#when i went to my first handshake event

[just-jordie-things]

national anthem - gojo satoru

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ 10k follower event special! ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

word count: 12.2k warnings: mentions of drinking and smoking (cigarettes + weed) summary: you're a special grade? with no life experience? someone like you sure is lucky gojo satoru wants to take you under his wing and show you how to enjoy life. gojo satoru sure is lucky that someone like you teaches him how to love. more info: set in 2006, friends to lovers, gojo sort of wants to corrupt reader but he's too soft on her, he's an overconfident coward in this idk you figure it out

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[ i’m your national anthem, god you’re so handsome, take me to the hamptons, bugatti, veyron // he loves to romance ‘em reckless abandon, holding me for ransom, upper echelon // he says to be cool but, i don’t know how yet // wind in my hair, hand on the back of my neck ]

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Two Special Grade Sorcerers in one place was already a fight for territory and ego- at least to Gojo Satoru.  Geto Suguru never really felt a push to prove himself, but his white haired counterpart seemed to enjoy a good ol’ fashion pissing competition, so when Satoru felt like being competitive, he often just went along with it.  Besides, there was a certain entertainment in watching him lose.  Satoru would tell anyone that he didn’t feel threatened around Suguru- or Yuki, when she was around- but there was an undeniable flicker of excitement in his eye when an opportunity came along to show off.

A show off, that was the perfect description for the first impression (y/n) got when she first met the infamous Six Eyes.  She wasn’t sure what to expect arriving at Jujutsu Tech on that sunny afternoon in 2006.  The mixture of giddiness and unease from picking everything up and starting life over at the ripe age of eighteen had her insides all fluttery, but she was fairly certain her excitement outweighed all else.

The manager who’d picked her up from the train station and drove her to her new home had given her a short introduction to the other sorcerers her age, but nothing could’ve prepared her for the whirlwind of their first official meeting.

“So you’re the new Special Grade meat!” 

She’s startled as soon as she approaches the group of three.  She’d been all smiles, ready to hold out her hand and introduce herself properly, but it appeared they’d already known all about her.

“Shut up Satoru, you sound like a douchebag,” The dark haired sorcerer beside the loud one shouldered past, reaching out to be the first to shake her hand.  (y/n) still has a bewildered look on her face as she reciprocates, confusedly glancing between the two.  “Don’t mind him, he’s always like that.  I’m Geto, but everyone calls me Suguru anyways, so you can too” 

“Alright,” She says through an airy laugh.  “Then I’m (y/n)... the Special Grade meat”

Suguru shares the laugh as he drops his hand, and suddenly the white haired one is darting forward, pushing him aside just as he’d done to him moments ago, and grabbing (y/n’s) hand before she could fully lower it.  Her eyes are wide, every instinct telling her to take three steps back, but she lets him shake it at a wild pace.  

The cursed energy that comes off of him in waves hits her like a truck, solid, undeniable, strength.  Reason tells her that he could end her life with his handshake alone.  The goofy, shit eating grin on his face tells her otherwise.

“Gojo Satoru!” He introduces, still shaking her hand.  “But you already knew that, right?” 

Wordlessly, she shakes her head at him, curiosity striking her the longer she took him in.  A show off for sure, with the volume of his voice despite being right in front of her, with the performance in his ongoing handshake, with that stupid smile he hadn’t wiped off his face yet, with all that cursed energy- Gojo Satoru was a sight to behold and he knew it, too.

Back home it would’ve ticked her off, but for some reason, there’s a compulsion to her amusement in him.  Slowly, her bewildered expression morphs into one of pleasant surprise.

“Can’t say I had the slightest idea,” She replies, and that seems to do the trick to get his smile to falter, even momentarily.  Technically, she knew of him, only because of the manager’s due diligence in giving her the names of her new colleagues, but she wasn’t about to treat him to that information.  “But I do now,” Her smile brightens, “You’re the guy with the white hair” 

He scoffs at first, not out of disgust or annoyance, but pure surprise at the genuine response.  The two behind him, Suguru, and the girl she hadn’t met quite yet, Ieiri Shoko, were nearly doubled over in laughter.  Loud cackles that echoed across the courtyard they stood in.  (y/n) merely held her polite smile as she waited for Gojo Satoru’s full reaction.

His shit eating grin softened into a more authentic smile, amusement casted over his features as he gazed down at her through his lenses.  He didn’t need his Six Eyes to tell him she was strong, her own cursed energy seemed to buzz and crackle right off of her like electricity.  As if she’d been gathering up static for so long and it was dying to leap right out of her.  It would be overwhelming, if he wasn’t the sorcerer he was.

“Always noticed for my looks first,” He sighs dramatically, and (y/n) raises a brow at him, slightly amused, slightly intrigued.  “But I guess we’ll have that in common, huh, Special Grade?”

Before she’s given any real time to react, or even process what he’s said, he’s interrupted. 

“Alright, that’s enough of you, you’re making us all look bad now,” 

The third sorcerer with the lab coat and an unlit cigarette in her hands is the next to leap forward, grabbing Gojo Satoru by the elbow and forcibly yanking until he gives in and drags his feet back to Suguru.  (y/n) watches as he mutters under his breath and makes wild hand gestures to Suguru- who seems to roll his eyes and remain otherwise unresponsive.

“You won’t get used to him, so get used to knowing that now,” The girl says, capturing (y/n’s) attention.  “I’m Shoko, I’ll be your best friend here, alright? Don’t let him get too comfortable” 

(y/n) giggles, introducing herself yet again with a shy fit of laughter.

“Seems like he gets comfortable pretty quick,” She muses, casting a glance over to where Suguru was trying to drag his friend away.  He didn’t seem to be winning that fight, and it wasn’t long before Gojo was going boneless against him.  “So, small class size, huh?” 

“Yeah, well, not a lot of jujutsu sorcerers out there,” Shoko shrugs.  “And… we had a few transfers to Kyoto.  Which were totally not due to that idiot” She adds the second part under her breath, but when (y/n) laughs, she does too.

“Well, I’ll try not to transfer, then” 

Shoko brightens, just a little bit, but enough to be noticed.

(y/n’s) sure she’ll stay true to her word.  Besides, it had seemed like her time at Jujustu Tech would prove to be interesting… maybe even fun.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The smell of tobacco wasn’t pleasant, but she tries to put up with it for the sake of Suguru and Shoko.  It appeared that the most exciting part of their night was sharing a smoke by Shoko’s window, as they’d visibly relaxed once they’d sparked up.

It didn't matter that (y/n) didn’t voice her discomfort, because Gojo Satoru could see it written all over her.  The way her eyes widened when Shoko had pulled out the pack, the way her nose crinkled when Suguru lit the first cig, and even now, how she can’t stop anxiously glancing over to the two of them as they smoked.

“You’re not a smoker, huh?” 

She’d been sitting against the wall, a mostly forgotten magazine in her lap when Gojo had approached her, crouching down to her level to properly gain her attention.

“Huh?” She’s lost at first, but it only takes a short nod of his head towards the window for her mind to catch up.  “Oh, um, I guess I’ve never really smoked before, but, no, I’m not a smoker”

It’s unexplainable, the way she stammers over her explanation like it’s a lie.  Because it’s the complete truth.  She’d never smoked a cigarette in her life, and she’d never been around anyone who did.  The smell was only familiar because of how often it wafted amongst the streets, but it was always unpleasant.  Trying it for herself had never really crossed her mind.

“You’ve never tried it?” Gojo tilts his head curiously, and for a moment she thinks he resembles a cat, but before she could tell him the connection, he’s standing up again and striding over to the window.

She can only watch as he swipes the pack of cigarettes from between the two, scowling when he pops open the box.

“Did you buy this yesterday?” He scoffs, plucking out one of the sticks before tossing it back at Suguru, who catches it with ease, but frowns back at the white haired sorcerer.  “Jeez, addicts much?” 

“Relax, Satoru” Suguru rolls his eyes just as Gojo snatches the lighter off the windowsill as well.  It earns him another glare, but neither Suguru or Shoko comment on it, instead returning to whatever conversation they’d been having before Gojo had so rudely interrupted them.

It’s not until he’s returning to her spot on the floor and taking a seat beside her that she realizes why he’s done this.

“Here ya are,” He grins, holding the items out to her in both hands.  (y/n’s) eyes wander between the two, the cancer stick in his left hand, the hot pink lighter in his right, before looking up at him and shaking her head.  “What, you don’t wanna try it?”

“I just… I mean…” She struggles to give him a proper reason.  She doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, because she couldn’t care less what other people chose to do, but she wasn’t about to lie to him and say she was ecstatic to get a taste of the thing she knows is bad for her.  “I don’t think I’d like it…” 

“Well, that’s alright,” Gojo chuckles as he shrugs his shoulders.  “I hate it.  It’s nasty,” 

He goes so far as to stick his tongue out towards the window, where Shoko had clearly overheard his less-than-quiet comment.  She returns the favor, but Gojo’s already turned back to (y/n).

“It reeks.  And it burns a bit.  And honestly? I’d rather spend the money on mochi,” He tells her honestly, and it earns him a giggle, so he smiles a little wider.  “But you deserve to at least try it, right?” He asks, wiggling the lighter at her.  “Just to say you did it?” 

“I’m not really wired that way,” She admits, her laughter turning nervous, but nonetheless, she finds herself plucking the lighter from his fingers.  “Why try something I know I’ll hate?” She asks, and generally, it’s a rhetorical question, but Gojo’s answer does have her curious.

“Because,” He shrugs again.  “Trying new things is the fun part,” He suggests, before adding, “And just because you can” 

Her eyes drift down to the pink lighter in her hand.  She rolls it over between her fingers a few times, fiddling with it as the idea settles in her mind.  She gets lost enough in thought that she doesn’t even realize how fluidly she’s twirling the small object between her fingers like it was a trick of misdirection, but Gojo finds amusement in how easily and quickly she’s able to maneuver it about the back of her knuckles.

“I can’t say I have an argument for that,” She tells him finally, turning to him with a small smile, and her hand outstretched.  “But when I hate it, you can’t be mad” 

He doesn’t place the cigarette in her palm like she’s expecting, instead raising it towards her lips, flicking it slightly to prompt her to open her mouth.

“Don’t bite down too hard, you’ll ruin it,” He instructs.  She blinks at him in surprise, but follows along anyways and parts his lips so he could set it between them.  She keeps her hold on it as light as possible.  “And the taste of tobacco is awful,” He adds in a quieter voice.

She tries not to think about how close he sits to her, or how his fingers brush over her bottom lip and then her chin as he places the cigarette between her lips, but the harder she tries not to think about it, the more he thinks about it.

“Want me to light it for you?” He asks, and now he’s the one to hold his palm out to her.

Too nervous to speak with the cig in her mouth, she gives him a small nod, and places the lighter back in his hand.  He grins when her fingers drag over his before she pulls her hand away.

“Alright, don’t overthink it,” He says, leaning forward a little closer with the lighter in hand.  “I’ll light it, and all you gotta do is breathe in.  Not too harsh, just a little inhale, got it?” 

She shrugs and nods, certain she could understand the complexities of smoking a cigarette, but she had a feeling that Gojo Satoru liked knowing what to do, and showing her what to do, so she let him.  It couldn’t hurt, right? If she fed his ego just a little bit? 

With a flick of his thumb a small flame erupts, and soon the end of the cigarette is burning.  Just as he said, she takes in a short breath, just enough to feel the smoke touch her lungs.

Her eyes meet his when he pulls the lighter away, but he stays sitting closely in front of her.  Even through the dark lenses he always kept perched on his nose she could tell that he was eager to watch her reaction.

She rips the stick from her mouth and coughs, and even once all the smoke is expelled, she sticks her tongue out with the desire to rid her mouth of the terrible flavor.  

Gojo chuckles quietly, taking the cigarette from between her fingers as he stands up for a moment.  He’s sitting again just a second later, passing her a bottle of water that she takes and chugs down greedily.  He’s still laughing when he passes the cigarette to the window dwellers.

“So you were right, huh?” He asks her after she’s got half the water down.

She nods back at him, taking a few more gulps to soothe the ache in her chest from her own coughing.

“But at least you tried it?” 

Finally pulling the bottle away, she turns to face him again.  Her brows are pinched together with annoyance, but there’s a flicker of a smile on her lips that Satoru can’t ignore.  It makes his heart beat at a disastrously wild pace. It makes him grin.

“Oh, I’ll be telling everyone you peer pressured me,” She tells him assuredly, to which he scoffs, but before he could argue, she continues.  “But… at least I tried it” 

The momentary defensive stature he’d taken relaxes just as quickly, and he even laughs a bit.

“Atta girl, Special Grade,” He teases.  “That’s the spirit” 

She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling as she picks up her magazine and settles back against the wall in a comfortable position.  Gojo doesn’t have much interest in fashion, but he sits beside her and follows along as she flips through it anyways.  

She supposes it’s because he has no interest in smoking with the others, that this was the better option.  He supposes it’s just because her shampoo smelled so light and fruity that he wouldn’t mind lingering around just a bit longer.

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[gojo s.] are you up?? 1:46 a.m.

[y/n] it’s almost 2. 1:47 a.m.

[gojo s.] fast response! so ur wide awake! :D 1:47 a.m.

[gojo s.] put on something warm and come to the window 1:48 a.m.

Gawking at her phone, (y/n’s) sure this is just some kind of stupid joke.  There was no way if she peeked out her window now that Gojo Satoru would be standing out there.  This late at night? On a Tuesday? They had training tomorrow bright and early- and wasn’t there a curfew?

She’s not sure what comes over her when she actually shuffles out of her warm covers and tiptoes over to the window.  Peeking through the curtain just to be sure wouldn’t hurt, right? 

Sure enough, when she pulls the curtain aside just enough to look outside, Gojo Satoru is standing out there.  He must’ve been expecting her to check, because he’s looking straight at her, grinning from ear to ear before he waves.

(y/n) shuts the curtain and snatches her phone off the bed.  Just as she begins to furiously type, she’s getting an incoming call.  With a huff, she answers it and brings the phone to her ear.

“Gojo Satoru, what the hell are you doing outside my-” 

“I knew you’d be down!” He’s shouting before she could finish her scolding, and (y/n) winces as she tilts the speaker of her phone away from her ear to relieve the ringing he’d caused.  “Get dressed and hop on out!” 

“Hop on out-? What are you talking about?” 

“Don’t you wanna go do something fun?” 

“Right now?” She lets out a humorless laugh.  “Gojo, it’s the middle of the night, I’ve been trying to sleep” 

“I can’t sleep either,” He replies, completely missing the point, but it’s only then that she starts to hear him out.  “I need a midnight snack,” He adds, this time his voice filled with it’s usual syrupy level of glee.  “I’m sure it’d help you, too!” 

It’s a ridiculous idea.  She had training in about five hours from now, and so far tonight she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep.  Gojo Satoru might’ve been all powerful, but that didn’t mean he had power over her, he couldn’t just make her go because he wanted a snack and company to go along with it.  It would be incredibly easy to tell him no and hang up the phone, and it would keep her out of trouble, too.  A double win.

Yet, she’s at her dresser and pulling off her pajamas before she’s even given him a verbal response.

“I hear movement, are you getting dressed?” He asked her, full of hope and excitement.

“Yes,” She huffs as she gets into her uniform slacks.  They were the only pants she owned that weren’t pajamas- and there was no way she was going out in the middle of the night with Gojo Satoru in hello kitty pajamas.

After throwing her jacket over her tee shirt and buttoning it up enough, she crept back over to her window, pulling open the curtains properly, her phone still in her hand.

“Oh good-!” 

Before he could finish whatever he was saying, she snaps her phone shut and slides it into her back pocket.  She needed both hands to slide the window open, at least if she wanted to do it carefully enough that it didn’t creak and squeak when she did so.

Even from a story below, she can tell that Gojo is pouting at his own phone before he puts it away.  He seems to get over it once she’s got her window open and she’s swinging a leg out, though.

“Come on down, Juliet, I’ll catch you!” He hollers, louder than he should have.

(y/n) swings her other leg out, sitting on the window sill almost completely leaning out of the building.

“Move out of the way, Gojo” She hisses down at him, but he only extends his arms, waving his fingers at her to prompt her to come down already.

He’d been pacing around out here for the last forty-five minutes debating on texting her, so he was antsy to finally get going.

Giving up, (y/n) pushed off the window sill, and landed on her feet with ease and perfect balance seconds later.  She certainly didn’t need him to catch her, but he’s right in front of her anyways, hands settling on her shoulders as if she wasn’t standing before him in perfect condition.

“Good?” He asks, and he’s still grinning ear to ear, but it’s a little different.

She’s not sure how she didn’t notice before, but he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses.  She could see the crinkles at the corners of his bright blue eyes when he smiled.  For a half a second, she could’ve gotten lost in the cerulean waves swirling in his irises.  His eyes were bright even in the dark, they practically gave the illusion of glowing.

“Yeah- yeah,” She chokes on her answer, and quickly averts her gaze before he could tease her for staring at him so blatantly.  “Let’s just get going, I don’t want to get caught” 

“I’d never get us caught,” Gojo scoffs, apparently offended that she could even think such a thing.  “Besides, you’ve got a clean track record, you’d probably get off easy anyways” 

She rolls her eyes at him as they start their trek off campus, but she can’t help the small smile of amusement on her face.  Gojo wasn’t wrong, she did have a squeaky clean record, which she’d proudly maintained since transferring here, but now…

It wasn’t that she was aiming to rebel, she didn’t need to do anything crazy, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t live a little… right? And what was one trip to a twenty-four hour convenience store in the grand scheme of things? 

“Has anyone ever told you you’re obnoxious?” She asks, but her voice betrays her with soft fondness, and it’s obvious that Gojo notices with the way he looks over at her with the largest, stupidest grin on his face.

“Never with a straight face,” He replies, only to laugh when he catches her smiling at him as soon as he looks at her.  She wants to roll her eyes again, but she doesn’t.  She just laughs with him and doesn’t argue.  “You can admit you like my company, I won’t tell anyone,” He adds, only partially teasing.  “”Promise” 

“You better keep that promise,” (y/n) mutters back.  “For whatever her odd reason, Shoko thinks I’m cool, and I’d like to keep that status” 

“That’s because you perform your twisted little cursed technique on her every time she asks,” Gojo says.  “Shoko’s got an obsession with the occult, and you are certainly all things occult” 

The corner of her lips tilt into a smirk.  She wouldn’t necessarily agree, but he wasn’t wrong about her cursed technique.  With the ability to access anyone’s thread of fate- that little string hidden in their soul that keeps them alive as long as it’s intact- her cursed technique was a bit more involved than the other Special Grades’ she’d met thus far.  

It was gruesome when executed on an assignment, Gojo had seen it first hand only once.  With a plunge of her hand into a curse’s body she’d retrieve the thread, and rip it apart with both fists.  The curse was exorcized immediately and they called it a day sooner than expected.

Shoko, however, enjoyed seeing it the way anyone liked a party trick.  She’d clasp her hands together and beg for (y/n) to open up her soul for her.  All of her hours spent in the morgue and the lab might’ve been warping her curiosity, but she was always delighted when cursed energy would encase (y/n’s) hand and she’d reach right into her body as if she phased right through the skin and bones, before retrieving that solid black thread.

“Are you saying that I’m not cool?” (y/n) asks Gojo suddenly, and she’s only messing with him, but he backtracks instantly.

“I never said that!” He shouts, his voice echoing over the empty path they walked into town.  “You’re easily the coolest person I’ve ever met, (y/l/n) (y/n).  You put the special in Special Grade for sure!” 

That has her rolling her eyes again, even though she’s laughing at the stupid line.

“There are more interesting qualities about you than a cursed technique, that’s all,”

The sudden genuine comment has her laughter fading and a look of quiet surprise overtaking her features when she looks back at him.  He’s already staring at her, with that stupid grin and his prying eyes that seemed a little softer now.  He had these moments often, where in the midst of his teasing and nonsense, he’d say something so deeply real, and she knew it, that it would practically knock the wind out of her.  Like right now, where all she can do is stare at him and wait for him to say something else.

“Like, yeah, I have the Six Eyes and I’m mastering Infinity and sure, I suppose I am the strongest being on this earth, maybe ever,” He starts to ramble, and (y/n) can practically feel the idiot comment making it’s way out.  “But I’m more than that.  I’m also… really handsome,” 

She snorts, before a short burst of giggles follows and she shakes her head.  Just as expected, Gojo Satoru will always bury the real feelings under the perfectly tailored facade.

“What? It’s true!” He barks in offense when she laughs.  “I’m ridiculously handsome- it’s almost too much hotness for one man to carry alone!” 

“Uh-huh” 

“So you agree? I’m ridiculously handsome?” He grins like he actually caught her in something, and she laughs again.

“I didn’t say that,” But she didn’t exactly deny it either, did she? “But more importantly, you’re ridiculously rich, and you’re buying me mochi, too” 

And just like him, she’ll bury the budding sparks of feelings she doesn’t want to admit she has in order to preserve something more long lasting.  Friendship.  She’d never had friends like this before, people who understood her so deeply, people who took an interest in her even when their interests didn’t align.  Gojo Satoru especially took an interest, and she had a feeling he enjoyed making her push her limits, because she enjoyed letting him do it.

“Pfft, fine,” Satoru mutters in mock annoyance.  “Was jus’ gonna buy it anyways” 

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

After that, Gojo Satoru has a knack for getting (y/n) to sneak out of her dorm past curfew.  He wasn’t always dragging her off campus, oftentimes they’d just sit on the roof, or wander the courtyards, but there was the occasional midnight snack run that he’d insist on taking her on.  One time he insisted on showing her how he’d refined his technique, so she sat around for a good two hours while he just showed off.  This wasn’t necessarily out of character for him, so she sat and gave him her attention even though her time would’ve been much better spent sleeping.

Unfortunately, and unknown to him, the feelings that she was developing for him had started to accelerate.  It seemed that with every night he came to her window to pester her, her heart simply couldn’t feel irritation towards him.  Not that he couldn’t get under skin, it’s just that he managed to settle in there.  To the point where when she was away from him, she found herself counting down the time until she’d get to be near him again.

It was almost pathetic, when she really thought about it.  Missing the boisterous presence of Gojo Satoru was laughable.  At first she buried the idea, but she wasn’t one to live a life of denial, and no sooner than he could next drag her out in the middle of the night did she accept that she was actually falling for the Six Eyes user.  Their friends would poke fun at her if they knew- which they did, but this wasn’t due to her actually telling them.

But it was unable to be helped.  He always found a way to make her heart skip a beat before it picks up in pace.

“I think Nanami is a worthy sorcerer, I don’t have any problem with his company” She shrugs with her words, before leaning back on her elbows.  

The tiles of the roof weren’t the most comfortable to sit on, but they often found themselves lounging around there anyways.  Maybe it was because it was the perfect place to view the stars, or maybe conversation just seemed to come so much easier up there.

“It’s nothing to do with that,” Satoru mutters, a bitterness to his words that she didn’t often hear from him.  He was always overbearingly sweet or chipper with his speech.  Maybe it was the roof that brought on a sudden change in tone, or maybe it was because they were something he couldn’t hold back.  “You’re more than capable of taking that assignment alone.  You’re Special Grade.  You don’t need some first year- or anyone- to partner up with you,” 

Just as she’s about to open her mouth to come to Nanami Kento’s defense, she seals her lips tight.  It wasn’t about Nanami’s ability at all, she realized, as Gojo set his gaze firmly on the horizon.  It was about hers.

“The higher ups never want to admit when someone is stronger than them, probably ‘cause they’re scared we’ll overthrow them, or something,” He mumbles the last part, but (y/n) has a feeling there’s more feelings brewing beneath the surface of his bitterness.  “They want to morph into this strong… thing… but then as soon as you actually achieve their ridiculous expectations they’ll spend the rest of your life doing everything they can to remind you that you’re not…” He trails off for a moment, and even though he’s refusing to look at her, she can see emotion flickering in the corner of his eye.  He lets out a sigh before finishing his thought,  “... good enough”

(y/n’s) quiet as she lets it sink in.  She doesn’t want to speak too soon and lead him to assume she’d brushed off all he said, but before she could accurately voice her thoughts, he turns to her and releases an airy laugh.

His lips are curved into a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, and (y/n) can’t help but frown before he even says anything.

“I don’t think that came out right-” 

“No, it did,” She interrupts him gently.  She gives him a small nod of her head, understanding perfectly what he was saying.  It was a warning, but it was also a compliment to her abilities, and she wanted him to know that she appreciated it in it’s entirety.  Surprisingly, Satoru shuts his mouth.  “If taking on partnered assignments is what gets me through the rest of my time here, I’ll do it,” She explains, and she watches as his forced smile begins to crumple with disappointment.  “Besides, it’s good for Nanami to get the experience too, yeah?” She muses, but Satoru’s expression doesn’t flinch.  He doesn’t even blink.  “I have to fall somewhere in between being a good sorcerer and being a good upperclassman, too” 

“You’re already doing that,” He points out, almost rudely, but his adamance makes her heart stutter.  “You’re a Special Grade, and you already train and tutor the others, what more could possibly be asked of you?”

His upset is evident in his features, but the creases of his frown and pinched brows only deepen when (y/n) lets out a soft laugh.  It’s quiet, but genuine nonetheless.  She couldn’t help but find comfort and amusement in his determination.

“Sorry,” She murmurs when she realizes her laughter only fueled his irritation.  “I’m just amazed that Gojo Satoru is so worried about my reputation” 

“I’m not- (y/n), it’s about more than- ugh,” He huffs after he stumbles too much and loses sight of what he was really trying to say.  This time, (y/n) stifles her laughter behind sealed lips, but the slight movement in her shoulders still gives her away.  Satoru turns away again, his face growing warm as he finally mumbles in defeat, “I just don’t want them taking advantage of you, too” 

(y/n’s) smiling at him, although he can only sort of tell with his peripheral vision.  She leans forward and tilts her head, trying to get him to turn towards her again, but he refuses.  He can’t have her seeing the creeping blush on his face, after all.

“Thank you, Satoru” She tells him, and it’s the first time she’s called him by his forename alone- she tended to call him Gojo Satoru just to spite him- but hearing it now, spoken in such a small but genuine voice, it has him giving in and looking over at her so quickly it’s almost embarrassing to give her such a noticeable reaction.  His eyes are wide and his mouth is snapped shut, worried it’d go completely dry if he left it open.

Gojo Satoru is fairly certain he’s never experienced what falling in love felt like, but he’d never tried to seek it out, either.  He was content with his life, he felt as though he checked all the right boxes, with being born the strongest sorcerer, having the greatest friends in the world, he’d never really considered what having more would look like.

Right now, it looked like (y/e/c) eyes and a shy smile.

As suspected, his mouth goes dry when he opens it.

“You’re… welcome” He answers slowly, and it’s a bit awkward but (y/n) doesn’t point it out.  She simply leans back on her arms again and turns her attention back towards the stars.

In a few minutes she’d strike up conversation again and they’d spend the rest of their night chatting aimlessly about nothing special in particular, but neither one wanted to be the first to alert the other of the time.  So they’d sit there until the sunrise would peek over the horizon, and slowly, but eventually, they’d sneak back into the building with tired goodbyes and plans to meet up with their friends during lunch like they always did.

Everything was exactly as it always was.  But it was undeniably different.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Satoru scoffs when Shoko tells him about a party she’d been invited to by a non-sorcerer she and (y/n) ran into while in town.  A non-sorcerer party sounds like the perfect way to waste an evening.  Although he won’t admit he feels relief that neither one of them actually planned on going, and he knows that (y/n) already tucked herself in her room for the night.  

She’s probably studying, he thinks to himself fondly.  It was a friday night, sure, she should be doing something fun with her evening, but he’d much rather have her here than out doing who knows what at some lame party.

“He was cute too, can’t believe she turned him down,” 

That little comment had him snapping back into conversation- he might’ve tuned Shoko out a bit when she started going on about the cashier giving her a hard time over her less-than-authentic ID for her smokes- but now all of his senses were tuned back into what she was saying.

Shoko rolls her eyes when his head swivels at super human speed.  She’s not offended that he’d so clearly been ignoring her, not when it’s so amusing that she brought him back to earth the only way she knew how- by praying on his jealousy and pride.  Oldest trick in the book, she smirked to herself.  She and Suguru had mastered this trick ages ago.

“Wonder why she’d do such a thing” She mutters in mock curiosity, before pulling out her new pack of cigarettes and sticking one between her lips.  Satoru narrows his eyes at her, picking up on the lack of subtlety.  It wasn’t often that he did so.

“You’re blaming me for (y/n) not being interested in some random non-sorcerer?” He laughs humorlessly at the notion, and Shoko mirrors it with a laugh of absolute humor.

“She’s your most favorite Special Grade, isn’t she?” She muses, plucking the cigarette from her lips to exhale the smoke in her lungs before she presses him again.  “If it weren’t for you, she’d be out living her life for once” 

“You’re acting like I keep her from doing anything-” 

“I’m not,” Shoko shrugs, her expression turning bored.  “I was actually trying to insinuate that she’d rather hang around here getting in trouble with you than doing, I don’t know, normal things.  Like parties.  And… other things that happen at parties” She finishes with a smirk before she sticks the cigarette back in her mouth to puff some more.

Satoru flusters, not having a quick witted comment to come back at her with.  His silence is just as damning, however, and Shoko begins to laugh again, plumes of smoke puffing out as she does so.

“She’s probably never even been to a party,” She says, as if talking to herself, but Satoru’s well aware that she’s just luring him into her trap.  

Now, he’s not completely sure what that trap is, some sort of admission of guilt he assumes, but for what? 

“She’d probably love the scene.  Dancing, mingling.  Non-sorcerers would love her for sure.  She could do her whole ‘there is no god, only I control your fate’ thing, they’d eat that up” 

“She said that one time-” 

“Yeah, and it was badass,” Shoko cuts him off.  “I got chills and I wasn’t even there,” She pulls up the sleeve of her jacket then, chuckling when she finds the little hairs on her arms standing up.  “See? Chills” 

Satoru swats her arm out of his face when she shoves it in front of him.

“What are you getting at? Are you asking me to take her? I don’t want to go to a party with a bunch of strangers whose collective idea of a good time is alcohol poisoning and shitty music” 

“Harsh, Satoru, who’s got your panties in a bunch?” 

He could teleport away right now, before Suguru even completely approaches the two of them, but isn’t it all the more damning if he turns and runs? He doesn’t make a decision before Suguru has joined them at their usual table in the courtyard.  Shoko’s passing him a cigarette without any words exchanged.

“Guess” She speaks in monotone as she hands him her lighter.

“I’m leaving” Satoru finally decides, stuffing his hands in his pockets, surely about to stomp away.  The other two snicker between one another.

“Awe c’mon, don’t be like that, Satoru” Suguru calls, but he doesn’t try to chase down his sulking friend.

“When ya get to (y/n’s) can you remind her she still has my spare jacket?” Shoko hollers, which is followed by the sound of her and Suguru bursting into a fit of laughter.

Satoru warps with a huff before they could continue obnoxiously yelling at his back.  He barely wipes the scowl off his face before he’s knocking on the door he reappears at.

“It’s open!” Is called from inside, but he’s still cautious when he slides it open.

(y/n’s) at her desk, one earbud in her ear and one hanging in front of her.  She’s surrounded by piles of books and papers, not to mention the highlighter in her hand and the pen tucked above her ear.  She’d clearly been busy with her studies, but when she looks up to see who her visitor was, she picks up her iPod Shuffle and hits pause before she plucks the other bud out of her ear.

“What a surprise,” She greets him with a warm smile.  “To see you actually using the door, that is,” 

That cracks a smile on his unusually sour face, and (y/n) leans back in her chair, already forgetting the work in front of her as she takes him in.  Her arms cross over her chest as her brow furrows just a little bit.

“What’s wrong?” 

“Something has to be wrong for me to stop by?” He asks, leaning back into the doorway.  “Can’t I just be a good friend and come say hi?” 

She raises a brow at him.

“Hi” She says with a smile too sweet to be real, or at least he thinks.

Satoru rolls his eyes, but his own smile is more genuine than he’d like to admit.

“Hi,” He replies.  (y/n) smiles a little wider.  “Is this really your plan for the night?” He asks, wagging his finger in a circular motion at the pile of work she had before her.

“It was,” She claims.  “But I have this odd feeling… like you’re about to drag me off…?” She can barely contain her delight, even as she presses her finger against her pursed lips in mock curiosity.

“Take you away from your studies? Who do you think I am, Special Grade? A bad influence?” 

“And apparently a mind reader, too” She quips.

“Well… do you want me to drag you out of here or not?” 

It’s only a dizzy spell from Satoru’s warping later that they find themselves in the middle of a neighborhood, in front of a house she doesn’t recognize.  Needless to say, it was not a usual spot for them.

“A house party?” (y/n) furrows her brows at him, before glancing down at herself.  She’d ditched her uniform jacket at least, but she was still in black slacks and her white tee shirt.  “You couldn’t have told me to wear something different?” 

Satoru frowns, before mirroring her actions.  In the same pants and a black tee shirt himself, he takes offense to her insinuation.

“You don’t think I make this look good?” He pouts.

“I think we look like we’re in costumes- what are we doing here, anyways?” She asks.

“Shoko told me about it,” He says, before taking a step towards the house.  “C’mon let’s go in” 

Begrudgingly, she follows him, even though she’s still completely unsure of the whole thing.

“This is really what you wanted to do?” She asks, and Satoru doesn’t miss the way she stiffens when he lets himself into the house without even a knock.  She supposes knocking or ringing the doorbell would have been pointless, seeing as the music playing inside was so loud the bass could be heard from the front yard, but it unsettles her nonetheless.

No, he thinks.

But what he says is; “Why not?” with that big dumb grin of his that tells her she should keep her guard up tonight.

It’s strange that she can trust him with her life while simultaneously not trusting him in the slightest at this moment.

The house party is picture perfect, captured like every movie scene depicting a house party ever.  Countless bodies inhabiting the open living room, the staircase, and the few hallways she could see just from stepping through the door.  It seems everyone’s either holding a plastic cup, a beer bottle, a cigarette, or some combination of the three.  When they take a few steps in and she doesn’t feel any weird stares, her stomach starts to settle, but the voice in the back of her mind still whines that she should’ve at least changed into a pair of jeans.

Satoru’s not taking any of it in- at all.  Despite his Six Eyes, he hardly notices the bustling of dancing bodies, or bodies trying to push through the crowd.  The music is at just the right volume to ring in his ears in a way that will ache tomorrow, but he doesn’t register the melody enough to identify the song, and he doesn’t try, either.  He’s far more charmed by the way (y/n) takes it all in with complete enamourment and intrigue than he could be by the scene itself.

The scene itself was unimpressive.  A loud, smoky atmosphere that had his skin crawling before even attempting to walk through the crowd of people made him want to wince.  He tried to keep his expression as neutral as he could, not wanting to take away from (y/n’s) experience, but when his eyes surveyed the place, they squinted with disgust.  It was even starting to smell.

“What first, hm?” He turned towards her in an attempt to block out the setting they found themselves in.  If only he could turn off his Six Eyes and tunnel vision completely on her.  “Body shots? Dancing?” 

(y/n) scoffs, but a humored smile curls on her lips as she meets his gaze.

“How about just a drink?”

“A shot?” 

“One beer” 

His grin twitches, before he gives her a nod and takes off into the crowd that had his Infinity flickering on instantaneously.  Satoru’s got his sights set straight on the kitchen, it seems a little less crowded in there, and the array of coolers and bottles on the counter was the most appealing thing about this place.  

(y/n) let her eyes wander every person they passed, taking in everything she could.  Every smile, every laugh, every outfit and anything else there was to take note of.  A few people noticed her curious staring, some waved, some seemed indifferent, some stared back, but nothing captured her attention quicker than Satoru tapping her on the shoulder once they’d reached the kitchen.  He’s already holding a bottle out to her, and she takes it with a quiet thank you.

He takes it back from her moments later when she tries to unscrew the bottle cap.  The grin she knows to be cautious of returns as he points a finger at it, thumb outstretched, and with a quiet zap the cap flies off.  Surprisingly, he doesn’t completely shatter the bottle with his abundance of cursed energy, but the bottle cap does go flying, and they hear a distant ‘ow!’.

“I could’ve found a bottle opener” (y/n) tells him, but he knows she was at least a little bit impressed by his finite control over his technique.

“But ya already got one,” He quips with pride.  She stifles her laugh by raising the bottle to her lips, taking a few long drinks.  Satoru’s eyebrows almost raise to his hairline, a shocked laugh belting out of him when she finishes.

“I figured you’ve never had a drop to drink before” He says when she gives him a confused look.

“I haven’t” She confirms.  Satoru keeps his mouth shut after that.

They spend a few hours at the house party, to both of their surprise.  There’s some mingling, (y/n) seemed to enjoy meeting new people, and drunk people seemed to enjoy flocking to her.  Girls thought her attire was badass, guys liked talking to a girl that talked back- at least until Satoru’s face would screw up enough that they’d leave.  Other than a few offers of phone numbers, he couldn’t say he hated the whole party setting.

But his acceptance of the whole ordeal might have had less to do with the party being fun and more to do with the company he kept for the night.  As much as (y/n) moved about to enjoy every aspect of the simple party, she had a habit of sticking as close to his side as possible.  If she was walking away, her hand was latching onto his, or his elbow, to keep him moving with her.  If they were surrounded in a tightly packed space, she was glued to his side, tucked under her arm and pressed against him from torso to leg.  Satoru deducted that he’d never show up to one of these things alone, but if she asked him? Hell, he might agree without thinking twice.

“Hear me out- hear me out!” She doesn’t need to tell him twice, but she shouts when she repeats herself just to be sure that Satoru can hear her clearly.  “I think we should throw our- our own party, back at- back at home” 

It’s cute that she calls it home, he thinks.  Logically, he knows it’s because she’s never really had a solid place to land before Yaga scouted her and took her in, but it still has a way of making his heart flutter with the idea of her involving him in her idea of home.  

They’ve taken a break from chatting with strangers, to Satoru’s relief, and right now he had her attention all to himself.  They were currently wallflowering in a corner between the hallway and the living room, a water bottle being passed between them, although he tried to keep it more in her hands than his, considering she out drank him rather quickly.

“I dunno, Suguru and Shoko aren’t really party animals,” He replies, earning a bubbly giggle from her, which he takes to mean she agrees.  “I think you might just be enjoying yourself too much” 

“No such thing,” She argues with a definitive shake of her head.  “And don’t lie, you’re having fun, too!” 

She’s shouting a bit again, and Satoru laughs.  Shoko and Suguru wouldn’t believe him later when he tells them about how cute she was when she was tipsy and talkative.  Oh well, he’d have to enjoy it for himself first hand.  He already couldn’t get enough of it, of her eager attention.  He’s so wrapped up in it he’s been leaning closer and closer each time she speaks.  Until he’s practically hanging onto the corner of the wall, pressing closer to the side she’d been leaning against.

“I wouldn’t attribute that to this party” He scoffs, almost rudely as he glances at the remaining people.  

There’s a couple making out on the couch, a circle forming at the bottom of the stairs with a bong being slowly passed around, a few people are passed out on open furniture, at least one person sleeping on the floor- and he can only imagine what’s going on upstairs.

When he looks back at her, her eyes are already focused on his.  Round and full of pure delight, as if this had been the greatest night of her life.  Satoru pushes his sunglasses on top of his head, revealing the slight squint in his gaze.  (y/n) tilts her head curiously when she catches the furrow forming in his brows, too.

“What?” She asks him, still studying his puzzled expression.  It’s a bit difficult, with his pretty eyes on display, her mind was a little one track at the moment and it was hard to focus on anything other than the perfect cerulean oceans.

“How come you never went out ‘n did this stuff before moving here?” 

Her shoulders rise and fall unceremoniously.  

“I guess cause no one ever dragged me into doing them.  Teleporters were in short supply, too” She laughs at her own joke, and Satoru cracks a smile, reveling in her amusement.

“Well aren’t you in luck, then,” He hums, and he admits his insides are starting to feel doughy when he’s the object her soft gaze is so set on, and it’s probably about time to convince her to head home, but that would mean ruining her fun, and he can’t bring himself to do so just yet.  “Did you get to have all the synthetically produced fun you wanted?” He teases, and she shrugs again, but this time the motion is gentler, more careful.

“I had a good time with you,” The reply is genuine, making it all the more hard hitting to his heart.  Even his Infinity couldn’t protect him from that.  Her eyes finally tear away from his, only to glance over the dwindling crowd of drunken bodies.  “You sort of scared off all my kiss options though” 

“Kiss options?” He repeats with a laugh, taking her comment for a joke.  When she looks up at him again, he can tell in her deluded, drunken mind, she’d been absolutely serious.  “You’re joking.  You wanted to kiss one of these clowns?” He clicks his tongue in displeasure, but her expression doesn’t waver.

“It’s a bit late for it now.  But I figured it was as good a time as any to get it out of the way,” She says, in that light but serious tone again, and now Satoru feels his heart dropping.  “Oh well,” She sighs, leaning further into the wall, until her head rested against it.  “Another time…” 

“What, it’s on your bucket list to kiss some rando?” He teases half-heartedly.  

Had she been trying to make a move on someone all night? Now Satoru’s mind was racing with thoughts that made his stomach twist into knots.  Had he misread their entire evening? Had she been trying to ditch him? Was he the one clinging to her? Well, he’d clung a little bit, but it felt natural to wrap his arm around her waist and keep her close! His heart started hammering in his chest as the nasty feeling in his gut began to climb up his throat.

“No,” She says, laughing under her breath at the idea.  “Just wanted to get the first one over with” 

Gojo’s eyes widen almost comically, before he leans in and drops his voice to a whisper, as if to spare her any embarrassment.

“As in first kiss?” He mutters, eyes darting around just to be sure no one else could hear.  (y/n’s) laughter bubbles at his dramatic display, and takes no offense to it at all, simply nodding her head.

“Yeah, as in first kiss,” She repeats with the same secretive act, before laughing again.  “Don’t act all surprised now” 

“Baby, I’m not acting,” The pet name falls off his tongue sarcastically, but he can’t deny it feels a bit too natural.  “You’ve never kissed anyone?” 

“Nope” She pops her lips and shakes her head.

“And of all places you wanted to kiss someone here?” He asks, his lips curling into a grimace as he recalled the candidates from earlier.  The pickings weren’t exactly ripe.

“It was just a kiss,” She rolls her eyes at his reaction.  “I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, Satoru, I just wanted to know what it was like.  Figured it might come up organically in a party setting” 

Satoru sticks his tongue out and gags.

“Absolutely not.  Why didn’t you just say somethin’? I would’ve kissed ya” 

“That doesn’t count” She shakes her head, and he narrows his eyes back at her.

“And why not?” He asks, clearly offended.  “I’ll have you know I’m a great kisser!” 

“Oh yeah? Your hand told you so?” (y/n) snickers, and Satoru’s pout noticeably worsens.  “I don’t want a pity kiss, I want a real kiss.  Y’know, so I can be good at it before it… really matters” 

“It would be a real kiss, dummy, what difference does it make?” He’s not following her logic, and he can’t tell if it’s drunk (y/n) logic or if this had been on her mind all night.

She blinks at him, the humor in her features fading away the longer he stares back at her and she begins to realize he’s being serious.  Her brows twitch, and her mouth opens but no words come out.  What was she supposed to say? Yes, kiss me now!? It felt awkward to suddenly rush into it and accept his offer.  But she also didn’t want to let the moment pass and regret it later.

“It won’t be weird,” Satoru purses his lips and shakes his head with as much nonchalance as he can muster.  It’s as though he’s reading her mind, and the thought of taking him up on it makes her face feel warm.  “Besides, I would be a bad friend letting you have a bad first kiss with some non-sorcerer that doesn’t know what he’s doing” 

“You’d feel bad?” A small laugh escapes her as she teases him, tilting her chin up at him.  Satoru nods his head from side to side with uncertain confirmation.  “Okay then” 

“Okay?” He repeats.

“Yeah” 

“You’ll let me?” 

It’s an odd way of phrasing it, she’ll let him kiss her, as if he was the one seeking it out in the first place.  However Satoru was simply doing her a favor, wasn’t he? Helping her get the first one out of the way.  He’d much rather he do it himself than let any of the idiots she met tonight get the chance.  But that’s just because they weren’t worthy like he was, and that was a fair assessment, wasn’t it? 

He swallows the lump in his throat with only a little difficulty before she nods back at him and gives him a hum of approval.  She’ll actually let him.

When he doesn’t make a move, she tilts her head at him in confusion.

“Well?” 

“Well come on,” He beckons her, before taking her by the hand and pulling her away from the wall they’d been hugging for the better part of an hour.  “Can’t have it be in some stranger’s house, might as well get a better view than that, yeah?” 

He grins at her as he half guides and half drags her outside.  She’s a little lost on his logic, because it was just a kiss wasn’t it? Did the setting really matter? Although once they’re outside she has to admit the moon’s luminescence did provide a nicer atmosphere.  A smile graces her face as she admires the sky, until Satoru stops them.

“Here’s good,” He decides, grinning back at her.  “Got a speech planned? Anyone you want to thank?” 

“Well, I never thought I’d make it this far,” She giggles as she goes along with the bit.  “I suppose at the end of it all I only have myself to thank, really-” 

“Ahem” 

“Oh, and of course Gojo Satoru, for the wonderful opportunity,” She corrects, barely containing her laughter through her made-up speech.  Satoru brightens, grinning from ear to ear at her delight.  “I think that’s all I got” 

He chuckles, before taking a step forward and closing the already small distance between them.  Her breath hitches in her throat as reality sets in.  She didn’t really think about actually kissing Satoru until he was close enough that his cologne wafted past her nose, and her eyes naturally fell to the pink curve of his lips.

“I’m not kissin’ you with your eyes open,” He laughs breathlessly, and her eyes briefly flicker up to his before she lets them shut.  The heat in her face begins to spread down her neck as she holds her breath.  “You need me to count down?” He asks, and he’s only partially joking.

“Just kiss me, ‘toru-” 

He doesn’t need further assurance beyond her impatient little whine, so in one motion he slides hand around the back of her neck, pulling her forehead just as he dipped his head to meet her lips with his.

She’s frozen at first, unmoving under his soft mouth prodding against hers, but he expected as much.  After two seconds, she slowly and carefully kisses him back, still nervous she’d do something wrong.

Her hands are planted firmly at her sides, and her eyes are squeezed shut, but she still cherishes every second of the simple kiss.  How sweet his lips taste, how warm and welcoming they are, how much she’d like to stand there and kiss him for a few minutes more…

When she pulls away to catch her breath that she’d been holding in for far too long, Satoru’s hand lingers at the nape of her neck.  His fingers twitch, indecisive in what to do next.

Kissing her again wasn’t the right move… was it? 

“Thank you,” She tells him softly, her blush prominent on her face even in the dark.  “Should we get going now?” 

He could almost laugh at how quickly she moved on if it didn’t sting a little.  He hides it behind a smile as he nods his head in agreement, getting ready to warp them back home.

“You could’ve thanked my hand in your speech too” He teases as she wraps her arms round one of his, mentally preparing for the dizzying effect of teleportation.

“Shut up” She giggles back before they disappear from the scene.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Satoru’s never turned down (y/n’s) company.  He’s never wanted her to be away from him, and he’d never ask her to, either.  There was no one whose presence he delighted in more than hers- and he was starting to really come to terms with what that meant.

“You should go to bed,” He tells her, for the third time tonight.

There was no reason for him to stay up on guard with him.  He had surveillance covered while Suguru and Riko slept.  There was no sense in (y/n) staying up all night and wasting away her energy.  Not when she’d already done so last night, despite his protests then, too.

She’s sitting on the other end of the sofa, a small carton of ice cream in her hands that she was poking around in, trying to scoop out all of the brownie bits first.  She looks like she hadn’t even heard him, but Satoru’s not falling for it.

“Seriously, (y/n), you need rest” He sighs, hoping tonight he’d get through to her.

She hums thoughtfully, her eyes focused on her snack, and Satoru throws his head back against the couch cushion in defeat.

“We could put a movie on, good way to pass time,” She suggests, completely ignoring his request.  “I’ll even let you pick” She adds, shooting him a warm smile.

“You’re not gonna sleep, are you?” Satoru frowns when he turns his head to look at her.  Her smile remains as she shakes her head.

“Nope,” She murmurs sweetly.  “So you might as well pick something to watch” 

She’d pulled this last night, too.  Convincing him to hang out at the beach all night, swimming and stargazing.  He adored her company, he really did, but she hadn’t slept a wink yesterday, and he couldn’t put her through 48 straight hours without it.

He knows she’s exhausted, her eyes were dull, and starting to get puffy from lack of rest.  She did her best keeping up an energetic attitude, especially during the day when Suguru and Riko had still been awake, she’d fooled them almost too easily.  But Satoru knew better.  He knew her better.

“If I put a movie on will you at least lay down?”

Her eyes narrow at him, before she lowers her ice cream to her lap.

“Are you trying to trick me into falling asleep, Satoru?” 

“I’m trying to make sure you’re not going to go delirious because you’re not sleeping a normal human amount-” He tries to argue but she interrupts him.

“You haven’t slept either, hypocrite,” She mutters the last part.  “I’m resting enough just sitting around for the night, aren’t I?” 

“No-” 

“Pick the damn movie, Satoru” 

He huffs, but for some reason he finds himself putting a random disc in the dvd player before he falls onto the sofa again.  (y/n) remains at her end, slowly picking at her ice cream while the movie starts.  Satoru doesn’t have the energy to argue with her- literally, he’s starting to get tired keeping his Infinity up like this- so he sits in silence and watches the tv.  All he can do now is hope that she’ll get tired over time and maybe just pass out.  She couldn’t keep it up forever, could she? 

Two more movies later, Satoru worries he’d grossly underestimated her.  It had been almost six hours- it was nearing four in the morning- and she still reluctantly had her eyes glued to the tv.  He’d tried a few more times to convince her, but all he’d managed was to get her to share a blanket with him.

It hadn’t been enough.  She settled under the fluffy blanket, right up against his side, and still it wasn’t enough coziness to lure her into sleep.  He had to give her some credit for her stubbornness, that was for sure.

Around the 4:30 mark, he feels a weight pressing into his shoulder- well, against the Infinity, and he’s filled with so much hope he almost drops the barrier just to fully enjoy the feeling of her sleeping against him.

Then she alerts him that she’s still awake by speaking.

“Satoru,” It’s soft, so faint that he holds onto hope that she could still drift off.  “If I do fall asleep, you’ll wake me up, won’t you?”

He chuckles, before sliding his arm around her back, making sure to tuck the blanket up to her shoulder before he settles his arm there, keeping her tucked in against him.  He tells himself that this is all to make sure she’ll get some sleep- against her will or not- and that it had nothing to do with how his heart felt full when she snuggled a little deeper into his hold.

“You know I’m not gonna, Special Grade,” He murmurs back.  She grumbles something inaudible, but he assumes it has something to do with the heavier droop of her head.  

After a few minutes, he raises his hand from her shoulder, and slowly presses his fingers against her temple, easing her into a more comfortable position, until eventually he feels her slump completely as she gives in.

He lets their movie keep on rolling once she’s finally asleep against him, it at least held his attention enough to keep him awake.  The hammering of his heart in his chest might’ve also kept his adrenaline kicking for long enough that it wouldn’t have mattered, though.

The following day, (y/n) gives him a few icy glares, just to remind him that she didn’t appreciate his cruel trick.  Riko and Suguru share a few awkward glances as the two half fight and half joke about the whole thing.  They try to remove themselves from the pair’s bantering as much as they can, unable to stand the levels of chemistry they carried into every room.

“Seriously Satoru, it’s going to make me sick,” Suguru mutters to his friend at one point, while (y/n) and Riko are busy wandering the shore for seashells, or something.  “Make a move or don’t, but you’re driving the rest of us mad” 

Satoru laughs, his eyes squinting against the sun even with his shades on.  It was getting exhausting keeping them open, the amount of cursed energy it took to keep up Infinity and his Six Eyes had been giving him headaches all day, but he did his best to hide it.

“You’re just jealous that she likes me more” He says, even though Suguru doesn’t care in the slightest, and he even rolls his eyes to drive that point home.

“Well she’s not gonna like you forever if you keep up this dumb game,” He argues.  “What kind of friends kiss and then don’t do anything about it?”

“I told you that in confidence” Satoru whines.

“You told me in the middle of the night right after it happened,” Suguru reminds him in a plain tone of voice.  “Seriously, we all know she has feelings for you, so stop being a coward” 

“Not a coward,’ Satoru mumbles, kicking at the sand.  “We’re just… sorta in the middle of something here?” He tries to blame it on the assignment, but Suguru gives him a blank look.

“We’re at the beach,” He mutters.  “She’s been staying up with you, too, so do it then, after the rest of us have gone to sleep” He points a finger at him for the last part, making sure it was crystal clear.

“I don’t know.  Maybe” Satoru huffs, and starts to walk away before Suguru could drag the conversation on any longer.

He spends the rest of the afternoon and evening mulling it over.  He’d known how he felt about her for quite some time now, before he’d even kissed her.  The kiss was just the solidification that his feelings were real, and not some romanticized imagination his mind had drawn up.  But he’d never felt love before, and he had no clue how to go about professing it.

He’s antsy when he and (y/n) find themselves on the beach again that night, long past sunset, long past when everyone else had gone to bed.  They’re both seated on a towel to keep their clothes clear of sand, but with their feet digging into the soft grains it didn’t matter, the towel became a mess anyways.

“I don’t want you to stay up too late again,” He tells her, although it feels useless.  “It’s just not good for you,” He looks over at her, taking in the darker circles under her eyes, the paleness in her features even after spending the day in the sun.  “And it’s not worth it”

She gives him a bittersweet smile, her head tilting just slightly as she regards his worry.

“It is worth it,” She replies quietly.  “I don’t want you to be alone out here,” She tells him, watching the way his expression falters and softens.  “It’s just not good for you” She mimics him with a laugh for good measure, and he barely cracks a smile, but his worry is still evident.

“Well, when this assignment is over, can you promise to sleep for three days straight to make up for it?” He asks, and she thinks it over for a moment before nodding her head in agreement.

“I suppose,” She answers.  “As long as you do, too,” She adds quickly, “Fair is fair” 

Satoru rolls his eyes, but his smile is a little more genuine this time.

“Alright then, 72 hours of sleep it is,” He gives in.  “But I’m holding you to that promise” 

“I don’t break promises,” She tells him confidently, before a quietness settles between them again.  Her gaze lingers on the low tide rolling in as she lets her mind wander, and before she knows it, she’s speaking up again.  “I know you don’t think you need anyone looking out for you, Satoru,” 

He looks at her right away, tired eyes widening at the sudden seriousness in her tone.  She’s still watching the tide, completely captured by it, but he can tell she’s holding in more.

“But I… I worry about you,” She admits, dropping her head to stare at her lap.  “I don’t want you to take on more than you can handle, I… I don’t want them to take advantage of you anymore,” 

She swallows the lump in her throat before finally working up the courage to look over at him.

“I know that you’re the strongest, and it’s gonna happen but… but I can’t help this feeling like… I’m here too, you know? I can take things on too, assignments, or… this,” She gives him a weak smile, hoping he understands that her sentiment comes from a good place.  “I care about you, you know?” She finishes in a whisper.

Satoru’s eyes shift in between hers as he takes it in.  How ironic, that every reason she has for putting herself through hours without rest, were the exact reasons that he wanted her to get rest.  The corner of his lips tugs into a small smile as he takes her in now, completely.

Her exhaustion is evident, but with the way she’s looking at him now, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone so beautiful.

He couldn’t take it anymore.

In an act of complete selfish desire, he leans over the space between them and plants his lips on hers.  Her eyes widen at first, alarmed by the sudden kiss, and the fact that he’s dropped his Infinity in order to touch her at all, but as soon as the shock starts to wear off her eyes fall shut and she’s kissing him back with all the fervor that she wished she had the first time.

It’s another pleasant surprise when she reaches out and finds her fingertips bumping into his cheekbones, before her entire hands up his warm face and she’s pulling him closer to her, kissing him again- and then again some more.

Satoru’s balance is thrown off from the way he leans against her, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed when he wraps his arms around the dip in her back and pulls her closer to him.  She obliges with a soft sigh panted against his lips before they’re colliding again.

For all the passion he pours into it- for every ounce of need and impatience he feels, he kisses her slowly, each one lingering a little longer than the last, just to be sure he commits every detail of it to his memory, where it could be preserved in his perfection forever.

He doesn’t let go of her when they finally pull apart, and she doesn’t pull her hands away from his face, either.  They keep each other close, as close as they can while still catching their breath.

Her eyes are wide when they meet his, confused and ecstatic all in one sweet expression that Satoru wants to add to his collection of memories.  He smiles at her as his eyes wander her face leisurely.

“What was that for?” She murmurs, the pad of her thumb rubbing over the delicate curve of his cheekbone with nothing but fondness in her touch.  

He chuckles, warm breath fanning over her lips.  

Wasn’t it obvious?

“Because,” 

His voice is a mere murmur, and for a moment she thinks that might be his entire answer.  She wouldn’t put it past him, but there’s a look in his eyes that resembles longing, and she knows there must be more.

“I love you too”

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

[ summer's in the air and baby, heaven's in your eyes // i'm your national anthem ]

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

xoxo ~ jordie a/n: i actually had a super rad cursed technique planned for reader but ended up not writing any scenes where she's using it so u WILL see it come up in another fic sometime

[jjenthusee]

Handshakes And Trash Cans

Pairing: Jason Todd x Reader

a/n: simply, i wrote a lot and i didn’t wanna release it in parts, so i squeezed the entire fic here. I’ve been having fun writing small excerpts and then they turn into full fics. Jason deserves all the love, so i focused on a neighbors to lovers? No mention of vigilante stuff, but tons of domesticity. With some mentions of big brother Dick (i’m a firm believer that he’s the number one supporter of Jason and just wants the best for him), a bit of steaminess if u squint, and a very devoted Jason. leave me any comments if your comfortable sharing because i wanna know what u guys think XD and if you were crying screaming sliding down the wall like i was (also despite me still being in my repenting era, i wanted to release this as an early apology cause i wanna write another angsty drabble so maybe…maybe not look forward to that) ENJOY (link to the work before this one here)

word count: 7.1k

tags: pining, tons of fluff, strangers to friends to lovers, heartfelt confessions, big brother dick shenanigans

When you got your first two-bedroom apartment, you always thought the dream would only be possible with a roommate. You didn’t have much money during college and transitioning into a full-time job didn’t allow you to freely spend outside of necessities and rent.

But you did it. You got two bedrooms and you didn’t initially know what to do with the extra room. A hobby space, a library, a guest room, or an office? There were too many possibilities.

This was your space, so you combined it all. A basket to keep all of your current craft obsessions next to a bean bag, two full shelves of books from your childhood to your university years, and a desk in the corner to write. It was everything you hoped for. A spot to leave work out of, to decompress and remember the things that made you happy.

You were proud you did it on your own. You could enjoy solitude, your hard work and give time to prioritize yourself.

But an unexpected accomplishment came with an unexpected visitor. A handsome visitor no less. Maybe being an adult wasn’t so bad all the time.

…

But meeting new people was bad. Or you were bad at it.

When you were up at two in the morning, doing normal two a.m. activities like trying to turn your entire life around, you believed that dragging yourself to one of the community events at the apartment complex would help you get to know your neighbors. Then you could scope the scene to see if you wanted to hide forever or maybe have a friendly acquaintance you acknowledged in the hallway.

Now you wanted neither as you sat, alone, at a bar stool in the well decorated community balcony. Although you were distancing yourself from the main party, you couldn’t help admiring the string lights they hung up, the pristine décor, and new furniture. They clearly went through a grand renovation before you moved in.

Despite your need to socially decompress from all the small talk, you did feel mellow in the warm lighting, listening to the slow music you quietly hummed to.

The view was great from your table, you got to see from the edge of the balcony into the city view. Gotham City did have its moments and lots of outsiders tend to see all the bad that overruns it, but when the city is calm, it has its own virtue.

As you watched the sky line, a man also decided to join in, admiring the city lights. He stood farther from where you sat, leaning against the glass and steel railing. He was probably distancing himself from the party like you were. You could only see half of his face from your current angle and distance, but he was…charming. Broody and charming.

Gotham did have the best views, but staring was bad. A little bit of hope crept into your mind at the thought of a handsome neighbor living in the same apartment building.

Another pretty man joined him. Wow, you never realized that Gotham had a lot of great views. Maybe you needed to get out more, enjoy the scenery a bit.

The two beautiful men seemed to know each other. One more talkative than the other, but they seemed close. It was amusing watching the way they contrasted one another, a man clearly dragged to be here tonight and the other fueling himself with the night vibe.

As much as you wanted to continue to be nosy, maybe it was time to call it a night, it was late and you got enough of your pretty boy fill for the evening. Which would have been the plan if you didn’t make eye contact with the second model that blessed your eyes.

You nervously observed the charismatic man walking toward you with a bright friendly smile.

“Hello, I just wanted to ask if my brother—the tall very alone one standing over there—could be tall and very alone over here, in this seat.” He dragged the stool out from underneath the glass table you were resting your arms on.

You looked at the empty seat across from you, then glanced at his presumed brother you were staring at earlier. He clearly didn’t agree to this sudden turn of events as he watched the two of you talk and he looked more mortified than you were. It was…cute. It brought a smile to your face.

“Well, your tall and very alone brother looks scared of me.” You glanced back to the man still holding the chair out.

Your comment must have been hysterical at the way the man was almost leaning forward from laughing. His dimples fully visible and his hair falling forward. Everything he did looked stunning.

“I promise he’s friendlier than he looks.” He breathlessly held his stomach still amused at your first impression of his broody brother. “He’s tall, alone, and friendly if it helps.”

You thought for a moment, debating on your options: leave or sit with a handsome man in possibly awkward silence.

“I don’t mind being alone together.” You smiled more, giving into the curiosity of the man leaning against the railing.

You were a simple human and apparently the man in front of you was too when he ushered his brother over. A man much too large for the bar stool, but you got a good look at his full face.

The curls, defined dark eyebrows, a white streak. His face had definition, a particular beauty that differed from his brother. Not less beautiful, but you were more drawn to the rougher look.

You definitely made the right choice.

Before you had any time to say anything, the conspirator left to go mingle with another bunch of attendees. You watched him hop from one conversation to another, you didn’t know whether he knew them or he just met them like you had five seconds ago.

“I think social anxiety is scared of him.” You laughed in disbelief to your new companion.

“Trust me, you have no idea. I’ve seen him wear some of the most horrendous outfits in public, willingly. What’s worse is—I hate to admit it—but he can pull it off, in a horrifying way.” The stranger shook his head, no mortification in his voice, and you almost unconsciously lulled to the sound. “But he means well, uh, sorry he dragged you into whatever he’s planning. I could leave you alone, he tends to unintentionally be pushy.”

Oh? Broody, charming and thoughtful. Was the bar low or were you easily impressed? Maybe the husky voice is blurring the distinction.

“No, it’s okay, he seemed worried about both us being ‘very alone’ as he put it.” You spoke, glancing into the eyes of the man in front of you. Greenish blue. A wave of amusement washed over you and with the most serious expression you could muster, you decided to test the waters. “From one alone person to another, let’s be alone together.” You reached out your hand to introduce yourself.

He coyly smiled at your formal gesture, leaning in to mimic your movement. You were both leaning onto the glass table, close enough to see the slight scaring on his face. Faint enough to see them only if you were close enough, wanting to drag your thumb across them.

His warm hand engulfed yours. Calloused. A firm handshake.

“Jason, alone man, and been alone for twenty-one years.” Jason gave you the most breathtaking smile, never letting go of your hand. “I’m looking forward to this opportunity…alone, of course.”

You laughed, almost giggled from how charming this man was.

“It’s been twenty-three alone years and still counting.” You mischievously smirked, glad he joined in on your antics. “I’m glad to let you join the team. I expect great things from you.”

“And I hope to learn a lot from my superiors, I’ll be in your care.” Jason’s voice was so low at the end of his statement. It caught you off guard that you almost missed the way he held onto your hand just a tiny bit longer than you anticipated. So short that you felt like you imagined it.

The warmth still lingered on your hands after you let go.

You were so engrossed in Jason’s company and Jason only had the eyes to look at you, that neither of you could see the man, who schemed your interaction, was beaming from watching the connection spark.

…

That single handshake and nonchalant agreement that you shared with an unknown neighbor actually kept it’s promise. That evening, you found out that Jason lived on the same floor as you did, that his brother visited him a lot, and he took out the trash on Wednesdays.

He didn’t tell you the last one, but you found out the last bit of information by accident when you bumped into him on your way back from the trash room. You thought the evening you met Jason would be the first and last time you would see him, but your laziness prevented you from taking out the garbage on your designated day and you were graced with seeing his lopsided smile as you passed him in the hallway.

You were so giddy from the surprise and seeing Jason’s captivating smile, you tested your luck and took the trash out on the same day and time the following week.

You listened out in the hallway, trying to hear a door open, it was honestly crazy behavior, but you continued your slow pace, but with no tall alone man in sight and a defeated sigh, you walked to the trash room with no Jason by your side and swung the door open.

Like a beam of light cascading over you, the man in question was standing in front of you, opening the trash shoot. You never thought a man in a trash room would be sexy, but with his shirt tightly straining on his body, a flushed face, and his muscles eye level with you, anything was possible.

May whoever told this gorgeous man to live at this apartment complex eat delicious meals, have working phone chargers, and a lifetime of happiness.

Somewhere off in the far distance, Dick sneezed.

You almost forgot the reason you were in the trash room after you set your eyes on Jason’s post-workout state. He kept the shoot open for you and with unsteady steps you threw your trash bag to disappear to the unknown. You were trying to not trip up with Jason’s defined arm holding the handle open and the close proximity of his chest to your face.

Maybe you need to go on a run. Why were you acting like this right now?

“Hey, neighbor.” Jason casually spoke to you. His voice felt airy, probably winding down from the exercise. “You come around here often?”

You cleared your mind from any thoughts, the trash room was not the place to start flirting, but what were you supposed to do when Jason started it? Or what you assumed to be flirtatious conversation.

“Nah, I’m new to town.” You glanced over to him, leaning your neck back to grasp his full height. Jason hadn’t missed the movement, combing your collarbone with his gaze. “But, I might stay a while.” You melodically spoke.

Before your stare and voice settled in the air, you stepped to the side to add a little distance between the two of you. Pulling away from the tension.

“Just so I can continue my alone things.” You explained trying to smoothen the mood with a playful tone.

Jason stayed quiet like he was contemplating something in his mind. Then he let the trash shoot close and with small steps the both of you walked out into the hallway.

“What alone things do you have planned tomorrow?” Jason nonchalantly asked, so casually you almost thought you heard wrong.

“Uh, work in the morning, but nothing planned for the evening, I wanted to try out a new cookie recipe.”

“Do you wanna come over to my place—I wanted to cook something for dinner, but it just hasn’t worked out yet. Maybe you can bring those cookies?” Jason didn’t look at you, suddenly interested in the pure white walls of the hallway. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.

You were stunned. How was such a beautiful man asking you to come over to his place with the promise of him cooking you dinner and all you had to do was bring your shitty cookies?

“I want to warn you that my cookies aren’t award worthy. I just follow the recipe, they’re nothing special.” You wanted to ensure that Jason was really inviting you over.

“Then I can’t wait to try your ‘nothing special’ cookies.” He reassured.

…

You spent the entire afternoon making sure your measurements were precise, not a lump of flour above the rim of the measuring utensils you haven’t brought out in a while. Usually you winged the ingredients, not really worried about the quality too much since it was just you.

But now you wanted to cry.

How did you properly fold ingredients, were you whisking right, maybe you should’ve got the too expensive butter from the store?

It took three full hours to prep, bake, and try your hand at cutely packaging the cookies. It took four attempts to arrange the cookies in a way that didn’t make you want to cancel the dinner.

But after a few pep talks in the mirror and reassuring yourself that this was a hang out and not a date, then you were able to walk over to his unit number.

You hesitantly knocked on the door, five minutes after seven because you would torture yourself thinking about arriving right on the dot before you fell asleep tonight and every night after.

Your worries left your mind when you saw Jason open the door in an apron.

“You’re just in time, I’m ready to plate everything.” He beamed.

Your heart might not be able to survive tonight. But it was just dinner.

You awkwardly handed Jason your tin of homemade cookies. You tried to limit your snooping around his apartment when he told you to wait for him to get the drinks, but curiosity was coursing through you once you realized that you were being invited into a part of Jason’s life and home.

You were no longer going to be strangers. You didn’t know if this qualified to make you friends, but you knew you were two people about to eat dinner together. A dinner he made and cookies you made as thanks.

Once you were ready to eat, you stared at your plate filled with spices, fresh veggies, a meticulously cooked entrée and a…homemade lemonade? You stared up at Jason, watching you look at his food.

“I feel like bringing you cookies isn’t enough.” Although you felt guilty, you took a bite because you didn’t want to look at one more second of Jason’s shining eyes.

You could only sigh, which made Jason worry.

“I think I’m going to name my children after you.”

Jason chuckled at your exaggeration.

“I’d be honored.”

The rest of the meal was relaxing. You didn’t have to force yourself around Jason. Your conversation flowed easily and you were interested in learning about the man you met on the balcony.

…

After many trips to the other side of the apartment building and a couple of deep cleanings of your apartment, you got accustomed to having Jason walk around your kitchen, rummaging the cabinets and organizing your spices the way he likes it.

One shared meal after another. Sometimes several times a week or spaced out further when work got busy. It was nice to look forward to a meal with Jason.

Now you had text messages from him on your phone, a designated mug for him, and a couple of his snacks that he wanted you to try.

You traded recipes. Jason gave you his favorites and you mainly just gave him ones you were curious about, not very fond of your kitchen.

After several failed attempts at convincing him that it was your kitchen that was the problem and not your ability to cook, he came over more to prove you wrong.

Now you sat at your kitchen island to watch him concentrate on mixing an assortment of spices and herbs while you memorized as much of his face and hands as possible. The TV was on, but you had no interest in whatever movie played.

“I have a confession to make.” You sadly looked at Jason.

He glanced over from the pan on the stove to your face. Confusion in his eyes from your sudden change in tone.

“I actually don’t really like cookies.” You threw your hands up in a guilty pose. “Now it’s eating me inside that I had to give those to you when I first came over to your place.”

Jason hummed and tilted his head with one of his eyebrows raised in a teasing manner.

“So, the guilt finally got to you, huh?” He grinned moving his attention back to the food cooking in front of him. His nonchalant voice resonating around you.

“I can’t sleep at night anymore.” You exaggerated, walking a little closer to his side. “Well, once you became my personal chef I realized I had to make it up to you.” You could smell the food better now that you were standing next to Jason.

“I can see the guilt in your eyes.” He flatly said watching you eyeing the food.

“We always eat when we hang out and I can make simple foods, but if I can follow a recipe I was going to suggest if I should cook something, but you are also here to prove me wrong that my kitchen isn’t cursed. Which it is by the way—”

“Your kitchen is not cursed.” He warmly scolded you. “I’ll come over everyday to prove it if I have to.”

You always had to reset your brain when he used that tone with you. It just felt too…sincere. Too intimate.

You wanted him to come over everyday. You took a breath.

“I make more money than when I was still in college, but I don’t think I can afford that many grocery bills.” You teased him. “Why do you think I go over to your place?”

You wanted to evade any serious topics and humor was the best at evading. You were good at avoidance.

“So, I’m a free pantry to you?” His eyebrows rose, questioning you. “I knew you were using me!” He faked a flabbergasted voice like he just heard his life-long partner declare they were cheating on him for months.

He turned off the stove, covering the pan with the lid and turning to face you.

“I didn’t mean to, it just sort of happened.” You gave him your best dejected look. “I promise I’ll pick up more shifts to help restock your fridge, but let me just taste your homemade ravioli one last time.” You begged as he moved closer to you, closing you in with the kitchen island behind your back.

His height and broad shoulders easily caved you in. You gulped watching his face lean down and inch closer.

“If I can’t trust you with my fridge, you don’t deserve my ravioli.” He lowered his voice, gazing down at you with a look that made you breathless. You couldn’t move with the counter behind you and Jason hovering dangerously close to you. “But, you can make it up to me.” He brought his thumb to your chin, barely a wisp of touch.

“How?” You stammered, wondering if the bit was still going.

“Let’s go to the farmer’s market tomorrow.” His hand moved from your face to the edge of the counter, close enough to touch your side and his voice returning to normal, but he didn’t pull away.

“Okay, uh, I’m off tomorrow.” You stared, darting your eyes between Jason’s eyes. Trying to adjust to the tension that was radiating off of him.

“Good, foods ready.” Jason pulled away, moving to the cabinet to grab your glass plates. He was too familiar with the layout of your kitchen.

That night you quickly learned how easy Jason was able to turn the tables. Your racing heart and shallow breathing were the only evidence of it ever happening.

…

The heat beat down on you. Of all days for Gotham to finally clear it’s clouds, it chose today.

Although you weren’t fond of the warm air, you liked watching all the colorful tents, the food on display, and seeing the various local products. Everything looked intricately cared for and it brought a proud feeling to contribute to the locals.

“Bags?” Jason asked, going through his mental checklist.

“Check.” You raised the reusable grocery bags in your hands.

“Hats?”

“Check.” You nudged the baseball cap on your head.

“Money?” Jason smirked.

You grabbed onto Jason’s bicep. Giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Check.” You grinned up at Jason looking at the placement of your hand. “Now let’s go!” You gleefully led him to the first tent with your hand still on him.

You had no idea how you ended up carrying all the bags, but you were trying to ease your mind that this could be considered a date. Jason didn’t call it that and you never asked to clarify, but you couldn’t help it itching at your brain.

You didn’t want to label anything, out of respect for Jason and what he wanted, but you noticed he had started to touch you more and the contact makes you giddy that you had to put all of your focus on making sure you don’t drop his produce.

You stood by Jason, looking at various jars of loose leaf tea. He was smelling all the aromas, helping to move the jars to your nose, so you could smell them too. He insisted on helping you since you refused to give him a bag, but you also didn’t have a free hand to grab the jar.

After a couple more sniff tests, he settled on a jar of prickly pear tea, a lemon-ginger flavor, and he was contemplating on some earl grey cookies. You were watching him, entranced by his concentration. His brows lowered, a small line appearing between his brows. You could see more of his face with a cap on, no messy curls on his forehead and his side profile was really something.

You broke out of your trance when he offered you a piece of the earl-grey cookie, holding it in front of your mouth.

“They’re free samples, try it.” He looked at you, waiting patiently. “I know you don’t like cookies, but these are made with the tea sold here. I saw all the tea you keep in your pantry, so I think you would like it.”

In your lost state at this man in front of you, that could’ve sounded like a proposal to you at that point.

You inched forward, opening your mouth for the cookie. You hesitated at the intimacy, but how could you tell that face ‘no.’ Staring at the small piece of cookie, baked a quarter of the original size they sold, you also saw all the scars that littered Jason’s hands. Many healed over, but you could see the faded lines.

You dangerously wanted to kiss each one.

You grabbed the piece in your mouth, but you didn’t realize that you accidentally touched Jason’s finger with your lip.

You quickly glanced at Jason, but his eyes were glossed over. His attention focused on your mouth.

What a sight.

You chewed and hummed. They were good. Jason cleared his throat at your approval.

“I’ll get a bag and the tea. I’ll be back. You can put the bags down for a bit because there’s a small line.” He quickly turned around, a small tinge of redness left on his ears with his head turned away from you.

You watched his back walk away, then settled the bags down to give your arms a break.

“Excuse me, I just wanted to tell you that you two are adorable.” A honeyed voice spoke trying to grab your attention.

Your head whipped back to the table of teas. An older lady restocking the various collection had a mischievous look in her eye. You hadn’t noticed her there at all.

“The way your boyfriend looks at you, I haven’t seen a look like that since my husband passed many years ago.” The lady gushed.

“Wha, no, I—“ You stammered, trying to clear up the confusion, but your flustered face must’ve amused the woman.

“That made my day, so I wanted to give you this lemon bar we just started selling. Go on, take it and share it with him.” She pressured you to take the free treat. You were too speechless to try to refuse it and insist that you pay before she placed it in your hand herself and she walked off to help another customer wanting a sample.

Your face felt hot and you hoped it cleared before Jason came back, but before you could fan the redness away he appeared next to you with his purchase.

“Hey, you okay? Where’d you get that lemon—”

“Let’s get some lunch!” You grabbed the bags and nudged him to the food trucks lining the edge of the market, trying to hide your face with your hat and leaving the comments from the woman behind.

…

“Wow, this might be the best empanada I’ve ever had.” You chomped at your lunch.

Jason found a waffle place and settled on a berry topping. It was wrapped perfectly to fit in his hands.

You sat across from Jason at an outdoor table with an umbrella to shield you from the sun, sitting away from the rush of people lining up to also eat. The midday lunch rush got to you and you wanted to have a bit of privacy before you went back home.

“How long have you known about this place?” You asked Jason, a slight breeze grazing your face. Watching a kid nudging his dad for a piece of banana bread he found on one of the vendor’s tables.

“Last year? It was recent, but I’ve heard it’s been around for a while. Maybe over five years?” Jason took a bite of his waffle.

“I wish I had found this during my university years. This is a bit out of the way of my walk route, but it would’ve been awesome to browse with my friend.” You saw the boy you were watching earlier smiling wide as he held his dad’s hand and the banana loaf as big as his head. You smiled at the interaction.

“But I probably would’ve sent my friend into shock.” You continued, the boy and his dad disappearing into the crowd. “I wasn’t very social during my university years.” You glanced at Jason, his waffle gone and he was neatly folding the wrapper.

“My friend would joke that I would only meet someone if they magically met me at home. Like that was the only way I could score a date.” You pitifully joked at the old memory. “Sounds absurd doesn’t it, but she wasn’t wrong—“

You saw a shift in Jason’s eyes. He had an oddly serious look, it stopped you from talking and you sat up straighter, wondering what he was thinking about.

You waited, watching him internally fight with whatever he wanted to say.

“That’s not true.” He hesitated. “You’re funny, you’re able to connect with others, you’re a great listener, and you’re honest. You don’t have the heart to be mean to others and your facial expressions are adorable.” His voice rose the longer he defended you. His serious expression further amplified with his furrowed eyebrows. A part of his face obscured by his cap, but you felt the raw emotion emanating from him.

“Anyone would be enamored with you, even if they met you in the hallway or walking down the street.” He puffed, crushing the waffle paper on the table.

You were surprised, glancing over at Jason, watching him get this frustrated. You realized you’ve never seen him this…emotional and he refused to look at you.

The sudden development and his clear thoughts about you stunned you. You joked with Jason how alone you both were, it even brought you together thanks to his brother, but you didn’t really know how alone he truly was. You don’t think he really understood how lonely you were too.

You enjoyed your shared meals, you craved his time and attention.

You got so used to his presence that the days you didn’t see him, you felt like you were dreaming. Waiting to wake up when you heard that familiar knock on your door.

Your heart raced and you hoped he cherished your time together like you did.

You didn’t want to assume his witty personality as being flirtatious, you didn’t want to misunderstand any of his intentions because he was funny, charming, and awkward in ways that you just wanted to grab his face and protect him.

You didn’t particularly need Jason as your person, that felt too selfish, but you also wanted to be somebody to him. Either next to him or from a distance.

A friend, a companion, a lover. The label didn’t really matter to you because you were open to any role. A lover wasn’t more significant than a friend would be. They both had the same foundation, to care for someone unconditionally.

You convinced yourself that you were happy alone, but not until recently you realized you weren’t living. You were asleep in the routine of life.

And when Jason entered your life, you felt like you woke up for the first time.

Like he was the only one who could wake you up.

All you knew was that you wanted to be there. Through his pain, his suffering, his happiest moments, his accomplishments, his anger. To be his person.

To also help him wake up.

Your silent contemplation made Jason panic.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get worked up—“

“I think apartment community events count.” You softly whispered, indecisive of whether you wanted him to hear you or not.

“What—“

“And secret meetings in the trash room too.” Your voice meek.

You were shaking, too tense to look at his reaction to your words.

“Despite what she told me, I still managed to meet you. And I was able to have some of the best meals. I’ve never laughed as hard as I have when we joked. I’m able to try new things.” You raised your head, overwhelmed by your feelings, but you hoped to convey yourself properly to Jason. “I’ve never felt so comfortable and safe with anyone else.”

Jason looked at you wide eyed and speechless, his mouth slightly agape. You took the disbelief as a sign to continue.

“I’m able to be all those things that you said because I’m with you.” Your voice filled with more resolve the more concrete your feelings felt, the more sure you became. You squeezed your eyebrows together, complete sincerity in your gaze, your heart filled with so much emotion.

But your eyebrows relaxed once you saw Jason’s face turn red. His ears a crimson shade. Before you could engrave it in your memory, he tilted his head down, covering his face with the front of his baseball cap.

“Wait, wait, wait—I didn’t expect this.” Jason rubbed a hand down his face, but the redness contrasted the skin of his hand. “You were so shy every time I tried to push the boundaries between us, but now your directly confessing everything at once.”

He stopped rubbing his face and rested his hand on the table. Meeting your gaze, a tint of red still on his skin but not as deep as before.

“I’ve been trying to get closer to you. I’ve been hoping to run into you since we first talked on the balcony. When we met in the trash room, I purposely tried to meet you again. I’ve looked forward to every meal I’ve cooked for you and although I haven’t been clear about my feelings, I didn’t want to pressure or rush you.” Jason took a breath, closing his eyes for a moment.

When they opened again, his eyes were completely focused on you.

“I want us to be more than friends…I want to be able to come over when I miss you, fold laundry together, buy you things when they remind me of you, I want you to call me when you need car maintenance.” He kept his eyes trained on you, but his voice faltered. “I want to hold your hand and to kiss you. I want us to go on dates.”

You raised your hand to the table, placing your hand over Jason’s, but he quickly flipped your hands so he was holding yours a little more firmly.

“I want to know if you snore while you sleep, to have your things at my place, so I see you in every inch of my life. I want you to know how much I’ve fallen for you.”

“I want that too.” Your voice trembled. “I’ve been wanting to hold your hand while we walked today and I want you to come over more often.” You choked as Jason leaned in to caress your face with his hand. A sickening sweet touch that you never knew you would get to feel. You cupped your hand over his.

“I’m so happy. I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while.” Jason whispered to you, his voice so honey sweet.

You looked up to him. A gentle gaze reflecting back.

“I probably look like a mess right now.” You shakily laughed.

“Of course not, you’re breathtaking, sweetheart.” Jason rubbed a thumb on your cheek, completely enamored by you.

“As much as I would love to hear you continue, I’m worried about the stuff you bought and this heat.” You tried to focus, but the smooth touch of Jason was difficult to ignore.

“Yeah, we probably need to make our way back.”

Despite his words, he didn’t move. He lingered on your face a while longer before he looked at all the bags he accumulated this morning.

“Will you let me help you carry some of the bags?” He asked. “I also want to hold your hand on the way back.”

You beamed at him. Reaching for his hand as you stood up.

…

Your walk back was refreshing.

You were exhausted from the intense flux of emotions you released, but Jason’s grip on your hand stabilized you.

You couldn’t stop smiling, the heat no longer bothering you. You swung your interlaced hands to the motion of your steps and Jason let you do what you wanted as long as you still held on.

When you got to the entrance of your apartment building, you were graced with the AC hitting you. Your hair would definitely be messed up from the sweat and your cap.

You waited in front of the elevator doors as it descended from the last person that used it. The lobby was empty, except from the usual leasing office workers inhabiting the space, but it was just you and Jason off to the side.

As you glanced around, making sure the employees were occupied, you used your grip on Jason’s hand to pull him down enough for you to kiss his cheek. A little awkward with your cap in the way, but you were able to surprise Jason.

He stayed hunched forward, shifting his face to look at you closely and digest what you did.

Ding. The elevator doors opened and you pulled Jason in the elevator.

You felt accomplished as you pushed the button to your floor. When you moved back to Jason’s side, you looked up to him, but he grabbed your face.

His hand pushed your cap up, so he could lean in and kiss you. His hat also moving up at the angle he was in.

You closed your eyes, disoriented at the feeling and because Jason completely blocked your view of the elevator, so you only heard the doors close.

Lost in the feeling and the movement of his lips, you dropped the bags in your hand to grab at Jason’s sleeve, wanting to grasp at something.

You’ve never felt so desperate to get Jason even closer and he must have understood or he craved it more because he pushed you back against the elevator wall. You felt the cold metal against your back and you gasped.

Jason devoured the sound, motivating him to hold your waist, but it wasn’t enough for him. He crouched a little lower to grasp you behind your legs to lift you fully off the ground, inching your body up, higher and more level with his face.

The angle changed and you easily wrapped your arms around his neck while simultaneously wrapping your legs around his waist. The moment intensifying as you pulled at his hair below his hat and you swallowed the low groan that left his mouth. You were drawn to the deep sound and the feeling of the hum you felt on your mouth.

You were practically flush against his body and you were down to your last few breaths, but you didn’t want to pull your face away from Jason.

You nipped at his lower lip and he lifted his hands to cup the sides of your face, digging his fingers into your sweaty hair and rubbing the back of your ears. You opened your mouth wanting to feel more of him when you heard someone loudly clear their throat.

You pulled away, shoving Jason by his shoulders as he whipped his head to see where the voice came from. You fell to your feet trying to lean against the wall with the sudden motion, hair a mess with your cap lopsided as you looked past Jason to see Dick standing there with a hand on his waist and the other holding the elevator door open. He didn’t look at the two of you directly, more like a lost look to the side.

You breathlessly adjusted your cap as you frantically smoothed out your shirt.

Jason pulled his cap down as he sighed then redirected his attention to you, gently reaching out to you to smooth out some of your hair and help you stand up straighter. Then he grabbed the bags you both dropped on the floor as he turned around to face his brother.

“I didn’t know you were coming over. You should’ve texted.” Jason walked past his brother, annoyance laced in his voice.

“I did.” Dick replied. He looked at you then followed after Jason. “But it seems you were a little occupied.” Amusement coating his voice and visible in the way he walked.

“I see you’re getting to know your neighbors very well.” Dick teased, a giant grin on his face. “I’m glad.”

What a way to meet Jason’s brother again after all this time. You wanted the floor to open up and swallow you away from the lack of awareness you had to make out with Jason in public.

You couldn’t decide if it was worse that a stranger could’ve saw you or that Dick was the one who did.

“Yeah, yeah, come inside.” Jason unlocked the door to his apartment. You nervously followed after the two.

“No seriously, I’m glad you two continued to see each other.” A genuine comment from Dick. “I’ve never seen you so comfortable with someone, Jaybird.”

A small hum from Jason as he set the bags down onto the counter.

With no indication that he wanted to speak further, you decided to talk.

“I’m sorry we’re meeting again like this. I promise I’m usually a better influence.” Hopefully your lighthearted tone would give off a better impression than the one on the elevator.

“Ha! I know you are because,” Dick moved in closer, lowering his voice. “This is the most behaved I’ve seen Jason in months.”

“Alright, enough, dickwa—Dick,” Jason cleared his throat. “But we just got back and I want to shower. It was too damn hot today.”

“Oh, I bet it was—“

“Thank you! Never come by again. See you. Good Night.” Jason raised his voice, shoving his brother out the door.

“No, please, I swear I’m done!” Dick pleaded as he was trying to hang onto the door frame, but Jason closed the door before he could start to beg.

“Are you sure he’ll be alright?” You questioned Jason.

He didn’t bother to answer your question as he closed the space between you and wrapped his arms around you, resting his forehead on your shoulder and letting his hands intertwine around your waist, falling onto your lower back.

Jason signed into your shirt. The feeling slightly tickling you.

“I wasn’t done earlier.” He whispered against you. “Then that dickhead had to interrupt.”

You laughed, loving the pouty sound of his voice.

You embraced him back, leaning your head against his.

“I think the elevator interrupted you.” You rubbed his back in soothing circles.

You closed your eyes for a moment, letting a silence fall in Jason’s apartment before your curiosity got to you.

“Jaybird?”

“It’s a nickname.”

“It’s cute.”

“Enough about him, we need to put away all the stuff we bought.” Jason lifted his head to sullenly look at the numerous bags.

“That reminds me.” You let go of him to dig around the bags, trying to find your earlier gift. “I was told to share this with you by an older woman who thought my boyfriend was adorable.”

Jason shifted behind you. Closing his hands on the edges of the counter, both of his arms on your sides. Once you found the lemon bar, you turned your body, careful to lean against the counter with Jason’s body still in front of you, around you practically.

“It’s a new product. She said I could have it for making her day, but I have to thank you because we wouldn’t have gotten it without you.”

You opened the wrapper, breaking a piece off to feed to Jason.

“How does it taste?”

Jason lingered. You anticipated what he thought, but he leaned forward to kiss you. You held onto the lemon bar, but lowered it the more heated your kiss became. The tangy taste invading your mouth.

“Amazing.”

[littledovesnow]

the president's wife

what happens when some rebels try and get back at coryo >:-)

a/n: angst angst angst!!, read the prologue (?) here

content warning(s): mentions of death, kidnapping, kind of canon level violence???

“Are you almost ready, my love?” Coriolanus asked, walking into the bedroom as he finished closing the cuff links on his wrists.

You nodded, walking out of the closet with a pristine pair of black stilettos in your hand, red bottoms causing a grin to spread across your husband’s face.

“Going for the vintage heels tonight?”

“Only for the most special of occasions.” You smiled, taking his hand as you stepped into the shoes. “Are you ready for your party, President Snow?”

Coriolanus’ eyes lit up when you called him that, following you out into the foyer. “More ready for the after party with you.”

You lightly slapped him on the chest, looking up at his hair. “I do wish you grew your curls out again. That’s one more thing that District 12 took from me.”

Coriolanus sighed, running a hand through his blonde locks. He had decided to keep the shorter hair from his first days back from his Peacekeeping stint, stating it made him look more professional.

“Yes, but it’s less to grab onto.” You had replied when he first brought the idea up to you. That alone almost made him grow the curls back out, but once you two discovered that it was even more fun with a buzz on the sides, the style stayed.

“Did you ever hear back from Tigris?” You asked, stepping into the black town car that was going to take you to the party.

Coriolanus had extended an invitation to his cousin to the inauguration party, but she was out in District Four with Fabricia, not due back in the Capitol for another couple days.

“She said she would try and make the earliest train back, but I haven’t heard if she’s made it or not.”

You hummed, looking out the windows as the Capitol citizens made their way to the Citadel, hoping to get a glimpse of the new First Couple. Little did they know, said couple was riding alongside them.

Coriolanus looked you up and down, hand moving to your thigh and giving it a squeeze. “You okay?”

“I am, just nervous. You know I don’t like crowds.” You had a dislike for large crowds ever since you were a young girl, having seen your father shot by rebels during what was supposed to be a routine drill.

“After tonight, you’ll not have to worry about large crowds.” Coriolanus promised you, ready to give you anything and everything under the sun.

Smiling at him, you leaned over to press a kiss to his lips, making sure the red lipstick you wore wasn’t noticeable. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Coriolanus whispered, car coming to a stop outside the front entrance of the Citadel.

-----

You had been introduced to dozens and dozens of people, you weren’t sure you even remembered who anyone was by the time you and Coriolanus were able to have a moment of peace.

There had been endless congratulations to the new President and First Lady, with handshakes and some hugs following.

Coriolanus took a sip of the posca in front of him, gesturing to the bar. “Why don’t you go ask for some champagne, I made sure they had some on order for tonight for you.”

A man after your own heart, you squeezed his hand before heading over to the bar, smiling at the bartender. “Champagne, please.”

“Ah, you’re the reason we have cases in the back.” The bartender smiled, popping the cork on a fresh bottle.

You smiled, thanking the man for the glass of bubbly. “Was champagne not a common drink with the last president?”

“No, his party-goers and visitors often went for posca and morphling over anything else.” The bartender, Gus, you read on his nametag, continued to pour drinks while talking to you. “But it seems like you and President Snow will have your fair share of pocsa and champagne, I presume?’

“Not really, Coryo doesn’t really drink unless it’s a social event.” You spoke, watching as Coriolanus was pulled into a conversation with some other politicans. “What else do you-”

You froze when you felt the telltale pressure of a gun barrel to your side.

“Move, speak, do anything to alert anyone and I’ll shoot.”

Swallowing, you looked over at Gus, who simply looked at your predicament and froze, as well, half-dry whiskey glass in his hands.

“Good.” You braved a look at the voice talking, seeing an unfamiliar man with sun damage on his face. If you had to take a stab at it, you’d guess he’s from District 11. “You’re going to follow me out the back, casually. As to not alert that husband of yours.”

“The president. You mean the president of Panem.” You whispered, regretting it as you felt the gun push harder into your side.

“Shut up.”

You braved one last look at Gus, who was about to speak when a gunshot rang out, your eyes growing wide as you saw blood stain his white shirt.

-----

Coriolanus was mid-sentence with some politicians trying to get money for District Four when he heard an all-too-familiar sound hit his ears.

People ducked for cover, screams were let out, and several Peacekeepers rushed over to Coriolanus to escort him out of the room.

He looked at the bar, heart racing when he saw you weren’t there. “Where’s my wife?” He asked, head swiveling to look around. “Did you see where she went?”

“Sir, there’s still a threat, we’ve got to move.” A Peacekeeper said, urging Coriolanus out of the room.

Unable to fight back against the increasing-number of Peacekeepers, Coriolanus was ushered into a saferoom of sorts, though nothing felt safe without you next to him.

“What the fuck happened? Where is my wife?” Coriolanus demanded, this was not how he predicted he’d be spending his first night as President.

One brave Peacekeeper spoke up. “We’re unsure of her location at the moment but-”

“What do you mean you’re unsure of her location? You better find her or your family will be wondering where you are in the morning.” Coriolanus threatened, eyes dark with rage and terror.

Peacekeepers raced out of the room, and Coriolanus collapsed into one of the seats along the wall, head falling into his hands.

He was going to lose you before you two even had a chance to live.

Heart hammering in his chest, he shot up when he heard the door open, Peacekeepers walking into the room. “There’s a bartender in the infirmary, Sir. He’s asking to speak to you.”

“Why would I-”

“He said he saw who took your wife.”

Coriolanus said no more, instead following the Peacekeepers down to the infirmary, trying to get the uneasy feeling out of his system.

Gus, who had miraculously survived a shot to the stomach, wasn’t really expecting the Peacekeepers to bring him President Snow, but he watched as the blonde followed two men into the room.

“Mr. President, I- I think some rebels broke into the party. They didn’t look Capitol, and I believe I saw one of them had a gun.”

Coriolanus immediately dismissed the Peacekeepers from the room, following them to the door and closing it.

He spun and looked at Gus, who was shaking a like a leaf. “You’re going to tell me everything you saw and heard up until they shot you. You’re going to help me find my wife, and I promise you, you will not have to worry about working again.”

Gus nodded, swallowing his nerves. “She- she was asking about what other drinks we had behind the bar. These two guys came up and I thought they were just guests, some past presidents had invited people from the Districts, I thought that’s what they were.”

Coriolanus felt his blood pressure rising by the second but urged Gus to continue.

“I didn’t know what they were going to do until Y/N stopped talking, and when I looked up I saw the run rammed into her side. I think- I think they went out the back exit.”

Coriolanus thanked Gus before darting out the door, leaving the Peacekeepers running after him.

-----

You looked around the dingy room, the only light coming from an oil lamp in the corner. “Where the hell am I?”

“Oh, she lives.”

You turned to try and get a look at the men who abducted you, though it was hard to make out any features in the dim light. “Where am I?”

“Don’t worry about that.”

Swallowing, you took a deep breath, crying out when you tried to stand. You looked down, seeing blood dripping from a large gash on your leg.

“Oh, yeah you sliced your leg when you fell.” The man nodded to the rather sharp-looking scythe to the side of you.

The door opened, and your head snapped up to see two more men walking into the room, one of them dropping their jaw when they said you. “The President’s wife?! You’ve just signed our death certificates!”

Feeling a dull ache in your head, you watched as the man who presumably kidnapped you from the party held his hands up, lazy smile on his face.

“Not a worry, once Snow sees we have his wife, he’ll pay anything to get her back. We’ll be able to start harvesting faster than ever.”

“You are from 11, what do you want with me?” You asked, ignoring the throbbing pain in your leg.

“Oh, smart little bitch you are.” The main ringleader smiled at you, a handful of teeth missing.

“You see, when your dear little husband signed his name on the last bill passed in the Capitol, he took away a third of our pay. For what? Some hospital?”

You remained silent. Coriolanus had signed onto a bill that would help women’s health, a step in the direction of the fertility research he wanted to fund.

“There’s little we can do with what we made before, Mrs. Snow.” The man sneered, making a face when he said your name. “Now? We’re already starving out there. We had to do something to make him notice.”

“But abducting his wife?!” The most reasonable out of the three asked, arm shooting out to point at you. “Couldn’t, I don’t know? Blow something up?”

The men started arguing with each other, taking their attention off of you.

You took their quarrel as a chance to limp towards the door, not getting far from the immense pain you felt radiate from your leg. It was more than just a cut, you were sure of it.

-----

Coriolanus looked out the window, sun peaking over the mountains. He still had no idea where you were, and with each passing hour he feared for your life more.

“Coryo!” Tigris ran over to her cousin, enveloping him in a hug. “I came as soon as I got off the train, what happened?”

“Rebels, they have Y/N.” Coriolanus rasped, and Tigris’ frown deepened as she saw how worked up her cousin was. His hair was a mess from tugging at it, bags under his bloodshot eyes, once-pristine shirt was now wrinkled. “I have Peacekeepers out in all the Districts, the Capitol is being combed through.”

“They’ll find her, Coryo. They will.” Tigris said, hugging her cousin again. “They’re checking each train car as they come into the station, they’ll find her.”

Coriolanus nodded, looking back out over the skyline of the Capitol, knowing you were out there somewhere.

-break-

You were on a train, you heard the squeaking of the brakes as it came to a stop. “Where are we going?” You asked, tending to your now sore wrist, a result of stumbling off balance when you tried once again to walk on your busted leg.

“They’re searching all the cars. They’re going to find us.”

The ringleader didn’t think this far ahead, not planning on shooting Gus at the bar when he snuck into the party. Not planning on alerting the Peacekeepers as soon as he did.

“Fuck, fuck, uh, we have to run.”

You heard the knocking on the door, before the train car’s rusty door was slid open by Peacekeepers, who immediately fired their guns at the three rebels.

“Alert President Snow, we found his wife.”

You started to cry, wanting nothing more than to see Coriolanus after the last few hours.

-break-

Coriolanus ran through the halls of the hospital, Tigris hot on his heels.

“Where is she?!” He yelled, eyes frantic.

“Last door on your left, Mr. President.” The commanding Peacekeeper saluted the young man, nodding at Tigris as she followed her cousin.

 You looked up from the long line of stitches on your leg when you heard quick footsteps growing nearer, before you saw an all-too-familiar head of blonde hair come into view.

“Coryo,” you sighed, struggling to sit up, face contorting in pain.

“My love, take it easy.” Coriolanus rushed over to your side, pulling you into his arms. “I’m here, it’s okay, you’re safe.”

You cried into your husband’s shoulder, dam finally breaking. “I- I was so s-scared, they had guns and- and I know that guns inherently aren’t that scary. But, Coryo, they- they were going to make you pay ransom!”

“I would’ve, I would’ve paid anything to get you back to me.” Coriolanus mumbled, forehead pressing against yours. “You’re the most important thing in my life.”

Tigris cleared her throat, and you looked behind Coriolanus to see the older Snow. “You’re back!”

“I’m back, but we’re going to catch up later. You need to rest, and you need to sleep.” She said, latter half of her statement aimed at her younger cousin.

You smiled at her, watching as she left the room and closed the door once more. “I’m sorry I ruined the party, Coryo.”

Coriolanus made a noise in the back of his throat. “You didn’t ruin it, gorgeous. Those rebels did, though I heard they were already taken care of.”

Nodding, you weren’t sure if you’d ever get the image of their dead bodies out of your head. “What are you going to do to their families?” You asked quietly, knowing vengeance was in store for them.

Shaking his head, Coriolanus sat on the edge of the bed, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. “Don’t worry your pretty little head over that, just focus on your health.”

-----

a/n: i love angst with a fluffy ending, it is my favorite. also i told you titles are my kryptonite i cannot do them right

[putellasawfc]

gingerbread competition!

leah williamson x reader

-

christmas music sounded from the bluetooth speaker that had been set up across the room, the familiar jingle of all i want for christmas is you by mariah carey filling the apartment you shared with your girlfriend of four years with a contagious level of christmas joy. the days had finally began to get chillier, the nights getting darker earlier and that’s all it took for you to get into the christmas spirit, which is why you had a variety of seasonal based activities ready for leah and yourself to partake in during the three day weekend you both had.

originally, you had really planned for tonight to be the night that you unpacked all the christmas decorations that you had stored in the loft and begin decorating your house. but after a long day of filming for different youtube videos and tiktok’s with the other arsenal girls, neither of you could be bothered with lugging down the boxes and bin bags that were filled to the brim with tinsel, baubles, stockings and lights. so instead, you went with the second best option. decorating a gingerbread house instead!

leah had been very scrooge about it at first, whining and wittering on about how there’s no point because it never stays up, even calling the whole thing a scam at one point but you had just tutted, claiming she just didn’t know how to build them properly.

“i do know how to build them! they’re just all flimsy, stay up for about five seconds and that’s it!” she defended herself, her brows furrowed in frustration as you stifled a laugh at how much offence she had taken to your previous statement.

“alright, alright. i believe you.” you teased, continuing to empty the gingerbread house kits you had picked up the day before. “i bet i can make mine look better than yours though.”

you knew the leah williamson could never back down from a challenge, her competitive streak was too high.

she scoffed, leaning forward with her elbows on the wooden table. “yeah right. sorry baby, but you have no chance.”

“well i actually have full confidence in my gingerbread house decorating abilities, so.” you said, dragging out the ‘o’ as you spread the different icings and sprinkles amongst the table, between the two of you. “why don’t we put a bet on it?”

“what kind of bet?” she eyed you, and you thought about it for a moment.

“whoever wins gets to choose an ugly christmas sweater that the loser has to wear to the next event we go to?” you suggested, that being the first thing that came to mind.

the blonde thought about it for a second, her gaze falling to the items on the table before she pursed her lips and slowly nodded, her blue eyes finding you again as she held out a hand in your direction.

“you have a deal.”

you grinned, wrapping your hand around her own and giving her a firm handshake. “may the best woman win.”

now, here you were almost twenty minutes later trying your best to apply the white icing onto the roof of your house that had miraculously managed to stay up for longer than fourty-five seconds, after you had generously coated the sides in too much icing. you would never admit it out loud, but leah was definitely right about the whole thing being flimsy. you had almost given up at one point in frustration after the house caved in on itself a sixth time.

“maybe we should’ve decorated cupcakes instead.” you mumbled, licking off some of the icing that had smudged on your thumb.

“i hate to say i told you so .. but.” the lioness captain huffed, “i definitely told you so.”

“when have you ever not enjoyed saying that?” you shot back, taking a quick glance towards her own house that had yet to be built, the woman deciding it would be better to decorate the pieces first and then stick them together after.

“i have my moments.”

you shook your head in amusement, finally satisfied with the amount of white, red and green icing that coated the house to mimic snow and tinsel. you moved to pick up a small bag of sprinkles that had already been opened by leah earlier, looking into the bag with furrowed brows.

“could’ve saved some for me babe.” you frowned, not even a quarter of the bag was full anymore.

“oops, my bad.” her tone was anything but apologetic, an amused smirk sat on her face and you elbowed her gently.

“you sabotaged me? that’s a yellow card!”

“i didn’t sabotage you! i just had to make my house look good, you wouldn’t understand.” she sent a playful look of concern to your creation and you gasped in mock offence.

“you’re so mean! my little house looks great.” you pouted, “would’ve looked even better if someone hadn’t used all sprinkles but … it’s okay i can still win without them.”

she scoffed at that, before the two of you fell into a comfortable silence, aside from the speaker that was still blasting out more christmas tunes as the night went on. you made do with the sprinkles you had left, carefully sticking them to the icing around your house, focusing on the outside of your roof to make it look like colourful christmas lights had been put up. you moved onto picking up different sweets, dotting them around the house wherever you thought looks best, just adding the finishing touches when a groan to the left of you caught your attention.

you raised a brow and looked over, not being able to help the smile that rose when you saw how much leah was struggling with putting the pieces together. she’d managed to get two to stick together, but then the other side would fall down, and then when she’d attempted to stick that side back together, another side would fall down, tangling her in a never ending cycle that was clearly annoying her with the way her brows touched and her jaw tensed.

“looks like your little sabotage was for nothing.” you chirped, revelling in the way it only made her more frustrated.

“shut up.”

you laughed, finally finishing the house before pushing it away slowly, relieved the whole ordeal was finally over. “ahhh, now i get to sit back and watch you struggle.”

“i’m breaking up with you.” she muttered under her breath, intense gaze not moving from her house.

“you’re not allowed.” you swiftly replied, leaning in closer to get a better look at the mess she was making. “maybe if you ask nicely, i could give you a hand.”

she didn’t reply at first, still attempting to finish the task herself, but when almost three minutes went by and she wasn’t getting any closer to completing it, she stomped her foot like a toddler throwing a tantrum and turned to you in annoyance.

“fine. help me.”

“uh, what was that?” you questioned, cupping your ear with your hand.

she rolled her eyes, throwing her head back in exasperation at your immaturity.

“please will you help me build my house?” she asked again, “before i throw it at a wall.”

you grinned, throwing an arm over your girlfriends shoulder and pulling her into your side, pressing a chaste kiss to her cheek before nodding. “i’d love to.”

it took a little bit of work, the pair of you bickering back and forth when leah had accused you of putting too much pressure on it and you accusing her of letting go too soon, but eventually, the both of you pulled your hands away cautiously, giving it a few seconds just to make sure before you gave eachother a double high five, pleased that it had finally stayed put.

pushing it back slowly as you had done to yours previously, you both sat back and admired your efforts on both houses.

“think it’s gonna be a pretty close one love.” leah said, pulling up her phone ready to snap a picture for her instagram story, where you had planned to put up a poll to see who’d win.

“hmm, maybe.” you hummed in agreement, “but i think my gumdrops on the roof might just help me win.”

she rolled her eyes once again, but this time with less irritation now that the hard part was done with. “yeah, yeah. if you say so.”

the defender took a quick snap, moving her phone to show you her screen when not even second later did leah’s house fall apart, one of the pieces even landing on the floor with a soft thud.

“you’re having a laugh.”

[lees-chaotic-brain]

For your recent event can I request

Blue Ocean and #2

Thank you

Three Little Words (Gojo x Reader)

CW: rejection, blood, slight spoilers for the jjk movie, implied past satosugu i guess, mutual pining, reader is female, implied death, brief mentions of blood, mentions of injury

Event Masterlist | Event Guide | JJK Masterlist | Blog Navigation

"Sorry, not interested."

Three little words. Three little words was all it took to shatter your heart.

You had spent the last three years of your life trying to track down the person attached to the other end of your soulmate thread.

All that time spent hoping. All that time spent daydreaming about what he would be like, only for this.

For you to meet him because he was your new coworker, and fellow teacher at Jujutsu Tech. For him to reject you upon first sight.

You hadn't even spoken a word yet. All it took was him glancing at the red ribbon connecting the two of you for him to shut you down.

Your mind went blank. There was no way you heard him correctly, right...?

"What?"

"I'm not interested."

He stated casually, as if he was just commenting on the weather.

"You-You don't even know my name yet!"

With all logic having flown out the window, this was the best you could come up with.

"Oh, you're right. What's your name?"

Stupefied, you told him.

"That's pretty. Anyways, it's not you, it's me."

Taking your blank gaze as understanding, he perked up.

"My name's Gojo Satoru. I hope we can be friends!"

With an enthusiastic handshake, he was off, leaving you standing in shock, unsure of what just happened.

Reaching up and touching your cheek, you were surprised to find that it was wet.

Huh, that was strange. When did you start crying?

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

Days turned to weeks turned to months.

At first, things were a little awkward between you and your soulmate.

You were hurt, angry and confused. But the more time you spent with him, the more those feelings ebbed away, his presence a balm that soothed all your hurts and insecurities.

Why. Why did he have to reject you? Why did he have to be so insufferable? Why did he have to be so goddamn attractive? Why did he have to be aware that he was so goddamn attractive?

Why couldn't he send you any clear signals?

One day he was playfully calling you his 'best bud' while the two of you played pranks on Nanami or got into mischief.

And the next he was tenderly cupping your cheek and running his thumb over the dark bags under your eyes; concern evident on his face as he quietly asked if you were doing okay, and telling you to take a break.

And if he really wasn't interested, why didn't he officially break the soulmate bond? Why did he change the subject every time you tried to bring it up?

It was driving you insane. You were falling for him. And hard. But the echo of his words replayed in your head every time you considered broaching the subject.

You didn't know what to do.

So you did the only thing you could; you kept it professional. After all, the two of you were coworkers, nothing more, nothing less.

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

Gojo was tired of just being your coworker.

He wanted more. Had wanted more from the moment he laid eyes on your breathtaking face.

Sure, it had broken a visceral part of him to reject you, but if it was to keep you safe, he would do it a million times over.

However, no matter how much he told himself he couldn't be with you, that he had to officially sever the soulmate bond, he couldn't bring himself to officially break the tie that made the two of you soulmates.

The more time he spent with you, the more time he got to spend with you, the harder he fell.

He had never felt like this towards anyone. The only person that had ever come close before this had been Suguru, but his relationship with him had been soured by the fact that they both knew Gojo's soulmate was out there.

But when you were in his life, his entire world lit up. Everything was brighter and more vibrant. He felt like you saw him for Satoru, the man he was, instead of the burdens fate and Jujutsu society had placed upon his shoulders.

So selfishly he had kept the soulmate bond intact.

And now, staring at your mangled form laying before him, the precious blood that belonged in your veins leaking out onto the floor as you struggled to breathe, he remembered.

He remembered why he wasn't allowed to love. Why he had pushed you away.

God, he was so stupid to think that Suguru wouldn't go after you. He was so stupid for believing that his friend wasn't irredeemable.

And his stupidity and selfishness could very well cost you your life.

"You never change, do you."

Only then did Gojo realize that he had been speaking aloud, voicing his inner turmoil as the two people he cared for most lay dying before him.

Suguru coughed, wincing as the motion aggravated his injuries.

"You say that she's injured because you selfishly clung to your soulmate bond, right?"

"What are you implying Suguru?"

Gojo asked, weariness and heartbreak in his voice as he applied pressure to your injuries. He couldn't take you to get help until he took care of Suguru, but he wanted to give his former best friend a chance to say his last words.

"What I'm saying is that she got hurt because you were selfish, yes, but not in the way you think you were. You aren't selfish because you refuse to break the bond. You were selfish because you kept your distance. You could've come to her rescue much earlier, but you didn't because doing so would admit that she meant something to you. And you were more comfortable keeping her at a distance, because you didn't want to have to fear losing her."

Suguru sighed, shifting to a more comfortable position.

"You know, I never hated the people at Jujutsu Tech. If she survives, tell her how you really feel. She deserves at least that. And after that, tell her I'm sorry, okay."

Gojo barked a laugh, tears burning the backs of his eyes as a looming sense of grief and apprehension filled him. He knew what he had to do next.

"Okay, I will."

He smiled.

"Wingmanning me till the end. My best friend."

His face softened as he reminisced on better times.

"My one and only."

Suguru returned the smile, and Gojo finished him, gently closing his eyes afterwards.

Standing and wiping the tears from his eyes, he turned and picked you up, before stepping into a new chapter of his life.

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

When you woke up, you were greeted by the bright white of the hospital ceiling.

Groaning, you attempted to sit up, only to be stopped by the massive man-child sprawled across your lap.

With a snort, he shot up, disoriented as he rejoined the land of the waking.

Noticing you were awake, he froze, before reaching out and grabbing your hands.

"Can I say something?"

"Right now?"

You asked, a little confused as to what could be so important that he was waiting at your bedside for you to wake up.

"Yes."

His unusually somber tome threw you off.

"Of course. What's the matter?"

"I'm so sorry."

"Um, I'm confused. For what?"

"For rejecting you. This is by no means any excuse, but the last person I was close to abandoned me. I was afraid to let anyone get close to me, but instead of facing my fear, I excused it by telling myself that if I let myself care for you then curses would target you to get to me. So I told myself that it was to protect you instead of acknowledging that I'm selfish coward who was just trying to protect myself-"

"Hold up."

You cut off his rambling, needing a moment to process.

"Are you trying to tell me that you rejected me because you were afraid that in the end I was going to betray you, but you were too emotionally constipated to acknowledge that, so instead you convinced yourself that you were pushing me away for my own protection?"

Downcast he nodded.

"And you're apologizing for that."

"Yes. If I had just protected you by staying by your side, you never would have gotten hurt! The only reason you're in here is because I was too scared to admit that I love you!"

You froze.

"Say it again."

"What."

"What you just said."

Realization dawned on Gojo's face, and his cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink.

"I love you."

He murmured shyly, looking at the comforter.

You leaned forwards and hugged him, burying your head in his chest.

"Again."

You whispered, lips brushing against the fabric of his uniform.

"I love you."

A content smile spread across your face.

"I'm still sorta pissed at you, but you have no idea how happy you just made me."

You said, nuzzling into his shirt.

"I love you too."

He froze in disbelief. There was no way you returned his feelings. He didn't deserve that.

"Do you really forgive me?"

"Mmmm, say it one more time for me."

"I love you."

"Okay I forgive you."

Finally at peace, you basked in the warmth from being in the arms of your soulmate.

Who knew that those three little words were all it took.

Three little words to heal your heart.

Cuddling with soulmate, you knew that you would be okay, as long as he continued to tell you those three little words.

You deep personal reflection was interrupted by Gojo's voice.

"Oh, by the way, Suguru says sorry."

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

[b0r3dtod3ath]

hi! could i req lando x old money!reader blurb? maybe like meeting her parents, or going to her father’s annual christmas gala together, i dunno..

thanks!!

A/N: Hii! Omg I love this idea. Actually it popped up in my brain last summer but I never really wrote it so big thanks for requesting! Let me know if any of you are interested in a part two!

Word count: ~1.8k

Saint Tropez - one of the most popular places in French Riviera. Known for its beautiful weather, sun-kissed beaches and picturesque landscape. Every summer Y/N's family would spend at least a month there. Cruising on a yacht and resting in a mansion could get quite boring when done alone so last summer Y/N's parents invited the Norisses. The two families had been friends since the early 2000s, famously attending many high-society galas and events. Their kids used to know each other but haven't met in a long time due to their hectic lives. Lando would be a bit ashamed to admit but he was excited to spend his summer break there. Being with his parents made him feel like a teenager again. Not only that but also the fact that he couldn't wait to meet Y/N. He had heard about her from his sisters but in fact, has little to no memories of her.

As the families met at the dock, the yacht swaying in the background, the two couples hugged and laughed leaving the young ones to awkwardly greet each other. Y/N, taking off her sunglasses that protected her eyes from the sun reflecting in the blue water, approached with a subtle smile that held a hint of curiosity. She extended her hand, a gesture in a formal but warm manner. "Lando, isn't it?" her melodic voice hit her companion's ears. Lando, with his easy charm and green-blue eyes that would make most of the ladies lose their minds, clasped her hand in a firm yet gentle handshake. "That's right. A pleasure to finally meet you." His words were accompanied by a genuine smile, a sigh of relief.

The first evening brought the families together for a two-family dinner on the yacht's deck. The air was infused with the scent of sea salt and the warm sun was just to set. The table, covered with crystal and silverware, glowed in the soft light of candles. Y/N and Lando found themselves seated next to each other, their parents subtly orchestrating the arrangement. At first, they didn't talk to each other much - focusing mainly on the food and wine while also encouraging their parents to tell some stories from when they were young. The two of them exchanged glances and smiles still waiting for the other one to make the first move. After the last course, as the dessert and coffee reached its end, Lando found a moment to break away. Leaning towards Y/N, he suggested, "Would you care for a stroll around the yacht? The night is too beautiful to be just sitting here.". With a subtle spark in her eyes, Y/N agreed. The two of them excused themselves as they slipped away from their parents.

Under the moonlit sky, Y/N and Lando strolled along the yacht's deck, the soft glow of the ship's lights casting a warm ambience. The Mediterranean breeze whispered through the night, and the distant sound of the waves provided a soothing backdrop to their conversation. They paused at the railing, the yacht gently rocking beneath them. Y/N leaned on the side, her eyes fixed on the horizon. Lando joined her, the moon casting a silvery glow on his face. As the conversation flowed, they peeled away the layers of their lives, revealing dreams and aspirations. They went from talking about Lando's work to more deep, secret thoughts and feelings. Y/N wanted to avoid the Formula One subject, she knew who he was but didn't want him to think that it was a category she put him in. She spoke about her love for literature, and although Lando didn't have much to say in this field he was more than happy to listen. He found himself getting lost in her beauty as she shared about her passion. The night held an intimacy, a shared exploration of vulnerabilities. Y/N, confessed her love for the quiet moments, the beauty found in simplicity. It was surprising to her when Lando agreed with her "I know I'm rather a fast-paced life guy but I feel like my lifestyle allows me to appreciate moments like this even more". Y/N finally looked up from the shiny waves crashing to the side of the boat to see the man next to her looking at her with admiration. They held eye contact and smiled in silence, the chillness of a summer night ignored. That night they both felt a connection forming between them.

A few days later, as no clouds hung over St. Tropez, Y/N found herself once again on the terrace. Immersed in the embrace of a plush chair, she was captivated by the ending of one of the books she found on a bookshelf. Lando, drawn to the lovely scene, approached with a warm smile. "Mind if I sit here with you?" he asked. "Of course, Lan. Please, join me," Y/N responded, gesturing to the empty chair beside her. As he settled into his chair, warm sunlight washed both of their bodies. Y/N, bookmarking her page, looked up with a soft smile. "Have you read 'The Great Gatsby' before?" Lando shook his head, "No, but I've heard it's a classic. What's it about?". Y/N went on trying not to say too much and Lando listened, captivated by the vivid imagery painted by her descriptions. After a comfortable pause, the girl looked into her companion's eyes "You know, they turned this into a movie. How about we watch it together later?" Lando's grin widened at this idea, "That sounds fantastic. I'd love to.". "Great, meet me in my room at 9pm, I will figure out some snacks." she said, got up and left him alone.

Lando found himself standing outside Y/N's bedroom door at 9 sharp. The air was filled with anticipation as he raised his hand to knock. A soft sound of footsteps and the clinking of plates hinted at Y/N's preparations within. Y/N opened the door, her eyes sparkling with warmth. "Right on time. Come on in," she welcomed. The aroma of the room was very comforting, Lando couldn't explain it but it reminded him of Y/N a lot. He stepped into the dimly lit space, the flickering light from scented candles creating a cozy ambience. The room was decorated with touches of luxury, reflecting the social status of the family. Y/N, wearing comfortable yet stylish pyjamas, gestured towards the plush seating area she had arranged. "Make yourself at home. The movie is all set up," she said, her enthusiasm evident. As they settled in, the glow from the movie screen bathed the room in a soft luminescence. The cinematic adaptation of "The Great Gatsby" unfolded. Y/N and Lando shared the experience, their thoughts and emotions reflected in the glow of the screen. Throughout the movie, their laughter and shared comments added a layer of connection to the evening. The subtle tension between Gatsby and Daisy echoed in the room, mirroring the unspoken bond developing between Y/N and Lando. As the credits rolled, Y/N turned to Lando with a satisfied smile. "What did you think?" she asked, her eyes searching for his reaction. Lando, his gaze lingering on Y/N, grinned. "It was incredible.". To be honest, he didn't remember half of the movie as a beautiful person next to him captivated his attention. Y/N mirrored his smile. After a pause, Lando asked, "Do you think Gatsby's love for Daisy was genuine, or just an illusion he created?". Y/n leaned back, thinking about the question. "It's a bit of both, I think. Gatsby's love was genuine, but the illusions he created were born out of his desperation to recapture a past that had slipped away." Their discussion flowed seamlessly, weaving through literary analysis and personal interpretations. Deep eye contact was comforting and neither of them wanted to end it. "I'm glad you enjoyed it. Maybe we can make this a tradition. You should pick the next movie" she suggested, her eyes holding a promise of more shared movie nights.

And the days passed just like that. On the last night, as the clock struck midnight, the yacht sailed under a blanket of stars, the moon casting its silver glow on the deck. Lando, overwhelmed with his thoughts, wandered outside. The night air was infused with a sense of bittersweet anticipation. There, on the deck, he found Y/N, a alone figure under the dark sky. The distant sound of waves protected them from the silence. Y/N sat in contemplation, a cigarette in hand, the soft moonlight illuminating her features. "Mind if I join you?" Lando's voice cut through the serenity, and Y/N looked up, a small laugh escaped her lips as she retrospected on one of their first interactions. She allowed him to, the smoke from her cigarette to twist into the air. Lando sensed a subtle shift in Y/N's demeanour, a quiet sadness that hung in the air like the sea mist. "You seem a bit distant tonight," he remarked, his eyes tried to focus on the horizon but seemed to be too curious of her. Y/N took a drag of her cigarette, exhaling slowly. "I guess I've been thinking about tomorrow," she confessed, her eyes didn't even dare to look at him as it would cause even more pain. Lando nodded, a shared understanding passing between them. The unspoken bond they had formed over the past weeks had transformed the usually boring yacht trip into a place of shared laughter, quiet conversations, and stolen glances, making both of them feel like stupid teenagers who would sneak around behind their parents' backs. The impending departure, however, indicated an end to this state. "I'll miss this," Y/N admitted, her voice carrying the weight of unspoken sentiments. "I don't want this to end just because the trip does," Lando confessed, his voice steady. "Maybe we can explore what this could be beyond St. Tropez. I'd love the chance to continue getting to know you, to see where this could go." Sea, once the witness of shared stories and vulnerability, now observed the promise of possibilities.

Weeks passed since Lando and Y/N parted ways. Mornings felt different for Lando, mainly due to the lack of two things: sun and Y/N. He often catches himself wondering what Y/N could be doing at this very moment. Yes, he could just open Instagram and DM her but he felt like he needed to do something more refined. Although they got to know each other pretty well, he didn't want her to think that he was just a cocky, young fuckboy who wants nothing more than just a body. He had to show her that he truly cared about her. Then, one morning, a letter arrived. The envelope was outstanding, decorated with intricate patterns and sealed with a wax emblem. Lando's heart quickened as he recognized Y/N's handwriting, the anticipation building with each passing moment. As he carefully opened the envelope, Lando realized that their story was far from over. Whatever that envelope contained held the promise of a new beginning, a chance to reignite the spark that had ignited in the hot, summer days. With trembling hands, he opened the letter, his heart racing with anticipation.

my masterlist

here's a fic i wrote last summer that reminds me of this scenario

feb 5 2024

[the-orion-scribe]

An essay on Ford and Mabel

To commemorate my 1000th post, I decided to embark on an essay on the limited Ford and Mabel bonding in the show!

Among some of the shortcomings in the show (including Wendy being chaffed as a main character), there aren’t as many moments for Ford and Mabel to bond over, compared to Ford with Dipper. Well, it’s also due to the short runway we have from A Tale of Two Stans to Weirdmageddon, but for rather odd reasons, Ford didn’t get a lot of screentime and often holed up in his own lab. Even Roadside Attraction did not even drop any mention of Ford. As a mutual lamented to me, it’s likely the case of Ford, like Wendy, being another character whom the writers had a purpose for (as the answer to the mystery of Stan and the Portal), but didn’t know how to write outside that purpose.

Of course, some argued that, for plot reasons, this is so that Mabel gets duped by Bill since she didn’t know about the Rift from Ford. Or that Ford just overlooked her when he offered Dipper the apprenticeship. As such, there is a main misconception that Ford didn’t care about Mabel at all compared to Dipper. Or, in some ridiculously extreme cases, that he hates her. While I guess this was extrapolated from what we might have gleaned in the show, I don’t agree with such extreme views.

People forget that Mabel was actually the first twin he interacted with, and it was largely positive. When Mabel stated that his six-fingered handshake was one finger friendlier than normal, Ford laughed and said he liked her. Given how much he was shunned by many others for his extra fingers, it probably warmed him to hear someone saying something positive about his anomaly. It seemed initially set up that Ford and Mabel should get along fabulously. Even Mabel went as far as to knit finger puppets for Ford and while he sounded rather hesitant in Journal 3, we later glimpsed a scene in which both bonded over something similar (a hand turkey).

Which brings me next on Ford’s journal entry about Mabel. (I also noted he interviewed, or wrote about, Mabel before Dipper). His interview with Mabel sounded largely positive given he remarked how he was “instantly charmed” by her “enthusiastic” personality. Ford also considered her as an “odd specimen” (almost certainly a compliment), and also hoped to seek her help to repair his own coat.

I suppose this interview probably shaped some initial impressions for Ford about Mabel. “Overall positive but somewhat ambivalent/not-really-comprehending how she ticks necessarily” is much of how I would define Ford’s attitude toward Mabel - he likes her, but doesn’t especially identify with her because the traits he admires in her are almost inversions of some his own.

At this stage, one could also take that with his remark in Dipper’s initial assessment about how he “possibly takes after Stanley” as Ford initially trying to identify with Mabel the way he ended up identifying with Dipper, such as him enthusiastically commenting about her sweet tooth and hair curls being a Pines trait. Of course, as it turned out in the show and in Journal 3, his perceptions of the twins shifted and he found himself relating more to Dipper especially when he looked back on Dipper’s entries and additions, and the events of Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons.

I have to admit that when I first read this part, I thought he remarks he himself needed further psychological testing and not Mabel. For some light-heartedness, I rather think of it that way, but there’s something deeper in this for the two’s psychological profiles. First off, the tests were flawed, given Rorschach testing blots should be less definitive, but it probably reflected Ford’s possible lack of comfort with ambiguity, and the preoccupation he had with death and destruction for so long. As for Mabel, it shows a certain degree of wilful misinterpretation, trying to see things through a particular positive lens and has a sort of fear of unpleasantness that manifests in a possibly neurotic drive to control reality around her, which finds its ultimate expression in Mabeland.

This is rather important as something I would delve into deeper later on in this essay, which gave Ford an impression that Mabel’s psychology, while odd, was overall positive and not much to be concerned about. He clearly recognized Mabel’s social ability as a valuable skill, and may see her lack of cynicism as something of an asset too, as we later see in The Last Mabelcorn. I suppose Ford neglected to do a deeper dive into her psychology given the fallout we would see in Dipper and Mabel Vs the Future. He might claim to have 12 PHDs, but I doubted one of them is in psychology.

We move on to the Last Mabelcorn, which is where we see Ford interacted more with Mabel and offer a bigger insight into how he feels about her. First, he agreed with Mabel when she stated she was probably “the most pure of heart in the room” and entrusted her with the unicorn mission, even knowing that the unicorns were difficult (and frustrating). As such, he equipped her with Journal 1 and a crossbow for the mission. Obviously this was for her safety, as well as trying to give her as much help as he could regarding unicorns, even though he himself had little success (Ford mentioned of an arm-wrestle with a unicorn in the blacklight edition which I doubted went well). At the end of that episode, he directly told her that she is a good person, even without being aware of the struggles she had gone through with her morality moments prior. And after the episode he even regarded her as an expert on unicorns given she managed to defeat one, and allowed her to write an entry in Journal 3 about unicorns. I needed to note that Mabel was the only person who wrote in Ford’s Journal after Dipper returned Ford the Journals (and before their recovery in Weirdmageddon). This rather showed how much Ford really trusted Mabel, especially when he regarded his Journal as his “important scientific documents”.

Dipper and Mabel vs The Future is more contentious in this regard. We see how plenty of fans often using this episode as proof that Ford doesn’t care about Mabel just because he only asked Dipper to stay in Gravity Falls, and waved off concerns that Mabel would be all alone in California. However, we need to relook some bits of this in context.

Dipper: There’s also Mabel. She’d be all alone in California. Ford: Mabel will be fine on her own. She has a magnetic personality. I watched her become pen pals with the pizza delivery man in the 60 seconds he was at the door.

From this, we can see how Ford cared enough to observe Mabel’s social skills with the pizza delivery guy, plus probably witnessed plenty of instances of Mabel handling herself without Dipper’s help. I guessed that was further underlined by her success in the unicorn adventure, and thus he genuinely believed that Mabel could take being without her brother outside of the summers.

Dipper: Gosh, we’ve never really been apart before. Ford: And isn’t it suffocating? Dipper, can you honestly tell me you never felt like you were meant for something more?

This is another contentious bit, I admit. It sounded like Ford considered Mabel as a stumbling block in Dipper’s future. Well, I concede Ford isn’t perfect. Again, this is one of those times Ford was projecting his issues with Stan onto the younger twins after finding out how similar he thinks Dipper is to him (possibly aggravated probably by Stan blatantly aligning Mabel with himself, ex, telling Dipper that he belongs upstairs with “me and Mabel”). At this point, he was just extremely clueless about the nature of her and Dipper’s relationship, and how it was much healthier than his was with Stan, probably even at that age.

Nevertheless, to say that he didn’t care about Mabel at all is simply a misguided oversimplification. He cared about them both so much. His traumatic experience with his own twin just tainted how he saw the twins’ bond being something that could be potentially suffocating. He did sort of have a point though; Dipper and Mabel couldn’t force each other to stay glued at the hip forever or it could potentially stifle their individual dreams if handled badly. But the twins were only 12 and had a lot of growing up to do together. It wasn’t a great idea to separate the twins at this point, which was something Ford forgot.

Mabel wasn’t forthright about her feelings about leaving Gravity Falls and growing up until she blew up at the end of the episode. We see how she maintained that mask of optimism throughout the show, even when she was worried about the Grunkles’ falling out and the parallels she found between her and her brother back in A Tale of Two Stans. That mask began to slip when she realized growing up wasn’t as great as she thought, and Ford didn’t know how badly Mabel would take it.

Ford thought he was doing Dipper a favor by giving him a head start on his studies. This is probably a bit too charitable of an interpretation, but one could, I suppose, see Ford's “something more” remark as “Dipper more than just half of a set” instead of “implying that Mabel is in some sense inferior than her brother.” As said earlier, he even believed Mabel would be fine and thrive on her own, too. That the two could have reached a compromise if needed.

We can probably conclude that Ford actually did not disregard Mabel or see her as the "inferior twin", but he just found trouble trying to connect with her despite his initial positive impressions. At the same time, due to Mabel's outward outgoing personality, he overestimated Mabel's confidence in being on her own, and also (subconsciously) projected his own issues with Stan on the younger twins. Not to say Ford was a bad person by any means, but he was misguided in some of his assumptions and impressions.

On a tangent, I say the recent fan episode Return to the Bunker tried its best to imagine how Ford and Mabel might go on an adventure together. However, it instead exaggerated too much of his flaws (e.g. his trust issues) and it became more of a Ford bashing episode. Yes, we know Ford isn't perfect by any means, and he might be unfamiliar with interacting with others like Mabel.

Yet, as we also saw from the canon (the show supplemented by Journal 3), he could get along well with Mabel, especially in such a desperate situation like confronting a Shapeshifter (how he dismissed the others' suggestions is really beyond me). We even saw how Ford was willing to give up himself to Bill in WMG when Bill threatened to torture or even kill the kids.

I supposed the writers of that fan episode did read J3 but took the wrong lessons. While definitely an attempt to show Ford's flaws, the episode instead went the other extreme. Ford could sometimes be insensitive (like the remark he made about "suffocating"), but not anti-social or downright unpleasant.

There is definitely potential for more positive Ford and Mabel bonding moments that could further underscore that Mabel could cope well on her own (from what we saw in The Last Mabelcorn). From what @hkthatgffan also told me (and on Reddit), when Lost Legends was coming up, everyone thought, from Hirsch's hint through his emojis, that we might finally get a Ford and Mabel bonding story but instead we got an (admittedly) half-hearted attempt to redeem Mabel from her role in WMG.

I supposed another angle could be Ford and Mabel also coming to terms with their roles, given Ford is partly responsible (and even took some blame himself), and both can overcome the trauma together. I don't doubt these are already concepts being explored in various fanfics and fanarts. And here are some other ideas from Reddit.

Let me end off with some parallel scenes between Ford and Mabel, which show how similar both are. We need to also remember that it's not exactly Dipper-Ford and Mabel-Stan, but rather Dipper and Mabel paralleling each of the Stans in different ways. That is probably another essay for another time.

This essay is written with assistance from @jacky-rubou (who already provided an initial essay for me to work from) and @callipraxia who is able to offer more insights.

[daegustae]

champagne problems | jeon jungkook

pairing ; groom!jungkook x wedding planner!reader.  

genre ; smut, angst | one-shot

summary ; the story we won’t tell is my greatest fantasy 

word count ; 4.1k 

chapter warnings ; infidelity, smut (18+), oral (f. receiving), bigdick!jungkook, multiple s3x positions, explicit language, creampie, unprotected s3x (yall know better), slight cockwarming, mentions of illness | plot twist at the end dont k!ll me pls 

a/n ; this was inspired by champagne problems obv AND the apartment we won’t share by niki jhsdjds IDK I WAS JUST LISTENING TO IT AND THEN BAM HERE COMES THIS AU . this is not edited. 

¯¨’*·~-.¸¸,.-~*’ •·.·´¯`·.·• `·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· •´`·..íì..·´`• 

“Nothing?” Hobi shakes his head no, pouting as he watches the screen in front of him waiting for a miracle to happen. You look at the letters written on your wall Garam Event Management Studios. It was your dream to have a business like this. An organizer for different types of events. At first, your business was doing exceptional, always fully-booked, never having a free day but better than you’re experiencing right now. Dry and dull. You even had to let go of some of your employees considering that you won’t be able to pay them due to this crisis.

“We won’t last a month” you sigh your head in frustration, thinking about what went wrong in your business. You can’t help but be in denial, this crisis started when your father purposely embarrassed you at that one dinner party, claiming that your business will eventually close down so people shouldn’t bother to get your services. His reason? Because you refused to work at his company where you’ll be the next CEO. To be fair, you were tired of being ordered around and being an office slave.

But humiliating you that night was uncalled for. Especially everything that happened before that confrontation.

“We just have to boost our ads, we used to be in-demand.” used to.

“I’m sorry Hobi, this was because of me.” he frowns, looking at your slump figure on the couch.

“You have nothing to be sorry for” you look at him giving him a pout, suppressing the tears that are threatening to come out.

“Thank you for sticking with me” he nods standing up from his table as he makes his way to you giving you the tightest hug. You are honestly thankful of Hobi, he’s your best friend and out of all people he was the first one to support you with your business, even dropping his corporate job to join you as a full time event coordinator.

“We’ll be fine, it's winter season, who wants a wedding during winter?” you laugh giving him a smack on his head before a ding sound comes out of his computer. You both pull out of the hug looking at each other with wide eyes, scrambling on the couch to stand up and read the letters on his screen.

“We got an appointment” you both scream jumping in excitement.

“We got this” you nod, doing your celebratory handshake before dashing to your own table, ready to contact the services you will need. Hobi focuses on the person who’s making an appointment.

Hobi sighs, you look at him puzzled, reading his face who’s hard to determine at this very moment. You look at him raising your eyebrows as your smile fades. “We got an appointment but it’s your choice if you want it or not.”

“Of course I want it! We can’t choose our customers, we're in a crisis.” you say matter of factly.

“Even if it’s your ex’s wedding?” he says slowly, waiting for your reaction.

“Of course, this is business, nothing personal.” you clear your throat, biting your tongue and proceeding to scroll through your desktop.

“Are you sure? Because I’m pretty sure there will be more cus-”

“Hobi, it’s fine. Plus this is good for our business, we’ll get exposure and such.” you give him a reassuring smile. It’s not time to be selfish. It’s been 9 months since that dinner party, you’re pretty sure everyone has moved on from it already, and yet you still remember the atmosphere that day.

“It’s his fiance that booked the appointment, by the way.” fiance you shouldn’t feel bitter hearing that, but somehow there’s a small part of you that aches for the future you planned, aches for him. “She said she chose us because she was a guest to this wedding once, and fell in love with us” Hobi chuckles “And the wedding’s in three days” he adds

“What?” that’s a small amount of time to prepare.

“And she can’t find anyone else to do it because it’s too little time” you sigh you either accept this or you’ll close down this business.

“We have to make this work Hobi, this is our last shot.” you say truthfully he nods looking at you with concern.

“Let's do this yeah?”

-

“Stop fiddling with your pants Hobi” you scold giving him a scowl as you watch him straighten up on his seat. You’re currently in your studio, waiting for your clients to discuss what they want for the wedding.

“I can’t help it, it’s been too long since we last saw him” you nod agreeing, smacking his hands that continue to fiddle with everything he touches.

“Are you the ex?” you whisper-yell wincing as you feel your head throbbing. Hobi looks at you with concern before you shrug him off.

“Funny” you laugh as he rolls his eyes, freezing as the door inside your office opens. Revealing a beautiful woman, and a familiar figure following him. Way too familiar.

“Our couple! Future Mrs. Jeon?” Hobi greets her and nods, giving you both a genuine smile. You stand up from your seat, reaching out to shake her hand in which she excitedly accepts before extending your hand to the man beside her.

“Jungkook” you greet

“y/n” he reaches out for your hand, his warmth engulfing your whole body.

“You know each other?” she gushes

“She was a friend” Jungkook says a friend you nod in agreement. Sitting on the chair and preparing the papers you will need.

“That’s good then! You both can talk about the wedding for tomorrow no? I have to prepare for my dress-fitting and such.” You look at Hobi asking for help in which he understands, changing the subject.

“Let’s talk about that later, okay so here’s the initial plan we prepared for you both based on what we talked about yesterday . You can choose which you prefer, and you can also change anything, just tell us and we’ll continue from there.” they both nod, you can’t help but feel the burning glaze of Jungkook, you look at him, your eyes meeting each other as Hobi proceeds to explain everything.

It’s been so long since you last saw him, nothing changed. He still has the same doe eyes, lip ring, and that mole on his neck. Nothing changed except his heart. You look away, nodding at whatever Hobi’s saying, this is gonna be a long day.

-

“Well we’ll see you on your wedding day?” You tell Hana she nods giving you her bright smile, no wonder he fell in love with her. Her smile is contagious and she seems really kind. You’re happy for both of them.

“Yes! I’m trusting everything to you, for the rest of the plans you can meet up with my husband. I’m really sorry I won’t be there”

“Of course, and no it’s fine. Just rest before your wedding day”

“I’ll see you guys soon” she says excitedly giving you and Hobi a hug, Jungkook waving his hands to the both of you as they walk outside.

You sigh in relief, closing your eyes as you lean your head on the table. Feeling yourself getting drowsy.

“You okay?”

“Mmm just nauseous” 

“I still think you need to tell him the reason you know” you look up at Hobi, frowning at him.

“Doesn’t matter anymore, his wedding is in two days” You stand up kneeling in front of Hobi who has his head low.

“Still it’s unfair” you shake your head laughing lightly, he looks like a child right now 

“Some things are better left unsaid, I’m okay really. And I chose this path, remember?” you can’t help but feel your heart swells, it’s good to know that someone still cares about you.

“I have to talk to our techs, and be on the reception to check the updated stuff tomorrow” you bite your lip, that means it’s just going to be you and Jungkook tomorrow. “Will you be okay alone?”

“Of course! Just business, nothing personal". Clapping your hands feels like you're convincing yourself more than hobi, ruffling Hobi’s hair as you stand up checking the needed items for the wedding so you can present it to Jungkook tomorrow.

-

“And we have this voice message thing booth, where your guests can leave their wishes through this analog phone which is perfect for your wedding theme.” You’re currently at your office as you explain to Jungkook, he listens to you intently, watching in awe as you present him with all the details for his wedding.

“That’s beautiful, you’re good at this” you chuckle with his compliment shaking your head as you list a few things on the paper.

“Thank you, you convinced me to do it” you smile at the memory, you’ve always wanted a job like this, designing and organizing things. At first you were hesitant about it, but when you told Jungkook what you really wanted, he was there to support and encourage you all the way. He even helped you in naming your studio, suggesting Garam which means river. And with a river, you can’t touch the same water twice, it keeps flowing, reminding us that life is fleeting and we should value every second of it. Which by the way is connected with your job, helping every client to remember and enjoy their special day that will pass by eventually. 

“I’m glad you still continue” he states as you look at him in the eyes nodding. “I’m sorry”

“For what” you stand up, compiling all the papers as Jungkook watches you leave your seat.

“My fiance is a huge fan of yours, she really wanted you to be our coordinator” you stop at your tracks looking at Jungkook as you shrug.

“I’m thankful for that Kook, nothing to be sorry for” his heart skips a beat, the nickname you gave him to him before feels like a knife jabbing through his chest. He shouldn’t feel this way.

“I waited for you, you know” you take a deep breath, watching Jungkook make his way to where you are standing.

“I’m sorry” you tell him sincerely “I’m just glad you found what you deserve” he nods taking a step forward, reaching out as he puts his hands on your hips. Leaning your forehead to his.

“What are you doing?” you know this is wrong, but you didn’t fight back, feeling the familiar warmth pulse through your whole body. “We shouldn't” you whisper to his lips.

“We shouldn’t” he repeats before he’s pulling away from you. You watch him clear his throat nodding his head as he makes his way to the door. You didn’t dare to look at him turning your back away from him waiting for the sound of your door opening and closing.

You gasp as you feel your body getting spinned. Before you know it, Jungkook’s lips are on yours. Kissing each other like there’s no tomorrow, pulling away to catch your breath only to put your lips on his again. His lips taste like poison, it burns you. Your hands wander each other’s bodies, exploring and holding each other like there’s no tomorrow. Because there isn’t.

You find yourself on fours on the couch with Jungkook, moaning as you feel him lick your pussy, eating you out with no mercy. “F-fuck”

“Are you still on the pill?” he asks from behind you, you nod watching his dick slap his stomach. “Good”

You feel his length enter inside you, both of you moaning in unison as he penetrates your walls. You clench your jaw at the foreign feeling. It’s been so long since he’s been inside you, you forgot how big and long he is.

“So tight princess, relax” he soothes you by kissing your neck to your shoulders. Tracing your spine as you arch your back. He starts thrusting inside, holding on to your hips for leverage. He feels your walls tighten, as he hits the spot he has always known.

“P-please” you have no idea what you’re begging for, but Jungkook knows you. He pounds inside you leaning his body on yours as you feel his weight on your back, only adding to the pleasure.

“You close?” you cry in pleasure, Jungkook lifts your body as he sits up without pulling out of you, making you put all your weight on his chest.

“Spread your legs” you do as he says, spreading your legs as he continues to thrusts inside you, this position sending you into a frenzy. You can’t help but look down, watching your pussy swallow him deliciously. He growls as you bounce, meeting his hips to get you there.

“I’m cumming” your legs shake as Jungkook repeatedly hits your spot. Putting all your weight on him this time as he massages your breast with his left hand, the other rubbing your pussy. You feel his breath on your shoulder, tilting your head on the side to chase his lips. Your pussy clenches as you feel your orgasm, breathing heavily with Jungkook’s cock still inside you.

“Good girl” he praises, he lays your body on the couch, watching you in your pleasure state, before he’s spreading your legs again. Lining up his length to show you deep he’s gonna be inside you. He spread your remains on his dick, rubbing it before slapping his dick on your sensitive pussy.

You wince making him chuckle. “Take all of me yeah?”

He inserts his throbbing length inside you once again, but this time slower. And intimate. Watching your face turns into pleasure as he brushes the hair on your face with his fingers. He takes his time this time, thrusting inside you slowly, but harder.

You look at his face, rubbing your thumb on his eyebrow as it furrows. You don’t say anything to each other, just feeling each other’s warmth. He kisses your lips delicately, holding your body close to his. You put your arms on his shoulder to his back, nails scratching softly that will be there until tomorrow.

“Almost there” he whispers, you can’t help but bite his shoulder feeling yourself release again. He kisses your forehead, his thrust becoming erratic until he’s cumming inside you. You both quiver with pleasure.He didn’t pull out after that, laying on your body instead. His head on your shoulder as you both breathe heavily.

You gently run your fingers to his hair, you feel him sighs in contentment as you feel your tears flow on your cheek feeling the coldness of his ring on your skin. Even if Jungkook notices your tears, he doesn't say anything, only holding you tighter. You stay just like that, holding and feeling the warmth of each other. Because maybe you both know that this will be the last time you’ll see each other. You both know the consequences and you’ll both suffer from it. Greatly.

You both know this is goodbye.

It isn’t long before you're both putting your  clothes back on, without words. Before you’re clearing your throat. Shame and guilt both eating you alive already. 

“Let’s pretend this didn’t happen”

“Like how you pretended I didn’t propose to you that night?” he says sarcastically, you can feel the bitterness of his words. You stand frozen. Not knowing what to say. Getting a flashback of that night.

“Can you at least tell me the reason? I deserve that”

“It was for all of this, you know that.” the lie sits like a venom on your tongue

“Do you really expect me to believe that?” you’re now both facing each other. His eyes meet your glistening ones.

“I’m not telling you to accept that, but that’s the truth, nothing else.”

“You could’ve just told me you wanted this career so bad, I wouldn’t have made you choose. I would have supported you.” you can feel the pain lacing his voice, and you can’t help but let your tears run down your cheeks.

“I know” you sob, Jungkook wants to hold you, but he stops himself from doing so. 9 months and you’re both still a mess. Maybe this was the closure you needed, but not the closure he wanted. He thinks about all the things you could’ve been if you only told him the truth. He can’t help but be offended, you really thought he won’t support you with what you wanted? All those years together and yet you thought so little of him.

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“You already did” he pauses, shaking his head, chuckling as he finds himself crying as well “The moment you started thinking I would stop you from chasing your dreams” he adds im sorry im sorry. You know no words will ever heal him from the pain you’ve caused. So you shut your mouth watching him leave before stopping to his tracks. Looking back at you one last time.

“Do you regret it? Leaving me?” he asks genuinely. Jungkook needs to hear it from you, so he can move on and stop living with the what if’s. He needs to hear it so he can wake up tomorrow without doubts about his future.

“No” you say without hesitating, staring at his eyes so you can deliver your point.

“Okay” he nods, shutting the door behind him as you fall down on your knees. Clutching your chest as you feel it aches.

“I’m sorry” the doctor looks at you with pity. You nod not knowing how to react.

“How long do I have?”

“12 months based on the size of tumor in your brain” you look at his eyes, hoping that he would be lying and this is a joke. But his eyes have no hint as such. “There’s a treatment but it’s not guaranteed you will live.” so it’s either you die slowly with the treatment or still die without it, except you’ll live shorter. Which is worse? 

You chuckle weakly, so many thoughts running in your mind, how could this be? Why does it have to be you? What will happen to those who you will leave behind?

Jungkook. If you tell him your illness, he would stay and be there for you. But you can’t let him witness you die slowly and suffer for the rest of his life. It will be too selfish for you to deny him the bright future he deserves. You can’t scar him and leave a painful permanent mark.

You’d rather him hate you than suffer loving you.

That night you and Jungkook were invited to a dinner party, and you were planning on breaking up with him for whatever reason you come up with. The guilt eating you alive as he intertwined his finger with yours. Constantly kissing your temples.

That same night, he was on his knees, asking for your hand around your family, friends and colleagues. You dreamt of this day, and you would have said yes if it weren’t for the news you received that morning. You remember the atmosphere that night, it was heavy. Too heavy that you feel like falling down to your knees. But most of all, you remember the confusion and pain written on Jungkook’s face that night, watching you shake your head and run away from the scene.

That very night, your father talks about the business you were starting. Slandering it so the attention won’t be with the failed proposal but your failure as his daughter who refused to take over the company. Your father did all that to save himself from embarrassment. That very night, you lost the remaining care your father had for you.

That night, you lost your bestfriend, your anchor, the love of your life.

That night, your world crumbled down into pieces.

You look around your office, tracing pictures of past events you had on the wall. You started this career because you wanted it, and you had Jungkook’s support. You still continue to do it because it gives you the comfort to plan for other’s future that you won’t have and experience in this lifetime.

-

“Don’t be nervous, just enjoy this moment.” you tell Hana, patting her on the shoulder as she nods. She’s the most beautiful bride you’ve ever met. The kindest too. She engulfs you into a hug and squeezes your body.

“Thank you for everything.” you can’t help but feel guilty, she trusted you. And you fucked his fiance the day before your wedding. And you know karma has bitten you in the ass once you're 6 ft underground.

“I’m sorry” you whisper sincerely, rubbing her back. As if she would know what you did. she gasps, pulling away from the hug before she’s pinching your sides.

“Everything is beautiful, what are you sorry for.” she giggles. Your conversation has died down when the door opens revealing Hobi in a suit.

“Ladies, we’re about to start” he announces, the bridesmaids stand up, shuffling to their feet as they get out of the room to prepare. “y/n, check on our groom one last time please” you gulp doing as he says. Hobi doesn’t know what happened between you and Jungkook yesterday, and you don’t want him to know. Not today, at least.  

“Let me fix that for you” you tell from the doorway, watching Jungkook jump in surprise as he tries to fix his tie.

“Please” you give each other a small smile, so many words left unsaid. And that’s for the better.

“I love her y/n.” He says suddenly, you stop fixing his tie for a moment, good before continuing your actions.

“I know, don’t worry I won’t tell. We’ll pretend it never happened.” you pat his shoulder, distancing from him.

“I really love her, she’s helped me get back up after everything. I will tell her about what happened last night, someday. I don’t want to lose her, I can’t.” you nod understandingly, knowing he’s telling the truth because he used to talk about you like that before.

“I’m happy for you Jungkook” you tell him honestly, this is what you’ve always wanted. At first, you thought you would feel jealousy and pain when you accepted this event. But now, you only feel happiness for the both of them, not even a small part of you feels bitter about this. Just genuine joy and pure contentment knowing Jungkook’s in good hands.

“Thank you.” You both sniff, laughing as you witness each other be a mess. Crying of joy this time.

“Jungkook you’re ruining your makeup”

“Stop making me cry then.”

“I will.”

- The huge doors open, revealing Jungkook waiting at the altar and for a moment you had a glance of the future that you could have had. You wait for the bride to get to the end of the hall before making your way to Hobi who’s busy ordering the staff.

“Hey”

“Hey, you look pale.”

“I’m sick, remember” you say matter-of-factly. Hobi only scowls at you. “Think you can handle everything else here?”

“Of course, is there something wrong?”

“Just tired” he observes your face, before nodding in understandment. Lately, you’ve been experiencing the symptoms, at first it was gradual but you feel it progress every day. One symptom at time, then all of it sometimes.

“You need help? I can drive you home” you smack his arm scolding him.

“They need an expert to stay here. Thank you Hobi” you both share your handshakes, giggling as you wave goodbye. Making one last stop before leaving, you find yourself in front of the voicemail booth. Picking up the phone with the label groom.

“Hey Kook, um, it’s me y/n” You take a deep breath, suddenly feeling awkward talking on the phone with no one on the other line.

“I just wanna say I’m happy that you found love because you’re a wonderful being, and you deserve nothing but happiness and more. I know you will be a great husband, and a loving father because I learned how to love unconditionally from you and I will always be grateful for that. You asked me before if I regret leaving you. Honestly, I don’t don’t regret any of it. I guess the only regret I have is making you wait longer when you could have had all of this sooner. Thank you for everything and I hope you can forgive me someday.”

Here’s to the future

[shadowqueenjude]

inspired by a post from @clockwork-ashes Eris walked into the ballroom, already bored. The same shallow people he'd appeased a thousand times, he had to entertain again. Paste on his perfect courtly smile and pretend he didn't hate their guts. Pretend to be perfectly unaware that most here wished death on him and his family. Even wished death on the youngest in the family, who was just a kid. Lucien was the only bright spot in all this. It was his first event of the sort, and he'd been very nervous. "But, Ewis, what if they hate me?" Lucien had asked, staring up at him with his big brown eyes. Their mother's eyes. He stood on a little stool in front of the mirror in a little blue tunic, body language filled with uncertainty. Eris sighed, kneeling before him. He pulled out a little gold bow tie and began to place it on Lucien. Lucien squealed and wiggled away, but Eris put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on now, Lu. The bow tie will finish the look. Make you look very smart." Lucien grinned at that, showing his baby teeth. "I am vewy smawt!" Eris chuckled, patting his shoulder. He had had a hand in all of his brothers' childhoods, but none more so than Lucien. Beron had practically thrown him into Eris's arms as soon as he was born. As a result, Lucien barely even knew his father. "Come on, little man," Eris said, offering his hand. Lucien took it, so very small compared to his.

Even now in the ballroom, Lucien refused to let go of his hand. "Lulu, you can let go," Eris said a little exasperatedly, but he secretly adored it. Children were so much more genuine than fully grown Fae; Lucien clung to him because he wanted to be with him. He was the cutest. "I don't like all these stwange people looking at me, Ewis," Lucien complained. "They don't look nice." "That's because they're not, Lulu. Many of these people are very mean, in fact. Don't trust them." Lucien stared at Eris, and there was real fear in his eyes. So, Eris scooped little Lucien up and placed him on his shoulders. "There, you're king of the world now. No one will dare question you," he soothed Lucien. That wholesome smile returned. "I am Lu, High Lowd of Autumn! Bow befowe me!" Eris went around greeting all the courtiers, who all beamed at his baby brother residing on his shoulders, cooing at him. Lucien was the perfect little courtier, grinning at them all and even offering a hand for a handshake above Eris's head. Later, Eris felt a little tug in his hair. "What?" Eris asked the little rascal on his shoulder. "That lady is pwetty! You should dance with her!" He pointed to a bronze-skinned brunette in a red dress across the room laughing with some folks of the High Fae. Eris sighed. Already trying to get Eris to dance; the courtier incarnate, indeed. "It's rude to point, Lulu," he said, but he listened to him, walking towards the beauty. "Hello, miss. I am Eris Vanserra, and this little man above me is my brother, Lucien. May I have a dance?" The woman stared him down appraisingly with her near-black eyes. "Melody Visvadara. And yes, you may." She winked at Lucien. "Especially you, Lucien." If people thought it was odd that the High Lord's heir was dancing with a lady while his brother still sat on his shoulders, no one dared question it. Especially when his dancing was still absolute perfection and Lucien giggled in delight at every twist and turn. No, all they could do was watch and admire the Vanserra brothers with envy in their hearts.

[thezombieprostitute]

Dragonfly - Part 3

Summary: Steve has just about everything he could ever want in life. He's got you, a baby on the way, and a successful Family. No one would dare interfere with that. Right?

A/N: Reader is female, pregnant. No other descriptors used.

Word Count: ~1.1k

Warnings: Death threats, Implied violence, Pregnancy. Please let me know if I missed any!

Part 2 -- Part 4

Series Masterlist

With the contract burned, you were breathing a little easier. Too bad you couldn't say the same for Steve. The insight from Mr. Smith that Dragonfly after you, not trying to hurt Steve, had him questioning anyone and everyone you'd ever met before. So far nothing had hit. There was only a couple of months until the birth and Steve was adamant that Dragonfly be found before it happened.

As much as Steve wanted to keep you locked up inside you still needed to go out every so often. When you did, the security team was always around and Steve always held you close. As much as you wanted to run free, you could pick up on his stress every time you did so. He was hyper-vigilant, had trouble keeping up with conversations, tensed and drew you close at every loud noise.

Thankfully your pregnancy was so far along that the people he worked with, outside of the Family, figured it was him being overprotective. No one questioned his propensity for pulling you away from handshakes and other physical contact.

One of the older ladies, Mrs. Devereaux, at the fundraiser smiled fondly and commented, “I remember my husband being the same way during my first pregnancy. You've got to love how protective these big strong men can be when they're nervous.”

You chuckled, “he is delightfully good at making me feel safe. You should've seen him during the ultrasounds.”

She coos, “oh, I'll bet he was a big ball of nerves!”

“He was, though he'd never admit it,” you reply. “And you should've seen him when he found out we're having a boy.”

“Oh yes,” she sighs. “My husband was the exact same way. I'm so glad to see you two have such a loving relationship. And that your bear of a husband is keeping you safe.”

“I'm just glad he isn't growling at people who get too close.”

You and Mrs. Devereaux had a good laugh over that before she went to speak to someone else.

Steve pulled you close and whispered in your ear, “if I recall correctly, you enjoy when I growl at you.”

“Exactly,” you smile at him. “At me. You growling at others isn't as fun.” You kiss him before gently hissing at the pain in your lower back. “Still, if you want to get out of here a little early, I don't think we would mind.”

Steve nods and gives his silent signal to his security team that you're getting ready to leave. The two of you say goodbyes as you head out, Steve's far more terse than yours. Anyone who takes longer than ten seconds gets a glare from Steve that has them finishing up their goodbyes quickly.

Steve helps you into the back seat before climbing in himself. Bucky sits up front with Dayton driving. You always feel safe in the car. Steve will do everything he can to keep you safe; Bucky is head of security for a reason and Dayton White is the best driver they've got on the crew. You let yourself breathe deep and relax as you rub your stomach.

“How are you holding up,” Steve asks, rubbing your arm.

“Better now that I'm sitting.”

“I keep trying to make sure we only go to events with seating,” he grumbles. “Still, it's nice to have an excuse to leave early. I don't think we're gonna be able to get that bill passed, regardless of how much time we spent there.”

“I'm so sorry, Sweetie,” you coo, moving your hand to rub his cheek. “I know it would've helped a lot of people. Oh!” Everyone in the car is on alert until you move Steve's hand to your stomach. “Yeah, he's also happy to be sitting down,” you chuckle as your baby kicks where Steve's hand is. “I think he's also hungry.”

“And what is he hungry for,” Steve asks, his eyes never leaving where his hand is.

“I'm thinking ice cream with some of that spicy sweet Tabasco sauce.”

Steve gives you a look but the baby's persistent kicks seem to confirm your choice and he chuckles.

After your ice cream and a long nap, you find yourself in the kitchen again, looking to make some baked apples with extra cinnamon. As you work, Steve comes in and watches you, smiling contentedly. At least, until your back starts hurting again, causing you to wince and look for a chair.

Steve walks up behind you, “there's something I'd like to try for that back pain, if you'll let me?”

“Of course.” He reaches around to your front and slowly, carefully, lifts your pregnant belly. “Oh, Steve,” you moan. “Oh, that helps so much.” Tears form in your eyes from the relief.

“However long you need me to stand like this,” he promises, kissing your cheek. “You know I'll always support you however I can.”

“I know,” you assure. “And you know I'll always do the same for you.” He nods in confirmation, his beard lovingly scratching your cheek.

After a few minutes your cravings get the better of you, “that was wonderful, Sweetheart, but I gotta get the baby some food.”

“Are you sure? I can stay like this for a while longer.”

You chuckle, “yeah, I'm sure you could. But then your arms would be too tired to hold me later when we're in bed.”

“Never,” he jokinglly snaps, making you laugh. He gently lets go and you get back to work on the baked apples.

“Have you given further thoughts to which friends we're naming the baby after?” It's been a major topic of discussion between the two of you. Bucky and Sam have been running their own campaigns for who the baby should be named after. So much so that the Garbage Men have a betting pool for who gets to be the namesake.

“Honestly,” Steve starts, “I'm thinking of none of them. Giving our son a name of his own.”

“A lot of people will be upset,” you chuckle. “But I very much understand what you're going for. I think it'd be good for everyone, especially baby Winston.” Steve arches an eyebrow at that and you giggle even more. “We could also call him Jameson? Being a combination of James and Wilson?”

“That one I'd give some thought to. But it feels more like a last name.”

“Oh I know,” you chirp, “Jack! For the artist who brought us together!”

“I think I like that,” he muses. “We've still got time to decide, but I do like that one.” He stands behind you and loosely wraps his arms around you again. “Hmm. Jack Steven Rogers...”

Part 2 -- Part 4

Series Masterlist

Tags:

@alicedopey; @aryhyuuga; @cynic-spirit; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @jamneuromain; @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory; @ktficworld; @leryg0; @rayofdawnworld; @rebekahdawkins; @ronearoundblindly; @talesofadragon; @texmexdarling

[floralcyanide]

ʜɪꜱᴛᴏʀʏ ᴘʀᴏꜰᴇꜱꜱᴏʀ!ᴊᴏʜɴ “ʙᴜᴄᴋʏ” ᴇɢᴀɴ ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴꜱ

Today is your first day pursuing your Master of Arts in History, and the first day you meet your advisor, Dr. Egan, Professor of History.

pairing: professor!john "bucky" egan / fem!reader

warnings: none

author’s note: peep the somewhat grey hair edit of bucky I made lol, this is such s elf indulgent au because I am a history major looking to go into my master's and also I want to be a history professor so yeah ((: I will either write this as an actual fic but idk yet!! enjoy (:

masterlist | divider credit: @cafekitsune

this fic has been cross posted to ao3.

ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴄᴏᴘʏ, ʀᴇᴘʀᴏᴅᴜᴄᴇ, ᴏʀ ᴄʟᴀɪᴍ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋ ᴀs ʏᴏᴜʀs ᴏɴ ᴛᴜᴍʙʟʀ, ᴀᴏ3, ᴡᴀᴛᴛᴘᴀᴅ, ᴏʀ ᴀɴʏ ᴡᴇʙsɪᴛᴇ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴘᴇʀᴍɪssɪᴏɴ ᴛᴏ ᴜsᴇ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋs ɪɴ ᴀɪ ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀᴛᴏʀs ᴏʀ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴏ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀʀᴛɪғɪᴄɪᴀʟ ɪɴᴛᴇʟʟɪɢᴇɴᴄᴇ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀʏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴜsᴇ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋs ᴛᴏ sᴇʟʟ ғᴏʀ ᴀs ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴏᴡɴ ᴄʀᴇᴀᴛɪᴏɴ.

✦ It’s your first day on your path toward your Master of Arts in History. You’re meeting with your advisor today, who will help you on that very path and hopefully guide you to its end with success.

✦ Apparently, your advisor is prevalent around campus despite you never having a class of his. Your university is quite large, so even though your focus is American History, and so is his, it’s not unheard of to never have met him.

✦ He wasn’t too into social events held by the history department, which is understandable. You loved attending them in your later years of being an underclassmen. But they can be overwhelming at times. 

✦ You wrap your knuckles against the wooden door before you, and before you can finish knocking, a tall, salt-and-pepper man swings the door open with a dazzling smile.

✦ “Welcome, I’m Dr. Egan. I’ll be your advisor for the rest of your time here on campus.” He offers a hand for you to shake, which you happily take. His grip is firm, but so is yours. You were taught to look someone right in the eye while shaking their hand firmly- but not too firmly. Dr. Egan picks up on this.

✦ You’re one of three female history majors in the entire department going toward a Master’s and one of about twenty altogether in the major. So, of course, you’re going to need a firm handshake and steady eye contact to get ahead in your field.

✦ “Quite a handshake you have there,” Dr. Egan says, taking a seat behind his desk. He waves a hand for you to sit in one of the chairs in front of it. “Thank you,” you say, “My grandfather taught me always to have a perfect grip.” “Your grandfather was right,” Dr. Egan nods, “because in this major, being an equal with the males will take you far.”

✦ Your grandfather and father were history buffs and even lived through major historical moments, like the World Wars. So your goal in life is to teach others about what they loved so dearly and went through so harshly.

✦ Your mother had you just a few years before your father was shipped off to England, so you spent the beginning of your school years without him. Your grandfather filled in the gaps you missed from your father, thankfully. Sadly, your grandfather passed just last year, but you aim to carry his legacy and intelligence.

✦ “I’m aware, unfortunately,” you grimace at the thought of the male-dominating discipline, “But I’ve made it this far, and I’m not backing down.” “Great, I’m glad to hear that. Especially since you’re the first student I’ve ever advised for a Masters.” “Really?” you ask, a little surprised, “Then we’ll do this together.”

✦ Dr. Egan winks at that and dives into what research will be required for your first paper. The topic is based on the thesis statement of your final project, a little warm-up, as Dr. Egan called it- to the real deal at the end of your two years of studying. You go on to tell him that you want your thesis to be about the pilots of World War II, but you don’t elaborate on why. 

✦ Dr. Egan tilts his head at you when you don’t explain why you chose that exact topic but let it go. He’s had to learn that everyone has skeletons in their closet, as well as personal things, and not just him.

✦ You can’t help but take in his appearance. His outfit consists of a brown tweed blazer and a white button-up with black slacks. His hair is curly and graying on the sides, and he has a faint stubble with a notable mustache on his upper lip. Dr. Egan held himself carefully but confidently, like he’d been hurt by something but still had an ego of sorts. It reminds you of your father and grandfather. You weren’t sure why.  But you’re going to figure it out.

✦ Dr. Egan is in his 40s now and picked up college again after leaving the military due to PTSD. He eventually got his Ph.D. in History and is now a professor, and has been for a few years now. He enjoys his job. Dr. Egan (or Bucky, as we know him) loves that he can focus on American History without living through it, so he teaches it. Bucky tries to avoid WWII as a topic because he doesn’t want students and staff to know he served. He thinks it will hinder their outlook on him. 

✦ Bucky has only known you through letters and now an hour of talking, but he already expects a lot from you. He knows you are skilled and passionate about history. When you look at him, though, he feels you can see right through him. Bucky doesn’t know how to gauge that quite yet.

✦ You bid farewell to Dr. Egan after about two hours of getting to know each other's basic info as well as what’s expected of your MA in History. You leave, letting out a deep breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding as you walked out of the office. You’re still nervous, but not about your Master’s anymore- it’s about how you’re going to manage the next two years with a man like Dr. Egan.

[futurecorps3]

I saw your Hobie x latina going going to the club para perrear and I loved it😭🤞🏼😩

BUT

Imagine Hobie going to a cantina with a mexican reader and just drink and hear corridos tristes (el video del vato que dice "porque que te quiero" y le meten el micrófono a la boca😭💀) or rather going to a cantina goes to her house and her family is making carne asada and drinking beer and there's literally a band in the party (soy norteña perdoname😭) and he is like "this food is bussing bussing" because he is British and their food is just "no good💖". At first he is nervous like he doesn't know what to do and at the end he is somehow riding a horse or he is playing with the band, he just loves it, the vibe and the food

(Love how you write 😭💖)

Hobie Brown meeting latina!reader's family <3

Masterlist <3

Ay hermana, soy chilanga we don't have horses up in this bitch😭 I tried to make it more general like Bee meeting your tías and primos but def adding the whole carne asada deal. (For my non-mexican readers, we call people from the city "chilangos" and northern people "norteños" and while we're from the same country, our experiences can be very different!). Also, tysm my dear, hope u like<3

-First off

-Giggling and kicking my feet 🤭

-Bro was persistent in meeting your family, and while you weren't exactly reluctant, you did have to warn him

-"Why not!? I want to meet your uncle Luis or- or Saúl!" He exclaims, recalling the stories you've told about your family members. "I'm not saying no, mi amor. I-It's just-" "What?" He grins, knowing you don't really have a solid argument. He kisses your pout and walks over to your room to get ready as you sigh, defeated by your pretty once more.

-Of course you wanted Bee to meet your family! But we all know how it can get at those big family gathering.

-One thing was meeting your parents, (which went by spectacularly, by the way) but him hanging out with your older tíos and younger primos was a whole other deal

-They aren't bad people, you love them dearly. It was the soft (hard and relentless) teasing (borderline bullying) you were worried about.

-It was easy to understand their humor when you grew up with heavy jokes, but Hobie would be new to all this. Plus, he was the first official boyfriend you'd introduce to the family! They were protective and honestly not afraid to show it.

-"Buenas tardes, Hobie Brown. Mucho gusto" you say slowly as you're both on the way to your tío's house, he repeats after you with a horrible accent. "Roll your r's!" You giggle, looking at him intently while softly showing him how to pronounce.

-He's really trying for you bestie </3

-Yeah he went blank after your aunt opened the door and dismissed his polite handshake with a bone-crushing hug.

-"Ay mija! He's so tall, I can barely hug him right. Pásenle, pásenle, Luis is in the garden with the kids. Welcome Hobie!"

-Bee just smiles and it widens when a horde of kids comes running down the hall and bolt towards you, saying hello to their favorite aunt and the strange bato she brought along.

-"Tía Y/N/N who is this?" Luisa (the youngest) asks, eyeing Hobie up and down with the sass of an old lady, making him suppress a laugh "Es tu novio?" now questions one of the boys, looking up at him amazed. "Hello brats" he smirks, high-fiving each and every one of your nieces and nephews excitedly.

-"You didn't tell me you were a tía already..." "Some of them will be by the age of sixteen, so I'm no rare event."

-Hobie is hard to lose on a crowd; all spikes, leather, chunky boots, and piercings

-Your nephews are thrilled.

-Asking all around about what his pins mean, if he finds it hard to walk with those boots, if he's not too hot with his jacket... you know, the type of questions kids ask.

-You laugh at him, trying to answer one question at a time patiently, and walk over to the table outside where your tíos, tías, primos, primas, cuñadas and some sobrinos were.

-"Y el novio mija?" Asks one of your tíos, already in a deffensive tone "He's inside con los niños, tío. Ahorita viene" you smile and promptly, Hobie walks through the door after the kids.

-The smokey scent of the carne asada filled his nostrils as soon as he walked outside, widening his eyes at how good it smelled. You walk over to him, grabbing his arm and smiling widely at your family

-"Les presento a Hobie, mi novio" you beam and your tíos can tell he truly makes you happy. "Yo no te di permiso, Y/N" one of them jokes, making everyone laugh and Bee follows after you translate for him.

-And he didn't like it but he really cared about their opinions

-He didn't give a single fuck of what other people had to say, but this was your family!!! He knew he was close and for the first time, strived for perfection

-The next few minutes were him trying really hard to memorize all the names, having a hard time pronouncing your aunt Rocio and Rosa's names.

-Everyone laughed at his attempts

-You sit between everyone at the large table, one of your tíos approaching you as you're too busy catching up with one of your cousins. Bee squeezes your hand to catch your attention, but you don't turn back to look at him, instead just squeeze back.

-He nervously places his hand out, and contrary to before, your uncle welcomes it. "Buenas tardes, Hobie" (oubi😭con acento mexa) "Buenas tardes, señor". God, did he rehearse that on the way...

-Your uncle seemed to appreciate him at least trying to talk to him in your mother tongue. He gave him kind of a smile and asked "Wanna help me with the asador over there?"

-Oh this was a test

-"Sure thing" he nods confidently even though he's shitting himself at the moment

-When he saw the carne asada let me tell you

-His mouth watered, heart eyes all over and he swore he was about to do that floating thing he's seen spider pig do

-Your tío taught him how to turn the steaks at the right time, after some aceite jumped and burnt him a bit :( your uncle could tell he was trying hard so he took it easy on him

-Personally? You fell in love all over again when he contained his tears the best he could at the smell and spice of the chiles floating so close to his nose <3

-You slapped his ass playfully when serving the food and he just smirked as your uncle side eyed you HARD

-“Bloody hell this shit is fucking amazing babe!” He almost moans when he bites into the taco of asada you made for him

-Your family might or might not know english but they know how bad words sound lmao

-They couldn’t blame him tho, not after he proved to love asada as much as them with the eight tacos he ate ☹️💕

-Him playing with the babies of your family bro :(

-He's so good with kids too

-I'm talking playing with them, having full conversations no matter how silly they got, following their train of thought and even making sure they weren't up to some stupid shit

-Girl, if you don't rail him stupid after that-

-He got along with your older cousins too!!! After all, they shared a similar taste in music and films so there was plenty to talk about

-Your tías chismeando with you about how handsome he is

-Let’s wrap it up, I got carried away and this is too damn long 😭

-He’s talking to one of your tías when the banda arrived at around 9 p.m

-My man is so confused please help him

-His spidey sense went off before the whole fucking commotion started lmao

-When he realized it was a live group playing and singing traditional music he lost his shit

-Asked you all about it!!! “What is that piano thing!?”, “What is he singing about?”, “Can I learn how to play that?”<3

-Eventually (and with no alcohol needed since he refused to risk doing some stupid shit with your family) he ended up dancing with your tía, her patiently teaching him how to move

-He had a hard time with his big ass boots but somehow managed!!

-Hobie was so happy when you went home ☹️ almost asking when you could come back and if you could cook some carne asada the same way your uncle (his best friend, he called him) did

-“Yo te amo mi amor” He smiled big, kissing you softly before falling asleep “Thanks for letting me meet your family… meant a whole lot y’know?” “‘Course corazón, seeing you there with everyone filled my heart with a joy I have rarely experienced”

-And with that you fell asleep, Hobie dreamt of asada and banda<3

[yuseirra]

ONK theories: how the ryosuke incident played out & the character's motives/about how the manga will go

ONK SPOILERS CH 155 and beyond:

To get straight to the point, I've correctly guessed all the key elements of the latest chapters of this manga. I'm quite confident in my abilities, so keep making posts about onk... I should stop.. I'm nervous talking about work that's still in progress but well!!! When will I be able to do this again!!

Although I'm usually terrible at solving mysteries and just watch while going "Oh~ Oh~," this manga is more about emotional analysis than deduction, so I've been able to guess a lot of the major points correctly.

Here's what I've guessed right:

Aqua has romantic feelings for Kana.

Ai liked Kamiki quite a lot and was considering him in her future plans.

Kamiki wanted to take responsibility for the children, but Ai hid and disappeared to protect him and avoid burdening him.

This process likely occurred unilaterally without Kamiki knowing about Ai's feelings and circumstances.

I got all of this right. There are some minor differences in the details. Ai didn't just like him quite a lot, she loved him deeply and informed him about the pregnancy (though she said it would be difficult to keep the baby), and they broke up after that.

Having guessed these things consecutively, I have a good sense of what these characters' personalities are like and what actions they'll take, so I'm motivated and have been continuously writing about it. I'm quite confident in this area.

Previously, I wrote a post about something odd during the dome performance celebration incident, but I didn't consider Nino at that time. Even then, I felt that Kamiki didn't seem like the culprit.

Please read that post first, as I plan to continue writing from there. I'll put the rest in the read more for viewers who scroll past!:

In that post, I focused on three possible scenarios.

It’s true that Kamiki leaked the address to Ryosuke. That isn’t a lie, and that character probably believes he is responsible for Ai’s death because of it. So, with that as the baseline, I came up with three possibilities:

If Kamiki and Ryosuke weren’t acquaintances from the start

If they were acquaintances and went to the hospital for Ai’s delivery with a common purpose

If they each had different purposes but met near the hospital on Ai’s delivery day and became acquaintances then.

Except for the first case, the assumption was that the "middle school boy" near the hospital on Ai’s delivery day was Kamiki. However, with Nino entering the picture, I started to think it might have been Nino who was near the hospital.

Therefore, I think it’s most likely that Kamiki is case 1.

There are reasons why it isn't case 2, which you can see if you read the post. Even if it were case 3, I concluded that Kamiki likely had no intention to harm Ai.

So, why do I think it’s most likely that Ryosuke and Kamiki weren’t acquaintances?

If Ryosuke, Nino, and Kamiki are connected in some way,

the one most likely to be acquainted with Ryosuke is Nino.

Ryosuke is a big fan of B-Komachi and Ai and even personally handed over stardust sand at a handshake event. If Ai remembered him as a fan, he must have been either extremely enthusiastic in his activities or conspicuous in some other way. Given Nino’s interest in and jealousy of Ai, it’s highly likely she took notice of Ryosuke.

If Nino found out that Ai planned to have babies, she might see it as an obstacle to Ai’s career as the perfect idol. So, she could have coaxed Ryosuke by revealing this information and formed some kind of collaboration.

From my perspective, Kamiki doesn't seem like the type to have any aversion to the idea of having children with Ai. Even if he thought Ai left him because she got pregnant, she told him she wouldn’t keep the babies before leaving. So, if he later found out that Ai did have the babies, his reaction would likely be one of confusion or curiosity rather than dislike. Something like 'Why did she have them when she said she wouldn’t?' And then, I think his reaction would go beyond surprise to possibly even happiness.

The character’s attitude towards the main characters, the twins, is pretty tender. Even if you assume "Mephisto" is his song, he calls out to the children telling them to come after him. He shows no signs that he intends to harm them. It just makes sense to me that he does care for Ai and his twins. They're his kids too. I keep talking about this, but Kamiki's said he was glad Aqua got to meet and talk with him in 153 and it makes sense given this character’s past personality that he has a father's heart. What he says seems genuine.

Nino is different. Nino cares about Ai, but I don’t think she has positive feelings about Ai’s babies. The whole group went on hiatus because of those babies (which made Nino realize the group revolves around Ai). Ai not only focuses on being an idol but now has something else to focus on because of them. To me, it seems Nino not only hates Ai but also desperately wants to preserve Ai as an idol. She doesn’t want that image to be tarnished at all. If there’s something that threatens it, she might want to remove it. The issue is how extreme she would get. If Nino knew about Gorou’s death, she would realize that someone died because of her actions, which could lead to her breaking down. That could have caused her to act out even more. Nino’s mental state, based on the few panels we’ve seen, seems really unstable and destructive.. the way Ryosuke's been.

When Kamiki and Ai were dating, he didn’t show any signs of being obsessed with Ai’s idol work, like saying, “Wow, you shine so brightly, I want to preserve that image.” At least, based on the movie arc, he seemed to have had a normal relationship with her, aside from his terrible life circumstances. I'm thinking he changed to his current ominous self after Ai’s death. Up until just before they broke up, he seemed fine. There wasn’t a big difference from when he was younger.

The "IDOL" song was a spoiler. It had the stance of, “Our invincible idol Ai, I’ll protect you no matter what. I can’t forgive you for being less than perfect, and I can’t forgive myself either for being this way.” That perspective came from a fellow member. That’s why Nino, who is obsessed with Ai’s "perfection" and would be hostile or at least unkind towards the hidden "children," fits this profile.

For these reasons, I think it was Nino who was at the hospital and collaborated with Ryosuke.

Did she really intend to go as far to harm Ai’s children in a physical sense? That, I don’t know yet...

And then the first attempt failed; Gorou died.

Ai returned to her activities, hiding the existence of the children and doing well. Perhaps, that led Nino to think, "Is this enough...?" and kept low for for 4 years. She had her own career going too and if Ai was performing beautifully, there wasn't a need to take more action.

But then Ai tried to show the babies to her boyfriend... If things had gone well and Ai and Kamiki had become close and interacted well with the children, Ai might have even tried to reveal everything... Maybe Nino wanted to prevent that from happening.

Looking at chapter 132, which shows a glimpse of Nino's insanity, it seems (surprisingly) that Nino didn't want Ai to die either. Ai was very significant to Nino, right? She hated her, was jealous, and wanted her gone, but didn't actually wish for her to die. If someone like that disappeared, it would feel more than liberating; it would feel empty. Nino doesn't seem all that sane. For this character, Ai became an obsession at one point, and losing Ai meant losing her "idol". Kamiki, on the other hand, while he also idolized Ai to some extent, speaks as if he understands that Ai was just an ordinary person. To him, Ai was the love of his life and partner. He liked her differently, not just as an idol to be worshiped.

Nino probably coerced and used Ryosuke again, giving him a knife to scare Ai, which led to her death, resulting in Nino's "regret." Maybe she even arranged for Ryosuke and Kamiki to meet? That bouquet of flowers...; I mean, could it be that Kamiki really asked to deliver flowers to celebrate the dome performance? If Ryosuke was introduced to him as Ai's fan by a B-Komachi member, Kamiki could've just lent the flowers to him to pass it on his stead. Isn't that possible? Am I thinking too optimistically? But it's not because I like Kamiki's character that I interpret it this way; (if he's the one who killed Ai, I'm ready to grab him by the collar and spank him anytime) it's just that his personality shown around that time doesn't fit with him intending to "scare" Ai. He's too mild..;

I can't quite guess how Kamiki and Nino, or Ryosuke and Kamiki, met.

I think it's more likely that Ryosuke and Kamiki met shortly after Ai’s phone call. Honestly, I can’t really picture Kamiki and Ryosuke being long-time acquaintances. What would they do together? Is there anything that would keep them in contact? Meeting his girlfriend’s hardcore fan—what’s the point? It would make sense if Kamiki had the intention to harm Ai, but I believe Kamiki when he says he didn’t actually think Ai would be killed. This seems true to me. I don’t think he could have imagined that the person who killed Gorou wouldn’t kill Ai. Up until that point, Kamiki was probably still relatively gentle. He hadn’t darkened yet.

We need to look at Kamiki’s personality. Even when someone like Airi, who exploited him, died, he was mentally distressed. The timing is a bit tangled... thinking about it, did that happen after the main characters were born? I think this guy was simply... entranced by Ai? As Aqua says in the very beginning (chapter 2), he’s like a moth drawn to a flame, unable to stop himself even as his wings burn and he falls. He seems to genuinely like Ai a lot. He probably blames himself for her death and can’t stop. Omg I just noticed, Aqua’s line is strikingly similar to what's described in "Fatal"...

Kamiki and Nino seem to cooperate, I think their common goal is related to Ai.

After meeting with Ruby, Nino says that no one can surpass Ai, not even her daughter, and she wouldn’t accept it.

In contrast, Kamiki was actually happy when Ruby showed the potential to surpass Ai. He was disappointed when he thought she just wanted to resemble Ai.

From this, it seems they both do want to find someone who can surpass Ai.

Nino can’t accept such a person, but does Kamiki feel the same way? If so, his reaction to Ruby should have been different. I think their intermediate goals are the same, but they might want different outcomes.

I suspect that Kamiki is searching for someone who can replace Ai to offer as a tribute to a "god." Thinking that he simply can't accept someone surpassing Ai and kills them seems too simplistic given the songs. The songs clearly express the desire to find a way to fill the "Lack of AI" (absence of Ai). The songs really seem to reflect Kamiki’s feelings. He is looking for a way to revive Ai or at least meet her again, and there is likely a character in the story who can make that possible. In a world where gods can reincarnate souls, there would be someone with the persuasive power to claim they have such abilities, whether it be real or just a mere taunt.

Ruby is the one who showed that potential, but considering that Kamiki just passed by Ruby in chapter 155, it doesn't seem like he would harm her. I closely examined chapters 153-155, and no matter what, he doesn’t seem like a crazy person who would harm his own daughter for the sake of his wife/girlfriend. If Ai hadn’t died, he would really have been the kind of person who could have raised the children with her as she envisioned. After Ai's death, he strayed off and is now firmly on the wrong path. That’s probably why Ai asked the main characters to help him, she knows what kind of person he originally is.

Continuing on, "stars" are likely the "gods" of this universe. The black star is a "god who loves absurdity and irrationality" and probably possesses great power but demands a high price in return. It seems that Kamiki is influenced by that.

In the anime, Akane's star eye color is different. That might be because it's an imitation. The humans truly inhabited by gods are different. Ruby, Aqua, Kamiki, and Ai are likely to have something inhabiting them.

The white star and the black star may each correspond to the "god who loves humans" and the "god who loves absurdity and irrationality" mentioned in chapter 144. The line "キラキラお星様宿したあなたのeyes(Your eyes with glittering stars in them)" in Fatal’s lyric could imply that Ai may also be a person inhabited by a star=god. Pay attention to the word "宿した" in the lyrics. The original Japanese lyrics can be translated like this: "your eyes that the sparking star that dwells within"

宿した< I looked it up, and it can be translated as "bears" or "conceives" "dwells".. it seems like a "star" was blessing Ai, it lived in her as she was alive (the fact that there's a "god that loves humans" oddly works with how Ai's whole life was about loving, too..)

Coming to think of it, didn't this manga start with a disclaimer that "this story is fiction"?

Then, is this manga in fact a stage meant for the gods?

Wow, and I JUST noticed as I went back and checked, the first scene of chapter 1 has the exact same quotes compared to what Kamiki says in chapter 153.

Fiction being "Fabricated, exaggerated, and everything inconvenient being completely concealed".

But Aqua rebuts him saying what he's made isn't one:

With the basis being Ai's love was genuine and therefore "true".

I have a feeling that the conclusion of this manga might be something similar.

It might be that everyone is like pawns in the game of gods, but the sincerity within them is all genuine.

The development is somewhat ambiguous... but this manga is definitely well-structured. There are certainly a lot of hints, and I see that things mentioned in the very beginning are being brought up again in the latest chapters? Still. So, looking at the bigger picture, maybe we don’t have to worry too much.

There's no new chapter this week... I backed up some drawings on Pixiv without knowing about the break. If I had known, I would have drawn a bit more before uploading... ;v;) well, it'll have to do!

Maybe now is the time to really sit back and watch patiently.

If things go the way I think they will, I can draw a lot more stuff, so I wonder how it will turn out...

The songs are definitely spoilers, for one thing.

They’re definitely related to the development of the story. It feels like they’re spoon-feeding us, but I'm not sure what exactly they’re spoon-feeding us. The creators seem to have a lot in mind.

[lfghughes]

Light a Fire

a/n: i’m going to be honest about this request, i loved writing it but i know 0 about f1 except from a few videos i see on tiktok so dont hate me

“What do you even know about F1?” Mat laughed and all that really did was irritate you. You could feel your cheeks start to burn, a good indication of your annoyance. Maybe you shouldn’t have said anything at all to him. But then he would have gotten irritated that you didn’t tell him you were seeing someone. “Oh I’m sorry, do all of your exes have extensive knowledge on hockey? Is that a requirement?”

His eyes widened slightly at your snippiness towards him and instead he held his hands up in surrender. “I don’t get why you’re getting so defensive over a joke.” Both of you had been friends for years and this was one of those rare moments that you would consider a fight. Usually Mat was the person you’d go to for anything and everything but right now he was making it really easy to not want to talk to him.

“Whatever Mat, anyways. Lando is flying in later today. I was going to invite you to get food and drinks with us later but don’t bother showing up if you’re going to be annoying.” That was a clear warning because last thing you wanted was for your dinner to be ruined by Mat saying something rude or being this weird version of himself. “I’ll be there. Got to make sure he’s cool.” He left it at that and you weren’t really in the mood to keep on talking so instead you gave him the details he would need for later.

Once at the restaurant you didn’t even think about the irritating events from earlier, not as you and Lando walked up to the table he had reserved. But when you caught sight of Mat you did feel some nerves in your stomach and silently willed him to be on his best behavior. “Hey, I’m Mat.” He held his hand out for a handshake as Lando returned it. “She’s told me a lot about you.” Which was true because Mat was in a lot of your stories but you couldn’t help but pick up on the slight tone of irritation in his voice.

Throughout the dinner there were slight bits of attitude here and there coming from both guys and honestly by the time the food came out you were ready to just be back home. This wasn’t going the way you wanted it to. “You’re still coming to my game tomorrow right?” Mat asked and you wanted to hit your head against your hand because how could you forget. It was a pretty important one for him and he had asked days back if you wanted tickets.

“Actually we already have plans for tomorrow.” Lando started and Mat let out a laugh that let you know he was pissed. “Could you maybe get one extra ticket? I’m sure we could adjust our plans.” You asked, hopeful at least that maybe just maybe Mat would be okay with this and not hold it over you. “It’s last minute and I already got tickets for my dad too. I can’t just give out tickets, you know that.” 

With those words being said, Mat pulled his wallet out, pulling out a $100 bill and putting it on the table. “I’m going to head out, sorry to be rude.” And he was exiting the building. What was his problem? “I’ll be right back.” You quickly said and followed him on out. “Mat, wait.” You called out after him as you stepped outside in the cool air. Mat paused, turning around slowly and you could tell he was definitely upset.

“I’m sorry I forgot about the game. You know I wanted to be there.” But you also felt bad canceling on Lando when he had flown out here. “You just don’t get it, do you? You don’t see it and I don’t know how. Call me when you figure it out.” He went to turn around and your head was spinning slightly from his words, you had no clue what he was talking about. “Mathew what are you talking about?” You noticed the pause from using his full first name and he turned back around again. “I’m in love with you and you don’t even see it.”

[mybelovednick]

Crimson and Clover, Honey (Chapter 1)

Main Page

Nick Sturniolo x Male!character

Summary Nick Sturniolo is a Bookstore owner in a small town in Northern Italy. Vayu Arora is an elementary school teacher who is a frequent customer at Nick's Store. Both of them meet and they are suppose to fall in love like faith intended. But what happens when one of them is unable to let go of their past selves?

Nick x male!character Angst Fluff/comfort Hurt/comfort

TW: Too corny ig

******

1

The people we meet in our lives are just stories. Some are more haunting than others. It is one of life's gifts, I suppose. I am a story, so are you and so was the man with the bluest eyes I had ever seen.

The words we exchange, the touch we share, the emotions we experience, the way we live and love, the way we hate - it all comes together to form our stories. The man with the beautiful blue eyes and a magnificent smile had a story intertwined with mine, it was not all the bad parts, and there were parts that I am grateful for. These stories make us who we are, shape our thoughts and in turn, merge with the universe itself when we are gone.

I remember when I first saw him. He was sitting all alone in his beautiful bookstore. He seemed unreal at first. The honeycomb rays of sunlight split through the cracks of the clouds and flowed like a yellow stream of jellyfish into the room, through that slightly cracked window just past him. The dark room was dimly lit and you could barely make out that he was there sitting in silence.

    The room was filled with posters of vintage films, and 80’s rock bands, along with pictures of Saints, and wooden artefacts that looked like they were carved by the Gods, even. In the backdrop, he was immersed in his small, emerald-gold book, in his own little world.

    He was so still, it was uncanny. If it wasn’t for the sun, the dark room would have gobbled him up. It would seem like he was one of the wooden statues himself. Carved by the angels. But his blue eyes gave away the fact that he was not a part of that inanimate silence, rather something living and breathing within the same intimate space. His eyes were as blue as the ocean that Italy herself shared her beautiful beaches with.

“Do you mind?”  The boy’s voice echoed in the dimly-lit room. The tone was unwelcoming, his voice wasn’t ‘smooth as honey’ like the poets usually describe of beautiful men in their lovely poems; it was husky and sharp like a knife- similar to a thunder rolling down the dark clouds. “Hello? Back to earth pretty boy. Aren’t you going to buy something?”.

That made me fluster. I hastily grabbed the nearest book that my hand could reach. In the process, I knocked down a few books and winced as they fell on the ground with a loud ‘thud’ that made one of the window panes rattle. I was about pick them up.

“Leave it be.” The young man said. “I’ll pick ‘em up later.”

“Uh- okay.” I stupidly mumbled and practically sprinted towards the counter. “These books please.” I winced for a second time as I unintentionally placed the books too loudly on the table top for him to check.

I wanted to crawl into a cave and die.

But then I heard a soft chuckle. It was then when I first saw him smile. I caught myself smiling back at him. I loved his nose ring, I loved his freckled cheek, I loved how the sun seemed to give him a faint touch of blush, I loved how red his lips were, I lov-

“Should I give you a carry bag?” His voice once again forced me to snap back into reality.

I simply nodded and handed him a few Euros. “Uhm, I am Vayu… by the way.”

As I extended my right hand for a handshake, He picked up my bag and placed it on my hand, “Nice to meet you. Have a good day.” Why had I expected him to return the favour by providing his name as well?  I knew his smile was forced but I would never admit that to myself. Embarrassed with the entire chain of events, I nodded awkwardly and walked away from the store.

That was three months ago.

~~~

“Damn dude! So you went to the bookstore, saw an average white guy with fake blonde hair which could be his wig. Threw all the books on the ground and practically destroyed his counter top. And he ghosted you right to your face?” Nathan burst out laughing.

“That was a stretch but yes, thank you for summarising my own tragedy to me, Nate.” I rolled my eyes and sat back with my arms tucked close to my chest.

Nathan, Tara and I taught at the same school, St. Maria Elementary. It was a small school in practically nowhere of Northern Italy. I moved into this town, about six months ago. I was born and brought up in Delhi, India. But things changed when I decided to come out to my family. My parents were not okay with the fact that their only son was doomed to not having a child of his own to continue the legacy of the Arora family just because he could never love a woman. I never blamed them, though. I did understand their perspective and respected their wishes. But it was suffocating for me to stay there. I needed to leave and so I did. I had my masters in Zoology and Bachelors degree in Education from some of the most prestigious universities in the country. I could go to the US or the UK or any other place with my own expenditure. But I decided to apply to somewhere safe and peaceful. And the faiths brought me here, in this town.

And I was happy then. I had bought myself a small two storied bungalow down the ‘Via del Canto’ street. The house was dirty and filthy when I bought it but I did do my best to make it feel like home. I knew it was the one from the moment I saw the beautiful backyard which I always dreamed of having. The street was not a very well-known one. It was a chore to ride uphill with a bicycle but I loved my own space. You could even see the ocean from the veranda of my bedroom.

I have always been a practical man. Once I reached here, I immediately had an established job and a place to stay. My aunt, Irani, who lived in Milan, helped me a lot throughout this process. “But you are over-qualified to be a biology teacher in a small school like this, Vayu.” She would say, “You are a talented young man and with a few more years of training, you could be a reputed professor in some of the most prestigious Universities in the world! Why waste your talent?”. And she was right. Why waste my years in a middle of fucking nowhere? I didn’t know the exact answer for this but for once I wanted to listen to my heart. Ever since my childhood I did whatever my parents asked me to do, whatever was expected of me from society. All these twenty-eight years of people-pleasing culminated to me getting abandoned by people I thought were my own. So what was the point?

Nevertheless here I was, all alone in a foreign country. That was until I met Nathan, the English teacher and Tara, the art teacher in the same school I worked in as a Biology teacher; and I felt like I found a place in this world. They were some of the best people I ever met and I will always be grateful to be a part of their lives.  

            As usual, the three of us sat down at our table in the teachers’ cafeteria during recess time. We shared all our stories of our past selves. I talked about almost everything with them and they knew about me liking other men. It was a secret between our trio because Tara was a ‘raging’ (her words) bisexual and Nate was apparently bi-curious and still not sure of any labels. I mean kudos to each of us.

The conversation continued.

“Stop laughing like a fucking hyena Nate.” Tara snapped. Nathan stifled his laughter while wiping off tears from his eyes after all that laughter. “So Vayu.” Tara turned towards me, leaning in closely to engage in the conversation, “You said he smiled too right?”

I nodded like a child about to be given some hope in the form of candy.

“Hey! That does mean he liked your goofy-ass.” Tara boasted proudly.

“I mean I think so.” I whispered, mostly to myself in hopes of self-consolidation.

“That’s great. By the way, what did you buy?” Nathan asked mid bite while chomping on his sandwich.

“Uhh…” I couldn’t say it and my ears were starting to turn red.

“What’s the matter? Say it” Tara was curious too.

“Okay fine I accidentally bought porno magazine along with Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I don’t even like Hamle-..”

Nathan was almost choking on his sandwich. And Tara looked at me like a disappointed mom about to beat his son’s ass.

“You guys, hear me out-..” I was begging for my dearest dignity, “I was in a hurry okay? And the guy was truly very pretty. I got distracted and..”

“And what?” Nathan cut me off while he was gasping for air, “Bought a fucking Playboy and showed him the horny-ass motherfucker that you really are? I can’t. I need air, Tara! Get me some fucking air right now.”

“Nate you are sweating and you look redder than the tomato in your sandwich. Get a grip, man.” Tara said.

“Vayu look,” Tara was serious now, “Don’t be so anxious about such trivial matters. It was just an infatuation. Right? Right?”

“Right.” I lowered my gaze.

“It is not like you have to see him every day.”

“I suppose you are not wrong.” I replied and Tara smiled.\

“And get a bottle of water for Nate. Dying from choking on a sandwich is not a sexy way to go.” Tara ordered.

I really did love my friends. And maybe Tara was right. Maybe it was a onetime thing. Although, I would love to see that smile once again, someday maybe.

**********

Next Chapter

A/N : This is my first ever fanfic series for the Sturniolo fandom. I used to write a lot during my 1D days. I know there is not much nick content right now. Because I want to introduce Vayu to the readers first. More to come, hopefully. Please do comment your honest opinion. <3

Tag: @ohmtoff @loud-sturniolos @matty-bear2 @maria4mari @solarsturniolo @freshloveforthefit @darl1ngdr1sta @tkhzs @thenickgirl @soursturniolo @certifiednatelover

(pls let me know if you feel uncomfortable if tagged)

[yelenasdiary]

Snowflake

Pairing: Florence Pugh x Actress! Reader 

Summary: A documentary is being filmed to show a life that was taken in an accident. Florence who is accompanied by three other co-casts, share their memories and thoughts on the actress, friend and fiancé. 

| Heavy Angst with Light Fluff? | 4.3K | Death & Greif |She/her pronouns |

Requests are closed.

Notes: I have used different coloured font for those who speak just to make it less confusing. 

AC: This was inspired by a song I was recently shown called ‘snowflake’ by Powfu ft. Jaden Smith & Sarcastic Sounds – I’m not exactly sure why I went with this idea but I felt it was something a little different and I was bored. I hope you enjoy & my apologies for the heavy angst (I’m not really sorry). 

Florence opened the front door of her home with a tissue clenched in her right hand and greeted the camera crew and director that welcomed her with soft and sympathetic smiles. No smiles in the world were able to ease the paining stabbing hurt she felt in her heart but still, she let them in to her home with a soft smile and a few handshakes.

“I thought we could film in the backyard, if that’s okay” Florence suggested once closing the front door. “Yeah, that sounds great, we can just move inside once the sun starts to set” the director who is also the interviewer suggested earning a nod from Florence before she led them out to the back patio. The documentary took interviews with other friends, family, and co-stars over the course of two months. Now, it these interviews were the last to film before the documentary went to final editing. The documentary was a Disney+ exclusive given that you had worked closely with Disney and having a major role in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. 

Florence had the decking table set with plenty of refreshments along with a cheese board that she’d made herself and a few of your favourite snacks. She’d applied so little make up that she shook her head in the mirror with disappointment on the waste of products used, knowing today would end with soaked cheeks and puffy eyes and a promise she would wake up with a runny nose and stinging eyes. With her sat three close friends and co-stars that you worked with, Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Olsen, and Hailee Steinfeld. The three arrived easy in the morning, the four of them having tea and coffee before sharing their thoughts on what to expect from the interviewer. 

The cameramen and crew set up their equipment as Florence, Elizabeth, Hailee, and Scarlett had made themselves comfortable at the table. A warm mug of tea gave Florence a sense of warmth that she so tenderly needed to get through the next couple of hours. When the documentary was first pitched to her by your manger and publicist, she said no and that if anybody were to tell your story it should be those closest to you and not a bunch of media outlets and information on past headlines and interviews. A couple of months later, your manger and publisher came back to Florence with the idea that she’d have full control over the documentary and the final cut was her call but again she said no and suggested that the only way they’d get her to agree to have the documentary moving forward would be for it to be a sit down with your closest friends and family while they share their favourite memories and wishes for you. It wasn’t a lie that Florence was rightfully pissed off that not even a year after your death that she was being asked for things like merchandise and interviews, photoshoots and other little things that didn’t sit right with her, she was grieving you and the last thing she wanted was to be placed in the spotlight. 

“We’re ready to start whenever you guys are” the director smiled softly once more. Florence was never going to be truly ready to do this, but she knew deep down you would’ve wanted her to do this for the fans. Those who made your career take off, the ones who showed up to events just to catch a glimpse of you, the ones who would send in their questions for interviews, the ones who made fan-pages and showed support for you in their own little way, the ones who made Florence smile softly at night as tears rolled down her cheek watching the fan cams people tagged her in, the ones who sent her messages with love, she was doing this for them. So, they could find closure and find comfort that even though you’re not longer here, you would live on through them and those closest to you. 

“I’m ready” Florence said in an almost whisper, her heart racing already. Scarlett placing a comforting hand on Florence’s knee giving her a light squeeze to say she’s here and it’ll be okay. But it wasn’t okay, nothing was the same since you left the world for another. Nothing was okay at night when Florence found the energy to cook dinner for 1 when it used to be for 2, or in the mornings when she expected to see a posted note on her phone from you telling her you’d see her after work and that you were thinking of her, nothing was okay, not a single thing. 

“We’d like to start with getting a couple of shots of the beautiful photos you have around the house, if that’s okay of course” Leon, the director spoke. Florence nodded slowly then led one of the cameramen inside. They took shots of the few photos that Florence had hanging on the walls of the two of you, some goofy ones from on set, ones with her family and yours and lastly, a couple from events that the two of really loved. The slightest smile tugged on her lips as she watched the cameramen get the shots before they returned to the table on the patio. There was a silence between everybody as the director got comfortable and grabbed their notes, the cameramen made sure to get the ‘perfect’ shots while Florence, Hailee, Scarlett, and Elizabeth sent each other soft smiles as they waited.

“I would like to start with some easy questions, some light ones to start. If at any point any of you need to take a break just say the word and we will” Leon spoke with a warm smile, the table giving him a soft nod in agreement. 

“I want to start with Scarlett, now, you met Y/n on the set of Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2013, tell us what you remember the most” 

Scarlett nodded as Leon spoke, a smile tugging softly at her lips as she remembered the memory. “I’d heard about Y/n from mutual friends of course, she’d just finished filming her small role in Iron Man 3 before we started filming Winter Soldier the following April. I remember being her age and how stressful filming things so close together could be but that didn’t seem to bother her, she was so excited and eager to learn. I remember she’d just turned 15 a few weeks into filming, her mother was on set every day and made sure she was eating between takes and doing her homework which was didn’t like at all” Scarlett chuckled at the memory of the roll of the eyes and slight groan you sent to your mother after a scene. “Everybody loved her, we all made sure to watch over her, especially at her age and working as much as she was. What stood out to me was just how beautiful and full of life she was, she was always pulling some kind of prank or joke on the cast and crew which made work more fun than what it already was, she made everybody excited to come back the next day” She adds with a wide smile. 

“In the movie, Y/n’s character becomes almost tied to your character, Natasha Romanoff, did the two of you practice lines together?” 

“Oh, all the time! Winter Soldier was her big major role. In Iron Man 3 she was introduced to Tony Stark who at firsts pushes her away but by the end takes her under his wing then in Winter Soldier her character gets a bit too comfortable with her status as Tony’s little helper and tries to adventure out and find her own feet which led to Natasha Romanoff finding her in a wrong time, wrong place situation. Y/n was so excited to work, she loved everything about filming sometimes when she wasn’t doing her homework you would find her behind the cameras with the crew watching scenes being taken and asking a million questions between shots. So, working with her as much as I did at the time and how close our characters became, Y/n quickly became like a little sister to me” 

Florence watched as Scarlett answered and couldn’t help but nod in agreement with her comment of how you’d ask a million questions, or you’d be seen with the camera crew between takes. 

“From there we move onto the first Avengers movie, Age of Ultron which is when you met her, Elizabeth?” 

“Yes, I did” Lizzie smiled, “She as a delight to work with and I remember telling Kevin just before we finished filming Age of Ultron that he can’t get rid of her character no matter what and he laughed a little and told me there was no plans on doing any of that. She had raw talent that not a lot of young people at her age know how to show or channel but she did, she was always on time, she remembered her lines better than any of us, she was respectful and like Scarlett said, a goof ball. We all had so many laughs together, I still have a video on my phone from a prank she pulled on Sebastian” She added with a chuckle before taking a small mouthful of water. 

“Do either of you remember when Y/n started doing her own stunt work?”

“She mentioned to me that she wanted to be an actress who did it all, she wanted to try going all genre of movies and do her own stunts but her parents weren’t a fan of the idea so but she somehow convinced them before we started filming Civil War so here she was at 16 years old learning to do her own stunt work then from there all her stunt work was her own and she loved it. She’d get so excited whenever she was able to do her own stunts” 

“Florence, you met Y/n at a movie premiere before working with her on Black Widow. Which premiere was that and do you remember it?”

“I first met Y/n in passing at a gala in 2017 and met her properly in 2019 at the Fighting with My Family premiere and then again at the Little Women premiere. She said she’d seen Midsommar and was blown away with the movie which then led to a million and one questions, she wanted to know everything about doing a film like that and mention how much she’d love to do something similar. That night we exchanged numbers and became friends after that. 

When I got the role for Yelena Belova, I remember telling her about it and she gave me the run down on everybody she’d worked with while doing Marvel and how much she loved everybody. She didn’t tell me that she’d also be in the movie so that surprised me a lot when I got to set the first day.”

“Scarlett, you mentioned in an interview that you saw something between Florence and Y/n while on set, did you push them together a little or just let things take their course?” 

“I knew Y/n had a crush on Florence shortly into filming Black Widow, she came to me and asked if I thought getting flowers sent to her while on set would be inappropriate. That was the first time I’d ever seen her nervous before, her cheeks were so red I don’t think any layer make up would’ve hid that” Scarlett laughed causing chuckles from the others. “I was there when the delivery guy came up to Florence with this massive bouquet of flowers, the little smile on Florence’s face told me she also felt something” 

“I know I never mentioned what was written on the card” Florence spoke while looking to Scarlett, “but that was her way of asking me out to dinner. The card said, ‘I hope this is okay and if it is, could I please take you to dinner when we’re not filming and if it is then enjoy the flowers and forget dinner’ and she drew a little smile face at the bottom. I don’t why I thought it kind of funny just way she worded it, but I did go to dinner with her two days later” she adds. 

“It was two? See now I didn’t know that”

“That’s because she ordered pizza, and we ate it in my trailer at like 11pm” Florence chuckled as the memory played in her mind. 

“So, from there on was it official with the two of you?”

“Not straight away, we took some time to get to know each other on that level. We’d been texting and catch up over drinks a few times before filming so we weren’t strangers, but I could she was nervous about a relationship due to personal things she’d told me, so we took it slow. Working with each other every day helped with that”

“If you remember, would you like to share the first kiss story?”

Florence’s cheeks went slightly red, and her heart sunk as her smile slightly dropped, it hit her she’d never feel your touch again. 

“I-it was cut from the movie because it was off script” Florence started, Scarlett kindly placing a hand on Flo’s back and rubbed gently. “We had a scene where Yelena was being harsh on Y/n character, it was sudden. I finished my line and next thing I knew she was leaning in for a kiss, I went for it. She didn’t even think about it or who was around us and I liked that oddly enough. I still feel her smile against my lips as she whispered a sorry when the director called cut. I have that clip on disc somewhere” 

Flo blinked back her tears as she told the story, her eyes fell to her hands in her lap as she slowly shook her head when her tears started to flow. “We’ll take a minute” Leon said before he gestured for the crew to give her a minute. They walked into the kitchen and waited until Florence was ready again. 

“If this is too much, too soon, don’t do this Flo” Hailee reached for Florence’s hand for comfort. “It’s fine, I can do this” she replied, “I just miss her so much”

“We all do honey, it’s okay” Elizabeth smiled softly at the broken blonde. 

After a few more silent moments, Florence said she was ready to continue, wiping the tears from her eyes not caring to retouch her light make up. Leon and the crew got comfortable in their seats once again before looking over his notes he mentioned that he wanted to talk more about the relationship if Florence was up for it. She nodded and mentioned she’d love to share her favourite moments. 

“What was things like for the two of you after filming Black Widow?”

“We wrapped up filming in October 2019 so that was a few months before Covid took over, we still spent time together, we went for lunch and tea because she saw how much of a tea drinker I am” Florence chuckled once more, “then when Covid started to creep in she got a little worried and would call me just to say she missed me. We made the decision for her to move in when they were starting to shut down things and ask people to stay home. I think that worried her because she’d been filming non-stop for a few years that she didn’t really have a home to go to, she was staying in hotels and trailers, or she’d fly home to be with her parents and she mentioned she didn’t exactly want to leave LA so I just told her she could stay with me while the pandemic was happening” 

“So, you both spent the two years together after only dating a few months?”

“Yeah. But it never felt like that, Y/n and I clicked. She always made me laugh to the point my insides would hurt, she was sweet, loving and she cared so much. I never felt like we were moving too fast or anything like that. That’s not to say we didn’t have arguments, we did here and there but we always came back and spoke about it like adults. With her the pandemic didn’t feel like a drag. Every day was exciting even though we couldn’t do much, she found something for us to do. I taught her how to make home-made ice cream after I learnt it myself, she would sit and watch me do my ‘Cooking with Flo’ videos and poke fun at the fact I don’t like doing Instagram live. Y/n found joy in anything and everything, I didn’t matter at all what we did, she was just happy to be doing something, you couldn’t get her to sit still for too long”

“Was that hard at any point with the pandemic?” 

“Uh, sometimes. I mean, like everybody, you discover things about yourself that you didn’t know, and I found that I suffer from anxiety more than I thought I did and for Y/n she struggled with something’s, and we went through a couple of dark patches, but she was working on it once the pandemic allowed us to leave our homes again” 

“I’m going to ask a tough question now, Y/n’s accident. Where were you or what were you doing when you heard the news? Can we start with Hailee?” 

Hailee nodded before looking to Florence whose jaw clenched and her eyes filled with tears once more. Hailee was fighting back her own as she took a deep breathe in before exhaling. 

“Y/n was insane to work with, I just want to say that. I loved working with her for the second season of Hawkeye, her character, and the way she brought them alive has always been inspiring for me when I was casted for Kate Bishop. 

That day should not have happened. We were getting ready to do a scene and she was to jump off a ‘building’, she was harnessed and hooked up to the safety wires, everything was normal about it. I watched as they took her to the jump mark and she had this big smile on her face, our photographer took a picture of her just as she gave the cameramen the thumbs up. Director called action and that was basically the end of it” Hailee paused as tears started to stream down her face, dabbing them softly with a tissue she continues, “She jumped like she’d been practicing for 10 minutes beforehand and next minute everybody just rushed to her. Emergency services were called, our Onsight paramedic asked everybody to step back. I remember seeing her lying there on the landing mat, I wanted to be by her side, but security wasn’t letting anybody near her, we all just assumed she’d broken a bone or something” 

Leon could see it was getting a bit much for Hailee and moved on to Lizzie, asking her the same question. 

“I was home with my husband, Robbie, we were just making lunch when Scarlett called me. She was crying so I said ‘what’s wrong? Is everything okay?’ and just said you need to come to New York, and I looked at Robbie and something just didn’t seem right, so I asked again, ‘Scar what’s going on?’ and that’s when she told me. 

At first, I didn’t believe her, how does something like that happen? There are so many safety steps for a reason, you know. I couldn’t stop crying that day, I just kept thinking it wasn’t true and that this was her playing a prank, a sick one at that but when I saw the headlines as I tried to book a flight to New York that’s when I sort of hit me that it was true, she was gone.” 

Lizzie grabbed a tissue from Hailee sending her a soft smile. Leon nodded a thank you and looked to Scarlett, again asking her the same question.

“Florence called me asking if I had heard the news, I said no as I was at my office doing some promotional work. Florence just bursted into tears and told me there was an accident and Y/n was hurt. I knew by Florence’s reaction that hurt wasn’t the word she meant and my heart broke. I was already in New York, so I called Lizzie like she mentioned and then I went to be with Florence.” 

“Florence, do you want to share?”

It wasn’t an easy nod, but she managed to do so as she grabbed a backup tissue. 

“I was with her in New York while she was filming, we were staying at a hotel, so she didn’t have to live in a trailer, and I was able to cook and what not. At the time I was getting the vegetables prepared for dinner and my phone just wouldn’t stopped buzzing. I had all these text messages and miss calls from friends and family. I opened a text from Raffie, my sister who said ‘please tell me it’s not true. Answer your phone, we’re worried’. I thought ‘god has somebody told them something stupid’ so I called her back and she said, ‘is Y/n okay?’ and I was more confused, I said, ‘yeah she’s filming why?’ and then she sent me the link to a headline. 

‘Actress, Y/n Y/L/N, pronounced dead at 25 after stunt fail’ in big bold letters made me sick. There was no way I just found out via the media, but I had serval missed calls from Hailee and Y/n’s manager. I stared at the headline in disbelief, Raffie says I hung up on her, but I don’t remember that. 

Hailee came to the hotel in tears as she told me. They needed me to confirm her identity which was stupid because we all knew it was her, but I went to the morgue they told me she landed wrong and that she wouldn’t have felt a thing. They let me be with her for a while longer after I confirmed her identity. She just looked like she was sleeping but she was cold and there wasn’t anything I could do to warm her” Florence broke into tears, “I just wanted to hold her, tell her I love her, that she is the love of my life, but she was just cold, and her chest wasn’t rising and down like it should’ve. My entire world just fell apart, my heart was broken. I stayed with her as they pulled the sheet over her beautiful face, I’ll never forget it.” Florence added with more tears, chocking on her words. Hailee stood up and walked to hug her tightly. Leon stopped the cameras to give the women a moment. 

“I can’t do this” Florence stood up, “I’m sorry, I hope you understand” she added before walking to her room. Her tears not stopped even after the Leon and the crew left, leaving the four women in a time of grief once more. 

Two months passed by, and the documentary was set to release in a matter of hours as Florence had your closet friends and family over to watch it together. She made sure to cook your favourite meal, your favourite snacks on offer, anything you loved she made sure that was on offer. Today was about you and the life you lived, short but strongly loved and adored.

The documentary was hard to watch but brought tears, smiles, laughs and more tears as your loved ones watched it as one. Florence finding a bit of comfort and closure by the time it was over. She knew the fans were waiting for a post of anything from her, so she did just that, pulling together 10 of her favourite photos and videos of you, 5 of each just to keep it even. 

“florencepugh: it’s here, it’s out and it’s beautiful. 

If you have the chance to sit down and watch this documentary, please do. Y/n was a gift to this world and this documentary shows it. From her goofy side to her loving side and back to her goofy side, she’s inspired each and every single one of us who knew her, and I hope you find the same inspiration in her like we have. 

Y/n loved you all to the ends of the earth, she saw the comments, the messages, the fan pages, the video edits, and she loved them. You guys are her family, she always said that, and I hope this documentary can help you deal with this sadness we are all feeling. 

I know some of you are mad about this situation and best believe I was mad as well. How could something like this happen? we don’t know. We know that everything was done by the book to keep Y/n safe that day but sometimes we can’t have answers and we’ll never truly understand what happened. We want somebody to blame, I understand but please, don’t blame anybody but the way life works. 

Y/n, my beautiful, beautiful angel, I love you and not a day goes by where I’m not thinking about you or looking back on our favourite memories together. I’m broken that we didn’t get the chance to go ahead with the plans we made but I will always call you my wife, my love, my darling, my snowflake, my all. I miss your smile and your contagious laugh, I miss the posted notes and the shared glasses of wine, I miss the warmth of you touch and the sparkle in your eyes, I miss you dearly, but I know wherever you are, you are with me, with all of us. I love you so much my angel, forever and I can’t wait to meet you again in another life. 

For now, I’ll see you later for tea and cake, my love x” 

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