#writings a wonderful break between art lol

[gojonanami]

❝ 𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓 𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐒 ❞

❝ BEING PROF. GETO'S T.A. IS SO HARD BECAUSE HE'S SO HOT!! ❞

✧ pairing: professor!geto x f!reader (part two of the prof geto series)

✧ summary: you're now professor geto's t.a. for the semester, forced to spend time with the man that you so desperately want, either of you barely able to hold back when you're around the other, so what happens when you're forced to go to a conference with him...and there's only one bed.

✧ warnings: 18+, nsfw, a lot of smut (mostly fantasy), depictions of student/teacher relationship (only ok in fiction not irl!!!), reader is a grad student in my mind, but age is vague, so much mutual pining, bed sharing, cuddling, masturbation (f + m), oral (m! receiving), fingering (f! receiving), sex (p in v), semi public sex (sorta), office sex (kinda), amateur's take on moral philosophy and ethics, art by @/nino84391425

✧ wc: 16,821 (apparently i am writing a novel lol) | part one | part three | part four

“On time for once?” Professor Suguru Geto remarks without looking up from his notes on the podium, even as your footsteps echo in the empty lecture hall, “color me surprised,” 

“Couldn’t be late on my first day as a teacher’s assistant, now could I?” and his lips curl in that damnable smile, as he finally glances up from his notes to see you looking far too gorgeous in his button up — one you had oh so generously relieved him of last night, pilfered away in your bag seemingly. 

“But you could be late on your first day as a student?” and you lick your lips, as you draw closer to him, “seems like you’re quite the hypocrite, not very ethical,” 

“Don’t think what we did last night was very ethical either,” you murmur, enjoying the way his dark eyes glaze over for a moment with the thoughts what you both did — the places touched, the moans heard, and the pleasure had — “plus, I definitely have an incentive to be on time now,” your fingers graze his, and why does his touch always feel like coming home. 

“And what’s that, sweetheart?” he murmurs, running the back of his hand against your cheek. 

“Your gorgeous face,” you smile, leaning close as your lips brush, “and some stolen kisses before class,” 

“And what makes you think you’ve earned them, my favorite student?” He teases, as his fingers slide to the back of your neck, and his other hand snakes around your waist, tugging you close. 

“Oh, I have a few ways to earn them, Professor,” your fingers drag down his chest, “but I don’t know if we have the time before class to—“ 

And his lips find yours — needy and bruising, as your fingers clutch at his shirt, the pressed fabric now definitely creased under your touch, “we’ll make time,” he murmurs, as he leans back to drag his thumb down your plush lips, “I still have many things to teach you, and what time is there like the present?” 

He’s leaning down to press a kiss to your lips— 

RING. RING. RING. 

Your eyes snap open, a groan crawls its way out of your throat, as you fumble for your phone to silence the dreaded ringing. You lie back on your bed, a distinct ache between your legs that makes you squirm, and only want to bury yourself back into your bed and possibly the reality that existed within only your dreams. 

But this was sadly reality, and you had about two hours before your first class as a teacher’s assistant for Professor Suguru Geto’s ethics and moral philosophy class. And two hours before you would see Professor Geto for the first time since you had made out. 

You turn over, pressing your face into your pillow. You wondered if you tried hard enough, if you could suffocate yourself before then. 

Probably not. That would be far too lucky. 

~~~

Professor Suguru Geto couldn’t sleep — instead he spent his time staring at his ceiling, the blades of his fans spinning above him, just like his mind was — in circles. It was as if he almost didn’t want to risk his dreams taunting him, it was the same reason he had buried himself in research over the semester break, the same reason he had put off emailing you the materials for the semester, and the same reason he hadn’t seen you since that day you had kissed. 

It was too much of a risk. 

You were risk personified, even for a risk averse theologian he liked to think himself as. But you were the thing of myths, the dangled food for Tantalus, the far too warm sun for Icarus, and the promise of gold for King Midas. But you were not a myth — you were real, his student made of flesh and bone, the same flesh he had pressed into his desk just a few short weeks ago, his legs parting your thighs, his fingers itching to rip your pantyhose off your legs— 

He sighed, this wasn’t helping — his bedside clock blinked back at him mockingly — he only had a few hours before his first class. He should try to sleep even a little. So he did, shutting his eyes, and hoped he wouldn’t dream of you. 

But he couldn’t possibly be that lucky. 

How many times have you stood in front of this office door? Your Professor, to which this office belongs, would joke that it was far too many to count — and you’d be better speculating how many times that Sisyphus rolled the boulder up the same hill. But the last time you had been in it was the thing that made you hesitate now. 

But that was your entire relationship wasn’t it? A game of chicken, wondering who would hesitate first — and neither of you were the type to hold back. Except when it came to this — except when it came to your feelings for the other. 

You shake your head, trying to shake your anxious thoughts free of their eternal bounce around your skull, and grit your teeth before finally knocking. 

“I’m actually right here,” a voice behind you says, making you jump, as you whip around, nearly pressed against his office door. And now you stood face to face with the man who owned it.

And how was it that every time you saw him, he was achingly more perfect than the time before? His ebony hair was half down, black locks brushing against his shoulders, the rest tied up in a neat bun. A crisp white button up underneath a neutral toned knit sweater vest, the shirt very much like the one you had stolen in your dream. 

Perfect. 

“Professor Geto,” you offer a small smile, trying your best to keep your eyes on his, instead of drifting over his form, “it’s good to see you,” 

“It’s good to see you as well, and so prompt,” he says, brushing past you to unlock his office, “made a habit of being on time these days?” 

“Well, when your professor reprimands you in front of the entire class, you try to make a habit of being on time,” why did it feel like your dream was repeating yet again? It’s not as if your relationship with him wasn’t cyclical enough — life imitating dreams was almost far too much. He opens the door for you, letting you enter first, before he follows you in, “and aren’t you the late one this time?” 

His lips quirk, as he rounds his desk, and takes a seat, “You really can’t make it a conversation with me without giving me shit, huh?” 

“Language,” you chide, as you sit across from him, “not very appropriate for an academic setting,” and you have to bite back the want to say that you’ve done plenty of inappropriate things in this office the last time you both were here. 

“Well, our track record isn’t known for being very appropriate, now is it?” Or maybe you didn’t need to say it, because the way he was looking at you told you everything you needed to know. But that didn’t mean either of you would act on it. He licked his lips, mouth parted to say something, his gaze heavy. 

And the moment is broken when his email goes off — you squeeze your bag a little tighter, as you busy yourself with digging through your bag for the materials to go over. That sound was nearly traumatizing in this office, not only did it usually signal the start of some assignment you had to trudge your way through — it also was the sound that had ended your relationship before it even really began. 

“Class starts in an hour, so I thought we could have this meeting just to review the syllabus and see if you have any questions — as well as just overall any questions you had about being a T.A.,” he explains, pressing his pen to his lips, “I understand this is your first time being a T.A.?” 

“It is, I hadn’t really considered it until the department head approached me about that,” and he nods, a flash of emotion that surfaces for only a moment before dissipating, “what will my responsibilities be?” 

“Good question,” a smile pulls the corners of his lips, “obviously, as a T.A., you will have office hours that you can decide with your own discretion—” 

“So it’s okay if I have them once a month at 3:00 AM?” and he rolls his eyes as you bite your lip at the sight — why was everything he did so effortlessly attractive? 

Fucking unfair. 

“Witching hour, how apt,” he murmurs, as he tilts his head, “but they should be weekly, as I’m sure you know, and held not in the middle of the night, when nights should be used for other things,” and you have to bite back your reply, like what? 

And then he continues to explain, “You can also help with some grading — mostly entering grades online for me since you know I love to handgrade,” 

“Oh yes, truly enjoyed having my self-esteem cut to shreds after receiving a paper back,” you scribbled notes down in your notebook, “glad I won’t be on the receiving end this time,” 

“If you’re good, that is,” and you knew it slipped from his lips — from the way his lips parted, the way his body froze for half a second as if he had shocked himself — and he had, because the spark between you two remained, a weed stubbornly cracking through concrete, “sorry—’ 

“You don’t have apologize,” you shake your head, waving him off, “it’s really fine,” 

“It’s not,” he said softly, placing the syllabus down on the desk, “I know we agreed to keep our relationship professional,” 

“We did,” Yes, you both did — sort of. 

“And I want us to do that—” 

And you ask the question you weren’t brave enough to ask the last time you two had seen each other, “Why is that again?” 

When the email had come, it was as if a spell had broken — the rosy colored lenses had come off, only to leave the hard glare of reality behind. Your limbs still entangled while you both reread the email off of his screen — as if it would say something different the millionth time over. 

It didn’t. 

And then the awkward clamor of disengaging, slow limbs pulling apart, as the warmth of his embrace left as quickly as it had come. Silence as the two of you let the news settle in, like a noose tightening around your necks, and you slowly slid off his desk. 

“If I’m your T.A.,” you had said slowly, adjusting the skirt of your dress, “we can’t do this, can we?” and he had only nodded, his gaze unable meet yours, fixed to the rug on the floor of his office, and he could only muster two words as you brushed past him and gathered your things—

“I’m sorry.” 

But even so, you couldn’t remember why it was a bad idea? Why was it so wrong for the two of you to do this? What difference did it make that you were his T.A.? It was still against the rules either way — it was still unethical either way — so why, why did it matter? 

But he knew why, from the way his brow creased with lines and his lips pursed and the way his eyes yet again couldn’t quite reach yours — as if you’d spot something in them that he didn’t want to see. 

“Because we’re going to working together all semester long, with students in class who will see us each week,” he licked his lips, leaning back in his chair, “because it was already problematic if we saw each other without any classes or connection, but now — if you’re my T.A. and my girlfriend, how would I even properly supervise you?” and he swallows, adam’s apple bobbing as he blows air through his teeth, before his voice grows softer, “how would I focus on guiding you and our students if I’m too busy gazing into your eyes or staring at your lips or wanting to—” he cuts himself off, “you know it’s not a good idea,  most of our students probably wouldn’t notice, but rumors spread and it takes one good rumor to ruin your career,” and he adds, “with how things work, you don’t need me to tell you why it would be worse for you than me, even if I tried to take responsibility,” 

And you did know, knew very well that rumors got out that the two of you were together that nothing would happen to his reputation — perhaps he would be scrutinized a bit more, some judgment and side-eye from other professors and higher ups, but he wouldn’t get vilified like you would. Called a slut or a whore — and those would be some of the kinder names you’d be called, and you can’t imagine what it would do for your career, especially if you stay in academia. And then the rumors would fester and grow, more wondering where your grades came from — whether you had obtained them through honeyed words whispered over pillows and rumpled sheets instead through late nights spent at your desk and weekends practically living at the library. 

“I do know,” you said quietly. But it didn’t mean you wanted to do it anymore than you had that day. A part of you wished he had stopped you when you had turned to leave his office, grabbed your wrist, and pulled you into his arms—but this was hardly a romance novel, “and you’re right,” 

He still has his gaze fixed anywhere but your face, settling his syllabus on his desk now, the silence familiarly filling the room yet again, muscles tense if your body didn’t know whether to flee or to draw closer. 

So you did neither, and instead broke the silence. 

“So would T.A.-ing provide an opportunity for me to teach the class?” and he blinks, eyes snapping up now, as a glimpse of sadness slips away behind his now thoughtful expression. 

“Would you want to do that? I don’t know if I could allow you to lead an entire class, only because some students may take some issue with another grad student teaching them—” 

“I don’t blame them with the tuition costs,” you mutter, and he nods, “don’t nod, it’s your salary I’m paying for,” 

He laughs, a noise you wished you could bottle because you knew it’d be the same as bottling happiness, ���Well worth your money after how much your writing and understanding of moral philosophy and ethics has improved,” and you roll your eyes. 

“I see your ego is the same as ever,” and his lips curl, as he crosses his legs, and you fight the cruel temptation of your gaze flickering a little downward. 

“Well, Kant did say an ego is necessary to understand the world meaningfully and therefore act in a moral way,”  you tilt your head, being defensive with philosophy? That was a new one. 

But you weren’t one to let things go — as he very well knew. 

“And he also said that an ego can lead you astray from living a moral life if we become too self absorbed,” and he raises an eyebrow. 

“Are you calling me self absorbed?” 

You bite back a laugh, “Well, you are certainly self interested,” and you gesture around his office, “look at this office,” 

“What about my office?” he gapes at you, and you snort, you’ve seemingly struck a nerve by how wide his jaw dropped. 

“It’s a little…pretentious,” and dare you say it, your professor had a touch of pink painted across his cheekbones and the tips of his ears, 

God he’s even pretty when he blushes. 

“I’m just teasing Professor,” and then you add, “it’s one of my more tedious qualities,” 

And he blinks, before his lips curl in the smile you never tired of seeing, “not tedious, more irritating,” 

You chuckle, before trying to get back on topic, “So you think you could work out me teaching a part of the class?” 

And he nods, “Let me discuss it with the department head — it should be fine,”

“Do I have any other responsibilities?” 

“If it doesn’t conflict with your schedule, you can also attend some classes, students can stay after and ask you questions as well,” and you nod, looking over his class times in the syllabus. 

“I can make the Tuesday one,” and he makes a note, as you rise, “we should go. Don’t want to be late for the first class now do we?” 

And he smiles the same damnable smile, “That would be a terrible first impression,” and his shoulder brushes yours as he opens his office door for you, “after you,” 

God, you thought as you stepped past him, the warmth from the brush of his body still there, this was going to be a long semester. 

If there was one thing you had learned from being a teacher’s assistant for Professor Geto’s class, it was that the students were even more desperate for your professor’s attention than you had thought. You thought your introduction had went relatively well — besides the pointed glares of several….enthusiastic students. 

After his detailed overview of the class, he reaches the resources section of the course syllabus, “Now, I am available at my listed office hours, in which you can make an appointment online. There’s also tutoring services through the university listed as well. And lastly, we have a T.A. for this class, for the very first time,” and he smiles, “Class, please meet your T.A. for this semester,” Professor Geto says your name and gestures to you, sat up in the corner of the lecture hall, and you stand, waving, “your T.A. took this very class last semester and showed great grit and dedication in the class assignments,” you have to stop yourself from shooting him a look, but you can see a hint of a smile on his lips, “She is also a philosophy student, so please, feel free to reach out to her,” 

“Thank you Professor Geto for that…generous introduction,” your pause was slight enough that he caught it, a smile tucked behind an all too fake cough, “I really look forward to working with you all — this class truly had a great impact on my perspective about the world,” and you catch a flicker of an emotion ripple across his face out of the corner of your eye, “my office hours will be posted soon, and I hope we can get to know each other well over the course of this semester.” 

You sit as the students cast their gaze forward again, and the class continues on as usual. You make use of your time by reading for some of your other classes, until class was over. 

And that’s when you really learned something. As requested, you joined Professor Geto at the bottom of the lecture hall to help field questions from the students. 

Except, the students were far more interested in Professor Geto than they were in the course material. 

But maybe it was simply because it was the beginning of the semester right? It couldn’t happen again right? 

It was a good thing you weren’t getting graded because you would earned yourself a zero. As again, the next week, students were only interested in Professor Geto — whether it was because it was for his intellect or — you glanced at the students mooning over him — something else. 

Something you knew very well. 

You were forced to watch a female student flutter her eyelashes, then another brush against him, as she showed him what passage was confusing her, and then another student couldn’t stop staring at his lips. And then you wonder, if it had been another student who kept pestering him week after week, would it have been them instead of you? Would they have shared those moments together? Maybe even they would actually gotten to be in a relationship, instead of watching other people flirt with him—

“Excuse me,” your eyes snap up from your reverie and you see two students, seemingly waiting to speak to you. 

Those students had seemingly taken pity on you and spoke to you about the class, tips, and asked about your office hours. But soon enough, the students filed out one by one until it was just you and Professor Geto. And he’s collecting his things, as he glances at you, lingering still as you check your email on your phone, “Don’t you have class after this?” 

You blink, “how’d you know that?” 

And he’s straightening his notes to place back in his bag, before he turns to look at you over his shoulder, “well you’d always rush off after class so it was either you had class or you didn’t want to be alone with me,” he looks back to his bag and you hear the click of the zipper, “I was hoping it would be the former,” he adds. 

“Well, I never lingered after class when I was taking it either,” you adjust your bag, toying with the strap — why was it anytime you were with him it felt like stepping into quicksand, the more you struggled, the more you sunk — and even if you didn’t move at all, you were still stuck all the same, “didn’t want to get in the way your students stroking your ego,” 

And he raises an eyebrow, “Are we back to my ego again?” 

“I don’t see you shying away from smiles and praise from your students,” and his brow knits together, as he places his bag down on the podium, “no wonder your ego is so large,” 

“What students?” 

“Oh please, the ones swarming your desk after clsss. Didn’t you ever wonder why so many students from different disciplines take your class?” he opens his mouth and then you add, “and don’t say philosophy and ethics apply to every aspect of life,” 

And then he seems to consider the thought, as before his lips curl, as he leans against the podium. 

“Am I detecting some jealousy?” he smirks, and you pause before you scoff — far too quickly. 

“No,” and he only smiles wider. 

He chuckles, “That was convincing. I’m glad your ability to teach is much better than your ability to lie,” 

“I’m not—“ 

“Jealous or not,” and you have to bite back your retort, his gaze freezing you in place, a softness you hated to see — because you didnt know whether it made you want to push him away or pull him close, “there’s only ever been one student who caught my eyes,” 

Ah, there is was — you were sinking again. 

“Really?” you mumble, crossing your arms, “not even one other? You have a habit of unethical behavior for an ethics professor,” 

He’s grabbing his bag, before he’s taking a step forward to whisper, “Only when it comes to you,” and you have to force yourself not shiver at his words warming your skin, “I’ll see you next week,” 

And he’s gone — as you stand in the empty lecture hall next to the podium, the very one from your first dream— and you’re right back where you started. 

Professor Suguru Geto wasn’t the type to make mistakes. He was always meticulous and methodical — he used the very principles to help guide his life — because it gave him a moral framework, a way to interpret the world and his own actions. That’s what had drawn him to ethics in the first place. But then he met you. 

And it seems like he’s made nothing but mistakes since. 

He sat in his office after he practically fled the classroom, forcing his pace to be normal, hoping you didn’t see the flush on his face. Fuck, he tossed the pen he had picked up to start grading away, what was he doing? 

He had told himself it was for the best — again and again when he watches you leave at the end of the last semester. He held his muscles taut as he watched you gather your things, stepping over the crushed pieces of both of your hearts. The two words he had barely choked were the only ones he could manage before he watched his office door shut behind you. 

It was for the best. It was for the best. It was for the best. 

That sentence was on repeat in his mind as he tried to work on his paper over the break — “try” being the operative word. It felt as if even his work hadn't been untouched by you — your impact widespread and all consuming — just as your actual touch was. 

Fuck, he rakes his fingers through his hair, how was he going to survive this week much less this semester? 

He couldn’t afford to be selfish — for your sake and his own. But it didn’t mean he didn’t want to be. He runs a hand over his face — he all but blatantly admitted that he had feelings for you after class. After promising to keep things professional — he was the worst. 

He only wished he was worse enough to do what you both wanted when you asked him in his office why you both couldn’t be together. He wanted to tell you the reasons why you should be — because he couldn’t stop thinking about you despite never seeing you over the break, his heart nearly stopped when he saw you standing in front of his office, and because he couldn’t help but smile when he could see you hesitating in front of the door — but he couldn’t help but smile when it came to you. But he didn’t. 

He couldn’t. 

But he also couldn’t help but toe that damn line in the sand, the one that he had drawn, but the one so desperately wanted to cross. 

And then there was a knock at his door, he sighs, “Come in,” 

The department head enters his office, as Suguru blinks before he gets to his feet to offer his hand, as they exchange greetings, before gesturing for him to sit, “To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

“I saw your email about having your T.A. teach part of your class, and I wanted to get a little more detail about it,” Suguru nods, his face composed, but his body tense — paranoia scratching at the back of his mind, no one happened to see them kiss had they? No one was on campus really at that point. And the door was closed — he probably just wanted more information.  

“What questions did you have?” and the department head runs down his list — what topic would you cover? How much class time would it take? Would he be asking the class first? Would he review your materials beforehand? 

“Well, you both seemed to have thought a lot about this,” he leans back, crossing his leg over the other, “I think having her teach a part of a class is fine, but I would like you both to do it sooner rather than later,” and Suguru opens his mouth, but then he adds, “and I’d like to attend that class,” 

Suguru tilts his head, “You would like to attend my class?” He considers his words carefully, “I was under the impression, based on the rules, the only thing needed to allow a T.A. to teach was the approval of the department head,” his anxiety begins to pick away at his nerves, “it’s not unusual for a T.A. to teach here correct?” 

It was his first time having a teacher’s assistant at this university so perhaps this was a quality check? To ensure both you and him were meeting the standards of the university — and his anxiety added, and to make sure no rules were being broken by either of you. 

“Yes, it’s not unusual, and I have my reasons which I’ll discuss with you after the class,” he checks the time and rises from his seat now, “I have another meeting soon — do you think she can present in two weeks?” 

Suguru hesitates, “I’ll have to ask her but most likely that should be fine,” 

“Okay please send an email cc’ing her and confirm the details,” he says his goodbyes, and he’s gone, as Suguru sits and considers this — what could he be planning? 

Or, his nerves add, what could he be looking for? 

Either way, he pulled up your email — it was going to be an interesting two weeks. 

“Deontology determines whether an action is right or wrong based on a set of rules and principles instead of the consequences of the actions,” you speak to an empty lecture hall, your voice echoing in the silence, “therefore an act that isn’t morally good can lead to a good outcome,” 

You had come into the lecture hall to practice yet again this week. You were cursing your past self for inflicting this optional task on yourself — it had taken far more time than you had expected (what’s new?), taken far more preparation than you thought (again, of course), and now had the fun added pressure of the department head attending. And why was he attending? A wonderful and complete mystery. 

The last two weeks have been amazing for your mental health, truly. 

You were lucky the lecture hall and the building at large was deserted at 8:00 PM — all of the staff and students had all but fled, and you were left with the perfect place to practice. It had been many nights of honing your presentation to the allotted time, leaving time to pose a thought exercise, time to discuss, and for questions. 

You don’t see the door behind you open, nor do you hear it close, as you use the clicker to go through your PowerPoint, switching to the next slide. 

“For example, killing an intruder, based on the consequence would be wrong, as I hope we all know killing is wrong — otherwise, I worry about what will happen when you get your grades back,” you give a brief chuckle — and hope some of the students would pity you with some laughs, and that’s when you hear a small laugh behind you. 

Your head snaps around, flushing when you see Professor Geto standing by the door. He’s wearing a deep royal purple button up and gray slacks, the sleeves rolled up exposing his forearms. 

God, this wasn’t a dream was it? 

“Don’t let me stop you,” he says, his footsteps against the floor grew closer, and your body tenses, until they stop, “go on,” and he leans against the wall behind you. 

“But when you do kill an intruder to protect your family, that’s viewed as right under deontology,” and you can’t focus with his gaze running over you, an all familiar feeling settled over you. Would life imitate dreams again? Would he come over and ask you to continue your presentation as his lips pressed gentle kisses to your neck and shoulder? Would he— 

“Are you okay?” he asks, and you can’t meet his gaze, but you hear his footsteps, “should I go?” 

“No, no, it’s just,” you shake your head, “a little deja vu,” 

He raises an eyebrow, “deja vu?” 

Your blood runs cold. Fuck. 

“I don’t recall you ever presenting like this in my clsss before,” you can't decide if his voice is more thick with confusion or curiosity. 

“Yeah, no, sorry it’s nothing,” you brush him off, your eyes fixed on your notes on the podium, and you know he’s still staring, “what?” 

“I see you’re still not a very good liar,” and you scoff, “what is it that’s gotten you so bothered?” 

“Nothing,” you insist. 

“The more you say that, the less I’m convinced,” and now he’s walking closer, closer still — but you’re fixed in place, “what is it?”

“You never let anything go, do you?” And you turn, your breath catching when you saw how close he was — inches from you, his pretty eyes wide at the sudden movement, his breath warming your lips. Black strands fall in his face, and you have to stop yourself from tucking them behind his ear. Stop yourself from wanting to touch him, stop yourself from wanting him to lean forward, stop yourself from wanting him. 

Nothing good ever came from your want. 

“Only when it’s you,” but this man makes it impossible not to want him. Not when his voice is soft, not when the back of his finger, a knuckle brushes against your cheek. And no words are needed — you can hear it in the silence between you both, you feel it in the gentleness of his touch, and in the softness of his gaze. 

And you know you’re in love with him. You are.

But you can’t be. 

“I’m not telling you,” you murmur, looking away — and it seems to break the spell, as he steps back, nodding, a flicker of sadness that slips away under his facade,  “but maybe I will sometime, over a drink,” you add. 

A smile tugs at his lips, “Well we know how well that went, or didn’t go rather, and you know, we can’t anytime soon,” 

“Well sometimes an action that isn’t morally good can lead to a good outcome,” and he raises an eyebrow. 

“Using deontology to convince me?” He tilts his head, “not a bad strategy — maybe I’ll have you write a paper,” 

“And willingly subject myself to your red pen? No thanks,” and he snorts, before the smile fades into a frown, brow wrinkled in thought, “what is it?” 

“Nothing, I’m just…” he crossss his arms, “I’m wondering why the department head wants to observe your presentation,” 

“He didn’t give any indication why?” and he shakes his head, “maybe he just wants to evaluate how good a job you’re doing,” you add, “you are relatively green,” 

“Not that green,” and you see his lips pressed together — and is he? — he was — he was pouting. You bite your lip how fucking adorable — but you know you’d be met with a scowl if you said that out loud, “don’t you worry that the dean may suspect something between us?” 

The thought had crossed your mind, but class had been nothing but professional so far, and you’d be too busy sweating bullets (and perhaps dodging them from the students if the presentation went poorly) to even consider your feelings for him. 

You sigh, “Look, nothing to do but get through it, right? It should be fine, we’ll deal with whatever comes after. As long as I don’t choke, and you don’t stare at me too adoringly, we should be fine,” 

And you expect a retort, a cheeky reply, or even a quite sarcastic one, but he only gives a small smile, “Right,”

You feel your cheeks burn and you can’t meet his gaze again without feeling your heart flutter. 

Fuck — maybe there was something to worry about. 

Despite the concerns, the presentation goes off without a hitch. You spot the dean sitting in the corner of the lecture hall, pen and notepad in hand, which did nothing to soothe your poor heart (nor did the far too many cups of coffee and the total lack of sleep). 

It happened quick — a blur of speaking, forcing yourself to slow your words down, a necessity when presenting — as you knew you always spoke faster than you believed you did when presenting. You think you even made the students laugh a few times, led an interesting thought experiment with a rousing debate that ended with no clear answer (as always), and then you answered questions. 

All the while, Professor Geto stood in the back, and you’d catch a glimpse of him by the corner of your eye, his lips curled in that smile that haunted all your nights and days. 

By the time it was done, you had barely realized time had gone so quickly, as you passed the metaphorical baton back to Geto. And you took a seat off to the side, opting to watch him lecture, rather than busy yourself with other work. 

It felt like old times, you thought, as you watched him speak. You couldn’t blame the people that took his class just to watch him speak — he was unfairly beautiful when he spoke, gesticulating as he read a Kant quote. And you kept your face as neutral as possible, but he catches your eye for a moment, corner of his lip twitching upwards. And a flush settles over your cheeks, as you discreetly press your thighs together, trying to look suddenly engrossed with your notebook. 

Your heart ached as much as your body did. You wanted to walk over and just kiss him, swallow his smart words along with his gasp, and feel those hands run along your body. You wanted to know every thought in his head, every part of his day, and fall asleep beside him. 

You glance up to see him still speaking — a black strand falling in his face. You bite your lip, before looking back down. 

This man would be the death of you — and it was even worse being alone with him. You’re thankful that your T.A. check-ins with him were every other week, because you couldn’t imagine having to spend more than an hour with him every other week. 

“You want us to do what?” You blink at the Dean, his lips curled in a smile, his hands tucked into his pockets. 

“Apologies for all the secrecy, I did not receive confirmation about this until earlier today,” he explains, “but I want you two to attend this conference on ethics and philosophy  — it’s over the weekend, two weekends from now. It would be a wonderful opportunity for the both of you to make connections and attend presentations, as well as mingle with prospective students. It would also afford us an opportunity for both of you to help put our university on the map,” 

You glance at Professor Geto, his lips parted in surprise, “Sir, is it appropriate for a male professor and a—“ 

“Don’t worry, the accommodations will be separate and it’s a public event, as long as everything remains professional, there’s no problem, right? As long as you two are okay with it and there’s no problem,” he glances between the two of you, “is there a problem?” 

And Professor Geto’s eyebrows knit together. It was a lose-lose situation — saying no meant raising some suspicions that there was an issue between the two of you, but saying yes meant going on a trip with the same professor you had kissed at the end of the last semester. And if anything happened on this trip...it could be very bad — ethically and otherwise. 

So you make the decision for both of you. 

“That’s fine. I’m happy to attend if Professor Geto is,” and you know you have no choice — you had to spend the weekend with him, alone. At a conference. In a hotel.

“Do you have everything?” Professor Geto asks, as you hand him your suitcase, your fingers brushing as you do.  He lifts your suitcase into the trunk of his car, his black t-shirt riding up as he does, a quick flash of the expanse of his muscles—

Fuck, you bite your lip, stop, stop. Professor. He’s a professor. 

It didn’t matter that you had felt him part your thighs, as his lips slid against yours, nor that every time you saw each other, you felt this undeniable ache to touch him, comfort him, hug him, nor that you knew he felt the same and wanted to give in as badly as you did—

No, it didn’t matter. 

You consider his question, scrunching up your face in thought, “I think so, wait,” you snap your fingers as he glances at you, “forgot the rest of my apartment upstairs — you think that’ll fit in there too?” 

He smirks, rolling his eyes as shuts the trunk, “Ha, ha, ever consider becoming a comedian instead of a philosophy major?”

“Every day, but then I think what would my favorite professor do without me?” 

He raises an eyebrow, “I’m your favorite?” 

“Who said it was you?” you grin at him, as he shakes his head and you open the passenger door seat and slide in, as he slips into the driver’s seat. He adjusts his mirrors, buckling his seatbelt, as a sudden wave of guilt bombards you. You had dragged him down this rabbit hole with you — and now the two of you had to spend the entire weekend together, alone. 

You lick your far too dry lips, “Sorry if I roped you into this,” you fidget with your phone, tapping on the screen absentmindedly. 

He starts the car, engine roaring underneath your feet, before he glances at you, brow furrowed in seeming confusion, “What? It’s not you that roped us into this,” 

You purse your lips, “But if I didn’t agree to it—“ 

He sighs, “We were in a position where we didn’t have much of a choice,” his fingers drum against the steering wheel, as his eyes flicker to make sure your seatbelt was on, “it’s not your fault — and it’s not a bad thing — we’ll spend time at the conference, we’ll mingle, and then return to our hotel rooms,” he adds, “don’t worry. Nothing will happen.” 

And his reassurance is almost a punch to the gut instead — and your brain chides you for being so childish — you knew it was for the best, you knew it was the right thing to do, and you knew he was trying what was best for you, and for him. 

But why did it hurt so goddamn much? 

You steal a glance at him as he pulls into the street and begins to drive, dark gaze forward, his hair tied into its usual neat bun, and a chain poked out from underneath the rounded opening around his neck. And then your eyes flicker back out the window.  

Was it really not a big deal to him? 

Because the last two weeks were consumed with nothing, but thoughts of being alone with him. Days spent in conferences, sitting beside each other, whispering thoughts and inside jokes; evenings spent socializing together, waiting for the other to give the signal to leave; and nights walking back to your rooms, fingers brushing as you walked beside each other. You were sure it would take a slight bend of the rules, a gaze that lingers a little too long, to break the paper thin resistance either of you had to the other. The two of you could barely be alone for more than a few minutes without temptation rearing its ugly head — even now your eyes can’t help but trace the curve of his jaw, the way the sunlight catches his eyes, the way your fingers want nothing more than intertwine with his hand that rests on the console between you two. 

But you don’t. You give a weak smile, glancing out the window as the streets of Tokyo pass you by — “Yeah it should be fine.” 

Just fine. 

“There was a problem with your reservation,” 

And after half an hour of waiting off to the side, with your luggage stacked up and irritation creeping its way to a new high as you watched others easily being checked in to the hotel, you assumed there was a problem. If there wasn’t a problem, you would wonder if this was a new take on Waiting for Godot that would end with the both of youu sleeping in the lobby. You rubbed at your temples, as Geto dealt with the hotel staff, his arms crossed, lips a tight line, “the hotel double booked one of your rooms, so we only have one room available for you.”  

You barely heard the rest of the argument your professor had with the hotel staff, the same phrase ringing in your ears — one room, one room, one room. With nothing more to argue about, they finally escorted you both to your room in awkward silence. And as they opened the door, you spotted it — there was only one single queen sized bed. 

One. Bed. 

You felt your cheeks flush, as you couldn’t even meet Geto’s eyes, as he began to speak heatedly with the manager again. And the excuses began, as the manager wrung his hands, about how no other rooms being available due to the conference and another event happening in town. 

“There is a couch though,” he offers,  pointing to a far too small couch, and the sharp glare that Geto gave him would put even his red pen to shame, “we will see about comping half—“ Geto crosses his arms, “all of your stay here,” and with that, he’s gone. 

“So,” you sigh, glancing at Geto, with a strained smile, “I have dibs on the bed?” 

Was this a cosmic joke? You wondered as you turned off the water of the shower, squeezing your eyes shut. Was this a version of ethical karma for what you had done last semester? An ultimate ethical test that you would surely fail? A fucking prank show? 

You didn’t know. You dried off and got dressed, pulling on a t-shirt and shorts, your hair still damp, as you took a breath and stepped out, towel slung over your shoulders. 

Geto was still on the phone, pacing back and forth — he was trying to call other hotels to see if there was anywhere else with two rooms or at least a room with two beds.

“Yes I understand it’s very last minute—“ he sighs for what must have been the billionth time today, “yes, there was a mistake at the hotel I’m staying at—yes, ok, well, thank you,” he hangs up, setting his phone down. 

“No luck?” You sit on the edge of the bed, wiping your hair, and he shakes his head. 

“The one thing they were right about is that every hotel room is booked solid — not only is our conference in town, but there’s a physical science consortium happening as well,” he rakes his fingers through his hair, a few strands coming loose, “I’ll have to give the Dean a call to update him on the situation,” 

You nod, “So what should we do about sleeping?” And he can’t quite meet your gaze, “are there no trundle or rollaway beds?” 

“No, apparently those have all been spoken for,” he grumbles, and he prepares to call the dean, “I’ll take the couch, you can have the bed—“ 

“Professor, we can—“ and his gaze snaps to you, “we can share—“ 

“No, we can’t,” he says softly, “you know we can’t do that,” 

“We’re both adults—“ 

“And we’re still a professor and a student,” he draws the line between you two again, the gash even deeper than before, the gap that’s meant to keep you safe — the chase meant to protect you — so why did it feel more like a punishment? “I’ll take the couch,” and he calls the Dean to update him on the situation. 

You busy yourself with drying your hair in the bathroom, before coming back out to see him hanging up the phone. 

“Well, are we in an ethical bind or should I go sleep in the lobby just to show there’s no funny business?” And he shoots you a look, “there have been stranger bedfellows,” and he opens his mouth, “and a single word comes out of your mouth, and I’ll join you on that couch,” 

And a very pretty flush adorns the tips of his ears and cheeks, “He said it was fine, it was out of our control, but to just document everything, including the hotel’s incompetence for legality reasons,” 

“You’re also a lawyer as well as a professor?” 

“You have to hedge your bets,” he shrugs with a smile pulling at his lips, before he checks the time, “I’m going to take a shower,” he sighs, pulling his hair from the messy bun, letting his black locks down. And you watch him run his fingers through his hair again, sighing, as he heads into the shower. 

You lay on the bed, biting your lip — as you turn over to use your phone, as the shower turns on. And you glance at the closed door — the thought of him in there, pulling his shirt over his head, shedding his pants and boxers. Your cheeks burn, burying your face in your pillow as if that would help (it did not). 

You curl up on the bed, turning away from the bathroom door, using your phone. And a few minutes pass, as you kind of drift off into sleep, and you hear a creak of the bathroom door open that rouses you from sleep. You don’t move at first but you hear shuffling, the sounds of a zipper. You finally turn on your other side, eyes fluttering open, and you’re met with the sight of bare skin. 

You blink, eyes flickering up to see your Professor’s flushed face, before your eyes slowly following a bead of water slip down his bare chest, black hair dotting along the middle of his chest and abs, down to a happy trail that was hidden by a towel wrapped around his waist. His clothes in his hand, and your eyes find his own, your lips parted and mouth impossibly dry. 

Oh. My. God. 

“Uh—“ and his cheeks flare red, as you try your best not to let your eyes flicker downward, “I forgot my clothes—“ and you turn away, as he darts back into the bathroom, “I’m sorry,” he says, muffled through the door. 

“It’s okay!” You reply, your heart thumping against your ribcage, squeezing your eyes shut to only be met the memory of his bare torso, “fuck,” you mumble under your breath, as you turn onto your back, and stare at the spinning ceiling fan above you. A distinct ache below at the thought of him. 

Your eyes flickered to the shut bathroom door. You hear the sound of water running again — maybe he needed to wash up again. Either way, you slid under the comforter, hand slipping into your shorts, you had some time. You wish you could have grabbed his hand before he fled into the bathroom, sat up on your knees, fingers sliding to his cheek. 

“Kiss me,” you’d murmur, and he would, leaning down to press a kiss to your lips sweetly, as your fingers glide up his bare chest. You’d swallow his gasp with delight, as your other hand finds his wet locks, fingers tangling in his black locks, “please,” you would guide his fingers to the hem of your shirt and he would oblige, lifting up and over your head. And your fingers would tug his towel away, letting it fall to the ground. 

Your fingers press against the wet patch on your underwear, teeth digging into your bottom lip as you gasp, imagining it was instead his eager fingers that tugged your shorts down. You sunk one finger in and then another, pumping slowly, and you knew he would get you ready for him. He would fuck you with his thick fingers, as his mouth latched to your clit, sucking gently as he fucked you open. You moaned his name softly, as you imagine his fingers stretching you open. 

“Do you want me, my pretty girl?” He would murmur between your thighs, lips glossy with your release, “s’good for me, taste as good as you look,” and he would press your back gently into the mattress as he would meet your lips again before, rubbing the tip of his cock against your puffy lips, “tell me what you want, Princess,” 

“Please,” you whispered, as you moved your fingers faster, adding a third finger, but you know his cock would feel so much thicker, and reach so much deeper, “fuck me,” 

And he would, sinking into you, his pretty cock parting your folds, his quiet grunts and moans whispering in your ear, as he works himself inside to the hilt. His lips would find yours as he would rock his hips into you — your cunt would flutter around his length. He would press your thighs apart further, long fingers digging into your soft flesh, the wet squelch of your cunt and the sounds of his skin slapping against yours would ring in your ears.

“S’close, Sugu—fuck,” you would keen against him, instead of your fingers, “please,” and his thumb would find your clit, just as yours did, and you would cum all over his cock, squeezing around his length, as he sinks even deeper, until his tip is brushing against your cunt. The moan of his name slips out, as you press your forearm against your mouth to barely stifle it. 

Fuck, you come down from your high, panting. And you glance at the bathroom door, thinking you’ll clean up once he gets out. You roll over in bed, as you pulled the pillow over your face. 

This was going to be a long weekend. 

Suguru lingers in the bathroom for far too long after that, the embarrassment of the moment still far too fresh in his mind, his cheeks still a dusty pink at the thought. Not only was it bad enough that he was trapped in this hotel room with you for an entire weekend, but now he had paraded out practically half naked for you to see. 

Fuck his life. 

He had hurried into the shower if only to get a break from being in the same room as you. It had been hard enough to endure the last few weeks as a T.A., but now he had to spend an entire weekend sharing a hotel room — and deal with situations like that one all weekend. Seeing you emerge from the bathroom, only in a t-shirt and shorts, still damp from your shower — wet hair in messy tangles that he wanted to run his fingers through— and that’s why he excused himself to the bathroom. A reprieve if only for a moment. If he had only remembered to bring his clothes into the shower — he wouldn’t have had to finish his shower, with only his discarded clothes to wear that had slipped off the clothes rack and onto the damp floor. 

He had stepped out, towel around his waist, as he peeled out, only to see your back to him, the sounds of soft breathing told him you were asleep. And he crept out, silently cursing as the door creaked and rifled through his suitcase for clothes. He had found them, and gone to retreat back when you roused and turned all at once. 

God, he sighed, it was such a mess. 

But the way you looked at him…lips parted, gaze flicking across his body, the way your eyes lingered a little too long on his torso — and now he had an entirely different problem. 

His cock tented against the towel, as his eyes slid to the bathroom door. What if he just hopped into the shower for a second again? The towel dropped to the floor, as he steps back into the shower, turning on the water. 

He groans, his fingers slide over his mortifyingly hard erection, teasing his slit as he would imagine you would, as you would open the bathroom door, murmuring his name, “Professor? Are you okay?” And you wouldn’t wait for his answer as you stepped into the shower with him, eyes raking down his body, a teasing grin on your lips, “not very ethical is that?” And your fingers would curl their way around the base of his cock, making him shudder with pleasure, “I can take care of that,” and you would kiss down his chest and stomach, even despite his protests, until you reached where he wanted your touch most. 

And god, you would look so pretty on your knees for him, as your fingers pumped him far too slowly, teasing him with a chaste kiss to his tip, tongue dragging against his slit, better than how his thumb did, “s’good for me, Professor,” you’d say, when you heard the hiss he just let out, “I wonder what other sounds you could make for me,” and your lips would close around his tip, sucking lightly, as he gasped, his other hand clasped over his mouth, muffling his sounds. 

He would look down with half lidded eyes, and see your head bobbing as you took him so well, your fingers toying with his balls, spotting your eyes flicking up to meet his — glazed over and desperate, just he imagined his were. Your mouth would feel so much better than his hand, the wet squelch of his pumping would not compare to you swallowing around him, sucking and licking around his length, his pre-cum and your drool slipping down the corner of your mouth. 

You’d swallow around him, as his fingers would slide into your hair. And maybe you would let him fuck your mouth, hips rolling slowly as you adjust, before he slowly would thrust faster. He would repay the favor tenfold once you were done, burying himself in your sweet cunt, until you were begging him to stop. His fingers moved faster around his cock, his low groans and wet squelch bouncing off the bathroom walls, hopefully drowned out by the running water.  Fuck, he wished he would feel how it would to have his tip brush against the back of your throat. 

He was close, the twitch of his dick in his hand told him so, and he imagined what it would be like to cum in your mouth, watching you swallow his release, if you’d want to, or cumming all over your face or chest, letting his cock drag over your tongue as he pulled out. 

Fuck, he shudders, moaning your name against his fingers, he cums all over his hand and the wall of the shower, his release running down mixing with the water. He rinsed his hand off, leaning his head under the water again, hoping it would wash away any traces of you. 

It didn’t. 

And as he emerged from the shower, making sure any trace of his act had slipped down the drain, but the towel around his neck, wondering if you’d see what he did on his face. But you wouldn’t — because you were fast asleep. 

His lips curled as he watched you sleep for a moment, your lips parted, curled up facing away from the bathroom — your feet sticking out of your blanket. He adjusts the blanket for you, and you shift a little in your sleep, mumbling something under your breath, before settling back in. 

And he bites his lip before turning away — he would never be clean, would he? 

Not when it was you. 

“How much longer do you think we’ll be stuck here?” you murmur, the smile plastered on your lips nearly starting to chip and crack. 

Professor Geto sipped at his drink hiding his frown, long fingers cradling the wine glass far too perfectly, “at least another hour,” he sighs, “when in academia, one must get used to mindless conversing if only it will lead to another needless connection,”

And this day had been nothing but an exercise of that — lectures, panels, presentations — any other word that meant someone or several someones sitting in front of you, talking at you — with only maybe 30% of the people actually listening (if you were lucky or interesting). And now you were one hour deep into a mixer that had you engaging in dry chit-chat that had your mind going numb by the first ten minutes. Your only reprieve being by Geto’s side. 

You hated how he could make the dullest of things enjoyable for you, or rather—

You hated how much you loved it 

“How pithy — Plato?” And he snorts, as you finish off your own drink, “I’m going to get a refill, do you want anything?” He shakes his head, and you head off to the bar. 

You were so restless after sitting for so long. Not to mention the slight rash you got from not washing up soon enough. You woke an hour and half later and cleaned yourself up — luckily Geto had passed out by then. You saw him sleeping half scrunched up, half sprawled out on the couch — one of his legs were hanging off the couch — and even his blanket had slipped off. You stifled a small laugh, taking a quick picture of him — so stubborn that he wouldn’t sleep on the bed with you. Your gaze had softened, as you picked up the discarded blanket and placed it over him softly, your fingers gently tucking some of his hair from his face. You fell asleep again after heading back to bed, and woke up refreshed — while Geto had woken up with a very sore back and neck. 

“Can I get…” you look at the menu, ordering your favorite drink, standing by the bar as you adjust your dress, you had opted for a black dress with sheer tights — one you had worn a suit jacket over it. You tap against the bar top, checking your phone as you do. 

“Can I get what she’s getting?” A dark haired man sidles up beside you, his mouth curled in a smirk drawing attention to a scar in the corner of his mouth, and his voice drops to a whisper, “though I think I’d enjoy you more than the drink,” 

You raise your eyebrows, “and I think you’ve certainly had enough tonight,” you say under your breath, giving an awkward chuckle, but he doesn’t seem to notice as the bartender comes back with your drink. Your eyes flicker over the crowd as you search for Geto but you can’t find him. 

“What’s your name, pretty?” And your skin crawls as his dark gaze slides over your body, “mine’s Toji,” and you bite back a sigh, introducing yourself, “it’s very nice to meet you — I’ve met a lot of people tonight but you definitely have been the most interesting,” and the bartender comes back with his drink. 

“Then you must have not met a lot of interesting people so far,” you say, eager to look for any out to escape this conversation, “my friend is waiting—“ 

“No, I’d say that you’re just that interesting,” he sips his drink, “can I get you another drink?” 

And right when you’re about to respond, “No, I don’t think she’s interested,” And you tense a moment before you register the familiar voice, Geto smiles at Toji, if you could call that a smile — it reminded you of one a predator gave its new prey, “especially because she’s a student, and you’re most assuredly not,” 

Toji raises an eyebrow, “But she is an adult, she can speak for herself, so why don’t you let her, Professor?” 

“Because—“ his fingers twitch as if he wants to reach for you but he can’t. 

You swallow the lump in your throat. And you know why he can’t. 

Geto’s smile wavers, and you intercede, “I can, and I think I’ve had enough for tonight,” you pay your tab, “let’s go back to the hotel, Professor,” 

And Toji pulls his card out, handing it to you, “If you change your mind,” he raises his glass, leaning against the bar, before he leans closer to you, whispering, “if you ever get sick of him, call me,” 

You give a polite smile, tugging Geto away until you reached the outside of the building, silence filled the space between you two, until you found your way outside. 

“What did he say?” He asks as he calls a car back to take you both to the hotel, and you don’t know how to answer that — not without making it worse, “actually, never mind. I shouldn’t have asked,” 

“Professor—“ 

“You’re an adult, he’s right — you should be allowed to make your own choices,” he licks his lips, his eyes still fixed on his phone screen, “I’m sorry if I—“ 

“Can you let me speak?” you sigh, as you wave your hand in front of his phone so he would look at you, and his eyes meet yours, “you’re fine — I was trying to get out of there — I just felt very trapped.” 

He huffs out a chuckle. “When you took that long, I wondered if the group of solipsists had taken you hostage,” 

You grimace, “I guess when you believe everyone else is an illusion, you also think manners are an illusion too,” he laughs in earnest now, “now there’s a real smile,” He tilts his head, “the smile you had inside, real scary kind of smile,” you tease, as his eyes can’t quite meet yours.

“Oh yeah?” he suddenly seems very interested in his phone, “our rideshare is almost here,” 

“Almost like you were jealous,” and he scoffs. 

“Of him?” 

“Uh huh, he is pretty attractive, maybe I will give him a call—“ and you notice him grip his phone tighter, and your lips curl, “but I probably won’t, not really my type,” 

“Not your type?” he asks. 

“More into the intellectuals, that man was far from it — I like an academic, sweater vests, glasses, a pretentious little office—“ and the glare is back, as you laugh, the rideshare sparing him from you continuing this conversation, but you also didn’t get to see the slight smile on his lips as you slipped into the back of the car. 

“Just sleep on the bed,” you say for probably the thousandth time, but he only shakes his head, as he sits on the couch, combing out his black locks. Even freshly showered, he looks unfairly hot — a loose gray t-shirt with sweatpants, contacts switched to glasses, and now his hair brushed against his shoulders. 

“I’ll sleep on the couch — it was fine last night—“ 

“Your spinal cord would beg to differ,” and he looks unamused, as he struggles with his comb, “what are you doing?” 

“I can’t get this knot out of my hair, and I can’t get you out of my hair either,” he adds, as you roll your eyes, slipping off the bed and walking over. You ease the comb from his fingers, biting your lip at the brush of his fingers, “what are you—“ 

“It’s easier if someone else does it,” and he sighs, giving in, as your fingers undo the knot in his hair gently, “your hair is really smooth and fine, probably why it tangled so fast,” and he only hums in response, his body relaxing under your touch, as you comb through the rest of his hair. You bite back a smile, he’s almost like a cat, keening under your touch, “feels good?” You murmur. 

“Yeah, it does,” and you don’t want the moment to end, you want this excuse to touch him to remain, the first time you’ve been able to breach this wall between you two — and it’d be over in an instant, “I think that’s good,” he mutters. 

He lays his head back on the top of the couch to look up at you — pretty obsidian orbs stared back at you — and your heart squeezes. He was so close, within reach, and all you had to do was lean down, press your lips against his, and maybe you wouldn’t have to tiptoe anymore, maybe you wouldn’t have to hide from him, maybe you could be— 

“We should go to bed,” he sighs, the moment breaks, as he sits upright, adjusting his pillow on the couch beside him, “we have an early start,” 

“Don’t remind me,” you turn back to him, “but you’re right - we should go to bed—“ you grab his pillow, “on the bed,” 

“No—“ 

“Like you said, we’re both adults,” you tilt your head, as he purses his lips, “I think I can handle sleeping in bed beside you, just sleeping, we can even put a pillow between us,” and you add, “if I try anything in my sleep, you challenge me to a pillow fight, and push me off the bed,” 

He scoffs, rubbing the back of his neck, “I really can sleep on—“ and then you raise your eyebrows, eyes flicking to the hand on his neck. He sighs, “fine, but I really will push you off the bed, I’m a restless sleeper,” 

“Then it’s equal opportunity,” you grin, as you slip into your side of the bed, stretching. Suguru is slower to get in, taking his time and adjusting his pillow and blanket before he finally gets into bed, “good night,” 

“Good night,” he turns to face away from you as he sleeps and you do the same. 

But it wasn’t a good night. Not when you couldn’t fucking sleep. 

For someone so smart, you really were very stupid. The bed that seemed expansive and open yesterday now felt Tom Thumb tiny, every shift of your body felt like a ripple effect, as you’d feel the slight shift of Geto right beside you. He was so close — you swore you could nearly feel the heat radiate off of him, the weight of his body beside you felt far too close and way too far — a chasm you could never cross.

And it was close to driving you insane enough to follow your wants all the way down it. 

But you couldn’t — but you could look, stare into the void, without becoming part of it. 

You shift again to face him this time — how could the back of someone’s head be so beautiful? Jet black locks that you had combed yourself fanned out on his pillow. But you could spot the nape of his neck through the tresses, a lovely spot that you only wished you could lean over and bury your face in. Your eyes began to droop. 

Hypnos finally took pity. You could only sleep this way. Your eyes finally flutter shut — you should have known — you were always the most comfortable with him in your sight. 

Suguru knew that you had fallen asleep — because your soft breaths fell into a rhythm, the crinkle of your sheets had grown silent, and the loud thoughts that filled up your head had gone quiet. He was glad one of you could sleep. 

He surely wouldn’t get a wink tonight. 

This was certainly more comfortable than the couch, but at least he had slept on the couch. He would be lucky to get thirty minutes at this rate. This weekend had already been too much — and he felt his will to stay away from you slowly snapping, a few strands away from breaking away completely. 

When he had seen you with Toji — he didn’t think, he just acted. He could see you were uncomfortable, the way your body leaned away from him, the way your eyes flickered around the room, and the way you toyed with your glass. It was a simple choice, but what happens when the next person that flirts with you is someone you’re interested in? Would he have to stand by and simply let it happen? Watch as you’re able to date this person but not him simply because of his title? 

He was jealous. Not of Toji — but of the idea of you being with someone else — of your attention drifting from him, of you drifting from him. He turned to lay on his back, he really was fucked wasn’t he? 

He turns his head to look at you. It never helped that you were effortlessly adorable, even now as you slept. Lips parted, body curled up, your hair falling in your face yet again. His fingers tuck a strand behind your ear gently, and you shift, a quiet hum leaving your lips as you settle back into the arms of the sandman. 

How were you so close but so far? You were mere inches away but you might as well be across the country. Because he couldn’t touch you, he couldn’t hold you, he couldn’t kiss you. The kiss he shared with you haunted his dreams — a daydream wrapped up in the nightmare of reality. He couldn’t ask you to wait — wait for your degree to be completed so the two of you could date. It wouldn’t be fair to you, but what about this was fair? 

And he turns on his side to face you, his fingers brushing your cheek gently — maybe if he couldn’t be with you in reality, he could allow himself to dream, his eyes flutter shut. 

Just for a moment. 

And his unconscious allows it — allows him to dream of you. 

Dream of your face buried in the crook of his neck, your soft breaths warming his skin, his nose buried in your hair. Your fingers grasped at his shirt, your other hand thrown over his middle. Why was your scent so intoxicating? He sighs, pulling you impossibly closer, and you shift, your leg sliding around his waist, as you pressed closer, pulling a groan from his lips as your core grazes right against his morning…visitor. 

And you move again, nose brushing against his collarbone, his name on your lips, quietly whispered like a secret against his skin. It was perfect — you were perfect. 

But what if this wasn’t a dream? The back of his mind prods — but that’s not possible, he was home in bed, right? This wasn’t real. It was the same dream he always had, of waking up in your arms, a lazy morning spent together in bed, the sun barely peeking over the horizon, the sheets becoming dappled in sunshine. 

No, there was no way this was real, he sighs into your hair, pressing a kiss to the top of your head, but even if it was, he thought as he drifted, he didn’t want to wake — not yet. 

A distinct buzz stirs you from your sleep. But you don't want to wake — you were far too comfortable. But the buzzing persists, so you reach blindly for your phone and to turn off the alarm. And settle back into bed, eyes still shut, as you find your way back onto your pillow — or what you thought was your pillow. 

Except pillows didn’t move, or have an arm they could wrap around you. 

Your eyes open, to find yourself entangled with someone else — your brow furrowing in confusion that melts away to silent horror. Professor Geto. 

So much for sticking to your sides. 

Fuck.  

You tried to extricate yourself to no avail, his arm wrapped around you, pulling you flush to his body, your legs entangled, aside from your leg thrown over his waist, you realize, a small squeak escaping your lips, as you try and fail to move away. Instead you brush up against something very…hard. 

You flush, cheeks burning so hot that it’s truly a miracle he didn’t wake from the heat of your skin against his alone. His morning wood was pressed right against you, nearly between your thighs — just like the last time it was  against you — why the fuck would you think about that now? You resisted the urge to press your legs together — lest you have another new problem, and a mess to deal with. 

You manage to only pull your head away, urging yourself up so that your faces are an inch or two apart now. His soft breaths warmed your lips, his brow relaxed, locks of black hair fell in front of his eyes. Your fingers reach and tuck the locks behind his ear, tips skimming his skin. And the arm around you almost seems to tighten, and you bite your lip, the comforting presence of his arms far too tempting to drag you into wanting — as if you ever left. Wanting was dangerous, because wanting can only ever lead to need, needing him was as foolish as it was to share a bed with the man you were in love with. 

But how foolish was it that you couldn’t bring yourself to pull away? It was okay right? Okay as long your lips didn’t touch, as long you didn’t follow this slope all the way down — it was treacherous to press forward, but why did you want to anyway?

Your eyes flutter shut again for a moment — and your eyes glanced at the morning sky — the sun had just breached the horizon. You could allow yourself a few minutes — even if you had to give up a lifetime with him. 

The blaring of your phone only seems to grow increasingly loud, as you give a small groan, rolling over to your phone again, slapping the screen to snooze it again. And your eyes flutter open a moment, lazily flickering over the screen — 8:45 AM. 

Your eyes close — before your mind fully wakes — 8:45 AM? 

“Fuck,” you shoot up to get up, a tangle of limbs,  jolting Geto awake, his eyes popping open, his arm instinctively grabbing you by the waist, and you land with an oomfph back onto the bed—wait, not the bed. 

Your hand pressed against his chest, your body against his, noses brushing, your eyes unable to tear away from the other — his eyes were even prettier this close — a dark brown, nearly black, with flecks of another color — purple? You can’t tell if that’s your heartbeat or his that’s racing with how close you are, chest to chest. And even as you try to shift, you make it worse by slipping, your hips rubbing against each other’s. 

Fuck. 

You both freeze for a moment, his eyes flickering to your lips and back, as yours does the same, before you both scramble apart. 

“We’re late. We’re really late,” you spring out of bed, grabbing random clothes from your suitcase, “I’m going to get ready, really fast,” you don’t even bother to look at his expression, and you almost wished your heart had shattered your ribcage, with how fucking hard it’s beating, if only that you wouldn’t have to spend another day in the conference with him. 

You sighed, as you brushed your teeth hurriedly while doing your hair — well maybe a lecture or presentation would take your mind off this morning. 

So that wasn’t a dream, Suguru was only glad you didn’t even glance at his face when you ran off, or you would have seen the lovely tomato red that graced his cheeks. He could still feel the warmth from your body, slowly receding, and he swore he could still feel you against him, your soft skin, your pretty lips against his neck, and your leg around his waist. 

Fuck. 

God, he had another fucking problem to deal with — as he shifted awkwardly, his morning wood up and erect with a tent that could put most large circus tents to shame. Fuck, he didn’t have time to take care of this — especially with you in the bathroom right now. 

But still, he pressed his inner palm to his lips, how was he going to make it through the rest of the conference with the feeling of your body still lingering in his mind. If the situation was different, the two of you would have woken up with smiles on your lips, spent the morning cuddling without a care, and probably a little more than that—

But the situation was the same, and his eyes slid to the bathroom door, so why was it that he still thinking about you? He wasn’t the type to dwell, he accepted things for what they were — he had his principles and his beliefs, and he stuck to them, unless proven otherwise. He was a man of guidelines, of rules—

So why were you the only person that ever made him want to throw every rule away? 

“We are going to be discussing ethical dilemmas faced in universities and how to approach them,” the lecturer begins, “can anyone tell us an example of one such dilemma?” 

You both had barely made it into a lecture — barely even speaking as you ran-walked into the conference — choosing a lecture at random, as the two of you ran a good fifteen minutes late. You both arrived, hiding your pants, as you both grabbed water bottles from the back, and sat down. 

And of course to make matters worse, your phone goes off, making the entire room turn to look at the two of you. You silence your phone, murmuring a quick sorry as the two of you take your seats. 

Could this possibly get worse? 

Your eyes glanced at him — it was already bad enough to begin with. Geto had barely spoken a word this morning, even as the two of arrived at the conference, the only words he spoke were to the attendant that parked his car. 

You tugged at the collar of your shirt, adjusting your clothes. And if that wasn’t enough, you were going to spend the day sweaty and disheveled. Meanwhile, you stole another glance at your professor — his skin flushed from running, button up not buttoned up all the way, glasses instead of contacts, and his hair in its usual bun, but a few strands were nearly coming loose — he still looked fucking delectable. But he wouldn’t meet your gaze, his body positioned to lean away from yours, his eyes fixed ahead. 

You held back your sigh as you focused on the presentation — you just needed to get through today — as the lecturer picked someone who raised their hand. 

“A student-teacher relationship is one such ethical problem faced in universities today,” and Geto nearly chokes on his water, coughing slightly, as you feel your cheeks burn at the thought of this morning, “it presents several ethical problems — including the role the professor plays in the student’s education and future, their ability to provide praise or reprimand, and even grant recommendations gives them great power over their student. It leaves the student without much freedom in the relationship.”

Oh, what the fuck. 

The rest of the conference is spent in relative silence with a thick film of awkwardness perfectly overlayed. When you both finally return to the hotel room, your only consolation is that you’ll be leaving tomorrow. You toss your things onto the couch, “I’m going to wash up,” you tell him, and he only nods in reply, as you enter the bathroom and shut the door, back pressed against it and sliding down. 

Oh this is such a mess. You sigh, maybe a shower will help. 

It didn’t. You were still just as much of a mess as you were before. You sighed, as you stood in front of the sink, wiping your hair with a towel. This could be so simple if you both could be together — so easy. There would be no tension, no hurt feelings, no awkwardness — you could just be. But that’s not an option. So the only other option is to let him go. 

But you didn’t know how to begin to. 

Either way, hiding in the bathroom wouldn’t solve a thing — and you finally opened the door, “I’m done if you want to wash up,” he nods, sitting on the couch, reading a book. His glasses rested on the tip of his nose, lips pursed, and legs crossed. 

You walk over, grabbing your things from the couch and put some of your things away in your suitcase. But after all of that is done, you realize one thing is missing — your cellphone. 

“Shit,” you murmur under your breath, searching through your suit coat pockets, your pants pocket, anywhere that your phone might be. 

“What’s wrong?” Geto says, book in his lap, as he tilts his head. 

“Can’t find my phone,” you mumble, cheeks burning — god, it was already awkward enough, and now this? 

“Is it on ring?” You nod — your phone was usually on ring, sometimes to your detriment — you cringe at the memory in the lecture this morning, “I’ll call it,” 

He calls you — and you glance at his phone screen, your contact is just your name, no picture, nothing. You bite your lip, what were you expecting? A heart next to your name? And the sound of your phone ringing catches both of your attention. 

“It’s over here, somewhere,” he says, lifting up some of cushions of the couch, and reaching underneath into the creases, as you walk over — “I found—“ 

And you were so concerned about your contact information in his phone that you forgot about his contact information in your phone. 

The screen flashed with the image of him sleeping all lopsided on the couch from that first night, as you covered your mouth in both horror, but also to stifle your laugh. 

His eyes flicker to you, “When did you—“ and you reach for your phone, but he moves it away, “not until you answer my questions,” 

“This isn’t class, Professor, I want my phone—“ you reach for it again, and he’s holding it above your head, “oh real mature—“ 

“Like the picture you have of me as my contact picture?” He raises an eyebrow, a real smile pulling at the corners of his lips, “thought I should resort to my student’s level,”  

“Your T.A.,” you correct, as you reach for your phone again, but he’s using his height to his advantage, and he’s beginning to walk backwards, “come on, give it back—“ 

“Not until I change and delete that photo,” and he’s trying to hold your phone up to your face to unlock it, and you gasp. 

“Oh my god, give it back!” And you grab his hand, and he’s grabbing at the other, giggles leaving your lips, as he laughs too, as the two of you struggle for the phone, your fingers closing over it, and over his own fingers as well. 

And you realize how close you are to him. 

The two of you freeze a moment, laughter on your lips fading away to soft smiles, and his fingers squeeze yours lightly, as he passes you your phone back. But he doesn’t move away — and you don’t either. 

“Why did you let go?” and it seems like it’s a force out of your control that draws you together, no matter how much either of you try to let go. 

“Because I can’t help giving you what you want,” he murmurs, and the heat of his gaze melts your heart, as you drop your phone onto the couch, and reach for his hand again. 

And you lean closer, your other hand gently brushing against his cheek, tracing the line of his jaw, “So if I ask for a kiss, will you give it to me?” You won’t close the gap anymore than you have — he needs to reach for you too, let himself give into gravity. 

He does, as his hand brushes against your cheek, thumb rubbing back and forth across your cheekbone, “will we stop at just a kiss?” He murmurs, leaning so close that your eyes want to flutter shut. 

“Only one way to find out,” and his lips brush yours. And it’s not chaste like your first kiss was, no, his lips slide against yours, as his other hand slides to the back of your neck. He swallows your gasp eagerly, if the smirk you feel against your lips is anything to go off of. Your teeth graze against this bottom lip teasingly, drawing a small groan from the back of his throat. 

Neither of you couldn’t stop at one kiss, and you both knew that, even as your lips parted for a small breath of air, they found each other again — just as you both always did. Because you could never let him go — no matter how hard you tried. 

RING. RING. RING. 

And this time it isn’t an alarm. But rather his phone, flashing with a name that brings you crashing back to reality. 

The department head. 

“Fuck,” he murmurs under his breath, as he parts from you, his warmth leaving all at once, as he grabs his phone, and turns away, “Hello? Yes, the conference is over. Everything went well. No, no, nothing out of the ordinary.” 

You stared at his back, this would always be the case wouldn’t it? Even as you crashed together, something would pull you apart, and neither of you could break the cycle. You take your phone from the couch, and crawl into bed, but you could start. 

You close your eyes, your fingers brushing against your lips for a moment. You needed to start — otherwise, you would just end up broken. 

And you don’t hear him hang up — or see him stare at your figure under the covers — and he would break along with you. 

Suguru didn’t know what to say the next morning — especially when it seemed couldn’t even bear to look at him, much less speak to him. You had busied yourself with packing, even before he had awoken. His back ached from the night he spent on the couch, he couldn’t fall asleep for far too long, and by the time he did, he kept sleeping — through his many alarms it seemed. 

And it wasn’t the couch that kept him awake. 

You both had the most lovely timing, didn’t you? He thought, as he combed his hair in the bathroom, the memory of your fingers running through his hair as you gently undid the knots in his locks still ever present — it seemed like any time you two wanted to act on your feelings, the universe was doing what it could to keep you apart. 

Was this fate versus free will? 

You both kept choosing each other — but fate kept pulling you apart. Did he have any control over his actions or did he have no control over his actions at all? Was it all predetermined by some force he couldn’t perceive? Some force intent on pulling you apart. 

He sighed, as his phone lights up with an email from the department head — department head position opened up in Jujutsu University: Kyoto — 

And so maybe he should let it. 

The next few weeks pass by far too quick. As your semester picks up, you stop attending Professor Geto’s classes, opting to send an email to let him know, and he replies back with a simple response — Ok. Please let me know when and if you are available to input the grades for the midterm paper. 

The rest of your T.A. work is done online and over email — and you do your best to keep busy, keep yourself occupied, and keep your thoughts from straying to him.

And you maybe succeed 10% of the time. It doesn’t help that your unconscious does not wish to cooperate since it seems that once you stopped seeing your professor during waking hours, he’s infiltrated your sleep — sneaking in and out by the time your eyes open. 

And then you’re left with the fragments of his touch, his voice, his kisses, and soft, loving words. 

Just as you always were it seemed. 

And before you know it, the end of the semester comes, and you find yourself in front of that same office door yet again. It felt like an eternal reoccurrence — stuck to repeat the same events again and again in an infinite loop. Was there any exit from this loop? 

You didn’t know — you knocked on his office door — but you could try. 

“Come in,” you do, entering his office to find him sitting at his desk, hair half up for once. And his eyes flicker up to meet yours, his head tilting at your stare, “see something interesting?” 

“Your hair—“ and your cheeks burn — so much for trying — “it’s different,” 

“Thought I’d try something different — my hair is growing out,” and you have to repress the want to curl a lock or his hair around your finger, “do you not like it?” 

You shake your head, “It looks nice, just different,”

And he hands you the papers he’s graded, “you can input those, I’m just finishing up a couple more, so if you wouldn’t mind waiting a bit?” 

“Not at all,” a silence falls over between the two of you, the quiet scratch of his pen as he grades, the occasional ding of his e-mail breaking up the silence. You sneak a glance at him — ebony tresses brushing against his broad shoulders, his brow furrowed that you wished to run your fingers along to smooth his worries from his mind, pretty lips parted as he reads a sentence silently to himself. 

Fuck — no, no, you can’t do this. 

You busy yourself thumbing your way through the papers, spotting the familiar red scrawls littering these pages, as they once did yours. You were so pissed when you got your first paper back — indignant even — a whole Karen ready to speak to his supervisor. But when his honest criticism and blunt words rang true, you found yourself not only wanting to prove him wrong, but a want to be better. To earn his respect. And of course, later, you wanted to earn a little more than that. 

You bite back a chuckle, and here you still were — by his side. Except next semester you wouldn’t be his T.A. 

But you would still be a student. And he would still be a professor. 

But one other thing that hasn’t changed is how brutal the feedback is — you couldn’t help but feel bad for “Itadori Yuuji” — whoever that was. 

“What are you smiling about?” Your eyes snap up to meet his, his head leaning against his palm, elbow resting on the desk. 

“Nothing,” you shake your head, but he looks unconvinced, “just thinking about our first time in this office,” and then your cheeks burn at the double meaning, “I mean our first office hours appointment—“ 

He waves you off, “I know what you meant,” a small chuckle in his cadence, as he continues to grade, “you certainly weren’t happy with me,” 

“No I wasn’t,” a small smile on your lips, “but it worked out in the end,” you add, “you got an amazing T.A. after all,” 

His eyes meet yours, “More than just that,” 

Why can’t you help but get pulled in time and time again? And why can’t you help but ask questions that will only hurt you in the end? 

He continues to grade when you finally speak, “What do you think would have happened if I didn’t end up being your T.A.?” 

And his pen stops, lips pursed, “We shouldn’t—“ 

“Why shouldn’t we?” you felt like a child demanding an answer from their parent. 

“We agreed—”

“I don’t remember an agreement-” 

“It was unspoken—” 

You scoff, crossing your arms, “You really are only a professor because an attorney would know that binding agreements can’t be unspoken,” he falls silent, his voice soft. 

“I don’t want to keep hurting you,” his words are wrought with conflict, pain seeping into every syllable, “I don’t want to keep going down this road only to for you to get hurt in the end — I don’t want to jeopardize your future for something that might not last—” 

“But what if it does?” and he swallows thickly, “what if we can make it work? We’re both adults, we can be discreet—” 

“So discreet that we end up making out in my office?” he takes off his glasses only to run a hand down his face, a slight pink tinge on his cheeks, and you huff out a chuckle. 

“A little more discreet than that, we’ll lock the door next time,” it’s his turn to scoff, and you rise from your seat, lips curled, “close the lights, or maybe even kiss in a place that’s not on campus,” but he does the same, meeting you on the side of his desk, his fingers brushing your cheek so gently as if you’d shatter under his touch. 

“I don’t want to stand in the way of your career,” he says, his fingers finding your hand regardless, fingers interlacing, “I don’t want you to—” 

“It’s my choice, Suguru,” you murmur, as you lean against his warm palm, your fingers sliding against his palm and into his inky tresses, “don’t you owe me a choice, and a drink?” you add, and his lips curl in a knowing smile. 

“I do, if you’ll still have me,” and he’s leaning close, sucking the air from the room, and the logic from your minds, as his lips barely graze yours, “shouldn’t we lock the door?” 

“Fuck it,” and you pull him into a deep kiss that pulls a groan from his lips that makes your cunt ache, as he’s already pushing you into the lip of his desk, his hand sliding down to your waist. 

“Now who’s being unethical?” he murmurs, pressing eager kisses along your jaw, that makes you melt against him, your legs nearly jelly at this point, “what kind of example are you setting as a T.A.?” 

You bite back your moan as his lips find the soft spot of your neck, teeth grazing it far too fucking teasingly, “Well students learn by example,” and his hands are slipping under thighs to lift you so you’re sitting on his desk — you spread your legs for him in the dress that you’re in, pantyhose underneath, his heavy lidded gaze raking over your body, “and look at my professor staring at his T.A. so lustfully, even with a clear power dynamic—” 

And his fingers find your thighs again, squeezing, before his fingers dig into the sheer hose, tearing holes in it, drawing a gasp from your lips, “How’s that for a power dynamic, princess?” far too pleased, “don’t worry, I’ll buy you new ones,” he murmurs, “now just be a good girl and spread your legs for me,” he says, as he pulls away the ruined pantyhose, and he’s undoing the buttons on his shirt with one hand — one, two, three — before your fingers take over, leaning to press kisses at each inch of exposed skin, until the shirt falls open. 

Then his lips find yours again, his silver tongue asking for you to part your lips and you do — as he extracts every want you have with his burning touch — his lips against yours, his large hands parting your thighs, his knee pressed against your twitching cunt — and only leaves your want for him behind, until it becomes a need. 

“Wonder what our students would think of you,” his fingers tease your inner thighs, drawing a whine from your lips, “wanting your professor to fuck you in his office instead of inputting their grades,” he whispers in your ear, as his fingers finally skim the wet patch of your underwear, “so wet f’me, already? Look I think you even soaked my slacks,” he tsks, as his thumb and forefinger find your chin and tilt it up, “what are you going to do about that?” 

“Suguru—please,” and he smiles as his finger starts to tease your puffy clit through your drenched panties, “don’t tease—” 

“How can I not when you’ve nothing but tease me with your existence?” he pulls the crotch of your underwear aside, “I’ll oblige my favorite student this time—but I won’t be so nice next time,” he adds, biting your bottom lip. 

RING. RING. RING. 

It was his fucking office phone. You groan, but his finger continues to sink into you, “Suguru—” 

“Let it ring,” his lips find yours in a bruising kiss as his finger deliciously sinks into you, “I have all I need right here,” he whispers, and you pull him back into a kiss by the collar of his unbuttoned shirt, your hand sliding up and down his chest, while he worked a finger into your cunt, “so fucking wet f’me, so perfect,” 

And your hand flies back to support yourself as a second finger begins to sink into you — but your hand grazes his office phone, and the messages begin to play back.

“Fuck, sorry,” you mumble, as you reach blindly for the phone, only to knock it back, as he chuckles and reaches behind you, trying but failing to help — your noses brushing, and he smiles before kissing you again. 

Mr. Geto, sorry we missed each other, I was calling, hoping that you would still be in office for the day, but I must have just missed you. I wanted to call to offer you the job as department head at Jujutsu Tech University: Kyoto—

You freeze, your lips parting from his as you look up at him, his eyes wide as he stops the message from playing back any further — and the words settle over the mood like a sheet pulled over a dead body. 

And you’re the first to speak, always asking the questions that will hurt you in the end, “You’re moving to Kyoto?” 

✧ a/n: so i'm sorry for that ending hahah, i promise there will be a happy ending later on for these two. thank you to @gaylatteart and @laneysmusings for betaing and just being the best. also if i tagged you please comment / reblog because tagging on tumblr sucks, it takes very long.

✧ taglist: @hatsunemitskislobotomy, @difficultdomains, @diogodxlot, @that-goth-bisexual, @bash1018, @dazailover1900, @aliyalala, @ashhlsstuff, @blue041803, @mwtsxri, @bblgumfairy, @sukunasleftkneecap, @xo-evangeline, @fiannee, @teatreeoilll, @chalametet, @ryukaver, @d1gitalbathh, @saga3ious, @seventhcinema, @satosugucide, @your-l0nely-star, @sokkasmoon, @deegausserr, @hyookka, @oggsyy, @littlebitb, @higuchislut, @ti-mame, @itoshisins, @cerene-dipity, @onionsoop, @sinlillith, @izzythenaive, @akvrae, @lalacute03, @rxndou, @c-themoon, @xxrag-d0llxx, @hqtoge, @sugarxlumps, @hopeluna, @actualdeemon,

[rxzennia]

rare critters

– tales of the voracity pathstrider

✎𓂃 a healthy dose of curiosity (ft. dr ratio) yall if i have to write another report i think i might kms sorry im 3 days late lol i was busy making concept art 

when dr ratio somehow acquired a few rare critters from herta space station, he thought of one person:

aventurine.

if he’s so bad at looking after himself, maybe he could take care of something else instead. and these cat cakes are pretty tame and adorable… seems just right for him.

ratio sent a text to let aventurine know he’s coming to drop off some souvenirs

said souvenirs being these critters

ratio has one on top of his head and two in one arm as he rings the bell

it’s sometime in the afternoon, and you’re not around

(you’re attending a meeting on aventurine’s behalf so he can have a longer lunch break)

(you do that pretty often, actually. that’s why your boss can have entire afternoons or evenings to himself)

nothing would’ve prepared ratio for what he sees when aventurine opens the door

one, no, two? no, three?? faceless serpents slithering around his feet

and one really huge one around his neck???

their maws, aeons, their maws. as stunned as ratio is, he’s also scared shitless

they remind him of a certain aeon and he isn’t sure if he liked the implications

though, that aeon has long since disappeared…

the very moment the serpents sniffed something in the air, they’re all right up in ratio’s face

the trash cakes are definitely scared shitless

they’re quivering and whimpering

ratio is trying so hard to hide his unease

“since when did you have pets, gambler?”

“oh, they’re my assistant’s – don’t bite, please.”

and these dangerous, dangerous noodles listened???

they backed off obediently while still scenting the air again and again

at least they’re not one hair away from ratio anymore?

wait, more importantly…

“you’re living with your assistant?” ratio can’t help but ask. “and… they brought their pets over?”

technically, the slithery creatures around the house aren’t your pets, they’re literally parts of you, but does aventurine want to get into the details? not particularly.

“doctor, it’d be heartless of me to tell them to leave their pets,” aventurine chuckled, “it’s a long story. are these…?”

“i thought pets would do you some good. seems like your assistant has the same idea.” ratio passes the three cakes over to him. “here – from the space station.”

aventurine tells the especially thick leviathan on his neck to get off so he could hold the trash cakes

more like patting its body a few times until it got the signal and slid off of him

the cakes like him!

once he’s passed the sniff test, the cakes are all over him

they do remind him of someone, with those yellow eyes and grey… trash can(?) like body…

he holds them carefully, because unlike your creatures, he needs to hold onto these little guys

else they’d fall

invites ratio in while he’s at it, and he sits down to properly examine them

ratio watches aventurine for a moment, until your serpents catch his attention

oh, he’s so unnerved by them, but also…

he’s so curious! his scholarly senses are telling him to seize the opportunity!

are they really the same creatures as the ones depicted in the scriptures for oroboros?

how did aventurine get his hands on them? or rather, how did you get your hands on them?

and why are they so, so… docile, if they are really what he thinks they are?

what have you done!? how did you get them to be your pets?

his academic interest in you might have just skyrocketed

he engages in a staring contest with a creature with no eyes

somehow, somehow he just knows it’s a staring contest

he’s debating between approaching or not

they look like they would snap his neck before he could even react

“don’t try it, doctor,” aventurine warns, reading ratio’s actions from a mile away, “they’ll probably bite.”

“huh…” ratio makes a sound of pure wonder as he stands still, staring at the few noodles slithering over each other and scenting the air around him. “how did you tame them, then?”

“i didn’t.” aventurine shrugs as he plays with the new critters in his arms. “just sit tight, my assistant should be back soon.”

does that mean you’re the one deciding who gets to touch your serpents and who doesn't???

meanwhile aventurine has taken to the cakes from the space station

they’re so delicate and adorable, with their huge eyes and how stretchy they are

such a contrast to your huge serpents

your serpents are curious about them too, it seems

they keep trying to slither up aventurine’s legs

he has to keep pushing them down, all the while their maws opened and closed

trying to get a feel for the taste of these critters

not trying to outright eat them, just trying to get a taste

ratio is itching to just… grab one of your noodles

he can’t

how devastating

just then, the door opens with a click

“i’m home, aven.” you enter and practically throws your shoes off. 

the sudden need to retain some semblance of formality in your home feels foreign to you now, but you’ve sensed someone else’s presence. it can’t be helped, even if the name aven feels odd on your tongue.

weird, aventurine usually runs out the moment he hears you

when you made your way to the living room, you see him and… some random guy?

said random guy looks like he’s into greek mythology?

is he like zeus or something

no, more like male athena or something

“oh, welcome back!” aventurine perks up as he lifts one of the cakes and shows it to you like a proud parent. “look at these little guys!”

your eyes never quite look away from the stranger, but you also dazedly take the critter into your arms. “this is…”

you immediately catch ratio’s eye – the way you carry yourself, the way the ends of your scarf seem to move on their own, and the way the few serpents find their way up your neck without so much as trying to touch the cake in your hands (even though they’ve been trying to taste it when it was in aventurine’s arms).

“veritas ratio.” he stands up before aventurine could introduce him and offers you a handshake. “you might know me as dr ratio of the intelligentsia guild.”

you stare at him without much of a reaction

his hand stays outstretched as he watches you expectantly

after a few seconds, you give his hand a firm shake and introduce yourself

you do know him, actually, you’ve read a few of his works

you quite liked his takes on philosophy and natural theology

he’s very insightful for a mortal

“can i help you?” you ask, because you don’t think ratio would bother talking to you if he hadn't been curious about something.

“your pets are most fascinating,” he gets straight to the point, “may i examine them?”

???

your pets?

the serpents? 

you look to aventurine, who just turns away like he didn’t tell ratio those are your pets

you pinch the bridge of your nose and exhales exasperatedly

then again, perhaps calling them your pets is the best course of action right now

because the other option is spilling the beans about yourself

yeah

so… nice save, aventurine

you set down the critter in your arms on a nearby table and turn to face the doctor

“here.” you pick up one of your leviathans and guide it over to ratio. “they might do… things around you, but they won’t hurt you.”

ratio tries not to flinch when the heavy leviathan slither up his arm and coil around his neck loosely, but he winces and backs away slightly anyway. “how are you so certain?” he watches the creature with so much wonder as it scents him, then lifts its head so he can stare at it properly. or the other way around; so it can stare at him properly. who knows.

a healthy dose of cynicism is always good

it’s not like you don’t understand where he’s coming from

you shrug, because you really have no better answer without outing yourself

“i have them trained.” you say, but at this point you’re just pulling shit out of your ass

aventurine immediately covers his mouth to hide a snort

you shoot him a quick glare

you run a hand along its smooth body to show ratio that yes, he can touch them

its maw opens a little wider and drools a little onto the carpet

ratio carefully puts his hand on top of its head

it turns its head on contact and nudges against his hand

trying to scent the thing touching it (aka ratio’s hand)

but it doesn’t do anything other than what appears to be purely harmless scenting

could this possibly be the subject of his next paper?

“don’t think about it, doctor.” you cut him off the moment you see the telltale glint of academic interest in his eyes. 

“i must disagree; they are of leviathan descent, are they not?” ratio asks, now caressing the big noodle with both hands and handling it with less hesitation than before, “this is of utmost significance; they might shed some light on the mystery of oroboros the voracity.”

you narrow your eyes at ratio

he doesn’t even try to prod around the subject, he just hits you in the face with it

as expected of such an erudite scholar, but still

(aventurine is watching the interaction with much interest while he plays with the cats)

(it’s like he’s enjoying the show)

(the remaining free serpents of yours has coiled up by his feet and fallen asleep)

(since they’ve realized aventurine doesn’t want them near the cakes)

you don’t want to bring too much attention to yourself, or your serpents

you don’t want things about oroboros to spread, either

in fact, you’re quite thankful to the enigmata and the ipc for heavily censoring them 

“with all due respect, i refuse.” you do not allow any room for disagreement. “you are prepared to uncover the truth. is the rest of the cosmos ready?”

that’s not all of your argument, but the one you determine would be enough to keep ratio from conducting and publishing research about leviathans for now. oh, right – you’re not against ratio’s curiosity. you simply don’t want that curiosity to spread far and wide.

ratio frowns, not expecting such a swift rejection from you, but you do have a point. he’s a little blinded by his excitement.

your rejection sounds a little personal, if aventurine may say so himself

to ratio, it is very much just you being overprotective of your pets

as all pet owners do

to be fair, it’s hard to say. ratio is a sharp man

you stare at him, and he stares at you

the leviathan hanging on his neck tilts its head in confusion

if ratio is anything, he’s persistent

especially when it comes to knowledge

he opens his mouth to try to convince you again

you beat him to it and raise a hand to stop him from talking. “you can examine them for as long as you do not make publications.”

ratio is taken aback, his brows furrowing as you give him permission for further interaction with these descendants of ancient leviathans. this is your first meeting, so why –

in fact, aventurine is wondering the same thing

like, why are you getting along with the doctor so well when you’ve only met today

he’s not jealous or anything, he just has a huge question mark on your reactions

you’re usually very, very guarded against people who ask questions

especially about your scarf

but then ratio did see your serpents slithering around

perhaps you see no way of weaselling your way out of this?

anyway

if we’re being honest, ratio also has a huge question mark on your reactions

“i am a fan of your philosophical works,” you say, guiding your serpent back around you, “hence i am willing to satisfy your curiosity… provided you agree to my terms. think of it as an invitation.”

ratio takes a moment to mull over your words. to think that someone under the ipc has read multiple of his works, and has enjoyed them… is that why you are willing to compromise? but, well… you give him a feeling of a learned person. perhaps he will enjoy debating you.

“very well, that is good enough.” he nods, even if he still feels just a little bit disappointed, he’s anticipating a good back-and-forth with you already. “in that case…”

“i will let you know when i am free.” you sit down next to aventurine and let the critters on his lap crawl over to you and knead your thigh with their little paws. “and, doctor?”

it’s apparent to you that ratio has the same thought as you did when you decided to let your serpents drop their disguises at home. you glance towards aventurine next to you, then back at the doctor.

“thanks for the critters.”

[bluegiragi]

Hi friend!! I've been following you on a couple platforms when it comes to your amazing art!! I know you've talked about ghostprice, but I saw the Price's hand on the back of Kyle's neck and was wondering if you could talk about the relationship between price and gaz? I loved the ghost price one, but I totally understand if you don't have the same write up for these two lol

!!! thank you so much for this ask, because i love thinking about this dynamic in my free time.

lots of reading under the cut!

so, because I like to cherry-pick influences from canon, in the monster au, Gaz and Price met before Gaz got drafted into the 141. Gaz was the harpy escort to a standard military op that got off-track when doing recon, and ended up wrapped up in a territorial dispute with two griffin hybrids. The whole team got stuck sandwiched between the two with neither side willing to let them move, and when Gaz tried to fly above to do some surveillance he got beaten out of the sky by both of them (they don't take kindly to interlopers interfering with griffin disputes). They had to request emergency assistance from the closest party which, by chance, happened to be Price's team.

This all happened after Price lost his wing, and on this mission he collaborated with Gaz to help get (most of) his team out safely without having to rely on his skill of flight. They both made strong impressions on each other then, with Gaz forming the first seeds of a long-term loyalty to Price. When his contract with his current station ended, he was all too happy to get poached for the 141.

Coming from a more interpersonal perspective - Gaz is a harpy, which means he's fiercely independent and bases a lot of his identity on not being reliant on anyone. Price is a dragon, which comes with a lot of pesky hoard instincts that instruct him to 'provide' for his hoard. It means that Gaz dislikes being taken care of and a strong instinctual part of Price is unhappy about that. When they're more intimate, Gaz insists on giving as much as he is getting (if not more) and is always seeking ways to contribute and prove his value to the group. Even though he might be chill by harpy standards, Gaz is still very proud and he gets flustered when forced to accept things without 'earning' it.

(also he might have a little bit of hero worship for price lingering in the recesses of his mind)

Price only having one wing and being essentially grounded also adds an extra layer to their relationship. Harpies put a lot of stock in their flying prowess, so the loss of a wing is truly a world-ending event in their culture and he's extremely uncomfortable broaching the subject with Price even though he'd be happy to talk about it if pushed. He also feels that it is his role to be Price's 'wings' now, which is a sentiment that he hasn't shared to anyone but puts a lot of pressure on himself to live up to. He doesn't think this way out of any sort of pity for Price - his captain has proved time and time again to be the kind of monster worth following - instead, this mentality is him militantly breaking himself down to how useful/valuable he can be to others.

tldr; gaz is bad at accepting care, price wants to take care of him so bad and is slowly figuring out loopholes

[mossy-chaos]

These are all of the codes I could find in the Book of Bill!

The order is decoded message-page-type of cipher

Spoilers under the cut (for those of you who decode yourselves):

Black and white-back of the cover jacket-authors cipher

Even his lies are lies-inside the front cover-theraprism cipher

Praise the fallen angle-first actual page-Cipheric (this is the only time Cipheric is used for some reason)

Olaf was here-same-rune (not sure what this is a reference to)

Remember us-same-Bill's cipher

Let him in and break the seal between what's fiction and what's real-books new master-Bill's cipher

The Axolotl thinks he's won but Ciphers games have just begun-handprint page-color cipher

Irregular-fake covers(very top)-color cipher

The one who writes the codes-about me-Caeser cipher

Glotto/slotheny-Magazine cover(7 new sins)-Bill's cipher (I love the new sins lol)

Not a phase-Stanford pines here(on the goth moth)-Authors cipher-love the jack skellington reference (if thats what that is lol)

Warning/Folding this card may/result in crossovers-the universe is a hollogram-rune (Maybe that's how we finally get an owl house/gravity falls crossover)

My optometrist never saw it coming-What is a human-Theraprism

Paper is book skin/Shave your grandma-Skin-Bill's cipher

Love pain-Bill's tattoo knuckles-Same

Lies-How to trick everyone into loving you-same

Regrowing limbs is Axy's art/but can he regrow a ripped out heart-How to cheat death-Bill's cipher (he must really be mad at the Axolotl)

Eye doctor of a different kind/who wants to make his patient blind-silly straws-caesar

The doctor says/three sips a day/will make the visions/go away-Same

Fussy eater/baby Billy/wouldn't drink/unless it's silly-same (love how this implies that he only drank out of silly straws)

Mason-Embarrassing memories-Bill's cipher (love seeing Dipper's real name again)

Booberry-the meaning of life(popsicle stick)-Bill's cipher

One eyed king-the early years-theraprism

Suck it-The good times(liscense plate)-Caesar

Can warp narrativity/protect fourth walls-Alert from time baby-A1Z26

Lone survivor of the Euclidean massacre-Rune (I wonder what happened during that event and what that event actually is)

Tantrum-Bill's Cipher

Which henchmaniac ratted me out-The shaman-Theraprism (I find this one funny)

Titans blood-the dark ages(Wizards hat)-Rune (Love the owl house reference here)

Suck it Merlin-Never trust a wizard-Rune

Daryll-Cipherstitions(lobster lord of the deep)-Theraprism (love how that's his name)

Curse Wittebane-Witchcraft-Rune

It's all made up-America(the dollar)-Caesar

Countries aren't-Bill's cipher

Rubberhose-Animation-A1Z26

Bill cipher-top secret file-Same

Six fingered freak-Lost in the woods-authors cipher

Stanley would have made her laugh-same (he just rolled better charisma dude)

If lost return to Bill-my muse and me-Theraprism (love how he said this means wise one and also more billford hehe)

Forget the past-A voice from the past page 2-Bill's cipher (this implies that Bill wants Ford to forget Stanley so he won't get in the way)

Hopefully F's gloves will hide what Cipher has done to my hands-I was wrong about everything page 2-Author's Cipher (I love this one <3)

Ouroboros-Wakey wakey here's a snakey (on the snake)-Bill's Cipher (I guess this is the snakes name?)

Miss you-try to forget (on window)-bro's secret code

Have I been too harsh all along?-Should I contact S-Bro's secret code

Hotxolotl-Dimensional authority call transcript (on the sauce packet)-Bill's cipher

I can write codes too it's not that hard!-Dipper's page-Bill's cipher (he do be flexing his intelligence there)

(What a buncha) Love ya bro-Stanley's letter-Bro's secret code (love how this shows that they both still remember the code they made up as kids)

Just fit in (repeated)-SSSSTANNNNLEEEYY-Rune

Holy mackerel-color cipher

AXOLOTLLOTAXOLOTLLOTLAXLOTLAXLOTLAXOLOTLLOTLAXLOTLAXLOTLAXOLOTLLOTLAXLOTLAXLO-Theraprism

Wellwellwellbeing-message from the theraprism-A1Z26

Spheremonger, Eternalor, Bill cipher, The Logicube, Paingorious, Jessica, Shadorg, Mr Silly, The beast-recent inpatient names-Theraprism (the hallucination dog is still creepy lol)

Justice for Scrimbles/Remember Grembley-inside Back cover-Theraprism/Rune (JUSTICE FOR SCRIMBLES!!!!)

Those are all of the codes that are in this book! (Or at least that I could find lol)

[maxwell-mtv]

Maxwell_MTV's Store Swap AU for SDV!

[I've been working a lot as always, so it's been hard to write. But... I guess the stars are aligning because one of my fave artists and mutuals ( @vilochkaaa ) posted their own Store Swap AU art today (WHICH IS SUPER COOL YOU SHOULD CHECK IT IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT ALREADY!!!) and I was also planning on posting my own Store Swap AU stuff today that I've been working on...

I hope everyone enjoys! I've put my extra braincells into spicing this up. Written stuff is below the cut... I was allowed to cook and I made the best meal I could for all you wonderful folks out there lol]

Morris: You ever feel like you're doing better in another life?

The general idea:

In this universe, Pierre finds success after a long career as a professional boxer and manages to somehow use his fame to open a chain of convenience stores after he retires. This, of course, competes directly with Joja and while it’s not enough to drive them completely out of business, it manages to split business fairly evenly between the two.

While Pierre reaps the daily grind of those beneath him as the CEO of what is simplified to being called “Pierre’s”, someone else finds himself settling into a small town to try and live out his own dreams of running a store.

Morris:

While Pierre is living the dream, Morris has been put through the wringer. 

With the success of “Pierre’s”, many JojaMarts were forced to shut down as a result.

Morris was on a fast track to his first promotion to be a manager when his store had to shut down no thanks to “Pierre’s” success in that part of the city.

With the store shutting down, many were laid off (only current management got to relocate to other stores) so Morris became ✨unemployed✨.

While Morris began with quite the rising confidence as he gained notoriety in his store, him being laid off brought all that to a crashing halt.

So, with a new sense of humility given his circumstances, he gathers what he can and searches for a new path in life.

He finds himself in a small town by the seaside, a village, really, with how small the populace was. 

But during his time soaking in the calming charm of Pelican Town, he notices an issue with the locals.

All of them needed to take a day’s trip to the city to purchase their groceries for the week. A huge inconvenience for those who needed small, simple necessities like bread or toilet paper. And when it came to purchasing from the locals, many farmers were out of seasonal stock by the time the locals needed them.

So Morris takes the initiative and opens up what he calls “Morris’s Market” in the semi-vacant building next to the clinic.

Semi-vacant, only because of the public access to Yoba’s altar.

Morris runs a successful business, feeling himself renewed as he gains a positive reputation amongst the locals. 

But still there’s this feeling deep inside of him as though something had gone astray in his story. Like something in his fate had been tampered with to have stolen his dreams from him.

But thanks to time, he finds himself proud and content with his small success as a small businessman.

That is, until someone decides to break ground in his small town, which leads him to a dizzying disparaging of his confidence once again.

Morris, in a desperate plea to keep what he has, often finds himself praying in front of the altar beneath his home. Although he’s never been religious, he doesn’t think he can take another blow to his ego. At the end of the day, when numbers are crunched and sales are charted, he doesn’t see himself doing anything but this.

It is evident that in this universe, unlike canon, Morris is more humble and anxious. Where his insecurities were buried deep beneath the corporate mask JojaMart had given him in canon, he has nothing but his more organic self to offer to a fairly organic town. Polite, tired all the time, and just doing his best…  

Pierre:

After his famous career as a boxer comes to an honorable end, he retires and uses his fortune to start a business. With the charms of what is reminiscent of a small business, Pierre’s General Store (later simplified to “Pierre’s” for better mass marketing) goes toe-to-toe with Joja’s long time success as the better box store.

Competing with a conglomerate like Joja isn’t easy, but “Pierre’s” values that are taken straight from the founder himself aid in toppling them to a mere equal competitor.

"A family business from humble beginnings with the drive to give back to the farmers who give them their produce to sell."

It feels like a more country version of a Trader Joe’s. And (not to intentionally out my current geography) competes against Joja like Meijers does with a Kroger. 

On vaster scale, it’s like Walmart/Sam's Club against Costco…

Hard to explain but that’s the general vibes of “Pierre’s.”

After a little vacation to Pelican Town with his wife and daughter, he decides to take on a capital expenditure which challenges the very competence of his title as a CEO.

Seeing that the only store these people in the middle of the Valley were confined to were either his stores in the city or a “pathetic excuse of a general store” (his words, not mine), he has a little talk with the Mayor.

Breaking ground in Pelican Town was easy, a convenient plot of land was just over the bridge from where "Morris’s Market" was and so customers would be a breeze to snatch up.

Despite what his advisors warned him against, Pierre ignores all odds and sets his eyes on the prize. Not even JojaMart could do what he was about to do, and that would catapult him from just an equal competitor to the top dog. 

It was easy enough to draw a crowd, but there was a growing issue with his store just barely breaking even each week. It seemed that though the town flocked to him for most things, the majority tended to stick with “Morris’s Market” in the name of loyalty. I mean, it wasn’t like his prices were much better than Morris’s store anyways since he aimed for both profit and quality. 

As he contemplated it each morning as he hit the gym, the problem became all too clear to him. It wasn’t his prices or the quality of products, rather it was the sense of community amongst the town.

I mean, just look how they all gathered every month (sometimes more!) in that old, barely functional Community Center to hold meetings, plan festivities, hold celebrations, and just socialize and bond!

If only there was someway he could break that and shatter that sense of loyalty they had in the name of supporting their fellow townie.

It would be a shame, really… if someone were to report that sad, beaten building to the proper authorities for an inspection. Without the Mayor knowing of it, he might be able to convince them that the building wasn't just “well loved” as the Mayor put it and was hardly still up to code, if at all.

If only he could prove it wasn’t up to code…

Damn his advisors, damn his wife, and damn everyone in this "hick town". He will succeed at all costs… even if he loses his charms along the way. 

Pierre uses his charms as an admittedly still good looking man. If you ignore the small crook in his nose from it being broken too many times before, you’d see why his wife still stayed with him despite her seeming too sweet and meek for his own good. 

It would be easy, if he laid it on thick, to sway the town amongst a tragedy to lean on him in some regard. Just a little wink, an offer of setting up events every month outside his store. Hey, maybe if he could drive Morris’s store out of business he could buy that storefront from him and use it as the new gathering place. It seemed fitting seeing as half the town gathered there every Sunday for Yoba’s altar anyways.

It’s too bad his daughter puts a dent in his plans though… She never did outgrow that rebellious phase…

Pierre works out often in this universe, having the time and freedom to make his own schedule as CEO. He treats his family well enough, although he’s never home long enough to let them see the monster he’s let himself become. But his daughter can see glimpses in the way he talks to her and her mother that he’s not the same father he had once been. It’s like something changed in him along the way to make him worse than he’d been before…

Having never lost a match in his career, only when it was planned for ticket sales, Pierre has an inflated ego which blinds him to his own faults. In his eyes, this is the life he’s always been destined for. To be on the top of the world and determined to never fall from grace.

His daughter, on the other hand, would say otherwise. She often has a similar epiphany as Morris. Where an existential feeling of dread consumes her and deep down, despite her fairly privileged life, she knows this was not what she was destined for.

(I'd like to think Pierre just doesn't bother with the "no-homo" stuff and constantly flirts with Morris in this AU just to rile him up and throw him off his game. Especially when they get into fights about ethics and business and blah blah typical enemies to still enemies but also lovers stuff.)

[aoioozora]

Is It Me?

Character: David 'Hesh' Walker Content: Bodyguard Hesh, Fem artist reader, fluff Note: I'm so writer's blocked from my Ghost fanfic that I needed to take a break lol. I loved writing this one. Enjoy :))

You were such a curious little creature to him. So quiet, so mysterious.

Hesh stood by the wall far behind you, watching as you lifted your paintbrush from the palette in a fluid motion to meticulously paint a single pearl among the other meticulously painted pearls on a string of necklace. He had been in the room since you started on the painting in the dim and gloomy morning several hours ago, and it was now night.

In his few months of being your bodyguard, he understood that you were a recluse, and he wasn't sure if it was a good or a bad thing. Your father, the polar opposite of you, was an actor, and you were completely repulsed by his fame. Any sort of attention from paparazzi or your father's fans drove you up the wall, leading you to spend your life in your apartment, your little haven. All your days were spent indoors, painting. If you weren't painting, you were reading or catching up with your Masters degree. You weren't much of a talker, even with friends, who you met only on occasion. And just to keep you safe, your father insisted on hiring a bodyguard for you, thus explaining Hesh's presence.

As for Hesh, you spoke to him only a little. In his career of being a bodyguard, he had never guarded a client so quiet. Too quiet. Being used to dealing with rambunctious, problematic celebrities, he was rather bored by your silence, but still intrigued by you.

If your mouth never spoke, your body did, and his keen observations of your body language to your environment told him everything he needed to know about what you liked and disliked. He saw every subtle smile and sneer of disgust, every crease of the brow, every narrowing of your eye, and every look of panic on your face at the sight of a crowd. He knew which people you disliked, tolerated, and liked, and it was a slight relief to him that he was among the tolerable.

"What are you painting there?" he asked, shifting on his other leg, trying to start a conversation.

There was no answer.

Just as he expected. You were so in the zone that the world was tuned out and you would hear or see nothing but the painting. It was a silly question to ask, especially when, upon the canvas, he could see two lovers, a returning soldier leaning over the back of the couch to kiss his wife as she leans into him completely. It was a fusion of the American retro pin-up style with the baroque- or was it renaissance? He couldn't tell. He only knew that it was beautiful and heartfelt.

This was all he saw you paint: lovers. The walls of your atelier were filled with paintings, large and small, of all styles imaginable, of intimacies between lovers; of grazing of the hands, lips about to kiss, beds shared, passionate caresses, soulful gazes. Though he wasn't a connoisseur of the arts, he knew that art was the soul's window. And looking upon the walls, he wondered if he was peering into your soul.

Hesh inhaled deeply and the smell of paint filled his nose. If there was one other thing that was common about the paintings, it was the fact that the man in them had an uncanny resemblance to him. From the shape of his body down to the very exact shade of his lips, every single detail was faithfully replicated in paint. And this didn't escape his notice.

He always knew you to begin paintings by priming the canvas with white paint. But for this particular painting, your frustration seemed evident in the way you threw a bucket of thin red paint on the canvas, splattering it everywhere and allowing it to drip down to the floor and your bare feet. It was a pleasant surprise, as he had never seen you so aggressive before.

But you eventually calmed, and here you were before him, now turning your focus from the pearls on the woman's necklace to the camouflage pattern of the man's uniform. Hesh used to be in the military until he retired to become a civilian again, and he was starting to wonder if he really was the subject of all your paintings. But he didn't want to think too highly of himself.

Your focus ebbed as you sat up to straighten your hunched back and dropped your hand to your side to ease its soreness; he took that as an opportunity to speak, as you would be most likely to answer.

"You paint the same guy in all those paintings," he observed, "Someone you like?"

He knew you heard him, and could hear your pause in the silence. "Yeah," you answered in a voice that was soft and subdued, as if trying to hide the eagerness.

His chest clenched and fluttered wildly at this admission. From his position by the wall, he took a tentative step towards you that echoed in the silent, heavy atmosphere of the room. He wanted to ask the question, and you were expecting it, and it resulted in an anxious thrum, a throbbing in both your bodies, a string pulled taut. You knew he wasn't stupid to not eventually notice how he was the subject of your paintings. If you were mute, then the paintings on the walls weren't; they practically screamed your admiration of him, of how much you wanted his hands, his body, his lips, his heart.

His steps grew louder as they closed in on you. They stopped right behind your chair; he now towered over you, casting a gentle shadow over your body and the canvas. The silence was deafening. He leaned an arm against the chair, breathing out. You felt a wisp of his exhale tickle your neck. The pleasant scent of his body and cologne, a delightful blend of cedar and orange wafted to your nose. A shiver jolted your spine.

"Is it me?" he whispered, his voice low, deep, and laden with curiosity, desire, and emotion.

There was a pause the space of three heartbeats.

"Yes." Out came your voice in an unsteady, high-pitch. One answer, and it felt like you had been stripped naked.

The last time his legs felt this weak was during basic training. He leaned further against the chair to support himself, unintentionally putting himself deeper in your personal space that you loved more than anything. But you allowed him.

The air was now heavier than a pregnant raincloud. He breathed in to calm his rapidly beating heart. He glanced at the couple in the painting, and then back at you.

"What can I do for you?" He asked.

Turning your head slightly over your shoulder, you were met with his face right next to yours. Your eyes met his, and it felt as though a key had been turned, unlocking a door. Your lip trembled as you opened your mouth slightly, now blurting out in sheer desperation,

"Love me."

He felt like the same canvas that had been splashed with paint upon hearing those words. He felt his chest swell with joy. His breathing labored slightly and his mouth turned dry as he searched for the words to say.

"That I can do," he answered after a moment, slowly and cautiously moving his hand to your cheek, as if testing the waters.

You leaned into his touch, and that was all the confirmation he needed. Words were unnecessary, for when he saw your eye linger on his lips, he moved in for the kill.

His own lips welded with yours into a kiss that was earnest and soul-satisfying, a true reflection of the painting.

End.

[sugarpasteltmnt]

I've been compleatly OBSSESED with neon void so far!!! It's by far my favorite fic of any I've read!! After every chapter I have to take a second to do the happy stimmies because you write all of the scenes so well. Whenever I see a new update I clear the next hour for reading it and the subsequent geek out sesion for how AMAZING it always is. You write extremely well, you convey the characters so acurately, the fight scenes are creative, the way you write Leo's perspective is AMAZING, love the font changes, the angst PALPABLE, and just over all I love everything you're able to do with this concept. The way you can see Leo's mental state deteriorating through out the fic is just *chefs kiss*. There's so much I love about the fic that I can't possibly list everything.

Also the established difference between teleporting and portaling is so great, it adds to the pure panic that void causes for the boys aside from, y'know, crazy dude capable of beating Big Mama within an inch of her life and STRAIGHT UP OFFING a buch of other yokai. It does wonders for establishing him as a threat even though he technically isn't for the turtles. Plus I'm sure that once they find out who Void really is, it will add a bunch of tension since they'll need to stop Leo from literally SCATTERING HIS ATOMS ACROSS SPACE.

AND THE CHAPTER PREVIEW ISTG I've never gotten so much serotonin from being in this much pain ;0; The gif is perfect to set the mood, I can't wait to see what happens. You're ablility to choose just the right thing to stab so many people directly through the heart is nothing short of super-natural. BUT PLEASE give the boi some happiness, if not for his sake, for mine-

ANYWAYS this is all a VERY long way of saying, I absolutely love this and I had to draw the silly boi being the silly boi. I needed to draw him happy for the health of my heart ;-; (don't worry though, I'm working on some tasty angst right now)

Can't wait to see where everything goes, GOOD LUCK TO CASEY but there only six chapters left so we're getting to the end game now >:D

Please have a wonderful rest of your week :D

THANK U SO MUCH ;w; I’m so so happy that my fight scenes are followable/enjoyable, and tho they are a binch to code I’m so happy you enjoy the funky fonts and formatting ;w; i know reading blocks of text can be intimidating/tiring for readers, so i try to break it up to help with the pacing and sprinkle in some fun, spooky fonts as treats 🩵

Something i really, REALLY loved about Rise was the fights. Not only was the animation amazing, but it was always so creative. I try my best to make the fight scenes as silly as the boys can be, while utilizing their adaptive skills to use their surroundings to their advantage.

And bruh trying to balance Leo’s insanity in a believable way has been such a (fun) challenge so it makes me so happy to hear you like it 😭🥺 and I’m so glad people seem to like the ‘teleportation’ gimmick I’ve got going on (and that it hopefully makes sense omg)

(And i will admit I’m a little proud of my chapter previews because they are so fun to write, and i like to reassure readers that 1) i have a plan and 2) I’m keeping myself accountable to finish LOL)

Also aksdlaskdhaksdh thank u for this art this part especially is SENDING ME WHEEZE 🤣🩵❗️

[xxacademy]

Hello!

Love your work!

Can you do headcanon of Leon and the first * I love you * said with his So ? I always wondered how'd he'd say it. Or if he'd even say it first ? I'm torn lol

thank you so much anon,, it means a lot !!♥️ but truly i’m gushing over the thought of leon saying i love you for the first time. i decided to write more of a one-shot for this one because im obsessed. might make a legit head-cannon post alongside this though.

literally smiling and kicking my feet writing this agggh <3 hope you enjoy !!

she/her reader. pure fluff, only a little nsfw.

head over heals in love is the only way to describe the way you feel for his stunning blue eyes and gentle soul. leon, the man you’ve been seeing for a few months *formally* asked you to be his girlfriend. he was rather reserved at first, and opened up to you slowly. gradually letting you into the beautifully strung web of his heart. it wasn’t a question of if you loved him, but rather if you should even tell him how you felt. it was nerve racking- the man of your dreams fell into your lap and the last thing you wanted was to throw it all away to a premature confession of your love.

so, you gave it the time you felt it deserved.

all the while leon treated you like a princess. he would pick you up on his motorcycle and drive you around the city. your arms encircled tightly around his waist, getting lost in the dream-like glimmer of the nighttime skyline. he would serenade you with his thoughts, telling you the most unbelievable stories imaginable. often while snuggled up on a park bench overlooking the horizon.

leon was unbelievably romantic, he spared no expense to shower you with little compliments. “my gorgeous girl” he often said, his eyes always fixed on you.

he made love to you in a way you have never experienced before. it was overflowing with passion. he touched your body like a work of art; a work of art that solely belonged to him. between his whimpers he would let out little love swept praises. “my girl, my beautiful girl, all mine.”

but what made you fall even deeper for him were the heart-melting moments of domesticity you shared. he comes over to your house after work and you always greet him at the door with a kiss. one that usually turned into him pinning you against the wall, his hands resting low on your hips. only to break it off by saying you prepared him dinner. he will insist that you didn’t have to. but, you always assure him that it was no trouble at all. just another bespoke limb of your affection.

at the dinner table he will go on in great detail about his day. little moments like these made you feel like his wife, and my god, you wanted to be his wife.

and in every one of these moments those god forsaken word’s were begging to come out. plagued by your own insecurity, you were stuck in the limbo of two soul mate’s afraid to say to “L” word.

…

it’s about 11pm and you’re getting settled into bed. you’re wearing nothing but the t-shirt leon had “accidentally” left at your house. it smelled irresistible, his sent lingering strongly in the black cotton. you mindlessly scrolled your phone, constantly switching back to leon’s messages. impatiently waiting for the just got home, are you having good night, baby? text he normally sends you.

knock knock knock

abruptly you get up, running to the door. confused and racking your mind as to who could be knocking. you chalk it up to being a neighbor- because who the hell else would show up unannounced at nearly midnight.

you open the door; just a crack, careful not to expose your lack of dress.

“hey pretty girl.” of course it’s leon, wearing all black, dangling a helmet in his hand.

“leon! oh my god! what are you doing here? i’m sorry, i’m not really dressed” you fumble.

“is that my shirt?” he asks with a smirk.

you blush, whispering a shy “yes..”

“i mean who wouldn’t wanna come home to their girl wearing his shirt?” he embraces you, resting his head in the nook of your shoulder. he whispers “i missed you.”

“is that why you’re here?” you tease.

“well, i wanted to talk to you.”

your heart skips a beat, for whatever reason feeling a sense of dread. is he going away for work? is going to break up with me? it’s not really rational to think that way, but leon isn’t exactly predictable.

“no need to get nervous, it’s good- i think”

“what’s good?” you ask, trying not to jump to any conclusions.

“here c’mere, let’s sit”

you sit in the couch comfortably under leon’s arm. he diverts the subject and tells you about his day, like he usually does. and you tell him about yours. leon’s a sweet talker, his deep and calming voice relaxing you. and without intending, he allows you to be yourself, you feel safe.

“i’ve been thinking about you, about us.” leon says, running his hands lazily along your exposed legs.

“yeah?”

“you occupy so much of mind, and i—uh— i really dunno how to put it, you just mean so much to me.” he pauses, shyness apparent on his blushed cheeks.

“honestly… and i really mean it— i love you”

leon looks nervous, anticipating your reaction. hoping that if rejection comes it’s quick and over with.

“i love you, leon.” with no hesitation you say the words he was always hoping you’d say. leon’s smile is bright, one of true happiness. he kisses you with fervor, pulling you closely to his chest.

“you’re all mine, my love” he says into the kiss.

“delightfully so.” you reply.

your heart is filled to the brim. swept off your feet by your charming boyfriend, truly in love.

[mintartem]

hey, hey! Me again. The one who cursed you for blessing me with two new ships lol

Anywho, since you mentioned it, art of Adam x the other angels? Raphael, Gabriel, Azriel, Sariel, all of 'em!

Would love to see art/ designs, but I can settle for hcs lol

I was going to make this into art but I’ve been busy. I hope you don’t mind headcanons and my portrayal of them instead. (I will draw them and ship them with Adam eventually)

I can’t write ALL of the angels (there’s like 50+ of them and that’s not including the fallen) I’m going to focus on the 7 heavenly virtues first (excluding Michael so 6 of the 7).

Please note all of these are for the Hazbin Hotel fandom and not an actual Bible lore or theology. Although some info here are based on theology.

Gabriel (Seraph) - Diligence

He is an energetic, loud, bubbly, and trustworthy angel who is loved and respected by all. But he is scary when he is angry or pissed off

It’s not easy to piss him off but if you did, it means you’ve done something absolutely horrendous in his eyes

He enjoys watching souls get their deserved justice or punishment

Since his heavenly virtue is diligence, he is the fastest angel to finish his work. But at the same time, he also has a lot on his plate. He values breaks in-between working.

Flirts with Adam and loves to get in his personal space (Adam doesn’t mind and lets him)

He trusts Michael the most

The only beings he follows/listens to are Michael and God

He wonders why he was chosen to be God’s right hand when the position should be Michael’s (in his eyes)

He enjoys his job of delivering messages

Has the best stamina and endurance among the angels

He has a sweet tooth

Like all other angels, he is proficient in playing multiple instruments. But his most favorite instrument to play is the trumpet.

The third brother

He [will be] against Charlie’s plan of redemption

Raphael (Seraph) - Humility

He is a calm, collected, and gentle angel who wants the best for everyone and heal them as much as he can.

He wouldn’t hesitate to scare off souls with medical threats if it means it’ll help them heal

He is a pacifist

As the heavenly virtue of humility, despite his high position and rank, he doesn’t see himself better than others and chose to ground himself (which is confusing for other angels)

As the angel of healing, he heals not just physical pain, but also emotional, mental, spiritual, etc. health.

When it comes for mental health, he does need a winner’s help since he is an angel and can’t understand human thought process that well

Surprisingly, he prefers spicy food

Like all other angels, he is proficient in playing multiple instruments. His most favorite instrument is the lyre.

He [will not be] against Charlie’s plan for redemption, but wouldn’t support it either.

The youngest among the four brothers

The tallest among the brothers

He and Gabriel tease Michael because of his crush on Adam

Also in love with Adam and loves watching Adam tend to his garden

He loves herbs, poisons, and other medical things (that includes snakes)

He is fascinated by human biology and anatomy. Adam is the usual target of this fascination

Has a doctor’s (terrible) handwriting

He is the most mature out of all the brothers

Has a sadistic side

Leader of the virtues

Azrael (Archangel) - Patience

When Adam met him in Eden, the impression he got from him was that he is a shy and quiet angel.

Azrael is a flirty and playful, but kind angel that enjoys the company of his fellow archangels

He loves the nature noises (such as chirping birds, cricket noises, swaying leaves)

He is mostly remembered for his wings. Angels and winners alike describe his wings as “so black that it’s like darkness itself created a solid form to serve as his wings”

He is respected even by the Seraphim for his duty

Originally, Samael was the angel of death. The title was given to Michael, who then gave it to Azrael

He is most known for taking the souls of “The Death of the First Born” plague in Egypt. He does not like being known for it though.

He created the Grim Reapers to help him with his duties.

He once offered Abel to be his first Grim Reaper. Abel declined.

Platonically flirts with Abel. Cain does not like it (he thinks its romantic)

Romantically flirts with Adam. Cain also does not like it

Cain does not like him in general. Azrael think its because Abel sees him as an older brother. (He’s right)

Despite being younger than Michael, Lucifer, and Gabriel, they see him as an older brother figure

The only angel who is allowed to enter Hell and Heaven without permission, paperworks, etc. (This is because some depictions portray him as the one who leads souls to heaven or hell)

Doesn’t care about Charlie’s plan for redemption.

The elders are wary of him

He kept Abel’s soul until Adam died and went to heaven.

He is the one Adam first saw when he died so, like Abel, Adam has an attachment to him

Uriel (Seraph) - Chastity

He is a quiet, serious, scholarly angel with an aloof and unreadable expression.

Contrary to his serious appearance, Uriel enjoys teaching angels and winners.

He is loved by his students. Outlookers would wonder why, but his students know what type of angel he really is

He loves dark chocolates. His students are the only ones who know. He receives a lot of dark chocolate every Teacher’s Day

He tends to question anything and everything for knowledge’s sake

[will] support Charlie if she can defend her redemption project (like a research/thesis defence)

He witness Adam’s creation and grew attached to him

He guarded Eden’s gate with a flaming sword. Currently, he hid away his flaming sword only to be used if Lucifer or anything evil decides to attack Heaven

He was Adam’s teacher when he got to Heaven. Uriel taught him about Heaven, heavenly duties etc.

He doesn’t hate Lucifer per say, but he is extremely disappointed.

He enjoyed watching humanity (especially Adam) discover things. Currently, his focus are now the winners, angels, and heaven borns

He enjoys reading about human philosophers and their philosophies (both east and west)

Loves playing chess against Adam

He is the one who provides strategies to Michael and is the one who helps plan training activities

“My house is not a mess. It’s an organised chaos”

He has his moments where angels cannot tell if he is being smart or lazy.

He is great at multi-tasking

On purposely uses scientific terms to annoy Gabriel and Lucifer. He does know how to “dumb it down a notch” according to Lucifer.

Cannot be wavered once he is focus on something/s

Cassiel (Archangel) - Temperance

He is an empathic, sensitive angel who wants to enjoy Heavenly life with his fellow angels, heaven-born, and winners

When Eden was created, he wanted to visit but he was forbidden to do so. Unlike Lucifer, he controlled himself and decided not to do so

He is the fastest angel

He helps Raphael in healing Adam’s emotional health

He has a pet dragon. The dragon likes Adam

He [would be] conflicted in Charlie’s redemption plan

Like all other angels, he is proficient in playing multiple instruments. His favorite instrument is the harp

Remiel/Jeremiel (Archangel) - Kindness

He is a kind, caring, and understanding angel who wishes the best for everyone

As the archangel of hope, Remiel tends to see the best in everyone. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t see the bad things either

He is an optimist

He is that one angel everyone goes to for comfort

He is usually the voice of reason

Like Cassiel, he also helps Adam in healing his emotional pain

Like all other angels, he is proficient in playing multiple instruments. His favorite instrument is the grand piano

[will] support Charlie’s redemption plan

“Please don’t mistake me as the fallen Ramiel. We’re different”

(I struggled with coming up hc for Remiel and Cassiel)

Bonus - Angels I want to create a character for:

Ariel (Archangel) - self proclaimed “Michael’s girl best friend!” Totally supports Michael and Adam’s relationship. Angry at Lucifer

Jophiel (Archangel) - sees Adam as the most beautiful creation. She hangs with Metatron often. Adam has deep respect for her.

Metatron (Archangel) - Human name: Enoch.

Chazaqiel (Watcher - Fallen) - Sahaquiel’s younger sister

Raguel (Archangel)

Selaphiel/Selathiel (Archangel)

Well this is long so I’ll end it here. I enjoy reading about Theology so this was really fun!

[chimkin-samich]

Hi!

I have had a block for both writing and drawing for several years. I look at your works with longing in my eyes and think how wonderful it would be to draw regularly again. I was never particularly talented and had many gaps in learning to draw, but I enjoyed it. Now I don't know how to start drawing or writing. My laptop is full of unfinished stories. I have lots of ideas for drawings, but it's hard for me to get down to work.

Therefore, my question is: Do you have any advice for people who haven't drawn/written for several years and would really like to get back to it, but can't motivate themselves, have no ideas, etc.? Or quite the opposite. They have lots of ideas, but for some reason they can't draw anything?

Greetings and have a nice morning/day/evening/night!

Hello! Sorry it took so long to respond, I wanted to make sure I could respond properly to this so I thought it over a lot, I’m going to put it under a read more cuz it’s gonna get long lol

I (sly) am kinda in the same position as you at least when it comes more to art, writing ive kinda cracked the block but still trying to break through the ice, all the art on our blog is Ferals art, I only complete the line work and shading (but not always) I haven’t drawn any of my own stuff in probably a few years but I’m trying to get back into it cuz I miss it as well, I completely get the whole feeling of looking at Feral’s art and wanting to create my own but finding it so difficult to do

For the art aspect my plan is to start at square 1, start how I first starting drawing, which for me was to look up refs, animals and draw them by sight, just to get back into the groove of trying to bring back that muscle memory, maybe you started by tracing images, you could trace only the rough outlines and then shade and detail them, just something simply and easy, you probably won’t be happy with the results (I know I certainly won’t be with my own) but it’s a start

Look up things that you enjoy, draw your squad, incorrect quotes to do with ocs maybe even draw them out, try and keep it simple, you don’t need to create a masterpiece on the first day back, any attempt is a step forward even if you dislike it, try it out at least once a day everyday, a simple doodle just for fun or to exercise your muscle memory again, the first part is gonna be hard and messy, that’s totally ok! All that matters is the attempt!

For the writing aspect try and keep it simple as well, focus on making short one-shots or even just bullet point dialogues, your old unfinished writing isn’t going anywhere, when you feel comfortable enough to attempt to continue it just go for it!

I had a big gap in my writing periods and sometimes I still go a few months with out touching any of my stories, blocks happen and are normal, something that I try to get back into is read other people’s work, both to see the writing style and to get some inspiration to continue my own works

When I actually get down to actually writing my story I just dump down the story as I think it, I just keep writing even if it looks messy and grammatically incorrect to at least get the story moving and progressing. After I have the rough story down, is when I go back to correct spelling mistakes, add more details/dialogues or events in between to create a much better flow for the story

I usually do this multiple times for each fic I create, usually in between pauses (either due to blanking on ideas or just cuz I wasn’t feeling it) so whenever I reopen my doc, I just reread and add on, then I do it again one or two more times once it’s completed

I struggle a lot with perfectionism when it comes to my art and writing, and unfortunately it’s a big killer for my motivation, especially when I see others that make better works than me. I’ve been slowly unlearning that urge to make everything perfect, by just allowing myself to have messy and rough works, it’s not always going to come out how I want it but at least I got it as close as I could in the moment with my current skill level

I like to tell myself, the more I keep doing it, the more I’ll improve, and I’ll always be able to come back with more ideas and skill to remake this better than my first attempts, just because I did it doesn’t mean I can’t try to do it again

Being easier on yourself does wonders (I know easier said than done unfortunately 😭) but your practically having to relearn skills that have gotten rusty, even if you were doing great before, your gonna have to build back up to that point, it’s just like exercising a muscle ✨

I hope this was able to help! I wish you much luck in your journey back into art and writing!

[romanarose]

Secret's Out

Art by @runa-falls who drew me and marc lolololol

Join my taglist!

Masterlist

Brother Best Friend!Marc Spector x fem!reader

Summary: Marc is your brothers roommate and best friend in college. When you attend the same school, you meet and fall in love with Marc Spector. You both try to keep it a secret, for fear of what he'll say... eventually though, the secret comes out.

Warnings: Brief smut, readers brother drinks alcohol, protected creampie, mentions of oral.

Immersability: Reader is not Jewish, or least knows nothing about holidays as she tries to learn. Picture above does nothing to describe reader, including height, I just thought it was cute and Em let me use it lol. Reader is fem and AFAB

A/N: Although I know no one owns the idea of collage AU's, I think in this fandom it's safe to say that @juneknight is a big inspo for a lot of us writing college au marc. June had said she doesn't mind other people writing college marc but I still wanted to give her credit for it as that series is something I love v v v much and is a fandom fav. If you havn't read any of it, check em out. June is amazing. Als, I feel like i've had similar conversations with people in different discord servers about this concept but I can't remember who or who said what? but y'all know how those convos go, everyone throwing things in. If you feel i ripped of something you said, know it was on accident and i can give you creds as well!

1.5k words

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Sex on a dorm bed was hard enough, but Marc insisted he wanted the bed raised so he could fit his mini fridge under there. 

And a pile of fucking junk, but thats neither here nor there. Marc looked like he packed up all his personal belongings into plastic bins. He must live far away, because he never went home, not even over thanksgiving break and he paid the extra money to stay over winter break coming up, citing he was Jewish so he didn’t really need to be home for christmas. But what about new years? And he never felt for Jewish holidays either. You know, because you had been looking into them all in order to properly greet him. 

A few weeks into classes your first year, your older brother introduced you and let you hang around them while you got oriented in your new school. You had told Marc ‘Happy Yom Kippur’ to which he politely smiled and thanked you, only for you to find out later that ‘happy’ wasn’t exactly the right verbiage. So, you did your best to research. It wasn’t until you were intently watching youtube videos on what everything on a passover seder symbolizes that you realized how hard you had fallen for him.

Lucky for you, your interest and effort had endeared you to him just as much. He fought his feelings for a long time. Your brother, AJ, had been his roommate freshman year and all four years since, and there was no goddamn way on this planet he’d let Marc date you, always telling you which guys to stay away from. He was one of those guys, wasn’t he? So he tried his best to avoid you.

Fate had other plans, a normal day where you showed up at their room looking for AJ had ended with you both tumbling into bed, starting a secret little affair. Marc was good at what he did, opening you up with his fingers first and spending so long with his head between your legs you wondered if he was even planning on getting off at all. But he did, oh god he did, blowing his load inside you and you both came with a loud groan that caused the next door neighbors to bang on the adjacent wall telling you to shut the fuck up.

So started your dirty little secret, sneaking fucks in where you could, hooking up in the public bathroom next to the laundry room, quick kisses in unused classrooms. There was one time AJ was supposed to be gone for a 3 hour class, and walked in unceremoniously as Marc was balls deep inside you, the jingle of the keys and the sound of the key in the door only barely giving Marc enough time to throw you under the covers. AJ was quick to realize Marc had a girl in his bed, closing the door. Covering your mouth, Marc slowly began fucking you as he told AJ the come back later, AJ giving him some good-natured ribbing before announcing he would be at the dining hall. You were back on the verge of an orgasm by the time he left the door, the thrill of near getting caught culminating in cumming hard enough you bit Marc’s hand that still covered you.

 It was hard, you wanted to be out. Marc wanted to show you off, to show all the assholes in school how you, YOU were willingly dating him. Prettiest damn thing he’d ever seen. And you, you just wanted everyone to know who you belonged to. You knew Marc had a reputation, and you knew being his girl, you were safe.

Most of all, outside of the public image, you just wanted to be able to be together.

You helped Marc climb back on the bed despite the fit of laughter. After he finished, Marc rolled off you, but seemed to forget you were on a twin bed and promptly fell off. That’s where the bed being raised came in, adding a few feet for him to drop down. You would like to have thought you would have been a concerned girlfriend, but once you saw he didn’t land on his face or anything you couldn’t stop laughing, especially at his grumpy frown. Fucker was funny as shit without trying to be.

When he finally climbed back up, you two cuddled back under the covers and you began to kiss away his frown lines all over his face until they eased in a smile, kissing you back.

“I love you, you know.”

You did. You knew that with your whole heart. “Love you right back, Marc Spector.”

It wasn’t two minuets later when AJ walked in to see you laying on top of Marc, only covered by the blanket, he quickly closes his eyes. 

“GOD DAMMIT! WHAT THE FUCK!” He shouts, Marc quickly pulling the blanket up more and rolling over to cover you with his body. 

“GET OUT!”

“YEAH NO SHIT, SICKOS.”

AJ left, going to the lounge and you knew it was over. He knew it was you. You were shaking, your anxiety through the roof and Marc tried to calm you.

“Shh, baby, it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay, I’ll take the blame-”

“WHY WAS THE DOOR UNLOCKED!” You scream.

“I’m sorry, I forgot!” 

“I WAS ON TOP MARC, IF HE HAD WALKED IN HE WOULD HAVE SEEN ME NAKED! ANYONE COULD H-HAVE WALKED I-I-I-IN!!”

Marc took your face in hands, sitting up and gently coaxing you. “Hey, baby, look at me.” You open your eyes, lost inside his and you knew you were safe. “I’m sorry, I’m really fucking sorry. But you’re safe, it’s going to be okay. I swear. I’ll never forget to lock the door again, I promise.”

Tearful, you express your fears. “I don’t know if there’s going to be a next time.”

Marc’s soft eyes are in contrast to his tense face. “You’re a grown adult, baby. He might not like it, but he can’t stop us.”

“But he’s going to be mad at you! He’s your…”

He chuckled. “My only friend?”

“Your best friend.” You correct.

With a sign, he strokes your face, knowing you both had to go out there and face him soon enough. “You’re worth it, okay? Whatever happens, you’re worth it.”

Overcome with emotions, you tuck your head into Marc’s neck. “It’ll be okay.”

You both got dressed, Marc opening the door to the loud, his body symbolically in front of you. Neither of you thought that there was any chance your brother would hurt you, but it was the gesture and what it meant. Marc would always be your protection.

“J, listen man, I can explain-”

“C’mon dude, all you had to do was text me to stay out so I don’t have to walk in on you fucking my sister.”

Everyone was quite, that wasn’t the response they were expecting. “I wasn’t- we weren’t- we were done,”

You smack Marc’s arm, whispering ‘gross’ and then look to AJ. “So you’re not… mad? You sounded mad…”

“I was mad because it was nasty, I don’t need to see that. I don’t give a fuck what you guys do.”

Marc was hesitant, but you moved out from behind Marc to join at his side. He spoke next. “You don’t care?”

AJ laughed. “I don’t care for her,” He clarified, smiling. “For you.” AJ pushed past both of you and made his way to Marc’s minifridge, stealing a beer.

“What does that mean?” Marc asked, incredulous and only semi-distracted by his roommate's theft. Bigger fish to fry.

“I mean,” AJ finished the beer and handed the can to Marc. “You know she cries every time she watched Revenge of the Sith, right?”

Marc turned to you and you shrug. “They were brothers, Marc!”

AJ continued. “She once cried because she wanted to make pasta but we didn’t have sauce. Like laid down on the kitchen floor and cried.”

“I was hungry and to broke to order food!”

“I offered to drive you to walmart!”

“I was tired!”

“You she bites her toe nails”

Marc jumped back in. “that’s why you’re so flexible”

AJ had enough “DISGUSTING! GET OUT! OUT!” He pushed you both out of the room he claimed you had defiled. “Go be disgusting elsewhere, sickos.” He slammed the door in your face as you laughed, giddy that the secret was out and it went well.

“Well, that was not what I expected?” You wrap your arm around his middle, walking towards the elevator. 

“Yeah… I thought I was about to get decked.”

Just then, you hear your brother scream your name down the hall.

“Y’ALL BETTER GET YOUR GODDAMN NASTY ASS UNDERWEAR OUT O HERE WHAT THE GODDAMN FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!”

Marc turned to you. “You forgot your underwear?”

“I WAS PANICKED!” You defended yourself. “I COULDNT FIND THEM AND IM IN LEGGINGS SO I JUST ASSUMED I WENT COMMANDO.”

Sex was moved to your dorm from then on.

******************************

Sorry this came to me today again and i had to write it.

@fandxmslxt69 @runa-falls @campingwiththecharmings @whatthefishh @k-ra @ivystoryweaver @steven-grants-world @ahookedheroespureheart @littlenosoul @mikaelak @stevenandmarcslove @scarletthefierce @pikapuff-316 @del-ightfulling @missdictatorme

[liriostigre]

Hiiii ty for such a great uquiz!! Would it be possible to see the description of all the books you could get matched to? I’m curious what the vibes are for the rest!!

hi 🌷 here you go:

White Teeth by Zadie Smith: Excessive, maximalist and very ambitious multigenerational and multicultural epic novel that starts with the unlikely friendship between Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. It explores themes of race, identity and the intersections of culture, heritage, and modernity. Clever and hilarious dialogue, very creative when it comes to language and style, unique and bold when it comes to narrative. Perhaps a flawed novel due to its ambition, but excellent nonetheless.

Despair by Vladimir Nabokov: Excellent writing; very ambitious and stylish. It is somewhat a twisted novel but you will find a lot of humor despite. The narrator speaks directly to the reader as he writes what he regards as his perfect crime. This novel is one of Nabokov's earliest works in which one can easily identify themes and literary devices that the author explored later in his most known works.

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño: Brilliant and stunning novel about poets and poetry! Very dense and challenging; it requires patience from the reader. This novel is so infinitely dear to me that i can't even explain its brilliance, but i have to give you at least an idea of the plot so: The story is arranged in three parts and told from multiple points of view. It starts in Mexico City, in the 70s, and continues across decades and continents. It follows the adventures and misadventures of Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima—poets, drug dealers, wanderes, criminals. Now, about the themes, the writing, the style, the narration? Just absolutely perfect even at its most tedious, difficult and anticlimactic parts.

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington: Unconventional, absurd, imaginative and exuberantly surreal apocalyptic fairytale quest. It follows 92 year old Marian who is sent off to a peculiar old-age home. If you aren't familiar with Leanora Carrington's art you should look at some of her paintings because this wonderful novel feels just like her surrealist paintings!

Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls: This novella tells the story of a love affair between a depressed suburban housewife and an amphibian creature who escaped a scientific research center. It might sound like a quirky fiction story but it actually deals with the most mundane and banal aspects of life and human relationships. Brilliantly written; neat and precise prose, wonderful storytelling. The author knew what she was doing and not a single word she wrote was wasted.

The Borrowers by Mary Norton: Delicately written little adventure about tiny people who live in the secret places of houses. I am enamored (obsessed!!) with miniatures—dollhouses, dioramas, fairies—so imagine how dear this book is to me.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn: The murders of two girls bring reporter Camille Preaker back to her hometown. As she works to uncover the truth about those crimes, Camille finds herself forced to unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past. Very entertaining read. It has best seller written all over it (which might not be the biggest compliment lol but i mean for this genre so it is a compliment).

Rage by Sergio Bizzio: Claustrophobic, anxiety inducing, fast-paced psychological thriller that made me think of Bong Joon-ho's Parasite the whole 4 hours it took me to read it. I read it in it's original language, Spanish, and i particularly loved the dialogue; its idiosyncrasies and authenticity (tqm Argentina!)

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby: Rob, an obsessive music fan, reminisces his top five worst break ups to understand his most recent heartbreak. He is a very arrogant and cynical guy who defines his entire life through records, and because he is constantly interacting with music that almost exclusively deals with love—and a very idealistic version of it—he finds himself unsatisfied with the way his life has turned out.

[burberrycanary]

Hi there! I am about midway through reading your story Lost Vocabularies and it is amazing!! The whole series has been so lovely, I’m obsessed with the way you write! The way that you convey the boys complicated emotions and capture all the little nuances of their dynamic has me feral!! Beyond even them the way you inject so much personality into the locations is so good, I feel like I am there!! So thank you for writing this lovely story 💕 I was wondering if you happen to have a list of all the books that Bucky and Steve read? I have been looking up a lot of them and adding them to my to read list bc they sound so interesting lol! On that same note, how did you decide what books to mention? Are they all ones that you have read or did you do research to find ones you thought they would like?

I’ve been coming back and rereading this kind and wonderful comment in my inbox over the last few weeks when way too many massive, stressful, time-sensitive things were all happening at once. 💕 But since I have a little breather between crazy periods, I get to dive in here as a treat.

Lost Vocabularies involved a lot of research, which I hope isn’t apparent because I didn’t want there to be any noticeable difference between the parts of the story that are based on places I’d been, foods I’d tried and books I’d read personally—and what was created purely based on research. Fingers crossed that the seams don't show!

In this series, we see both Steve and Bucky use art to process—helping them understand themselves and connect to the world again. Bucky is drawn to stories while Steve as an artist is much more visual, but the underlying impulse is similar. In the same way that you learn a lot by glancing through someone’s bookshelves, what characters read is interesting to me, and revealing. This version of Bucky is a very private person so these books offer a glimpse into his inner life. And as the POV character we get to experience all these things alongside Steve.

I’m not much of a sci-fi or fantasy reader so some of Bucky’s picks were a real challenge for me. But I wanted these to be grounded in the characters and the storytelling functions, not based on my own taste and opinions, though of course those always bleed through. 

Steve’s Reading List

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Alice Neel: People Come First by Kelly Baum and Randall Griffey

The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories by H. P. Lovecraft

The Beautiful Mysterious: The Extraordinary Gaze of William Eggleston, edited by Ann J. Abadie

One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965 by Jia Lynn Yang

Bucky’s Reading List

The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories by H. P. Lovecraft

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Six Not-So-Easy Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time by Richard Feynman

Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos by Steven H. Strogatz

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

I’ve included some notes and commentary on why I picked each of these works under the cut.

The Same River, Twice (The Man Is Still Left with His Hands)

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Classic post-WWII dystopian sci-fi that focuses on society collapsing after a series of catastrophes that were unintentional but very much caused by people, which leads to a lot of the population becoming blind. Thematically this work engages with the loss of identity that people, both abled and disabled, face in the process of survival and a dark look at what happens after societies break down. How this applies to Bucky is obvious, but part of the argument of this post-Endgame series is that it applies to Steve, too. 

Also, there are huge mobile carnivorous plants. 

Fun fact: the opening of this novel is said to have been the inspiration for 28 Days Later!

Still Left with the River (The Paradox of Motion)

Alice Neel: People Come First by Kelly Baum and Randall Griffey

Alice Neel’s portraits are extraordinary, almost unnervingly vivid. In this story, Steve is familiar with her work as a fellow New York-based artist active in communist circles in the 1930s. She also worked for the WPA, producing wonderful street scenes that documented New York neighborhoods of the era. 

To be honest, I have so many questions about what Steve was up to in the late 1930s before his war mania of the 40s hits.

One of the core themes of this series is Steve struggling with what his body is for if it’s no longer for violence. Who is he if he’s not a soldier? What is his radically changed body if it’s not a weapon? How do you come home from the war?

In this regard, Steve and Bucky have all kinds of shared life experience.

So thematically I include Neel because of her startling gift for capturing personalities and bodies through a process of frank, earnest, truthful observation of the integrated completeness of body and self: this space that’s you. 

But a book of Alice Neel’s work with her sensitive portraits and fleshy frank nudes pulls him into flipping through page after page of these personalities and bodies, not idealized: seen.

Steve isn’t ready for that when he bumps into this big “impractical” art book in a holdover Barnes & Noble in Brooklyn, not when he’s still so shook up and adrift. But he will be.

There’s such empathy and radical humanism to her pieces. “People,” as she famously said, “come first.” I stand by the conclusion that Steve would love her work.

The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories by H. P. Lovecraft

Lovecraft was relatively unknown in his lifetime—he died in 1937—but his stories were published in popular fantasy pulp magazines like Weird Tales and Astounding Stories, which is where Bucky would have come across his work. The fact that Steve recognizes Lovecraft by name means that teenage Bucky must have talked about what he was reading and the pulp stories he liked with teenage Steve, which is adorable—“this Lovecraft fellow, Steve, you wouldn’t believe the stuff he comes up with.” And Steve was paying attention enough to remember two decades and change later without the benefit of his serum-enhanced memory, which hurts my heart a little in the best possible way. 

That’s how Steve all these years and decades later is able to wordlessly toss this collection of H. P. Lovecraft’s stories at Bucky on a hot hazy stumbled-upon beach in northern Florida and watch Bucky’s whole face light up. 

And of course Bucky would view Lovecraft as a great beach read 😂

But this is the basis for something I’ve written into this series: Bucky excitedly sharing things he finds interesting with Steve—wanting to tell Steve first, Steve most. And although Steve is quiet, stoical and very self-contained, he’s paying a whole hell of a lot of attention.

Given that Bucky is canonically a Tolkien fan, I think the imaginativeness and ranging scope of Lovecraft’s complex, often interconnected stories would appeal to him. And, thematically, Lovecraft is distinctive for the era for having characters psychologically fragment when confronting these vast inhuman others. 

“The Call of Cthulhu” opens with:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

Steve and Bucky have each voyaged out a long way.

Trauma, in a way, is a form of terrible knowledge. You can heal but you can’t unknow things. 

Not Language but a Map (The Grammar of Sensation)

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

This is the first book in the series that we see Bucky pick for himself. And, wow, he picks a doozy with themes of multiple and unstable identities, invasive surveillance, manipulation, psychosis, and how individuals can get chewed up by larger systems, falling through the cracks of society. Dick was writing based on his own troubled experiences with southern California drug culture of the early 70s, but this work gets at much more fundamental darknesses that I think would speak to some of the horrors Bucky has gone through and won’t talk about, not even with Steve. 

Within the first few pages, we get this:

It was midday, in June of 1994. In California, in a tract area of cheap but durable plastic houses, long ago vacated by the straights. Jerry had at an earlier date sprayed metal paint over all the windows, though, to keep out the light; the illumination for the room came from a pole lamp into which he had screwed nothing but spot lamps, which shone day and night, so as to abolish time for him and his friends. He liked that; he liked to get rid of time. By doing that he could concentrate on important things without interruption.

The Beautiful Mysterious: The Extraordinary Gaze of William Eggleston, edited by Ann J. Abadie

Eggleston was an early pioneer in color photography and that fascination with color is very apparent in his work. I think this focus would grab Steve as an artist who doesn’t take seeing the full spectrum of color for granted. Even in the MCU’s thin action-film scripts, Steve comments on things that offend his aesthetic sensibilities even when that has absolutely no bearing on the situation at hand, from Stark Tower to Lang’s van.

Not even a world-ending crisis can keep Steve from going, wow, no, that’s ugly. I enjoyed running with that 😂

Steve’s view of Eggleston’s photographs shifts over the course of the series, reflecting what he’s feeling, from the fragmented and disconnected detachment—“isolated and off-kilter”— that he sees in them at the beginning that shifts to the passionate engagement in the world he finds in them later. 

Steve looks through the whole book of William Eggleston’s photographs again and at first the colors still roll over him like the shockwave of a distant explosion, all he can focus on. But gradually the subjects and compositions pull forward, too: monumentalized images of the everyday that at first seem neutral, the work of a detached observer. But the off-center framing of ordinary life is so deliberate as though everything might be important and where every detail deserves attention—that’s nothing like neutral. That’s not detached at all. You have to care a whole hell of a lot.

This mirrors the journey this post-Endgame Steve goes on. Because Steve Rogers should be a character who cares a whole hell of a lot, not what the MCU writers eventually reduced him to. And that’s what this fix-it is trying to fix. 

Lost Vocabularies that Might Express (The Memory of These Broken Impressions)

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman

I love writing Bucky as a big fucking science nerd. His last night in New York and how does he want to spend the time? At a science fair with his best friend and a couple of pretty girls. So Bucky reading about quantum electrodynamics is delightful to me. The thing is, though, Bucky is a bright enough guy with a high school education. He’s not a genius—and the MCU is lousy with geniuses. But if Bucky wanted to learn a little more about all this quantum stuff he heard about in passing during some vague and very improbable sounding explanations, which by the way also allowed one of the few people still living who truly matters to him and the closest thing Bucky had left to family to fuck off to the past, well, Feynman’s QED isn’t a bad place to start in understanding some of this quantum stuff, at least. 

Feynman here is very much writing for a popular audience. His writing is conversational—the book is adapted from a set of lectures he gave—and his voice is witty, casual and surprisingly light, but at the same time Feynman is deeply invested in helping lay people understand quantum mechanics. The book opens with:

Alix Mautner was very curious about physics and often asked me to explain things to her. I would do all right, just as I do with a group of students at Caltech that come to me for an hour on Thursdays, but eventually I’d fail at what is to me the most interesting part: We would always get hung up on the crazy ideas of quantum mechanics. I told her I couldn’t explain these ideas in an hour or an evening—it would take a long time—but I promised her that someday I’d prepare a set of lectures on the subject.

I prepared some lectures, and I went to New Zealand to try them out—because New Zealand is far enough away that if they weren’t successful, it would be all right! Well, the people in New Zealand thought they were okay, so I guess they’re okay—at least for New Zealand! So here are the lectures I really prepared for Alix, but unfortunately I can’t tell them to her directly, now.

C’mon! Tell me Bucky Barnes would not be hooked by this opening. 

Thematically, and more seriously, the question of how could Steve do this? has two very different meanings. So far in this series Bucky isn’t ready to confront the harder version of that question which comes potentially with some very painful answers: how could Steve make that choice? Nope, he’s not ready for that. Instead, his brain unconsciously takes the easier way out: trying to understand quantum electrodynamics. 😂😭

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Bucky must have liked A Scanner Darkly, because he went for another Philip K. Dick novel. Today remembered mostly as the source material for Blade Runner, this bleak dystopian novel is set in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear war that destroys most life on Earth. The work has themes around empathy—who feels empathy and for what?—materialism and what really makes us human. 

I find it interesting how Sebastian Stan talks about The Winter Soldier in terms of someone who has undergone a process of total desensitization, which to varying degrees is deliberately part of the training of all soldiers. But rebuilding his core sense of empathy was one of the things Bucky chose to do as soon as he had any agency in that two-year period where he was on the run, which is remarkable. As a person who has been treated as though he wasn’t human and had his empathy forcibly stripped from him, I think Bucky would have a lot of complicated feelings about the enslaved androids who escape but are ruthlessly tracked down and killed. Some of these escaped androids are dangerous and do lack basic empathy—shown in the book by torturing and mutilating an animal—while other androids seem like ordinary people just trying to live their lives. 

I like that Bucky talks about the book with Steve later in the story, returning in my view to a very old habit of bookworm Bucky wanting to share what he’d been reading with Steve <333

“I need to find something to read next,” Bucky says after wrapping up his description of an imagined religion that involved plugging into a box to virtually suffer the existence of a man forever walking up a steep hill while struck by crashing stones. 

“Well, did the androids dream of electric sheep?” Steve asks.

“Who knows?” Bucky knocks into him gently as he takes the bowl Steve passes over. “They just wanted to be free. Though the free people just wanted to own stuff or plug into a box and suffer. So, you know, sort of a grim outlook. ”

“A little light, cheerful reading.”

“Hey, we live in a world where people write ‘Take back what’s yours’ in the streets and then smash up the windows. Dystopias don’t seem so far off the mark.”

Six Not-So-Easy Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time by Richard Feynman

Another case of Bucky sticking with an author he likes! To me, this implies that Bucky has already read Feynman’s Six Easy Pieces, which explains some of the foundational basics of physics for a very broad and non-technical audience. Six Not-So-Easy Pieces is also drawn from Feynman’s famous Lectures on Physics, focusing here on relativity and space-time, but this work assumes a greater knowledge of math, hence the name. But as a legendary sniper Bucky must have a strong aptitude for math and anyway I just leaned into making Bucky an all-around nerd, because Bucky Barnes, nerd who grew up hot, is delightful to me. 

Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time are all on point for a post-Endgame fix-it, which I think should count as a not-so-easy piece in its own right. 

Throughout the series, we see Bucky using physical copies when he reads fiction, more or less from unconscious nostalgia: connecting back to memories of his younger self who was an avid reader of pulp magazines and cheap paperbacks. Once Steve gets him going with that first quietly tossed-over gift, Bucky always carries around a sci-fi or fantasy book in this series despite the limited space in his backpack. And this familiarity wouldn’t just be from his pre-war life since I figure Bucky would have gone for the Armed Services Editions that were distributed for free to soldiers. Bucky likely traded with other soldiers once he finished a book if he couldn’t get a new ASE distribution: trading in his finished novel for a new one is Bucky unconsciously falling back into another old habit.

But for non-fiction, Bucky is absolutely here for the Modern Marvel of being able to carry around as many books as he likes on his phone. I figure Bucky would have used public libraries during certain stages of his recovery when he was homeless and migratory since they are a place to get information that is consistently available in cities; and a warm, quiet place you can go with a minimal number of security cameras. I headcanon a middle-aged librarian who has a few streaks of gray in her dark hair—and who reminds Bucky of someone but he has no idea who—explaining what e-books are to this tall, gaunt, soft-spoken homeless guy with an eye contact problem. And this person who isn’t the Asset anymore and isn’t Bucky Barnes yet has the out-of-nowhere thought: huh, whaddaya know. That’s pretty neat.

Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: With Applications To Physics, Biology, Chemistry, And Engineering by Steven H. Strogatz

Isolated systems tend to evolve towards a single equilibrium and these equilibrium points have been the focus of many-body research for centuries. But life is generally not that simple because most systems aren’t isolated. Often the dynamics of a system result from the product of multiple different interacting forces and objects in these systems can change between multiple different attractor wells over time. Or as Strogatz puts it:

As we’ve mentioned earlier, most nonlinear systems are impossible to solve analytically. Why are nonlinear systems so much harder to analyze than linear ones? The essential difference is that linear systems can be broken down into parts. Then each part can be solved separately and finally recombined to get the answer. This idea allows a fantastic simplification of complex problems, and underlies such methods as normal modes, Laplace transforms, superposition arguments, and Fourier analysis. In this sense, a linear system is precisely equal to the sum of its parts.

But many things in nature don’t act this way. Whenever parts of a system interfere, or cooperate, or compete, there are nonlinear interactions going on. Most of everyday life is nonlinear, and the principle of superposition fails spectacularly. 

You can think of nonlinear dynamics as situations in which the sum of the parts is insufficient to understand the whole. This connects to multiple themes in this story as Bucky and Steve try to understand themselves, their lives and each other. But here Bucky is also just continuing to live his best life as a nerd with a strong intuitive knack for math, a high school education, an internet connection and a growing collection of science e-books. Or as Bucky puts it:

“It’s nice, though, like this smart guy is just talking to you but doesn’t assume you’re dumb because of what you don’t know.”

It’s touched on only very lightly in the series so far, but Bucky has a lot of complex feelings about higher education that relate to class, indirectly to sexuality, and go back to the experience of being the son of upwardly mobile working-class immigrants who were very bought-in on a traditional take on the American Dream.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

I picked this partly because I thought the title would grab Bucky, who has been a stranger in a strange land several times over. Thematically this midcentury sci-fi novel focuses on challenging social norms through having the main character, a human who’d been raised by Martians on Mars, come back to Earth as an adult. A best-seller in its day that was controversial for its rejection of Christianity, monogamy and the nuclear family, the work is very tied to the looming cultural changes of the 60s and 70s. 

The novel’s critical reputation has been steadily in decline for decades, but I think Bucky would find it interesting since he grew up within the traditional early 20th-century culture this novel satirizes and challenges—mores that this story’s version of Bucky didn’t unquestioningly accept but didn’t openly challenge, either.

Having Bucky pick this novel reflects the themes for the last act of this story that focus more on Steve and Bucky's different experiences as closeted queer men growing up in a deeply homophobic society. These experiences continue to shape and impact them and yet are also a past these two are coming to terms with and growing beyond. 

Fun fact: this novel coined the word “grok.”

One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965 by Jia Lynn Yang

Of all the books featured in this series, One Mighty and Irresistible Tide is my top recommendation. This is an accessible, well-written history of a topic that haunts American history: immigration. The specific focus is the waves of legislation passed in the first half of the 20th century that tried—and often succeeded—in limiting who could legally immigrate based on the racial and ethnic hierarchies that equally haunt American history, right down to the foundation. 

In this series, I wanted to pick up the themes of social justice and immigration that were so vaguely and incoherently included in TFATWS. These themes are inherent in the Snap and Return plotline except that Disney does not want to touch any of these politics with a ten-foot pole. But I remain fascinated by trying to wrap my mind around what it would mean for half the population to vanish and then return five years later, catastrophically in both cases. It’s a huge, intricate, sticky, difficult world-building problem that’s inescapably political. 

Steve isn’t quite ready to dive into facing or helping to fix the problems of the post-Return world that his actions helped to create. But here we get to see Steve’s burned-out passion and conviction slowly rekindle as he reads about the complicated and often ugly history of American immigration—and he gets mad about it. Of course, he gets mad about it! This is my answer to the ludicrous idea that Steve Rogers could quietly sit out the second half of the twentieth century. 

At the same time, I can have compassion for Steve knowing he can’t keep going but not knowing how to help himself, only to be given the cursed monkey’s paw of time travel. And he fucks up. His actions have real and lasting consequences. But that doesn’t make the situation hopeless or mean Steve can’t try to repair the relationships he damaged or work to regain the trust he lost, assuming he’s lucky enough to be given another chance by people who love him but have been hurt by his choices.

One of the greatest challenges in writing this Endgame fix-it was accepting Endgame as the starting point of the story and trying to reconcile a character I love with the choices canon has him make. Over the course of these stories, the central point isn’t Steve coming back to Bucky. It’s Steve coming back to himself. Through a slow and painful struggle, Steve finds himself again—rediscovering his stubborn endurance, his compassion for others and his drive to set wrongs right. Steve stumbled, badly, but he gets back up. Because that’s who Steve Rogers is. 

And because of who Bucky Barnes is—his innate kindness, his warm-hearted generosity and his stubborn loyalty that isn’t blind but runs deep—that’s how these two characters come back to each other, after everything.

Deliberately, this series is the first hard-fought and hopeful glimmer in a long trudging process that can get so heavy to carry forward, day after day, but is shot through with moments of beauty and joy all the same. 

I can't go on; I'll go on.

In other words, to quote one of my favorite poets: what the living do.

[merakiui]

LETS GO TMDG AND 11:11 FOR THE FANFIC BINGO ✨✨✨

AAAA YES YES. >:D very yummy fic choices!!!! Thank youuuuu!!! 💖 putting under the cut because it is a little long. orz

(ask game)

For tmdg:

There's no explaining the sheer chokehold tmdg had on me for the entirety of the ten months I spent working on it. It sounds mad, but every waking second was tmdg. When I was listening to music, I thought of songs that would suit tmdg and its vibes. When I was working, I was thinking of Jade and his banter with reader. When I was going to classes and doing coursework, tmdg. It became such a staple in my diet LOL. T_T Jade truly did possess me to write that story because omg. And it started as such a silly idea: Jade impersonates Floyd because you want to date Floyd and Jade wants to date you. I didn't think my silly concept would grow into 48k words....... ;;;; I had only intended for it to be short (under 15k words at most).

I did SO MUCH fact-checking and research for tmdg. I had fun working various moray eel facts into the story. <3 truthfully, I had no idea what mer to make reader. The grouper idea was something I happened upon while searching mutualistic relationships for moray eels and the relationship between the eel and grouper appeared!!! Immediately, I knew I had to add it in. :D the amount of times I ruined my sleep schedule to write more tmdg even though I was exhausted from my studies. orz not the best course of action, but it was worth it to happily type away!!

As for 11:11:

I wrote most of 11:11 while on my breaks at work (not technically instead of homework or housework hehe). A nosy coworker of mine almost caught a glimpse of it while I was writing. I'll never forget the sheer panic I felt because I was writing the scene where Rook murders reader. I lied through my teeth and said it was a research paper. ^^;;;;

Even though it wasn't exactly written as a gift or request, it was the result of a poll!! I wanted to write something scary, but there were too many characters in my mind. Rook won and 11:11 is the result! I think it's very fascinating to explore psychological horror with Rook. He's already terrifying on his own. >_< in case you are curious, these were the ideas for the others from that poll (as you can see, pet play with Jade was still ever-present in my head LOL):

As for fan art~~ it was you!!!!!! o(≧∀≦)o hehe I love it so much. orz orz orz your art is always so amazing and scrumptious. I can't thank you enough for finding inspiration from 11:11 and drawing such a beautiful picture!!! T^T <3 I hope to return the favor someday for all of the wonderful arts you've made!!!! ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭ ੈ♡‧₊˚

[sleeplesssmoll]

Thank you for replying so fast! It’s really interesting that Vertin really did make such a gamble. Speaking of which, what is with the two moons? Is that the Storm Syndrome of the era? How is it related to the pop art thing we see happen?

Full disclosure before this: I adore Vernetto and I’m very much writing from the perspective of Vernetto Real, haha. So: I feel like Vertin and Sonetto’s relationship changes quite a bit throughout the story. In chapter 3, Vertin is the one who pursues Sonetto, but the dynamic is reversed (ha) later on. I often feel like Vertin has trouble identifying her own emotions regarding other people, and it makes me wonder if maybe she had a crush on Sonetto without realizing it when they were kids, giving her all sorts of things in an attempt to bond with her. It didn’t really work because Sonetto was so scared of anything from the outside, despite her natural curiosity. Then the breakaway happened, there was no chance for things to progress, and Vertin “moved on”.

I feel like it breaks Vertin’s heart to see Sonetto shut down her natural curiosity and interest in the outside world due to the Foundation’s indoctrination, but at the same time, Vertin doesn’t want to force her to change her views. Instead I think she is incredibly supportive and proud of Sonetto whenever she makes strides in the direction of independence. And of course she’s always happy to enable Sonetto when she wants to try things (I really cannot imagine a world where Vertin turned down Sonetto’s cheek kissing practice or bridge invitation!).

Also, do we know if the prologue is the first time Vertin and Sonetto have met each other since the breakaway, or if they’ve seen each other in between? Things like Sonetto’s birthday letter would maybe imply that it’s not the first time, right?

I want to know the last bit as much as you 😂 I'm assuming they stayed in touch but there isn't much to go off of. I really want to know what happened between the break away event and the intro.

Sonetto, how did you get from "damn it Vertin" to this puppy? Also, despite Sonetto scolding Vertin, she will still accept the gifts and never outright ignores her. If Vertin calls, she'll answer and I think that says something about her too.

Vertin once mentioned to Madam Z she knew she could depend on her because on that night long ago, she saw that madam z was not part of Constantine's game by the look in her eyes. She also doesn't force people to make choices they really don't want. For example, she gives Regulus options in the Suitcase after everything as proof of this. Like if Regulus wanted, she could have joined the Foundation which would make sense considering the whole experiment thing but they really are alike so that didn't happen. She stayed.

Going off of this, I think Vertin has high emotional intelligence but doesn't necessarily know the correct action to take. Especially since they were kids back then. Maybe she saw that curious spark Sonetto displays now and wanted to fuel it, hoping to bond over shared interests? Her perception is highlighted throughout the story. Perhaps she knew Sonetto doesn't actually hate her despite her frustrations? Gremlin energy. You love and you hate them.

As for the Storm Syndrome, yes I think the moons were a side effect of the Storm but I couldn't tell you exactly what it represented 🤔

From a shipping perspective, I l'm happy with any content with Vertin in it lol. As for the analysis of shipping dynamics, I like comparing opposite dynamics since it helps me refine the point I'm trying to make. On this case, it'd be Schneider.

While seeing Schneider's effect on Vertin is straightforward, Sonetto's true influence stood out to me when I backtracked.

From the moment they met, Schneider is described with a sort of romantic or pretty language. From her face to her scent, she's directly described in a delicate but deadly light. It really feels like she made a shift in Vertin's world in the short time they knew each other.

The context she thinks about Sonetto isn't highlighted with the same romanticism she applies to Schneieder, but she constantly appears in Vertin's thoughts. In Sonetto's case it's the small things that Vertin's always noticed but never forgets. Sonetto lives in her head rent free from her dreams (artificial somnambulism) to memories from their days as children.

From all the way back in the intro, Vertin makes references to their school days when she meets Sonetto. Like the way Sonetto looks up at the sky and takes a deep breath before combat or the determined expression is the same kind she makes before an exam. While Schneider made a huge impact in a moment, Sonetto's presence quietly persisted in her mind for a long time.

In simpler terms:

Schneider was the one who shook her world.

Sonetto is her Roman Empire.

I might have more dynamics to work with in the future and this is subject to change as the character develop but I hope this is useful for your story! Good luck! 👍

[yupyor]

† Glory Hole †

Summary • Things have always been heated between you and Billy, giving each other lewd glances and sensual lip-bites every time you walked past each other in the hallway. It's no wonder you ended up on your knees doing one of the most scandalous things one could do in the school's bathroom.

Y'all i tried being kinky😭😭😭 When i tell you this shit had me cringing!!!!

It took like 12 days(?) just for me to finish this LOL. This is my first time writing smut ever so i don't expect it to be good. kinda just wanted to post something and i was in the mood—👀—when i thought about this so. Haven't really proof-read it cuz if i do, then there would be no chance for this getting uploaded.

Warning : Smut? I tried to get real detailed with it but i honestly think i flopped so..... Bad smut ig?

It was unbearably hot in the room, the humidity of the air only intensifying the heady fumes left from the cleaning products the Janitor used in his dire chase for impeccability.

Billy was standing there before you, nothing but the thinness of the stall's wall separating you both and preventing you from staring into those seductive eyes of his. If it wasn't for the minor breach in the wall in front of you, you would have been completely oblivious to the beast of a meat sprouting before you.

You kneel on the ground, getting eye-level with the miniature hole serving as a direct entrance to the stall Billy was in, and breathed out.

The groan that resonated from him was so invigorating you couldn't help but train your eyes on the cause for it, the tint at the front-most region of his pants straining his tiny zipper, looking as if it were to buckle if the growing brute restrained by it were to expand anymore.

It twitched, movement eager, as if sensing your growing need to please it.

"Go on." Billy encouraged, his eyes fixating on the area he believed you to be, hands plastered up against the wall.

He couldn't see you, no, but his imagination and sense of touch had more than made up for that—your mere breath leaving him on edge. "Suck it."

And you do, the rawness of his voice sending goosebumps up the whole of your body, needy. It was magical, almost. The way those two words gave you a will to give in and serve him entirely.

You start off slow, lips parting as to increase the flexibility and cover-range of your tongue, and did one long, dirty, memorable stroke, the spit on your tongue soaking the once dry surface of his pants.

He moans, thrusting his hips forward at your contact, trying to make more use of your tongue.

You liked it.

That desperate need for pleasure he had.

It made him a different person. More submissive, even. The way his body would endlessly reaffirm your skill by trembling and twitching when you did something right.

Slow, deep breaths left him, his voice naught but low as he groans out your name, voice breaking.

Your tongue was a work of art that was slowly getting him to his wit's end, antagonizing him.

You take a step back, pupils dilating as you slowly inspect your doing. The crotch area of his pants was wet, entirely soaked through. You could more accurately make out the shape of his dick now—nothing but the word thick coming to mind as a fitting enough description for it.

That girth of his... It made you queasy—imagining what it would feel like to have something that looked nothing short of ethereal like that in you.

You cup it, touch delicate, and the first thing that came out of you was "Heavy," the mere weight of it sending a series of chills down your curved spine. You were enthralled.

Though that didn't last for long.

A deep, smug laugh reverberated against the thin walls, breaking you out of your trance and reinstating you, the volume of it close to mute. "Big, huh?"

You blush, unable to look away as Billy slowly unzips his fly, taking off the last of his clothing and revealing the bulging, quivering mass of flesh. "Imagine it six feet down your throat," he murmurs, his voice low and husky.

The tip was red, the sprouting veins trailing from the base of his rod swollen.

His slit was leaking.

"Deep-throat it for me, baby, yeah?"

You swallow the lump in your throat, taking it in your palms as your pulse gradually slowed, eagerly getting up close and personal to fulfill that rumbling, seething need within you to just merge with it.

It was hard...

And warm...

And...and...There was no way you could deep-throat that.

You struggle to take a breath in, your words coming out slurred as you peel his skin back, the steadiness of your action making the rhythm of his breathing inconsistent. "….Yea."

He was uncut, the glistening layers of his foreskin a sight to see against the dirty blonde backdrop of his pubic hair. You swear you could permanently marvel at the way pre-cum kept oozing out of it.

Billy jerks his hips forward, the force of it tearing you out of your trance and reminding you of the task at hand. To please him.

Your strokes were slow, no doubt due to you still being dazed by your previous enthrallment.

He was rutting his hips against your pace—the motion causing a series of squelches to rebound the titled walls around you. If it wasn't for your mind completely prioritizing attending to the needs of the hunk before you, you would have long cringed at how loud the noises you were making were.

It made what you were doing riskier, especially taking into account that the doors were unlocked. If fate was as cruel as people thought it was, someone would've walked past the bathroom any minute now and immediately recognize what the two of you were doing purely from the sounds emitting from it.

You reach for the underside of his jewels, your approach delicate—as if you were smothering the most fragile thing in the world, and gently massaged them. He groans, his body shuddering at your touch.

You wish you could see his face. See the way his ragged breaths left him breathless. The way his pupils would dilate more and more the further in pleasure he fell—his eyebrows rising and falling in a mesmerizing dance, reflecting the pure, overwhelming ecstasy he was experiencing. The thought only encourages you, prompting you to take your attention away from his shaft and redirect it towards his glans, the action causing him to leak far more profusely.

The low, droning moans that leave him have you completely blanking, lost in the moment… Till he pulls back. You know why before he even hints at it, though. He was close, the eager throbs and bulging of his cock a dead giveaway.

"I'm close." He heaves out.

From where you're kneeling, you can see him resting his head against the wall, his sweat-soaked figure accompanied by his flustered breaths likely the reason for his chest's labored pace.

Billy looks at you, the deep blue eyes of his locking you in place. There was something in his stare that had you transfixed. Something primal, almost. Something… something dominating—you couldn't help but feel pinned down.

He wanted to claim you.

No.

Make a mess of you. Scent you.

He needed to. And if the strain near your crotch was of any indication, you wanted him to.

He once again approaches the hole in the wall, big, calloused hands guiding the thickness of his cock towards your mouth, his intentions more than clear. Suck it.

And you do. His scent was otherworldly. Hypnotic. The way it enchanted you to ditch all rationality. It was like falling in and out of consciousness, everything but his pulsing prick a blur restricted to the back of your head.

You open your mouth, your hold on it weak. It was thick. Too thick—and as you guided it in the direction of your throat, you could only hope it wouldn't scrape against your teeth. The action earns you another deep moan from him, slowly growing into that of a growl at the paced progression of your speed.

It started with soft pops here and there, a result of you going all the way to his base before pulling back, morphing into fast, wet slurps sounding the walls.

Billy was breathing fast, his head leaning against the right side of his upper-arm propped up against the bathroom stall, light-headed.

He was close.

You take your hands off of him, going as far down as you can with your gag reflex before taking a deep breath. His odor was far more eminent now. So intoxicating that you couldn't help but stay a few minutes there to just breathe him in.

Unfortunately for you,—or fortunately—that doesn't last long.

Billy pulls halfway out, not even giving you a second to react before he's thrusting back into you with newfound vigor and determination. Albeit still safe, his new pace is now haphazard and daring, igniting a spark of pleasure that neither of you had expected. It goes without saying that within a few minutes you're reduced to a slobbering mess of spit and tears.

He was thrusting deep into you, seemingly hellbent on proving your previous thought wrong.

"You like that?" He bemoaned. "Choking on my thick cock."

"Yea" Your response comes out muffled, and If it wasn't for the sly smirk that took Billy lips, you would have thought he didn't hear you.

"Fuck!" He groans, his body tensing as his throbs pick up to be something far more eager.

He pulls out of you, taking a step back before leaning his head against the stall's wall, his dick out and bulging in-front of you.

"Gonna fill you up with daddies cum."

You stick your tongue out, soft, needy moans erupting from the depths of your throat as you watch him jerk off, the overwhelming scent of his coupled with the erotic display before you sending your overstimulated mind into overdrive.

"You want that, huh."

"Yea."

"My hot, juicy cum inside you."

"Yes please."

He's gonna cum.

Long, thick strokes shoot out from the tip of his slit, the richness white texture of it a sight to see against the pinkness of your tongue.

Billy moans, a chorus of swear leaving his mouth as he goes thru his high, a series of shivers surging throughout his body. "...Fuck..."

His breath was less ragged now, opting for long, deep breaths as he marveled at the mess before him. He reaches his right hand out, caressing the side of your cheek and spreading the dense liquid around before removing his hand and placing it on you lip. "...Swallow"

And you do, his eyes glinting at your show of obedience.

He liked them submissive.