#{i went so so so so so so overboard with this}

[aesthetically-dying101]

how would the reader finds out that they were a bet (jjk men) but not only were they a bet but their entire friend group (the rest of the jjk group) knew about it and kept it from the reader?

I've fallen for a lie.

A/N: (inspired by: No time to die, my friend plays it on repeat) so... don't hate me, but personally, i think angst is HILARIOUS. ALSO, this is pure pain and suffering. fluff if you squint. Also i went overboard, like completely, i wrote way too much, my fav one is sukuna's.

DISCLAMER: i got this request 6 or so days ago, i've been working on this ever since, i did not copy retiredteabag (who did this post), someone just requested it on both our accounts. I wrote way too much just to throw this out so like.. yeah, proof (just in case, i just don't wanna start drama), but thank you to the anon that requested this!!!

Contents: pain. grovelling pathetic men. reader standing on bussiness bc i dislike the weepy y/n. yearning but like heartache. (im sorry for the choso/gojo/geto fans, this sucks for yall) nanami is perfect as always bc he's him. mostly angst.. toxic relationships.

Characters: Nanami, Toji, Gojo, Geto, Sukuna, Choso, Shiu, Higuruma. (in that order)

Three years.

Three years of laughter, memories, promises, and whispered secrets. Three years of holding his hand through everything, supporting him when the world felt like it was crumbling, believing that what you two had was real.

And it was all a lie.

Your fingers trembled as you held the phone, the conversation with Haibara still ringing in your ears. Your heart pounded in your chest as each word replayed in your head like an unrelenting drumbeat.

“It was a dare. Nanami was dared to approach you that night at the bar. He didn’t even know who you were at first.”

It was a dare.

Your stomach churned, bile rising in your throat as a cold sweat broke out along your neck. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. You must’ve misunderstood. Haibara had to be joking. That’s the only explanation. But why would he joke about something like that?

The pounding of your heart filled your ears, drowning out the sound of everything else. Nanami. The man you had come to love more than anyone else. The man who had asked you to marry him last month—last month—was a part of some sick bet? A dare?

You grabbed the edge of the table for support, your breath coming in shallow gasps. Three years… Was it all just some game to him? Every soft touch, every shared meal, every late-night conversation? Was it all just some joke? A cruel one at that?

Your hands moved before your mind could catch up, yanking open the closet, throwing your clothes into a suitcase in a frenzy. The pain in your chest was so sharp, so visceral, it felt like a thousand knives stabbing into your soul. This was not happening. Not to you. Not after everything.

Your thoughts spiraled. No, no, no... How could he do this? How could he stand in front of you, gaze so soft, and tell you he loved you, that he wanted to build a life with you? He’d proposed. He’d promised. And now, it was all just a lie.

A dare.

The door clicked open, and the sound of his voice made your heart freeze in your chest.

“(Y/N)?” Nanami called, his tone light but confused, as if nothing was wrong.

You froze mid-packing, every muscle in your body locking in place. You could feel the heat of tears pooling in your eyes, but you couldn’t let them fall. Not now. Not when your entire life felt like it was collapsing around you.

You didn’t turn to face him. You couldn’t.

“(Y/N)... What’s going on? You’re packing—” His voice trailed off as he stepped closer, the sound of his shoes against the hardwood floor making the room feel smaller, more suffocating.

“Stop. Just stop,” you said, the words barely leaving your throat before they cracked.

You turned to face him, your hands shaking, the sight of him making you feel dizzy with anger and betrayal. His eyes widened at the sight of your suitcase, your movements hurried, frantic.

“(Y/N)... What’s wrong?” His voice was calm, too calm, like he was still in control. The nerve.

“Oh, what’s wrong?” you repeated, your voice rising as the weight of the truth came crashing down on you. “You don’t get to ask that. You don’t get to play the innocent card here. You lied to me, Nanami. For three years, you lied to me. And so did they.”

His expression faltered. It didn’t take much—just a flicker of realization in his eyes, but it was enough- and the worse part? You had called him Nanami. His expression was enough to make your chest tighten painfully.

“Y-You don’t understand…” Nanami started, his voice softer now, almost pleading. “Let me explain—”

“Explain?” you interrupted, your voice rising to a dangerous pitch. “You want to explain? There’s nothing to explain, Nanami. You were dared to talk to me. That’s it. That’s where it all started. Everything else, everything, was just... just what? Some twisted joke?” Your fists clenched at your sides, the raw anger and hurt making it hard to breathe.

His face shifted from confusion to guilt, then to desperation.

“I— Yes. It started as a dare, but everything after that was real. I never—”

“You never what?!” You couldn’t control your emotions any longer. “You never thought you’d fall for me? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

The coldness in your voice made his face fall. But he still pushed forward, trying to fix the mess he’d made.

“I swear to you, after that night—after we started talking—I fell for you. I fell hard, and I’ve never once regretted it. I love you. I’ve loved you from the very first time we met, even if it started as a dare, even if it was a stupid game, it was real for me. Everything I’ve said, everything I’ve done for you... It’s been real. I swear on everything, it’s been real.”

“Really?” The bitter laugh that left your lips was sharp, cruel. “You want me to believe that after all of this? After you had the gall to propose to me last month? You think that now is when I should trust you?”

You took a deep breath, each word cutting through the air like a blade. “I’m done. I’m done, Nanami. You don’t get to treat me like I’m a fool. You don’t get to lie to me for three years, and then think you can fix it by saying ‘I love you.’”

You turned away from him, your movements deliberate as you grabbed the engagement ring from your finger. The diamond caught the light, flashing like a cruel reminder of everything that had been taken from you.

You slammed the ring down onto the table, the harsh sound echoing through the apartment. Nanami froze, his eyes wide with shock and pain.

The sight of his face made the sting in your chest even worse.

“I’m not your fucking bet, Nanami. I’m not your fucking game.” Your voice broke, but you forced yourself to keep going. “I don’t need your lies. I don’t need you.”

You could feel his presence behind you, his breath heavy with emotion. “Please, my love, don’t leave like this. We can fix this. I swear to you—”

You turned toward him, your eyes burning with fury and sorrow. “Aren’t you supposed to be the mature one? The one who’s so responsible? The one who’s always so calm and collected?” You stepped toward him, your voice full of venom. “But you’re just a liar.”

You couldn’t stay here. You couldn’t breathe in this suffocating space any longer.

You shoved past him, your heart racing as you grabbed your things and headed toward the door. You slammed it shut behind you with finality, the sound ringing in your ears.

Nanami was left standing there, frozen in the silence of his own regret, the weight of your departure heavy in the air.

And as you walked away, your mind couldn’t shake the image of him, his broken face, his pain.

*-*

Three days. It had only been three days since everything fell apart. Three days since the man you thought you’d spend your life with turned out to be nothing more than a liar—well, not just a liar. A liar who dared to approach you. The realization felt like a poison that had seeped into your bones, one you couldn’t shake. You spent those three days in a fog of confusion, anger, and heartbreak.

You hadn’t gone back to your apartment; hell, you couldn’t. There was nothing left for you there. No trace of the life you thought you were building. So, you did the only thing you could think of: you went to your parents.

They’d been kind, as they always were, but their words didn’t reach you. They didn’t fix the deep, hollow ache in your chest. They didn’t make you forget the way Nanami had lied to you. The way he had made you believe that everything was real… until it wasn’t.

Your mom had tried to rationalize, telling you that maybe Nanami made a mistake, that people do things they regret, that maybe he’d never intended for it to go this far. Your father had simply kept quiet, unsure of what to say, but you could tell by the way he watched you that he was worried.

But none of their words made it past the wall you’d built around yourself. They weren’t wrong. They were just trying to comfort you. But how could you be comforted by someone who had deceived you? You’d given him everything, and now, what did you have left? A broken heart. A destroyed future.

Your mind spiraled as you sat on your bed, staring blankly at the wall. You were so angry, but most of all… you just missed him. You missed his voice, the way his hand felt in yours, the calm that came with being in his presence.

Why did he have to lie? Why did he have to make me believe it was real?

A soft knock on your door startled you. You didn’t move, didn’t respond. The door creaked open anyway, and your mother’s voice gently filled the silence.

“Honey, I know you're angry right now, but maybe it’s time to—”

You didn’t want to hear it. You didn’t want to hear anything about Nanami right now, especially not from her.

“Mom,” you said in a soft, tired voice, “please, just… just leave me alone. I don’t want to hear it.”

Your mother hesitated, as though weighing her words, but then she sighed. “I just… I want you to be happy again. I can’t see you like this.”

Before she could leave, she muttered something under her breath. It was so soft, almost like she was speaking to herself. “You were so happy with him, though. I could see it… We all could.”

You didn’t hear the door close.

You felt the sudden tension in the air before you even registered what was happening. Your heart skipped a beat when you heard footsteps coming toward the room. Your head snapped toward the doorway, and there, standing in the frame, was him.

Nanami.

Your breath caught in your throat. What the hell was he doing here?

Your mother gave you one last look, a silent apology in her eyes, before she turned and walked out of the room.

The door clicked shut behind her, and the silence that followed was suffocating. You didn’t know what to say. You didn’t know if you even wanted to say anything to him. He didn’t deserve your words.

And then, in the stillness, you let out a frustrated screech. The emotion you’d been bottling up for days finally exploded. You stood, shoving the blanket off the bed, pacing the room. How dare he show up here? You were so fucking angry. You didn’t even care that he was standing there, looking like he was about to crumble to pieces himself.

“You don’t get to just show up here!” you snapped, your voice shaking. “You lied to me, Nanami! You fucking lied to me, and now you think you can just walk back in and pretend everything’s fine?”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. He just stood there, his eyes dark with pain, his fists clenched at his sides. And then, without a word, he walked over to you, and before you could protest, he shoved something into your lap.

You looked down.

A stack of printed screenshots. What the hell was this?

You picked them up hesitantly, your fingers trembling as you stared at the words on the page. You saw his name. Haibara’s. You saw group messages, text conversations, timestamps. You felt a sickening pang in your chest as the realization began to sink in.

These were from the night you first met.

These were from the weeks after that night.

“I… I don’t understand.” You glanced up at him, your voice shaking. “What is this? What the hell is this supposed to prove?”

He swallowed hard, clearly trying to gather his composure. “Look at the messages. Read them.”

You flipped through the pages. The first few were from that night. They were screenshots of Haibara daring him to approach you, followed by Nanami’s messages in the group chat—messages about how nervous he was, how much he wanted to make a good impression, how he thought he might’ve met the love of his life.

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” you said, your voice barely above a whisper. You felt like you were suffocating. Why didn’t he just tell me this?

His eyes softened, and he took a shaky breath. “I wanted to, but… I didn’t know how to. I didn’t know how to say it without you thinking it was all a lie. I was terrified you’d leave me. But I couldn’t stop falling for you, (Y/N). I swear to you, everything after that night… it was real. I never thought this would happen. I never thought I would fall in love with you, but I did.”

Tears welled up in your eyes as you stared at the messages in disbelief. They were real. He hadn’t edited them. You looked up at him, the pain in your chest intensifying.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” you asked, voice breaking. “Why didn’t you just say something? I spent three years thinking it was all a lie. You could have told me.”

“I should have,” Nanami whispered. He took a step closer to you, his hands shaking. “I should have told you sooner. I was stupid. I was so scared that if you knew, you’d leave. But I… I love you. And I’ve loved you from the very start.”

You could feel the weight of his words, but your heart was still so raw, so broken. “This doesn’t just go away, Nanami. You can’t just… fix this.”

His face fell. “I know. I know I can’t. But I’m willing to do anything. I’ll go to marriage counseling. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this right. Please, [Y/N]. Please.”

You shook your head, unable to stop the tears from falling. “I can’t just go back to being with you. It’s not that easy.”

He nodded, stepping closer to you. His voice was raw, almost pleading now. “I know. I’m not asking for that. I just need you to know that I’m sorry. And that I love you. And I’ll keep fighting for you… for us.”

The words you wanted to say caught in your throat. You couldn’t decide if you should scream at him or pull him close. You were so angry, but you were also so fucking heartbroken.

But maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t the villain in this story. He was just a man who had made the most terrible mistake of his life. And you had been his greatest love all along.

Could you forgive him?

You didn’t know. But maybe… maybe there was a way.

It started like any other day, or at least it felt that way.

Megumi was at school, leaving you with the quiet hum of your and Toji's house. You cleaned, you cooked, you settled into the role you had grown to love. Step-mom. You could never have imagined you'd be so attached to that boy, but there you were. Caring for him, nurturing him like he was your own flesh and blood, even when it felt impossible.

The bond was real, undeniable.

And then… the phone call came. It was innocent at first—a quick check-in from Shiu. But it wasn’t the usual chat about Megumi’s progress at school or the latest movie you all wanted to see. It was different.

It was calculated.

The words hit you like a slap.

"It was a bet, Y/N. From the start. You were never meant to be anything more than that..."

You blinked. You heard him, but your mind couldn't fully grasp it. Your heart tried to deny it.

"A bet?" you whispered to yourself, voice quivering, feeling the blood drain from your face. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Toji and I, we made a bet. You were never meant to be the one. You were just… entertainment."

His words were sharp, laced with a smugness that made you sick. It felt like your entire world—no, your very identity—was just ripped from you in a moment of cruel reality.

You didn’t even hang up. You didn’t even need to. Your thoughts were spinning, dizzy with disbelief and betrayal. How could they? They—your friends, Toji’s closest allies—all knew. They knew, and not one of them bothered to tell you. Not one of them had the decency to warn you.

You weren’t even a person to them. You were a game, a pawn. A prize that Toji had to win.

Tears welled in your eyes. Your heart cracked open like a fragile shell. The life you thought you had built—Megumi, Toji, this family, this home—crumbled. You were just a tool, an object in their bet.

"No." The word broke through the veil of shock, raw and bitter. "No. I can’t—I can’t stay here. I need to leave."

You jumped up from the couch, grabbing your purse with trembling hands. It was like you were on autopilot, moving solely on the instinct to escape. The door. You just needed to get to the door. Leave. Go anywhere. But as you moved to turn the handle, it wouldn't budge.

You shook the knob harder, panic seizing your chest. It was locked. You turned to the windows, but they were all shut tight, reinforced. The walls felt like they were closing in on you.

"Toji," you whispered his name, the desperation in your voice clear.

The footsteps behind you weren’t subtle. You felt his presence before he spoke.

"Where do you think you’re going?" His voice was low, almost soothing, but you knew better. You knew the danger behind the calmness.

You spun around, anger bubbling up, fighting through the layers of hurt. "You locked the door?"

"Not just the door, sweetheart," he said, his smile sickeningly sweet, like it could erase everything he'd just shattered. "You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying right here. With me."

The tears you had been holding back finally fell, hot and painful. "You think I’ll just stay after this?"

Toji didn’t flinch. His eyes, dark and intense, never left you as he took a slow step forward.

"You’ve been good to Megumi," he said, his voice soft but laced with something darker. "You’ve been like a real mom to him. And now, you think you’ll just throw that away? Just like that?" He clicked his tongue, a disappointed shake of his head. "You’re too important to him."

The way he said it… It wasn’t a plea. It wasn’t even a question. It was a claim. A manipulation.

"What are you talking about?"

"You think Megumi won’t miss you?" Toji’s smile widened, and there was something almost predatory in his eyes. "You think he won’t notice? After everything you’ve done for him, after how you’ve helped him… You’re too good to leave."

His hands reached for you then, slow and deliberate, like he was reaching for something fragile, something precious. You backed away, but he was faster, gripping your arms and pulling you into his chest.

"No. No," you said, your voice shaking with the weight of all the lies. "You’re a fucking monster."

"You don’t mean that," Toji cooed, pressing a kiss to your forehead, his breath hot against your skin. "I know you’re angry. I get it. I really do. But this? This isn’t something we can just walk away from. You’ve got a place here now. A real place, with me and Megumi."

You pushed against his chest, but his grip only tightened, unyielding. "You think you can just control me like this?"

"You were a bet," he whispered, his voice rough now, but his grip still unshaken. "But you’re more than that now. You’re mine. And you’re not going anywhere."

Your heart broke all over again as you realized the depth of his control over you, the twisted grip he had on your life. You didn’t know if you hated him more for what he had done, or for what he had become.

"Please," you choked out, voice breaking. "Please let me go. I can’t do this anymore."

But even as you begged, you knew it was useless. The door was locked, and your heart had been sealed shut behind it.

He pulled you closer, almost tender now, pressing his lips to your ear in a way that sent chills down your spine. "Don’t worry, baby." His words were dark, possessive. "You’ll understand. You’re gonna stay here. You’ll stay for me. For Megumi. And you’re gonna love it."

And as you stood there, helpless in his arms, the room spinning with the weight of everything you had lost, you knew one painful truth: you would never leave. Because Toji wouldn’t let you.

And that was worse than any bet.

The world felt softer when Gojo was around.

The way his laughter filled the room, buoyant and unapologetic, made the edges of your anxiety blur. You were tucked away in a corner booth at your favorite cafe, his long legs brushing yours under the table as he speared your last bite of cake with his fork. You swatted at him, mock-offended, but his grin was so wide, so annoyingly genuine, that you couldn’t help but laugh. Gojo had this way of making you feel like the center of his universe, and after four months, you were hopelessly, undeniably in love.

“I’m telling you,” he drawled, tilting his head back dramatically, “you’re the only person who doesn’t find my charm overwhelming.”

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t hide your smile. “Oh, believe me, you’re overwhelming. Just not in the way you think.”

It was easy, being with him. Too easy. You excused yourself to the bathroom, still smiling, still warm, still thinking about the way his thumb had grazed yours when he handed your the cup of tea earlier. But when you returned, you froze just outside the booth.

“...I can’t believe she still hasn’t figured it out.”

“That’s the point of a bet, idiot,” another voice chimed in, one you recognized as Geto’s.

“Yeah, but four months? That’s dedication,” someone else snickered.

Your stomach dropped.

“It’s Gojo. He always has to win,” Geto said, and you could practically hear the smirk in his voice. “I mean, she’s cute, but still... a bet’s a bet.”

The air seemed to suck out of the room. Your hand tightened on the strap of your bag as your chest constricted, bile rising in your throat.

Bet? Bet?

Your feet felt like lead as you forced yourself forward. You didn’t look at any of them, didn’t dare meet Gojo’s eyes as you muttered something about not feeling well and left. He texted you an hour later, asking where you'd gone. You stared at his message for ten minutes before replying,

-“Period cramps. Really bad.”

His response came almost immediately: “You should’ve said something! Want me to come over?”

You stared at your phone, fingers trembling as you typed out, “No. I’m fine.”

Dry. Short. Controlled. Your heart wasn’t in it.

When you finally made it back to your apartment, you collapsed onto the couch and screamed into the cushions until your throat was raw. How could he? How could they? The whole group—your friends—had known and said nothing. Your tears burned, but fury burned hotter. Your mind replayed every moment, every kiss, every laugh. How much of it had been real?

The week that followed was suffocating. Gojo’s texts came in, as lively and obnoxious as always, but you gave him nothing in return.

-“Morning! Did you sleep okay?” -“Fine.” -“Want to grab dinner tonight? My treat 😉” -“Busy.”

He called once. You let it ring until it stopped.

At work, you barely acknowledged him. He’d saunter up to your desk, his usual grin plastered on his face, but your responses were curt, your eyes glued to your screen.

“Hey, you good? You’ve been acting weird.”

You looked up at him, expression blank. “I’m fine.”

It wasn’t fine. Nothing was fine.

The next group hangout was unbearable. They were all there, laughing and joking like nothing had happened. Like they hadn’t all played you for a fool. You were quiet, cold, your presence an icicle in their usual warmth.

“Hey, let’s grab a drink,” Gojo said, nudging your arm.

You stared at him, your jaw tight, before jerking your head toward a quiet corner. “We need to talk.”

He blinked but followed you, his usual confidence faltering under your glare. “What’s—”

“I’m done,” you said, loud enough that the others turned to look-god you wanted to humiliate him. “I don’t have time for your bullshit, Gojo. Your childish, manipulative, disgusting behavior.”

His eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb. The bet.” Your voice cracked on the word, but you pressed on, relentless. “Four months of my life, and it was a goddamn bet? Was it worth it, Satoru? Did you win?”

The color drained from his face. “Wait—how—”

“And you,” you snapped, turning to the rest of them. “All of you knew, didn’t you? You’re all assholes. Every single one of you. I trusted you, and you laughed behind my back.”

“Wait, it wasn’t—” Geto started, you cut him off with a glare that could shatter glass.

“I’m done,” you repeated, voice trembling with rage. “Have a nice life.”

You didn’t wait for a response, didn’t look back as you stormed out. Your chest felt like it was caving in, but for the first time in days, you could breathe.

Blocking them was the first thing she did when she got home. Every single one of them. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook (who even uses that anymore??), WhatsApp, even Spotify—gone. You didn’t want any trace of them in your life. No drunken messages. No half-assed apologies. No reminders of what you'd lost, what they’d taken from you.

Your phone buzzed relentlessly for the first few hours. Calls, texts, notifications from burner accounts, and even an email with the subject line, "Please, just talk to me." You deleted it without opening it. You didn’t owe him—any of them—anything.

The silence that followed was both a relief and a weight. Days stretched into a week, then two, and while you were still raw, still angry, you were learning how to exist in the emptiness they left behind.

Gojo, on the other hand, was unraveling.

At first, he was sure it was a misunderstanding. You'd cool off, he thought. You'd always had a fiery temper, but you weren't cruel. You wouldn’t just cut him off.

Except you did.

When he showed up at your apartment with a bouquet of sunflowers—the kind you loved—you didn’t answer the door. He stood there for half an hour, knocking and calling your name until a neighbor threatened to call the cops. He left the flowers on your doorstep, only to find them in the trash the next day, petals wilting, stems bent.

His texts became desperate.

"I messed up. Please, just let me explain." "I know you're mad, but I swear, it wasn’t like that." "I… I miss you. Can we just talk? Please?"

You read them all. Deleted every single one without replying.

At work, he tried to corner you in the break room, but you turned on your heel and walked out without a word. During a meeting, he sat across from you, staring holes into you as if his gaze alone could break your silence. But you didn’t look at him once.

One evening, he left a note on your desk: "Meet me on the rooftop after work. I just want to talk." You crumpled it into a ball and tossed it in the trash right in front of him.

The rest of their friend group tried to intervene. Geto texted you a half-hearted, "I know we messed up. Can we talk? I’ll explain." You blocked him immediately.

Shoko showed up at her apartment unannounced, knocking softly and saying through the door, “Hey, I just want to say I’m sorry. We didn’t mean for it to go this far—”

“Go away.” Your voice was cold, flat. You didn’t wait to hear Shoko’s reply before turning up your music to drown her out.

Gojo hit his breaking point one night when he sent her a long, rambling voice note. His voice was rough, almost frantic.

“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean for it to turn out like this. The bet—it wasn’t supposed to mean anything! I wasn’t supposed to… to feel this way about you. But I do. God, I do. And now I’ve ruined it. I ruined us. I know I can’t fix it, but please, just… just tell me how to make it right. I’ll do anything.”

You listened to it exactly once. Not to feel anything, but to make sure you weren't imagining the crack in his voice, the sound of him breaking- you almost thought about answering. Maybe there was a valid excuse- no.

It should’ve satisfied you. It didn’t. You deleted it.

Weeks turned into months, and Gojo still couldn’t let go. He went through every stage of grief, cycling between anger, guilt, and desperation. He replayed every moment they’d shared, trying to pinpoint where he’d gone wrong, where he could’ve fixed it before it fell apart.

But you had moved on—or at least, you made it look like you had. Your Instagram was private now, your profile picture replaced with something generic. Your Spotify playlists—once filled with songs you'd joked were about him—were gone. You were a ghost, haunting him in your absence.

And of course, at their next group hangout, you weren't there.

“She’s done with us,” Shoko said quietly, picking at the label on her beer.

Gojo didn’t respond. He was staring at his phone, scrolling through their old messages, reading your words over and over again like they were the only pieces of you he had left.

“I don’t have time for your bullshit.” “I trusted you.” “Have a nice life.”

He wasn’t sure which hurt more: the words you'd said or the ones you never would again.

You were not built for betrayal.

Not this kind, anyway.

The world felt as if it had been turned upside down. Each breath dragged its weight through your ribs, and your skin burned with the realization, a gnawing, buzzing kind of agony that spread like wildfire.

Suguru had been laughing.

Laughing.

“Come on, don’t look so upset,” he’d said the day before, his honeyed voice sweet with mockery. “You’ve been fun. More fun than I thought you’d be.”

The room had frozen. Everyone had frozen. Satoru, with his cocky grin faltering but still plastered in place. Shoko, lips pressed so tightly they’d gone pale. Even Nanami had avoided your eyes. They all knew.

The truth clawed its way into your mind, carving a jagged wound: you were a bet. An experiment. Entertainment. The words replayed themselves in your head over and over, drilling into the cracks of your soul. More fun than I thought you’d be.

And Suguru had led the charge. The man whose quiet kindness, whose quiet smiles, you’d clung to like a lifeline. Who’d called you “special” in the dim quiet of late-night conversations. Who’d made you feel seen.

It was nothing. You were nothing.

*-*

That night, you hadn’t cried. Tears would’ve been too easy, too human. Instead, you’d locked yourself in your dorm, let the cold silence settle into your bones, and stared at the ceiling until the walls blurred into one endless void.

What had been the point? Of everything? Every joke, every shared drink, every time Suguru had rested his chin on his hand and watched you with that glimmer of something in his dark eyes—what had it all been for?

The cruelest part wasn’t even the lie. It was the tiny seed of hope buried deep in your chest, stubbornly whispering: he didn’t mean it. Not entirely. Maybe they made him do it.

You hated that hope.

Hated it almost as much as you hated Suguru himself.

You couldn’t face them the next day. You hadn’t slept. You barely remembered dragging yourself to a bar off-campus, ordering drink after drink until everything blurred.

You hadn’t even noticed the curse until it was too late.

It was stupid, really. They taught you this in your first year: never wander drunk. Never let your guard down, no matter where you were. But you’d been so hollow, so angry. Maybe some part of you had wanted to stumble onto something. Wanted it to hurt.

The curse had been waiting, a writhing, monstrous thing. You were too slow, too uncoordinated to summon even the faintest spark of your cursed energy.

Its claws ripped through your chest. Its teeth found your neck. And all you could think about, in those last agonizing seconds, was Suguru. His face when he’d laughed. The way his eyes had gleamed with amusement.

You didn’t scream.

*-*

They found your body the next morning.

Shoko identified it first. She didn’t speak, didn’t flinch, just stared at the mangled ruin of what you’d been. Suguru didn’t understand at first—didn’t want to understand.

“Who is it?” His voice was calm, sharp. Detached.

When Shoko turned to him, her expression empty, he knew.

His body moved on its own, shoulders tense, hands trembling. He fell to his knees beside you, eyes wide and unseeing as they traced the jagged edges of torn flesh and drying blood.

It didn’t feel real. You were so…still. So quiet.

Suguru thought about the night before, about your face when he’d laughed, the hurt in your eyes that he’d ignored. A hand pressed against his chest, his cursed energy stuttering with each ragged breath.

“You’re lying,” he whispered. “It’s not her.”

No one answered.

*-*

The funeral was quiet.

Closed casket. Your body too mangled to be seen.

Suguru didn’t cry. He didn’t scream. He didn’t do anything, really, except sit and stare at the ground, arms folded tight over his chest as if trying to hold himself together.

Satoru tried to talk to him afterward, but Suguru didn’t hear him. Didn’t hear anything beyond the blood pounding in his ears. You were gone. Gone.

He remembered your laugh. Your voice, soft but steady. The way you’d touched his arm when you thought he wasn’t listening.

The grief hit him in waves. Slow at first, then all at once, crashing over him in an endless tide.

And when it was too much—when the weight of it crushed the air from his lungs—something inside him snapped.

The laughter from that night wouldn’t stop echoing in his head. His laughter.

You’d deserved better than this.

Better than him.

Better than all of them.

That was the day Suguru Geto stopped being human.

The regret ate him alive, twisted and burned inside him until all that was left was rage. At the world. At himself. At everything.

He’d find a way to fix it. To burn it all down and rebuild something where people like you wouldn’t exist just to be broken.

But no matter what he built, he knew one thing:

Your laughter would never fill the silence again.

The room was alive with celebration—the sweet burn of sake, raucous laughter of Sukuna’s inner circle, the murmurs of passing servants. You stepped in, the familiar ache in your chest softened by the sight of him. Sukuna, draped in the loose elegance of his kimono, surrounded by his boisterous companions. His crimson eyes caught yours briefly, and his grin sharpened—wolfish, commanding.

He had always been a man of many faces: a conqueror, a husband, a god in flesh. And yet, for all his unyielding power, you believed there was a version of him that had chosen you. The one who watched you in the quiet mornings with a gaze softer than his cruel reputation allowed. The one who, when alone with you, could almost seem human.

You believed in that man.

Until tonight.

“I’m surprised she hasn’t figured it out yet,” one of the men drawled, drunk on his own amusement.

“Patience,” another snickered. “It’s more fun this way.”

Laughter rippled through the group, but the words fell like stone in your chest.

Figured it out?

The haze of the room blurred. Your hand trembled as you gripped the edge of the screen door. Sukuna’s voice cut through the noise, the resonance of it always unmistakable.

“She’s sharp, though. Too sharp to not catch on soon. You’ve already cost me enough sake with your doubts, Ryota.”

Another bout of laughter.

The world stilled. Your heart was a drumbeat, steady but deafening. Each word he spoke was a dagger slicing through the fabric of your reality.

A bet.

Your knees threatened to buckle as the pieces began falling into place, sharp and unforgiving. The glances exchanged when you entered a room. The veiled smirks. The lingering silence whenever you asked too many questions.

They all knew.

Every. Single. One.

You stepped forward, the warmth of the room no longer reaching you. “What is this?”

The laughter stopped abruptly. Heads turned in your direction. Sukuna, ever the commanding presence, leaned back lazily against the wall, his lips curving into something dangerously close to a smirk.

“Ah, my little wife,” he said, voice like honey over steel. “What brings you here?”

You ignored the question. Your voice was a whisper, sharp as a blade. “What bet?”

The silence was suffocating. Even the drunken fools who moments ago were basking in their audacity now had the decency to look away.

“Tell me,” you demanded, stepping closer, your voice breaking on the edges.

Sukuna tilted his head, as if considering you, weighing whether you deserved the truth.

When he spoke, it was almost casual. “A simple wager, nothing more. They doubted I could make you mine.” His eyes gleamed with something you couldn’t name—amusement? Pride? Indifference? “I proved them wrong.”

The room swayed. You thought you might vomit.

“All of you…” You turned, your gaze sweeping over the room, locking on each face. The betrayal carved deeper with every averted glance. “You all knew.”

No one spoke.

Your breath hitched as you turned back to Sukuna. “You let me believe this was real,” you whispered, the words trembling as they left your lips.

He rose slowly, deliberately, towering over you as he always did. “Careful, wife,” he said, his tone low, a warning wrapped in silk. “You are in my favor now, but that can change.”

The anger burned bright, but something colder seeped in beneath it. A numbness, hollow and vast.

You stepped back, shoulders straightening, the fire in your eyes extinguished. “Of course, my lord,” you said, bowing your head. “My apologies for the outburst.”

He blinked, caught off guard by the shift. “What—”

You didn’t wait for him to finish. With the grace and composure befitting a lady of your station, you turned and walked away.

*-*

The days that followed were excruciating in their monotony. You became a ghost of yourself—a woman of duty, of decorum, of practiced neutrality.

Sukuna, in all his arrogance, thought little of it at first. He smirked when you would rise from a conversation and leave the room upon his arrival. He found amusement in the way your laughter would fall silent the moment his shadow crossed the threshold.

But over time, the smirk faded.

He began to notice the absence of something he hadn’t realized he craved. The warmth of your smile, the brightness in your eyes when you looked at him—it was gone. Replaced by a cold civility that made his jaw tighten and his fists clench.

Servants whispered of the change. You, who had once breathed life into the grand halls of his estate, now walked its corridors like a specter. Even when he tried to corner you, to draw out the spark that had once burned so fiercely, you evaded him with polite indifference.

“Stop,” he growled one evening, grabbing your wrist as you turned to leave the dining room.

You froze, the contact sending a shiver up your spine. Slowly, you turned to face him, your expression unreadable.

“Yes, my lord?”

The words, spoken so softly, so devoid of the fire he had come to expect, made his chest tighten.

“Enough of this,” he snapped, his grip tightening. “Speak your mind.”

You tilted your head, studying him. “There is nothing to say, my lord. I am your wife. I will fulfill my duties as such. Beyond that…” You gently pulled your wrist from his grasp. “There is nothing more.”

It was a lie, of course.

There was anger, still, buried deep within the hollowed-out space where your love for him had once lived. There was pain, sharp and unyielding. There was betrayal, an ache so profound you feared it would consume you if you let it.

But you would not give him the satisfaction of seeing any of it.

And so, you walked away, leaving Sukuna in the silence of his own making.

The house grew colder with every passing day. And though he would never admit it, not even to himself, Sukuna found that he missed the warmth.

*-*

The nights at Sukuna’s estate were long, oppressive, and heavy with silence. It gnawed at him like a dull blade, chipping away at his carefully crafted veneer of control.

He had thought the hunts would help. The thrill of the chase, the satisfying crunch of bone beneath his blade.

But the emptiness followed him, relentless and mocking.

Her absence haunted him. Not in the physical sense—she was still here, still his wife, still dutiful in the way she moved through the estate. But she had become untouchable, locked away behind that maddening neutrality. No matter how he raged, no matter how he tried to provoke her, she gave him nothing.

Sukuna was many things—a tyrant, a god, a king—but patient was not one of them.

So, when the sun dipped low and the moon bathed his estate in its cold light, Sukuna had finally had enough.

*-*

You were in your chambers, the night air cool against your skin as you slipped your arms out of the sleeves of your kimono. The day had been uneventful, like all the others since that night. You had perfected the art of existing without feeling, moving through life as if the pieces of your shattered heart hadn’t left jagged edges that threatened to cut you open from the inside.

You were pulling the fabric down from your shoulders when the door slammed open, the force rattling the delicate wooden frame.

You gasped, clutching your half-discarded kimono to your chest as Sukuna stormed in, his crimson eyes blazing with fury.

“What are you doing?” you hissed, your voice trembling as you scrambled to cover yourself.

He didn’t answer. In an instant, he was on you, his four arms grabbing hold of your shoulders, your waist, your wrists. His grip wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t cruel either. It was desperate.

You froze, your mind racing. Was this it? Had your quiet defiance finally pushed him too far?

“Are you going to kill me?” you asked, your voice steadier than you felt.

He barked out a laugh, sharp and humorless. “Kill you? Don’t tempt me, woman.” He shook you, his claws biting lightly into your skin. “What do you want from me? Tell me how to fix this!”

You blinked, caught off guard by the raw frustration in his voice. “Fix… this?”

“Yes!” he snarled, his face inches from yours. “I’ll kill them, every last one of those idiots if that’s what you want. I’ll burn this entire estate to the ground if it will bring you back. Just tell me what the hell you want!”

Your chest tightened, a whirlwind of emotions surging through you. Anger, disbelief, a flicker of something you refused to name.

“You think you can just—” your voice cracked, and you shook your head, trying to find the words. “Do you even understand what you’ve done? You made me a game, Sukuna. A bet. Do you know what that feels like? To be nothing more than a joke to the man who swore to protect me?”

His grip faltered for a moment, his gaze searching yours. “You were never a joke,” he said, his voice low, almost quiet.

You laughed bitterly, tears pricking the corners of your eyes. “Don’t lie to me. Not again.”

“I’m not lying,” he snapped, his frustration boiling over. “You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. I don’t care how it started. I don’t care about those fools and their bets. I care about you.”

The words were a punch to the gut. You wanted to believe him, wanted so desperately to cling to the possibility that this wasn’t all a lie. But the wound was still fresh, and your pride was a shield you weren’t ready to lower.

“If I find out you’ve lied to me again,” you said, your voice trembling but resolute, “I’ll go where you can’t follow. You know where I mean.”

His eyes narrowed, his jaw tightening. “Don’t.”

“I mean it,” you said, meeting his gaze with a fire you thought you’d lost. “I’ll end this. I’ll end me.”

The room fell into a heavy silence, the weight of your words hanging between you like a blade.

Then, suddenly, he kissed you.

It wasn’t gentle. It was rough and demanding, filled with the fury and desperation that had been building between you for weeks. You resisted at first, your hands pushing against his chest, but the dam inside you broke. Your fingers curled into his robes, pulling him closer as you poured every ounce of your anger, your heartbreak, your longing into that kiss.

It was messy and heated, a clash of tongues and teeth and raw emotion. When he pulled back, his forehead pressed against yours, his breathing ragged, you could see the unspoken apology in his eyes.

“Never again,” you whispered, your voice shaky but firm. “I mean it, Sukuna.”

“Never,” he promised, his hands gripping you like you might vanish if he let go.

The tension between you snapped like a bowstring, giving way to something primal and all-consuming. He lifted you effortlessly, carrying you to the futon in the corner of the room. The anger and betrayal still simmered beneath the surface, but for now, it was drowned out by the sheer intensity of your connection.

*-*

Later, as you lay tangled in the sheets, your head resting against his chest, you broke the silence.

“I want them all dead,” you said softly.

He didn’t hesitate. “Done.”

You tilted your head to look at him, a faint smirk tugging at your lips. “You’ll regret this, you know. I’ll never let you live it down.”

His lips curved into a smirk of his own, his hand brushing a strand of hair from your face. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

And though the wounds between you were far from healed, for the first time in weeks, the room didn’t feel so cold.

It hits like a slap, sudden and cold, pulling the breath right from your lungs.

Choso is staring at you, his eyes wide with that hollow, pitiful look you once thought was endearing. His voice is shaky as he tries to say something, anything, but you can barely hear it over the roar in your ears, the rush of blood pounding in your head. The betrayal tastes bitter in your mouth—sharp, metallic, and sour.

“Y/N, listen to me. It was just—” he starts, but you cut him off, your voice trembling but loud, louder than you ever thought it could be.

“Don’t you dare,” you hiss, taking a step back from him. Every inch of space between you and him feels like a mile, a chasm too deep to ever cross. “Don’t you dare tell me it was just some stupid bet.”

Choso's eyes flicker with confusion, the subtle tremor in his hands betraying the calm he tries to project. “It’s not— it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

You take a slow, trembling breath, staring at him, trying to ground yourself in the mess of emotions that are tearing you apart. Your mind is a whirlwind, flashes of memories twisting like knives in your chest. The late-night talks, the stolen kisses, the way he’d smile when he thought you weren’t looking. It was all so real, so pure.

But it wasn’t.

Your throat feels tight, your hands trembling at your sides as you finally piece it together. You’d been a bet. A joke, a wager. A way to pass the time. And worse? Everyone you called your friends—everyone you thought you knew, all those warm, intimate moments you shared—knew about it. Knew, and never once told you.

It’s impossible to swallow, the truth. How could they? How could he?

The pieces fall into place with a sickening clarity, sharp shards of realization that lodge deep in your chest. The subtle tension in the air every time you were around them. The way they’d glance at each other when you walked into the room, their smiles too tight. Too practiced.

Your stomach churns, bile rising as your thoughts spiral, the images of them—the rest of the group, the ones you thought had your back—flash before you. Megumi’s quiet looks, Nobara’s silence, Yuji’s forced cheer—they all knew. They all stood by, playing their parts. Feeding you the lies, watching as you fell deeper and deeper into Choso’s world.

Choso. His name tastes like poison now. How could you have been so stupid? So blind?

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, but his apology feels like acid against your skin. His hands are outstretched, as if he could reach you, as if he could fix what’s broken. But he can’t. He never could.

“You’re sorry?” The laughter bubbles up in your throat, but it’s not joyful, not even bitter—it’s hollow. Empty. “You’re sorry? Do you even understand what you did, Choso? Do you understand what you all did?”

His lips quiver as he tries to get the words out. “I never wanted it to go this far—”

“Then why didn’t you stop it?” Your voice cracks, and it’s like a scream trying to claw its way free. “Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

Choso’s face contorts, a flash of panic in his eyes as he steps closer to you. “I… I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t want you to hate me.”

“I hate you now.” You can’t even hear your own words, the weight of them crashing down on you, but it feels so good to say. So cathartic. The relief is sharp and cold as it spreads through you.

“But I love you,” he pleads, his voice breaking. There’s desperation in his eyes now, a frantic need, like he’s begging for you to just… fix it. But there’s no fixing this. Not anymore.

You shake your head, a bitter laugh escaping your lips. “Don’t tell me that. Don’t you dare tell me you love me when you treated me like a fucking game. How could I ever trust you again?”

Choso’s face twists, the desperation morphing into something darker, almost wounded. “You don’t mean that. Please, Y/N, please don’t leave me. I’ll do anything—just—just don’t walk away.”

But you can’t stop walking. You turn, slowly, not sparing him another glance. Not sparing anyone another glance.

Because they all knew. Every last one of them.

And they didn’t care enough to stop it.

Your footsteps echo in the hollow silence, the air thick with the weight of everything that’s broken, everything that’s ruined. Your chest is tight, the ache in your heart gnawing at you like a thousand tiny daggers. You can’t breathe. You can’t think. You can’t feel.

You don’t know how you get home, don’t know how you fall into bed, curling in on yourself, as if the space could swallow you whole and take away all the hurt.

But it doesn’t. The hurt is there, with you, like a ghost haunting your every waking thought.

They all knew.

And it doesn’t matter that they’re sorry now. It doesn’t matter that Choso is sitting in front of your door, his voice trembling through the wood as he calls your name, begging you to open up.

He’s sorry. They’re all sorry.

But it’s too late. Because in the end, you were never the one. You were never anything more than the punchline to a joke you didn’t even know you were part of.

And no amount of sorrys can take that away.

A Bet. A Dare. A Life.

The room is suffocating. You can feel the heat in your chest, in your stomach—rising, boiling. It burns you like the sharpest ache, and you can’t stop the way your breath hitches every time you inhale. This is wrong. Everything is wrong.

You should have never trusted them. Never trusted him.

It started as a harmless fling. That’s what you thought, at least. But when you looked at him, when he looked at you with that grin—so open, so honest—you could’ve sworn that maybe, just maybe, it was something more. He wasn’t like the others. He wasn’t like the rest of them, the men who flitted through your life with no real intention of staying, their interests as fickle as the seasons.

But Shiu Kong was different. He was soft in his brutal honesty. He was clever, kind in his own way—he made you feel special. That’s what you thought. That’s what you told yourself, over and over again.

And now... now you were nothing more than a joke.

The words come crashing down on you, hitting like a slap to the face. "It was a bet. A dare. You were a dare." Shiu’s voice, like poison, laced with something deeper, something far more disturbing than you ever imagined.

You couldn’t have heard that right. You must be misunderstanding. His eyes, dark and unreadable, bore into yours like they always had. But there was something more behind them now. Something that wasn't there before.

“A dare?” you whisper, too stunned to make it louder, though every cell in your body screams for you to scream. To shout. You force your hand to your mouth, to keep it together, to not let it slip.

“Yeah,” he responds with that same nonchalance, the way he always spoke to you—like it was just another casual thing. “Me and the guys? We... we made a bet. Whoever could get you to fall for them, win the challenge.” His gaze flickers to the side, like he’s waiting for something, some kind of reaction.

And that’s when it hits you. Every damn thing that ever felt real, every moment you shared with him, every laugh, every quiet, stolen glance, was just... staged. It wasn’t real.

He was playing you.

Your body goes cold, a chill taking over your skin. You look around the room, your pulse quickening, and there they are—the others. The rest of the group. They’re watching. Watching you. Watching him. Like it’s all some cruel game, and you’re the only one who didn’t get the memo.

How long? How long did they know? How long had they watched you stumble, watched you let yourself believe in a lie, and said nothing?

You hate them. You fucking hate them.

"Is this... is this what you wanted?" You can feel the venom in your voice, feel the anger pouring out of you like a slow burn. "You all knew, didn’t you? You knew and said nothing. You watched me fall for him, for you, and said nothing. You watched me trust you—trust all of you—and did nothing."

A heavy silence falls. Not a single one of them meets your gaze.

Shiu’s fingers twitch at his side, like he wants to say something, but he’s scared to move. You know him. You know him well enough to see that hesitation. But it doesn’t matter. You don’t care.

"You," you sneer at him, your hands shaking now, trembling with a fury that makes it hard to stay upright. "You were the one I trusted the most. You were supposed to be different."

You feel a lump in your throat, that sickening ache of betrayal tightening like a noose. “You used me.” The words feel like knives. “You all used me.”

His eyes darken even further, but he doesn’t speak. Not even when you let the words break out, shattering the calm, composed mask you’d tried to wear for so long.

“What is it?” You laugh, bitterly. “What’s so special about me, huh? Was I just a joke to you?” Your voice cracks, but you can’t stop it. You don’t want to stop. “Was this all just a fucking joke?!”

“Y/N,” Shiu finally speaks, and his voice cracks too. You can hear the guilt in it, but it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.

“Don’t you dare try to make this sound like it’s anything other than what it is. You used me. You all used me. All for a damn bet.” The words taste like acid on your tongue. “You made me feel like... like I mattered. You made me feel like you cared. And for what? So you could laugh at me behind my back?"

You can’t breathe. Can’t think. The room spins.

But the most painful thing? The one thing that breaks you all over again, deeper than the betrayal, deeper than the lies, is the way Shiu won’t let you leave.

You know what he’s doing before he even takes a step forward. He’s blocking the door. Like a lion protecting its kill, but you’re not his prey.

You back away, your breath quickening. “Let me out.”

“No,” he says, his voice so quiet now, so broken that it almost makes you want to tear your ears off. “I won’t let you go.”

You stare at him, the desperation in his eyes more than you can bear. “What did you think would happen, Shiu? You think I’m just going to let you walk away with this? You think you can keep me here? Like I’m some... some thing you can possess? You’re out of your mind.”

He steps closer, and you want to push him away, scream, break down, but you won’t. Not now. Not ever.

But he’s already reached for you. His fingers brush your arm, and you shudder, your body recoiling from the contact.

“I didn’t want it to go like this.” His voice cracks again, quieter. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Y/N.”

“You already did.” Your chest tightens, the words coming out as a whisper, as soft and broken as you feel. “You already did.”

You should walk away. You should turn around, tear through the door, never look back. But your feet won’t move. Not now. Not anymore. Because somehow, you’re still here.

You feel the weight of it. Every word. Every lie. It settles on your chest like an unbearable pressure, and you wonder—if you had known, would you have walked away? Would you have let them all slip through your fingers before they did this to you?

You don’t know.

But you do know one thing for sure.

You are done.

It wasn’t just that Hiruguma had lied to you.

It wasn’t just that you had been deceived, manipulated, and toyed with for weeks. It was the realization that every single person you trusted—your friends, the people you leaned on, the ones you thought had your back—had known about it. They all knew about the bet.

The words echoed in your mind, ringing like a bell of betrayal.

“I was dared to date you.”

You stared at him, still trying to process what he had just confessed. Hiruguma stood there in front of you, hands clenched by his sides, gaze trained downward, avoiding yours. There was no defensiveness, no pride in his eyes—just guilt, guilt that sank deep into the pit of his stomach.

There was nothing in his face but honesty, and yet that was the one thing that made you feel even more sick.

"You’re telling me," you whispered, a venomous laugh escaping from your throat, "that you were a bet? That everything we’ve done... that everything I’ve felt... was just some joke to you?"

Hiruguma swallowed hard, his throat constricting at your words. His voice was soft but steady when he answered. "I was dared. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you. I didn’t think I would. But… I did. It became real."

You could hear the sincerity in his voice, but it made your skin crawl. It felt like nails on a chalkboard.

A part of you, somewhere deep inside, wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe that maybe this wasn’t all just some sick joke. That maybe he hadn’t done it because of the dare. That maybe, somehow, this could still work. But the other part of you, the part that still couldn’t breathe properly, the part that felt like you were drowning in an ocean of betrayal, knew better.

You’ve been played.

You clutched the hem of your shirt, fighting the tears that had already started to well up in your eyes. You had to hold it together—just a little longer. You didn’t want him to see how much he’d hurt you. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how deep the knife had cut. But as the anger and betrayal boiled up inside you, the words started pouring out before you could stop them.

“Are you kidding me? And what about them?” You gestured violently toward the group of friends that had always been around you—Yuji, Megumi, Nobara. You couldn’t even look at them now. “They all knew, didn’t they?”

Hiruguma’s silence said everything. He didn’t need to speak; his lowered eyes were enough to confirm what you already knew. The rest of the group had kept it from you. They all knew. They all watched. They all let you fall for this, and they did nothing.

They’re complicit.

They lied to you, too.

"Why?!" Your voice cracked. "Why would they do this? Why would you do this to me?"

You could feel the tears beginning to fall despite your best efforts to hold them back. But no matter how hard you tried, they came, and soon enough you couldn’t breathe properly. It was the worst feeling in the world—the overwhelming sensation of being so utterly deceived that you couldn’t even trust your own mind anymore.

Hiruguma stepped closer, but you backed away instinctively, your chest tightening. “I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted to make you feel this way,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. "I’ve always wanted you. I wanted to be with you... not because of a dare, but because I—"

“Shut up!" You snapped, your voice harsh, sharp. "Don’t you dare make this about you now. Don’t you dare."

His shoulders slumped, and his face contorted with remorse. He looked like he was physically crumbling, but it did nothing for you. All you could feel was the weight of the betrayal, pushing you deeper into the ground with every breath.

You squeezed your eyes shut, holding back the floodgates. You couldn’t look at him. Not now. Not when everything about him felt like a lie. Your thoughts were a mess—a tornado of anger, hurt, confusion, and disbelief. It felt like everything you had been living was ripped away in a single moment.

"You should’ve just left," you muttered bitterly, wiping your eyes with the back of your hand. "You should’ve told me the truth from the start. Then maybe I wouldn’t have—" You paused, your voice breaking before you could say it. "Maybe I wouldn’t have fallen for you."

Hiruguma looked stricken, his face pale. He stepped forward again, but you didn’t budge. You weren’t sure if you wanted him to be closer or farther away. His presence was a paradox now—both a comfort and a source of pain.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything," he whispered. "But I swear, this... the bet—it doesn’t matter anymore. I want you. I love you. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I did, and I’m sorry for that. I’ll do anything... anything to make it right.”

You could feel him watching you, could feel his eyes on you like a weight that wouldn’t lift. But you couldn’t face him—not now. Not when everything you thought you knew had been shattered. Your thoughts screamed for clarity, but all you could do was stand there, numb, overwhelmed by the quiet ache in your chest. The emptiness where love once lived.

“You can’t just take back what you did,” you finally whispered, the words coming out hoarse. “You can’t just undo all the lies. All the people who knew—who watched me fall and did nothing.”

His eyes went wide, and he immediately looked to the others, your friends, who had been standing off to the side, lingering like ghosts in the background. “I know,” he said, voice low and broken. “I know they were wrong, too. They should have told you. I should’ve told you.”

You wiped your face again, taking a deep breath, trying to steady yourself. "I need time. I need space," you said, a trembling note in your voice. You were shaking all over, your emotions a storm you couldn’t control.

But deep down, as much as it hurt, as much as you hated everything that had happened, there was a part of you—small, fragile—that couldn’t completely let go. Not yet. Not when everything had been so real between you. Not when the love you felt for him had meant something, had been real for you.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked, voice so quiet you almost missed it.

You didn’t answer immediately. Instead, you closed your eyes, taking in a shaky breath.

“No,” you said after a long pause, finally looking up at him with wet eyes. “I don’t want you to leave. But we... we have to start over. From scratch. Like we’ve never met before. If we’re going to do this, it has to be all the way. No lies. No more games.”

His expression softened, and there was something in his eyes—something you hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t relief, not exactly. But it was an acknowledgment. A silent promise.

"I swear. No more games," he said, his voice steady and firm. "I’ll do whatever it takes. No more bets. Just us."

And with that, the first fragile seed of hope began to take root inside you, despite everything. You weren’t sure how long it would take for things to heal, or even if they would—but for the first time in what felt like forever, you believed that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance for something real to begin.

A/N: this was wayyyyy too long, anyways yuhhh, i loved writing this! Thank you to the lovely anon who requested, i mean it, thank you to every anon who's sent me requests, y'all are too cute

Masterlist.

:)

[glitteredrry]

sugar honey kisses

summary: harry’s next tour is joined by a special guest that has taken over his life and the world.

warning: brief mention of infertility/ miscarriage & fluff

wc: 3k+

a.n. i’ve been in a writing slump, and i just thought of this. i kind of went overboard (sorry). please excuse any spelling errors. i hope you enjoy these little blurbs. i was missing our harry, and i’m secretly manifesting another tour for us. byeee see y’all soon. 🤍

1. breaking news

Harry sat in the studio stuck on a verse on the last song to his album. He was gearing up to the release of his 4th studio album, and tour. Love on tour was going to be hard to top, but he looked forward to how this tour was going to be. He felt that he was in a better era of his life, all he hoped was that his growth would reflect on this new album. Fans were begging him to come back, and soon their prayers would be answered. His management was going to be releasing the album release date at 9 P.M. tonight. As he thoughtfully bite on the arm of his glasses, in walked in his wife YN. Harry’s eyes shot up looking at her happy to finally see her for the first time today, he had an early studio time today and only was able to give her a kiss to her head as she slept. Harry’s happiness quickly turned to nervousness as he saw a disheveled YN walking closer to him. “Doll, what’s wrong?” As she came in arm’s width from him, he grabbed onto her, and guided her to sit in his lap. Taking the tips of his fingers, he moved her hair out of her face as he watched her eyes tear up. Which only caused him to be more worried, “Harry, I wish I would've waited to tell you but I can’t.” YN reached down in her purse to grab something, and once it was shown to Harry he felt as if his heart rate had tripled in a split second.

“We’re pregnant.” She whispered to him with a smile. Harry was speechless as he stared at the test, he couldn't believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. “You’re serious,” YN nodded, touching his face for some solace. “I’m absolutely serious, we have half of us here.” She grabbed his hand holding him to her stomach. Harry’s tears came crashing down as he laid on her chest still accepting that they were with child. Joy rang through Harry’s body as he felt his wife’s comforting touch all over him. Harry reelected on their journey of building their family, going into everything they thought it would be so easy to add a baby; Yet that was the furthest thing than what it was.

After the loss of two children you never got to meet, Harry had been grief ridden for his wife. YN had the optimism Harry couldn’t bear to have during that time. She tried her best to keep him determined that they would one day have a child. They had tried for two years straight, and as of 10 months ago they stopped deliberately trying, and just left it to divine timing. There were doctor appointments to see if something was off with either of them and everything came back clear. The couple tried IVF, and that also wasn’t for them. Harry couldn’t believe that YN was sitting here pregnant after all this time. Harry quickly remembered his album and tour that was supposed to happen, and panic rushed through him. “I-I need to push back the album. I'll call Jeff, and tell him to postpone the tour.” “Absolutely not, you’re not pushing anything back, H. You’re releasing the album, and you’re going on tour. This baby will have to fit into our lives, we’re going to have a tour baby.” Harry smiled at his wife hugging her tightly, he didn’t know how this was going to happen. All he knew is that he loved and trusted his wife. If he had her he could get through anything.

2. trending topic

The world was preparing for the release of the album “Saturn Return”. He had given it that title because he believed he was in his life's peak. Harry was elated as he did his press tour. He felt reconnected to his fans in a way where he had missed them. As Harry was in the green room preparing for his last appearance before the album dropped, Harry’s manager, Jeff walked into the room with his phone in hand. “We have a slight situation going on. Pictures of YN leaving her gym class were released today. She looks visibly pregnant in them. I could release a statement to the press to calm the media, or we can ignore it.”

Harry was furious because he knew that where YN was pictured was an alley. She tried her best to be as inconspicuous as she could. YN was bent over, tying her shoe, and her shirt came up, revealing her growing belly. “I’m sure she’s going to be upset at herself,” Harry kissed his teeth, hating that he would have to break the news of this to his wife. As he continued scrolling online, he saw how fans defended their beloved YN, and Harry appreciated the support at this time. Harry looked at the time and would have to be out there in five minutes. So, he quickly dialed YN. When she answered the phone, Harry explained what had just happened, and the couple decided that the media wouldn’t push them to say anything. This was for them to reveal when they wanted to. Harry rushed to the stage as Jeff followed him, “I want you to make sure there are no questions about what is out right now, no family questions in general. Understood?” He said to Jeff sternly.

As not only a husband but now a father it was his duty to protect his unborn child. Jeff nodded and spread the message. Not commenting on this assumption from the press didn’t make it die down. It only brought more media attention to the couple. On the night of the album release, Harry decided to have a private dinner in New York to celebrate his achievement. YN wore a dress that took attention away from her bump, but as the couple approached the restaurant, paparazzi attacked the couple, asking questions, and someone hit YN, making her nearly fall to the ground. “Move back. Get the fuck away from her,” he created a barrier around YN, making sure she was on her feet. “You okay, doll?” “I’m fine. That just scared me.” Harry held her hand, pressing a brief kiss to her hand as they walked through the door. The media only got worse as time went on. He knew that they wouldn’t stop until they had an answer. So, YN thought of a way to announce the tour that Harry couldn’t resist. Harry’s hand hovered over the “share” button on Instagram as he looked at his wife. “You sure?” “Yes, press it, Harry. It’s now or never.” Harry hit the button and shut off his phone. Within ten minutes of the post being out, the couple was trending on Twitter with one simple post.

Laugh On Tour. Coming 2025. +1.

3. not your average gender reveal

YN had just become accustomed to tour life, and she would soon be leaving to prepare to give birth. Harry pampered her throughout the tour, ensuring she had her own dressing room to cater to all her needs. YN was sad to say she would leave the tour, but soon, her baby would be here. Harry took it seriously that he wouldn’t have YN flying for the last two months of her pregnancy. In the four months, YN had been on tour with Harry, fans loved pregnant YN content. She was considered a style icon with her looks not only during their time off but at shows. YN would sometimes be recorded more at his shows than him, as fans would see her on the side of the stage dancing with her pregnant belly. Harry often joked with fans and asked them about his dad's jokes and if he needed to improve them. Fans would boo or cheer, and it became a fun section of the show. “How about that one, honey?” Harry asked YN on the mic, putting her on blast. As the fans turned their attention to YN, her reaction would be what the audience followed with. YN shook her head and threw out a thumbs down. Then, the crowd followed with booing. “I love constructive criticism. I’ll work on a better one. I’m trying to make my baby laugh when they get here. I would rather get booed here than with my baby.” He shot YN a wink and continued to the next song.

The moment between the couple went viral, and people wondered what the child's gender was. As the couple sat in the bath together after a show, YN thought of something that had been in her head for two weeks since fans had been asking about the gender of their child. Harry rubbed on her growing bump and hummed as he felt himself destressing. “Harry, we should do a gender reveal for my last show with you. Well, the last one for my time on tour, what do you think?” “This tour has felt like a special one. I can’t describe it, but it feels more personal than past ones. I think that would be a great idea.” Harry’s team got ready for the big day and decided that the best idea for this last-minute gender reveal would be to do it right before the closing song, “Kiwi.” YN would be joining him on stage for the first time since they’ve been together, which would also be a massive moment for the couple. Harry took a sip of water after finishing up a song, and he couldn’t help but smile at himself, knowing that the crowd was about to go crazy. “Now, I hate to say that we are coming to an end. But we are. Soon, you will be stuck in traffic, and I will be thinking of you all and the laughter we have shared. Before you go, though, I want to invite a special guest. To all you people trying to sneak off, I see you, so sit down. You won't want to miss this. Please welcome my wife, YN Styles, to the stage.”

YN comes from stage left with a big black balloon, making the crowd scream so loud her ears begin to hurt. “Everyone calm down. My baby is sleeping. Shhh.” Harry said to the crowd as he embraced YN. “Many of you don’t know, but, today is my wife’s last show with me.” The crowd began to say “no” collectively, sounding upset she was making a departure. “It will only be a short break, but when she returns, our baby will be here. So, today, we will be celebrating our baby before their arrival. YN, will you give us the honor of sharing the gender of our baby?” Harry said as if it was nothing, and it was at that exact moment all phones in the room were up, ready to capture the iconic moment happening before them. “Wait, before you pop it, let's add some suspense, right?” Harry looked toward the band as they teased the crowd with music. There was anxious screaming across Wembley Stadium. At each sound of the music, you heard and felt the tension. Harry gave YN the cue to pop the balloon, and as she did, pink confetti flew out, causing the crowd to squeal, cry, and shout, saying how they knew it was a girl. The instrumental to Kiwi started. YN and Harry shared a sweet kiss as YN exited the stage. At the show's end, pink fireworks ended the best night of Harry’s career.

4. tour baby

Everything has been perfect for Harry and YN for the past three months. They couldn’t be happier with their baby girl Genevieve, or Vivi as Harry called her. YN left the tour five months ago, and now she had their three-month-old daughter in her hands, staring back at her. Harry decided to go on break during the middle of his tour to spend three months with his family without worrying about it. YN gave birth in December of 2025, and now, in April, Harry would be heading back for tour, and YN would be joining him again. Harry had been so consumed by their bubble that he almost dreaded coming back for a tour. YN would be lying if she said she wouldn’t miss his attention, and his time. It was the sad side of touring that she was familiar with. YN always knew his family was his number one priority. Now, going back on tour, the fact of the matter is that they aren’t his only priority. Naturally, with Harry touring, it could weigh down on him. He became tired easily or just lacked being attentive in other areas. It wasn’t necessarily his fault.

The tour just consumes his life. Harry had promised her that he wouldn’t let that happen this time around. YN was going through postpartum depression, and expressed to Harry her feelings. Harry took that into account and constantly tried to pour love into YN. Sometimes, his sugar honey kisses got her through the day. YN felt wholly supported as she transitioned to becoming a mother. Harry was the perfect spouse during this time; as Harry prepared to return to tour, there had to be many accommodations for Vivi and YN. Harry wanted to ensure they had everything and more that they needed. Harry was nervous about his baby girl coming to tour, he knew the media would wish to have the first look at his child. His only priority was to protect his family. Over the break, Harry and YN had many talks about the transition that would be taking place. Nannies were in place for the rest of the tour, and there was a schedule the couple would try their best to follow.

On the first day back from tour, the crew fell in love with Vivi. Harry made sure to have a long talk with everyone about the boundary with his most precious gift the world gave him, and he made sure to have NDAs signed for anyone who would be working on the tour. If news were to leak about Vi, he doesn’t know how he would react. Truly he would feel betrayed. As Harry was on stage, he saw signs all around the stadium asking about his baby girl. “She’s happy, we’re happy,” Harry said to a fan sign. Towards the middle of the concert, fans across the Camp Nou stadium got a notification while Harry was dancing across the stage, which caused all of them to scream.

Laugh On Tour. Barcelona I. April, 2026.

5. bittersweet first birthday

Vivi was the star of the tour, and as her first birthday approached, she knew this. As she gained consciousness, she joined Harry for soundcheck and even joined him in singing (which was just her screaming). Harry was overjoyed that it seemed like his baby girl was enjoying this side of his life. He had many fears that she would be scared of the loud music, but instead, she embraced it. As Vi got older, YN thought it would be good to start showing her to attend concerts.

Typically, during shows, Vivi would be backstage with a nanny. During Vivi's 6 months on tour, she finally sat in a suite with YN, watching her father perform on stage, and it seemed that she enjoyed it. At nine months old, even though she had protective earphones, YN often caught her hanging on to the songs she once knew in the womb. It looked as if she was relearning them as the months flew by. Now, one day away from her first birthday, Harry and YN both share tears about this bittersweet birthday. Of course, the couple was happy that their child was turning one year old while Harry was on tour, but the tour would end a month after Vi’s birthday, and it felt like an era of all of their lives would be ending. Vi was conceived right before this era of their lives, and Harry had reached heights of his career that he had never reached before. He had to credit this to his wife and child for all attributes.

Harry felt a sense of motivation and drive that he never had before. Vi was the inspiration for everything in his life, and he knew that shortly after this tour ended, he would be working on an album dedicated to his daughter. Watching her grow had caused him to jot down small notes about what he would write about for the next album. Vi was the inspiration of his life. Harry wanted to share his daughter with fans because they patiently waited and never invaded his space in public when they saw his daughter was with him. Harry kept Vi’s identity under wraps, although some articles would pull different things together about what they thought his daughter looked like. Sharing the most private thing in Harry’s life made him anxious; he was exposing Vi to the public eye's scrutiny. Harry knew how difficult it would be to keep her hidden as she grew into a toddler.

As she got older, Vi would attempt to snatch the blankets off that kept her hidden, or she would try to peek out from her stroller as the flashing noises from cameras were on her. Harry knew he wouldn’t show her often, so he wanted the first time to be a special occasion. Once he brought up the idea of singing “Happy Birthday” to her on stage to YN, it was something YN had to agree to. As Harry performed to a crowd of 78,000 people, he knew it was time for his surprise before he took a brief intermission. His fans didn’t necessarily know the date of Vi’s birthday, so this would be something else that was personal to him. “If you all would join me, it’s a very special someone’s first birthday.” The crowd cheered loudly as Harry laughed briefly at the reaction, opening his eyes in shock at the loud cheering. “That’s the best you can do?” He said sarcastically as the crowd screamed louder. “I think we should bring our guest out on stage…what do you say?” As the crowd continued to cheer, it dawned on them that this would be the first look at his daughter. “Don’t scare her too bad; she’s new to show business. Welcome my pride and joy to the stage, Vivi. Come here.” YN sat Vi down and YN instructed her to walk to Harry. Vivi walked out on stage to her father with stumbling legs as if the stage and crowd were second nature to her. As Vi walked into Harry’s opening arms, the crowd loudly aww’ed as Vi laid her head on Harry’s shoulder. “Now, don’t make my baby cry. Let’s have a nice hushed happy birthday to my Vi.” The crowd listened to Harry and joined him in singing to Vivi. Which seemed to surprise her as the crowd said her name to her, “Happy birthday, Vivi,” Harry said, then he pressed a kiss to the side of her head feeling more emotional than he thought he would.

Vi clung to his body as Harry walked off stage to an emotional YN. When the show ended, the crew decided to do something special for Vivi, which had Harry and YN thanking everyone for hours afterward. That night in the hotel, Genevive was sleeping in between the couple after her sugar crash from eating too much cake. Harry and YN watched the online outpour of love and admiration for their baby.

NEW DADRRY CONTENT

Happy birthday to the laugh on tour baby

Aww she has his eyes

Harry and YN reacted to different comments, which also led to playful arguments about who she looked more like. YN was happy with her decision that Harry continued to go on tour, creating memories for a lifetime as a family. Everything fell into the right place for the couple, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. As weeks passed, Harry was on cloud nine when his tour ended, and he couldn’t wait until the next tour to see how much more involved Vi would be. He thought of including her throughout his next album, too. He just wanted something to capture her at this age, his personal time capsule. His family slept upstairs in their London home, and before he joined his wife for bed, he posted one last picture to conclude the end of this era.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is goodbye for now, but not forever. I love you always. - H & V

[chirrups]

I feel like I have nothing to ask, I simply would love to hear more about them fucked up mermaid and murderer

And I would absolutely love to tell you about them, Tin.

This AU takes place somewhere vaguely in the Pacific Northwest (circa. 1970s-80s) in an isolated fishing town along a storm-wracked coast.

Fisheries in and around the bay have collapsed due to extreme winter weather patterns + overfishing + an oil spill from a tanker run aground down the coast, leaving most of the bay's inhabitants to live pretty much hand-to-mouth off contaminated fish in recent years.

get ready for LORE (and more drawings but mostly the LORE)

general warning: this is pretty long

The "story" as it were, kicks off when Gem finally gets fed up with another fisherman in the area, Grian, over continued conflict about ownership of fishing grounds in the mouth of the bay.

She orchestrates his death (with the eager assistance of Scott and Impulse) out at sea and passes off his death as a tragic accident in the winter swells with her being the unfortunate finder of his remains.

And it works.

See the thing is: Gem has a history of causing disappearances. It started with some accidents with out-of-town poachers. She would chase these people off and one or two would just slip overboard and happen to drown. It wasn’t her fault and besides they deserve it. But things start to escalate from there. Poachers become outsiders become fellow townspeople. Grian is someone Gem’s known for years, whose friends are tangentially her friends or acquaintances. His death is a cold-blooded murder driven by hatred and frustration. This time something is different about what she's done and Gem knows it.

But Gem is a reputable and well-known person. Her prices are fair, she drives poachers out of the bay and maintains order around the pragmatic fishing ground policy that undoubtedly helps everyone to survive.

She is the type of person to look to for guidance when things get hard because she can make those hard choices. So how on earth could it be her fault?

No one is wiser until Grian's funeral brings an old friend into town who is more than a little suspicious about the circumstances of his death.

Scar was one of Grian's crewmates when they did trawling much further south. They split when Scar took up (illegal) whaling and Grian moved into the bay.

As an outsider, Scar isn't so swayed by the goodwill the town has around Gem's name. He's no detective but for the sake of an old friend, he might as well try.

In this AU, mermaids are social mammals part of the Hominidae family that went back into the ocean similar to Cetaceans. They live in matrilineal family groups or in any other female-led organization of pods and have a very "survival-oriented" global culture (with regional variation).

Pearl is a lone mermaid whose pod lived in the bay until they were starved out by the collapsing fisheries. PNW mermaids are more territorial than other ecotypes and value strength over anything else. Pearl's inability (read: unwillingness) to oust other pods for better fishing grounds and the loss of one of her pod members summarily lead the other two to abandon her.

Without a pod to help her, hunting enough in her dwindling territory has been difficult and lonely, leading her to slowly starve just as the humans in the bay have begun to.

She took to trailing fishing boats to steal from their catch, which is how she met Gem who was mid-throwing some unfortunate soul overboard.

They have an interesting relationship.

Gem is enamored with Pearl at the halfway point between a person and a large apex predator. She loves the way Pearl needs her to live and the way Pearl, as a social creature with no pod, craves her attention. It's thrilling to have a predator at her beck and call like this and, in turn, to be so desperately needed. She also loves the way Pearl doesn't look at her like she's dangerous (the way Scott and Impulse have begun to when they think she doesn't see them). Her interest in Pearl seems to be leaching into something more than just wildlife admiration. She's begun to learn the mermaid language just to talk to her. For what? Who really knows. Meanwhile, Pearl is hungry enough to eat just about anything Gem throws her (including human bodies) and desperate enough that she lets Gem get much closer than many humans in this area have ever been to a mermaid. (They even touch, scandalous for mermaids.)

It's skewed for sure. From Gem's perspective, they've got something special going on. From Pearl's... not so much.

This being Secret-Life based, you can imagine how this story ends...

Bonus piece: Pearl and her old pod.

IN GENERAL, Biological females are generally larger with a set of rotated tusks protruding from their lower jaw for dominance displays. Biological males are commonly smaller and more agile, with more dexterous hands due to decreased adipose tissue distribution over their bodies. (They actually have 3 biological sexes and tons of social gender variation but that's a talk for another time). Pre-cultural awakening, these pods would form around a biological female and their harem for reproductive purposes. That female would then protect the harem from other females looking to "steal them" or their territories (like horses but reverse-style). In modern times, these pods are often composed of groups of friends/related family members as sort of "platonic life partners" and stealing other pod members is seen as a very archaic sort of thing. Territory stealing, however, is still up for grabs.

[clarisinne]

Unpopular opinion but I'm with Harvey about the cornered situation.

The girl put the MAYOR'S SHORT in the SOUP, and then at the DISPLAY... girl. Not to mention that she was a MESS with Harvey at the beginning (I was fr annoyed by her 😭).

I think Harvey knows how awesome she is, but also how complicated she is, so that and the fact that he was cornered just makes his brain turn into soup. He doesn't want to say bad things about her, but he also understands where Lewis is coming from. The real love is that she is a disaster but Harvey loves her anyway.

The real deal is that Lewis should talk to her instead of her bf because wtf.

(I'm here from the beginnings and I already have a PhD in cf comic, so I'm certified to speak)

(Also I'm not a cf hater. I WAS, ok, I WAS, but not anymore. She is growing and I love that for her)

This is hilarious you HATED CF?? LMFAOOOO reasonable, absolutely fucking reasonable but i think this is the first time I encounter someone who has read all the comic and stuck with it despite disliking CF in the beginning!! Amazing!!

Anyway yes! There is definitely a reason he acted how he did, he's not crazy all of a sudden, however it is a morally grey situation cause Lewis went a little overboard and even if she IS a disaster, she's his disaster, and shouldn't let anyone talk about her that way

[yandere-wishes]

So based on your what vision the Gotham boys would have I got ideas (I’m still new to the Gotham boys so this would be very out of character)

Dick and Jason would have anemo

Tim would have dendro

Damien would have pyro

I don’t know much about duke but maybe electro

I'm actually so surprised anyone noticed that 💞💞 okay so here is my full analysis on DC (batman centric) x Genshin Impact cross-over. Yes, I went super overboard w/ this lol.

💝 Batboys

We're on the same page about Dick,Tim,Duke, and Damian. It's just Jason that I think would differ

Bruce Wayne - Cyro, Claymore

Dick Grayson- Ameno, Polyarm

Jason Todd - Pyro, Claymore (Red Hood)

Jason Todd - Cyro, Claymore (Arkham Knight) my logic here is that despite hating Bruce, he ends up being so similar to him on a spiritual and fundamental level.

Tim Drake - Dendro, Polyarm

Damian Wayne - Pyro, Sword

Duke Thomas- Electro, Bow

Barbra Gorden - Electro, Catalyst

Kate Kane - Hydro, Polyarm

💝 Rogues

Obviously, I went too deep with Harvey's. He'd definitely have two visions, one for either side. I can fully image him having a vision before becoming Two-Face. However, sometime after the incident, while he's climbing up in Gotham's underworld, his Harv personality also ends up getting a vision. Also, he's totally a Sword user cause lady justice and all that.

Harvey Dent - Hydro/Pyro, Sword

Roman Sionis - Ameno, Bow

Oswald Cobblepot (Gotham) Cyro, Catalyst

Jonathan Crane - (Pyro/Dendro/Ameno), Polyarm : Now, onto Jonathan Crane idk if he'd be a dendro, Pyro or Ameno user cause all three fit his MO so well.

Edward Nygma- Dendro, Catalyst/Polyarm

Poison Ivy - Dendro, Catalyst

Selina Kyle - Electro, Sword

Victor zsasz (Gotham) - Electro, Bow

Victor zsasz (BOP) - Ameno, Sword

Dr Phosphorus - Pyro, Catalyst

Joker (general) - dendro, Sword

Harley Quinn - Pyro, Polyarm

Alexis Kaye - Electro, Catalyst

Jerome Valeska - Geo, Bow

Jeremiah Valeska - Hydro, Catalyst

Slade Wilson - Geo, Claymore

Respawn - Geo, Sword

Talia Al Ghoul - pyro, Polyarm

Ras al ghoul - Dendro, Claymore

💝 Other DC Heroes

Clark Kent - Ameno, Claymore

Jon-El Kent - Ameno, Catalyst

Conner Kent - Pyro, Catalyst

Hal Jordan - Dendro, Catalyst

Kyle Rayner - dendro, Sword

Oliver Queen - Dendro, Bow

Roy Harper - Pyro, Bow

Conner Hawke - Electro, Bow

Berry Allen - Electro, Catalyst

Wally West - Geo, Catalyst

Bart Allen - Ameno/Electro, Catalyst

Arthur Curry - Hydro, Polyarm

Garth - Hydro Sword

Jackson Hyde - Geo, Polyarm

Minhkhoa Khan - Ameno, Sword

Phantom-one - Hydro, Sword

Angel Breaker - Pyro, Sword

Diana Prince - Ameno/Hydro/Electro, Sword

Low-key really want to write a Genshin Impact DC AU. With reader as the traveler. Tyvat is still Tyvat, but the nation's are...

Gotham (Cyro)

Metropolis (Ameno)

Star City (Dendro)

Central city (Electro)

Coast City (Geo)

Atlantis (Hydro)

Blüdhaven (Pyro)

Themyscira (events only like the summer event)

I'm not quite sure what exactly would happen in the AU other than reader trying to find their sibling. Lord knows my Traveler would just be chasing down Harvey and Roman and doing their character quests. Just need to find out how to make it all yandere

Also, I forgot about the star system. Who do you think would be 4 starts, and who would be 5 starts??🤔🤔

[joonsytip]

I love you, I'm sorry || Seungkwan

Pairings: Seungkwan x Fem!Reader

Synopsis: When he falls in the pit, you come to save him.

Warnings: mentions of accident, major character death, angst.

Word Count: 1.1k

[ SVT Masterlist ] [ SVT Flick - Fic Masterlist ]

“You came back, really?”

Seungkwan double takes, blinking his teary eyes. He looks around and pinches himself. It hurts his skin, he's not dreaming.

“Honey”, he rushes to you, engulfing you in his embrace. He inhales your scent, a sense of relief feeling his chest.

“I missed you.”, he pulls away, kissing your forehead.

You wipe his tears, “How could I not come?”, and smile, “I could never stay mad at you.”

Seungkwan smiles in relief. He takes your hands and sits you on the worn out couch, the one which he can't get rid off, the one which is bound to his sentiments. You caress the furniture, feeling the cotton tickling your fingers through the tears of the cover.

“You know right, that I didn't mean any of it?”, Seungkwan asks in desperation, “That it was all nonsense, something I said just out of fit.”

You nod, leaning in to press a soft kiss to his lips.

And you could feel the tension dissipate, when your lips meet his. Seungkwan melts under the touch, his both hands tightening their grip around you.

“The colours have faded, you should get the walls painted again.”, you sigh, your eyes wandering around your adobe. The one you both had built from scratch with love.

“We can do it together, like we've always done.”, he says, caressing your arms.

“I won't be able to do it this time.”, comes your quiet reply as you fidget with your fingers.

That's when Seungkwan notices your finger is void of the wedding band.

“Where's the ring? Did you give it for cleaning?”, he asks, sounding confused. Legit, because you never put it off and even if you do, it's Seungkwan who takes both of your rings for cleaning.

“Kwanie, they never found it.”,

Seungkwan looks at you, brows furrowed, “Who never found what?”

You look at him, helplessly.

“Kwanie, don't blame yourself. What happened wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have stormed out of the house on a rainy night–”

“Yes, but I too went overboard. I should have chased you as soon as you went out but I waited for myself to calm down instead. I'm sorry for that.”, he caresses your cheeks, “You're back, here with me, and that's what matters. I promise this won't happen ever again.”

Sobs wrack your body and Seungkwan gets worried.

“You need to accept it, Kwanie.”, you say in between hiccups, “You have to accept that I can no longer be with you. That my death wasn't your fault, it was no one's fault. The accident was bound to happen, it was my fate.”

The bubble bursts as Seungkwan gets pulled into the reality. He freezes as the memories of the past few days come back to him.

The cruel aftermath of a fight that claimed your life. How he was late to reach you, that you left him even before he got to you. How your hand that was void of the wedding band fell out of the blanket while they carried your body on the stretcher.

Seungkwan now remembers that he went back to the accident scene just to find your ring, the only jewellery you held dear, how you constantly emphasized that you hated to look at your hand without the ring on it.

He's to blame. His heart crushes as he recollects how his words had killed you even before the accident, which was so unfortunate that it claimed the life of the driver in the car as well.

“It's all because of me.”, he declares, as if more to himself, “I should have chased you, no, I shouldn't have started the fight. I-I’m to blame. It's my fault.”

You shake your head to which he looks at you with the most devastating eyes, “Don’t leave me please. If you have to go then take me with you.”

“I can't take you with me, you have your entire life ahead.”, you say smiling through your tears, “But I'll be waiting for you. Live to the fullest, check all the items on the bucket list we created. When it's time, come and find me. I'll listen to all of it.”

Seungkwan falls into the endless loop of despair. It's abyss, but the one with no end to pain. When he married you, his childhood sweetheart two years ago, after dating for more than ten years, he had made a promise to himself, that was to love you for the rest of his life, to be the partner you always looked for, to make you happy.

And though he'd love you for the rest of his life, he just can't bring himself to think about a life without you in it.

It's you, the one he grew up with, his first and only crush. The girl he dated, the woman he married.

“Promise me, Kwan, that you'll pick yourself up. Promise that you'd move on with life and if love knocks on your door again you'll accept it without feeling guilty. Even though I won't be present, I'll be always watching you.”

You hand him three carnations, one red, one pink and one white.

“Red carnations symbolise love and affection. Pink ones symbolise gratitude and white ones are for rememberance.”, a faint smiles graces on your lips,

“When you miss me, go to the garden. Look at the carnations and they'll convey my messages. The red ones mean that ‘I love you’. The pink ones will convey that ‘I’ll never forget you’. The white ones will remind you that I'm always with you.”

Seungkwan nods quietly, trying to muffle his sobs but the little trembles give it away. He doesn't dare to look up, he doesn't dare to meet your eyes.

Your tears have dried off, you don't think you can produce any more of them.

“Stop crying please. How am I supposed to leave you?”

“Then don't go.”, he begs, “I can't think of a life without you.”

You engulf him in a hug and he doesn't let himself get seperated from you. Seungkwan wants to forget everything, wants to live here with you.

“It's time, Kwanie. I'll have to go now.”

It settles in his bones and he steps back. He takes one final look at your face, with a sad smile, tears in his eyes and croak in his voice, he says, “I love you and I'm sorry for everything.”

You reiterate his words, “Thanks for everything. You taught me the meaning of love, camaraderie and loyalty. You're the partner I have ever wanted. You're so strong Kwanie, I know you'll move past this.”

Suddenly the water starts leaking through the roof and pours on you both.

You give him one last look, the water camouflaging your tears, “I love you and I'm sorry for leaving you behind. It's time for you to go back.”

Seungkwan feels his body shake and he wakes up to find himself near your grave with the rain pouring and three carnations in the shades of red, pink and white in his hand.

→ Do not copy, re-post, translate, or share any of my works on other platforms! All stories are copyrighted, joonsytip. ©️

[joi-me-hoi-me-noi]

If it's okay may I request a yandere shanks x reader where reader is trying to escape but gets caught.

A/n: MY MAN MMMM MMMM MMMMMM!!! I love him so much! I feel like his yandere would be terrifying to the reader, because he'd kill for them. Please enjoy!!

CAN'T ESCAPE FROM ME - Yan!Shanks x Reader

⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆

Someone had found you with your hand tied to a metal bar. You were frightened for a second and then you let out a sigh of relief.

"Help me...please."

The random man standing before you cut the ties on your wrist and helped you stand.

"Thank you, I have to go now. You should too before he sees you."

The man listens and leaves as quickly as he came. Your plan was swishing around in your head, you had to think of something quickly. Finally, you grasped the plan to jump into the sea and float away. It was better than being tied up.

You push open the storage closet door slowly, peeking out of the small crack. No one was walking around, everyone must be asleep. Time for execution!

You push open the door as quickly as you could and then run to one of the sides of the boat. You lift one leg up, then the other before balancing on the beam. You take a deep breath, prepare to jump and then leap forward. But before you could get some good air, you were grabbed.

"Darling...where are you going?" He cradles you in his arms, not even caring about how you were fighting against his embrace.

"Away from you!"

No matter how much you bit, scratched and screamed, his grip never faltered.

"Stop it Y/n. I'm doing this to keep you safe." He smiles.

You couldn't believe he was smiling. Smiling at the fact that you were tired of being tied up like a damn animal! You push away from him and try to scramble to your feet. When you look up, he's standing over you, still smiling. His foot keeps a light but firm pressure on your arm and he squats down over you.

"You do realize that I could've broke your legs right? Do not make me regret my decision of you having freedoms Y/n."

He caresses your cheek, keeping that smile on his face. It was wrong. It was so, so wrong. And you were scared...

"Will you try to leave again?"

You squeeze your eyes shut and then open them only to see his smiling face. Why must he smile? Why?

"I will not leave again Shanks..."

"Promise?"

He holds out his pinkie to you. You raise your unpinned hand and stick your pinkie out. You wrap it around his pinkie before letting your hand fall back onto the deck beneath you. He picks you up in his arms, brings you into his room, ties you up to another set of metal pipes and lays down with you in his arms. You hated it, you hated everything in that moment. You gave up so quickly, why?

You feel a kiss press into your neck before he turns your head to face him.

"I need to know one last thing darling..."

You hum in acknowledgement, not wanting to speak to him anymore.

"Who let you out?"

⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆

A/n: Jesus, I think I went a bit overboard (get it lol!) a little bit but I still hope you enjoy this :))))

Masterlist -> link

[laseracronym]

I was wondering if you could do headcannons of shouto and how he’d court/treat his omega (omegaverse of course) and if you want you could add some spicy hc too ? thanks in advance 🤍

Ohhh, I'd be happy to! (also I'm assuming Shouto's an alpha in this scenario)

Alpha!Shouto with Omega!Reader (NSFW)

Shouto grew up with a big, angry alpha in the household, and so he has a lot of conflicted feelings about his own alpha presentation.

When he takes interest in you, an omega, what he wants to communicate the most to you is that he's safe. He wants you to feel safe and protected with him and he doesn't want to come across as threatening or controlling. Not that he's very loud or harsh to begin with, but he's even softer around you, speaking softly and handling you gently.

In the courting phase, he's very big on gift giving, but sometimes he can go overboard. Either in extravagance or sheer quantity, the price is no object to him, even as a young hero he's making really good money because of his high ranking. It's really overwhelming, but also they're not empty gifts, they're centered around your interests, he really does pay attention to you. So you kind of feel bad telling him to slow down with the gifts, especially when he looks at you giving off the impression of a scolded puppy. You'll have to find a compromise, he wants to show you that he can provide for you, so you gotta let him at least a little.

Also, while courting, he absolutely goes to his friends for advice. Even when they have no idea about courting themselves, he'll still follow their advice, to varied and sometimes comical results.

(He once asked his mom, an omega, for advice, and it turned into such a bittersweet conversation. She never actually went through the process of being courted before her marriage. But she's super supportive and wants Shouto to be happy. She likes you, too, and knows her son is a good person that will treat you well.)

He loves loves loves your scent, but he also very much wants to smother you in his own scent. He's constantly scenting you, and maybe he thinks he's being sneaky, but he's absolutely not. His "accidental" brushes against you are very telegraphed, and his sudden announcement of "it's cold out" before he bundles you up in his jacket isn't very smooth either. But the obviousness is the cutest part about him.

If you scent him back, he's on cloud nine. It's all he can think about the rest of the day, your scent lingering on him.

When you're together, he constantly battles with his possessive urges, scared that they're too much. He wants to stake his claim on you, wants people to know that you're his omega, and how happy he is that you're his. But he has all those memories of the worst kind of alpha behavior in the back of his head, and it's haunting his every step. A way to comfort him in this is to let some of your own possessiveness show, let him know how glad you are that he's your alpha, be a little jealous, a little clingy. Show him his feelings aren't too much, because you're feeling them, too.

When he becomes more comfortable with himself in your relationship, he's all over you, constantly at your heels, very affectionate and very proud. You're his omega and he's your alpha. He has a habit of putting himself physically between you and other alphas, and he keeps himself distanced from other omegas, too.

Shouto's so excited when you first show him your nest. The whole area smells of you and it's just so, so comforting. He's honestly in awe. He's exceedingly careful when you allow him to enter it, sitting right in the middle, stiff as a board and not touching anything. Part of him worries that his mere presence will ruin it, but it can only make it better in your eyes. When he sees the articles of clothing he's loaned you weaved into the walls of your nest, again he's filled with that feeling of wonder. Once relaxed, he doesn't want to leave, and you want to keep him in there, too.

When he gives you the claiming bite, it's so intense. He's whimpering and whining so desperately for you, lost to his instincts as his knot embeds itself inside of you, swelling as he fills you beyond full. He sinks his teeth into your scent gland, and it's like he's finally home, he's complete.

He's extra protective of you when your heats approach, and he tries to be there for you when they happen. He's more than eager to tend to your every need, to lessen the effects of the heat, to let you use him however you need, as much as you need. Part of him loves how needy you become, slick running freely down your thighs as you beg your alpha for his knot. He likes being needed, he likes being able to provide what you need. But he can't always be there for your heats because of his job, and it's agony for him and fills him with such guilt. No matter how understanding you are, and how realistic he has to be about the situation, it still makes him feel like a bad alpha.

He'll definitely want pups. He has similar fears of fatherhood as he does with alphahood, but with you, he has a lot more confidence that things will turn out okay. If you do end up pregnant, his protective, possessive side comes out in full force. He has you swaddled in items that smell of him, and while he doesn't outright challenge alphas that come too close, he gets very tense like he's expecting a fight and most of them get the hint to stay away. He's dedicated to caring for you, even going so far as to take time off and free up his schedule so that he's around more. He doesn't want you to lift a finger. At the same time, his sex drive ramps way up, something about seeing you like that, belly rounded with his pup, really does it for him. At first he tries to hold himself back, but if you let him, he'll be all over you as much as possible. He's very gentle, however, rutting into you with slow, steady strokes, his hand resting protectively over that bump. He'd never let his desires bring harm to you.

Bonus weird headcanon: Because of his childhood, he has some habits that pups usually grow out of once they reach puberty. He sometimes kneads in your nest when he's feeling particularly relaxed and sometimes sucks on his knuckle in his sleep.

(I didn't anticipate this getting as long as it did lol thank you for the request, hope you liked it!)

(Requests are open!)

[scoops-aboy86]

wc: 4849 | Rating: T | CW: greening out, recreational drug use | Additional Tags: new years fic, pining, Steve Harrington’s bisexual awakening/crisis, love confessions, getting together

note: the apple cider mentioned is not hard cider, just the stuff that’s like apple juice but better 

(also on ao3)

Drink A Cup of Kindness Yet

It’s New Year’s Eve, and Steve Harrington is greening out. 

Which, really, isn’t his fault. He’s smoked before, had pot brownies that had tasted even worse than these ones, it’s just been a while. Who knew that your tolerance could completely reset itself after only… six months. 

And, okay, maybe that happens to coincide exactly with the length of time Eddie’s been away on Corroded Coffin’s first tour. Whatever Robin says, it’s not because he’s been pining. Who’s ever heard of missing something you never even had?

(Steve’s heard. Steve’s done it. Sometimes he still misses being with Nancy even though he knows, knows he never really had her heart, not fully. Or his parents’ warmth and affection, projected onto his childhood memories mostly from heartwarming movies because they’re just not that kind of people in real life. But… shut up.)

So now he’s here, balled up on the Buckley family’s sofa like one wrong move will send him toppling to the floor and too warm, so overheated that his body doesn’t feel like it’s fitted on its bones right. With Eddie holding his hand—stupid, after all the time they’ve spent smoking together before Eddie’s music career started taking off. The guy was always up for a toke, and Steve had taken advantage of that to spend more and more time with him until real life cut Steve off cold turkey. 

From the weed, obviously. That… That’s the real problem here. 

“Sorry,” Steve forces out. His head lolls back against the couch; talking takes a lot of effort and concentration. “That I’m… blrrrmph.” 

That last bit is a stand in for whatever word he means that he totally can’t think of right now. It’s sarcastic and frustrated and a little bit whiny, and he’s so disappointed in himself for it. 

Eddie squeezes his hand. “Don’t worry about it, Stevie. It’s my fault anyway, I shouldn’t have made the brownies so strong. Just… New Year’s, you know? I went a little overboard.”

At a loss, Steve squeezes back. On one hand, he'd be much more comfortable if Eddie were annoyed with him, because Steve is used to that response from people. On the other, he’d had a half-baked plan to maybe get up the nerve to kiss Eddie at midnight because, like, that’s what people do when the clock strikes midnight to ring in the new year. It’s just the three of them, and it’s not like he can kiss Robin, she’s basically his sister. 

But now he’s over baked. He’s wrong footed without being on his feet, pulse racing and dizzy without moving, stomach uneasy because of how out of whack his internal thermostat seems to be right now, and Eddie…

Eddie is smoothing a cool wet washcloth over his forehead, courtesy of Robin—who only had one bite of brownie to start with as a precaution, and ended up a perfectly manageable amount of high. On one hand, Steve hates that about her not while he himself is so incapacitated. On the other, he loves her for being able to bring him stuff. 

Wait. How many hands is that by now? What kind of many-handed creature is he building with his internal ramblings?

Eddie holds a mug to his mouth. The ceramic is cool against his bottom lip, so he allows it; stares straight into Eddie’s big, worried brown eyes while being fed sips of apple cider, sweet and cool over his tongue, down his throat. 

“Gotta stay hydrated,” Eddie is saying, a soothing murmur. “It’ll help bring you down, sweetheart. Like a parachute.”

Steve wants to shake his head, but the message to move keeps getting lost somewhere between his brain and his neck. Which is stupid, they’re right next to each other! He waits until the mug goes away, then mumbles, “Nnn. Crash.” Puffing out his cheeks, he imitates what he thinks sounds like an explosion. 

“Nuh-uh,” Eddie retorts. A crinkle appears between his eyebrows and Steve wants to smooth it out, but he can’t. He can’t. “I’d never let you crash.”

And then. Oh no. It occurs to Steve that that’s not strictly true, and it’s not even Eddie’s fault because he didn’t know. About the… the… Well, Steve doesn’t even really know, he’s spent so long carefully tiptoeing around the shape of it—can’t miss what you never had—but. Eddie left. His departure carved out a hole, a crater that marked the way they’d emergency-landed into each other's lives one terrible Spring Break and never parted until… until. 

Steve’s eyes are swimming, leaking, possibly melting out of his skull and none of it is Eddie’s fault. It’s not Eddie’s fault that he fell into the crater in his own chest and can’t climb out, can’t even move. 

Eddie’s eyes, in contrast, go wide. “Oh, Stevie, you’re okay—”

“I d-d-d,” Steve tries, stuttering and locked up and too hot and too queasy and too much. 

Another weight settles on his other side: Robin, sitting on the arm of the couch and wriggling her cold feet under him. It is, she told him once, the closest she will ever get to willingly touching his ass, and that memory wrings an incongruous, wet little laugh out of Steve even now. 

“Ride it out, dingus,” she tells him, combing fingers through his sweaty hair and, he can tell, trying to fix it for him. Not that she’s ever very good at doing so, but he appreciates the attempt. “I brought you some leftovers if you’re hungry.”

Robin’s mom loves turkey, so it’s always on the Buckley family menu for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. It’s what they all had before the older adults went off to some party they’d been invited to and the ‘kids’ stayed behind. Now Robin’s brought him a small plate with the perfect ratio of turkey, stuffing, and jellied cranberry sauce, the kind that comes in the shape of a can. Not really finger food, but that’s how she feeds it to him whenever he flops his head from facing Eddie to facing her. 

His eyes well up again because he’s got the best people in the world here with him, and because he’s being a total loser right now but it doesn’t matter because he’s got the best people in the world here with him, and… 

Woah. Déjà vu. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles again with a sniffle. “Shitty New Year’s.”

Eddie’s still holding his hand, squeezing it again reassuringly. “Trust me, big boy, this is nothing. I tried something on the road that, like, I don’t even know what that was. And I’m supposed to know my shit right? Ended up trashing a hotel room, which was… a classic rockstar move, actually, but it felt terrible. Especially after. You can’t help a bad trip while it’s happening, just gotta take steps once it’s over to make sure it never happens again.” He pauses. “And that’s why me and all the guys have made a blood pact not to accept anything from groupies, roadies, or music execs anymore.”

Robin, from where Steve isn’t looking, hums. “Naming that many sources doesn’t sound like it was just a one time mistake.”

Eddie shrugs, a motion that flows all the way up Steve’s arm from their clasped hands. “Well, there are four of us, so.”

Steve doesn’t want to think about what Eddie is or isn’t doing, what he is or isn’t accepting, from groupies. Distantly, he can feel his face doing something—pouting, maybe—as he whines and tips closer into Eddie’s space. Ends up with his face smooshed against the other man’s collarbone and throat, touching both threadbare band t-shirt and bare, stubbled skin. Now that he’s out of Robin’s reach, Eddie takes over stroking his hair after only a brief hesitation. 

And, like. Not to downplay how much Steve appreciates Robin, but this is better. He’s not sure why, it just is. If Eddie keeps going, he could probably stay here forever, just like this. 

Which is how he dozes off, all sense of time melting away until he merely exists, a seamless transition from being cradled by Eddie in real life to surrounded by him in a dream. 

~

Steve wakes with a snort to find himself almost right where he’d started, except instead of tucked into the corner of the couch he’s tucked into Eddie’s lap, probably squashing the other man’s legs numb. Instead of holding his hand, Eddie’s other arm is wrapped firmly around his back, holding him securely in place; the hand that had been in Steve’s is now holding several playing cards. Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve plays on low in the background, light shifting through the otherwise dim room. 

“Go fish,” Eddie crows softly, then turns to Steve as Robin huffs and takes a card from the draw pile. “Hey there, Sleeping Beauty. You feeling better?”

Feeling humiliated is more like it. Can’t even handle his—But at the same time, something in Steve has settled. A crater filled in. He doesn’t pick his head up, but he does bring a hand to his mouth to wipe away an embarrassing amount of drool, and tries clumsily to wipe it with the edge of his sleeve from where Eddie’s neck meets his shoulder, too. 

“M’fine,” he mutters, not totally convinced this is true. He feels clearer, sure, but definitely still high. He’s still sleepy, muscles lax, comfortable where he is. Embarrassment isn’t quite enough to make him move yet, drool or not. 

To hell with new year traditions though, because he can’t try for a midnight kiss now; his luck tonight has been way too bad already. And besides, he hasn’t even admitted to Robin he’s having these thoughts first, which is probably a soulmate faux pas. Kissing Eddie without consulting her first seems borderline rude. Or something. 

(More like he’s being a coward, but he’s pretty sure his reasons are, you know. Reasonable.)

He squints at the cards in Eddie’s hand. “Ask for sevens.”

“Okay. Got any sevens, Birdie?” There’s something warm and affectionate in Eddie’s tone. A smile, maybe—something Steve had missed while he was conked out. 

“Two against one, no fair,” Robin grumbles, but hands over a card. 

They play for a little while longer like that, until Robin is eventually placated by winning despite the allegedly unfair player imbalance. When she bounces up to get them all refills of cider in time for the midnight countdown, Eddie gets Steve’s attention by leaning back just enough to make eye contact. 

“Hey Stevie. I’m really sorry I didn’t warn you about the brownies… I should probably take a tolerance break, I barely even felt it and that clashes with my personal values.” The smile Eddie shoots at him is lopsided, dimple popping on one side in a way that makes Steve want to cup his cheek in one hand and pull him close until their mouths touch. Fuck. “Gotta be easier on the wallet and get back to those days of being a cheap date, otherwise I lose some of my already questionable appeal.”

“‘S not questionable,” Steve protests through a yawn. “You’re nice.”

“To you,” Eddie retorts. “To everyone else, I’m mean as a snake.”

His voice is gone quiet again. If Steve didn’t know any better he’d think it was shy—but Eddie Munson doesn’t do shy, there’s no way. Eddie Munson… is a goddamn rockstar trying not to stay stuck in this podunk town, and Steve finds himself smiling stupidly at him with reddened eyes that are still slightly unfocused. 

“You’re a big metal softie,” Steve says, because the record’s gotta be set straight. He taps Eddie’s nose for emphasis and chuckles when Eddie scrunches it and goes cross eyed trying to follow the motion with his eyes. 

There’s a moment where they just sort of look at each other. Steve feels so content, just looking at him. Knowing that Eddie isn’t expecting anything of him beyond being himself, which is… well, it doesn’t come easy a lot of the time, but for now he feels loose and warm. 

“Steve, can I tell you something?” Eddie whispers. 

He wants to hear what Eddie has to say. He always wants to hear everything on Eddie’s mind. So he nods. 

Gently, Eddie brushes Steve’s hair out of his eyes. (When had that gotten there?) “For a while now, I’ve—”

“Here we go!” Robin interrupts, setting their three glasses of fancy apple juice on the coffee table and flopping down behind Steve. “Do you think we have time to play another round? I bet I could kick your ass at War before the ball drops.”

“Robin,” Eddie says without breaking eye contact with Steve, “I think you forgot something in the kitchen.”

There’s a pause, presumably while Robin reads the room, and then Steve feels the couch shift as she stands again. “Oh! You know what, you’re right! I’ll just… go figure out what that was while you two keep talking, carry on.”

Even though that’s his platonic soulmate, there was never a question of turning to look at her. Steve is breathless, floating, and Eddie is all around him, just like in his dream. It’s doing something inscrutable and fantastic to his insides. (I am still really high, he thinks, and then promptly loses the thought.)

When she’s gone again, Eddie simply says, “I missed you, Steve.”

“You did?” Steve whispers. 

“Yeah. And it made me realize something.” 

He’s still busy welling up just from Eddie thinking of him while out in the big wide world at all. “What?” 

Eddie smiles, a complicated emotion sculpting his expressive face that Steve wants to map with his fingertips until he knows it like the back of his own hand. “That life’s too short not to tell someone you love them.”

What?  

“And it’s funny,” Eddie continues, “because you’d think I would’ve figured that out after nearly dying, but nope. That little epiphany waited until I left Hawkins and realized how… just how perfectly you’d folded yourself into my life. I missed seeing you, talking to you every day. And I didn’t say anything about it any of the times I called because I didn’t want to fuck up at least being friends—”

Steve gets that. It’s been the loudest of his not-quite-thoughts for months now.

“—But fuck it, alright? I love you. So I had to come back and, well… I chickened out on saying it earlier tonight, and then you got way too high and this probably isn’t the best time to dump this on you, but…” He smiles nervously. “The way you’ve been looking at me since you woke up, it’s like there’s stars in your eyes, Stevie. I don’t know if it’s for me or if it’s the weed or what, but it keeps making my heart do cartwheels. You don’t have to… I’m not asking for anything, and if you don’t feel the same way—like, romantically, I don’t mean platonic right now, just to be very, very clear—that’s okay, but I just needed you to know. That I love you.”

I love you. Just like that, unprompted. Twice. Kinda three times, even, if you count life’s too short not to tell someone you love them. 

In all of Steve’s relationships, he’s been the first to say it, always. He hasn’t said it in a long time, so it’s been a while since he’s heard it from anyone other than Robin—until this shooting star left where it had risen to in the sky to spend an honestly tame night with two best friends, one of whom can’t handle his special brownies for shit, saying that Steve fit in his life as though he’d had a crater carved in him too. Gazing at him now with a heartbreakingly open look, like he wouldn’t even hold it against him if Steve shrugged off Eddie’s arm and climbed out of his lap for this. 

And Steve, with all his walls around his heart to keep it from breaking, walls in his head around the start of thoughts about Eddie best left untouched for danger of getting in over his head… He hasn’t given himself the time or space to come to terms with any of it, but he can feel all that time spent not thinking about it welling up behind his eyes, the byproduct of pressing it all down oozing back up, and fuck. The last thing he wants is to fuck this up and lose Eddie, but that doesn’t mean he wants to cry about it. 

It happens anyway, too stoned to be any good at holding it in. 

“Oh, shit,” Eddie says, that same crinkle between his eyebrows again as he cradles Steve closer. Closer, not away, so that’s something. That’s… Steve doesn’t know if it’s what he wants right now, body responding so equally with urges to flee and relax that he ends up feeling too leaden to move. Again. “Shit, sorry, I—Do you want me to get Robin?”

Steve shakes his head violently, the inside of it as blank as an Etch-A-Sketch, and what’s wrong with him? He can’t—he would kill to talk to Robin, but he hasn’t, not about this, not for months. What the fuck is wrong with him?

She could’ve helped him sort this out, and then he might know what to say about Eddie loving him. Instead, he's sitting here in Eddie’s lap feeling like he could just as easily run a marathon or simply fall over dead. 

“I didn’t, I don’t know,” Steve says, panicking. His hands fumble, he’s not even sure what they’re trying to do until they’re clutching at Eddie, fingers twisted into the band shirt that’s so soft and faded he can’t even tell what’s on it, had been trying to puzzle it out right up until he’d gotten too high to function. “Eddie, I haven’t…”

“I know,” Eddie replies quickly, even though he doesn’t. “I’m not asking you for anything here. I wouldn’t put you on the spot like that, Steve.”

But you did, Steve thinks hysterically, because he had just by bringing it up, just by… 

Eddie is pulling Steve to rest his forehead on his shoulder, something they’ve done for each other in panic attacks and after nightmares ever since surviving the end of the world together. They’ve both done it for Robin, and she’s done it for them. This is barely different, the same gesture even if what Steve is freaking out about this time is wholly new-but-not-new, and being high through it makes things easier and harder. 

His heart is thumping hard and fast in his chest like it might burst. Maybe he wants it to. 

Maybe Eddie needs to see the messy contents of his heart and help sort through the gore and the junk to find what’s real in it, if anything. Steve doesn’t trust himself to know; he’s had trouble trusting himself with love, anyone’s love but Robin’s really, for a long time. 

“You just,” he whines into Eddie’s shoulder. “You don’t know, Eds, you—I don’t even fucking know!”

There’s a hand rubbing soothing patterns over his back, a little uncertain. “Okay, I don’t know. I’m not sure what you’re talking about, obviously, but it’s okay not to know.”

No it’s not, because Eddie deserves an answer. Eddie was brave, is brave, and Steve is… whatever this is. A mess. Maybe confused, maybe just trying to be more like Robin and mistaking his friendship with Eddie for attraction. How is he supposed to be sure? 

Steve’s fingers twist harder into the soft t-shirt material as he blurts out, “You left.” He doesn’t like how accusing it sounds, how whiney still, but now that he’s started he can’t stop. “I missed you too, you asshole, I… It’s been killing me, Eds, and I didn’t, I don’t know!”

“It’s okay not to know,” Eddie repeats, sounding dazed and maybe a little desperate, probably because Steve isn’t making any sense. 

“But I need to,” Steve argues frantically. “I can’t, I can’t fuck this up, or I’m just fucking bullshit again and I can’t—”

“No.” It’s the first firm thing Eddie has said in a while, the first thing he’s sounded sure about since I just needed you to know. He pulls back, but only enough to lift Steve’s chin to look at him, big brown eyes locking in like a tractor beam to rival the Death Star’s. “You are not bullshit.”

It’s just as devastating as hearing the opposite, like a forest fire clearing out old deadfall to make way for new things to grow.

And that’s all it takes apparently. Steve yanks Eddie forward by the shirt because he has to know. 

~

In the kitchen, Robin dawdles with getting more snacks to go with more apple cider—because, as Eddie had pointed out once Steve was down for the count, getting crossfaded on champagne would not end well. 

And then Eddie had whisper-asked, while carefully supporting a lapful of her unconscious platonic soulmate, “What do I do, Robin?” and then “He’s so…!” and eventually even “I’m too gay to survive this, Buckley.”

Which is nothing he hadn’t said to her before, so she’d just rolled her eyes and retorted, “So tell him already, dummy.”

Because she knows Steve. He doesn’t listen to his heart nearly as much as he should, too convinced that it’ll get him into trouble, but that’s because he’s a dingus. 

Now, hearing Steve start to freak out in the other room, Robin grips hard at her own hands and wavers. Should she not have encouraged Eddie? Crap. Should she go back out there? Crap, she’d been so sure that Steve felt the same way that she’d forgotten it was technically possible that he might have a bad reaction. Because, like, being cool about two girls liking each other was different from another guy liking him. She doesn’t think he’d freak out about it or anything, but she also hadn’t expected Eddie to take her advice so immediately, so clearly she’s not infallible. 

Crap, she should go back out there. Panicking, Robin grabs the dish of cranberry sauce because Steve loves that wiggly, can-shaped abomination and rushes back to the living room to—

Catch an eyeful of Steve now full-on straddling Eddie, face damp with one hand tangled with his shirt and the other in his curly hair. Steve’s eyes are closed, and so are Eddie’s as they kiss so desperately they’re almost rocking back and forth. 

She’s happy for them, but… ew. 

“Missed you,” Steve gasps between kisses. “Eds—missed you—so much—”

Eddie moans into his mouth, which frankly is more than Robin needed to hear. Thankfully, though, his own hands are at a respectable middle ground between looped around Steve’s waist and reaching for his ass. “Sweetheart—‘

They seem to be working it out. Robin’s going to retreat to the kitchen and give them a minute. 

~

Their first kiss is kind of like a traffic collision, which Steve regrets immediately. (He used to be good at this, dammit.) But Eddie—I’d never let you crash—kisses readily back, slows him with a touch to his jaw and eases the pace into something less frantic, but still eager. Easing him down like the parachute he’d promised until they’re fitted together like there’s no place they’d rather be. 

Steve has never been on someone’s lap for a kiss before. Eddie is warm beneath him, against him, arms securely around him. If he’d had any doubts, they’re melting in the warmth of how safe this feels. Like this is exactly where he’s meant to be. 

And it doesn’t hurt that Eddie is a good kisser. Or that Steve on his knees over him trying to press closer and closer, which… yep, they are definitely both starting to get hard from this. Steve can feel Eddie against him, an electric point of contact that’s unfamiliar, but feels more good than scary. 

Mostly. Because he wants—god, he wants, suddenly, so much more than he had let himself even think about before—but not right now, while he’s still stoned in Robin’s living room. It’s not like Eddie expects that, right? He said he loves him.

“M’not a groupie,” Steve reminds Eddie, whining a little into his mouth with a sudden stab of jealousy and dread. This has to be real or he’s not going to survive it. 

“Never,” Eddie pants. “Stevie, sweetheart—” he steals another kiss “—none of them are you, none of them could ever.”

“So you don’t…?”

“Have a few times,” he admits, pained but earnest. “Not in weeks. Kept thinking about you.” His hold tightens possessively, another thing Steve has never been on the receiving end before but it sends a thrill up his spine. “I kept forgetting their names and saying yours. They’re not who I want.”

Steve flushes, pleased by the thought of Eddie thinking about him while getting off but limited in imagining it because… well, he’s not totally sure how it works with two guys, beyond hand stuff. How to decide who puts what where. How does it… fit? Does Eddie like to be the, uh, the one putting it in? Oh god. God, what if Eddie does want that, but his dick is huge?! Because, like, Steve is on board with the idea of a dick in his hand, he knows what that feels like inside and out, but the rest—

He takes a shaky breath and tries to stop spiraling, but. It’s a lot. “Um, I don’t exactly know what I’m doing here, Eds. Are you sure I’ll live up to… whatever you’ve been thinking about?”

“Baby,” Eddie purrs, and there’s the rockstar shining through, soothing in its confidence when Steve feels so unsure. (Even though Corroded Coffin has achieved only moderate Midwest fame so far, Steve’s always thought he has the charisma for more.) “First of all, it would be my pleasure to show you the ropes, one thing at a time. We won’t do anything you’re not comfortable with until you tell me it’s okay. And the good thing about having an overactive imagination is that, whatever you feel good about, anything we do will be straight out of my dreams.”

He winks, and Steve ducks his head with a grin, reassured by the answer even though there’s a lot he needs to wrap his head around still.  

“And second, Big Boy, I can already tell that measuring up will not be a problem.” Punctuated by a rock of his hips that, though subtle, rubs them together just right that Steve has to bite his bottom lip to stifle a moan. 

Eddie makes a little growling sound in his throat and dips in to take that lip for himself, worrying it gently before soothing it with a kiss. A surprisingly chaste one, which Steve finds as soothing as the pleasure a moment before was electrifying. 

“And third,” Eddie continues, “me and the guys have been talking about setting up home base in Indy now that we’ve gotten started. That’s close enough to visit, at least. See where this goes. Go on—” and now his face is so endearingly hopeful it makes Steve’s heart feel too big for his chest “—dates? I don’t know where you are yet, and like I said, it’s okay if you’re not either, but that’s what I want: a relationship, in as many ways as I can get.”

“Yeah,” Steve says immediately. He’d started nodding before Eddie had even finished speaking. “Yeah, I think I want that too.”

Maybe it is okay that he doesn’t have everything quite figured out yet. And Robin had to have known, somehow, what Eddie was going to bring up when he’d shooed her out of the room; she wouldn’t have left so easily if she had any objections. She probably won’t be as mad as he’d feared about being left out of the loop. 

As if summoned by the thought, they both hear Robin call loudly from the kitchen, “Are you two done getting your gay and presumably-bisexual longing out in the open out there, or should I make popcorn while your gross boy cooties are barring me from my own couch?”

Eddie snorts, and Steve starts shaking with repressed laughter—one part snickering at his best friend’s predicament and three parts relief that she doesn’t sound mad. He’s never been more grateful that they seem to share a brain, even when he doesn’t know how to unpack his own shit sometimes. 

Though, now that he’s started, there’s a lot he wants to talk with her about. Starting with, what does it mean that he’s presumably some sort of bicycle?

“Make the popcorn anyway, we’re busy,” Eddie calls, and kisses Steve again. 

Not chaste this time. Still sweet, but with a richness and depth that Steve parts his lips for eagerly. He may not know the guy part of this but he knows kissing, knows how to adjust without pulling too hard on the reins—and that’s not so different from not really having the reins at all, really. 

It’s New Year’s Eve, and Steve Harrington is on top of the fucking world. 

Permanent tag list (ask to be added/removed):

@hotluncheddie @hiei-harringtonmunson @sofadofax @hickeysgodcomplex @oatmilk-vampire

@wheneverfeasible @hamiltonswiftie @grtwdsmwhr @yesdangerpls @theseaofdespair

[be-gay-cause-crime]

Little Burns Chapter 3

TW: suicidal/intrusive thoughts, SH and smoking

———

The twins were finally back home, the Stan O’ War was fixed up and they got back to sea as soon as they could, Ford started the campaign with the other set of twins in the family and Fiddleford, and Stan found himself alone with his thoughts more often.

He was sitting on his bunk, tired from moving boxes all day, Ford was in their kitchenette video calling with the rest of his party, he could hear their laughter from where he was. That’s when his thoughts started going to places he wasn’t too fond of.

‘Isn’t that the first time you heard him laugh like that in a while? If you weren’t around maybe he would be like that more- Stop. You know, the sea’s right there, just outside, there’s nothing stopping you from- Stop. What’s wrong Stan? He’s back. There’s no need for you anymore- Stop- you’ve already messed up so many times, it’s only a matter of time before it happens again-’

He needed a smoke.

He walked past Ford in the kitchen, papers and dice strewn about, he saw the twins and Fiddleford on the laptop in front of him, and they saw him too.

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel blurted out, shoving Dipper aside to get closer to the camera “Hi Grunkle Stan! How are you?”

Stan quickly hid the cigar he was planning on smoking in his pocket, making sure the kids didn’t see it, “Hey Pumpkin, just heading outside to get some fresh air,”

Ford turned to look at him, “Hello Stanley,” he frowned when he saw that Stan was just wearing a jacket, “it’s quite cold out, you should wear a thicker coat,”

“Don’t worry poindexter, I’ll be grabbing one on my way out,” he glanced back at the screen and saw Dipper shoving Mabel back for pushing him out of the way and chuckled as he shook his head ‘those kids are gonna be the death of me’ he thought.

“Ah, alright then, stay safe Lee-”

“Grunkle Stan, you should join our game!” Ford was cut off by Mabel.

“Yeah, it’ll be fun, remember when you and Mabel saved me and Grunkle Ford from The Probabilitor?” Dipper backed Mabel up.

“I remember somethin’ like that but-”

“I know Grunkle Ford already said that you weren’t interested but won’t you give it a chance? Please Grunkle Stan?” A flash of guilt crossed Fords eyes, but he wasn’t facing the camera so the kids and Fiddleford didn’t see. They didn’t know.

But Stan did.

Something in his head knew that something was wrong, knew that he needed to get out. He was about to say something but Fiddleford beat him to it.

“Quit crowding yer Grunkle. Stanley, go ahead and get some fresh air, it ain’t good to be cooped up inside all day, out on the ocean or not,” Fidds said, and that was that.

“Alright, you nerds enjoy your nerd game, I’m out,” Stan left before there were any further objections, walking past his coat as he pushed open the door outside.

‘What was that about? What did Mabel mean? I didn’t say that. Oh fuck, was Ford gonna try to ask about it back at the motel? Moses I fucked that up didn’t I. Nerd game. What was I thinking. He loves that game. No wonder he’d think I wouldn’t be interested in it-’ the bitter cold outside made him regret not bringing his coat with, but he wasn’t going back for it now, he fumbled with his lighter while unwelcomed thoughts taunted him, ‘That’s all you do isn’t it huh? Just ruin things for other people. Hell, you were the one to break his ticket to West Coast Tech! And hey, you pushed him through the portal too,’ he lit the cigar, ‘and instead of owning up to your mistakes, you just went and stole his identity, what brother you are-’ he took a drag of smoke, ‘hey maybe you should just do everyone a favor here- stop- and just go- please- and toss yourself- please no- overboard- Stop- it’s not like anyone would miss you after all- don’t do this- all you do is ruin things Stanley- Stop it!- you’d be doing the first worthwhile thing in your life-’

The cigar twisted into his arm. And suddenly. His mind was quiet.

———

Stan finished his cigar, his thoughts peacefully quiet for once. He stared at the red mark on his arm for a long time, finally rolling down his sleeve and closing his eyes, breathing in the cold, salty sea air before turning around and walking indoors.

He walked briskly through the kitchenette area, if anyone saw him they didn’t say anything about it.

He walked quietly to their shared room. It was odd. He felt a strange mix of relief, guilt, pain and numbness. But those thoughts. They were further away, they left him alone now.

‘It’s okay Stan, it’s fine. It stopped it, didn't it? It’s barely noticeable, it’s a one-time thing. Nothing more. It’s fine.’

He absentmindedly rubbed at the little burn on his arm underneath his jacket, taking a deep breath. He took off his beanie and placed it down on a little table, while he was doing this he heard footsteps from the hallway, he didn’t look in their direction, he already knew who it was.

“Stanley, I um, I came here to say sorry,” Ford stood by the doorway and looked looked like he was just given a talking to, probably by Fiddleford.

Stan turned to look at his twin, “hey Sixer, enjoy your game?” He tried to ignore the apology, he didn’t exactly know what it was for anyways.

“It was fine, but that’s not why I’m here.” He paused for a breath, wringing his hands together, “I.. I should’ve been more direct about asking you to join the game. I didn’t think you were interested so I decided not to, but now I believe that might’ve been the wrong decision,” he looked up at his twin, “so, if you want to join you’re more than welcome to.” He finished his statement and waited for Stan to reply.

‘Oh now he asks. Of course he wouldn’t think I wasn’t interested. He’s just doing this out of pity. You don’t need pity-’

“It’s fine Sixer, that’s a thing for you, Fidds and the kids, it ain’t for me, that’s fine.” He spoke nonchalantly, “besides, you know I would just rig the dice,” he flashed a grin, and Ford chuckled at that.

“I’m sure you would. Well, now that that’s settled I’m going to figure out where we’re headed for next, I’ve heard some stories of sea monsters in the surrounding area, I believe it could be a point of interest for us!” He flashed a smile of his own now, a genuine expression unlike the showmanship of Stan’s.

“Alright then, don’t go putting us in kraken territory Poindexter,” he sat down on his bunk to take off his boots, fiddling with the knots as Ford walked back to the kitchen, his footsteps getting fainter and fainter.

Stan caught sight of the burn mark moving his sleeve out of the way to get a better view , it was red and annoyed. ‘I should probably run this under some water…’ he quickly covered it back up with his sleeve, ‘it can wait till later… you’ve suffered worse…’

So there he sat, alone with his thoughts again.

[unholy-vessel]

Request: transDID blinkies

I lowkey forgot how to make blinkies so had to re-teach myself and went a lil overboard in the process

Recommended to put them in rows of 2-3 on Tumblr. You can also resize them by putting them into ezgif

Remember to copy image address / save image as so it remains a GIF, credit and/or reblogs are appreciated if you use them (not required)

[sofa-king-lame]

Snippet Sunday

Yaaay my PC is back up and running, so I'm able to write properly again! It's Monday night here. but whatever.

Tagged by @playinginthunderstorms, @stevethehairington, @dangerpronebuddie, and @smilingbuckley

Literally just started writing an epilogue for Nanny Buck (not ready to let them go yet), so here's a little taste:

--

The day starts simply enough. Buck gets up early, makes coffee for himself and Eddie, makes breakfast for all three of them, and cleans up after himself all before anyone else is awake. Eddie gets up as Buck dries and puts away the pan he used to make the eggs, kisses him good morning, and sits down with Buck at the table to eat. 

“Veggs are fucking genius,” Eddie says, voice muffled around his mouthful of food. “These are so good.” 

“My culinary skills were the only thing I had going for me at one point,” Buck snorts. “All self-taught.” 

“Liar,” Eddie huffs. 

“Excuse me?” Buck laughs, because it’s true. He’d watched hours of videos on different cooking skills, scoured blogs for recipes (oh god the life stories he’d had to slog through), and spent weeks testing dishes before he cooked them for other people. Buck’s not sure who Eddie thinks would have taught him to cook – besides Maddie of course, who did teach him some basics but the rest of it was all him. 

“I do not believe at all that at any point in your life you had only your cooking skills to offer,” Eddie scoffs. Oh, okay. Eddie’s honed in on the self-deprecation. Buck’s getting better at not defaulting to it, because Eddie calls him on it every time. 

“Oh, right. That. At that point in my life, I felt like I had nothing else to offer.” Buck corrects himself. Eddie smiles, pleased, leaning into Buck’s space to kiss him. He tastes life coffee and sage (which Buck went a little overboard with in the eggs this morning).  

--

Tagging anyone who wants an excuse to do this!

[tolvajok]

How sweet being underestimated tasted on the tip of his tongue. Especially when it came from someone like her. With each second her gaze practically burned a mark of her undivided attention into whichever part of his body she was looking at in that moment, and he wouldn't have had in any other way. He could only hope she enjoyed the show. There was so much he could've shown, too. All of this was only the appetizer. "Let me worry 'bout my own thing, beautiful! If I talk big, dream big, and ain't got nothing to back it up later, that's on me. But you're in the same boat. You're talkin' as big as I am. Which is cute, by the way..." She pulled her hand back, warm against his own cold, their touch lingering for a couple of seconds before it was all gone again. "How could I be your number one fan if I don't even know your name, hm? Y'know what? Don't even worry about it. I'll know it by the end of the night anyway." His gaze dropped to her hips as soon as she turned away, just like she probably meant for it to happen. "And you'll know mine." It was only a whisper, barely audible over the music in the club. He glanced up at her again just in time, mirroring her smile before pushing himself away from the doorframe. "I like it when you call me pretty." The game was on after that, and as soon as she grabbed the crowd's attention, Camilo slipped into the background. He didn't need a lot of people. Only one or two of the right ones, with enough money to spend, naive enough to manipulate, or lost enough to be swindled. Everything went well, with most eyes fixated on her, he could easily get into character for his made-up role of the charming but profoundly sad little guy that needed help, with eyes of a sweet, innocent little doe in need of a helping hand. They only changed when his eyes met hers from across the room, sending a wink her way before his smile dropped again, and his attention was back on the poor soul he was scamming money out of. He needed to win this, which is why he might've gone overboard with it, probably having to lay low for a while after tonight, and especially avoid this place, but if it all went according to plan, it would all be worth it. After a few hours the clientele had thinned out, and Camilo had just finished walking an older (and a lot less richer after what he had made her do) lady outside after dozens of fancy ways of saying thank you in Spanish, and he was sitting in the changing room chatting with the other girls, taking twenty dollars from one of them with a laugh (and another thank you) as he waited for his opponent to finish up as well.

billie let his words hang in the air, her smirk widening into something sharper, more dangerous, like the edge of a blade just before it pressed into skin. "dream big, huh?" she repeated, her voice smooth and honeyed, the kind of tone that could either soothe or burn depending on how she wielded it. "cute. but dreaming big doesn’t mean you can back it up, pretty boy." her nails lightly tapped against his hand as he held hers, his thumb brushing over her knuckles like he had any right to act so familiar. her gaze flicked to where their hands touched, then back up to his face, dark eyes glittering with mischief. "oh, you’re my fan, alright," she teased, pulling her hand back with a deliberate slowness, like she wanted him to feel every second of her retreat. "probably my number one. but don’t worry, i’ll try not to let it go to my head." her lips curled into a grin that wasn’t so much a smile as it was a challenge, a dare for him to keep going, to keep playing her game. because that’s all this was to her — a game she intended to win, like she always did. she tilted her head, her hair cascading over one shoulder as she studied him again, her grin unwavering. "you talk a big game for someone who’s already sweating," she said, her voice dipping low, smoky. "but, hey, i like your optimism. it’s kinda endearing. makes it more fun to crush you when the time comes." she stepped back, her hips swaying just enough to hold his attention as she turned slightly toward the crowd. "bold of you to assume you’ll even come close to earning them. but go ahead, surprise me." she shot him a wink over her shoulder before fully turning back to him, her smirk still firmly in place. "oh, and your favor? better be good, because if it’s not, i’ll make you regret wasting my time." with that, she crossed her arms loosely over her chest again, leaning back against the doorframe with a casual confidence that only made her look more untouchable. "now, let’s see if you’re as good as you think you are, pretty boy. time to put up or shut up." billie didn’t waste another second. with a final glance back at camilo, she slipped into the crowd, moving effortlessly through the thrumming chaos like a predator stalking her prey. her presence was magnetic, a slow, calculated dance of confidence that had heads turning, eyes lingering longer than they should, just like she’d intended. she worked the room with an easy, practiced grace, leaning in to laugh at a joke, brushing past a group of regulars with a teasing smile, and all the while keeping her movements sharp and deliberate, like a well-rehearsed play. the energy shifted in her wake, and she fed off it, knowing every glance she caught was another tiny victory, another point in her favor. she played her role to perfection, weaving charm and danger into every interaction, ensuring she stayed in control, leaving the crowd both drawn to and afraid of her. every time she caught camilo’s eye from across the room, she flashed him a smirk, daring him to keep up, daring him to think he stood a chance. if he wanted to win, he was going to have to work harder than that. much harder.

[hansoeii]

It was affection.

[eydilily]

🐌🐌🐌 BAM!

close up shot :3c

and a lil progression comparison

[yellowvixen]

week 22: ✨idol✨