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saetoru · 11 months

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✩ ‧₊˚ ✩。what if you’re someone i just want around (i’m falling again)

synopsis. somewhere along the line, you started to hate suguru—that doesn’t mean you stopped loving him too

— word count. 9.5k (i am in misery)

— contents. post canon! au — fix it! (we all need a good fix it fic with suguru don't lie), this fic was started before recent manga chapters so the higher ups are still alive—just go with it ok :,), geto survives + lives free of kenjaku, exes to lovers, kind of redemption i suppose, mentions of blood, injuries, and weight loss (geto), mentions of canon character deaths (nanako, mimiko, nanami), mentions of wanting to raise children with geto and have a family, no gendered terms but reader has a personality and actual thoughts and feelings, references to the hunger games (you have movie night lol), BFF satoru (he is babie), there is a kiss y’all !! (scandalous i know :O)

— notes. i started this fic back in march and i had trouble with it and put it on pause for a while. i’m very glad i finished it in the end. i always like fix it! fics and this is self-indulgent and idk if ppl will read it bc it’s sfw but it’s ok if they don’t, i loved writing it. thank you koi for beta-reading this whole bad boy. mwah <333

the day suguru is declared a free man is actually the day he signs away his freedom for good.

you say nothing, but you know it’s the truth. satoru fights tooth and nail to plead suguru’s case—you think it’s perhaps a little too desperate for it to be in the best interest of suguru and not himself. but satoru has suffered enough, and admittedly—although you deny it—a small part of you does not want to lose suguru twice. you watch as satoru argues that suguru has already died once—surely he can’t die again? and losing control of his body and mind is paying for his crimes enough, is it not? he argues that there are no ideals left for a man like geto suguru to chase after losing himself to every principle he had left.

and then satoru wins.

you expect it, but it doesn’t make it any easier. you watch numbly as suguru is assigned under your watch. you should be happy. you love suguru—you never stopped. but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s not a free man, and now he drags your freedom with his. you’ll never break away from him, never cut through the ropes that tie your hands behind your back and bind you to him—and then you wonder for a moment, unsure if it’s selfish or selfless or some cruel in-between to think this way, if geto suguru was better off dead.

whether that’s for your sake, or his, you’re not sure.

and yes, he’s let off alive, and sure, there’s no real punishment for all he’s done, but you know deep down he’s as chained and shackled as he’s ever been. he’s not allowed to leave the house unless you or satoru are there to chaperone, and it’s never to be anywhere near non-sorcerers. he’s not to live in a place of his own until the higher up’s deem him trustworthy. he has to ask you to buy the things he wants from the grocery store. he can’t even step outside for a smoke unless you’re aware.

for a long time, he doesn’t speak much—can hardly muster a barely audible mornin’ back when you force a smile and greet him cheerily for breakfast. slowly, it turns into half-snarky conversations that get cut short by one of you leaving the room. finally, you’re civil—maybe even friendly. you’re not so sure where you stand with him as of now.

it’s not the same suguru you remember falling in love with, it’s not even close to the version of the man you fell for all those years ago. it’s hard having him here—some days you’re angry and want to throw him out, to scream at him for haunting you again just when you think you’ve moved on from the horrors of your past. some days you want to cry and cling to him, bury your face into his neck and thank him for being here again, for finding his way back to you. and some days you wish you never met him at all, that this would all be easier if it didn’t exist in the first place.

he’s not the same geto suguru you loved, but somehow, because life is as bitter as it is ruthless, you fall in love with this version just as hard no matter how much you deny it.

“i made your favorite,” you smile gently, placing a neat plate of french toast with freshly cut strawberries on the side. you even take great care to get the syrup-to-powdered sugar ratio he likes right, but he doesn’t make a move to reach for the plate. instead, suguru sits at the table stiffly, like he has to be here or there are consequences for that too. it almost makes you sad—even here, he’s not free.

“thanks,” he says quietly, “but i’m not hungry.”

“you said that last night, suguru,” you sigh, “and at lunch. and at breakfast. and at dinner the night before—”

“i’ll eat it later,” he cuts you off, playing with the ends of his hair.

it’s a lot shorter now. it’s you who finds his body battered and bruised after the smoke clears. he’s almost unrecognizable, not the same charming and perfect suguru you’re used to seeing. not the same silkened strands and smooth skin, not the same muscled and toned body, not the same chiseled jaw and soft cheeks. instead, he’s a shell of himself. his hair is matted in knots, his body is almost frail, and you notice the sunken hollows of his cheeks and dark undereyes as you lift him from the rubble a little too easily. but his body is his own—that much you can tell from the way the stitches have disappeared.

it takes shoko a long time to nurse him back to health—it takes even longer for him to open his eyes.

you waited day and night by his side, hand over his as he breathed slowly, unconscious and unsuspecting. it would be so easy, you think one night, it would be so easy to kill him and forget and move on.

you’ve already grieved him once before. you’ve felt and conquered the pain of loving geto suguru and losing him first to himself and then to death. but love is as selfish as it is selfless, and it’s under your mercy that you let him live—yet it’s under your cowardice that you keep him close.

“you have to gain back the weight you lost, suguru,” you sigh, “you’re w—”

“weak?” he finishes for you, eyeing you for a second and then grinning. it’s unsettling, a grin that makes your skin crawl and your heart stop for a moment before he’s reaching for the fork and stabbing into his toast. “is that what you wanted to say? that i’m weak?”

“suguru, you know that’s not how i meant—”

“you’re not wrong,” he hums, chewing on the first bite as he speaks, “i suppose i am pretty weak right now, huh? couldn’t even kill you in your sleep if i tried could i?”

your throat is dry as you shrug, “i suppose not,” you whisper.

“ah,” he grins again, “but that doesn’t stop you from locking your door every night, does it?”

suguru is still healing. his body is weak, and sometimes, he leans against the wall as he walks. his arm is healed—you’re not entirely sure how, but you catch him rolling the shoulder out every now and then like it’s sore and stiff. he’s lost a lot of weight—part of it is from being bedridden for as long as he was, injured and half alive, and part of it is from barely eating—save for the few bites you force into him. you never thought there’d be a day when you could say this—but the odds of you beating suguru in hand-to-hand combat are high, and the reality is an everlasting reminder that he is not who you fell for.

you swallow, letting out a shaky breath as he watches you closely, diligently cutting another bite from the french toast sitting on his plate as he stares you down like he can see past your soul. you don’t know what’s scarier—that suguru can still practically see yours, or that you’re unsure he even has one anymore.

“you tried coming in?” you ask, unsure what else to say. he merely shrugs, takes another bite, and sets his fork down.

“thought i’d check on you,” he pops a strawberry half into his mouth as he speaks.

“is that what it really was?” you raise a brow, “or was i right to lock the door?”

you’re not sure why you lock the door at night. maybe it’s because you don’t trust him, or maybe it’s because you don’t want him near you just yet. you’re not sure. you’re not sure how satoru can go back to his cheery self, how he can step through your door and boom a loud yo, suguru! before settling beside suguru on the couch with his feet on the coffee table as he rambles away. maybe it’s not real—maybe it’s satoru desperately pretending that if he tries hard enough, things can go back to how they were.

but you don’t know how he still has the energy to try, and you don’t know if you have it in you to try anymore yourself.

you and suguru stare each other down like that for a bit, the tension rising with every silent second that passes. you’re sure he doesn’t want to be here as much as you don’t want him around—but you’re also sure he’s glad it’s here with you as much as you’re glad it’s with no one else.

“you tell me,” he smirks after a bit, the hint of amusement making your fists clench. how dare he have the audacity to look at you like that in your own home? like he has the upper hand over you without trying? “what do you think i was there for?”

“i think you should stay in your room, suguru,” you say carefully, “i bought a new bed just for that room.”

“how sweet of you,” he hums. he sips the tea before him—it’s cold by now, but it’s just how he likes it, rose with one sugar. “you must have been excited to have me.”

“hardly,” you mumble bitterly—you can’t help it. you want him to feel hurt, even just a little. you want him to know that just because he’s back, it doesn’t mean you’ve waited all this time for him to be. liar, a part of you says, you’ve always waited for him, haven’t you? but suguru doesn’t seem phased—he doesn’t even blink.

“then tell me, why am i here?” suguru asks, his tone is as casual as ever.

i wish i knew, you want to say. i wish i knew but i don’t.

“because satoru asked you to be,” is all you can say.

he nods, pushing back his plate and standing up, offering you that same grin. “you’re right,” he hums, “that’s exactly why i’m here.”

it hits you why his smile is so unsettling once he leaves—it’s almost genuine, like he’s still loved you all this time. impossible, you tell yourself. suguru stopped loving you a long time ago. and you need to stop trying to figure out why.

————————————————

even despite telling yourself you don’t care what suguru thinks, a small part of you needs to prove to him you’re not scared of him. that you don’t fear for your own safety in your home, and that him being here is not some form of him haunting you. you don’t care. he shouldn’t get the luxury of thinking you care. he can come in and watch you sleep like the creep he is if he wants—you couldn’t bother to give it a second thought.

the first night you take a chance and leave the door unlocked, suguru slips into bed beside you. it wakes you up instantly, and before you can question it, his head tucks into your neck, and his hand grasps your shirt tightly. you notice the panting almost instantly—and then you realize, it must be a nightmare.

you fall into old habits, even after all these years, defaulting to care for him like it’s second nature.

“you’re safe, suguru,” is what you settle for saying after a moment of contemplation. it’s all you can really think to say, so you brush your lips over the top of his head as you murmur, “you’re safe,” over and over again.

as difficult as it is to have suguru around, as painful and cruel and aggravating as it is to be reminded of his distant existence even as he’s two doors down, this part feels natural. it’s almost like you’re back in jujutsu high, waking up to him sneaking into your room as he presses his weight over your body and wakes you with soft kisses along your face.

except this time, he’s not annoyingly demanding cuddles or telling you about his weird dream, he’s not stealing your blanket and demanding you play with his hair. this time, it’s not the same suguru—and this time, it’s not jujutsu high.

it’s your room. the one you got on the other side of town to leave the sorcery world behind, somehow still stuck right in the center of it no matter where you go. and yet, just like all those years ago, your legs tangle, and your arms wrap him up, and you murmur, “you’re safe,” while he catches his breath.

“but they’re not,” he mutters in between labored pants, making you pause.

and then you remember.

faintly, you recall the blonde and black hair from a distance, you remember bitterly wondering what’d it be like watching suguru fathering children of your own as you came to the reality that it would never happen. sometimes, you wonder if you hate nanako and mimiko for existing, for living as the dreams you never got to live through with suguru.

it’s selfish—to hate two children because they are what you do not have.

but then you feel something wet hit your neck, and then you wish they were okay—for his sake. and just for a moment, you’re selfless again.

“they’re not safe,” he mutters, making you sigh.

“they are,” you whisper, hesitating for a moment before letting your fingers slip into his hair. you scratch gently at his scalp, feeling his body melt into yours almost instantly—like it’s a response that’s natural to him. “they’re not suffering. not anymore.”

“is that supposed to make me feel better?” he scoffs. you shrug, letting your cheek press against the top of his head as you sigh.

“it helps me feel better,” you say softly, “‘s just how you learn to cope.”

it’s an understanding you both silently come to. loss on both sides. bloodshed on either ground. defeat no matter which ideal you take. to love is to bear the pain of mortality—it’s a lesson that you never cease to learn until the ends of time itself.

“the jujutsu world is one of suffering,” he grits, sniffling into your neck. you hum, pressing a kiss to his head as your eyes close.

“every world is one of suffering, suguru, you can’t erase them all. the sooner you realize that, the easier you’ll find peace.”

you fall into a slumber after that, faintly aware of the way he shuffles closer to you, faintly aware of the soft kiss pressed to your skin as sleep takes over your body and drifts you out of consciousness.

when you wake up the next morning, suguru is gone, and the door is closed. the blanket is tucked up to your chin, and your neck still tingles from last night.

————————————————

“get up,” you throw a pillow at suguru, waking him up with a start as he sits up. his hair is tousled and messy from sleep—it’s now long enough that he can put it in a bun without strands slipping from the bottom anymore. you chuckle as he glares at you, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he groans.

“the fuck was that for?” he grunts, holding the blanket up to cover his exposed chest.

it’s funny that he does that, in a way. it’s not as though you haven’t seen his chest…and then some too. it’s not like you haven’t torn his shirt off to stanch the flow of blood from his injuries before or feel the bare skin with your palm under the pale moonlight as the lingering scent of sex breezes through the room.

but somehow, even though he doesn’t need to cover his chest around you of all people, you’re glad that he does. truthfully, it keeps you slightly comforted to know that he’s aware you’re still technically strangers—no matter how well-versed you are in each other’s pasts. but you don’t ponder on it too much. instead, you grin, shoving aside the visual of the small glance you caught at his pecs, and you clap your hands to motion him to hurry.

“we are going grocery shopping,” you say casually—as though it’s not something to make him raise a brow in shock.

“me?” he points a finger at himself. you roll your eyes, and he challenges you with another raise of his brow. “aren’t i supposed to stay away from civilians?”

“yes, you,” you nod, pointing back at him, “and satoru has worked overtime to get you granted permission to roam around with me. he says you’re welcome, by the way.”

“tell him to go fuck off.”

“that’s ungrateful,” you say flatly, “his feelings will be hurt.”

“his feelings will find a way to cope,” suguru huffs. “i don’t want to be around…them,” he says bitterly.

you suppose it’s wishful thinking to hope suguru has let go of his past beliefs. perhaps he’s long abandoned the possibility of the vision he once planned on bringing to life, but you can’t say you expected him to revert back to the old suguru who fought alongside you and satoru. you yourself certainly have no intention of returning to the sorcery world after all the events, so you can’t say you’re shocked by the lack of change he seems to show. but then again, you suppose suguru has changed. whether he sees it or not.

he stays here and doesn’t put up a fight to leave even though he can now that he’s healed. he eats lunch when you tell him and even washes the dishes. sometimes, when you come home a bit late, dinner is even ready on the table as he sits and stares at you expectantly. his plate is empty like yours—like he’s been waiting for you even though he doesn’t need to. you suppose you can see he’s changed in the way he doesn’t scoff at the tv channels you surf through, he silently sits on the opposite end of the couch now and watches with you, and perhaps if you’re lucky, you’ll hear a light chuckle or a quiet sigh as the scenes roll on the screen.

you suppose this suguru is a step closer to your suguru every day he spends with you, but you don’t know if any suguru is what you need right now. perhaps that name should’ve been buried away as a distant memory, perhaps it should’ve only been something you unlock once every year on his death anniversary—when satoru clambers through your door drunk and unsteady as he clutches the hand that killed his best friend, only to share pancakes with you in the morning and pretend like you don’t notice the dried tears on his cheeks while he acts like he doesn’t catch the way your hand shakes as you cut into your breakfast.

but suguru is here now. whether it’s as geto, one half of the strongest duo in jujutsu high, whether it’s as suguru, the love of your life and the sole reason you exist, or whether it’s as geto suguru, the curse user and mass murderer who haunts your past, present, and everything in between.

so you simply sigh, grab the pillow again, and hit the top of his head before walking over to the door as you call over your shoulder, “i’m gonna wait for you by the door in fifteen minutes. be ready or face the consequences..”

“no thanks. don’t wanna,” suguru grumbles petulantly, frowning at you as you stick your tongue at him, smirking as if you’ve just played your ace.

“too bad,” you sing before swinging the door shut.

he’s at the door in exactly fifteen minutes, like he waited until the last possible second to join you as a move of spite. but you simply gesture him out the door and lock up, taking your sweet time as he stands there with an annoyed face. you stare at the doorknob once you’re done, taking a deep breath before turning to him with your best smile.

“let’s go,” you hum.

“after you,” he mutters.

—

he grimaces as soon as he sees the people going about their business, clearly unhappy with the idea of being around non-sorcerers, but one sharp glare from you has him sighing and trekking along. the grocery store, admittedly, is not as bad as suguru thinks—in fact, there are lots of things he doesn’t realize he misses until he watches you grab a shopping cart.

suddenly, he sees shadows. the silhouette of your figure climbing into the cart, the angry wave of satoru’s hands as he claims it's his turn to be pushed around, the figure of shoko pinching the bridge of her nose in irritation from the back—and then, he sees the dark shadow of baggy pants and a small bun. it’s him. suguru watches himself almost in slow motion through the remnants of his imagination as he gently shoves satoru out of the way and reaches to poke the tip of your nose before he pushes the cart with you in it.

it’s a happy memory—and it’s gone all too soon.

as soon as he blinks, the shadows have disappeared—instead, it’s you waving a hand in his face, concern written on your features as you call his name.

“suguru? hey, hello? are you with me?”

he exhales, pulled from his trance as he gently grabs your wrist from in front of his face and sets it down as he nods, “yeah, i’m fine. just thinking,” he mumbles.

for a second, you hesitate, like you almost mean to say something. but in the end, you only nod before turning to grab the shopping cart. but he stops you—grabs the handle and turns to you with a small smile on his face, making you raise a brow as he gently moves you away.

“what are you—”

“get in,” he grins, making you stare at him in bewilderment.

“what?”

“just get in,” he sighs, “you love it when you get to sit in the cart.”

“i’m not a teenager anymore—”

“get in, will you?” he groans, “always so damn difficult.”

“hey,” you pout, glaring at him with your hands planted at your hips, “that’s rude.” it’s cute. suguru stares at you with amusement in his eyes and a soft look on his face that you don’t think you’ve really seen in years.

“humor me,” he hums, “just get in, okay?”

so you do.

with a huff and a grumble under your breath, you fight back a smile and climb into the damn cart just like old times. you swallow and try not to let it get to you when he reaches over and pokes the tip of your nose and pushes the cart around, letting you name off the things you need from your list while he grabs them. and when he sneaks snacks into the pile, you roll your eyes and glare at him in the way you always did—the one that isn’t actually annoyed. fond. happy to let it slide because it’s him.

“we need candy,” you murmur, “that’s the last thing on the list.”

“okay. what kind?” he asks, turning the cart into the candy aisle and smiling softly down at you.

“doesn’t matter, satoru eats anything as long as it’s sweet. he’s more likely to die from sugar than fighting a curse, i think.”

“you buy candy for satoru?” he asks, making you shrug as you reach over and grab a few bags of candy off the shelves, setting them down beside you.

“he comes over a lot so i learned to keep stuff stocked up for him. you know how he gets when he’s hungry.”

suguru feels something he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager. jealousy—specifically of satoru.

suguru is not foolish. he knows as soon as he meets gojo satoru that of the two, one of them is stronger and it’s definitely not himself. for the longest time, he’s okay with that, okay being the strongest only when alongside satoru—until he’s not. and even if suguru always had a bit more attention in the romance department than satoru, in his head he’s always known that perhaps satoru can keep you safer, more well off, maybe even happier. with smooth smiles and eyes as welcoming as an oasis, gojo satoru would never leave you in the dark pit of misery as suguru once had.

something about the thought of you and satoru keeping each other company through the lonely years, filling that empty spot suguru left behind, sharing moments over candy and empty wrappers makes suguru wonder for a moment if perhaps he’d be happier if he stayed. maybe he could have worn a heartfelt smile in a world that carves them off the faces of sorcerers with bloody knives as long as you were there to wipe the blood.

but before he can dwell on it, you snatch one more bag—this time of his favorite candy, placing it into the cart and grinning gently up at him.

“i haven’t bought this one in years,” you admit, “i almost forget how it tastes.”

“me too,” he says quietly.

“well,” you hum, “we’ll have to have some when we’re home.”

home. you say it as though it belongs to him as much as it does you, and then like you always have, without even meaning to, you wash away the dark stains of his jealousy with no trace left behind.

“yeah,” he chuckles, “we—”

“daddy, look! candy!” suguru is cut off by the gentle pitter-patter of two tiny feet running into the aisle, pointing at a bag of candy as a man follows close behind.

his breath hitches.

she’s small, the girl—she has two pigtails with soft strands of blonde hair falling out of the loosely tied bands. it reminds suguru of the first time he perfected tying up nanako’s hair, the soft giggles behind her tiny hand as she twirled in the mirror.

there’s another girl in the man’s arms—dark hair on her head as she curls into her father’s chest and tucks her head into his neck when she sees you and suguru in the aisle. she’s shy, he realizes, like mimiko, and suddenly he remembers the tiny fingers that used to hook into his pants when she got too overwhelmed by the people around her, waiting for suguru to scoop her into his arms.

perhaps in another life, suguru would redo everything differently—he’d be happy with you and satoru and shoko, and nanami and haibara would be there too, well and alive. but no matter what, he’d never redo nanako and mimiko differently. he’d never change a thing about them, not even the way nanako whines too much about small things or the way mimiko never speaks up even when something is clearly bothering her. he’d never change the way he saved them and took them in at the tender age of eighteen, too lost to be a father but choosing to raise them anyway. he’d never change the feeling of pure joy and unbridled pride when they climbed into his bed for the first time, shushing each other so as not to wake him—even though he’d awoken as soon as the door to his room opened.

because he realized that night that yeah, maybe he’d made mistakes in his lifetime, lots of them too. maybe he’d made a bad choice choosing the path he did, or maybe he didn’t. he’s never been completely sure—just that he had to try at least to make his vision for a different world come to life. but one mistake he never made was his girls. one thing he was always sure about was the soft clutch at his pants and the tiny hands reaching for his own.

suguru wouldn’t change anything about nanako and mimiko—except maybe the fact that they aren’t here, gone because of him.

“suguru?” you ask softly, reaching for his hand as he grips the cart tightly and pulling his gaze away from the family in the distance.

he blinks, meets your eyes, and knows that you know. with one glance at your face, he knows you understand. the world is cruel, one filled with suffering, he thinks. but then he remembers what you said, that every world is full of suffering, not just his—that it’s a truth he has to come face to face with.

but it’s hard. it’s hard when this man has his two little girls and suguru does not—it’s hard to watch someone have what he wants with no worries of losing it, all because of people and their own weaknesses. he thinks for a moment that he’s been right all along—that non-sorcerers are too weak for this life, that the jujutsu world has always suffered so they don’t have to.

but then the man speaks up, catching both of your attention.

“your mother used to love those,” he says quietly to his daughter, a pained smile on his face. instantly, you and suguru both seem to understand the weight of that single sentence.

every world has its own pain, suguru realizes. its own cruelties and unfairness, its own way of bringing suffering in its wake as it rips away the things closest to you from your begging fingertips, leaving them cold and empty and numb from the lost weight underneath them.

“let’s go, suguru,” you whisper, “we have everything we came for.”

“yeah,” he whispers back, clearing his throat so his voice doesn’t crack, “let’s go.”

suguru leaves the grocery store with you after you pay, and for a brief moment, he’s unsure. unsure whether he’s grateful to satoru for fighting for him to be able to come and grateful to you for dragging him along, or if he wishes he died along with the rubble, gone before you could find him and turn him into this.

“before you even think about hiding away in your room,” you say, grabbing the bags from the cart as you put it back where it belongs, “you have to help with putting away the groceries.”

“sure,” he says smoothly. he grabs all the heavy bags from your hand, and you make a move to protest that you don’t need him to take the heavier ones, that you’re fine and can handle them like you’ve always handled them.

but he walks off, and finally, you decide to simply follow.

————————————————

satoru likes to come and visit—you’ve started a routine movie night every week (unless he’s away, of course.) it’s fun, but it also means he makes your veins pop because he’s a headache like that—always makes himself right at home and eats your snacks like this is his place and not yours. he helps himself to your already limited candy and puts his sock-clad feet up on the coffee table no matter how many times you tell him not to.

you try sitting with legs as long as these, he always whines, earning a harsh glare from you as you smack at his shins until he ultimately caves and begrudgingly sets his feet down.

but then they always make their way back up to the coffee table, and you’re too busy enjoying his company to care—although you’ll never admit it.

satoru is endearing like that, swallowing the dark clouds from your shoulders whole and eating up your burdens with that side of responsibility that you don’t think you could ever stomach. satoru is just like that, you realize, taking the brunt of the weight and laughing off every concern until you can’t help but not take them seriously yourself.

it’s hard to remember that sometimes you didn’t just lose suguru, the love of your life, that night. everyone lost something. shoko lost someone to smoke with, yaga lost a student to scold, nanami lost a headache to avoid, and satoru?

well…satoru lost what you think might’ve been the only filled void of his miserably empty life.

it’s hard to remember that satoru lost his best friend—the only best friend he’s ever had (although you like to think of yourself as a close contender)—because he’s so good at letting you forget. he brings you ice cream (that he eats half of because it’s only fair he gets a share), and he sits and hogs your couch (that he argues you don’t really need as much space as him on because your legs aren’t as long), and he watches those stupid sitcoms that are dry with boring jokes (that you used to make suguru watch back in the day).

it’s hard to remember that satoru also lost as much as you because he’s so damn good at making you forget about your own loss, you don’t care to think about anyone else’s for a while. just a short while. just until he’s yawning that obnoxiously loud yawn and stretching those awkwardly long limbs of his before he claims he really should go and that being the world’s best teacher requires as many hours of beauty sleep as you can squeeze in.

and then he’s off. and it’s empty again. and just like that, you’re reminded of why he was there in the first place—to fill in that sick and painful void that geto suguru left in you.

it’s gaping, like he tore a chunk of you right out with sharp teeth, like you’re just a piece of meat for him to get his fill of. if suguru really loved you, would you be so easy to let go of? why couldn’t he smile? because you could—god, you could smile just from the sight of him alone, you realize a long time ago. him with his cigarette tucked between his lips, those death sticks as you called them, hung loosely from his mouth as he gives you a lopsided grin.

geto suguru is enough of a reason to smile. the world could crumble at your feet and leave you with nothing but rubble and dirt, and still, suguru is the core of the earth you’re searching for.

so why couldn’t you be the same? what is it you were missing? what about you was just not enough for him like the way he was enough for you?

it dawns on you one night, through bitter tears and shaky sobs, and that sick, twisted, pleading feeling in your gut that begs the wind to carry him back to you—geto suguru has never loved you the way you loved him.

and for that, you can never forgive him, you don’t think.

“you tryin’ to go bug-eyed?” he asks, settling down on the couch next to you, making you snap out of your trance. you shake your head a little, stare back at him for a moment before putting on that look on your face where you roll your eyes and pretend everything is fine.

“no,” you huff, “i’m just thinking.”

“about…?”

“satoru has rarely ever missed a movie night.”

“maybe he’s sick of you,” he shrugs, grinning slyly at you as you narrow your eyes with a glare, “there’s someone here to keep you company now so he’s probably taken his opportunity to run.”

“you’re hardly company,” you scoff, “freeloader.”

“hey,” he defends, shrugging as if it’s not his fault. you suppose it’s not. “i didn’t ask to be rescued. you can’t be high and mighty and petty. ‘s not how that works.”

“says who? you don’t make the rules. i can be graciously kind and a jerk all at once.”

“complexity,” he nods, “i like it.”

“i’m not as complicated as you might think,” you grumble, crossing your arms as you stare at the time. yeah, satoru isn’t making it—which, he told you as much, but he’s strolled in at the last second too many times to count before. you figure today would be the same. “as long as you don’t skip movie nights with me, i’m pretty simple to keep appeased.”

“alright,” he props his feet up on the coffee table—seriously, what is it with asshole men putting their feet on your table? satoru is a terrible influence. “let’s have a movie night.”

“what?” you blink.

“movie night,” he repeats, “you said you don’t like skipping movie night—”

“well, i meant i don’t like satoru skipping movie—”

“well, it was me before satoru, wasn’t it?” he says with a smile. his eyes are closed, crinkled at the corners, but his voice is carefully neutral—like he takes extra care not to let you see any emotion behind it.

but that only means there is an emotion, isn’t there? is he jealous? does he hate the fact that you and satoru have a routine of your own without him? that you don’t need him to continue living your life?

good. he should be. he walked out on you all those years ago. he killed a village. killed his parents. you never even got to meet them—he never even got to take you home and introduce you to them before he ripped away every fantasy you ever had with him.

and now he’s back—he has the audacity to live, to laugh in your face with his existence that yes, geto suguru is here. and he was supposed to be executed, but your stubborn friend didn’t let that happen. he was supposed to be your husband by now with kids and a happy little home, and you were supposed to be his parent’s new addition to their family that they loved so much. but none of that is even close to happening, and it’s suguru’s fault, and the least he can do is show you some regret and maybe feel just the slightest bit bad that you now have to watch shitty movies with his best friend instead of him to feel normal.

ex-best friend? half best friend? you don’t even know—do they still consider each other their best friends? does anyone consider suguru anything? you don’t know what you consider him. but you think the least he can do is act just the slightest bit pathetic after making you feel so pathetic for so long just to even the score.

he should be a stranger. he feels like an old friend. but either is dangerous.

“alright,” you sigh, “let's bring back movie night. don’t fall asleep.”

“i get plenty of sleep nowadays,” he hums, “i have more than enough free time for that now.”

“how lucky of you,” you snort.

—

picking a movie with suguru is difficult. he actually has standards—satoru watches anything so long as he gets snacks, and he can make anything fun to watch with the way he comments from the side like a critic. suguru, on the other hand, actually cares about the quality of a movie, the metrics that make it good.

so you pick the hunger games just to piss him off.

“seriously?” he raises a brow, “this is your pick?”

“yes,” you grin, “i like these movies.”

“of all movies—”

“my house, my rules,” you grin cheekily, “you can pick the movies as soon as you start paying the bills.”

“wow,” he deadpans, “stooping to use my financial status against me? i thought you were better than this.”

“oh suguru,” you sigh dramatically, grabbing a bag of chips from the table, “you don’t know me at all.”

all things considered, you think it’s a rather enjoyable experience. it’s not as fun without satoru’s stupid comments that you pretend to hate, but suguru provides his own commentary that earns a giggle out of you here and there too—although his are not meant to be funny. but that’s the appeal of it, you think.

“she should have picked gale,” he mumbles. you raise a brow.

“peeta was always there for her, did you miss the rain scene?”

“so was gale,” he says smoothly, grabbing a chip from your bag and making you scowl.

“gale killed her sister,” you point out, “and a lot of other people too. he was ruthless. she needed peeta.”

“gale did what he had to do,” suguru mumbles.

suddenly, it doesn’t really feel like you’re discussing the movie anymore. it feels more than that. it feels sickening—the air is heavy, and your throat is dry and god, you just wanted a movie night and not this heaviness as you talk about stuff from the past without actually talking about it.

you blink before turning to your chips, playing around with the bag as you shrug.

“in the end he didn’t get katniss, did he?”

suguru studies you for a moment, stares a little too deep into you that you start to feel the urge to bolt to your room and go to bed.

“guess not,” he says quietly, “guess that’s the one regret he has, huh?”

you think for a second, as suguru stares at your eyes with something you can’t quite read, that you might cry. you might cry and throw that half-empty can of soda in his face for speaking in codes and making you question what he means and remember your past. you might cry because suguru could’ve always gotten you—in fact, he had you.

it’s not fair. nothing is, but you can’t help but dwell on it.

“i’m going to bed. it’s late,” you mumble after a few moments, standing. he only nods, staring at the tv as the credits roll. when you make it to your room and the door shuts behind you, you debate clicking the lock in place.

in the end, you don’t lock the door. suguru climbs into bed with you once more later that night, shaking slightly from his nightmare but calmer than usual. he’s still gone by the time morning comes, and you still never mention it.

it hits you one night that maybe he still has you—maybe you never let him stop having you, no matter what you say.

————————————————

suguru is good at cleaning while you’re away. you have to go out and do adult things like breadwinning and grocery shopping and bill paying. he dusts and cleans and even takes out the trash when you’re home to monitor him as he steps two feet out of your front door. sometimes, because you like to get on his nerves, you accidentally mess up a corner of the house just as he cleans it, laughing as he shoots you an unimpressed look.

“stop getting crumbs on the floor,” he mumbles, “i just vacuumed.”

“you make a good malewife,” you giggle, “vacuuming and everything. how cute.”

“don’t call me that,” he grumbles, sitting down on the couch.

“but you missed a spot,” you point to the crumbs you’ve sprinkled from your fingers as you snack away, making him glare. “failwife.”

“i’m going to divorce you and take everything,” he snaps, making you snort as you put your hands up in surrender.

“you don’t have to, you know,” you murmur, “clean, i mean. i can handle it.”

“i think i should carry my weight around here,” he shrugs, “since you are basically sugar babying me around for now.”

“dangerous curse user to the world, but sugar baby to me,” you tease, pulling a chuckle out of him as he rolls his eyes.

sometimes it’s nice to have his company. suguru is good with banter like that, he’s not annoying like satoru where you run in circles. suguru makes you laugh from your belly, makes the hiccups catch in your throat as you double over. he’s always been like that, always known how to make laughter pour from your lips and trickle down your chin. it’s comforting to know he still knows how. it leaves a small amount of bitterness that he’s still able to make you feel like this.

“by the way, next time you go shopping, take me with you,” he says casually, “i need to buy stuff for my hair. it’s growing.”

“you’ll finally see the sun just for your hair?” you gasp, “who knew that’s all it’d take?”

despite the playfulness in your words, there’s still shock. suguru is willingly stepping foot outside your house. he’s finally choosing to return to life after living like a recluse no matter how many times you and satoru have tried to beg him to get up and go somewhere. the most you can get out of him is a walk around the neighborhood before he goes back to wandering your home and hiding away in his room.

suguru is returning to life, his life, and you can’t help but wonder where that leaves room for you.

“my hair is my charm,” he reasons, “wouldn’t you agree?”

there’s a smirk on his lips when he asks—it’s like he’s seventeen and teasing you again, giving you that unfairly flirty smile that used to make you stutter as a kid. back when you were hopelessly in love. back when it was you, suguru, and the world in your corner. back when you had dreams of your future, practically giggling as you planned it away in a notebook.

suguru was always perfect like that, the kind of guy you could only dream about. he’s always been handsome—he’s always been the center of attention everywhere you went. you used to huff about it, about all the attention he managed to get from walking into a room alone. but then he’d smile, give you that tender look of his as he’d chuckle, and you’d be hopeless again.

he shouldn’t have that effect on you anymore after over a decade. but he does. it’s cruel, the way the universe works. it’s like there’s a magnet that pushes you together no matter how far you try to go, still pulled by gravity straight into his awaiting eyes and devilish smile.

“i cut your hair off once, i can do it again,” you huff. he laughs, it’s good-natured and kind.

“i was a bit heartbroken when i realized it was so short, i have to admit,” he says, “i didn’t look like me.”

“you looked good,” you say quietly, “i think you’d make anything work, to be honest.”

“yeah?” he grins, “any requests? i might consider it if it’s you.”

“oh shut up,” you roll your eyes, “how about shaving your head bald? let's see how much charm you have without all that hair.”

“i could charm you without the hair still, couldn’t i?” he winks.

it’s unfair how he acts like normal. like a few months in your home undoes everything he’s ever committed, all the atrocities he’s caused. the way he flirts with you feels like you’re his again. the way he’s aged and changed feels like you’re meeting someone new. you don’t understand how suguru is so natural with that—with seamlessly falling back into a rhythm with you like nothing has changed at all.

deep down, you know that suguru is just moving on with his life. he’s making the most of what he can. he can’t die, satoru would never let him have a peaceful death after all this. he can’t go back to the way things used to be, whether that’s his sorcery days or his curse user days, and he certainly can’t start over. so he’s making do with what he has—which is very little in reality.

it’s you, your home, and the biweekly visits from satoru and occasionally shoko. so he weaves you seamlessly into his life and treats you with a sense of normalcy you can’t hope to treat him with. maybe it’s because suguru was actually able to move on after he left.

it’s the part you hated him most for. for building a family with new people. for having two girls that he raised as daughters. for finding people to follow him and trust. suguru, after he walked away from everything he ever knew, actually did something with his life—even if it could hardly be considered good.

you? you fell deeper and deeper into a pit of denial until clawing your way back out was too impossible, until you had to leave behind everything you’ve ever known to get away from the remnants of his existence.

it’s easy for him to weave you back into his life because he chose to cut you loose. it feels damn near impossible to let him weave back into yours after he tore himself from the edges and frayed away.

“don’t do that,” you sigh, making him frown.

“do what?”

“you know what, suguru,” you pinch your nose in frustration, “stop acting like things are normal.”

“things are definitely not normal,” he snorts bitterly, “i think needing your approval to take the trash out is not equal to normal.”

“then why are you acting like…” you trail off, unsure.

“like what?” he raises a brow.

“like we never changed,” you slam your hands down on the couch in exasperation.

he stares at you for a minute, blinks once, then twice, and then furrows his brows.

“well, of course we changed,” he mumbles in confusion, “i know that—”

you shouldn’t have said anything. you quickly realize that. suguru is not trying to act like things are normal—he’s trying to be civil, and you’re just a fool. a fool who looks too deeply into everything and assumes what you want to out of things and god, you’ve embarrassed yourself in front of your one and only ex-boyfriend in over a decade who was once dead and somehow came back to the land of the living.

of course, he knows things are not the same. he doesn’t want what you think he does. it’s been years and suguru has moved on—he had already moved on all those years ago, and you’re the only one here that is still focused on the past. and now he knows it too.

you stand before he can finish, nodding as you stare down instead of meeting his eyes, pretending to adjust your clothes.

“right, of course you do,” you nod, “i don’t know why i said that. just ignore me, i’ll be going to my room now. i have…things to do, so i’ll be—”

“hang on,” he frowns, hand grabbing your wrist, “i don’t mean it like that,” he says gently.

fuck geto suguru for being so confusing and fuck him for being nice about it too.

“you can let go, suguru,” you pull at your wrist, “forget what i said, i wasn’t thinking—”

“i still feel the same,” he cuts you off, making your eyes widen, “if that’s what you mean. i never stopped.”

never stopped—that’s almost worse than moving on. how could he have felt the same all those years and still never come back?

“that does not help even a little,” you swallow the lump in your throat. “that makes this so much worse, do you see that?”

“i know,” he sighs, “i’m sor—”

“don’t say you’re sorry,” you grit your teeth, “we both know you’re not.”

“maybe not,” he admits, “i had to try. and that meant leaving—i’m sorry that’s not what you wanted.”

“it’s not!” you turn around, pulling your arm out of his grasp—suguru, for what it’s worth, takes the shove to his chest like a champ. “of course i didn’t want you to leave and kill a bunch of people and have an execution stamped on your forehead and live your life without me.”

“i know—”

“and now you’re back. back! in my house, eating my food and sleeping in my bed for half the night and i just have to act like this is normal. how is any of this normal?”

“it’s not,” he agrees. he’s calm. so calm, it almost makes you mad. why is he so calm? “nothing about anything in our lives is normal. it never was.”

“you ruined my life,” you blink back tears. he smiles sadly, taking a step closer.

“i guess i can take the blame for that,” he nods, hands finding their way to your hips. against your better judgment, you lean half your weight against his body. this is bad, very bad—but it’s also the best thing ever.

being close to suguru feels like the sun’s heat tearing through your skin—it’s warm. it’s pleasant. it leaves you parched and drained with a dry throat. but still, you need it to survive.

“why did you come back?” you ask tiredly. his hand finds the small of your back, rubbing slow circles.

“i don’t know,” he hums, “i didn’t really get a say. maybe i was always meant to, who knows?”

you look at him at that—tilt your head to get a good look at his features. his eyes are more tired, and his cheeks are a bit more sunken in compared to the youthful flesh you remember him with. his hair isn’t as healthy, and his forehead has the slightest traces of pale marks from the scars. but he’s still suguru—and you have always loved suguru, even if he gives you every reason to hate him.

“you make my life unreasonably difficult,” you mutter.

he hums, smiling. “can i?” he asks breathlessly, pleadingly. you stare at his eyes, he stares at your lips. you know what he wants—but fuck, you can’t let him have it so easy.

“can you what?” you ask, raising a brow slowly.

“are you really gonna make me say it?” he grunts, lips almost curled into a pout. it’s cute, the way he looks longingly at your lips—it’s so cute and beautiful and dangerous all at once, just like suguru.

“yes,” you say, “yes i am. i deserve to hear it suguru, after everything you put me through. you…you left me. i wasn’t enough for you. i mourned you. i grieved a body i never even saw. do you know what that does to a person? to lose them not once but two times? the least you could do is tell me what you want,” your voice wavers just a little.

it shakes for the lost time. for the moments you’ll never have. for the memories you lost. for the past that’s tainted. time is cruel like that. but that’s the beauty of it all—the fragility. it’s like sand falling through the cracks of your fingers, every grain slipping from your reach but still soft and soothing against your skin as it falls. everything fades over time, everything starts to hurt one way or another. but it stops. it heals. it starts over. the sand fills the cup of your palms again, warm and delicate and just as beautiful as before it crumbled.

“can i kiss you?” he asks desperately, “please?”

“kissing me is not a temporary thing,” you shake your head, “not anymore. it’s for good. only for good.”

“i want to kiss you for good,” he nods, hands digging into your hips impatiently. you’re close. you’re too far. he can feel you, smell you, hear your unsteady breaths. but it’s not enough. he needs to devour you, taste you on his tongue, and melt you with his touch. “i won’t stop this time,” he promises.

“you better not,” you sniffle, tears blurring your vision. you hated suguru for leaving you. you hated him for coming back to you like this. you never stopped loving him, never will stop loving him—and maybe that’s what love is. when the darkness is worth trekking through for the afterglow of the light. “if you fucking leave me again, you’re dead to me. i don’t care how many times you come back to life. you’re dead to me.”

“okay,” he agrees through a shaky chuckle, “i suppose i deserve that. let me kiss you, yeah?”

“yeah,” you breathe.

he kisses you—years too late, he kisses you. it feels like you’re teenagers again. it feels different and foreign. you know this feeling like the back of your hand. you don’t understand what this sensation is anymore. it’s new. it’s old. it’s perfect. it hurts. suguru is here. he promised not to leave—you don’t know if you believe him, but you’re going to trust that finally, for once, you are enough.

you’re enough to make him happy. to give him a sense of purpose. to keep him swimming when his limbs start to sink.

finally, for once, you’re enough.

“i love you,” he whispers against your mouth, breathing the words into you like he’s offering you the air from his lungs, “i never stopped. i promise.”

“you don’t deserve to hear it from me,” you murmur back, panting against his lips, “not yet.”

“fair enough,” he chuckles, “you sure know how to leave a guy waiting.”

“i learned from the best,” you shoot back.

he grins—suguru smiles, heartfelt and real. life is full of misery, it’s painful, and nothing fucking makes sense. everything is cruel. everything dies no matter how carefully you water the roots. there’s always something, someone, ready to tear it from the earth. but if you keep planting the seeds, suguru will keep watering.

maybe something kind can bloom from that, something big enough for him to hide under the shade when the scorching heat of tragedy becomes too much.

in this world or in the jujutsu world; in this life or in the next. suguru is yours.

“why am i here?” he asks gently, his face digging into your neck. you hold him, cradling the back of his head as you hum.

“because i need you here. will you stay?”

“yes,” he murmurs, “i think i’ll stay.”

hi. i have been working on this since march. its still not how i envisioned it to be originally but that's okay. i had fun writing it and it means a lot to me even tho its kind of. well....cliche LMAO like everything i write. but. i enjoy the cliches okay ?? i do. kxljchskdf hope u guys didn't hate it </3

also the fic banner is …. not the greatest. just ignore it ok

#teepods.writings #fics.#geto x reader #geto x you #geto fluff #geto angst #jjk x reader #jjk x you #jjk fluff #jjk angst #geto suguru x reader #geto suguru x you #geto suguru angst #geto suguru fluff #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen angst #jujutsu kaisen fluff

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httpiastri · 2 months

Text

PERFECTLY FINE – CHAPTER ONE (BAHRAIN)

genre: fluff, angst, etc.

warnings: hmmm nothing i think

word count: 5.3k

author's note: aaaa first chapter !! i don't rlly like it but still !!!! a very much opener/get-to-know-the-characters/intro chapter, so maybe boring at times idk. still so excited, thanks to everyone who's contributed. love u all <333

author's note pt2: when i write about the different drivers and their living situations, i know it's not all accurate to how they actually live irl. ik i wrote modena instead of maranello here for ollie although idk exactly when he moved, but there are mentions of milton keynes for the rbj drivers bcs it made it easier for me. anyways, just go with whatever i say about how they live lol. also !!!! i changed yn's team from mp to campos hehe. okay now let's start :)

series masterlist

the winter break coming to an end is always a bittersweet feeling.

having a lot of free time to catch up with friends and family is always greatly appreciated, but at the same time, it doesn't take many days before you miss racing after the last race of the season. especially when the season is as short as the f3 season is, and especially when you don't partake in any of the winter-season races.

this year, though, coming back to the paddock doesn't feel as complicated as it most often does. your heart is light and your smile is big as you enter through the gates after the long taxi ride from your hotel, and you already can't wait to get started.

as you make your way toward the campos truck, you greet a few people you meet here and there, but it's the sight of a head full of dark, curly hair that makes you stop in your tracks. "jak!"

the american turns around when he hears your voice, grin taking over his face already. you strut all the way over to him, practically throwing yourself into his arms. "hey there," he chuckles, giving you a big hug.

"oh, i've missed you so much!" you exclaim, giving him one last squeeze before pulling away. "it feels like i haven't seen you in ages."

"right? the break was way too long."

juan pokes his head through the door to the truck when he hears your voices, making some kind of comment about all of these loud teenagers always causing a commotion, before coming down to greet you with a hug as well. "how was your break?" he asks.

"wonderful, really. i spent most of it at home, catching up with family and friends. then me and ollie-" your eyes widen at your own words. you clear your throat, looking away from both of the boys for a second. "well, i went to italy."

your relationship with ollie isn't exactly a secret around the paddock, but it's a bit of an unspoken rule not to mention it too much. both because you all want to separate your personal lives from your racing ones – you don't wish to crash into a close friend like jak any more than you'd like to crash into ollie, after all – and because a certain other driver might be around to hear.

someone who's quite the conflict of interest in this specific topic.

your break truly was wonderful. it felt like the only things on your schedule were skiing in the italian mountains, gym-and sim-training, and just relaxing at home in england to recharge for the next season. you had spent a lot of it with ollie, getting to know both him and his family better. it hadn't taken you long before you were best friends with his little sister, sharing little inside jokes and spending time cheering her on at the stable. and you'd even grown surprisingly close with ollie's younger brother, and you loved seeing the three siblings interact.

they all made you feel truly at home with them, like an extended family. you couldn't have asked for anything more.

ollie was well-known in your family even before the break, especially considering how he was one of the first drivers your father picked out for the academy. and during the break, he only further impressed them; he always helped out with household tasks, he did his best to create connections to every relative of yours that he met, and he even bought the sweetest little christmas presents for your parents and grandparents. however, just the mention of italy in your current conversation is enough to make the dams drivers understand. no other detail is necessary.

when you're done talking about your break, it's juan's turn, and then jak's. during the catchup, more and more people drop by to say hello, and it doesn't take long before there's a full-on gathering outside the dams truck. dennis, another one of your former academy members, and pepe, your new teammate and newly found platonic soulmate, both listen in as jak tells you all about how jetlagged he is after coming back from the states just two days ago. "have you gotten properly settled in with aston?" you ask with a smile.

"totally. it's been great, honestly. even the apartment they found for me is top-notch."

"oh? better than milton keynes?"

jak raises his eyebrows at you, and then he bursts out laughing. "duh." throughout the many years of living next-door from each other, there wasn't a single day when the two of you didn't complain about something the apartment complex. the smell, the noise, the trails of blood in the staircase; not exactly things you'll miss when you move out one day.

"i still can't really believe we're not neighbors anymore," you complain, jutting out your bottom lip as you speak. "i've been so close to knocking on your old door so many times, but now some other freak lives there-"

"hey!" pepe shoves your shoulder, and the whole group laughs. "you're much worse than i am!"

"i'm so glad i finally moved out of there," dennis chimes in. "if i had been neighbors with y/n and pepe at the same time… i don't think i would've gotten any sleep at all, man."

"i didn't get any sleep for four years when i lived there..." jak groans.

"is this your first time in a series together?" juan jumps in, looking between you and jak, but seems surprised when you both nod. "best friends but you've never raced each other? maybe this season is what forces you apart."

"yeah, what will you do if i crash into you when you're in the lead?" jak teases, pressing an elbow into your side.

"then i think a few compromising pictures of you might make their way to the aston martin headquarters..."

when it's like this, being on the same grid with all of these people is so easy. you're all friends, not opponents. all in the same boat with the same excitement and expectations for the season. unfortunately, you know it won't stay this uncomplicated for long. when you're actually out on track in a few weeks, forcing each other into the walls and swearing at each other over the team radios, there won't be any more happy faces.

but for now, you enjoy smiling with the people who are just as much your friends as they are your enemies. that is, until you spot someone else joining your little group.

paul.

suddenly, the smile feels much more forced; the air is thicker and harder to breathe in. and when he makes his way over to you, a lump forms in your throat.

a lump you understand probably won't disappear all season.

the second you're back in your hotel room, you reach for the little dark blue book you've hidden in your bedside drawer. the pen in your hand is one you've had for years, one you always bring with you to every race weekend. the ink has been refilled possibly hundreds of times, but the plastic body has remained the same ever since you bought it.

the journal itself is torn; it's been used and loved for many years, too. it's like an extra best friend, a second home. when you're writing in it, it's one of the few times you feel like you can actually be your true, authentic self – it's one of the few times when you're not afraid that someone will judge your emotions or thoughts.

today, you know what you want to write about instantly.

i saw paul for the first time since abu dhabi.

i haven't been able to stop thinking about him. no matter how hard, i couldn't get him out of my mind. i've been wondering what he looks like now, how his voice has changed, if his smile is still as bright. and suddenly, he was there and i saw him.

the answer? he's just as he always was. and i can't tell if that makes me feel alright or awful.

you're pulled out of your head by the sound of a knock on your door, and you instantly scramble to hide your journal in the drawer again. the second you pull the door open and ollie's gaze meets yours, it's like all of your previous thoughts disappear. it's just you and him again; no one else even exists.

especially not paul.

"are you ready to go?" ollie asks, hands finding your sides as he leans in to press a quick kiss to your cheek. "i found the address of some good pasta place, it's just a few blocks from here."

you nod, your hands landing on top of his and giving them a quick squeeze before pulling away. "i just need to put on some earrings," you start, backing into the room. "will you help me choose?"

"of course."

"carlos set a stunning lap today. did you see it?"

the question makes you roll your eyes, letting out a sigh as you bring out three plates from the cupboard above the stove. your dad has always been quick to comment on anything good regarding ferrari; to anyone living in the max verstappen era, even a sliver of a good result is enough to spark some hope, so you aren't exactly surprised. "yes, dad. of course i saw it."

"i reckon this will be our year," your dad continues as you walk past him cooking by the stove, carrying the plates to the dinner table. "carlos will make them regret getting lewis instead of him."

you can't help the chuckle that leaves your mouth. your mom gives you a knowing glare over her newspaper – don't start anything. you choose to ignore it. "you really think this is how it's going to look next week during the actual race?" you ask. "you don't think max is sandbagging the slightest?"

"i'm just telling you," your dad starts, giving his stew a good stir. the snarky tone in his voice is unmistakable. "don't come home crying to me when you realize red bull isn't going to cut it anymore. if you regret your choices, go somewhere else."

even like this, when you're back home for a few days to catch up with your family, neither of you can stay away from this bickering. your dad is always pestering you about sticking with the red bull junior team, and you never can back down from a fight. you're way too stubborn.

"are you saying that i wouldn't have a place in ferrari if i wanted to?" you set the plates down with a thud, the sound making your mother flinch in her seat by the table. "you would say no to your only daughter, huh?"

"i'm just saying that you'd need to prove yourself to get into the academy."

despite your harsh tones, most people around you think you're just joking around when you act like this; some family-mockery can never hurt, right? however, there's always a hint of seriousness behind it. it's been like this between the two of you forever, and especially ever since your dad became the head of the ferrari driver academy – the rivalry between you two is stronger than ever.

you've always been sure of your choice; you've always felt like the red bull family is perfect for you. but recently, you've started to wonder if staying with the team actually was the right thing for you. what really is your future in the team? it's not like you haven't got great drivers ahead of you, drivers who will be called in for a possible f1 seat before you.

and it's not like red bull has a stellar record of keeping all of their drivers. they only have four seats in formula one, after all.

your dad wants you in ferrari, that much is clear. you may have joined the red bull junior team because of his past with the team; he did win their first ever championship, after all. accepting was the only option when you got the offer to join. however... your dad really wants you in ferrari. there's just something about the brand, the colors and the history that obviously is intriguing for everyone. even lewis hamilton couldn't stay away, for god's sake.

you can't admit it, though. not here, not right now.

so instead, you choose to fight fire with fire. "bullshit," you mumble under your breath before speaking clearly again. "second in the championship last year wasn't proof enough?"

"stop this," your mom says, folding up her newspaper and placing it on the table. you roll your eyes yet again but look back at her when she speaks again. "new subject: how is our dear ollie doing?"

you visibly relax at the question, your heart softening in your chest. "he's good. he's back in modena now, so..."

if it had been your dad asking about ollie, you know it would've been because he's interested in how the academy is doing. but since your mom is the one asking, you know it's real concern and curiosity. "how did he find the new car? did he enjoy testing?"

"not really," you say, slipping into the seat opposite your mum as your dad places the pot of stew in front of you on the table. "though, you know, the prema cars are never that good in bahrain. but he assumes they'll bounce back."

there's something in your dad's tone when he speaks again that makes you stop in the middle of your reach for the ladle. "yeah, so i've heard..." it's almost sarcastic, maybe a bit... irritated?

you turn towards him, a frown on your face. "what?"

"william," your mom says with a shake of her head. she knows something. "let's not go there." but just as you're about to call them out on how strange they're acting, she speaks again: "what do your upcoming weeks look like? for how long will you be back in england?"

anyone with eyes – or even without, to be fair – can tell that they're hiding something. and while your curiosity is killing you, you're not in the mood for a full-fledged fight at this time. you take the high road, which isn't your most familiar way of handling things like this, and try your best to push away any wishes to question your parents. you answer, engage in polite conversations and chat about your upcoming season. then, you thank them for dinner and leave the house after giving them their respective kisses on their cheeks.

but all evening, your mind is on something else. and when you get back home to your apartment, your fingers itch to send ollie a text asking if he knows anything. but instead, you go to bed with a knot in your stomach. maybe it's a topic for another day.

being back in the car for testing was great, but it was nothing compared to being back on the track for an actual race weekend. the first round of the championship was something you'd looked forward to for what felt like years, and now it was finally time. you've never been more excited, or nervous, for any race weekend.

you weren't off to the best of starts, though. qualifying has always been one of your stronger suits, so coming 13th was not a result you had anticipated. thankfully, it meant you had time to practice overtaking and had a good chance of improving your place. having to start right behind pepe and paul in both races was an interesting coincidence, but you were obviously not going to let any of it affect your racing.

though p8 is not the best place to finish, you are actually quite pleased with having gained several positions in the sprint race and taking your first point of the year. the car was, as you knew it would be, very different from the f3 car, although you were surprisingly confident and managed it well despite the circumstances.

paul, too, handled it all very well – p12 to p5 is a great record. and when he sees the timing board and realizes that you also did well considering the circumstances, he's overjoyed. he's practically bouncing down the paddock when he finally gets out of his car, accepting the fans' cheers and the handshakes from his engineers with a big grin. and when he sees you further down the paddock, his mind is filled with memories of the two of you celebrating your good placements in all other categories.

just because you aren't a couple now doesn't mean you can't honor these results together, right?

but just a second later, he realizes that you're surrounded by the familiar red-clad staff members instead of your own campos staff, and you're standing right by that red prema car he knows so well. and, sure enough, soon the person he'd forgotten about steps up to you.

paul watches as you wrap your arms around ollie's shoulders, and his heart sinks in his chest. your boyfriend hides his face in your shoulder and your hand comes up to stroke the skin on the back of his neck. paul can tell how your lips are moving, and the pout you're showing off tells him enough about what's going on even though he can't actually hear what you're saying. you aren't prioritizing being happy about your own race – it's more important to comfort ollie.

to paul, there's something so unsettling about the sight. he's seen the two of you together many times before – besides, he gets tagged in pretty much every picture a fan takes of you with your boyfriend – but it isn't your proximity that he has issues with.

the thing that upsets him is the fact that there's a frown stretched across your features; one that doesn't leave even when you part from ollie, or when you're cheered on by your mechanics, or when you leave for your post-race interviews. a frown that any other time would be replaced with a big, proud smile because of your accomplishments.

the music blasting into your ears from your airpods cuts out the rest of the world, the usually so busy and loud paddock all gone the second you pressed the play button on your phone. it's been your favorite way of getting in the race mood for years; you're not superstitious in many other ways, but your playlist has stayed the same since your first season in f4. walking around the garage, doing your warmups, or even just sitting around and waiting to get in the car like you are right now, you listen to the exact same songs on repeat. it's one of the few things that makes you truly focus on the race ahead of you.

so when you feel two hands on your shoulders from behind, you jump in your seat. turning your head, you're relieved to see the big smile of pepe shining down at you. "did i scare you?" he asks loudly enough to cut through the music, and you barely have time to nod and take one airpod out before he speaks again. "good, that was my intention."

you slide your airpods into their case as pepe plops into the seat next to you, eyes zoning in on the f3 feature race on the screen in front of you. "i'm so upset," you huff, shaking your head. "did you see the start?"

"i heard," he answers just as dino's red car appears on the screen, and he crosses his arms over his chest. "but he's made up ten places already, right?"

"yeah..." you lean your head onto his shoulder with a sigh. "we should focus on the positives. like chris!"

"and like our upcoming race." you can practically hear his grin when he speaks. "i have a good feeling about it."

when you found out that jak was leaving the red bull junior academy last fall, you were heartbroken. he's been one of your closest friends ever since you first met; the two of you have always been joined by the hip, despite how you've never raced in the same series before, and you spent most of your free time either training together or just hanging out. how would you ever get over him leaving you all alone in the academy?

thankfully, pepe joined in the late summer. at first, you were just acquaintances, but something about his personality was too good not to fall for. it didn't take long for him to become one of your closest friends, too. another boy your age, another boy with crazy energy and amazing potential – he filled the void in your heart quite well.

as well as jak's old apartment.

you'd raced each other in f3 last season, though barely ever crossed paths or talked. but living next to each other, doing all of your sim work together, and now even being on the same team meant that your relationship went from zero to one hundred in just days.

this season is your first with campos, while he's been with the team for several years already, and so far he's been very good at helping you get used to everything off track. they took a big chance choosing two rookies for their lineup, and the two of you promised each other to do your best to make them satisfied with their choice. so far, you've gotten one third and eight place in your first-ever f2 race – and you're just getting started.

"i do, too," you hum. "let's go out there and show them today."

paul is beaming when you see him stroll back to the paddock after his media duties. his cap is perched on top of his head – the right cap, finally – and his fingers are still tightly wrapped around the neck of his champagne bottle. when he notices you leaning against the doorframe leading into the f2 hospitality, his smile grows even bigger.

you meet him halfway, arms wrapping around his shoulders easily, just like they have so many times before. one of his arms drapes around your waist and he holds you close, a hum vibrating from his chest. finally, he thinks to himself; this definitely makes up for all of the things he felt yesterday.

"congrats, paul," you tell him. "that was amazing. you were amazing."

"thank you," he says before pausing. then, he lets out a chuckle. "to be honest, i wasn't sure if you would care."

you frown at him when you pull slightly away from him, just enough to look into his eyes. is that what he really thought? that you wouldn't care about his driving? "oh, please. you still mean a lot to me, okay?" your hand moves down to his upper arm, giving it a soft squeeze. "i still consider you to be one of my closest friends."

friends. the word stings like a knife in his heart. it's been months since you broke up, and yet, it still feels like a raw wound.

paul forces a smile. he understands that despite how painful it is, there's something good in it. there's still a place for him in your heart, even if he's forced to share it with someone else.

he pulls you in again, and the hug is even tighter now than before. it's a comforting feeling; you're both at peace, with a good weekend behind you, in the arms of someone so close to you. after everything you've gone through together, but especially everything he has gone through these last few months with the mercedes academy and prema, you're finally through to the other side. "it all worked out in the end, huh?" you ask after a few moments of silence.

"i guess it did." you part from each other to leave that oh-so-familiar gap between you yet again. "will you be celebrating with us tonight? i think pepe had something planned. you know how he is."

you snort. "yeah, i do know. maybe i will." you shift uncomfortably, crossing your arms over your chest as your eyes dart to the ground. "but, um... i'll have to check with..."

you don't even say his name – you don't have to. ollie's entire weekend has been so far from everyone's expectations, and if you know him correctly, he will not be in the mood for celebrations tonight.

paul nods slowly, pressing his lips into a thin line. "right."

the silence that follows is so awkward you can't help but chew on your bottom lip, a tiny sigh escaping through your mouth. he must be hating this, you think – today is supposed to be only a good day for him, he shouldn't have his ex's new relationship pushed up in his face.

"well, i have a debrief to get to," you make up, flashing him a quick smile. "congrats again, paul."

"thank you." he gives you another nod, before turning away and making his way towards the paddock. "pepe will text you!"

and just like that, he's off, and your mind wanders to the thought of actually going out to celebrate. ollie will definitely not join you, though you're not sure why you don't want to go without him. is it because you'd rather stay and comfort him?

or is it because you're scared of what you'll do, or feel, when you're alone with paul for the first time since you broke up?

"p5 is still good, my dear." your mom's voice booms out from the speakers of your phone as you drop it onto the desk, and you can't help but let out a sigh, taking a step back.

"of course, but... i feel like i could've done more." it was both true and not; with paul's five-second penalty, you definitely could've gained at least one more position if only you had stayed within that gap. but then again, a fifth position and ten more points was a great result for a rookie.

"but you'll still be going out to celebrate with your friends, right?"

you ended up telling pepe you weren't in the mood to party, despite his persistent complaints, and decided to instead use the evening for relaxation and recovery. your entire body, especially your neck, has really suffered this weekend – you were already sore after the shakedown, but this is on another level – so a bubble bath and a good night's sleep in your hotel room seemed like a much better choice.

"no, i'm just going to rest a little..." you hum, flopping down on the chair by the desk. "maybe grab something to eat with ollie."

weirdly enough, you haven't been able to get in contact with him all evening. you were told that he hurried back to his hotel room right after the race, not in the mood to talk to anyone on the team at all, so you chose to give him some time alone to cool down before you'll eventually go over there. still, you thought he would've answered at least one of your many texts by now.

thinking about your boyfriend, you suddenly remember something. "hey, mum?" she lets out an affirmative sound. "you remember when i was home last time, and dad said something about ollie and the car? and he acted all weird?" you pause for a moment, but when she doesn't say anything, you keep going. "what was that all about?"

"well darling, we..." you take the sudden silence as a sign that she might not be sure how honest she wants to be right now, and it makes you frown instinctively. she sighs. "we're just a little worried about him, that's all."

your confusion only grows. "what's that supposed to mean?"

"we're worried he's feeling too pressured to impress us." you hear her take a deep breath. "of course, your father is his boss, so it is natural in that way. but we wish he would just see us as any regular parents. he's always talking about racing like there's nothing else in the world, and..."

"that's not fair." you shake your head despite the fact that she can't see it. "that isn't him. he isn't all racing and no fun."

"oh love, i'm sure he is loads of fun, but-"

"i really have to go," you cut her off, standing from your seat. "talk to you later."

you hang up before she can even answer, the guilt in your head from treating your mother like that already pushed away by the anger growing inside of you.

you always assumed your parents loved ollie. sure, you knew they adored having paul over when you were still a couple, too, but ollie is every mother-in-law's dream son. he's from your country, he's a pure sweetheart, he's even in the fda for god's sake. how could they not love him?

and so what if he tries to impress them? who wouldn't do the same?

when ollie opens his door for you, he looks like he's just woken up from a bad night's sleep. bed head, bags under his eyes, and just a general aura of tiredness. if you didn't know better, you'd think he was an insomniac. but thinking back to how badly his race went, the sight of him just makes your stomach churn.

your arms wrap around his neck in an instant, pulling him into your warm embrace. you feel the tension in his upper back release right away, and ollie's hands find your sides, giving you a light squeeze. you refrain the urge to pull away when he nuzzles his nose into your neck, standing strong against your usual ticklishness, and your heart softens slightly when he lets out a deep sigh into your skin.

"you okay?" you finally manage to get out, and his answer comes in the form of a nod against your shoulder. "is there anything i can do for you?"

he pulls away but stays so close that you feel his breath against your face; so close that you're both slightly cross-eyed when your gazes meet. "stay with me?"

your answer is expressed through the fleeting kiss you press to his lips, your way of saying of course. ollie doesn't waste any time pulling you into his hotel room, and you flop down onto the bed with him. he sits up and watches you lie down against the covers, your head nestling into the pillow. "tell me about your race," he says as he reaches down to take your hand, his fingers slipping in between yours. "eight positions gained, huh?"

of course he doesn't want to talk about his own race. but the fact that he's willing to think about racing at all, just to let you have a chance to talk about how well you did and boast a little; it all makes your heart flutter.

and you're sure, you're so sure that he is so much more than just a racing driver. he's not what your parents think he is. he's an incredible racer, sure, but he's also the sweetest man you've ever met. the perfect boyfriend.

even when he's feeling like this, he takes his time to still pay attention to you and ask questions. and then he listens, he really listens, because he wants to understand every inch of your mind just as well as he geeks out about every detail of apexes and tyre degradation. and then he says just the right things, the things to sweep you off your feet yet again.

he's so perfect that he's incredibly easy to love.

so why is there a knot in your stomach at the thought of the race – and more specifically, the person on the last step of the podium?

why does your mind keep running back to how he's celebrating, and what it would be like if you'd been there with him?

yourusername just posted!

yourusername double pookie podiums & good points in the bag! thanks camposracing for a great car ❤️ we go again in a week!

show all 81 comments

user top job this weekend!!

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

user i will stop hating on red bull if either of these get into f1

→ user red bull juniors >>> anyone else

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

user what happened to ollie though 😭

→ user it's just the first round, calm your horses

→ user why always bring up ollie on her posts... is that all she is, ollie's gf? 😐

→ user forreeaaalll

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

redbulljuniorteam y/n and pepe making us proud 🥺

→ user pls admin you're making me cry

→ yourusername me too 😭

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lateraniansweets · 1 year

Note

Your forehead thing with vash blew me away cause im so in love with this man

So here are some thoughts for u :

Imagine vash and reader having a crush on each other but not saying a word. They've been traveling together for some time now,even before the gang was formed so reader knows Vash's secrets.

Think about when vash is down after some incident,and reader puts his forehead against HIS cause it always calms them down!!!

Imagine Vash's shock and then happiness about how his crush loves that part of him that's plant as well 😭😭😭

YOU!! THIS!! AA!!!!

JUST SDNFJASJFD DSAF i couldn't get to this ask now cause of school but aaaaa this is so <333333 DRIVING ME INSANE I SWEAR wrote this instead of my policy paper asefihfhi hifiihf

anyways i kinda just wnet wild with this cause ahdbfhasdbf VASH <333

You've known Vash for some time now—two or three years give or take, and travel side by side with him for almost as long as you've known him.

He's tried to get you to leave his side multiple times. Vash feared you getting hurt or worse because of him but you won't let him. Vash is stuck with you whether he likes it or not.

With the time you've spent travelling with him you've come to realise how little you actually knew about Vash. Sure you knew his favorite type of pizza, favorite color, all that stuff—all surface level stuff. Vash tended to avoid questions about his scars, how he knew so much about lost technology and how he could basically shrug off wounds that would have the average human bedridden for days.

But over time you've come to know his secrets, the mysteries of Vash the Stampede unravelling themselves to you.

Vash wasn't human but an independent Plant and he had a brother, a twin.

"I have a brother, " there's pain and guilt in his eyes, " his name's Nai—" He stops, cutting himself off, "Millions Knives, " He corrects, fingers gripping the threadbare blanket.

The inn you two were staying at was more than a little run-down but it would do. It was better than staying out in the cold desert barrens.

Finally, he turns to you, lips pressed into a thin line, "He looks a lot like me..." he pauses, lips quirking downwards, "He's the one who's been stealing Plants."

Vash left it at that. Guilt and hesitance in his eyes as he forced a smile on his face as he waves you goodnight.

The conversation regarding his brother ends right then and there. Whatever questions you have for him dies in your throat at the glimpse of his eyes.

The topic isn't brought up again until you met the man himself.

It was brief, brutal and followed by pure devastation.

Millions Knives—Nai, as Vash called him looked so much like Vash. This man looked so much like Vash—your Vash, sweet, caring Vash who could never bring himself to harm anyone, glared at you with pure unadulterated hatred.

Horror rushes through you and you find yourself stuck in your place like a deer in headlights. A chain of knives rushes out for you, with full intent to kill but you make no move to dodge.

You would've died if it weren't for Vash managing to shove you out of the way and carry you to safety like a sack of potatoes.

You didn't even realise he'd done so until Vash puts you down, telling you to stay where you are as he plastered on a reassuring smile. It looked more like he was reassuring himself than reassuring you.

The near-death experience with Vash's body-suit-wearing evil twin doesn't fully settle in until the thick blast doors shut close behind you.

The room Vash had left you in is dark, cool and cramped. A room for cleaning supplies judging by the shadowy outline of a broom.

BANG!

You jolt, curling up against the metal door and covering your ears.

There are shouts, both from Vash and Knives.

BANG!

Another gunshot.

Then another and another and another and another.

You count eight in total.

Vash emptied out an entire cylinder.

The most you've ever heard him fire.

Shouts, screams and cries from both parties but mostly Vash.

Metal twisting and bullets ricocheting.

It's gut-wrenching to hear it all.

All you could do is bite your lip and hold back tears. Opening the door and going out there would be a death sentence for you. Knives moved with inhuman speed and agility. His weapons, those knives weren't weapons made from lost tech, they moved too fluidly for that.

There's a crash outside.

"You'd..."

BANG!!

"...your....ther.... for-"

The metal dome of the Plant facility creaks and twists as if something is cutting the ceiling open.

"...ese... ILTHY HUMANS!"

Another set of gunshots.

"NAI!"

The metal beams of the facility creak, twist and snap. The entire room shakes as the roof of the facility is lifted by those limb-like chains of knives.

You curl into yourself further, dust and debris falling down on you.

With terror in your veins, you will yourself to look up.

Your eyes widen and your heart drops.

Vash cries out for his brother to stop but it's too late.

The facility's roof is tossed down to where the town is and the bulbed Plant is gently lifted out and stolen away.

You shut your eyes close as the giant hunk of metal lands on the town. It shakes the ground with a mighty crash.

Then...

Silence.

Your heartbeat rings in your ears as you stand with shaky legs, blood running down from a long cut on your forearm. You force open the closet door, and you're met with an empty and destroyed Plant chamber.

There are bullet casings scattered on the ground and metal beams jutting out everywhere.

You find Vash at the centre of it all, standing shellshocked where the Plant and its bulb were once kept.

"Vash...?" You call out, a hand reaching out for him.

He doesn't answer.

You call out his name again, concern and fear lacing your voice.

"Mayfly?" Vash turns around and your heart breaks.

A lone tear slides down his cheek, his eyes hidden in the orange tint of his sunglasses.

You close the gap between you and him, pulling him into your arms.

Cupping his face, you gently lift the sunglasses to unveil his blue eyes holding back tears. He breathes out your name in a sob and your heart shatters further. "Oh, Vash..."

Another tear escapes from his eyes. Gently and lovingly you wipe it with your thumb.

"I...I..."

You know what he'll say all too well.

You meet his eyes, "You deserve to cry, Vash."

"No no, I don't..." his voice quivers, "I-This is my fau-"

"It's not your fault Vash."

"You don't understand, ____. Because of me Nai-" he chokes out a strangled sob, croaking out words of self-blame. Vash's breathing quickens and his body shakes in your hold.

You call out his name again and again but he doesn't respond, spiralling down the rabbit hole of self-blame and self-immolation.

"Vash," you whisper, pulling him down so his forehead is pressing against yours.

"Vash," you can only pray that this would work.

This was something he did to you when you were sick or upset. You figured it was a Plant thing seeing as he does something similar when he heals his sisters.

"____"

Vash utters your name, and you let out a sigh of relief.

"Vash."

He leans forward, pressing your foreheads closer. You could see the faint blue glow of the Plant markings on his eyes.

"I love you," The three words come out as easily as breathing. "I love you so much," you press a kiss, soft and chaste on his lips.

"It wasn't your fault, Vash," you repeat and the damn inside him breaks. He sobs silently, tears flowing, his gun dropping to his side with a metallic clack. "None of this was."

You hold him close for who knows how long, holding him as he sobbed and let his tears flow.

When Vash wipes away his snot and tears, it's well into the night. He separates himself from you, the light on his markings fading away. He opens his mouth, an apology ready to be released but you cut him off before he could.

Once again you press your forehead against his, standing on your tippy toes, "I love you, Vash. All of you."

I love you, all that you are and all the burdens you carry, I love you.

THIS MAN MAKES ME

I LOVE HIM SM AAAA

okay this concept with Nai tho

#trigun stampede x reader #trigun x reader #^asks #vash x reader #vash the stampede x reader #tristamp x reader #i want him to hold me gently and I want to hold him gently

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lixiesfreckless · 3 months

Text

p1harmony and their kinky-haired girlfriends

a bit niche, but the reader(y/n) is typically portrayed with eurocentric hair(which isn't bad!), so when this idea popped into my head yesterday I just HAD to indulge it as a kinky haired girl myself <3

Keeho

metaphorically falls to his knees whenever you come home from the salon

"oooooh girlllllll-" [immediately starts screaming with you]

will take a million photos of you because he's lowkey obsessed with everything that you do with your hair

don't know what style to do next? don't worry, he has a photo album in his phone that's kept track of every hairdo you've ever had, in case you want to try something new or return to a previous look

he WILL lay your edges better than you. and he absolutely slays the swirls that he likes to put in them

matching silk bonnets!!!

if you own any wigs, HIDE THEM if you're watching reality tv. Keeho will otherwise run to grab one while you watch the kardashians just to up the sass level

in all seriousness you guys love acting a fool in your wigs. bob-offs are a monthy endeavor

Theo

wash day connoisseur

he's taking off work. he doesn't care

knows it's a whole process and wants to help in any way he can because he's not very good at braiding or styling kinky hair

makes it into a spa day so you don't stress

has the leave in conditioner-water-gel combo DOWN and takes his time sectioning your hair so the curls define just right

loves talking to you like you're in a salon and he's just the hairdresser trying to get to know you(it's his sneaky way of checking in on you)

will complain/be sad when you say you're getting a new style in because he gets so attached to the current one but he immediately forgets the old one the minute you come home with something new

Jiung

LOVES braiding your hair. you'll actually quit going to braiders yourself in favor of staying home and binging your favorite show while jiung finishes your ends for you

in fact, if you teach him to cornrow, he will be OBSESSED with braiding cool shapes on your head in case you ever want a badass protective style

he finds it very therapeutic and loves being close to you for prolonged periods of time, bonus points if you fall asleep. he will simply die if you do that

has a playlist just for times like these </333

late night trips to the beauty supply store! because he didn't get enough rubber bands and wants to finish your hair TODAY

Intak

LITERALLY falls to his knees whenever you come home from the salon

"okay okay, this is my favorite look on you" he has said this every time

enamored and cannot stop staring at you

pictures of you allllll over his social media, he's basically a fanpage

wants you to braid his hair so bad, and when you do you both know he looks so goofy but it's adorable

"do you need anything from the beauty supply store? I'm on my way home from work right now"

oiling your scalp is his job(he won't let you do it because he knows how relaxing it is when you don't do it yourself)

he is so focused. and it is SO cute.

Soul

matching hair!!!

no I'm so serious he keeps his hair longish so you guys can always match. he will dye it, he'll let you braid it, put cute rings and charms in it etc. you guys will show up to EVERY event matching if he can help it

speaking of charms and rings, he will buy the coolest ones he can find just for you to try because he thinks you look ethereal with them and can't get enough of it

begs you to let him accessorize your hair(like you're an art piece! because you are, to him at least)

crazy head massages whenever you don't have your hair done

will always say that he doesn't have a favorite style, but whenever you get braids with beads at the end he acts a little stupid

Jongseob

this boy LOVES a good fro

doesn't matter if it's big or small he just can't wrap his head around the fact that your hair literally DEFIES GRAVITY

thinks your hair is the coolest thing in the world(he's jealous)

wants you to explain to him in detail anything that he doesn't understand. he hates having a language barrier whenever you two talk about hair and he wants it GONE

so when you notice him using lingo that you taught him, you get all flustered and he thinks it's SO cute

whenever you need to take down a protective style, he is THERE and ready to set a new record

he's literally a speedrunner and thinks it's a fun little game because it is. there's a folder in your notes app with his best times

#piwon #piwon fluff #piwon x reader #p1h #p1harmony ff #p1harmony fanfic #p1harmony #p1harmony headcanons #keeho #theo #jiung #intak #soul #jongseob #p1h fluff

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darkbluekies · 1 year

Note

Hi, could I please request one for Hedwig where her darling tries to end the relationship not because they don't love her but because they believe they aren't good enough and could find someone better.

since darling always hears people wonder how someone like them got someone like Hedwig.

[I really, really enjoyed this one, i think its one of my favorites!! I love writing unstable yanderes <333]

I'd kill for you!

Female!yandere OC x reader

Summary: people have been telling you that you don't deserve Hedwig and when you're trying to break up with her, all Hell breaks loose. She can't let you break up with her.

Warnings: clingy yandere, possessive behaviour, obsession, love bites, angst, suggestion towards killing

Word count: 1.8

To Hedwig’s protests, you did actually sleep at home yesterday. She wants you to be as close to her as possible at all times of the day. This morning, she tells her chauffeur to drive quicker to school so Hedwig can meet up with you before class.

You’re sitting in a chair in the back of your classroom. You’ve placed your bag on the seat next to you to make sure no one else will sit there. To be fair, you need a little break from Hedwig and her suffocating thoughts. If you let her know what you’re thinking, she will babble until you change your mind and think like she does. You have to get your head straight and make a list in your head before approaching her. If you’re not strict and firm on your ground, she’ll break you down.

People have been saying that you don’t deserve someone like Hedwig. She’s out of your league in every way possible. Their jealousy has carved a hole in your brain and caused your self esteem to spill out. People haven’t been secretive with their opinions about you. You’ve heard it all. You would be lying if you said that it didn’t make your heart clench. Hedwig is your everything. You have no other friends than her — which is all thanks to Hedwig — and she treats you so well. She gives you everything you want, brings you with her for the smallest tasks and stands up for you when others track down on you.

She deserves someone better than you.

Hedwig enters the classroom with a smile, happy to sit beside you. Except for when she’s about to move your bag, you stop her hand.

“I’d like to sit alone today”, you say.

“Why?” Hedwig asks. “Is something wrong?”

“I just need to be alone for a little while.”

“Does this have anything to do with the fact that you didn’t want to stay over at my house last night?”

“Yeah …”

Hedwig places her handbag on the table and takes your hands in hers. You try to pull them out of her grip, but she won’t let you.

“Please tell me what’s wrong, Y/N”, she pleads. “I will do anything. If I have done anything to make you sad, I will fix it immediately.”

“You haven’t done anything”, you sigh and avoid her doe eyes. “I just want to be alone for today.”

“Oh … okay …”, Hedwig says quietly and takes her designer bag. “I’ll … I’ll leave you be then … I love you, Y/N.”

You mumble something back but neither you or Hedwig is sure of what it is. She sits down by one of her friends and gives you a worried glance over her shoulder. You notice it, but you ignore it. Instead, you lean your head down on your arm to hide your face. Hedwig’s friend seems surprised that she’s sitting beside her for once, but Hedwig doesn’t give her any attention, all of her focus is on you. None of you listen to what the teacher says, you being too scared of how to break your thoughts down easily to Hedwig and her head being filled with worry for you. You’ve never asked her to sit somewhere else. Even in your darkest moments, you’ve let her sit beside you.

As soon as the break starts, she walks back to your table.

“Do you need anything?” she asks.

You shake your head and stand up, grabbing your things.

“Y/N, please talk to me”, she begs with a worried voice. “Tell me what’s wrong! I’ll help you.”

“I don’t know how to say it to you, so I’m waiting until I can come up with a good structure”, you sigh. “Give me some time.”

She gulps. “Okay … okay, I’ll give you the time you need, but can I please be with you?”

She takes your hand, but you pull yours away. Her hazel eyes fill with tears and you have to look away before you give in to her. Again.

“Y/N, please”, she whispers with a trembling voice. “You’re scaring me. Please tell me what’s wrong. Please let me be with you. I-I’m not going to make any sounds, I’m not going to bother you at all!” Her voice dies out. “I just … I just need to hold you.”

You want to give in and tell her to come with you, but you don’t. It’ll hurt her now, but she’ll be much happier when she realizes how much you weigh her down, just like everyone tells you.

You leave the classroom and hear how Hedwig starts to sob behind you. You can’t see how she wipes her tears and gives you a glare through the window. She’s not going to give up on you so easily.

The next day, it’s the same. You’ve placed your bag on the chair beside you and denies Hedwig access to it. You can tell that she’s more of a ticking time bomb today, about to explode at any minute. She’s touch deprived and needs your presence to keep her at bay. Everyone else’s attention doesn’t matter, it doesn’t satisfy her the way yours do.

“Get up”, she says sternly. “We need to talk.”

“Class is about to start”, you remind her.

“Get up, Y/N. Now.”

Surprised by the sudden strength in her voice, you find yourself doing as she says. She grabs your hand tightly and drags you out of the classroom, away from everyone’s eyes. You get pulled through corridors until she reaches the empty bathroom. She pushes you up against the wall to prevent you from running away.

“What is going on?” she asks frustratedly. “Why are you avoiding me?!”

You have never seen her eyes so light before. It’s as if they’re burning with anger.

“Why can’t you tell me?” she asks. “I don’t care if you don’t have a good structure to not hurt me, this is hurting me! This … this game of ‘show don’t tell’! Just tell me! I don’t care if it’s bad. Stop torturing me!”

“Fine … I think we should break up-”

“B-Break up?”

The furious light in her eyes is gone as quick as it appeared. Her doe eyes widen as she shakes her head, denying what you just said.

“Hedwig-”, you start, but her trembling voice cuts you off.

“Don’t you love me anymore?” she asks. “Have I done something-?”

“No, you haven’t. It’s just … I’ve heard that other people look down on us. They say that you deserve someone better than me and I’ve come to agree.” You shrug sadly. “You’re a great girl, Hedwig … and I don’t think you realize yet that I’m just ruining your reputation. I care about you so I can’t let you waste your last year of high school like this.”

“‘Waste’?” she repeats in shock with tears in her eyes. “Y-You think I’m wasting my time with you? Please don’t say that! I really love you, Y/N … a lot. Much, much more than you could ever imagine.” She grabs your face in her shaking hands. “I-I’d bring down the moon for you! I’d give you every diamond in the world! I’d … I’d kill for you!”

You shiver. Her voice has never sounded so raw before. She’s turning into a sobbing mess and you’re afraid that she’ll break. If she breaks, so will you.

“Please don’t leave me”, she cries and caresses your face with her thumbs. “I-I don’t care what other people say! I’ve never been happier than when I met you!”

“I care about you. I don’t want you to be badly treated as well.”

“I don’t fucking care, Y/N!” she shouts and leans her forehead onto your shoulder, suddenly losing all her energy. Her voice dies out again. “I want you. I don’t want anyone else. Please … please don’t let this end. You love me too, don’t you?”

You nod, voice not holding up.

“We don’t need other people’s approval”, Hedwig says and nuzzles her wet face into your warm neck. “We only need each other, right?”

“Are you sure you want to take the risk?” you ask.

Hedwig nods and kisses your neck once. “Of course.”

You sigh and nod for yourself. Maybe she’s right. You wish you had her confidence and determination. She doesn’t care what other people think. If only you could do that too.

Hedwig pulls back and wipes her runny nose with the sleeve of her white cardigan.

“So we’re not breaking up?” she asks quietly. “Right?”

You shake your head and she breaks out into a relieved smile. She dries her tears and hugs you, leaning her head on your shoulder. You hug back, holding her gently in her arms. Her happiness quickly turns into anger when she realizes that these thoughts of yours actually weren’t yours. People have been tainting her perfect darling to the point where you want to leave her. She can’t let you and her be surrounded by people who try to break you up.

“Y/N, could you please tell me who made you feel like this?” she asks carefully.

“I don’t know their names”, you admit.

“You can point them out in the yearbook, can’t you?”

“I think so.”

“Good.” She pulls back and smiles at you. “Everything will be okay, Y/N. I promise.”

You give her a small nod. Hedwig looks down at your neck, thinking.

“Can I mark you?” she asks. “Please? I want to show people that you’re not going anywhere.”

You nod again. Headwig dives into your neck to create her own watermark on you. No one can steal you and claim you as theirs. The small, almost inaudible sounds you let out convince her that she can never let you go. She loves them so much, she needs to hear them.

“So beautiful”, she smiles as she looks at her creation. “Now, let’s go back to class. I’ll sit beside you now.”

“Your makeup”, you remind her.

“Oh right, thank you.”

She fixes her makeup and in a matter of five minutes, no one can tell that she’s been a crying mess. She smiles at you and holds out her hand. You take it and together, you walk back to class. The teacher scolds you for being late, but Hedwig tells him that you were helping her with something. The students can clearly see the mark on your neck and probably think you ‘helping’ her meant something completely different.

When you come home to Hedwig’s gigantic villah after school, she sits you down on her bed and gives you the yearbook and a red pen. You have to circle everyone you’ve heard talk badly about your and Hedwig relationship. She leans against you while you let the pen mark out the students. Hedwig watches carefully, eyes darkening. Those people will pay dearly for trying to take you away from her. She will hire someone to take care of it for her and then you’ll never have to be afraid again. You’ll be able to live happily ever after with Hedwig!

#yandere #yandere drabbles #yandere imagines #yandere x you #yandere x reader #yandere fics #yandere stories #yandere oc #possessive yandere #clingy yandere #yandere angst #yandere female #unstable yandere

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cheesecakezyum · 1 year

Note

I just found your blog and I am LOVING the Wukong content. I was hoping to request some smut headcanons (maybe alphabet hcs- if you feel up to it). I completely understand ty! <333

NSFW Alphabet ; Sun Wukong

Please do not click the ‘keep reading’ option if you are under the age of 18. Adults only, please! :)

Welcome to my page! I’m ecstatic that you’re enjoying what I’m providing <3 Doing alphabet headcanons are actually some of my favorites!

Mainly because it helps me with future pieces of writing (smut ofc) — like a cheat sheet almost!

─────────────────

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

He loves to hold you in general, so after a session of utter passion? It’s tripled. He’ll sometimes want to keep his cock buried in you overnight if you’re up for it and continue from where you two left off the next morning.

He’s not too big on cleaning himself personally after sex (like the absolute gremlin he is), but he’ll begrudgingly set a warm bath for you if that’s what you want! You’ve explained UTI’s and yeast infections to him, which is why he no longer complains about keeping his semen inside you as long as he can.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

He loves his tail. I mean, it’s like a third hand! Another tool to balance himself, grab things, and especially bring you to him when he’s needy.

He personally loves your ears. They’re so cute and small compared to his! Sometimes you’ll catch him fiddling with your earlobes. He also enjoys the noises you make when he nibbles on them.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

It turns him on extremely seeing you covered in his cum— legs spread, ever so slightly trembling as you’re leaking with his semen, your face twisted into an expression of pure bliss. It’s enough to get him riled up all over again.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Has a Owner/Property kink that even to this day hasn’t publicly told you about. You found out yourself after a certain rigorous handjob when he basically begged you to let him cum, ending his plead with master.

Praise kink too, but he’s a bit more open with that.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

At first he may seem clumsy, but he’s simply learning what makes your body tick. After maybe 3-4 sessions expect him to have your anatomy and personal pleasures memorized to the tea. Every whimper, moan— it’s all a sign to let him know that he should keep the ministrations going.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

The mating press.

His main interest is the deeper penetration aspect of the position. He also loves the look of your helpless face every time he presses into you.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Pretty goofy! But Wukong knows when to switch the mood to make it better for you both. One minute he’ll be joking to you about a show playing in the background and the next will be eating you out like you’re the last meal he’ll ever have.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

This man is 100% a hobo. Although being filled with body hair already (cause, y’know. Monkey?) he has a pretty clean happy trail which matches the ash orange color of his mane!

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

He won’t have sex with you unless there’s at least some sort of feelings in the mix. Whether they’re unspoken or not it’s something that’s always there. He’s not there just to fuck, he wants to make love.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Doesn’t masturbate often. He’d have to really be in the mood, but even still— he has trouble concentrating when it’s only imagination. If he ever does though, you’d be the only thing on his mind. Maybe a picture, or a voicemail would do.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Breeding. It’s instinctual for him to have reproductive urges; The idea of stuffing you full of his cum to be the future carrier of his children is quite appealing to the simian.

Marking. He likes both you and everyone else to know who you belong to. Whether it be carrying your scent with him— or the many bites littered around your body. He thinks it’s like taking a park of him with you.

Cockwarming. While it can be seen as torture for both parties, he adores the way you slowly break down above him. A simple shift of the hips enough to make such deliciously crude noises escape from those pretty lips. It makes sex that much more gratifying if there’s at least a bit of a wait.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

He’s a bit more comfortable if you guys have some type of privacy, considering the entirety of Flower Fruit Mountain is littered with primates. So a bedroom or bathroom would do.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Being the big spoon. While it may start as sweet and lighthearted before you know it he’ll be slowly pressing his clothed erection into you, huffing softly and asking if you’re up for a round or two.

Your own moans. He’ll work hard as hell if it means by the end of the night you’re screaming his name, begging for more— to go even harder.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Degradation/Humiliation.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Prefers to definitely give. He finds his own pleasure in yours!

Let’s just say he knows how to use his tongue quite well. This can go back to E; He knows what you need to reach your climax and he’s more than happy to give it to you.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Slow and rough. Wukong wants to feel your walls clenching every single time he’s just about to pull out, only to thrust back in without a care in the world.

As his peak eventually reaches though— he will often try to chase it with a faster, sloppier pace. ONLY if he knows you’re both close.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

While he does like to take his time with you, quickies are a pretty common occurrence when you’re with Wukong. In a certain spot with few wandering eyes? He’ll lift you up against the wall and pound into you.

In a certain position while your cleaning? On the counter you go. Just sucks that you have to pick up even more of a mess after.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Not too fancied on the idea of trying something new unless he has somewhat of an idea of what’s gonna go down. He doesn’t want to be left in the dark, and communication is especially key for this monkey.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

His stamina is as big as his ego. This man could go fucking you a whole night if it meant filling you up to the brim.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

He doesn’t have any toys, and isn’t too fond of buying any simply because he doesn’t know where? Like???

If you have your own, though, he’d be more than happy to hear how to use them and spice up your tango just a bit more.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Humiliation really isn’t his game, but he loves to mention how destroyed you look under him— asking you to tell him just what you want him to do while he’s hovered over you.

It just gives him a bit of pride to know that he can make you into such a mess. You lustful deviant you!

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

I don’t think he’d be necessarily loud. The trembling quiver of his voice as he breathes out your name— the occasional curse.

He’d have to be pretty wound up in order to raise that voice of his. It’s not necessarily impossible! The stroke of his tail is a pretty quick way to get an unprepared whore moan out of him.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

It’s like he’s constantly in the honeymoon phase when he’s with you. Pet names like hun, sweetie, peaches, schnookums even. His corniness is sickeningly addictive.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Sleeper build. He doesn’t look necessarily ripped at first glance with all those robes but a good feel of those thighs or biceps shows that even thousands of years later, he’s in great shape.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

High, very high. Maybe not at first; jumping straight into sex after building a relationship just isn’t him. One taste of that pie, however, and suddenly he can’t seem to get enough of you.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterward)

He doesn’t fall asleep immediately after sex. It’s certainly tempting, but he’d much more prefer taking care of you, taking in the moment and making sure you’re okay.

─────────────────

Maneskin has been my go-to for music while I’m writing, especially spicier prompts/ideas I have yet to publish ;D

Definitely give their new album a listen if you’re interested!

#lego monkie kid #lmk #monkie kid #sun wukong #lmk x reader #sun wukong x reader #wukong x reader #lmk wukong x reader #lego monkie kid sun wukong #I am spitting these requests out like #there’s no tomorrow man woah #this is probs gonna be my last #at least until I finish the first chapter of #my other fic #anyways #EEE MY GREMLIN MONKEY HUSBAND

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corinthianism · 16 days

Text

DON'T THEY KNOW? (IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD) || BENEDICT BRIDGERTON (1)

pairing: benedict bridgerton/fem!reader additional tags: zombie apocalypse au, graphic depictions of gore/violence, fluff, angst, biology stuff i just made up so it's probs super inaccurate lol, slow burn, friends to lovers summary: ravaged by a relentless virus, the world as you knew it falls into ruin. survivors are hardened by the blood on their hands and the horrors in their minds. amidst the end of everything, benedict proves that there is still hope, and perhaps something more, for the two of you. word count: 6.4k

author's note: welcome to the first part of my new zombie au series with our boy benedict! for those who don't know, this is based entirely on the fic "i'll be seeing you" by @eleanor-bradstreet! thanks again to them for letting me vomit up this fic based on their incredible one <333 anyway, this chapter is mostly exposition, so most of the benedict/you romance will really start in the succeeding parts. hopefully, you find this chapter interesting enough to stick around! (+for readers of my dean winchester series, don't worry! chapter 3 will come out soon!)

masterlist | series masterlist | ao3 | next chapter

CHAPTER ONE: HERE, IN THE END

The world had been so loud before.

The droning noise of traffic. Of the intermingling of a thousand phone calls, nestled in between cheeks and shoulders. Of people talking at each other, screaming over each other, fighting to get the final say in even the tiniest little thing. Everything blurred together into one great ocean of sound. You could drown in it, especially in the big cities.

You were right in the middle of it all: a drifter. It took a while but eventually, that ocean of sound became your home. You struggled to recall what it was like before that. That too, was blurry now along with everything else from Before. All you had now were fading fragments of a dream to be someone. Anyone.

That was how you met him, just before the beginning of the end. You still weren’t convinced that Benedict Bridgerton wasn’t some kind of romance novel character come to life; a talented artist from a long line of English nobility, and the first friend you ever made in New York. It was like something out of a crappy Hallmark movie. He laughed at your reaction upon learning that his brother was an actual viscount and that Benedict himself technically should be referred to as “the Honourable Benedict Bridgerton”, but despite all the grandeur that came with his heritage, Benedict was still… Benedict. In time, he became just Ben. He’d paint while you ranted about your borderline dangerous work hours or how your parents were bugging you to settle down. In turn, he shared with you his frustrations as an artist trying to make it in the world, without his family name, and how at the same time he missed his mother’s cooking. Conversations with him were always lovely, like breathing in the air in the middle of a field of flowers after a decade of being locked inside a dark, stuffy room. He was just like you. Just trying to be someone.

But those conversations all seemed so far away now. If you had known then what would become of your life, of those dreams to be someone, maybe you would’ve just let yourself drown in that ocean of sound.

It only took two weeks for the world to fall into ruin. Only fourteen days for everything to go up in flames.

The virus was ruthless. The most efficient killer the likes of which no one had ever seen. A terrifying force of nature seemingly tailored for the extinction of humanity. You were right in the middle of it all. You saw it with your own eyes, a cluster of people beginning to form in Times Square. With New York being New York, you thought nothing of it. You walked away none the wiser.

Until you heard someone scream, a gut-wrenching, visceral scream, followed by a sound you would never forget. A sound you’d have to hear over and over again for the better part of the next ten years, though you didn’t know it yet at the time: teeth ripping flesh from bone and the primal snarls accompanying it that couldn’t have been anything except inhuman. Monstrous, even. It sent ripples into the great big ocean you called home, altering it so permanently just seconds before you even realized what was happening.

Sound, quickly followed by sight.

The people huddled on the outer edges of the crowd ran off in terror, revealing the gruesome remains of what used to be a person. Even that was something you barely registered at first, eyes too focused on the bloody mouths feasting on it and white, foggy eyes. One of those things stopped its chewing, head snapping up suddenly. It sniffed the air for a while, as if sensing your fear even from twenty feet away. Those white eyes were looking at you now. Staring you down. Seconds later, the corpse being eaten started writhing back to life, or a perverted version of it. Its jaw was skewed, perpetually stuck wide open as drool and blood ran down its chin. You weren’t someone then. If your body hadn’t gone into autopilot, legs taking you as far away as they could, you would’ve been one of them. That was the very first day of what would be the longest two weeks of your life. You remembered it well.

There was no time to think or breathe. Even when your chest hurt from overexerting yourself and your lungs screamed for a break, you ran. You ran as fast as you could, crashing into people, some of which were still unaware of the horrors spreading just a block away from them. In the corner of your eyes, you knew that there were others like you, scrambling to go home, to go anywhere but here. Cars stopped in the middle of the road, curiosity killing the cat as drivers left their vehicles to see what was going on, only to be met with the same sight you were: death. In only a few minutes, nearly a third of the people on the streets were running, too.

A little girl cried in her father’s arms, a teddy bear left behind and forgotten on the cement road as they also tried to get away. The realization dawning on the faces of onlookers that they should be doing the same.

You reached your apartment building, not really knowing what you would do next, just that you needed to get away. The hallways were empty. A part of you hoped Ben was far, far away from here. A more selfish part of you hoped otherwise.

Supplies. You needed supplies. Food, clothes, water. Emergency kit, tools, weapons. Weapons. You had no fucking idea what to do with any of this! Just yesterday, you held a steady, if not miserable, office job. Today, you had to survive against whatever-the-hell those things were and perhaps even other people. The weight of that sudden realization twisted your guts in a sickening way, enough to make you almost throw up.

Peeking through your blinds, there were already three or four ambulances rushing to the direction of Times Square.Those things were not here yet and still, you naively hoped that help would come and dispatch of them before it got out of control.

You barely noticed the sweat that began to trickle down your forehead and back, hairs raising out of instinct. Your whole body was going into overdrive, hyper-aware of the fact that you were in danger.

The rapid knocking on your door nearly frightened you to death, until you heard Ben’s desperate calls of your name. Out of breath and scared… much like you. You wondered if he had seen it, too. When you confirmed through the peephole that it was, in fact, him, you dragged him inside your apartment. Your hands were on his face as soon as he was inside, needing to know that he was here, he was with you, he was alive. It seemed he had the same need, icy blue eyes taking you in with such an intensity you’d only ever seen when he was painting. It was easy to feel small under his gaze.

“Are you alright?” he breathed heavily, larger hands covering your own.

You could only nod, the words stuck in your throat, “Did you- did you see-”

“I saw them,” he said, his composure faltering for a split second. “I saw them.”

You could hear more sirens outside, one after another, disrupting the ocean you had grown so familiar with. Louder and louder.

“We need to leave, get out of New York,” he ran a hand through his hair, eyes moving wildly as he tried to come up with a plan. It was the Bridgerton in him: the bravery of his father, the gentleness of his mother. It didn’t need to be said out loud that the moment he saw those things, all he could think of was you. Getting to you and getting you safe. His only true friend in this city. It took all of fifteen minutes before you were out the door, nearly overwhelmed by the swarm of people all running away from Times Square. Ben held your hand tightly, and you did your best not to look behind you.

The sun was beginning to set, wrapping the city in a bright orange light. It felt ominous somehow, so unlike every other time you’d seen it. Like this was some form of judgment. As if at any moment, you’d hear the seven trumpets telling you that this was the end. You learned later on that you weren’t the only one that thought that. Bile threatened to rise in your throat when the shadows of night grew with each passing second. It felt like it was going to swallow you alive.

The road was packed full of people, crying and yelling and praying for salvation. Ants begging to get away from the magnifying glass only to be burned anyway.

The screams grew louder and against your better judgment, you looked back. You were too far away to see everything clearly, and because Ben was constantly pulling you forward, but you could make out the smaller swarm of walking corpses slowly coming into view. The poor souls who weren’t able to keep up with the main crowd were dragged away to be bitten, spreading the godforsaken disease. More and more bodies littered the streets, staining the concrete with the blood of dozens. Then, not even a minute later, they would rise with jaws gnashing and wide white eyes, their humanity lost forever.

Your legs felt so heavy, as did the rest of you. If it weren’t for Ben’s ferocious determination to get out of the city and to keep the both of you safe, you wouldn’t have survived that first day at all. Helicopters flew above and across the city, the whooshing of its blades mingling with the screams. The ocean of sound was threatening to drown you. You didn’t look up anymore. It would’ve shattered you if you had, because you knew there weren’t nearly enough choppers to save everyone in the city. It was impossible. Your heart broke for all the people, all the someones, who were dead long before they could even fight for the chance to live.

The sky was dark now.

By some miracle, you reached the army’s barricade. Soldiers ushered people to safety, including you and Ben. You squeezed his hand, causing him to look at you for a moment. A temporary reprieve from that day’s horrors. His fair skin was shiny with sweat, his hair sticking to his forehead like black tendrils. It was like everything slowed down, but maybe it was all just in your head. His chest rose and fell, rose and fell, rose and fell. The moment was cut short when you heard an explosion from behind you. Your head snapped to the direction of the noise, so did Ben’s, and the “small swarm” of the undead from before had multiplied to thrice its size in the short few minutes you spent running away.

Gunfire rang in your ears once the monsters got a little too close for the army’s liking, but the crowds of the living and the undead had already begun to mix by that point. Bullets meant to pierce rotting flesh ended up killing people who were very much alive and uninfected. You could only watch, from behind the barricade of soldiers, the people in the perpetually moving crowd who would stop once they realized their loved ones were no longer beside them. You could only watch when the body of a child (belonging to the same little girl you saw earlier that day, you realized grimly) was forcefully torn from the arms of her father when a soldier spotted the bite mark on her leg, bleeding and angry. Her plump, tear-stained cheeks that were once symbols of her youth and innocence were ruined by a sickly green that rose to the surface, emphasizing violet veins that always looked like it was crawling, spreading just underneath the skin. Then, she was one of them. Writhing, bones cracking. There was no recognition in her cloudy eyes when her father begged for his baby girl to come back to him.

Ben held you tighter, his hand cradling your head as the other soldiers evacuated as many people as they could.

“We need to go,” he pleaded, still firmly holding on to you as you were both pushed around by the crowd. “Please, love, just look at me.”

So you did. Those eyes, brilliant and blue and full of worry, were the only things that pulled you back down to Earth. Tears were shed and prayers were whispered on the chopper that whisked you away from New York. A couple hundred feet into the air, you could see the city crumble. You remembered briefly wondering how many bodies were left behind or how many turned into one of those things.

Everything changed in those first fourteen days of the Outbreak. Eighty percent of the world’s population had been wiped out, unprepared to face a force so vicious. That was how effective the virus was, which was later dubbed the “Gaia Virus”. Mother Nature’s wrath.

The survivors in the States were brought to “safe zones” all over the country, areas barren and isolated enough that the Infected, which mostly stayed in the previously overpopulated cities and towns, were unlikely to get to them. The first few months after the Outbreak were spent being transferred to different safe zones, never staying for more than a week at a time.

At first, the safe zones were supposed to be a temporary refuge for survivors. The government, or what was left of it, promised to reclaim the cities within a year and make them habitable again. Then a year passed, and they said it would take them another year. So another year passed and they said the same thing. Over and over until… radio silence. No one brought it up again. The few who did were not treated kindly by the rest of the survivors.

Most people caught onto the memo fairly quickly, with soldiers and generals making up the new leadership hierarchy of the safe zones in place of politicians and peacemakers: you keep your head down, you do as you’re told, and you’ll get food and water and blankets.

The people brave (or stupid) enough to make a scene were never heard from again by the next week.

So there you were, moving across the country, going from state to state and living off of food rations and hope. Both were two resources that were steadily depleting. Benedict was there with you through it all, your steadfast companion. Conversations about surrealism and horrible bosses turned into questions about whether or not your friends and families were safe, if they had made it to the safe zones. That was the first time you saw him cry, not able to withstand the possibility that his beloved mother and siblings were gone, perhaps now part of the Infected. Even if they survived, he knew there was a slim chance he would ever see them again. He cursed himself sometimes, him and his foolish need to be someone. If he had stayed in Kent, if he just settled down like his brothers, perhaps he would still be with them today. But his mother was the kindest woman he had ever known and he knew deep down that she forgave him long before he realized what he’d done. He knew they all did.

Grief was your (and Ben’s) constant state of being. It weighed you down on most days, making your feet dig deeper into the dirt when you walked. On some days, it was all-consuming. It was the only reason most survivors rarely caused any trouble. As horrible as humans could be to each other, this shared grief that echoed through the hearts of everyone was translated into little acts of kindness that, at the best of times, were life-saving. To be given a drop of water by a woman dying of thirst. To be offered a piece of bread by a man whose stomach rumbled louder than his voice. More often than not, it was always the eldest survivors that did this. Perhaps it was because they knew that they had already lived long, fulfilling lives. Perhaps it was because they knew Death was already at their door, so they might as well help someone else live.

Of course, there would always be people looking out for themselves, you and Ben had expected that from the get go, but it still surprised you how much compassion a person could still have at the end of the world. It didn’t happen too often though, but the times that it did were memories you held close to your heart.

The days went by, often cruel and unforgiving to those who couldn’t adjust to the new reality, but Ben still found ways to make you smile.

“It’s the artist in me,” he said to you one night, three years after the Outbreak, when you had asked him how he could bear to still be so… him. There was a secluded spot you two often escaped to whenever there was a need for it, a small cliff at the edge of the safe zone. You were both slightly tipsy from whiskey you traded some radio parts for. “The whole world’s gone to shit and I can’t help but still find it somewhat beautiful. It’s like a movie, isn’t it? Two friends at the end of the world— and besides, what else are we supposed to do? Wallow in self-pity? I think you and I do enough of that.”

The sun was beginning to set, something you had grown to dislike since that first day. You decided to lie down for a moment, uncaring if bits of soil got in your hair. You closed your eyes, trying to just be. You didn’t always get the opportunity to do that anymore.

“Look,” he nudged your side after a while, his accent slurring a little as he pointed at something. You raised a brow at him, now-open eyes following what his finger was pointing at. The sky. It was pitch black, but a splash of stars covered the heavens like a mural. You had never seen that many stars before, certainly not in the cities you’d lived in your whole life. Ben sighed and your attention was back on him. “You couldn’t see them as clearly back home, but I used to stargaze often with my siblings.”

“That sounds lovely,” you whispered.

“It was.”

The two of you were silent for a while, just sitting on that patch of dirt, overlooking the vast lands that spread as far as the eye can see. That was how isolated these safe zones were. The gentle night breeze tickled your skin.

“I haven’t really looked at the sky properly since the Outbreak,” you confessed, slumping in your seat. “I think it makes me feel small. And sad. Look at us. Our tiny little planet, how fucked up everything is. Look at us. And there’s a whole universe out there that’s completely indifferent to everything that goes on down here.”

“It’s humbling,” he hummed in understanding. “To be a speck in a great big universe yet feeling a whole universe worth of emotion.”

“That’s good,” you chuckled. “Very poetic.”

He grinned at you, cheeks flushed slightly, “I try.”

Another bout of silence.

“Thank you, by the way.”

“Whatever for, love?” he raised a brow in curiosity, his tone soft. It always was.

“For being here,” you took a deep breath. “For sticking around.”

His smile shone brighter when he heard this, his hand finding its way around yours. “You’d be mad to think I’d ever leave you here. If anything, you’re stuck with me. I’m just—” he cleared his throat. “I’m just sorry that… that it has to be like this. Drifting, never staying too long in one place to be able to call it a home. You deserve more. You deserve better.”

“You say that like it’s your fault,” your hand squeezed his in hopes of bringing him some comfort. “I’m not gonna lie and say we’re doing alright because we honestly look like shit”—that earned you a hearty chuckle from him—”but we’re doing better than most. And that’s because we’ve had each other all this time. That’s one of the things I was thanking you for. None of this on you, Ben. You deserve more, too. You hear me?”

He straightened his back and flashed you a soft smile, “I hear you.”

The two of you looked back up at the sky, admiring the twinkling of millions of stars. You were somewhere in Arizona, according to the other survivors. Soldiers kept the exact location under lock and key to dissuade survivors from sharing it with others who were still out in the open world. There just wasn’t enough room. But you had a feeling that it had more to do with the risk of attracting Infected. Limited armada and manpower meant the military was just unable to handle that kind of scenario.

You learned more about the Infected over time, having worked odd jobs for the military for more food, water, or supplies. Even something as simple as filtration duty on Tuesdays earned you tidbits of information.

From what you could piece together in the past couple of years, the Gaia Virus most likely came from melting glaciers and ice caps, triggered by global warming. It polluted bodies of water across the world, eventually making its way into reservoirs undetected. It was the perfect way to spread. Nobody can last more than three days without water, so the virus made sure no one would last at all. Once fully turned, Infected were nearly perfect killers. Soldiers sometimes told stories of their encounters with them. They were completely blind, though that much was obvious from the milkiness of their eyes. Infected also didn’t react to any physical damage done to them. Whether or not they felt it was a different story. With possibly two of their senses out of the picture, the rest were heightened. They could hear and smell better than people. If prey were close enough, all those things had to do was follow the scent trail. The fact that these monsters could perceive things humans could barely register was a terrifying thought.

Bodies of Infected retrieved from the destroyed cities were studied, Ben himself had seen this on one such odd job. The virus kills its host before taking over the body, this much was known. However, the brain was shown to endure, preventing the more advanced stages of decomposition. It raised questions about whether or not hosts really died, or if a tiny part of them still lived on even as they transformed into flesh-eating beasts. You’ve heard whispers that it was more like the brain sent constant streams of adrenaline even after death, keeping the body going long after it was supposed to fall apart and rot. True or not, it was the only explanation you had.

You’d seen your fair share of people who’ve fallen victim to a bite; doomed to have their life snuffed out as soon as that was discovered, whether that was by execution or dying to the virus.

The time it took to die after being bitten was different for everyone. Some died within minutes, others within hours. The longest one you’d seen was a soldier brought back to the Detroit safe zone after a patrol gone wrong. A stray Infected had sensed him and attacked him during the night, leaving a massive bite on his shoulder. He fought so fiercely against the symptoms of the fever, hovering between life and death for nearly an entire day before finally succumbing to the virus. You couldn’t forget how pale he was when he was wheeled into the makeshift camp on a gurney, watching the life be drained out of him in real time. He was shot in the head by his comrades as soon as he turned. The event shook everyone. The disappearances began shortly after that.

The people who spoke up against the military drew the ire of everyone: the military didn’t tolerate people who questioned their authority and everyone else just wanted to mind their own business. When these undesirables began to disappear, everyone chalked it up to them just being hard-headed. The popular theory was they got sick of the military’s iron grip and decided to leave the safe zone, and then probably died. Nobody took it too seriously. Nobody could have done anything about it anyway. Everyone was just focused on staying alive.

Cooper was another survivor in the Arizona safe zone. You and Ben had been there for a month, and he was the first and only person to welcome you with open arms. He was a lanky man, and had blond hair and kind, brown eyes. Only a few years younger than you. He was the jovial type, often inviting you and Ben to tag along with him on whatever job he found earlier that day. His Boston accent was unmistakable, often getting stronger when offered liquor.

He was also in strong opposition to the militant lifestyle in the safe zones, though he knew better than to broadcast his distaste. Cooper joined you and Ben on the night the two of you were stargazing, eyes wide in terror. You had never seen him like that before. He was always one to stay optimistic, which was a wonder considering the state of the world. Cooper looked like he ran to get to you, his damp tattered shirt sticking to his body.

He grabbed you by your shoulders, fingertips digging into your skin deep enough to make you wince all while a jumble of words were frantically spewing out of his mouth. Ben immediately got up, nearly growling at Cooper for hurting you, “Get your hands off them.”

It seemed as though Ben’s warning briefly snapped Cooper back to reality, because the man did pull away but his hands still trembled violently.

“What’s wrong?” you furrowed your brows in worry, unused to seeing Cooper in such a state.

“You need to get out of here,” it felt like there was something darker lingering behind his words. He looked at Ben. “You need to go.”

“Hold on, hold on,” Ben cut him off, his protectiveness from before calming down when he finally noticed the genuine panic and fear in Cooper’s eyes. “Tell us what’s happening.”

The poor man looked like he was ready to explode right then and there. He was practically soaked in his own sweat, both from the exhaustion of running to get to you and Ben, and the shock of the news he brought, it seemed.

“They were taking them,” he choked back tears, his feet stuck to the ground. His nostrils were flaring from how hard he was breathing.

“Who, Coop? Who’s taking who?” this time it was your hands on his shoulders, though your touch was gentle, trying to keep him grounded.

“The soldiers,” he whispered, his voice grim. “We- we thought they were executing them for questioning the army but I saw them! I saw them. In the big tent. They’re trying… they’re trying to make a vaccine.”

The severity of his tone reminded you all too much of Ben at your doorstep on that very first day of the Outbreak.

Ben’s surprise was palpable, “What?”

“A vaccine,” Cooper stressed, each breath he drew was ragged (you could hear it from how close he was standing to you), “but it’s not working. I saw the bodies. Whatever they’re doing, it’s torture— you should’ve seen them. They infected them on purpose.”

Your blood went cold, like liquid nitrogen shocking your system. That’s what the army had been doing all this time? It made perfect sense, but the new information flooded your brain with images of those people who went missing, strapped to a table, and being injected with the virus. If they were trying to make a vaccine, they—the test subjects—would have to have been kept alive for as long as possible, conscious of the parasite invading their body. It made your stomach churn, forcing you to step back and look away. Ben was similarly devastated, jaw clenched as he stared at Cooper. He zeroed in on a different piece of information.

There were Infected in the safe zone.

“That’s… they can’t just keep taking people,” he gritted his teeth. Cooper stayed silent. Ben spoke again, firmer and more desperate this time, “...can they?”

“Nobody’s gonna come looking for you even if they did,” Cooper said, defeated. Still breathing hard. “We’re too far away. And if the rest of the safe zones aren’t already in the same situation then they aren’t gonna waste gas to go all the way here. The soldiers here can just make up something and no one would know.”

An “oh, God” left your lips, your hands shaking, mirroring Cooper’s. From where you stood, you could see the main camp and the largest tent, the main military tent, in the middle of it. You’ve walked past it, stared at it a hundred times, and never knew what was going on inside. You found yourself asking if there was a time when you stared at that tent, and just on the other side was someone just like you being experimented on with the deadliest virus known to mankind.Your eyes stung with tears when your treacherous mind thought of Ben in that position, bruised by different needles and tubes protruding from him.

“Please, you need to go,” Cooper pleaded with the two of you desperately, his head hanging low.

“Shit,” Ben cursed under his breath, rubbing his eyes with one hand in frustration. “All of our supplies are back in the main camp.”

“You can’t go back!”

“We’ll die out there if we don’t get those supplies,” you pointed out to the blond. “We wouldn’t last a week.”

Ben had already begun to walk back to camp, masking his anxieties to the best of his abilities if what Cooper was saying was true. You weren’t that far behind, ears ringing with Cooper’s pleas not to go back. He didn’t chase after you anymore, falling silent once he realized there was nothing he could do to change your mind. It was only a short trek from the cliff back to the main camp. The outer perimeter of the safe zone was always being patrolled by soldiers which meant, without any weapons, you would’ve been dead if you tried to escape right away. A checkpoint came into view along with the two guards, Paul and Walter, holding rifles on either side of the path. You were familiar with each other from how often you passed through this checkpoint to get to the cliff.

“Paul, Walter,” Ben smiled coolly at the guards once you were finally standing in front of them. “Late shift? I thought you’d have switched with Reese by now.”

“Higher-ups needed more men in other places, so here we are,” Paul sighed, before turning his attention to you. “You guys back at the cliff again?”

“Yeah,” you mimicked Ben, feigning a smile of your own. You still weren’t completely sure if Cooper had been telling the truth, but interacting with Paul felt different now that you knew what could’ve been happening behind closed doors. “Camp can be a little too much sometimes, y’know? No offense. Just… needed to get away for a while.”

Paul nodded in understanding.

“Okay, you know the routine,” Walter shrugged, handing you and Ben a bloodchecker each. It was a small vial full of a blue solution, connected to a thin, replaceable tube ending with a needle. The solution would turn clear if mixed with Gaia-infected blood, and a dark muddy brown if the blood was clean. You pierced your arm with the needle, watching your blood travel through the tube and drip down into the solution, turning it brown as you had expected. Glancing over at Ben’s bloodchecker, you found that his was the same. Thankfully.

You were about to pass through the checkpoint when Walter pulled Ben aside, muttering something you couldn’t quite make out, but you saw Ben’s reaction. To anyone else, it would have seemed like he didn’t react at all. Most people only would’ve noticed his polite smile and hushed ‘thank you” to the guard before returning to your side, but you saw through it: the slightest twitch of his hand and the way his lips tightened at what Walter told him. It was so clear to you that he was bothered by it, whatever it was.

“What was that?” you asked him, trying to keep up with his fast-paced stride.

He only spared you a single glance, only a single moment of softness, but now you were inside the central safe zone. Soldiers were standing guard in every direction. There seemed to be more of them than usual. Ben continued forward to the direction of your tent which was a bit farther from everyone else’s. He kept his voice low, “Not here.”

Your shared tent with Ben was bare. The apocalypse didn’t exactly grant you a life of luxury, but that tent was yours. It stayed the same after every new safe zone you were transferred to. Next to the two worn down single mattresses were your backpacks, one of the only things you still had from before the Outbreak besides each other. While you double-checked your supplies, making sure nothing was missing while you were gone, Ben slid one of the mattresses to the side, which was sitting on top of an old rug. He pulled that aside too, his hands digging into the soil, digging and digging until finally, you could see the lid of a crate you had buried.

The crate was filled with jugs of water. Clean, pure, uninfected water. The result of three years of patiently collecting rainwater and saving up whatever the army gave you, carefully filtering each drop throughout the night when you knew no one else would be bothering you. This water was precious. It was gold. And it was a pain to move from safe zone to safe zone. You and Ben had had to resort to bribing and lying for the past three years to make sure it was safe.

Once you were done checking over the supplies, you knelt by Ben’s side. “So… are you gonna tell me what Walter said to you or are you gonna keep being mysterious?” you tried to keep your tone light.

“They were looking for Cooper,” his gaze didn’t leave the jugs of water. His hands, once always covered in paint, were now caked in dirt. “Said we should report him if we did.”

“What?” you questioned. “That doesn’t make any sense, everyone has to go in and out of that checkpoint to get to the cliff. There’s no way Paul and Walter didn’t see him.”

“So how could he have seen all of those supposed experiments in the main tent?” he turned to face you, his expression severe. “That tent is the most heavily guarded thing in this camp. If what he said is true, then there was no way he could’ve left and not be spotted and then somehow manage to get to us without going through the checkpoint.”

The two of you sat in silence for a while, racking your brains for any sort of information that could help you get closer to solving this mystery. It was entirely plausible that Cooper had been lying about the experimentations and the vaccines but despite having only known him for a short while, you knew he wasn’t the type to do something like that. He wouldn’t lie about something like that. Hell, he was the kind of person that worked overtime during the apocalypse. He was an honest man.

Then you remembered something.

“It’s Tuesday today.”

Ben looked at you, puzzled, “Yes, it is… What’s going through your head, love?”

“Filtration duty,” you answered. “They filter out the water in the main tent…”

“...then dump the waste outside of camp,” Ben finished for you, eyes widening. “You think Cooper was in the main tent on purpose?”

“I mean, that’s the only explanation, right? Nothing else has left camp since last week and nobody checks a truck carrying waste. Maybe Cooper was on one of those trucks,” you said before looking back at Ben. “I… I thought I was just seeing things. Did you notice how he was earlier?”

“Out of breath from running…?” Ben frowned, not quite following your train of thought as easily as he usually did.

“He wasn’t just out of breath. He was smelling me.”

You could practically hear the cogs turning in his head as he put the pieces together. He couldn’t quite believe the conclusion he arrived at, that much you could tell, but the disbelief washed away when no other possible explanation presented itself to him.

“How?” his voice was shaky, a quiet sort of devastation clouding his features. Cooper was likely already infected earlier, though you couldn’t tell which stage of infection he was at. The signs pointed to a peculiar middleground between the fever that occurred right before death, and the grotesque reanimation once the virus had complete control over the body.

“Maybe he was telling the truth. Part of it, at least.”

You both looked back at the jugs of water, taking out a few of the smaller containers before hurriedly placing the lid back on the crate. With the crate concealed by the soil and rug, you and Ben made quick work of gathering your things, hiding the small jugs of water underneath clothes, foods, and whatever else were in your bags.

You always made sure to have a plan in case you ever needed to leave a safe zone. The water you collected was too valuable; you had to be able to move it whenever and wherever you needed, but with all the soldiers standing guard outside, you knew this would be impossible even with all of your planning. You just had to bring what you could.

Without uttering a word, you and Ben both knew this was the last night you were ever going to spend in this place.

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