw a few days ago in Lavender Oaks. Like the decades-old mask slips just for a second and suddenly, a younger, shyer Joel shines through. He’s almost imperceptible, almost concealed by the cocky smirk and witty remarks of his older self, but you’ve seen him once, and now – he’s impossible to lose sight of.

“You’re weird,” you note, spinning off towards your bedroom.

Joel’s hot at your heels. “I’m weird?”

“Uhuh. For noticing that.”

He snorts, and then you feel a slap to your ass cheek. “Nice underwear, by the way. Who’d you steal them from?” he murmurs close to your ear, averting your gaze when you turn back, beaming.

You pad across the soft rug to your bed, dropping down and pulling the sheets back to make room for Joel. He’s setting his food down. You think to offer him a change of clothes – something more comfortable than a dress shirt and suit trousers – but the best you’d have is an oversized tee, and not much else.

The thought almost dizzies you. Joel, in his boxers and a t-shirt from your wardrobe. A shirt that smells like you, feels like you, belongs to you. A piece of you, hung from his shoulders like it was always meant to be shared between you. The way it’d still smell of him even after the sun had set and he’d peeled it from his body, folded it into a pile at the end of your bed and left in his button up.

He sits on the edge of your mattress to kick his shoes off, and marvels some more at the room just like he did in the kitchen. The fire in your chest is slowly turning your lungs to ash, stealing breath each time his dimples appear – squinting at the framed photographs on your dresser, tilting his head to read the titles of the books on your shelves.

When he catches sight of the paint-splattered easel in the corner, he turns back. Your eyes are already locked back on your chow mein, refusing to meet his. He doesn’t say anything. Just shuffles up against the headboard, nudges your knee with his own.

“You get that at the concert?” he asks, eyes a little south of yours.

You glance down. You’re wearing an old Queen tour tee, graphic print accompanied by 1986 in multicolored lettering. A little before your grand entrance on the planet. A little after Joel’s.

“Rod’s Retro, eastside,” you reply. “You find some cool stuff in there, Mr. CEO.”

Joel’s chin lifts, considering. “Hm,” he says, “you gonna take me someday?”

You nod. Maybe a little too eagerly. It doesn’t feel like you ought to care. “Um, yes. You would fucking love it. Half my wardrobe is thrifted.”

He nods once – banking the information. “Every day, I learn somethin’ new.”

“Shut up,” you quip, kicking him gently. “How come I never get to learn anything new about you?”

He shrugs, chewing. “Self-absorbed.”

You kick him for real this time. He laughs into his takeout box.

“I’m messing with you. You know plenty about me. You met my mom the other day, for cryin’ out loud.”

“Not enough. Don’t know where you get all your clothes from, or what your comfort food is.”

He replies through a mouthful of chop suey. “Then, ask.”

Your voice is high, defensive. “No. That’s too easy.”

Joel snorts.

You reach for the remote and click the screen opposite to life. Joel lifts his arm to let you sink against his body, and you flick through the channels. Shark Tank, Grey’s Anatomy, Wendy fucking Williams, and then –

You gasp. Joel looks up from his food. His brows arch, eyes flitting from you to the screen. You swear a groan escapes from his lips. You feel the thunder against your ear.

“You ever seen it?”

“Dirty Dancing? Yeah, I’ve seen Dirty Dancing, pretty girl.”

“You probably saw it at the movies, right? When it came out? In the eighties?”

“Careful.”

You smile. “What did you think of it?”

Joel’s shoulders lift. His eyes are back on the screen. Be My Baby is crooning from the TV. “I liked Patrick Swayze,” he says.

You watch him, waiting for him to continue. When he doesn’t, you lean closer. “You…you liked Patrick Swayze?”

“Yeah,” Joel says, like it’s obvious. He turns back to you, one eyebrow raised. “He was cool. You don’t like ‘im in it?”

“No, I like Patrick Swayze,” you tell him. “Just…if that’s all you like about it, then…we might have a problem.”

He scoffs. “I don’t remember much of it, to tell you the truth.”

“Good. We’re watching it.”

Your head moves with his chest as he sucks in a deep, defeated breath. “Baby, I –”

“Ah,” you tap the remote on his knuckles, “you remember the Baby part.”

With a laugh which sounds an awful lot like approval and a grunt which sounds an awful lot like Alright, Joel sinks lower into the mattress. You drape your legs across his, and when he finishes eating, his fingers draw round shapes on your hot skin, daring past the hem of his own boxers on your thighs.

Somewhere around the lake scene, you notice your hand intertwined with his. Locked together, surfing over one another, squeezing and then loosening. Tracing the curve of each other’s palms and learning the lines scored into the skin. Fingertips becoming fluent in the landscape of one another’s bodies. Mapping them, like you’re afraid to forget.

Your eyes glass over, whether from fatigue, or from the now smoldering fire inside you, or from something harder to pinpoint. Your head feels heavy, leaning on Joel’s chest, listening to the drum of his heart against your ear. It sounds familiar, like you’ve known it forever. Like you can almost hear the whisperings between the soft thudding.

You start when you feel him moving beneath you. He groans, stretches his arms, and then snakes them around your body. The end credits are rolling. The movie’s over. You weren’t asleep, but you missed half of it. Your mind elsewhere – though you have no idea where.

Maybe you do. Maybe that’s not something you can bear – yet. Yet yet yet.

You crane your neck and look up to your boss. He’s already staring right back at you. His eyes widen.

“What did you think?” you ask sleepily.

He sniffs. “It’s good. Very politically charged. Lotsa Swayze.”

Your lips curve, cheek nuzzles into his shirt. “Very us, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah. Especially that part in the water. When he –” his arms lift, holding an invisible Baby up – “y’know? You ‘n me, we do that all the time.”

“I hate you.”

He tightens his grip around your shoulders and lifts you closer, smiling. You think, when his eyes dart for half a second to your lips, that he might kiss you. You think you want him to. But he simply asks, “You want some tea?” and reaches over to swipe the empty containers from your nightstand.

You nod. “I’ll come help.”

“I got it,” he assures in that Southern gentleman tone, steady hand on your thigh as he slips out of bed.

“You don’t even know where the mugs are.”

Joel considers this for all of five seconds. Shrugs. Tells you, “I’ll figure it out,” and disappears through to the kitchen.

You lay back and close your eyes, counting each cupboard door opening and then immediately falling shut as he makes his way around the place, seeking out your collection of mugs. When he eventually opens what must be the right one, you hear him exclaim.

“Ha! First try.”

You snort, bleary eyes opening again to focus on the TV. They’re discussing the Kardashians on The View. Your eyebrows lift in agreement as if you’re sat in the studio with them. They move on to some segment on the president.

Joel returns a few minutes later, two mugs in hand, and passes you the one shaped like a ghost.

“Cute,” you whisper, taking it in both hands.

He flashes you a proud grin as he lays back down, sipping on a black coffee in a faded mug your mom gave you years ago.

You tap your nail against the ceramic in his hands. “World’s Best Daughter.”

“That’s me,” he replies, propping himself up on an elbow. “Your mom get you it?”

Your head drops, eyes staring at him from under low brows. “No. My fucking neighbor did.”

He stares back as he lifts the mug to his lips. They melt in a kiss against the ceramic. When he pulls it away again, he swallows, and says, “You’re close to her.”

“My neighbor? Yeah, she lives right next door.”

“Easy, smartass.”

You flash him a smug grin, which dissolves as quickly as you notice his eyes lingering on the half-heart charm around your neck. By instinct, your fingers clutch the smooth gold, as if protecting the smallest part of yourself from him. The only part you’ve never let him in on.

But there’s something in his eye – something that feels less like a spotlight and more like a warm fire. Sharing secrets muted by the sputtering of wood, held safely by the round rusty glow of the flames. Something kinder. Something protective.

“Yeah,” you say, voice crackling, “we’re closer ‘n anyone. Been through a lot together.”

Joel nods. He knew that already. “I’ll bet, pretty girl.”

And in typical Joel fashion, he doesn’t press for any more than you willingly offer. A part of you kind of wants him to ask more, wants him to push you. A weight jumps at the bottom of your chest, like the words fail to launch. And before you can retry, before you can confess more of yourself into his hands, he says –

“Ask me som’.”

You stall, and look at him intently. “What?”

“Anything you want. Free pass.”

Your cheeks swell. “What do you mean?”

“If we’re sharin’ things, ‘s only fair we both do.”

“I don’t – We don’t have to –”

“Ask me,” he says slowly, eyebrows twitching.

“O-kay…”

You push a deep breath from your lips, cheeks globing as you scan around the room for inspiration. Something casual enough that you can ask it with ease, but deep enough that he’ll give you an answer worth sinking your teeth into. Something you don’t know about him; light enough to roll off your tongue, and then heavy when it lands in your palms.

Your gaze orbits back to his patient form and you ask, “How did you get the money to start your company?”

Joel seems to feel the weight of it when he catches it. Heavy, rather than light. Deep, rather than casual. He opens his mouth, runs his tongue along the inside of his cheek before he answers. “My, uh…my dad. He had a little bit of money.”

“He invest in it?”

“No, no. He, uh…he left it when he died.”

Your lips pull in a wince. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, and Joel looks up.

“’s okay, baby,” he replies, with a soft chuckle that makes the loose collar of his shirt quiver. He pushes some hair out of your face, settles his hand on your knee.

You hook two fingers around his thumb. He squeezes lightly.

“He musta loved you a lot. Leavin’ you so much.”

Another deep breath. His body stiffens. You think to unlock your fingers and take his hand properly, comfort him, maybe – but he’s already lifting it, scratching his beard with his thumb. He watches a bubble swirl around in his mug until it disappears with a pop into the dark coffee, and he finally looks up.

“It’s kinda…complicated. He and my mom – they were married for years, ‘n he ended up…” Joel swallows. His jaw clenches. “He cheated on her. Had this mistress for months. Mom found out through a friend of hers. She kicked him out of the house, but they never divorced. Just stayed separated until he died, ‘n then he left all his money to her.”

“To your mom?”

Joel nods. “She didn’t want a penny of it. Hated the man ‘til the day he died ‘n beyond.”

And you believe it. Ruth Miller was kind, warm and charming to you. She laughed with you, she smiled like she’d known you her whole life, she held your hands and she whispered secrets about Joel in your ear – purposefully to embarrass him, to make that bashful side turn its head again.

But she was sharp. She was quick, and you knew within the first five minutes of meeting her exactly where Joel got his wit and his mind. You can see her, clear as day, guarding the front porch of that little white house – one hand on her hip and the other pointing in the direction her cheating husband was to head.

Just as clear, you can see her stood over that same husband’s grave, waving her fist and tearing his will into confetti. It brings something of a smile to your face. Sad, sympathetic, but…impressed.

“Wow…So she – she gave it to you? And you – put it into the company?”

He shrugs, grip tightening around the mug. “When I started makin’ money, I paid off the mortgage on her house, managed to convince her to retire early. Got her into a good retirement home, once she was ready for it.”

Smart guy.

A calm quiet falls between you. Joel turns to watch the commercials on TV. Your chest fills with a need to ask him something – a feeling all too familiar whenever you’re around him. Only him. A weight on your mind, a bubbling which starts in your stomach and rises up until it’s practically pushing the words out over your tongue.

“Your dad – how do you not hate him?”

He turns back. Your eyes are stinging. He notices. Holds his palm out, and your fingers instantly lace through his. Your nails find those same valleys, the grooves you’d traced while Swayze and Grey mamboed.

Joel stares up at you, face suddenly tight with worry. He knows there’s something loaded behind your question. Knows you’re asking for something more than another jigsaw piece of him. You’re doing it again. You’re freakin’ him out.

“I…” He falls quiet, looks between your eyes at the pearly tears which form in the corners, the way your face sets to stone. He glances down at your necklace again, and shakes his head softly. “I spent a long time hatin’ him, baby. Changed nothin’. He did what he did. He was a scumbag.”

The answer melts your angry frame, body folding and sinking further into your pillows. You tug the bedsheet a little closer to your chin, press your lips into the top of the ceramic ghost’s head.

Your voice sounds small, sounds like it doesn’t even come from your chest, when you say, “I think I hate my dad. For what he did.”

Joel finally relaxes. Like he’s finally seen the tiny creature casting the huge, stretched shadow on the wall. “You…Yeah?”

You nod. Stare at the cotton mountain of your legs entangled in his. “Yeah. He just up ‘n left, when things got boring. When I grew up, and my mom got older. Just packed his car, and…I always wonder –” a breath lurches from your chest, “– I always wonder why I wasn’t worth stickin’ around for. Why he just – decided one day to…”

Your voice fails to carry. Joel knows the end of the sentence, anyway.

You’ve never told anybody any of this. Not Blake, not your mom, not any of your friends; you barely even know in yourself how you feel about it – even twelve years later. But the air in the room feels different – feels thicker, like you’re tucked away from the world. The conversation won’t leave your apartment, you know that much. Know that Joel wouldn’t speak of it again, wouldn’t so much as let it cross his own mind, if you asked him not to. And so you let the words tumble from your tongue, let them sit heavy in the space between you.

The space between you, which is now silent, like you’re both preoccupied. Joel, taking in the weight of what you’ve said into strong, safe hands; and you, feeling that same weight lift off of your chest. Until the silence itself feels clunky, and awkward, and you scram to find something to break it up.

“Anyway. Sorry to be a bummer.”

“You ain’t a bummer. Are you kidding?” Joel sighs. “I’m sorry, babygirl. Sorry that happened to you.”

“’s okay. He was just a scumbag, right?”

“Sure sounds it.”

You take a small sip, the tea sugarcoating your lips and flooding over your tongue – the sweet taste ridding them of the bitter memory of your dad. “Your turn,” you hum.

Joel’s head jerks. “No, darlin’, you already told me somethin’. You go again.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“I’m changin’ the rules.”

You try to protest, manage the sound Jo– before his hand lifts and he shushes you.

“That’s what I was gonna ask, anyways. Was gonna ask about you ‘n your dad. Now, go.”

He’s lying. You know it, and you suspect he knows you know it, too. It’s a terrible attempt at a lie, no matter how kind it is. But you’re too tired, a little too in pain to argue back over it. And he’s looking at you again, with that honeycomb twinkle in his eye, that Joel look which stirs something in you every time he shows you it.

You sigh, accepting defeat, and rack your brain for something else you want him to talk about.

“Alright, uh…What about your brother? He didn’t want any of your dad’s money?”

Joel’s face twists into something of a grimace. You instantly regret bringing it up.

“Touchy subject?” you ask, already coming up with five new, two-dimensional questions to ask in place of that one. Who was your first kiss and what was your first car and when did you find your first gray hair and what’s your mom’s maiden name and –

But you don’t need them.

Joel says, “Not with you,” and tilts his head, like measuring up his answer. He takes his time letting it filter down to his lips, and you reckon you’ve a good idea of why.

He was closed-off about it in Paris. About his brother. Didn’t say more than three sentences about him. And that was only where a sheep farm was considered. What you’re asking about right now is a hell of a lot deeper and a hell of a lot more difficult than a ranch in the Texan countryside.

“He was always closer to Dad. They used to go out huntin’ every Sunday. Liked the same music, watched the same TV. They were buddies, more ‘n anything. When it turned out my dad had this whole other life behind our backs – behind Tommy’s back – he flipped. Couldn’t take it. He disappeared, never looked back. Just packed his car, moved across the country.”

He’s staring at the TV now, barely blinking. Barely breathing, until you speak and it’s like he remembers he’s in your apartment, on your bed, with you. Not back in time twenty years, watching the dust kick up from under his little brother’s tires.

“He must’ve been pretty mad.”

“Yeah. Tommy’s like that, he’s got a hot head on his shoulders. But it meant leavin’ Mom, y’know? She went through all of that without him. I had to pick up all these broken pieces, juggle all this stuff, ‘n he just got to walk away from it all. And then, when Dad died, he refused to come back still. Left me to organize everything – the money, the funeral. The whole damn thing.”

He flicks his head, resentfully, like trying to dislodge the memory from his mind. Trying to shake it free. When you speak, it seems to soften him. Seems to thaw whatever angry image was frozen behind his eyes.

“Yeah,” you sigh, “that part sucks. I bet it was hard goin’ through all that without him.”

Joel’s head angles towards you. “Not any harder ‘n it was on you, goin’ through what you did.”

“Well…I know I would’ve found it easier if I had a brother or sister. Someone like me, someone who gets it, y’know?”

“Hm. We weren’t all that close to begin with, I guess.”

“You were close enough to want to buy a ranch together.”

He shakes his head again, this time refusing to let the idea in. Turning it away at the door.

“You miss him?”

“It my turn to ask somethin’ yet?” he asks, smiling.

But you’re feeling braver now. He’s answered everything up until now; it feels less like a game and more like…more like he wants to talk about it. Like it’s been pent up all this time and this is the first anyone’s brought it up. A relief to get it off his chest, if nothing else.

You ignore him. Press him. “Do you?”

Joel sighs deep enough that his coffee ripples a little in his mug, and then nods. “Sometimes I wonder what it’d be like if we were on speaking terms, yeah.”

“So, call him. You have his number?”

“I ain’t gonna call him, baby.”

“Where’s he at?”

“Last I heard, ‘n it was a long time ago now – he was in Wyoming. Married, kid on the way.”

“Call him. You really gonna let that kid grow up without Uncle Joel around?”

“Uncle Joel,” he repeats, laughing now. “He does not want to hear from me, angel. Let it go.”

Joel turns the volume up and settles back into bed, pillows propped behind him. You pass him your empty mug and he slots it alongside his own. As the commercials end and Whoopi Goldberg flashes a grin into the camera, you give it one final shot.

“I’d give anything to have someone who knew and understood me as well as a brother might.”

His hand falls limp against your bedsheets, remote loose in his fingers. You lift his arm, nuzzling underneath it to lean your head by his heart, and he sighs.

Argument won.

“Too many big questions,” you mutter after a while, eyes clinging to the screen. “Ask me somethin’ stupid.”

“Somethin’ stupid,” Joel repeats, and you nod. “Alright. Who’d you lose your virginity to?”

You slap his chest. “Dirtbag!”

He chuckles. “Who was it? Blake?”

“No,” you reply.

“Damn. Who?”

You roll your eyes, though he can’t see you.

But suddenly you feel the loose spaghetti straps of a slip dress over your shoulders, see the off-white glow of three-year-old sneakers crossed at your ankles, chipped pink fingernails tracing the blurry pastel shapes on floral bedsheets. A dry throat, the sanitized backwash of vodka and coke splashing across your tongue. A smash from downstairs – someone’s broken the host’s mom’s best vase.

“Was just this guy I slept with at a house party,” you tell Joel, clearing your throat. “Lisa Tait’s sweet sixteenth. We were in her bedroom, all of us, ‘n everyone started heading downstairs, ‘til it was just me ‘n this dude Jack laying on her bed.”

“You had sex on some other girl’s bed?”

You nod, cringing a little. “I wasn’t even friends with her. Wasn’t even friends with him. Just thought, fuck it. I didn’t wanna go into senior year a virgin ‘n neither did he, I guess.”

“How’d it go?”

The messy, uncomfortable thrusts between your legs. The hand shooting down to guide himself back in. The wet lips running along the shell of your ear, the acidic breath on your cheek. Is that good for you? Yeah, it’s good for me. You sure? I’m sure. Just hurry up.

“Lasted, like, four minutes, thirty seconds.”

Joel’s body jerks. You know he’s staring at the crown of your head. “You timed him?”

“No. He lasted as long as Paradise by Coldplay. It was playin’ downstairs in the living room.”

He tips his head back and laughs to the ceiling. You giggle into his shirt.

“Poor guy,” Joel says, rubbing your shoulder.

“Poor me, more like.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, and pats your head. “Least you’re doin’ alright now.”

You push yourself up from his chest and glare at his satisfied smirk, dodging his thumb when it lifts to clip your chin. “Oh, you’re so smug about it.”

“Are you kidding? For lastin’ longer than five minutes? ‘course I am. Can make you come twice in that time.”

“Yeah?”

He nods. Runs the tip of his tongue along his top lip, corners of his mouth twitching. Something sparks to life inside you.

Your knee lifts, reaching over his waist and planting into the mattress on the opposite side. Joel’s hands come to rest on your thighs, fingers slipping up beneath the black cotton and edging against your hipbones. You bend over him, lips running a wet trail from the base of his neck to his earlobe. His breath falters.

“Prove it, daddy,” you whisper, and his grip tightens.

“Baby,” he warns, voice suddenly sharper. “We don’t have to –”

You ignore him, holding him down by the shoulders. “I want to.”

“I’m just sayin’,” his fingers wrap around your wrists, “’s not why I came here. We can just hang out.”

“We are hanging out,” you tell him. “This is what we do.”

And he seems to agree. Or, at least, accepts defeat, in the form of rolling his hips upwards. His fingers slip through yours, locking at your knuckles, anchoring you to him. You grind against his belt buckle, the hard metal flat against your clit. Joel clocks you instantly.

He sits up. Holds you by the ass on his body until your center is flush with his. You feel him stir beneath your open legs.

He shifts to the edge of the bed, keeping you chest to chest in his lap. Your teeth grit against one another. His lips are warm, they still taste like coffee. You lick at the corners.

“Wanna make yourself feel good on me?” he asks.

A smile as sweet as sugar and laced with something darker spreads across your lips. “You’re best at it, right?”

Joel hums. “Alright,” he says, impressed. His chin lifts; he breathes a laugh as you pepper his jaw with kisses. “Take what you need, angel. ‘s all yours.”

Your knees spread wider. You push down on his swollen crotch, voice catching as he meets you halfway, bucking up into you again. Your clit throbs at the contact, forcing you back up off him.

“D-addy,” you choke, hands suddenly gripping his shoulders.

Joel’s stronger. He takes your waist and replaces you on his lap. “Shh,” he whispers, breath hot against your ear, “’s okay, baby. I got you. We’re gonna make you feel good together, alright? Here.”

He slides you over until your legs are either side of one of his, his thick thigh flat against your most sensitive spot. You dig your nails into his forearms, squeezing hard, but he doesn’t budge. Just looks up at you, holding you steady, and says –

“Go on. Ride it, babygirl.”

You move an inch. The rough fabric catches on the soft of Joel’s underwear. You gasp, relief mixing with arousal and spilling warm and soothing between your legs.

Joel squeezes your hips. “Do it, darlin’. Make yourself feel good. ‘m here, I’ll watch.”

The fabric beneath your pussy is soaked, probably dampening a mark into his pants – and you don’t fucking care. It feels good – the steady weight of him, lifting his thigh as you drag yourself along it, beginning to rock back and forth.

Your eyes are closed, head to the ceiling, grinding your core against his. You can feel him staring. Watching you, his gaze red hot on your already fevered skin. You collapse into him over and over, his body solid as a rock, letting yours fold against him. Liquid in pleasure and feeling.

Your eyes open a sliver and you smile, taking your bottom lip between your teeth.

Joel smirks. “You know how fucking perfect you look right now?”

You nod, forehead coming to lean heavily on his.

He bucks his leg, jaw tight. “How – fucking – beautiful you are? Making yourself come on daddy’s thigh?”

You inhale the words as he speaks them, swallowing them in gasps and parting your lips complacently for more. Keep going. Keep telling me –

“–you my good girl?”

“Mhm,” you whimper, legs starting to give.

“Gonna get me covered in you? Gonna come all fuckin’ over me, babygirl?”

“Daddy, I want –”

“Tell me,” he demands, “tell me what you want.”

His hands are clamped on your waist, guiding you – driving you, more than your weak hips are able to – holding you to him almost painfully. Your body circles messily, becoming sloppier the closer your orgasm draws, quivering when the feeling runs a delicate hand through your hair and plants wet kisses along your neck.

“Want you to fuck me, daddy,” you whine, body rocking again. Your hand lowers to cup the outline of him, rock-hard and restrained beneath linen. He shudders when you squeeze him – looks down to your small hand on the huge bulge in his trousers. “Need to feel you inside me.”

Your own eyes are stuck on the place where your bodies connect, writhing against one another – the wet seam of Joel’s underwear, the folds of his pant leg as you rut against him. Your empty cunt tightens, aching for more against his firm thigh.

“’m gonna, pretty girl,” he says, groaning as you palm him. “‘m gonna fuck you so good. Just give me one first, alright? Let me see you come for me.”

Your body jolts as you come. Hips lose their rhythm; arms lock tight around Joel’s shoulders. And all the while, his lips stay pressed against your ear.

“Look so good, baby,” he coos. “That feel good, angel? Yeah?”

As quickly as your orgasm sent you under, you’re pulling back. You haven’t even regained feeling between your legs, but you’re pushing yourself from his lap, separating your bodies.

Joel sits back, body lightweight when you tug on his wrists and drag him up to height in front of you. You’re backing up across the plush rug, his chest bumping against yours, your fingers fumbling for the buttons of his shirt. Your back hits the bathroom door. Joel twists the handle.

You spill onto the cold tile, attached at the mouth, frantically tearing clothes from each other’s bodies. It’s desperate. It’s burning. It’s almost fucking painful, how bad you need him.

His hands run from your cheeks to the hem of your shirt, hauling it over your torso and tossing it to the counter. You peel the shirt from his shoulders and your bare chest meets his, his hands finding your hips again when he whips them from his sleeves. The white shirt drops to your damp floor, dark, wet marks spreading across the dress fabric.

“Shoot,” you mumble against his lips. “My – bad. Sorry.”

“Don’t – care,” Joel breathes, and his thumbs push beneath his waistband.

You spin on your heel, backing towards the shower and taking him by the jaw with you. He shoves the clothing down his legs, stepping out of them and catching you again in time to drag the underwear from your thighs.

You shift into the shower, both fully naked. Joel spins the nozzle and the warm water rains down between you. His chest quickly soaks, dark hair thicker and blacker, flat against his glistening skin. He tilts his head under the spray and soaks his hair – gives one heavy flick of the head like a wet dog, and you laugh as he pulls you in again.

His hands cup your face as he connects your lips, and then his right drifts down your neck and pushes your tit up, squeezing the sensitive skin in his palm and rolling your firm nipple between two fingers. He lets it drop, runs his hand delicately down your frame, following the curve of your waist to your hips. He cups between your legs.

You come up for air, a sudden realization over your head as though the water runs freezing cold. “Wait,” you start, “I gotta –”

But he’s rubbing gentle circles against your clit, slow, pacing you as the tide of your first orgasm disappears to sea. He doesn’t seem to know, yet – or if he does, he doesn’t give a fuck.

“Joel –”

“I know,” he says, voice low and busy, but still – assuring. Unbothered. He moves his hand lower, surfing along your slit, until his fingers brush the wet string.

Your breathing jumps. He taps the seam of your thigh twice, and your leg tilts aside. Your eyes flit back up, crossing over his chest to fix on his jaw. You feel a flushing heat cross your cheeks, a moment’s hesitation before your fingers clamp around his wrist.

“Hey,” he whispers, and you almost don’t hear him over the running of the shower. He keeps his left hand on your jaw, his right between your legs. He shakes his head once, and takes the string in two fingers, and –

Gently pulls. Only a fraction, and then he pauses. Looks back up at you, a question in his stare.

You nod, exhaling heavily. He pulls again, and he doesn’t stop.

The tampon falls wet and heavy into his palm. His hand leaves your cheek and settles around your waist, leaning both of you out of the shower while he reaches for some toilet paper. Once it’s wrapped in a roll of white tissue and sat on your sink, he moves back into the cubicle.

He runs his palm under the flow; splashes of red swept up, watered down, and carried to the drain along with every last whispering of worry on your lips. Your elbows bend around his neck and he dips his head to kiss you, pushing you carefully into the corner.

“You tell me –” he kisses you, “– if it hurts or it gets too much, you tell me.” His body stands huge, blocking yours from the stream of water. Your back bumps against the shower wall; the shock of the cold tile pushes you closer to Joel.

“Just – fuck me.”

But he’s adamant. “You tell me.”

“I’ll tell you. You’ll know.”

“This is about you feelin’ good.”

“I’ll tell you,” you whine.

“We’re gonna have a word,” Joel instructs, lining up between your legs. He lifts your thigh to sit on his hip. “’n if you say it, I stop. Alright?”

You nod, fervently. “Please –”

His fingers separate your lips; his tip nudges your entrance. “Maple, alright? It gets too much, you say maple. You do that?”

“Joel, if you don’t –”

“Baby.”

“Maple,” you agree, “I’ll say it. Just –”

He pushes in without another word.

How many times has it been, by now? Ten? More than that? Enough for you to know in your mind, if not from trying to learn then simply from muscle memory, exactly how he feels. The curve of his cock, the width of the tip, the length of him as he slots deep inside you.

And yet – every fucking time – you feel so full. Full of him in every sense – your cunt, swollen around him, your lungs, breathing his scent, your every thought and feeling and sense replaced by Joel. Joel Joel Joel Joel –

He’s suffocating. And if you died right now – if you were smothered by him, swaddled until you couldn’t feel anything anymore – you’re not sure you’d be able to tell. Not sure you’d care enough to notice.

He pushes in slow, but deep. So fucking deep. Lets your walls expand around him the first few thrusts, lets your body welcome him back in. His lips press against your temple, his arms cradle your lower back. Your weight bears down on his shoulders and he lifts you, your other leg sitting on his waist. He holds your ass in both hands, begins to bounce you steadily.

“So good, baby,” he says. “Doin’ so good for me. You’re daddy’s girl, ain’t you?”

Your answer leaves your lips in the form of a moan. Something shaped like his name, or maybe some attempt at a response to his question, or maybe something more dangerous.

“My girl,” he repeats, whatever it was you said. “Daddy’s girl.”

Your head rolls back, cushioned by Joel’s hand between you and the tile wall. He knots his fingers in your hair, snaps his hips quick and hard, panting into your shoulder. And there’s a feeling – a stinging, a burning, sweeping across your eyes, and for a second you think it feels like shampoo, like the sharp scratch of soap between your lashes, until you realize it’s –

Tears. The heavy cut of tears, brimming your eyes. Blurring your vision. And with every thrust, every blissful meeting of Joel’s cock and your cervix, every inch he spreads you open wide – they form quicker, and quicker, and quicker. Until they spill down onto your cheeks, and you can’t tell the difference between them and the spray of the shower.

But Joel can. His head lifts from the crook of your neck, his teeth dragging from your skin. He spots your eyelashes, silky and wet, and in one motion, wraps his arm around your head, holds you with the inside of his elbow.

He dips his jaw, presses his lips featherlight to your cheeks, kisses the tears away as quickly as they roll down.

“I –” gasp, “– don’t know –” gasp, “– why I’m –”

Joel’s head shakes as he pulls away. Shuts you up. His answer is simple. You believe it instantly.

“’s okay. You’re okay.”

And right then – you think you understand.

Because you can see him – plain as day. You can see the amounts he cares for you, the limitless needs he can meet for you. There’s a warmth within you, spread throughout your body for him, and you have no fucking idea how to let him feel it. How to have it seep through your skin – so that every time his fingers ghost over your body, he’s met with a blaze strong enough to burn. A fire, big enough and bright enough that it shows him exactly how you feel.

Only him. No one else. A flame only he can see, dancing across your eyes when you look at him. A heat only he can feel. How do you make him feel it? How do you tell him? What combination of words might translate it?

It’s like slamming your fists against a glass barrier. A transparent wall, that allows you only to see him and draw near to him – never to feel him. Not really.

And so, you cry. You cry for him, for yourself. And Joel lets you.

For a little while.

His lips are back on your neck, biting marks into the soaking skin. “’attagirl,” he hums. It rattles your pulse, disturbs the rhythm and sends his own beating through your veins. “So good, baby.”

They soothe you – his lips, and the words which come from them. Soothe the sweet pain between your legs, the swollen ache every time Joel pushes into you. The stretch, the bruising tinge when his tip finds home in the deepest part of your body. Somewhere no one has ever reached, no one has ever found. No one, you feel, has ever been worthy enough to know.

Until him. Until Joel.

That same rhythm – your pulse on his wavelength – begins to flee south. Loops and swirls and dives to where his body connects with yours. Tightens rapidly around your cunt. Your hips grind against his, your thighs clamp on his waist. He starts to falter, hips slipping whether from blood or come or water. And then he’s growling, face burying into your chest as he steadies the two of you with an abrupt palm on the wall, and he stills.

The feeling of his release tips you over. The warmth spreading inside, so far you feel him in your stomach. Your walls contract around him, squeezing until every last drop of him is buried somewhere in you, and you lower one foot to the shower floor.

“Fuck, darlin’,” he pants, pulling his lips from your collarbone. “You okay?”

You nod, head rolling against the wall behind. You’re not crying anymore. The shower whirrs somewhere over Joel’s shoulder. Your chest feels tight. And you feel fucking euphoric.

He gives three more lazy, broken thrusts, pushing his come deeper inside. You both still, mouths curved open, exchanging breath and letting your tongues flick idly against one another.

You hold onto him long after your orgasm is shallow ripples between your legs. Long after the feeling has washed back into the ocean, your high a glimmer of sunlight bursting over the distant horizon, the aftereffects painting your world golden.

You hold onto him, and you let him run his hands slowly up and down your spine, and you sift your weak fingers through his dark hair, and you let him kiss your neck and your shoulders and your collarbones. He leans back; the flow of water cascades between you, carrying away any mess left on your bodies.

And then you let him carry you out of the shower, his tip still inside you, slowly softening. He settles you carefully against your counter, and reaches over for two white towels, caping one around your shoulders and using it to draw your body against his own.

You take the corners from his fingers and he lifts your chin, pushing your lips apart with his tongue. Then he pulls away, allows you to wrap the terry around yourself.

Joel wraps his own towel around his waist, slung loose enough that you can trace the dark hair peppered from his belly button down between his hips.

“You know how inappropriate it is to look at your boss like that?” he tuts.

You hook an arm around his neck and pull him back in. “Then stop lookin’ at me the way you do,” you tease, and he kisses your cheek.

He disappears through to your kitchen, reappears moments later with the box of Tampax, and you don’t even think to laugh or tell him you’ve an open box sat in the cupboard you’re leaning against. You just smile, and accept the clean tampon he holds out in his fingers. He leaves you to get dressed with the door closed over.

He’s sat on your bed when you emerge from the bathroom, holding his soaking shirt between two fingers. “Sorry about, uh…”

“’s alright,” he shrugs, standing up, “I’ll take it from your paycheck.”

His knuckles pinch your nose. You free yourself to place a chaste kiss on his fingers, and pass him the crinkled mess.

“I have something that’ll fit you somewhere,” you mutter, slipping past him as he hangs the shirt by the collar over your door.

“Do me a favor,” Joel’s voice follows, and he takes your wrist. You turn back to face him. “Catch your breath.”

“Huh?” you ask, and his hand comes up to mold around your cheek, the way it always fucking does. As if your bodies were made to be held by one another.

“Just – take a breath. You’re doin’ it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Movin’ at a hundred miles an hour. Breathe for me.”

You scoff, loosening yourself from his grasp to go sift through your wardrobe for something big enough for him. You settle for a Jurassic Park tee – logo faded and cracked, hem a little ragged.

“Rod’s?” he asks, holding the shirt up.

You’re already collapsing onto the mattress. “You bet.”

Joel smirks and tugs it over his head, throwing himself down against the headboard. Your hand wraps around his thigh, lips press soft kisses on the skin. He runs his hand over your hair.

“Are you gonna take a sick day off me for this?” you ask.

He shakes his head simply. “Doctor’s orders. Can’t say nothin’ to that.”

“I didn’t go to the doc–”

His thumb presses against your lips. “You don’t know when to fuckin’ lie, do you?” he whispers. “’s alright, we’ll getcha trained up.”

You snort, shaking yourself free of his hand. Your head settles by his hip, nails draw aimless patterns along the curve of his stomach.

“Need you better by Sunday, anyway,” Joel sighs, “Martha’s son’s birthday party.”

You grunt in response. You forgot about that.

Joel tuts. “Still gotta find him a present. How in the hell do I know what to buy a twelve-year-old?”

Your hand pauses. Neck cranes up to look at him. He’s staring down at you, his trademark glower still recognizable even upside down. Somehow, not sat upright in front of him, the thought seems less scary. Less of a commitment, more a casual suggestion.

“Why don’t we just get ‘im a joint one?”

The hard expression immediately wipes from his face. Replaced by something rounder. He blinks at you. “Really? From – you ‘n me?”

You shrug against his waist. It’s not answer enough for him.

“As in, you n’ me?” he asks.

“Why not?”

Joel’s head shakes. His mouth curves as he considers the thought. But he can’t mask the pang it sends through his body; can’t pretend he’s not covering the way his veins light and his nerves stand to attention by taking your hand in his and squeezing it briskly.

It doesn’t have to mean something. You, Joel, and Deb are the only people from work that Martha invited, and Deb’s bringing her two sons, which means her gift will be from them, too. All it has to mean is that you’re Martha’s co-workers, and figured it’d be cheaper and easier to get one gift over two.

Except – one of you is a millionaire.

It means something. The fact you asked. You’re not asking to save a buck, to make it simpler. You’re asking because you want to wrap some video game in paper Joel picked out; you want him to hold the folds down with one finger while you tear tape with your teeth. You want to sign the card with both of your names, in your handwriting. See how they look paired up.

You ask him because you want to feel the way you think you ought to have felt this entire time. Your body is ablaze. You’re ready to let him feel it. And you ‘n me seems like a pretty good combination of words to start with.

You’re ready. And that’s why you ask him.

Joel’s quiet for as long as you are. You both go to talk at the same time, both noticing how silent the room has fallen while you realize all of those things in real time.

“Sorry, baby, you go,” Joel says, sniffing.

“No, I was just – no, you go. What were you gonna say?”

He smiles. “Was just – wonderin’ what you wanted to get Alan.”

Your mouth opens to answer, and then you pause. “Al–? What?”

“What you wanted to get ‘im,” Joel repeats.

You push yourself up, lean on one hip in front of him. “Yeah, I heard that part. What did you call him?”

“Alan?”

You stare at him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Joel stares right back. “Martha’s son.”

“Martha’s son’s name is Henry.”

“No, it fuckin’ ain’t.”

You’re biting back a laugh. “Yes, it fuckin’ is.”

“She calls him Little Al. All the damn time, baby, he’s –”

“That’s because he acts like Alan. Her husband. His father. All the damn time. You gotta be messing with me. Have you been calling him Alan the entire time he’s been alive?”

“No.”

His expression tells you yes.

You’re laughing now. Really laughing. It breaks your words in two, your head tilting back to the ceiling. “You…idiot.”

Joel’s struggling to compose himself, sliding off the bed. “The email she sent out says Alan’s Twelfth Birthday. The hell’s my phone?”

“You think she had a kid in two thousand eleven, and named it Alan? You don’t think they’d call Child Protection on her for that?”

He points a finger, tossing pillows to the bottom of your bed. “That’s disrespectful to the Alans of the world. Where the fuck is my –?”

Your chest swells in a giggle, eyes start to sting with tears. “What do you write in her Christmas cards? To Martha, Alan, and Alan?”

You slap the bed, leaning forward with a deep gasp, trying to catch your fucking breath. Joel’s still stripping the bed, still keeping his own laughter deep in his chest, but it’s quickly crumbling.

“Her email –” he chuckles, “– says Alan’s Twel–”

“She’s fucking with you!” you holler, catching the pillows he throws to you. “She’s fucking with – I’m gonna piss my pants. Martha, Alan, and Alan, oh my fucking –”

“Here,” he finally throws you the phone, “go find it. Find the email. Search the damn word Alan; she uses it every time she talks about him. Jesus Christ, I need a coffee. You want another chamomile tea, Little Miss Smartass?”

He lifts your mug and tilts it in your direction. You nod as you reach for the phone, wiping tears from your cheeks. Joel disappears through to the kitchen.

He clued you in on his passcode a few months after you started. You were still in the office past five o’clock, looking out files he needed for some client visit the following morning. His phone had buzzed, you were nearest it. He lifted his head and nodded to the lit screen.

1-6-9-1, he told you.

It finally made sense only a few days ago, after three years of wondering. Three years of knowing and never asking; a mystery solved. 1691 Maple.

His background was always one of the standard ones. The boring ones. A soft, blue gradient. Usually, his lock screen was too populated by notifications for you to even notice.

But now – it’s changed.

Now, it’s a photo of the view from the terrace in Paris. The pale sunset, faded blue into sweet yellow. The Eiffel Tower carved out in the center. You suck in a deep breath as you swipe texts and emails away to properly study it, figure out exactly where he was standing to take it, and exactly where you might’ve been when he did.

You tap in the four digits and his home screen lays out before you. Only, the background is different – again.

It’s Paris, still, but indoors. Dark wall, an ornate frame pinned to it, housing an amused smirk and soft hands. She’s looking off into the distance, past the photographer. Or maybe – she’s looking at you.

You, stood leaning on the barrier in front of her. The Mona Lisa. Your head tilted towards her, beaming like it’s a photo with your favorite celebrity.

It’s not a big deal. That’s what you tell yourself. It’s his home screen. Only visible if you know his password – and you’re fairly sure that you’re the only one who does. Not even Martha would know that this photo exists, never mind the fact that it’s his wallpaper. It’s not a big fucking deal.

No matter how much you think you want it to be.

You swiftly tap on the email app icon, trying to rid your mind of your own cheesing image. He has thirteen unread emails, all from the last hour. Some you know he’ll forward straight to you and Martha; others look a little more serious. As you’re scrolling down them, you notice a familiar face.

Denis Pelletier. His square-jawed grin flashes back at you from the tiny circle icon beside his name. You tap on the email, and your cheeks lift higher the further down it you read.

I hope your flight home was pleasant, and It was wonderful to take you both around Paris, and Your assistant was very sweet. You breathe a laugh, scrolling down the three-paragraph message urging Joel that if he’s ever back in Paris – if you’re ever back in Paris, both of you – to make sure you let the chauffeur know.

But there’s no email from Martha. At least, none in Joel’s inbox. You return out of the folder and wheel down to his Deleted folder, scrolling past password reset emails, panicked cries for help from Mackley and Tom, past order confirmations for brands you’ve never heard of, when –

A head of hair, more salt than pepper. A bright, unnerving smile, too many dazzling teeth in a mouth too small to house them. A pink sky behind him; candy floss clouds and townhouses glowing orange in the sunset – the building blocks of the Paris skyline.

Jean-Marc. An email – a deleted email – from Jean-Marc.

Dear Joel, It was such a pl… is all you can read from the preview. Your eyes flit up to your door. Joel’s still in the kitchen, humming. You glance back down to his phone.

Would it be invading his privacy? It’s only an email from Jean-Marc. It’s not like you don’t know who he is. What if your thumb slipped? Accidentally opened it? What if your eyes scanned over the text before you quickly swiped back out of the email?

There’s the sound of a drawer rolling closed. A spoon rattling against ceramic. He’s stirring your tea.

You click on the email.

It was such a pleasure to see you again.

You scan over the first paragraph. It’s just Jean-Marc cozying up to Joel. Your nose wrinkles and your lips turn.

I loved meeting your assistant, the next paragraph begins. And your focus is pulled.

I wonder if you had given our conversation any more thought? Whether she might be looking for a new challenge? Something this side of the Atlantic, perhaps?

Your heart skips a beat. A new challenge.

“You want the last egg roll?” Joel calls from the kitchen.

You jolt back to life. “N-no, you have it,” you reply. You hear the rustle of the bag.

I wonder if you might relay the message onto her, Jean-Marc continues. Please give her my email address and phone number.

You quickly pull the screen up, noting the date the message was sent. Three days after you got home from Paris. More than a week ago. You tap on Joel’s response as his footsteps creak back towards your bedroom.

His reply is as short and sweet as the few words he spoke to the Frenchman that Sunday morning.

I’ll pass on your details, he’s written, but unfortunately, my assistant is currently unavailable. Maybe sometime in the future.

Your jaw jerks. Eyes trace the words, over and over. Thumb scrolls up and down the email, making sure you’re reading it right. Joel, making promises he never followed through. Joel – your Joel, the one you pestered for fucking days after Paris over what he’d talked with Jean-Marc about – one hand laced through yours, the other with a vice grip around a secret he never intended to clue you in on.

You. He’d talked about you. They’d probably talked about you the entire fucking meeting, as soon as Joel mentioned you. You can see Jean-Marc’s ears twig; his eyebrows lift with interest. The way he sets his wine glass down, offers Joel another whiskey and invites him to say more.

Joel. Lying. And covering up. And keeping you close by his hip, walking in stride with him out of that fucking penthouse – like you’re on some kind of leash, or something.

The fabric of his underwear on your hips feels claustrophobic; a second layer of skin that rubs against yours like sandpaper. You want to rip them off off off – want to separate yourself from him, peel him from your body and forget the feeling of him as quickly as you seemed to absorb it. Instinct tells you to detach yourself – to remove any trace of him ever having laid eyes on you, never mind touched you.

What a fucking idiot, you think. He doesn’t fucking care about you after all.

You don’t even notice when his form saunters back into the room, when he shoves the door closed with his elbow. There’s a bitter taste on your tongue, sour with disappointment. Acrid with anger. Sick with fear.

Unavail–?

“You find it?” he asks, and you subconsciously clutch the phone to your chest.

“Not yet,” you murmur, watching as he sets the mug back on your nightstand.

His fingers slip through the handle, knuckle nudges the temple of the ghost a little further along the surface, and he straightens, lifting his own mug to his lips.

“’s in there,” he says against the ceramic. He holds a hand out, curls his fingers. “Let’s see.”

“Never mind,” you say, tapping out of the email, out of the folder, out of the app. “I believe you.”

And then –

“…You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

He licks his lips. Holds the mug by his side, fingers gripping the lip. He gives a non-committal shrug of the shoulders.

“No, darlin’. Why would I lie to you?”

#joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller x reader #ceo!joel miller #ceo!joel #sugardaddy!joel miller #the last of us #the last of us fic #tlou #pedro pascal #joel miller smut #sex on fire

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bas-writes · 6 months

Text

Kings Don't Fall in Love

Character: Donquixote Doflamingo Reader: female (should be trans inclusive but I haven't proof-read it from this pov, so proceed at own risk) CW: intimacy starved Doffy, non-descriptive mentions of sex, pressure put on scent, emotional isolation, Doffy's pov Word Count: 1.1k Synopsis: You leave a piece of clothing after a night spent together at Doflamingo's place. Something unexpected happens when he takes a closer look at it. A/N: I listen too much to Cigarettes After Sex and it shows... Anyway, a little gift to @opopnomi for which I hope she won't kill me LMAO Hope it made your day at least a little better :3

It's just your overnight t-shirt.

Doflamingo almost misses it among the clutter thrown all over his bedroom. It's just a single piece of clothing, but a little snip of fabric in comparison to his own stuff all around. You're so little next to him, from heads to toes, and especially your hands he likes to hold in his as he teases you for your embarrassment in face of the size difference. Everything about you is so little and endearing, and he can't help a little smirk at the thought of your eyes perked up at him.

They always look doe and pleading from this angle. And he loves it.

It's just your overnight t-shirt. A thing you wear only in the privacy of your room, not here, in the kingdom of lingerie, kink apparel, and all of his whims at the given moment. He got to know it only because you were wearing it when he dragged you out of your house and kidnapped you to his territory.

Doflamingo can't even remember now how you looked in it as all he cared about was to free you out of it, to feel your bare breasts in his hands. He picks it up, its weight barely palpable, and frowns, trying to recreate the image in his head, and failing. He doesn't cry over it, the thing is not sexy; it's just a t-shirt, stretched over your size, its colors worn-out, chosen to be cozy, not presentable. It's somewhat yours through and through and alien for his eyes. It suits you like your own skin and disturbs the image of yours in his mind. It's so out of place, time and imagination that he can't peel his eyes off it.

The king's attention can last only as much, though, and he's already putting it away—to send you back or throw it into trash, he's not decided yet—when an impulse strikes his curiosity. Doflamingo doesn't think much of it when he brings the t-shirt closer. It's just a whim, a spur of a second, who would have paid attention to reasoning behind something so meaningless?

When it touches his cheek, he nearly understands why you like to sleep in it. It's soft—and not only for a piece of clothing. The sensation is pleasant, almost having him craving for more, especially against the freshly shaved, irritated skin. It carries a weirdly nostalgic feel to that, like a warm hand cupping his face. He can't pinpoint what pulls him to do that, but he follows and nuzzles into the fabric, with hesitation at first, soon with eagerness that shocks him—but doesn't stop him regardless.

Your smell is…stronger.

Doflamingo knows every aspect of yours, all of the intimate nooks and crevices of your body. But this is different, far more private, feeling almost forbidden to be approached so…offhandedly. It's not just a faint trace of your scent nor the sharp aroma he trails straight from your skin. The t-shirt is soaked with you; it's still fresh enough to carry the aftertaste of a pleasant and flowery smell of washing detergent but also clearly worn for many nights already. It's the coziness of your tangled sheets, the rustle of a book you like to read before sleep, the simple touch of toothpaste and morning coffee, the whisper of dreams and hum of the alarm clock on your bed stand.

He's a brutal intruder, maybe for the first time ashamed of it—but chasing the sensation nevertheless, the stronger the bigger his guilt grows. Until this moment, Doflamingo has been sure you're in his possession, like a bird in a tight cage of his strings—and now each breath of your most sacred intimacy proves him what a fool he's been all this time. He holds a treasure he should never been trusted with, the image of you you kept to your solitude. You don't share such secrets with just anyone, oh Doflamingo is aware, so painfully aware. He's just your lover, just your king, just someone who can control your body and mind, but never your soul, wrapped tightly in this old t-shirt he so brutally gently presses to his face.

He wants more, he needs more, he fears more.

His eyes closing, Doflamingo takes one more, desperately deep breath, full of your smell and his loneliness. His arms should be filled with you—yet, they're empty. This shirt should be covering your breasts—yet, it's almost teared in his desperate clutch. Your voice should vibrate through his bedroom—and yet, there's only an echo of the sound he hasn't heard for decades. Your body should warm his side—yet he's shivering in the middle of his pathetic kingdom of four walls and ice-cold heart.

What's a king without the thing he craves the most, after all? Without the thing he will never claim as it's impossible to be claimed?

It scares him, that musky and heavy scent tangled in cotton threads. That lie detector, that sharp knife slicing his soul paper-thin, and heading towards the most vulnerable, the most protected core of his memories and emotions. Doflamingo takes the last, shaking whiff of it, and finally pulls away, his chest clenched tight and eyes dry and pricking. Your shirt is just a shirt again, just a piece of old, stretched fabric in his hands.

He almost throws it away, with fear and self-disgust.

It should be returned, it should be gone, but the longer he thinks about it, Doflamingo can't bring himself to move either way. Just the idea of handing it to a servant leaves a bad, bitter taste in his mouth, like sucking blood out of a cut on a parched lip. Walking to your house and disturbing your privacy even more fills him with anxiety he hasn't experienced before. And to call you here—

Your soul shouldn't be entrusted to a place of corporeality.

He would gladly just toss it out of his sight and mind—or to seal it in one of his hidden vaults, where neither of you wouldn't find it for a long, long time. At the same time, he doesn't want to, to hide and to heal. It burns his hand when he finally brings himself to pull the den den mushi out of the drawer and chooses your number he has, much to his surprise, learnt already by heart. It is almost physical, harder with each passing second, and he just keeps clenching his fingers tighter on it.

A few dreadful heartbeats later, the torturous, steady ring of awaiting call is interrupted by your voice. And Doflamingo can finally bleed his soul out into the speaker, "Y/N. Come. Yes, you left something at my place."

#doflamingo x reader #doflamingo x you #doflamingo x y/n #doflamingo imagine #doflamingo scenario #doflamingo fanfiction #doflamingo fluff #one piece x reader #one piece x you #one piece x y/n #one piece imagine #one piece scenario #bas writes #doflamingo #female reader

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coconutdays · 7 months

Text

drunk pt. 2

s. this is part two to this original post! my attempt at a mutual pining ??? slowburn??? with the Honored One, Gojo. Y'all fuck after one of those intense movie confession scenes yada yada.

w.c. 7.2k

w. fem! reader , gojo! x reader , fluff! , angst! , slowburn! , smut! ( I think the slowburn is lowk angsty in my opinion) y/n’s cursed technique is basically like Wanda from marvels abilities, I didn't proofread much srry, btw this is my first time executing a fully fledged fuck so bare with me I tried.

You had only minutely interacted with Satoru ever since that day you went cursed spirit hunting with him. It was normal, nothing was weird or out of the ordinary after, but everything seemed so dull in comparison to that day. Although you could say there was less of a chance to speak when he did go overseas for a couple of days. And you were partially grateful that it was like that. You couldn't fret over your feelings for him if he wasn't feeding you anything to reminisce on.

On one of your minuscule interactions with the famed sorcerer, he asked you to take his newbie first years to a cursed mansion while he would be busy scouring Spain for a key that did who knows what.

Which leads to the current situation at hand.

"What happened here?" Yuuji asks, kicking a stray pebble a few feet away and into the bushes

"The owner of this place slit the throats of everyone in the mansion at night, then shot himself in the head." You squinted at one of the far off windows of the mansion, spotting something that would have most likely been a cursed spirit.

"Gross." Nobara's face turns into one of disgust.

"What level cursed spirit does it have?" It's Megumi asking now

You turn to look at all of them, a glint in your eyes.

"Grade 1"

"WHAT?" Nobara stomps her foot, "Why is Gojo sending us out here on sui-"

"I'm here." You laugh, a red flame swirls around your irises, "I'm the second strongest after Gojo. Give me some credit."

"Gojo gives her most of his missions if he suddenly can't do them." Megumi points out, "We're safe."

"Not entirely." You shift your weight onto one of your hips and cross your arms, "I'm here to intervene if things start going south, which I hope they don't, but under the situation it does then I step in."

That was twenty minutes ago, and things had gone south.

You were ambushed by more than one Special grade in the mansion and left the three first-years to deal with a cursed spirit much akin to the one described in the correction facility that lead to Yuuji's death. The others were almost alike to it, but they were starting to speak, forming words more coherently by the minute.

"What the fuck."

There were four surrounding you, and the only reason they weren't going for the first-years was because you sealed them into the top floor with you. You would have rather dealt with this by yourself, considering you had to hold back because the first years were in the floor beneath you, but you'd have to make do with your seal.

Much to your surprise, halfway through your fight, you could hear the sounds of relief from the first-years and one less screeching curse.

Good, they exorcised it.

Both of your hands were busy repelling your opponents away from you as you neared the staircase so they could hear you.

"GO OUTSIDE! NOW!"

"But you're dealing with four of them!" Nobara started, "If you-"

"JUST WAIT FOR ME OUTSIDE! AND CALL IJICHI!"

You could hear Nobara starting to protest, but you could make out the grumbles of Megumi to place trust in you.

When you got a peek through the window of Yuuji's pink hair, you let out a sigh of relief. You didn't have to hold back anymore, but you weren't going to be able to be the one to take the first-years back to Jujutsu Tech after this.

What you considered the cursed energy equivalent of an atomic bomb was what you released within the enclosed top floor. You concentrated on it breaking apart the curses and squeezing them out of existence--much like a bomb would.

However, the aftermath would be something you'd leave the first years up to. You didn't have to hold back within the confines of the mansion, none of the students were in there, but they were directly outside, waiting for you in a position where contact with the explosion would hurt them. The moment you release your technique, the confines the mansion burst, pulverizing the curses out of existence and subjecting you to the sheer force of your cursed energy being concentrated into one subjectively small enclosed space.

Your cursed energy treated you like shrapnel and launched you headfirst into the concrete ground near the first-years. It was the last thing you remembered before everything after started fading in and out.

You were in the back of Ijichi's car, at the center with Megumi and Yuuji on either side, grabbing at your body. Why were they--

Oh, there's gaping wounds on your stomach and legs.

Nobara is frantically turning to look back from the front passenger seat again and again.

"Drive faster Ijichi!"

Maybe you could start using your cursed technique to heal-

"Oh fuck!" Yuuji starts

You start coughing violently into your lap

Was that blood from your wounds or-

"Ow."

It's the first thing you utter when you wake up, feeling an intense soreness all over your body. They're mere action of lifting up a finger sending shock bolts through your body.

"Finally someone's awake." Shoko sighs carelessly, she's on her phone looking through who knows what.

"How long have I been out?" You groan, closing your eyes to mentally prepare for her to say 3 days or something along those lines.

"Two weeks." She gets up and walks to serve you some water as your eyes shoot open, "Constricting a nuclear explosion to only the confines of a mansion was not a smart decision."

You lean up against your pillows and start to rub your sore neck, "The first-years were right outside of the mansion. I had no other choice."

"Still not your best moment." She blinks tiredly, her careless look on her face.

"How are they anyway?"

"Fine. Small cuts and bruises. They were fine by the end of the day. Gojo's got them in the classroom right now."

"He's back from Spain already?"

"He came back the day after the mansion incident. Thought you would've remembered him poking your head to see if you could hear him this morning." She started to write on a chart, probably yours.

"I don't." You start to look through your faint memories to see if it held onto anything like that.

Nothing.

"Well, you should be fine to go home already." Shoko starts to walk out of your room, raising the chart she was just scribbling on moments ago, "You check out just fine. Get some rest before they probably send you on another mission by tomorrow."

By the time you put on some clothes, provided by Shoko, and take a shower at your place to soothe your muscles, it's been a few hours, leaving Gojo to stare at an empty infirmary bed, your scent lingering in the room.

"She woke up a couple hours ago, must be home already." Shoko mindlessly says as she walks back to her office with a stack of folders in her arms.

After your shower, you're on your couch watching a comfort show of yours while you snack on some ice cream to wallow your feelings in. The reason for your being upset quite obvious.

He should've known you were awake by now. Why wasn't he checking on you.

It annoyed you, both the fact that for someone who had been at your bedside this morning, he hadn't shown up to receive you in your awake state, and that you cared so much you started thinking like his girlfriend.

Satoru didn't owe it to you to come see you. He wasn't yours to be obliged and neither were you his to expect it.

But fuck if you couldn't help checking your phone every five minutes to see if he'd text or call you. Hell, you'd love for him to show up announced any moment.

He didn't though.

You went to sleep upset that night--mostly at him--it wasn't his fault for not showing up, but your heart couldn't help but be disappointed by his lack of presence.

You got called in by Jujutsu High to help train the second-years the following day. A mission with five special grades seemed more appealing when you considered the fact that you'd more than likely see Satoru once there.

"Look who's awake."

Gojo is suddenly walking next to you as you lead the second-years to the sparring grounds. He doesn't look in your direction, merely facing ahead, but he has that same unbothered smile on his face--it bugs you.

He releases a handsome chuckle before starting again, "You drool a little when you're knocked out. Did ya know that?"

"No, I didn't, Satoru." You exhale, distracting yourself by looking for a nice spot to have the students duel.

"It's quite--"

"Shut up Gojo, we have to spar."

Both of you turn to see Makki scowling at the object of most people's irritation, including yours. She's ready to fight, earnestly tugging at the straps of her bag of weapons.

"You pain me, Makki," He grins, fixing his posture to walk away, "Alright, then. Learn well from y/n, she's the second best after all."

He walks in the opposite direction from you guys, trying to taste the last breath he inhaled when he was next to you before he had to let it go. It was his own pitiful attempt at basking in your presence rather than letting his inhibitions crumble and grabbing you by the shoulders to ask if you were okay? what the hell were you thinking? he shouldn't have sent you on that mission, he'd apologize if he let that part of himself come through. If. But he won't do that.

The second-years did learn from you. Makki the most, almost coming close to handing you your ass in hand to hand combat after taking in a bit of advice from you. Her semblance in physical fortitude was getting closer and closer to Toji Zenin every day. Nonetheless, the keyword was almost. She almost won and probably could have been closer to that if you weren't so ticked off by Satoru Gojo. You were in such a zone, honed in on the negativity he procured for you by not giving you the attention you wanted, that you barely spoke while focusing on Makki's every move besides giving advice, your usual praise and teasing gone.

You showered after, the heat of the sun and physical exertion making you uncomfortable in your own sweat and forcing you to take the quickest train to your place instead of getting a ride. And you didn't want to come across him again.

The feelings were too much.

It was why you found yourself halfway through a bottle of whiskey, snacking on a charcuterie board you ordered for the fucks of it. You're wearing another set of those "skimpy pjs" as Gojo had put it and staring out your balcony to gaze at the city's night lights.

You just want him so bad.

You want to kiss him. You want to be in his embrace and tell him he the prettiest eyes ever. And he's a womanizer, it chisels away at your heart. God, he's probably tongue deep in a pretty blonde right now. There's tears raining down on your cheeks and you don't bother to wipe them away, choosing to take another swig of whiskey and accompanying it with a slice of prosciutto to tug some of the sharp aftertaste away.

It hurts, wanting him. He just needs to get from you. You need to get away from him. Fuck the friendship, fuck everything.

ding!

There's someone at your door and you're up to check who the hell is at your apartment on a Friday at 1 a.m. like a lunatic. Your guard slightly goes up the closer you get to your door, the idea of someone dangerous being behind the door coming across your mind. There's a patch of goosebumps raising at the back of your neck, suddenly growing alert at your own thoughts as you tip toe to your peep hole.

And of course it's someone dangerous.

"What do you want Gojo." You don't bother to be much curious about it. You want him out of your face.

He's standing in front of you with his stupid handsomeness. That same bottle of whatever he ordered the other night in his left hand and his irritating smirk on his face along with those blacked out glasses. He's wearing black pants and a tight black shirt too, you can even see a sliver of a silver chain on his neck.

You don't see, hear, or even notice it when it happens, but his breath hitches in the quick fire second between your deadpan question of his whereabouts at your apartment and his teasing question at your teary face.

"Aw, you cryin'?" He tilts his head, canines bearing as his lips curve further up.

It makes you want to use his own red, purple, blue, or whatever fucking color of the rainbow on him. He's a complete ass. Satoru Gojo is a waste of your time. He should forget your address, your number, your favorite croissant filling, everything.

You just want him away from you, where he won't hurt you.

"Yes. Insensitive piece of shit asshole!" You shout, grabbing at your door handle.

"Get out of my face!"

You shut your door forcefully and carelessly, paying no mind to your surroundings or neighbors in your drunken haze.

When you turn around, he's already behind you.

The wine bottle is already on your kitchen island and Gojo's towering over you, his eyebrows scrunched just a bit and his eyes continuously trying to analyze you as his irises move back and forth. He had taken his glasses off, they were hanging off the collar of his shirt now.

Your nose twitches a bit, cursing his ability to teleport. The hate you hold for it becoming a heavy pit in your stomach.

"Get out." The twitch in your nose goes off again.

The panic of the situation is startling to Gojo. You look beautiful, the skimpy pink romper you're wearing is all consuming to him, he wants to rip it off and take you to your room. The crying fit you were just having had softened your features and god the little twitch you keep doing with your nose–

And you're angry at him for some reason.

No, he's stupid. It's his fault, you were crying and instead of letting himself worry about you like a normal person, he teased you about it. His own realization makes him scramble to fix his previous statement.

"No–look I'm sorry for asking like a jerk. Why are you crying?" He takes another step closer to you, pressuring you into answering his question.

Gojo was trying to get a physical tell out of you. You had healed from the mission, right? And sparring with the second-years couldn't have left you pummeled. He couldn't see any wounds on you.

He felt the rise of his hand to cup your cheek, to force you to look at him and tell him what was wrong.

No, he can't.

You look up at him defiantly, biting your cheek and beginning to grow angrier, angry at him, angry at your heart, angry at the tears that still manage to flow down your cheeks.

You take a step back and reiterate yourself.

"Get out, Gojo."

There's a linger of hurt in his eyes, along with confusion when his eyebrows scrunch even more. You can see he's at a loss for words when his mouth keeps slightly opening and closing and his eyes look like they're psychoanalyzing you.

You roll your eyes in a teary frustration and stomp your foot like a two year old throwing a fit when he doesn't move even in the slightest to leave.

"Please, Gojo! Just leave!" You cry, voice cracking, "Get out of my apartment, leave me alone, I don't–"

You almost yelp at the sudden intrusion of your personal space. He's got an iron grip on your hands all of a sudden, forcing them out of the way in case you try to push him away physically this time. And he's staring only dead into your eyes now, an overall concerned look on his face that overpowers his slight irritation at your stubbornness.

"Tell me why you're crying."

You try to loosen out of his grip, only for it to do nothing like you knew it would. It forces you to scrunch your nose in distaste and turn your cheek to him.

"I don't want to see you." You mutter, your voice audibly nasally and battered from the crying fit you were having.

Gojo brings you closer to him with a simple tug of his hands, he leans closer to your face.

"Why." His breathing starts to pick up and it sounds less like a question and more like a sound of offense.

"Let go of me."

"Not until you answer me." He tightens his grip on you just a little for emphasis, to show you that he really won't let go until you fulfill his request.

You still don't want to look at him. You can feel his laser like stare at you, pinning you down and pressuring you into giving him what he wants. It's all too much, his touch is searing to your skin and the fact that his body is so close to yours in hazing your mind. It's so much that you have no choice but to turn to finally look at him and it sends you back to the state you were previously in before he rung your doorbell.

You feel the hot wads of tears start to tumble off your waterline as you vomit a singular word.

"You."

He reels his head back a bit in confusion, "What, I–"

"You! I'm crying because of you!" You babble through your hiccups and tears, "And you show up like a jerk! You didn't even care that I was crying! And–"

"What makes you think I don't care about you?" He jeers you closer, his tone obviously offended now.

"Are you getting early dementia or something! You did that stupid aw you crying bullshit!" The situation growing worse as your eyes go completely bloodshot and there's hiccups continuously interrupting your speech.

"You didn't even care that I woke up! Today, you just came by to be a dick about me drooling! Yesterday, you didn't even show up to see me after I left the infirmary!"

His grip loosens a bit at your declaration of mistrust in his care for you.

He cares. He really cares. You can't keep saying he doesn't, he thinks. He left Spain the moment he got an angry text from Nobara that the mission he entrusted to you left you on death's door. He spent every free moment of his walking by or into your recovery room. He walked by your apartment last night to see if you were okay, his eyes had seen you sleeping safe and sound and it was enough to soothe his heart.

None of which you knew about, he realizes.

By now, you've broken free from his grasp, taking advantage at his loss of words, and fleeing to your bedroom. A loud bang followed the small pit pats of your bare feet on the floor, and it brought him back to reality.

Gojo now stares at the front door of your apartment, eyes still glued to where you were previously standing. He feels like his heart is stuck in his throat, unable to come out and run towards you like it wants to out of fear. He can hear his heartbeat pulsating in the cold silence of your apartment and it makes him confront himself instead of you.

You thought he didn't care and it made you upset.

And the mere fact is gut-wrenching for him.

It's so devastating to him, that his feet are suddenly driving him towards your room and his hands are opening the door.

He noticed the half empty bottle of whiskey and glass on your kitchen island as he passed by too. It makes him even more wary as he stands underneath the doorframe and sees you sat at the edge of your bed, head in your hands and violently crying.

"I care about you."

You hear him, but you don't have the energy to beg him to leave anymore or even notice him. You're spent and too embarrassed of your outburst to look at him.

Gojo wishes you could look at him. He wants the security of your eyes being there for him to bask in and it has him walking to kneel on the ground in front of you.

You feel his hands, soft and tough at the same time, pulling yours down, away from your face. It forces you to look down at him. You see the breath he lets out in relief the moment you make eye contact with him.

You're so weak, you can't help but melt into the feeling of his hands on yours now. A salty tear makes its last run on your face and you're nothing but a sniffling and hiccuping mess as you stare back at him.

He speaks again, "I am so sorry."

"Can you please stop touching me." You rasp out, suddenly becoming aware of how much more painful this is for you when he's feeding into youre delusions.

You can feel his blood stop pulsing for some reason. His hands are suddenly dead weight and his eyes widen.

"I can't do this anymore." You breathe out nasally, readying yourself to ruin your friendship with him.

"I love you Satoru."

It comes out heavy, like a massive paper weight on the air both of you were breathing.

And suddenly, he starts to feel his blood pumping again, the hands holding yours beginning to grow firm in their grip. His chest moves up and down even faster as he stares at you because his brain just short-circuited. He thought the inner works of his domain and technique were all he ever had to worry about handling, but this is taking the cake. Infinity and the knowledge it covers is nothing compared to what you just said.

"And–" You have to take a pause to stop the tears brimming on your waterline again, "it really hurts pining after you. I shouldn't be upset at you for not showing up at my doorstep yesterday like a boyfriend would. I wouldn't be if I weren't such a fool for you."

You're harshly wiping a tear off your cheek out frustration before you continue. You try to settle the now free hand away from him, on your lap, but he takes it back, still looking up at you without a trace of a word making an appearance on his mouth.

"I need you out of my life. I want to move on." You plead, "I can't be in the same room as you or else ill think about how bad I want to be next to you. I can't be this close to you and not kiss you. I want to wake up after getting hurt from a mission and not drown myself in whiskey because you didn't show up at my door to check on me."

"No."

Gojo is looking at you like you're an idiot. His face is twisted in a mix of offense and disgust, part of his nose is wrinkled and his eyebrows are twisted.

"Gojo–"

"Stop calling me by my last name." He cuts, eyes now harsh on you.

You're confused now, bleary eyes trying to understand him and how negative he seems right now. You want to say something, but everything you can think of is at the tip of your tongue and you're opening and closing your mouth like a fish on dry land.

Gojo looks like he wants to say something too, and like he knows what he wants to say, but he's struggling to just spit it out as he minimally glares at you. If you squint hard enough though, you might have just been able to see the slight gloss of sadness color over his eyes.

"I don't want you out of my life." He shakes his head, eyebrows still furrowed.

You sniffle, "But I just said that–"

You're pulled down by your hands and your face lands right smack on his, followed by a kiss ensued by him.

The kiss is enough to send you to sleep, it's soothing and everything you need to forget all your worries. And it's a little salty, a byproduct of your fit, but it doesn't seem to matter when Gojo reaches a hand up to your cheek and deepens his reach a little, a low grunt of affection coming from his throat when you let out a sigh.

It was short-lived, but it said enough.

When Satoru pulls back, he's still concentrated on looking for tells on your face, trying to make he got his point across.

"I've been putting you at the back of my mind for the past two years." He confesses sternly meanwhile he caresses both of your hands with his thumbs, rubbing soothing circles in the wake of his words. "I care about you so much I force myself not to." The last few words giving him the inclination to hang his head in shame.

"And I am so sorry it made you cry." He sighs in defeat, raising up both of your hands to kiss them as an apology. He's looking up at you with his big blue eyes, pleading for your mercy and you want to move, you want to act. It's why you lean down and give him a small peck on the lips to wake him up a little then dive back in again to kiss him.

It doesn't last long in that position–merely five seconds–until Satoru starts rising and pushing you back onto the bed softly. He pushes you forward onto the bed to make room for his legs before one of his hands is perched right next to your head and the other is guiding your thigh to wrap your leg around his waist.

Your hands run and grasp at his hair and neck, making sure to appreciate the feeling of his skin beneath your hands.

You begin to moan when he starts using tongue on you and it gets a rise out of him in the form of him grinding his bulge against your crotch.

"Satoru."

"Fuck." He groans, breathing hard as he kisses you. He can't just leave after this. He can't go back to his apartment. Hell he doesn't even know if he could pull himself away from you right now if there were a sudden emergency.

He feels you moving underneath him and he opens his eyes mid kiss to see you moving down the straps of your romper. The action causes him to pull back so he can see what you're trying to do.

"What are you doing?" He breathes, lips rosy and glossy from both of you guys' spit.

You free your arms from the thin pink straps right as he says that and look him in the eyes when you pull the spandex like material below your breasts.

"What I just did." You nod down innocently towards your boobs.

"Fuck. Fuck." He groans, reaching to palm both of them. It only lasts for a second before he starts to pinch at them, rubbing them between his fingers and eliciting whimpers from you.

"Yeah, just like that baby."

It makes move your hips up in search of him and it has him leaning back down to kiss you, needier this time. Satoru includes more tongue than anything, wanting to just be in you, in your skin, everywhere, as close as he can get.

You start to yank at the bottom his shirt soon enough.

"Take this off." You whine

Easily and quickly, he complies to your request, grabbing his shirt by the collar and taking it off of his body. He throws it behind him and is about to lean back down when his eyes go astray towards your crotch.

There's a wet patch very obviously soaking through and he can see the mold of your pussy sticking to the damp material. It makes his cock jump at the sight and he can't help but run a finger across your slit.

It makes a shiver run up your spine and a moan leave your mouth.

"You like that?" He's staring you down when you look back at him after having shut your eyes in pleasure.

"Mhm." You nod, eyebrows furrowed and eyes blown wide with lust as you take both of his hands and make him grab the material of your romper. "Take it off of me."

Satoru doesn't need to say anything as he obeys your request. He pulls at your pajamas and helps you slide it off your legs, too overwhelmed by the intensity of the situation to make any witty or teasing comments.

What wasn't part of your request was when he held both of your legs up in the air by squishing your thighs together and dove straight for your pussy.

You almost scream at the sudden intrusion of him initiating a makeout session with your pussy. The squishing of your legs making the sensation more intense for some reason. You can hear Satoru groaning into you while he sucks on your clit. He shifts his weight so that his arm is wrapped around your legs to keep them together and you wonder why he switches to only one until you feel a singular digit of his sliding into your walls.

" 'Toru." You moan, legs twitching a bit when you feel him hook a finger up and apply pressure to that one spot that has you begging for more.

"Gimme another one, please." You urge, fisting at the sheets next to you for some sort of relief.

"I got on the first flight back the second I heard what happened." He confesses, breath raggedy as he peers over from the side of your legs and gives you the other finger you asked for. His entire lower side of his is glistening, you almost feel embarrassed that it's your juices.

He continues confessing and pumping his fingers in and out of you, the squelching noises accompanying his words.

"I was scared shitless." He almost grieves, a messy confusion of his own sexual energy and his pleading for your forgiveness. Satoru starts to plant a flutter of kisses along your thigh while he keeps his eyes on you. "I love you so much." He groans, extremely turned on by the increasing pulsing of your walls and the faces you keep making.

"Yea? Oh fuck–" The last five words he uttered were adding even more ecstasy to your euphoria and had started to plummet you into your orgasm when coupled with the deeper and faster pace Satoru introduced.

"Come on, pretty. Cum for me." Satoru almost sounds like he's begging, mouth opening in awe in sync with yours at the overwhelming sense of pleasure crashing over you.

It comes out in a long mix between a moan and a whine, along with the wriggle of your hips and legs as Satoru keeps moving his fingers in and out while you ride out your high.

You're heaving when it washes over and you're about to flinch at the overstimulation of Satoru's fingers when he pulls them out and puts them in his mouth. You can see him slightly roll his eyes back when he hollows his cheeks a bit to fully clean his fingers off and get your taste out of them.

Satoru lets go of the grip he had keeping your legs up, and he gets up to quickly take his pants off, followed by his boxers, and–

"You're big." You marvel, sitting up now and admiring the view, also trying to wrap your head around the fact that he's going to hurt. He's pretty and long, reaching a bit past his belly button when it slaps against his stomach, and his girth is scream worthy.

When Satoru looks down, you look so innocent, peering at him through your lashes before focusing your gaze back on his length. He sees your thighs shift against each other–a boost to his ego and his horniness–but he can also tell you're a little freaked out by the sheer size.

"We don't have to." He heaves earnestly, chest rising and falling a bit faster than usual out of pent up sexual aggression from fingering you and watching you cum, and the need to be inside of you right now, which he'd be more than capable of stowing away for now if you didn't feel comfortable taking him.

"We can make it fit." You reassure softly and lean up to tug one of his hands to you in the bed while his eyes widen.

Satoru is in between your legs now, eyeing you down with lust blown pupils, an animal like stare that has you shrinking into the bed the more it lingers. Truth be told, he doesn't know how to act now that he's got you underneath him, legs spread, and your pretty little face waiting for him to do something.

His first move is to kiss you again, he missed your lips in the brief few minutes he was eating you out and fingering you. The kiss makes your skin crawl and pull him closer to you by the shoulders you have your arms wrapped around.

His cock lands right between your lips after that and it makes both of you suck in a breath the contact, a needy grind of both of yours' hips following.

"I want you inside of me 'Toru." You sigh against his ear as he dips his head down into your neck, mouthing and biting.

You feel his grip in the sheets right next to your head tighten and manage to get a view of his large and broad back contorting at the sentence.

"How bad do you want it?" He almost snarls, moving his hips so his cock keeps sliding between your folds, gathering your slick on his shaft and stimulating your clit in the process. His head leans down even further and he's sucking on your nipple, nipping a bit to get squeals out of you for not answering him as fast he wanted you to.

"I want it really bad." You can't stand the pulsating between your legs anymore, your hips can only move towards him for so long before you feel like you'll die. You needily scratch at his back when his other hand pinches your nipple particularly hard. "I feel like I'm gonna die if you don't fuck my pussy right now." It comes out whiny and high-pitched, the overall want for him making you pathetic.

He comes back up with a crazed stare more intense than the last one and dives for your mouth again, aggressive and overwhelming, like he wants to swallow you whole. There's teeth and tongue everywhere, you wouldn't be surprised if your lips were bleeding by the end of this.

When you're caught up in the feeling of his chest on yours and his heavy breathing against yours while you kiss, he starts lining himself up to your entrance. The intrusion of his fat tip in your hole interrupting your ability to kiss and making your jaw go slack.

You start to lift your hips off the bed without thinking and Satoru wraps his arm around your waist to keep you in place. He hasn't moved any further, basking in the invitation of your warmth and giving you time to adjust.

"It's so big." You mutter, hand in his hair and the other holding onto his back for dear life while you look at the rest you have to take.

It's the first time he even so much as smiles a little when he looks up at you and you see a glint of his canines and a glossed over look in his eyes. "Yea?"

"Mhm." You nod, eyebrows knitting when he pulls back and inches in a little further with a shallow thrust.

He drops his head into your neck, trying to keep himself from biting the bullet and completely pushing into you in one go. "Fuck." He moans when he thrusts back in again

He picks up the pace a little with every shallow thrust that gets him an inch deeper in you and by the time he's fully in, he's giving you hard and punctual thrusts. You're close to screaming every time he bottoms out, mouth open while you whine and moan. It makes him take advantage and he swallows your noises by shoving his tongue down your throat. He licks at your tongue, almost as if he's trying to wrap around it like you're doing to him.

"Love –hearin' –that –pretty fuckin –pussy –take me." He grunts against your lips, punctuating between almost every word with a sharp thrust into you. The soft squelching sounds reminding him that he's very much inside of you and making a mess of you.

"I–" You struggle to speak, the sex taking away your ability to speak.

And Satoru doesn't care, reaching a hand up to your chin to make you look at him as he keeps pummeling into you. "You what baby?"

The petname only adds to your euphoria, making it even more difficult to respond to him. But he's still got your chin in his hand, and he's not showing any signs of looking away or stopping his pace.

"I–I mmmmm–I love–love you."

His eyes soften a little, still as ravenous considering he's pummeling your pussy for the first time, but they soften just a smidge nonetheless. And he moves the hand holding your chin to cup your cheek, running a soothing thumb as he returns the affection to you.

"I love you too. Fuck you're clamping down so tight. Shit. I love you so much y/n. Don't want anybody else to have you. Oh, god. You make me so fucking crazy."

The hand previously on your cheek is now snaking its way down, stopping until his thumb is rubbing your clit and eliciting porn worthy moans from you at the added stimulation.

"You're gonna make me cum Satoru." You breathe out, high pitched and almost moaning loud enough to wake up anyone within the vicinity of your building

The warning is an incentive for Satoru to lift one of your legs up, letting him reach deeper and keep the same pace that has your pussy doing that familiar chasing spasm around his cock now instead of his fingers.

"Cum for baby." He gasps out, abs flexing as he struggles with his own pleasure. "I know you fuckin can. Please. Please. Please. Need to feel it on my dick."

By the fourth thrust in the new position your stomach drops and your legs are spasming trying to close and fidget, but Satoru's iron grip on you stops it from happening. He keeps fucking you through it, staring at you as he does, making sure to frame the picture of you coming on his cock for the first time in his head for all of eternity.

There's less resistance from you when you fall limp after and just take it. Your legs feel like jelly and fall even more moldable to Satoru's physical requests, letting him push your leg farther back and dig even deeper into you how he wants. You know it hurts, that you're supposed to at least try to push away his cock from molding into you again and again even after you've reached your peak, but it just feels so damn good to hurt this way. All you can do is squeal after every thrust of his. And when you feel his pace grow sloppier and faster, it makes you reach for his neck and hair, roping him into you.

"I'm gonna cum." Satoru's cheeks are rosy and his eyes are glazed over as he looks at you, desperation for his release written all over them.

"Cum for me 'Toru." You whine, eyes almost rolling back from a particular jolt of his hips and leaning up as much as you can to plant a chaste kiss on his bottom lip. "Want your cum to fill me up. I need it so bad."

"Please, 'Toru. Cum in me, please."

It drives him over the edge. He drops his weight on you to kiss you through the stuttering of his hips and jolts of his cum into you. You feel his warmth pooling inside of you and can hear both of you guys' labored breathing after the whirlwind sex you just had.

Satoru's rough and passionate kisses from seconds ago turned into chaste quick ones that he kept stealing from you until he shifted his weight from his palm to his forearm and cupped the side of your face, affectionally moving a stray hair from your forehead.

His sky blue eyes peered down at you, taking in the sight intensely, as if any moment you could try to push him away from your life again.

"You're so beautiful." He breathes in awe, gaze turned soft.

"So are you." You replicate his tone, cupping his face in return and appreciating the fact that he looks so pretty and handsome in the moonlight seeping through your floor to ceiling windows right now.

He grabs at one of the hands on his face and brings it to his lips, placing a warm kiss atop of it.

"I was here last night." He confesses, "I passed by your apartment to see if you were fine while you were sleeping." He wants to look away in shame. "I didn't think– There was–"

Satoru closes his eyes in frustration for a second at himself before finding his footing again.

"I've been doing everything I can to be there for you without you knowing, without me knowing, I didn't even know I was going to spend the entire day with you that other day until my mouth found a reason to make it about work."

He sighs at himself before he continues, "I care."

"I spent every moment I could waiting for you to wake up. I checked on your apartment to clean it. I looked for your cursed energy anytime I was within a vicinity of the school to see if you were recovering. I care."

You're close to speechless at his confession, resisting the urge to pull him down and litter his entire face in kisses, instead forcing yourself to speak.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you." You return sheepishly, feeling bad for the tantrum you threw at him.

"It's fine." Satoru reassures, planting a kiss on your forehead before looking down at where the two of you are connected. "How are you feeling?"

"Good." You bite your lip sweetly, letting a little bit of your love fueled smile come through while you wrap your legs around him to pull him closer in your embrace. "I could never cum like that by myself."

Satoru leers over you like a predator now, a full smile showing through and distinctly premiering his canines, his ego was stroked, "Good thing I'm here now then."

"Mhm" You nod eagerly, matching the upturn of his lips too.

"Oh. Come here." He groans and laughs a little, a hand on your back when he flips the both of you over and litters your face with kisses. Your giggles fuel him and he pulls you closer to him.

Neither of you are going to let go again.

#I did not know this would only be two parts LOL #also did not know this would turn into a smut but then I got to a point where I was like bro who wouldn't start fucking here #jjk gojo #gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #jujutsu kaisen satoru #satoru gojo x you #gojo fluff #gojo angst #gojo smut

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