merelydaydreaming

[merelydaydreaming]

"Kenma."

The game buzzes on, the battle music intensifying. The thing his character is facing has changed, taking on its second form as Kenma's character rolls and swings its sword. The man himself is curled into his knees, chest tucked forward in anticipation, like he's about to hop out of his chair.

"Ke-"

"In a second," he cuts you off. His unblinking eyes never leave the screen, peering through his blonde bangs. "I just have to beat this boss."

With a huff, you sink back into your chair.

"Last time you said 'just a second' it took you two days to beat the damn thing," you remind him. "I'm not immortal-- I don't have time to sit around for you."

Frankly, you often forget Kenma is immortal until moments like that. You had always thought that vampires would be menacing or carry some sort of grandeur, but everyone you've met has been so spectacularly normal. Kenma, for instance, seems like every other guy your age: aloof and obsessed with video games.

"Get bitten then," he shrugs. "Kuroo would be happy to."

Your spine trills at the thought of it. When you first met Kuroo, you thought her was odd in the most normal way possible. He was practically nocturnal because he claimed to work remotely overseas, but he still went to bars and played indoor volleyball: average activities for an average man-

Or, that's what you thought, until you learned about the whole vampire thing.

Honestly, it's only made you more attracted to him. The mystery, the danger-- what's not to love? You'd be lying if you said you had never thought of his teeth on you, his hands on your body-

"That's what I wanted to talk about."

Kenma's head whips around. This game doesn't pause; the monster smacks his avatar across the screen.

"You're turning?" His voice is either bright with surprise or shock. You've known Kenma for a while now and you still can't seem to read his motivations. You're not sure why Kuroo incorporated you into the fold of his undead friend group, but here you are, sitting in their living room.

"No, uh-" What you're about to ask suddenly feels silly. "I wanted to... Can I see your teeth?"

Kenma's expression settles and he picks up the controller that you hadn't realized he dropped.

"I died for that?" He flicks the game off. "You could have waited for that. I'll still have teeth in a week."

You have to bit your tongue to stop yourself from losing your mind. Kenma just goes back to gaming, eyes narrowing with effort.

"I could be dead in a week."

"You won't be."

"I could be," you say. "I could have a stroke at any moment."

"You won't." He mashes the buttons extra hard, so hard the plastic creaks. "And if you did, we'd know before you did."

The character dies much earlier than it usually does.

"How would you know if I had a stroke before I did?"

"It smells sour when..." His eyes finally turn your way again. "Whatever. It's fine."

"Fine to touch?" you say.

He beckons you over with a nod of his chin. "Yeah."

Pushing off from your seat, you walk over to where he's sitting. Kenma doesn't bother to stand. He tilts his head back, looking up at you with a slight smile.

Already, you can see them. The sharp, vivid white teeth behind his pale lips. They have the usual shape, but anything uncanny edge makes your skin crawl. It's something you can't quite place, maybe something not there at all.

To get closer, you slide a leg onto his chair, angling yourself over him the best that you can. You're surprised when his hand rests on your thigh for support.

"Don't look so scared," Kenma says, a bit too coy for your liking.

You hadn't realized you'd been making a face at all.

"Just don't bite me."

Kenma opens his mouth and his teeth catch the dim light, strange for how dry his mouth seems to be. His canines are slightly elongated, just a hair more than a usual human. Gingerly, you run your fingers across the front of his teeth, then down to their edges. There's almost a razors edge to them, enough that you can feel the ridges of your fingerprint catching.

"Sharp," you quip. You leave a pause for Kenma to respond, but then you realize he can't, not with his mouth open for you. He just watches you, eyes flickering from one of your eyes to the other.

This isn't intimate, you remind yourself. It's scientific curiosity.

It can't be intimate, because you like Kuroo. Not Kenma. No, you don't like it at all that his hands are around your waist and you're cupping his cheek with your free hand, that his breath somehow smells soothing-

His canines seem longer now. More jagged, sharp. You press the pad of your thumb against it and watch how your skin easily skins in, no resistenxe whatsoever. Then, you pull away. A drop of blood wells up at the spot; there's no pain whatsoever, but the thumb tingles, like menthol and cocaine, riveting and calming all at once.

Kenma leans into the palm of your hand, then cranes his neck ever so slightly to envelop your finger in his lips. It's the most delicate of touches, a ghost of a memory of a kiss, but when he pulls away, crimson has settled into the cracks of his lips.

"Your heart's beating-" his tongue runs over his lower lip. "Really fast."

Kenma pulls you closer, arms now tight around your waist. You don't know when you got so close, when your bodies suddenly were pushed together, but now they are--

and now your finger is in his mouth. The gentle, crushing pressure of suction surprises you, but not more than the desperate whine he makes when blood hits his tongue.

That buzzing had spread up your arm and you can suddenly feel it, feel how your heart runs heavy and fast for him. Kenma's eyes are so lidded, barely open, heavy with want, that you can barely make out how his pupils have narrowed into cat scratch slits.

"Oh," you babble. "Oh, it's--"

"Feels good?" Kenma isn't speaking, but you can hear his voice.

"Y-yeah."

"I can make you feel good." There can't be that much blood from that tiny spot, but Kenma swallows deep as if there is. "Anytime you want."

The plush of his tongue swipes up your digit. Oh, maybe you are bleeding out. Maybe he's killing you. You're hot and cold and weak and strong and, and, and--

"You never have to ask Kuroo for-"

The front door of the apartment slams closed. A familiar set of boisterous laughter echoes through the halls-- Bokuto and Kuroo are hone. When you pull away, Kenma gives no resistance, his eyes still fixated on you.

An unjust guilt rises in your throat. You examine your hand, expecting a torrent of blood, only to be greeted with the smallest blossom on your finger tip.

"Were we supposed to do that?" you whisper.

"It's fine." Kenma adjusts himself in his chair, pulling at his pant legs. "They'll scold me, not you."

That doesn't make you feel better.

"Thanks," you say, awkwardly heading for the door. "For the-- thanks."

"Hey," he's using his real voice this time. You pause, turning back to him to catch his wide, Cheshire grin. "Thanks for the snack."

[merelydaydreaming]

hockey player!iwaizumi x f!reader, tooth-rotting fluff, like sweeter than cotton candy, slight injury

When Hajime lost his tooth, he hated it.

He’d always privately had a little bit of a complex about his looks. Growing up best friends with Oikawa made it hard not to compare their looks and come up lacking. He tried not to let it get to him, never verbalized it to anyone, knew that he was still fine. Just nothing special.

They both grow up playing hockey—at least he can beat up Oikawa on the ice (and they always laugh about it off of it). Oikawa goes pro, right out of high school, and Hajime spends a little time dicking around playing college hockey in America before he gets drafted.

He had met you at the bars after a game; his first win after being traded to the team Oikawa’s played for for a couple years now.

The memory is clear: It’s great to be back together, but he feels some trepidation in the car the guys rented, some childish part of him reticent about the idea of going out and watching chicks swarm his best friend, just like their teen years.

He doesn’t even really have time to think about that once they’re in, though, because he, the newbie, gets sent up to order. While he’s waiting for the bartender to pour them the first round of shots, you tap him on the shoulder, touch so soft he barely feels it after getting pummeled on the ice. His right shoulder is tender because he’d slammed hard into the railing right after stealing the puck from Ushijima, sending to Tooru, who had pushed it neatly into the net. An assist on the first goal of the night, and he’d gotten a goal in himself by the third period too.

It twinges as he turns to face you, a clear question written all over his face. It’s not like he’s totally oblivious, like he’s never been flirted with. It just somehow always surprises him still.

“You’re fine,” you declare, already a little tipsy, your cheeks warming as he observes you in your night out outfit. He doesn’t notice a single other girl, talking to Oikawa or not, the whole night.

The next morning, you repeat it to him, curled up against his naked chest, eyes unclouded by drink but your words just as genuine.

It was the first time he’d ever thought of being fine as a good thing.

So when the tooth, his right front one, comes out, cracked by a hard high stick to the face, he almost doesn’t want to come home after the game. It probably doesn’t make sense to get it replaced completely—injuries like this are common in his line of work, and it’ll be a hell of a lot more trouble to keep replacing fakes. He opts for a partial denture, something he can take out during games, but the mold takes twenty-four hours to cure.

You attend as many of his games as you can, but he’d insisted that you head home on your own while the doctors checked him out. You’d ceded only on the condition that you’d have dinner waiting when he got back, something soft and good at room temperature so he wouldn’t aggravate the nerves.

He frowns when you see him, crossing the room and hovering your hands over his swollen cheeks and telling him how worried you’d been, how happy you are he’s okay.

“When’s it gonna be technically healed?” You ask, and his heart clenches.

“It’ll probably be sensitive for a few more days, but they’ll have a coverup ready by tomorrow,” he says. Before he can crack a joke like so you don’t have to look at this ugly mug too long, you’re looking at him with a contemplative expression, one he doesn’t know how to read.

“So… will it hurt if I kiss you?” You want to know. “I feel so bad, ‘cause it must have sucked, but you look so cute like this.”

His heart drops straight through the pit of his stomach in relief.

“Yeah, baby, it’ll be fine… Ow! Ow! Okay, little gentler.”

Still, he wears the flipper as often as he can once he gets it. He doesn’t like the way it looks, the gap, he reasons. Just because you say you do doesn’t mean he’s okay with showing up to functions looking even more like a scrub to your perfect ten. And yeah, he’d think you were beautiful with a paper sack over your head, but it’s just different.

He can hear you whispering before he even walks into the kitchen. You beam up at him, as beautiful as that night in the bar, and his face breaks out into a smile before he even registers it.

“Do you wanna…” you nudge your daughter, and she turns to him, smile just as bright as yours. His heart stops.

There’s a big gap in that smile, the right front tooth missing.

“Look, Daddy!” He catches her up in a big hug, hefting her up so he can inspect her face closely. “Now we match!”

It’s all crashing down on him. He’s bubbling up with it, the fizzy feeling you’d given him in the bar, the tears as he vowed until death do us part, the softness as he’d cradled her in his arms for the first time. You stand, leaning your head on his shoulder as your daughter tells him all about the loss of her first tooth, about the importance of being the first in her class to lose one.

“You’re so brave, kiddo.” He kisses her head. “Makes you even cuter. Want some yogurt?”

[merelydaydreaming]

Sleazy Dabi who likes going for the sweet ones, the ones who can hardly look him in the eye and hesitate a little when he gets close to them. The ones who always chuckle nervously when he starts flirting, whose words turn to whispers when they admit they’re new to this whole thing.

Whole thing? He always asks with a tip of their chin to look him in the eye. Whole thing with guys like you, they always mumble back. He likes the look, the challenge, the fight in their eyes as he knows how his charm can soothe their battling minds.

He wins every time.

Sleazy Dabi who likes the inexperienced ones, the ones who stutter and stumble and shake a little when his hand rests on their thighs. The ones who tell him, they don’t know what they’re doing. He loves the sweet little look that passes over their faces when he reassures them that he’ll be there every step of the way, holding their hands if he needs to.

But sleazy Dabi who loves you the most. His latest, and last, plaything turned lover. Who used to be so scared to touch him without shaking, who couldn’t look him in the eye without smiling whenever he kissed you. Who used to sing him the prettiest songs whenever he made you work for it, gain that confidence he knew was lurking beneath the shadows.

Before, when he told you to ride him for the first time, he can still remember the scared little look on your face. How your eyes grew round and you fiddled with your fingers, whispering that you don’t know how—don’t know what to do—where to put your hands—where to look. He comforted you, walked you through the whole thing until you lost yourself in the moment and fell headfirst into him.

And now? Now, he doesn’t even have to ask.

“It looks so pretty,” he hears you murmur under your breath, eyes snapping down to look at the sight of you. Pumping a hand around his drooling cock, pulling until the pre gathers in your palm, only to slide it back down again once more. He looks up when he feels your stare, licking his lips at your hung open mouth and round eyes and heaving chest.

“Lemme ride it. Please?” You ask softly. Usually, he’d remind you of your manners, question where that sweet, innocent, hesitant person went, ask when you became so bold. But you look so hungry for it, already raising on your knees, already swiping his pierced tip through your wetness.

“You know it’s yours. You don’t even have to ask.” Dabi mutters against your mouth when you lean into him, gasping when he breaches your hole. And he means what he said—ever since he met you, every part of him has been yours, even if you didn’t know it yet.

[merelydaydreaming]

pacrim au where the miya twins are an unstoppable force, some of the best pilots you've ever seen, right up until osamu decides he's had enough.

it's weird. you've seen them in the mess hall, their movements so in sync it's almost scary, their identical features in the same sneer whenever someone's stupid enough to go up and thank them for their service. it's the only thing we can do, atsumu always says, it's everything. osamu says nothing.

and then one day he leaves. whispers follow his retirement, positing injury, cowardice, whatever. you don't pay attention to it; you're not the type to idolize or demonize pilots.

and eventually atsumu starts coming back to the mess hall, and it's weirder. he's missing half of himself, his movements awkward now, his expression a little bit lost no matter how much bluster he tries to muster up.

so you sit next to him one day, and notice that he's stiffened up next to you, waiting for you to beg him for salacious gossip or a chance to ride in his jaeger. you don't, though, you just sit there and eat your fucking slop.

he's not the kind of guy who can handle silence, so eventually he starts making small talk, and when you don't flinch away from his abrasive words it softens into friendship. when it's been long enough and he knows you keep to yourself, at least the important things, you finally ask:

"why did he leave?"

he shrugs. "said he was tired of seeing me die every time he closed his eyes. i get it, but..." his laugh is cold, metallic. "it was the only thing we could do, and i can't do it without him."

you take his hands, a fierce expression on your face, and tell him that with passion like that, there has to be someone else he's drift compatible with. he doubts that, but piloting's everything to him, so he may as well try.

people clamor to test their compatibility with the last half of the infamous miya twins. it's hard enough to sort through the rabid fans for people who actually share his drive to fight, and then nobody really clicks with him anyway. you start to be able to see it before they even get on the mat, an unevenness to their breaths compared to the precision of his every movement, a wild look in their eyes that breaks with his unwavering focus. off the mat, he slings an arm round your shoulders and asks what color slop you think they'll be serving today.

eventually, though, someone breaks through the ranks. you think they'll almost be able to get through, that they can just sit in the mech that's been empty for months and maybe that tenuous, precious connection will form, but instead... just before they raise their fists, they glance over at you, and with what feels like a lifetime of experience evaluating each person in relation to your golden pilot (when did you start thinking of him like that?), you know instantly what's going to happen. for the first time, you see atsumu lose control, rolling around with the potential pilot shouting obscenities. you think he uses his teeth at one point.

when they're finally separated, atsumu stands, hair wild, and points at you.

"i'm done with this bullshit," he says. "the next time i get in a jaeger, you're gonna be the one at my side."

[merelydaydreaming]

people assume they’re going to be able to threaten you and push you around when they find out the new head of the controlling local crime family is an omega

they find out when they meet you, though, that you’ve got an alpha guard dog. who is wild and strong and fiercely loyal. who you keep on a tight leash and who you pet to soothe. who bares his teeth and snaps his jaws at anyone who even thinks about getting close to you

[merelydaydreaming]

hold ‘em up (above my heart)

summary: Atsumu x F!Reader. the sun rises and sets over and over as your relationship progresses from friends to pro yearners to more.

wc: i don’t know but last i checked it was like 6k

cw: friends with benefits subplot and all that entails; not explicit, just suggestive

a/n: hi i didn’t die :3

“Hands up,” you say, voice low so as not to disturb the peace of the morning.

Atsumu raises his arms, elbows bent, making a frame of his face. His blond hair is pale, almost white because his little kitchen window faces east and he wakes before it rises above the upper pane. You sidle past him, back to his front, ignoring the weight of his hand as it settles on your hip while you reach up for the granola you keep in the cabinet next to the fridge.

He likes traditional Japanese breakfasts, the savory and umami flavors of natto and rice and miso. You have a sweet tooth and a craving for crunchy food, like a wild animal that needs to grind down its molars. On the days he has work, he settles for an omelette (or scrambled eggs if he fucks it up). You eat the same thing every morning or you'll be sick.

Growing up, Atsumu was never a morning person, but he sleeps better on the nights you're next to him. He doesn't get angry when you slosh milk over the side of his bowl onto his dining table, doesn't snap when you ask him what his plans for the day are. Maybe this is what being an adult is, these steady waters and calm skies.

You don't speak much as you chew, staring into space and thinking the slow thoughts of the exhausted, and he busies himself scrolling through his group messages and social media accounts.

There's a request from a verified account, a retired athlete-turned-model. He knows her name, has seen her in ads, bumped into her at the last Olympics. He clicks on it.

Hey, handsome. I'll be in Osaka this upcoming weekend - let's get a drink!

"I'm gonna shower," you're patting your hair, looking irritated. It always sticks up in the morning, no matter how you sleep on it, a few particular strands defying gravity.

"You should go to work like that," he says, voice still rough even if his mind's woken up. His accent is thicker in the morning, you've told him, but he can't hear it.

"Hell no," you say. "You're the only one who gets to see this morning glory for now."

"I better be," his grin is roguish, running his hand through his own bird's nest. "C'mon, you gonna let me shower with you or what?"

"No, you'll use up all my nice shampoo again!" You fake running to the bathroom, keeping your pace slow enough for him to wrap his arms around your waist and tackle you down, careful to fold himself so that you land on top of him, body between his legs, face cushioned on his chest.

He leaves his phone face up, forgotten on the table.

He's toweling off his hair, dressed in his practice uniform, while you're packing your bag for the day in the kitchen. His apartment is small, way smaller than some of the other guys' on the team, but he grew up crammed into a room with his mom and his brother. He'd toured one penthouse and decided he couldn't live with all that space strangling him.

He'd tried to get Samu to bunk with him like old times, but his brother had just said I'll sleep three meters from your dirty laundry in hell, and that was the end of the argument.

Besides, he has a lot of car bills to pay. He managed to fold another Mazda last month and you've been carpooling in your ancient Toyota while he waits to get license privileges again ever since.

"You got a text, by the way," you say casually, digging through your purse with your lips twisted to the side. "Aha!" You pull out a tube of lipstick triumphantly. "You should respond before you forget."

"Ah, was it Samu?" He asks, crossing back into the bedroom to put away his damp towel.

"Nah, the model," you call. "Sorry, I read your texts."

You're fighting the growing bitterness of the words, trying to sound jaunty and uncaring and casual. The admission of invading his privacy weighs heavily on your shoulders; you can't make yourself look up into his face when he comes into the kitchen.

"I don't care," he shrugs. "You can read whatever you want."

"You shouldn't say that," you try to laugh and wince instead. He just grunts and picks up the phone, swiping away from the conversation and leaving her on read. "I don't have the right, don't I? I shouldn't have—"

"I really don't care," he cuts across your strained attempt at an apology again.

"You should!" You sound like you're about to stamp your foot at him. He doesn't understand why you're so angry; he doesn't bite. "Aren't you gonna get mad? Shouldn't we be fighting?"

"I don't wanna fight," he rubs his large, calloused hand over your shoulder, your upper trapezius, to cup the back of your and pull you into a loose embrace. You stand, dumbfounded, chin pushed into his shoulder, hands at your sides. "Do you? We can if you want to."

"No," you whisper. "Sorry, I—sorry."

"'S okay," he says, digging his thumbs into the tight knots of muscle. "No big deal. Here, you dropped your thingy."

The thingy is the tube of lipstick, a deep berry color, rolling towards the edge of the table. He steps back and squeezes your cheeks in one hands, prompting you to part your lips slightly. He does it how he knows you do, a soft smear on the lower lip and two dabs made sharp by a swipe of his thumbnail on the outer creases, all blended together at the end for a subtle touch of color.

"You look like a frog about to burp," he says when he's done. You laugh so hard you cry.

On the car ride to work, you keep chewing on your lip. He frowns when he notices, all his work bitten off.

You wait for him to get out of the car first, a holdover from the days when you would wait five minutes so no one would notice that you were coming from the same place. In some ways, it's easier that he crashed his car; so convenient that you volunteered to be his chauffeur. He comes to your side, opens your door. You squint at him, jutting your chin out like you're bracing yourself for something.

"I wasn't gonna go out with her," he tells you, a secret between you, him, and the hard asphalt of the MSBY gym's employee parking lot. "Ain't nobody else seein' this in the mornings either. That's all."

He turns around and strides off, leaving you blinking in the morning light.

"Can you move it?" You say, your brows knit together. Hinata grimaces.

"I can bend it, like this—" he curls the injured finger inward. "But it won't stretch out, like this. Ah!"

You release his hand, where you'd applied pressure to the digit. "It's sprained. You're sitting out the rest of practice."

"Aw, but it really doesn't hurt that bad," he protests. You give him a look. "Okay, okay. Can I least do some running and stuff?"

"Do you want to come to practice tomorrow?" You say evenly. He gives you big brown puppydog eyes and you fold like wet paper. "I'll give you some stretches and exercises for your legs that you probably can't fuck up."

"Yay!" He cheers. "Thank you!" He uses an affectionate diminutive of your name with -chan tacked on the end. You laugh and wave him off, walking out of the main gym area toward your office, where you can print him the exercises.

You lean against your desk while the printer huffs temperamentally, taking a long sip of coffee. You should really stop going over to Atsumu's on weeknights, but you've been telling yourself that for well over a year, and it's a lot more convenient since all your clothes and your toothbrush live at his place.

You tell yourself a lot of things when it comes to your blond coworker.

The door to your office slams open and you make an involuntary, high-pitched noise in the back of your throat, focusing hard on keeping the cardboard cup in your hand from jumping with you.

"Sorry, sorry," Bokuto says, his hair drooping dramatically. "It's just really important—Tsumu's hurt!"

You take an inhale so quickly it hurts and burst your coffee cup all over your coat and work pants. Luckily, you take it mostly milk and sugar, so it doesn't burn you, but you don't even really notice it, just shedding the coat and rolling up your sleeves as you stride out the door without hesitation.

Behind you, Bokuto follows, making garbled promises you hear as through water to buy you a house to make up for startling you and ruining your outfit.

You try to take three deep breaths before you enter the gym, knowing you'll be much more helpful calm rather than battling the wall of panic that threatens to overtake you. Atsumu is blocked from your vision by a crowd of his teammates, fluttering around him like a herd of bumblebees.

Iwaizumi is already there, you see with an exhale of relief, ordering everyone around him to stay calm. You motion to the players around him to give him space, hoping your terror doesn't show untowardly on your face, hoping he can feel your singleminded prayer: please be okay.

"Eh?" He has a dopey expression on his face, dopier than usual, anyway. He says your name gleefully, but you're too busy scanning him for visible blood or bone to respond right away. "Nice shirt. Hey, why's your coat off? Were you taking off your clothes in there? Without me?"

"He collided with Sakusa," Iwaizumi tells you. Atsumu reaches for your hand and you stroke your fingertips lightly over the back of it, along the bones and tendons, each touch saying you'll be okay, it's going to be okay.

I'll make it okay.

"Sakusa's shoulder got banged up, you should probably put him on reserve for a couple days," Iwaizumi says. You glance over at the black-haired spiker, who gives you a thumbs-up though his expression is characteristically flat. "Atsumu, though... he fell pretty hard."

You can see that. There's a bruise blooming along the side of his face, like the sloppy trail of your lipstick after a night out. His ankle is swollen, too; the disorientation of the head injury must have impaired the grace of his landing.

You kneel and shift into clinical mode, receding into the comfortable space of your training. You feel along his leg, asking him over and over does it hurt, can you move this, does it hurt when I do this.

"Okay, doc?" His beautiful honey eyes are unfocused. You want to cry. You want to squeeze his hand tighter, but you don't want to hurt him more. "S all good. I'm fine."

You shake your head, grateful it's not worse. Afraid of what you have to say to him.

"That's right, you'll be fine. But the concussion paired with the ankle injury... I don't think it's a good idea for you to return to practice for a month at least."

You squeeze your eyes shut and pull your hands away from him. He probably doesn't want to be touched. He might hate you for this.

What's the point of sleeping with the doc if I don't get special privileges, you imagine him saying, if you're gonna take my life away from me like this. A month of recovery doesn't sound like so much to other people, but you've been working around these volleyball freaks since high school. You know that it's everything to them.

"Okay," Atsumu simply says. You look at him. "You gonna drive me home?"

"If you don't mind," you say softly.

"Yeah, then it's okay," he says, and scoots around, hissing when he forgets and puts pressure on the injured ankle. He leans back, and you catch his head in your lap.

"I'm gonna break my leg," Barnes says from somewhere behind you. "I want the doc to hold me like that."

You hear a thwack and then Iwaizumi's voice: "Sakusa, stop concussing your teammates. L/N only has so much room in her car."

Atsumu recovers more quickly than you expect. You should have known, though; he's always had a strong ability to heal. He rarely gets sick and though he's brash and reckless and sometimes outright stupid, he's lucky. In almost all the inadvisable endeavors you've seen him pull, he almost never gets hurt.

You're not actually a doctor, not that the team believes that. You've been trying to explain that you're a sports medicine physical therapist for the three years you've been working for MSBY and not once has it deterred anyone from calling you doc.

Atsumu was signed six months after you started, and you had only been friends until a year after that. In all that time, you've been the consummate professional at work, never letting your touches linger, never stretching him too deeply, trying not to stare at him like he's just any other player. When he first propositioned you, you tried not to say yes too quickly, as businesslike as possible.

You went into sports medicine because of your sister. She had been a superstar from the moment she stepped foot on a tennis court; even at a young age you saw that she wielded the racket like it was an extension of herself. As the two of you grew in age, you also saw the ways she overextended herself: the swollen knobs of her knees, hidden under frozen packs of peas, the frequent doctor's visits for hyperextension, the tear tracks when she tore her ACL.

You had spent so much of your childhood waiting for her during practice, doing your homework in the bleachers, fielding questions about her play to the uninitiated relatives who came to support her matches that it felt like the most natural course of action to go into a career field that meant you could help her and others like her chase their dreams.

You had also almost exclusively dated athletes as a result. While you were attending university and chasing your certifications, you had been surrounded by two types of people: students and athletes. You had barely any time in your schedule, much less the ability to align it with a similarly crammed med student. Athletes, on the other hand, didn't have an obsession with comparing your knowledge, liked that you were too busy to monitor them all day long, and loved that you had to attend every one of their games because it was literally your job.

By the time you got the position in Osaka, you were beyond over the routine of dating the people in your care. You swore to yourself that you wouldn't mess around with the team and entered a yearlong celibate streak, which Atsumu blew up into a million pieces and never allowed to recover.

To his (and your) credit, the both of you became close friends before ever crossing the boundary of inappropriate conduct. Just because you were strictly business during work hours didn't mean that you, lonely and shy in a new city, were going to turn down your coworkers' offer to go out after practice. You'd gotten to know Meian well and considered Bokuto to be something of a little brother. Then they had traded a couple of players for Atsumu, and the moment he gripped your hand and slapped your shoulder instead of shaking it or bowing like a normal person, you knew that he was going to mean much more to you than any other of your team.

You had fallen quickly into a deep friendship, and his apartment was much closer to the team's favored bars than yours was, so it was just easier for you to go home and crash on his couch. And his couch was gross, because it belonged to a bachelor who had never heard of a steam cleaner, so one night you insisted on sharing the bed, and you had become good friends who cuddled weekly.

It happened like this:

You were the last two left in the booth that had once contained the extremely compressed bodies of several of the largest men in Japan, probably, but they had practice early the next morning and had trickled out, one by one. Atsumu had his head down on the table while you desperately tried to convince him to come home (already you were referring to his apartment as your home without thinking, though only a spare toothbrush and a coat were kept there at the time).

"Please," you said, "I'm so tired. I'm not even drunk anymore."

"I am," Atsumu said, turning his face toward you. "Very."

"I know," you groaned. "Let's go home."

"I can't," he said despondently.

"Why not?"

"Not with you," his words slurred together. "I gotta problem."

"What?" You suddenly felt very, very sick. Maybe you were more drunk than you'd thought.

"Mhm. I gotta apologize, I think."

Oh, you thought. This is it. He knows.

"I've been having," he hiccuped and turned his face into his arms again so that you couldn't hear the next thing he mumbled.

"I can't hear you like that," you say softly. "Please, Atsumu, you can tell me anything."

You've been seeing someone, and she wants me to stop sleeping over. She wants you to stop being friends with me. You need the apartment to yourself to have her over.

"No," he says, turning back to you again, his eyes glossy with drink, his lips pink and just the slightest bit open. "I have been having manly thoughts about you. Unmanly thoughts. Whatever."

"What do you mean?" You'd asked, heart beating fast.

"I wanna have sex with you," he said, and then slammed his forehead against the table until it left a red mark. "I'm sorry, women! It's wrong to dream about kissing your girl friends, I know!"

You ignored his nonsensical shouting and put your hand under his face so he wouldn't injure it.

"Then let's go home so we can have sex," you said. He whipped his head up so fast you worried for his spinal discs.

"You promise?"

You actually didn't have sex that night because he fell asleep as soon as you coerced him into the bed. The next morning, he'd been hungover and ashamed, stuttering and afraid to look you in the eye. You had given him a handful of painkiller pills and waited until he was washing it down with a glass of green juice before you said "I think about having sex with you, too," so that he spewed it all over the floor.

Maybe it was petty, but you needed vengeance for his forcing you to drag him bodily out of that bar the previous night.

After your first time, he said, awkwardly, something about not being able to commit to a relationship at the moment, something about difficulty expressing his feelings, about being too immature to settle. A script you were as familiar with as the back of your hands. You turned to him, swiping sweaty strands of hair out of your face, glowing with a smile as he stuttered his way through it, and said I know the game. We don't have to talk about it.

He insisted that it wasn't a game, that you deserved transparency and to be treated well, and you rolled over on top of him and kissed him until he forgot his own name.

During the month-long recovery period, you had resumed the friendship you had had in the early months of knowing each other, refusing adamantly to do anything strenuous or even unsportsmanly while you had to work much more closely together than ever before. You insist on sleeping at your own apartment for the first week, afraid of aggravating his injuries further, until he threatens to walk to you with his pillow and sleepover bag. You bring him food near-daily and call his brother when your schedule prevents you from doing so.

He's diligent about doing the exercises and stretches you assign him to bring him back to full functionality. Towards the end of his detention (you pinch him for using such a dramatic word), you start taking walks together, in the evenings on work days and the mornings on days off.

You keep expecting him to ask for space, to push you out of his daily routine, to realize that he's bored because he knows everything about you; there's nothing left to hide. Nothing except the one unspoken thing, the one you're sure he knows but you can't acknowledge.

New growth is beginning to sprout on the trees, grey wood dotted with little specks of bright green. Atsumu walks without a limp, now, his posture straight but relaxed, his hands shoved into his pockets.

His body is healed, but his heart aches. You're wearing casual clothes, big soft pants that billow around your legs and a black shirt with his name in yellow letters, and you look far away, worried. No matter how many times he smooths the pinch between your brows away with his thumb, no matter how many times he asks what's wrong, you refuse him a straight answer.

He wonders if he's pulled you too close, in this month dying of boredom, forbidden from running and setting and anything that could damage his brain. He still gets to see you in the morning, your back arching as you stretch and yawn, the crinkle of your nose when your feet touch the cold floor outside of bed, which is probably slowly draining all the function from his grey matter.

You're wearing gloves, your extremities sensitive to the cold. He takes your left hand, tugs it off. When he tangles your fingers together, you look up at him, questioningly, that knot between your brows back again.

"What, woman, now I can't hold your hand?"

You stop walking. He curses his big, fat mouth. He always chooses the wrong thing to say, always has.

Osamu used to ask him what he was supposed to say to girls. Atsumu, proud big brother that he wanted to be, would puff out his chest and give him paragraphs of advice, and Osamu almost never used it. There were so few opportunities for him to advise Samu, though; he was so self-sufficient, maybe more than Atsumu had ever been. He was more introverted, less brash and crass and rude. Sometimes, when Atsumu ceded his insistence on being the wiser one with six more minutes of life experience, he wished he could be more like his twin.

"Do you love me like that, Atsumu?" You ask, mouth pressed into an unhappy line, already pulling away from him like you were expecting him to say something completely insane. "Because I understood fucking, and being friends with benefits, but I don't know if I get going out for food and holding hands and—"

"Like?" He says, refusing to let your hand slip from his. "I love you. That's it."

"Oh," you say, and your mouth is twisted up like you're searching for something he can't see again, but the crease in your forehead is gone.

"You gonna go out with me?" He says, and it comes out way easier than he ever thought it would, and if choosing the rest of his life is as simple a decision as chasing volleyball and you has been, growing up sounds way better than he thought. "'Cause I wanna do it all with you."

Once Atsumu's allowed to drink again, it's time for the real volleyball season to start, and his diet becomes much stricter and your schedule much longer, but eventually the two of you find yourselves back at the same old bar with the rest of the team.

"You're a scrub with no hope of survival in the zombie apocalypse," sneers Atsumu. This is a common topic of conversation among them; each one vying to be the leader of your hypothetical ragged survivors' team.

"I could win a fight against you with one hand tied behind my back," snits Tomas, who usually is oblivious to Atsumu's provocations but gets a lot feistier when he's drunk, to the setter's delight.

"Please don't," says Bokuto, his hair deflating in fear of his friends fighting.

"Haven't you had enough dick measuring," says Sakusa, holding a mug in front of his face like it'll prevent him from seeing Atsumu's and thus pretending he's not there.

"Have you guys ever done that?" You perk up, looking around. "Isn't that supposed to be a locker room ritual?"

"In high school, maybe," snorts Barnes. "We're way too old for that now."

"Yeah, we're real mature," insists Bokuto, his hair bouncing back up into its familiar two-pronged shape. You’ve long wondered how it does that, but if working with MSBY has taught you anything, it’s that science can’t explain everything.

You nod, taking another sip of your beer.

“So how big is it?” Atsumu addresses Sakusa and you squeeze your eyes shut. You just got him to start attending team bonding nights.

“Small. Leave me alone.” You choke on your drink, spluttering as you make eye contact with Sakusa and the tiny, prideful smirk on his face.

The rest of the team dissolves into laughter.

"What about you?" Hinata, his cheeks rosy, says to Atsumu. Before you can think, your drunken mouth speaks for you.

"You can’t have it, I called dibs!”

You slap a hand over your mouth, mortified. You can’t even begin to think about the rest of your coworker’s reactions. You haven’t even disclosed your relationship yet! Atsumu guffaws.

“I don’t think anyone’s trying to take it from ya, doll.”

[merelydaydreaming]

after an endless string of bad dates leaves you sexually frustrated beyond belief, you stumble across a soft dom blog on tumblr that leaves you reeling one night.

you’re not sure what it is about mttsn—the mysterious black and white aesthetic of his page, the pictures he posts of his hands sometimes (large, soft looking palms with long fingers adorned with rings), the inherently poetic undertones of his words. the witticisms that slip in between his filthy posts. the way all of his kinks seem to complement ones you didn’t even realize you had.

whatever it is, you’re entranced. to the point where you find yourself shivering with anticipation each night that you climb into bed to check if he’s posted anything new.

(to the point where you can’t get off anymore to anything but the submissive, needy, outright desperate space his words ease your mind into as you scroll through his blog, panting and moaning into your pillow.)

it’s fine, until someone sends him an ask begging him to post a guided masturbation voice clip, and he surprisingly obliges (you come so hard that night, you cry).

it’s fine, until you’re getting into your apartment building’s elevator one morning, and the tall, handsome, quiet guy who recently moved in across the hall hops in right before the doors close. you’ve never spoken to him before, but you know his name’s matsukawa.

it’s fine, until he thanks you for holding the doors, until he goes to introduce himself before recognizing you as his neighbor.

it’s fine.

until you, in turn, immediately recognize the deep, sultry voice that you’ve been touching yourself to every single goddamn night.

[merelydaydreaming]

I think. I think. the miya twins are always at each other's throats. they nip and nag and yell. they grow up and apart, like normal brothers do.

but atsumu crosses the entire country in less than a day when he finds out something happened the Osamu. he rents a car and sobs about the possible "what ifs", so hard that he pulls over to vomit twice

[merelydaydreaming]

sakusa is not a fan of babies.

he thinks they're sort of annoying. and loud. and he doesn't understand why their hands are always sticky.

he doesn't feel any real paternal instinct or drive to have kids of his own, and he never has, but when atsumu's baby looks up at him from the stroller you pushed court-side in the MSBY training gym one afternoon, with his big round eyes and a (frankly kind of endearingly dumb) look...

kiyoomi can admit the kid's not totally repulsive.

"omi-omi!" atsumu chirps cheerfully from the other side of the stroller when he notices his teammate approach, leaning over the handle towards him—in response to which kiyoomi recoils slightly on instinct. "isn't he cute? looks just like me, huh?"

kiyoomi opts to ignore atsumu, and turns to you instead—standing at your husband's side with a wry but affectionately exasperated little smile. you shoot kiyoomi an apologetic look for atsumu's antics while the two of you greet each other politely.

truthfully, you're one of the few visitors to the jackals's training gym who kiyoomi is willing to take a break in his practice to greet. though he usually finds these sorts of disruptions troublesome, you rarely visit and never stay long out of respect for the team's time, so he doesn't mind it quite so much. you're here this afternoon just to drop off paperwork your husband left behind at home that morning, even after you reminded him twice not to forget—which you explain with a pointed look at the blonde at your side. (kiyoomi has long-believed you're entirely too good—too sensible—to be married to a guy like miya.)

greetings aside, atsumu jumps right back into his nonsense.

"so, omi—wanna hold him?"

kiyoomi's lips part to immediately decline the offer, but just before he can get the words past his teeth—

"mimi!"

he freezes.

kiyoomi's gaze flickers down to the little boy in the pram again, more in shock than anything, and finds the baby's eyes are still firmly fixed in his direction—a tiny, semi-toothed grin on display now. "mimi!" the child says again, with that same lilt of excitement and a giggle as his little hand reaches out in the outside hitter's direction.

sakusa glances up at miya suspiciously—notably excusing you from the receiving end of his mistrustful gaze.

"what's mimi?" kiyoomi asks him flatly.

"yer mimi!" atsumu laughs, reaching forward and ruffling his son's hair affectionately. "little guy watches the game tapes with me on rest days so mama here can get some rest of her own. he musta heard me complainin' about ya messin' up yer serves one too many times."

"he picked it up a while ago," you add, shoving lightly at atsumu's arm for his rudeness. your eyes twinkle with mirth as you go on to say: "he always cheers when you're on the screen. i think you might be his favourite player."

atsumu guffaws at the suggestion, balking about the indignity—the betrayal—of it all, but kiyoomi largely ignores him (which he's gotten very good at over the years) and looks down at the baby once more instead. the little boy's hand is still outstretched in his direction, waving enthusiastically for his attention. kiyoomi peeks at you as if to translate.

"he just wants to say hi," you explain with an encouraging smile, coming around to the side of the stroller and crouching at your son's side. you press a kiss to his squishy cheek, and he gurgles happily in response with his hand still waving. "you're excited to see mimi, huh?"

and, well, kiyoomi's just as shocked as anyone else when he reaches out and tentatively brushes the tips of his fingers against the little boy's outstretched palm. even more shocked when he doesn't pull away once the baby's little hand wraps itself tightly around his pointer finger with a delighted squeal.

your son's hand is surprisingly soft—and thankfully not sticky.

and for the first time in his life he can't help but think that maybe babies aren't so bad after all.

at least this one isn't.

(the credit for which kiyoomi gives entirely to you and not your obnoxious husband.)

[merelydaydreaming]

MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS DNI

Hear me out on this. A pro hero dating show that everyone knows only exists as a way to boost the heroes popularity, promote various charities they run, etc. It's pretty low stakes, nothing promised to the civilian contestants other than a few dates with some heroes, but it's great entertainment. They've been trying to get Bakugo on for years, but he's always said no. He's popular, he's successful, he doesn't need any help in those areas. It comes as a shock when he finally accepts the offer, and no one really knows why he does, but when he gets there he's taking it oddly serious. The producers remind him that it's low stakes and all, but he scoffs at them and brushes them off. If he's gonna do this stupid show, he's not there to play. He's gonna find himself a wife.

[merelydaydreaming]

what i would like to know on this fine sunday is: does your fave use their index and middle finger, or their middle and ring finger?

[merelydaydreaming]

if you and your fave were holding eye contact as a bonding exercise,

*assume it would go on indefinitely if someone doesn’t look away

[merelydaydreaming]

aomine is always the big spoon when going to bed, shoves one of his hands into your pants, the other curled around you to grope a tit. sighs contently before giving your pussy a wet little tap and wishing his best girl a good night.

[merelydaydreaming]

oikawa who switches to spanish when he’s about to cum.

[merelydaydreaming]

"issei?"

matsukawa looks away from the television and down into his lap, where you're currently half asleep with your head pillowed on his right thigh.

his flannel shirt rests over you like a blanket, and you tiredly curl your fingers against the soft, dark green material, enjoying the way the scent of his cologne lingers on it.

you blink up at your roommate, at his dark, tousled curls, at the fond way he's smiling down at you as he waits for you to continue.

"i'm going to miss stealing your shirts and falling asleep on you and drooling on your pants."

you laugh as you say it, but there's a twinge in your heart that's been aching for days.

his brows furrow, his handsome features twisting in confusion. "what, am i dying or something?"

"well, no, but..." you trail off, and he waits.

"but..."

"your ex stopped by last week."

he makes a face. "she did."

your chest hurts.

you've been roommates with matsukawa for three years, since he moved into the second bedroom in your apartment when your roommate left for grad school. he couldn't afford the place he'd been renting with his ex on a single income, so it worked in your favor and his.

and while you were good friends before, since high school, you've grown inexplicably closer since.

closer in a way that makes your next words stick to the back of your throat and the valley of your tongue like solidified honey.

"and now that she's moved back to miyagi, well...i know the whole reason she broke up with you was because she was leaving. and i'm sure now she wants to get back toge—"

"that's not why we broke up," he interrupts you.

"it's not?"

"i broke up with her."

this time, you're the one with a face that's twisting in confusion.

"she did show up here the other day because she wanted to get back together. i don't even know how she got this address. but i've been ignoring all of her texts and calls for weeks."

oh.

"but i told her i don't want to get back together."

what?

"why?" you breathe out, heart thudding oddly in your chest.

matsukawa looks up at the ceiling for a moment, breathing in through his nose slowly, like he's thinking about his next words carefully.

when he glances back down at you, there's an expression on his face that you can't quite read, one that leaves you feeling dizzy and warm.

"i guess i realized that maybe i don't really like thinking about you stealing some other guy's shirts and falling asleep in some other guy's lap."

[merelydaydreaming]

[merelydaydreaming]

have you ever heard of the ‘group effect’? how people are more attractive as a group but if you take them as a singular person, their flaws are magnified and they become wholly less appealing?

that’s osamu but opposite.

osamu’s so cool when he’s alone. respectful and kind to elders, engaged in children’s conversations. he knows how to haggle the most intimidating vendors, can fix a leaky sink, and appreciates drawings made by 5 year olds.

but then you place him in the same room as atsumu and then you realize he’s one half of a whole idiot.