#(reading/ watching ALL the things on running a good game i can find lol)

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

I'm sorry I can't take your call right now, I'm becoming unhinged about Transformers again,,,

[quilleth]

If Emily Wilde's encyclopedia of faerie had been out when I was in undergrad, I would have gone absolutely fucking feral and my professors would have just looked at me like "yeah idk why we're surprised by this" or, like sometimes happens with fanfic or lotr (ok and sometimes fae things. I *did* write labyrinth fanfic for a final once) they'd send me articles and things like "hey you like faerie things"

[rafecameronssl4t]

Chosen p.t 2 || Rafe Cameron x fem!reader love island au

Summary: read part one here

Warnings: angst

Word count: 1,173

A/n: help i forgot i had this in my queue LOL mb!!!

MASTERLIST (love island au masterlist)

divider by @h-aewo

You laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, Rafe’s absence a hollow ache beside you. You’d grown used to the warmth of his arm around you, the gentle rise and fall of his chest that lulled you to sleep each night. Without him, the bed felt colder, lonelier, and you couldn’t shake the memory of Kayla’s confident words as she chose him, as if she held a secret you didn’t.

Leah rubbed your arm in comfort, her eyes softening. “Yeah, must be tough after last night. The whole situation was shit. I don’t know what Kayla was thinking.” You managed a small smile, but it didn’t reach your eyes. “Neither do I, honestly. Rafe said there was nothing to worry about, but then she just… picked him. It just doesn’t make sense.”

You caught Sofia’s gaze, and she gave you a small, reassuring nod. “Maybe it’s not as deep as it seems,” she offered. “Maybe she just picked him because he looks good on paper—he’s confident, attractive, all that. She probably just wanted attention.” You nodded, trying to take comfort in her words, but the unease still simmered.

You nodded, trying to find comfort in her words, but the uncertainty still twisted inside you. Rafe had reassured you last night, had looked you in the eyes and held your hand with that steady, familiar touch that always made you feel seen. But now, with the memory of Kayla confidently choosing him and the doubt simmering beneath, it was harder to trust that feeling.

Leah’s voice broke the silence, softer now. “Have you talked to him about it?” You sighed, closing your eyes briefly as if that might ease the knot in your chest. “He tried last night. But I… I couldn’t. I was too hurt, too angry. I didn’t even know if I could believe him.”

Sofia’s hand found yours, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I think he’s probably feeling the same, People make decisions that don’t always make sense because they’re worried about what everyone thinks.” You leaned your head back, closing your eyes for a moment as you tried to steady your breathing.

Maybe they were right—maybe it was all just the game getting in your head, Kayla’s pick a calculated move, an attempt to create drama or stir things up. But the memory of Rafe looking away as Sophie announced your single status felt too raw to ignore.

~

Later that morning, as you sat in the makeup room, humming softly to yourself as you applied your skincare, a knock sounded at the door. The other girls exchanged glances, then called out, “Yeah, we’re dressed!” The door creaked open, and Rafe peeked in, his gaze instantly landing on you. He lingered in the doorway, holding a tray with coffee and breakfast.

“Hey,” he said quietly, his expression somewhere between hopeful and tentative. “Brought you breakfast.“ You blinked, caught off guard by the gesture. “Thanks,” you replied softly, surprised at how sincere he looked, how he seemed to truly want to make up for the night before. He set the tray down beside you and took a step back, as if unsure whether he should stay.

“Could we… talk?” he asked, his gaze flickering to the other girls, who quickly exchanged sympathetic glances. Leah gave you a small nod, then ushered everyone else out with a quiet, “Alright, let’s go, girls.” You sent her a grateful look as they slipped out, leaving you alone with Rafe.“Can I sit?” he asked, watching you closely, his eyes searching for any sign of welcome.

You nodded, and he pulled up a chair, watching you as you took a sip of coffee. It was exactly how you liked it, and that little detail twisted something in your chest. Neither of you spoke for a moment, the silence thick with unspoken words. Finally, he sighed, running a hand through his hair as he struggled to meet your eyes.

“I need you to believe me,” he began, his voice barely above a whisper. “I swear, I didn’t think she’d actually pick me. I thought I’d made it clear I wasn’t interested.” You looked away, biting down on the emotions that threatened to spill over. “Rafe, you don’t understand. You were there, comforting me, telling me everything was fine… and then she chose you. It felt like a slap in the face.”

He nodded, his expression pained. “I know. And I’m so sorry. I tried to make it clear to her, but I should’ve done more. I shouldn’t have let her think there was even a chance. I just… I don’t want to lose you over this.” For the first time, his words began to chip away at your hurt. His eyes held that raw sincerity, the vulnerability that he rarely let anyone see.

And as much as you wanted to cling to the anger, to shield yourself from the fear of being hurt again, a part of you knew he was being honest. You bit your lip, studying his face as he spoke, trying to gauge his sincerity. He looked back at you, a hint of desperation in his gaze that you couldn’t ignore. “You have to believe me,” he continued, voice almost a whisper. “I don’t want anyone else. It’s just you.”

Your shoulders relaxed, the anger ebbing slightly, though the doubt was still there. “Okay, Rafe,” you said finally, your tone soft but uncertain. “But actions speak louder than words. If you really mean it, you’ll have to prove it.” He nodded earnestly, relief flickering in his eyes as he reached for your hand.

“I will,” he promised. “I’ll prove it every single day if I have to. Just… give me a chance.” You nodded, feeling the weight of his words settle over you. He gave your hand a gentle squeeze, then smiled—a genuine, soft smile that reminded you of all the moments that had made you fall for him in the first place. “Finish your breakfast,” he murmured, nodding toward the tray. “I’ll be right here.”

[daisynik7]

Pairing: Takuma Ino x f!reader

Rating: Explicit – MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

Word Count: ~1.7k

cw: explicit language, mentions of a popular horror movie, smut – PIV sex (cowgirl position), nipple play, blow job, mask kink, slight degradation (slut, whore), use of pet names (cutie, sweetie, baby) 

Summary: You and your new boyfriend Ino decide to watch a horror movie together in honor of spooky season. Halfway through, he notices how skittish you are, making him want to play a silly prank on you with his signature ski mask. It’s all fun and games until he realizes that you actually like seeing him in this way more than he anticipated. 

Author’s Note: Happy October y'all! What can I say, I am VERY into Takuma Ino right now and I just had to get this out of my system. This is barely edited or proofread, sorry for any grammar mistakes or typos, I really was just letting my fingers fly through this in a moment of passion LOL. Likes, reblogs, and/or comments are always appreciated, thank you for reading! MDNI banner by @/cafekitsune. 

You turn off all the lights, the only source of illumination coming from the TV screen, paused at the very start of the movie you decided to watch tonight. With a big bowl of freshly popped kernels in your grasp, you huddle beside your boyfriend, Ino, on the couch, covering both your legs with a fleece blanket. He wraps his arm around you, pulling you in closer, reaching to grab a handful of popcorn to stuff inside his mouth. “Ready?” he muffles, pointing the remote to the screen, finger pressed to the center button. 

Nuzzling your head against him, you answer. “Yup!”

It’s apparently one of those cult classic horror flicks according to Ino, who recommended it when you mentioned how you wanted to watch something scary for October. He’s seen it before, many times in fact, but he insists that you watch it. He has no clue how frightened you get over the silliest things, so tonight will be a treat for the both of you. 

The opening scene plays out: a beautiful blonde picks up the phone and the conversation ends quickly short because it’s the wrong number. Normal so far, good. It rings again, but now the caller seems interested in talking. Do you like scary movies? Do you have a boyfriend? The man’s voice gives you the creeps, and you find yourself shuddering from it, cuddling closer to Ino, who glances at you with a smirk on his face. 

You never told me your name.

Why do you want to know my name?

Because I want to know who I’m looking at.

This line gives you goosebumps and you lift the blankets up to hide behind it. “Ew, creepy!” Ino only laughs, throwing a few more pieces of popcorn into his mouth. 

It escalates from here, getting increasingly chaotic and violent. By the time you’re halfway into the film, the bowl is down to its last kernels and you’re crouched in Ino’s lap, peeking through your fingers. He pauses the movie after one particularly brutal kill. “Snack break! I’m going to make some more popcorn and go pee.”

“You’re leaving?!” you whine, clinging on to him as he tries to get up.

He chuckles. “Babe! It’s just a movie. I’ll be right back, okay?” He kisses you on the forehead, heading into the kitchen, leaving you alone in the living room. 

Of course it’s just a movie, but you can’t help feeling creeped out in the dark like this. You reach for one of the nightstands, turning on the lamp. You hear the drone of the microwave, and after a minute or so, the distinct sound of popping. Eventually, it comes to a stop, and the entire house is eerily quiet. You’re tempted to call out for Ino, wondering where he is, but you remember that he had to use the bathroom. 

Suddenly, a shadowy figure appears right behind on you on the couch, grabbing your shoulders and shouting gibberish at you. You scream bloody murder, ready to punch him and run away when Ino lifts his ski mask up to reveal himself, tears streaming down his face, cracking up at you. 

“Ino!” you yell at him, slapping his hands away from you. “You fucking asshole!”

He doubles over, cackling, wiping his eyes. It takes a good while for him to regain his composure as you glare at him, arms crossed over your chest. “I’m sorry, baby. I just couldn’t resist.” He sits beside you, stretching his arms out for a hug. “You have to admit, that was fucking hilarious.”

You shake your head, refusing. “You’re such a dick.”

“Oh, come on! It was just a little prank. Now you’ll be way more prepared for the rest of the movie!” He pulls the mask over his face again, everything covered except the holes for his eyes. “See? Not so scary anymore, right?”

You inspect him carefully, still pouting, not saying a word.

“I’m sorry, sweetie. Truly. I promise not to scare you again.” He scoots towards you, nudging you in the arm. 

You roll your eyes at him, relaxing. “Fine.”

“Can I get a kiss now?” 

He tries to lift his mask up, but you stop him, pulling it back down. “I don’t want to see your face right now. I’m still annoyed, you know.”

“Aw man! Really?”

You hoist it just past his nose, leaning in to give him a soft kiss on the lips. When you break apart, he smirks at you. “You like this, don’t you? Seeing me with my mask on.”

You shrug, a sly grin on your face, neither confirming nor denying his accusation. Sure, you were a bit upset at first, when he scared the shit out of you. But seeing his face covered like that may have sparked a desire in you that you never knew you had, until now. 

“Oh my god! You do, you do!” he exclaims, shaking your arm. “My cutie has a mask kink!”

“Shut up, asshole!” you yell at him, pretending to shove him off, smiling. 

“You’re a fucking freak!” he giggles, pouncing on you. He starts tickling you along your ribcage, causing you to squirm beneath him as he straddles you, trapping you between his legs. His fingers flutter under your arms, stroking your sensitive skin.

“Ino!” you cry out, laughing from the sensation. 

You can feel his cock growing hard in his pants, balls heavy on your stomach. Suddenly, he stops, mask still folded to expose his lips, leaning down to kiss you sloppily. He pins your hands above your head, locking his fingers with yours. He slips inside your mouth, grazing your tongue with his, hungry for your saliva. “Fuck,” he moans into you, nipping at your bottom lip. “You like this freaky shit, don’t you? Nasty slut.” His playful tone is laden with lust now, low and sultry, mouth brushing along your neck, sucking at your pulse points to mark you. 

You whine his name, wrapping your legs around his waist, grinding yourself against him. 

“Look at you, getting so fucking dumb all because of my mask,” he purrs. “What else turns you on, cutie? Tell me.”

Without thinking, you blurt out, “Spit. Your spit. I want it.”

“Oh shit,” he swears, licking his mouth. He traces the outline of your lips, beckoning you to open up, dribbling a thick wad of saliva inside you. You gulp it down, sticking your tongue out for more. 

“Oh fuck, you’re nasty,” he says, doing it again. “Makes me so fucking horny seeing you like this. Seeing my cutie act like a fucking whore.” He slips beneath your shirt, fondling your bare breasts, flicking your peaked nipples with his thumbs. 

“Fuck, Ino,” you whisper, pussy throbbing in your panties, arousal leaking through the fabric. 

“You like it when I play with your tits, huh?” Like it when I pinch them hard like this.” He squeezes them between his thumb and index finger, enough pressure to stimulate you, making you moan his name again and again.

He swears under his breath, shoving his pants down his legs, shimmying out of them until he’s only in his underwear now, erection stiff in his boxers. “You gonna suck my cock now or what, slut?” 

You nod, kneeling in front of him, knees on the carpet, spreading his thighs apart. He lifts his ass off the couch to slide out of his boxers, letting them fall around his ankles. You kiss the tip of his dick, smearing his precum around your lips like gloss before swallowing him into your mouth. 

He lets out a drawn out, “Fuck,” watching you with wide eyes as you bob up and down his shaft. Voice shaky, he asks, “Can I put my hands on you?”

Something about him in this ski mask makes you want to be submissive, makes you want to be used. You grab both his hands, guiding them towards the sides of your head, giving him free rein to manhandle you.

“Holy shit,” he murmurs, gripping you tighter, gradually thrusting his hips in tandem with you. His cockhead hits the back of your throat, teasing your gag reflex, but you resist, tears collecting in the corners of your eyes, enduring it. 

Noticing you, he pulls out, a string of spit between you. “Baby, baby. Please don’t force yourself. I don’t want to hurt you.” He reaches to his side, grabbing a tissue from the table beside the couch, wiping away the spit around your mouth and the tears in your eyes. “Come here, cutie. I want to make you feel good too.”

You strip out of your bottoms, straddling his lap, pussy wet and aching against him. He moans as you rock back and forth on his shaft, pressing his thumb to your clit, massaging it. “There we go. Now we both can feel good, yeah?”

After a few more strokes, you beg him to fuck you, lifting up to guide his cock inside you slowly, sinking down on him until he bottoms out. You bounce on him, his hands gripped to your waist, guiding you, moaning your name between expletives. 

As you approach your orgasm, you pull up his mask, placing it on his head as he usually wears it. He smiles brightly at you, nuzzling his nose to yours. “There’s my pretty girl. Can you come for me now? Come all over this cock?”

You kiss him passionately, arms wrapped around his neck as he thrusts into you, hands squeezed on your ass now. You reach your climax, moaning into his mouth. He comes with you, shooting his load deep into your womb, filling you up with his cream pie. The two of you continue to kiss slowly, catching your breaths. He caresses your back while you melt into his embrace. 

“We need to establish a safe word,” he suggests, cradling you in his arms. “I want to make sure I’m not hurting you.”

You hum into his skin, saying the first thing that comes to mind. “Popcorn."

He chuckles, stroking the back of your neck gently. “Alright. Popcorn it is.” A beat later, he exclaims, “Popcorn! I totally forgot about the popcorn!”

You laugh, giving your boyfriend a wet smooch on the cheek.

[hoshigray]

Now look here, it's sugardaddy! x sugar baby! reader time >>:3 So here's the rundown: the reader is a college senior who works part-time in a diner and finds out that their favorite customer, Toji, is a sugar daddy and wants to initiate courtship. Although it is a proposition you fail to see yourself saying no to, is this something you can see yourself being in the long run?

A/n: This prompt was picked on a poll to celebrate getting over 50 followers, only for me to get to 100 right after!!?? Y'all...can I give you a hug? ;w; No, oh okay. Anyways, I won't make another poll, BUT I'll be opening thirsts/requests soon!! >:D I just gotta make myself a disclaimer list before we let those lil fantasies of yours fly, lol. But yeah, this is my first time posting a fic over 1k+, so I hope y'all like it. Also, bonus: there's art drawn by Moi (@hoshigaby)?? You'll have to scroll down to find it tho :33 Okay, I'm sorry, go ahead and read!!!

Cw: soft dom! Toji x fem! reader - implied age gap (the reader is in their early 20s, Toji's around early or mid-30s) - mating press - cervix fucking - oral (fem! receiving) - pussy drunk Toji - breeding - daddy kink - overstimulation (fem! receiving) - pet names (baby, babygirl, darlin', good girl, honey, kid/kiddo, mama, princess, sweetie, sweetheart) - praise - clitoral play (Toji pinches your clit) - reader isn't a virgin but, it's the first time you and Toji have sex.

Wc: 4.9k

"Oh look, your favorite is here."

10 o'clock, it's closing time. All the servers and bussers are ready to buss down tables and sweep the floors, hosts at the front split up tips and head straight home, and the cooks clean the kitchen and throw out the trash. All there's left is the silence of the dining area, where not a single customer is in sight.

Well, minus the one Utahime points out to you.

You turn to the bar area, where almost all the tables are empty, and all the high-rise televisions are turned off. All but for one, which was showing a football game.

A man is watching the screen, sitting in a booth at the far end with a glass of beer on the table. He's wearing a black turtleneck covered with a denim jacket, white fur on the collar, and a silver chain contrasting the black clothing. You gaze downwards to his black jeans pants, where his left foot seems to be tapping the ground. He's waiting for someone.

Once his eyes catch your approaching figure, his deadpanned face shows a smile in recognition. He was waiting for you.

And you smile back as you walk towards him.

The familiarity with this man comes from a year working at the diner. His name is Toji Fushiguro, and he's been a regular even before you started working here. And to make things funnier, he was the first customer you served after a week and a half of training. You can recall when you accidentally put milk and sugar in his specifically requested black coffee, to which you apologized profusely ("Heh, it's alright, darlin'" He flashed a smile that was meant to reassure you. "The first time that's ever happened to me.").

It was there that you found yourself being the only person that's served him. At first, you thought of it as some sort of joke after the coffee mishap, but now, unless you're there to take his order, he'll only have a beer or black coffee with all the other servers. The crew often pokes fun at you, stating you're the older man's favorite. And you gotta admit, it makes your heart swoon knowing this is true.

"There she is," Toji watches you approach him with his foot finally stopped tapping the checkered floor beneath him. "My adorable lil' server."

You giggle as you sit on the cushioned booth seat across from him. "It's good to see you, Mr. Fushiguro. I hope life's been good for you." You wave goodbye to the guy behind the bar counter, who turns off the TV still on as Toji focuses on something else. You promised to be the last person to turn off the lights and lock the doors before leaving, so now it's just you and Toji.

"I thought I told you to drop the Mr. Fushiguro, kid." He reprimands you with his playful smile, the right corner of his lip quirking his scar upward. "And I could ask you the same thing. How's college goin', darlin'?"

An exaggerated sigh leaves your system. "It's going alright. Can't believe I'm about to be done after the next semester, but the senioritis hasn't hit me too strong yet, thank God. And I can't wait to graduate with all this debt on my back~!" You flash the fakest beaming smile with two thumbs up.

Toji chuckles at your fraud enthusiasm. "Mmmm, I bet. But I know you're smarter than me and most people who work for me, so I'm sure you'll do just fine."

"Yeah, I'd like to think so, too." Your chipper attitude dwindles, and Toji notices the change in tone.

"What's up? You don't think you'll get yourself a job?"

"Umm, well," You cough to clear your throat from awkwardness. "I tried signing up for plenty of internships. Some of them shut me down, others just haven't replied back. And I guess it's just me overthinking, but I worry that I won't get a job in something I like..."

"Aww, princess," Toji rises from his cushioned spot to move to your side, sitting close to you with his big jean-covered thigh brushing yours. He places a hand on your back to rub comforting circles. "That's just the thoughts in your head."

You groan into your hands. "I know, that's why I don't know why I'm beating myself up about it so much... But it's okay! I know I'll be fine because I still have this job keeping me going for a year."

Toji raises a brow. "You wanna be a server all your life? Wanna serve me my black coffee and BLT sandwich til my last breath?"

You hit his chest in amusement. "Well, no, but if it comes down to it, I don't mind. I'll just take up more jobs or maybe make a side hustle. Either way, I know Mei Mei will help me out. I'm sure everyone here will if they have the chance."

"I could also help you."

Your hands instantly go up defensively. "No, Mr. Fushiguro, I wouldn't want that! I'm sure you're pretty busy, and I don't want my troubles to burden you."

Toji's eyebrows knit together, his sharp eyes surveying your defensive stance. "It wouldn't be trouble if I'm the one offerin' to help you, honey."

"Yes, but even so..." You look at your lap as your fingers dance with each other to ease your anxiousness. "It would feel unbefitting to have a customer — a valuable one such as you — to help me with my financial problems. Seeing you smile at me when I serve you your coffee...I'm perfectly content with just."

Your gaze locks into your fidgety fingers, saying the last part was probably unnecessary. Yet it was true; Toji had always been patient with you whenever he stopped by, even going the extra mile by giving you a seriously generous tip after his meals. You know you didn't deserve it, but he's already at the door before you can argue with him. If his gracious action was just a mere small percent of what he could do, then he's done plenty for you than needed.

Toji, however, didn't see it that way. He hums as he leans back onto the booth seat, his hand now snaking to the back of your neck, his thumb caressing the nook of your neck and trapezius.

"Well," He breaks the silence, you're listening. "What if we take this outside of customer service?"

The brows are pulled together as you turn to him in slight confusion. "What do you mean by that?"

"I've been thinking for quite a while," with his hand maneuvering to rest on your shoulder, he sighs and straightens himself up. "Your manager, Mei Mei, right? I talked with her not too long ago, telling her how much of a hard worker you are and how even while still in school and suffering with assignments, you still smile and make sure the customers enjoy their time here."

You give him a thanks, and he continues on. "Which is why I told her about what I wanna do. So here's my proposition: I'll pay for everything for you. Your debt, bills, clothes, whatever it is your pretty lil' head is worryin' 'bout."

Toji's promise does sound comforting to the ears, but you think about your part in all this. "So, do I have to work for you?"

He chuckles. "No, baby, not working fr' me. But there is something I want you to do."

"Yes?"

Toji doesn't give you a clear answer, staring at your face with a soft smile. You wonder why he's being odd until his face leans forward, and the hand on your shoulder pushes you into a kiss. You let out a yelp into his mouth, but the shock diminishes once you succumb to his warm, intoxicating lips. He tastes like beer, definitely from his drink.

He removes his lips from you, and you faintly exhale in an unsteady breath. "Mmmm, yer too much fr' me, sweetie." Toji groans and kisses down your neck while you place a hand on his chest to grip his turtleneck for support before you dissolve into his arms. And although you shouldn't be at your work at this time of night doing this, it felt too good to end.

"I want you to be with me," Toji says in-between smooches on your neck, moving to paint the other side with his pecks. "You're so good to me, darlin', always being such a good girl." He nibbles on your clavicle, and a soft gasp rewards his eardrums. "Lemme take care of you, y/n."

All that's going through your head is the feeling of his lips on your body and the arousing throbbing sense happening in your nether core.

"Hmm, whaddya say, baby?" His lips are too close to your ear as he playfully bites the lobe. Your thighs rub against one another, and you know there's a wet spot in your panties. "Gonna be my perfect girl?"

If you don't give him an answer quick, you're bound to melt right on this seat, and being a whimpering mess to his touch is embarrassing enough.

"Haaaah...Y-yes," You finally answer in weak whispers, mind spinning and eyes glossy. "I wanna—Ahaaa...I wanna be yours."

You can feel Toji's lips curl into a smile. He lifts his head to look at you, and a hand comes up to cup your face before he gives you a soft kiss on your quivering lips.

"My good girl."

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊✩₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

A few months have passed since you and Toji formed this new relationship. And getting used to certain things is still a challenge.

For one: covering up your new lifestyle is never easy when you're out with people you know. During winter break, you went to dinner with your friends and offered to pay for the whole table. They looked at you as if you were talking nonsense ("Girl, where the hell you get that kind of money to be covering for all of us?" "For real, is this the same diner you've been working at? Are they hiring?").

Another thing that wasn't easy to get accustomed to was Toji spoiling you. Since you're a college student, Toji only sees you every other weekend when he has time. During those days, Toji doesn't hold back in showering you with gifts and affection. Between the fancy dates in expensive restaurants, riding rides at fun amusement parks, or the bags of new clothes you bring back to your dorm, it was something you didn't expect to happen so quickly. Your roommates constantly tease you about this "mystery man" who makes it known you're his special lady.

But outside of that, the most significant change was you and Toji. To say you two got closer was too easy to put into words. Sure, the money was there, so you could finally get a good night's rest without worrying too much about your school debt or bills. However, you knew this went beyond the dollar bills and the fancy clothes.

Come to find out, Toji knows and remembers things that amaze you. There was a time he bought you a whole wardrobe worth of dresses because he remembered you had to cancel dates with your friends since you had nothing cute to wear. Or the time he got you a box of your favorite teas, even though you briefly mentioned them to him during a talk way back from recollection.

And even away from the materialistic things, you can feel how much Toji loves you. You can feel it in his eyes whenever he's looking at you. You can feel it when you try to argue yourself out of trying an outfit you don't think will be good on you, but Toji coaxes you into it because he knows — not thinks, knows you'll look good wearing it. You can feel it in his hands when they hold yours, when he places a hand on your thigh and rubs it in loving warmth, or when he caresses your cheek when he kisses you goodbye when you two have to return to your own lives.

It's a type of love you didn't see yourself being on the other end of. The more immersed you are, the harder it is to imagine yourself out of it.

Spring break is now upon us, and Toji has invited you to join him overseas for a business trip. You tried to decline, saying it's his trip and you don't want to intrude on his business. That argument was immediately shut down ("Tch, believe me, sweetheart, you're saving me from bashing someone's head in if you're close to me than not. Plus, I wanna see you wear that cute swimsuit I got you."), so he dragged you on his private jet, and now we're here.

During the day is when he's away for work, so you spend the morning either in the penthouse suite you two are staying in, outside taking pictures to show Toji later or looking around at the little shops nearby. Toji is done with work around the early afternoon, so you two spend time together exploring the country, trying new foods, and taking walks around the area while talking about how your day went until the sun goes down.

Everything goes well until Thursday when Toji texts you saying something happened at work and that he'd be at the suite later than usual. Well, it's 7:45, the sun is starting to go down, and Toji is still nowhere in sight. I hope everything is alright on his end.

You're unsure about going outside for a walk on the off-chance you stay out too late. And if something happens to you while Toji isn't close by, that'll give him more to worry about on his plate, and you definitely don't want that for him.

So, you look around the penthouse to see if there's anything to keep you occupied until Toji's return, and then what catches your eye is the swimming pool outside on the terrace which you haven't tried yet. That'll do!

You go to change into a swimsuit, a cute two-piece that Toji bought for you when you two went shopping together. After a quick shower, you enter the pool and enjoy the calm waters while watching the sunset, leaving a beautiful array of colors painting the sky over you.

Tomorrow is your last day here while Toji will do business, and then you're back to school on Monday. The fact that you'll be graduating debt free still blows your mind. Toji really fulfilled his promise and took care of your worries.

Is that to say that your relationship ends once you touch that diploma?

You lift your feet and lay on your back to allow the water to hold you up, ears covered in the water and face looking into the sky as you're lost in your thoughts.

It wouldn't be too far off if Toji wanted to close this whole thing off when you graduate, as the point was for you to not worry about debt and such. That much you understood from the very beginning. But what happens after that? Do you two just go back to being acquaintances that only meet at the diner? And what about the stuff he got you? Do they stay with you forever? And do you have to fight memories of him every time you see them?

What about all the touches, all the hand-holding, all the cuddles, and all the kisses? Are they supposed to mean nothing to you the next time you see his face?

You're thankful for the water keeping you afloat in the pool, but having these thoughts attack your brain just makes you want to sink in loathing.

Until you feel something tickle your feet, having your body react in a state of panic. No longer floating on your back, you search for whatever is torturing your feet. Only to find Toji in front of you wearing black trunks, he chuckles lowly, and your heart sinks in embarrassment.

"T-Toji," You swim up to greet him. "How long were you back from work?"

"For about 10 minutes," He watches you move through the water, following you to sit in the shallow part of the pool for you two to talk. "I saw you in the pool and thought I'd join. I tried callin' out to ya, but the water was blocking your ears."

"Hehe, sorry about that. I was thinking about something. How was work?"

His face went into a deep scowl with rolled eyes, and you giggle at his nonverbal response. "Had I not known I was comin' back here to see you, I'd probably fucked that rookie up."

"That bad?"

He hums and brings you closer to him with his hand on your shoulder. "But don't worry 'bout it. And you? What were you thinking about?"

"Hmm? Oh, it was nothing," your encouraging response is fictitious.

Toji lowers a brow. "Try again."

"No, honest! It was nothing, Toji."

"Don't make me tickle you again, kiddo." You freeze and look at his face. His sharp gaze and slight grin speak for themselves about his seriousness.

A sigh is withdraw from your lips. "I was just thinking about how I'd be leaving on Saturday and being halfway done with my senior year of college."

"And?"

"And, uhh," You gulp and avert your eyes to your lap, your fingers swaying with the pool water. "I was also thinking about me... and you?"

There's silence, the lack of response eating you alive. Then you feel Toji's hand grip your shoulder.

"Are you scared I won't be with you after you graduate?"

He hit the nail because you don't answer for a few seconds. Your eyes still avoid him.

But Toji still persists. "Do you not want to be with me?"

Your head turns to face him in haste, taking you aback at how fast you were. "No! I don't want this to end. I'm grateful for how close you and I have become. I want... I want..." You fall silent once more as your head moves back to your lap as if you'd find the words you want to express lying there.

Using his free hand, Toji grabs your chin to look his way again. "What do you want, baby? Use your words fr' me."

The intense gaze of his jade-green eyes captures your attention, practically daring you to look away from him. The warmth of your cheeks spreads around your face, and you gulp before answering.

"I really appreciate all that you've done for me. And I...I really like you, Toji. I want to be with you." His face doesn't change as you ramble on, causing you to move your eyes to avoid the awkward stare. "But I wouldn't blame you if you want to stop with where we—"

Your sentence was interrupted by Toji's kiss, and a squeak was suppressed between the two lips. You exhale in bliss as your hands find purchase on his solid chest. He deepens the kiss when his hand is posted at the back of your neck.

You break the kiss to breathe, Toji's gruff chuckles fills the warm air.

"You're too adorable, princess. Do you really think I'd want to let my precious girl away from my sight?" You open your mouth to interject, but Toji lifts your hand and brings it to his lips, kissing each knuckle. "Listen here, darlin'. I didn't offer to take care of your debt on a whim. I adore the fuckin' shit out of you, and I was gonna wait til your graduation to ask if you'd still want this thing to be official."

"But now that I hear you're interested," his big hand holds yours, fingers intertwined as his thumb brushes your forefinger. "Are ya up for it?"

You breathe slowly to ease your heart, beating at an irregular tempo. You grip his hand in return and offer a sheepish smile.

"Yes. I'd like that very much, Toji."

He smirks and kisses your cheek. "Good girl." Toji has his arms placed behind your back and under your legs. Then he stands up while picking up your figure bridal style. He grins hard when you squeal in surprise as your arms sling around his neck.

"Let's shower," he walks out of the pool and into the suite. "And then afterward, I'll show you how much I've been itchin' to make you be my girl for real."

The heat on your face grows tenfold, and Toji barks a laugh when you hide your face. You can only mentally pray for yourself for what's to come.

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊✩₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

That little prayer did absolutely nothing!

Now you're lying on the bed nude and wet from the shower as the water droplets on your body slide down to the satin sheets beneath you. Your hands cover your mouth, trying to suppress the moans and sobs from exiting your lips.

And the cause of this is the man currently nestled between your legs. You can see the raven hair between your inner thighs, but you feel a wet muscle lapping around your vulva. The lewd noises of Toji eating you out fill the room and has you writhing in discomfort, and you try to slowly move your lower region away from his ravaging mouth.

"Aht aht, you're not goin' anywhere, mama." Toji's rough hands grip your waist and pull you back down, his nose brushing your clit as you jerk upwards. He lifts his head to look at you, and the image of your slick smeared all over his mouth and chin almost makes you faint.

"Put those hands down, baby. Let Daddy hear that sweet voice of yours." He uses one hand to play with your pussy, middle and forefinger abuse your inner lips as his thumb grinds down on your sweet bud. Your eyes shoot up for the stars, and you're forced to do what he says, hands gripping the sheets while your cries are out for him to hear.

"Aahhhh!! Haaah, T-Toji!! 'S too much, too—Ooohh!" His tongue returns between your cunt, licking and tasting the sticky fluid coating your pussy. Your eyes are watering, your mind starts to feel dizzy, and your legs can't stay still to save your life. He's been doing this for 15 minutes!!

You clutch his hair and wail out his name in pleasure, earning a moan from Toji as his grip on your thighs gets tighter.

He can tell you're close to finishing, so he helps you. His tongue slides from your wet center to your clitoris, licking and sucking on the extremely sensitive bud, his teeth lightly pressing down on the pearl.

Your release comes instantly, and your walls spasm as you cry in pure euphoria. Your head pushed deep into the pillow below you, letting your body finish reacting to the climax. However, Toji doesn't wait for you when his mouth drinks your essence. His tongue attacked your sore velvety walls, having you gasp for air.

When he's done, he finally withdraws from between your legs and kneels before you, taking in your disheveled figure. Your tear-stricken face and hooded eyes peer up at him as he wipes his face of your excess come, licking the rest from the back of his hand.

Toji snickers hoarsely. "Sorry, sweetheart, you tasted so fuckin' good I couldn't help myself. Besides," you watch his hands trail down to his dick as he places himself on your messy vagina. "Gotta get you prepped up fr' me."

He puts a pillow under your lower back to raise your hips more. Seeing his dick for the first time has you in mental turmoil. Toji notices you looking and sneers, pulling your hips to him so his balls practically kiss your opening, his dick on full display on your lower abdomen. The girth alone has your cunt pulsating in anticipation, and good God, the length of that thing. It's not the first dick you've seen in your life, but it's definitely the biggest challenge you've come across.

I hope those 15 minutes of prep were enough.

You come back to your senses when you feel the tip of his hefty member circling the corners of your folds, and your slick aids him as a lubricant.

"Ready, babygirl?" You exhale a nervous breath and nod for confirmation. "Okay, we're gonna start real slow."

Toji began to push the tip in, your folds being spread open to accommodate the foreign object intruding into your tight hole. You close your eyes and hold your breath, the pain worsening by the second. You take one breath, and Toji pushes further. With another breath, he goes further. Another-

A giant gasp takes over you as the tip of Toji's cock enters you. And Toji takes his time pushing himself further into you, using every fiber of his being not to rut into your tight walls off the jump.

"Haaah, hmmm, oh fuck," That's easier said than done with you gripping onto him like your life depended on it. Once he's pushed his whole cock into you, your words come out as a babbling mess, gripping his arms for support. He looks down at your disarranged self, chuckling at such a wonderful sight. "You look really fuckin' sexy layin' under me, baby."

"God...Toji," Tears stream down your cheeks, wincing at the pain down south. "'S too muuu-ch, too big for—Hnnngh!!" A sudden thrust of the hips has you biting down on your bottom lip.

"C'mon now, I thought I told you about that. I already let it slide once or twice." Toji places your legs on his shoulders and leans close to you, his body weight adding onto yours as the base of his cock grinds into your sex. "What's my new name, mama?"

"Ah!! I'm sorry, Daddy." The title comes through sobs.

Toji grins from ear to ear, wiping your tears with his calloused fingers. "Good girl," he kisses your forehead as you adjust to his girthy length. "So fuckin' pretty fr' Daddy." He takes your lips with his soft ones before moving his hips in a slow yet rough rhythm.

The mating press has your body submit to him, taking in his cock as it sinks deep into your swollen core. And it only gets worse when his pace gets faster, hitting your sweet spots accurately. At this rate, you're bound to cum earlier than necessary.

Then you feel his tip abruptly touch your cervix, and the wail you let out is picked up by Toji's ears. "Oh? Think I found what I was lookin' for." His hips grind deep in you, his tip abusing your poor cervix to the point you speak in tongues. "Feelin' good, princess?"

"Fuck, Daddyyyy, please, I'm-Ahaaah, Ohhh!" His irrational pace has your brain turning to mush, his cock bullying your insides. The sound of his balls slapping against your squelching folds has you squeezing him harder. "I'm gonna cu-cumm!!"

Toji hisses into your ear, the tone of his voice dominating your senses. "Oooooh, don't grip on me like that, sweetie. Gonna end up — Mmmph! Shit, shit, shit, shit...Gonna give you a baby."

You reach to cup his face through watery eyes glazed in a haze. "Please, Daddy, I want it," You know you're talking nonsense, but why care when you're feeling this fucking good. "Inside, I want it, inside!"

"Heh, be careful with what you wish for, mama." He kisses you again as his hips become erratic, and he moves a hand to your clit and pinches it, whining into your mouth when you're cunt clutches onto him one final time.

You cum around his cock and push your head back on the pillows, your gushy walls spasming around his length, prompting Toji to cum inside you after a few more thrusts. You two moan into each other's mouths, riding each other's high until your bodies calm down.

The two of you pant heavily once the kiss is broken apart, and his deep emerald orbs take in your dazed expression. He smiles when he notices drool on the side of your mouth, using a thumb to wipe it off for you.

"My sweet darlin'," Toji kisses your cheek and sighs deeply into your embrace. "You're too good fr' me, baby."

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊✩₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

"Did I say that I want your babies?"

You're resting with Toji, your head relaxed on his chest as you sit between his legs. The television in the bedroom plays an episode of a sitcom, anything for you two to look at and enjoy a moment of peace together.

He snickers at your question, his chest rising and falling as you lay on him feels nice. "Yeah, you kinda did."

"Wow, that sex must've screwed something up in my head."

"Yeah, my dick had you wanting to risk it all." He snorts when you playfully hit his arm. "Don't worry, we can find some plan b in the morning."

Turning to face Toji, still watching TV, you furrow your brows. "We? What about work?"

"I have tomorrow off. It's your last day, and I don't feel like going back to work, or else I'll be sour all fuckin day. Much rather spend it with you than with some morons."

You look at Toji for a little longer before you smile and kiss his cheek, catching the older man off guard as you nestle into his warm body. "Thank you, Toji. For everything."

The thanks carry a deeper meaning. Not a single ounce of doubt clouds your mind now that you've gotten the closure you wanted. Thinking about how your life brought you to this moment, you're happy with your decision to pursue this relationship and more. And it's thanks to this man for making it possible.

Toji still stares at you before he scoffs and kisses your temple.

"No problem, kiddo."

[itwasntimethatdidit40]

Sensitive.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x afab!reader

Words count: 1300 (more or less, I added something just before posting it)

Warning: + 18, MDNI

Summary: You make Frankie come just by playing with his nipples. That’s it, that’s the fic LOL

Tags: pov second person, reader has breasts, nipples and hair, no other description of her is given, pwp, nipples play (YAS we play with the man’s nipples wooo), ice cubes, swearing, pet names (baby, honey), established relationship, dick pronouns for @sp00kymulderr’s challenge, kissing, Frankie obviously has a huge cock, I think it’s all? Let me know if I missed something and I will add it right away.

A/N: I've been wanting to do this for a while now because I'm a big fan of nipples (gender neutral, folks, we don't discriminate here, I can love a variety of them) and those Pedro pics yesterday uhm…inspired me lol English is not my first language, I have no beta, any mistakes are my fault, I’m so very sorry 💀

I also did it because every time I use the translator to check my English, whenever I type something nipples related, the translator always uses she/her and it pisses me off.

I hope it's not cringe, if it sucks pretend you've never read it, please, I love you all bye.

I started a tag list, let me know if you want to be added, thanks so much!

Archive tags: @pedrostories ♥️

Frankie has sensitive nipples.

You discovered this by accident, while you were in bed together after he had fucked you like a god. Your hand wandered over his chest and brushed against his areola. Frankie fidgeted, tried not to show it but the involuntary flinching of his body spoke for him.

He kissed you right after just before you could ask anything so you didn’t investigate any further but you were so intrigued by it. You kept thinking about the way he squirmed under your touch for days and craved to do something more for him.

You have a thing for nipples. For his especially.

Both because you love him and because they are delicious. You also don't like the fact that yours get all the attention while his have always remained two neglected little buttons on his chest while you’re pretty sure you could make good use of them.

Tonight is the time to change that, at least to try.

As you kiss on your couch his hands instantly fly to your tits, he massages them, squeezes them and as much as what he's doing drives you crazy you keep thinking that you would like to do something for him.

“Frankie” you breathe between kisses and he whispers on your lips “what, honey?”

“Nothing… it’s just…”

“What?” he interrupts you “did I do something wrong?”

You smile in front of his worried eyes “no, you’re perfect, really. I just…” you hesitate but in the end you spit it out “I would love to try something new”

Frankie smirks under his mustache “uh, what’s in that scrumptious little head of yours?”

You giggle, feeling your courage grow as you slowly run a hand over his chest still covered by his shirt, starting from his neck, down his collarbones and then his pectorals.

“I would like… uhm… I would like to play a little game”

Frankie’s eyes sparkle with curiosity mixed with excitement “you know I like games”

“Okay, do you trust me?”

“Of course I do, baby” he says right away, brushing your arm gently and looking you sweetly in the eyes.

“Let’s go to bedroom then”

You stop in the kitchen to get some ice cubes that you put in a glass as he watches you, still confused but definitely aroused “What are those for?”

“You'll find out soon enough” you take him by the hand grinning, lead him towards your room which has now become yours and you have him stand in front of the bed.

“Take off your shirt” you order him “and your jeans”

“I already like that,” he chuckles.

“Lie down,” you tell him soon after, playfully pressing a hand to the center of his chest.

You place the glass on the bedside table and undress, remaining only in your underwear while he cranes his neck to look at you and licks his lips full of anticipation.

“My favorite view…” he whispers and you giggle, crouching on the bed right next to him “Now listen to me, you can’t touch me but I’m going to touch you, okay?”

Frankie sighs “okay”

“Can you behave for me?” you raise an eyebrow watching him ironically.

Frankie lets out a more convinced “yes” and you praise him “such a good boy for me”

You brush your fingertips over his chest again, going down over his sternum, then over his stomach and belly, stroking the thin strip of hair that disappears into his boxers. "I think he'll like this," you whisper, watching his half-erection rose from beneath the fabric.

“He’s looking forward to it” he nods with a crooked smile.

Of course he expects you to touch him right there, but your hand goes back up letting a little protest leave his lips.

You stop on one of his nipples and your fingers graze all around the areola.

Frankie squirms, widening his eyes, mouth agape “oh fuck, is that what you want to do?”

You purr “exactly. Can I go on?”

Frankie swallows air, his Adam's apple pops in his throat, then murmurs, “Go ahead.”

“Shall we bet he will come untouched?” You suggest.

“We’ll see. Don’t make him wait further, gorgeous, do your thing” he urges you.

You begin to caress his skin, moving closer and closer, Frankie watches you mesmerized as you feel his body tense under your fingers.

You rub his areola again and then pinch his nipple. He gasps loudly “Oh fuck”

“Everything okay?” You murmur.

He frowns noticeably and nudges “yes.”

You alternate between pinching and rubbing, feeling his breathing get heavy and shorter as his cock swells under his boxers. You shift only long enough to pull them down and expose his huge engorged dick to your view.

“So much better” you purr “I need to see him”

You return to your seat beside him and remove your bra, smiling mischievously at him. Frankie tries to raise his hand to reach out to feel you but you rebuke him, " Hey, no! You can look, but don't touch, remember?”

He blurts out, “That's not fair,” and you chuckle, “I feel like he's doing just fine anyway. The best boy," you tease him.

You take an ice cube and pass it over your lips, you suck on it lightly and small drops of water slide down your chin, you place it back into the glass as Frankie lets out a needy moan. His pupils are dilated and his lower lip quivers slightly, he is absolutely delicious.

You reach down and your nipples brush against him, “You can feel them like that, can't you?”

He sighs “yeah…okay”

You stick your cold tongue out and run it over his and he groans “oh baby”

You eye his cock rise higher and higher until it comes flapping against his tummy, hard and swollen and its pre cum begins to drip from the tip along its length.

Your tongue circles his nipple, again and again, then you flick it and you nibble it lightly and Frankie's back arches as he gasps, "Holy fuck, baby, you're killing me."

Your mouth and ice-cold lips stir all his nerve endings just as you expected.

You smile pleasantly impressed against his skin ”you like that, huh?”

“God, yes” he breathes “fuck”

He groans loudly when you detached, taking an ice cube again and sucking it between your lips, then lean over his chest to reach the other nipple as you continue to rub the other with your fingertips.

His chest rises and falls faster and faster as your tongue strikes sharply and precisely, your other hand resting on his arm to steady you.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop please I’m so close” he whimpers “fuck - just like that baby”

You continue until his cock is on the verge of bursting, then you move your hand to take it and finish him off.

“Come for me, Frankie, come on” you urge him “Give it all to me, baby” just like he does every time he’s in control and his response is immediate, he comes in your palm after a few strokes, long streaks of sticky cum painting your hands and his tummy as he whines.

You get between his legs to suck him clean, welcoming his cock between your lips and giving him what he wanted from the beginning after what he didn’t know he needed.

You suck him until he softens and then you lie in his arms, quietly enjoying his warmth. He is the first to break the silence, after kissing your nose and your forehead "damn, baby, you knocked me out"

You lift your gaze to his and smile "you didn't imagine that huh?"

"He didn't imagine it either," Frankie laughs.

"I told you he would like it" Frankie caresses your cheek and you reach out to kiss him, his taste still on your lips. "next time you play with mine while I play with yours" you coo.

He retorts, “just give me some time to rest and I’ll show you right away”

Thank for reading, I hope you enjoyed!

Tag list: @aurorawritestoescape @baronessvonglitter @almostempty @thundermartini @harriedandharassed let me know if you want to be added or removed and I’ll do it right away ♥️

[navstuffs]

Tag, you are on it!

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x GN!Reader

Summary: Miguel finds you and Gabriella playing on the backyard. Based on the comic Tag - Pixie and Brutus by @pet_foolery

Warning tags: domestic bliss, fluff, happiness, feel good type, my bad attempt on writing comedy lol

Author's Notes: after being obsessed with this man over a year, i finally joined the fandom (its never too late i guess). hope you enjoy your reading!

Miguel arrives home exhausted from work, taking off his coat and loosening his tie. What an awful day! Between deadlines not being respected and useless meetings taking far too long, Miguel had to stay late to finish a sudden important project. He was fortunate enough to have you pick Gabriella up from school. 

You met Gabriella after five months of dating Miguel(and almost two years of knowing each other). "A friend," Miguel explained the first time you met, nervous about his little girl's reaction—a sentiment you also shared, way more desperate for her approval. 

Everything went so well; even Miguel felt a little jealous of you, watching his daughter gravitate in your personal space the entire night. Especially when, before you left, he noticed Gabriella waving so you could kneel on her level. She covered your ears with her small hands, whispering as you nodded. Miguel observed quite anxiously, his eyes focused on any reaction. You just opened an enigmatic smirk as if you were teasing him that you could win his daughter so quickly.

Three months after this, Gabriella suddenly asked on a Saturday morning why you hadn't moved in yet, almost causing Miguel to drop the breakfast plate with scrambled eggs he had prepared. You and Miguel tried to explain that you still haven't talked about it yet, and adults can be complicated sometimes. 

Besides being Gabriella's new favorite play partner, Miguel hadn't tried to insert you into their daily routine. Not because he didn't trust you, just...Miguel just had to take things slower. His main priority would always be Gabriella, her well-being and happiness. Inserting you into their routine would make it hard for both if you and him didn't work out. And you agreed, understanding as you always were: Gabriella should always be the top priority. 

As it happened on one of your previous dates when the nanny called, informing Gabriella had gotten a sudden fever and had puked once. You urged Miguel to leave, telling him you would solve everything at the restaurant. Miguel was so surprised when you appeared in the house thirty minutes late, still dressed in your date clothes, with anxious eyes on the little girl in his arms. You stayed that night, ensuring to leave only after Gabriella's fever got down as she slept in your arms - when she heard your voice, she opened her arms begging for you to hold her.

Gabriella was already too attached, and Miguel was too much in love. That's why he was still unsure when he asked you to pick her up. 

When Miguel hears Gabriella's giggle from the backyard, his heart instantly warms. Your capacity to make her laugh made him jealous before. Now, it only makes him fall in love with you even harder. To think there was ever a time Miguel was terrified of what would happen if Gabriella didn't like you. 

He follows his favorite sound in the world, his body relaxing. You two seem to be playing tag: Gabriella never seems to catch you, but she doesn't seem to mind just having fun as you run away in the middle of his vast backyard, both barefoot. Miguel slowly joins his daughter, kneeling on her side as she hugs him tightly, all sweaty. "Papi! We are playing a tag game." 

"I noticed." 

"I don't seem to be able to tag back, though," Gabriella replies, confused in her innocence. As if she could with her small legs. You are still turned around from them, probably catching your breath, unaware of Miguel's presence yet. An idea pops on his mind.

"Tag me." 

"What?" 

"Tag me." Miguel offers his hand, opening a smile. Gabriella opens a big grin, tagging him.

"So, have you given up, Gabi?" You, still in the middle of the backyard, turn around with a playful smile. It completely disappears from your face as you watch Gabriella tag Miguel instead, your boyfriend slowly raising. A dangerous smile on his lips warning you to run.  

You only have one second to react, too slow already, as Miguel starts sprinting in your direction as Gabriella encourages him, excited. Your lungs complain as you run away from him, feeling Miguel hot at your heels. It is the only time you will probably curse his long and strong legs.

You give a quick look over your shoulder, panicking. Miguel has that intense, wild look in his eyes, the one you see when he is determined to get what he wants: to get you. You ignore how your body feels and wonder if you shouldn't just jump in the pool (what a joke, Miguel was a great swimmer as well). 

"Behind you." It is the last thing you hear before Miguel pounces on you, managing to do it gently to a round of cheers from Gabriella. 

You both fall to the floor, and Miguel turns you around with a frown. "Were you going to jump in the pool?" 

"Who, me? Nooo. So you could swim and catch me?!" 

"Liar! You were about to jump in the pool!"

"As a distraction, only! You would have jumped straight after me anyway."

"Oh, I would have." He is serious, you know that.

With his body thoroughly pressed against yours, you hug him, "Missed you. How was work?" 

“Terrible. As always.”

"As always." You agree, watching his expression change. Miguel suddenly becomes aware of how your body is pressed against his, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks. He tries to get away from you, but you don't let him, your arms locking him down, a malicious smile on your face.

"Don't…"

"I am not doing anything." 

"Not in front of-"

"Miguel, I am not doing anything!" You giggle, the sensation of a victory spreading against your chest. "You know, I wouldn't do anything in front of-"

You both look toward where Gabriela was standing before to find nothing there. Before you two can even untangle, Gabriella jumps on her father's back, startling you both. 

"Tag!" 

She immediately jumps away, giggling as she runs inside the house. Miguel sighs, not before your hand cups his cheek so you can look at him. "I will keep her company. It is fine."

"I don't want to impose-" 

"Miguel, it is not an imposition. She likes me better anyway."

Miguel gets up from the floor, helping you stand as you watch Gabriella hide behind the sofa, her messy hair and eyes peeking out.

"Are you going to…stay?" Miguel wonders, his tone soft. 

"Of course I will. Maybe we can repeat this tag game after Gabriella is asleep?" You offer, bluntly teasing him. "With much less clothes."

You smirk, watching Miguel's mouth drop open. Gabriella calls your name again and you give him a peck on the cheek, before running away to her direction. 

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 2 thoughts

ah, this episode! i have heard it is very scary. so i’m curious to see how creepy it can be. usually what gets me the most is body horror, at least so far. 

i’m really not a horror fan so i’m interested to see if this will push my limits or just be kinda silly. remember that evil AI in like s1 episode 8? and when it was unplugged it said “noooo, brad :(“ or something like that? yeah that one just made me giggle lol

(author's note after seeing the episode: what...)

(additional author's note: read to the end to see why i think this episode might be actually about the civil war's long-term consequences)

how far we have progressed since then! 

let us begin!!!

we open with a storm and some scary music. pretty intense for the first few seconds. oh, now someone is giving birth. it is very dark and hard to see but it appears these individuals do not look like your average fellow off the street.

GAG! slurping noises are produced as the baby emerges. birth counts as body horror btw i do NOT make the rules. EUGH the umbilical cord…

(sorry y’all pls take no offense to those who have or desire children someday... it’s just something that makes me feel dizzy to watch but i support your dreams and choices i promise 🙏)

okay, but the baby is crying so that’s usually a good sign right? like better than a quiet baby, i think.

but a bunch of people are leaving after the delivery and i thought they would stick around to do things like look at the baby and see if it is healthy and stuff. but no. they’re leaving. where are they going...

they’re digging a hole?????? WHAT DA HELL. BABY IN THE HOLE??!!!!!! while someone cries terribly. OMG the grief…

WHAT THE HELL???

what have i gotten myself into……

intro time. always gonna think about that tweet regarding scully’s glamour shot on her ID. anyway just in case you forgot the truth IS out there.

so we see some kids in a place called home, pennsylvania, and they’re playing baseball. you know how children are, with their baseball. it’s as serious to them as a senator running a reelection campaign. 

kid knocks the ball over the fence, and onto the property of “the peacocks”. the kids will NOT go get the ball, and instead find a spare. seems they prepared for this, or could maybe find a place that isn’t next to a very scary house to play ball, but i understand spacial constraints.

OH???? the kid is digging his foot in to go swing and…. BLOODY PUDDLE???? THIS MUST BE THE BABY FROM BEFORE????

he backs away as we see a tiny hand in the dirt. that poor kid omfg he must have been traumatized… and his sneakers were so bright and white…..

cutscene to mulder in the field after all the kids have fled! ah, mulder loves his baseball. in fact, he even sniffs it. he’s practicing his pitching LMAOOOO please be serious for FIVE minutes. 

scully is measuring the hole while he does all this. in fact, he is not stopping. it just keeps going while she talks about the angle of the shovel.

she makes some quip about quitting the FBI and becoming a spokesperson for the ab roller, when he SHOVES THE BALL UNDER HER NOSE and says “smell that” THIS MAN IS SUUUUUCH A WEIRDO I LOVE HIM

“it’s perfume. eau de ball” (stupid little mulder smile)

very strong juxtaposition between baby death and a daydreaming mulder, but that is the sort of thing we have come to expect from this show. he seems enchanted.

WAIT! he’s talking about his sister… “all-day pickup games out on the Vineyard” and going down to the beach… no cell phones or faxes… oh man, this baseball has him talking about his family :(

“mulder, if you had to do without a cell phone for two minutes, you’d lapse into catatonic schizophrenia” <- WELL GET HIM! it is true. he is always making calls and then abruptly hanging up.

feels weird to be smiling like a fool at my screen as these two talk about their lives after seeing the opening scene... but here we are!

“scully, you don’t know me as well as you think you do. you know my work demands that i live in a big city, but if i had to settle down, build a home, it’d be a place like this” 

OHHHHH MY GOSH

1. he has though about settling down and having a life outside of his work, and this is such a character reveal, and i know he wants like a small army of children, and

2. i just KNOW those words are gonna come back and bite him when this place is revealed to be some sort of cult

she says it would be like living in mayberry which i had to google BUT: it is the town from the andy griffith show. ah, i see. so very quaint.

someone pulls up to see them and i paused at just the right time to see that mulder’s shirt is very baggy and living up to my URL, which is good because sometimes i worry it’s a bit TOO niche, but i made it after watching 4 episodes so i’m too attached to change it now. meanwhile, scully’s coat is wonderfully sleek and it’s a fun little contrast.

this is sheriff taylor, who says this is a very small town, and there are no real suspects. mulder asks about the peacocks next door, and the sheriff goes… quiet. apparently three boys lived there, and their parents were hurt in an accident. the sheriff and his team tried to administer care to the parents, but the boys took the bodies home??? that’s. odd.

so these peacocks have no electricity, grow their own food, and… are inbred. the sheriff says they are feeble and sad, and wouldn’t have any idea what they are talking about. which just makes me think they are the prime suspects.

the sheriff is saying that he loves his town, it is quiet and peaceful, and he knew someday it would change when something terrible happened. when he saw “it” in the ground, he knew that day had come. he seems convinced it’s an outsider but also he is purposefully ignoring all the evidence in the other direction. and he wants their help, but he doesn’t want anything to change. 

(i see... this is about the terrible secrets of small towns and the wish to keep everything quiet and preserve an idyllic image rather than make meaningful change)

apparently they were recommended to help out when “the victim” was described, so mulder says that maybe they should go take a look.

and whew, when they cut to a bundle of blankets next to some cans of spam (that look like they’re partially covered to hide the branding?) it’s a lot. it's a lot to handle, for me, emotionally, but i guess that's a fairly normal reaction. the sheriff just pulled the baby right out of the fridge. we also meet a deputy named barney.

they shove poor scully in a tiny bathroom with just a sink in it to do her work, because they don’t want anyone else seeing the autopsy go down. the sheriff says they can’t do it in his office, because everyone knows he never locks his office door, and they’d start rumors. this whole small town thing is starting to seem quite oppressive.

mulder is also here in this tiny closet-like bathroom, and i can feel the claustrophobia from here. despite the lack of space, scully begins.

and she is taken aback, but not as much by the fact that it is a child but that said child “has been afflicted by every rare birth defect known to science”. mulder has his arm on the wall leaning in and watching in a way that is weird for the space.

we only see a few shots of the baby- thankfully, because i don't think i could handle seeing any more of it than we do- but it’s enough to make me go whew, shout-out to the props department for making something that looks like that, because that is how i cope with seeing things on this show that make me nearly faint

she is reciting the various things that this child has been born with, and mulder says that they can probably rule out murder, right? but scully says idk… it looks like it WAS murder, actually. dirt in the nose.

lord, they walk out after doing that and somehow don’t need to like, down some vodka or something to cope. 

“imagine all a woman’s hopes and dreams for her child, and then nature turns so cruel. what must a mother go through?” oh my gosh is scully gonna make me cry…

“apparent not much in this case, if she just threw it out in the trash”, says mulder, while they sit on a bench on he is manspreading like you would not believe. but i assume they are in a tough spot mentally so manspreading is permitted in this situation.

“i guess i was just projecting on myself”, she says, and oh my gosh does scully want kids someday…. stop i’ll cry!! i’ll cry. 

“well, just find yourself a man with a spotless genetic makeup and a really high tolerance for being second-guessed and start pumping out the little uber-Scullys” he says, rubbing her back.

and i can’t decide if this is funnier if he’s truly and deeply down terrible for her and suggesting subtly that HE could be that man, or if he’s just being a really good pal. so i’m gonna turn around both options in my head for a while and see which sticks.

“what about your family?” “hm? aside from the need for corrective lenses and a tendency to be abducted by extraterrestrials involved in an international governmental conspiracy, the mulder family passes genetic muster” (said with a celebratory flourish of his hands)

oh my gooooooosh i love them both so bad. he is SUCH a nerd. and his constant need to joke about the horrible things… even when they are approaching a serious topic, life ambitions and the desire to start a family, he has to go in there with some sarcasm to avoid getting Too Serious...

see? he has good genes. allegedly. go forth.

but he sobers up, points out that the child they had to just examine is a serious tragedy, and some likely very young parents are probably incredibly scared. but this isn’t really an FBI matter. 10 points to him for being serious for once.

she is brainstorming how such a thing could happen- “now, we all have a natural instinct to propagate” “do we?” <- ace mulder subtext i see you…

scully is convinced that the woman who gave birth to that child did it against her will, and mulder points out that kidnapping is a bureau matter… she seems determined to save someone caught in a horrible circumstance here, and i admire that about her, the sense of justice she has. she gets up to go investigate.

but he calls out: “hey scully- i never saw you as a mother before” <- OH MY GOD??? OH MY GOD. i can’t even begin to process that right now. oh my gosh it seems like he has wanted kids SO terribly… but scully never really brought the subject up, which is fine because not everyone wants kids!! but what does it say about her character if she DOES…? i am analyzing.

i hope she is happy someday with whatever she chooses. music is playing as he looks after her. do not for a second think i missed that little musical flourish and gaze combo.

so, they go to the peacock's farm. where they find a chopped off pig’s head on the steps. it doesn’t seem to bother them at all, which must be a testament to the strength of bureau training.

mulder tries to do his usual “enter first and ask questions later” thing, but scully STOPS HIM, saying there is no probable cause.

WHAT!!! for once they did NOT JUST BURST IN!!??? their random entering of places is one of my favorite running gags and for once they didn’t. oh she is serious about this one…

so they just peek inside instead…. and then they get their guns and go inside after seeing a table covered in blood. oh…. the scissors from before…. yes, bloody table = probable cause

there is blood everywhere, and the footprint from the crime scene matches the footprint in blood on the floor. AND they find a bloody shovel. well!!! we know who did it now!!! but… where are they??

it is soooo dark and creepy as they make their way through the house. and someone is WATCHING THEM THE DARK as they investigate. BLEUGH we get an extreme closeup on their eyes…….

i am spooked.

now scully is on the phone with sheriff taylor, who is describing the warrants for the arrest of the peacocks he put out, while mulder slams a TV in their hotel room, trying to get it to work. typical mulder behavior

(i bet they felt a need to incorporate some silly moments to lighten out the heavy heavy heavy content, and honestly i didn't think it would work, but for me it kinda is. don't get me wrong, it's still VERY heavy, but it's not start to finish just trauma like we got in calusari, which stands out to me as being the darkest and least fun episode in the series so far. but let mulder sniff a baseball a little and smack a TV and our agents talk about having a family and it is slightly less overwhelming in terms of tone)

and she brings up the white cadillac they found there but he says get a lot of abandoned cars. damn, who is abandoning a cadillac...

what is this sheriff hiding…?

he pulls out his gun from a locked box, and seems deeply regretful. before he puts it back in the box… hmm…

back at the peacock farm. the brothers are packing what looks like clubs into the cadillac. and i notice how silent and scary the whole thing is… no music whatsoever.

meanwhile, mulder is doing a little dance to try and get the TV working, which scully is smiling at him in a way that implies long term affection and exhaustion. i want to get those gifs and save them upon my blog forever and ever.

he’s trying to watch the knicks game, but as she heads out, he says “goodnight mom”, and she looks… uncomfortable. i mean, it’s a weird thing to say, but still. he says a lot of weird things and she doesn’t always look sort of… hmm. idk, the only phrase that comes to mind is “cut to the quick”. i WILL be analyzing that.

she tries to leave and the lock is broken, so he places a chair underneath, which might do something but like… probably not a ton.

anyway, back to the cadillac, where the brothers are pulling out while listening to music. where are they going….

sheriff taylor is up late at night, “taking one last look around before it all changes”. oh, he loves his town… but it is rotten, like mulder says. AND HIS WIFE DOESN’T LOCK THE DOOR AS THEY COME IN!!! NOOOO!

the brothers are on the move, while scully sleeps and mulder watches a fuzzy documentary on hyenas?? okay. king behavior.

but back at the sheriff’s house, he can hear the brothers approaching, and pulling into his yard. oh no…. he looks out the window and the brothers aren’t there. so did they already get in…?

he’s going for the gun, he says, and they enter his house. and he’s got a baseball bat, but where is the gun! they have clubs! like the kind the bad guys in zelda use!!! they look very very dangerous!

he hears them approach as his wife is under the bed……… and he swings his bat at the intruder, but he is barreled right over, it’s three on one, and they beat him RIGHT AS HIS WIFE SEES THE WHOLE THING FROM UNDER THE BED. and they sniff and sniff and FIND HER UNDER THERE????????

what the fuck. who came up with this…….. that song is still playing as they get in their car and leave. i'm sure the song also has some significance to the meaning of what these guys are doing but tbh i have never heard it before so it's hard to unpack.

the deputy is at the scene of the crime the next day, smoking a cigarette, hands shaking in terror. he had come over to give the sheriff a report… and found them that way.

so the owner of the cadillac was found in baltimore, she had left it behind after running out of gas. this is not a lead in the slightest.

mulder is investigating the scene while scully pulls out files from the crime lab, and it is. well, it is very bad, to put it bluntly. the crime scene is horrific. 

she says that the crime scene messed up the tests on the infant… but mulder proposes that… perhaps each of the brothers were the father? she talks about how babies are made and how that makes no sense, but he proposes that generations of inbreeding could maybe make such a mutation. but she says that isn’t possible, they’d need a female family member and there aren’t any left. hmm...

scully wants to try and trail them right now and go save whoever it was that was forced to give birth, but mulder points out that they are outnumbered and could further endanger the victim. what to do…? i don’t know the answer. 

oh! the deputy barges in and says he’ll take them up there so it’s three against three. and they have guns, which should give them the advantage. okay. shoutout to the deputy.

mulder seems suspicious however, and says his suddenly entry was a bit “too chuck bronson for me”. so yeah, i had to google that too. this chuck fellow is the guy from machine gun-kelly. and NOT that sleazy rapper one. the more you know.

scully is confused, though, because why would they kill the sheriff? he didn’t even investigate them. unless they somehow overheard them talking about issuing the arrest warrants while in their house… and they are operating under the assumption that the brothers were not in the house when they were…. but we know that someone was in hiding!!!

OH! back to the house. one of the brothers declares he is hungry. we finally get a semi-decent look at them, and they are incredibly gruesome. someone is under the bed still…. 

and when they declare that they are “ready”, they strip down. they knew this day- and change- was coming, and all they can do is be ready for it. this is our home. and this is the way it’s gonna stay. 

again, i ask, who came up with this……

the deputy and our agents are on the property, now. deputy wants to come in from the front and let them take the back. a brave thing to offer, but i am slightly suspicious of him. they have wired headsets on and bullet proof vests on, and he is going in.

so they’re approaching- scully and mulder in the field, the deputy out in front. scully is peeking through binoculars but she doesn’t see anyone inside!!! it has to be a trap!!!!

OH MY GOSH!!! just as scully tells the deputy to not go in, he opens the door and an AXE SWINGS DOWN AND CHOPS HIS HEAD OFF!!!!!

i am sorry for being suspicious of you, deputy. may you rest in peace.

mulder’s reciting his facts from the hyena documentary. they are witnessing something akin to prehistoric humanity. but he has an idea: divert them out of the house, so they don't have to deal with their traps. it is a good idea.

so they are sneaking into the pig pen, which had to be a pain to shoot. “scully, would you think less of me as a man if i told you i was kind of excited right now?” he asks as they try to get the pigs in a line to topple like dominoes or something???

“is there some secret farmer trick to getting these things moving?” “i don’t know!” lmaooo these city slickers...

they’re shoving pigs straight out the gate, and she’s trying to say some magic pig words from babe, which her nephew apparently watches all day. you know what that means...

! SCULLY LORE REVEAL ! she has a nephew!

but there are more pressing matters at hand than a lore reveal as one of the brothers emerges, falling for their piggy trap. we see them in daylight now, and it is an unsettling sight. 

as the brothers try to herd the pigs back in, the agents sneak in, with mulder picking up a giant log to poke open the door. and it is a good thing he did that, because a trap descends right on the log that surely would have beheaded him as it did the deputy if not for the log taking the axe/weapon thingy for him. thank you for your service, giant log.

they sneak in beneath the log and close the door as if nothing went down. scully is yelling to see if anyone is in the house. they’re doing a sweep in excellent coordination. mulder mumbles “oh no” and i’m scared but he just picks up a newspaper that says elvis is dead and frowns 😭 his ass cannot be serious for more than five minutes 

but something approaches!!!! they enter the bedroom and see photos of generations and generations of this family, with varying conditions. and at this moment mulder notices that someone is under the bed!!

he’s trying to say that they’re here to help, but whoever is down there is screaming, screaming at them to go away. so scully tries to move the bed, but she’s strapped to a board underneath the bed, and they pull her out and…. oh my gosh, she has no limbs, i think? it’s dark and hard to tell. they keep her under the bed..........

mulder says they’re going to get her home, but after a glance at the pictures on the wall, scully says that she already IS home. it’s mrs. peacock. the mother of the family that they thought died in the car accident!!!!!!

she is sobbing and they roll her back under the bed, with mulder having a horrific look on his face, unable to process what he just saw. 

mulder is back on the prowl to find the other brothers. and he tasks scully with trying to convince mrs. peacock that she is the only one who can get “her boys” out of here without them being hurt. a mighty task, indeed.

she walks away, and he says “scully, w-watch your step” and he’s worried about her and i want to cry. oh!! we see a trip wire……….

so scully goes back to mrs. peacock, explaining that she needs medical attention, and the agents are here to help. she says that this is their home- why leave it? she has to see if the boys are okay. 

and she lost her limbs in the accident that killed her husband. “sewed me up just like the family learned in the war of northern aggression” OH! so that is an WILD thing to say in pennsylvania. but it was at this point i thought i was putting the pieces together for an extended metaphor...

but she insists she felt no pain, and that no one in the family does. and they’re such good boys. scully points out they murdered three people, and mrs. peacock says she can tell scully has no children, but maybe someday she’ll learn the pride and the love “when you know your boy will do anything for his mother”

well i think you probably just made her swear that off forever!!! so!!!!!

the brothers see mulder in the window, and they start to run in. and as he holds one at gun point, another tries to bash in his head, so scully shoots him. but this isn’t enough to take him down! and the other one joins in on their attack, so it’s two against one tag teaming mulder!!! oh my gosh scully can you use your perfect aim???

yes, she can, but despite emptying the whole clip, they aren’t hurt!!! 

they’re running and running and dodging a whole lot of terrible blows, and scully yells out that she has the mother! she trips over the wire and one of the traps falls RIGHT into one of the brothers, seemingly finally taking him out.

she notices marks on the floor, and when they go back for mrs. peacock, they can’t find the other brother or the mother.

so they put out an APB for them, saying that in time, they’ll catch them. but he counters with “i think time already caught them, scully”

cutscene to the cadillac- where mrs. peacock says that “sherman and george were good boys”- SHERMAN? a union name? edmund, sherman, and george… 

it ends with mrs. peacock saying that there will be more peacocks, and they have to find a new home, make a new family to be proud of. she is in the trunk of the car while she says this.

okay so first thoughts: WHAT THE FUCK.

this episode definitely lived up to its horrific reputation. but i can’t figure out exactly what it is it MEANS!

beyond exploring the horrific topics of generational abuse, i feel that there is something a bit deeper going on here. i actually felt so compelled to see if i was imagining things that i went on the wikipedia page for the episode, which spoke of its themes on the american dream and the nuclear family. those themes i see for sure- how mulder was talking about settling down in a place like this, so quaint and quiet, how they started discussing their own desire for a family, and how every idyllic thought about what a family could be was upended on its head with the peacocks. that made sense to me. but...

that line- “the war of northern aggression”- was what the confederates called the american civil war to justify their rebellion. this is notable for the fact that this whole episode took place in pennsylvania, which was a union state- but somehow, they got so twisted up in their own hatred that they’re parroting the lost cause ideology over a century after the war.

the repeated motifs of “things being the way they are in a small town, in our town, in our home”- is that a symbol for the festering of post-civil war wounds? the inability for the war to make meaningful change when it came to the attitudes of the people on the losing side, who continue- even to this day- to spew their hateful ideology? the inbreeding metaphor- is that a representation of how hate begets hate begets hate, generation after generation, compounding and corrupting by the lack of intervention from outsiders who are too afraid to change “the way things are” and call out harmful behavior? and the newspaper from elvis’s death… is that another allusion to the family (or perhaps certain parts of the country) living entirely in the past, in addition to their lack of electricity and water, just stewing in their own hatred? even the name- home- reminds me of the “house divided cannot stand” rhetoric. is this talking about the rot of "back in the good ol' days" thinking?

or if not a metaphor for the country, and instead just the horror of abuse? of how people can feel that things are the way that they are, and so that makes it correct, no matter what the cost? about how warped perceptions of family can be made and shaped? and the fact that mrs. peacock went along with all of this, despite being the biggest victim of the family... is that to speak on the twisted nature of gender roles and how they are weaponized in familial abuse?

i have to clarify that i am not an expert on abuse in the slightest; i am just trying to work through the themes of what i just saw. you know how it is on this blog; i do my best to interpret the big issues, but also recognize that i can only see and comment upon so much.

i'm really, really curious to hear how you interpreted the episode, though. or how audiences have understood it in the past, or if it has ever been re-evaluated. what did the cast and crew have to say on it? i want to know.

man. this is gonna really make me ponder. i want to know. it was too purposeful to just be a “wouldn’t it be fucked up if…” sort of situation.

regardless of the terror, i actually thought this episode was pretty good. it felt cohesive, not just a sideshow of horrible things to make you feel shocked. and we learned more about our characters- their ambitions in life, the possibility of a family someday dangling over their heads, and the terror associated with everything that could go wrong. i think there is always some fear about starting a family (i wouldn't know, but i do read books and stuff), and for scully to just now vocalize her thoughts on the subject and to immediately see this case- i can only imagine what it did to her thought process.

i thought the more light-hearted elements were working at the beginning- mulder's TV dance, baseball time, the merits of their genetics, family talk- worked well at first. but by the end it was just... damn. that was a lot. maybe that is the indication of a successful episode, that it can take you along heavy subject matter with a sense of character analysis and horror, but end with just terror.

i'm not a horror fan outside of this show, so the balancing of the heavy and the humor always baffles me a little bit. i don't know how other materials do it, so i can't really say if it could have been done better or worse. i think the important part though is that they don't turn the tragedy itself into the joke. it wasn't giving "point and laugh at the horrible peacock family!" it was finding humor in other situations, that ultimately still surrendered to the sober feeling of what humanity can do.

whew. this one is definitely gonna stick with me for a while, and i’ll need like 12 hours to formulate my thoughts into something comprehensible. but, you ask, did you like the episode?

yes! while i'm not sure i'd watch it again for funsies, i thought our agents had to confront some inner demons while also learning a lot about them together and individually, which is exactly the thing i want in an episode. i think it brought them closer and they understand each other better, and i think we're getting into some real juicy parts of their relationship. i can't stop thinking about him rubbing her back- how terribly devoted they are to each other, regardless of if either of them can put that into words. those dynamics of devotion that go beyond words- it's so special to me.

and sure, i'll take the bait, and daydream about them living together... i am not above fan service in the slightest. it is me, the fan, who loves to be serviced.

but again. i'm spooked.

[aerodaltonimperial]

wrestling fandom is such a weird space, like, in the biggest sense of the word, because it's easily the smallest currently running media* fandom i've ever been in (*-meaning a media giving new content at the time of the fandom operating), and it's not even like a show where you have maybe 5 mains and most people in fandom are operating with some combination of the 5, plus maybe some minor characters, it's a HUGE ROSTER. and people tend to gravitate towards a few blorbo faves, so then you've got this very fractured, already small fandom, and it ends up being such a small pool when you actually look at the people who are also here for your SPECIAL GUY in whatever way you have attached to him haha.

like, it's so small that i know pretty much every handle that's ever interacted with my fic in some way (kudos or comments)! i recognize ALL THE NAMES. i notice when there's a new one! it's THAT SMALL. i've been in fandoms consistently since about 1996, and while i've been in some very small fandoms before, those all ended up being for games that were released over 20 years ago or books that came out when i was in middle school. to have a current media fandom be this small is such a jarring transition if you came from some of the uber-huge fandoms, like supernatural or teen wolf. i have fics that have hit counts nothing else i write will EVER be able to touch from those fandoms.

and wrestling fandom is also very transient in nature? i mean, like... people will come and go from it. people stay a few years, and then get busy, or get bored, or find a new fandom and disappear. i think i've only got one friend still reading my fic that was here at the beginning, lol, and i've only been here for two years! there's a big wave of comings and goings here, and it can really affect how the fandom feels when you're creating some sort of fan content for it (either fic or art or manips or anything creative!). so i guess what i'm trying to say is that this fandom is kind of an anomaly, at least for me, and it's pretty niche and small and it's always hard not to take that sort of thing to heart when creating things.

anyway, i just wanted to ramble. i typically read a LOT more pairings than i write, depending on time, but i know a lot of people camp out in their character or pairing tags and don't even head into the main tag (i used to be like this, for months at the beginning!), and sometimes this space can feel really isolating. there were a good six months where i felt like i was existing in a fandom vacuum, haha. so i hope that people keep writing fic and drawing art and you are SO appreciated and doing such amazing things even if it doesn't feel like people are watching. just spreading some love, i guess. 💚

[eurydicees]

pls can u tell me everything about fhq and esp fhq iwaoi i don’t really know what it is but every time i see you repost one of those beautiful heart wrenching artworks i want to die in the best way

YES GLADLY I WILL TELL YOU EVERYTHING I CAN !!! under the cut because you're getting everything.

ok so some of the history lesson portion of this may be a little off, it's been a hot minute since i've done much research into this lol. but final haikyuu quest first appeared as a spread in one of the bonus pages in the manga! throughout the manga's run were occasionally drawings of the characters in little fake movie posters, one of them being an action/fantasy movie called final haikyuu quest:

this first poster and the original character designers are drawn by furudate! from there, it went on to become a mini bonus game in the haikyuu 3DS game, which is kind of crazy if you think about it too hard.

there's a playthrough uploaded on youtube here, but it's obv in japanese and i don't think there's been a translation of the game. there's a translation of part of it here on tumblr, but i don't think it's complete. poster from the 3DS game:

from there, it went on to be a CD drama (videos 8-10 on this youtube playlist, with subs), which is super neat. it's also one of the haikyuu light novels, but i have yet to find a full english translation of that.

i haven't read the novel or watched the videos with the CD drama audio myself, so i'm not sure how much it differs from the 3DS game. i assume they're pretty similar though.

so the premise at its most simple is that hinata and his party of adventurers are off to defeat the demon king oikawa and his henchmen! those are the basics.

the "canon" characters in hinata's party are hinata, kenma, aone, iwaizumi, and kageyama. on the opposing side we've got oikawa (the demon king), kuroo, and kiyoko. kiyoko has servants in the form of tanaka and nishionoya (they don't care for oikawa, they're just there for kiyoko). there's also michimiya, who is in the "fair princess kidnapped by oikawa" role that hinata & co. are trying to save. the full character profiles can be found here (everyone in game) and here (heroes only)!

now this whole premise is like. a little silly. the whole deal is a little silly. this is a volleyball manga.

with THAT being said, though, sometimes the most fun to be had is when you take the silly thing and make it devastating. and it's so easy to do that with FHQ. so let's talk abt iwaoi now <3

so in the story, oikawa is the demon king. because the premise is so simplistic and boiled down to good v. bad due to, like, this not being a real piece of media, oikawa is objectively on the "bad side." iwaizumi, on the other hand, is a knight, presumably human, and "oikawa's (former) friend."

iwaizumi being oikawa's former friend is literally his speciality and i think about that all the time btw. for context, kageyama's specialty is "prodigy" and hinata's is "strongest decoy." and fucking iwaizumi is out here like yea hey guys i used to be on the bad side but im mad at oikawa so now i'm with y'all. also my specialty in this fantasy universe is that i used to be oikawa's friend :)

like. what the hell. as you may imagine, the iwaoi angst potential here is ENORMOUS. iwaizumi who has betrayed oikawa and joined the heroes' side to take him down, iwaizumi whose greatest strength comes in knowing oikawa in and out, because the villains you love are both the hardest and the easiest to destroy. iwaizumi who loves oikawa, and who cannot save him.

(**side note, there's a lot of kuroken angst potential involved in this au as well, but let's focus on iwaoi for this post and save kuroken for another day)

so, as i said, the game's interpretation of all this is pretty simplistic and pretty silly. but personally i love thinking too hard and finding depth in things that are so not that deep. and it seems like most fhq fans also employ this as a favorite hobby because holy shit the angst people put in this au is INSANE.

the way i've interpreted it myself has been that iwaoi were besties/lovers/unclear situationship until oikawa kind of "fell into the dark side," because this is an au of every fantasy trope possible, and his reign over aoba became corrupted and "evil." iwaizumi betrays him to join hinata and take him down--save the world, at the cost of the demon he loved so much. but that demon, who oikawa was, is gone already, isn't he?

one of my favorite comics about them is here by @/ichigomaniac, where oikawa falls to the dark side and iwaizumi kills him to save the kingdom he loves. another FAVORITE similar one is here by @/hawberries! the premise of a lot of fics/art in this au run along these lines <3333

another super fun interpretation is a 5 part comic by @/duskisnigh, where oikawa and iwaizumi are running a kind of underground rebellion/safehouse in a world demons are oppressed by the human race. but as oikawa sees more and more evil on the behalf of humanity, he gets more and more unhinged until iwaizumi feels that he no longer knows him--and runs away with kageyama, with the intention of taking oikawa down.

personally i think the BEST aus are where iwaizumi--so loyal, so in love--is forced to leave because he can't stand to watch oikawa fall to more darkness, while oikawa himself is so devoted to iwaizumi that it's his love for iwaizumi that is corrupting him.....

in the fic i wrote, it's a story about forbidden love and how oikawa just wants to be allowed to love iwaizumi and he'll fight a war in order to do it. but iwaizumi can't watch oikawa fight this war anymore, because he's getting more and more dark as the war rages on. so he leaves, and was any of this ever worth it?

ggaahadhgjkadg . fhq. its crazy. i have a tag for it here, where i have been curating my favorite art. special shoutout to @/amezure who has some GORGEOUS pieces in their tag. OH ! and some of my fave fics in this au :

in the arms of loyalty and the hands of devotion (iwaoi, 23252 words), self promo lol

i can go anywhere i want (just not home) (kuroken, 3662 words) by keplcrs

wondering if your heart's still open (iwaoi, 683 words), by birdintheriver

Diorama (iwaizumi & kenma, 2027 words) by PlumTea

the ao3 tag is beautiful everywhere you turn, but i have a special love for those fics <3

so yeah that's the general deal! if you ever want to talk more about it, i am HAPPY to discuss !!! pls pls plsplsplsplsplssplsplslpslslslss!!!!!!

[maleyanderecafe]

hii i’ve looked through ur webcomic master lists and i wonder if u can think of any off the top of ur head (it’s ok if not lol, it would just take me a while to really dig through all of the posts) where the ML is a sadist? I see a lot with masochistic MLs but surprisingly not too many with sadistic ones

anyway ty sm for running this blog it’s a godsend fr!!

Ah, yeah that's because I personally prefer masochistic/submissive yanderes and I don't tend to personally like ones that are more sadistic, which is why you see more of them on there. Though, do you mean sadistic as in the actual definition of enjoying watching their lover in pain, or do you mean more like dominant yanderes, because those are two different things that might result in different recommendations. Either way, I'll try to figure out what might be good for you. There is nsfw stuff on here though so be warned.

Anything by Parasite Garden - so for instance, The Neighbor in Room 203 Disappeared Leaving their Keys Behind or My Sweet Bunny Cage. They tend to have more sadistic/darker yanderes for those who enjoy that and often borderline if they're yanderes or not.

Dead Wishes - specifically Vincent and Mateo's route, and especially Mateo if you want a very gory sadistic type of yandere. This is a game though but worth playing.

Hiroin wa Zetsubou shimashita - from what I remember, the guy does not treat his lover very well to the point of wondering whether or not he actually loves her or not, but that's pretty common with sadistic male yanderes.

Dear Villainous Husband , the One to be Obsessed with is Over There - the male lead in this one actually represents a tyrant pretty well, killing people left and right for boring him and the female lead is constantly scared of him. Future recommendation.

Umekoppe - I think specifically You’re Cutest When You’re Pathetic ~Obsessed Golden Retriever Boy Haru’s Disciplinary Sex~ if you want more traditional sadist, Busybody Woman gets ***** by the Mad Love & Hatred of a Snake Possessed Man for a more hate love type of yandere, The Spy Who Ravished Me ~Reborn As a Mafia Princess in a Deadly Game~ and You're Cutest When You're Pathetic ~Drugged Sex with Co-dependent Chiaki~. Most of Umekoppes works are on the more sadistic/darker side so that's probably more up your ally.

Black Wolves Saga- specifically the cat twins, Mejojo and Auger who also brand the female lead in certain endings. I'm personally on the fence about if they're really yanderes, but I can see it if you think they are.

340 Days- and probably Flash Behavior, though I have yet to read that one. The male lead is a sadist type and tries to restrain himself against the female lead, but you'll see if it actually holds together or not.

Horita ahan - similar to Umekoppe, this artist tends to have more darker works. So things like BORDER LINE ~My Fiendish Chinese Classmate's Psychotic Infatuation~ and The Man Who Saved Me on my Isekai Trip is a Killer... tend to have more darker/sadistic yanderes.

The Red Fox - long but it's pretty interesting. The Red Fox himself does not pull his punches when it comes to making sure that she stays by her side.

There's also a bunch of other ones I've heard of but have yet to read like Cry, Better Yet Beg; Try Begging; Sip of Poison; and the two newest ones from Idaten Funisuke. Honestly, if you find yourself a male yandere smut masterlist and stick your hand into it, you'll will very likely find at least a dominant if not sadistic yandere. Here's a good list where you can find some more darker yanderes if you are interested.

[gabessquishytum]

Not especially horny, but I had the thought of retired Dream having to learn corporeality again (like everyone, lol).

I specifically pictured him... being bad at Video games. He'd love them, they've got such beautiful stories, and it's so like a dream, the setting is something given and the player decides what they'll do.

But he's not that good, because he hasn't got the hand-eye coordination, and the buttons are just so fiddly, and so it becomes a regular occurrence for Hob to see Dream coming to him with pleading eyes, extending the controller his way.

And for every ledge he hops for Dream, for every monster he kills, he gets a kiss on the cheek. Hob loves it. He also loves watching Dream play, because even if it takes him a moment, he's so immersed, so excited about it.

After a few months Dream has gotten better at being human, but not at video games. It takes for Hob to come home early and finding Dream expertly smashing around a Zelda boss to find out that Dream has been... lying, a bit. He's very sorry about it, really, but he just likes when they do this together, and if Hob could forgive him?

But Hob just smiles and tells him about multiplayer games.

Dream is not, actually, good at those, because shortly after starting their first game together, because it turns out that kisses on the cheek for killed monsters are more difficult when you're both trying to look at the screen.

And it's even more difficult to kill said monsters when you've just discovered that apparently, your best friend/housemate is not at all against being kissed on the mouth.

This is the cutest thing I've ever read I'm literally dying!!! Also!!! I feel like we don't talk about Hob and video games enough and I think he would absolutely love them. He would spend hours staying up until 2am with his eyes aching from staring at the screen because he's so engrossed. And Minecraft!!! He would love Minecraft so much!!!!!!! So would Dream!!!!!!!! Imagine retired Dream making a whole little world in Minecraft and its like he can rediscover a spark of creativity he thought was utterly lost to him!!! Anyway.

So Dream starts out playing Kirby or something with pretty cute graphics and stories but. He does struggle with the jumping and the switching skills and so Hob is like ok. Let's try a different story kind of game. And then they try Zelda which Dream really loves but again. He's a little bad at it. Hob gets to be the hero, beats up the bosses, and Dream gets to run around doing silly little quests. Hob gets many kisses. All is right with the world.

He was a bit suspicious that Dream seems to be spending so much time on his games without his skills improving, but he doesn't exactly mind. The worse Dream is at killing monsters, the more kisses Hob gets. Except the truth is, Dream is now definitely better at the game than Hob...

And when Hob catches him beating a boss for the first time, of course he has to give Dream a kiss in return. A slow, soft kiss on the lips that makes Dream drop his controller and melt into Hob’s arms. Hopefully he saved his progress, because suddenly he's being carried off in the direction of Hob’s bedroom like Peach being carried off by Bowzer (only with a lot less protesting, and no pesky plumber coming to rescue him).

(I need you all to know that I really really really like golf games like Golf with Your Friends and Golf It so I have vivid scenarios in my brain about Dream and Hob playing together. The glitching golf balls. The bizarre courses. The rage. Hob making terrible puns about holes. Whoever wins on each hole gets a kiss. Hob absolutely loses on purpose so he can kiss his beloved <3)

[koolades-world]

Hi hi! Just wanted to start off by saying I love your work ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

Anyways I was wondering if you could do some comfort hcs for an mc that has IBD? You’re fine if you don’t want to write for this since it’s pretty uncommon from my understanding.

Note: I felt it important to say since there’s lots of misconceptions floating around (cough cough TikTok-)that IBD has lots to do with diet. Either it playing a role in the cause or for treating it. Which all the specialists I’ve seen have said diet is neither the leading cause nor is it the solution. All it is that some foods irritate for no particular reason and should generally be avoided.

Sorry if I overshared lol I’ve just had people tell on multiple occasions that it’s a diet thing when it’s not- it’s an autoimmune disease.

Thanks so much for reading my little impromptu rant. Again you don’t have to write for it if don’t wish to due to it being a very niche topic. Anyways hope you’re well stay safe.

-🪴🧺

hi!!! of course I can! no worries about oversharing or anything, i actually didn't know that was a misconception and help me out :)

i'm almost certain i have ibs (long story short i couldn't get diagnosed but it runs a very clear path in my family and all of my symptoms match up exactly the same it's like it was copy and pasted) and of course so i could properly write this i did a little research, and based on what you said and what i read, it sounds like people are getting the two mixed up which is something that could be fixed by a simple google search :( i'm so sorry you have to deal with people like that

i hope i did you justice and this could be a little respite in your day. enjoy <3

Mc with IBD

Lucifer

he tries his best to make your days better in little ways!

gift baskets will randomly appear in your room filled with things you'd only mentioned in passing that you wanted or needed to him

if you're feeling up for it, he'll take you out for a meal at least once a week to make you feel special. it might not be fancy every time, but you can still feel the love

if you're not though, no worries! he'll do something equally as nice at home for you with food he made himself

Mammon

if you need surgery, he's becoming your personal nurse while you heal!

every moment he can be, he's by your side

lots of cute little forehead kisses and magically producing your favorite candies from behind his back for you

you won't even have to lift a finger to change what you're watching on tv, let mammon take care of it <3

Levi

he's the king of staying in, so if you don't feel like going out, his room is always open to you!

you don't even need a password to get in, because it's you

if you're ever feeling down or unwell because of your ibd, he always lets you have full control over what you do

if you play a game like minecraft together, he'll always have surprises ready for you so next time you play, you'll find it <3

Satan

he's curious about your medication and does extensive research into it

he always makes sure any painkillers or other meds you might take won't interfere with your ibd meds!

he will recommend the over the counter painkillers if you want them that have the least amount of bad side effects, such as tylenol because he hates to see you in pain

he's got lots of connections and will use them in any way possible if it could possible help you

Asmo

he's the best at making sure you take good care of yourself!

if you're bad about taking your meds, he'll get you a cute little pill divider

will also get a matching equally cute water bottle that you can use to help take the pills

he ensure everything can be done while being fashionable, because he finds that it makes things more bearable for him, so why not his favorite person too?

Beel

he knows quite a lot about supplements and vitamins, so if you take them, he's asking you questions about them because he just wants to get to know you better

he is always there for you if you need someone to talk to, or just want to rant/vent

provides the best comfort and warm hugs :)

Belphie

like his twin, he also gives great hugs

he's your number one fan of course! he's always with you even if you're not in your bed

it may take all of his energy, but if you want to go out, he's going with you no matter what

he'll even share his signature cow pillow with you 🥺

[quimichi]

It's me the little guy Fae >:3 and I'm here for your match up event

Fandoms

Honkai and/or genshin

Pronouns

She/they

Hobbies

Illustration, crochet, embroidery, watercolor, gaming, TTRPGs (tabletop role-playing games) like DND, putting my characters through absolute hell (writing)

Gender preference

With fictional characters I prefer men but I love me a tall sexy evil Woman

Personality

Don't listen to what my hobbies say about me, I'm actually a chaotic little shit who runs circles around my friends. I do my best to give support when needed whether it be mentally or with a technical issue but I'm sure you knew this stuff before because we are friends on here. Though I will say I am depressed and that may impact the character I may or may not get matched with.

Fun facts

I really like foxes :)

And jellyfish :))

While it's not common enough to be a hobby I do know how to sew

My favorite colors are pastel pink and yellow

Well I prefer a cottagecore aesthetic for myself I actually don't prefer that in a partner.

I'm not a Neuvillette main but my autistic ass will go off about water (different bottles of water have completely different tastes you cannot change my mind)(also cold water tastes sharp and warm water tastes round I will not be taking criticism on this)

I don't have a green thumb per se because all my plants are suffering but they stubbornly cling on to life no matter how much I neglect them.

If you need more you know where to find me

A/n: I'M SORRY BESTIE BUT MY HEAD WENT "DOMESTIC" THE ENTIRE TIME---

ARLECCHINO

@ NO CAUSE HEAR ME OUT

@ you loce cottage core, and your hobbies are stuff like crochet and watercoloring. Its cute and i feel like Arlecchino matches that somehow??

@ listen, she is much more softer than she looks. She loves the kids and does really care about them, i think this cute little domestic life would fit her and would also be a dream for her

@ although she grows the kids into the fatui, she loves them dearly, can't show it tho-

@ but anyway--imagine sitting side by side near a fireplace while she reads a book and you do your thing beside her. No talking, just enjoying each others company

@ loooves to do domestic things with you, like cooking together, baking a cake, reading a book, crochet or bathing together.

@ i think she can do embroidery and crochet but not so good-teach her, she will actually listen. She's a little tsundere but she'll listen and she will learn pretty fast.

@ it's important that the twins and freminet like you, they visit quite often or she visits them. If they don't like you, or any of the kids in the house of the hearth, she would be quite skeptical about you then

@ lucky for you cause...they love you, duh?? Who wouldn't.

@ you're very parental, you give great comfort and you like to play with the kids.

@ and Arlecchino loves to watch lol

@ now to your depressed state. She will take it very seriously and will tell you so many times to rest and take care. She would give you the best tea from liyue, only the best watercolors from Fontaine, and the best baked goods so you can relax.

@ she would also leave you your space if needed. It wouldn't really bring her down, she would just be worried about you, but as a strong woman she wouldn't show it to you, that would only bring YOU down.

@ so dw, daddy Arlecchino will take care of everything. And if someone bothers you...well...you know...

GEPARD

@ listen it was hard for hsr ok---

@ for some reason I see you with Gepard---

@ also for the same reasons as Arlecchino, the little domestic life won't go out of my head for you-and Gepard also fits this

@ like-he comes home from work, also brought some goods from the bakery so you both can enjoy some sweets after dinner (which you both prepare together) and then after dinner and dessert you both cuddle on the couch while watching the snowflakes dance outside Belobog

@ if you ever decide to crochet him idk socks or something, he will wear them with pride. Even if they're pink with glitter, he ADORES them.

@ wears them under his gear lol. Like Belebog is cold he appreciates any warmth that he gets. And what is warmer than your love~♡

@ (I'm disgusting-)

@ super shy, we all know, so it took him a bit to gain the confidence to ask you out- I can see you being friends with Serval so--Imagine asking out the friend of your sister?? Yeah I'd piss myself too-

@ but Serval was pretty supportive sooo dw, it all worked out very well

@ ans Lynx is also not complaining with you so the relationship is blessed ♡

@ helps around the house, he was raised good :)

@ also, if he has every a free day and you have to work, he takes care of the things at home and cooks for you ♡♡♡

@ also runs you a bath. Spends his entire day making you smile when you come home.

@ very overprotective too. Can't stand seeing you sad or having a bad day or depressed episode, so he does everything in his power to change that

@ even if it means for him to act like a complete idiot just to see a smile, cause trust me, he would

[maidragoste]

hello, its your newest nuisance writing to you, but this time...

SPOILERS BELOW IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED YET, DO NOT READDDDD!! I IMPLORE YOU, DO NOT READ!!

....

ok, now that those cautions were taken I hope your day has been well and when you do watch the episode, I hope you I was gonna say find joy, but each episode I become crazier than the last and each episode is either 1/4 good or 3/4 bad.

like Aemond is becoming worse and worse before my eyes, Alicent doesn't even want to go back and is on a religious retreat like some sort of "find myself and meditate" regimen. Rhaenyra is hosting a game show called: "Welcome to the dragon games!! let us see who can claim a dragon and survive!!" Ooooooo!! And she's not even giving a waiver, smh. Like they were told nothing except that they'd possible claim a dragon, like if I left my job/life to die, don't you think I should get a notice?? Also, Ulf is the man he said he was lol.

Jace being man low borns can claim dragons is funny because they have about as much parentage as him lol. They're all bastards like himself, the only difference is those bastards parents didn't have the means to keep them like Rhaenyra did and on most occasions the parents didn't want them so Jace best count his blessings that his mom didn't leave him to the streets and that his grandfather was willing to turn many blind eyes because not everyone had that (Saera we're looking at you sis, because I know you have a multitude of babies running around).

Also, this dragon testing is like in Grey's Anatomy when Meredith and Derek were testing out cure's for tumors like it reminded me of that because in the beginning they had bad results and in the end, they did it and "weeeee, happy ending for alllllll!!" well....except those that died.... Maybe Rhaenyra watches Grey's when she's not kissing everyone on sight??

This episode wasn't bad, but like again, I think it's the writing like whomever is in the writing room needs to stop with the fillers because season 2 was clearly a filler to season 3 where the real events begin, like I get wanting a show to have many seasons, but it should have many seasons if there's cause for it. And I know that Fire and Ice is an unreliable narrator to the plot events so anything could be hypothetically cannon, but like, do we not take ideas from hypotheticals and fill in the gaps? This show is like watching one's own head cannon of events like if that's the case, let me have my turn to write up what's gonna happen next.

But, who am I lol, I'm not a film writer. Welp, thank you again for listening to my rant and you have yourself a marry day.

hey bestie i love reading your opinions of the show episodes. sorry for taking so long to reply i was busy

honestly as an aemond girl and an alicent girl it's painful to watch this season for me 😭😭

you are so right about the Rhaenyra thing. not only did she not give them any direction but she also wouldn't let them leave which is an idiotic move because she was supposed to be looking for a rider for silverwing too ☠️☠️

About Jacaerys in my opinion he is right to be angry and i understand his point of view. i really liked the scene of him facing Rhaenyra. But I admit that at the same time I have mixed feelings because in the book he is the one who comes up with the idea of the dragon seeds

I didn't watch Grey's Anatomy so I don't know what you're talking about lol

The episode was good but I feel like this was a season of transition and as you say instead of following any of the hypotheses of the book the writers are doing what they want 😭😭

I hope you're okay anon, thanks for writing to me 🥰💖

[portalhan]

˚ ₍ᐡ｡っ ̫-｡ᐡ 💭 who said i hated you?

pairing: kim seungmin x gn!reader

featuring: chan, jisung

synopsis: seungmin has dedicated much of his high school volleyball career to defeating you in the national championships, but when he watches your fall from grace, why is he... worried about you?

themes: volleyball au, high school au, fluff, angst if you really squint i guess, childhood friends to enemies to lovers

format: one shot

warnings: reader is briefly described as shorter than seungmo (sorry to all you tall folk, you already have enough rights sj,dfhkdjhf), slight swearing, injuries, generated high school names lol sorry

word count: 4k

fae's notes: c-can you tell i'm a haikyuu luver... this is my way of using my intricate knowledge of volleyball that i learned through obsessively watching and reading haikyuu. without having ever played the game. also i always find myself giving my best fic ideas to seungmin but like u know what this is my god-given duty for all my seungmin luvers. you are all precious to me. this one is for U. i'm also deeply insecure about my writing (especially this one because... idk i feel like it's not as good as i think it is) so pls tell me ur thoughts. give me constructive feedback. but i hope u enjoy tho mwah have a good new year everyone

the screech of rubber sports shoes squeaking against varnished wood floors, the echoes of skin against multi-coloured volleyballs reverberating throughout the gargantuan arena, the distant chorus of high schoolers yelling at their teammates to formulate a game play.

seungmin closes his eyes and takes a deep, fully-chested breath as he relishes in the charged atmosphere that fills the gymnasium. a familiar voice cuts through the haze as he feels a hand slap him on the back, before snaking its way around his shoulder. "another year in this damn stadium," chan's calculating gaze scans the place. "we better take home a trophy this time."

seungmin adjusts the strap of his duffel to sit more securely on his shoulder, and huffs to blow a stray lock of his hair out of his face. he turns to look at his captain and sighs: "i'll literally treat the entire team to pizza if we do."

"i know you meant that sarcastically, but the motivation is very real to me," a voice that can only belong to his team's eccentric libero, jisung, pipes up from behind him. seungmin can only roll his eyes before snapping something about how he'd love to see that motivation on the court back, as the team shuffle and squeeze their way through other courts over to their designated one, where they'll be having their first match of the national championships today.

once the team settles down on the benches and starts gearing up, seungmin spots a copy of today's tournament brackets and quietly picks it up for a quick inspection. his eyes immediately gravitate towards the name of his team—wildwood high—neatly printed on the sheet of paper, alongside the name of the opposing team—cape coral—indicating their first match. but then his gaze lingers a beat longer on the paper as he scans it again, this time looking for something else he can't really place his finger on (the thing is he actually does know but refuses to admit it to himself).

he finally spots it: laguna creek, court six. playing their first match today against another team he hasn't heard of, just an hour before his. his brows furrow in frustration, and he lifts his head back up before his gaze sweeps the crowd of the arena once more for court six.

the history between seungmin and you goes way back. you were neighbours for basically your entire childhoods, and for the longest time you were best friends who did everything together. that was precisely how both your and seungmin's love for volleyball began—it started with watching re-runs of the olympics on seungmin's ratty old box television in the early 2000s. enamoured by how cool the volleyball players looked, you both began (poorly) imitating it in his backyard nearly everyday after elementary school from then on.

seungmin's a little fuzzy on the details, but things changed just as you two were about to begin your first year at high school. you initially planned to go to wildwood high with seungmin for their volleyball team, since the school used to produce a handful of national players. but then your parents announced that they've split up and would be looking into officially filing for divorce, and you got whisked away by your mother to a suburb that was a good two-hour drive away, so you were forced to leave seungmin at this new school where he knew nobody. it's not like you loved this arrangement either, but you didn't really have a choice.

seungmin, being a pre-pubescent boy who didn't know how to process his feelings, took his frustration out on you, and pretty much blamed you for abandoning him. he lashed out at you the day you were due to leave, and basically called time of death on your friendship. you remember him screaming something about how you were "a shit friend for abandoning him" and how he was "happy about not needing to tolerate you in high school". those words really stung—you have always considered seungmin the only friend you'd ever need, but the feeling clearly wasn't mutual if he could bring himself to say such harsh things about you. over something you had no control over, too?

and so you moved across town, cutting off all contact with the boy for a short while. that was until both your high school teams crossed paths at your first national championships game. you wanted to ignore his presence, but seungmin started picking on you whenever your schools would cross paths at championships and friendly matches, and it just transitioned into this full-blown rivalry where you absolutely hated each other. if you were to ask seungmin why he even started picking on you on top of all the hurtful things he said to you before you left, he'd say it's because he hates you, but deep down, he just misses you.

"let me guess, you're looking for y/n again," chan tuts, arms crossed over his chest and foot tapping against the floor by the time seungmin snaps his head back around. "why are you so fixated on your stupid rivalry with them?" the younger boy raises a brow.

"have you seen them? they are insufferable. someone needs to humble them and if it has to be me, then so be it."

"are you actually mad that they might be a better setter than you?"

seungmin is genuinely offended by his captain's absurd statement. "are you crazy?"

"if you say so."

seungmin chooses peace today, and de-escalates the conversation by walking away, but somehow manages to end up at the bleachers right by court six. he immediately spots you right there on the court, loose strands of hair stuck to the sides of your sweat-coated face, eyes trained on the ball as you guide it towards your teammates. wearing that same goofy jersey your school makes your team wear—who the hell though bright orange and blue would make for a good colour combination?

your team is running some last-minute drills and warm-ups before the actual game begins in about 10 minutes. seungmin's eyes never leaves your figure as he silently debates going up to talk to taunt you, watching intently as you pull the middle blockers in a huddle to talk strategy.

so he does. he now finds himself with his feet just an inch shy from the white paint that marks the borders of the court, fingers entwined behind his back as he smirks at you. you immediately catch his eye—after all, all that staring from him was not at all hard to miss—and jog right over to him as you rolled your eyes so hard they hit the back of your head.

"first match today too, huh?" seungmin snidely remarks, looking down at you as you use your forearm to wipe the sweat from your forehead. "good luck, you're going to need it." you scoff—you didn't know what you expected from seungmin aside from his usual arrogance. you take a sip of water from your bottle. "you know i don't," you deadpan between gulps of water. "looks like you might, though. a little birdie told me cape coral got a new spiker, and he's in the running for the national under 19 team. i know how jealous of good players you can get."

seungmin immediately frowns, and you relish in his silent distress. "what do you mean?"

"why don't you find out for yourself? you only have about an hour, anyway," you give him a curt couple of pats on the shoulder with the emptiest smile plastered on your face. hm, seungmin thinks, how did you know about his match today? "i have a game to play now." you turn your back and jog away towards the rest of your team as the umpire blows his whistle to indicate the impending start of the match.

a perplexed seungmin is left spiralling about this mysterious new cape coral player as he sullenly makes his way back to the nearby bleachers to watch. the under 19 team? that's at least two leagues above the high school championships. how is his team going to progress past the first round now? cape coral has never been particularly outstanding; the furthest they've made in the competition in past years was literally the second round. this could really tip the scales.

the shrill blow of the umpire's whistle rudely interrupts his train of thought, shortly before your team makes the first serve. seungmin didn't really know what he expected—laguna creek has always been a formidable team every single year he's been in the high school volleyball scene, and ever since you joined two years ago, you've been something of a star player. it really comes as no surprise when your team dominates the first set by a good seven points.

but then something completely unexpected happens. it happened so fast that seungmin couldn't recall the exact details even if he wanted to, but just as you were about to set the ball to a spiker, one of your middle blockers accidentally collides with you at full force. their foot completely pushes down on your ankle, sending you pummelling straight to the ground with a thud that was concerning level of loud. he may have been hallucinating, but he thought he heard you yelp very slightly. his eyes widen as he shoots up from his seat to run over to the court-side, as you wince and hisse in pain while gripping the flesh around your ankle, which is now visibly reddened and swollen. the umpire hastily calls for a time-out.

seungmin can only stand there and watch you in silence as his heart violently pounds against his ribs. the middle blocker responsible for your plight shies away in a corner as your team surrounds you, apologising profusely as tears threaten to pour out of her eyes. you assure them it's not her fault through gritted teeth, as your coach frantically asks for volunteers to accompany you to the infirmary.

seungmin isn't sure why he felt compelled to, but before he had the chance to think his response through, he raises his hand and says, "i'll do it." your coach's head snaps up to examine the volunteer, brow slightly raised when her eyes meet seungmin's. he could tell she was a bit confused about why kim seungmin from wildwood would want to personally bring you to see a nurse, but she doesn't complain. seungmin immediately rushes to your side and slings your arm around his shoulder, with his own wrapping around your waist for support as he lifts you up with a grunt. you wince even harder from the sudden movement as you limp your way out of the main hall with seungmin by your side.

your short walk to the infirmary was mostly just awkward silence, with the occasional groan from the pain of accidentally putting pressure on your injury. you guess your curiosity got the better of you when you decide to fuck it and just break the silence. "why are you even helping me? i'm surprised your skin didn't start melting upon touching me." it's not as though seungmin completely didn't expect some sort of skepticism from you, but the sense of defeat that laced your words was what caught him off guard. you feel his grip tighten around your waist as he tries to think of an answer that wouldn't sound weird.

"i'm not a monster, you know," seungmin huffs under his breath, refusing to make eye contact with you as you both trudge on. "i just need you to be back in the game. i can't score one over you if you're out of commission, right?"

your immediate reaction was to scoff. "score? yeah right," you sneer, but pause for a beat as you let his response sit a bit. "but i suppose you're right," you mutter after a while, eyes darting everywhere but seungmin's figure. you spot the infirmary room in the distance and mentally thank god. "although, it is a bit weird seeing you be this kind to me. if i didn't know any better, i'd even think you cared about me."

blood rushes up to seungmin's ears as he slides the door open, keeping his lips sealed in case he blurts out anything he can't take back. "i only care about properly defeating you." he knows somewhere deep down that that was a bald-faced lie, but you are too pre-occupied with your ankle to retaliate the way you always do. after setting you down on the bed, seungmin wordlessly takes a seat on a chair at the corner of the infirmary as the nurse checks your injury out. "it seems you might have fractured your ankle," she deduces after a while. panic visibly takes over your face as you ask about what you should do. "i'm afraid you'll have to go to the hospital to get this patched up properly. i can call an ambulance," she says. "you might not be able to play for a few months."

seungmin watches you intently as you just sit there, processing the news in complete silence as your gaze burns holes in the floor, your fingers gripping onto the edge of the bed. seungmin doesn't really know what to say or do, except to heed the nurse's instructions to return to the court to inform your couch about the decision to hospitalise you. he's puzzled by his own reaction as he hastily walks back—he should be gloating about the way you're practically removed from the picture, but why does he feel like complete shit?

the day carries on as usual. the ambulance arrives and you're loaded in on a stretcher, although seungmin wasn't able to see you leave since he had his own match to worry about. turns out, you were just lying about the new cape coral player to rile him up—thank god, he thinks—so seungmin's team managed to easily beat them out and progress to the next round. he doesn't tell his teammates about the mishap with you earlier, and no one really notices the way an air of dreariness clouded him today, except for chan. while the rest of the team celebrate the win, he quietly pulls him to the side for a quick check-in.

"is everything alright?" chan mutters under his breath to avoid eavesdroppers, once he brings seungmin to a secluded-enough corner. "couldn't help but notice you were a little off your game today. just a little, though."

right, nothing can ever really escape chan when it comes to his team, can it? seungmin's shoulders slump as he sighs, before he quickly gives him the run-down of what just happened with you earlier chan's face just morphs into an expression of concern as he listens on. both your teams brushed shoulders a lot, considering you were both pretty on par in terms of skill, so chan is pretty well-acquainted with you. he is understandably shocked—your reputation as one of the best setters at the national high school level precedes you. you were always known for being precise and intentional with each move, so to hear that you got taken out by an injury sustained on the court (by a fellow teammate, no less), is unexpected. as chan processes the news, seungmin can only look down as he fidgets with his fingers.

"you know, it's very out of character for you to actually be... i wanna say... bummed out by this," chan observed as the setter's gaze remains on his hands. "that's weird."

of course it's weird, seungmin thinks, he doesn't know our history. "i'm just angry they couldn't take care of themselves better. how am i supposed to one-up them now? it wouldn't be a real win." the way chan tilts his head and purses his lips at his response, seungmin notes, indicates he doesn't buy his excuse. "come on, be honest with me. you like them, don't you?"

the younger boy's eyes immediately widen as his head snaps back up. "you're insane," seungmin declares, but the way the blood rushes to the tips of his ears betrays him. "why would i ever like y/n? you need to wash your eyes out with bleach, look at them again and get back to me."

although it was a complete shot in the dark, chan can't help but laugh at how dramatic seungmin is being over his theory—it basically confirmed his suspicions. "look, i've seen the way you and y/n act around each other. you pretend like the feeling is a mutual hatred, but i can see that you actually care for one another underneath all the snipes and jabs. true arch nemeses don't go out of their way to keep tabs on the other like you two do," chan explains once he calms himself. now the blush makes its way to seungmin's cheeks. " i don't know in what world it's considered acceptable to personally escort your number one enemy to the infirmary after an accident, but it's certainly not this one. i can tell your relationship runs deeper than it shows on the court. you have to sort this out. the tension is killing me."

what tension??? seungmin doesn't really know how to respond, so he just scoffs and walks away, but he knows better than anyone that there's truth to chan's words, even if chan didn't know it himself. perhaps he does care about you, because otherwise, why would he feel so bad about what happened today? seungmin and chan just silently tail behind the team as everyone boards the bus in a single file.

no matter how hard he tries, seungmin can't stop thinking about the conversation he just had with chan on the bus ride back to campus. he's sitting a few seats shy from the back on the bus alone, earphones plugged in and blasting some song from a random playlist he hastily put on the moment he sat down in an attempt to clear his mind. but the moment he sees the bus pull up in the school's parking lot, he hurriedly bids goodbye to his team—chan flashing him a knowing, almost fatherly smile when he makes eye contact—rushes over to his bike, mounts it, and speeds off to the hospital.

perhaps it was the adrenaline from cycling for 15 minutes straight, or maybe it was the escalating anxiety of actually having to talk to you without insulting you, but by the time he parks his bike at the hospital lot, he feels a huge lump form in his throat as he saunters through the sliding doors. "is there a y/n here? i believe they just came in for a fractured ankle," he asks the receptionist, who points him to a ward just around the corner. he warily walks over, mind racing.

"knock knock," seungmin manages to say, after taking a giant gulp to quell his nerves. he peeks through the door to see you sitting upright on the hospital bed, foot wrapped in a thick, white cast. you immediately recognise his voice, and feel your breath hitch in your throat right before you beckon him to come in. you kind of just awkwardly sit there in silence as seungmin dawdles bedside, trying to formulate what he wants to say.

"what did the doctor say?"

"i'm out for two months. might take longer."

"oh."

seungmin clears his throat as he quickly scans your disheveled appearance. you don't really notice since you're doing everything in your power to avoid his gaze, but even then you couldn't hide how upset you were about being crippled by an injury as preventable as this. "how are you feeli-"

"why are you here?" you cut him off, voice raised, boldly spinning your head around to look seungmin dead in the eye. "are you trying out some new demented way to make fun of me? to insult me?" your voice cracks a little bit as you feel your eyes sting from the onset of tears. you aren't really sure what overcame you to confront him so aggressively like this. sure, you certainly have dished out your own fair share of insults to seungmin's face, but they were usually more playfully snarky and sarcastic. this is different; this is personal, but not towards him. you're angry at yourself for letting this happen, and you're taking it out on seungmin. he blinks and attempts to stutter out a response.

"i was just worried," he sheepishly admits, gaze falling to the floor and arm reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. "about... about you."

"why now? why after all these years of hating me?"

"who said i hated you?"

now it's your turn to be caught off guard. your eyes widen as you wait for him to elaborate. "i never hated you," he mutters after a brief pause.

"then why do you treat me like you do?"

"i..." seungmin trails off, squeezing his eyes shut and gulping one more time for good measure. here goes nothing. "w-when you moved away all those years ago, i just didn't know what to do. i was so scared of losing you and i didn't know how to deal with that. so i did what i knew best—push you away first," he rambles as you silently process his words. "then when i saw you again... and i didn't want to come across as weak. so i continued pretending like i hated you. but i never have."

"that's not good enough."

seungmin throws his head back and exhales deeply, heart pounding so violently in his chest it feels as though it's about to pop out any second. "i...i care about you. more than you know. no matter how hard i tried to push you away, i just couldn't."

"still not good enough."

"fine, i like you! i always have," seungmin finally exclaims, throwing his hands up in pent-up frustration. "damn it, was that what you wanted to hear?" it was such an extremely, emotionally charged reaction, but for some reason you couldn't help but giggle profusely as you watch his epiphany unfold before your eyes. you know he's going through something serious here, but watching him act out like this with such strong emotion—while literally looking like a puppy in human form—feels like watching a muppet having a rage episode. "wait, wait," seungmin pauses as he notices your... unusual reaction. "was this just one big, elaborate scheme to get me to embarrass myself in a hospital?"

you absent-mindedly sit up to assure that that was not the actual plan, and completely forgot that your ankle is in a cast. you wince and hiss in pain again, now eliciting seungmin's own fit of laughter. "you're a brilliant setter and a smart, handsome kid, but you are so incredibly dense," you finally tell him between giggles.

"what the he- wait, did you just say handsome?"

"i've always liked you too, you know. since before i can even remember. so when you said those things to me and continued acting like you hated me all this time, i just thought you moved on. so i never did anything about it."

"wha-"

you press your index finger against his lips to quickly shut him up. "sshh. let me finish," you tell him, and he mouths an apology. "i can't lie, you really hurt me. i don't know if we can go back to what we were just yet," you mumble as your hand cups and gently caresses his cheek, and he leans into your touch. you spot the sadness in seungmin's eyes, but you can tell he understands where you're coming from.

"telling you how sorry i am can't even begin to cover it, y/n. i know how much i hurt you. i understand if you don't want anything to do with me anymore," seungmin says, teary-eyed.

you couldn't hold back the chuckle that escaped you after he said that. seungmin tilts his head and raises a brow as he watches yet another abnormal reaction from you. "woah, woah, when did we jump to that conclusion? i never said i didn't want anything to do with you anymore, silly," you smile softly, using your thumb to wipe the little traces of tears that welled in his eyes just a few seconds before. "let's start over. how about a date first?"

you wish you could capture the way seungmin's eyes lit up. his own hand reaches up to hold yours against his cheek, squeezing your fingers as his lips press a chaste kiss onto the skin of your palm. "let's do that."