#y’all my head hurts so fucking bad

[rem-and-co]

Scott summers core is having a headache so bad you have to wear tinted sunglasses everywhere

[prehistorictriforce]

fuck you people who fake tourettes fuck you people who say they want tourettes fuck you people who have made having tourettes into smthn cute quirky and desirable!!!!! i’m mad!!!!!!!! fuck you fuck you fuck you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[starlooove]

Thinking about the hill tho my only issue was like choppy transitions. Idk comic jargon but rlly could’ve benefited from a few more ‘X time Y place’ in the corners of the panels sometimes

[domjaehyun]

no me importa BAHAHA I love that you learning Spanish

the way i say that like 20 times a day. i have to. it hits so much harder than “i dont care” bc it feels like im dramatically saying . it matters not. I LOVE IT

for some reason this ask sent me into a monologue both in the below text and the tags….. under a read more for your scrolling convenience

i also like saying un poco [insert spanish adjective here or english if i don’t know the word for it] whenever i need to describe something. also (im consulting actual/native/fluent spanish speakers now) IS LINDO REALLY THE ONLY WORD FOR CUTE I FEEL LIKE IT SHOULD BE SOMETHING LIKE A CUTER WORD LIKE POCO I LOVE THE WORD POCO 😭 but not poco bc then i cant say un poco cute >:/ LIKE IT SHOULD BE PICO SO I COULD SAY AY QUE PIQUITO BUT THAT WOULD MEAN LITTLE BEAK?!!!!! I DONT WANT TO SAY THAT!!! but yeah if there’s a more colloquial word for cute that’s more fun to say like linguistically…….lmk. but so far i quite appreciate the rules of spanish bc i took it when i was in school and did rly well actually . and i still remember a lot of the rules and vocab so talking to random customers in spanish is getting a lot easier!!! and sometimes i just ask ppl how to say a word or if they said a word i didnt understand im like “what does that word mean” then they describe it and im like “say it again” then they do and then bam i have learned a new word !! i hate that everyone is right and to improve speaking a language you actually have to….speak……. the language….. and not just learn vocab and rules BUT now that im 90% over my social anxiety sitch it’s a lot easier to ask questions and learn!!!!! also 12/10 they think i’m cute for asking and then they compliment my spanish and say i’m cute and then i get a compliment for wanting to learn :3 excellent positive reinforcement, i am unlearning shame and guilt mhm yes

[peachdues]

COMPASS

bad boy!Sanemi • gang AU • NSFW

A/N: Peach?? Not having any self control when it comes to writing a fic?? It’s more likely than you think.

This was supposed to be a bad boy!Sanemi takes your virginity drabble that spiraled into a meta-analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred that then blew up into a fic with plot. All of those elements are still present but surprise!! Enjoy 24k words of my brain rot.

Inspired by @homo-homini-lupus-est-1701 ‘s wonderful meta analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred and his scars.

CW: 24k • explicit sexual content • MDNI • gang-related violence • mentions of blood and broken bones • mentions of murder/death • loss of virginity • creampie • vaginal fingering • some angst

I have plenty more of this AU written, so if y’all want more, just let me know 🫡

There are three rules to surviving life in the Corps.

The first is simple: once you’re in, you’re in.

Never outwardly confirm or deny rumors; let others talk, but don’t even think about opening your fucking mouth about the things you see or the whispers you hear.

And don’t be stupid enough to think you can cling onto any vestiges of your old life. There’s no splicing your life within the Corps with the one you’d had before. No separation. You’ve whored yourself to their cause, and for better or worse, you’re there until either someone important says otherwise or you end up in a morgue.

This is especially true for someone like Sanemi, so hopelessly entrenched within the organization that he’d allowed himself to be branded at the age of seventeen upon his ascension from rank-and-file street member to full-blown Hashira — the elite of the Corps, just short of the higher-ups who ran it.

The hot sear of iron between his shoulder blades had hurt like hell, but it was a welcome pain. A reminder that he’d not only outlived his father, but had actually made an impact, enough to be noticed and entrusted with more strenuous duties.

Each Hashira is assigned to a particular field. Uzui, silver haired, boisterous and extravagant, deals in bodies — mostly women, but men too, and he runs all of the strip clubs and escort services west of center city. Kocho, a child prodigy in chemistry, leads an intricate narcotics network.

And then there’s Sanemi: the debt collector.

Largely monetary debts — collecting on behalf of loan sharks, gambling debts, or that which is owed to his fellow Hashira, when their customers forget that there are no friends in business.

But the brand seared into his flesh has nothing to do with money — it is a reminder that above all, he is to ensure debts of another kind are paid.

Life debts.

In the three years since his initiation, Sanemi has only had to carry out this oath twice. Both had been scum, responsible for the deaths of innocents.

Their executions had been quick and without fuss — or much mess. A quick trip to an overpass abridging the Wisteria River. A march to the barrier in the dead of night, when no other cars were out and about to see or hear pleading sobs and bargains for their pathetic lives. A bullet to the head would quiet them, and Sanemi would let the rapids below take care of the clean up for him. Job done.

But even though the spray of their brains hadn’t touched him, their blood still stains Sanemi’s hands.

He will never be able to wash them clean.

But this is the life he chose, so Sanemi will endure the consequences — for the sake of his brother, the only living person on earth he gives a damn about. For whom he’ll do anything — be anyone — if it means Genya does not have to pick up a gun and sell himself to the very gang that owns his elder brother.

The second rule is simpler: no patterns. Patterns signal comfort and comfort may as well be a target on your back, begging for someone to come and take their shot (or several).

And finally, the third and arguably the most important rule, is don’t get attached. Keep your circle small so there’s less collateral to be used against you — against the organization that owns you.

This rule applies to both Corps members and civilians alike.

For the longest time, Sanemi Shinazugawa found Rule Three to be the easiest one to follow. He has his brother and no one else. His parents are dead; he has no friends beyond those in the Corps with him, and he knows better than to get overly invested in any of them. His inner circle is as tight as it can get.

But then he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in and that’s when everything falls apart.

“Fuckin’ Christ,” Sanemi mutters, anxious eyes tracking the large hand on his watch as it ticks the seconds by.

They were late.

The job was simple, and well within Sanemi’s capabilities. Maeda, a local dealer in stolen goods, had run up a sizeable bill at one of Uzui’s joints that he’d yet to pay. And while the slippery lech was quick to come sniffing whenever news spread that Iguro, a fellow Hashira, had managed to hijack a semi-truck full of luxury items, he was surprisingly difficult to connect with when it came time for him to pay for company he couldn’t get elsewhere.

He glanced down at his bruised, swollen knuckles and smirked. Sanemi couldn’t say he loved that his worth was measured in the number of bones he could break, or the amount of teeth he could punch out, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t relish the chance to smash the pervert’s face in whenever the opportunity arose. Nor could he deny the rush of satisfaction he’d felt when he’d thrown open the steel door of the Maeda’s small office, crowbar in hand, and watched the snot-nosed pervert piss himself, stumbling over his words as he’d begged for mercy Sanemi hadn’t been hired to give.

The stupid, greasy fuck.

By the time he’d finished, Maeda had been little more than a quivering, helpless lump curled in on himself on the sticky, slate floor. His office had been left in shambles, drawers yanked out and emptied, only to be thrown aside (or cracked over the vermin’s back as he sobbed). But he’d had found the money, right down to the last dollar, just as he knew he would.

And that’s how Sanemi finds himself standing in the alley tucked behind Maeda’s small warehouse, Uzui’s payment split into two rolls that he’d shoved down into boots. All that was left was for the two junior Corps members he’d brought along for watch to bring the car around, and then they’d return to the abandoned factory that served as their headquarters.

Normally, this would have been a solo job, and Sanemi would already be on his bike, speeding off to safety. But he’d received an order to take along two, new Hinoe so they could get experience with higher level jobs.

Conveniently, his instructions had omitted the part the fact that the two lugs were utterly useless, bumbling idiots, contrary to what their recent promotions otherwise suggested.

Because neither of the two juniors are anywhere to be found. Nor is there any sound signaling that his getaway ride is approaching.

Sharp, lavender eyes scan the alley before him, but to his dismay, it remains empty — disquietingly so.

Leave it to a couple of rookies to set his teeth on edge.

Sanemi’s eyes drop down to follow the large hand of his watch as yet another minute ticks by. It’s been six minutes and their window had only allowed for four.

He knows how to be patient when the circumstances call for it, but now is not one of those times.

One minute, he decides, shifting his weight between his feet. They get one more fucking minute and then he splits —

A sudden screech of tires at the opposite end of the alley makes his stomach flip. Sanemi looks up just in time to see his escape car grind to a sharp halt, its rear jolting up as the driver slams on the brakes.

The passenger door flings open, and one of the Hinoe stumbles out, his feet barely connecting with the pavement before the car guns away, the side door flapping open.

The familiar howl of police sirens accompanied by distant shouts is enough for Sanemi to know this simple little debt collection has now gone tits-up.

“Pigs!” The Hinoe who stumbled out of the getaway car calls to him. “Pigs!”

“Shit,” Sanemi growls. No doubt Maeda’s bruised ego sold them out. He should’ve taken the time to smash the asshole’s phone.

He’ll be dealt with later — and with relish. But right now, Sanemi needs to get the fuck away.

Part of following Rule Three means not worrying about your fellow comrades when the cops come. None of them are stupid enough to actually risk talking to law enforcement about the Corps’ operations, but the fewer of them who get caught, the better.

So Sanemi takes off, adrenaline pumping fast and jot in his veins as he hears the swine behind him split off. He can’t be sure, but he can make out two, maybe three pairs of footsteps trailing behind him.

He scowls; shaking one cop is a breeze; having to shake off three is a bitch.

He hurtles over a pile of wooden crates and shoves a stack of delivery pallets over behind him as he runs, darting down random alleys and side streets that he knows will eventually lead him to a safe house.

The backstreet he shoots down is a fork, but only the path straight through will lead him to a rust yard of abandoned warehouses and shipping containers that Sanemi knows like the back of his hand. He could lose them there, could vanish between freights and wait the bastards out, and once clear, he could slip back into the district marking the outer territory of the Silo and get back home.

Iron pumps hotly in his veins. Almost there, almost there —

A car skids to a stop at the end of the middle ting of the alley, police lights flashing and alarms blaring.

No good.

“Fuck.” It isn’t the end of the world, but the blocking of the alley meant he had to reevaluate his escape. While he’s familiar with the path now obstructed by the police cruiser ahead, he hadn’t the chance to fully scope out his only other two options — the side streets to the left and right.

Without much thought, Sanemi darts sharply left and prays to whatever deity is listening that he hasn’t fully fucked himself.

Only one shop remains open; a tiny hole in the wall, tucked in between two old apartment buildings at the end of the street — one that borders the city’s western wing.

It’ll have to do, he decides, especially as the police sirens grow louder with each passing second.

He explodes through the front door, wide eyed and panting. Vaguely, it registers to him that this is a bookshop — a thankfully empty, cluttered bookshop.

But his abrupt arrival does reveal that the shop is not totally empty. There is one other — the store’s lone employee, who startles out of her seat behind the clerk’s counter, nearly knocking over a small cup of coffee.

He regards her for a moment, and she him, with matching expressions of wariness and shock at the presence of the other.

Behind him, the police sirens grow louder; more urgent.

It’s now or never. And, because he’s desperate enough to try, he risks a move he knows better than to take.

“You got someplace I can hide?”

——-

You blink, stunned as you stare at the frantic, pleading man anxiously looking between you and the door behind him.

His name registers dimly in the back of your mind. Here. In your store. And, evidently, on the run, if the distant echoes of police sirens growing steadily closer to your store is any indication.

Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You know him; you’d known him most of your life, even if you’d never spoken to him. You’d gone to the same school in your youth — all thirteen years of it, in fact. He’d been an abrasive loudmouth in the hallways, but a quiet, even polite boy in the classroom.

You know he’s from the Silo — a worn down, derelict part of the City that housed only the poorest residents. A cruel nickname meant to mock the poverty of its population.

But the Silo was also well known for being the epicenter of operations for the notorious group known only as the Corps.

It was the Corps who owned a majority of the City, its reach extending from the Silo, through the West and East wings, and all the way into Midtown. And, as was the case with most leeches, the Corps relied on the most desperate and hungry to carry out its biddings, offering some level of protection and security for the poor souls who needed it most.

Hence, its presence in the Silo.

So you hadn’t been surprised when you’d heard Sanemi had joined the Corps. Most kids from the Silo did; what had surprised you were the rumors that he became a high-rank member by the ripe age of seventeen, before he’d even graduated high school.

You shudder to think what he had to have done — what he’d become — in order to achieve such status and notoriety.

If he’d been anyone else, you wouldn’t have helped; you would’ve screamed, alerted the police to his presence, maybe even outed him as a suspected Hashira.

But you owed him.

Years ago, before either you or your siblings could drive, you all relied on the city bus to get to and from school.

But one afternoon, when you’d had to stay late for a club meeting, your little sister accidentally got on the wrong bus. Rather than being dropped safe and sound a block away from home, she’d ended up in a bad part of town that just so happened to have been the stomping grounds of the scowling delinquent now shoved under your cabinet, contorted between boxes of blank receipt rolls and stacks of returns.

Had anyone else found your sister, there would be no telling what would have happened to her. The Silo was not a place known to be kind to lost little girls.

But it was Sanemi who discovered her, sniffling and red-faced at the dilapidated bus stop. And though he’d been nothing more than a scrawny ten year old, he’d put your sister on his back and carried her not just the six miles back to safe part of town, but the additional two that led right to the front doorstep of your parents’ home.

You’d watched him curiously from the stairs as your parents profusely thanked your sister’s white-haired savior. They’d offered Sanemi dinner, or at least some sort of reward for his efforts, but he’d only waved them off, briskly telling them it was “no big deal.” As though carrying a six-year-old nearly eight miles was par for the course, as far as he was concerned.

His eyes had flitted over to you once during the exchange, briefly lingering before he turned and left, a single hand held up in casual farewell.

You’d been ten at the time. And now, here you are, twenty years old, running a shabby bookstore, and the opportunity to pay him back has finally arrived. The chance to show your gratitude for sparing your sister of a fate he himself, had not been able to escape.

Quickly, you motion him to you and without explanation, you cram him under the clerk’s counter, holding the cabinet door shut with your knee just as the police burst through the store entrance.

There are three of them, and they do not bother announcing themselves to you. Instead, they begin to prowl through your aisles, flashlights out and guns drawn while they comb the quiet corners of the store, searching for signs of anything that did not belong; anything misplaced.

A bead of sweat slides down the back of your neck, but you keep your face and your stance casual. Below the counter you cross your fingers, hoping and praying that the criminal stuffed inside your cabinet isn’t stupid enough to try and shift.

One officer rounds back into the main part of the store and locks in on you, stiff and anxious behind the counter.“You haven’t seen anything suspicious?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what you mean.”

The cop grimaces. “You haven’t seen anyone who looks out of place? Maybe seems like they’re running?”

You feign an easy, sweet smile, even as the leg holding the cabinet door shut begins to tremble. “I’m afraid you’re my first customer of the day, sir.”

The officer grumbles under his breath something along the lines of not your customer, but he questions you no further. He only waves to his comrades and the three of them shuffle out through the door, one muttering into the walkie strapped to his shoulder.

Several moments pass, tense and thick. The silence is broken only by the sound of your heart hammering against your sternum. You remain still, fingers curled tight against the counter’s edge listening for any sound signaling the cops have returned, that their stiff departure had been a ruse to lull you into a false sense of security, as they waited for you to reveal your deception.

But all remains quiet. And you cannot stomach the silence any longer.

“They’re gone,” you mutter, finally moving aside to let the cabinet door below you swing open.

There’s a faint thumping and a few, muffled curses as the scar-speckled fugitive unfolds himself and spills free from the under-cabinet.

In a way, Sanemi still resembles the boy of your memories. His eyes and hair have always been distinctive: a shocking contrast of violet framed by thick, dark lashes that do not match the mop of silvery-white atop his head. But it’s the faint scowl he wears as he stands, the tinge of annoyance that tugs at the corners of his mouth, that scrunches his pale eyebrows, that feels familiar.

That expression, a portrait of vague irritation with the world around him, was one you came to know well — at least, at a distance. One that remained constant even as you grew; his default.

However, it is still not nearly as memorable as the shy embarrassment that had turned his cheeks slightly pink, had made him cast his eyes down as your parents showered him with gratitude.

But that earnest bashfulness is nowhere to be found now.

He wears a patterned, short-sleeved button down. Though rumpled and a tad dirty, you suspect the top three buttons were left open intentionally, rather than being the product of whatever scuffle he’d found himself in before he decided to make it your problem.

You try not to linger on the very obvious hint of the well-defined muscles revealed by his open collar. Nor do you let yourself consider the bulging mass of his biceps as he runs a hand through his cornsilk hair.

He has scars he’d not had in your youth — jagged, silvery lines that cut halfway across his cheek and forehead. Yet their presence does not dull his good looks.

A scrawny ten year old no longer; Sanemi Shinazugawa is now tall and roguishly handsome. But his infuriating good looks aside, your debt to him has been repaid; now, he needs to get the fuck away.

“Can’t thank ya enough,” he shoots you a devilish smile as he straightens his shirt. “You really saved my ass —“

“Get out of my store.” You order, your voice hard. “Take your trouble somewhere else and leave me out of it.”

Sanemi’s eyes narrow at your use of the word trouble, but he says nothing. Instead, he only rounds the counter with a loping, infuriating swagger, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“As you wish, Princess,” and you bristle at the sarcasm dropping from the word. He pauses to scan the shelf marked New Releases. “Just need somethin’ for the road.”

He snags a small novel — a fantasy story, judging by the cover - and he tucks it under his arm.

“Later,” he calls, waving a lazy hand over his shoulder.

You stare after him, slack-jawed and incensed. “You have to pay for —“

But the door bangs shut behind him, and Sanemi Shinazugawa disappears into the night.

—-

By the time Sanemi returns to his shabby apartment, it is well after midnight. He’d met up with Uzui and forked over Maeda’s payment. Though, the Corp’s head pimp hadn’t been particularly pleased that his money rolls had been shoved deep down in his boots, his nose wrinkling as Sanemi dropped the crumpled, slightly damp wads of cash into his waiting, magenta-nailed hands.

As it turned out, Maeda hadn’t sold them out. Rather, one of the Hinoe had stupidly gotten into a scuffle with some brash, young teenager and in his anger, pulled his gun on the kid.

Right in front of two, marked cop cars.

One of the idiots had been caught and cuffed, and was now spending his evening locked in the damp, cold jailhouse pending bond. The other — the driver — had managed to escape, though he’d been carted off to Iguro for punishment.

There’s a reason he prefers working alone, he thinks bitterly as he kicks his boots off. He fucking loathes incompetence.

He pulls his gun free from its place in his waistband and sets it gently atop his ratty kitchen table. Sanemi then trudges over to his futon, collapsing heavily on it with a groan. A shit day, he decides, pulling the stack of cash he’d received as his cut for the job free from his pocket, thumbing through it. A shit day with shit juniors.

He shifts against a lump that sits under his ass. Frowning, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the book he’d swiped from your store and turns it over in his hands. Surprisingly, it has managed to remain in pristine condition despite its rather unceremonious storage in his pocket.

Your face flashes in his mind, but before he can fully appreciate it, your words echo in his ears.

Take your trouble somewhere else.

Sanemi scowls, tossing the book onto his coffee table, annoyed. The implication underlying your use of trouble and the venom with which you’d spoken it is a thorn in his side he cannot ignore.

You know what — who — he is. In Sanemi’s world, that’s a liability.

Though, in fairness, he can’t really be surprised that you do. Gossip is a free commodity in this town, and it’s a coveted one. It wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude that you’d overheard one of the rumors about him and his ties to the Corps.

What concerns him is he doesn’t know what your connection is, if any, to his world. Maybe you’re really just a girl in a bookshop who paid back a decade-old favor.

Or maybe you’ve got an in with them.

The Corps isn’t the only gang operating within the city; there is another, crueler and far more violent that had arisen west of the Silo.

The Kizuki.

In the last six months, the Kizuki have managed to overtake the Western Wing, nearly expanding their reach into center city.

Their takeover had been swift; practically achieved overnight, following the systematic execution of every known Corps members in the area. And their violence hadn’t been limited to active members; the Kizuki had brutally maimed and murdered anyone tangentially connected to those Corps members.

Neither women nor their children were spared. And now, it seemed the Kizuki had set their sights on the Silo.

There are whispers that they’ve expanded into their operations into the neighborhood adjacent to the one in which the bookstore sits. That alone is enough to make Sanemi suspicious — perhaps you’re in league with them, and you’ll hand him over the moment it’s most convenient for you to do so.

Admittedly, that theory seems doubtful. You’re a bookseller. Not the kind of girl he knows is prone to becoming involved with the seedy underground world of organized crime. And your apparent disdain for him and his trouble only supports that theory.

But that’s an assumption, and in his line of work, assumptions are precarious; risky. Too much so for comfort.

Either way, he doesn’t know, and that uncertainty is a breeding ground for the parasite that is doubt. Toxic enough that were it to take root in his brain, his judgment could be compromised, leading him to mistakes he can’t afford to make.

Sanemi doesn’t tolerate blind spots. He will keep you on his radar until he determines the threat you pose and once he knows its severity, he’ll decide how to proceed.

He eyes the book he’d swiped from your store. He likes reading, though he hasn’t had much time for it lately (or, ever). But, if he’s going to hang around you while trying to identify the threat you pose, he might as well have a strategy for getting you to talk.

Sighing, he grabs the novel from his table and thumbs to the first page as he pads into his kitchen, in search of something to quell the grumble in his stomach.

—

His inquiries into you and your life reveal shockingly little.

You work at a bookstore. Your parents sold off your childhood home and retired to some beach down south. Your siblings are spread out across other cities and don’t visit home often, if ever.

Only you remain, abandoned by your family to fend for yourself in a crumbling city with only a shabby bookshop that sits on the furthest end of an otherwise safe street to keep you busy.

Truthfully, the bookstore probably is more interesting than you, at least on paper. But it’s that dirge of information that piques his interest; makes him look at you more as a mystery worth unraveling.

Besides, the smart thing for him would be to keep a tab on you until he can confirm you are in fact, as boring as you appear.

Or so he tells himself.

The image of a ten-year-old you peering at him from your parents’ stairwell flashes through his mind once more.

He’d felt your gaze burning a hole into his head, and shyly, he’d looked back at you, only to find himself unable to look away. Only your mother’s prodding about him joining your family for dinner had broken your temporary enchantment over him.

The memory of how you’d looked at him — a mixture of curiosity and awe highlighted by a faint blush in your cheeks when he’d met your stare head on — remained fixed in his brain for years after.

And though the two of you never spoke, you always smiled at him whenever you locked eyes in the school hallway or cafeteria. A real, genuine smile.

He wonders if he ever smiled back and finds himself irritated that he can’t remember if he had. He should’ve; especially now when it seems as though he’s unlikely to ever see that gentle, radiant smile again.

Sanemi’s phone pings and all thoughts of you come to a screeching halt. The message that flashes on his screen — instructions, only by way of an address and an amount — chase away the images of you and your sweet smile, like a hand scattering smoke.

With a sigh, Sanemi dials the number for two, lower-ranked Corps members to serve as scouts. With watch secured, he shoves his phone into his pocket and runs a tired hand over his face.

He wonders what will kill him first — whether it will be a bullet or whether it will be because there’s nothing left of him to whore out on the Corp’s behalf.

Ultimately, he knows it doesn’t really matter. He won’t die as himself; as Sanemi, the boy from the Silo who wants a life that’s anything but this. He’ll die only as Shinazugawa the Hashira. He’ll die under the mask he’s forced to wear so often, he wonders if it hasn’t yet bonded with his skin.

But as long as he remains in one piece, he must continue on as a puppet in this this tedious show. So, Sanemi grabs his gun from where he’d placed it on atop the cheap plastic of his kitchen table and he tucks it into his waistband.

And by the time his apartment door slams shut behind him, Sanemi has slipped the mask down over his face, and he is Shinazugawa once more.

—

Two weeks pass before he ends up back in front of your bookstore.

Sanemi doesn’t really remember how he got here. He awoke well before sunrise to his phone chiming with orders that he go collect on a sizeable gambling debt owed by one of Iguro’s regulars, an owner of some pawn shop.

The sun was already high overhead when he finally left the pawn shop, knuckles bruised and arm aching. He’d kicked his bike into gear in a familiar daze, one that always slipped over him after he completed a job. A kind of numb quiet that settled into his bones, a dull static in his brain that did not fade until the tremor in his hands subsided.

That paralysis needs to be broken. Contrary to popular belief, desensitization was not an ideal state of being for someone like him. It made him apathetic and careless to the world around him, and that was little better than painting a giant target on his back, begging his enemies to come and do their worst.

So, when the numbness still lingered by the time his bike roars past a rusted water tower that marks the outer limit of the Silo, Sanemi knows of only one cure. His go-to.

His bike is still hot by the time he lifts his phone to his ear, just outside his shithole of an apartment.

He doesn’t know her by name — only by description, as told by the series of emojis that accompany her number on his phone. But it’s surprisingly easy to charm her, though perhaps that’s because she’s looking for an escape just as much as he is.

Less than ten minutes later, the girl pulls up beside him in the parking lot.

Her hands are already roaming down his chest and playing with the buckle on his belt as Sanemi unlocks his door and pushes her inside.

At some point between the front door and his bedroom, the girl has stripped herself of her outer clothing, leaving her only in her undergarments as she tugs Sanemi down by his neck and into her kiss. She’s licking and nipping at his lips in a way he’s not sure he likes, but he allows it because his cock is painfully hard and throbbing where it strains against his pants.

And, after all, he’s the one desperate for relief.

“I’ve only got ten minutes,” she warns, kicking off her underwear as she falls back onto his bed. Sanemi only smirks as he slides his hand down the length of her leg, gripping her by the ankle and flipping her to her stomach.

He shifts away long enough to quickly wiggle free of his pants. He grabs a condom from his nightstand and rips the foil with his teeth. Fingers toying with the girl’s clit as she moans into his mattress, Sanemi rolls the latex down his cock. Protection secured, he reaches for her again, yanking her by her hips until her backside is flush against him. One hand pushes down between her shoulder blades while the other snakes up her neck, and Sanemi nudges the tip of his cock up against her entrance.

“Don’t worry, darlin’,” he winds the long tresses of her hair around his fist and gives her a sharp tug. “We’ll be done in five.”

—-

Even an hour after he tossed the girl her clothing and not so casually suggested she leave his apartment, Sanemi still feels restless.

He cannot shake the images of the afternoon from his mind, and so, Sanemi resorts to walking.

He does so without thought as to destination or the rapidly setting sun. Sanemi only focuses on the activity itself. One foot in front of the other; pace even and quick, each step accompanied by a flash of that day’s sins.

The crash of a garage door as it slammed back against the wall. Wide eyes that quickly filled with panic at the sight of him and the flash of metal tucked against his hip.

Step.

A plea; a desperate promise to pay, one that he’d heard a thousand times from a thousand different mouths. None of them ever seemed to understand their word wasn’t worth shit when they’d already defaulted on their obligations. Yet still, they begged.

Step.

The breaking of teeth beneath his fists.

Step.

The crush of bone under the iron pipe he’d found discarded on the garage floor. The agonized futility of trying to scoot back and away from him, despite a shattered leg.

Green; the color of the money he’d found stashed in a duffel, the debtor’s desperate attempt to hoard the wealth owed to the Corps.

Step. Step. Step. All the way down the street leading until he finds himself on a distantly familiar stretch of pavement that ends at the bookstore’s front steps.

For a moment, he lingers outside the shop, hesitant. He should turn around; there is no reason for him to be here. His investigation into you is not a priority by any means, especially where whatever poking he has done has revealed so little.

The book he lifted from the New Releases shelf is tucked carefully in his jacket pocket. He doesn’t know why he’s carried it around with him, all this time. Sanemi finished the novel the very night you’d helped hide him from the cops.

He should leave; but then his feet carry him up the walk leading to the store, and he’s pushing the door open.

His arrival is punctuated by a cheerful ring of the old bell nailed above the door. At first, the store appears deserted; but then you pop up from under the counter, surprise coloring your features.

That surprise melts quickly into cold disdain that makes something in his chest flutter as he strolls toward you. With every step, that numb haze of his disperses and instead, Sanemi feels himself returning to normal the closer he brings himself to you.

“This isn’t a library,” you chide when he plops his borrowed novel back down on your counter. “You have to pay for the books here.”

It’s incredible how easily he is able to slip back into the skin of the suave, smug playboy, and your adorable glare only makes him smirk. “I brought it back, didn’t I? Look — didn’t even crack the spine.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you reply coolly, snatching the book up and tossing it on a small cart marked Restock. “That loss came out of my paycheck — which is scant enough.”

That piques his attention. “Didn’t you say this was your store?”

His question makes you turn pink, and you’re quick to put your back to him, pretending to shuffle through new releases waiting to be shelved. “I work here,” you mutter quietly, but when you turn back around, you stick your chin out, defiant. “But I am the only employee, so it is my store, in a sense. The owner doesn’t ever come by.”

You wrinkle your nose. “So yes, lost profits affect me, and me alone, you thief.”

Sanemi cocks his head, his eyes running over you in consideration.

You’re beautiful; he’s always found you cute, even as a kid, but the transition between your teen years and adulthood have been kind. Even if you’re glaring at him like you would a crushed bug stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

But your words strike a chord in him. His job is to collect money from those greedy lowlifes who waste it; who use money to carry out their bad deeds, who use it to fuck over others.

He doesn’t take it from those who need it; from those who are barely scraping. by. Sanemi knows the agony of having to choose between keeping the lights on or feeding a hungry stomach far, far too well.

“Fine, here,” he tosses a random novel on your counter and a crumpled twenty dollar note. You ring him up, eyes flicking up to glare at him every so often as you count out his change.

He only continues to watch you, the heat of his stare ignites an itch under your skin that makes you squirm.

Your restlessness boils over. “What?”

“Nothin,” he shrugs. “Just think it’s interesting that you of all people are still lingering in this shit hole.”

Your head snaps up, your task of totaling out his change forgotten. “I live here, idiot.”

He snorts. “Didn’t you want outta here? Do somethin’ different?” He leans forward, elbows propped on your counter as he rests his chin on his fist.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” He’s dancing dangerously close to a sore spot of yours — that you are alone in your hometown, working at a failing bookshop, with no one and nothing to justify your stagnancy.

“This can’t be your dream life.”

You don’t have to answer; you know that. But his line of questioning is puzzling. Because, no matter how casual he manages to keep his tone, his nonchalance is betrayed by his eyes, sharp and inquisitive.

Like he’s waiting to dissect whatever answer you give him.

Sanemi continues. “It’s strange for people not to want for more — to not dream about somethin’ different.”

“And who are you to say I don’t?” You bristle, slamming your cash drawer shut with more force than necessary. “I have a dream of my own. Just because it’s not one you would pick for yourself doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

He blinks, taken aback. “Woah, woah, I never meant any offense.” He pushes back from the counter. “My bad.”

His response feels genuine but your ego is already bruised. Stiffly, you finish counting out his change and drop it into his waiting palm.

You slide his book across the counter. “Have the day you deserve.”

His surprise morphs into amusement at your iciness. So haughty, he winks. “You too, Princess.”

You turn aside in clear dismissal. He makes a show of taking out his wallet and stuffing his change inside, but your pointed ignorance of him means you don’t see him toss another note on the counter.

He’s already halfway out the door when you call after him, urgent. “Sir, you dropped your —“

“Nah, I didn’t,” he raises his hand in farewell as the bookstore door bangs shut behind him, leaving you to stare open-mouthed after him.

Clutched tightly in your hand is his crisp, one hundred dollar note.

—

His next visit is unplanned, but not in the way that Sanemi avoids routine. It’s unplanned in that he’s annoyed and it’s partially your fault, so that means the onus is on you to fix it.

You’re in the process of double checking delivery logs to ensure all your new inventory has arrived when a large thud against the clerk’s counter startles you.

You frown. It’s him again — all ivory hair and silvery facial scars that somehow are less imposing than the irritated scowl he wears.

“This book was shit,” he scoots the novel across the counter to you with distaste. “I want a refund.”

You level his pout with a frosty glare of your own. Wordlessly, you lean over the counter and tap a single finger against a laminated sign duck-taped to its edge.

Return-exchange only. No refunds.

“But it was shit,” he repeats, as though that will somehow spur you to change a policy you didn’t create. “You let me waste twenty bucks.”

“I did nothing,” you rustle the pages of your delivery log in pointed dismissal. “You’re the one who decided to buy a book before checking it out.”

You glance down at the discarded novel. “Figures,” you scoff. “He’s not even an author. He uses ghost writers and takes all the credit.”

“Woulda been nice if you’d told me that before you let me give him my money.”

You hum idly as you cross off the log’s boxes for new releases. “I suppose I was too stunned that you even knew how to read. Guess I wasn’t really paying attention to your shit choices.”

“Oh?” And you glance up to see Sanemi smirking at you. “The Princess has claws, does she?” He leans against the counter, propping his cheek under a loose fist. “So, what are your recommendations, gorgeous?”

“I’m not your Princess,” you snap imbuing the nickname with as much venom as you can muster. “Call me by my name or call me nothing at all.”

His eyes drop to your name-tag, pinned neatly on the front of your sweater. That insufferable smirk of his only widens. “Alright, alright. What are your recommendations, Y/N?”

The syllables sound rich and honeyed and suddenly, you wish you’d let him stick with Princess, as grating as it was.

Because your name should not sound so sweet, should not roll off his tongue so seamlessly, as it just did.

You’ve never been one to indulge in rumors. But in this city, as economically fractured as it is, gossip is a currency everyone keeps in their back pocket. And though you keep your head down and mind your own business, even you have heard the rumors swirling around town about the eldest Shinazugawa child.

Rumors that he has ascended the ranks of the same Mob that claimed the life of his deadbeat father long before the bastard was shived in the back for a debt he’d owed (their words, never yours).

Rumors that he holds a unique position within the gang, known clandestinely only as the Corps, and that position requires him to do things most won’t speak about.

But the rumor that screeches to the forefront of your mind has nothing to do with his alleged status with the Corps. It’s his reputation as a flirt; a rumored womanizer, through and through, that is a splinter under your skin.

Determined to pick him out, a wicked idea blossoms. “Fine, here.” You stalk purposefully to the section marked Literature. Your finger drags down a line of titles before finally settling on one. You pull it free with a soft grunt, the book sitting thick and heavy in your hand as you dump it into Sanemi’s.

“Read that.”

His eyes flick between its cover and you, incredulous. “This ain’t a book; it’s a brick.”

“It’s a classic,” you counter. “One that examines age-old question of destiny versus free will, generational curses.” Your head cocks to the side, a challenging smirk tugging at the corner of your mouth. “Love and lust.”

His eyebrow raises and you cross your fingers. If he falls for it and ultimately ends up hating the book, then perhaps he’ll decide your taste in reading material is indeed shit, and maybe then he’ll leave you alone.

Sanemi considers you for a moment but then he takes the bait. “If you say so,” he sighs. “But if it’s shit, I’m taking my refund.” And then he leans in close, so close that you can feel the warmth radiating off his body.

His breath is hot against your ear. “Regardless of your shitty little policy.”

You refuse to let him see how much he’s knocked you off-kilter. “So I can expect to be robbed? Will it be at gun or knifepoint? Just so I’m prepared.”

His chuckle, low and dark sends goosebumps skittering down your arms. “Worse,” he promises before he draws back. His grin is wolfish, all teeth and feral hunger. “You’ll owe me a date.”

He looses a low, appreciate whistle as he steps back and takes his eyes over your rigid form. “Though, I might just take you out anyway.”

“You assume I’ll say yes — or are you planning on kidnapping me? I’m sure you’re rather proficient at it, given your occupation.”

Something dark flashes across his face, and it’s enough to make you step back, a sudden fear creeping up the back of your spine.

Stupid, you chastise yourself. You never know when to keep your mouth shut.

But the shadows in his features recede as quickly as they appeared, and Sanemi’s mouth eases back into that same, cocky smile.

“You’ll say yes, Princess. You won’t be able to resist the temptation.”

“Temptation?” You force out a laugh. “And what makes you think I can’t?”

Sanemi’s eyes find your current read, open flipped over on the counter, marking your current page.

It’s a mystery novel. Your third of the month, born of a new hyperfixation on the genre.

You want nothing more than to wipe that smug grin of his clean from his face. He gives an affectionate snake of his head as he turns and makes his way toward the door. “Habits, Y/N. It all comes down to habits.”

You should throw it at his head, but Sanemi exits the store before your hand can find its spine.

——-

Over two weeks pass without so much as a whisper from the enigma that is Sanemi Shinazugawa.

Loath though you are to give him that sort of credit, you cannot deny that he utterly confounds you. He is everything you expected while simultaneously nothing at all what you’d imagined. He is brash and cocky, and he struts around with an insufferable self-importance that can only come from years of being at the top of his game (no matter how he got there).

Yet, he also reads. Enough to have opinions, even decent ones, about certain authors, and he’s open minded enough to accept your recommendation even if it feels as though he has an ulterior motive for doing so.

And, he’d been bothered by the dock in your pay as a result of his mischief; so much so, that he’d slipped you more than enough to make up the loss. That is the action that puzzles you the most, even weeks later. You’d assumed that someone like him, so used to ensnaring people into various schemes, wouldn’t have given two shits if he’d stolen money from some broke girl at a bookstore. After all, his business was all about money — and the lengths some would go to keep it.

Yet he’d paid you back — paid you more than you needed, if you were honest.

Since that day, you’ve had your ears tuned to any mention of his name, any whispers of the mysterious, scarred gang-member who has occupied nearly all the open space in your head. You’ve managed to glean small things here and there. That he’s a Hashira, and Hashira means he’s only one step below what is known ominously as the Master Family — the heads of the entire organization.

That he’s rather feared, even among seasoned Corps members; that he’s known for his swift brutality.

That he’s more than just a flirt; he’s a virile lover. Not picky in the slightest about who warms his bed, though no one has ever been able to pin him down longer than a handful of one-night stands.

You stop poking around after that particular revelation, embarrassed that you now know exactly what makes him so popular.

Apparently, his flexibility pairs well with his near inhuman stamina. And he’s said to be very well-endowed.

It’s more information than you care to know, but you can’t deny that your curiosity lingers.

You brush aside your inquisitiveness as nothing more than a natural side effect of your own inexperience. And you’ll be damned before admitting that your interest in Sanemi Shinazugawa isn’t limited to rumors of how good he is in bed. That, perhaps your curiosity stems from something deeper, from a desire to know if that bad boy persona is authentic or a mere facade, and boy on the stoop still lurks somewhere beneath his mask.

—

“You look like shit.”

You startle up from where you’d been resting your head on your arm, wavering between consciousness and sleep.

You know that gravelly voice before you lay your eyes on him, and your irritation is quick to flicker to life.

Nearly a month has passed since your last encounter, and for a moment, you’d thought you’d been freed from his nuisance. But now, Sanemi stands in your store, wearing a half-amused expression on his stupidly handsome face.

“Is that the only descriptor you know?” You ask miserably, hands working quickly to smooth down your mused hair. “Is everything either shit or not-shit to you?”

Sanemi shrugs. “Pretty much,” and he holds something out to you, waiting. “Here.”

It’s a to-go bag from a cafe two blocks away. One known for their almond croissants, for which you have a particular penchant.

Your stomach grumbles fiercely. You’d foregone eating breakfast when you realized you’d overslept your alarm, and had to rush out of your apartment to ensure you’d be here in time for the weekly delivery truck.

The sweet scent of butter and sugar wafting from the bag makes your mouth water.

But this is Sanemi Shinazugawa, and you should think to know better. “Is it poisoned?”

He rolls his eyes. “If I wanted to drug you, sweetheart, I’d pick a far more convenient way to do it — and one that didn’t involve me getting up at the ass crack of dawn for some overpriced pastries.”

Warily, you accept the paper bag, and Sanemi surprises you again by handing you a to-go cup of coffee. He watches as you, ever the dramatic, sniff tentatively at the lid and frown, apparently dissatisfied that you can discern nothing but the rich, aromatic scent of espresso.

Sanemi takes a deep drink from his own cup. “It’s a thank you. For that book you recommended,” He smirks. “It wasn’t shit. It was good.”

You fish a pastry out of the bag, and nearly drool as you behold its buttery, flaky goodness. “You sound surprised.”

“Maybe I was. Your success rate was only fifty-fifty. I had every right to be skeptical.”

“You’re the one who grabbed that last book,” you take a large bite out of your croissant and you fight to keep yourself from moaning. “That had nothing to do with me.” You swallow thickly before taking a large sip of coffee to wash down the pastry. “So, no date, then?”

The smile he gives you is almost apologetic. “Sorry, beautiful. I don’t actually date.” And you nearly double over at the bewildering taste of disappointment creeping sourly up the back of your throat. “Gotta keep things casual in my world.”

The once-over he gives you is razor-sharp. “And you don’t look like a casual girl.”

You resist the urge to cross your arms. “You seem awfully certain, Shinazugawa.”

“Experience,” he offers easily. “I know casual women.” He turns his head away before quietly adding, “And you ain’t one of ‘em.”

It’s odd; you know of his rather wild reputation among women, and yet he seems almost embarrassed by its acknowledgment. But as you’re slowly learning, Sanemi Shinazugawa is a conundrum you haven’t yet been able to pick apart.

You could throw it in his face; you could spew some barb about his experience, rub your salt right into his obvious wound. You have no reason to spare his feelings, not when he’s been such a consistent pain in your ass.

Your eyes drift to the empty pastry bag and coffee cup before they find him again, and suddenly, you don’t see the swaggering, cocky Corps member with a reputation for being just as dangerous and violent as he is flirtatious.

You see only the boy on your stoop; the one who’d gently removed your sister from her place on his back and handed her back to your tearful, relieved parents.

And it’s because you cannot stop seeing that boy, that you offer before you lose the courage to ask, “So, friends, then?”

Sanemi whips back to you, surprise coloring his features that quickly melts into a smile — a real, genuine smile.

And thus, Sanemi Shinazugawa, ruthless member of the Corps and a ranked Hashira, befriends a girl who runs a bookshop.

—-

In retrospect, Sanemi knows he’s probably fucked himself.

His only intention in visiting your shop after that first day had been to discern what level of threat you posed to him, if any, and to address it accordingly. Befriending you was never his goal. After all, he prided himself on his staunch ability in following the unspoken Rules of the Corps — number Three, in particular.

But he has always interpreted Three has a warning against forming bonds within the Corps. And though he knows it’s good practice to keep his circle outside its operations small as well, he rations he’s entitled to indulge his curiosity in you. He doesn’t have friends, not really. Just Genya, and his little brother lives well over an hour away, enrolled in a school in a far better — far safer — city.

It would be nice to have someone a little closer to home that he could relax around.

Yet, he can’t recall whether Rule Three would bar him from associating you outside work hours. Caution would dictate he shouldn’t, but Sanemi never claimed to be a careful man.

He never visits the same day or at the same time. Rule Two says no patterns, and though he’s steadily blurring the lines of Rule Three with each passing day, he convinces himself that as long as he abides by the first two, he won’t be in as deep shit as he, in theory, could be.

It starts out slow; tentative. Despite what he’d thought otherwise, you’re not nearly as prim and haughty as you’d tried to make him believe.

You’re sweet. Genuine, in a way that’s rare for him to encounter in his world.

Gradually, he begins spending more time with you. At first, your relationship is confined strictly to discussions of books. You swap favorites, debate which author is at the top of their genre, and you occasionally needle each other over your respective guilty pleasure: yours, bodice rippers. His, fairytales.

He spends a great deal of his free time at the bookstore, though he’s never consistent with his visits. You never ask him about it, and for that, he’s grateful. But eventually, your conversation turns to other interests — movies, shows, music — and each new mutual interest only further enamors him with you.

And when you invite him over one day after you close the shop to watch an old movie you’d swiped from the store’s limited collection, he can’t find it in him to tell you no.

The first time he visits your apartment, he is appalled.

For starters, the neighborhood you live in isn’t the safest. It’s not the Silo, by any means, but it’s an area he frequents as part of his job and that fact alone sets him on edge. He knows what kind of people linger here; knows that they tend to borrow cash that ends up in Uzui’s business — another Hashira.

And when he sees the shoebox you live in (a studio, you’d proudly boasted, as though the distraction of exposed brick and industrial piping made up for its shit location and shit security), Sanemi finds himself clutching his proverbial pearls.

He supposes he can see its appeal — you’ve certainly turned it into a home.

You’ve made a small living room out of a single couch, thrifted coffee table, and a faintly stained rug. Your TV is laughably small, but he supposes it gets the job done.

A small kitchen stands to the right of the entryway, and there is a bathroom to the left. You have a wall of closets with folding doors, and the wall directly opposite of him boasts three large, arched windows. Sanemi supposes during the day, they provide enough natural sunlight to negate any need for any overhead lighting, of which you have none. But he can’t tell if they open from the outside, so he resolves to furtively check once you’re distracted.

Your bed stands on the furthest wall, tucked into a corner and laden heavy with colorful pillows and plush throws. Books are stacked everywhere — in shelves, in corners, by plants and furniture. All well-worn and loved, their spines cracked and covers stained.

It’s lively; warm. And it has you written all over it. That alone is enough to slightly endear the place to him.

But it’s still a shit apartment in a shit neighborhood.

Worse, your door is little more than a flimsy piece of wood that latches with a single turn lock — the easiest to break, if someone was determined enough to try. He tells you as much and you roll your eyes, brushing aside his concerns as though he’s not precisely aware of what kind of filth might linger around the corner.

The next day, he brings over a deadbolt, a chain, and a drill. He bats off your indignant protests as he installs it on your door. And, because he’s petty, he forces you to sit through a painfully detailed demonstration of how to properly latch and unlatch the chain once he’s finished.

The weeks blend seamlessly into months, and Sanemi finds himself spending more and more of his free time with you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working at the bookstore or enjoying a night of brain-rotting entertainment on your shitty little television. He just wants to be near you, and he finds himself unable to stay away.

Four months into your friendship, you start a weekly movie night, though the date is always subject to change. Still, Sanemi finds himself craving more of that precious time with you. The hours spent in your store or at your apartment fill a void in his chest he hadn’t realized he’d been harboring, and it’s a fullness he quickly becomes addicted to.

It is an odd thing, this new ritual (never routine) of his. The alternation between visiting the scum indebted to the Corps, to feel bones crush and snap beneath his hands or the iron of a spare crowbar, or blood griming to his knuckles, only to return to your bookshop or apartment, cheap beer and greasy takeout in hand, isn’t the kind of switch he imagined he’d ever make. But you make taking off his Hashira mask so damn easy, and every time he leaves he finds it more difficult to slip back on.

With each passing day, he learns you more and more. He gathers information like a dragon hoards its jewels, each new tidbit a precious gem that he tucks safely away in a mental box labeled with your name.

He learns that, while he prefers tea, you prefer coffee, but you’re picky about your order. If it’s hot, you want it black or with only the faintest splash of cream. If it’s cold, however, you want every sweet syrup and topping known to man, even though it only makes you crash like a freight train once the sugar high wears off.

He learns you think cooking means pouring yourself a bowl of cereal and calling it a day, and it’s a revelation that makes him have to walk away and collect himself, lest he start lecturing you on the importance of proper nutrition, just as he does with his brother.

In exchange, he opens up about the more sacred aspects of his life — namely, Genya. He confides in you the great pride and adoration he has for his little brother, and admits his deep-seated fear that Genya will somehow be pulled into his violent, hostile world of his. And each time Sanemi begins to feel that anxiety rear its ugly head, threaten to settle into the marrow of his bones and send him into a spiral, you’re always there to pull him back.

Sometimes you ask questions, and Sanemi tries to answer them as best he can. But there are some subjects he can never touch. Never wants to.

He can’t tell you whose blood stains his knuckles or is splattered across his shoes. He can’t tell you where he goes when his phone vibrates late at night or at random during the day. He can’t tell you what his fellow Hashira do; the specialties they oversee.

Sanemi does make a point to assure you there is one sacred creed by which they all abide: no kids. This seems to put you at ease, as though this tepid moral line somehow absolves him of the other shit he’s guilty for.

It’s selfish, this thing he has created with you. He knows that. And his blossoming friendship with you likely breaks more than one of the sacred precepts of the Corps. But you’re the first person he’s met since his initiation who knows what he is and doesn’t cower in fear, and that makes him desperate to cling onto you. You know what an ugly, beastly creature he is, and yet you do not run away from him. Even when you probably should.

So, he makes a promise. He won’t show you the Shinazugawa who belongs to the Corps; a formidable member of the Hashira, known because of the things he can do to others to make sure they pay their debts. What he does to them when they don’t.

With you, he wants to be Sanemi; only Sanemi.

And so it goes, for the better part of a year, the two of you learning one another, pretending the ease you feel in the company of the other is merely the product of two people relieved to find a friend in a city that cautions against such ties, and not something in danger of becoming more.

As though the metamorphosis hasn’t already set in.

—

“You never told me what your dream was, y’know.” Sanemi says one night while you finish up inventory at the store.

“What dream?” You hum as you scan the shelves reserved for non-fiction releases, your lips pressed into a firm line as you run your pen down the entries of your log.

He leans against the bookshelf, arms folded across the considerable mass of his chest. “Your big dream — the one you bit my head off for insulting that one time.”

You look up long enough to roll your eyes at him. “Where’s this coming from?”

“Dunno. Curious.”

“Thought you’re not supposed to ask questions in your line of work.” And you shoot him a sly grin. “You ought to be careful.”

Sanemi snorts but he nudges your foot with his. “I’m serious.”

Your eyes dance back and forth between him and the log before you. There’s no real harm in it, you decide. After all, he’s the only friend you have. “I want my own bookstore.”

“Yeah?” He raises a pale brow and waves his hand vaguely around behind him. “Aren’t you practically running this one? That ain’t enough?”

“I don’t own it, though.” You frown, setting your clipboard down. “I just work here. You’ve seen my paycheck.”

And he had, having found a paystub when he’d gone snooping under your counter. You would’ve been furious at his invasion of your privacy had you not been so mortified at the way he’d stared in horror at the pitiful figure reflecting your earnings after two, grueling weeks of work.

His insistence on bringing you meals at any and every opportunity afterward only compounded your embarrassment.

“I want something that’s mine — that I own.” You continue. “I’ve begged the owner to let me organize author meet-and-greets as a way to promote the store for months, and he always says no. If I owned my own store, I wouldn’t need anyone’s permission.”

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth. “I wouldn’t have to live under anyone’s thumb.”

Something shifts in the way Sanemi watches you, a certain profundity creeping into his eyes.

Your cheeks heat. “I know it sounds stupid —“

“It doesn’t,” Sanemi says earnestly. “Wanting your freedom can never be stupid.”

You soften then, as understanding passes between you. Of course he would know all about that — arguably better than anyone you know.

Sanemi clears his throat. “So, a bookstore?” And he gives you a broad smile as he pulls out his wallet and tosses you a twenty dollar note. “Consider me your first investor.”

—

Sanemi spends the rest of the evening watching you work, fascinated by the way you meticulously organize your store shelves, and count the cash in your register. When it comes time for you to heave boxes of excess inventory to the back storeroom so they can be shipped back to their distributors, Sanemi plucks them from your hands, batting off your protests as he carries them for you.

By the time closing arrives, every new shipment has been unpacked and its contents have been shelved.

You flick off the overhead lights in the main store, relying on the backlight of the exit door to light your way out. You tug on your coat and find him watching you, expectantly. “Are you walking me home?”

“Tch. Don’t I always, when I can?”

You grin and it’s enough to chase away some of the sourness twisting in his gut. He shouldn’t do it, as often as he does. He’s risking enough as it is by constantly redrawing the lines around Rule Three to justify the way he’s beginning to bend the parameters around the rule against patterns. But it’s dark and late, and you don’t have a car, and he’ll be damned if he lets you brave the walk home alone.

Better he’s there to protect you from the dangers he can anticipate and see than to stick to his code and risk your harm from those he cannot.

Thankfully, the journey back to your apartment takes no more than fifteen minutes, even when he stops to thumb free a cigarette from the spare carton he keeps tucked in his jacket. You wrinkle your nose at him in mock-disgust as he lights it, the smoke curling out of his mouth reminiscent of a fire-breathing dragon.

He wouldn’t do it if he knew it truly bothered you. But you’d once shyly confessed you liked the faint smell of tobacco that clung to his jacket, especially in cold air like this. So he only shoots you a wink as he brings it to his lips and takes a long drag.

Besides, he thinks as he looses a slow exhale. He needs something to help him take the edge off; to guide him in making that transition between Hashira and Sanemi.

He escorts you all the way to your front door, the two of you trading quips and jokes. And Sanemi savors how utterly extraordinary something as ordinary as walking you to your door feels. Almost as if he’s ordinary, the way he so desperately wishes he could be.

You fidget with your keys, sliding them into your lock. “Did you finish that series I recommended?”

Sanemi grins. “Last night. I think it was your best suggestion yet.”

You duck your head, a bashful smile spreading across your pretty lips and its sight fills him with a golden warmth.

Your door gives way and you turn back to him. “‘Til next time?”

It was what you always said; you never asked him when you could expect to see him again, and he appreciated it. Appreciated not having to explain himself, when most outside his world would likely demand he try.

“‘Til next time,” he confirms, returning your smile with one of his own.

You hover in your doorway, fingers drumming on the frame, eyes roaming his.

“You never told me yours — what your dream is.”

He should leave. You’re treading in murky waters, ones made dangerous because he almost wants to tell you — tell you the truth, at that.

That he dreams of more. More life. More stability. More everything. He’d settle for anything, really; anything at all.

As long as it was more than this.

But Sanemi only responds with a wry grin. “To wake up in the morning, Princess. That’s all I can ask for.”

———

Sanemi’s answer lingers with you long after you emerge from your shower, warm and toweling your damp hair.

To wake up in the morning, Princess.

He’s full of shit and you know it.

Over the course of the last year, you’ve learned a handful of crucial details that make up Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You’ve learned he loves matcha, but he really loves the expensive kind. While you can’t afford to buy the high quality powder, you make do with what you can afford at the grocery, and you make it for him as often as you can.

He drinks it every time, bitter dregs and all.

More importantly, you’ve learned what it means to have a friend involved in the Corps. Not that he’s merely involved with the notorious gang — at least, not any more than the two of you are just “friends.”

Town gossip aside, Sanemi’s affiliation with the Corps is made obvious by his own actions. Like the way the two of you only ever hang out at the bookstore or your apartment; how he never invites you to visit his place, over in the Silo.

Or how he insists on scoping out your apartment every time he comes over, his eyes alert and sharp as his hand lingers at his hip, ready to pull out the gun you know he keeps tucked into his waistband at all times.

It’s evident in the way Sanemi never sticks to a consistent schedule. He varies the days and times of his visits at random, never allowing himself to settle into a routine, even if that means going an entire week or longer without seeing you.

But perhaps the most significant detail you’ve learned about Sanemi over the year of your friendship is this:

He wants out. Dreams of it, even.

This revelation does not come from the scarred Hashira himself. It is the product of months of observation, of studying how his face darkens when his phone pings! while you’re watching some sitcom on television, or when he sees a familiar face pass by your shop window, and suddenly he has to leave because he must be Shinazugawa again, and you won’t see him for the rest of the day.

It is evident in the way he talks of his younger brother, who, by all accounts is a star student and athlete, with a promising future in collegiate archery.

Sanemi is saving every penny he can to send his brother — Genya — to school, far, far away from the Silo. The conviction with which he speaks of Genya’s future, full of college and internships and promise, breaks your heart, because you know Sanemi hadn’t anyone to want those things for him.

Sanemi does not speak of any future of his. You suspect it’s because he doesn’t believe he will have one.

That has to be why he answered your question with his vague desire to wake up every morning. It was an easy answer. One that relied on you making certain connections between his life and his words and deduce that he truly had nothing more to live for other than life itself.

A cop-out, is what it is.

But his reading habits betray his darkest secret — betray the truth — and that’s exactly how you know his flippant answer is utter bullshit.

The book Sanemi carries around the most is a series of classic fairy tales, bought off your sale table a few months back. He’s read the whole thing cover to cover, but he keeps a bookmark on one specific page, and periodically, you catch him flipping back to it.

He made the mistake of leaving the book on your coffee table one night when he excused himself to use your bathroom. Realistically, you knew it was no big deal to flip through it, but somehow, the thought still felt like an invasion of his privacy.

But your curiosity got the better of you so you snatched it up, and thumb quickly to the bookmarked page, desperate to know which story has so captivated him.

You opened to the first page of of a tale — an old French story, about the daughter of a merchant who is sent to life with a beast in a distant castle, as penance for his theft of the beast’s rose.

You smiled to yourself; you were familiar with the story. You know how it goes — the beast everyone believes to be the villain is saved by the woman, and revealed to be a handsome prince. And the two live happily ever after.

Your smile faded as you recalled how the woman saved her Beast. True love’s kiss, or something along those lines.

True love.

And as Sanemi returned from the bathroom and plopped down next to you on your couch to watch a rerun of some old sitcom before he has to leave for the night, you mulled over Sanemi’s apparent fascination with the tale of the beast and the beauty.

And that’s how you drew the series of conclusions which enabled you to see right through his thin facade.

He wants out.

He wants a happily ever after. He doesn’t think he’ll get it.

And, above all, he dreams of love.

—

If any doubt lingered as to the magnitude of his ties to the Corps, it disintegrates one night, about eight months after he’d first burst into your bookstore.

It is well after midnight, but you are still awake, too engrossed in a new fantasy novel to pay particular attention to the lateness of the hour when your phone buzzes on your bedside table.

Sanemi’s name lingers above the notification, which reads simply, Outside.

You untangle yourself from your blankets and pad over to your front door, hastily tugging on a pair of sleep boxers over your underwear.

You open the door and the flutter of excitement you’d felt upon seeing his text is chased away by shock at the sight before you.

There is a bruise forming along Sanemi’s cheek that you almost would have mistaken for dirt if not for the swelling. His hair is rumpled, his clothes in disarray. Though it winks away the second he sets his gaze on you, you swear you were able a cold fury in his eyes; foreign, and violent.

The fury that belongs to a Hashira, not to the friend you know.

Wordlessly, you step back and allow him to limp past you.

“You got liniment?” He rasps, plopping heavily down in your kitchen chair. “And water?”

“You mean icy-hot?” You’re already filling a glass from the tap that you set on the table next to him before you retreat to your bathroom to rummage the cabinets.

You return a few moments later, tub of minty topical gel clutched in hand. You nearly drop it when you realize that Sanemi has stripped himself of his shirt already and is now bare from the waist-up, his forehead resting against his arms where they’re propped up on the back of your chair.

You’ve known for a long while that Sanemi is well-built (obscenely so).

Once, in the early days of your friendship, you’d snapped at him to button his shirt properly if he insisted on hanging around your store, dramatizing over how obscene it was for him to prance around with his chest half-exposed.

Sanemi had only grinned at you before he unbuttoned two more, revealing a generous glimpse of infuriatingly toned abs. Your open-mouthed, scandalized stare was met only with a wink.

He kept his shirt like that for the remainder of the day. You’d hardly been able to look at him without flushing a deep scarlet that only seemed to inflate his already generous ego even further.

But, you’re only human. And as the months passed by, and your friendship with the scarred mobster grew, you found yourself sneaking the odd peek every now and then. A glimpse of pectoral here; a hint of his rigid v-line when he stretched his arms over his head there.

And now, here he is, sitting in your small kitchen area awaiting the relief of the icy hot clutched in the tub that grew more slippery between your rapidly sweaty palms, every mouth watering inch of his upper body on display.

Beautiful. Your mouth goes dry at the sight of him. Sanemi is unbelievably beautiful.

“Need ya to rub it into my shoulder, if you don’t mind,” his voice is muffled against his arm. “I hate asking, but I dislocated the damn thing and had to reset it — fuckin’ hurts, now.”

You know better than to suggest he go get an x-ray. No hospitals, he’d once explained. Not unless you’re bleeding out.

You also know better than to ask how he dislocated it, and so you only pad silently over to him, grateful he’s turned away from you so he cannot see the tremble in your hands or the blush creeping across your cheeks.

Eager to give yourself something to do besides ogling, you focus on unscrewing the lid on the jar of liniment, your nose wrinkling under the burn of its stringent odor. You scoop a generous amount of the salve into your palms and warm it between your hands.

“Motherfucker,” Sanemi hisses as your hands spread gently across his shoulder, your fingers gingerly massaging the topical into his swollen joint. “Shit stings.”

“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” you chide, carefully prodding along the joint in search of anything that may be amiss — an odd lump or gap, signaling something hasn’t been reset properly. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

“Your medical expertise is astounding,” Sanemi drolls, but he winces again as your fingers press against a particularly tender spot. You step away from him with a huff and fish your phone out of your pocket, hands still slathered with ointment.

“I’m not a doctor,” you shoot back. “And since you refuse to go see one, the best I can do it give you the advice of the internet.”

You ignore his grumblings as you search for treatments for dislocated joints. You tap on the first link that appears and scroll, eyes narrowed as you read.

“You’re in luck. It seems like you won’t die,” you say dryly. “But you’re going to have a nasty bruise.” You purse your lips, eyes scanning the article on your phone. “And this says you’re supposed to rest — not overexert the joint.” You reach to tug playfully on a lock of his hair. “I don’t suppose you’re actually going to do that, though.”

He twists and flashes you a mischievous smirk over his shoulder. “You know me too well, Princess.”

You roll your eyes and snort, tossing your phone onto your table in favor of reaching for a discarded kitchen towel to wipe off the excess icy hot from your hands.

You’re about to tell him to put his shirt back on and stop flaunting the muscles he just can’t seem to help but show everyone he has when your eyes snag on a mark that rests squarely between his shoulder blades.

You wouldn’t have noticed it but for the shiny redness surrounding it, a clear contrast to the rest of his skin. But the longer your stare at it, the more clear its abnormality. The mark is puffy and raised, but there’s a distinct pattern to it that makes the hair on the back of your neck curl.

A brand, you realize with horror. Someone has branded him like cattle.

Your finger reaches to trace over the ridges seared into his skin before you can think the better of it. Sanemi twitches under your touch, a small shudder skirting down his spine as he tilts his head back toward you.

“Ugly, ain’t it?” His tone is unreadable. “Like a collar, ‘cept it’s permanent.”

Though he tends to err on the side of caution when it comes to discussing the Corps, you at least know what is role is within it. He told you: debt collector. Mostly monetary debts.

But the brand has nothing to do with money. No, the symbol burned into his skin — the one that stands for Kill — is a neon sign of a reminder that Sanemi’s duties can and do entail another kind of collection.

A chill snakes down your spine. You’d had your suspicions, of course, you’re not stupid. But seeing it confirmed by a brand of all things is a lightning rod through your chest.

Sanemi must sense your stare against his back, and you hear his rueful smile though you can’t see his face. “Guess it’s fitting, since I’m their dog.”

There it is; confirmation of what he is, as though it were possible to forget. You don’t know why you’d held out in letting its weight settle over you. Nor do you know why your brain had refused, for a moment, to reconcile the Sanemi who brought cheap beer and greasy fast food to your apartment for a night of trash television and book reviews with the one before you now, branded with inexorable reminder of what his duties are when he steps outside and debts go unpaid; when scores go uneven.

Your eyes slide to his gun, resting atop your table. It may has well have been smoking.

“It’s barbaric,” you murmur. You never offer much of an opinion on the tidbits of information about his life he shares with you, unwilling to make him feel as though you aren’t someone he can confide in.

But the sight of the brand scorched between his shoulder blades stokes something ugly and angry within you. You’re grateful his back is to you so you can furtively rub your hand over your prickling eyes before he can see you do something stupid, like cry.

He tilts his head back until it rests against your abdomen. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his eyes drifting shut.

You freeze for a moment, your anger temporarily suspended against your uncertainty of whether you should step back or remain. You’ve touched Sanemi a thousand different ways — you’ve grabbed his arm, smacked him upside his thick head, and elbowed him more times than you can count.

But this; this is something far different from your teasing nudges of the past. This small gesture feels infinitely more tender. Gentle.

Intimate.

Sanemi has never not been the picture of cocky brashness, especially around you. His priggish smirk was a constant, only ever dampened by the occasional alert on his phone — the one that meant he had to stop being yours for the night, and go be theirs.

But this Sanemi? This peaceful, eased, vulnerable version of your best friend is wholly uncharted territory. And perhaps it’s because he looks so unguarded this way, his face relaxed and his eyes closed, that you feel so flustered.

You brush his hair away from his forehead. At the first graze of your fingers along his scalp, Sanemi leans further into you with something akin to a moan.

Hot; everything feels so damn hot, the air in your apartment suddenly too thick. Too oppressive.

Yet, you don’t stop; your fingers keep raking through his hair, surprisingly silky.

You think he may have fallen asleep in your chair, but after another moment of your hands carding through his hair, Sanemi stands. You step away instantly, and you avert your eyes while he pulls his shirt back over his head, cursing softly as he works it over his injured shoulder.

Sanemi turns to you and clears his throat roughly. “Thanks again. Don’t know what I would’ve done without ya.”

You wave him off with an exaggerated eye roll, eager to conceal the redness in your cheeks. “Oh please, I’m just your neighborhood book supplier and occasional first aid nurse.”

A sudden sobriety passes over his features, clouding over that all too familiar smirk with something heavier.

“No,” he murmurs and his hand absently lifts to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “No, you’re more than that.” His palm lingers against your cheek and his voice quiets to a hoarse whisper. “Much more.”

For a moment, you wonder if he’ll lean in; if he’ll show you whether his lips are as warm as his touch.

His eyes drop briefly to your mouth and your stomach somersaults at the thought he might be considering it, too. But the clouds part and Sanemi withdraws from you with an affection flick against the tip of your nose.

And then he turns and leaves.

You sink back against your door after you close it behind him and slide to your floor. You remain there for a long while after, your mind little more than a gnarled tangle of brambles you can’t begin to pick through. But even despite the complicated mess of thoughts and emotions knotted together in your head, one thing stands clear: you’d wanted to kiss him.

And for a moment, you swear he’d wanted to, as well.

An old rumor, one you hadn’t considered since your very first interaction with him, resurfaces in your mind. The one that had less to do with him in the Corps, and more so involved his activities outside of it.

The rumor that he cycles through the bodies he uses to warm his bed more frequently than you change the sheets on yours.

Your cheeks heat, and you shake your head to clear away the sudden, intrusive images of Sanemi tangled in the throes of passion with some faceless stranger that fill your imagination. You don’t care what those blasted rumors claim; you know him. And what’s more, you know that what you feel for him is stronger than anything you’ve ever felt toward anyone.

You’re in love with Sanemi.

It is his face you see at night before you fall asleep; it’s his touch you imagine in those secret moments in your bed or in the shower, when you’re desperate and aching.

It’s he who makes you feel most at ease; the one person you feel truly sees you, thinks you’re actually worth something.

You’ve never really known love before. But it’s because you’re such a novice that you know your feelings are true; powerful. You know what he is — what he thinks he is. And you know that you will never want anyone else; you can’t.

You won’t.

—

Three rules. That’s all he had to do, was follow three simple fucking rules.

Don’t speak. No patterns. And don’t get overly attached.

It had been easy, so easy, to follow them. If there was one thing Sanemi believed he could pride himself on, it had been his steadfast adherence to the Corps’ rules. Number three, in particular.

Until you. Until the day he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in.

Because that was when Sanemi decided that those rules were really more like guidelines; malleable. He’d let himself cast them aside out of a desperation for human connection. And he’d justified his carelessness by convincing himself that as long as he maintained some semblance compliance with the unspoken code of the Corps.

Sanemi had built his own set of rules around the foundation of his friendship with you, a wall of stone around the glass castle meant to ensure you would not be cut by its shards should it ever shatter.

He would not be your liability, nor would you be his.

But now, he’s too deep; Sanemi knows he’s gotten in way too fucking deep with you.

Until this moment, he imagined he’d managed to toe the line of this internal code that applied only to his relationship with you, save a handful of instances when he’d let himself blur it.

As it turns out, he’d been dead fucking wrong. Because he’s pretty sure you just asked him to cross the last major boundary he’d set for himself when it came to you.

So, Sanemi only gapes at you. “What?”

You huff, impatient. “I want you to fuck me.”

You say it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world — as though you haven’t just ripped the floor out from beneath him and sent him falling directly on his ass.

If he didn’t know you were dead serious, he would’ve laughed in your face. And that’s how he knows he’s fucked.

You’re a virgin; he knows that, because you’d drunkenly confessed it to him two weeks prior, tipsy on the cheap beer he’d brought over for your weekly movie night together.

Admittedly, he’d been surprised. You were beautiful — not that beauty was a requirement for a good fuck, but you didn’t seem the type to go for random hookups, unlike him. Still, he would’ve thought you’d had some prior relationship where the opportunity would have arisen.

As it turned out, you’d never been in a relationship, either.

Between long gulps of your drink, you’d asked him to fix it and he’d turned you down — his tolerance for watery beer far surpassed your own, and Sanemi Shinazugawa wasn’t the type to sleep with someone who couldn’t fully consent.

So he’d let you down — but not before he kissed you. It was only once; soft, the way you deserved to be kissed. His lips met yours and suddenly, the gaping hole in his chest felt smaller; fuller. Kissing you felt like coming home, even though Sanemi was sure he’d never fully known what home truly felt like.

And then he parted from you with an affectionate flick on your nose to cover the way his heart clenched at the visible disappointment in your eyes.

He’d boldly kissed you twice more after that night — one a quick, cheeky peck when you went in to hug him, an act done more to fluster you than to sate any desire of his, no matter how he craved more of you.

The other happened only three nights prior, and it was anything but soft and sweet.

One of Sanemi’s fellow Hashira, Kanae, hadn’t been seen in several days, and no one had been able to get in touch with her. When she’d missed a scheduled patrol of one of the neighborhoods in the Silo, he and another member, Iguro, had been sent to check on her.

They’d found her in the kitchen of the small home she’d shared with her two sisters with a hole in her head and her brains splattered across the floor.

Curled under the protective stretch of her limp arms, had been her two sisters, both bearing matching bullet wounds to their skulls.

Kizuki, most likely. They were the only ones brave enough to target someone as high ranked as Kanae.

Their blood had still been fresh, and the stench of decay and rot hadn’t yet set in, which only told them that the girls had been held for several days, forced to endure unknown horrors at the hands of their murderers.

He hadn’t been particularly close with the woman, but as his rank equal, she’d had his respect. But now she and her adolescent sisters were nothing more than smears of brain matter and skull fragments to be scraped off the linoleum of their kitchen floor and quietly buried. Forgotten.

The hours passed by in a blur once Kocho’s death was called into the higher-ups, and Sanemi didn’t remember cleaning up the scene anymore than he remembered the solitary trek back. His mind and his body disconnected, and he only snapped back to reality when he realized he was standing in front of your apartment, unsure of how or when he’d begun walking in its direction.

He knew he should turn around and go home; there was nothing you could do for him right then, he shouldn’t bother you —

His fist was pounding on your door before he could think better of it.

Despite the late hour, you’d greeted him with a broad smile and a shy hi. Your hair had been damp, and he could smell the floral sweetness of your shampoo still mixed with the steam from your shower as it spilled into the hall.

Safe; you were safe.

Your door had still been hanging wide open as Sanemi surged forward, trapping your face in his hands to crash his lips down against yours, his kiss heavy and hot.

You’d broken away long enough to ask, “S-Sanemi — what —?”

“Shut up,” he’d snarled, slanting his mouth back over yours, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip. He’d half expected you to shove him away, perhaps to even aim a knee right at his crotch, yet you’d only buried your fingers in his hair and tugged him closer.

He backed you up against the wall opposite of your entryway, though he’d moved his hand to cup the back of your head to keep it from banging against the exposed brick.

You moaned into the kiss and Sanemi lost whatever shred of sense he’d managed to cling onto. His tongue swept along your bottom lip, and the hand cupping the back of your head loosely pulled at your hair, tugging your head to the side and signaling you to open up — to let him in.

And you did. And the first brush of his tongue against yours as he licked into your mouth ignited an inferno within him that he did not know how to tame.

His hands pushed under your sweatshirt, seeking out the comforting warmth of your skin. Higher and higher they rose, until they came to rest against your ribs, and Sanemi realized you were bare — completely bare — beneath your hoodie.

That you’d allowed him to toe so dangerously close to a line neither of you could cross had clouded every bit of his judgment. The thought that he’d only have to move his hands mere centimeters to touch you in a way no other had before had sent him reeling, and his hips were beyond his control when they pinned yours against the wall and ground into you.

But your single gasp into his mouth broke the spell, and with more regret than Sanemi knew he should feel, he broke away, leaving you both breathless and panting.

Without a word, he’d turned around and stalked right back out of your apartment, closing your door firmly behind him.

He’d sent a text only a few minutes later — a single, ominous reminder to you to lock your door, deadbolt and all.

He hadn’t the stomach to explain his cryptic warning; not as the sight of Kocho remained burned into his retinas.

So, yes, he’s blurred a few lines when it comes to you. But those had only been kisses; heavy touching aside, he’d never allowed himself to go further than that.

No matter how much he wanted to.

And it’s because he knows he can’t cross this last line — can’t open you up to risk more than he already has, that he meets your expectant stare with a rueful smile.

“You’re better off asking someone else, Princess. You don’t want to get tangled up with someone like me.”

Never mind that you’re already tangled up with him — but he’s managed to uphold this last boundary, and Sanemi has convinced himself that as long as it remains in place, he can’t ruin you the way Kocho and her young sisters were ruined.

“I don’t want to ask someone else,” you fold your arms across your chest and cock your hip out, defiant. Normally, Sanemi finds your stubbornness endearing, if not adorable, but not now; not when you should know better.

A low growl of your name is his warning. “You don’t know what you’re asking —“

“It’s you I want. I don’t care what the rumors say, I don’t care what anyone thinks — including you.”

The sincerity in your eyes nearly scalds him. “And I am not asking as a friend. You and I both know this is more than that.”

He wants to throttle you. Not literally of course, he could never — but he wants to shake the sense you’re so clearly lacking back into you until you see; until you understand.

Of course he wants you. He has wanted you for months — so much so, he hardly can focus on anything else. And he’s pent up. He hasn’t had the stomach to fuck anyone else. Not since he began falling asleep and waking up to thoughts of you and your touch, of how you might look under or above him, wanton and desperate. Or how you might feel in his arms; on his tongue.

Really, it’s been quite a blow to his rather wild reputation throughout the Silo. But God knows he has tried to fill the you-shaped void in his heart, but nothing — no one — has come close.

More than anything, he wants you to be his, and for him to be yours. He longs to be the Sanemi who takes you out on dates, who kisses you freely without the compulsive need to check over his shoulder, to make sure there aren’t any enemies watching and plotting to strike him right where he’s weak. He wants to be the Sanemi you come home to after a long day at the bookstore. The one with whom you plan a future, utterly and completely yours.

But he can never be just Sanemi. He is nothing more than the property of the very organization he’s sworn allegiance to; the group whose brand he bears on his skin.

He is not good. He is a curse that will infect you, a poison to your life.

He will rot you from the inside, out.

His friendship with you is selfish. He knows that — he’s always known that, and yet he did not stop. It is selfish because he deluded himself into believing he could actually be someone else when he was with you. Someone worth befriending; perhaps someone worth a little more.

You were right to call him a thief, that day. All he does is take your time and affection when he knows damn well he won’t give you anything in return, no matter how he wishes he could.

Sanemi won’t label that thing he holds deep inside his heart which is formed in the shape of your name; not when it could so easily doom you both. But he knows his feelings for you are dangerous, and he cannot allow you to sniff them out.

Because if he does, then this only ends one or two ways: either he lets you in only for you to abandon him once you realize the truth of what he is, or you’re used as a weapon against him.

In either event, he loses you. So it is better to cut this off now, to force you away before either of you become more invested than you already are.

He will not hurt you, but neither will he allow himself to be hurt by you.

You take a step toward him, and the soft whisper of his name sounds like a holy prayer on your lips and that’s how he knows this is wrong.

Your obstinate refusal to recognize him for what he is is a needle digging into his skin, one that whittles away at every wall he has managed to build around his heart, that damnable, soft, dangerous thing that he will not allow you to find; he cannot.

You’re confusing your roles. He is the vulture and you are his prey, not the other way around. he is not here to give. He is here only to take, and you will let him and then he will leave.

And he will not be the carcass you pick clean only to discard once you’ve had your fill.

(A lie, but it’s one Sanemi almost believes. Almost.)

But Sanemi knows you; he knows you better than he knows anything else. You are a constant he has become far too dependent upon, and you are precious — far too precious to him to continue to indulging.

He knows you are too good, too loyal in your feelings to forget about him, even if he disappeared from your life entirely.

A clean break. it is the only thing that will force you to forget him and move on, find another, someone good and whole and not a broken, misshapen thing like him.

He will show you who he really is. He will show you that he could never be just Sanemi, and he sure as hell can’t ever be yours.

Better; you deserve better, so he will become worse.

He advances on you, his step heavy and imposing, and you have enough sense to scurry back from him. But he is too quick and soon he has you caged against the wall of your studio, literally backed into a corner.

“You want me?” He is scathing and he loathes himself for it, but he can’t stop. Not when he’s desperate to save you from the blight of himself.

You shouldn’t; you can’t.

But you nod, damn you. Wide-eyed, you nod and he resents the certainty reflected in your gaze.

His mouth twists into a cruel sneer. “You want to say you’ve had a taste of the lowlife, huh?“

Your eyebrows knit together. “Sanemi, that’s not —“

But he can’t stop his venom. “Bragging rights, that’s all you’re after, right? You want to be like one of the characters in your stories — the good girl who makes an honest man outta the good-for-nothing villain.”

“Stop it,” you bite, and your eyes harden. “You’re acting like an asshole.”

You’re angry. Good. Sanemi knows how to deal in anger.

“Hate to break it to ya, sweetheart, but I’m not acting like an asshole. I am one.”

Your hackles raise, and you step away from the wall and toward him, bold in your fury. “I know you want to believe you are, but you’re not —“

Sanemi’s hand shoots out to grab a fistful of your hair. “Is that so?” You yelp as he wrenches your head back, your neck straining. “Then maybe I oughta bend you over and fuck you like I would any other cheap whore. Then you can tell me what you think I am.”

Your eyes water as the grip in your hair tightens.

Good, he thinks savagely. Let you see the monster he truly was, let you know he was his bastard father’s son, and that he’d be no different, no different at all. He’s a brute, and you don’t want that, you don’t want him —

“You can do whatever it is you want,” you manage, you throat tight. And Sanemi’s eyes blow wide at the soft, watery smile that forms on your lips despite the tears that escape the corners of your eyes. “Do to me what you like; I don’t mind, as long as it’s you.”

All at once, his ire with you and your bewildering devotion to him melts away, leaving nothing behind but a deep well of guilt, bitter and acerbic.

It isn’t that you think he might take you forcefully and harshly; after all, he’s only shown you he’s entirely capable of doing so.

It’s that you would let him. Without a shred of doubt, he knows you would offer yourself to him to use however he wants, and that you’d do it with a smile not unlike the one you’re wearing right now, soft and earnest.

Fuck, you just did.

And it’s that realization that has Sanemi’s hand loosening from your hair, his eyes softening. An errant tear escapes down your cheek and he moves to brush it away, but you close your eyes the moment you spy his knuckle nearing your face.

You do not flinch, but you are steeling yourself in anticipation of expected cruelty, and the front he’s put forth crumbles to dust.

He is a monster, but not for the reasons he’s used to justify this ugly display of his. He’s a monster because he has made you believe that this treatment is acceptable — an unavoidable cost of intimacy, no matter how fleeting.

Worse, he’s done the one thing he’d sworn never to do to any woman, let alone someone as good and as dear as you.

He’d only wanted to disgust you; enrage you, so that you would kick him out of both your apartment and your life, right out on his sorry ass like he deserved.

But this is worse. He has frightened you.

He recoils from you like a kicked dog. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He stands awkwardly as you stare at him, wide-eyed and uncertain, and each second that ticks silently by only amplifies the oily well of guilt in his stomach.

He clears his throat. “I’ll go,” he says roughly, too ashamed to meet your eyes. “‘M sorry, I didn’t —“

Your hand grabs his bicep, anchoring him in place. “I want you to stay.”

“You don’t owe me anything —“

“It’s not about owing you,” you interject, lifting your hands to take his face between your palms. “I want you. I want this.”

You prove your point by taking his hand and guiding it to your waist. You hold it there, mouth set in a determined line as you inch closer to him.

“You deserve someone else,” Sanemi can’t stop the admission from rolling off his tongue. “Better.”

But you’re already shaking your head, as though you somehow know different. “There is no one better; I only want you.”

Idiot, he thinks as you rise up on your tiptoes, your arms winding around his shoulders as the distance between your bodies grows narrower. You’re an idiot.

You can’t possibly believe he’s as good as it gets. He’s used you as a distraction this whole time, a chance to forget the things he’s done and what he’ll be required to do in the future. Surely, you must know that.

He will hurt you; it’s in his nature. It’s unavoidable. He can’t be what you deserve.

But then your lips brush gently against his and the last of his resolve crumbles.

Sanemi melts into your kiss. He brings one hand to cradle the side of your face as the one braced against your waist shorts, until he wraps his arms around you and tugs you closer to him.

This kiss is gentle in every way the last was not. Sanemi’s lips are soft moving against yours, his hands almost hesitant in how they hold you. For a moment, he imagines himself not as the selfish, hard brute he knows he is, but instead as the gentle, giving lover he wants so desperately to be. One who is worthy of someone as kind and vibrant as you, and not the trash you’d be better off leaving out on the street.

The tentativeness with which he kisses you tempers some as his tongue flicks out against your bottom lip. You answer his silent request with enthusiasm, your fingers burying themselves in his hair as you haul yourself closer. The moment Sanemi’s tongue sweeps into your waiting mouth, you buckle against him with the sweetest sigh he’s ever heard. One of pure relief, as though you’d been burning and he was your balm.

Ironic, considering he’s only adding gasoline to this fire between you.

But there’s nothing he can do now except allow the flames to consume you both.

Soon, the shy curiosity with which he explores your mouth gives way to a mutual hunger, evident by how he feels as though he’s boiling alive while you gasp and sigh into him, your fingers tugging pleadingly at his hair.

You want more, and he needs you, too.

His nose nuzzles against yours as he bends down, his hands running along the bare expanse of your legs. The ground beneath your feet disappears as Sanemi gathers you up easily into his arms.

One of your arms is looped around his neck while your other hand cups his face, turning it toward yours as he carries you to your bed. Your thumb smooths absently over the scar that cuts across his cheek and then your lips seek out his once more. His kiss is as gentle as the hand squeezing your waist, his fingers slotting into the gap between your sweatshirt and the top of your sleep shorts, stroking your skin.

He lays you out upon your mattress, grateful you’d at least purchased a full bed rather than some shitty twin. Your hands untangle themselves from his hair and instead seek out the waistband of your sleep shorts, but Sanemi covers them with his, halting you.

“Don’t,” he murmurs between quick, messy kisses. “Let me — please.”

Before you can respond, Sanemi sits back and grabs a fistful of his own shirt, yanking it over his head.

Your pupils blow wide at the sight of him and he feels himself hesitate. Sanemi has always felt an easy self confidence when it came to stripping in front of his partners for the night. He’d always been quite proud of his physique, relying on his considerable muscles to mask his deep loathing of his scars.

But in front of you, all sense of self-assuredness goes flying out the window, and suddenly he feels too exposed. His eyes drop to scour the planes of his chest — have his scars always been this prominent? This thick?

“Holy shit,” your soft sigh snaps his attention away from the howling inside his head. For one, petrifying moment, he thinks that you are as disgusted with his body as he is, but then he sees the pink flush staining your cheeks.

Your eyes roam hungrily over him and your tongue darts out to wet your lips. You meet his gaze and your pupils are blown wide with desire — rich, hot need for him.

Your voice is little more than a sultry whisper. “Come here.”

He moves eagerly to cover your body with his, his hair rumpled and his eyes bright as his lips press hurriedly against yours. Your hands smooth over his pectorals and tease down his abdomen until he’s panting, but the moment your nails rake along the skin on either side of his navel, Sanemi moans.

More. He needs more.

He hauls you up from the bed, straddling you across his lap, his hands notched behind your knees as they press into the mattress. You reconnect your lips in a heated kiss, one hand playing with the ends of his snowy hair, the other dropping down his back, settling over the brand seared between his shoulder blades. Covering it.

Yes, he thinks as he nips your bottom lip, urging your mouth to open so he can slide his tongue in to dance with yours. Yes, this is fitting. Because in his ideal world, his life with you would come before any other — including his with the Corps.

Sanemi’s lips begin trailing hotly down your jaw, pausing when he reaches your neck. He finds a particularly sensitive spot with a nip of his teeth that he soothes with his tongue, and he hums in approval at the faint, breathy whimpers that squeak past your lips as you tilt your head, offering more of yourself to him.

The ache burgeoning in his groin in response to your display is enough to drive him insane; he has never wanted anything in his life as badly as he wants this — you.

As his mouth continues its heated path, his hands find the hem of your hoodie. With a gentleness that surprises even him, Sanemi begins charting your skin with his fingers. With every new plane of your body he explores, he pushes your sweatshirt up, up, up, until he guides it over your head.

He tosses it to the side, not caring for where it lands. His attention is focused solely on you as you fall back against your bed, now bare from the waist up.

“Beautiful,” he marvels, eyes running over the slope of your shoulder and tracing the curve of your breasts. “So fuckin’ beautiful.”

He savors every hitched breath, every chill that ripples over your skin as he explores your body with his mouth and hands. Over the years, Sanemi has become well acquainted with the magic of the female body. He’s always liked how soft women were compared to him. He isn’t a picky man; he’ll celebrate them all, regardless of their shape or size.

But you? Celebration isn’t enough; you deserve nothing less than outright worship.

“You feel so damn good,” he mutters against your breast before closing his lips over your nipple and sucking hard. You bow off the bed with a keening moan that gutters out into something more ragged as his hand covers the other, pinching and rolling your stiffened bud between his fingers.

He could spend all night like this, lavishing your soft mounds with his mouth. But Sanemi knows that won’t be enough to satisfy the hunger gnawing at both of you, so with a tinge of regret, he forces himself to move on, descending your body in alternating kisses and nips.

He reaches the waistband of your shorts and his eyes flash to yours as he tugs on it with his teeth. The hot exhale of his breath below your navel sends goosebumps across your skin. Sanemi’s fingers inch below the hem of your shorts until he loops his hands around the waistband, and he yanks them down your legs in a single, fluid motion.

His eyes rake down your body, taking in every beautiful inch. A blush forms on his cheeks as he realizes all that separates you from him is your simple pair of black underwear.

He sits back, eager to join your near-nudity. His hands are quick, if not a little clumsy, as he finds his belt buckle. The instant the metal clicks and the leather around his hips loosens, Sanemi shoves off his pants, eagerly kicking them off your bed until he is left in nothing but his briefs.

Your eyes fall to where the evidence of his desire protrudes stiffly from between his legs. Sanemi watches your throat pulse as you try to stifle your small gulp, your thighs tensing beneath him in an effort to press together.

He can sense your nerves; can see by the way your eyes dart anxiously between his and the rigid tent in his briefs.

With a gentle smile, Sanemi leans in and soothes your unease with his lips. “We’ll take it as slow as you want. I’m not in any rush.”

“N-now?” You murmur between kisses, and he nearly seizes at the hesitant, questioning brush of your fingers against the underside of his shaft.

“Not yet,” he groans against your mouth. “I gotta make sure you’re ready first.”

“I am ready -“

“Not like that,” he cuts off your protest by ghosting his fingers up the covered seam of you. Sanemi circles his finger around where he thinks your clit is, and he smirks when your head tips back against your pillow, your mouth widening in a silent o.

“Found you,” he croons, repeating the movement again until your legs begin to twitch beneath him.

He makes quick work of your underwear, tossing them over the side of your bed without much thought. The sight of you bare beneath him nearly stops his heart dead in his chest. His eyes drop to the neat thatch of curls resting at the apex of your thighs, and his mouth waters.

You blush under the intensity of his appreciative stare, and your legs twitch, as though you mean to close them.

A hand sliding between your thighs restrains you from doing so. “Uh-uh,” he tuts. “Can’t hide from me now, sweetheart’.”

He smooths his hand down the length of your leg until it hovers just outside where he’s most eager to explore. The heat radiating from sends his pulse skyrocketing.

One, tentative finger circles your entrance, testing. Sanemi leans in to capture your lips with his as he pushes in, swallowing your soft gasp with his tongue that he slides into your parted mouth.

A moan vibrates in his chest in time with a faint whimper that sounds in the back of your throat as Sanemi begins exploring you. You’re tight; almost impossibly so, clenching and pulsing around the single finger he gradually sinks inside you, pushing deeper with every gentle pump of his hand.

The thought of your tight, wet heat constricting around the aching length of him just as you were around his finger makes him dizzy with want.

He won’t go down on you, he decides. Not tonight. Not when he’s throbbing this badly after just a couple of fingers; not when your breasts are so plush and soft pressed against his chest where you’re already arcing up into him, sending his mind wild with thoughts of how you’ll move under him; how you’ll moan.

His lips are hot against your neck, trailing down past your collarbone. Left behind are a series of purplish-maroon whorls blooming beneath his mouth, your skin quickly becoming a tapestry for him to display how badly he wants this. You.

You cling to him, one hand buried in his hair, pulling and tugging at him as the other clutches wildly at his shoulder, your fingers digging hard into his muscles. Your teeth are buried into your bottom lip in an effort to stifle your whimpers, but a needy whine slips out as Sanemi sucks one, soft breast into his mouth, his tongue flicking out across your pert nipple.

Another finger slides into your entrance as his thumb works your clit, and before long, you’re vibrating beneath him, unrestrained in how you moan and cry out for him so beautifully.

“Sanemi! I think — oh, I think I’m -“ but then he crooks his fingers, brushing against a rough spot deep within you that makes you writhe. You thrash back hard against the bed, your hips grinding against his hand with abandon.

He smothers a curse into your skin. You’re close and he knows it; can feel it in the way your walls flutter and pulse around him. And as desperate as he is to study how you fall apart, it’s too soon.

“Not yet,” he pants against your breast, circling your nipple with his tongue before imparting a final nip at the soft flesh and drawing back.

Remorseful, he pulls his fingers away from you, leaving you panting and flushed under him. But the hot, searing flames of desire burning beneath his skin intensify still, as he takes your hand and guides it between your legs.

“There. Feel how wet you are?” His voice is husky with want. You peer up at him through heavily lidded eyes as you nod, a whimper vibrating in your throat as Sanemi grinds your hand against your sensitive flesh.

“For you,” your voice is syrupy and warm, and damn if Sanemi doesn’t feel like he could get drunk on it. “It’s all for you.”

His tone sharpens into something possessive; hungry. “That’s right,” and he pushes your hand firmly against your clit and rotates it, eliciting a deep moan from you. “Because you’re mine.“

It’s not fair. But he wants to pretend like it’s true, if only for a while.

Once your fingers are sufficiently shiny with your own wetness, he brings your hand to his mouth, his tongue peeking out from between his lips. Slowly and languidly, he drags it up the side of your digits, and his eyes burn into yours as he slides your fingers into his mouth and sucks them clean.

It takes everything in him not to moan at the sweet taste of you that floods his tongue.

He’d made the right decision in not going down on you. If he had, he’d never be able to pull away; not until his face had become so adorned with your essence that he could not comprehend anything that wasn’t you. Not until you were trembling under him and begging for a break.

The first time you cum will be on him; with him. So as much as it pains him, he resists your temptation.

But not before you know; not before you understand exactly how wild you drive him. How much you threaten his sanity.

“Jesus Christ,” he rasps as he pulls your hand away from his mouth. “Here.”

His hand his gentle but firm as he grips your chin, squeezing your jaw until your mouth parts. The question in your gaze dissolves, your eyes instead rolling back into your head, as Sanemi slides the two fingers he’d just had between your thighs, still covered in your wetness, past your lips.

“Go on,” he orders, his other hand brushing your hair from your face. “Taste how fuckin’ perfect you are.”

The moan that slips free from your lips is one he wishes he could bottle up as your tongue caresses his fingers, your cheeks hollowing so fucking perfectly around him as you dutifully clean yourself from him.

Fuck, you’re trying to kill him.

But some of the burning he feels ebbs as the sobering weight of what’s to come settles over him; the magnitude of what he is about to do. Because no matter what happens after, nothing between you will be the same. Whatever else you are after tonight — whether that’s something or nothing — you will never be just friends again.

Sanemi supposes the punishment fits his crime; this is what he gets for getting in too deep with you, even if it means losing you entirely.

He chases away those thoughts by running his hands down your sides before he pulls back, leaving you in favor of shucking his briefs down his thighs.

Finally bare, he’s quick to drape his body over yours once more, his hands smoothing up and down your sides, unable to quench his need to feel your skin against his. But a foreign uncertainty stills him, and his eyes flash to yours, hesitant.

“Are you sure?”

You answer only by reaching to grip the back of his neck, tugging him down to meet your lips, your kiss feverish and urgent.

He doesn’t have a condom but he’s in too deep now to stop. In a way, what is about to happen is new to him as well. He’s never fucked anyone raw before. No matter who he’d had in his bed, no matter how much they begged him or assured him they were on birth control, he’d always been sure to have protection on hand.

Children are a gift, but he’d be damned if anyone tried to come after him and demand he raise one in his fucked up world. Either Sanemi got out or he never became a parent; there was no middle ground.

But once again, he is blurring boundaries where you were concerned, and Sanemi doesn’t think he knows how to stop himself from having the full taste in the indulgence that was you.

“It might hurt a moment,” he admits against your mouth, his voice raspy. “But I promise I’ll be gentle — as gentle as I can.”

You stretch to kiss him again, your lips soft and warm and everything he loves. “I trust you.”

You shouldn’t, he wants to say. You shouldn’t, and you should run far away from this — from me.

But Sanemi knows you won’t just as much as he knows he doesn’t have it in him to try and chase you away, and so he only kisses you back, slow and indulgent.

He breaks away from you with a soft groan and sits up on his knees. His back straight, Sanemi’s hands curl around your hips and he tugs you forward until your backside is flush against his thighs.

The heat radiating from you pulls him in like a magnet as he lines the tip of his cock up with your entrance. A vein above his brow ticks, the only outward sign of the battle raging within him as his self restraint wars with his tantalizing urge to impale you on the thick, throbbing length of him, desperate for the sweet relief only your body can give.

Every inch of him trembles as Sanemi presses his hips forward. “Fuck,” he exhales shakily, pushing his tip past your entrance. “Fuck.”

His head falls back and the muscles in his throat strain. Some small, needy sound leaves him and the fingers on your hip tighten nearly to the point of pain.

The noise registers in the back of your mind, and vaguely, you recognize it as a whimper. You wonder whether he makes that sound for the others; somehow you doubt it, given that he does it again, only now in the shape of your name.

The rumors always said he never asked for names; he was a one-and-done kind of man. A great fuck, but not someone to go to if you were looking for comfort; softness.

Once again, Sanemi is nothing but a collection of contradictions, especially where you’re concerned.

Sanemi hisses as he slowly eases into you. Despite your wetness, you’re impossibly tight, and your body is a live wire hell bent on pushing out his intrusion.

With a deep groan, he falls forward, one arm shooting out to land near your head to catch himself before he can crash into you. His weight carefully braced above you, Sanemi shifts, widening the stance of his knees. Your legs slide up his waist, locking at your ankles at the base of his spine.

His cock is barely a quarter of the way inside your heat when he pulls out. A whine of protest mounts in your throat, but it quickly flickers out when he presses his leaking tip to your clit and grinds. A soft moan slips out of you when he repeats the movement again, and your thighs widen, your hips tilting up to allow him easier access.

Sanemi circles the head of his cock once more against your sensitive nub, coating himself in more of your sticky wetness, before he slides back into your entrance. This time, your body parts more easily around him, sucking him in rather than trying to squeeze him out.

“There you go, that’s it,” his breath is hot against your ear, his lips trailing silkily across your jaw. “That’s my girl.”

Halfway in, Sanemi brushes against that thin barrier that separates him from the rest of you, and he stills.

He pulls his head back from your neck, and moves his hand out from between your legs to cup your cheek.

“Ready?” His thumb strokes over your cheekbone, tender and soft.

There is a tightness building in your abdomen, a foreign pressure that isn’t entirely unwelcome, but neither is it wholly comfortable. You brace a hand at your side, balling your sheets into your fist as you steady yourself, flushed and panting beneath the scar speckled man holding rigidly still above you.

Your eyes flick up once, and you see the tightness in his jaw; the tremble in his limbs as he fights against the urge to relief the friction mounting where you are joined.

You swallow around the lump of anticipation lodged in your throat. Your breath is shaky, but at last, you manage a single “Please.”

With a groan, he grips himself around his base and slowly, he presses forward. There is a sharp prick that shoots deep in your lower abdomen as Sanemi surges past that thin inner wall.

You cannot stop your cry of discomfort from ringing out anymore than you can stop the surprised tears which escape the corners of your eyes as the sharp pain between your legs intensifies.

But then Sanemi’s lips are there, kissing away your tears, and the hand he’d used to guide himself into your body skims along the outside of your thigh, hiking your leg higher up his waist before it drops to rub gentle circles into your hip.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between soothing caresses of his lips against your cheeks and across your eyelids. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He coos his string of apologies as his cock continues to push into you. On and on he sinks, his length endless, and you begin to think your body will split in two before you find the end of his.

Just before you reach your limit, Sanemi stills, fully embedded in your heat. He pants through gritted teeth, his jaw locked against the way you’re constricting around him so tightly it’s nearly painful.

It’s unreal; not only does Sanemi realize how much fucking better sex feels without the restriction of a condom, but he’s also bashed over the head with the realization that you were made for him. For nothing, no one has ever felt as incredible as you.

Nothing in his life has ever felt so right.

Sanemi has always been someone who fucks fast and hard. He’d had no objective other than to escape for a few, blissful moments in the body of another as he pretended not to feel the hollowness in his chest, or the throb of his own self-loathing.

With you, however, he wants nothing more than to relish every movement of your body against his, to savor your every gasp and sigh; to learn what makes you lose control.

You are no temporary distraction; he wants to know you.

He drops his forehead against yours and waits, allowing you to adjust to the intrusion of him.

He trails his lips across your collar bone and down to the twin swells of your breasts, sucking softly at your plush skin as you fidget and squirm beneath him. One broad hand skirts down the outside of your thigh until he finds your knee, and gently he guides your leg around his hips. The other he leaves relaxed against the bed, your foot resting somewhere against his calf.

When your eyes flutter open and find his, he knows you’re ready. So he moves his arm out from between your bodies and winds it instead around your waist, deepening the arch in your back until his chest is flush with yours.

His lips press to your forehead, a silent warning that he is about to move.

And then Sanemi begins molding your body to the shape of his.

He starts slow. He doesn’t withdraw far from you, instead focusing on rolling his hips against yours. Each churn of his groin pushes his cock deeper into your warmth, and soon, your timid whimpers melt into soft moans as your initial discomfort gives way to pleasure.

Encouraged by the way your body starts to relax in his embrace, Sanemi tests drawing his cock out a few inches before plunging back into you.

Before long, the room fills with the lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin, and Sanemi’s moans join yours as he rapidly becomes lost in the euphoria of your wet, tight heat.

One of your arms jumps to lock around his ribs, your nails sinking into his skin as you anchor yourself to him.

His hand snakes across the sheets in search of yours. When he finds it, fisted against your sheets, he pries your fingers loose, winding them with his and he wraps your arm around his shoulders.

“Tighter,” he gasps. “Hold me tighter. Please.”

Your fingers dig into the muscles of his back and Sanemi groans his approval.

And then he’s rolling to his side, pulling you along with him until you’re stretched out across the length of your mattress, chest to chest.

His hand grips under your thigh, tugging it over his hip as he rocks harder into you. “Talk to me, angel,” the hand under your thigh moves to splay across your rear, pushing and pulling your hips in time with his as he grinds. “Tell me how you feel — tell me what you want.”

You cry out, mournful, as Sanemi draws out his cock nearly to its tip before he plunges back into you.

The fullness you feel is overwhelming. You can’t stand that empty feeling, even for a moment. So you hitch your leg higher around his hip, and dig the heel of your foot into the firmness of his ass, limiting his movements.

“Closer!” You gasp. “I — I need you closer.”

He needs that too, he decides; craves it. He doesn’t want to feel any space between your bodies. He wants — he needs — to be so enraptured with you that there is no point in trying to separate. That way, he might get to keep you for just a little longer.

Sanemi’s hand massages your backside, his cock throbbing with every push into you. “Deeper,” he confirms between throaty groans. “You want me deeper?”

You bury your face into his shoulder. Your teeth sink into his skin and with a moan, you nod.

He can do that; is more than happy to, as a matter of fact.

So, with a faint snarl, Sanemi grips the fat of your ass and spreads you wide, and he begins thrusting, hard.

The new angle allows the tip of his cock to bump up against a sweet spot deep inside you. Sanemi’s eyes narrow at the way your head drops back, a loud cry tearing from your throat.

Determined to hit that point within you again and again, he shifts his hips under you while hiking your leg higher up his hip, his fingers digging into the curve of your ass.

It’s a success; soon, your wails echo throughout your studio, punctuated by every punishing slap of his skin against yours.

Really, he can’t give less of a damn at how thin your apartment walls are. The sounds pouring from your mouth are the prettiest fucking thing he’s ever heard.

Something hot and electric mounts quickly in your stomach with each of his frenetic movements. You’ve come before with your own hand, but this — this is something different. Something far more intense, something that threatens to rip you apart from your very sanity until you know nothing but him.

You try and tell him you’re losing control but all that comes out is a pitiful whimper.

But he knows; he knows exactly what you need.

“I’m here, baby, I’m here. I’ve got you.” And with that, Sanemi rolls you back underneath him, settling into the cradle of your thighs and pushing his cock faster and deeper into you. His arms gently unwind yours from his shoulders, and he brings them up over your head, one large hand pinning them down.

“I’ll take care of you, sweet girl,” he promises, and he weaves the fingers of the hand keeping you pressed against the mattress with your own. “Just keep your legs around me.”

Your thighs squeeze his waist in silent answer, your mind far too suspended in the throes of your pleasure to do anything else.

With his lips trailing along your neck leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses in its wake, his free hand slides between your sweat-slicked bodies. He wedges it between where his groin is pressed to yours, and he searches along your sensitive, swollen folds, seeking the spot between your thighs that made you tremble and whine for him earlier.

You jolt under him as his fingers find you again, that foreign, electric sensation sparking deep in your abdomen. “Sanemi —“

“It’s okay,” he murmurs sweetly, pressing down on your clit until you arch further into him with a gasp. “It’s gonna feel so good, baby, I promise. Just focus on me.”

Each rotation of his hand against your sensitive bead matched the deep, pointed roll of his groin, with Sanemi capping the end of every powerful thrust with alternating pulses of his thumb. The pressure he uses mounts with every churn of his hips, and the moan vibrating in your chest as another surge of sticky wetness gushes from your thighs is the sweetest sound he thinks he’s ever heard.

A broken chant of please please please stutters its way out of you, spurning him to go faster; hit deeper.

And Sanemi only knows how to oblige you.

“You’re doing so fucking good, sweetheart. Just keep letting me take care of you —- that’s it.” He curses as you clench down around him, crying out in approval at his praise. “Yeah, yeah. You’re my fuckin’ girl, aren’t you?”

A single wail of his name is your only response, but it’s enough of a confirmation to damn you both.

“You are,” he affirms, his voice taking on the timber of a growl. “Mine. You’re fuckin’ mine.”

His thrusts grow sloppier with every second, though each is punctuated by a silent, recurring chant of mine, mine, mine. Though your eyes are closed, Sanemi can spy a faint sliver of white peeking out from between your eyelids.

You’re close; he can feel it. And he knows, as the walls of your cunt flutter and tighten around him, that your climax will be his undoing.

The hands he has pinned against the mattress over your head flex as you twist and writhe beneath him. your head tosses from from side to side, and the vibrato of your cries rises octave by octave. Every muscle in your body is tense; you are a live wire thrumming with a need to come apart that he knows you do not fully understand.

Sanemi grunts as he fucks you harder into your bed, no longer concerned with keeping his weight off you. He will show you; he will show you how to shatter, and then he too, will break.

But he needs to see you, first.

“Look at me,” his voice beckons you back from the precipice of ruin. “Look at me, Y/N.”

Your eyes open to meet his and suddenly you’re right back at that edge, only this time, you’re falling freely over it, plummeting down a drop that has no end.

“S-Sanemi —!” It’s all you can manage before the knot steadily building in your stomach unravels. Your back arcs sharply away from your bed, and Sanemi ducks his head to smother his own cry against your breast as he takes its tip into his hot mouth.

Your hips jerk and twitch against his, your cunt seizing around him with force that threatens to squeeze the life out of him. Above you, your arms strain and pull against his grip as you writhe and sing for him.

“That’s it baby, that’s it,” Sanemi’s praise is muffled against your sternum, though it is strangled as he nears his own end. “Fuck!“

He’ll have to buy you the morning-after pill tomorrow, he realizes as you continue to come apart so beautifully on his cock, a soft chant of his name the only thing on your lips. He will not force you to bear the consequences of his own selfishness; he will not saddle you with his burden.

But he’s also not strong enough to pull out; not when your body feels like it was made for him, not when your sweet cunt is gripping him this hard, is this wet — all because of him.

He is selfish and he is weak; it’s a toxic combination, and yet he knows cannot stop.

Sanemi’s hips snap a final time against yours, pushing them up and away from the mattress, pressing deeper than he thought possible. His eyes roll back as his own orgasm rocks through him, powerful and blinding, and the growl that built in his throat melts into a strained groan.

He holds you in place, his cock pulsing in time with your cunt while the two of you ride out the waves of your climax together, his cum steadily filling you with his warmth. Your hands skirt down the length of his arms, blindly searching for his hips. When you find him, you pull and tug, a faint whine sounding from the back of your throat. Sanemi answers your plea with a broken moan of his own and he rocks against you, your hips circling with his until he finally lets you collapse against your mattress, limp-limbed and exhausted.

He follows you down, smothering you with his weight as he clings to you like a lifeline, his face buried in the crook of your neck.

“Fuck, you did so good, sweetheart. So fuckin’ good.” He moans into your ear before he pulls back, his eyes searching your face as he pants.

One hand cradles your jaw and his thumb strokes repeatedly over the flushed curve of your cheek. “You okay?”

You don’t answer right away, your eyes shut tight, and Sanemi feels panic bubble hot in his stomach. The hand cupping your face tightens with his worried call of your name, his fear rearing its ugly head, ready to rip him apart, to turn him into the horrid monster he’s always known he was —

“I love you,” and then you’re peering up at him, eyes round and shining with emotion he does not deserve to feel. “I love you, Sanemi.”

It would’ve hurt less if you’d shot him.

Whatever wall remained around his heart cracks and crumbles under the weight of your confession. Sanemi does not answer, cannot find the words to adequately capture the depth of his feelings.

Instead, he snatches you up into his arms, crushing your body against his.

He kisses your lips and then your cheek. One hand cups the back of your head, his fingers burying into your hair as he presses your face into his chest. His arms tremble as he holds you close, every hard ridge of him cradled against your soft curves. He feels your smile against his collarbone, and the way your fingers dance up and down his spine that makes him melt.

It hits him, then. You aren’t waiting for an answer — you said it only so he would know, and you’d not expected anything in return.

All you’d done was give while he took and took. Your body. Your love.

He doesn’t deserve any of it.

Whatever or whomever came after this would never compare to you. Truthfully, Sanemi doesn’t think it would be worth trying anything different. Everything now began and ended with you — including him.

He twists his head to kiss you again and again, your lips meeting his with a sleepy enthusiasm.

He pants as he breaks away. “‘M gonna pull out — might be uncomfortable for a second.”

You wince at the sudden stab of cold left behind by Sanemi’s retreating warmth. He shifts back onto his knees and slides his hands down your thighs, parting them.

A low whistle blows past his lips. “Damn, I made a mess outta you.”

For a moment, Sanemi can’t tear his eyes away from the sight between your legs; the sight of him trickling out you, staining the sheets below. But some of that hot, possessive pride that wells in his chest tempers at the small smear of blood staining your inner thigh.

His fingers massage your legs in silent apology. “Let me clean you up.”

Your hands shoot to grasp at his shoulders, a pleading whimper on your lips. “Don’t leave — not yet.” You bite your lip, your eyes wide and anxious. “Please, can you just hold me for a bit?”

Sanemi’s eyes soften and his heart throbs painfully in his chest. He can’t imagine leaving you; not now, not ever. No matter how stupid and selfish that makes him.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know the source of your anxiety — or that you didn’t have reason for it. Sanemi isn’t known for lingering.

But this is different — you’re different. You’re not some temporary distraction. You’re everything. His everything.

“Shhh,” he maneuvers you easily atop him, settling you in against the length of his torso, his hands smoothing up and down the column of your spine. “I’m staying right here, sweet girl. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

He seals his promise with a gentle kiss against your forehead before laying his cheek against your temple, cradling you to his chest.

Finally, you relax against him, convinced. He lays with you for a long time after, one hand on the back of your head, his fingers rubbing against your scalp until you fall asleep on against him, safe and sound and warm.

Minutes pass, or maybe hours. But Sanemi’s head does not quiet, not even under the soothing sounds of your deep, slow breaths as you dream.

He must have lost his mind. There is no other explanation for the way he’s disregarded every rule, every boundary he’s ever made sense of, all in the name of you. In a single evening, you managed to obliterate every last defense, every barricade he’d safely cowered behind, and now that the castle has fallen, he isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to do with the rubble.

What he does know is that there’s no putting things back to how they were.

His eyes search your sleeping face because if you were able to make him question nearly everything that made sense in his life, then surely you must also have the answers he needs to re-strike balance in his tilted world. Maybe they lie among the lashes that tickle your cheek, or in the occasional twitch of your mouth between your deep inhales.

But Sanemi is only left feeling more confused the longer he watches you. Because, despite the way he feels vulnerable and exposed at how easily he has been stripped of his guard, he can’t quite bring himself to believe it was entirely your doing.

His eyes widen. There’s his answer.

Perhaps you are not trying to sink your nails into his flesh to peel it back, to demand he be stripped to the bone for you to inspect, to scrutinize and use as you please.

Perhaps that is what you’ve done to yourself, and you’re waiting to see if you will join you; to know if he can volunteer his vulnerability, rather than wait for someone to come and force it from him.

He cannot make any promises. He has spent so much of his life cowering behind the armor he crafted out of his scars and his sneers and barks that were always more ferocious than his bite, that he does not know how to take it off. He does not know how to navigate the world without its weight, both his safety net and his chain. And there is an understanding in your eyes that signals you know that, too.

But he can try.

He mouths I love you against your hairline — he does not voice it, not yet, though it’s what he feels. But your love is a compass that just might point him down the road the leads to a life he so desperately wants; to you.

And he’ll get there, maybe.

In time.

LIKES, REBLOGS, COMMENTS APPRECIATED!

[darnell-la]

how about old!logan with the filthiest mouth one could ever speak, full with nasty and degrading pet names. just rough and mean logan treating the reader 🫠🫠

note: this takes place in the Honda Odyssey… we can make the man filthier by the way…

———

“Well, you guys are fucking stupid, so, it’s not a surprise we’re lost,” y/n crossed her arms in the back seat as Wade drove through the woods, trying to get to the place Nicepool had me roomed for them to form a team.

“You ain’t the smartest sheep either. Batting your fuckin’ eyelids at Jonny,” Logan scoffed next to her before leaning back in his to rest.

After Wade had told him that there might not be a way to save his world, he’s been in a bad mood. Ever since she met him, he’s been in a bad mood.

“Yeah, but sadly he’s not here with us, right Wade?” Y/n sarcastically asked, making Wade sigh loudly. “He should have said those things about her!” Wade shouted.

“This whole trip is fucking ridiculous. Like seriously, Wade. Why the fuck did you bring me along to save this drunk fuck!?” Y/n complained, making Logan chuckle.

“To save your shitty world,” Logan said under his breath. “Hey! That’s my world too!” Wade argued. “Yeah — That’s why I said that shit,”

“Not like yours is better,” y/n mumbled, making Logan snap his head towards her. Y/n continued looking out of the window, not caring how he felt about her words.

“The fuck you say?” The man asked in a clearly angry tone. “Alright, let’s just cool our dicks and think about a place to eat at after we get out of this shit hole, hm?” Wade asked the two, but they both ignored him.

“Nah, I wanna hear what the little bitch has to say,” Logan called the young lady out of her name, making her snap his own neck at him. “Bitch!? No wonder you could never keep a woman. In every universe!” She shot for his heart.

“That’s something you don’t have to worry about because Ian pickin’ a little brat like you,” Logan tried saying something back in an instant like her comment didn’t hurt. He knew calling her out of her name was shitty, but he’s going through it right now.

The man was pulled from his universe being told he had a chance to save it. Not even two hours later, he was told it was an educated wish.

“Not like you can get in my pants anyways limp dick,” y/n spat, making the man chuckle. He was cocky. He always has been, and his age wasn’t going to throw that away.

“You’re an easy little girl. You would even be able to handle me,” the man looked the girl up and down, giving a look that made her roll her eyes. “You fuckin’ wish,” she said before turning back to the window.

“Oh, honey bun, he does! Maybe y’all can fuck it out in here before we make it home. Got a long way to go,” Wade almost sang.

The two went silent, not declining or accepting. They were just angry, and Wade swore having a small fuck-session would help.

Y/n felt eyes on her through the silence. She told herself not to look back, but she had to. She wanted to see the man’s face, and god, was he fine. She hated admitting to it, but he was.

The way he looked at her legs, made her shift in her seat, growing nervous from the older man’s gaze.

“As I said — Little girl can’t handle it,” Logan finally looked up at the girl with a smirk, smelling the way she grew wet in seconds, and she didn’t know he could. She was clueless which made the situation funnier to him.

“I can handle more than you think. Your dick probably wouldn’t be able to stand up anyway, so stop lookin’ at me like that you perv,” y/n tried covering her legs, but there was no use.

“Oh, go fuck yourself,” the man rolled his eyes as he leaned back in his seat. “Do it yourself, coward,” y/n said under her breath. She thought she was quiet enough until his head snapped back at her and Wade gasped.

“Oh, you nasty little peanut,” Wade giggled. “Oh, you want me to fuck you?” Logan asked, giving that stupid smirk again. “What!? I never said that,” y/n lied, trying to think of something to stop this conversation.

“Oh, but you did, bub,” Logan felt like he was shifting closer, but y/n kept her eyes off of him. “Don’t go silent on me now, bub. If you need a little cock to fix that attitude, I can do it,”

The instant confidence he had, made the girl nervous. What the fuck is she going to do?

“Don’t need cock,” the girl spoke quietly. “I think you do,” the man’s hand was now on the grips thighs, gripping it a bit rough to get a reaction.

Y/n turned and swung, going to hit the man somewhere, but he got her fist and pushed it away before hovering over her body.

“You’re feisty for a girl who’s soaking wet,” the man said, confusing y/n. “You can smell her that bad!?” Wade asked, wanting to know if all. “Oh, yeah, and she smells sweet,” Logan admitted as his hands tugged on her belt.

“Let’s see if I’m right,” Logan ripped y/n’s belt off and shorts down her legs, exposing her pretty lace panties. “Logan! Fuckin’ get off!” Y/n fought back, but he knew she could do better.

“You sure? Kinda looks a little messy down here,” the man laughed at her girl as he spews her legs, seeing the dark spot grow. Before she could say another word, he ripped her panties off, making her yell at him more.

“Pretty little cunt. Maybe if you weren’t so bitchy, I’d eat it, but I have different plans for you today,” Logan wiped a finger across her lips before taking them to his mouth to suck.

“Yep — Sweeter than peach, Wade. Didn’t know you had sluts as friends,” Logan laughed again as he fumbled with his own belt. “Logan!” Y/n still shouted, kicking and slapping but he had his single hand pinning her shoulder down.

“Look on the bright side, peanut — You’ll get some dick and maybe that’ll energize you for our fight?” Wade said about anything to hide the fact he loved hearing Logan get the way he gets.

“Fuck you, Wade!” Y/n yelled at the man. “Nah uh, only I do that to you,” y/n almost forgot about Logan until she looked down, seeing his cock out in his head, stoking and leaking pre cum.

“Got me so fuckin’ hard. You know how good you look fighting? How pretty you are yappin’ that damn mouth? Could only think about you under me -- where you belong,”

Logan struggled but made his way in between her legs. “Fuck you! Fuck you, a-and Wade! You’ll last two seconds,” y/n tried laughing at the man to seem tough as usual, but he shut her right up with a hard thrust into her cunt.

“What was that? Two seconds? If I lasted a short time, it’s because this cunts so fuckin’ soaked, not because I’m old, baby,”

Y/n’s hands pushed at the man’s stomach, trying to slow him down and stop him from pushing hitting the right spot with each thrust he gave.

“S-Stop!” The girl whined already, feeling the knot in her stomach build and her breathing get spotty. He was huge and hard. Harder than she thought a man his age could be.

“Don’t think you want that, baby. No, you want me to fuck this pretty little girl till she cried and leaks on the seat,” Logan whispered in her ear as his own breath became heavy.

“God, you guys are hot. Love the play date you guys are having! Maybe give me a review after the Uber ride. Tell me if the seats felt comfy and if y’all had enough room to fuck like rabbits with rabies,” Wade seemed excited.

“Hear that, babe? Gonna tell Wade how good I fuck this pussy? C’mon, tell him. Tell him how hard your squeeze my cock,”

Y/n hated his cock voice in her ear but loved it at the same time. He knew exactly how she’d like it. Maybe by her attitude, he knew she needed someone with the same energy to pound her.

“No c-chance,” the girl stuttered through her teeth as she tried glaring at the man, but her head instantly fell back after he gave one small pound, telling her to get rid of the attitude.

“You’re gonna do it eventually. Sluts like you can’t forget a good cock,” and he was right. This was going to be the best sed she’s had ever.

“Gonna go beggin’ Wade to come get me to fuck you. Shit, since I have to stay in the bullshit you call your world, I’ll just come over to your place myself. Burry my cock in this cunt till you pass out,”

“L-Logan,” y/n dug her nails into the man’s shoulders, trying to hold tight as her orgasm felt near. “Oh, you like that? Like the thought of a dirty old man fuckin’ this so-called clean pussy, hm? Gonna let me breed this little princess whenever I want? Even if I piss you off?”

“N-No, you fucking suck at this!” Y/n breathed heavily, keeping her orgasm together so she wouldn’t give him what she wanted.

“God, she’s fuckin’ petty,” Wade said as Logan let out a little chuckle. The man shifted in the van, lifting her legs over his shoulders before punching his right claw into the roof of the van.

Y/n jumped, not used to having a mutant like him around. “Don’t worry, princess. I wouldn’t hurt a pretty girl like you. Too valuable and tight,” Logan grabbed between the back of y/n’s head and neck to lift her to, fixing her to lean into him.

“Before I fuck you ass dumb, do you want to take anything you said back?” Logan looked down at the girl whose legs rested on his shoulder and cock grazed her entrance, waiting to be squeezed again.

“You fuck like a dead pig,” y/n spat. Right after, the man took one good slam into her, watching her legs part and scream. Logan pulled her head back up, making her look into his dark eyes.

“Loudmouth for a loud screamer,” the man smirked before moving his hips, thrusting into the girl with all the strength he had. He pulled her back to life whenever she tried pushing away or leaning her head back.

“Good fuckin’ pussy — Fuck! — Maybe I’ll excuse that bitch tone of yours,” the man couldn’t deny his could she felt and sounded.

Before, y/n thought she could hold herself in, but she knew Logan would get what he wanted in this new angle and harder pounding. He knew this from the start.

“C’mon, bub — I know you wanna cum. Keep squeezing around me like I wouldn’t notice,” he laughed at her. Teasing he. “N-Not cumming,” y/n assured the man, but even Wade didn’t believe her.

“I can see how the man has you in a full-on butter-salted pretzel position. You’re cumming, peanut,” Wade said, only egging Logan on knowing anyone who looked at her right now could tell she was close.

“No, I’m not!” Y/n pathetically whined. Logan leaned down to the girl's face, slightly touching her lips as his hot breath burned her nostrils.

“Don’t cum then, bub,” Logan said as he picked up his pace. “Don’t cum, and you win. You win your little bitch fight, and we can move on with our day,” Logan kept increasing.

“Don’t cum, and you’re right about my limp old dick,” Logan now growled. “Don’t cum, and I won’t come into your little home and eat that pussy,” y/n eyes rolled back as his hands dug into the back of her neck.

“Don’t cum, and I won’t fuck you like this every day to satisfy your needs, baby. Don’t cum, and I’ll have to leave this pretty little body alone forever,”

“Can’t breed it. Can’t kiss it. Can’t pound it. Can’t do anything I want to it,” y/n whined loudly at the man’s words, finally releasing the man’s cock.

“That’s what I fuckin’ thought. You need me. You fuckin’ want this old dick,” Logan’s lips crashed into her, kissing her roughly as she cried at the pace he kept ducking her in.

“Goddam, she cums a lot!” Wade said with excitement, loving the animal coming out of Logan. He knew y/n needed something like this in his life. That totally isn’t the reason why he brought her along.

“So fuckin’ good, baby. Best fuckin’ cunt I’ve fucked. So damn tight and sweet. Need you after all this. Needa have you with me forever,”

Y/n didn’t plan for this to happen. She doesn’t plan to let Logan fuck her like this in the back of Nicepools Honda Odyssey. She didn’t plan for Logan to form an attachment issue with her.

“Gonna cum, baby. Gonna fill this girl up. Gonna keep you with me forever. Can’t leave. Don’t care how old I am, you belong with me. You’re made for me. Pussy’s molded to only take my cock,”

Logan’s hips bucked a few times before he pushed all the way into the young girl, spilling into her with a loud animalistic groan.

The top of the roof was ripped with how many times his claws punched in and out of it. Logan’s fingers bruised the back of y/n’s neck. Her lips even have a small scratch from the hard he kissed. She tastes so fucking good.

[onmykneesformatt]

too tired. -m.s.

⭐️hey sluts!⭐️

warnings: softdom!reader, kind of sub!matt, riding, praising, sleepy sex, cockwarming, unprotected p in v (WRAP YO SHIT UP!!!!), no use of y/n bc i hate it🤞

synopsis: after slightly ignoring matt before bed, you show him that you can be just as much of a tease as him.

a/n: HIIIII!!! sooo this is my first fic so i’m so very sorry if it’s bad!! but i’m so excited for y’all to read this is not even funny. anyways, enjoy!!

it wasn’t out of the ordinary for matt to stay up late. it was actually more than normal. especially if he were playing video games. 

it was 2 am. 2:06 am, to be exact. you were laying in matt’s bed, doom-scrolling tiktok half-asleep as matt was focused on fortnite with nick and chris. they weren’t filming anything, but every few nights, they like to get nostalgic and just play video games all night. 

“chris, you’re too fucking loud.” matt exclaims. 

“no, i’m not!” chris retaliates, which you hear through the floor and matt’s headset. 

matt turns back to you with a “can you believe this kid?” look on his face. 

you giggle when you see matt gesturing to his headset and shaking his head. 

you go look back at your phone as matt yawns while stretching, reaching his arms up. his shirt lifted a little, exposing his boxers under his blue pajama pants. 

he caught you staring, realizing what simple things had an effect on you. the ball was in his court. although you loved the idea of late night sex, you didn’t know how matt would feel. 

so, you just laid there, waiting until you physically couldn’t stay awake. 

matt saw your eyes flutter open and closed, how your hand would slowly droop down the whip back up when your eyes opened. 

he came over, shut off your phone, pulled up your blanket, and kissed you on the forehead. 

just then, you heard matt whisper over his headset. 

“hey, she’s falling asleep, and i’m feeling pretty tired. goodnight.” matt states. 

“aww, goodnight matty.” nick replies. 

chris, being chris, replies with, “yeah, you’re gonna go to ‘sleep’.” 

matt rolls his eyes as nick laughs. he ends the conversation and turns his whole setup off. 

you feel his mattress dip from behind you, right as you feel two warm arms wrap around your waist from behind. 

his touch wasn’t helping the thoughts you were having right now. you wanted him. but didn’t even wanna open your eyes. 

to send a signal, you started to adjust how you were laying, carefully moving your hips to perfectly rub against matt’s hips and thighs. 

your subconscious must’ve known what was gonna happen to you tonight, as you went to bed in matt’s baggy briefs and one of his shirts. 

no underwear, no bra. 

you were more comfortable that way, and so was matt. 

matt groaned quietly as he slowly moved his head into the crook of your neck, leaving soft pecks.

“goodnight, my girl. i love you.” 

you didn’t respond. 

matt was a little offended by the loud silence that followed his sentence. 

“baby? you already asleep?” 

honestly, you were about to be. 

a soft groan left you as you shook your head. 

“what’s wrong?” he asked.

“nothin’. just too tired to even think right now.”

he knew when something was wrong.

the way your voice got low, your head would lightly shake side to side with every “reassuring” sentence, and how you’d lack in responses in total.

“well, somethin’ is wrong. tell me, baby. what’s on your mind?”

you could feel him getting hard as you kept adjusting your hips. 

every. single. inch.

“if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, then i’m just gonna go to bed.”

silence.

“alright. your choice.”

you felt him turn over as his arms left your side.

you just ignored him.

bad idea.

“wait.”

you turned onto your back, leaning on your elbows as you tried to peek at matt’s face. 

he didn’t even move.

“matt. baby.”

no response.

boy, did that pill hurt to swallow.

“baby, i’m ready to talk. amongst.. other.. things.”

you were hoping he was gonna catch your drift.

you assumed he did when he only turned his head to look up at you. the dim light coming from a warm, vanilla candle on his desk made him look more irresistible. 

“what.. other things?”

“baby. you know what i’m talking about.”

“mmm. not too sure i am.”

he put on a smug look, acting stupid. 

that’s how he would punish you.

whenever you would tease him or treat him like he was the needy one in public. 

you sat fully up, now leaning on your left hand, still looking down at him. 

“i wanna.. you know..”

“ohh.”

maybe he would be nice and give in tonight.

“mmh. too tired.”

nevermind.

“matt!”

you whisper-yelled. loud enough to grab his attention, but quiet enough that you couldn’t even hear it in nick or chris’ room.

“look, i’m sorry i ignored you earlier. i really am! but-“

“but what?”

his deep voice made you feel knots in your stomach. 

the way his curls laid perfectly on his head.

the way his tattoos complimented his veins.

everything about him made you snap out of your sleepy haze.

you reached over to his hip, pulling him flat on his back.

you swept your leg over his hips, leaving you perfectly sat onto his lap. 

he acted tough, but you knew you could make him do anything you wanted. 

“the fuck do you think you’re doing?” 

matt’s voice was stern, but you knew he wasn’t actually upset.

how?

by the way the bulge underneath your core was getting harder and harder. 

“i’m sorry for ignoring you.”

you left a kiss on his neck.

“i’m sorry for not switching the laundry earlier.”

then his collarbone.

“i’m sorry for not being a good girlfriend.”

then his chest, with the collar of his shirt lightly pulled down to give you easy access.

you didn’t actually think you were a bad girlfriend, but you weren’t trying to guilt him.

you were teasing him.

his least and most favorite thing in the world.

“no, baby. you’re all i want and more.”

matt’s hands caressed your sides.

once he reached up high enough, he realized you didn’t have a bra on.

you could see his excitement.

and feel it.

“then prove it.”

he immediately sat up and pulled his shirt off.

it was like out of a movie.

sloppy kisses as you both started to get undressed. 

next thing you know, you’re completely naked and all he has on is his boxers. 

“can you take your boxers off for me? i need you as close to me as possible.”

you pushed yourself up slightly on your knees, giving him enough room to slip his boxers off and throw them somewhere on his floor. 

he laid back, giving you the sweetest puppy dog eyes you’d ever seen. 

you grabbed his length, teasing your own entrance, knowing it was just as bad for him. 

you kept eye contact the entire time, making sure to see his eyebrows furrow as soon as he was inside of you. 

once he was, it was like he had melted.

slow, sultry movements of your hips was enough to make him twitch. 

low groans had left his mouth, making you closer and closer the the edge. 

after a few minutes of little praises from both of you, you both felt your highs getting closer and closer.

“just like that.”

“you’re doing great for me, baby.”

“look at my pretty girl.”

matt’s hands gripped his sheets, proving his release was getting closer and closer.

the sight of his veins was enough to make you moan his name.

he looked up at you, praying his brothers didn’t hear. 

not that he would be too upset if they did.

“can i- mmph..”

you were waiting for him to ask, as you needed to release the knot in your stomach. 

“go ahead, baby.”

you felt the warmth of his release inside of you, mixed with your own.

you slumped over, laying on his chest. 

he played with your hair while you both attempted to catch your breath. 

light sweat was making his hair stick to his forehead. 

you lightly kissed his chest, feeling his heartbeat. 

you felt safe with him. 

the way he was never ashamed to open up to you, nor was he judgemental when you opened up to him. 

“can i.. maybe.. keep it in? y’know, while we sleep?”

“let’s clean up, then of course. anything for my pretty boy.”

after you showered together, with light kisses and washing eachothers bodies, you went back to bed. 

you stayed undressed.

as he slipped back into you, eliciting light moans from both of you, he wrapped his arms back around your waist. 

“was that enough proof? or should i give you more?”

you chuckled, knowing how tomorrow morning would start.

[norrizzandpia]

you’re my absolute favourite lando fanfic writer, i get so excited whenever you post. can you do some sort of fake dating x enemies to lovers with lando & some angst & grovelling please? i leave the rest up to you, i can’t wait to see what you come up with<3

THIS IS THE BEST MIX OF TROPES I HAVE EVER SEEN I LOVE YOU FOR THIS also thank you so much for saying I’m your fav lando writer I’m blushing ☺️

You Were Never What I Wanted, (LN4)

Summary: Lando and Y/n have never liked each other and it’s only the distaste the world has for them when McLaren forces them to “put on a show for the public”. At first, a few hand holds and light, quick kisses seem to be tolerable, yet feather light touches turn into longing stares and, suddenly, they’re falling in love. Although, hatred is a powerful emotion. Can love really trump it?

Warnings: language, sexual discussions, very mild smut, lando and yn yearning, yn calling lando a man whore not affectionately, talks of death, a crash, she’s long so grab popcorn, omfg this one hurts

Note: i love a good fake dating y’all don’t GET. IT. Also i added the reformed playboy trope to this to spice things up! It’s very mildly mentioned tho UPDATE: PART 2 POSTED!

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Lando screeches, body flying from his chair beside Y/n.

Charlotte smiles tightly at him, nodding slowly and putting her hands up, “Lando, yes. You know this is the only way to clean up the reputation you two have developed together.”

He groans, turning to pace the room when Zak interrupts, “Lando, be a fucking man and clean up the mess you’ve made.”

He turns quickly, eyes bulging as he yells, “It wasn’t fucking me! It was her!” He turns to look at Y/n, bewildered look in his eyes as he points furiously at her, “It was you! You got us into this mess! You clean it up!”

Y/n rolls her eyes at him and he almost loses his head, “You’re just as at fault, Lando. You’re the one that openly criticized my driving in a room full of reporters and cameras!”

“I was asked a fucking question, Y/n. It was my job to answer it honestly.” He shoots back.

She scoffs, “Are you fucking psychotic? Or just that fucking stupid? Our job is to lie to the press, that’s what it’s always been. Don’t fucking change it when it’s convenient for you.”

Lando’s hands claw at his eyes as they continue to bicker, “The only person who’s stupid here is you.”

“I was standing up for myself!”

“Oh, yeah?! Now, look where that’s gotten us! A fucking PR stunt!”

“Get over yourself, Lando! You’re just as at fault!”

“You’re so fucking annoying, Y/n! Can’t take any fucking accountabil-”

“Oh, please, you’re one to ta-”

“OKAY!” Charlotte claps her hands as she stops the two drivers. The image before her is one she never thought she’d see this season. Lando Norris, a McLaren driver and well known playboy, getting mad he had to kiss one of the most beautiful women to grace the sport of Formula 1, fellow driver on the grid, Y/n Y/l/n. She surely would’ve chuckled if Lando’s eyes weren’t alive with an angry fire she needed to diffuse immediately.

“You two need to just realize that whose fault this was doesn’t matter. What you need to focus on is pretending you’re in love, so the media stops breathing down McLaren’s and Red Bull’s necks. This is the only way we can make all this bad press go away.” She explains, hands moving rapidly in front of her as she tries to calm the two down.

Y/n, the more rational one, nods, accepting her fate with grace. Lando, on the other hand, stomps his foot on the ground and mutters a sentence of agreement before storming out of the room.

Y/n laughs, turning to Zak and Charlotte, the papaya employees looking as if five years had just been taken off their lives, “I don’t know how you put up with him. He’s so fucking childish.”

Charlotte, media trained, smiles, “He’s better when he isn’t angry.”

Zak, not media trained, nods, “Y/n, I’ve never agreed with you more.”

The man and woman share a look, a subtle scolding glint in Charlotte’s eye as she stares at Zak. He backs down, earning a giggle from Y/n as she begins to leave the room.

“You’ll send the NDAs and other contracts over to Red Bull, right? I’d like to get this started and over with as soon as possible.” Y/n smiles, a soft one that makes others feel warm inside.

Charlotte nods, “Of course. Consider it done.”

Y/n, keeping her smile and composure, withdraws from the room, the door closing with a loud click.

Zak and Charlotte are left to sink down into the chairs behind them. Slugging, Zak’s head lulls to her side, “This is either the best idea we’ve ever had or the worst one.”

She laughs, “They either fall in love or hate each other more.”

—

“Okay, so,” Charlotte smiles at Lando and Y/n from her side of the SUV, the two on either side of the car, sitting as far away from the other as possible, “This is going to be a short outing.”

“Thank God.” Lando mumbles under his breath, earning a scowl from the girl beside him.

Charlotte huffs, continuing, “Just a coffee run. You’ll go into the cafe, holding hands, maybe a kiss or two, get your drinks, and then leave. Very quick. However, I need you two to give it your all. This will be the first time the public sees you as something more than enemies. It needs to be convincing. Heart eyes and maybe, if you’re comfortable, roaming hands.”

Lando’s head turns in utter disgust, “If you fucking think I’m going to touch her ass or some shit, you’ve absolutely lost it.”

Y/n’s body whips around, whole torso facing him as she stares him down, “Oh, please, Lando, you get no fucking women. You haven’t touched anybody’s ass, let alone a girl’s, in fucking ages.”

“Oh, yeah? Then, explain the girl that woke up in my bed this morning!” He fires back, head tilting in a challenging way.

Y/n shoves her arms across her chest as she sits back and whispers, loud enough for him and Charlotte to hear, “Man whore.”

Charlotte’s eyebrows lift slightly, exhaling a breath, “Well! This should be fun!”

The car comes to a stop in an alleyway, hidden from prying eyes. Charlotte lets the silence pass between the two for a few moments before leaning over and opening Lando’s door, “Well, get on with it! Chop chop! Don’t have all the time in the world.”

Lando slides out of the car, shaking his head and grumbling incoherently. Y/n follows him, however, when she gets her legs hanging out the door, she is reminded of just how high the car is off the ground. She goes to turn her body around, opting to slide slowly out on her stomach in avoidance of an accident, but, before she can get positioned, Lando grabs her hips and lifts her from the car, down onto the ground.

There’s a moment where she’s so taken aback, surprised, by the movement, all she can do is grip onto his biceps and stare down at her feet, safely on the pavement. It’s only when Charlotte starts yelling, “Yes! Yes, Lando! Just like that! Look at her like that!” That she looks up. What she finds is deep green eyes completely dilated and lost in the sight of her. She reminds herself of the hatred this man has for her, brushing off the way his hands squeeze over the flesh of her hips desperately, and removes herself from his hold.

Immediately, he comes to, the snarl replacing whatever emotion had taken over his face before. She trails down the dirty, smelly passageway, hearing Lando’s feet patter behind her.

It’s as if she’s achingly aware of his presence when he reaches her, just before they turn onto the public street, and takes her hand in his. The way his cologne wraps around her body, suffocating her in the most addicting way, and the feeling of his fingers fitting perfectly in the divots of hers, soft against her skin, has Y/n reeling. She goes along with his movements, relying on him to guide her as she travels to a place where Lando’s just the man she used to think he was; insanely hot and incredibly charming.

He pulls her back, however, when he opens the door for her and quietly says her name when she doesn’t walk through.

“Y/n?” His hand tugs against hers, smiling softly at the way she stares off into space. Whether that smile is genuine, although, Y/n has no clue.

She shakes her head, murmuring a thank you to him as she scurries past the threshold. When they both enter, their presence is immediately clocked by the other customers waiting for their orders. That’s what Y/n tells herself when Lando comes up behind her, arms around her waist as he rests his head on the top of hers.

“What do you want, baby? I’m paying.” He says, low enough for it to come across as a whisper, but loud enough for the girl in front of them to turn her head slightly in curiosity.

He’s surprisingly good at this, falling into the role demanded of him in a way that has Y/n faltering. She was expecting a man who was so distant from her, the same as her past partners, she had to beg for his attention. Yet, here she was getting showered in affection by a man she was convinced didn’t have the capacity for it.

Her response is easy, covering for the feelings arising within a certain part of herself she can’t quite name, “Just a cappuccino. Thanks, Lan.”

His grin is sweet as he lays a kiss on her temple. His hands rub over her hips as he detaches himself from her body and moves in front of her, teasingly pushing her away from the register with a light laugh.

Lando spews off the order to the man behind the counter as Y/n moves to the other side of the establishment, residing where the orders are dropped off. It could’ve been strategic, it probably was she promises herself, but Lando yells across the store to her.

“Y/n! Love, do you want food? They have your favorite here,” He smiles at her, earning a few giggles from fawning girls in the corner, “Croissants!”

Did he know croissants are actually her favorite or was that just a lucky guess?

Y/n gives him an airy chuckle, head falling back slightly in a lovesick way as she shakes her head, “Nah, I’m okay. Just gives us another opportunity to come back here.”

He nods at her, shaking his head at the barista and handing him some cash.

He tips the change, a hefty amount seemingly as Y/n watches the worker hesitate and thank Lando profusely. Her heart warms, shining on the inside as he treats hardworking people, those who are usually treated horrifically, with the utmost respect.

These reactions she’s having toward him are confusing, a far off nagging in her brain that she might’ve always wished for this type of attention specifically from him.

Nevertheless, she forces her mind to end its overwhelming thoughts when he waltzes over and sidles up next to her. She’s determined to keep this transactional, however she can.

She can’t get feelings.

She won’t get feelings.

And that was that, she decided.

“Lando!” Another worker calls out, setting down two drinks on the counter in front of them. Y/n goes to pick them up, however Lando beats her, giving her a cheeky grin as he mumbles, “You’re my girlfriend, Y/n. You don’t get the drinks, I do. Don’t be barbaric.”

She stands staring at him, mouth agape at his comment as the girls sitting behind them, somehow closer now, gasp.

Y/n hits his arm, the liquid jostling in his grip, “We weren’t supposed to say anything yet!”

He shrugs in return as he pushes the door open with the side of his body, and waits for her to walk through, “I guess I just couldn’t wait, baby. Too in love.”

She shakes her head at him, taking the drink from his hand, their digits brushing against the other’s in an electrifying way, “Down the toilet goes the soft launch plan.”

As they turn the corner, the smile he had been adoring her with suddenly vanishes and the usual pain that fills his expression when he’s around her returns.

“I’m just trying to get this over with, Y/n. Waiting a whole fucking month to tell some fans we’re together is so fucking stupid and I’m not doing it.” He bites out, a hostility to him she had forgotten in the ten minutes he had just treated her like she was his everything.

She drops the coffee on the ground as they grow closer to the car, shock at his quick change in attitude forcing her body to go numb. Lando stops when she does, both of them staring down at the leaking, steaming drink.

He dryly laughs at her, “How fucking stupid! Can’t even hold her own drink! No wonder you’re a shit driver!”

He gets in the car, shutting the door harshly and leaving her to internalize his criticisms.

For some reason, after getting a glimpse at what being loved by him feels like, his words hurt more, mean more.

What a dangerous game.

—

Lando is a known party animal. He’s in love with the blinding lights, loud music, and alcohol flowing without a care in the world what hangover he’d be graced with in the morning. However, with her here, it proves to be a much more stressful experience.

She’s glued to his side, not particularly the clubbing type, and Lando feels his heart quicken when other men bend their backs to see her walk away. A month into the arrangement they structured and he’s consistently feeling as if he’s fighting off every man that floats their way.

He’s worried someone will try to take advantage of her; he’s worried someone will spike her drink; he’s worried someone will touch her weirdly; he’s worried someone will bother her.

He’s worried about her.

A thought so pressing he forces it out of his mind, away from the impending cloudiness that accompanies a topic so big; the way he feels toward her.

The way it was explained to him, by the joint teams of McLaren PR and Red Bull PR, was that, for the first few weeks, their relationship outings would consist of soft dates, quick times spent out together grabbing takeout or a few pictures here and there on both their social medias that addressed their relationship status. Once they got past that time period, they would begin to see the public more often as a union. Long dinners, a handful of charity functions, a gala, and nights out clubbing riddled his calendar now.

Something he wasn’t too opposed to he was coming to find out.

That was the phase they were entering now; the hard launch. After his stunt in the coffee shop those four weeks ago, the teams had to regroup. The girls who had been hanging around had heard his slight confession of love, plastering it on the internet for every person to see.

The consequence? Lando didn’t get to be seen with Y/n for a week as the PR teams waited for the attention around the news to subside.

He wouldn’t risk that now.

Not when he was beginning to get used to the way her hand held his bicep as his fingers tangled in her other hand below.

“Lan?” She yells in his ear, their footsteps just now reaching the VIP section as the bodyguard lets them through.

He looks down at her, their faces centimeters away, lips centimeters away, and Lando’s scared.

Scared of the things he wants to do as her plump, pink lips sit right below his.

“Yeah?” His eyes avert to Max, his best friend, the boy giving him a knowing glance as he sips on his glass.

“Get me a drink please? I would do it myself, but I don’t want to risk having to talk to a random guy and-” He interrupts her immediately when she mentions the possibility of someone else hitting on her.

“I got it.” He’s spinning around, fast walking toward the bar before she can tell him what she wants.

She turns around, wandering over to Max and plopping down beside him on the soft, black couch in the corner of the room.

Max shakes his head as he looks at her, chuckling softly before letting his head fall to his chest.

“What?” She asks, eyebrows raising at the boy she had grown close to over the time she’d spent with his friend.

“You two are so funny.” He continues giggling, his girlfriend smacking his arm with a cautious look.

Y/n’s eyebrows furrow, “What?”

“You guys say you hate each other, but then you look at each other like you can’t wait to rip the other’s clot-” He begins, but Pietra slaps her hand over his mouth.

“MAX FEWTRELL!” She screams over the music, “NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!”

Her scolding makes him cower into himself, a drunken look on his face as he searches for mercy from his girlfriend.

Y/n is about to press for more when Lando shoves her drink in front of her, holding it out for her until she cradles it in her own.

Looking down at it, her head tilts, “A vodka soda with two orange slices?”

Lando stares at her blankly, “Yeah, you’re favorite, right?”

She nods, “Yeah.”

They look at each other for a moment. Confusion on both their faces for two different reasons.

“Is that a problem?” He asks her, hand dangerously close to her thigh and heating the skin of her leg up with the need for him to splay his fingers across it.

She shakes her head slowly, “No, just- How did you know it was my favorite?”

Emotions flash through his eyes, too fast for Y/n to decipher them. He withdraws physically, cold returning to her leg when his hand retracts to his lap.

“Uh, you just told me a few times.” He stutters.

If she knew him better, she might say for certain he was nervous.

Not mentioning the fact she had never told him what her favorite alcoholic drink was, Y/n moves on. It’s not because she doesn’t want to find out how he knew what she liked or that she simply doesn’t care how he knows, it’s because a camera catches her peripheral eye. Her head discreetly moves to the side, analyzing the drunken girl who stumbles over to the railing and points her phone right at them.

Y/n falls into Lando’s side, his body laid against the back of the couch and making for a comfortable cushion. His arm automatically wraps around her shoulders as her hand plants itself on his upper thigh.

When her fingers brush teasingly close to his crotch, he looks down at her, astonished, “What are you doing?”

“Camera.” She says, his eyes looking up through his lashes before he sees what she had witnessed before.

He nods subtly, leaning down immediately to press his lips to hers shortly. It’s a kiss like the ones they’d had before, quick and dry, yet, this one, instead of pulling away right after, Lando lingers. His lips brush against hers in hesitation, as if he’s deciding whether or not he wants to lean back in for more. His eyes stare into hers, top lip hitting her bottom one as he dips his chin down. He’s close to taking what he wants, breath heavy against her face as he holds her to him. His hands eagerly claw at her dress, forcing her to stay where she is, where he wants her to be, close to him. Yet, he continues to hesitate.

Finally, for the first time, Y/n sees the emotion that hides behind the beautiful color of his eyes; confusion.

It’s only for a split second though. She sees it only for a millisecond as Lando feels the way she breaks down a wall he had built up long ago. When she realizes the war behind his head, he retreats.

His hands fall from her back and his head turns to the side, rejecting what he wanted to do. She watches him look for the girl that had been filming them, eyes roaming over the crowd before coming to the conclusion she was gone.

“No camera.” He says curtly, pushing her off him as he gets up from the couch and walks back to the bar.

She watches him order another drink, no doubt for himself.

Her eyes train on the drink that sits, sweating, on the table in front of them.

Lando’s drink that’s completely full.

🏎️

Liquid courage is a real thing. It’s what drives Lando to ask Y/n to join him on the dance floor. It’s what drives Y/n to pull him into her and sway her hips right against him. They’re on beat with the music, it thumping in their hearts as Lando grips her hips and forces her body closer to his. There’s a newfound sexual tension, rather than the usual tension that consisted of complicated feelings and lingering hurt over past insults. Her hands drape over his neck, head in his chest as he lays his against her shoulder, withholding groans when she circles her hips and accidentally caresses his dick.

His head’s somewhere else, terrifyingly so. He’s not fully thinking through his actions or the thoughts running through his head, the consequences they would have.

All he can think about is the feeling of Y/n’s boobs pressed up against his chest, her cleavage cum-worthy when he looks down and sees her potential spill-out.

The chorus of Love Tonight pumps through the speakers, communicating the feelings they’re too scared to say.

All I need is your love tonight.

All I need is your love tonight.

All I need is your love tonight.

All I need is your love tonight.

The music spurs him on, almost nudging his head downwards to meet her in the same spot they had been in just a few hours before.

His lips hovering over hers with the same thoughts as before, Lando’s brain goes haywire. She’s panting against him, hips relentless as they continue to circle against him. He’s drowning in her, no escape from the hold she has on him.

Fuck it, he thinks.

He smashes his lips against hers, the first kiss they’ve had that truly puts into perspective how much they want each other. Teeth clashing, his tongue wandering the walls of her mouth, Lando and Y/n fail to come up with an excuse for their actions.

No cameras, no fans, no press.

Just the two of them, dancing and kissing with one singular goal.

All I need is your love tonight.

—

“Here’s your check! Thank you for joining us tonight!” The waiter smiles, setting down the black booklet as Lando quickly swipes it from the table.

Whining, Y/n waves her card around, “Lando, when are you going to let me pay? I don’t think I’ve paid a single time we’ve been together.”

He smiles at her mischievously, “Exactly.”

She rolls her eyes, “Lando,”

He eyes her as he scribbles onto the receipt, “Y/n,”

She scoffs, sitting back in her chair with a huff.

When he’s done, he gives her a sympathetic look before reaching across the table and grabbing her hand, “How about next time we get coffee you pay for your own?”

She looks away from him with a failing suppressive smile, “That’s like five dollars, Lan! You’ve probably spent thousands in the time we’ve been together.”

He shakes his head, “Doesn’t matter.”

Her face scrunches up, “Yes, it does!”

He’s about to rebuttal, but the screeching of people close to them takes their soft eyes off the other.

A mixed group of girls and boys stop at their table, smiling brightly at the two drivers. One of them stands in the middle, phone clutched to her chest as she asks, “Can we get a picture?”

Lando looks to Y/n, searching for approval, but she’s not looking at him. He watches her face light up, smiling big at the fans in front of them as she gets up from her chair.

“Yeah, of course!” She laughs, a sound so light and delicate, it makes Lando’s heart clench in his chest. He never saw the way she acted around fans, having been isolated from them in the times they were together. However, now, as he stays put in his chair and stares on, he adores the way she adores them.

His hands clasped in his lap, Lando sits motionlessly. He can’t take his eyes off the woman who is very clearly making this group’s year. They all stare at her as if she held the moon in their hands, a present from her to them. There’s a simple sparkle in their eyes as she takes pictures with each of them, a simple sparkle that tells him just how much these kids look up to her.

He’s enamored by her, just like they are. For different reasons, though.

“Lan, are you going to get up?” She giggles, hitting his arm and reminding him of the task at hand.

The group stares at him, not the same way they had stared at her notably. He can tell they value him, they’re excited by him, but they aren’t starstruck by him.

He can live with that, though. He gets what it’s like to become speechless over something so beautiful.

After a few more clicks of the camera, the supposed couple sits back down in their seats, but Y/n doesn’t let the fans leave yet. He watches as they brighten at her starting conversation with them.

He loves this. He loves he-

“I have to say, I was so surprised when I found out you two were together.” One of the girls in the group interrupts his questionable internal dialogue. He’s relieved, however. He can’t be thinking that way.

He can’t be feeling that way.

He isn’t.

Y/n tilts her head up at them, “Yeah?”

The group nods and one of the boys speaks up, “Yeah, you two, like, hated each other.”

Everyone laughs, Y/n sitting back in her chair as Lando watches her take the statement easily, “Well, we didn’t hate each other. We did love each other, just didn’t know how to deal with it.”

Her eyes meet his and, for a moment, Lando wonders if she truly means it or if she’s signaling for him to add on.

He goes with adding on, “Yeah, definitely. Who could hate her?”

You could, she thinks. You do, she thinks.

The words sink her heart to her stomach. A reality so crushing, she hates to entertain it. When this is all over, he’ll go back to hurting her with jabs that attack her self-confidence and she’ll be left to hang on to the man he had been when they were “together”.

She doesn’t want to go back to hating him, yet she’s scared she will. She doesn’t want to go back to knowing who he truly is at his core, yet she’s scared she will.

She doesn’t want to go back to knowing what he truly thinks of her, yet she’s scared she will.

By the time she returns to the conversation, the fans are simultaneously thanking them for their time and kindness. Leaving them alone, Lando stands from the table and checks the bill once more. Y/n grabs her bag, “Why’re you checking it again?”

He looks up at her as his pointer finger lingers on the paper, “Oh, just calculating what you’ll owe me when this is all said and done. You know, when we go back to hating each other’s guts.”

He says it jokingly, she can tell he’s teasing as he laughs it off, holding her hand gently as he leads her out of the restaurant. But, none of that stops the way she exhales a deep breath, a sigh that carries so much pain, she wonders where it came from.

Lando used to mean nothing to her, or so she thought.

Had he always meant everything?

—

Silverstone is supposed to be a fun race for Lando. It’s one of his favorites on the calendar. Although, that joy is rapidly tanking as he races quickly around the track, smoke emitting from behind him and filling the air, filling his helmet. He coughs harshly as he rushes into his radio, “Was that a crash?! Who is it?! Are they okay?! Is it on fire?! There’s smoke.”

There’s panic in his voice, knowing regardless of who it is, he’ll be worried.

Andrea’s silent on the other line, heightening Lando’s concerns.

“Andrea! What’s going on? Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you.” Andrea responds immediately.

Lando rounds a corner before he speaks back, confusions drenching his tone, “Okay, so who was that? Are they okay?”

Andrea is monotone, “I don’t know if they’re okay right now.”

Lando’s heart drops, “Oh, no, who was it? Was it one of the Williams? A Ferrari? Maybe a Haas?”

Again, Andrea doesn’t answer him and Lando is about to press him further when he reaches the crash site once more. Eyes trained on the color of the car, the words “Red Bull” hit him hard.

Andrea waits for the anxiety to kick in on the other line, fully prepared to talk him down as he watches for any updates on the crash.

“IT’S A FUCKING RED BULL! IS IT Y/N? ANDREA, IS IT Y/N?” He screams, voice shaking as he begins to slow down, cars passing him by and making him lose positions.

Andrea watches the decline of Lando’s car in the race standings, head falling as he realizes no information about Y/n will come quick enough to make him get back in the race.

Calmly, he responds, “I am not sure who it is yet.”

He hears Lando groan aggressively, “Bullshit! Is it her?!”

His yelling can be heard throughout the entire wall, everyone giving side glances to Andrea over the man who is currently screaming.

“Lando, I promise you, if I knew who it was, I would tell you.” Andrea gives, voice pleading.

It’s quiet for a moment, the only thing heard being the sounds of Lando’s heavy breathing. Solemnly, Andrea watches a camera zoom in past the smoke and center the number of the car in the frame.

Y/n’s car.

Clicking the button, Andrea speaks to Lando, “I can confirm it is Y/n’s car. No knowledge of if she’s gotten out of the car or not.”

Again, there’s silence before Lando’s hand smacks his steering wheel and he lets out a noise filled with anguish, “Please, tell me when you find out.”

Torturously, Lando passes by her car at every turn, watching only for a second as people work to try and get her out of the car.

Andrea watches in horror as a group of men lift her from the car, her body limp and unmoving as they run her to the safety car.

“She’s out of the car.” He murmurs to Lando, praying the boy won’t ask more questions.

He does, “Good! That’s good! By herself or did she need aid?”

The sound of Andrea’s heavy sigh kills Lando, “No, not by herself. She needed help.”

“How much help?”

Silence.

Lando yelps, “ANDREA! TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON RIGHT FUCKING NOW! THIS IS MY FUCKING GIRLFRIEND! HOW MUCH FUCKING HELP?”

“She’s not moving.”

Lando doesn’t say anything, his mind racing as his eyes water.

Finally, he speaks, “I need to retire the car.”

Andrea and the rest of the pit wall turn to look at each other with outraged stares, “What? No, Lando. The car’s perfectly fine. The pace is great, no dam-”

Lando interrupts Andrea with a broken voice, “The car’s not the reason we need to retire the car. It’s the driver. It’s me.”

Everyone can hear it in the way his voice cracks, he’s crying, knowing he can’t see through it. It’s a danger, it truly is, and that forces Andrea and the team to comply with Lando’s demands.

When he parks in the garage, he clampers out. Shoving engineers, Andrea, his dad, Zak, and anyone else who gets in his way or tries to talk to him, Lando sprints over to the medical center. On his way, he loses his mind over the possibility that she might not be there, already at the hospital, or she will be there, but just her lifeless body.

He’s still drenched in sweat, the amount doubling from his running, when he gets there. Lando pushes past the people who stand at the front, not giving them time to tell him he can’t come in. He hears them call out in opposition, but he’s already in and he just doesn’t care.

There’s no time to address the feelings swirling in his stomach that feel ten times what he had felt for any of his past girlfriends. There’s no time to talk about the way he cries over the image of her burning car or her unconscious body being pulled from it. There’s no time to talk about the fact that, last year, he wouldn’t have acted this crazed over her accident. There’s no time to talk about the fact that, now, he’s fully prepared to brawl with anyone that dares to stand in his way of finding her.

There’s no time because he’s reaching her door and flinging it open. There are nurses beside her conscious figure, tending to the scratches and cuts she has from the car’s debris. Even with the bloodied bandages, Lando smiles at her smiling at him.

When she sees him, her arm reaches out for him without thinking. He takes long strides to get to her even in the small room and, when he does, he grabs her hand.

Kneeling down on the floor beside her, he squeezes her hand, “You okay?”

She nods, “Will be.”

“That’s good enough for me.” He whispers, nurses glancing at each other before exiting the room at the intimacy flowing between the two.

They really were selling this.

Suddenly, Y/n’s eyebrows knit together as her gaze lifts to the clock on the wall, “Wait, Lan, the race is still going. Did you crash?”

He shakes his head, eyes averting from hers, “No, I retired the car.”

Her other hand reaches to turn his gaze back to hers, holding his jaw softly as he smiles at her, “Why?” She whispers.

“Because I needed to make sure you were okay.”

The truth hangs in the air painfully.

They can’t speak of what that means or what that alludes to. They can’t speak of the way he clutches onto her hand as if she’ll go away. They can’t speak of the way he raced over here, throwing important people to the side in a state of pure panic. They can’t speak of the way they stare at each other, yearn for each other in a way that goes against every rule they agreed to when this started.

All they can do is kiss each other sweetly and lie.

Lie to themselves about what will happen after it’s over; lie to themselves about how much they truly care for each other; lie to the PR teams and tell them nothing is developing between them, that it’s safe to continue this.

And, most of all, later, when Zak asks Lando why he has lip gloss smudged against his mouth, they must lie.

—

“Can you zip me up?” Y/n turns around in the car, her back to Lando as her dress hangs open slightly at the top.

He nods, fingers delicate against her skin as he glides against it, trailing the cool metal up. His hands finish on her shoulders, slowly rubbing softly as she begins to lean against him.

“Lan, that feels good.” She mumbles, words slurred from the way his fingers work the knots under her skin.

Her body lies fully on him, his mouth by her ear as they wait to get to their destination. He continues to massage her, whispering random things in her ear about errands they need to run or complete tomorrow.

With her eyes closed and relaxed state, Lando admires how safe she feels around him. Five months ago, Y/n wouldn’t have dared to let him touch her in the way he was, in the way he had over the past two months, however things had changed. For better or for worse, Lando still wasn’t sure.

The driver in the front eyes them questionably, having witnessed the change in their dynamic over their months together.

With her body still limp against him, the car stops in front of the gala’s entrance. Photographers scream beyond the door and flashes of cameras blind them even as they sit behind the glass.

Looking at her and taking her hand in his, Lando whispers, “Ready?”

She nods, “Always.”

A man opens their door, the volume erupting as Lando steps out, his hand clutching Y/n’s as she follows suit. Immediately, they’re pulled into multiple pictures. Lando’s arm finds its home around her waist with Y/n’s hand resting on his chest, a couple so perfect for each other. Their endeavor had been so incredibly successful, both their teams’ PR divisions were pleasantly surprised. Lando looks on at her, a radiant smile gracing her face as she speaks to one of the reporters on the carpet, and hates the feeling of knowing how close the end is.

In just a few weeks, they’ll be sitting down to write a small paragraph, one that will be posted to their Instagram stories as it tries to sum up the romance they thought they had.

At night, he tries to think of words to describe the moments he’s had with her and, every time, he comes up empty.

Her laughing at the journalist’s joke makes him come to the conclusion there will never be a time where he can gather syllables to explain how undeniably perfect she is.

How he got to the place of being able to address how wonderful she was? Lando had an inkling it was because of the way she made his heart pound and hands sweat.

🏎️

Lando and Y/n easily make their rounds throughout the room, greeting sponsors and potential ones with their hands clasped together. It’s obvious how charming they are together, obvious when random strangers are flipping open their checkbooks at the sight of them. Lando knows it’s all her with her thoughtful sentences and engaging demeanor.

He’s a side piece and he’s okay with that, only okay with it when he’s her side piece.

They’re in the midst of sharing a new drink they decided to try, giggles shared between them as they pass the glass between each other. They had started doing this ages ago, when they first grew closer to one another. In order to make these events go by quicker, they started trying all the items on the alcoholic menu they had never heard before. Some of his favorite memories of her had taken place when she tried something she didn’t like and almost spit it out at him.

“I think this one’s good! What’s it called again? Something sexual, right?” She asks as he takes another swig.

Lando shakes his head, grin on his face as he lifts the drink up to their eye level, “I forgot, but it must be cum something. Sure does look like cum.”

Her mouth falls open and she screeches, “Lando!”

He falls over onto the table beside them, laughing, “What? You don’t swallow?”

She joins him in laughter, “You wish you knew.”

Of fucking course, he thinks.

“Lando?” A voice from his past calls from behind them.

Lando’s heart drops, turning around and seeing Luisinha.

“Hey, Lu!” She moves to hug him, squeezing him lightly before letting her eyes drift to the girl quietly standing with him.

“Hi, Y/n.” She speaks, smiling softly as she hugs her.

Luisinha giggles before looking between the two, “I assume I need to be reintroduced to you. Before, you were Y/n, driver for Red Bull. Now, you’re Y/n, Lando’s girlfriend.”

Y/n nods, a gesture that looks to come so easy to her, Lando wishes it was real.

They hug again, chuckling at the situation before Luisinha directs her attention back to her ex-boyfriend, “It’s nice to see you, Lan! All those nights spent on the phone just aren’t the same as seeing you in person.”

Y/n loses her breath over Lu’s words, gaze drifting immediately to Lando and watching as he nods along.

“Yeah! Seriously, talking to you over the phone isn’t enough.”

His response, easy and light, crushes her.

Y/n steps in closer, “Sorry, um, you two still talk?”

Luisinha looks to Lando, intrigue in her eyes as she searches him. Lando, the boy stuck between his past and present, realizes his mistake.

He shakes his hands, “No, I mean- Yes, but it’s not like that, Y/n.”

Luisinha stays silent as she watches Y/n try to keep her composure, “When was the last time you talked?”

Lando can’t bring himself to answer, so Lu does for him, feeling for the girl in between them, “Last night.”

He watches Y/n’s face slowly process the information. It’s as if reality comes crashing down on her, a harsh moment that reminds her of what they are to each other at the end of the day.

Y/n nods, smiling at the two before beginning to walk back, “I need a minute, sorry.”

Lu watches Lando long for her, momentarily wishing Y/n would just understand how much he feels for her, and Luisinha, finally, gets a wave of closure. She understands now why they broke up. When he ended it, Lando had told her he loved her more as a friend, something that broke her, yet, now, she understands why she had been so confused. Originally, she thought he did love her, he just been too afraid to tell her the real reason for their separation, but, as she stares at the pooling in his eyes, she sees a look she never got.

A look of intense love.

She nudges his arm, “Don’t let her get away.”

He nods at her, running off in the direction Y/n had left, eyes searching for her in the sea of people.

🏎️

Lando catches sight of her gorgeous y/h/c hair off in a small hallway of the hotel. He jogs over, her back to him, and lays a soft hand over her shoulder.

She stiffens, refusing to turn around and meet his eyes. However, his voice coaxes her, “Y/n, look at me.”

As much as she tries not to, she does and it breaks her further.

Her watery eyes and lost head tilt are a stab to Lando’s heart, her choked up voice speaking, “So, you were talking to her the entire time we were doing this?”

He’s at a loss, knowing that’s the perfect truth, yet knowing it isn’t fully, “Yes, but it doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

Her body jerks away from him and the anger he was usually greeted with returns, “Oh?! Then, what does it mean, Lando?! Because it looks like I meant fucking nothing to you! I know it isn’t in my head! I know what’s happened between us isn’t just some people getting over the hatred they had for each other! I thought you felt that way too!”

“I do!” He yells back, frustration at her obliviousness getting to him.

Tears leak down her face, “Then, why did you spend the entirety of this talking to your ex! Why’d you agree to this if you still love your ex?!”

Lando groans, “I don’t love my ex! I don’t love Lu! I love you!”

Her tears fall harder, “Do you? How could someone love another person they used to loathe?!”

Lando shakes his head, overwhelmed at what’s going on in his brain, “It just happened, Y/n! You think I thought this would happen?! No, I didn’t!”

Y/n resigns, quiet taking over other than their heavy breathing, “I don’t believe you.”

His annoyance takes over, “Well, then I don’t know what to tell you.”

I want you to tell me why you love me, she thinks. I want to know where your hate turned to love, she thinks.

Those things go unsaid.

Instead, she huffs, “I think this has gotten too out of hand. I think we need to end this arrangement early.”

She sees the unmistakable sadness etched into his face, “How early?”

“Like, tonight.” She whispers, protecting herself from the world of hurt that would be being loved by him. She isn’t Luisinha, she isn’t a model or breathtaking woman. She’s a girl who fell in love with a “boy’s” sport, a girl who has seen the flaws within herself and tried, desperately, to change them, rewrite them. She never does, although. She always comes out the same on the other side.

The truth catches up with her and images of the beautiful women Lando has had in his bed fill her mind. How does she know this isn’t some elaborate prank to get her vulnerable and then humiliate her out of the resentment he holds against her and the situation she got him in?

Lando musters up some sort of guard, distaste returning after its five month long hiatus, “Fine. I’ll let McLaren know. This works anyway. You served your purpose, got my reputation back to where it was before you came in and fucking destroyed it. You ruin everything, you know that, Y/n?”

She nods, cries intensifying at what she had been afraid of: his hatred for her returning after getting to know a side of him so tender.

“Got it, Lando.” She whispers, slinking past him and out of the building.

He watches her walk away, confused at how he had confessed his love for her and ended it by telling her she was destructive.

She isn’t. How could he say that?

How could he tell the one woman who had built him up that she had tore him down? How could he let frustrated anger replace the love he had for her?

How could he let her get away?

UPDATE: i posted part 2! Find it here.

A/N: TUMBLR GLITCHED OUT AND WAS CRACKING DOWN AT HOW LONG THIS WAS SO I WILL MAKE A PART TWO WITH A HAPPY ENDING I PROMISE

[mattybsgroupie]

tape | matt sturniolo

contents: cursing, fighting; established relationship; oral (m receiving); spanking (f receiving); degradation; p in v; creampie; use of “y/n”; dom!matt

- ♡ -

notes: posting this and another one later this week in celebration of almost 600 followers. so thankful for this community and for every single person that enjoys my writing (but if one gets more likes than the other im KILLING MYSELF) <3 not proofread blablabla hope you enjoy i love y’all so so much

- ♡ -

“y/n!” matt slammed the door shut, loud voice taking over the kitchen, where i was peacefully sitting. “are you fucking dumb?!” he hissed at me, throwing his phone on the table.

“wow, chill” i said, frowning my eyebrows, confused look in my face. “what are you talking about?”

“what did you do with our camera’s flashcard?” matt crossed his arms, impatiently tapping his foot on the ground. my mouth hung open, but no words came out of it. matt looked so angry, and i knew i had cause us trouble. as i kept searching on my mind, he screamed once again “fucking tell me!”

“i don’t fucking know!” i hissed back at him, throwing my hands in the air. “i changed it the last time, i told you we were out of memory but i don’t remember where i put the other one!”

“oh you don’t?” he narrowed his eyes, stepping closer to me and removing a tiny object from his pocket. he showed me the flashcard, holding it with his thumb and index right at my face. “what about leaving it on this fucking table next to nick’s work stuff?”

my eyes widened. “matt i-i’m so sorry, fuck” i stuttered, realizing what i had done.

“you’re sorry now? after nick saw everything? we have so much shit here y/n, for christ’s sake!” matt kept holding the memory card, free hand running through his hair as he tried to calm himself down. “he saw your naked pictures, he saw mine! there are compromising videos in here y/n, can you imagine if he had uploaded any of them by mistake?”

“matt, please” i got up, walking closer to matt and resting my hand on his chest. “babe, i didn’t mean it, i’m really fucking sorry.” he looked away, scratching his freshly shaved beard.

“sometimes i think you’re asking for it, you know?” he said grabbing my wrist. “you fucking want our pics to get leaked, so that way everyone can know how much of a slut you are”. matt finished, pulling me to his room as he walked, grip in my skin getting stronger.

he slammed the door once again and pushed me on his bed, my breath turning heavy from his sudden change of behavior. matt went next to his computer, grabbing our camera. it was one of the first cameras the boys ever used to record their youtube videos, and nick gifted it matt after they changed to a new, more modern equipment. matt opened the video screen and turned it on, green light signaling he had started recording.

“take your shorts off” he demanded and i knew i could no longer run from my punishment. i kept sitting, slowly removing the cloth down my legs, kicking it away with my foot. i was wearing pink panties and a t-shirt i borrowed from him, not looking my best.

“you wanted this so bad, didn't you?” he asked, positioning the camera on the nightstand. matt sat next to me, but only to pull my legs over him. he turned me over, my belly now resting on his thighs and my head falling down, only my left arm resting on the mattress. i opened my mouth in disbelief, my calves trying to move away from him somehow.

“what are you doing?” i asked, trying to at least get a bit more comfortable in that position.

“giving you what you wanted” matt said, his arm locking my legs together while the other one held me by my breasts - at least my head wouldn’t be spinning. one of his cold hands smacked my ass, the sudden contact making me choke on a moan. i could feel matt’s grin growing wide as he palmed my skin, preparing me for another slap.

“fuck!” i groaned as the burning sensation started. i knew matt didn’t actually want to hurt me, he rubbed my butt after each smack, soothing the tingles i felt as my blood started to run faster.

“matt- please” i tried to speak, but another spank interrupted me. “behave, yeah?” matt whispered in my ear and pointed to the camera. “everyone’s gonna see how much of a fucking slut you are. can’t even take a punishment, right?” he teased, long fingers now travelling between my buttcheeks, brushing lightly over my panties. matt pressed his digits harder over my cunt, feeling the wetness there “soaked already?”

i looked away, trying to cover my embarrassment with my hands - it was humiliating, my ass in the air being spanked by matt after a mistake i didn’t even mean to make. “you’re fucking embarassed? can you imagine how i was after nick gave this to me? my brother saw everything, your dirty whore” he didn’t stop the slaps, and i couldn’t stop whimpering as his hand kept on marking my skin.

“ah!” i cried once more, until he two other spanks were enough. matt gave a kiss on each of my senstive buttcheeks and tossed me out of his lap, getting up and standing in front of me. he grabbed the camera once again, turning the screen so that only him could see what he was filming. my face was burning red and i was already exhausted. matt looked at me, rising his eyebrows, wide grin on his face.

“come on” he said, zooming the lenses on me. “you’re gonna look so pretty with your mouth wrapped around my cock”.

i gulped, quickly nodding and moving my hands to his belt. i had barely unbuckled it, but i could feel matthew’s impatience growing. i pulled matt’s pants down along with his underwear, revealing his hardened dick. matt moved the camera to show off his own length, eager for me to touch him, even when he was the one in charge.

i wrapped my fingers around his shaft, veins pulsing in my palm. i brought my mouth closer to his tip, lips wrapping around the sensitive area as i received a groan in response, matt finally getting some relief to his aching cock. i couldn’t fit him entirely - matt was huge - so both of my hands started pumping the missing part as i moved my head down.

i heard matt chuckling, delighted with the view of my teary eyes begging for him. he started to slowly move his hips forward, trying to thrust his leaking dick inside of my throat. one of his hands went to my hair, already messy and tangled, in order to set my pace as he pleased.

i mumbled on his cock, asking if i could please, please, please, take a breath. of course, no words came out, my muffled voice only sent vibrations and warmth to his length which made him push his cock forward in my mouth, making me gag.

i could feel the saliva running down the sides of my lips when i softly tapped matt’s thigh and he slowly removed his cock, realizing he might have been a little too rough. i coughed, catching my breath as he pouted at me, faux sympathy showing by the lust in his eyes.

“can’t you take anything?” he asked, tugging the hem of my - his - shirt. “you cry when i spank you, you can’t even blow me properly… weren’t you supposed to act like a good slut?” matt said, helping me remove the white cloth, exposing my breasts. my nipples had been poking through the shirt from a long while, but only now matt decided to zoom in on my nubs. i caught him licking his lips as i positioned myself further on the bed, showing off my body to him. my fingers around as his followed from my neck to my collarbones and down to my tits as i teased my hardened nipples with my own digits.

“so pretty” matt whispered so low i wouldn’t have heard it if i wasn’t paying attention to his lips. “on fours” he said in a serious tone, making my pussy clench.

i turned my body over, standing on my elbows and knees, sticking my ass out as he placed himself on the bed with his knees behind me. matt’s cold fingers touched the waistband of my panties, slowly pulling it down my legs as he filmed everything.

he grabbed his own cock and pumped a few times, spreading the pre-cum along his length before dragging his dick between my buttcheeks and moving it down my cunt, lazily rubbing my folds, not really trying to fuck me. after teasing me a bit more, matt quickly put the camera back on his nightstand, now filming both of us.

matt placed his digits on my entrance, pressing my wet hole with two fingers. he slowly started to push in, but didn’t go all the way, pulling out when he saw me biting my own lips. i whined in protest - i needed him to fill me up. “fucking shut up” he spoke in a lighter mood than in the beginning of the night, showing that he was now just as needy as me.

his hands rested on my hips, holding it tight as he gradually buried himself inside of me. his pre-cum and all of my juices made it easier for matt to slide in, quickly stretching my walls and not giving me time to adjust to his size before pounding into me. “gosh- matt!” i moaned, throwing my head back as my cunt throbbed.

“always so tight for me” he said, hovering his body over mine. his chest was almost glued to my back, one of matt’s hands holding my jaw so he could kiss me. “who owns that pretty cunt, huh?” matt asked, my mouth hanging open as i could no longer stop my gruntings “y-you! ah-”.

“my fucking slut” he kept on talking while jointing his hips forward, cock finally hitting my spot. “only mine”.

“yes matt, fuck!” i pleaded, feeling my cunt clench its own walls against his dick. “i’m gonna cum, please!”

“don’t you fucking dare coming before me” matt said as his thrusts turned sloppier, trying to reach his orgasm. “f-fuck, taking me so well” he groaned loudly, palm once again meeting my ass as he slapped my skin. suddenly, i felt matt’s release filling me up completely, his sticky spurt leaking down my thighs as he finally allowed me to cum as well. my whole body trembled as my orgasm washed over me, my chest panting heavily, letting my head fall on the mattress.

matt slowly pulled out of me, lying down by my side as he came back from his high.

“are you okay?” matt asked, his hand resting on my back while i still recovered. “was i too rough?” he caressed my skin and i could feel the concern in his voice starting to show as i didn’t say anything in response.

“i’m never” i started, still out of breath. “losing the fucking card again”. i heard matt chuckle as he moved his other arm further, trying to reach the nightstand. he grabbed the camera and placed it next to my face. “say hi, pretty”

“hi pretty” i joked, matt giggling before turning the lenses to himself and winking to the video, pressing the finish button and closing the video screen. “and yes, babe. i’m okay” i assured him. “im sorry for being irresponsible and-“ he cut me off with a kiss. as he pressed his lips against mine, i realized he was no longer mad at me, and i could finally let myself relax.

“by the way” he spoke, throwing the camera on his side of the bed “you can leak this one” i giggled, hugging him, both of us acknowledging we could never - ever - lose this flash card again.

- ♡ -

taglist (drop a 🌸!): @thepubeburgler @marselise @pearlzier @mattsfavbitchhh

[kithtaehyung]

broken, pt. 2 (3tan) (m) | myg

title: broken (pt. 2) pairing: 3tan!yoongi x reader(f) series:masterlist | three tangerines | fireworks | house party | basketball | stay | sidewalk talk | friends | dalo | like that | anytime | sundress season | yoongi’s interlude | forfeit | flutter | video call | busted | broken (pt. 1) rating/genre: m (18+) ; angst , fluff , smut ; brother’s best friend au, implied age gap au summary: the championship game lights up... and everything goes down. note: not too much to say other than thank you. this part is definitely another very, very close one to my heart. please buckle up and enjoy the ride. warnings: [spice warnings under the cut] language, angst, tension, alcohol mention & consumption, fights, basketball!yoongi🧍‍♀️, cocky!yoongi, jimin😳, tense situations, did i say angst?, long hair yoongi, crying, bro😀, reader is a real one i don’t make the rules, arguments, the chains stay on(???), …bad boy yoongi😀👍, saying softhours puts some of this lightly, bro🥲, blood/wound mentions, hurt/comfort, there’s just a lot in here y’all idek, taehyung being the best ever, …angst. drop date: february 9th, 2024, 10:37pm est word count: 17.7k my god

smut warnings: cursing, choking, light slapping, breast play, angry s*x a ha ha, crying, multiple explicit scenes y'all istg don't perceive me lol, c*nt slapping, penetrative s*x, brat!reader, protected s*x, edging, consent king ofc :), rough s*x, b*cksh*ts and a lot of them, ...unprotected s*x (yeah it's here and y'all better be responsible or so help me!!!), f*ngering, or*l (m/f rec), brat tamer!3tan yoongi!!!, reader loses themselves for a sec, but yoongi is a king, pain k*nk whewwww, kissing, so much kissing lmfao, c*m play, slight bond*ge (yoongi hands), spanking, aftercare ofc :'))

-

-

There’s no way.

How the fuck is he here? When did that horrible excuse of a guy even join a team? Had he been playing intramurals this whole time? 

“No fuckin’ way.”

Your eyes find your brother standing rigid at your side, wrists tensed to hell and shoulders spiked. Did he not know he was playing, either? Judging by his smoldering question, you’re going to guess he wasn’t aware. 

“Were they always on this team?” 

“No.”

“I don’t remember them being on any teams.”

They? Them? So they recognize more from the court on that day you try to not think about. Shifting your vision, you start gauge reactions under sounds of the growing crowd. 

It’s Yoongi that looks at you first, eyes lowering to the hand you still have on your arm damn it you should be okay about that night already. But you can’t seem to let your limb go, your fingers covering it in a weak attempt at protection and resilience. 

The blaze in his eyes makes you shake. Even as you swallow your pleas for everyone to just go home, he doesn’t look away. Instead, he walks over to stand in front of your knees, motioning for you to scoot over one so he can take the end seat.

Normally, you would slightly question why he wouldn’t just sit next to you. But this time, you’re hyper aware of what he’s doing—and why. It’s so obvious that you wanna reach out and grip his sweaty hand. 

Yoongi absolutely sat there to shield you.

And your heart burns and burns.

If only he could do more, be more, show more. Because with a rattled ego and tainted mind, you’re already yearning for his touch, wanting him to whisk you out of here and bring you back to the comfort of his home—just like he did that night. 

God, he makes you dizzy doing absolutely nothing. 

“What’s the plan,” he asks, eyes on the court and palms between his knees.

“Dunno yet.” Your brother shakes his head before looking back, eyes narrowing at the laughs on the other bench. “But I might get my ass thrown out if we—”

“Play.” 

Immediately, all three of them snap their heads your way. Fuck, your arm is still… 

One person cannot have this hold on you. There’s no way you’re going to let him control your every waking moment, and your determination bubbles into your commands. “Play the game and beat his ass,” you seethe, holding yourself together and aiming daggers everywhere. “Just make it quick.” 

Yoongi gives you a look before Jimin snags him with an eyebrow raise. 

“And you’re paying me double.” 

Looking at the man beside you, it’s almost comforting seeing his attention fully on your face. If it weren’t for your ghost on the other side of the scoring table and your brother standing there, you wouldn’t hesitate to kiss him. 

But you only nod, getting a huff and a lopsided curve in response before you watch him lock eyes with your brother, “What do you wanna do?” 

After a long, resigned sigh, your sibling finally relents, “Fuck this shit up.” 

Good. Yes. This is what you want—for you and them. “Exactly.” 

Scanning around the tight circle, you notice that you have everyone’s attention. 

But one person seems to send a question without any words at all. In kind, you answer the same way, wings battering your stomach when all of them send thunder to the court with lightning in their eyes.

Yoongi scoffs through a slant, carrying the air of someone you never want to mess with in your fucking life. “The fuckin’ nerve.” 

Jimin hums, sliding a finger along his flexed to hell jaw. “Bold,” he adds. And his voice drop sends shivers when he turns to you,

“Don’t worry, love.” 

You stare.

“This will be over soon.” 

-

-

The game is… just a game. For now.

No one’s taunted hard other than a few smirks and winks, and right now it seems as if both teams are just being competitive more than antagonistic. Which relaxes you to the point where you’re cheering from the bench with the other players—and their coach that arrived late—jumping and yelling and clapping when things go in their favor.

Your brother’s slamming down dunks. Jimin’s been playing amazing defense with his quick reflexes and high stamina.

And Yoongi? Has gotten sickeningly sharp. All those late nights at the rec center are paying off in this championship and, when he scores a hard shot, the pride you feel launches you to your feet. 

“Nice job, b—” Oh fuck you almost shout something that should never be public knowledge. Holding your tongue, you quickly switch it up with a hasty, “Let’s go!” 

That was close. Way too close. 

Get it together. 

But you cannot help it right now. Seeing Yoongi facing off against the man you both wanna square up against? And making it look easy? The fluttering you feel in your belly grows double. Triple. Tenfold. His gestures, the way he acts like it’s nothing, his shrugs at their failed attempts to stop him—everything’s making you scratch proverbial walls and kick bench chairs. 

And it’s not just him—the whole team has been playing excellently. Each play seems intentional; every pass and movement is strategic. If you didn’t know this was a casual rec game, you would think they’re gunning for a real, prestigious trophy. 

However. 

When it’s starting to be very clear who the better squad is, that’s when things start getting more than tense. 

On a foul call, both sides start getting in each others’ faces. And you peg that as normal until someone on your team gets shoved and your brother immediately gets between the action. 

Both you and the coach shoot up from your seats. 

Shit, shit, shit. If there’s one thing your older sibling’s gonna do in this game, it’ll be finding any excuse to deck that man in the face. And once that happens, there’s no telling how many injuries are gonna walk off polished floors.

Thankfully, everyone separates without a ruckus, and timeout is called on your side. The crowd starts to yell in favor of either team, and that’s when you notice that Taehyung has been joined by Shiv and your friends. From the looks of things, all five of them are laser focused on you. 

You hold a quick thumbs-up before you’re covered by hot and sweaty men huddling around the bench. And you immediately agree with their coach when he barks, 

“I need you all to calm down.” 

“No can do, coach.” 

“Not if they aren’t.” 

Shit. All of them look fucking livid, not giving any shits whatsoever if they’re willing to talk back to their leader. What’s really been happening on the court? Has it been even more tense than you perceived? 

Oblivious to the context behind this matchup, their coach keeps yelling, “Look, I don’t give a shit if you have something to settle. Play the game and leave it on the floor. Understood?” When there’s charged silence, he yells it even louder. 

And a smattering of agreement comes out before all of you hear an even bigger yelling session booming from the other bench. When you look over, it’s quickly noticeable that they’re getting reamed over there, too. 

Jimin watches before speaking, and it seems like your coach’s pleas fell on deaf ears, “Fifteen went for my legs.” 

“Saw that. Let’s switch cus he can’t guard me.” 

“K.” Park swivels his head to address someone else. “You good to keep playing?” 

Your brother responds with a nod, wiping his never-ending sweat. “Yeah, I’m good.” 

Huh. Even though you know he’s mad, the man seems… Calm. Eerily calm. It’s reminding you of the way he acted after you came home from Yoongi’s. 

And you don’t like it one bit. 

But the timeout is over, and both teams eye each other on their walk back onto the court. As it continues, the gym erupts into life again, with a bit of back and forth shots racking the scoreboard up. 

And Yoongi keeps scoring. And scoring. And scoring. 

Which lands him in a bit of trouble when the same idiot from Dalo pushes him during a layup. After he manages to make the shot, Yoongi immediately flicks him off—which gets a whistle blown. Which also means he has to sit on the bench for a second because his coach is pissed. 

Ignoring the scathing remarks being thrown, he dumps himself next to you. And you immediately feel the heat roll off of him in waves, trying hard to focus on the game. “Don’t be stupid,” you jut out. 

“What?” 

“Don’t be stupid. These guys aren’t worth it.” 

“After what he did to you?” 

The way those words leave his mouth ice you over, flares spiraling through every fiber of your being. Your reaction is so visceral that you can barely get your response out, “Yeah, but…” 

Leaning on his knees, Yoongi wipes his forehead with a crinkled to hell jersey, excess sweat pinging onto his sneakers. The crowd is loud and the buzzers even louder, but they aren’t enough to drown out his bite,

“I can’t let that shit go.” 

“Yoongi.” 

“Sorry, doll.” 

“Please just—” 

Yoongi leaves the bench before you can finish, and you whip your head in a rush, hands jutting out in a desperate attempt to hold him back. 

Only for him to be just out of reach. 

-

-

After halftime, it’s a whole different game. 

From an outside perspective, it’s as if everyone was using the first half to sniff each other out, circling around each other before deciding how and when to go in for the kill. 

And Yoongi isn’t the only one that you’re starting to worry about. Jimin, your brother, and even Rohan and the other guys are on edge, playing hard and doing everything they can to keep their scoring lead. 

Both you and their coach know you can’t stop whatever’s going on out there. And you’re starting to feel yourself getting angry at how your brother and them are egging the guys on. 

Why are they taunting? What the hell is making them so bent on making the other team pissed? Yes, all that went down with you, but nothing else had happened since then. And they clearly aren’t listening to anyone telling them to calm down.

If they end up starting shit you are going to—the fuck! 

Yoongi gets straight shoved again as he goes for a layup, and you shoot up in your chair as he hits the back wall with a thud. While the players at your side are yelling and everyone on the court starts grouping in shouts, you stay rigid, solely watching Yoongi eye his attacker—the same idiot from Dalo.

Fuck everything, you wanna rush into the fray and throw hands yourself because that looked painful.

The only thing that’s stopping you is the chilling fact that Yoongi is… Grinning. 

Wiping his curved lips, he waits while the refs break up the squabble, still looking triumphant as he walks to the line to shoot his free throws. When both of them are made, he stares directly at your assaulter—as you finally call it like it is—and doesn’t stop even when the coward looks away.

A whistle blows, and the game continues to be close. Too close, too close, too close. A couple more timeouts let you see just how laser-focused everyone is, and you’re a little shaken when it feels like they forgot you were even occupying their bench. 

What the hell is being said on the court? Even Jimin is brimming with anger. 

But after a few back and forths, Yoongi passes to your brother for a hard dunk, basket ringing from his throwdown and shaking when he lands. 

Thank god. Those points are enough. They’re gonna win. 

All the pent up anxiety you’ve harbored all game releases as everyone starts cheering, and your pride soars as your boys stare down their opponents while the clock winds down.

It’s over. The game is over, nothing too serious happened, and you can all go the fuck home to eat dinner and celebrate. 

Your eyes catch Yoongi throwing a rudely lopsided curve across the court. Even when Jimin comes up to push him back in excitement, his expression doesn’t change. 

And you find that wildly, unfathomably attractive. 

Then, as it goes, your brother comes up and they all share quick daps, eyes ablaze and not letting the losers out of their sight. 

Well. All of them are infamous for a reason. You would guess their energy altogether certainly contributes to that. Because the aura you feel oozing from them fills the gymnasium all the way up to your knees. 

And the sigh you let out mingles with their coach’s shake of his head.

-

-

Things are still tense as they all shake hands—or at least offer hands to shake—with the other team. The atmosphere is even a little iced when they receive their trophy. 

But the way you’re currently being surrounded as your guys converse hides you from plain sight, so you feel heavily protected. Even Jimin, who’s usually cheerful even when exhausted, wields sharp eyes as he keeps glancing over his shoulder. 

Honestly? You wouldn’t know what to do without them. Both your brother and all his friends, good pasts or not, are great people. They didn’t need to shield you like this. But they’re doing it anyway, because they won’t give that lowlife another reason or chance to approach you. 

Yeah. Your older sibling knows how to choose his circle.

It’s making you wonder if… 

Nah. 

That’s still too big a reach. 

When it seems like all of them and their cheering squad are gone, everyone starts making their way over to the bleachers—and you’re acutely reminded of what went down under similar looking ones the other night. 

Your shivers are overshadowed by Yuri’s telltale screams to Rohan, “You were so good, baby! Are you okay?”

Reia and Dom shake their heads before focusing on you, the latter being the spokeswoman, “So what was all that for?”

“Don’t ask,” you sigh, knowing exactly what she’s referring to. “I’m just glad they won and that we can go home.”

“You’re not coming to Yuri’s?” Reia asks. “I thought we planned on that, no?”

Ah, shit. Earlier this week, you did make plans with them without really thinking about what day they were gonna fall on. But now you’re so mentally drained that you kinda just wanna go—

“Is anyone else starving? I’m hungry as fuck!” 

Right. Food. Adrenaline made you forget you were starving. Glancing towards your brother, you quickly remind him, “Yeah, me. And you’re paying.”

“Ah, shit, that’s right.” As he lets out a hard groan and deals with Jimin and Yoongi’s comments, your sibling relents, “Alright, where are we going.”

“Up to you,” you shrug, stealing a little look at the man you want to kiss like hell for his performance tonight. 

God, Yoongi’s so handsome. As Jimin leaves his side, he silently wipes his forehead of any excess sweat, hands and shoulders shining in the lights wait wait wait. Hold on. 

Walking over, you toss any care about who notices you out the window. And as he eyes your approach, you murmur with care and concern, “Is your back okay?” 

Blinking once, twice, the man nods. “Yeah, it’s all good.”

“You sure? That looked…”

Of course he decides that now is the perfect time to rake his sweaty locks back. Speaking so low that only you can hear, Yoongi reassures with a fist full of hair, “I’m fine, doll.” 

Motherfucker. 

Pinning down your urge to reach out and smother him, you only breathe relief. And before you move away to put some distance between, you whisper, “Thank you.”

Yoongi looks your way again. “For what?” 

Swallowing what’s left of your anxiety, you sigh. “For not getting into it out there. I was about to get mad as hell, but.. Looks like they were all talk.” 

“Mm.”

Honestly? It’s a miracle. The game’s over without any hitches or brawls? More relief starts blossoming in your chest, prompting a smile to grace your features. “You looked so good out there, by the way. I almost called you ba—”

“What are y’all talking about over there!”

Your mouth snaps shut as soon as you see your brother watching, but Yoongi is quick to fire off an insult, “The way you always take so long to pick something.”

“I picked already!”

“Then let’s go then.”

Laughing, you join the whole crew as you’re all the last ones to walk out. Your friends and Shiv parked in another lot since one side was already full, so you tell them you’ll meet at the restaurant.

Some other teammates decide to join, with jerseys being shucked off as everyone heads out the door. Immediately, body odor swoops into your nose, making you welcome the crisp, fresh air of night. 

Scratch that. You smell oncoming rain. 

Conversations cease, which only leaves the sound confirming your observation: booming, rolling thunder. Stopping at the edge of the gym’s awning, multiple heads turn up at the rumbles, watching lightning crack the sky. 

In front of you, Jimin shifts his head to the side. “Still?” 

And when you look at who he’s asking, you see Yoongi nod. 

Weird. 

But it’s not raining just yet, so all of you make your way into the lot and to your cars. As you do, you check your phone while making your way over, aiming a question at Tae, “You know where we’re going?” 

“Yeah, it’s not far,” he responds, fishing out his own device. “I think we’ve been there before.” 

We? Looks like things are progressing nicely over there. Since you’re lingering behind the guys, you start to take a small jab, “We, huh? Cute.” 

Lips spread as tight as his eyes, Taehyung parries. “Cute? Look who’s talking, miss whipped.” 

“You’re whipped.” 

“No, you.” 

“No, you,” you giggle out, reaching out to tickle Tae’s side and laughing as he flinches away. You chase him for a few seconds before you see his whole body freeze completely, asking a small question before going quiet.  

And when you slowly follow his line of vision, your heart freefalls to your gut, smashing it so hard you feel bile sting the back of your throat. 

The man from Dalo. And all the guys from the court plus some. 

Surround both Jimin’s and your brother’s cars.

Fuck. Oh, fuck, there’s so many of them, standing and waiting and unflinching in the bursts of thunder inching closer and closer what the fuck are you gonna do— 

“Taehyung.”

Your eyes shake. 

“Get her out of here. Now.”

And you’ve never screamed so loud. 

Every word rips out of your mouth before you’re promptly shushed by large fingers, icicles pinging around your heart and holding it down, “Don’t fucking do thi—!” 

To your horror, Tae’s already hauling you back, voice low and firm in your ear, “Come on.” 

“No! What the fuck—” 

“We’re leaving.”

“Please—!”

There are so many of them. So, so many of them. Panic drowns out your words and excess leaks out of your eyes, your own storm preventing you from seeing that your best friend is just as torn apart. 

“Babe, we have to go now.” 

“No, let me go!” 

They’re outnumbered. What if they have weapons? What if the police are called? What if something happens that you aren’t prepared for?

You’re screaming. Curses, their names, or whatever whatever you don’t even know what the fuck you’re saying because your toes are kissing the edge of madness. 

Dragged a good distance away, your yells devolve into incoherency, your nose and eye sockets smashing into Taehyung’s solid forearm so hard it hurts. 

Make it out, make it out, make it out. For the love of everything in the fucking universe and beyond it, make it out alive. 

Some movements and backs straightening are the last things you see before getting pulled around the corner.

And when Yoongi calmly rolls one of his shoulders, you feel a wick of your soul burn out.

Panic. Worry. Panic and more panic. The car ride that Tae paid for is the blurriest muddy water you’ve ever waded through.

Truthfully, you don’t even remember blankets being pulled over your shoulder. Where even are you? Oh, you’re in a bed. Whose bed are you in because this isn’t yours. But what does it matter anyway what does anything matter anyway nothing matters there’s nothing you can do you gotta get up and go back over there get up get up go—

As soon as you yank his bedroom door open, Taehyung is there, holding you back and pushing your frantic energy back inside. “Tae, if you don’t let me—”

“Do what!”

“I’m going back!” Wrestling out of his strong hold, you bolt down his hallway, head clanging as your shoulder bumps into a wall. “We need to go back—”

“Stop!” You hear running as you burst through the living room, whizzing past the glowing television. “We have to stay here—”

No no no. There’s no way you’re staying here when you need to be back at that lot. Who the fuck would call for help if anyone needs it? When they’re gonna need it? Your vision proves so blurry you can’t even find your shoes—

Arms wrap around your waist and you fight back with a scream, “Let me go!”

“Stop and just think for a second—”

“Why aren’t you with me on this, they’re—”

“Dumb as fuck!” 

Your friend’s quick comment is so sharp it cuts your breath. As you still in his firm but comforting hold, you finally stop to breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe as you’re turned to level a look with his eyes.

Eyes that are red-rimmed and so, so raw. “They’re idiots,” Taehyung grits out. “But they will be alright.” 

From the shake of his voice, you find that neither of you think that for sure. 

“I need to.. To…” Your breaths are ragged, energy spent and head dizzy from your quick exit from his bed. As you come down from your volcanic high, every weight the world places on your back proves too much. 

“You need to relax,” Tae advises, guiding you further back inside. And you don’t speak as he leads you past the couch, past the pictures on his hallway wall, and into the dark of his bedroom.

Maybe it’s over. Right? Maybe someone will answer if you ring them up. “Call. I need to call…” 

“Shh,” he soothes again, walking you backwards away from his door. When the bends of your knees hit his bed, Taehyung lets you down slowly until you’re sitting. “I’ll do it.” 

Brain fried from hyperactivity, you can only nod. 

Your friend steps away to fiddle with his phone, the light illuminating his beautiful features in the night. When he holds it to his ear, this is when you hear rain and the television in the living room, noticing that it’s playing a movie he watches for comfort. 

Shit. He’s going through it just like you are, and yet he’s still finding energy to calm your nerves? What have you even done to deserve him?

Guess you know how to choose your circle, too. 

Going unanswered, Taehyung lowers his hand, thumb rubbing the homescreen before gripping the device hard. 

Both of you are in the same boat. So steer when he can’t do it anymore. Soft but assertive, you rise to your feet, offering your embrace while calling his name, “..Tae.”

When he turns, the man wastes no time in dropping his phone to bring you in close. “It’ll be okay,” he murmurs, and you hear his words on your head but feel the trembles in his chest. “Okay?”

Feeble fingers grab at his soft shirt, and you bury into his scent while soaked and tired eyes shut. 

You want to believe him. You do. You do. 

But hope may be a bitch. 

So you don’t. 

-

-

Forever passes while you both lie still in his bed, with Taehyung holding you close and keeping you subdued with notes of honey and wood. You both try to have conversation, but it’s disjointed and manufactured, so giving up is a group effort. 

You’re about to give up on a lot of things before you both jolt at Tae’s phone vibrating. 

The world shifts quick as you both sit up, the call immediately being accepted and a low greeting whooshing at your side, “Hey.”

With bated breath, you hear Jimin on the line. “Hey.” 

“You okay?”

“Yeah, we’re all alright, but…”

We. We, we, we, all of them thank the fucking world. As your breath is held, Taehyung’s voice is solid, “Say it.”

“My eye is pretty fucked. Yoongi’s face is cut up and he’s got some nasty bruises on his—” 

You don’t even remember yanking the phone to your mouth. “Where is he.”

Jimin audibly pauses on the line before having the audacity to chuckle. Irked and feeling ire bubble back to the surface, you seethe, “This isn’t funny, Park. Where the fuck is he?” 

“With us.” Us. Shit. “In the car.” 

Oh. 

“Your brother’s here, too.” 

“Ah.” That means they’re all there. They’re all heading home. “Am I on speaker.” 

“Umm.. Yeah.” 

As much as you’re relieved they’re all okay, stockpiled anxiety transforms into anger, your limit striking the thundering sky. “Actually, you know what? Good. Now I can say you’re all idiots and immature as fuck.” 

It’s your sibling that responds first. “Hey, wait a damn minute—” 

“I waited long enough!” you scream, ignoring Taehyung’s wide eyes. 

You know you need to relax. But you can’t help what’s happening right now and all you feel is pain. “I know this shit isn’t new to y’all, but really? You didn’t need to do this.” 

“He was gonna—”

“All you had to do was play the game! Why’d you have to make them mad? Do you even know what could’ve happened back there?” Damn it, you weren’t supposed to cry during this part, not when you just want them to know they fucked up. 

And the response is dead silence. Because of course it is. But if they won’t answer you here, they’re gonna answer another, “Just tell me one thing,” you plead. “Is this gonna happen again?” 

That one your brother answers with finality. “They won’t be coming around anymore.” 

Gulping, you give Taehyung a glossy-eyed look before staring at his lit screen again. Trying not to let your voice waver, you accept his response, “Okay… Are you okay?” 

“Me? Yeah, the hits I took were weak as fuck. I’ll get home soon so if you wanna order in tonight we can.” 

“Fuck that.” 

“Huh?” 

What an idiot. “Bro, you don’t even know how fucking mad I am,” you accuse through gritted teeth. There’s no way in hell you wanna deal with their bullshit. Ignoring your pleas and staring harm in the face? Forget it. “I’m going to Yuri’s.” 

“What? Nah, come home tonight and we’ll talk.” 

“I just—No.” Taehyung has to grip your shoulder before pulling you into a hug. And you’re still steel in his arms because you haven’t been this upset in ages. “I’m not talking to any of you for awhile.” 

And you mean that. 

“…Fine. But go asap then. I don’t want you out late on your own.” 

So you gotta listen to what he wants but when it comes to what you say, it’s crickets? Goddamn, you’re furious. “…Of course you don’t.”

And you hang up before anyone can say anything else. 

-

-

You open the front door to your brother leaning against the hallway wall.

Both of you eye each other, one of you with a perfectly fine face and the other that isn’t so lucky because he’s a fool.

And no words are exchanged as you trudge your frustration to the kitchen. 

-

-

Ice. Bandages. Dinner. Anger propels you through it all.

Whipping up a quick but hearty meal, you let your brother patch himself up after demanding he showered. The smells of comfort food waft through your nose as things sizzle on the stove and, through the whole process, you don’t think about anything except how upset you are.

They’re all okay. But like Taehyung so abruptly put it, they’re all stupid. 

As you turn off your burner, you transfer everything to a bowl, sighing so loud it seasons the top with fire. When you approach the bar, your actions speak pretty damn loud—the dish clank shoving out a question from your sibling,

“Is there something you wanna say to me?” 

“There’s a bunch of shit I wanna say to you.” 

“It’s about Yoongi,” he asks, the absence of hesitation making your insides squeeze. “Isn’t it.” 

But luckily for you, your rage is so potent that it overruns your fear. As soon as your brother stands up and starts to repeat his question, your correction clangs through the room, 

“It’s about all of you! You say you wanna be there for me but what the fuck will doing this shit do?” 

Freezing, the man waits in shock as you keep going, “Yes, that guy deserves hell. I was so scared when he grabbed me at the club.” You stop to swallow. “But I had them both there and we left.”

Fuck, this is hard. Having to relive that shit is difficult but you need your brother—and all of them, for that matter—to know how hurt you feel right now. Mustering up enough bravery to get to the goddamn point, you finally squeak out, 

“If I lose them? Lose you? Because of something as stupid as a fight?” Your eyes search his, and your heart cracks when you see glassy sheen amongst his bruises. “What would I do then?” 

You expect silence. And silence is what you get. It’s drawn out, loud, and telling. “We know.” 

“Do you?”

“Yes,” he whispers, eyes lifting to meet yours with sincerity. “And we’re sorry.”

Another moment passes between the two of you, the food you made left uneaten on the counter and the rest sitting still on the stove. But you know your sibling will eat it all tonight, whether you’re there or not. 

And you step forward at the same time he holds his battered arms out. 

Freshly showered, he still smells like rain and exertion. But his heart beats under your chest, he’s present, and back home—things you need to stop taking for granted. 

But you’re still mad. And getting things off your chest has only made you tired, so you decide that it’s finally time to go before you circle back to other scary territory brought up tonight. “I’m leaving now,” you announce as you step away. “But just think about that.” 

“I will.”

“I’m serious.” 

“I will.”

Staring, you take note of his cuts and injuries, wondering how the others are faring even though you don’t wanna deal with anything else. Because it hurts too much, and if you see who you’re thinking about, there’s no telling what you’d do if you were like this with your brother. There’s no telling how you’d…

No. You choose to go the easy route this time. Everyone can simmer in their sore, swelling consequences while you have a night of de-stressing with your friends. 

So you leave to go pack without another word. 

It’s raining. 

Hard.

And even though your car is heading to Yuri’s, your heart is beating backwards. Tugging you somewhere else and not letting up. 

With a ping of chill, you can’t shake it. Braking at a stop sign close to your destination, you sit in silence, letting the rain pelt every side of your vehicle and wondering what the hell to do. 

Truthfully? Your brother looked like shit. But your body isn’t telling you to go back to the house, which can only mean one other place. And you know for a fact you don’t wanna talk to him, either. 

So fucking upsetting. They did all that for what? You can barely keep your thoughts in a row because they keep yelling at jostling each other just like everybody did on the court. If anyone had to fight the dipshit, it should've been you. 

Fuck! Your head connects with the wheel, an inner monster rumbling with the thunder because you’re so fed up with everything that happened. 

Your brain is the one yelling. But your heart is begging for it to listen. Go to Yuri’s? Go to Yoongi’s. Find shelter in that warm bed of hers and sink in her plushies to comfort you? 

A sigh. Maybe you can at least call him to tell him off one more time. He needs to hear what you told your brother because if you ever, ever lose him—

Your eyes burn. 

Yoongi: Outgoing Call

No answer.

Yoongi: Outgoing Call

Pick up. What the fuck.

Yoongi: Outgoing Call

…Turn the fuck around shit, shit, shit.

Curses flying, you whip your vehicle in a flash, heart pounding so loud it’s blocking out the storm. Which is morbidly impressive considering how horridly it’s pouring. 

Thinking in leaps, you pivot and make another decision. Tell her and make it all quick. 

Yuri: Outgoing Call

“Hello?”

“Hey, I’m not coming.”

“You okay?”

“I’m going to Yoongi’s.”

“Yoongi’s? Why?”

Ah, shit. Oh, fuck. She doesn’t know. 

Banging the steering wheel, you smash your teeth, stressed as hell from braving the rain in the dark and now snitching on yourself to someone else. 

Damn it. What do you say? What can you possibly even say when you’re so mad and stressed and conflicted and worried—

“Hello?”

“Because he’s the one,” you whoosh out, your vision quivering twice as much as it should. “And things went down after the game and now something feels wrong.”

“Oh, shit. Is that why y’all didn’t come to—”

“Yes.” When you say all this out loud, now it has weight. Horrifying weight on your chest and a block pushing down on the gas. You hear a bit of shuffling on the line, and you’re starting to get so anxious that you blurt, “Please don’t say anything. Please.”

“I won’t. Not about this.”

“Thank you.”

“Hang up, babe. Make it safe.”

“Okay.”

Go, go, go. Please, just get there. 

Letting up, you change your speed, hoping to everything good in the world that this feeling you have is only a feeling and nothing more. 

Yoongi: Outgoing Call

What a strange emotion, wanting his reason for not picking up solely being because he doesn’t wanna talk to you. That is an answer you can deal with. 

But you still can’t fight off the jagged pulses telling you it’s something else. 

After an agonizing drive, you finally see his complex, tensing harder the further and further away you have to park. 

Whipping into a spot, you screech into it before hauling your bag out, popping the trunk and desperately grabbing a plastic box you always keep inside. 

And the mad dash drenches you long before you seek cover, your bones shivering shivering shivering from the chill.

Yoongi has to be home. His car is here. 

But he still won’t pick up the fucking phone.

Skidding at his door, your knocks are rapid, knuckles singed from the ice cold wraps.

Answer, answer, answer. For fuck’s sake, he better answer. 

After a haunting moment of silence, you decide to call one more time, head wet and bones shivering as you press the phone to your damp ear. 

Finally. “Hello.” 

“Open the door,” you jump into commanding, hearing nothing other than a voice that sounds so crushed and low that it crumples you inside. 

“You’re here?” 

“Yeah, let me in.” Fuck, your teeth are clattering against each other, whether it’s from the rain, the cold, or anger, you can’t tell. 

But the reply you get is the coldest thing imaginable. And it sets your whole body aflame. 

“Not tonight.”

Hell no. Hell fucking no Yoongi is not going to get rid of you that easily. Not when you have a boatload of things to say and only one dock to dump them all on, “Yoongi, I swear to god—” 

“Not tonight—”

“—you don’t let me in I’m—”

“Go home—”

“I’m fucking staying out here until you open the goddamn door!”

Oh, you’re pissed. You’re so fucking pissed because this all could’ve been avoided if none of them were stupid. Or prideful. Or whatever the fuck boys decide to be when they can’t let something go. 

And this man still has the audacity to give you the stiff arm, silence on the line before he rasps out another short, “I’m serious.”

“No.”

“Go home.” 

“No!” 

He says your name. So, so softly, before a gut-wrenching, 

“Please.”

Breath shaken, you rest your forehead against chilly wood, hoping it quells the fire you feel rising from your rib cage. 

You can’t give up. Not when you have so much to say. Not when you have to check on him and make sure he’s fine. 

Not when you give into the strongest premonition that you need to be nowhere else but with him tonight. 

You will stay. Stay, stay, stay. Even if he doesn’t want to see you. 

Voice trembling in rage and concern and everything in between, you feel your eyes sear through when they close, mission boiling down to one more desperate choice, 

“…No.” 

You’re cold. And wet. But you will stand out here for as long as it takes him to let you inside—a night, a day, no matter what.

And for a moment. Or a few. You think he’s dead set on making you prove that. 

But you finally, finally, finally hear a sigh before a lock turn, and you try to prepare yourself for what you see but he opens the door and his face comes into view holy shit he looks like a wreck—

“What the fuck,” you grit out as you rush in with vision swimming, digging into your bag for the medkit you hastily stashed and swinging off your sandals because you gotta get something in the—

A hand grips you hard, tugging you back before you even register what’s happening.

As your feet stumble back onto linoleum, your gaze snaps to the ground. 

And your breath cuts like it’s your last. 

Shards. 

Pieces.

Thousands of wood and glass chips litter the entire open area of the living room. 

And realizing where they came from strikes like lightning. 

Fuck. Oh, fuck, what did Yoongi do?

“I told you, doll.”

You choke on a sob.

“Go home.”

Your breaths return before you straighten, tears flowing freely as you don’t know whether to start cleaning up the chaos or finally facing the one who caused it.

No, no, no. Get rid of it. 

Throw it out, all of it, all of it. 

A new fire roars to life, forging your steeling commitment as you wrestle out of Yoongi’s hold.

What did he do, what did he do?

Revving with smoke out of your ears, you burn a path to the kitchen, grabbing a trash bag before marching into the wreckage. Up go the biggest pieces first, chucked into plastic before the smaller ones follow.

Throw it all. This one, this one, and this one.

Yoongi isn’t even wearing shoes. He can cut himself up even more if this all stays where it is. 

Shit, this is everywhere. 

When you realize you’re gonna need a broom, you storm back into his laundry closet to yank one out and keep going. When you go to sweep, the sharpest voice cuts through your fingers.

“Stop.”

Your grit grips the tool even tighter. Because you won’t. Don’t dare look into his expression, either, because you know that one glance will melt every scream on your tongue. So you stay resolute and shoot rejection to the ground, “No.”

“Just go, please.”

“No.”

This hurts. 

This really, really hurts. 

Yoongi has never, ever said these things to you and it feels like a knife jabbing into the same spot over, and over again. You almost prefer three new months of no contact over whatever the hell this is.

But you have to keep going. Eyes clenching, lips wobbling, you must keep going. 

Because you came here for a reason other than this mess. And he’s gonna have to do better than this to kick you back out into the rain. 

“I got it.” 

“Let me do it.” 

“Your brother needs you.”

“Yeah, well, I already tore the fuck into him and I’m gonna do the same to you.” You harden your fist on the sweeper, tugging it more towards your shoulder with finality. And you gather all the energy you need to leave no more room for arguments, because Yoongi is going to listen, “So sit down.”

It hurts.

He wants to say shit. You know he wants to.

But he only breathes hard with eyes closed, following your orders and carrying his dark clouds to the dining room. 

When he finally leaves you alone, this is when you look his way. 

In sweats and a shirt, he appears fine. But with a deep pang, you notice he’s slightly limping. Judging from those knuckles, you wonder if they’re red from the fight or from hitting another wall of his apartment. 

Or from whatever the fuck happened around your feet.

Shit.

While he dumps himself at his table, you clean up the pieces of his rampage, mentally noting that one plan of yours has now changed. 

This one. These, too. A string here. A metal piece there.

You don’t know how long it takes you. All you know is that you’re burning inside, determined to clean everything and sweep this chaotic energy away. 

One more. Two more. Another one here.

As soon as you’re done, you lug the trash bag out of the front door and don’t give a shit what happens to it now.

Keep going. There’s more that you need to take care of.

The fuel inside of you rages on, anger conflicting with anxiety and past worries and sadness for something that didn’t even happen. As you spin, you vow yourself to keep pushing until you can’t anymore. 

Sniffling. Shivering. But staying strong because things could’ve gone a lot worse. 

Yoongi meets you by the table, messy, damp hair shielding his features. “You’ve done enough.” 

“I still need to—” 

“Just.” He looks away. “Go home, doll. I can’t do this tonight.” 

“Do what? I’m helping you.” 

That’s what you do for each other, right? You both help each other. But now you’re not so sure because Yoongi comes back with not an acknowledgement, nor a way of relenting. 

But ice. 

“Who said I needed it?” 

And in all the time you’ve spent with this man, this is the first time you’ve felt downright cold. “Yoongi, what?” Your eyes travel across his face, chest caving in when there’s barely any hints of vitality. “Are you serious?” 

“You think I’m joking?” 

“You’re kicking me out? What happened to saying you’d never do that, huh?” 

“I say a lot of things.” 

…Oh.

That hurt. That… That physically couldn’t have hurt any harder. 

Nodding, you look away, shaking your head in disbelief because you are on the verge of losing it. “You know what? You do say a lot of things.”

Walking away, you start rearranging pillows on the couch pushed askew. “Like how perfect I am.” Picking up his books from the now non-existent coffee table. “And how there’s no one else.” 

As you give the volumes a new home on his intact tv stand, you turn to face him again. “Those are just words, too, huh?” 

Yoongi kicks his head back with a smile, one that cuts instead of mends. “Nah… Not tonight.” 

“Not tonight what.” 

“We aren’t doing this tonight.” 

“The fuck we aren’t.” It’s his turn to walk away, with a slow head shake that you really don’t like. “Where are you going?” 

“Nowhere.” Yoongi shifts his head to the side, but not enough for you to fully see him. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want you to. “But you’re going home.” 

Something’s off. There’s something completely off but all you feel is sadness and rejection in your ribcage. “So this is how it happens, huh. Now I’m just like everyone else.” 

He finally faces you, miles away even though you’re just rooms apart. “You’re gonna go there?” 

“I am.” 

“Wow.” 

That’s what he comes back with? This is gutting you from the inside out and you have no idea what’s happening but now rage is flaring into your mouth, “You think I wanted to come here? After what all of you did?” 

“Do you even know?” 

“No! But how the fuck would I? You don’t tell me shit!” 

“That’s cus—” 

Your response sears over his floors, “I can take care of myself. But none of you told me about that dude from the court. None of you.” Breath shaken, you continue dumping out all your thoughts and previous concerns, “If I had known? That whole Dalo thing could’ve been avoided and I would’ve ran.” 

For a person that you’ve come to know as so warm, Yoongi’s entire aura freezes you over as you keep talking. “And today? You know how fucking scared I was? If I… I…” 

All he does is stare. Why isn’t he doing anything else? Is he really flipping the switch and choosing to legitimately let you leave this time?

Fine then. 

“You know what?” Giving up, you laugh—harsh, and breathy, and without any joy at all. “Forget it. You’re not even listening anyway.”

“I swear to—I just said not tonight.” 

Frustration from the game, fear from the ambush after, anxiety from not hearing from them. All of it coalesces into something you can’t even control anymore. Your buffer shuts off, the monster you created seizing the reins, “No, I get it. I do! You want me gone. Sure. See you in three more months.” 

Stunned, Yoongi huffs in disbelief, jaw working overtime. “Are you serious?” 

“Yes, I am. Trying to help you but it looks like you don’t even want that. So good fucking bye.” 

And it looks like he has a beast of his own because his next response to your last attempt has you reeling back in shock, 

“Who asked you?” 

Dark liquid drips onto your soul. 

You can only stare, unblinking and feeling like you’re in an entirely different universe. “Who asked me? Who asked me.” 

“That’s what I said.” 

Forget the question of who asked you because… Who are you even talking to? Who is this person standing in front of you because it’s not the Yoongi you know. It’s so jarring and hurtful and strange that you truly feel thrust into the middle of a nightmare. 

You’re gonna do it. You’re actually gonna leave this time. 

“You know what? Kiss my ass, Yoongi.” 

God, it hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

It hurts.

You don’t even know where this is all coming from. All you know is that you’re angry and there’s no stopping the hot magma bubbling in your center. 

Silence fills the room.

And it rains. It pours.

But finally, you hold a sob back before burning a shaky path to his door, wrestling with the lock before yanking it open—

Only to have it shut back in your face, so thrown when you realize you’re getting spun. Air whooshes out of you before your shoulder blades connect with wood—  

And this is the goddamn breaking point. The walls you haphazardly built to keep you upright collapse and tumble. It’s so potent and blinding that you don’t even realize your hands are connecting with his chest in the weakest, saddest ways and you are outright screaming. 

“God, what the fuck! I told you to—We didn’t hear from you for hours and I—I didn’t know if you were okay—” 

“Whoa, hold u—” 

“I thought the worst and I—didn’t even get a chance to—I finally told you want I wanted and you—Fuck—” 

“Just listen—” 

“Don’t ever do that again! I don’t wanna lose you and today was so fucking scary and I’m not, fucking, leaving—” 

Your lips are smashed to hell, his lips bruising so hard you feel it in the back of your skull. And it’s a whole storm as Yoongi pins you against the door, leg wedging between yours and his hands gripping you like a vice. It’s intense. It’s overwhelming. 

“I swear to—” 

You don’t know what to do. What to do what to do what to do, and all your madness jangles as you’re yanked and slammed against another wall, breath leaping into his open mouth before you tug at his hair, digging anger through his shoulders. 

“Can’t fucking listen, can you?” 

“No,” you rip from your throat, shoving him back only to gravitate right back and lock lips again. 

And he rips at your clothes, tearing the front of your shirt so far your chest emerges on full display. Before you can even react to the cuts on his face, Yoongi’s hand clenches around your throat, making you gargle just how you fucking want to right now. 

“Shouldn’t even fucking be here.” 

“When has that ever stopped us.” You groan as you get rapidly led back into something hard, and you realize it’s the dining table digging into your ass. 

“He’s still home.” 

“So?”

“Shouldn’t you—”

“Then kick me out!” you taunt. “For real. Let me go. Fucking do it then.” 

Yoongi works his jaw before gripping tighter, making you groan and your gut flare into something primal. Nostrils flaring, he moves to grip your head hard enough to make your stomach flip but not firm enough to scare you. 

Never to scare you. “You aren’t gonna leave me alone.” 

Your eyes are ice. 

“Are you.” 

You solely watch in determination, breath harsh from your nose and billowing out like steam. Drilling your answer into his eyes, you charge the surrounding air enough to spark like the flashing sky outside. 

And Yoongi cracks like lightning. 

“Goddamn it.” 

Everything happens at once and in quick succession. Teeth grit to hell, Yoongi pulls you upward before fast stepping you to his bedroom, slamming you through the door before you shove him right into his desk. 

Things teeter and shake and clang with each impact, your storm disrupting everything in its path and creating a tornado of desire and thoughts in your brain. 

Something swirls and twists between your souls, tightening and condensing into emotions darker than midnight. And as angry as you are, it’s slipping into a dangerous mania, and you’ve never been this excited for anything in your life. 

“Stubborn.” 

“Coward.” 

Your back stings as you’re pushed back into his door, the wood smacking into the spackle of his wall. Rough lips smother yours as you claw at his shoulders, neck, hair, and you hear him growl into your mouth, 

“Want me to kiss your ass? Suck my dick then we’ll talk.” 

“Fuck you. I give better head than you anyway.” 

His words rival the deepest growl, “Prove it.” 

“Make me.”

Whirlwind. Storm. Tempest. At this point, it’s a whole goddamn high. Your body is thrumming and the only way to feed your anger is to channel it through actions. 

And truth be told, you need this. You both do. With all the high strung emotions that had nowhere to go until you collided?

This is liberation. 

You’re shoved onto your knees before Yoongi dives into his pants, and you’re already hungry and impatient enough to help him shrug his sweats down before he can do it himself. 

“Choke on it,” he commands, holding his dick and watching as you note how hard he already is. When you waste no time taking him in, you elicit the deepest groan you’ve ever pulled from him when you fling spit onto his length. 

Maybe his reaction is to your face. Because you’re still mad as fuck and you aren’t done letting him know that. 

With a passing thought, you realize that this is all new. But you’re welcoming it because it’s working. Only Yoongi can bring out this passion even in anger, or maybe the two of you were going to get to this point no matter what. 

“Fuck.” He steadies the bottom of your chin while you suck him off. “Uh huh. Got anything else to say?” 

You flick him off, and he hums with a rumble, his cock reacting and hitting the back of your prideful throat. 

“Fuck you, too, doll.” His talks devolve into hisses, grunts, moans when you slobber all over yourself, and your cunt is already dripping with your own slick. “There you go. Gonna take it all? Or are you gonna keep running that mouth?” 

And you pop off before taunting, “Find out, pussy.” 

And you’re swallowing him before he shoves you all the way forward, your body arching up in a gag but filled with him him him, your nose flat against his pelvis and his dick squeezing tears from your eyes and your throat overstuffed to hell and there’s no way he’s gonna forget this moment. You’re making damn sure of it. 

Another middle finger raises as you’re tensing around him, and you can barely hear him above you but you do know he’s massively pleased. Tears stream down your eyes when you’re yanked off, gasping for air and being pulled off the ground. 

“Holy fuck.” 

Throat hoarse, you attempt speech but it doesn’t matter anyway, because his lips steal them all. And your cunt is slapped with a whole palm, making you flinch and shoot out a whine into his kiss. 

Before you know it, your body hits the bed before he joins you, arms bulging as he rips your top open completely. You can’t even think straight as he teases your earlier efforts, “I’ve had better.” 

“Oh, you fucking—Shut the fuck up,” you growl, a moan leaving without permission as he palms your cunt again. Just when you think he’s gonna top you, Yoongi hauls you up, hastily leading you around the bed until your back connects with another wall. 

You love that shit. And you’re starting to think Yoongi is very, very aware of this fact. 

“Take those fuckin’ pants off,” he orders. “And hands on the wall before I put them there.” 

“Can’t make me do shit—”

Fingers grip your chin before Yoongi gets right into your face, primal instinct making you go on full alert. As his tongue prods his cheek, your whole lower body quivers. “I can. And I will, if you don’t behave.” Tapping your jaw in a warning, he hums. “Now do what I fucking say.” 

Holy shit, he’s not playing around. Which only heightens your desire to peaks previously unreached, and you’re shucking your bottoms off while he yanks his drawer open for condoms. Hurrying, you fling your clothes away before planting—

Yoongi smashes his whole front against your back—pinning your whole body against the cold, rough wall—before intertwining long fingers with yours. “Good girl.” 

Hitching your hips back, he sticks your ass out as you slip, and you feel his cock tease your entrance. Groaning, you grip your hands into fists as he continues to rub your cunt but never enter. Denying, denying, denying. Smacking your pussy and still not letting you feel him inside. 

And it’s maddening. “Please!” 

“Please what,” he asks, giving your ass a spank that has you flinching into the wall. 

And, without any shred of mercy, this goes on for longer than he’s ever held out. It’s so sickening that tears start flowing from your eyes, and you devolve into saying anything to get him to fuck your brains out. Between spanks on your ass, slaps on your tits, and aggravating kisses on your back, Yoongi doesn’t let you phase him for minutes. 

It’s when you choke on a sob that he finally, finally squeezes inside of you, checking for your nod before wrecking you completely. 

“Oh, fuck—” Your eyes shut tight as you try to keep yourself upright, hands pushing against the wall as your legs shift with every thrust. 

“This ass. Fuck.” Yoongi’s pace is relentless, hands bruising your hips and your cheeks smacking into his pelvis over and over and over. “It’s a goddamn problem.” 

You’re trying so hard. So, so hard to stay on the wall. But your hands are too sweaty; they're starting to slip with each attempt. “Bed,” you command. “Bed now.” 

And he obliges immediately, pulling out and yanking you back. Mouth to your ear, he both checks in while making your legs jelly, “You tapping out?” 

“Break my fucking back,” you rasp in return, hearing him growl in satisfaction before burying you facedown into his bed. As he plunges inside again, you grip at his sheets, driven to the brink and reveling in all the things he’s saying to you while feeling him in your stomach. 

Suddenly, you feel your arms pulled back, and you yell into his mattress as he buries himself even deeper. Everything you’re screaming makes no sense, but the phenomenal sensation you feel as you go limp renders you speechless anyway. 

Yoongi knows exactly what he’s doing as he pushes his thumb into your asshole, because you clench so hard around him that he chuckles darker than dark. Careening into space, you kiss the edge of euphoria before he inconveniently pulls out, launching a sling of insults from your mouth. 

“What was that?” 

“I said fuck you!” 

“Thought so.” 

Not done in the slightest, Yoongi hauls your thighs so flush against him that you have to use your fingertips for support. Just as you’re about to argue, he rams into you from a new and impossibly enticing angle and holy fuck it feels so good you want to weep.

“Put that fucking hand down,” he growls, smacking away the fingers you didn’t even know were on your mouth. “If you wanna talk shit.” 

“Fuck—!” 

“Uh huh. Let it out, baby girl.”

You’ve never felt this out of control. This wild. This out of body. Your head is yanked back, your back pressing into the front of his shirt before you feel him so far into your guts that you quiver. 

Now at the mercy of his tongue in close range, you hear his gravelly tone in your ear, “What’s my fuckin’ name.” 

“Asshole—” 

A hard smack to your tits has you crumpling with a whine. “Say it.” 

“I’ll say it if I wanna say it—” 

Another spank to your inner thigh and you’re gone. Eyes roll as he tweaks your nipple, and your words are almost garbled when he grips your chin from behind. “This what we’re doing? Hmm?” 

You laugh breathy before you taunt, “Uh huh.” 

“Mm…” Despite your laugh, you shake. “I wouldn’t do that, doll.” 

“Make me. Bet you can’t.” 

Tensed and veins angry, Yoongi grips both your tits before snarling, “That’s enough.” 

Swiftly, he shoves you down into the sheets, muscular frame pinning you as he strokes up into you just right. Again. Again. It’s all too slow and too effective and you’re trying to stay mad but all you can feel is perfection, your back arching at his thrusts and mewling at his low growls in your ear. 

“You wanted this.” Another thrust. “Talking shit.” Your jaw goes slack. “Pissing me off.” 

Your groan is downright erotic. Why why why? Just knowing you’re making him this mad flutters your cunt and, from the sinister chuckle shooting into your neck, Yoongi definitely felt that. 

“Fuckin’ thought so.” 

When he reaches to grab your breasts, the last thrust has you crying out in a flurry of pleasure. 

Every single thought is Yoongi, from beginning to end in a biblical cycle of debauchery. Exertion leaves you slick, sweat coating the expanse of your skin only to press into his bed, your mess your mess your mess. At his hands. The smacks of his cock. The rolls of his hips. Are you gone? Are you here? If he’s bruised then you feel like you are, too, and you welcome the temporary pain as Yoongi’s fingers dig ever deeper into your waist fuck one’s now pinning your head down. 

The moans you let out are unending, and your thighs shake when all you get in response is a laugh of condescension. 

“Look at you. Can’t even stay mad.” 

“Fuck you!” You’re close, you’re close, you’re close again. Release is at your fingertips, but Yoongi yanks himself out to rip it away from your outstretched fingers. “No!” 

“What, doll.” 

“Please!” 

“Nah.” 

Body sore, you’re flipped over with no mercy as something else presses against your cunt. 

Fucking hell, he’s eating you out now? Shaking, you feel Yoongi’s tongue swirl around your thrumming clit before he sucks, edging you to the point of tears and heartbreak. And it proves too much as you grab at his head, yank at his hair, because he lets up when you’re close. 

Every. Single. Time. 

Your madness spirals into your curses, and he relishes in your despair, continuing to lick and suck and slap your thighs with patience. “What do you say?” 

“Please!” 

“Mm. Not loud enough.” 

“Yoongi, please.” 

“Oh, we’re saying names now?” 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, it aches. It’s starting to borderline hurt. “I’ll be good,” you barter, beg, plead with a head spinning off its own axis. “I’ll do anything.” 

“Do it yourself then.” 

Later, when you look back on tonight, you’ll be embarrassed and shy to hell. But right now, you’re so over any shyness that you don’t hesitate, reaching down to rub at your clit and moaning when it’s so sensitive.

And Yoongi gets a front row seat. 

His groan is gutteral. And it doesn’t take you long to quicken your pace, bucking your hips and whining to the ceiling. You’re so so so close it’s right there—

Your hand is smacked away. And after you try to wrestle out of his grip, you are a flat out, blubbering mess. “Yoongi… Please…” 

“Nah.” 

This is torture. And you’re frightened at how much you’re enjoying it. “I’m so close.” 

“You’ll come when I say you can.” 

“Please! …Please..”

“You done being a brat?” 

“No! Fuck. Yes!” If you weren’t so far gone, you may have deciphered a tiny smile of amusement. But it won’t be for months later until you’ll realize that you were wrong. 

Because the menacing flash of teeth you see is much too wide to be anything other than pride. “The fuck did I say? Use your words.” 

You know you’re still upset. You know Yoongi is still upset. But for some reason, you feel closer to him than you have in awhile, and you wonder if lust and madness are two sides of the same coin. “Let me come. Please.” 

Yoongi finally obliges with something he hadn’t pleasured you with yet. And your vision blanks as you yelp at the sensation, his slick fingers pistoning into your folds so fast you’re arching so taut. From between your quivering legs, you hear one final command, 

“Then fucking come.” 

And you burst, so hard you almost feel like something threatens to spew from your cunt. But all you can do is shake and thrash under his grip, so erratic that you feel like Yoongi’s starting to pin you down. Gone, gone, gone, you’re sure the veins of your neck threaten to break through your sweaty skin. 

Then you feel his cock thrust inside of you, and you whip your head forward only to get your airway cut off. “Again,” he calmly repeats, flinging you back to the last time this happened. 

Only this time, there’s even less room for you to make any other choice. 

“I said again.” 

Your body cannot fathom disobedience, pulsing and milking his perfect fit. Over, and over, and over. You hear rumbling from a dragon above, feel breaths of steam whooshing as it watches you come undone. 

“Yoongi—” 

A light slap to your cheek is your only warning before your chin is tugged, lips smushing into yours to swallow your straining sobs. Fuck, fuck, fuck, your body is still thrumming, inundating around his cock until your emotions spill from your core. Toes. Fingers. Everything is straining and locking in place. 

“So fucking hot.” He rips your soul right out. “Shit.” 

You fly through time and space, gathering emotions and feelings and spiraling spiraling spiraling. Crying. You’re crying. Full on crying you’re so overwhelmed with everything truly you were so mean to him you upset him holy fuck you should’ve left when he told you to—

“Baby.” 

But you cannot stop crying, choke choke gasping on sobs. 

“Babe.” 

“I—I—” 

Your name stabs you with a crisp shot, coupled with a firm grip on your chin, snapping you back to lucid. And Yoongi’s eyes are frantically searching your own. “Look at me.” 

You do. Do you? You do. And his eyes… 

They’re not angry at all. It’s pure concern. Steadfast concentration. And something reflecting your soul. “Breathe.” 

“Oh, shit,” you whisper, coughing and reaching for oxygen you didn’t know you were denying. Air rushes back into your lungs as you inhale. 

“There you go. Keep going.” 

You do, gulping down air and hiccuping a breath or two. Your cheek is being caressed, you think. And with another pass, you know it is. 

“Relax for me.” And you hiccup a sob. “Breathe, babe.” 

You do, you do, you do. Yoongi kisses your forehead, your cheeks, your nose, and you breathe more and more through it all. “You with me?” 

“Always,” you answer, filter off because you are hanging by a thread and he’s holding the top. “Please don’t kick me out ever,” you hiccup. “Please, baby, I’ll do anything for you but I—could—never handle that—” 

You’re tenderly hushed before lips slide over yours, attempting to swallow your thoughts and your sobs and your oncoming tears. As you flood his bed with apologies, Yoongi keeps wiping them all.

“I’m sorry.” 

“Nothing to be sorry for.” 

“I’m really sorry.” 

“Babe.” 

“You told me so many times—” 

“Breathe, angel.” 

You blink at the change in name, and it makes you focus just a bit stronger. Floating down from the precipice. 

“I wasn’t kicking you out,” he slowly explains, kissing sweat from your forehead. His words feel like a calm, rock-filled river over your eyes. “I felt like an idiot and hated you seeing me like this.” 

“Like what?” 

“Just… Like this.” 

“You’re perfect like this,” you hitch out, not caring about what flows out of your mouth. “So perfect. Always to me. I just wanted to help you, baby, I’m so sorry—” 

He hugs you so tight more tears squeeze out. 

And so do more confessions, “I… I care about you. I think a little too much. If I lost you, I wouldn’t—be able—” 

“I’m here.” 

“So please don’t push me away.” 

“I won’t.” 

“I know you don’t make promises but—” 

“I promise.” Without an ounce of doubt, Yoongi places a firm, lingering kiss on your temple. “Promise. Fuck.” As he holds you tight, you feel him shake before you hear the tiniest sniff at your ear. 

Oh. He doesn’t need to be like this, too. You try to move your hand up between your bodies to comfort him, but your whole limb feels gelatinous. So you simply whisper, “It’s okay, baby.” 

You can’t tell how long you lie like this, with his beautiful weight on yours. But time is irrelevant when your mind is unwinding from hours of whirring, starting to finally accept the fact that everyone is okay and you don’t have to be angry anymore. 

“Come on,” Yoongi rasps, voice cracked and airy. “Let’s go.” 

“Hmm?” 

“Shower.” 

“Oh. Okay.” 

You’re so thrown and dizzy from what just happened that even getting to the bathroom is a blur. What you kinda feel is Yoongi holding you upright when your legs buckle, but you don’t remember when he leaves your side to turn the water on. 

As he flips on the light, your eyes squeeze until they adjust, and you watch as he tests the water while fully clothed. Air conditioning starts to give you a chill, but the shower warms up just in time because he reaches out to guide you inside. 

Wait. Is he not joining you? Bleary, you grab at his shirt when he steps away, eyes pleading. “Are you coming in, too?” 

Yoongi stops before he gives a shake of his head. “I’ll take mine when you’re done,” he says through a slight smile. “We’ll take care of you first.” 

That doesn’t make sense. Even in your depleting haze, you know something doesn’t add up. “You can join me now. I don’t mind.” When you try to lift his shirt, Yoongi visibly flinches when you brush over his ribs.

And all the murk around your head vanishes in a snap. 

He kept his shirt on that whole time. Not once did your positions allow you to see his upper body fully. And now he’s not gonna get in the shower or take his shirt off? 

Your voice lowers two octaves when you reach full clarity. “Let me see.” 

Unblinking, Yoongi tries to back away, “Don’t worry—” 

“Let me see it, baby,” you command, breath cut until he finally allows you to lift his shirt up holy fuck those injuries look so painful tears prick your eyes. “Oh, my god, Yoongi—” 

“I’m fine.” 

“You’re hurt.” You feel these wounds deep in your ribs, and you tell him to get your kit what the hell he fucked you while feeling those? 

Attempting to alleviate your stress, Yoongi decides to strip fully and step into the shower, ignoring your pleas to grab your med kit and promising you can take care of him when you’re done washing up. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, doll.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Promise.” 

And when his arms wrap around you, this is when you finally let go. Huge, chest-wracking sobs echo around tile, and Yoongi stays quiet through your cathartic release. 

There’s another reason you were so upset. And it has nothing to do with any of them, but with yourself. The main reason you’ve been so riled up and frustrated is because… This is technically your fault, too. 

But, unsurprisingly, he won’t let you take any blame whatsoever. 

“You got hurt cus I said to play.” 

“Nope.” 

“I wore the outfit that day.” 

“Doesn’t matter.” 

“And lost my friends at the club.” 

“No.” 

Sniffling in quick succession, you think about one other option. Some form of closure that can double as compromise. Voice soft, you suggest the last resort you have, 

“How about we share it.” 

Yoongi blinks twice before he clarifies, “You wanna share the blame?” When you nod, he huffs through the tiniest smile of confusion. “Mm. Then it’s our fault.” 

“Okay.” 

After shaking his head, he closes his eyes, molding his forehead with yours. “What are you doing to me.” 

A sniffle. “Wrecking your water bill.” 

His laughs join yours as you barely get your sentence out before giggling, and to feel him so close and present and here makes your worries slink down the drain. 

Hands trace down your arms, walking along falling rivers before creating ponds with your fingers intertwined. “Gonna clear me out someday.” 

“Duh.” 

He’s himself again. 

And after a whole night of chaos, you feel like yourself again, too. 

That’s all you both need to feel peace. 

-

-

You keep that tranquility carrying you through his room, peeking into his closet to grab the biggest shirt and sweats you can find before drying your head. 

But no matter how much water you can dry, your body will keep being washed in relief. And it’s the calmest feeling, watching as Yoongi does the simplest things near his bed. 

Your lips curve when he pulls up his pants; your heart beats when he grabs a tee. It’s in this moment that you admit that these outfits of his are your favorites, and you gravitate to him as he slips cotton over his damp head. 

“Come on,” you softly offer as you turn. “I’ll make food and get you some ice.”

Again, Yoongi just stares with a faint smile. But his eyes are alive again, so you’re more than fine if he just follows your lead without a word.

In the kitchen, you pause amongst the appliances, the cabinets watching as you utilize your phone to find a good recipe. “What shall we eat… Stew? Or, wait—” 

Looking up, you eye him in thought before choosing to focus on something else. “Actually, let’s figure you out first.” 

Opening yet another tab to add to your hundreds, you type away before selecting a good starting point. “Okay, let’s see. You’re breathing fine, so no bruised ribs. Umm…” 

Scroll, scroll. 

“It looks really bad there, though. You sure you can move right?” 

Despite asking, you go right back to your phone before Yoongi can even respond. Scrolling and clicking and reading again. 

Scroll, scroll. 

“Okay, so no bruised ribs, and according to this you don’t have any broken bones. And nothing fractured, either, thank god—”

“I love you.” 

Time bursts.

Your chest glows. 

Everything starts to beat, beat, beat in slow motion. 

And you don’t even feel like you’re in the room anymore. “…What?” 

You need to hear it again. You need to need to need to, because if you heard him wrong, you will check yourself and bolt right out the door. 

His eyes. 

Despite the battlefield on his skin, they are dripping, and sparkling, and full. The whole world suspends as he stares right into your soul, caressing it with his wounded hands and cradling it in his bruised arms. 

No matter how hard the moon will try—for years, and years, and years more—it will never outshine this single, shaken, solidified admittance. 

“I love you, doll.”

You don’t know what to do. You don’t know what to fucking do. 

Why is Yoongi saying this now? Why is he choosing now of all times to make you the happiest person in the universe? 

No. 

Happiness isn’t even close to what you feel and you’re pretty sure you’re crying but nothing makes sense and your vision plunges under sunlit waters. 

“And you don’t have to say anything. I know I don’t deserve to.” 

What?

“I can’t be everything you want. Or need. Or whatever the fuck I’m trying to say. But I just needed you to know because I can’t fucking fight this shit anymore—” 

You lunge forward before he offers his last syllable, careful to avoid his wounds and not mush his face because he would do the same for you. 

And it’s all too much tonight. The lingering fear, the dying anger, the floods of relief, the joy. You can’t stop your sobs from coming out in bursts, your whole body wracking with overwhelming emotion as he grits into your skin,

“Goddamn it, I—”

“Yoongi—”

“—so fucking much.”

Yoongi loves you. He’s here. He loves you, loves you, loves you and the beats of your heart pulse orange and blue, blue, blue. 

Nothing will ever compare to this moment. Nothing. You will bottle this one up in a jar to place next to all the others you have stored, and when you are lonely, or hurt, or even when you’re doing just fine, you will uncork it to surround yourself with this memory and know that everything will be okay. 

He loves you. 

Fuck, he loves you? 

You choke out his name with a sob, and he squeezes you even harder. When you can’t reply with anything else, he buries his face in the crook of your shoulder, his tears taking root and blossoming into beautiful vibrant fruit all along your rib cage.

He loves you.

Why can’t you seem to say it back? What the fuck is wrong with your tongue?

Maybe it’s because saying it doesn’t feel like enough. Like it’s laughable that there are words for this feeling because they don’t nearly represent what you harbor in your very being for this man. 

There’s no way any words are enough. Not for him. Nor for you. Because right now, Yoongi needs something more. And you’re going to give him more than everything. 

“Yoongi, I—”

He captures your lips in his, and you let him push you against his counter and consume you everywhere he wants to. Between his claims, your sobs have room to breathe. Which makes for a horrible showing of your attempting to say what you want to. “I… I can’t… Yoongi—”

Fingers press into the back of your head, a forehead smushing into yours and shutting you up completely. “I’m sorry,” he says, words rolling down the tracks your tears have walked. “I won’t ever be able to say that enough.” 

“Baby,” you hiccup, resting a hand over one of his. “It’s okay.” 

“It’s not.”

“It is.” You squeeze his hand, feeling the lovely digs of his knuckles in your palm. His scent wafts around you like an embrace, and you know there’s nothing quite like it. At all. “You’re okay, so I’m okay.” 

After he plants a warm kiss on your temple, you feel his hands ball into fists at your ears. “I just—fuck.” 

There’s no telling what he’s thinking about in that brain of his. But you need him to know that there’s nothing more for him to be sorry for. All you care about is that he’s present, responding, and himself. 

“Babe,” you whisper, still not believing those three words coming out of his mouth. “I’m here.” 

“I know.” He sighs, smushing into your lips and holding you so tenderly, yet so tight. As he laps at your tongue, you’re more than sure he can taste your rainfall. 

None of this is real. Because you can’t believe it at all. Even as Yoongi continues his journey across your neck, your shoulders, your jaw, your face, you still can’t piece together that this is truly happening.

When you feel him hard on your pelvis, you remember that he didn’t get the same release you got earlier. But you’re not gonna be the one to suggest going again, all of this will be what he decides. 

And what Yoongi decides is to pull you closer, breathing you in while you do the same. His kisses are never ending, and your hands roam languidly along his shoulders, his hair, stretching across the expanse of his back. One that has held the weight of the world and then some.

His name leaves your mouth in a sigh, your back arching as softly as the kisses being planted along your breasts. 

“If you only knew,” he whispers, laughing to himself as he wraps an arm around your side.

“Knew what?”

“Nothing, babe.” You gasp into his next rough press to your lips. “You’re so—fuck.”

You said you’d let him lead. But as Yoongi starts to walk you into his bedroom again, you think about his injuries and feel more concerned after knowing they’re there. So you quietly stop him as you reach his bed, “Are you sure?” 

“I’ll be alright, doll,” he whispers, lowering you down and smiling so tranquilly your heart lurches. “As much as I think you enjoyed the first time, this time will be better.” 

Giggling, you fight the heat from searing your cheeks as you smile. “You enjoyed it more than I did, I think.” 

“I don’t think so.” Yoongi smirks, getting up. “Lemme get a cond—” 

“It’s okay,” you halt him with a hand, and he freezes. 

Full stop. No movement. Not even a breath. “...What?” 

“We don’t…” You swallow, stomach fluttering at his expression. “We don’t have to this time.” 

Because Yoongi’s eyes have not left your face. “You sure?” 

Then something causes you to smile. Knowing that if there’s anyone you want to do this with, it’s this man right here and now. There’s genuinely no one else in the world with whom you would wanna share this experience, and the fact that he’s still asking makes you emotional.

Cradling his face with the most tender touch you can imagine, you confirm, “Just for a little bit.” And you add something you think he needs to keep hearing. “I trust you.” 

Gulping down any extra emotions spilling from your heart’s chalice, your words come out a little wobbled. “And I want to, if you want it, too.” 

“I want what you want, doll.” 

“Then it’s okay.”  

Clothes on or off, you still feel so shy underneath him. 

But this time, you vow to shove those feelings of unworthiness to the side. Because you are fully invested in this moment above all others. And Yoongi deserves more than you can give. 

When he slowly tugs his sweats from your legs, you’re already choking back tears. As he climbs on top, you await the connection you never in your dreams would’ve imagined. 

And when Yoongi stares at you one more time, you know exactly what he’s asking. 

“Yes, my love,” you wisp into his skin, craning up to kiss him and swallowing his last slice of doubt. Knowing you’ll say it again and again and again. 

His brows pinch as he kisses you—slow, purposeful, understanding. Then he positions himself, and you can physically feel his hand brush your cunt as he does so. If he ever asks if you felt him shake, you will deny it. But only for a year or two. 

As soon as you feel him—only him, solely him—you swell with a current of emotion. And it pulls you all the way under when he’s fully sheathed inside. 

“Holy fucking shit.” 

“Yoongi—” 

“Fuck.” 

Simply having him inside, with no barriers or obstacles in between? You’re already close. There’s no early explanation, but you already feel overwhelmed enough to come. 

No no no. You want this to last forever, so you wait for Yoongi to gather himself because he appears to be fighting, too. 

Chuckling, you ask, “You good, baby?” 

And your lover snaps his gaze to your face, bangs sweeping across your cheeks and eyes unblinking. “Yeah, just...” He stares at your inquisitive expression before whooshing out a harsh breath. “Just this is about to make me bust.” 

You burst into laughter before admitting you were just thinking the same thing, and his slow grin makes you want to cry. “We’re not good at this.” 

“No. You’re too good at this. I can’t even move.” 

“Yes, you can,” you whine. “You wreck my shit all the time.” 

Feeling a twitch more prominent than ever, you giggle as Yoongi puffs out pained amusement. “Doll, if you keep talking like that, I’m pulling out.” 

“Okay, okay,” you surrender, loving how out of sorts he seems. He’s fighting for his life and you’re enjoying the hell out of it. 

“You’re a little too perfect right now.”

Maybe one day you will agree with him. But that day is far from reach, your head shaking in quiet disagreement.

“You are.”

“Nowhere close,” you whisper.

His nose brushes against yours. “Say that again and see what happens.”

“Is that what you tell all the others fuck!”

His shove up your cunt makes you see stars. “What did I fuckin’ say?” 

“What—”

Another launch has you careening through space, lip bitten and suppressing a hearty whine. “You think there’s someone else?” Again. “Hmm?” 

Again. 

You’re so dazed and mind-fucked to pieces that your speech is barely audible. But your chin is grabbed as you’re snapped straight, and your eyes try their hardest to focus on slitted ones above. “You’re gonna regret saying that.” 

You just laugh, whine pinging sharp into the ceiling as he shoves forward so hard your whole body shifts upward. “Oh, yeah?” 

Yoongi doesn’t respond with words, thrusting up again and sending you twisting and winding towards the edge unbelievably fast. “Uh huh.” 

“Make me then,” you gasp out. “Make me really sorry.” 

The sound Yoongi makes comes from deep within his stomach, the rumbling hum shooting right into your veins like liquid fire. 

And the full-on attack he bursts into renders you completely speechless. Everything Yoongi does pulls you deliciously in all directions—his thrusts, his chain hitting his chest, his grip on your wrists, the way he snags your chin. Everything. 

“Taking me so well like this.” 

“I—”

“So fucking tight.”

Fuck fuck fuck it’s habitual for you at this point, and you unhinge your jaw a split second before he smacks the side of your face. Desire lowers your lids halfway as you feel empowered, and you don’t even recognize your voice as you order him on the spot. “Do it again.” 

Yoongi doesn’t stop his pace as he keeps his eyes on you. 

“Do it again,” you growl, fully limp and a groaning mess when he does exactly what you want. 

Fuck, the pain feels good. So good that you reach up and choke him out. But the back of your head is grabbed before you feel hungry lips smash into yours. You feel your wrists pinned again by one large palm, air chilling for a moment before a hot mouth captures one of your nipples. “Oh, fuck, Yoongi!” 

“Uh uh.” 

“Please—please—” 

You’re still tensing as he devours your chest below his shirt, strokes now slower but just as powerful. 

Your arms still haven’t been freed, but there’s something about being under his control that has you loving this position. Without question. Maybe it’s the fact that you can see him now, losing himself just as he saw you washes in the throes of passion. 

And he licks, sucks, lolls his tongue all over your tits, whispered praises sinking through your bosom as he keeps a grip on your wrists. 

“Baby,” you gasp. “I’m close, I’m—” 

“Shit.” Air whooshes over you before you feel your arms freed and him yank himself out, and you freeze as he unloads right on your stomach, a sharp cocktail of pride and shock in your gut. 

Holy fuck, Yoongi was that close? Did he hold out as long as he could? Shit, he’s breathing so hard his jewelry shakes as it dangles. 

You’re still so surprised that your arms are still locked into bends, and he glances up at you from his kneeled state. “Fuck,” he laughs, and is that… Is Yoongi shy? “Thought I could hold out.” 

“No, no, it’s fine,” you assure through your own tiny chuckle. “Oh my god, I promise.” 

He leans down to plant a heart fluttering kiss on your lips, but you hate how he looks pained on the way down. 

Those hits he took… Now you kinda understand his perspective. Because now you want to avenge him in five hundred thousand ways—almost half as many ways as you want to show him how you feel. 

“Stay there, beautiful,” Yoongi orders as he moves to get off the bed, wincing in passes. “I’m not done with you.” 

Damn. He looks even more exhausted than before. “Baby, are you sure?” 

But Yoongi walks right to his bathroom to retrieve a towel, and your eyes may as well transform into hearts when you watch him come back to you. So handsome, even now. Even when he’s simply holding a washcloth, hair completely mussed, soul sparkling and face bruised. 

As he sits to clean your face before moving to your stomach, you can only observe his eyes. So experienced. Calm. At peace. When they drift to yours, it’s instinct that has you shying away. “What, love.” 

Another reason to crumble inside. “I just… nothing,” you whisper. 

And Yoongi finishes with the cloth before tossing it somewhere. “Tell me,” he says, lying down on the ribs with more damage. “I wanna know.” 

“Come on this side,” you tell him, and he obliges without a word. “It’s a secret.” 

“A secret?” 

“Mmhmm.” 

Yoongi settles before lifting your chin, rubbing an affectionate thumb over any tears still persevering on your cheeks. “I can keep those, you know.” 

Smiling, you fold way too easily. “Okay, I’ll tell.” 

When he leans in, your nervousness and excitement to tell him almost spoils your ability to do so. Like someone gifting a present while wanting to say what it is before it’s even opened. 

“I love you, too,” you whisper, tears sprinting to your ducts as Yoongi freezes. When he looks at you, you can’t help but choke on a sob seeing his eyes get as red as the marks on his cheek. “And you deserve more than I could ever give.” 

His eyes hold the heavens and the seas. 

You’re right. Just saying it isn’t fucking enough.

You’re already liplocked again before you can think, saltwater on your face and you don’t even know whose eyes it came from.

Determined, Yoongi starts kissing a trail from your lips to your jaw, and you start to cry as he makes his own journey down the expanse of you. 

All of you.

Is this what it feels like? Is all of this actually, genuinely real?

You hope so, because you feel devotion in each press of his lips, and every touch will be remembered in its own right. Its own pocket of time.

Every single stop.

It almost feels divine when his mouth reaches your folds, lapping at your essence and swirling around your clit. When you say his name, Yoongi says nothing, instead palming your thighs and eating you out like he has all the time in the world. 

Swelling, you already feel close. 

But the way he gets you to fantasia is so natural that you slide into your quivers seemlessly. The transition into your heaven flows like a stream, and your waves engulf his tongue and coat his mouth without trouble. 

This is what it feels like. What it feels like with Yoongi. 

And you wanna keep making love until only sleep can take you from him.

Your hands jut into his hair, gasping as he keeps his pace, and no matter how you squirm he is dead set on holding you down until holy fuck you’re coming again. 

How? What’s happening to you? This constant stream of release is shocking you to the point of crying out, and Yoongi groans into your orgasm and prolongs it with the whole press of his tongue.

“Holy fuck, baby—!” Another wave overcomes the next, and you outright quake in his hands, eyes rolling and vision blinking white. Muscles lock as you can’t keep up with the pleasure, and you’re mercilessly let go only for lips to descend on yours.

Your tears spill into your ears as you kiss him back, wrapping tired arms over his shoulders and raking in deep. 

“Fuck.” And you feel his cock lodge against your entrance, and you’re amazed how hard he is again. 

Does he want what you want? Is he ready again? 

As Yoongi quietly gets up to get a condom, you’re amazed that he wants to keep going after everything that’s transpired. But, if he feels like you do, he’s ready to keep going until the sun comes up three whole times. 

When he sits next to you, your better half appears shy as he bites the wrapper. “Don’t take this the wrong way.”

“Oh, I already know.”

“K. But god, I fuckin’ want to.”

You bite your lip to hold back your smile, remembering what he said a long time ago and bringing it back full circle for the next thing you both wanna try. “One day.”

Yoongi only grins. 

And for the next hour, your lover, your secret, your home gives you everything he has, and you come for him more times than you ever have in your life.

Every time, he drags your pleasure out, expertly tearing you down with his movements and building your confidence up with his words. He tells you you’re perfect, and he disagrees when you disagree. When you find tears on your face, he kisses those away, too. When you feel along his silver, he simply watches you in silence. 

No sadness, doubt, nor anger to be found. 

After you physically can’t do any more, Yoongi lies at your side, silent as you play with his hair. You do your best to stay still, not wanting to accidentally push into any of his injuries that you’re gonna beg him to get checked in the morning. 

Once he’s healed? That’s when you’ll never let go. Because you want to crush him into you completely. Mold into him, just so he can feel the brevity of your highest affection. 

“I’m sorry for yelling,” you finally whisper. “But I really was so mad at you. All of you.” 

“I know.” 

“I don’t wanna lose you.”

“It won’t happen again.” 

“That’s what you said last time.” 

Yoongi stares, seeming to withhold something from you before he palms your cheek. “They were gonna follow us home if we didn’t, babe,” he reveals, snapping your heart back in two. “We all knew that.” 

“Oh, fuck.” Everything hits you at once: why they stayed, why you and Taehyung had to leave. Why Tae didn’t bring you straight back to the house. And the burns at your eyes match the searing in your gut. “I didn’t… I didn’t think about that.” 

When you start to cry, Yoongi sits up and hangs his head between his sweats. “You don’t need to think about shit like that,” he murmurs, sounding defeated as ever. “But we talked after you told us off. We won’t hide that from you anymore.” 

Sniffling, you whisper out a thank you. But you don’t want Yoongi to feel like he has to distance himself, so you untangle him—slowly, gently–-before bringing him into your chest. 

After dealing with all that and the tempest in his living room, this man still let you in. From the looks of things, there’s a lot that he had been fighting, and you’re more than appreciative that he opened his door. Not knowing how to put these feelings into words, you say the first things that come to mind. And for some reason, they feel heavier on the way out, 

“Thank you for letting me in. It was raining really hard.” 

Yoongi stiffens hard before holding you closer. 

“Babe?”

No response. Just another batch of weighted quiet. 

Worried, you tilt your head. “Hey. Look at me.”

If he stays right where he is, you’ll have to respect that decision. But he ends up pushing himself up, and as soon as you see moonlight catch on a falling tear, all your instincts reach for him, “Oh, fuck, come here.”

You surround him with everything you have, wanting every single bit of warmth birthed from his love to fill his space instead of yours. Whatever he needs, you will give. “It’s okay, baby,” you whisper, holding him so close but not nearly close enough. 

Never close enough.

His face is buried in the crook of your neck, and you will let him live there whenever he needs to. “I’m not mad anymore, okay?” God, you hate how he’s still so silent. You get it, but you hate whatever made him default to this state. “I’m just glad you’re alright.”

After light rain fills the room, your soul breaks at a sniffle, and you crush your love even tighter.

“This isn’t about that, doll,” Yoongi finally whispers, burying wet eyes further into your shoulder. “It’s just…”

It’s what? What’s he thinking about? Hopefully it’s not anything—

“It’s so fucking better when you’re here.” 

When you choke out a sob, his body locks, words pouring from nowhere and everywhere. “I sleep better. Eat better. Fuck, I even feel better even if nothing else changes.”

“Yoongi…”

“It’s true.” Sighing, he sniffles again before letting his weight drop onto you in resignation. Or relief. “I mean that.”

“Then… Those three months…”

“One day, I’ll tell you everything,” he offers, making you wonder what the hell he’s been through in the past. And if it has something to do with that guitar he smashed to pieces. “But from now on, you can be here whatever you want.” 

Many things have shifted tonight. As if an earthquake had upturned everything between the both of you, only peace has settled in its wake. A peace you had never felt before. As you brush fingers through his hair, you joke, “So I can come to those parties you host, too?” 

“Those weren’t my idea, by the way. Jimin made me.” Kissing your shoulder, Yoongi continues to admit, “He was worried. And hoping you would show.”

Oh. That’s news to you. 

“I knew you wouldn’t. But.” He exhales before nestling in further. “I did hope to see you, too.” 

“It’s okay.” You rub the back of his neck, your fingers feeling nothing but warmth and the softness of his clothes. “It would’ve been too obvious.”

“What would’ve.”

“That I wanted you all to myself.”

“You already have that.”

When you stiffen, your words are tiny. “You know what I mean.”

Yoongi laughs soft, taking one of your hands in his and bringing it up for a kiss as you blurt, “My brother was the one that invited me. To come to those, I mean.”

The way he blinks is comical. “Huh.”

“I know.” It’s your turn to bring his hand close, kissing along his knuckles before you stare out the window behind him. “It makes me wonder if he knows.”

“What if he does?”

You snap your eyes right to his. “Does he?”

Yoongi watches your lips linger on his fingers before he tells the truth, “No.”

“Okay. But you’re sure I can stay?” 

“Who do you think you bought those groceries for?” 

Oh. Wait. “What?” 

Grinning so sly, Yoongi reveals the plan he had all along, “I get you for a week, right?”

Oh. Holy shit. You cannot quite possibly deal with what this man is saying. That whole time you were shopping for his list… No wonder he was already done with dinner when you got there oh you’re gonna get him back for that. 

Light bursts from your center as you grit out through a grin, “You sneaky little—” Pulling his tilted mouth in for another kiss, your heart pulses little pink stars as he leans in with a laugh, and you meet lips again and again until he slowly, reluctantly stops. 

“One day,” he murmurs out of nowhere, and you flick your eyes to his. “I’ll be better.”

Of course he will. You have no doubts. But, just like he always does for you, you’re gonna start offering the same reassurance out loud, even if he knows it’s there. 

And you can’t contain your little laughs at your own joke, despite him just staring into your face right after you crack it, “Don’t make it just one day, silly.” 

Even if you’re very serious, it’s in your nature to lighten things up. Especially after hearing such wonderful news for what’s coming. Clutching a little bit of his shirt, you whisper with complete devotion, 

“We’ll make it as many as we can.”

You hate how you feel him freeze, knowing what that means, what plaguing little thoughts are embedded in that tiny shift. 

Yoongi’s still hesitant to accept.

Because you are, too. In many ways. But this man has been picking you up and making you stronger day after day—in both his presence and absence—that you can’t help but fight to do the same. 

Does he ever think about you? Does he know that you’ll always be with him? No matter how close or far apart you are? You hope so. Because it’s so true that your heart is searing that promise into your soul, branding it as a reminder to reciprocate all this genuine love you’ve never been given before.

He loves you?

You still can’t accept that as fact.

…Maybe one day.

You chuckle to yourself, deciding to keep talking because Yoongi is still so very quiet. “At least. Until the day I get to meet my cat,” you huff in triumph. “Then I’m running away with her.”

It’s a perfect strike of a match. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” You pretend to pout. “But I’m starting to think she ran away already and you won’t fess up.”

Yoongi laughs so suddenly you flinch. After a playful scoff, he tries to make you feel better, “She’s still here!”

“Lies.”

“How much are you betting, doll.”

“How much are you willing to lose, babe.”

“This much,” he finally says, pinching your sides and hissing laughter when you scream. “Maybe I’ll make you leave after all if you’re gonna be a problem.” 

“You did threaten to kick me out before.” 

“Huh? When?”

“That day I showed up,” you remind him through a chuckle. Thrown back to that first night, you start to see all the parallels between then and now. And how vastly different things have become. “Said you were gonna kick me out for hustling you.” 

The glorious laughter from the depths of his belly makes you grin, and you cringe when his brows pinch in both laughter and pain. “I should’ve!” 

He needs to get those hits healed. “You really should’ve.” 

“Played me from the very start. You happy with yourself?” When you nod, Yoongi shakes his head. “Course you are.” 

“You love it.” 

“I do.” Your eyes meet, which proves dangerous for you because he bites his smirk before pulling you in for a kiss. “Thought I was gonna say it, huh.” 

“No!” You lie. Because no, you certainly were not! “…Maybe.” 

“Guess what.” 

Suddenly paranoid, you give him a look, already expecting to be tricked again. 

But Yoongi captures your lips without warning, curling your toes into sheets you’re now achingly familiar with. After a few passes, he shifts above, planting a hand at your side and letting his chain slide against your chest as he slots a leg in between yours. 

Yet again, you think about that first night, that first time. The first of apparently, surprisingly, wonderfully unexpectedly many. 

Who would’ve thought rain and a broken ego would bloom into something good? Who would’ve believed a person so close to your roots would be your home? 

As he lets up with one last slow stroke of his tongue, you whisper, “What were you gonna say?” 

At this, Yoongi spreads closed lips, taking his time planting a peck on your nose. “I just fucking love you, doll.” 

Oh. He’s a menace and the most annoying tease on the planet. 

When you can’t do anything but flee into his chest, Yoongi immediately laughs, forcing you back out of your little shell. “You can’t hide now, babe.” 

“I can!” 

Leaned forward in your struggle, you give him no choice but to swoop his head into your neck. Which backfires on you immensely because he decides it’s the perfect time to rasp deep against your ear, “I love fucking you, too.” 

His name flies out of your mouth in disbelief and embarrassment, and his heightened amusement puffs into the burning column below your chin. 

This is the moment something comes over you. Slams into you. Washes you in present nostalgia like lingering footsteps on a balcony. 

And it hurts. It really, really hurts. 

Instead of laughing along, you come down from your high, squeezing him like the pillow that couldn’t replicate his warmth for months. “I miss you.”

After a second, Yoongi questions, “How? I’m right here.”

You know that. You do. But with every hello there’s a goodbye, and you don’t want that this time. Especially now that your heart knows that his beats the same. 

Breathy and shaken, you rest your head in his chest, hoping he doesn’t hear but does at the same time, “I still miss you.”

Strong fingers weakly press into your sides, and while you can’t see him, you know for a fact that his smile is gone. Because he also knows goodbye is coming again, and you can’t stay here forever as long as this is all a secret. 

You feel a sigh wisp over your head before words that make no fucking sense follow it out, “I can’t do shit like this anymore.” 

…What?

No. No no no he can’t be done just like that you both just confessed everything you need to fight say something anything anything—

“I wanna do this the right way.” 

Oh. 

Yoongi’s chest… It’s shaking. 

Pushing yourself up, you search his eyes for answers. “What are you saying?” 

When he looks at you, there’s a fire in his eyes that wasn’t there before. Or maybe it has been there all along, and he only needed a spark to set it ablaze. “I’m saying I’ll tell him, doll. Just me.” 

Oh. Oh, shit. Didn’t he say not yet? Didn’t he say he needs more time? He said he’d figure it out what is with the sudden…

Your tears are automatic as Yoongi roams his gaze from one eye to the other, and he’s swallowing before taking a step. A step you didn’t think he’d make. One you didn’t have the courage to take yourself. 

When he utters the words, your soul lets rain fall just as the storm resides.

And right as moonlight shines through his blinds.

“I’ll tell him everything.” 

-

-

tbc. :)

-

so... how did it go! | join the server!

a/n: so. here we are, over two years and 250k+ words later. thank you for sticking with me if you're still here, and thank you for being the most amazing readers a writer could ever, ever ask for. if you can interact or let me know what you enjoyed/like, i would be eternally grateful. these two parts took all of me, and i'm gonna take a break for a little bit before starting on the next part. a/n 2: thank you for also being here despite the highs and lows! things have really weighed on me for awhile, which prevented me from working on this part forreal. but my mental feels a lot lighter now, and i am ready to keep running with y'all. so thank you for your support and encouragement, no matter how you show it! ++ feedback box: ⇥ of course, any reblogs/comments/messages are appreciated! ⇥ for the ones that are too shy to reblog with a review, comment on this, or send a message, i went ahead and made another anonymous form where you can send in what you think! ⇥ no emails collected, no need to put in a username. it’s literally just a comment dropbox :D feedback can be as short/sweet or as long as you’d like! ⇥ here! ++ more links: ⇥ masterlist  ⇥ three tangerines masterlist

[luludeluluramblings]

Jason Todd’s Obsession with Smalltown!Reader

A/N: I know Jason is a fan favorite. Initially he wasn’t going to be the first to fall into obsession, but I think it fits him in this context. I hope I captured his personality right.

A/N: Frick, this doesn’t sound platonic at all. Oops. Just pretend it is. My bad. I got carried away. (I’ll try to keep it more platonic in the story line.)

A/N: Jesus take the wheel, I need to take more time to think this stuff through. I headcanon Reader is Seventeen about to turn eighteen, which means I gotta add more warnings. I’m so sorry, y’all.

Warning: Slight NSFW, Violence, Choking, potential age gap, ambiguous ages.

First one obsessed with Reader, after Bruce and Alfred, is Jason. He’s pissed about it too. Initially, he made note to despise reader on principle.

Reader is Bruce’s favorite. Bruce cares so much about Reader that he would literally keep them away for their safety. While it seems everyone else in Bruce’s life Jason suffers for being close to him. Bruce obviously knows he destroys everyone he brings into his life. Yet he still keeps dragging people into it without any care. What if he does that to Reader, too?

But, the Smalltown charm mixed with a sweet smile instantly broke him. Instantly.

Problem is, Jason’s pit-madness triggers easily and sometimes comes out as cute aggression. And, to him, reader is fucking adorable. The darker thoughts in his head tell him to corrupt and break reader. But, his rational thoughts remind him how precious Reader is and how he doesn’t actually want to hurt them. He’s at a constant state of internal conflict.

Remembering how his father treated his step Mother also makes Jason feel extreme guilt over how he sees Reader. Pre-pit Jason would have found Reader cute and charmed them. But, Post-pit Jason finds reader cute and wants to fucking ruin them.

It doesn’t help that reader snarks back. Making them even more adorable in his eyes. And, making him want to pin them to the fucking wall.

When he finally blows up at Reader, that’s him channeling his frustration into his words. Slamming his fist into the wall, breaking things. He wants to slam Reader into the wall and fucking break them. Because if he did what his madness was telling him to do, Jason would never forgive himself.

Bruce confronting him allowed him to change outlets and get the rage out. Yelling at Bruce and destroying the room helped ease the madness. But, after the incident, he takes to avoiding reader or only being around when he has someone to hold him back and take the heat off Reader.

He still desperately wants to be around Reader, they’re so fucking cute and he wants to keep them safe. But, god, does he also want to see if choking them somehow makes them even cuter.

[hypnos333]

Pillowtalk

Angel dust x Stripper reader

Synopsis: You were a stripper chain to Valentino with Angel Dust as your boyfriend until he breaks your chains on yourself

You were curled up in your bed with fat nugget in your arm, bruises on your arms, stomach and back. It was so bad you couldn’t go to work for a couple of days. Tears softly run down your face as Fat nugget whimpers at your cry’s. You were just in your bra and underwear just laying on the bed.

“Toots! I’m home and I brought Chinese food!” Angel dust yells throughout both of y’all apartment. When it was full of silence he put down his things then went towards both your rooms.

He slowly opened the door “Baby?” he asked before he heard your soft cries and saw your body. He gasps in horror and shock before rushing to tend your bruises and scars. He gently picked you with his six arms up making sure fat nugget would follow to be your support before carrying you to the bathroom.

You clinged to him stuffing your face in his fluff, tears of pain and soreness still coming out.

He gently settle you down on the bathroom counter before searching for ordainment and alcohol to put on your bruises.

“Lemme tie up your hair toots” Angel said gently making you nod giving him permission. So he tied up your hair and another one of his hands grabbed your arm gently to put the ordainment. “This might sting babe” He said making you nod once more.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked making you shake you head instantly making him sigh worriedly.

He carried you back to bed making you curl up back to the sheets with Fat nuggets curling up against your stomach.

“H-He hit me because I wouldn’t s-sleep with an old fucking C-Cilent. h-he beat me everywhere e-except my face” You stuttered out hugging your pig out of reassurance.

Angel let out a sob pulling you from the covers and hugging you close. As you both cried together.

“If I would’ve been there I could’ve prevented it from happening, I’m so so sorry toots” Angel cried out holding you with all his arms but being careful not to hurt you any further.

“It’s not your fault, Val would’ve made you sleep with the Client anyways. I rather prefer me over you” You said making him hug you tighter.

“Don’t say that Baby, because we both know I’ll risk everything just for you to be safe. I’m doing this all because of you. I love you to hell and back, you and fat nugget.” Angel said and when he did you felt like the chains from you unlocked like your free now.

You wrapped your arms around his neck before kissing his lips in a lazy but reassuring kiss.

“I love you too” You mumbled to him.

Laying in bed together in a comfortable place where it’s just you and him, together forever.

[shiroisotto64]

UPDATING MY OZZIE AND FIZZ HEADCANONS 😁

ASMODUES

- Ozzie spoils his significant others. He loves to see them happy. Literally anything you want you get no questions asked!

- ( i don’t know what I was on when I said fizz could cook forgive me ) Ozzie tries to make breakfast whenever he isn’t to busy in the morning! And he lets them ramble on about whatever they want to!

- he’s super supportive of you and whatever your profession is! He doesn’t take disrespect towards his partners. You can dress as sluty or as comfy as you want. No judgement.

- he just tends to sit back and watch the chaotic things you and fizz do and get into. as long as your both not hurt in the process. If so then you’ll be (very lightly) scolded! Be careful next time.

- you’re really only seen next to Gina me fizz. He’s a sin fizz is super popular and you may be to depending on what your profession is. It’s just the best way to keep you safe honestly. You all go on trips whenever y’all wanna get out of the house tho. He lets you both choose we’re to go.

- ozzie checks up on fizz to make sure his limbs are functioning and while the smaller imp bounces around you sometimes cuddle fizz while he waits. Ozzie thinks it’s really cute.

- asmodeus is REALLY bad at keeping your relationship a secret. Yet so is fizz so it’s alright. They can’t hide the way they look at each other! And you of course. Ozzie has been caught on camera making lovey eyes to many times to count. 😭

- he’s always down to fuck if your up for it. It’s pretty easy to get him going. As we saw a good pair of puppy eyes and a smooth big daddy and your good. 👍🏽

Fizzarolli

- he’s so silly. Like actually. He’s all over you and flirting non stop! You can barely keep ‘em off you. He loves quality time and physical touch.

- he runs off of praise and attention from both you and ozzie. He’ll roll over and play dead of left to his own devices for to long.

- you and Ozzie watch in awe as he fusses over his little girls. He pampers his little pets like no other. He has the most fun during walks and bath time! They get water all over the place and he loves whipping his skates out! (Doesn’t want him skating in the mansion.)

- random fashion shows. He loves showing off all of his outfits and stuff. Different hats and everything. He even convinces Ozzie to get him different color limbs for when he wants to match em with the current color.

- he curls up on which ever of you is close when he’s tired. Just slings himself onto you honestly. But be careful! Sometimes it’s a trick. 💀 he’ll nip at you when you let your guard down and run off while giggling the little shit 😭

- Ozzie randomly hums and sings and he randomly imitates different horns and loud instruments. Fizz has made a beat out of his horns before.

- he still pulls pranks. Like screaming in your ear to wake you up in the morning. He’s been fussed at to many times for this so now he uses his horns. (Yay?)

- blushes when shown genuine affection or compliments but turns his head away to hid the blush if in public and regain his composure.

- a total show off but who’s surprised.

- fizz gets turned on if your protective of him. Especially if you can fight. Ozzie is more lax if he knows you can take care of yourself and fizz. But fizz brags about how safe he feels and how sexy it is that you get so worked up over his safety.

[starlooove]

The urge to ask every black person with braids where they go is

[jiarkives]

livestream

⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 .𖥔˚ summary — you ask your boyfriend to watch your followers.

⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 .𖥔˚ character — bucky barnes (marvel)

⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 .𖥔˚ content — fluff

⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 .𖥔˚ notes — rushed ending WEEWOOWEEWOO also, this is based on @loveisallyouneed1125’s idea, i just added a ~little~ twist to it. i hope this is to your liking, bestie! 🤍

~

Occasionally, you would do a cooking and baking livestream where you would teach your followers how to cook certain dishes or bake, while you talk to them about other stuff. Your teammates would sometimes pop in and talk for a few minutes before leaving you to your thing once more.

Today, however, you had decided to let Bucky join you since your followers have been asking you for more boyfriend content with Bucky.

So you quickly set up your phone on the kitchen counter, making sure to leave enough space for you to work while also being in the camera’s view, then you went live.

You and Bucky waited for your followers to flood in, greeting some of them as they left comments and greetings. Although most of them were just smashing their keyboards and emojis, you still did your best to greet them.

After a few minutes, you got started on your baking with Bucky helping. You had mutually decided on baking chocolate chip cookies, finding it the easiest to bake together. Throughout the process, you occasionally gave out instructions to both Bucky and the viewers.

“Okay, you guys, let me just pop these into the oven real quick,” you said as you placed the last piece of dough on the baking tray. “Babe, can you please watch them while I do this?”

While you were busy with the cookies, Bucky watched the comments like a hawk, staring at them as they flooded in.

User 1: dude you’re literally so fucking cool

“Someone said a swear!” Bucky called out to you as he continued staring at the camera, his eyes narrowed.

“Tell them not to swear, it’s bad,” you chided like how a mother would to her child.

Bucky then recited the username of the commenter, pointing at the camera, “You better watch your language, kid. Your mama’s not going to like that. Mine certainly did not.”

The comments were flooded with all kinds of keyboard and emoji smashes, and words that are borderline incoherent as they reacted to you and Bucky acting like strict parents.

User 1: sorry mom and dad 😔

User 2: pls adopt me y’all are literally my parents

User 3: do u guys need a dog i can bark

User 4: ilysm pls dont die yet

“I don’t think your parents would appreciate you having Avengers as your new parents. Sorry, kid.” He shook his head in mock disappointment. “No, we don’t need a dog. We already have Sam. And no, I’m not dying anytime soon. Thanks for your concern, I guess...”

Sam, who was currently in the livestream, spammed the comments with all sorts of insults for Bucky. He, of course, ignored them all, but not without rolling his eyes.

User 5: i’m gonna tell my friends i spent time with the avengers on the weekends 😎

“Well then, tell your friends I said hi.”

“Tell them I did too!” You said as you came into the camera’s view. “And you seem like you’re having fun without me. I am very hurt.”

User 6: NOOOO we love you mom!!!!

User 7: mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry.

You snorted as you saw the comment, while Bucky’s brows furrowed, “What does that even mean?”

You laughed, “I’ll teach you all those slangs later, babe.”

[sleepyjuice]

10, maybe reader on her period abd jj js being all sweet 🤭🤭

a/n: idk if y’all remember my little blurb about jj accidentally hurting you during sex bc reader has endometriosis, but this is in that same universe <3

It was Thursday night, which was also your weekly movie night with jj. Since you had started dating, you had only missed one Thursday night movie night, and that was only because you were sick and dead to the world.

You and jj stuck to the routine pretty well. So when he hadn’t heard from you in hours, and it was nearing 8 at night, he truly started to worry that something had happened to you.

You usually met up around 5 to pick up some snacks from the store and you would either go back to your house or the chateau, very rarely jj’s house if Luke wasn’t home or was in jail again.

Today, however, you were supposed to meet at the chateau. That was 3 hours ago.

jj had texted and called you numerous times, giving you the benefit of the doubt that something had come up, but as the hours passed, he decided he was done waiting.

He hopped on his bike and made his way to your house, speeding a little bit more than he usually did as his anxiety refused to settle.

He knocked on your front door once he arrived, only giving you about thirty seconds to open it before he tried the knob, which happened to be unlocked.

His heart was racing at this point, immediately assuming something horrible had happened. He mentally cursed himself for not having his gun on him.

He cautiously peered around the living room and kitchen, seeing no signs of distress, so he approached your shut bedroom door, pulling it open as he subconsciously held his breath, preparing for the absolute worst case scenario.

But there you were, curled up in your bed, heating pad plugged into the outlet in the wall, bottle of advil sitting opened on your nightstand, your phone resting right side up right next to your still hand and you were dead to the world.

jj let out the breath he was holding, running his fingers through his hair as he softly padded over to your bed, taking a seat on the edge beside your sleeping body.

“Babe,” he cooed, pushing your hair out of your face, leaning down to kiss your soft forehead.

You stirred a bit, consciousness slowly hitting you as you fluttered your eyes open to spot jj sitting right beside you.

It took you a moment to collect your thoughts, gasping quietly as you realized what day it was, and from the darkness poking through your window, you could tell that it was evening now.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” You looked up at your boyfriend, blinking furiously as tears threatened to spill from your heavy eyes. He had to have been worried sick. Your cramps had beaten the fuck out of you and you told yourself you were just going to lay down with the heating pad for a little bit, not expecting to completely knock out.

jj shook his head quickly, scooting closer to you to play with your slightly messed up hair, seeing the guilt and sadness in your eyes.

“No, no, it’s okay. I was just worried something happened to you.” He explained before gesturing down to the heating pad that was still pressed against your abdomen.

“I see what happened though. Thought you weren’t supposed to start till next week?” He spoke, tone still gentle.

You audibly groaned at that, rubbing your eyes with your palms.

“Yeah, I thought so, too. Love me a nice surprise.” You grumbled sarcastically, your heart warming at the fact that jj had also memorized your cycle. It wasn’t purely due to sex, but he knew how bad your periods were for you and wanted to do anything he could to help you through it. If he would have had more warning, he would have arrived with snacks.

As you became fully conscious, the pain that you attempted to sleep off was already making its presence known again, causing you to squeeze your eyes shut as you waited for this particularly long cramp to fizzle out. You absentmindedly reached for jj’s hand, giving it a small squeeze as you sighed shakily.

“I’m sorry baby,” he frowned, his brows furrowed as he held his hand firmly for you to grasp, watching your face intently for any signs that the pain lessened, “how long ago did you take the advil? You can probably take more, right?”

You opened your eyes again as the pain became slightly more bearable, meeting jj’s concerned gaze. You knew what was going through his head. One thing about jj is that he could not stand to feel helpless. Watching his loved ones in pain or in trouble while he couldn’t physically do anything to help, killed him. His loved ones were everything to him. It was a small circle, and it was truly ride or die.

So even just the fact that you were cramping whilst on your period bugged him, mainly because he couldn’t physically reach inside your body and force it to stop hurting.

Your grip on jj’s hand loosened a bit, no longer squeezing it. You nodded your head in response, reaching behind you to grab the bottle of pills before popping one in your mouth and swallowing it.

“I’m sorry for scaring you,” you sighed, now playing absently with his ring clad fingers, “I’m really sad I missed movie night.”

jj shook his head at that, planting several more kisses across your forehead, the last one lingering a bit longer than the others.

“Nah, baby, quit apologizing. It’s only 8, we still got plenty of time. Now, is there anything I can do to help my girl?” He asked you, hoping that if you were gonna be in pain all night, he could at least offer you a sense of emotional comfort.

“Can you stay?” You asked immediately, pulling softly at his hand.

He couldn’t hide the smile that tugged at his lips, being quick to kick his shoes off and lower himself down to lay next to you, pulling you close to him.

He gave you the freedom to adjust yourself whichever way was the most comfortable, your head on his chest as he lay on his back, his arm resting above you as you relaxed against him, sighing into the fabric of his shirt. His smell was nothing short of comforting to you. It was familiar, it gave you love, and it was jj.

“If you feel up to it a little bit later, I can run you a bath. You should still have those bath salts from last time, yeah?” He murmured against the top of your head, resting his chin comfortably against you.

“Mhm…” you mumbled, your eyes already beginning to feel heavy once again.

jj smiled to himself, not responding as he wanted to let you sleep again, knowing that was one of the only things that truly helped you.

He would lay with you all night, holding you safely in his arms. He would end up hot and a bit sweaty from the heat that radiated from your heating pad, but he wouldn’t let it bother him in the slightest.