#(that may or may not have been written by himself)

[forhappysake]

Fluffy Surprise

Author's Note: Not proofread and the first fic I've written in like six months so read if you dareeee

Summary: Reader decides to give Spencer a present when he returns to their new home.

Warnings: People with cat allergies, beware! (?) Fluff ofc.

You moved into the new house two weeks ago.  Technically, you moved all your stuff into the new house two weeks ago. In boxes. Lots and lots of heavy boxes.

Spencer had come up with a system, labeling each box with the room it would go into at the new house. You had worked together to pack everything, label each box, and unload the boxes into your new home. 

And it seemed like the moment he set the last box down and you were ready to start setting the place up, his phone rang. 

Spencer had been gone for one week. 

The case was halfway across the country, somewhere in Santa Fe. You couldn’t exactly be mad at him for being gone, but unpacking and trying to organize everything without his input was a nightmare. You were finishing the last box in your shared bedroom, carefully placing his clothes on wooden hangers and organizing them in the closet, when your phone rang. 

Spencer’s name lit up the screen. You answered quickly. 

“Hi, Spence,” you said, plopping down on the freshly made bed.

You could tell how tired he was from the long pause he took before responding. “Hey, honey. How’s the unpacking?” he asked with a small sigh. 

You frowned to yourself, worried about how tired he sounded. “Oh, it’s alright. I’d like you to look through all the rooms when you get home, just to make sure everything is where it should be.” You let out a soft laugh, “I also had a hard time hanging up all the pictures and paintings without you, so we may have to straighten some of them up when you get back.” 

Another pause followed, though this time you could envision him nodding to himself. “We can do that,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to do it all by yourself. I promise I’ll find a way to make it up to you.” 

You rolled your eyes. “It was fine, Spencer. Besides, I’m pretty sure chasing a serial killer or something gives you an excuse.” 

He sighed on the other end of the line. “That’s what I wanted to talk about. We caught the unsub this evening. I’m hoping to be home late this evening, but it probably won’t be until after you go to bed.”

You smiled, content with the thought of him coming home to your freshly decorated home. “Oh, I’ll be staying up. I want to see your reaction to the place.”

“Alright,” he said, clearly too tired to urge you to go to bed instead with a list of facts about the health benefits of a good night’s sleep. 

You sighed. “As much as I'd love to stay and chat, I’ve got about fifteen more boxes to go.” 

“I understand. I should probably get some work done, too. Files, reports, you know how it is,” his voice was barely a whisper now, the exhaustion beginning to get the better of him. 

“Don’t work too hard, Spence,” you cautioned. “I’ll see you tomorrow night. I love you.”

“I won’t. I love you too,” he answered. The end of his line promptly went dead.

You looked around the bedroom, discarding your phone on the bed. You couldn’t help but wonder if there was something you could do to make Spencer’s return home a bit more special. 

You sat up and leaned over, furrowing your brow and resting your head in the palm of your hand as you tried to think of things Spencer liked. Of course, Spencer liked a lot of things. He liked sweet coffee, puzzles, and a classic novel in some foreign language you couldn’t comprehend. 

None of those things were overly special, in your mind. As you sat and wracked your brain, a thought finally came to you. 

One month ago, walking by a local cat cafe, Spencer spotted the most beautiful calico. She had fluffy hair, one black ear, one orange. Her little paws were white and she was so well mannered. Spencer and yourself had gone in immediately and he had spent your time inside doting on the calico, whose name, you learned, was Calypso. 

You bolted up from the bed and out into the living room, finding your purse sitting among the unpacked boxes. You shot out to the car, and without a second thought, drove the ten minutes to the cat cafe. 

You said a silent prayer that the cat was still available as you pulled into a parking space across the street. As if on cue, you looked up to see the same cat lounging lazily in the window sill, green eyes poised on you. 

The adoption process was quick, quicker than you anticipated. Fifty dollars later, you were on the road with Calypso in the passenger seat, sitting demurely in the carrier the shelter had provided you with to take her home in. 

On the way home you had to stop at PetSmart to pick up a litter box, a few toys, and a scratching post with the hope that your new furry friend would not decimate your new furniture. Calypso remained in the carrier, watching quietly from the shopping cart as you agonized over which treats to get. 

Soon enough, you were on your way home. The moment you walked through the front door, you set the carrier down and allowed Calypso to wander free. She was tentative at first, gently sniffing the floor and getting the feel for her new surroundings. However, after ten minutes, she perched herself on the kitchen counter, looking quite like the queen of her own castle. 

You took this chance to open her new toys and scatter them about the house, as well as find a secluded corner for her litterbox.

For the rest of the day, the cat watched you unpack boxes. Beady green eyes noting your movements until you disappeared from her sight. Occasionally, if you left the room for too long, you would turn to find that she had followed you. In these moments, you would stop to offer her a gentle petting and giggle as she flopped down on the floor, furry belly up to the sky. 

It was six hours after his phone call that Spencer arrived at home. 

2:19 a.m. was the time on your watch when you heard the lock turn and rose to greet him at the door. Calypso, seated in the corner of the room on a side table, perked her ears up at the new noise coming from the entrance. 

Spencer locked the door behind him and turned to face you, reaching out and pulling you in for a long hug. 

You rubbed your hands up and down his back. “Are you happy to be home?” you asked, your voice muffled by his shoulder. 

“You have no idea,” he said. He pulled away only to examine the living room. Spencer nodded in approval. “It looks really good in here. You did a great job.”

You smiled warmly, nerves settling in your stomach as you realized he’d not yet noticed the cat in the corner of the room, who was still watching him with suspicious eyes. 

“Spencer, I have to tell you something,” you said, wanting to explain yourself for doing something as impulsive as adopting a cat while he was away. 

His face suddenly became very serious. “What is it? Did something happen while I was gone? Are you alright?” 

The questions came quickly and you shook your head to reassure him. “No, Spencer, it’s nothing bad. Here, come look.” You grabbed his hand and pulled him forward until the two of you were standing behind your couch in the middle of the living room. 

“Look around,” you said. 

Spencer’s tired eyes traversed the room. You watched as they landed on paintings, the television, the clock, and nearly everything but the cat who sat entirely still in the corner. 

“I don’t understand,” he said, brow furrowed. “Did you make some major change I don’t know about? If you did, I’m sure that it’s f-”

At that moment Calypso jumped off the side table. The soft thump that accompanied her landing on the floor was enough to stop Spencer in his tracks. Finally, you watched as the feline caught his eye. 

“You didn’t,” Spencer said, his voice barely above a whisper. His reaction wasn’t telling you much, and you were afraid that he was not pleased. 

You started trying to explain yourself. “Well, I knew that you had a long week. I wanted to do something special. I know how much you enjoyed spending time with her at the cafe and now that we have the space I figured…”

You trailed off. In the time you had spoken, Calypso had crossed the room, climbed the couch, and began butting her head up against Spencer’s hand. Panic was setting in. Why wasn’t he reacting? 

Just when you were about to push him to say something, you looked up to see a large grin plastered on his face. Spencer gently wrapped his arms around the cat and picked her up, holding her close and petting in between her ears. 

“This is the most thoughtful present ever. I love her,” he said. His excitement reminded you of a little child and pulled at your heartstrings in a way that could have made you cry. 

You sighed in relief. “I’m so glad.” 

With Calypso still draped over one arm, Spencer reached out for you, pulling you to his side. He planted a soft kiss on the top of your head. “Thank you so much. I love her. I love you,” he said, smile still evident on his face. 

“I love you too,” you said, turning to face Calypso, who looked all too content to be wrapped up in Spencer’s arms. 

“I think she’s trying to steal my man,” you joked, nudging Spencer on the side. 

Spencer laughed. “I don’t think you have to worry too much about that. My heart has room for two lovely ladies.”

[kckt88]

A Heartbeat Between Us VI

Summary:

Things between Y.N and Aemond get tense as her due date approaches.

Warning(s): Angst, Drama, Fluff, Tension, Petty Disagreements, Frustration, Kissing, Allusion to Sex, Labour, Child Birth.

AEMOND x Y.N

Word Count: 4750

A.N - Took Inspiration from Friends (The one where Rachel is late).

A.N - Most of the story is already written, as I start a new job on Saturday :-)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the House of The Dragon or Fire & Blood characters nor do I claim to own them. I do not own any of the images used.

Comments, likes, and reblogs are very much appreciated, do not copy/post to other sights without my permission.

Tag List - @jasminecosmic99 @kaelatargaryen @yesterdayfeelings-blog @immyowndefender @0eessirk8 @killua2dot0 @msassenach @xcharlottemikaelsonx @moonnicole @toodlesxcuddles @mamawiggers1980 @minttea07 @nommingonfood

As Y.N’s due date approached, the final weeks of her pregnancy were a flurry of last-minute preparations.

She and Aemond made multiple trips to baby stores, ticking off the remaining items on their list: tiny baby clothes, boxes of nappies, and, of course, the pram.

Aemond, for all his intelligence and competence in other areas, found himself stumped by the bloody contraption.

One evening, they stood in the living room as he tried to fold the pram down. Y.N. sat on the sofa, watching him with growing amusement.

"How do you manage this with just a few clicks?" Aemond grumbled, pressing buttons, pulling levers, but the pram remained stubbornly upright.

Y.N. laughed so hard she clutched her belly.

"It’s not that hard. Watch." She stood up and, with a few quick movements, had the pram folded and set aside.

Aemond stared at the pram, then at her, and back at the pram. "You’re mocking me," he muttered, but a small smile played at the corners of his mouth.

Seeing her joy, even at his expense, was worth the mild humiliation.

They also hosted Alicent for dinner one evening and she had practically melted at the sight of the nursery.

The soft, cream and blue décor, the dragon mobile, and the carefully arranged baby furniture brought a wide smile to her face.

“Oh, Aemond,” Alicent said, her eyes bright with pride, “This is perfect. The baby will be so loved here.”

Meanwhile, Aemond had reluctantly resumed his game nights with Aegon, Daeron, and Helaena.

While he loved spending time with his siblings, Aegon’s constant teasing about Y.N. still irritated him to no end.

He was convinced that his brother harboured a playful, if not slightly serious, attraction to her.

The knowing looks Aegon would shoot him during the evenings, paired with the offhanded comments about how lucky Aemond was, drove him mad.

Yet, for Y.N.’s sake, he kept his cool—mostly.

Except for that one incident where he may or may not have accidentally on purpose shoved Aegon's head into the table when Y.N excused herself and went to the bathroom.

At home, Y.N. had taken time off from her job and settled into a comfortable routine as her pregnancy neared its end.

However, as she edged closer to 40 weeks, she grew increasingly frustrated.

"I feel like a balloon about to pop," she grumbled one evening, sprawled on the sofa while Aemond massaged her swollen feet.

Aemond, who was trying to remain calm on the outside but was secretly on pins and needles every day at work, nodded sympathetically.

"It’ll happen when the baby is ready," he said, though inside he was just as eager as she was.

Every time his phone buzzed during meetings, he found himself hoping it was her saying it was time, only to be met with disappointment.

He had taken to keeping his phone on the loudest setting, checking it obsessively, and texting her constantly to make sure she was alright.

Each day that passed without that long-awaited call made him more anxious.

The tension in the penthouse had been unbearable over the last few days. Y.N.’s growing discomfort and frustration with being overdue had turned every small annoyance into a full-blown argument.

Aemond, while trying to be as patient as possible, found himself at a loss. Everything he did seemed to irritate her.

If he tried to comfort her, she snapped. If he gave her space, she complained he was being distant. It was driving him insane, but he knew it wasn’t really her fault.

Their sex life had also dwindled into sparse encounters, because Y.N was getting too uncomfortable and Aemond was worried about hurting the baby, which Y.N took completely the wrong way and became convinced he was disgusted by her and she bawled her eyes out until he took her to bed and devoured her cunt like a starving man.

One night, things came to a head. After yet another disagreement, Y.N. stormed off to the spare room and slammed the door shut, refusing to speak to him for two days.

Aemond, for his part, left her alone, but the silence between them weighed heavily, filling the apartment with a tension that was almost suffocating.

He kept telling himself it was just the stress and hormones, but it didn’t make it any easier.

And neither did Aegon's closeness to Y.N, it would grate on Aemond consistantly, that he would bear the brunt of her frustration but Aegon would get the smiles and the joy when he would sneak her chilli cheese bites from Burger King or Hot Wings from KFC.

Even Daeron was granted her smiles but him nooooo he was only granted the version of her that resembled a man eating beast from those damn movies she liked so much.

Sometimes she would glare at him and Aemond was convinced that she was about to eat him alive.

The tension only grew worse when they attended her final midwife appointment. They sat in the examination room, the air thick with unspoken frustrations.

As they waited for the midwife, Marie, to arrive, Aemond began rhythmically tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair.

Y.N. shot him a glare. “Tell me, Aemond, have you always been this irritating?” she snapped.

Aemond frowned, glancing over at her. "I'm not trying to irritate you."

"Well, I guess you just have a natural talent for it," she retorted, her voice sharp and biting.

Aemond sighed, leaning back in the chair. "You know, the midwife will be here soon. Maybe we shouldn’t speak until then."

Y.N. pulled a face, her irritation flaring even more. "Oh, okay then," she said mockingly.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, the room filled with palpable tension.

But Y.N., too restless to let it go, spoke up again.

"Seriously, Aemond, breathe louder. That’s great," she said, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

Aemond clenched his jaw, shooting her a look. "You know, we should probably ask the midwife if she even knows how to deliver a baby that’s half human and half pure evil."

Before Y.N. could respond, the door opened, and Marie entered the room, wearing her usual kind smile.

"Good morning, Marie! How are you?" Y.N. greeted her with a smile that was shockingly pleasant considering the argument she’d just been having.

Aemond shot her a sideways glance, his frustration bubbling over. "Oh, so you’re nice to her," he muttered darkly.

Y.N. rounded on him, her eyes flashing with irritation. "She has the drugs," she hissed through gritted teeth.

Marie, ever professional, pretended not to notice the exchange as she began her checkup.

"Alright, Y.N., let’s have a quick look," she said gently. Y.N. lay back on the examination table, opening her legs as Marie prepared for the exam.

"Eight days late now, huh? You must be getting pretty uncomfortable," Marie commented sympathetically.

Y.N. let out a dry laugh. "Yeah, just a bit," she said, her tone laced with sarcasm.

Aemond scoffed beside her, but said nothing more.

Marie began the examination, then smiled up at them. "Well, you’re 80% effaced, so things are definitely progressing. But it could still take a little while longer," she explained. "If you’re feeling anxious, there are a few ways to help things along."

"Do them" Aemond blurted out, leaning forward.

The stress of the last few days, combined with his helplessness in this situation, was starting to show.

Marie gave him an understanding smile. "Actually, they’re things you can do at home. Some natural remedies that have been shown to be effective in helping labour along."

Y.N. nodded eagerly. "We’re ready to try anything," she said.

Marie began to list off the options. "Well, there’s an herbal tea you can try, eating spicy food, and taking long walks—"

"Great," Y.N. interrupted. "I’ll do those."

Marie smiled but hesitated for a moment before continuing. "However, there’s one remedy that’s proven to be most effective in encouraging labour-and that’s sex."

Y.N. looked at Aemond with a glimmer of hope in her eyes, but Aemond’s face immediately fell into a look of disbelief.

"You’ve got to be kidding me," he muttered, rubbing his temple.

Aemond and Y.N sat in the penthouse, the dinner table littered with empty plates from what felt like the hundredth spicy meal they'd shared in hopes of triggering labour.

Y.N poked at her remaining enchilada, sighing in frustration.

"Aemond, we've tried all the spicy food. It's not working," she said, exasperated.

Aemond, ever determined, pushed a small plate toward her.

"Okay, how about one of these peppers? It’s supposed to be really hot." He sounded so sure of himself, as he picked on up and took a bite.

Gasping in surprise when the spice burnt his mouth.

Y.N looked at him, rolled her eyes, but took the pepper anyway, popping it into her mouth.

She chewed it with no visible reaction, much to Aemond’s disbelief.

His eye widened as he watched her, while he took a sip of water to cool his burning tongue.

"I feel nothing," she said, almost too casually, as Aemond continued to sip from his glass. Y.N then looked at him with a mischievous glint in her eye.

"Speaking of hot, watching you struggle with that pepper really makes me want to have sex with you."

Aemond nearly choked on his water, setting the glass down with a thud.

"Stop it," he muttered, wiping his mouth.

"Oh, come on," Y.N teased. "Why are we wasting time with all this other stuff? We know what's going to work. It's midwife recommended."

"We have to have some boundaries," Aemond said sternly, his resolve trying to hold firm.

Y.N scoffed. "You didn’t care about boundaries when you were putting the baby in there." She crossed her arms and raised a brow at him.

Aemond shot her a look. "As I recall, you were also an active participant."

Y.N waved her hand dismissively. "That’s not the point, and you know it."

Aemond sighed, leaning back in his chair. "I’m not going to make love to you just so you’ll go into labour."

Y.N laughed loudly, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "Make love? What are you, a girl?"

"Always a great way to get into a man’s pants," Aemond muttered sarcastically, rolling his eye.

"No-come on wuss, make loooove to me" said Y.N smirking.

"Seriously-" exclaimed Aemond.

Y.N leaned forward, her voice dripping with humour. "Come on, just think of it as providing a service. Just think of me as a ketchup bottle—sometimes you’ve gotta bang on the end of it to get something out."

Aemond shot her a deadpan look, his voice flat. "I love it when you talk dirty to me."

"Aemy-" Y.N whined, pouting a little as she leaned her elbows on the table. "I’m miserable here." She looked at him with wide eyes, batting her lashes playfully, and the use of her nickname for him weakened his resolve.

Aemond clenched his jaw. "You—what—never mind."

"What, Aemy? Are you not going to talk?" she teased, mockingly. "How on earth will you ever annoy me? Oh, wait a minute, I know—" She exaggerated her breathing, mimicking the way Aemond breathed loudly, then added with a smirk, "You’d think that damn pepper would’ve cleared your sinuses, but nooo-"

Before she could say anything more, Aemond lunged toward her, pulling her into a deep, heated kiss that took her by surprise.

Y.N blinked up at him, breathless. "What are you doing?"

He took her hand firmly, standing up and pulling her toward the bedroom, his face set with determination. "I’m getting that baby out of you."

Aemond was jolted awake by the sound of a pained cry and the sharp clatter of glass smashing. His heart pounded in his chest as he shot up in bed, immediately noticing that Y.N. wasn’t beside him.

Panic surged through him as he leapt out of bed, rushing toward the source of the noise.

Entering the kitchen, he found Y.N. hunched over, clutching the counter, her face twisted in pain. A shattered glass lay scattered across the floor.

"Y.N.?" he called out, his voice tight with concern.

She turned her head toward him, her face pale and strained. "I think it's time," she gasped before letting out another cry, her body wracked with pain.

Without hesitation, Aemond carefully made his way over, avoiding the broken glass, and gently took her hand. She clung to him, shaking as he helped move her away from the mess.

Y.N. suddenly gasped, looking down as a trickle of water began to run down her legs. Her wide eyes met his, fear and excitement swirling within them.

"It's definitely time," Aemond confirmed, trying to remain calm despite the rapid thudding of his heart.

"I need to get changed first," she whispered through laboured breaths.

Aemond helped her to the bedroom, supporting her as they slowly made their way across the penthouse.

He carefully dressed her in comfortable clothes, his fingers trembling as he moved. Then he quickly threw on jeans and a shirt, grabbing the suitcase Y.N. had packed weeks ago.

Just as they were about to leave, another contraction hit, and Y.N. cried out in pain, her hand clutching Aemond’s forearm tightly.

His heart ached at the sight of her discomfort, but he stayed steady, whispering reassurances.

"You're doing great. Just breathe," he murmured, kissing her forehead.

He grabbed his car keys, and together, they made their way out of the penthouse.

The drive to the hospital was agonizing for Aemond, though he tried his best to keep calm.

Every pained cry or sharp gasp from Y.N. made his hands tighten on the wheel, his heart clenching painfully.

He hated seeing her in so much discomfort, knowing there was little he could do but get her to the hospital as quickly as possible.

Finally, they arrived. Aemond parked the car and immediately helped Y.N. inside, gripping her hand as she leaned on him for support.

He helped her check in at the front desk, and she looked up at him with tear-filled eyes, her voice trembling.

"Please, don’t leave me," she whispered, her fear evident.

Aemond's heart clenched, and he pulled her closer, brushing a kiss to her forehead. "I won’t ever leave you. I promise."

"I-I'm sorry for being such a bitch to you"

"It's ok-it's all forgotten" replied Aemond.

As she was being checked over by the nurses, Aemond quickly sent off a text to his mother, letting her know that Y.N. was in labour.

He then shot off a quick message to Helaena, knowing she’d take care of informing Aegon and Daeron.

The moment he heard Y.N. calling for him, his phone was forgotten. He rushed back into the room, his heart pounding with urgency.

"I'm here," he said softly, taking her hand in his as he knelt beside her. "I’m not going anywhere."

Hours had passed, and the labour had intensified. Y.N was in agony as each contraction ripped through her body, her face contorted in pain, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Aemond remained at her side the entire time, unable to bear seeing her like this. His heart ached with every pained cry she made.

He had lashed out at the midwives more than once, demanding they do something—anything—to help her.

But all they could do was reassure him that everything was progressing as it should.

Despite his own helpless frustration, Aemond never let go of Y.N's hand, even as she squeezed it with such force he was sure his bones would crack under the pressure.

But he would endure it without a second thought. Pressing kisses to her sweat-soaked forehead, he whispered constant encouragement, telling her to breathe, reminding her she was doing great.

And then, it was time to push.

Y.N cried out, her strength nearly spent. "I don’t know if I can keep doing this," she gasped, her voice trembling with exhaustion.

Aemond immediately leaned in, his forehead pressed to hers, his voice low but firm. "Yes, you can. You’re the strongest, smartest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. I can’t live without you." His words were filled with so much love and admiration that despite her pain, Y.N found the strength to push again.

The midwife, Marie, encouraged her as the baby’s head crowned. "Just one more, Y.N. You’re so close!"

With a final scream, Y.N pushed, and suddenly, the sound of a baby’s strong, healthy cries filled the room.

Aemond’s voice trembled as he whispered, "He’s here. Oh, gods, he’s here."

Y.N, exhausted, collapsed back against the pillows, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment.

But Aemond’s joyful cry brought her back. She opened her eyes and struggled to sit up, her chest heaving as she took in the sight of their newborn son.

Aemond, eyes filled with unshed tears, helped her sit up, his hands trembling.

As Marie placed the squalling, wriggling newborn onto Y.N's chest, happy tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Oh, he’s so beautiful," she whispered, her voice breaking with emotion as she gazed down at their son.

Aemond, who rarely allowed his emotions to show so openly, sobbed quietly as he stared at the tiny life they had created.

His eye was glued to the baby’s small, delicate features—his tiny hands, his soft, silver hair, and those piercing blue eyes.

"He looks just like you," Y.N said softly, running her fingers through the baby’s soft hair. She smiled up at Aemond, who was rendered speechless by the overwhelming love he felt.

His child. Their son.

Marie gently asked, "Does he have a name?"

Y.N nodded, her voice filled with pride and love. "Jack Aemond Targaryen."

As the midwife, Marie, finished wrapping up baby Jack in a soft blanket, she turned to Aemond and asked, "Would you like to hold your son?"

Aemond froze, panic flashing in his eye. "I-I've never held a baby before."

Marie smiled reassuringly. "Don’t worry, I’ll show you how." With practiced hands, she gently placed Jack into Aemond’s arms, guiding him on how to support his tiny head.

Slowly, Aemond’s tension melted as he adjusted, the weight of his son both heavy with responsibility and light as a feather.

Before he knew it, Aemond was grinning, a quiet, proud smile tugging at his lips as he looked down at his son. Jack squirmed slightly but remained peaceful in his arms, so small and perfect.

Aemond's chest tightened with an overwhelming rush of emotion. The world around him seemed to blur, everything else vanishing as he stared at the life he had helped create.

As the midwives began tending to Y.N and the afterbirth, Aemond remained mesmerized by his son. The reality of fatherhood hit him hard in this quiet moment.

When Y.N had first told him she was pregnant, he had offered his support immediately, without hesitation. But deep down, he’d been terrified. His own father had been distant, cold—an example of everything a father shouldn’t be.

Aemond had no idea how to be a good father, how to give his son the love and care he deserved.

But now, holding Jack in his arms, a surge of love, unlike anything he had ever felt, filled him. He vowed silently, with everything in him, that his son would never feel the same isolation and neglect that he had experienced.

Jack would always know he was loved, that Aemond was there for him in every way. He would give his son the attention and affection that he himself had longed for.

Once Y.N had been helped and everything was sorted, Marie mentioned she could take a shower to freshen up.

Aemond carefully placed Jack in his cot and immediately went to help Y.N. She was a bit unsteady on her feet, the exhaustion of labour evident, so Aemond stayed close, supporting her as they made their way to the bathroom.

He washed her hair gently, his hands tender as he helped her clean up, mindful of her every movement.

She had already started bleeding, so he helped her with the pad and assisted in getting her dressed.

When they returned, he had pulled a few strings and arranged for Y.N. to have a private room.

Once she was comfortable and laid in bed, Aemond couldn’t resist stroking her cheek. He leaned down and kissed her, soft and full of love.

Y.N's fingers instinctively tangled in his hair, and she whispered, "You keep kissing me."

Aemond pulled back slightly, worry creeping in. Was he pushing too much? Overwhelming her with affection when she might need space?

"Do you-want me to stop?" he asked, his voice careful, trying to hide his uncertainty.

Y.N’s fingers brushed over her lips, and she quickly replied, "No."

A wide smile broke across Aemond's face, his relief and happiness palpable. "I'm happy, Y.N. So happy."

She touched his face, her eyes soft and filled with emotion. "So am I."

This was it—the moment he had been waiting for. Aemond’s heart pounded in his chest as he took a deep breath.

Now or never. He leaned closer, his heart swelling with emotion. "I-I want to tell you that I lov—"

Before the words could leave his lips, the door burst open. Aegon strutted in, followed closely by Alicent, Daeron, and Helaena.

Aemond bit back a groan, his moment lost as his family swarmed into the room.

Alicent’s face lit up with joy as she carefully took Jack into her arms for the first time. Her eyes softened as she gazed down at her first grandchild, her smile tender and full of love.

"Oh, he's beautiful," she whispered. She gently rocked him, her heart swelling as she savoured the moment. “What’s his name?”

Aemond, standing proudly beside Y.N’s bed, smiled and said, “Jack.”

Alicent raised her brows slightly, surprised. “Jack? It’s not very Targaryen,” she remarked, though her tone was more curious than critical.

Aemond nodded. “It’s in honour of Y.N’s grandfather.”

At that, Alicent’s face softened even more. She nodded approvingly, clearly touched by the gesture.

"That's lovely," she said, staring down at her grandson with pride and affection.

Of course, Aegon couldn’t resist making his presence known. “So, Y.N.,” he asked with a mischievous grin, “how much did it hurt?”

Y.N. narrowed her eyes at him, unimpressed. “How about I kick you in the balls, and then you’ll have an idea?”

Aegon grimaced, backing off slightly as Daeron burst into laughter. “She’s got you there,” Daeron teased, clapping Aegon on the back.

Meanwhile, Helaena stood nearby, completely mesmerized by her tiny nephew. She leaned in, peering at him with wide, curious eyes. “He’s so perfect,” she murmured, utterly enamoured.

Suddenly, Jack began to cry, his small face scrunching up as the sound filled the room.

Alicent chuckled softly. “Sounds like someone is hungry,” she said as she carefully handed him back to Y.N.

Y.N. exposed her breast and gently guided Jack to latch on, and he began to nurse immediately, his cries fading.

A moment of quiet awe fell over the room as they watched the newborn find comfort in his mother’s arms.

Daeron shook his head in disbelief, glancing over at Aemond. “I still can’t believe you’re a dad,” he said, smiling.

Aemond, beaming with pride, hugged his younger brother. “Neither can I,” he admitted, his voice full of wonder.

Aegon, true to form, was less subtle. His attention was quickly drawn to Y.N. breastfeeding. “Whoa, look at him go. He’s definitely your kid, Aemond.”

Without missing a beat, Aemond slapped Aegon on the back of the head. “Don’t look at her breast, you pervert.”

Aegon shrugged, rubbing his head. “It was an accident.”

Aemond, his patience wearing thin, glared at him. “Get the fuck out,” he demanded.

Leaning over, Aegon pressed a soft kiss to Y.N.’s forehead. “I’ll come back soon.”

Y.N., still nursing Jack, smiled up at him and said, “Can you bring me a chocolate bar and some Lucozade when you do?”

 “Anything for you, Y.N.,” said Aegon with a cheeky grin as he sauntered out of the room, completely ignoring Aemond’s death glare.

As Aegon left, Daeron leaned in and whispered to Aemond, “He’s doing it on purpose. Ignore him, and he’ll give up.”

Aemond huffed. “He’ll give up when my fist is in his face.”

Y.N. suddenly yawned, exhausted from the day’s events. Noticing, Aemond turned to the others. “Alright, that’s enough excitement for one day. It’s time for Y.N. to rest.”

Alicent leaned over and kissed Y.N. gently on the cheek. “You did so well, my dear. Rest now,” she said softly.

Helaena smiled warmly. “I’ll make some meals for you both, so you won’t have to worry about cooking once you’re home.”

Aemond nodded in gratitude as Daeron gave him a firm clap on the back.

“Take care of her and the little one,” Daeron said, waving goodbye to Y.N. as the family made their way out.

After Jack finished nursing, Aemond carefully lifted him to rub his back, gently patting until the baby let out a small burp.

Smiling, Aemond placed him in the little cot beside Y.N. and tucked him in under the soft blanket Helaena had made.

Y.N., exhausted but happy, looked at Aemond. “Will you stay until I fall asleep?”

Aemond nodded immediately. “Of course.”

He sat beside her, taking her hand in his, feeling a deep sense of peace settle over him.

He glanced down at their sleeping son, so small and perfect, and then over to Y.N., who had already begun to drift off, her breathing steady and calm.

Aemond smiled to himself, squeezing her hand gently, thinking how lucky he was to have both of them in his life.

Aemond hurried back to the penthouse, his mind still swirling with the overwhelming realization that he was now a father.

He moved almost on autopilot as he showered and changed into fresh clothes, but the feeling of awe and disbelief remained.

He had a son. His son. It felt surreal.

As he was about to leave for the hospital, he decided to stop by a florist and picked up a bouquet of sunflowers—Y.N.’s favourite.

He wanted to make her smile, to show her how much she meant to him, especially after everything she'd just gone through.

Returning to the hospital, Aemond's good mood evaporated the moment he walked into the room and saw Aegon sitting beside the bed, holding Jack. His brows furrowed as he asked, “Where is Y.N.?”

Aegon, lounging comfortably, glanced up with a grin. “She’s just nipped for a shower. She asked me to watch Jack. Is that okay with you?” he added with a slightly cheeky tone, knowing it would irk Aemond.

Aemond narrowed his eye but sighed. “I suppose so.”

Just then, the bathroom door opened, and Y.N. appeared, looking refreshed in clean pyjamas, her hair wrapped in a towel.

A bright smile crossed her face when she saw Aemond standing there. “Oh, you’re back!” she said warmly, walking over to him.

Aemond wasted no time in wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her in for a soft kiss.

“I missed you,” he murmured against her lips before handing her the sunflowers.

Y.N.’s face lit up as she took the flowers. “They’re beautiful. I love them. Thank you,” she said, kissing him again.

Aemond, still basking in her smile, then turned his attention to Jack. He took the baby from Aegon, holding his son close to his chest, instantly feeling that surge of love again as he stared at the tiny face nestled in his arms.

Meanwhile, Aegon reached for a small carrier bag sitting next to him. “Oh, by the way, I got you something,” he said, handing it to Y.N.

She peeked inside and immediately let out a squeal of excitement. “A chocolate bar and Lucozade!”

She hugged Aegon in appreciation before eagerly unwrapping the chocolate and taking a big bite. “You have no idea how much I needed this,” she sighed contentedly.

Aemond watched with a small smile but raised an eyebrow when Y.N. turned to him with more news. “Oh, while you were gone, the midwives said I could go home.”

His smile faded slightly with concern. “Already? Isn’t it a little too soon?”

Y.N. shook her head. “I’d much rather be at home. We can start getting Jack into a routine, and I’ll be more comfortable there.”

Aemond considered it for a moment before nodding. It did make sense. He wanted them home, too—where he could make sure both Y.N. and Jack had everything they needed. “Alright, if you’re sure.”

Aegon piped up then, smirking. “I’ll give you guys a hand.”

Aemond shot him a look. “I’m more than capable of handling it.”

Aegon held up his hands in mock surrender. “I know, but if you’re carrying Jack, you can’t expect Y.N. to carry her suitcase after just having a baby.”

Aemond clenched his jaw, annoyed but unable to argue. Aegon was right.

Before he could reply, the midwife entered the room with a smile and a folder of paperwork. “I’ve got your discharge papers here,” she said, glancing at Y.N. and then Jack.

Aemond sighed, knowing that Aegon’s presence would continue to irritate him, but he focused on the positive—his family was going home, and that was what mattered most.

TBC

[linkspooky]

SUKUNA, YOU ARE ME

Now that we're in the last few chapters of Jujutsu Kaisen it's time to do a deep dive into Yuji and Sukuna's relationship. Is what Yuji showing Sukuna here truly empathy? Does Sukuna's death and Yuji's attempt to reach out mean Sukuna was human all along? We'll discuss that, the parallels between this and Mahito, and what Sukuna's exit means for both himself and Yuji as characters underneath the cut.

I AM YOU

While this post is about the connection between Yuji and Sukuna, I'm going to say the majority of this post will be about Yuji. I stated this in a previous post, I don't believe Yuji's showing Sukuna empathy here. While his offer to let Sukuna live inside of him may be genuine, it doesn't come from a place of genuine understanding. Sukuna himself isn't written as a character to be understood or empathized with.

Look at the words Yuji said. "You are me." He's not saying he's like Sukuna, he's saying Sukuna is like him. He is projecting himself onto Sukuna. Everyone in the story does, even Kashimo and Gojo who both considers themselves the strongest of their time and who naturally should have been able to understand the isolation of being someone as incomprehensibly strong as Sukuna were just projecting their own personal experiences on them in the end.

Of course we could dig a little deeper on the topic.

How much can one person truly understand another? It doesn't have to be a curser, or a borderline incomprehensible deity like Sukuna. How much do you understand your own best friend?

Gojo mentions that he felt loved by everyone, but also that he was so beyond their understanding that they may as well have been plants in comparison to him.

Of course, Shoko herself says that Shoko was always right there next to Gojo trying to offer him support and Gojo just chose to keep her at an arm's length. Gojo also believed that only someone as equally as powerful as him like Sukuna could understand him. Only to find that Sukuna didn't care about Gojo's feelings of isolation at all, nor was he troubled by love in the least.

Gojo makes himself out to be someone so superior to other human beings that he's beyond their comprehension, but that's Sukuna. Gojo did feel understood once, by Geto in his youth. The thing was that Gojo assumed that Geto could understand him because they were both euqal in power level. However, years after the fact when Gojo has long surpassed Geto, their friendship remains exactly the same.

The one that Gojo pictures patting him on the back is adult Geto, not teenage Geto. The one who Gojo truly would have been satisfied by in the end was Geto, not Sukuna.

So maybe what makes Sukuna so impossible to understand by others is that same reason why Shoko can't be close to Geto. Sukuna can't be understood by others because he doesn't care to be understood by them.

Perhaps, understanding isn't the end all be all of human connection. Gojo accepted Geto, and he didn't accept Shoko. Maybe Shoko would have been able to understand Gojo if Gojo ever tried to be emotionally open with her the ever way he was with Geto then he might have felt understood.

Then there's Ryomen Sukuna who rejects love and every notion of humanity along with it.

Therefore empathy means nothing to Sukuna. Yuji's empathy in particular. No, Yuji's attempt to save Sukuna is more about himself than Sukuna. It's a reflection of a change of Yuji's state of mind that he's willing to accept living with a curse like Sukuna. That he'd even try to understand Sukuna. Curses that Yuji previously dismissed as not even being worth understanding.

The first time Yuji said these words was when Yuji tried to make an offer to Sukuna to let him take control of his body in order to heal Junpei, in order to be laughed at by Sukuna. It was the last time Yuji ever asked anything of Sukuna.

Remember, in the very beginning of the manga Sukuna seemed like a standard inner demon character like the nine tails, or hollow ichigo. Yuji even thinks he can use Sukuna to switch out to help fight for him like against the special grade cursed spirit. However, we and the audience quickly learns that not only is Sukuna not just some evil half of Yuji, or a convenient power up, he's an actively malevolent entity with a will that will do anything to escape.

When Yuji realizes that Mahito and Sukuna are both curses, he starts to see Sukuna as an enemy trapped within him. Something he's reminded of again and again, especially after the Shibuya Massacre. From that moment Sukuna and Mahito become like villainous foils to Yuji, the dark to his light, the enemy for him to kill.

Yuji defines Mahito and Sukuna as his opposites and his enemies By killing them, he also gives himself a role. It's Sukuna and Mahito's actions in taunting is the first time Yuji uses the language "kill" when dealing with curses.

Mahito compared himself to Yuji and by saying as a curse he mindlessly kills humans. The same way that Yuji as a sorcerer, mindlessly kills curses. They are on the opposite side of the same cycle with no end in sight.

Yuji decides to embrace this violent cycle because it at least gives him a role to play. If curses are the shadow of humanity, if they're a reflection of humanity then what exactly is you saying here?

Yuji says he is Mahito, and then immediately that he's going to kill Mahito. It's not a statement of self acceptance, or accepting your shadow, but rather a statement of self destruction. Even though Mahito is a chaotic evil curse who enjoys killing humans, Yuji's decision to throw away his humanity just for the sake of killing him isn't a healthy way.

When Mahito said "You are me" he was attempting to drag Yuji down to his level. Yuji then willfully descends to Mahito's level as long as it gives him the strength to kill Mahito. It's character regression on his part. Yuji once said he didn't want to kill because then the value of life might become vague to him.

In a way it did, because Yuji began to devalue his own life. Yuji wasn't able to see any meaning in his life besides a "role' that someone else assigned him. Not only was he willing to throw it away at the drop of a hat, but he also didn't feel like he had permission to live.

Unlike Yuta who actively sought affirmation from others, Yuji rejected that affirmation and tried to push everyone including people like Megumi and Choso away. They were right next to him, but Yuji became unable to accept their love and support.

Yuji is a strange paradox because he presents himself as an all-loving hero who just wants to save as many people as possible, but then you read his dialogue and he's like "I'm just a cog in the machine, I will continue to kill curses until one day I die. Then I'll just be replaced by another cog. There's no meaning at all to this sequence. Life is an endless nightmare."

I'm exaggerating, but underneath Yuji's sweet nature and goofing around, there's this very bleak attitude that his life means nothing except for the labor that he produces, and one day he'll be tossed aside and that's fine because it's what he deserves.

If Yuta seeks self-affirmation, then Yuji is seeking self-destruction. His self-loathing leads him to practically lay his head down on the chopping block and offer his neck up for execution by Higuruma's domain during the fight with Higuruma, even when Higuruma himself points out that Yuji isn't the one at fault because he wans't in control of his own body. Yuji will still take the blame, anything to punish himself further.

So, the words Yuji uses in his triumph against Mahito also signify the destruction of his own ego. That is what Yuji does when he adapts his cog mentality, he denies his own sense of self.

What Yuji experiences is basically a prolonged ego-death.

Ego death is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity".[1] The term is used in various intertwined contexts, with related meanings. The 19th-century philosopher and psychologist William James uses the synonymous term "self-surrender" and Jungian psychology uses the synonymous term psychic death, referring to a fundamental transformation of the psyche.

I brung up Ego-Death in the Jungian context, but in Yuji's case, resigning himself to being a cog is also an act of self-surrender. Yuji basically moves away from all of his previous ideals. He only sees himself as a tool to kill curses. Saving others, or helping guide others to a natural death, those things get put on the back burner as a tool doesn't need ideals.

He's abandoned all kinds of idealism and higher reasoning. In fact that is what Mahito wanted him to do, to abandon the higher reasoning that belongs to human beings and act on instinct like a curse. Mahito successfully pushed Yuji to abandon human reason and become an unthinking cog.

Jung defines the Ego-Death as the stripping away of everything else to revert to your natural self. According to Ventegodt and Merrick, the Jungian term "psychic death" is a synonym for "ego death":

In order to radically improve global quality of life, it seems necessary to have a fundamental transformation of the psyche. Such a shift in personality has been labeled an "ego death" in Buddhism or a psychic death by Jung, because it implies a shift back to the existential position of the natural self, i.e., living the true purpose of life. 

Megumi also experiences an ego-death over the course of the manga that mirrors Yuji's own when Sukuna takes over his body, soaks his soul to bring Megumi near evil, and then kills Tsumiki. At this point both Yuji and Megumi both lose what were their reasons for fighting. The so-called "dignity obtained by human reason" is lost. After having those reasons stripped away from them and experiencing their ego-deaths both of them surrender control. Megumi becomes helpless and stops trying to fight Sukuna. While Yuji may not seem like he's given up on anything since he keeps trucking along, he too has given up on thinking for himself. Yuji has essentially given up as much as Megumi has, there's just less plot consequences for it.

Either way they are both brought to their lowest point by ego-death, in order to bring them to their lowest point, and make them experience a rebirth of sorts.

The persona in Jung is the face you show the outside world. it's one part of personality, with the other being the shadow. The shadow is the repressed part of peresonality. Just like curses are made up of repressed human emotions that leak out from our collective subconscious. Curses serve as the shadow of humanity collectively, especially Mahito who is made up of everything humans hate and fear about other humans. The physical embodiment of human cruelty.

However, a person can't live without their shadow. There's no such thing as a human without flaws after all, and you don't become a better person just by ignoring your own flaws. The kinds of people who are unaware of their own flaws tend to unconsciously repeat the same mistakes again and again and again.

Yuji despises curses as inhuman monsters that he can slaughter like they're enemies in a video game, but they're like... made of human vices. They are the product of humanity's emotions. Yuji's habit of only looking at the good makes him unaware of both his own shadow, his own shortcomings, and also the darker shades of grey in the world around him.

Megumi and Yuji both are characters who, need to be dragged down to the darkest point of the shadow and forced to confront their own flaws in order to learn about themselves. It's not a coincidence thaT Yuji who puts humanity on such a pedestal is a human and curse hybrid. That his older brother who's shown to be a source of overflowing unconditional love is also a human / curse hybrid, and who Yuji nearly killed because he blindly, obediently decided to kill curses. That Yuji killed two of his other curse / human hybrid brothers in spite of noticing they were different from other curses and had a family bond with each other.

It's not a coincidence that Yuji who puts humanity on such a pedestal devoured the corpses of all of his other brothers the same way that Sukuna ate his own twin in the womb to gain the power to defeat Sukuna.

Yuiji lacks a lot of self-awareness. That's why I've always said he doesn't quite live up to the "all-loving hero" he sees himself as. Savior is just a role that Yuji has adopted in order to give himself a purpose in life, but he falls short of that. The reason that he falls short is ironically that Yuji tries so hard to be superhuman, that he can't forgive himself for having basic human flaws.

It's why "Being a child is not a sin" is such a meaningful line coming from Nanami. In Yuji's eyes being a child is a sin. He constantly blames himself for not being able to hold the weight of the world on his shoulders, for not being able to save everyone by himself even though he's only been a jujutsu sorcerer for a few months.

It's why Yuji gets excited for a moment when Kusakabe mentions that Yuji is developing very fast by sorcerer standards, because he wants to be someone monstrously talented like Higuruma or Gojo - and why he immediately looks so disappointed when Kusakabe says it's not because Yuji is talented it's just because of Sukuna.

Yuji feels an overwhelming amount of responsibility and wants to be a special person who is strong enough to actually carry all that responsibility on his shoulders. That's why I say Yuji isn't a true all-loving hero, because it's more about Yuji's own feelings than the act of saving others. His guilt complex over Sukuna.

His desires to be someone special and meaningful. Yuji wants to be a good person who saves others because it gives YUJI and purpose and it gives YUJI a sense of fulfillment. If you've read Tokyo Ghoul it's like Kaneki's reason for participating in the Anteiku Raid. Not because he genuinely wanted to save others, but because he "was tired of not being able to do a thing."

(I'm keeping the meme panel because it's funny)-

Yuji wants to be strong and wants to be a savior because Yuji feels insecure in himself and loathes himself for his own weakness. However, this pushes Yuji farther away from his goal of saving others and making connections with other people so he can die surrounded by people BECAUSE people empathize with each other over their weaknesses.

Yuji wants to become someone strong and unbreakable who will never falter, never feel pain, and most of all never lose. He basically wants to become Satoru Gojo, but if Yuji were to ever rise to Gojo's level like that just by getting rid of all of his weaknesses he'd fundamentally lose his ability to connect with people the way Gojo and Sukuna have.

Yuji defines himself in strength, and suffering, and always overcoming, but then what is his heart for? He strives to become someone stronger than Gojo or Sukuna to protect his friends, but if he loses his heart that loves and cherishes those friends in the process then what even is the point?

Yuji walks a dangerous road from the culling games up until the Shinjuku incident, into nearly becoming like Mahito or Sukuna in his attempts to be stronger than them. I don't think he was ever in danger of going on a murder spree, but I do think he was risking becoming someone like Gojo.

Gojo made himself a tool for Jujutsu Society for the greater good and look what happened to him in the end. Not only did he die in the line of duty, his corpse was turned into a puppet to use as a weapon against the enemy. He made himself into a monster even when people like Yuta were begging Gojo not to. Yuji was on a similiar path of cutting off all the people who loved him and just becoming a person exploited in both life and death for the greater good.

So what stopped him?

Megumi.

YOU ARE ME.

A few people said that Yuji's abandoning the cog mentality suddenly happened too fast, or felt unearned but I think if you look at the culling games arc from higiruma's fight onwards as a whole it's actually a natural progression.

It all starts with Higuruma and Yuji's conversation:

Higuruma: "You're innocent. You didn't commit that crime." Yuji: "Even so, it's my fault." Higuruma: "Why?" Yuji: "...I see. Itaodri, there still may be a lot of people who are weak like you."

Yuji is someone who loevs humans, but puts humanity as a whole on a pedestal. He loves humanity but hates human weakness, especially his own weakness. Ironic because Higuruma is also someone who became jaded by having to work in the corrupt justice system and was forced to look at human ugliness day after day after day even though he wanted to be someone who valued people for their weaknesses.

Yuji doesn't learn to empathize with human weakness until Megumi's weaknesses are the one he's forced to confront. He doesn't abandon his notion of roles until he's robbed of his roles by Sukuna when Megumi becomes the possessed one instead of him.

Yuji is fine with being a sacrifice for the greater good, but he is not fine with sacrificing Megumi. By knowing exactly what Megumi is going through and wanting to save Megumi from Sukuna's possession, Yuji is in an odd way forced to empathize with himself. Like, it's a double standard on his part that's being challenged. Yuji blames himself for all the people he hurt as Sukuna, but he'd never blame Megumi for letting Sukuna kill tsumuki while possessing his body.

In his refusal to sacrifice Megumi for the greater good, even when Megumi is begging him to do so he rejects the common Ethos that sorcerer's are expendable cogs who are expected to sacrifice themselves and their comrades in the eternal fight against curses for the sake of public safety.

Yuji carries with him this grandiose notion of saving as many people as possible. However, when the option comes to make a sacrifice that would save hundreds of thousands of people from the merger by fighting to kill Megumi instead of save him from Sukuna's clutches Yuji can't do it. Even though Megumi at that point would be a completely willing sacrifice.

Yuji has to abandon his cog mentality to save Megumi, because an unthinking cog wouldn't put Megumi's life over the lives of everyone in Shibuya. A cog, especially a sorcerer would kill that one kid in order to save thousands of lives. Heck, Kusakabe more conservative sorcerer even brings up that argument that everything would have been avoided if Yuji was executed to begin with.

In order to save Megumi, Yuji must also reclaim his own humanity. There's a reason that Nanami, and Nobara, die right before Yuji adopts his cog mentality. Nanami, the most ethical of the first grade sorcerers who tried to teach Yuji to value his own life because he was a child, and Nobara the only kid in the main trio who was a normal person are both representatives of Yuji's humanity.

After losing both Yuji becomes reckless, he stops valuing his own life. As I said far, far bove, Yuji never listened to the advice Nanami gave him that it wasn't a sin to be a child. Yuji has this entire time thought it was a sin just to be weak, just to need the help of other people, just to not be able to accomplish everything on his own.

After Yuji starts reconciling with his own humanity though, he regains his connections to both Nanami and Nobara. Nanami comes back symbolically in the form of Higuruma, someone Yuji tries to encourage to live instead of taking the same suicidal path that Yuji was bent on. Whereas, Nobara herself actually comes back from the dead in time to land the final blow, the same way she reminded Yuji of her presence and that she wasn't alone in the Mahito fight.

Yuji also regains these connections when he's processed the grief for both people. He remembers Nanami and what Nanami left him in a more positive light. In my interpretation the line "I am a sorcerer" refers to Yuji developing a more healthy version of being a sorcerer. That instead of Yuji seeing sorcerers as slaves who have to sacrifice themselves for the greater good like Geto did, Yuji can see the camraderie between sorcerers who fight and put their lives on the line together.

Either way, I think the moment Yuji truly reconciled with the grief of death is sadly enough with Choso's death. If you want proof that Yuji's revelation wasn't rushed, that he didn't skip from point a to point b, then it's right here.

Choso apologizes to Yuji for leaving him ahead of time, and Yuji tells him not to, because Choso was always by his side when he was at his lowest point and that brief time they had together was enough for him.

Yuji's relationships so far have been defined by his fear of losing people. He wants to have a natural death, he wants the other people around him to have good deaths, he doesn't want people to die too early. By focusing on the fear of losing people, he hasn't yet been able to enjoy the time that they were around. However, in this moment he realizes how much Choso meant to him, even if their relationship was brief, and even if it came to an end. Yuji learned you can still love someone even if you inevitably lose them.

This is when Yuji finally accepts mortality and fragility as a part of life.

This is also what Sukuna can't accept. That life is fragile. That life is weak. That life comes to an end. Sukuna's entire goal is to maximize pleasure and live as long as possible, and therefore he's rejected all of the unpleasant parts of reality. Sukuna doesn't want to live in the real world like a human being, he wants to exist only in the world of Jujutsu where he's a god.

This is what Yuji represents to Sukuna, The human vulnerability, and mundanity that he threw away, by literally cannabilizing his own twin and throwing away part of his soul. The part of his soul that Sukuna threw away was taken by Kenjaku, and used as a science experiment to create Yuji. Technically, Sukuna is Yuji's uncle but symbolically Yuji is the twin that Sukuna cast aside. Especially since in this world cursed energy treats identical twins like they are the same person.

Yuji for the longest time tried to do what Sukuna did. Tried to throw his own humanity away so he could be as strong as Sukuna. He literally even ate the corpses of his own brothers.

Yuji and Sukuna are symbolically twins, but Yuji learns to embrace the things that Sukuna threw away. Sukuna threw away his own soul's twin in order to grow strong. He became all powerful in the jujutsu world because he ate his twin and gained an extra pair of arms and a mouth. He's like if Maki chose to kill Mai instead of Mai sacrificing herself for Maki's sake.

Yuji chose companionship with others over power. Sukuna doesn't need others people to satisfy him, and Yuji begs Megumi to come back from the dead because his life would be lonely without him. Yuji doesn't have some noble reason for going this far for Megumi's sake. He's not saving Megumi for the greater good, but because his connection to Megumi is important to him. Because he doesn't want to go through life without Megumi.

Yuji loathes weakness like Sukuna. Yuji desires to be someone special like Sukuna. Yuji has a grandiose sense of self importance like Sukuna. Yuji desires power like Sukuna. Yuji looks down on weak people like Sukuna does, he just condescendingly wants to save them instead of Sukuna who just wants to stomp on them like ants.

Yuji is also literally Sukuna. He was created by an offshoot of his soul. The same way that Sukuna was born with a body perfect for Jujutsu, Yuji was born stronger than anyone his age, and develops at an extreme rate as a sorcerer BECAUSE he was Kenjaku's science project to make the perfect vessel for Sukuna.

They are totally twinsies in so many ways, the only difference in the end is that Yuji learns to value human connection. In Sukuna's book there is no meaning to life, except for the pleasures he pursues as an individual. Therefore Sukuna is the only real person that matters or even exists. The narrator says as much he alone is the honored one, all that exists is his pleasures and displeasures.

In Buberian terms Sukuna only experiences existence and I and It relationships.

Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways:

The attitude of the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience.

The attitude of the "I" towards "Thou", in a relationship in which the other is not separated by discrete bounds.

Sukuna is the "i" and everyone else is an "it." Sukuna is the only real person who exists, and everyone else is just an object for their amusement.

Whereas, Yuji experiences "I" and "Thou" relationships. Yuji learns to see other people as different from himself. Yuji appreciates people as separate entities. While Sukuna gets amusement from his life by treating other people like toys, for Yuji the value in his life comes from the people who have entered into his life in some form. He appreciates the relationships he's formed with people and the memories they've left behind, no matter how brief the time they spent together was.

This is why Yuji's words reach Megumi, because he respects that Megumi feels differently than he does. He doesn't tell Megumi to just suck it up and keep fighting because that's what Yuji would do. He understands that he's a different person than Megumi, and he can't say he understands the grief and pain Megumi is going through right now.

That's Yuji's big revelation, in just a few short months as a sorcerer he's met so many people who left an impact on him. Some of those relationships came to an end early, but that painful ending doesn't negate what they meant to him.

The few months he spent with Choso have value even if it's not the same as the one hudnred and fifty years Choso spent with the rest of his brothers, because Choso supported Yuji when he was at his lowest point. Yuji finally sees that what gave his life meaning was the memories he made with other people while they were alive together. Not the way that they died.

So Yuji is finally willing to let himself exist outside of a role.

That's what he's offering to Sukuna as well. Maybe not empathy or understanding, because if Yuji had truly learned empathy maybe Sukuna might have accepted his offer. No, Yuji is simply willing to offer Sukuna the chance to live alongside him.

Sukuna rejects bonds of all kinds and Yuji is now embracing them. Yuji no longer seeks to annihilate curses because they're a fundamental part of life. Yuji wants to live on with his curses and burdens. He's also willing to give Sukuna a chance to keep living too.

Even Yuji points out that both of them are totally twinsies. Sukuna was born as a curse because he devoured his twin brother in the womb. Yuji was born as a curse because he was created to be Sukuna's vessel. The only way that Yuji is the way that he is is because he was raised as a normal child by his grandfather. If Yuji hadn't then he would have turned out entirely different. It's the same way that Choso became human because of his love for his brothers, even though he was born as a curse human hybrid and tossed aside by Kenjaku as a failed experience.

Yuji acknowledges both his capacity to have turned out like Sukuna if not for his grandfather's sake. This time when he says You are me, he's not saying it to threaten and destroy the person he sees as his shadow. This time Yuji is trying to reconcile with his shadow. He's looking at the person who represents the absolute worst of humanity, and the things he hates about himself and is still willing to give them the chance to keep on living together with him.

When Yuji says "I am you, so I'll kill you" to Mahito, that signals his first step on the road to self destruction.

When Yuji says, "I am you, so I'll save you" to Sukuna, that signals his first step on the road to self-acceptance.

It's Yuji allowing himself for the first time to just exist as a normal person not as the hero of some epic story. He even gave Sukuna that chance too, to just continue living alongisde him, but sukuna rejected it to keep on living as a curse until the end.

So, while Yuji saying "You are me" to Sukuna isn't true empathy, it is Yuji learning to accept himself and his flaws. . Because if Yuji is willing to forgive someone like Sukuna, then perhaps he might just learn to forgive himself.

[reallychaoticwoo]

Hi, babe!!!! I just accidentally hit my head really hard and I need some comfort. So could you please write something for a non idol! Reader with some kind of injury? I’m feeling better now, but I still need something to get me going. Love you💕💕

⛓️Hello babes! So this may have been slightly self-indulgent as your girl is in SERIOUS need of some physical affection lol but i do really hope you enjoy it!⛓️

✨️Peace of mind✨️

❤️Pairing: San x reader

⚠️Warnings: cussing, some suggestiveness🖤

This is truly a fluff fest, and I am absolutely NOT sorry.

‼️This is purely for entertainment purposes and does not represent the idol in any way‼️

🖤This was not proofread, so I apologize for any typos or weird mistakes 😅 Hope you enjoy!🖤

You didn't plan on injuring yourself today, I mean, does anyone ever really plan on it? You'd been rushing to get your things together, eager to head home and get out of your uncomfortable office attire. Bending down to grab your laptop bag and purse your head collided with the corner of your desk. Your vision blacking out for a quick moment and a sharp pain shooting through your head, you let out a groan. "Fuck.." Your hand finding it's way to your forehead to apply pressure to the aching area. Sitting back in your chair hand still holding your head you heard a knock at the door. "Come in." San opened the door, leaning himself against the frame. "Hey I was just coming to see if you.... shit, are you okay?" The casual stance he had disappeared as he made his way to your desk. Pulling your hand away from your head his eyes widened. "You're bleeding y/n. What happened?" Concern written all over his face, he headed to bookshelf in the corner of your office where the first aid kit was. "I'm okay.." You started looking at your blood covered hand that had been resting on your head. "I was just trying to pack up and I hit my head on the desk when I went to grab my bags." He let out a small chuckle, internally scolding himself for laughing at your clumsiness. "Yup, that sounds like something you'd do." He sat on your desk facing you, pulling your hand into his to wipe away the blood with a small antibacterial wipe he'd gotten from your first aid kit. "So what were you coming in to ask me before you stopped to play nurse?" You asked, nuding his knee with your free hand, a cute little smirk resting on your face.

The two of you had a bit of a back and forth going at the office. Passing flirty winks back and forth in the hallways, randomly showing up at each other's offices with any and every excuse in the book as to why. Neither of you had actually made a move to further things, though. Part of you wondered why, but another part of you figured it was because the both of you knew dating in the workplace, you get really messy really quick. Either way, you always caught yourself wishing things could be more.

"Well, I was going to see if you had plans tonight. But considering you just tried to put yourself into a coma, I don't think now would be the best time for a date." As if it was the most casual sentence in the world, he leaned forward to wipe the blood from your forehead and face, with nothing but a concentrated look painting his own. "I wouldn't say no if you asked." You looked up at him, a glimer of relief and excitement passing through your wide eyes. He chuckled knowingly. "Oh, I know. Don't think I haven't been wanting to ask you out for a while now. I just didn't want things to get weird if I did, but I think it's pretty obvious we'd both like to see where this could go." You giggled at the truth he just admitted so bluntly. There was no arguing that you were dying to see what things would be like if you both just allowed yourselves to be honest with your emotions towards each other.

"So, how about instead of going out like I was originally planning, we stay in and you let me take care of you and that injured little head of yours?" Playfully nudging your chin with his thumb, he looked at you with warmth in his eyes and a shinning smile spreading across his lower face. You couldn't help but return the cheesy grin up in his direction. "That sounds even better, honestly. No loud noises or bright lights. And most importantly, no feeling the need to wear uncomfortable clothes to look pretty." He tsked, a fake pout spread across his features. "You wouldn't want to dress up and go on a nice date with me??" He crossed him, arms feigning disappointment. "Right now? No. I want nothing more than some comfy sweats and to get out of these harsh lights." Your head really was throbbing. As much as his banter improved your mood, your eyes had been squinted the whole time, and you were ready to go anywhere that was quite and dimly lit. His muffled laughter catching your attention, he offered you his hand to help you up. He made sure to grab your bags so you wouldn't have to bend down again and risk another blow to your already aching head. "Okay, okay, princess, my place work for you? I've got plenty of comfy sweats, you can pick whichever ones you want." Walking out of your office, your face resembled that of a high school girl getting a text from her crush. You were smiling, blushing, internally screaming, and giggling. I mean, who wouldn't feel that way when the hottest man to ever grace this planet was taking you home to comfort you and make sure you still got a little date out of it. Honestly, the fact you knew without a doubt he'd have no expectations from you made you weak in the knees. Just a genuinely caring man who wants to make sure you are feeling okay because you hit your head. You weren't sure the exact moment the gods started blessing you, but you were mentally thanking them the entire walk to his car.

The car ride was rather nice. His hand resting on your thigh, the two of you talking about everything and nothing. When you finally reached his house, he quickly opened your door, offering you his hand to help you to your feet. Outside his house was simple but beautiful. He had a wrap around porch with a black metal bench swing, stringed light bulbs lining the edge of the covering, and a sitting area with two large wicker chairs and a small table. His yard was well maintained with beautiful flowers and greenery placed perfectly throughout. You were admiring the simplicity and homey feel as he ushered you up the front steps and through his front door. The inside of his home was equally as inviting, sleek, and modern, with carefully placed decor, highlighting the various spacious rooms. Gesturing you to follow him, the two of you moved to his living room. "Make yourself at home. I'm gonna go grab you some headache meds and water really quick. I'll be right back." You smiled in his direction, nodding at him in a silent thank you. Sitting on the couch, you took a look around the living room. A large marble fireplace in front of you with a large TV mounted to the wall above it. The mantle was decorated with a few vining plants and pictures of who you assumed were his brothers or really close friends. You smiled to yourself at how many goofy and well taken photos he'd proudly displayed. He quickly made his way back to the living room with meds and water in hand. "Here, take these. I'm going to go change really quick, and then you can pick out your pj's for the night." With a warm smile and a gentle kiss to the forehead, he made his way down the hall and to his room.

It was only a few minutes before San was back by your side. "Alright, gorgeous, let's get you into some comfier clothes." He bent down, picking you up bridal style and carrying you to his bedroom before sitting you gently on his bed. Opening his closet, he motioned his hand to the large selection of sweats as if to say 'take your pick'. Your eyes lit up at the grandiose selection, a delighted smile on your face. Picking out a plain black set, he brought the clothing to the bed and laid it down next to you neatly. "You can change in here. I'll wait in the living room. You have any movie requests? I can order some pizza, if that sounds good to you." You chuckled at how considerate he was. If you were being honest you'd expected him to be a total fuck boy. The flirting at the office and his perfectly styled appearance just screamed 'I'll take your chick and fuck her in front of you'. Yet, even if there was some truth to that, he was actually turning out to be a real gentleman. "You pick the movie, I can never make a decision and my head hurts too much to even try right now. And pizza sounds great, thank you." With a quick nod, he was leaving the room to let you change. Alone in his room, sitting on his bed, you felt a sense of home. His bed was plush and comfortable. You had to fight yourself to get up and change, deciding it'd probably be off putting if he found you curled up under his sheets fast asleep when you never came back.

Walking back you to the living room, you stopped at the entryway, smiling to yourself at the sight before you. San had set up the perfect at home date night. A makeshift pallet full of blankets on the floor, several pillows leaning against the couch, candles flickering on the mantle and end tables. Pizza was sitting on the coffee table, which was pushed off to the side, sitting next to one of the end tables. He'd turned the lights off to make sure the brightness wouldn't cause your headache to worsen and had a movie already pulled up and ready. Thanking the gods for the nth time today, you walked into the living room, taking your place beside San. Handing you your plate, he pressed play on the movie before grabbing his own plate. Both eating now, you looked to the screen, a familiar movie playing. A movie you'd watched many times, usually when you were alone and sad, sobbing into your pillow at the when you heard the line "if you're a bird, I'm a bird." You should've guessed by this point he'd be the type of guy to enjoy romantic movies. What you didn't guess was that he picked this movie so he could see how you reacted. He wanted to see what made you laugh, what made you cry, and what made your eyes shine with want. He wanted to get to know you better and more than just small talk and casual flirting.

Finishing your food, he took your plates and set them on the coffee table. He put his arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer to him, placing an attentive kiss to the top of your head. Leaning into his touch, resting your head on his shoulder, a content smile grew across your face. Although your headache seemed to be dissipating, the events of the day seemed to be catching up with you. Your eyelids growing heavier by the second. Noticing how your body seemed to grow more relaxed, San wrapped his arms around you and carefully moved the two of into a laying position. In the half awake/ half asleep haze, you softly muttered, "This is perfect. Thank you, Sannie." Your eyes never opening, you nuzzled further into him, your head now rest on his chest, your leg laid across his thighs. The soft touch of his fingers running through your hair and the steady beating of his heart lulling you into the most traquil night of sleep you've had in years. A soft kiss to your forehead and then to the top of your head, San allowed himself to succumb to his own tiredness, truly at ease with you in his arms.

[lokimobius]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by the lovely @elodiah <3

I'm still working on my next door neighbours au. Currently it's looking like it might be two chapters, but we'll see! I don't think I'll be posting it until it's completely written though.

I may or may not have written Mobius as a bit of a disaster gay in this part of the fic. He only has a "tiny crush" on his neighbour; it's nothing serious, of course... Don't judge him!!!!! He's a repressed university professor. His life doesn't get much more exciting than this!

His eyes widened when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. His hair was tousled messily at the back of his head from where he’d been lying on his sofa all morning. A shiver ran down his spine. Had he really answered the door like this? He pulled at it nervously, trying to make it more presentable, which only made it look strangely neat. “Damn it!” He grumbled under his breath. “You got a serious case of helmet head, Mobius.” He ran both hands through his hair and tousled it, this time going for a more deliberate dishevelled look. After having the same hairstyle for most of his life, his friends had convinced him to try growing his hair out. They promised him that it would look good, and they were right. It was a good look for him. However, he still had no idea how to style it. Normally, the way he looked wouldn't bother him, but he was about to have the most put together person he'd ever seen in his apartment. He gave his hair a final smoothing over, silently cursing himself for not making more of an effort with his appearance in the first place. In his defence, he hadn’t been expecting guests today, let alone Loki. A loud knock at the front door interrupted his preening, and he jumped, his heart thudding in his chest. “Shit!” He bared his teeth at his reflection quickly. Did he have anything in them? Did his moustache look okay? Were his glasses on straight? Oh god, he was wearing his glasses. No one was supposed to see him in these. He took them off and threw them onto his sofa as he raced past it to unlock the door. Loki stood outside in his slippers and robe, holding a fluffy green towel and what looked like a cosmetic pouch in his arms.

No pressure tags to: @loki-is-my-kink-awakening @kcscribbler @in-my-loki-feels @thosegayoldmen

@silentxsymphony @devilbearingtrouble @andthekitchensinkao3

[amelikos]

Gibeon vc: He took Terapagos in the divorce :/

[wonder-worker]

Queen Margaret (of Anjou) had written to the Common Council in November when the news of the Duke of York's coup was proclaimed. The letter from the queen was published in modernised English by M.A.E. Wood in 1846, and she dated it to February 1461 because of its opening sentence: ‘And whereas the late Duke of N [York]...." However the rest of the letter, and that of the prince, is in the present tense and clearly indicates that the Duke of York is still alive. The reference to the ‘late duke’ is not to his demise but to the attainder of 1459 when he was stripped of his titles as well as of his lands. If the queen’s letter dates to November 1460, and not February 1461, it make perfect sense. Margaret declared the Duke of York had ‘upon an untrue pretense, feigned a title to my lord’s crown’ and in so doing had broken his oath of fealty. She thanked the Londoners for their loyalty in rejecting his claim. She knew of the rumours, that we and my lords sayd sone and owrs shuld newly drawe toward yow with an vnsome [uncounted] powere of strangars, disposed to robbe and to dispoyle yow of yowr goods and havours, we will that ye knowe for certeyne that . . . . [y]e, nor none of yow, shalbe robbed, dispoyled nor wronged by any parson that at that tyme we or owr sayd sone shalbe accompanied with She entrusted the king's person to the care of the citizens ‘so that thrwghe malice of his sayde enemye he be no more trowbled vexed ne jeoparded.’ In other words the queen was well informed in November 1460 of the propaganda in London concerning the threat posed by a Lancastrian military challenge to the illegal Yorkist proceedings. Margaret assured the Common Council that no harm would come to the citizenry or to their property. Because the letter was initially misdated, it has been assumed that the queen wrote it after she realised the harm her marauding troops were doing to her cause, and to lull London into a false sense of security. This is not the case, and it is a typical example of historians accepting without question Margaret’s character as depicted in Yorkist propaganda. Margaret’s letter was a true statement of her intentions but it made no impact at the time and has made none since. How many people heard of it? The Yorkist council under the Earl of Warwick, in collusion with the Common Council of the city, was in an ideal position to suppress any wide dissemination of the letter, or of its content.

... When Margaret joined the Lancastrian lords it is unlikely that she had Scottish troops with her. It is possible that Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, sent men from Wales but there was no compelling reason why he should, he needed all the forces at his disposal to face Edward Earl of March, now Duke of York following his father’s death at Wakefield, who, in fact, defeated Pembroke at Mortimer’s Cross on 2 February just as the Lancastrian army was marching south. The oft repeated statement that the Lancastrian army was composed of a motley array of Scots, Welsh, other foreigners (French by implication, for it had not been forgotten that René of Anjou, Queen Margaret’s father, had served with the French forces in Nomandy when the English were expelled from the duchy, nor that King Charles VII was her uncle) as well as northern men is based on a single chronicle, the Brief Notes written mainly in Latin in the monastery of Ely, and ending in 1470. It is a compilation of gossip and rumour, some of it wildly inaccurate, but including information not found in any other contemporary source, which accounts for the credence accorded to it. The Dukes of Somerset and Exeter and the Earl of Devon brought men from the south and west. The Earl of Northumberland was not solely reliant on his northern estates; as Lord Poynings he had extensive holdings in the south. The northerners were tenants and retainers of Northumberland, Clifford, Dacre, the Westmorland Nevilles, and Fitzhugh, and accustomed to the discipline of border defence. The continuator of Gregory’s Chronicle, probably our best witness, is emphatic that the second battle of St Albans was won by the ‘howseholde men and feyd men.” Camp followers and auxiliaries of undesirables there undoubtedly were, as there are on the fringes of any army, but the motley rabble the queen is supposed to have loosed on peaceful England owes more to the imagination of Yorkist propagandists than to the actual composition of the Lancastrian army.

... Two differing accounts of the Lancastrian march on London are generally accepted. One is that a large army, moving down the Great North Road, was made up of such disparate and unruly elements that the queen and her commanders were powerless to control it.” Alternatively, Queen Margaret did not wish to curb her army, but encouraged it to ravage all lands south of the Trent, either from sheet spite or because it was the only way she could pay her troops.” Many epithets have been applied to the queen, few of them complimentary, but no one has as yet called her stupid. It would have been an act of crass stupidity wilfully to encourage her forces to loot the very land she was trying to restore to an acceptance of Lancastrian rule, with her son as heir to the throne. On reaching St Albans, so the story goes, the Lancastrian army suddenly became a disciplined force which, by a series of complicated manoeuvres, including a night march and a flank attack, won the second battle of St Albans, even though the Yorkists were commanded by the redoubtable Earl of Warwick. The explanation offered is that the rabble element, loaded down with plunder, had descended before the battle and only the household men remained. Then the rabble reappeared, and London was threatened. To avert a sack of the city the queen decided to withdraw the army, either on her own initiative or urged by the peace-loving King Henry; as it departed it pillaged the Abbey of St Albans, with the king and queen in residence, and retired north, plundering as it went. Nevertheless, it was sufficiently intact a month later to meet and nearly defeat the Yorkist forces at Towton, the bloodiest and hardest fought battle of the civil war thus far. The ‘facts’ as stated make little sense, because they are seen through the distorting glass of Yorkist propaganda.

The ravages allegedly committed by the Lancastrian army are extensively documented in the chronicles, written after the event and under a Yorkist king. They are strong on rhetoric but short on detail. The two accounts most often quoted are by the Croyland Chronicle and Abbott Whethamstede. There is no doubting the note of genuine hysterical fear in both. The inhabitants of the abbey of Crowland were thoroughly frightened by what they believed would happen as the Lancastrians swept south. ‘What do you suppose must have been our fears . . . [w]hen every day rumours of this sad nature were reaching our ears.’ Especially alarming was the threat to church property. The northern men ‘irreverently rushed, in their unbridled and frantic rage into churches . . . [a]nd most nefariously plundered them.’ If anyone resisted ‘they cruelly slaughtered them in the very churches or churchyards.’ People sought shelter for themselves and their goods in the abbey,“ but there is not a single report of refugees seeking succour in the wake of the passage of the army after their homes had been burned and their possessions stolen. The Lancastrians were looting, according to the Crowland Chronicle, on a front thirty miles wide ‘like so many locusts.“ Why, then, did they come within six miles but bypass Crowland? The account as a whole makes it obvious that it was written considerably later than the events it so graphically describes.

The claim that Stamford was subject to a sack from which it did not recover is based on the Tudor antiquary John Leland. His attribution of the damage is speculation; by the time he wrote stories of Lancastrian ravages were well established, but outside living memory. His statement was embellished by the romantic historian Francis Peck in the early eighteenth century. Peck gives a spirited account of Wakefield and the Lancastrian march, influenced by Tudor as well as Yorkist historiography. … As late as 12 February when Warwick moved his troops to St Albans it is claimed that he did not know the whereabouts of the Lancastrians, an odd lack of military intelligence about an army that was supposed to be leaving havoc in its wake. The Lancastrians apparently swerved to the west after passing Royston which has puzzled military historians because they accept that it came down the Great North Road, but on the evidence we have it is impossible to affirm this. If it came from York via Grantham, Leicester, Market Harborough, Northampton and Stony Stratford to Dunstable, where the first engagement took place, there was no necessity to make an inexplicable swerve westwards because its line of march brought it to Dunstable and then to St Albans. The Lancastrians defeated Warwick’s army on 17 February 1461 and Warwick fled the field. In an echo of Wakefield there is a suggestion of treachery. An English Chronicle tells the story of one Thomas Lovelace, a captain of Kent in the Yorkist ranks, who also appears in Waurin. Lovelace, it is claimed, was captured at Wakefield and promised Queen Margaret that he would join Warwick and then betray and desert him, in return for his freedom.

Lt. Colonel Bume, in a rare spirit of chivalry, credits Margaret with the tactical plan that won the victory, although only because it was so unorthodox that it must have been devised by a woman. But there is no evidence that Margaret had any military flair, let alone experience. A more likely candidate is the veteran captain Andrew Trolloppe who served with Warwick when the latter was Captain of Calais, but he refused to fight under the Yorkist banner against his king at Ludford in 1459 when Warwick brought over a contingent of Calais men to defy King Henry in the field. It was Trolloppe’s ‘desertion’ at Ludford, it is claimed, that forced the Yorkists to flee. The most objective and detailed account of the battle of St Albans is by the unknown continuator of Gregory’s Chronicle. The chronicle ends in 1469 and by that time it was safe to criticise Warwick, who was then out of favour. The continuator was a London citizen who may have fought in the Yorkist ranks. He had an interest in military matters and recorded the gathering of the Lancastrian army at Hull, before Wakefield, and the detail that the troops wore the Prince of Wales’ colours and ostrich feathers on their livery together with the insignia of their lords. He had heard the rumours of a large ill-disciplined army, but because he saw only the household men he concluded that the northerners ran away before the battle. Abbot Whethamstede wrote a longer though far less circumstantial account, in which he carefully made no mention of the Earl of Warwick. … Margaret of Anjou had won the battle but she proceeded to lose the war. London lay open to her and she made a fatal political blunder in retreating from St Albans instead of taking possession of the capital.' Although mistaken, her reasons for doing so were cogent. The focus of contemporary accounts is the threat to London from the Lancastrian army. This is repeated in all the standard histories, and even those who credit Margaret with deliberately turning away from London do so for the wrong reasons.

... The uncertainties and delays, as well as the hostility of some citizens, served to reinforce Margaret’s belief that entry to London could be dangerous. It was not what London had to fear from her but what she had to fear from London that made her hesitate. Had she made a show of riding in state into the city with her husband and son in a colourful procession she might have accomplished a Lancastrian restoration, but Margaret had never courted popularity with the Londoners, as Warwick had, and she had kept the court away from the capital for several years in the late 1450s, a move that was naturally resented. Warwick’s propaganda had tarnished her image, associating her irrevocably with the dreaded northern men. There was also the danger that if Warwick and Edward of March reached London with a substantial force she could be trapped inside a hostile city, and she cannot have doubted that once she and Prince Edward were taken prisoner the Lancastrian dynasty would come to an end. Understandably, at the critical moment, Margaret lost her nerve. ... Queen Margaret did not march south in 1461 in order to take possession of London, but to recover the person of the king. She underestimated the importance of the capital to her cause." Although she had attempted to establish the court away from London, the Yorkist lords did not oppose her for taking the government out of the capital, but for excluding them from participation in it. Nevertheless London became the natural and lucrative base for the Yorkists, of which they took full advantage. The author of the Annales was in no doubt that it was Margaret’s failure to enter London that ensured the doom of the Lancastrian dynasty. A view shared, of course, by the continuator of Gregory’s Chronicle, a devoted Londoner:

He that had Londyn for sake Wolde no more to hem take The king, queen and prince had been in residence at the Abbey of St Albans since the Lancastrian victory. Abbot Whethamstede, at his most obscure, conveys a strong impression that St Albans was devastated because the Lancastrian leaders, including Queen Margaret, encouraged plundering south of the Trent in lieu of wages. There must have been some pillaging by an army which had been kept in a state of uncertainty for a week, but whether it was as widespread or as devastating as the good abbot, and later chroniclers, assert is by no means certain. Whethamstede is so admirably obtuse that his rhetoric confuses both the chronology and the facts. So convoluted and uncircumstantial is his account that the eighteenth century historian of the abbey, the Reverend Peter Newcome, was trapped into saying: ‘These followers of the Earl of March were looked on as monsters in barbarity.’ He is echoed by Antonia Gransden who has ‘the conflict between the southemers of Henry’s army and the nonherners of Edward’s. The abbey was not pillaged, but Whethamstede blackened Queen Margaret’s reputation by a vague accusation that she appropriated one of the abbey’s valuable possessions before leaving for the north. This is quite likely, not in a spirit of plunder or avarice, but as a contribution to the Lancastrian war effort, just as she had extorted, or so he later claimed, a loan from the prior of Durham earlier in the year. The majority of the chroniclers content themselves with the laconic statement that the queen and her army withdrew to the north, they are more concerned to record in rapturous detail the reception of Edward IV by ‘his’ people. An English Chronicle, hostile to the last, reports that the Lancastrian army plundered its way north as remorselessly as it had on its journey south. One can only assume that it took a different route. The Lancastrian march ended where it began, in the city of York. Edward of March had himself proclaimed King Edward IV in the capital the queen had abandoned, and advanced north to win the battle of Towton on 29 March. The bid to unseat the government of the Yorkist lords had failed, and that failure brought a new dynasty into being. The Duke of York was dead, but his son was King of England whilst King Henry, Queen Margaret and Prince Edward sought shelter at the Scottish court. The Lancastrian march on London had vindicated its stated purpose, to recover the person of the king so that the crown would not continue to be a pawn in the hands of rebels and traitors, but ultimately it had failed because the Lancastrian leaders, including Queen Margaret, simply did not envisage that Edward of March would have the courage or the capacity to declare himself king. Edward IV had all the attributes that King Henry (and Queen Margaret) lacked: he was young, ruthless, charming, and the best general of his day; and in the end he out-thought as well as out-manoeuvred them.

It cannot be argued that no damage was done by the Lancastrian army. It was mid-winter, when supplies of any kind would have been short, so pillaging, petty theft, and unpaid foraging were inevitable. It kept the field for over a month and, and, as it stayed longest at Dunstable and in the environs of St Albans, both towns suffered from its presence. But the army did not indulge in systematic devastation of the countryside, either on its own account or at the behest of the queen. Nor did it contain contingents of England’s enemies, the Scots and the French, as claimed by Yorkist propaganda. Other armies were on the march that winter: a large Yorkist force moved from London to Towton and back again. There are no records of damage done by it, but equally, it cannot be claimed that there was none.

-B.M Cron, "Margaret of Anjou and the Lancastrian March on London, 1461"

[standingstart]

Mark Webber currently texting Checo links to meditation apps

[paragonrobits]

some important calvin and hobbes facts in case you haven't read the original comic strip in a long time or only absorbed stuff on it from memes and out of context bits on here:

Calvin's last name has never been given, and neither has any of his parent's names. This was actually why his uncle Max only showed up for a brief storyline; the creator of the comic, Bill Watterson, ultimately felt that while it was fine to have him as someone for his parents to talk to, it felt far too awkward to never have Max refer to them by name and he never made a return appearance.

The general tone of the comic is fairly light-hearted, with a big emphasis on goofy slapstick comedy contrasted by clever wordplay and often surprising adult-centered jokes that'll hit you like a slap. A big part of the comedy is, as Watterson put it (paraphrased) "It's really funny to me when people express deeply stupid ideas with really fancy terminology." One notable example you might have seen is that one bit where Calvin asks his mom for money to buy a Satan-worshiping rock album and his mom replies that there's nothing genuine about them and they're just putting on the attitude for shock value, and comisserates with Calvin as he deplores that mainstream nihilism can't be trusted. He concludes that childhood is disillusioning.

There is a LOT of criticism of the extreme materialism and selfish mentality of the late 80s, when the comic was initially written. This may go a long way to explain how its aged so well; much of what it criticizes resonates well with people today.

Bill Watterson views comic strips a legitimate form of artwork, and repeatedly fought to have more space to draw more beautiful and artistic backgrounds, which was a very hard fight and unpopular even with other comic strip artists. He eventually did win some compromises and a lot of Calvin And Hobbes' artwork shows it, with the use of space to indicate time as well as a sharp contrast between the often plain environments of mundane life contrasted by the wildly beautiful imagery of Calvin's imagination (which often sports realistic depictions in an art shift of sorts).

Hobbes is explicitly not an imaginary friend, by word of Watterson himself. We don't know WHAT he is exactly, and Hobbes is apparently unaware of the strange nature of his reality; people look at him and only see an ordinary stuffed tiger plushie, but he has a tangible effect on the world that would be physically impossible for Calvin to do on his own. He's apparently been around for a while, and was apparently around when Calvin was a young baby.

On that note; Hobbes has implicitly killed (notably treated as both a gag and also with the vibe of 'he's a tiger, duh') and while he doesn't do it again on-screen, he doesn't have any moral issues about it. Calvin claims that he's never had trouble bringing Hobbes to school because the last time he did, Hobbes killed and ate a bully named Tommy Chestnut and simply comments that it was gross and he needed a bath. Calvin's tried to repeat this again, but Hobbes was grossed out at the thought having to eat a kid raw and not being allowed to use an oven first, or complaining that children are too fattening.

Hobbes became gradually less human-like in body language and more like an actual cat in both body language and behavior; this was due to Watterson drawing more inspiration from his cat, who also inspired a lot of Hobbes' running gags, such as pouncing on Calvin when he got home. Several years into the syndication of the strip, Watterson's cat passed away, and he did a tribute to her with a comic strip of the two of them agreeing to try to dream together so they can keep playing when they have to sleep; Watterson's commentary (if I recall right), remarks on his cat: "We can see each other again in dreams."

[microwaving-tesilid-argente]

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[maddy-ferguson]

this recent euphoria season 3 update is literally so funny like why do i know him so well...

[peachdues]

COMPASS

bad boy!Sanemi • gang AU • NSFW

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

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

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

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

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

There are three rules to surviving life in the Corps.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then there’s Sanemi: the debt collector.

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

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

Life debts.

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

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

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

He will never be able to wash them clean.

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

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

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

This rule applies to both Corps members and civilians alike.

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

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

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

They were late.

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

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

The stupid, greasy fuck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You got someplace I can hide?”

——-

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

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

Sanemi Shinazugawa.

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

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

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

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

Hence, its presence in the Silo.

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

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

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

But you owed him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But that earnest bashfulness is nowhere to be found now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—-

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

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

Right in front of two, marked cop cars.

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

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

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

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

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

Take your trouble somewhere else.

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

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

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

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

Or maybe you’ve got an in with them.

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

The Kizuki.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

His inquiries into you and your life reveal shockingly little.

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

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

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

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

Or so he tells himself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—-

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

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

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

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

Step.

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

Step.

The breaking of teeth beneath his fists.

Step.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your restlessness boils over. “What?”

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

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

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

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

“This can’t be your dream life.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

Return-exchange only. No refunds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Read that.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

——-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

“You look like shit.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As though the metamorphosis hasn’t already set in.

—

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

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

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

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

“Dunno. Curious.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

“Tch. Don’t I always, when I can?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As long as it was more than this.

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

———

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

To wake up in the morning, Princess.

He’s full of shit and you know it.

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

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

He drinks it every time, bitter dregs and all.

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

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

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

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

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

He wants out. Dreams of it, even.

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

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

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

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

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

A cop-out, is what it is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

True love.

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

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

He wants out.

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

And, above all, he dreams of love.

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Intimate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then he turns and leaves.

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

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

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

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

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

You’re in love with Sanemi.

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

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

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

You won’t.

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, Sanemi only gapes at you. “What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Safe; you were safe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No matter how much he wanted to.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He will rot you from the inside, out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You shouldn’t; you can’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your eyes water as the grip in your hair tightens.

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

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

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

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

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

Fuck, you just did.

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

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

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

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

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

But this is worse. He has frightened you.

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

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

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

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

“You don’t owe me anything —“

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You want more, and he needs you, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More. He needs more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am ready -“

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fuck, you’re trying to kill him.

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

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

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

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

“Are you sure?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing in his life has ever felt so right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But he knows; he knows exactly what you need.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Sanemi only knows how to oblige you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But he needs to see you, first.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He doesn’t deserve any of it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His eyes widen. There’s his answer.

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

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

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

But he can try.

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

And he’ll get there, maybe.

In time.

LIKES, REBLOGS, COMMENTS APPRECIATED!

[feyburner]

I ??? woke up at 3am with this scene fully written in my mind palace and quickly jotted it down in the Notes app

*

Clark’s shaking his head before he realizes he’s doing it, and feels a twinge of embarrassment at his own bad manners when Bruce stops mid-word to look at him, brows raised.

“No?” he says.

“No,” Clark says, again without thinking, and again with the reflexive urge to apologize. Somewhere his mother is tutting without knowing why. But he doesn’t apologize, because he’s already saying, “No, it can’t—it can’t be that.”

“Okay,” Bruce says slowly. “Can you elaborate?”

He is, honestly, having trouble taking his eyes off the screen. The mockup design of his new suit is there, dark and sleek, ridged like tactical gear. The blue is like the last shade of evening before you can’t call it evening anymore, the color of nine PM in Kansas in July, so exact there’s a strong chance Bruce color-picked it from a photo. The yellow accents are the cool fluorescent yellow-green of lightning bugs. The red is dark as arterial blood. Every aspect of the suit has been updated—the colors deeper, the angles sharper, the S extending to the corners of its frame—but Bruce has done it without changing the fundamentals. It’s immediately recognizable as the Superman suit, just… well, a little cooler, maybe. A little more of the times. Even the tailoring is modernized. The neckline. The shape of the boots. Where the belt hits at the waist. Clark can tell just by looking that Bruce has not only spent a lot of time on this in general, he’s spent a lot of time designing it specifically with Clark in mind, Clark’s needs and preferences and the small discomforts of his current suit, things he might have mentioned offhand after a mission but never with the assumption that Bruce was listening or filing it away. No doubt the next slides of this presentation will detail all the hidden features of the new suit, and they’ll all be incredibly thoughtful if not slightly overkill, and Bruce will pretend his sole motive here was practicality and risk reduction and respond to any thanks with a curt nod.

And Clark wants to thank him. He will. It’s just.

“It can’t be… cool,” he says, inane. Bruce is watching him with that steady look that used to feel clinical, piercing, and now mostly reads as attentive. “It can’t be—like yours. Tactical, military-grade.”

“Lightyears beyond, actually.”

“It has to—Ma said once, a kid should be able to draw it with crayons. You know? I can’t look like a weapon. I have to—I want to look like a friend.”

He can feel himself flushing. It’s rare that he speaks like this, and rarer still that he does so while being stared at intently. Bruce may think of himself as the darkness, but his gaze is a spotlight: unwavering and revealing and more a little sweat-inducing, for one reason or another.

“Sometimes, when I show up, people laugh,” Clark says. “If it’s somewhere out of the way, where they haven’t seen me before. I show up and I look like a festival performer. It’ll be the worst day of their lives, and they’ve got no reason to trust my face, but when they see what I’m wearing—it goes from ‘Who are you?’ to ‘Who is this guy?’ And that’s a good thing.”

“Hard to be afraid of a man dressed in primary colors,” Bruce says, almost to himself.

“Exactly.”

“I see. Thank you,” he says, “for explaining.”

Clark tries not to show how surprised he is to hear that. Judging by the crook of Bruce’s mouth, his success is negligible. “Of course. Sorry I didn’t—I mean, thank you, obviously, for going to such trouble. I didn’t mean to come in here and—I really do appreciate it, I can tell you put a lot of work in—”

Bruce’s eyes cut away. “No. No need. I didn’t ask, before I…. It was only a first draft. If you’re amenable, I’ll incorporate your feedback into the second one.”

“Oh! Yeah. Yes, of course, but you really don’t have to—”

“If you have any further notes, I would like to hear them.”

There’s something determined in the lines of his face. Clark has the sense that this moment is important, that it’s a turning point, even if he’s not sure why. It feels like striking out into a sea of ice, a blank white expanse under which something precious and vital is hidden, has been hidden all along, just waiting for him to find it. To want to.

“Sure,” he says. He looks back at the suit and swallows, and knows Bruce will see the flicker of his throat and take some meaning from it, and wishes he knew what the meaning was. Or maybe Bruce won’t notice or read into it at all. Maybe Clark needs to calm down, in fact. “Um. I don’t want to assume, but does it… do things?”

“It does things,” Bruce confirms, after the barest pause. “Let me show you the next slide.”

[januaryembrs]

YOU'RE TOO SWEET FOR ME | Spencer Reid x Sunshine!Reader

Request: @avis-writeshq says -

HELLO HELLO jumping on your 2k celebration reqs because 2K OMG SO DESERVED ‼️🫶

may i perhaps request a spencer reid x fem!reader fic please 🥹 maybe him post prison w new reader and she follows him around everywhere because she’s just instantly enamoured to him 🤭

thank you so so much lovely and congrats again !!!

Description: thirteen years in the fbi and ten weeks in prison does a number on Spencer, only when he arrives back in the office he meets the sunshine rookie that seems rather taken with him.

word length: 2.6k (this really ran away from me)

warnings: post-prison Reid, slightest age gap, Spencer dealing with coming home from prison, gun shooting?

authors note: hozier’s new song 'Too Sweet' + post-prison reid is a need, not a want.

He smelled her french vanilla perfume before he even knew she was there. But then again, it was all he could smell the minute she waltzed into the office with a tray of coffee, like someone had stuck a sweet dessert in the oven and baked it on full. 

“Good morning!” She chirped, winding an arm over his shoulder and setting down a take out cup and a little chocolate donut on his desk, “Pen said you like chocolate, and I mean who doesn’t like chocolate, right?” 

She was potent when she was so close to him, and in one single breath he caught a whiff of her shampoo, before she had flitted over to her side of the desk that sat opposite his, where Morgan once sat. Noticing his hesitance, mistaking it for discontent she paused, almost spilling her own beverage over the potted plant she kept by her keyboard, scrambling to set it on the surface.

“Y-you do like chocolate right? I mean they had strawberry too, I can switch yours with JJ’s, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind-” She splurged, and her face was much too worried considering it was a matter of a donut, particularly considering he was already eying up the way the thick chocolate was melting in the pastry bag.

“Chocolate is great, I love…” He held up the bag to read the label with squinting hazel hues, “Cocoa Caramel delight,”

He had never heard of it.

He had never even seen this brand, but he wanted to quell her nerves even in the slightest. The BAU didn’t have the funds for a new keyboard, let alone time to send her to the ER if she ended up spilling her coffee over her hand. 

She seemed convinced, and he offered her a small smile, not exactly his most enthusiastic, but then again he hadn’t been much of a morning person since he’d come out of prison. He liked quiet, he liked a moment to himself before Penelope called them into the round table for briefing. But she was sweet, too sweet perhaps for the dark nature of their job. 

He could already see it chewing up her perky disposition and spitting her right back out within a year. It happened to the best of them.

But she smiled back at him, a million watt grin that made him think maybe he was being a little cruel. She was still brand new, still trying to make friends and he remembered how hard he tried when it had been his first few weeks on the team. He turned his gaze away from her in shame, reading the way she’d written his name on the cup in a pink sharpie, framing it with two doodle hearts. 

She all but skipped away, sensing he didn’t feel like talking much anymore, and he heard Emily exclaiming she was ‘A caffeine angel sent from the heavens,’ as she handed her the drink. He watched her braided hair disappear down the hall as she bounced over to Penelope’s lair. 

He picked at the cocoa caramel delight with a kind of self loathing he was familiar with, the french vanilla still a saccharine sugar in his nose. 

-

She caught him again; though this time he felt her bristle past his arm, watching the bullets pierce the target paper with an accuracy that only came from fourteen years of practice. 

“Do you reckon you could teach me how to do that?” Her cadence was light and airy, and he had to stop himself from jumping, from slamming the butt of the gun into her nose on reaction, because he knew she meant well, even though she had no idea how damaged he was.

He was still out of sorts from having to look over his shoulder at every second of the day, and he was surprised he was holding it together so far. He supposed shooting the shit out of a target helped.

Because it was just her, looking at him with soft eyes and a smile that could start wars, and he knew she had no idea the effect she had on the walls he’d tried so hard to build in prison. 

She must have mistook his look for annoyance, because she was quick to fumble with her own loaded gun, taking a step back in retreat, worried that she crossed some line she didn’t know he’d drawn.

“Or I could get Luke to show me, I didn’t mean to bother you, I just am really a shit shot and I know that’s pretty useless in the field-” It wasn’t until he flicked the safety on and took a step to follow her did she look at him again hopefully. 

“No, I’d be more than happy to show you,” He cleared his throat, setting his pistol in its holster and stepping behind her as she lined herself up for the fake body meant to resemble an unsub, “We all have to start somewhere. Show me your form,” 

She raised her arms up in front of her, aiming for a few seconds for the spot in the centre of the chest cavity, her finger reaching up for the trigger. 

She shot once, her face hardened for the first time he’d ever seen, and they both watched the paper rip about half a foot down the unsub’s leg. 

“See, in my head it’s hitting dead centre and then by the time I shoot it’s wiggling all over the place,” She explained, scratching her neck and frowning at the paper body, “I don’t suppose unsubs are willing to stand still and wait while the rookie figures out her shot,”

“Your hips are perfect, wide stance means you get more stability against the ricochet,” She tried not to simper at his words, or the way he sidled up behind her, his hands coming up to her shoulders as if he’d known her for years, as if JJ hadn’t told her how much he hated other people’s germs, “It’s in your shoulders you’re losing balance, try relaxing a little,”

But she couldn’t not when he was breathing down her neck, rubbing those long fingers over her shoulder blades trying to get her to straighten out her posture, hoping he couldn’t feel the way her chest rattled with nerves. 

“Relax,” He reminded, trying not to chuckle when he felt her shake her arms out as a means of hiding the way her skin had warmed under his rough touch, “You know, my unit chief taught me how to shoot. I wasn’t at all good at it when I first started,”

“Oh really?” She asked, her breaths feather light as he reached around her and adjusted her grip on the gun, “H-he must have been a good teacher,”

“He was the best,” Spencer agreed, brushing off the fact she was all but putty beneath his hands, “Three steps for the perfect shot; front sight, trigger press, follow through. Always keep your head forward, always keep your dominant finger ready, and wait until you’ve shot to drop your stance,” 

She looked up at him in admiration, and her soft smile was back as his own musk of laundry detergent and chamomile soap encompassed her as his arms did. 

He brought one of those big hands to the back of her head, moving her with gentle ease to look back at the target, a slight chuckle in his voice as he spoke: “Focus, what’s step number one?”

“Front sight,” She echoed him, fixing her shoulders with determination as he dropped his hands and stepped away from her. Taking a deep breath, she murmured to herself under her breath the next step as her forefinger rested over the trigger. She pulled it after a moment of courage, and froze in spot as she watched it hit where the stomach would sit. 

Not a perfect shot, but certainly a lot better than she had been doing. 

Her eyes widened behind the thick protective glasses, and her hands became fists above her head as she squealed in delight. 

“Did you see that- did you see!” She yelled over the sound proof ear muffs they both wore, and he was quick to grab the gun out of her swinging arms, clicking the safety on for her before she could end up blowing a hole in the ceiling. 

“Very good, give it a few months you’ll be a natural,” He complimented with a smile as she clapped her hands in glee, buzzing on the spot as if she’d chugged five energy drinks or doubled up on her coffee for the day. 

He tried ignoring the way his chest warmed seeing her so happy because of him, especially when she looked at him like that. 

--

“You said you needed those files, Dr Reid,” She’d appeared again, like she always did, and he had barely enough time to glance up from the paper he was already inspecting before he was hit by the perfume again, and he looked up to see two bright eyes watching him hopefully. Her arms were piled high with easily a box full of folders he had asked Anderson to find for him, and he saw the way she strained slightly to keep them held tight. 

“Jesus! Let me help you,” She prayed he couldn’t feel the way her heart thumping against the manilla folders as he leaned over to take them out of her grasp, the way her eyes fell to his light smattering of facial hair as his lips were little more than a few inches from hers. Even when his hands brushed hers, and he seemed to realise she was staring, watching her scramble to look somewhere else other than his amused eyes, embarrassed he’d caught her, “Thankyou. And just call me Spencer,” 

“Thankyou,” She echoed, shaking her head with a girlish smile on her face, her cheeks warm with humiliation, “I mean you’re welcome, any time,” 

For the sake of her self preservation he waited until she turned around to smile to himself, pretending he didn’t see the way she muttered under her breath, or that she almost walked straight into the filing cabinet on her hasty exit out of the office. 

“Seems like you have a shadow,” Emily’s voice met him as he heard her heeled footsteps approach, and they both watched their newest team mate almost bump right into JJ as she kept her head down, stroking her hair nervously, “She was super excited to meet you when you were away, said she went to one of your guest lectures you did with Hotch a couple years ago,”

His brows shot into his hairline, something warm flourishing in his chest when he saw her peek back to see the two of them watching her, and she immediately darted for her seat for an excuse to turn her back to them. 

Spencer smiled again, running a hand through his curled locks as if he was trying to think of something else other than the joy that had over come his features. 

She certainly was charming, in an incredibly girlish way, and he wasn’t the only one who thought it. He hadn’t heard Penelope giggling so much since Morgan had left, nor did he miss the way Rossi and Emily watched her darting around in the field, chasing after her as if she needed one of those leashes people had for toddlers.

Or the way Luke had had to talk her out of bringing a stray cat back to the BAU just two days ago because ‘it looked sad and lonely’. 

She was only eight years his junior, and yet he felt like the job had made him too hard, too mature, too tough against a softness like hers.

Girls had never really been interested in him, at least not for him as Spencer Reid, not as SSA Dr Reid. He had the occasional fling, even Maeve in the grand scheme of things had been a budding romance at best, and just the thought of Cat Adams viper-like eyes had him shuddering. 

He barely wanted anything to do with women at the moment, at least that was what he’d told himself every night he’d been fighting for his damn life in prison. 

But it was almost too easy to feel this way about her, like he couldn’t drink in her sweet smell or even sweeter voice fast enough, or bathe in her gaze that melted like rich chocolate when he took a glance her way. 

He didn’t bring it up with her until they were the last few people filing out of the office. 

“I can drive you,” She chirped, almost dropping the contents of her bag everywhere as she rooted for her car keys, and before he could protest, because it was like all he could see now was how eager to be around him she was and he wasn’t too sure he could keep himself from opening pandora’s box, she jingled her keys, that of course had crochet bluebells hanging from them and all but danced past him into the elevator. “Come on, you can have shotgun,” 

“I’ll be the only passenger, doesn’t that mean I automatically have shotgun?” He asked, following behind her as she stood in the elevator with a beaming smile, her finger clicking the ground floor button a bunch of times even though it made no difference how fast the doors closed. 

“Well, yeah, but it’s going to be the best shotgun you’ve ever had. I’m talking you can be Miss Daisy and I’ll be your Morgan Freeman,” And as if her spirit was infectious, he shook his head with a hidden chuckle.

There was a minute of silence between the two as she played with a loose thread on her cardigan, and it was then he took the chance to ask her the question that had been burning on his lips all day. 

“You didn’t by any chance go to University of Pennsylvania, did you?” Spencer asked, noting the way her eyes fell to the floor and how she licked her lips nervously.

“Yeah,” She replied cautiously, fingers clenched tightly around her keyring, “I know it’s not Caltech, but it was pretty good-”

“Didn't you see my lecture with Hotch?” He asked, and his smile widened tenfold when her hands slapped over her cheeks that burned with horror, moving quickly up to cover her eyes, “Little birdy told me you were quite excited to meet me-”

“Oh, Emily,” She groaned, burying her face in her palms, avoiding his teasing expression like the plague, “I knew, I knew she was going to tell you, I’m surprised she didn’t tell JJ first, unless she did and our whole team know I was some crazy girl who liked the FBI agents so much she switched her major,” 

“You switched your major for me?” He asked incredulously and he only laughed harder, one of the first times since he’d come home, when she groaned louder, turning away from him entirely. 

“Shut up, I did not swap my major for you,” She bit back, and she finally met his gaze, her expression an embarrassed wince, “I just… liked the material. You were very compelling,”

“Did you have a poster of us?” Spencer wanted to stop teasing, knew he was being a little cruel, but how could he resist when she shrieked in between laughter, shoving his shoulder with mortification.

“No,”

“Did you kiss Hotch’s picture before bed like an obsessive fangirl?” 

She gestured to him vulgarly as they left the elevator and headed for the car park, and it made a huge difference to the usual adoration she watched him with, but maybe, he thought, it made him like her even more. 

“No more shotgun for you, you’re going in the trunk like an old rug,” She snapped, though he could tell she was still horrified by the way she avoided his delighted hazelnut gaze. 

“Like an old rug?” He feigned hurt, but when they sat in her car, she finally looked over at him with something vulnerable and yet affectionate, like he’d seen her for all she was worth. He reached over the console to squeeze her hand gently, not missing the way her palm clammed beneath his and she struggled for words, so he continued for her, “That’s really no way to talk to your idol, you know,” 

Spencer swore his chest felt lighter than it had in months watching her laugh like that.

[soaps-mohawk]

Cherry Red, Crimson Blood

Chapter 36: To The Sea

Summary: It's time to move on. You're not sure where you're going exactly, but anywhere is better than Texas

Pairing: Poly 141 x reader

Word Count: 7,816 words

Warnings: ANGST, injuries, medical stuff, descriptions of pain and injuries, brief discussion about strangulation, mentions of PTSD and nightmares, so much crying, Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, Alternate Universe, angst, a very little sprinkle of comfort, language, mentions of medications, still very heavy emotionally

A/N: Not actually a lot of warnings for this one. It's a lot of dialogue and inner monologues. Not a lot happens, just mostly setting the scene for the next chunk of the story. Bring tissues though, the last part of the chapter emotionally wrecked me but also might be the best thing I've ever written.

MASTERLIST | <- Previous | Next ->

It’s warm outside. 

Not even the shade from the building can completely shield you from the dome of heat that seems to surround the base. It seeps into the concrete and asphalt that lock it into place, trapping everyone in a bubble that may as well be an oven. It’s always hot in Texas, though. You hate it. You’ve been spoiled by the cold, rainy seasons in England. You’d gladly take that over Texas. 

You’d take anything over Texas. 

The heat prickles at your skin, your arm starting to get sweaty in the sling. It had been Dr. Keller’s idea to keep your shoulder as still as possible so you don’t continue to cause yourself pain when you move. It still hurts, but at least you won’t instinctively try to use your left arm now.

Despite the warmth, there’s still a chill deep in your bones. The warmth of the pain medicine has worn off and you’ve been left with the perpetual ice that has seemed to coat your insides. Dr. Keller says it's the stress giving you a fever. Every nightmare, every flashback sends your body temperature spiking, your heart beating right out of your chest. You’re not out of the woods yet. It can take a long time to recover from that level of distress and the omega taking over. You almost regret it, but there was no guarantee you would have lived either way at that time. You did what you had to do, and it did work out in the end. 

But at what cost? 

Dr. Keller’s phone buzzes in her pocket and she pulls it out, staring down at the screen for a moment. “Kyle wants to come by.” 

You don’t want to see him. You don’t want to see any of them. 

“I think you should see him. Even if it’s just for a moment.” She squeezes your hand. “I’ll be right here.” 

It’s a predicament. Dr. Keller supports your decision to keep them away, putting some distance between all of you for the time being. Yet, she also says being close to your pack will help your healing. Having your pack around will help your omega settle once again. She needs that safety, that security before she finally lets go completely. 

You don’t want to be close to them, but you may not have any other choice. 

You sit there in silence, picking at the fabric of your sweatpants as you wait for Kyle’s arrival. Sweat has started to bead on your back, the day only getting warmer and warmer as the sun moves higher in the sky. You want to go back inside, back into the cool air conditioned building. You want to crawl back onto the hospital bed and lay there for the next few hours. 

You can’t. 

Footsteps approach, but you don’t look up. You know who it is. You don’t want to see him. 

“Kyle.” Dr. Keller greets. 

“Christine.” He says back. It still throws you off, hearing Dr. Keller's first name. She'll always be Dr. Keller to you. Kyle turns his attention to you, still standing a few steps from the bench you're perched on. “Hi, love.” He says. The affectionate nickname almost makes you wince. You don't look up at him. You don’t want to see his face. “I wanted to stop by and see how you’re doing.” 

You don't move, don't give an answer. You don't have an answer to give anyway. You shouldn't have to give an answer. 

He lowers himself onto the bench, sitting as far away from you as he can. “It’s hot today.” He says, adjusting his hat. Always wearing a hat. Maybe that's why he and Price work so well together. 

He stares at you for a long moment but you don't bother moving, your gaze still on your sweatpants. They're starting to get a bit warm, even with your perpetual chill. 

“I’m not here to apologize.” He says, breaking the silence. “You’ve probably heard enough apologies to last you a lifetime.” He shakes his head. “Words can’t fix what we did. Nothing can fix what we did, how we left you there. All we can do is give you what you need, try and make you as comfortable as possible.” 

Tears burn your eyes as you listen to him. He's not wrong, an apology won't fix what happened. No words will ever be able to fix what they put you through. You're not sure there's anything they could do that would make up for it. An apology still would have been nice, despite the fact you know how guilty he is. Their avoidance of you, their willingness to give you such space in an unknown place just proves how guilty they all are. 

That doesn't make things hurt any less. 

You slowly turn away from Kyle, angling yourself towards Dr. Keller. 

He doesn't say anything further in that regard, taking your movement as an answer to his non-apology. He leans forward instead, resting his elbows on his knees. “I just wanted to let you know that we’re getting ready to leave soon. We’ll be heading somewhere safe, somewhere quiet and secluded. I think you’ll like it.” 

Dr. Keller had informed you of that earlier after she went to speak to them. They've decided what to do, what's best for the pack again. You might have protested, except for the fact it meant you were getting to leave Texas. Where exactly they're taking you, you're not sure. You just know it's not Texas. 

“I want you to know that we’re here if you need us.” He stares at you for a moment longer before pushing himself up to stand. 

If, not when. 

Maybe they're finally getting the message. 

Dr. Keller stands, touching your right shoulder gently before she steps away with Kyle, speaking quietly with him, but you can still hear every word in the nearly silent space around you. 

“In an attempt to remain a neutral, professional party in this situation, I feel it would be appropriate for me to tell you not to beat yourself up too much about this.” Dr. Keller says. “The unprofessional side of me has many words I’d like to say to all of you.” She clears her throat. “That being said, on a positive note I can say you’re all doing the right thing for once, prioritizing your omega and fulfilling her needs, even if her needs require you to leave her alone for now. I know it’s hard, I know every instinct is screaming at you to help her, but just take comfort in knowing you are helping her. You’re doing the best thing you can do for her at this time.” Dr. Keller puts a hand on his arm, squeezing it gently. “Even if it is tearing you up inside.” 

“Thanks, Doc.” He says. 

“I’ll see you soon.” She says, patting his arm before she heads back towards your bench. 

You turn your head just slightly, not missing the way Gaz lingers for a brief moment before he turns his back on you, walking back down the sidewalk. 

It hurts. 

You want to cry with every swallow. No matter how much you chew, it doesn’t ease the pain of trying to swallow solid food. Even the worst sore throat you’ve ever had pales in comparison to this pain. Tears burn in your eyes as you eat, unable to refuse this time in favor of choking down some liquid nutrients. Even liquids make your throat ache, but they are easy to chug to get it over with at once. 

This feels like torture. 

Dr. Keller looks guilty as she spoon-feeds you the soup. Chicken noodle, something simple and easy but still something with some substance. It makes you think back to when you were sick as a child, your mother dutifully feeding you homemade chicken noodle soup until you reached the age you could feed yourself. 

You do feel like a child again, unable to even hold the spoon. Well, you could hold it, but it would have come at the expense of some burns from how badly your hand was shaking. 

So instead you sit here, being spoon-fed soup you can barely stand eating. 

“I know.” She says as a tear finally falls, your inhale shaky from the ache in your throat. “You need something in your system for the sedative. It’s a long flight and you’ll be sick when you wake up if you don’t have anything in your stomach. That’s going to hurt a lot worse than eating now.” 

Yeah. You’ve already figured that out. 

“Strangulation is a tough thing to survive.” She says, dragging the bottom of the spoon against the edge of the bowl to wipe off any soup that might drip on you. “Then again, so is getting shot, and distressing to the point of your omega taking over.” She holds the spoon up to your lips, and you’re tempted to refuse. “You’ve survived a lot, more than most could. And to look this good after...” 

You blink up at her, teary eyed and sickly looking, exhausted and bruised. Your left eye is still almost swollen shut, and your hair is tangled perhaps beyond saving, tied up in a bun at the top of your head. All just reminders of what you survived, all reminders of what happened to you. Of what was allowed to happen to you. 

You’re not quite sure when the last time you had a real shower was either. 

“I know.” She says, spooning more soup into your mouth. “You might not feel like it, right now.” 

“I want a shower.” You say, your voice still hoarse and cracking through your throat. A real shower might solve a lot of problems for you right now. It won’t fix much, but being truly clean would make a lot of things feel better. 

“I wholeheartedly agree.” Dr. Keller says. 

You give her a look. You don't smell that bad. She should know, she’s the one that cleaned the blood off of you and the one who gave you the sponge bath this morning. 

She gives you a look back. “I meant it would be nice to take a real shower. Once we get where we’re going, we can work on the logistics of a shower.” 

Right. You can’t exactly stand for a long time on your own, not to mention the problem of only being able to use one arm without bringing blinding pain upon yourself. That’s where the pack would come in handy. 

The thought of one of them seeing you vulnerable like that, putting their hands on you right now makes your skin crawl. 

A shiver runs down your spine, your body shuddering uncontrollably. You grunt as your shoulder screams in pain, another electric jolt burning straight through your nerves and down through your feet. Fuck. You mouth the word, squeezing your eyes shut. It makes your stomach churn, the soup starting to burn a path back up through your esophagus.

“Breathe for me.” Dr. Keller says, putting a gentle hand on your right shoulder. 

In and out. You focus on your breath, the only thing you can do without feeling like you’re going to go insane from the pain. It’s all you can do in this situation. It’s the only thing you can do at all. Breathe. Just keep breathing. 

Sometimes you don’t want to. 

The pain passes as it always does, leaving behind a subtle ache that will linger until the next flare of pain. It’s a constant, never-ending cycle that you can’t escape from. Weeks, Dr. Keller had said. It can take weeks to heal. You’ll be stuck in this cycle for weeks and weeks. What if it never heals? That is a possibility. It’s always a risk with any injury. 

What if the rest of your life is like this? 

You’re crying again, hot tears blazing a path down your cheeks. They won’t stop, they never stop. There’s a constant stream down your face, even in your sleep. You’ve woken to find your face and neck damp from the never ceasing flood of tears. 

How you can’t wait for the time to come when you have none left.

You’d welcome the numbness at this point, greet it like an old friend and invite it in for tea. Anything over the pain and tears that won’t stop. The depression-fueled numbness that had filled you when Price and Gaz left, then Soap and Ghost would be a welcome relief at this point. Anything would be better than the pain. 

You almost wish you were in a coma right now. Then you wouldn’t feel anything at all. 

Dr. Keller puts the spoon back into the soup bowl before rolling the table to the side. She puts a hand on your head, gently stroking your hair as you cry. The room is silent aside from your sniffles, Dr. Keller not having to say a single word. The silence is almost a blessing. You’re tired of hearing words, of hearing people speak. There’s nothing anyone can say that will do anything to help you, to comfort you, to make it better. 

There’s nothing anyone can do to make it better. 

You’re so tired of being like this. 

The sedative is kicking in before you even reach the airfield. She can see the way your head is drooping further and further forward in the car, your body jostling without any complaint. It had started kicking in before you even got into the car, as you offered very little resistance when Kyle helped her mauver you into the front seat. She chose Kyle out of everyone to help her in hopes it would be easiest on you. Your claimed alpha’s beta is a good place to start in rebuilding the bonds within the pack, and his calm demeanor certainly helps. He is a caretaker through and through, that beta trait prominent above the others in him. He would have made a good medic, had he gone that route. 

Your chin drops to your chest as the car comes to a stop in front of the plane, your body slumping to the side against the door. 

“She’s out.” Christine says, unbuckling her seatbelt. 

“Makes this easier.” Kyle says, getting out of the car. 

They maneuver you into the wheelchair, Christine easing your head onto your right shoulder to avoid aggravating the left. The less pain you’re in when you come out of it, the better, though pain will be unavoidable. Kyle pushes the wheelchair up the ramp of the plane, Christine following close behind. She’s glad she gave you the sedative before you left the med center to avoid as much pain as possible. She almost wishes she had given it to you earlier, as getting you into a sweatshirt had been a battle of its own. Though, the longer it stays in your system, the longer you’ll sleep through the flight. The longer you sleep through the flight, the longer they can delay the inevitable emotional storm of being enclosed in a tight space with your pack. 

If you’re lucky, you’ll be out of it long enough for them to reach the cottage without incident. 

John is waiting near the front of the aircraft, his eyes watching carefully as Kyle helps maneuver you into a seat. Even with the turmoil in the pack bonds, an alpha will always feel protective over their omega. There’s some things that can’t be undone, even in such a fragile state. Some instincts can’t be unlearned, no matter what. 

“I gave her a sedative.” Christine explains as she gets you as comfortable as possible in the seat. “It won’t last the whole flight, but it’ll take a while to wear off regardless.” 

“Is that more for her or for us?” John asks. 

“Both.” Christine says. “Mostly for her. It helps with the pain of moving around, but it will also keep her calm in close quarters like this.” 

“Here.” John says, handing her something. It’s a blanket, brand new by the feel of it. “Johnny made a store run this morning. It’s going to get cold in here, so he got the warmest one he could find.” 

Christine takes the blanket, the fabric thick and soft in her hands. It’s a touching gesture, speaking volumes of their desire to still care for you despite everything, their willingness to do what they have to, to keep the pack together. “Perfect.” She says, carefully draping it over you and tucking it around you before John gets you secured in the seat. 

“It’s going to be a long flight.” John says, taking a step back. 

“It is.” Christine says, pulling out her thermometer. She takes your temperature, letting out a hum at the number that pops up on screen. “I need to monitor her temperature.” She explains as John gives her a look. “It’s been spiking when she gets stressed.” 

“She's not quite out of it yet, is she?” John asks.

“Not quite.” She says, putting the thermometer back in her bag. “I’ve only seen two omegas successfully come back from that point, and I know the number across the board isn’t very high. It takes a long time for the body and the brain to get back to normal.” 

“And on top of everything that happened...” 

She stares up at him for a long moment. “She’s very strong. I knew she was a fighter, but to come out the other side even where she is now...” Christine shakes her head. “I didn’t want to say this at the time, but I was expecting the worst. When that call came in about what state she was in...” She bites her lip, holding the emotions back. “Her resilience and fortitude is what kept her alive. That and Simon’s courage to do what needed to be done.” 

“I know.” John says, looking past her. “We all owe a lot to him.” 

Christine puts a gentle hand on his arm. “You’re doing what’s best for her. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how much it goes against every instinct you have, it’s what she needs.” 

“That’s all that matters to us right now.” John says, staring down at her hand for a moment. “There’s nothing else we can do, so it’s time we start putting our priorities where they should have been the whole time.” 

Christine gives him a small smile. “I’m proud of you for that. It takes a lot to unlearn the things you’ve been told since the beginning.” 

The corner of John’s lips twitch before his face falls into the emotionless mask he’s been wearing for the last few days. “It’s about time we get our heads out of our arses.” 

“I can’t blame you totally.” She shrugs. “We were all just doing what the initiative was telling us to do. We couldn’t have known. There wasn’t any room to question it.” 

“I wish we would have figured it out sooner.” He sighs. 

“Things might have been worse if the truth did come out sooner. If you started digging into the initiative too soon, Shepherd might have gotten antsy and taken more drastic measures to stop the truth from coming out entirely.” She glances down at you. “I think this was all inevitable.” She turns her gaze back to John. “What happened, happened. None of us can change that. All we can do is keep moving forward with what we have right now.” 

He stares at her for a long moment. “The more time passes, the more I’ve come to realize why Kate chose you for this position.” 

The corner of her lips turns up in a smile. “Well, I am rather good at my job, which, among other things, involves advocating on behalf of omegas.” 

John huffs. “Wish we would have listened sooner.” 

“You can’t change the past.” She repeats, looking down at you again. “But you can change the future.” 

You woke from your sedation about four hours from Helston. 

Well, ’woke’ might have been too strong of a word for it. Your eyes opened, but you were still hazy, movements sluggish and entirely unaware of the world around you. You floated between sleep and awareness for an hour before finally gaining consciousness completely. Awareness took quite a while to return, though. Not until they were moving you to the car from the plane. 

Even still you’re groggy, slumped against the door in the back seat of the car. You blink slowly, eyes unfocused as you stare out the window at the blur of green passing by. 

“How is she?” John asks from the driver's seat, glancing up at the rearview mirror. 

“Cow.” You say, blinking slowly as the car passes a field of cows. 

“Still out of it.” Christine answers from the back seat where she's sitting next to you. Your response might have been enough to answer that. “Better than being in pain, though.” 

“How long will it take for her to get out of it?” Kyle asks. 

“Hopefully she’ll be more lucid by the time we get there, but it could take a few hours for it to completely wear off.” Christine says, wiping a bit of drool from your chin. “Probably not a bad thing. This is a big change, and with everything that’s happened, it’s going to take some time to settle in.” 

“Things are going to be rough.” Kyle says. 

“Yes.” She agrees. “Being enclosed in a small space with the people you want to see the least in the world isn’t an ideal situation. It’ll be an adjustment for everyone. I trust all of your abilities to adapt, though. Just don't go in expecting things to be the way they were.”

John's hands tighten around the steering wheel, his knuckles going white. Kyle cracks his window open, prepared for the thickening of John's scent in the air. Christine knows she hit a nerve, but it needed to be said. Even if you were open to forgiveness right now, even if they had chosen to go after you right away, things still wouldn't be the same. Things won't ever be the same. It is their fault deep at the root of it. Those cameras were put up because of them, you were taken because of them. You were chosen for the “initiative” because of them, because Kate thought you'd fit in well with them. Their decisions shaped your life, and will continue to shape your life. 

Can you ever come to forgive them? Christine likes to think so. She has the hope that they can put in the work and regain your trust and earn eventual forgiveness. She knows you'll allow them to try once the initial hurt and emotions begin to fade, once the two of you put in enough work to start processing the trauma around the events that happened. It will take time. Probably a long time. 

She'll be there every step of the way. 

“Ashley did some shopping for us, picked up some stuff to get us until we can get into town.” Kyle says, looking at his phone. 

“Good.” John says, his shoulders starting to relax. “Should wait a couple days before going. Get settled in.”

“She's still working on cleaning up. Probably still be there when we get there.” Kyle says, putting his phone back in his pocket. 

“That's fine. We’ll probably have to utilize her a bit.” 

“Doubt she'll complain.” Kyle says, looking out the window. “Be thrilled to have something to do besides work.” 

You let out a quiet groan, shifting against the door. “Hurts.” 

“I know, honey.” Christine says, carefully adjusting your left arm. “I’ll give you more pain meds once we get to the cottage.” 

“We’ll be there in half an hour.” John says, glancing up at the rearview mirror again before turning his eyes back to the road. 

The half hour seems to take the longest as you continue to become more and more lucid and aware. The pain sets in first, your brain picking up on those signals before anything else. John’s knuckles are white around the steering wheel as you begin to whine and whimper around every bend in the road and turn he has to make, every jostle of the car. Every instinct in his body tells him to pull over and comfort you, but he can’t. It’s more important to get to the cottage, and there’s no guarantee you’d even let him. It might make things worse. 

The last thing you need right now is for things to get worse. 

Christine breathes a sigh of relief as they pull up to the cottage, glad she can finally get you somewhere more comfortable. You’ve been in far too many uncomfortable positions today, moved around too much. She would have liked to keep you in Texas a couple more days, but she knew as soon as you were able to travel, the better. The sooner they could get off the grid, the better. 

The sooner they could get out of Texas, the better. 

Kyle is getting the wheelchair out of the trunk when Johnny and Simon pull up, not having been far behind. They likely took a turn around the back roads to ensure no one was following and to keep things from looking too suspicious. 

Christine keeps you from slumping out of the car as she carefully opens the door on your side. You’re more awake than you were, blinking up at her with almost startlingly aware eyes.

“Crutch.” You pout when she pulls the wheelchair closer. 

She gives you a look. “Honey I'm not sure you could even stand right now.” You may be more aware, but that doesn’t mean your body is working as it should.

You let out a defiant noise as you attempt to get your legs out of the car, trying to hide your grunts of pain and discomfort. 

She's tempted to stand there and let you try, but she knows all hell will break loose if she lets you fall. She's not willing to take that risk, not to mention it will cause you more pain to get you up off the ground. 

“Come on,” She says, stopping you before you can get your feet under you. “Nice and slow.” 

You let out a quiet growl of indignation but you allow her to help you, your legs trembling as she eases you up. Kyle is there with the wheelchair, getting it as close to you as possible so she can sit you down quickly. 

“Ow.” You breathe, eyes pinched closed as you breathe through the pain. 

“I know.” She says, patting your good shoulder lightly. She's glad she put you in the sweatshirt before you left Texas. It's chilly outside, chillier than it was further inland a few days ago. 

It's hard to believe it's only been a few days since you were taken. Barely even a week. So much happened in such a short period of time. It feels like it’s been weeks since everything started, but then again, it had been weeks since John and Kyle first left. It had been weeks since you had been around your whole pack together by the time you were taken. The deep depression you sunk into before the events of the last week had been draining you slowly for weeks before this. It had started before John and Kyle were deployed, back to that day when you revealed the cameras and the secret you had been hiding from them. 

How long you’ve gone in such turmoil. 

How far you still have to go. 

The path up to the door is rocky and uneven, the wheelchair jostling as she pushes it up towards the door. She can picture your face, the way it has to be screwed up in pain. You're silent though, holding it all in. She almost wishes you weren't being silent about it. 

The door is already open, light shining from inside as she approaches. Kyle is in the house already, having gone ahead to greet his sister. John is right behind the two of you as Christine turns to wheel you up the steps into the house. His eyes are on you, focused and ready should you fall.  

Christine would never let you fall, and from the way your hand is gripping the arm of the chair for dear life, you probably couldn't anyway. 

She wheels you through the entryway, the inside warmer thanks to a fire that's burning. It's a nice cottage, far nicer than she had been expecting judging from the outside. 

Johnny lets out a low whistle as he enters behind John, looking around. “Yer parents own this?” 

“It was given to our mum by our grandparents. They did some...renovations before they passed it on.” Kyle says. 

“Yer tellin’ me.” Johnny says. 

It looks new inside. New wood floors, freshly painted walls. The furniture looks like she would expect to find in an English seaside cottage, though. Kyle’s parents went to France for summer vacation instead of utilizing the cottage, and none of his siblings had wanted to use it, he told them. It looks almost perfect, like it came right out of a home renovation show. Kyle’s sister must have worked some sort of magic to get it this clean. 

It is a very nice cottage. It’s small, the door opening right to the main area. There’s two couches and a chair in the middle of the room around a coffee table. To the left of the couches is a fireplace, the fire already lit and crackling. It looks original, likely having been untouched in the renovations. There’s a door to the left of the fireplace closer to the main entryway. A bedroom maybe? To the right of the front door are two doors, one on the far wall and one facing the front door. 

The stairs are in the middle of the house, leading up to the second floor where there’s likely more bedrooms. On the far side of the main area is the dining area and beyond that is a sliding glass door. Around the corner on the far side of the stairs is likely the kitchen. She can see the fridge from where she’s standing. It’s new. Very new. Makes her wonder just how long ago it had been renovated. 

“Everyone, this is my sister Ashley.” Kyle says, introducing the other woman in the room. 

“Hello,” she says, giving everyone a wave and a dazzling smile. 

She’s dressed simply in jeans and a t-shirt, her medium box braids pulled up into a bun on top of her head. They look a lot alike, her and Kyle. Tall and slender and stunning. They have the same smile and the same soft brown eyes. She's wearing scent blockers, but Christine can imagine her having a soft scent like lavender or something fresh like mint. 

“There's two rooms down here, and two upstairs.” Kyle says. “The main bedroom is through there.” He points towards a door to their left. “I figure we'll give that to our omega. The bathroom in there has a walk-in shower.” 

“Perfect.” Christine says. That will make getting you in and out of the shower easier at least, and you won’t have to go far to use the bathroom.

“You should take the other room down here.” John says, looking at Christine. “So you can be close in case of an emergency.”

And so you don't have to be too close to them, so you won’t feel like they’re hovering.

He doesn't have to say that part out loud. 

“I put new sheets on all the beds.” Ashley says. “I also picked up everything Kyle sent on the list. Food, some clothes, some other necessities.”

You let out a quiet groan, Christine patting your head gently. You have to be exhausted and sore after the day. She should give you another dose of pain medicine like she said she would. You’re going to need it tonight. 

“Let's get you laying down for a bit.” She says, wheeling you towards the door. 

Kyle opens it for her, revealing a spacious room with a big window looking out towards the sea. You're going to spend a lot of time in front of that window, she thinks. The bed is in the middle of the room, and there’s two chairs facing the window. She’s almost tempted to sit you in one of the chairs, but laying down will be more comfortable for you right now. 

You're still too out of it now to care much as she wheels you to the double bed. With Kyle's help they get you horizontal, Christine draping the blanket at the end of the bed over you. It’s not very soft, but it will do for now. She’ll have to get the guys to pick up some soft blankets for you when they go to town. She has a whole list of things starting in her head she needs them to pick up.

She leans your crutch against the end of the bed just in case you might need it for an emergency. She hopes you’ll yell first, but you always have been stubborn. Being mostly bed-bound has only made that worse. 

“I’m going to go look through the things Ashley picked up.” She says, patting your leg gently. “Get some rest.” 

Christine leaves the door open a crack as she exits, wanting to give you a little privacy as you nap, or at least she hopes you’ll nap. It’s going to be a rough adjustment, and you’re going to need as much rest as you can get. 

“I’m assuming you’re Christine.” Ashley says, walking up to her. 

“I am.” She says, giving Ashley a smile. 

She can’t help but get lost in Ashley’s soft gaze for a moment. The Garrick siblings seem to share the same magnetic energy. There’s something almost ethereal about them. She could easily imagine them with glowing halos and angel wings. It’s almost like she’s being blessed with the opportunity to look upon her. She could spend an hour staring at Ashley’s face and not grow tired of looking at her.

“I picked up the items Kyle said you needed.” She says, motioning to the bags on the coffee table, pulling Christine out of her daze. “I couldn’t find the exact nutrient powder you asked for, so I got one that was as close as I could find.” 

Christine glances through the bags. She was thorough, getting at least two of everything. 

“I got warmer clothes for her too, since it can get chilly out here this time of year. Just some simple things for now until you guys get into town.” Ashley says. “I did some research too and I read that omegas like comforting things so I picked up some extra blankets and pillows” Ashley says, motioning to a couple bags sitting on the couch. “I also picked up this,” She pulls a stuffed dog from one of the bags, holding it up. “It was the softest one I could find. I thought it might help.” 

A small smile forms on Christine’s face, her heart fluttering in her chest from the sweet, thoughtful gesture. Ashley doesn’t even know you, nor did she know exactly what happened to you, and yet she went so far as to pick up some comfort items for you. You have nothing right now, only the borrowed clothes on your back. All of your belongings are still on base, all of the things that you had built to make your perfect nest. Would you want any of them still? Or have they been tainted by the events of the last few weeks? 

That Ashley thought to do this has warmth flooding Christine’s body. You can have some comfort now without having to wait for their trip to town. She almost feels the urge to cry. She wants to hug Ashley, thank her over and over for her kindness. Ashley has no idea how much her small act of kindness means, how much it's going to mean. 

A smile forms on Christine’s face as she stares at the stuffed dog. “It’s perfect.” 

You can hear it. 

In the distance, the quiet roar reaches your ears as you’re dragged from the sweet arms of sleep. It must be a dream, or perhaps the sedative is still clinging to your mind, making you imagine things. 

No. 

You’d know that sound anywhere. 

The effort to push yourself up to sit is a momentous one, every cell in your body protesting after a day of being moved and jostled. The last thing you want is to move right now, but you have to. 

The pain meds have done little to help.

The crutch at the end of your bed must be a thousand miles away as you sit there and stare at it. The ache in your body only increases as you become more and more aware of the pain, almost as if it can tell what it is your mind is planning. 

The door is cracked open, letting in a slit of light from outside. It’s dark in the room, the curtains pulled over the window. It’s a blessing compared to the bright yellow light outside the door. You welcome the darkness as your head begins to throb. You could call for assistance. You’d get more help than you needed. More help than you want. 

No. 

You need to do this. 

The effort it takes to get standing nearly sends you back onto the bed. The pain nearly blinds you as your feet touch the floor, your body leaning against the side of the mattress out of desperation. If you fall, you’ll never be alone again. You can’t afford that. You don’t want that. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

The breaths out of your nose are short and sharp as you reach for the crutch, fingers trembling in the effort to fight the pain threatening to blind you. You’re trembling like a leaf in a storm as your fingers finally wrap around the cool metal. The rubber bottom drags across the floor as you tug it over to you, holding it against your chest for a moment. 

Breathe. That’s what you need to do. Breathe. 

In and out. 

Nice and slow. 

The pain is only a memory. The pain is nothing. The memories forming at the edges of your mind will take over and wipe out the pain and the misery. You just have to be sure. You just have to be certain.

You push yourself upright using the crutch, tucking it under your arm. You should go back to bed. You should rest. 

No. 

You need to know. 

You need to be certain.

The first step you take nearly makes you sick. 

It’s like watching a baby deer walk for the first time, knees wobbling, feet shaking. You lean heavily on the crutch, your determination the only thing keeping you from tumbling to the floor in a heap. That might almost hurt worse than forcing yourself to stand upright. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

Inch by inch you move across the floor, silently grateful for the socks on your feet. They allow you to slide across the hardwood, but they also pose a threat. Slide too far and you’ll lose your feet. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

The determination and your desire for certainty is what keeps you sliding inch by inch across the floor towards that strip of blinding light in front of you. It’s hovering before you, threatening you. How do you know there’s not one of them standing guard, waiting for you to try and leave? You can’t know. You don’t have a clue what’s waiting on the other side of that door. It could be nothing. It could be your entire pack. 

Breathe. 

In and out. 

You take a moment at the door, resting your aching feet. Your body is throbbing from the effort to keep yourself upright, the sedative still numbing your brain and your movements. It’s like treading through honey, everything twice as hard as it should be. You can walk. You’ve done it before. You did it in the medical center. 

You can do it here. 

You use the crutch to push the door open more, your free arm still tucked in a sling to keep you from moving it. Reaching for it with that arm would have put you on the floor, would have caused more pain than you needed, would have made you fall. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

Breathe. 

The light burns. Explosions of yellows and whites erupt behind your eyelids as you screw them tight against the sudden onslaught. The sun is in the room, shining its rays directly into your sensitive eyes. Your stomach churns, your fingers tightening around the crutch so tight your knuckles begin to ache. The oppressive light makes you want to recede back into the darkness of the room behind you like a vampire shying away from the light of day. 

No. 

You won’t be defeated by the harsh artificial lighting. You need to know. 

You need to be certain.

The others are moving around. You can hear voices around the corner, voices upstairs with thudding footsteps. The air is thick with a mesh of scents, cleaning chemicals, and the burn of scent blocker. Your nose wrinkles at the sudden onslaught against your senses, your sedated brain making it all seem so much worse. 

You need to know. 

The hardwood floors continue and you use them to your advantage as you shuffle your way across the main area. The fire crackles as you pass, the popping of a log making you startle. Your feet slide again, your body pushing up against the crutch to hold yourself steady. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

Your target is dead ahead, a mile away but so close you can almost taste it. Just past the dining table and straight on till morning. 

Despite your snail’s pace, no one seems to notice you shuffling your way across the house. It should make you upset, the fact that none of them notice you moving around, but instead it makes you glad. They’d try to stop you if they noticed you, turn you around and shuffle you back to bed. Or worse, they’d carry you. 

How easily you could slip away, though. 

Well...in theory. 

Perhaps that’s why they ‘re not paying you any mind. How far could you really go in your current state? 

Why would you want to stray from the only safe space you have? 

The world outside is more dangerous with the state you’re in. Not just because of your injuries and your status, but also because you know Shepherd is still out there, and for all you know Graves is as well. 

He could be waiting right outside the door. 

No. 

They’d know. 

They’d protect you. 

They failed. 

You push past the fear in favor of certainty as you push forward, passing the dining table in your slow crawl towards the sliding glass door. 

It poses an entirely new threat as you stand before it, staring out the darkened glass. You have to get it open. Getting it open takes strength and you’re down to one hand that’s trying to keep you upright. 

You have to know. 

You have to be certain. 

You lean your weight on the crutch, ignoring the way it digs into your armpit as you reach for the handle. You click the lock, wrapping your fingers around the plastic before pulling. Your body screams with pain as you tug, the door sliding in the track as slowly as you had moved across the small living area. It’s almost as if it's mocking you. 

It’s open only as wide as you need to crutch your way through, doing your best not to knock your left shoulder against the frame. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

Breathe. 

You can smell it. 

The salty sea air invades your senses, slipping up through your nose and straight into your brain. Memories come flooding back of childhood vacations back when things were simpler. Back when nothing mattered but the sand and the water and avoiding getting chased by your brothers carrying the piece of seaweed they found. 

Polkadot bathing suits, bright red to be seen easily. Toes in the water, sand everywhere. The nap in the silent car home. 

How simple life was back then. How easy life was. 

Your heart aches for those days again. The days when you could exist without a care in the world, trusting your pack would keep you safe, trusting your family would care for you. Your mind yearns for that sense of safety and security again. 

The world is grey as you hobble across the porch, the grey seeming to go on forever. You missed it, the chill in the air, the gloomy grey overhead. How you yearned for the gloom of England while stuck in the heat of Texas. 

Anything is better than Texas. 

Your forward shuffle pauses at the edge of the deck, your eyes looking out into the grey. Your breath catches in your throat as you stare out into the distance, the ache in your chest intensifying. It blocks out the pain in your body, numbing you to everything else as you stand there, legs trembling from the effort of going the short distance from your room to the end of the porch. 

You can see it. 

Emotions swirl inside of you like a hurricane as you stare out where the grey water meets the grey sky in the line of the horizon. Those emotions threaten to choke you as you stand there trembling at the edge of the porch. There’s a breeze, a cold one that bites through the fabric of your sweatshirt and into the skin below, but you don’t care. 

You can’t care. 

Your legs shake from the exertion, the neverending exhaustion that’s settled deep into your bones. It’s not just a physical exhaustion, but a mental one as well. It’s been a long week. 

Only a week. 

So much has happened in a week. 

You want to sit. You want to sink down onto the porch and rest. 

If you fall, you’ll never get up again. 

There’s a pain in your chest as your breath catches in your throat. The emotions are whirling, tightening around your chest, squeezing your lungs until they feel like they might pop. 

Breathe. 

In and out. 

You needed certainty. You needed to know. 

You can hear it. You can smell it. You can see it. 

A single tear rolls down your cheek as you stare out at the sea. 

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[cleo-fox]

Overtime

Summary: Sometimes, working overtime isn’t all that bad.

Pairings: Loki x Female Reader

Warnings: Smut, 18+ minors DNI, sex, cunnilingus, teasing, light bondage, office romance.

Series: Overtime (I don't have a masterlist for this, but if you enjoy these idiots, check out Daylight, a sort of sequel).

A/N: This was largely written prior to season 2 and posted right before episode 4, so it’s not entirely canon compliant and the parts that are may be compliant by accident.

Also, @give-me-a-moose and I were on a similar wavelength about Loki angrily reading romance novels and I would strongly recommend checking out her fic The Imagine Nation if you too are enthralled by this idea.

You don’t think that Mobius intended to keep Loki’s desk behind yours.

“It’s temporary,” he tells you apologetically. “He just needs somewhere to go for now, until I figure out what to do with him.”

“You’re talking about him like he’s a stray cat that you found,” you say.

“You won’t even know he’s there, I promise.”

“You’re still doing it.”

Mobius sighs and puts on his most sincere, earnest expression—the one that he always uses when he’s about to ask you for a stupidly massive favor.

And it’s only because you almost never, ever see this look from him that you back down.

“Okay, fine,” you say. “But he’d better be on his best behavior.”

Mobius puts his palms together and tips them toward you. “Thank you. You will not regret this, I promise.”

You sigh and shake your head. “Just remember this next time you’re budgeting for raises.”

But then—in a move that you certainly don’t expect—Loki ends up sticking around. And, in the subtle way that the stray you’ve been feeding slowly turns into your cat, Loki’s temporary desk becomes his permanent desk. And strangely enough, Mobius’ assurances turn out to be more correct than not: Loki does a lot of fieldwork and is often away; when he is at his desk, it tends to be because he is working on more complicated missions, the ones that require poring over mountains of files looking for patterns and trying to untangle the slippery mess of time itself.

Your work is decidedly less glamorous than Loki’s—almost no fieldwork, lots of files. Endless files. Some days you feel as though you must have seen every file in the TVA’s extensive library and then you’re immediately proven wrong by another wing of filing cabinets that you swear wasn’t even there before.

Although he is generally well-behaved as your desk neighbor, Loki’s presence has a way of distracting you. Even if you didn’t know who he was, your gaze would still naturally drift his way, lingering on those regal cheekbones, that ink black hair, that cunning smirk. The way that the fabric of his dress pants clings to his thighs certainly doesn’t help, to say nothing of how his forearms look with his shirtsleeves rolled up. He can make your heart start to race with no more than a casual glance in your direction and god help you if he gives you one of those devastating smiles. Luckily, you don’t think he takes that much notice of you. You have the sort of pleasantly dull exchanges of coworkers who don’t really know each other and he is almost painfully polite to you. It’s a strong departure from the way he interacts with others—with others, he is bold, charming, sarcastic, talkative, a far cry from the more subdued, almost courtly tone he strikes with you. It’s a difference that is so stark that you can’t help but attribute it to some sort of negative feeling on his end.

“How’s it going with Loki?” Mobius asks you during a one-on-one meeting a couple of months after Loki’s temporary desk becomes his permanent desk. “He’s behaving himself, right?”

“It’s been fine,” you say, “though truthfully, I don’t think he likes me all that much.”

“What? Of course he likes you,” Mobius says. “Why wouldn’t he like you? You’re lovely.”

You shrug. “I dunno, he’s just different with me than he is with everyone else. Like…overly polite. It’s like he thinks I’m going to send him to the principal’s office or something.”

“Let me get this straight,” says Mobius. “First you were worried that he wouldn’t behave himself and now you’re worried that he’s too well-behaved?”

Privately, you realize he has a point. Outwardly, though, you’re not going to admit it. The sardonic tilt of Mobius’ mouth suggests that he knows this.

“No, I just…I don’t think he likes me all that much,” you say. “And he’s entitled to that. People don’t like each other all the time, it’s not a big deal.”

This is also a little bit of a lie—you do wish he liked you. Loki is so magnetic it’s hard not to want his attention. And with the matter of your silly little crush, well…that doesn’t help either.

Mobius sighs. “I think you’re overthinking this. He likes you, sometimes it just takes him a little time to warm up. He’s a bit of a prickly guy.”

You bite down the urge to point out that you’ve seen him warm to other people almost immediately. This conversation has already gone on longer than you want and you are edging dangerously close to having to admit that you care so much because you have a big stupid crush on him, which is obviously unacceptable.

“Well, the point is that it’s fine,” you say quickly, trying to project an aura of cool confidence. “I don’t have any complaints, he seems like he’s settling in, so let’s move on. Did you have any feedback on my recent report?”

The furrow between Mobius’ eyebrows deepens just slightly, the only indication that he doesn’t fully believe you. But for whatever reason, he decides to let it go and follows your change in topic without further comment.

This is one of the reasons you like Mobius as much as you do: he always seems to know the right moment to push and the right moment to bend.

You’re not sure if your relationship with Loki would have changed had it not been for the problem of Charles Berlitz.

The joke around the office is that after Mobius convinced Loki to work for the TVA, he needed something new to obsess over and Charles Berlitz was the next best option. It’s hard to say exactly who Berlitz is, as he has a tendency of showing up, well…everywhere. He is quite literally in every timeline, at least as far as anyone can tell. Sometimes he is an author, penning serious, scholarly essays on outlandish theories like the Bermuda Triangle and the Philadelphia Experiment. He seems to have a fondness for all manner of schemes—he was responsible for introducing both homeopathy and multi-level marketing to no fewer than sixty different timelines. His ability to peddle bullshit naturally led him to politics—pick any rebellion, coup, or campaign on any given timeline and there’s a good chance you’ll also find Charles Berlitz.

Scammers and con artists are not atypical in your line of work, but what makes Charles Berlitz an enduring mystery is that he has never been found. You can have reputable documentary evidence that Berlitz was present at a certain time and location, but if you show up to investigate, he is never there. There have been some glimpses over the years—a shadowy face in the back of a crowd, the hem of a cloak disappearing behind a corner—but nothing concrete or substantive.

“Our ghost in the timeline,” Mobius had said in one of his more poetic moments at an all staff meeting, his voice overly hushed and dramatic. You had seen Loki roll his eyes and you had to fake a coughing fit to hide your laugh.

Time moves differently at the TVA, so it’s hard to say how long Mobius has been working on this case when he makes a breakthrough, but it’s not terribly long after your conversation about Loki. A campaign button had been found in an apartment that Berlitz rented for two years in the French Quarter. That particular campaign button could only have existed in one specific timeline and its distribution was limited. You aren’t entirely clear on all of the details, but Mobius seems to have a plan.

And unfortunately, that plan involves you giving up most of your weekend to work.

It’s near quitting time on what passes for a Friday at the TVA. Loki has been in today and you can hear him starting to pack up. Technically, he’s got twenty minutes of work left, but you’re not about to tell him that.

You doodle absently on your notepad. Technically, you’ve also got twenty minutes of work left, but realistically: nothing is happening.

“Oh, great, you’re both still here.”

In general, this phrase has never meant good news for you and when you look up, you see Mobius with a sizable armful of files.

Also not a great sign.

Mobius plunks the stack of files directly on your desk. “There’s been a development with Berlitz. I need you both to review these now.”

“It’s Friday,” says Loki, affronted. “Surely it can wait until Monday.”

“No can do. I need this done by Sunday at the latest,” says Mobius. “This is an all hands on deck situation.”

Loki glances pointedly at the office around you, which has already started emptying out for the weekend.

“All hands on deck, but most hands are already in the field,” Mobius concedes. “Which is why I need the two of you—” He points to you. “You because you’re good—” He gestures to Loki. “And you because you’ve got desk duty.”

“I beg your pardon—” begins Loki.

“He’s grounded,” Mobius says to you in an exaggerated stage whisper.

This is not surprising to you: you had heard a rumor last week about an incident that had occurred on a mission to the inauguration of Richard Nixon and you suspect that these two events are likely connected.

You look at the pile of paperwork on your desk. You could probably get through it on your own in a couple of hours, but if Loki’s helping, maybe you still have a shot at having Saturday to yourself. You bite back a sigh. “What do you need me to find?”

“Anything that mentions anyone from the Lucchese crime family or Nero Variant N2815,” says Mobius. “I’ll go get the rest.”

Your heart sinks. Farewell, Saturday. “There’s more?” you say.

“It’ll be triple overtime, I already got it approved!” he calls over his shoulder

You sigh and glance at Loki who is scowling at the pile of files as though they’d wronged him personally.

There’s a long moment of silence before you speak. “Is there any truth to the rumor I’ve been hearing about the Nixon inauguration?” you ask.

“If it involved a hot air balloon, then yes,” he says rather tonelessly.

“Well.” You pause as you stare at the pile of papers. “At least it was worth it.”

That at least earns you a hint of a smile.

*

Several hours later, your stomach is growling and you’ve developed a rather impressive crick in your neck.

You lean back in your chair, stretching your neck to the side and rubbing the knot that is pulsing in your upper trapezius. Office work has done nothing positive for your posture in general, but tonight’s work has you hunched over more than usual and your neck is aching.

You and Loki have made good progress, but your pile of finished and sorted files is scarcely comparable to the full cart that Mobius had brought in. Back when the evening was new and you weren’t quite so tired, you’d been optimistic about possibly having half a Saturday free from work; that hope has slipped away the longer the evening has dragged on. Now you’re hoping that you’ll still have a bit of Sunday to yourself and even that feels unlikely.

Your stomach growls again. You should probably eat something—you’d worked through your regular dinner hour in a fit of misplaced optimism. The cafeteria is closed this time of night, but there’s a vending machine not far from your office that has shitty coffee and mostly edible sandwiches.

You stand and stretch, stifling a yawn as you turn around. “I’m gonna grab a coffee and some dinner,” you say. “Do you want anything?”

Loki looks up at you from the file in front of him, blinking somewhat dazedly and running a hand through his messy curls. “I’d like to stretch my legs a bit, if you don’t mind the company.”

You honestly didn’t expect him to want to join you. It’s a pleasant surprise, certainly, but also a little nerve wracking in the way that interacting with Loki always is. He’s so handsome and aloof and you’re not quite sure how to talk to him without acting like a total fool.

But you’re also not about to say no, either.

“Of course,” you say, “I don’t mind at all.”

The TVA is unusually quiet at this time of night—the steady hum of fluorescent lights and the murmur of distant voices is all that accompanies the tap of your shoes on the linoleum. It only heightens the jittery, nervous feeling you get from Loki—like your stomach is filled with drunk, lightning struck butterflies.

“Are you finding much?” asks Loki as you enter the hallway together.

You shrug. “A bit. Mostly on the Nero variant. I’m not having as much luck with the Luccheses.”

“I’ve got all of their property transfers, I think,” he says. “Renato Lucchese never met a vineyard he didn’t like.”

“Or racehorses, from what I understand,” you say. “I think that’s how he lost most of his money.”

You arrive at the vending machines. Loki looks at the vending machines and then back at you, a somewhat puzzled and troubled expression on his face.

“This is what you meant when you said you were going to get coffee and dinner?”  he says.

You shrug. “Yeah, what’s wrong with this?”

He points at the coffee machine. “Mobius calls that machine Satan’s coffeemaker, does he not?”

“Yes, but I know how to trick it into giving me something that’s almost palatable,” you say.

Loki gives you a rather dry look. “Something that’s almost palatable?”

“I mean, I’m just trying to manage your expectations. It’s still pretty shitty coffee, it just tastes less burned.”

He looks at you for a long moment before tilting his head toward the hallway. “Come on, let’s go.”

It’s your turn to look skeptical. “What are we doing?”

“We’re going out for dinner.”

*

He takes you to a twenty-four hour diner called Frank’s that’s maybe a five minute walk from the TVA. It’s one of those places with yellowing Formica tables and big booths covered in red faux leather patched with the occasional square of duct tape. It smells like coffee and grease with a faint odor of cigarette smoke despite the prominent no smoking signs.

“I wouldn’t have thought this kind of place was your style,” you say as you sit down in a booth next to the window.

“I’ve expanded my horizons,” he says, sliding into the seat across from you.

An older woman with greying blonde hair approaches your booth. She wears a nametag reading “Connie” in big capital letters, a sticker of a pink cat stuck on the space next to her name.

“How y’all doin’ tonight?” she says as she hands you each a laminated menu. She looks at Loki. “You want your usual?”

“Please,” he says.

“You got it.” She turns to you. “How ‘bout you, hon, can I get ya started with something to drink?”

“Coffee would be great.”

“All right, I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

You raise your eyebrows at Loki as she walks away. “You eat at diners and you have a usual order. My expectations are being completely upended.”

He returns your pleasantly amused expression. “And you have vending machine coffee for dinner. It’s a revealing night.”

“I mean, I don’t actively seek it out,” you say. “It’s a convenient option that I exercise only when I have no other choice.”

“No other choice?” A sly smile curls at his lips. “Do you not have the entire array of space and time at your fingertips?”

“Well, first of all, we aren’t supposed to use TemPads for personal errands without a supervisor’s approval.”

“Technically.”

“No, actually. It’s in the personnel manual. Like verbatim.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You would put yourself through the egregious physical suffering of vending machine coffee simply to appease the capricious whims of our cruel overseer Miss Minutes?”

You bite back a laugh. “You know she’s not actually our boss, right?”

“I can’t discount that possibility. She wields a concerning amount of power within the organization.”

Connie is back with your drinks—coffee for you and tea for Loki. “Sunday Special?” she asks Loki as she sets a metal teapot and empty mug in front of him.

“Please,” he says.

“You got it.” She looks at you. “Didya get a chance to look at the menu or do you need a minute?”

You’re feeling a little daring. “I’ll try the Sunday Special as well.”

“All right, two Sunday Specials comin’ right up,” she says, collecting your menus.

“So, what’s in a Sunday Special?” you ask Loki as you take a sip of your coffee.

“Boiled fish eggs, mainly,” he says, pouring the hot water into his tea mug.

“Liar,” you say promptly.

He raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t even look at the menu, how could you know?”

“Places like this don’t serve fish eggs,” you say. “Way too unusual and definitely the wrong price point.”

“I suppose you’ll just have to see,” he says with a playful glint in his eyes. The easy charm that you’ve seen him use with the others is on full display and it’s enough to make you giddy. Maybe he doesn’t dislike you after all.

“Well, if it’s fish eggs, you’re picking up the bill,” you say, “and I’ll be getting something else instead.”

“You’d really hold me responsible for your impulsive dinner selections?”

“Yep. And I don’t even feel bad about it.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you could be so unforgiving.”

“Well, you don’t know me all that well.”

“To be fair, you keep to yourself quite a bit.”

“A little bit,” you say. “But also to be fair, you haven’t really asked.”

“On work time?” he says, widening his eyes in mock horror. “That would mean write ups for both of us, I couldn’t let that happen.”

“I think I know enough about you to know that getting in trouble is not one of your primary concerns.”

He gives you a sly smile, like you’ve caught him out and he likes it. “That’s a diplomatic way to put it.” He takes a sugar packet from the dispenser on the table and tears it open before pouring it into his mug. “Well, we’re on break now, so you can safely tell me something about yourself.”

You drum your fingers on your coffee mug. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, this can’t be the only part of your life. Who are you outside the TVA? What did you do before this?”

That giddy feeling comes to a screeching halt and you take in a long, slow breath. It’s a simple question, one that most people can answer to some degree. For you, though, it’s a bit more complicated.

“Well,” you say. You take a sip of your coffee, mostly to give your hands something to do. “I don’t actually know—I chose not to remember when they gave me the option.”

You’re surprised by how gentle his eyes are when you look up. “My apologies,” he says, “I didn’t realize.”

“It’s okay,” you say and you really do mean it. “You couldn’t have known.”

Usually, you say something like this and then gently redirect the conversation, but something about the way he’s looking at you makes you want to continue. Like maybe he understands difficult things and doesn’t mind hearing about something that others would shy away from.

“When they told us everything and said they could fix our memories…” You clear your throat and focus your gaze just above his shoulder. “It’s weird, but I just had a feeling that it wouldn’t be good for me to know…that something really bad had happened. So I asked Mobius to check for me, just to be sure…” You swallow, blinking hard.

You remember how sad Mobius’ eyes were, how he’d gently placed a hand on your shoulder and said, “I think you’re making the right call, kid.”

“It’s not really okay, is it?” Loki says softly.

You shrug. “I mean, it’s…it is what it is.”

“You’re a terrible liar, you know.”

“It’s not a lie—”

He raises a skeptical eyebrow and you remember that he is, in fact, the god of lies.

“It’s more like…I can’t really miss what I don’t know, but at the same time, the reality of that absence hurts a little. So maybe not exactly okay, but not exactly not okay, either.”

There’s a lot of kindness in his gaze and you have to look away because it makes your head spin and your breath catch in your throat. “I’m not really sure if that makes sense,” you say.

“It does.”

There’s a silence between you, but it’s not uncomfortable.

“Do you…do you think you’d want to forget if you had that option?” You’re not entirely sure what prompts the question and you regret it almost as soon as it leaves your mouth. “I’m sorry, that’s probably too personal.”

He shakes his head and there’s a warmth in his eyes that you don’t expect. “I rather think I owe you one.” He pauses, running a finger around the rim of his mug. “Sometimes I do,” he says finally. “It can be quite painful remembering.” He worries his lip between his teeth. “But I’m not sure who I would be without the knowledge of my past, either.” His gaze flicks back to you. “What’s it like for you? Do you feel like you know who you are without those memories?”

It’s a good question—one you’ve never been asked. “I mean, it’s hard to say for sure. I think I do,” you say. “Sometimes I wonder if I was different in my timeline. Maybe I was kinder because I had different experiences that made me more empathetic. Maybe I wasn’t—maybe I was worse. Maybe I had a villain arc.”

He chuckles. “That doesn’t seem likely.”

“I dunno, maybe it explains the vending machine coffee and my fish egg related threats,” you say and you feel almost giddy when he returns your smile. “Or maybe I’m the same and all those experiences that shaped me are just scars I can’t see.” You shrug and take a sip of your coffee. “At the end of the day, though, that timeline is gone. I’m all that’s left. It’s sad, but it’s also freeing, in a way.”

He nods. “Mobius has said much the same.”

You smile slightly. “Our philosophies are similar, I suppose, though I think there are probably more bits of his past self in his present self than he realizes.”

Loki grins. “It’s the jet skis, isn’t it?”

“I mean, I just don’t think most normal people spend that much time expounding on the reliability of the Yamaha engine versus the pure, raw power of the Kawasaki.”

Loki holds up a finger. “But have you gotten the lecture about Yamaha’s braking system?”

“I think I have that memorized at this point.”

“‘The perfect choice for families.’”

“‘You just tap the brakes. Just tap them. Perfectly smooth stop every time.’”

“‘Reliability meets affordability.’”

“‘You can’t say no to that.’”

You think you probably could have riffed on this for a bit, but you’re interrupted by the arrival of Connie with your dinner.

The Sunday Special turns out to be a fairly traditional breakfast—eggs, hash browns, two fluffy pancakes, sausage, toast, a little bowl of strawberries.

“Definitely lots of fish eggs in this meal,” you say to Loki after Connie leaves.

His smile is small, but genuine. “You haven’t looked under the pancakes yet.”

You feel it then, but you don’t fully understand until later that this dinner has unlocked something important between the two of you. After months of awkward, stilted conversation, it’s like you finally understand how to talk to each other. And you’re surprised to find that even outside of your big stupid crush, you actually like Loki. You like his sly smiles and his dry humor and how easily the two of you fall into a routine of playful banter. You click in a way that surprises you, in a way that makes you mourn the lost potential of all those awkward, stilted months and feel giddy about the possibilities ahead.

Dinner is over too soon and you walk back to the TVA feeling revived from the coffee and the conversation. 

Disaster awaits you back at the office, though: you’d left a stack of the Nero variant files on your desk and evidently the construction was too precarious, as the entire pile had tipped off your desk and spilled to the floor, contents scattered everywhere.

“Fucking hell,” you sigh, running a hand through your hair. You’re not sure whether you want to laugh, cry, or scream. Possibly, it’s all three.

“Here.” Loki is bending down on the floor to gather the files. You studiously try to not ogle his ass or thighs. Or at least not obviously. “Clear off some space on your desk—I’ll help.”

Twenty minutes later, you’ve set up an entirely new system—Loki has dragged his chair over to your desk and the cart of unsorted files sits between you, like a surly metallic chaperone. And even later when you’ve sorted out all of the files from the floor, he remains parked at the end of your desk, a stack of new, unsorted files in front of him. Admittedly, it’s a lot more efficient for you to work like this: privately, though, it gives you a warm glow that has nothing to do with workplace efficiency.

“I’ve invented a new game,” he says some time later. 

“What’s that?”

“Every time either one of us finds documentation showing Renato Lucchese losing money on a racehorse he was told was not a good investment, I get to have a drink.”

You look up at him. “Look, I know you’re a god and everything, but I am pretty sure that will kill you.”

He sighs and tosses the file into the Lucchese pile. “I think it would add a little excitement to the evening, don’t you?”

You raise your eyebrows and look back at the file in front of you. “You mean this isn’t your idea of a fun Friday night?”

“My idea of a fun Friday night includes far fewer files and a lot more debauchery,” he says, taking a new file from the cart.

You glance at the clock. “Well, it’s only eleven. I don’t usually start body shots until after midnight.”

“What are body shots?”

For one horrifying moment, you think that you’re going to actually have to explain this to him, but then you get a good look at his expression.

He’s teasing you.

“You’re an ass,” you say, swatting him on the shoulder with the file you’re holding.

He wags a finger at you. “That’s workplace violence. I’m going to have to report that.”

You lean back in your chair and return to your file. “I’m pretty confident that you’ll be put off by the amount of paperwork that process requires.”

He shakes his head as he returns to his own file. “Uncontrolled bureaucracy is how bad actors escape accountability.” There’s a brief pause. “And…there’s another racehorse.”

You continue on like this for the rest of the evening, occasionally chatting and Loki proving definitively that the Renato Lucchese racehorse drinking game could not be played without resulting in a fatality. It’s nice, though. Yes, it’s sorting files and yes, it’s not the most intellectually riveting task you’ve ever done, but spending time with Loki is nice. It’s because of this that you find yourself trying to stay awake, pushing past your looming exhaustion.

But around two, you can’t quite fight the heaviness of your eyelids any longer and you doze off in the middle of a report on the sinking of the Lusitania.

“Hey.” Loki is gently shaking your shoulder. The way he says your name in that deliciously deep voice makes you want to swoon and you’re glad that you have the ready made excuse of sleepiness to explain any embarrassing behavior on your end.

“I think you’d better call it a night,” he says gently. “Get some sleep and come back with fresh eyes.”

“What about you?” you say. “Are you going to do the same, or are you just all talk?”

He smiles at you and it warms you to the very tips of your toes. You could bask in that smile like a cat in a sunbeam.

“I’m starting to fade a bit myself,” he says

“Very convenient,” you say and he grins at you.

“Come on, I’ll see you back home.”

Part of you wants to protest—there’s really no need for him to walk you home—but a larger, louder part of you wants to let it be, prolong the magic of tonight for just a little longer.

There’s a comfortable silence between the two of you as you walk out of the office together. 

“What time do you think you’re going to come in tomorrow?” he asks as you approach the residential wing. “It’s probably sensible to coordinate our efforts a bit.”

“Yeah, that’s a good point,” you say. “I was thinking nine, but that will be dependent on how much coffee I have.”

“Yes, about that,” he says. “I cannot stand idly by and watch you torture yourself with vending machine coffee.”

“Well, the cafeteria will be open, so I was going to torture myself with cafeteria coffee, which is at least thirty percent less over brewed.”

He clicks his tongue. “You’re not making a compelling case for yourself.”

“To be fair, it’s quite late and I’ve been staring at files for hours.”

“All the more reason to get decent coffee,” he says. “We’re going out for breakfast.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Oh, we are?”

“Consider it an intervention,” he says. “I’ll come collect you at eight.”

You’re not quite sure if this is just his natural confidence and swagger coming through or if he’s flirting with you and this counts as a date.

“Where are we going?”

“I know a place.”

*

The place in question turns out to be a food cart in Central Park in 1998.

“Should I even bother asking if you have supervisor approval for this?” you say, looking skeptically at the time door glimmering before you.

Loki scoffs. “I don’t have a supervisor.”

“You do. It’s Mobius.”

“That can’t be right, we’re peers.”

“You’re absolutely not. Did you read any of the onboarding materials?”

He ignores your question. “I don’t see why I’d even need a supervisor, honestly.”

You snort. “Need I remind you of what happened at the Nixon inauguration?”

He spreads his hands in front of him. “It’s not my fault that I’m the only one with a sense of humor.”

“I’m not entirely sure that was the problem,” you say. “Gerald Ford is never going to be the same, from what I understand.”

Loki waves a dismissive hand. “He’ll be fine, the tail isn’t permanent. Now, are you coming or not?”

You roll your eyes at him and make a halfhearted complaint about proper protocol, but you know that you’re walking through that time door and not looking back. You knew that before he even posed the question.

The food cart is owned by a man named Samir who has a wide smile and booming laugh. He talks to Loki like he’s a friend and he tells you that you have the prettiest eyes he’s ever seen. You are fairly certain he’s exaggerating, but you stuff a few extra bills into the tip jar anyway.

“I can’t believe you fell for that,” says Loki as you walk away, each carrying a coffee and a brown paper bag with a breakfast sandwich.

“Fell for what?” you say, batting your eyes at him. “I do have beautiful eyes.”

“I’ve heard him say that on at least thirty separate occasions.”

“Yeah, but this time he really meant it. I could tell.”

He rolls his eyes and leads you to a park bench overlooking a wide, grassy field. The leaves are just starting to change and the air has a little bit of a bite to it. 

You sit down on the bench and take a sip of your coffee.

“It is good coffee, I’ll give you that,” you say.

“See,” says Loki, “you can’t go back to that vending machine sludge after this.”

“I mean, if it’s eleven o’clock at night and I’m on a deadline, I can.”

“Darling. You have a TemPad.”

“Loki. Read the personnel manual.”

He wrinkles his nose. “It’s not really my genre.”

You roll your eyes and take out your breakfast sandwich. “What is your genre?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Is that a serious question?”

“Of course it is,” you say. “I love talking about books.”

He gives you a slight smile and takes a sip of his coffee. “A little bit of everything, honestly,” he says. “Philosophy. Magical theory. History. Politics. Anything from Asgard, really, though it can be a bit more challenging getting some of those titles.”

“I’ve had pretty good luck with the Library of the Sacred Timeline—have you checked there yet?”

He frowns. “I’m not familiar.”

“Oh, you’d like it—it’s on the eighteenth floor. It’s intended to be a collection of the greatest works of literature from as many branches of the timeline as possible,” you say. “It started as a research project, but people liked it and it just kind of evolved into this huge collection. They’ve actually got a pretty sizeable collection of books from Asgard.”

It’s like you’ve told him that his personal paradise had been located on the eighteenth floor this entire time. “Will you show me?”

He is practically vibrating with the sort of anticipatory, manic energy that you typically would associate with Christmas morning right before you tear into presents. It’s sweetly endearing.

“Of course.”

Ten minutes later, you’re leading him through the winding hallways on the eighteenth floor. You’re not surprised he hasn’t heard about the library—it’s a bit out of the way and the eighteenth floor is so poorly designed that it’s not terribly easy to find.

The design of the library is a sharp departure from the rest of the TVA. The shelves and floors are made of the kind of dark mahogany that you typically see in the kind of estates that look like something directly out of a Jane Austen novel. Worn oriental rugs muffle your footsteps on the creaky wood floors and the air smells faintly of dust and paper.

There’s a subtle change in Loki when you walk through the doors—almost like a muscle in his shoulders finally relaxes and he seems truly at home for the first time since he arrived.

You touch his hand. “This way.”

You lead him into the stacks, back to the far corner, right after the books from Alfheim.

“You can borrow whichever ones you like,” you say softly. “There’s a sign out sheet at the front desk.”

He nods, though you don’t think he really hears you—he only has eyes for the shelves, his gaze sweeping across the spines like they’re old friends. You’re about to excuse yourself to give him a little privacy when his brow furrows and he exhales sharply. “Oh, you can’t be serious.”

“What is it?”

They have the entirety of the finest Asgardian literature at their disposal. Untold centuries of the writings of our greatest minds—” he plucks a book off the shelf, “—and they choose to include this?”

The title looks fairly innocuous—a red, leather bound book with the title The Cloistered Heart embossed in gold script on the front. You take the book from him and open it. “What’s the problem with this?”

“It’s inconsequential fluff, literary pablum of the highest order.”

This is the Loki that you’re more familiar with and a smile curls at your lips. Almost on cue, you flip the book open to a chapter titled “The Wedding and Bedding of Aloisa.”

You bite back a laugh and look up at him. “It’s a romance novel.”

“Precisely my point,” he says. “To think that this is on the same shelf as Nielsen and Auber.”

“That’s kind of how libraries work,” you say, flipping further into the book. The phrases “throbbing length” and “eager moans” draw your eye and you have to tamp down another laugh. “Oh, and it’s a sexy romance novel.”

“It appeals to the lowest common denominator, yes.”

“What, so you’re too good for a bodice ripper?”

He scoffs. “I prefer to do the bodice ripping myself, not read some overwrought description of it.”

You are glad you’re looking at the book because you’re pretty sure you’d disintegrate if you had to make eye contact with him while he delivered that line. “Oh spare me,” you say lightly, snapping the book shut and drawing it to your chest. “I’m gonna read this.”

He blows out a puff of air. “It’s a waste of your time.”

“I’ve got lots of time, I can afford to waste it,” you say cheekily. “Besides, I’m curious to see what kind of book turns the god of mischief into a pearl clutching prude.”

Loki sputters. “Prude? Darling, let me assure you, I’m no prude—”

“I’ll leave you to browse,” you say with a grin as you turn away from him. “Come find me at the front when you’re ready to go.”

You’re a few chapters into the book when Loki rejoins you at the front of the library, a small stack of books tucked under his arm.

You close your book with a snap. “This book is a delight. I think your real issue is just that you’re no fun.”

He scoffs. “I’m very fun.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

You bicker playfully back and forth as you check out your books and leave the library. A quick glance at your watch tells you that you spent much more time there than you’d planned. You can’t quite bring yourself to worry about that, though, not with the memory of Loki’s wonderstruck expression burning so bright in your mind.

There’s a bit of a lull in the conversation as you wait for the elevator.

“Thank you,” he says softly.

“For what?”

“For showing me that.”

“Of course. I’m sorry you didn’t know about it sooner.”

He looks at you, lips parting slightly like he’s about to say something. His tongue swipes briefly over his bottom lip and you would swear that his gaze drops to your mouth for just a second.

For just a second—one heady, slightly irrational second—you think he might be about to kiss you.

The ding of the elevator arriving breaks the spell, startling you just a little. You run a hand through your hair, trying to give off the impression of composure even as your heart beats wildly in your chest.

Loki gestures to the elevator doors. “After you.”

There is a group of analysts in the elevator already, chatting animatedly and completely obliterating any chance you may have had at recapturing that moment.

You try not to dwell too much in contemplating what ifs or timeline branches—often, it feels too much like work, something Mobius might assign you.

But you know that the possibility of that moment—what if the elevator had been a hair slower, what if those analysts had taken a different route, what if you were braver—you know that’s something that’s going to haunt you for a while.

*

You wouldn’t give up that time in the library for anything—it’s one of those moments that feels formative, something that you’ll return to again and again for one reason or another.

But it’s also true that it’s time that you probably could have used for sorting files and as Saturday ticks on, you can’t help but wish you had a way to pull another hour out of somewhere.

“We’re not going to be able to make this deadline, are we?” you say with a sigh.

It’s getting late into the evening and the cart of files still to be sorted still remains depressingly full, despite the fact that you’d brought both lunch and dinner back to your desk so you could continue working.

Loki eyes the remaining files. “I think we might. We made good progress today.”

You rub your eyes. “My brain feels like it’s about to leak out my ears.”

Loki takes the file you are working on and sets it back in the stack of unsorted files. “I think that might be a sign it’s time to turn in,” he says.

“There’s still so much left.”

“There’s still tomorrow.”

You reach for the file. “Well, let me just—”

He pulls your hand away from the pile. “You can come back to it in the morning. Besides, if you’re this tired, you’re not going to do good work anyway.”

He squeezes your hand and drops it. It’s brief enough to still be friendly, but unusual enough to make you wonder and send your mind racing back to that moment by the elevator.

You shake the thought away. It’s late and you’re tired.

You heave a world weary sigh and slump back in your chair. “I hate it when you’re right.”

To his credit, he only smirks a little. “Come on. I’ll walk you back.”

Once again, there’s no reason for him to do this, but once again, you’re inclined to let him.

You pack up for the evening and walk out of the office side by side. You’re trying very hard not to think about the fact that this is likely the last night that you’ll do this, that tomorrow the assignment will be over.

As you near the residential wing, you start to hear distant shouts. If you inhale deeply, you catch a very faint whiff of explosives—you’re not sure what kind.

“I think someone brought work home,” you say with a sigh. 

This happens from time to time—things get out of hand in the field or something happens when retrieving an asset or a target and all hell breaks loose at the TVA. Mobius had once referred to it as “bringing work home” and the name had stuck.

“Wasn’t there an incident in this wing not long ago?” asks Loki.

“Yes.” You sigh, running a hand through your hair. “I had to call off the next day—I got no sleep that night.” You listen carefully, trying to determine the source of the noise and the status of the problem. “But maybe it’s almost over,” you say with an optimism you don’t fully feel. “Sometimes these things are resolved really quick.”

Your heart continues to sink the closer you come to your home. The acrid burn of explosives only increases and you think you catch the low, dull roar of something not quite human.

And indeed, when you turn the final corner, you are immediately stopped by an electric blue barrier being monitored by a hunter. G-21–you’ve worked with her on a couple of missions before.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” slips out of your mouth before you can stop yourself.

“There’s an ongoing incident in this area,” says G-21 and you almost want to laugh because no shit. 

“How long do you think it’s gonna be closed off?” you ask.

She shrugs. “We’re at a code 54 right now, but it’s probably gonna escalate.”

With pitch perfect timing and before you can even try to remember what a code 54 means, there’s an almighty crash and a low bellow.

“Go!” she yells before running toward the commotion amid frantic calls for backup.

Loki is grabbing your wrist and pulling you into a run.

Your standard issue work shoes are comfortable enough on a day to day basis, but you certainly want to have words with whoever decided that leather soled shoes with absolutely no grips were a good choice for a building floored almost entirely in linoleum. In a low stakes situation, it’s meant occasionally you wipe out in the cafeteria and hurt nothing but your pride. In this situation, it means that Loki’s firm grip on your hand is the only thing keeping you upright.

But there’s a small mercy in that while you can still hear distant crashes and shrieks, whatever is happening down that hallway doesn’t seem to be following you and eventually, you both slow to a brisk walk and Loki drops your hand.

You haven’t even had a chance to consider where you are going to sleep tonight. You could probably curl up on that terrible couch in the office and just plan on getting up early enough to run back to your place for a quick shower and a change of clothes…assuming the incident resolves by then—

“You can stay with me,” says Loki, as though he can hear you trying to sort this out.

“Oh, that’s okay, I’ll just—”

“If you say you’re going to sleep on that terrible couch in the office, I will personally take you to the most boring governmental proceeding I can find and leave you there until you come to your senses.”

“Sounds like a great place to fall asleep,” you say.

His eyes glint, but his tone brooks no arguments. “You’re staying with me tonight.”

You sigh, but you can’t think of a counterpoint. “When did you get so bossy?”

“Darling, I’m a prince,” he says with a bit of a wry smirk. “It’s my birthright.”

Loki lives on the opposite end of the residential wing and his place looks quite a bit like yours—he’s got an extra window in the kitchen but the floor plan is otherwise the same. A lot of his furniture is standard issue, but there are little details that make it seem more personal: an area rug with a bit of fraying on the edges, a painting of what you think is an Asgardian landscape, a vase filled with dried flowers so delicate they look like they might disintegrate if you were to touch them. And books—so many books. Books on shelves, stacked on the coffee table, tucked into the little rack that you know is meant to hold magazines. Hardbacks, paperbacks, leather bound, dog-eared, well-worn and brand new. It’s no wonder he was so excited about the library.

“Have a seat,” he says, gesturing to the couch. “I’ll get some things for you.”

You sit down and he disappears down the hall. You idly examine the books stacked on the end table next to you. Many are quite clearly from Asgard and it sparks a pang of sympathy—it’s like his homesickness is on full display in his living room and there’s something sweet and sad about seeing that vulnerability laid so bare.

He returns a few minutes later with a pair of pajamas, a toothbrush, and a hand towel.

“Here,” he says, handing you the pile. “Bathroom’s just down the hall. I’ll make up a bed for you.”

“Thanks.”

In the bathroom, you realize that the pajamas he’s given you aren’t the standard set you can order from the TVA. These are made of a dark emerald silk that ripples over your skin like water, and somehow, that makes it feel a thousand times more personal than if he’d loaned you a standard set. They don’t fit quite right on you, but they’ll work well enough for tonight.

You brush your teeth and attempt to get through as much of your evening routine as you can before collecting your clothes and exiting the bathroom.

When you return to the living room, you expect to find that he’s made up a bed for you on the couch. These living units only have one bedroom—it would be quite reasonable to have you sleep on the couch.

You do not expect to find a pajama clad Loki stretched out reading on the couch, a blanket over his lap and his head propped up on a pillow like he intends to sleep there.

You exhale slowly. “Please tell me you are not giving up your bed.”

“Don’t be absurd, of course I am,” he says without even looking up from his book. “The point of this was to prevent you from sleeping on a couch, not simply put you on a couch in a different location.”

You wish you had something to throw at him. “You don’t even fit on that couch.”

“Luckily, my knees bend. Besides, you’re a guest,” he says, as though that settles it.

You roll your eyes and plunk yourself down in the armchair across from the couch, setting your pile of clothes on the floor. “I’m not moving until you give up the couch.”

He finally looks up from his book. “You’re really going to do this?”

You examine your fingernails, flicking away an invisible speck of dust. “I’m not the one being unreasonable. I’m simply meeting you at your level.”

“If you think that I’m being unreasonable and you’re also saying you’re meeting me at my level, does that not mean you are admitting that you are being unreasonable?”

“It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning. I’m not arguing semantics with you.”

“Fine.” His eyes glimmer as he sets his book down and slowly rises to his feet. “But you’re still not sleeping on the couch.”

“Oh, you’re going to be so disappointed when you realize how wrong you are,” you say. You think you see your opening and you try to play it cool.

He’s walking toward you, leaving your path to the couch wide open. In your head, you can see exactly how this works: you’ll spring from your chair and dart around the coffee table before diving onto the couch like a baseball player sliding into home plate, soundly defeating Loki. Easy peasy.

Instead, what happens is that you spring to your feet and Loki moves with inhuman speed, grabbing you around your waist and pinning you to the front of his chest, stopping you in your tracks almost immediately.

“I suppose I should have expected that,” he says. Your back is facing him, but you can almost hear the dry, sardonic look he’s giving you.

“Probably,” you say. “God of mischief and all.” You struggle fruitlessly against his iron grip. “You can let me go now.”

He laughs. “I’m afraid I can’t. It was clearly a mistake to trust you. I won’t be making that error again.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, trying again to squirm away from him. “Let me go.”

“The interesting thing about all of this is that you’ve made a rather substantial tactical error,” he says, continuing as though he can’t hear you.

“You’re bluffing,” you say with more confidence than you feel.

“Fascinating theory,” he says, “but I don’t think it’s going to work out for you.”

With that same ridiculous speed, he’s suddenly spinning you around and lifting you, tossing you easily over his shoulder.

“Hey!” you shout in protest.

“I warned you,” he says, his voice full of mirth as he carries you toward the bedroom.

This is not exactly how you’ve imagined being carried off to bed by Loki.

Though, admittedly, you do have a nice view of his ass.

“This is ridiculous,” you say.

“You brought this upon yourself.” He’s walking into the bedroom and a moment later, he’s lifting you from his shoulder and tossing you unceremoniously onto his bed.

You scramble to your feet and try to lunge toward the door, but he’s clearly expecting that. Before your feet even hit the floor, he catches you around the waist and hauls you back to the bed. Your back hits the mattress and you try to leverage the momentum to propel yourself back onto your feet.

He catches you immediately and you find yourself back on the bed again.

“I don’t mean to be patronizing,” he says, failing to bite back a laugh, “but it’s adorable that you think you can outmaneuver me.”

That is deeply offensive and the only way you can earn my forgiveness is by letting me take my rightful place on the couch.” You can’t quite keep the laugh from your voice.

He grins. “Not a chance.”

You attempt to dive off the opposite side of the bed, only to have him grab you by the ankles and pull you back. You manage to dislodge him and lunge in the opposite direction, only to be immediately thwarted.

It becomes increasingly hilarious the longer it goes on and soon your sides are aching from laughter. Loki is laughing too, but it doesn’t seem to affect his strength or speed at all.

Eventually, he wrestles you back down onto the bed and you are fairly certain there’s no way out of this one—he’s got your wrists pinned above your head and his legs locked around yours. You’re both a little out of breath.

“Yield,” he says.

You shake your head. “Never.”

His gaze flicks to your lips and back to your eyes. “Yield.”

“No.”

Something has changed. There’s an electricity and intensity that crackles in the air between you, possibilities blooming in both of your gazes. It feels a little like that moment by the elevator, but you’re afraid to hope, afraid to even wish because the idea of him wanting you still feels as impossible as capturing smoke with a net. 

But the way he’s looking at you, the way his gaze keeps drifting between your eyes and your lips…that’s not nothing.

“Yield.”

You lick your lips, your heart beating wildly. “No.”

Is it just your imagination, or did his breath hitch when you licked your lips?

“Yield.”

God, he’s so close and you want him so badly. 

“No.”

He looks again at your lips and this time, he closes the distance between you.

They call him Silvertongue—you’ve heard the jokes, you’ve rolled your eyes at all of them. But as he kisses you, you realize that there’s an element of truth there because only seconds in and you’re ready to sign away your soul to live under the power of Loki’s tongue. The slow, warm slide of it against yours, the way he guides your mouth against his, the way he lets out a soft sigh as he tastes you—you would give up everything if it meant you could stay like this.

“Yield,” he breathes against your lips.

“No,” you say.

He deepens the kiss, catching your lower lip between his teeth and gently tugging until you whimper and arch against him.

He still has your hands pinned against the bed, his grip unyielding when you try to wrestle them away.

“Let me touch you,” you say when he draws back. You want to touch him everywhere—run your hands along every muscle you’ve admired from afar. 

“Then yield,” he says with a grin, his eyes flashing with devilish intent.

You consider this for a moment. You could give in—there aren’t really any stakes at this point and you’re pretty sure you’re both going to end up sleeping in his bed tonight anyway. But that glint of mischief in his eyes also promises some intriguing possibilities if you stand firm.

“No,” you say.

“Such a pity,” says Loki, though his expression is one of hungry delight.

His hands slip free of your wrists then, but they stay pinned to the bed by some invisible force.

“Cheater,” you say. 

“I think this is only fair,” he says, his hands sliding to your hips. “I’m clearly the victor, am I not entitled to my prize?”

You shiver. “Your prize?”

“Yes.” He kisses down the column of your throat. “My lovely, lovely prize.”

“How can I be your prize if I’m also your competitor?”

“You think too much,” he mumbles against your neck.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Generally, it’s not.” He sits back on his heels between your legs, looking you over with satisfaction. “But in this case, it’s distracting you from more pressing matters.” His hands creep under the hem of your shirt, stroking the small of your back, thumbs tracing teasingly along the waistband of your pajama pants. 

“Have I mentioned how much I enjoy seeing you in my clothes?” he asks. There’s a husky depth to his voice and a hunger in his eyes that sends a flood of arousal to your cunt.

“You have not,” you say.

“A casualty of too much thinking,” he says solemnly, his thumbs gently grazing the skin at your hipbones. “You look utterly delectable. I almost want to leave them on.” His eyes glitter with mischief. “Almost.” His hand strays to the bottom button on your pajama top. “May I?”

You nod. “Yes.”

He slips the button free and slowly makes his way up until your shirt is open. He carefully pushes the fabric aside, baring your breasts to his sight and touch.

You’ve never felt more beautiful seeing Loki stare at you, lips slightly parted, eyes wide and hungry. He trails one hand up your stomach and rib cage and slowly brushes a thumb over your nipple. You gasp and the sensitive skin puckers and stiffens as he palms your breast, rolling your nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

“Gorgeous,” he murmurs as he lowers his mouth to your breast, his tongue and lips taking up the role of his hand, while his other hand moves to cup your other breast. You whimper, wishing you could run your hands through his hair. “That’s it,” he purrs, “I want to hear all the sounds you can make, my love.”

You rock your hips forward and arch your back as he lavishes attention on your breasts. It’s the most delicious kind of torture, having him so close, but not being able to touch him.

He’s taking his time, which you both love and hate. He feels so good, but you need him to touch you, you need to touch him, you need him inside of you. You wait until you can’t take it any more and breathe his name like it’s a prayer.

You wonder if this is what he was waiting for because with little more than a brief smirk and a wicked look, he starts kissing his way back up your chest and neck. You whimper when his lips meet yours and you can feel him grin as he kisses you. He fits his hips against yours, angling himself so that his cock rubs up against your clit just right and you moan into his mouth. You can tell that he’s big and part of you wants to savor the anticipation even though you feel like you might go mad if he doesn’t fuck you now. You rock your hips against him, trying to feel that friction.

His large hands frame your face, one hand sliding to cradle the back of your head so he can draw you deeper, the other trailing from your cheek to your throat.

Both hands soon stroke down your sides, lingering teasingly at the waistband of your pajama pants. He hooks his thumbs underneath the waistband and you lift your hips. He slides your pants down maybe an inch and you can feel him smiling as he kisses you. You lift your hips again and your waistband creeps down another inch.

“Loki.” His name falls from your lips with a sigh.

“What is it, my love?”

“Touch me,” you breathe. “Please.”

You lift your hips again and this time, he pulls the fabric fully down and off your legs. He guides your legs apart and stares appreciatively at your bare cunt, his teasing expression replaced by a rapt awe.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs. 

You believe him.

His hands stroke your thighs, seemingly in no hurry, despite your pleading whimpers and the way you arch against the mattress. He draws his thumb gently along your slit, barely grazing your clit.

“Do you know what an utter distraction it’s been sitting behind you?” he asks, tracing your clit in the slowest, lightest circle.

You arch upward, hands still bound by his magic. “Tell me,” you breathe, your hips rising to chase his hand.

“Every time you stood up, I could only think about bending you over the desk.”

You manage a sly smirk. “And here I thought you didn’t like me much at all.”

His thumb presses a little more against your clit and you moan.

“I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you,” he says, rolling his thumb in a slow circle. “I kept you at arm’s length partly as a matter of protection.”

For who?”

“You,” he says. “I’m not fully redeemed in some eyes and you being involved with a dangerous variant—”

“You’re not,” you say.

“Some would disagree.”

“Well, they’re wrong,” you say. “You’re not a dangerous variant. You’re Loki Laufeyson and I want you just as you are.”

There’s something unreadable in his expression and it makes you wonder how many people have told him that he can just be himself.

“You should be careful saying such lovely things to me, you know,” he says solemnly.

You raise an eyebrow. “Oh really? And why is that?”

“Because it makes me want to do very wicked things to you.”

You’re surprised you’re not shaking, you want him so badly. “What kinds of wicked things?”

“Oh, all manner of wicked things.” He presses a kiss to the inside of your knee, his tongue swiping briefly against your skin. “Things with my mouth...” His thumb rolls over your clit again, his index finger teasing your entrance before retreating. “…my hands…” He drags his gaze over your naked form before locking eyes with you. “My cock.”

A shiver works its way up your spine. “So if I talk about how I think you’re really clever and funny and I find it unbelievably sexy, what sort of wicked thing would that merit?”

The intensity of his gaze makes you shiver again. He crouches down and presses another kiss against the inside of your knee, slowly moving upward. “If you keep talking like that, I’m not going to let you leave my bed for days.”

“You know that’s not a disincentive, right?” you say, sucking in a sharp breath as he nips at the soft skin of your inner thigh. “I’ve wanted you for such a long time, Loki.”

“I’ll make it weeks if you’re not careful.”

“Again, not a disincentive.” You gently tug at your bound wrists and find that they’re still firmly secured. It’s exhilarating, even though you really wish you could run your hands through his hair, especially if he ends up where you think he’s going.

“What else should I tell you?” you muse as he continues his agonizingly slow path along your thigh. “You know, half the reason I kept to myself was that I wanted you so much I was certain that I’d make a fool of myself.”

That earns you a few circles of your clit with his thumb, but his progress up your thigh remains slow. You have a theory about what might move the needle, though.

“I know you like to act like you’re this sort of barely reformed villain, but I think there’s more good in you than you’d like people to believe.”

This time, he moves up to the crease where your thigh joins your hip, close enough that you can feel the heat of his breath ghosting along your labia. His tongue traces a line along your skin and you briefly wonder if you’ll be able to hold it together enough to deliver the last part.

“And,” you say, trying to keep your voice steady, “yesterday and today made me want you even more because I feel like I finally saw who you really are and you’re even more wond—”

Your words abruptly give way to a breathy moan because his perfect, skilled tongue has finally found its way to your clit.

You had a plan from here, but whatever it was has dissolved into nothing under the skilled caress of Loki’s tongue. You suspected he would be good at this from the way that he’d kissed you earlier, but you could not have imagined that it would feel like this.

“Oh my god, Loki.” Your thighs are already quaking. You tug again at the invisible bonds on your wrists, but they hold fast. Something about the way the bonds are keeping you gently stretched along the bed combined with how his large hands have your thighs spread open seems to heighten every sensation. There’s no wiggling away from him or adjusting yourself so that you feel more or less of the onslaught of his tongue on your cunt. You are completely at his mercy and you’re not entirely surprised that you fucking love it.

He slides a finger into your aching channel and your cunt shudders around the thick intrusion. The warm, roiling center of your orgasm starts builds in your hips with every stroke of his tongue, spinning faster and faster, like ocean winds whipping up into a hurricane. Your back arches and his tongue presses flat against your clit, and suddenly you know that this is going to be what takes you over the edge.

Loki seems to know it too, at least from the way that he presses his tongue more firmly against you, one arm slung across your hips to hold you in place. His other hand slides two fingers inside you, rocking and curling against that aching, tender spot.

You whimper, your hips bucking wildly. It’s so good and so much and you are almost there.

You look down at him then, his hair wild, hollowed cheeks flushed pink as his tongue works you over, his eyes closed like he couldn’t imagine anything more blissful than being in between your legs while you come undone.

This is ultimately what tips you over the edge. The storm that has been forming inside you is finally let loose and you arch your back and cry out in a wordless scream as your climax crashes into you.

Only then do the bonds around your wrists release and your hands fly down to grab his hair as your body shakes with pleasure.

It takes a moment for you to get your breath back and reacquaint yourself with the concept of speech, but when you do, you find Loki looking up at you, his expression pure mischief.

“And to think you wanted to sleep on the couch.”

“It wasn’t that I wanted to sleep on the couch, it’s that—” Your voice cuts off as his tongue starts stroking your clit again.

“It’s what?” he asks in between strokes, his smirk obvious in his voice. The lingering ripples of your orgasm are coalescing around the path of his tongue, tightening that coil in your belly again.

“Fuck—you’re not playing fair, you can’t just—” You lose your sentence to a low moan that rises up from your chest. “You can’t just—fuck, yes—you can’t…oh god, yes, just like that.”

His laughter rumbles against you as your hips start rocking against his mouth. How are you already so close?

“You can’t just—fuck—win an argument by—”

You’re trying to say that he can’t expect to win an argument by making you come and you think he might understand this based on how determined he seems to be to prove you wrong. His fingers curl again until he finds that soft, tender spot that is so often the key to your unraveling.

You have stopped trying to complete that sentence—you moan, your hands tangling in his hair, urging him on as the swell of your climax rushes up, inevitable as a tidal wave looming over a seaside village.

You cry out as it crests and breaks, falling down over you in a rush of tingling pleasure that feels like champagne and fireworks all at once.

“Now, what was it you were saying, my love?” he asks as he releases your clit a moment later. “Something about how I can’t just win an argument by making you come? I couldn’t quite hear you over the sound of you coming completely undone on my tongue.”

“Oh, you think you’re so smart,” you say, giving him a stern look as he crawls up your body.

“You know what I think?” he says, settling himself on his side next to you. “I think you liked submitting to me.”

You shiver before you can even think about hiding it and his smile turns decidedly vulpine. 

“You did, didn’t you? You liked having your hands bound and being completely at my mercy while I licked your pretty cunt until you came undone in my mouth.”

“You are enjoying this far too much,” you say.

“I am enjoying it the correct amount.”

You realize your hands are now free to explore his body and you tug at his pajama shirt. “I think you’re wearing too many clothes,” you say.

He gives you a wicked grin as he lets you pull his shirt over his head. “Yes, perhaps it’s time we even things up.”

You pull the shirt away and rake your eyes over him greedily, your hands following the path of your gaze. He is as perfect as you imagined, unfairly beautiful in the dim light of the bedroom.

You hook your thumbs into the waistband of his pajama pants and lower them an inch, a cheeky parallel of how he teased you earlier. His lips curl into a sharp smile when he realizes what you’re doing.

“Interesting strategy.” There’s a bit of a growl in his voice, a rough desperation that makes your cunt clench. “But I think you forgot that I have the upper hand here.”

He raises his hand and with a twist of his wrist, his remaining clothes dissolve in a shimmer of green and he is bare before you.

Your breath catches in your throat. His cock commands your immediate attention, nudging up against your thigh—he’s big, as you suspected, but completely bare and rock hard, he somehow seems longer and thicker than he had when he was grinding against you.

He pulls you into a slow kiss as you reach for his cock. You wrap your hand around him, delighting in the silky hardness of him, the way he throbs in your hand and the low groan he makes as your hand moves from base to tip and back, the way his hips thrust along with you. Your cunt clenches in anticipation.

After a moment, though, he places his hand over yours, slowing your movements.

“I need to be inside you,” he rasps.

“Yes,” you breathe.

He rolls on top of you  and you’re not sure that you’ve ever felt anything quite as wonderful as the heat of his bare skin and yours pressed together. This feeling means intimacy, a closeness that you’d longed for but never expected even in your wildest daydreams.

He pulls you into a kiss, slow, soft, and languid, like you have all the time in the world and he intends to take it. It’s decadent and dreamy and perfect.

But the heavy weight of his bare cock resting against your stomach combined with the ache between your legs—an ache that would be so perfectly soothed by the hard column of flesh currently throbbing against you—proves to be a force too powerful to resist for very long.

You cant your hips against him, snaking one leg around his waist, hoping he’ll get the hint.

He does.

He braces himself on one hand, the other sliding between your bodies to rub his cock along your slick folds. He positions himself at your entrance, waiting for your breathy plea to begin to ease himself slowly into you.

He fills and stretches you in the most wonderful way, but even more than that, he feels like home. The thought strikes you quite suddenly and you’re not entirely sure about everything it means, but you know it’s good and right.

He pauses for just a moment, seeming to savor the feeling.

“You feel better than I ever imagined,” he says.

You quirk an eyebrow at him. “You imagined?”

He gives you a hungry smile as he leans in to kiss you. “Like I said: it has been an utter distraction sitting behind you.”

His rhythm is slow and easy, like he wants to take his time learning every inch of you and memorizing how you react to his touch. His mouth moves over yours in a slow kiss that’s somehow both languid and demanding, his tongue gliding in and out of your mouth in the same rhythm of his hips rocking into you. His cock bumps up against that sweet spot inside of you that his fingers had teased earlier, each stroke inching you closer to bliss.

He shifts the angle of his hips so that his pubic bone grinds against your clit and it feels so good you almost see stars. You can feel your orgasm building, your cunt growing slicker and tensing around his thrusting cock.

He draws back to look at you, eyes hazy with a loose, dreamy kind of pleasure.

“Do you have any idea how good you feel?” he breathes.

You are shaking. “Loki, I’m gonna come.”

“I know you are,” he purrs. “Let go for me, let me feel you, my love.”

With two more thrusts of his hips, you unravel.

He groans as you tremble around him, but mostly, he watches your face, rapt by the way you throw your head back against the bed and gasp his name like it’s the only thing that will save you.

“You’re beautiful when you come,” he breathes. “Absolutely stunning.”

He waits until you catch your breath before he kisses you again, slow and sensual. His hips are still rocking in that beautifully slow rhythm and you don’t know how it can still feel so good.

He keeps moving against you, his touch and his low murmurs of praise invoking a symphony of sensations. He presses deeper and your body sings with every thrust, your muscles tensing and tightening around him like you never want him to leave. Your climax swells again and you come with a whimper, your whole body shaking as he fucks you through it.

You want him to come, want to hear the sounds he makes and feel his sweet, hot release burning inside of you.

“I want you to come for me,” you breathe.

He grins at you. “Oh, I will, but not yet. You’re not done yet.”

You whimper. “Loki—”

“Two more, my love, two more and then I’ll come for you.”

Somehow, you give him three. By the second one, he’s panting and his words have become rough, his voice a growl as he utters some of the filthiest praise you’ve ever heard. The third builds quickly after that and you know instinctively that you’re going to take him over the edge with you this time.

You fight to keep your eyes open against the tidal wave of pleasure blooming again in your hips. You need to see him come undone.

As in everything else he does, he’s unfairly beautiful—he throws his head back, letting out a low groan that you can feel all the way to the tips of your toes. His cheeks are flushed, a few ink dark curls plastered to the light sheen of sweat on his forehead. You can feel him emptying himself inside you, his release hot and hard won.

It seems to last a long time and it’s another minute before his hips slow to a halt. He kisses you, so soft and sweet it would almost seem chaste were it not for the fact that his cock is still throbbing inside of you.

After a moment, he slowly eases out of you, rolling over onto his back, his arm snaking around your waist and pulling you to him like he can’t bear to be parted from you even for a moment.

You curl up against his side, your legs tangling with his. He takes your hand, lacing his fingers with yours before resting your clasped hands on his heart.

You could fall in love like this, you think sleepily to yourself.

You don’t know it then, but you’re right.

*

Time moves differently at the TVA, but a couple years later, there’s a ring in a box on your desk.

Loki likes a spectacle and you’d daydreamed about a traditional wedding, but when you talk it over, you both agree that you want to do something different, something quiet, something just for the two of you.

“I do think we should tell Mobius beforehand,” you say to Loki.

“Isn’t the point of eloping that no one knows until after it’s done?” says Loki.

“Yes, but I feel like we could make one exception,” you say. “If we’d done a full wedding, I would have asked him to give me away.”

Loki’s gaze softens a bit then and he pulls you close. “All right. But we only tell him right before we leave. The man can’t keep a secret.”

But Mobius doesn’t seem terribly surprised when you tell him—in fact, he seems far more concerned about your wedding gift.

“I didn’t have a chance to wrap it yet,” he says. He’s retrieved a large picture frame that had been propped against his desk, though he keeps it turned away from you. “So…this also requires a bit of an overdue confession for context.”

You raise your eyebrows. “A confession?”

“A confession,” says Mobius.

“Will I be angry about this?” asks Loki at the same time you say, “Is this like a go to jail confession or a misdemeanor confession?”

Mobius gives a good natured chuckle, shaking his head slightly. “God, the two of you. Always so dramatic. No wonder you ended up together.” He takes what feels like an unnecessarily long drink from the coffee mug on his desk. “It’s not bad, I promise.” Another sip of coffee. 

Loki sighs. “He always does this,” he says to you. “Have you noticed? Whenever he has something that you want to know, he stalls and drags it out just to torment you.”

“Okay,” you say, “but you jumping in to bicker with him probably doesn’t help.”

“I’m not bickering,” says Loki. “I’m simply pointing out that he’s stalling—”

“What was it you were saying, Mobius?” you say brightly, nudging Loki with your elbow.

Mobius’ eyes twinkle. “See,” he says to Loki, “I always liked her. It’s a good match.”

You don’t have to look at Loki to know he’s rolling his eyes, though he also makes a point of surreptitiously pinching your ass, a detail you hope Mobius doesn’t notice.

“Anyway,” says Mobius, taking a deep breath, “it was pretty clear to me from the start that you liked each other. And you also seemed absolutely determined to get in your own way.” He points to Loki. “Especially you with your whole stilted Asgardian prince thing.”

Loki frowns. “What are you talking about?”

Mobius sighs. “Anytime you like someone, it’s like your brain gets a factory reset and you get all overly polite and courtly.”

Loki scoffs. “I don’t do that at all.”

“You do. It’s deeply weird. You’re like a mannerly robot.”

Loki turns to you. “Darling, tell him he’s being absurd.”

You reach over and squeeze his hand. “You did call me ‘my lady’ a couple of times in the early days.”

Loki sighs and looks back at Mobius. “What was your point in mentioning this?”

“Well,” says Mobius, “you seemed pretty determined to get in your own way, so nothing was happening. And eventually I got sick of all of the pining, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.”

“What do you mean?”

Mobius pauses, a hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “There wasn’t a breakthrough with Berlitz that weekend. What there was was a surplus in the overtime budget and a high priority indexing project for Archives.”

Your lips part as your brain slowly puts the pieces together. Mobius’ eyes twinkle.

“Wait,” you say, “you lied to us?”

“I did not lie,” says Mobius, his demeanor suddenly becoming very serious. “That would have been wrong.” He nods at Loki. “Also, it would’ve tipped him off and that would have ruined the whole thing. I simply failed to mention that the cart of files that I gave you needed to be sorted for indexing for the Archives department and I peppered in a couple of unrelated things about Berlitz.”

“But the office was empty that weekend,” says Loki.

Mobius snaps his fingers. “Right. I did make some adjustments to the schedule that weekend.”

“And the disturbance that prevented her from returning home on Saturday night?”

Mobius spreads his hands wide and grins. “All me, buddy. Paid G-21 five hundred bucks for that one.”

Loki pauses for a moment and then looks at you. “I don’t think I can be mad about this. I’m genuinely impressed.”

“I mean, I can’t argue with the results, but Jesus, Mobius, you could’ve just set us up on a blind date,” you say.

“Ah, but that’s not as fun,” Mobius says. “Plus, it wouldn’t have made for as good a wedding gift.” He turns the frame around and hands it to you both.

It’s both your timecards from that pay period, neatly framed side by side. Your eyes well with tears and Mobius smiles.

“Honestly, I’m just relieved it’s not a jet ski,” says Loki.

“He's deflecting,” you say to Mobius in an exaggerated whisper.

“I know,” he whispers back.

But you can’t help but notice that Loki’s eyes are brighter than normal.

“Okay, now get out of here,” says Mobius. “You’ve got a wedding to get to.”

Twenty minutes later, you’re wearing a simple white dress and standing with Loki in front of a time door, your hand clasped in his.

“Technically, we don’t have a supervisor’s approval for this,” you say with a wry smile.

He looks at you, eyes dancing with mirth. “I had Mobius sign off on the paperwork while you were getting ready.”

Your heart swells and your smile is so wide that you feel like your face might split in two. “Then hurry up and marry me, Laufeyson.”

He grins and tugs you through the time door.

-------

But wait! There's more: I don't have a masterlist for this, but if you enjoy these idiots, check out Daylight, a sort of sequel.